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

Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center, Run for the 1% by NYPD

On September 25, 2011, just eight days after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, the much acclaimed CBS News program, 60 Minutes, aired a fawning look at the thousands of surveillance cameras affixed to buildings and lampposts throughout New York City. The cameras feed live images of people going about their everyday lives to a $150 million computer center equipped with artificial intelligence to integrate and analyze the daily habits of what are, for the most part, law-abiding Americans.

The thrust of the 60 Minutes program was the fine job of counter terrorism being done by the NYPD and its Commissioner, Raymond Kelly. It was a triumph in public relations for a police department about to go on an assault spree – pepper spraying and punching peaceful protestors; kicking, ramming and arresting journalists attempting to cover the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

On air, the reporter, Scott Pelley, said the surveillance center was “housed in a secret location,” as one would expect of a real counter terrorism program — as opposed to a program to simply quash dissent. Mr. Pelley also said the program was run by the NYPD. As it turns out, neither of those assertions were accurate.

Full Story Here: Wall Street’s Secret Spy Center, Run for the 1% by NYPD » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama

At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.

A source who was in the room when the pledges were made told The Huffington Post that, specifically, Charles Koch pledged $40 million and David pledged $20 million.

The semi-annual, invitation-only meeting attracts wealthy donors, Republican politicians and conservative activists. Last year, hundreds of activists gathered outside the walled-off resort to protest the meeting. This year, however, the conference went off quietly.

Full Story Here: Koch Brothers, Allies Pledge $100 Million At Private Meeting To Beat Obama.

Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved in Komen Strategy on Planned Parenthood

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed. He confirmed to ThinkProgress his recent role in filling a key communication position at Komen. Fleischer stressed, however, another communications firm (Ogilvy PR) was retained by Komen to deal with crisis communications over the last few days and he has not been involved.

In November, Komen advertised for a top level communications position in Roll Call. Promising applicants received a call from Fleischer. The advertisement is no longer posted on the Roll Call website, but a portion is accessible via Google:

Full Story Here: Ari Fleischer Secretly Involved in Komen Strategy on Planned Parenthood | Truthout.

‘Gasland’ Journalists Arrested At Hearing By Order Of House Republicans

In a stunning break with First Amendment policy, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice. Initial reports from sources suggested that an ABC News camera was also prevented from taping the hearing; ABC has since denied that they sent a crew to the hearing.

Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland” was taken into custody by Capitol Hill police this morning, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building.

HuffPost has obtained exclusive video of the arrest of Josh Fox. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, can be heard at the end of the clip asking Republican Chairman Andy Harris (R-Md.) to halt the arrest and permit Fox to film the public hearing. Harris denies Miller’s request as Fox is escorted out of the hearing in handcuffs.

Full Story Here: ‘Gasland’ Journalists Arrested At Hearing By Order Of House Republicans (UPDATES).

Super PAC Power: The 0.1% Buying Our Elections

FEC disclosures yesterday show wealthy donors, corporations behind Super PAC money

Super PACS, made possible following the outcomes of two court decisions in 2010 — the Citizens United v. FEC decision and the SpeechNow.org v. FEC decision, can take unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, associations and unions.

As the disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) late last night show, not only have millions been flowing to these Super PACs, the disclosures show these are clearly donations from the “0.1%” — corporations and individuals donating tens of thousands, one hundred thousand, even donations of millions of dollars.

Mitt Romney’s Super PAC Restore Our Future shows around 60 donations of $100,000 or more, with a total of around $17.9 million for the last six months of 2011.

An NBC/MSNBC report adds:

Full Story Here: Super PAC Power: The 0.1% Buying Our Elections | Common Dreams.

Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers

In response to an op-ed printed late last week in the Wall Street Journal, signed by sixteen ‘scientists’ and entitled, ‘No Need to Panic About Global Warming,’ thirty-nine climate scientists have penned a letter, printed in today’s WSJ, arguing that taking advice on climate change from scientists who have either “no expertise in climate science” or “extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert” is akin to allowing dentists perform heart surgery.

Suzanne Goldenberg reports for The Guardian:

The Wall Street Journal has received a dressing down from a large group of leading scientists for promoting retrograde and out-of-date views on climate change.

In an opinion piece run by the Journal on Wednesday, nearly 40 scientists, including acknowledged climate change experts, take on the paper for publishing an article disputing the evidence on global warming.

The offending article, No Need to Panic About Global Warming, which appeared last week, argued that climate change was a cunning ploy deployed by governments to raise taxes and by non-profit organisations to solicit donations to save the planet.

Full Story Here: Wall Street Journal Slammed for Giving Platform to Climate Change Deniers | Common Dreams.

Republicans Start To Unite Around Call To Allow Billionaires And Corporations To Directly Fund Campaigns

Eight in 10 Americans believe that there is too much money in American politics, and only 17 percent agree with the Supreme Court that corporations should be allowed to spend unlimited money to try to influence elections.

Yet top Republicans are coalescing around the idea that current campaign finance laws — which still prohibit corporations and wealthy individuals from giving unlimited money directly to campaigns — are actually too restrictive. Judging from interviews with ThinkProgress and Republican campaign speeches over the past two months, the GOP’s standard response to the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling has solidified: allow for unlimited contributions directly to candidates while requiring immediate disclosure.

The language used by different high-ranking Republicans is so similar that it suggests a certain level of message-coordination on the subject. Indeed, from GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) to Republican money man Fred Malek, their reactions to campaign finance laws are virtually identical:

Full Story Here: Republicans Start To Unite Around Call To Allow Billionaires And Corporations To Directly Fund Campaigns | ThinkProgress.

Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington

Auction 2012 is a weeklong series in collaboration with “The Dylan Ratigan Show” and United Republic.

When Washington puts policy on the auction block, bankers are consistently the highest bidders.

The industry’s most striking victory has been the watering down of post-financial crisis reforms, to the point that banks are now bigger than ever and the bonuses keep flowing. But Wall Street’s campaign spending and lobbying power is so intimidating that banks have repeatedly stuck the public with the tab for their losses and no one in Washington stops them.

Why hasn’t the government done something about outrageous ATM fees? Or credit card interest rates up to 30 percent? Bankers’ clout is such that common-sense pro-consumer legislation is presumptively dead on arrival at Capitol Hill if it threatens banks’ revenue streams.

An epic recent battle between consumers and Wall Street was fought over a congressional proposal to give bankruptcy judges the legal authority to modify principal balances on mortgages in a way that is fair to both parties. Known as “cramdown,” it would have allowed more than a million ordinary Americans to keep their homes. But because it would have leveled the playing field between banks and debtors — and would have forced banks to officially recognize losses they don’t want to acknowledge — the financial services industry fought cramdown with everything it had.

Full Story Here: Auction 2012: How The Bank Lobby Owns Washington.

Corporations Have No Use for Borders

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

Full Story Here: Corporations Have No Use for Borders | Common Dreams.

Surveillance in a Wireless Age

Scott Lemieux :-:

The Supreme Court rules that installing a GPS device on a car is unconstitutional, but not for the reason one might think

The Supreme Court unanimously held Monday that the installation of a GPS device in a person’s car constitutes a “search” under the Fourth Amendment (which prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures”). This unanimity is somewhat misleading, however, as the Court split with respect to what theory of the Fourth Amendment should be applied going forward and left a crucial question unanswered.

The Court has often struggled to adapt the Fourth Amendment to technologies that expand the reach of the state. As is reflected in the amendment’s language (“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects”) government searches at the time of the amendment’s adoption generally involved the physical invasion of property. But various technological innovations have allowed the state to increase its surveillance authority without conducting physical searches, and the Supreme Court has sometimes been behind the curve. In the 1928 case Olmstead v. United States , most famous for Justice Louis Brandeis’s dissenting opinion that the Bill of Rights “conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone—most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men,” the Court upheld the warrantless wiretapping of a suspect’s phone. Recognizing that the focus on physical searches was inadequate, however, in Katz v. United States (1967) the Court held that warrantless eavesdropping on conversations at a public phone booth violated the Fourth Amendment. As Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote in his influential concurrence in Katz, the Fourth Amendment applies wherever an individual “has a constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Full Story Here: Surveillance in a Wireless Age.

The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Just Keeps Spinning Along

We’ve already made our choice for the best headline of the year, so far:

“Citigroup Replaces JPMorgan as White House Chief of Staff.”

When we saw it on the website Gawker.com we had to smile — but the smile didn’t last long. There’s simply too much truth in that headline; it says a lot about how Wall Street and Washington have colluded to create the winner-take-all economy that rewards the very few at the expense of everyone else.

The story behind it is that Jack Lew is President Obama’s new chief of staff — arguably the most powerful office in the White House that isn’t shaped like an oval. He used to work for the giant banking conglomerate Citigroup. His predecessor as chief of staff is Bill Daley, who used to work at the giant banking conglomerate JPMorgan Chase, where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House.

Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein & Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported eighteen and a half million dollars.

Full Story Here: The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door Just Keeps Spinning Along | Common Dreams.

FBI Wants New App to Wiretap the Internet

The FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted a ‘Request for Information (RFI)’ online last week seeking companies to build a social network monitoring system for the FBI. The 12-page document (.pdf) spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by February 10, 2012.

It says the application should provide information about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps “using mash-up technology”.

It says the application should collect “open source” information and have the ability to:

Full Story Here: FBI Wants New App to Wiretap the Internet | Common Dreams.

Google Privacy Policies Get Major Revamp – You CAN’T Opt out!

Google announced changes to its privacy policies that will allow the web giant to merge user data collected across multiple services, an update that promises to renew scrutiny over Google’s privacy practices.

The new privacy policies go into effect on March 1. Users have no choice but to accept the changes, except, of course, to stop using Google’s services.

The update marks the latest in Google’s ambitious push across to learn even more about the people who use its services, an effort that has preoccupied the company of late and helped spur the launch of new products such as social networking site Google+. By combining information it gleans about an individual’s interests and preferences based on his use of several different Google products, from Gmail and YouTube to Google search and Googe Maps, Google can effectively compile more complete profiles of the people using its offerings — and, among other things, serve up more targeted ads and more customized content.

“Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services,” wrote Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering, in a blog post. “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

Full Story Here: Google Privacy Policies Get Major Revamp.

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement”

Obama’s latest housing market chicanery should come as no surprise. As we discuss below, he will use the State of the Union address to announce a mortgage “settlement” by Federal regulators, and at least some state attorneys general. It’s yet another gambit designed to generate a campaign talking point while making the underlying problem worse.

The president seems to labor under the misapprehension that crimes by members of the elite must be swept under the rug because prosecuting them would destabilize the system. What he misses is that we are well past the point where coverups will work, and they may even blow up before the November elections. If nothing else, his settlement pact has a non-trivial Constitutional problem which the Republicans, if they are smart, will use to undermine the deal and discredit the Administration.

To add insult to injury, Obama is apparently going to present his belated Christmas present to the banking industry as a boon to ordinary citizens. He refused to appoint a real middle class advocate, Elizabeth Warren, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but he’s not above stealing her talking points.

Full Story Here: Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement” | Common Dreams.

Critics of Mortgage Deal Press Obama, State AGs to Reject Big Bank Proposal

Progressives “Furious” at Emerging Details of Mortgage Deal

A long anticipated draft settlement between the nation’s largest private mortgage lenders and US states has been announced, but it doesn’t look good for industry critics who hoped the banking giants — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial —would suffer full investigations and payouts equal to the damage they caused to homeowners and the overall economy.  The deal would still have to be accepted by the states.

UPDATE: George Zornick writes at The Nation:

Obama Is on the Brink of a Settlement With the Big Banks—and Progressives Are Furious

For months, a massive federal settlement with big Wall Street banks over their role in the mortgage crisis has been in the offing. The rumored details have always given progressives heartburn: civil immunity, no investigations, inadequate help for homeowners and a small penalty for the banks. Now, on the eve President Obama’s State of the Union address—in which he plans to further advance a populist message against big money and income inequality—the deal may be here, and it’s every bit as ugly as progressives feared.

Full Story Here: Critics of Mortgage Deal Press Obama, State AGs to Reject Big Bank Proposal | Common Dreams.

FEC Republicans Are Making Citizens United Even Worse

Three Republican appointees to the Federal Election Commission may be as responsible as anyone for the lack of transparency of post-Citizens United political spending.

Two years ago today, when the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling, one bright spot was that the majority explicitly endorsed the constitutionality and necessity of disclosure rules that inform voters who paid for the political ads they see. “Disclosure is the less-restrictive alternative to more comprehensive speech regulations,” they affirmed.

Federal statutes require that for all significant “independent expenditures” and “electioneering communications” — the two major classifications for political expenditures made by outside groups unaffiliated with political candidates — the names and addresses of large donors must be identified.

Full Story Here: FEC Republicans Are Making Citizens United Even Worse | ThinkProgress.

Justice Scalia On Unlimited Political Ads: Turn Off The TV

U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has a simple solution for people who don’t like all the political advertisements unleashed by the court’s decision two years ago that ended limits on corporate contributions in political campaigns – change the channel or turn off the TV.

Scalia was asked about the decision during a presentation before the South Carolina Bar on Saturday, exactly two years after the court handed down the 5-4 decision in the case that led to the rise of Super PACs. They are outside groups affiliated with candidates that can take in unlimited contributions as long as they don’t directly coordinate with the candidate.

“I don’t care who is doing the speech – the more the merrier,” Scalia said. “People are not stupid. If they don’t like it, they’ll shut it off.”

Full Story Here: Justice Scalia On Unlimited Political Ads: Turn Off The TV.

We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy

   Bernie Sanders :-:

Unless we can reverse the supreme court’s dreadful Citizens United decision, US politics will become a plutocrats’ plaything

The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all.

Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution and those who fought to ensure that its protections are enjoyed equally by all persons regardless of religion, race or gender by engaging in an unabashed power-grab on behalf of corporate America. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook – in any amount and at any time – to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates.

What’s next … a corporate right to vote?

Don’t laugh. Just this month, the Republican National Committee filed an amicus brief in a US appeals court contending that the natural extension of the Citizens United rationale is that the century-old ban on corporate contributions directly to candidates and political parties is similarly unconstitutional. They want corporations to be able to sponsor candidates and parties directly while claiming with a straight face this would not result in any sort of corruption. And while, this month, they take no issue with corporations being subject to the existing contribution limits, anyone paying attention knows that eliminating such caps will be corporate America’s next prize in its brazen ambition for absolute control over our elections.

Full Story Here: We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy | Bernie Sanders | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

The Age of the Super PAC

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has seen the rise of the “super PAC,” which can take unlimited donations from people or corporations in support of a candidate.

Many believe that the ability to donate anonymously in this way to candidates is giving the super-rich too much influence.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Through organizations with names like Winning Our Future, wealthy interests can furtively fund the type of nasty TV ads that torpedoed then-surging Newt Gingrich before the Iowa caucuses and later carpet-bombed South Carolinians with commercials calling Mitt Romney a job-killing “corporate raider” when he led the Bain Capital private equity firm.

At the same time, presidential aspirants can claim that they had nothing to do with the attacks because the presidential campaigns can’t legally communicate with the super PACs doing the dirty work.

Canada’s Globe and Mail notes that the super PACs can outspend the campaigns themselves:

Full Story Here: The Age of the Super PAC | Common Dreams.

Surveillance City: New Body Scanners Head to NYC

New plans for monitoring people in New York City has civil liberties advocates up in arms.

The International Business Times reports:

In a speech to the New York City Police Foundation Tuesday morning, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced the NYPD was working with the Department of Defense to develop a scanner that is capable of detecting concealed firearms.

The device picks up on the heat energy produced by people or objects, measured in terahertz, to pinpoint objects that are blocking that view of energy, like a gun. “If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation, for example, a weapon, the device will highlight that object,” Kelly explained. “This technology has shown a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search.”

Is this only about detecting guns? RT reports:

What it can also do, however, is allow the NYPD to conduct illegal searches by means of scanning anyone walking the streets of New York. Any object on your person could be privy to the eyes of the detector, and any suspicious screens can prompt police officers to search someone on suspicion of having a gun, or anything else under their clothes.

Full Story Here: Surveillance City: New Body Scanners Head to NYC | Common Dreams.

Fla. Legislation: More Privatization and Keep It From the Public

Bill would allow more privatization of correctional facilities, revises privatization of agency functions requirements

Privatization was on the agenda today in Florida Senate Rules Committee.

One piece of legislation, SPB 7172, would allow for the privatization of correctional facilities over a large area of southern Florida, while another, SPB 7170, would allow for the secret privatization of some state functions.

The Orlando Sentinel reports:

The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, gave the go ahead for the Senate to take up legislation that would privatize correctional facilities in an 18-county South Florida region and also a bill that revises requirements for the privatization process. The second piece of legislation would drop a requirement that departments looking at privatization create a business case for privatization prior to the Legislature making the decision.

Full Story Here: Fla. Legislation: More Privatization and Keep It From the Public | Common Dreams.

Carney dodges questions about indefinite detention

ABC News reporter Jake Tapper questioned White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday about controversial provisions in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

The $662 billion defense spending bill contained controversial sections that required terrorism suspects to be detained by the military without trial, regardless of where they were captured. Proponents of the bill claimed it merely clarified existing law, but human rights advocates and others said the provisions were unconstitutional and allowed the military detention of American citizens without trial.

“Is President Obama doing anything to rescind this provision that gives the military this new power?” Tapper asked Carney.

Full Story Here: Carney dodges questions about indefinite detention | The Raw Story.

Gingrich Suggests Illegally Firing Federal Employees Over Liberal Views

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich suggested at a Fox News forum hosted by Mike Huckabee in South Carolina on Saturday that it would be a good idea to fire federal employees for being too liberal. Federal law, on the other hand, says Gingrich’s plan would be illegal.

“I think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal employees delivering the right services in a highly efficient way and then wants to get rid of those folks who are in fact wasteful, or those folks who are ideologically so far to the left, or those people who want to frankly dictate to the rest of us,” Gingrich said in response to a question from a federal employee at the forum (emphasis ours).

This sounds like it would come uncomfortably close to being in conflict with a Federal law making it illegal to take any personnel action against an employee “based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation.” Accusations that political affiliation was taken into account would be investigated by the Office of Special Counsel (except in certain government agencies).

Full Story Here: Gingrich Suggests Illegally Firing Federal Employees Over Liberal Views | TPM2012.

Super PACs Outspending Candidate Committees Two To One

Super PACs Outspending Candidate Committees Two To One | Super PACs supporting candidates are outspending those candidates’ campaign committees two-to-one in South Carolina, having already spent $7 million so far compared to a combined $3.2 million for presidential campaigns. The difference, of course, is that Super PACs can accept unlimited donations, and many are largely funded by a single billionaire. This reflects a trend across the early primary states, where Super PACs have been spending far more than the presidential campaigns or outside expenditure groups in previous years. Super PACs were created in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

Full Story Here: Super PACs Outspending Candidate Committees Two To One | ThinkProgress.

Degrade This: Wall Street’s Ratings Agencies Undermine Europe’s Attempt at Recovery Acting Like Financial Terrorists

Danny Schechter :-:

We live in an increasingly degraded country.

Our politics are degraded and a laughing stock to the word. Our military is demoralized and degraded with soldiers urinating on dead civilians and awaiting deployment orders for the next illegal intervention.

Our education system has been degraded with standards falling and pervasive defunding. Our transportation system, ditto.

I could go on, but I don’t have to. We are all living the decline with downward mobility, jobless and foreclosures, to cite a few trends that make life so miserable for so many.

Full Story Here: Degrade This: Wall Street’s Ratings Agencies Undermine Europe’s Attempt at Recovery Acting Like Financial Terrorists | Common Dreams.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free – The Washington Post

Jonathan Turley,

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

Full Story Here: 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free – The Washington Post.

