Full Story Here: Congressmen seek to ‘legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences.’ | ThinkProgress.

Full Story Here: CNBC Analyst: Bain Capital ‘Fired A Lot Of People’ To Get ‘Prosperity For The Rich’ | ThinkProgress.

The movie is soon getting its major national release in theaters and on Netflix. Viewers will be made to recall the unsettling images of oil slicks, fouled fowl, suddenly unemployed fisher folk, and empty assurances by BP and the Feds.

The partially U.S.-owned British oil company has its origins in geopolitical skullduggery in Iran, explained in the film’s narration and images. The history makes more convincing the subsequent telling of of the corporation’s and the U.S. government’s going to great pains to lie that all was being done that could be done to minimize the blowout’s damage and to clean up the mess.

Full Story Here: The Big Fix: Documentary Exposes BP, US Government on Gulf Disaster.

Barbara Ehrenreich:-:

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.

Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states.

Full Story Here: Preying on Poverty: How Government and Corporations Use the Poor as Piggy Banks | Common Dreams.

New York’s billionaire mayor is so opposed to a tiny raise for workers at companies that get public money that he’s vowed to sue. What’s the deal with living wage laws anyway?

To a few hundred New York workers laboring for $8 or $9 an hour, a living wage bill recently passed by the city council means a raise, a few dollars more a week to help feed their families.

To billionaire mayor Michael Bloomberg, it’s a wedge to open the door to communism. That’s right — the mayor told a local radio program that requiring businesses that get taxpayer subsidies to pay their workers a little bit more is just like a centrally planned economy. “The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR, and that didn’t work out so well,” Bloomberg said.

Full Story Here: Pharoah Bloomberg: Paying Workers Enough to Live Is ‘Communism’ | | AlterNet.

 Matt Taibbi :-:

It’s bad enough that the banks strangled the Dodd-Frank law. Even worse is the way they did it – with a big assist from Congress and the White House.

Two years ago, when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, President Barack Obama bragged that he’d dealt a crushing blow to the extravagant financial corruption that had caused the global economic crash in 2008. “These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history,” the president told an adoring crowd in downtown D.C. on July 21st, 2010. “In history.”

This was supposed to be the big one. At 2,300 pages, the new law ostensibly rewrote the rules for Wall Street. It was going to put an end to predatory lending in the mortgage markets, crack down on hidden fees and penalties in credit contracts, and create a powerful new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to safeguard ordinary consumers. Big banks would be banned from gambling with taxpayer money, and a new set of rules would limit speculators from making the kind of crazy-ass bets that cause wild spikes in the price of food and energy. There would be no more AIGs, and the world would never again face a financial apocalypse when a bank like Lehman Brothers went bankrupt.

Most importantly, even if any of that fiendish crap ever did happen again, Dodd-Frank guaranteed we wouldn’t be expected to pay for it. “The American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama promised. “There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period.”

Full Story Here: How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform | Politics News | Rolling Stone.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been under fire lately after the 15 major corporations and organizations pulled their support for the conservative organization, which helps quietly implement corporate-backed legislation in statehouses across the country.

Now, the watchdog advocacy group group Common Cause has released a complete list of corporations on ALEC’s task forces.

Full Story Here: REVEALED: Full List Of ALEC’s Corporate Members | ThinkProgress.

Since the 2010 elections, when Republicans took control of many states, there has been an explosion of legislation advancing privatization of public schools and stripping teachers of job protections and collective bargaining rights. Even some Democratic governors, seeing the strong rightward drift of our politics, have jumped on the right-wing bandwagon, seeking to remove any protection for academic freedom from public school teachers.

This outburst of anti-public school, anti-teacher legislation is no accident. It is the work of a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC. Founded in 1973, ALEC is an organization of nearly 2,000 conservative state legislators. Its hallmark is promotion of privatization and corporate interests in every sphere, not only education, but healthcare, the environment, the economy, voting laws, public safety, etc. It drafts model legislation that conservative legislators take back to their states and introduce as their own “reform” ideas. ALEC is the guiding force behind state-level efforts to privatize public education and to turn teachers into at-will employees who may be fired for any reason. The ALEC agenda is today the “reform” agenda for education.

ALEC operated largely in the dark for years, but gained notoriety because of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. It turns out that ALEC crafted the “Stand Your Ground” legislation that empowered George Zimmerman to kill an unarmed teenager with the defense that he (the shooter) felt threatened. When the bright light of publicity was shone on ALEC, a number of corporate sponsors dropped out, including McDonald’s, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Mars, Wendy’s, Intuit, Kaplan, and PepsiCo. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said that it would not halt its current grant to ALEC, but pledged not to provide new funding. ALEC has some 300 corporate sponsors, including Walmart, the Koch Brothers, and AT&T, so there’s still quite a lot of corporate support for its free-market policies. ALEC claimed that it is the victim of a campaign of intimidation.