Portland, Maine Joins Growing Movement to Repeal Citizens United

“Citizens United subverts the essence of democracy”

Thanks to an effort by a Portland City Councilor, Maine could be among the states working towards a repeal of Citizens United.

The Bangor Daily News reports:

The city of Portland could soon join an effort to reject so-called corporate personhood, the controversial extension of constitutional free speech rights to allow unfettered political spending by corporations.

City Councilor David Marshall is proposing a resolution that, if adopted by the larger council, would urge Maine’s congressional delegation and other federal lawmakers to support a constitutional amendment to throw out corporate personhood.[...]

Full Story Here: Portland, Maine Joins Growing Movement to Repeal Citizens United | Common Dreams.

Detroit May Be Next Michigan City to Get ‘Emergency Manager’

Finance team holds first meeting

In March of last year, Michigan Gov. Snyder signed into law Public Act No. 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act, also known as the “emergency financial manager law.”

As the Center for Constitutional Rights describes it:

Under this law, the Governor has the power to unilaterally (1) declare a local government or school district to be in a state of “financial emergency”, (2) determine if that local government or school district has a “satisfactory” plan to resolve the emergency, and, if he determines that no satisfactory plan exists, (3) appoint an emergency financial manager to act for, and in place of the, the local governing body (i.e., mayor, school superintendent, city council, school board).

So far in Michigan, Ecorse, Pontiac, Benton Harbor and Flint have been appointed emergency managers.

Now it seems that Detroit may be next on that list.

Full Story Here: Detroit May Be Next Michigan City to Get ‘Emergency Manager’ | Common Dreams.

Have the Super-Rich Seceded From the United States?

It was in 1993 during Congressional deliberation over the North American Free Trade Agreement. I was having lunch with a staffer for one of the rare Republican members of Congress who opposed the policy of so-called free trade. I distinctly remember something my colleague said: “The rich elites of this country have far more in common with their counterparts in London, Paris and Tokyo than with their own fellow American citizens.”

That was just the beginning of the period when the realities of outsourced manufacturing, financialization of the economy and growing income disparity started to seep into the public consciousness, so at the time it seemed like a striking and novel statement.

At the end of the cold war, many writers predicted the decline of the traditional nation state. Some looked at the demise of the Soviet Union and foresaw the territorial state breaking up into statelets of different ethnic, religious or economic compositions. This happened in the Balkans, former Czechoslovakia and Sudan. Others, like Chuck Spinney, predicted a weakening of the state due to the rise of fourth-generation warfare and the inability of national armies to adapt to it. The quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan lend credence to that theory. There have been hundreds of books about globalization and how it would break down borders. But I am unaware of a well-developed theory from that time about how the super-rich and the corporations they run would secede from the nation state.

Full Story Here: Have the Super-Rich Seceded From the United States? | Truthout.

From Democracy to Plutocracy

Democracy is Phasing Out, We are Becoming a Nation Run by the Rich for the Rich Causing the Whole Middle Class to Evaporate!

In Citizens United vs.FCC, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are equivalent to people, and thus have the same first amendment rights. Any attempt to abridge those rights (for example, the McCain-Feingold bill, which limited campaign donations) is a violation of the Constitution. This disastrous decision has paved the way for companies that care more about overseas profits than America to destroy the country.

Thanks to the Citizens United ruling, it is painfully obvious that our elected officials have sold out to multinational companies at the expense of the American people. This has led to a steady degradation of our democracy and economy that has destroyed the middle class in this nation.

Full Story Here: From Democracy to Plutocracy | Economy In Crisis.

Mitt, Son of “Citizen’s United”: the grotesque result of the Supreme Court’s decision

Robert Reich :-:

First, a confession. If Mitt Romney becomes president I’m partly to blame.

Ten years ago I ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts — which would have given me the opportunity to whip Mitt Romney’s ass in the general election,

I blew it. In the final week of the primary I was neck and neck with the state treasurer, but then my money ran out, which meant my TV ads stopped. Declining the suggestion of my campaign manager to take out a second mortgage on my home, I frantically phoned anyone I could find who hadn’t yet contributed $500, the maximum state law allowed. I didn’t raise beans. In the end, the treasurer won the primary, Romney won the general election and became governor, and I went back to being a professor.

But my fantasy of beating Romney may be nothing more than a fantasy because Romney had — and still has — something I never did (and I’m not referring to his gleaming white teeth, carefully-coiffed hairline, or height). He has money, and he has connections to much more money.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich.

House Democrats Rush Floor Demanding Republicans Come Back To Work, GOP Cuts Off C-SPAN

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a group of Democratic lawmakers took to an empty House floor today to demonstrate that they were willing to work while Republicans lawmakers are at home. “Where are the Republicans?” demanded Assistant to the Minority Leader James Clyburn (R-SC). Joining Pelosi and Clyburn were five other House Democrats who are assigned to the payroll-tax extension conference committee.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), representing House Republicans, quickly banged his gavel over the Democrats’ voices, and instructed the clerk to stop taking notes of the proceedings. Moments later, the microphones were silenced and C-SPAN’s video feed was cut. (The House leadership controls the cameras and has previously cut video of Democrats on the floor.) Watch it:

Full Story Here: House Democrats Rush Floor Demanding Republicans Come Back To Work, GOP Cuts Off C-SPAN | ThinkProgress.

Boehner’s office cuts C-SPAN video again as House Dems protest

For the second time in recent weeks, C-SPAN’s video on Friday morning cut away from high drama in the U.S. Congress as Democrats demanded to be heard, only to see their session immediately shut down by Republicans.

In another so-called “pro forma” session, or a session of Congress staged merely as formality in order to block presidential recess appointments, the House of Representatives was gaveled in on Friday and immediately gaveled out again, even as Democrats took to the floor demanding to know where their Republican colleagues were.

After the session was initiated, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) stood and asked Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA), “Where are the Republicans?” He was joined by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a small assemblage of other Democrats who’ve been pushing to extend lower payroll tax rates to working Americans.

Full Story Here: Boehner’s office cuts C-SPAN video again as House Dems protest | The Raw Story.

Forced Military Testing in America’s Schools

The invasion of student privacy associated with military testing in U.S. high schools has been well documented by mainstream media sources, like USA Today and NPR Radio. The practice of mandatory testing, however, continues largely unnoticed.

The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB is the military’s entrance exam that is given to fresh recruits to determine their aptitude for various military occupations. The test is also used as a recruiting tool in 12,000 high schools across the country. The 3 hour test is used by military recruiting services to gain sensitive, personal information on more than 660,000 high school students across the country every year, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 18. Students typically are given the test at school without parental knowledge or consent. The school-based ASVAB Career Exploration Program is among the military’s most effective recruiting tools.

In roughly 11,000 high schools where the ASVAB is administered, students are strongly encouraged to take the test for its alleged value as a career exploration tool, but in more than 1,000 schools, according to information received from the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command through a Freedom of Information Act request, tens of thousands of students are required to take it. It is a particularly egregious violation of civil liberties that has been going on almost entirely unnoticed since the late 1960′s.

Full Story Here: Forced Military Testing in America’s Schools | Common Dreams.

ALEC – America’s Secret Political Power

There’s something rotten in the air. A muggy, oniony, chemical smell that wafts over the lines of uniformed riot police, paddy wagons and metal barriers that are holding back a straggle of protesters waving slapdash placards reading “Shut Down ALEC.”

“Get back ma’am, for your own safety,” a courteous voice warns me. “They’re gonna start pepper spraying.”

Pepper spray?

It’s a surreal touch at the lush, sprawling Westin Kierland Resort, where the air is scented with fragrant flowering bushes and the aromatic lotions of the spa.

Full Story Here: ALEC – America’s Secret Political Power | Truthout.

Protect Your Cell Phone from Prying Eyes in 2012

Cell phone monitoring is a big issue, and scandals like News of the World and CarrierIQ reveal how pervasive the issue is, and how easily it is for people and companies to monitor cell phones.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange warned cell phone users of this problem earlier this month when he released details of companies that are selling information they obtain through cell phone monitoring. According to Assange, more than 150 companies around the world have the ability to use cell phones as tracking devices to intercept messages and to listen to calls.

Don’t think it’s true and that Assange is just a nutcase? Then consider that Verizon Wireless, the largest cellular carrier in the U.S., is already monitoring cell phones and selling the information. In October, Verizon enrolled its entire customer base into its program to track customer usage and location, as well as browsing data, demographic info, and app usage. Customers can get out of all this by opting out through their account online. Although Verizon says that it’s only collecting and selling the information for marketing purposes, many people just don’t want their information to be tracked on their cell phones at all.

Full Story Here: Protect Your Cell Phone from Prying Eyes in 2012 | Common Dreams.

Super PACs, thanks to the Citizens’ United decision, face no contribution limits

Group’s Ads Rip at Gingrich as Romney Stands Clear 

DES MOINES — The attacks began three weeks ago and have not let up since: Television ad after television ad slamming Newt Gingrich for having “more baggage than the airlines,” for being fined by Congress for ethics violations, for his position on illegal immigration, even for admitting that he has made mistakes on the campaign trail.

Democrats and Republicans alike have singled out the $2.8 million-and-counting air deluge as the biggest factor in Mr. Gingrich’s precipitous drop in polls of Iowa voters and Mitt Romney’s corresponding rise, reshaping the critical first contest of the Republican primary season to Mr. Romney’s benefit.

The ads, which continue to blanket Iowa days before the caucuses here, were created and paid for by people with deep knowledge of the Romney campaign’s strategic thinking, close relationships with Mr. Romney’s most generous donors, and even research on what television viewers like and dislike most about Mr. Romney himself.

Full Story Here: Group’s Ads Rip at Gingrich as Romney Stands Clear | Common Dreams.

Obama Signs Bill Allowing Indefinite Detention Of Americans

President Barack Obama signed a wide-ranging defense bill into law Saturday despite having “serious reservations” about provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists.

The bill also applies penalties against Iran’s central bank in an effort to hamper Tehran’s ability to fund its nuclear enrichment program. The Obama administration is looking to soften the impact of those penalties because of concerns that they could lead to a spike in global oil prices or cause economic hardship on U.S. allies that import petroleum from Iran.

In a statement accompanying his signature, the president chastised some lawmakers for what he contended was their attempts to use the bill to restrict the ability of counterterrorism officials to protect the country.

Full Story Here: Obama Signs Defense Bill Despite ‘Serious Reservations’.

OPS: Talk is and has been cheap for Obama. Think of Clinton signing NAFTA and allowing Glass-Stegal to go down. Do their heart felt ‘reservations’ matter once it’s signed?

Defense Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of US Citizens: A ‘Significant Step’ Towards Fascist Govt

Civil liberties groups and many citizen activists are outraged over language in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 (NDAA) that appears to lay the legal groundwork for indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.

David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, called it an “enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage” and a “significant step” towards fascism, in an interview with IPS.

“For a very long time the U.S. has been moving towards what I personally think of as fascist – the integration of monopoly capital with state power, that’s combined with an increased repression at home and greater aggression around the world. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I do see that we’re going in that direction,” Gespass said. “I think the… act is a significant step in that direction.”

Full Story Here: Defense Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of US Citizens | Common Dreams.

OPS: Now, WE will have  “this disappeared”

TV Analysts’ Collusion With the Military: Disgraceful but Legal?

I wasn’t going to look at the news on Christmas Day. I had just had successfully prepared a Christmas Eve dinner for my extended family and was up late singing at a Christmas Eve church service. On Christmas day, I was taking more food to another relative’s house to have another family dinner. But I was lying in bed Christmas morning and, as most news junkies will understand, just decided to do a quick peek of the headlines on my iPad.

And there it was. The New York Times was reporting that the Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s (DoD IG) office had finished a report saying no harm, no foul when Rumsfeld’s Pentagon used 74 military analysts, mainly retired generals, to push for the Iraq war and advocate more war spending and more DoD budget spending as national television commentators.

Full Story Here: TV Analysts’ Collusion With the Military: Disgraceful but Legal? | Truthout.

ALEC-Linked Group Revealed as Major Secret Donor in Referendum on Maine Voting Rights

Last month, Maine voters delivered a major rebuke to Gov. Paul LePage (R) and the Republican-held legislature when they approved a referendum restoring election day voting registration rights in the state. Earlier this year, state legislators passed a bill repealing the state’s 38 year-old law allowing citizens to register at the polls on election day.

Tens of thousands of Mainers responded by petitioning for the matter come to a referendum. Issue 1 was one of the most-anticipated votes on election day this year, with pundits watching closely to see how citizens would react to the Republican-led war on voting, which ramped up in states across the country this year.

Recognizing the referendum’s importance, voting rights opponents poured money into the campaign to repeal election day registration. In fact, just two days after the state’s campaign finance reporting deadline, a secret conservative donor funneled $250,000 into the race, allowing the No On 1 campaign to make significant TV ad buys in an inexpensive media market.

Full Story Here: ALEC-Linked Group Revealed as Major Secret Donor in Referendum on Maine Voting Rights | Truthout.

Has America’s Stolen Election Process Finally Hit Prime Time?

It took two stolen US Presidential elections and the prospect of another one coming up in 2012.

For years the Democratic Party and even much of the left press has reacted with scorn for those who’ve reported on it.

But the imperial fraud that has utterly corrupted our electoral process seems finally to be dawning on a broadening core of the American electorate—if it can still be called that.

The shift is highlighted by three major developments:

1. The NAACP goes to the United Nations

In early December, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest civil rights organization in America, announced that it was petitioning the United Nations over the orchestrated GOP attack on black and Latino voters.

In its landmark report entitled Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America, the NAACP directly takes on the new Jim Crow tactics passed in fourteen states that are designed to keep minorities from voting in 2012.

Full Story Here: Has America’s Stolen Election Process Finally Hit Prime Time? | Common Dreams.

93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID

A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations.

Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn’t produce a birth certificate:

Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers’ license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant.

Thelma Mitchell told WSMV-TV that she went to a state drivers’ license center last week after being told that her old state ID from her cleaning job would not meet new regulations for voter identification.

Full Story Here: 93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID | ThinkProgress.

H-2B employers and their congressional allies are fighting hard to keep wages low for immigrant and American workers

For years, businesses in a number of major industries, including landscaping, food processing, lodging, and construction, have been using the “H-2B” program—a temporary immigrant guestworker program intended to help employers fill labor shortages—in order to keep wages low for workers. These employers are legally allowed to pay H-2B workers lower-than-average wages, which ultimately discourage American workers from applying to these jobs because wages often have been lowered so much that workers can no longer survive on them. In October 2010, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a simple new rule that would fix this problem. In the months that followed, the DOL considered hundreds of formal public comments from businesses, unions, and other interested parties and individuals before publishing the final rule in January 2011. The final rule was due to take effect on October 1, 2011, but for now, the rule’s implementation has been delayed. And a lobbying firestorm by businesses and members of Congress—led by Senator Barbara Mikulski from Maryland—has put its survival in doubt.

The DOL’s final rule would establish a new wage methodology for determining what H-2B guestworkers should be paid. U.S. law and regulation require that H-2B workers only be authorized to enter and work in the United States “if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country,” and if the H-2B worker’s employment will not be “displacing qualified United States workers” or “adversely affecting the wages and working conditions of United States workers.” This new rule, if implemented and enforced, is a giant leap forward for workers and will go a long way toward improving the lives of the immigrants and Americans who work in the main industries that hire H-2Bs.

Full Story Here: H-2B employers and their congressional allies are fighting hard to keep wages low for immigrant and American workers | Economic Policy Institute.

The Big Lie: : How Ideologues Smeared Fannie Mae

So this is how the Big Lie works.

You begin with a hypothesis that has a certain surface plausibility. You find an ally whose background suggests that he’s an “expert”; out of thin air, he devises “data.” You write articles in sympathetic publications, repeating the data endlessly; in time, some of these publications make your cause their own. Like-minded congressmen pick up your mantra and invite you to testify at hearings.

You’re chosen for an investigative panel related to your topic. When other panel members, after inspecting your evidence, reject your thesis, you claim that they did so for ideological reasons. This, too, is repeated by your allies. Soon, the echo chamber you created drowns out dissenting views; even presidential candidates begin repeating the Big Lie.

Thus has Peter Wallison, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, almost single-handedly created the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the financial crisis. His partner in crime is another A.E.I. scholar, Edward Pinto, who a very long time ago was Fannie’s chief credit officer. Pinto claims that as of June 2008, 27 million “risky” mortgages had been issued — “and a lion’s share was on Fannie and Freddie’s books,” as Wallison wrote recently. Never mind that his definition of “risky” is so all-encompassing that it includes mortgages with extremely low default rates as well as those with default rates nearing 30 percent. These latter mortgages were the ones created by the unholy alliance between subprime lenders and Wall Street. Pinto’s numbers are the Big Lie’s primary data point.

Full Story Here: The Big Lie – NYTimes.com.

Tax Reform Coalition: Huge Corporations Gear Up For Upcoming Tax Battle

Huge U.S. corporations are forming lobbying groups to try to influence what could become the hottest congressional debate over comprehensive tax reform in a generation.

The newest organization calls itself the Tax Reform Coalition. Backed by companies including American Express Co and Xerox Corp, it filed paperwork with Congress this week to register as a lobbying group.

The coalition’s registration suggests it will have a broad portfolio, lobbying on “issues related to corporate tax reform,” but no one involved would answer questions on Friday.

It joins an increasingly crowded playing field of lobbying groups and politicians strategizing for what Washington will look like in 2013 following national elections in November 2012.

Full Story Here: Tax Reform Coalition: Huge Corporations Gear Up For Upcoming Tax Battle.

A Christmas Message From America’s Rich

Matt Taibbi

It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.

But while they haven’t yet deigned to talk to protesting America face to face, they are willing to scribble out some complaints on notes and send them downstairs on silver trays. Courtesy of a remarkable story by Max Abelson at Bloomberg, we now get to hear some of those choice comments.

Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, for instance, is not worried about OWS:

“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”

Full Story Here: A Christmas Message From America’s Rich | | Rolling Stone.

The Wall Street System is Destroying Not Serving Society

Joseph Stiglitz :-:

A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around

Forget monetary policy. Re-examining the cause of the Great Depression—the revolution in agriculture that threw millions out of work—the author argues that the U.S. is now facing and must manage a similar shift in the “real” economy, from industry to service, or risk a tragic replay of 80 years ago.

t has now been almost five years since the bursting of the housing bubble, and four years since the onset of the recession. There are 6.6 million fewer jobs in the United States than there were four years ago. Some 23 million Americans who would like to work full-time cannot get a job. Almost half of those who are unemployed have been unemployed long-term. Wages are falling—the real income of a typical American household is now below the level it was in 1997.

We knew the crisis was serious back in 2008. And we thought we knew who the “bad guys” were—the nation’s big banks, which through cynical lending and reckless gambling had brought the U.S. to the brink of ruin. The Bush and Obama administrations justified a bailout on the grounds that only if the banks were handed money without limit—and without conditions—could the economy recover. We did this not because we loved the banks but because (we were told) we couldn’t do without the lending that they made possible. Many, especially in the financial sector, argued that strong, resolute, and generous action to save not just the banks but the bankers, their shareholders, and their creditors would return the economy to where it had been before the crisis. In the meantime, a short-term stimulus, moderate in size, would suffice to tide the economy over until the banks could be restored to health.

Full Story Here: Joseph Stiglitz: “A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around” | Politics | Vanity Fair.

Eliot Spitzer: Our Rallying Cry Should Be, “We Own Wall Street and We Can Stop Corporate America’s Worst Behavior.”

If the public exercised its ownership capacity by influencing board member selection, compensation, and political donations, then these companies would be fundamentally altered.

As the year ends, American politics remains mired in the agenda of the right. The House is, at least momentarily, refusing to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits—two policies genuinely beneficial to the middle class. And the presidential campaign heading into the Iowa primaries is dominated by the libertarianism of Ron Paul and the astonishing, appalling ideas—eliminate child labor laws, for instance—of Newt Gingrich.

Yes, Occupy Wall Street changed the debate for a brief spell, and, yes, President Obama harkened back to the glory days of progressivism with his Kansas speech. But in general American politics has lost sight of the most important crisis of our generation: the shrinking middle class.

So let me offer some advice to Democrats and progressives seeking to capture the attention of the American people. It has long been my belief that ownership trumps regulation. What I mean by that is while laws and regulations can create boundaries to behavior, the reality, as we have seen after passing much legislation—Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank—is that even good laws leave room for bad decision making that results in cataclysm. Even though prosecutors should have charged many more bad actors on Wall Street, much of what led to the crisis was not blatant illegality: It was horrific judgment exercised by senior executives and regulators.

Full Story Here: Eliot Spitzer: Our Rallying Cry Should Be, “We Own Wall Street and We Can Stop Corporate America’s Worst Behavior.” | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet.

Propagandizing for Perpetual War

Are Our Rulers Stupid, or Do They Think We’re Stupid?

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has appropriated $806 billion for the direct cost of invading and occupying Iraq. Including debt service since 2003, that sum rises to approximately $1 trillion. The White House estimates the number of U.S. military wounded at 30,000; the web site icasualties.org states that U.S. military fatalities from the Iraq war now stand at 4484. It is impossible to estimate precisely the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths, but they are frequently cited as being in excess of 100,000. There are now around two million internally displaced Iraqis in a country of 30 million inhabitants. As United States armed forces (but not up to 17,000 State Department employees, contractors and mercenaries) leave the country, Iraq is plunging into a sectarian and ethnically-fueled political crisis. Even if it survives that crisis and remains a unitary state, it will almost certainly be pulled closer to the orbit of Iran, our bogeyman du jour.

In view of the crippling costs both human and financial as well as the strategic and moral disaster the invasion of Iraq precipitated, what sort of verdict do you think our leaders – leaders representing a presidential administration ostensibly opposed to the invasion and promising hope and change – bother to offer us? While junketing in Turkey on December 17, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the press the following:

As difficult as [the Iraq war] was, I think the price has been worth it, to establish a stable government in a very important region of the world.

Full Story Here: Propagandizing for Perpetual War » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The Corporations That Occupy Congress

David Cay Johnston :-:

Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue.

Last month Citizens for Tax Justice and an affiliate issued “Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers 2008-10″. It showed that 30 brand-name companies paid a federal income tax rate of minus 6.7 percent on $160 billion of profit from 2008 through 2010 compared to a going corporate tax rate of 35 percent. All but one of those 30 companies reported lobbying expenses in Washington.

Another report, by Public Campaign, shows that 29 of those companies spent nearly half a billion dollars over those three years lobbying in Washington for laws and rules that favor their interests. Only Atmos Energy, the 30th company, reported no lobbying.

Full Story Here: The Corporations That Occupy Congress | Common Dreams.

Georgia ‘Birther’ suit attempts to remove Obama from 2012 ballot

According to Dustin Baker of the blog Georgia Politico, a suit has been filed with the office of Georgia’s Secretary of State Brian Kemp challenging Barack Obama’s legitimacy to appear as a presidential candidate on the ballot in the November 2012 elections.

Georgia State Representative J. Mark Hatfield (R-Waycross) will plead the case before the Office of State Administrative Hearings on behalf of Mr. Kevin R. Powell of Duluth, Georgia, who filed the suit on the grounds that “Obama does not satisfy the ‘natural born Citizen’ requirement of Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the United States Constitution. Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a native of Kenya and a British subject who never became a United States citizen.”

Presumably the lawsuit does not address the question of the nationality of President Obama’s mother, whose status as a U.S. citizen would confer citizenship upon her son, no matter the nationality of his father.

Full Story Here: Georgia ‘Birther’ suit attempts to remove Obama from 2012 ballot | The Raw Story.

House Committee Delays Vote On Disastrous Internet Bill

SOPA Vote Delayed, Allowing For More Corporate Fundraising From Censorship Bill

After two days of debate, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) abruptly halted a key hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act, postponing a Committee vote on the bill until 2012. The move marks a win for hordes of internet activists who oppose the bill, but gives lawmakers another opportunity to juice deep-pocketed corporations for campaign contributions.

“This is a huge victory for everyone who uses the Internet — and proof that millions of people speaking out can still make a difference in a Congress usually run by corporate lobbyists,” said Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit and Demand Progress, an organization that has staunchly opposed the bills for months.

SOPA is being aggressively pushed by Hollywood movie studios, major record labels and luxury goods providers as an effort to crackdown on internet piracy of their products. But the tools envisioned are so extreme that tech experts warn the legislation threatens the very functionality of the Internet. The ACLU and other free-speech groups emphasize that by authorizing the federal government and corporations to shut down entire websites without a trial for posting just a single piece of copyright-infringing content, the bill would sharply curb the exercise of free speech onlin

Full Story Here: SOPA Vote Delayed, Allowing For More Corporate Fundraising From Censorship Bill.

Indefinite Military Detention Measure Passes On Bill Of Rights Day

The Senate passed a defense bill Thursday that authorizes indefinite detentions of American terrorism suspects, coincidentally acting on the controversial measure on the 220th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, passed 86 to 13 and is expected to be signed quickly by President Obama, who withdrew a veto threat against the bill Wednesday. Six Democrats, six Republicans and one independent opposed the bill.

Though the legislation passed overwhelmingly, several senators argued that it was threatening fundamental provisions of the Bill of Rights, which is celebrated every Dec. 15.

Full Story Here: Indefinite Military Detention Measure Passes On Bill Of Rights Day.

PA GOPer Admits There’s No Evidence That Voter ID Laws Are Needed, But He’s Ramming One Through Anyway

In the wake of the 2010 elections, numerous GOP-controlled states have adopted so-called “voter ID” laws to target the entirely fabricated problem of in-person voter fraud. Such voter fraud is so uncommon that a voter is 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to actually commit fraud at the polls. Yet because these laws also disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters in demographics that tend to support Democrats, they have become the darling of GOP lawmakers.

So it is much more disappointing than surprising that Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is now pressuring lawmakers in his state to enact one of these vote suppressing laws, despite the fact that a top GOP lawmaker admits that there is no proof that these vote suppressing laws are needed:

Full Story Here: PA GOPer Admits There’s No Evidence That Voter ID Laws Are Needed, But He’s Ramming One Through Anyway | ThinkProgress.

The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy

John Nichols :-:

Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch finally got their way in 2011. After their decades of funding the American Legislative Exchange Council, the collaboration between multinational corporations and conservative state legislators, the project began finally to yield the intended result.

For the first time in decades, the United States saw a steady dismantling of the laws, regulations, programs and practices put in place to make real the promise of American democracy.

That is why, on Saturday, civil rights groups and their allies will rally outside the New York headquarters of the Koch brothers to begin a march for the renewal of voting rights in America.

For the Koch brothers and their kind, less democracy is better. They fund campaigns with millions of dollars in checks that have helped elect the likes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich. And ALEC has made it clear, through its ambitious “Public Safety and Elections Task Force,” that while it wants to dismantle any barriers to corporate cash and billionaire bucks’ influencing elections, it wants very much to erect barriers to the primary tool that Americans who are not CEOs have to influence the politics and the government of the nation: voting.

Full Story Here: The Koch Brothers, ALEC and the Savage Assault on Democracy | The Nation.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Stop Bashing the Rich

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is railing against bashing the rich.

Dimon was responding to a question at an investor conference about the hostile political environment towards banks.

“Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and that everyone who is rich is bad — I just don’t get it,” said Dimon at the conference, which was organized by Goldman Sachs [GS  105.13    3.97  (+3.92%)   

Big banks, and CEOs like Dimon, have come under fire from Occupy Wall Street and other protesters who are disgruntled about income inequality and feel that big corporations — financial institutions in particular — have undue influence on government. In fact, last month, the protesters in New York targeted Dimon specifically, marching to his apartment and the residences of other wealthy New Yorkers.

Full Story Here: JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon: Stop Bashing the Rich – US Business News – CNBC.

Hartmann: The Poison Pill to kill the Post Office?

The financial woes of the United States Postal Service can be traced all the way back to 2006. In tonight’s Daily Take – I’ll tell you what happened that year – and why the Republican Party is hell bent on destroying one of the legacies of Ben Franklin.

How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street

The Republican Governors Association met this week in Florida to give GOP state executives a chance to rejuvenate, strategize and team-build. But during a plenary session on Wednesday, one question kept coming up: How can Republicans do a better job of talking about Occupy Wall Street?

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican strategist and one of the nation’s foremost experts on crafting the perfect political message. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

Luntz offered tips on how Republicans could discuss the grievances of the Occupiers, and help the governors better handle all these new questions from constituents about “income inequality” and “paying your fair share.”

Yahoo News sat in on the session, and counted 10 do’s and don’ts from Luntz covering how Republicans should fight back by changing the way they discuss the movement.

Full Story Here: How Republicans are being taught to talk about Occupy Wall Street | The Ticket – Yahoo! News.

Walker intends to charge citizens fee to protest

Free speech is getting expensive in Wisconsin.

Following demonstrations earlier this year which drew up to 100,000 people to the Wisconsin Capitol, Republican Gov. Scott Walker has proposed new policies that would require future protesters to pay in advance to stage an event, at a cost of $50 per hour, per Capitol Police officer.

Police may also require a liability insurance or a bond, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.

Demonstrators will also be on the hook for any damage and cleanup following protests. Walker’s administration had claimed that the pro-union protests earlier this year had costs as much as $7.5 million, but later admitted that the actual costs were far less.

Under the new policy, permits will be required for groups of four or more people who want to do any activity inside the Capitol. Groups of 100 or more gathering outside the Capitol must also apply for a permit 72 hours in advance. Police will have some leeway if unforeseen events lead to spontaneous gatherings.

Full Story Here: Walker intends to charge citizens fee to protest | The Raw Story.

Jerry Brown And The Occupy Movement: Where Does The Governor Really Stand?

In mid-November, a group of demonstrators aligned with the Occupy movement held a rally outside a Sacramento loft building in an attempt to capture the attention of one of its residents: Jerry Brown. They were angry about the harsh tactics that police had been using against demonstrators throughout the state, and they wanted the governor to hear them out. But they weren’t there to excoriate him or to demand his resignation, as their counterparts in other cities and states have done with other elected officials from Oakland’s Mayor Jean Quan to New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“Gov. Brown, we challenge you to take up the fight with Occupy,” declared demonstrator Kevin Carter. “We occupy for the First Amendment, free speech, peaceful assembly and the redress of grievances against the government. As the governor, you should lead this fight.”

They were asking, it appeared, for the governor to join them.

Previously, Occupy demonstrators strenuously resisted attempts by politicians to use the movement as a platform, even to the point of turning away Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the revered Civil Rights activist, when he tried to speak out of turn at a general assembly in Atlanta.

Full Story Here: Jerry Brown And The Occupy Movement: Where Does The Governor Really Stand?.

7-7-7: Jobless? Face It. Obama’s Not That Into You

Forget Herman Cain’s 9-9-9. The battle cry for every American ought to be 7-7-7.

7-7-7: for the $7.7 trillion the Bush and Obama Administrations secretly funneled to the banksters.

Remember the $700 billion bailout that prompted rage from right to left? Which inspired millions to join the Tea Party and the Occupy movements? Turns out that that was a mere drop in the bucket, less than a tenth of what the Federal Reserve Bank doled out to the big banks.

Bloomberg Markets Magazine reports a shocking story that emerged from tens of thousands of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act: by March 2009, the Fed shelled out $7.77 trillion “to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.”

The U.S. national debt is currently a record $14 trillion.

Full Story Here: 7-7-7: Jobless? Face It. Obama’s Not That Into You | Common Dreams.

House Votes To End Public Funding Of Presidential Campaigns

House Republicans pushed through legislation on Thursday that would end public financing of presidential campaigns and terminate the Election Assistance Commission, the agency charged with helping states carry out fair elections.

The vote, 235 to 190, went right down the party line, with just one Republican — Rep. Walter Jones (N.C.) — joining with all Democrats in opposition.

The bill doesn’t have much of a future: It isn’t likely to come up in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and the White House released a strongly worded statement against it. But that didn’t stop the House from spending hours on it anyway — and it led to Democrats charging Republicans with trying to chip away at voter protections for disenfranchised groups.

Full Story Here: House Votes To End Public Funding Of Presidential Campaigns.

OPS: More proof that the republican are fascist. This is a blatant attempt to kill ‘We The People”

Senate Kills Effort To Ban Indefinite Military Detentions Of U.S. Citizens

Senators compromised Thursday on a bill that attempts to spell out the military’s right to detain Americans indefinitely, killing a bid to bar the practice but passing an amendment that says current laws on the matter stand.

The provision in the National Defense Authorization Act aimed to codify a string of court cases and current anti-terrorism practices involved in the capture and treatment of terrorism suspects. It initially opened what opponents saw as the prospect of letting the military haul away any citizen about whom it had suspicions.

The new amendment specifies that the current practices may not change, although it also says explicitly that the military can pursue Americans at home.

“Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States,” says the compromise amendment, which passed 99 to 1.

Full Story Here: Senate Kills Effort To Ban Indefinite Military Detentions Of U.S. Citizens.

The Spy Files: WikiLeaks releases surveillance docs

WikiLeaks has released the first portion of sensitive data revealing a new global surveillance and interception industry spanning 25 countries.

Site founder Julian Assange has held a press conference, revealing the secrets of the industry.­

The whistleblowing site has published some 287 documents from its huge database, collected from 160 international intelligence contractors. The database includes internal documents of such companies like Gamma corporation in the UK, Ipoque of Germany, Amesys and Vupen in France, VASTech in South Africa, ZTE Corp in China, Phoenexia in the Czech Republic, SS8 and Blue Coat in the US, among others.

And this was only the first step of the WikiLeaks Spy Files project, established to expose companies, which are making billions of dollars selling sophisticated tracking and surveillance tools. They published an interactive map of surveillance companies operating around the globe.

Full Story Here: The Spy Files: WikiLeaks releases surveillance docs — RT.

Representative Schakowsky Receives Letter of Intimidation From Former Blackwater CEO

Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Illinois) attempt to end the multimillion dollar business of outsourcing in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t sit well with the former CEO of the notorious Blackwater company, Erik Prince, who sent a hand-delivered cease-and-desist letter to the Congresswoman threatening legal action if she continued to make “false and defamatory” statements about him.

The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, introduced in 2007 by Schakowsky, would target numerous companies like the former Blackwater, now XE Services, to be eventually phased out to end the misappropriation of government functions and unaccountable abuses by contractors.

Though Schakowsky recognizes that this decision would impact numerous companies, she singled out Blackwater’s bloody record as a “company that has become synonymous with misconduct” in a speech on the House floor Wednesday, and said that the letter constituted “attempted intimidation” by Prince.

Full Story Here: Representative Schakowsky Receives Letter of Intimidation From Former Blackwater CEO | Truthout.

Drones cleared for domestic use across the US

What do you know about drones? You know drones — those robotic, unmanned planes that fire missiles for the American military across Afghanistan, Pakistan and anywhere else the United States needs to get away with murder.

Well if you don’t know too much, don’t worry, that’ll change soon. The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into rules that will bring the controversial aircraft into the country, creating an United States airspace buzzing with tiny, robot planes to look over every inch of American soil — and maybe more.

An article published Tuesday in the Los Angeles Times reveals that new drone planes could be coming domestically quite soon, as both law enforcement and the agricultural sector are seeing benefits in keeping an arsenal of unmanned planes ready to patrol the skies. For farmers, drones could bring a new method of pumping pesticides into fields of crops from above; for the cops, the aircraft could conduct surveillance over suspected criminals (think police chopper but remote controlled). The Times reports that utility companies see a benefit in drones as well, giving them a new set of eyes to monitor oil, gas and water pipelines.

Full Story Here: Drones cleared for domestic use across the US — RT.

The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loan – Now Do You Understand Occupy Wall Street?

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.

Full Story Here: The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loan – Now Do You Understand Occupy Wall Street? – YouTube.

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

While nearly all Americans head to family and friends to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

Senators need to hear from you, on whether you think your front yard is part of a “battlefield” and if any president can send the military anywhere in the world to imprison civilians without charge or trial.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

Full Story Here: Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window » Blog of Rights: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Senate to Vote on Bill That Allows the US Military to Capture Civilians Anywhere in the World Without Charges or Trial, and More

Thom Hartmann :-:

You need to know this. Now more than 24 hours past their eviction deadline – Occupy L.A. is still camped outside of City Hall – and patriots are turning to the courts to keep it that way. According to the Los Angeles Times, Occupy L.A. filed a court complaint yesterday arguing that the city’s looming crackdown represents an “unconstitutional deprivation of access to [the] traditional public forum…for first amendment activity.” Occupy L.A. is also attacking “anti-camping” laws – claiming that police are selectively enforcing the law – arresting people with the Occupy movement for camping – but letting more than 500 people camp out without a permit just weeks ago while they waited for the new “Twilight” movie to open. After the NYPD raided Zuccotti Park two weeks ago – a judge ruled that camping gear is not an expression of free speech – thus allowing the city to ban people from bringing sleeping bags and tarps into public parks – effectively killing any chance of rebuilding the Occupy Wall Street community. Apparently we live in a nation where the courts have ruled that little green pieces of fabric – money – is a form of free speech, but big green pieces of fabric – tents – are not.

Full Story Here: On the News With Thom Hartmann: Senate to Vote on Bill That Allows the US Military to Capture Civilians Anywhere in the World Without Charges or Trial, and More | Truthout.

Kucinich: Federal Reserve has captured control of our government

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called for the U.S. Federal Reserve to be reformed after Bloomberg reported the central bank secretly loaned nearly $8 trillion to financial institutions from 2007 to 2009.

Tens of thousands of documents obtained by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act showed that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion in profits thanks to the low-interest loans. JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley accounted for $4.8 billion of that total.

“Remember the great debate we had here over the 700 billion in TARP funds?” he said on the House floor Tuesday. “There was no debate over the 7.7 trillion the Fed gave the banks.”

Full Story Here: Kucinich: Federal Reserve has captured control of our government | The Raw Story.

Battlefield America: U.S. Citizens Face Indefinite Military Detention in Defense Bill Before Senate

The Senate is set to vote this week on a Pentagon spending bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial. The measure would effectively extend the definition of what is considered the military’s “battlefield” to anywhere in the world, even within the United States. Its authors, Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have been campaigning for its passage in a bipartisan effort. But the White House has issued a veto threat, with backing from top officials including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. “This would be the first time since the McCarthy era that the United States Congress has tried to do this,” says our guest, Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First, which has gathered signatures from 26 retired military leaders urging the Senate to vote against the measure, as well as against a separate provision that would repeal the executive order banning torture. “In this case, we’ve seen the administration very eagerly hold people without trial for 10-plus years in military detention, so there’s no reason to believe they would not continue to do that here. So we’re talking about indefinite military detention of U.S. citizens, of lawful U.S. residents, as well as of people abroad.”

Full Story Here: Battlefield America: U.S. Citizens Face Indefinite Military Detention in Defense Bill Before Senate.

The Fed Works for Banks, Not The Rest of America

A Revelation; The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans –

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.

Kucinich also called threats by ratings agency to downgrade U.S. debt a threat to our national sovereignty.

Full Story Here: A Revelation; The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans – The Fed Works for Banks, Not The Rest of America | Common Dreams.

OPS:  and WHO was surprised by this?

A Revelation- The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.

Full Story Here: A Revelation- The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans – YouTube.

Alan Grayson : Money For (Almost) Nothing

11-28-11 2 – Money For (Almost) Nothing, with Alan Grayson – Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Full Story Here: 11-28-11 2 – Money For (Almost) Nothing, with Alan Grayson – Countdown with Keith Olbermann – YouTube.

Former AIG CEO Sues Claiming Taxpayers Need To Pony Up $25 Billion More

For many years, insurance behemoth AIG was so poorly managed that the American taxpayer eventually had to invest nearly $70 billion in the incompetently run company to prevent its collapse from taking the entire U.S. economy along with it (much of this money has since been repaid). Former AIG CEO Maurice Greenberg, however, thinks that the American people haven’t done enough to protect his massive fortune, so his company filed a lawsuit demanding even more taxpayer money:

Starr International, the company run by the former head of insurance giant American International Group (AIG), has filed a $25 billion lawsuit against the federal government, arguing that the takeover of the insurance company at the height of the financial crisis was unconstitutional.

When the government took an 80 percent interest in AIG during the financial crisis, it did so without “due process or just compensation,” in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, according to the suit filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Full Story Here: Former AIG CEO Sues Claiming Taxpayers Need To Pony Up $25 Billion More | ThinkProgress.

OPS: The Fascist Oligarchy speaks

The People’s Surveillance State

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

- George Orwell

In the aftermath of September 11, there was a big push to create a national surveillance system in the name of national security. Cameras were installed at traffic lights, ostensibly to catch people running red lights and stop signs, but those cameras came with a nifty side benefit: they recorded everyone within reach of the lens in their comings and goings. Cameras were installed at street corners, ostensibly to provide security against crime, but again, you were recorded wherever you went. Bank machines all come with security cameras, and those added to the ever-broadening web of national surveillance. Finally, almost every cell phone now comes with software that, so long as the thing is turned on, can track your every step by triangulating your position via GPS and the cell towers your phone signal bounces off of.

Full Story Here: The People’s Surveillance State | Truthout.

Tampa Police Roll Out A TANK To Deal With A Few Dozen Protesters

According to The Daily, the Tampa police produced this vehicle to deal with some protesters.

Overkill, much?

(As many folks have observed on Twitter, these sorts of responses are playing right into the protesters’ hands.)

UPDATE: It’s not actually a “tank,” of course, though it certainly looks like one. It’s a “12-ton armored personnel carrier.” It is supposedly for “rescue” operations, though why it needs to be armored to do that is not clear

Full Story Here: Tampa Police Roll Out A TANK To Deal With A Few Dozen Protesters – Business Insider.

OPS: Looks like the Tampa police win the award for the biggest cowards.

Internet Blacklist Bill on Fast-Track Toward Becoming Law

Internet piracy has not ceased to boil the blood of entertainment industry heavy weights since Napster allowed nominally savvy users to widely share music online without a penny going back to major record labels. The distributors of movies and music largely located in Hollywood have not adapted to the new age of information sharing, and instead continue to lobby for legislation to restrict the ability for internet users to consume their content online for free. Two bills under consideration in the House and the Senate are born of this tension between new media and old, the better known is the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. SOPA, introduced by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith,

Full Story Here: uprisingradio.org » Internet Blacklist Bill on Fast-Track Toward Becoming Law.

Banks near record spending on D.C. lobbyists

The money banks spend on lobbying is on pace to reach a record high again this year as the industry battles to weaken or repeal hundreds of rules being crafted by federal regulators.

Lobbying outlays by the five biggest spenders in the commercial banking sector increased 12 percent in the first three quarters of 2011 over the same period last year, an Observer analysis of federal lobbying disclosure records shows.

Wells Fargo in particular is turning into a major player in Washington. The San Francisco-based bank’s spending on lobbying is up 80 percent in the first three quarters of the year, compared with the same period in 2010.

Full Story Here: Banks near record spending on D.C. lobbyists | McClatchy.

Lobbying Firm’s Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”

Full Story Here: Lobbying Firm’s Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street | Common Dreams.

It’s not just our leaders who are in a crisis. Democracy itself is failing

The world’s statesmen no longer shape events but merely respond to them, in thrall to market forces

Are the following intimations of a global crisis in the legitimacy of western democracy? Ireland’s confidential budget plan, unseen by the Irish electorate, is leaked by European finance officials to the German parliament where the proposals are examined by the German finance committee.

In Italy, Mario Monti, the country’s unelected new prime minister and a former international adviser to Goldman Sachs, stands in the Giustiniani Palace as head of a cabinet of similarly unelected technocrats. Imposed in place of the corrupt, useless and seedy Silvio Berlusconi to satisfy the “markets”, Monti promises what we are told the markets want, and that is “sacrifices”.

In Greece, both left and right of the country unite against their own technocrat, the former head of Greece’s Central Bank, Lucas Papademos, brought in, too, at the behest of the markets. And in Berlin on Friday, David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative party, which could not manage to secure a mandate to govern the UK on its own, sits down with a German chancellor, Angela Merkel, whose countrymen do not trust her to handle the eurozone crisis.

Full Story Here: It’s not just our leaders who are in a crisis. Democracy itself is failing | Peter Beaumont | Comment is free | The Observer.

How Wall Street Rally Views the Protesters

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes just aired an exclusive that provides an interesting look at how some of those being targeted by Occupy Wall Street may really view the protests. He reported that a memo from a prominent corporate lobbying firm to the American Bankers Association proposed an extensive public relations campaign — including opposition research into key movement figures and an elaborate media strategy — designed to discredit the movement, and Dems who embrace it.

The memo was authored by lobbyists at the firm Clark Lytle Geduldig Cranford — and there are two key takeaways. The first is that some allies of Wall Street firms see Occupy Wall Street as a potential long term political threat. The second is that they see the Democratic strategy of embracing the populist message of the protests as something that could work, rather than something that is an automatic negative for Dems, as conservatives keep proclaiming is the case.

From the memo:

Full Story Here: How Wall Street Rally Views the Protesters | Common Dreams.

Occupy Oakland: footage shows police beating ‘peaceful’ Iraq war veteran

Oakland police investigating after ex-marine Kayvan Sabehgi suffered a ruptured spleen in apparently unprovoked incident

The video shows Kayvan Sabehgi being hit numerous times by an officer clad in riot gear Link to this video

Video footage has emerged of a police officer beating an Iraq war veteran so hard that he suffered a ruptured spleen in an apparently unprovoked incident at a recent Occupy protest in California.

The footage, which has been shared with the Guardian, shows Kayvan Sabehgi standing in front of a police line on the night of Occupy Oakland‘s general strike on 2 November, when he is set upon by an officer.

He does not appear to be posing any threat, nor does he attempt to resist, yet he is hit numerous times by an officer clad in riot gear who appears determined to beat him to the ground.

Video at link below

Full Story Here: Occupy Oakland: footage shows police beating ‘peaceful’ Iraq war veteran | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Think Again: Billionaire Media Moguls vs. Occupy Wall Street

Hundreds of police officers, many wearing riot helmets, marched into lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning to clear out the Occupy Wall Street protesters. The operation required boroughwide task forces and “scores of mobile officers who are usually used to flood high-crime neighborhoods.” According to the police, 142 people were arrested, largely for “disorderly conduct and resisting arrest,” though it turned out that according to a judge’s ruling, the police did not have the right to clear the park at all, but merely to dispose of its tents and sleeping bags.

The first thing the police did was clear out the journalists so that they could not see what was going on—just as they routinely do in totalitarian nations. At least 10 reporters were arrested. Ironically, the owners of at least three New York newspapers could not have been happier. Of course, all three are not merely members of “the one percent” but the 1 percent of the 1 percent.

The Daily News, owned by billionaire real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, cheered “Bravo to Bloomberg’s Occupy Wall Street eviction from Zuccotti Park, [for] finally reclaiming public space from unsanitary shantytown.” He added: “What they [the protesters] need to overcome is a sense that they occupy a higher moral ground than everyone else and are entitled to the privilege of behaving obnoxiously.”

Full Story Here: Think Again: Billionaire Media Moguls vs. Occupy Wall Street.

Occupiers Occupied: The Hijacking of the First Amendment

Robert Reich :-:

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.

First things first. The Supreme Court’s rulings that money is speech and corporations are people have now opened the floodgates to unlimited (and often secret) political contributions from millionaires and billionaires. Consider the Koch brothers (worth $25 billion each), who are bankrolling the Tea Party and already running millions of dollars worth of ads against Democrats.

Such millionaires and billionaires aren’t contributing their money out of sheer love of country. They have a more self-interested motive. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich.

SOPA, The Internet Censorship Bill, Was Lauded By Both Parties In Key House Hearing

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans joined together to voice support for legislation that would criminalize much of the activity that occupies the Internet. The bipartisan bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act would establish major new powers for corporations intent on corralling copyrighted materials — powers that would lead to big legal bills for start-ups and Silicon Valley giants alike.

SOPA’s Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act, was already voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.

Both political parties — flush with campaign contributions from Hollywood studios and trial lawyers — are eager to pass the legislation. The Senate version, introduced in May, has broad support, but has been held up by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Without Wyden’s hold, the legislation looks certain to pass by a landslide. The House version, introduced last month, was written by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.).

Full Story Here: SOPA, The Internet Censorship Bill, Was Lauded By Both Parties In Key House Hearing.

Are Mayors Across The Country Coordinating To Uproot The Occupations?

Across the country, a number of mayors have ordered their police forces to move in and uproot 99 Percenters occupying town squares, parks, and other public spaces to call attention to income inequality and other social problems. In recent weeks, we’ve seen evictions in cities ranging from Oakland to Portland to New York City.

Now, evidence has emerged that these mayors may be coordinating their evictions of protesters. Speaking on a BBC radio show, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan says she was recently on a conference call with 18 cities dealing with 99 Percent occupations and that they were discussing how to handle the situation:

QUAN: I was recently on a conference call of 18 cities across the country who had the same situation where what had started as a political movement and political encampment ended up being an encampment of the people who started them.

The radio show The Takeaway captured the exchange in the following clip (skip to 5:30):

Full Story Here: Are Mayors Across The Country Coordinating To Uproot The Occupations? | ThinkProgress.

Tom Coburn: $30 Billion In Millionaires Aid Is ‘Sheer Washington Stupidity’

Millionaires are receiving billions in taxpayer-funded support every year that helps them pay for everything from child care to bad debts to boats and vacation homes, according to a report released Monday by Sen. Tom Coburn.

People who individually earned more than a million dollars in 2009 even managed to collect a total of nearly $21 million in unemployment insurance.

“From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes, and luxury yachts to subsidies for their ranches and estates, the government is subsidizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous,” wrote Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, in an accompanying letter. “Multimillionaires are even receiving government checks for not working. This welfare for the well-off — costing billions of dollars a year — is being paid for with the taxes of the less fortunate.”

Calling the giveaways “sheer Washington stupidity,” Coburn detailed in the study more than $30 billion a year that comes out of the U.S. Treasury to aid people who make more than a million a year.

Full Story Here: Tom Coburn: $30 Billion In Millionaires Aid Is ‘Sheer Washington Stupidity’.

Conservatives Plot to Burn, Shred, and Sabotage Scott Walker Recall Effort

| Mother Jones:-:

A group of self-identified conservatives say they plan to sabotage the effort to recall Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker, which begins on Tuesday, by burning and shredding recall petitions they’ve collected and misleading Wisconsinites about the recall process.

These plans, discussed in Facebook posts that were first reported by the blog PolitiScoop, entail posing as recall supporters and gathering signatures, only to later destroy the petitions. They also include telling Wisconsinites that they can only sign one recall petition (which is false—they can sign different petitions as long as they each correspond to a different organization) and directing signature collectors to the homes of registered sex offenders. (Requests for comment were sent to each of the Facebook posters who allowed messages from other users.)

In one post, Will R. Jenkins says, “I’ll be able to destroy 15-20K signatures.” If things go well, he adds, he might even “be able to destroy upwards of 15-20% of the entire collected ballots in the state of Wisconsin”:

Full Story Here: Conservatives Plot to Burn, Shred, and Sabotage Scott Walker Recall Effort | Mother Jones.

California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout

There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again.

As the Times reported when Citigroup agreed to settle SEC charges last month: “Citigroup’s main brokerage subsidiary, its predecessors or its parent company agreed to not violate the very same antifraud statue in July 2010. And in May 2006. Also as far back as March 2005 and April 2000.”

Not that the bankers face prison time, since the Justice Department has refused to act in these cases, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is bringing only civil charges, which the banks find quite tolerable. This time, the fine against Citigroup was $285 million, which may sound like a lot except that the bank raked off as much as $700 million on this particular toxic securities deal. As the Bloomberg news service editorialized, “… there should be only one answer from Jed S. Rakoff, the federal judge in New York assigned to weigh the merits of the agreement: You’ve got to be kidding.”

Full Story Here: California Refuses to Accept Obama’s Banking Sellout | Truthout.

Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy?

| Thom Hartmann  :-:

Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy – consider this. The Republican-controlled House of Representative will once again vote on – and likely pass – a so-called “balanced budget amendment” in the next week. The BBA as they call it – will immediately cut trillions of dollars out of the budget – and then make it nearly impossible to ever raise taxes again. And – it will crash our economy.

According to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities – the Republican BBA would, “throw about 15 million more people out of work, double the unemployment rate from 9 percent to approximately 18 percent, and cause the economy to shrink by about 17 percent instead of growing by an expected 2 percent.” We can add those horrific economic numbers to the 370,000 jobs that have already been lost this year thanks to Republican budget cuts. And as we saw in last night’s debate – with the global economy headed into full meltdown mode – not one candidate said they’d lift a finger to stop it – aside from Herman Cain who thinks his 9-9-9 plan can stop anything.

Luckily- as Tuesday’s election showed – the American people are waking up to just how bad the conservative agenda is for the nation.

Full Story Here: Want more evidence conservatives are TRYING to crash the economy? | Thom Hartmann – News & info from the #1 progressive radio show.

Greg Palast Tracks the Vultures of the 1 Percent: A Truthout Interview

Near the front of his new book, “Vultures’ Picnic,” Greg Palast quotes BuzzFlash at Truthout as calling him “a cross between Seymour Hersh and Jack Kerouac.” He also quotes a White House spokesman as saying about him, “We hate that sonovabitch.”

During its first several years, Palast was the most interviewed resource on BuzzFlash. That was and is because he drives the global elite crazy, not to mention the mainstream corporate media.

He’s a one-person investigative junk yard dog, who chomps down and doesn’t let go. He’s indefatigable, as the subtitle of his book indicates, “in pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates, and high-finance carnivores.”

Full Story Here: Greg Palast Tracks the Vultures of the 1 Percent: A Truthout Interview | Truthout.

The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen

Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That’s why we’re nearly bankrupt

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren’t responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Full Story Here: The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind

David and Charles Koch, oil tycoons with strong right-wing views and connections, look set to tighten their grip on US politics

The secretive oil billionaires the Koch brothers are close to launching a nationwide database connecting millions of Americans who share their anti-government and libertarian views, a move that will further enhance the tycoons’ political influence and that could prove significant in next year’s presidential election.

The database will give concrete form to the vast network of alliances that David and Charles Koch have cultivated over the past 20 years on the right of US politics. The brothers, whose personal wealth has been put at $25bn each, were a major force behind the creation of the tea party movement and enjoy close ties to leading conservative politicians, financiers, business people, media figures and US supreme court judges.

The voter file was set up by the Kochs 18 months ago with $2.5m of their seed money, and is being developed by a hand-picked team of the brothers’ advisers. It has been given the name Themis, after the Greek goddess who imposes divine order on human affairs.

Full Story Here: Koch brothers: secretive billionaires to launch vast database with 2012 in mind | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Understanding the Banking Crisis : “Too Big to Fail”

Ed McCartin, a former governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, shares his experience of the financial services industry. This series of short lectures examines credit risks in the growing derivatives markets, mortgage-backed securities, how the Feds reluctance to regulate US banks and zero interest rate policy affects working Americans.

Full Story Here: Understanding the Banking Crisis (Part 1): “Too Big to Fail” – YouTube.

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IPjbZFgLsU

Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FakZia8sCOA

Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUSyoPcYRds

Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXQGxC6gYAw

Oligarchy, American Style

Paul Krugman :-:

Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street, but with an assist from the Congressional Budget Office. And you know what that means: It’s time to roll out the obfuscators!

Anyone who has tracked this issue over time knows what I mean. Whenever growing income disparities threaten to come into focus, a reliable set of defenders tries to bring back the blur. Think tanks put out reports claiming that inequality isn’t really rising, or that it doesn’t matter. Pundits try to put a more benign face on the phenomenon, claiming that it’s not really the wealthy few versus the rest, it’s the educated versus the less educated.

So what you need to know is that all of these claims are basically attempts to obscure the stark reality: We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only.

Full Story Here: Oligarchy, American Style – NYTimes.com.

Lawmakers Aim to Stop Pentagon Cuts if Deficit Panel Fails

As pessimism mounted this week over the ability of a bipartisan Congressional committee to agree on a deficit-reduction plan, lawmakers began taking steps to head off the large cuts in Pentagon spending that would automatically result from the panel’s failure.

Members of both parties and both chambers said they increasingly feared that the 12-member committee would be unable to bridge deep partisan divisions and find $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction as required under the law that raised the debt ceiling and created the committee in the summer.

As talks sputtered, one panel member publicly lamented that the process was not working, and the group was chastised by a bipartisan group of budget experts at a public hearing for failing to show progress. Several members of Congress, especially Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, are readying legislation that would undo the automatic across-the-board cuts totaling nearly $500 billion for military programs, or exchange them for cuts in other areas of the federal budget.

Full Story Here: Lawmakers Aim to Stop Pentagon Cuts if Deficit Panel Fails – NYTimes.com.

How Wall Street Occupied America

During the prairie revolt that swept the Great Plains in 1890, populist orator Mary Elizabeth Lease exclaimed, “Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.”

She should see us now. John Boehner calls on the bankers, holds out his cup and offers them total obeisance from the House majority if only they fill it. Barack Obama criticizes bankers as “fat cats,” then invites them to dine at a pricey New York restaurant where the tasting menu runs to $195 a person.

That’s now the norm, and they get away with it. The president has raised more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and private equity managers than any Republican candidate, including Mitt Romney. Inch by inch he has conceded ground to them while espousing populist rhetoric that his very actions betray.

Let’s name this for what it is: hypocrisy made worse, the further perversion of democracy. Our politicians are little more than money launderers in the trafficking of power and policy—fewer than six degrees of separation from the spirit and tactics of Tony Soprano.

Full Story Here: How Wall Street Occupied America | The Nation.

The Republican ‘voter fraud’ fraud

| Diane Roberts  <br>

All over the US, GOP lawmakers have engineered schemes to make voting more difficult. Well, if you can’t win elections fairly…

Presidential candidate and angry white man Newt Gingrich seems nostalgic for the good old Jim Crow poll tax days: he has called for people to have to pass an American historical literacy test before they can vote. His colleagues on the anti-democratic right have not gone quite so far, but 38 states, most of them controlled by Republicans, are concocting all kinds of ingenious ways to suppress the vote. A new report from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice says that more than five million people – enough to swing the 2012 presidential election – could find themselves disenfranchised, especially if they’re poor or old or students or black or Latino.

Hyper-conservative governors and legislators, working with templates produced by a shady cabal called the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), have pushed through laws to cut the number of voting days, impede groups registering new voters, demand proof of citizenship and otherwise make it more difficult to cast a ballot. Alec, partly funded by the John Birch-er billionaire Koch brothers and affiliated with Liam Fox’s Atlantic Bridge, is on a mission to shrink not just government (which it regards as a cancer on capitalism), but democracy itself. Ion Sancho, elections supervisor of Leon County, Florida, and veteran of Florida’s 2000 presidential election fiasco, says: “Every state that has a Republican legislature is doing this, from Maine to Florida. It’s a national effort.”

Full Story Here: The Republican ‘voter fraud’ fraud | Diane Roberts | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.