Full Story Here: Bridging Differences – Education Week.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) made headlines on Monday when he announced that he had pulled in an unprecedented $13.2 million in three months to fend off a Democratic attempt to recall him from office. His campaign said “grassroots donors” had boosted his haul, with 76.4 percent of the contributions coming from donations totalling $50 or less.

But a closer analysis of his contributions by The Huffington Post shows that Walker was aided by individuals outside the Badger State, as well as by deep-pocketed donors who are fueling the conservative super PACs that have become major players in national races. Two-thirds of Walker’s donations came from outside of Wisconsin, and $3.57 million came from individuals giving $10,000 or more.

Full Story Here: Scott Walker’s Fundraising Aided By Out-Of-State Super PAC Donors.

Moyers & Company :-:

How big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy. Plus, a Bill Moyers Essay on Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and McCarthyism.

Video and full transcript at link

BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers & Company.

MARTY KAPLAN: It’s all about combat. If every political issue is the combat between two polarized sides, then you get great television because people are throwing food at each other. And you have an audience that hasn’t a clue, at the end of the story, which is why you’ll hear, “Well, we’ll have to leave it there.” Well, thank you very much. Leave it there.

BILL MOYERS: And how the ghost of Joe McCarthy is back to haunt America.

SENATOR JOSEPH McCARTHY: They shouldn’t be called Democrats, they should be referred to properly as the Commiecrat Party.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. How about this: enterprising and intrepid journalism students at Kent State University in Ohio took up our challenge to go to nearby television stations, collect data on the political ads they run and post that information on the Internet. It’s supposed to be public information in the first place.

Full Story Here: Full Show: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com.

Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states.

Apple’s headquarters are in Cupertino, Calif. By putting an office in Reno, just 200 miles away, to collect and invest the company’s profits, Apple sidesteps state income taxes on some of those gains.

California’s corporate tax rate is 8.84 percent. Nevada’s? Zero.

Full Story Here: Apple’s Tax Strategy Aims

at Low-Tax States and Nations – NYTimes.com.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is proposing a bold new plan to rebuild the city’s aging infrastructure. He has lined up financing giants including Citibank NA, Citi Infrastructure Investors, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets Inc. and JPMorgan Asset Management Infrastructure Group willing to invest $1.7 billion in Public Private Partnerships with the city.

Chicago knows how partnerships can sour. Former Mayor Richard Daley’s sale of the city’s parking meters is now widely recognized as a poorly negotiated partnership that locked the city into a bad deal (for the city, not the investor partners) for 75 years.

Dozens of websites and tons of business literature warn about the perils of partnerships. They all say pay attention to the details now or pay the price later in litigation over ambiguities, poorly drafted language or an unanticipated and unpredictable future; make sure you really trust your new partner shares your interests and vision; and above all don’t rush into it until you are absolutely certain.

Full Story Here: Fool Us Twice? Think Again, Chicago.

One Guy Totally Predicted What Today’s Big Problem Would Be—94 Years Ago! | MoveOn.Org.

Chevron posted a modest 4.2 percent increase in first-quarter profits compared to 2011, increasing net gains from $6.2 billion to $6.5 billion. That still translates to more than $71 million per day in the first three months of 2012.

Despite a drop in production, a 12 percent increase in average oil prices boosted Chevron’s profits this quarter.

Meanwhile, Chevron has faced recent protests in California, home to Chevron CEO John Watson, for environmental damage and tax dodging.

Here’s the context for Chevron’s $6.5 billion profits:

Full Story Here: Chevron’s Quarterly Profit Is Up To $6.5 Billion, Production Is Down, Tax Rate Is Still Lower Than Yours | ThinkProgress.

Congress is on the cusp of passing a new bill that could threaten any internet user’s civil liberties. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a digital equivalent of allowing the government to fight perceived threats by monitoring which books citizens check out from the library, passed the House yesterday and will now be taken up by the Senate.

Online advocates, fresh off their victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act, are now gearing up to oppose CISPA because of the disastrous effect the bill could have for private information on the internet. The bill’s opponents argue that it goes too far in the name of cybersecurity, endangering citizens’ personal online information by giving the government access to anything from users’ private emails to their browsing history.

As the fight in the Senate begins, here is everything you need to know about CISPA:

Full Story Here: What Everyone Who Uses The Internet Needs To Know About CISPA.

The journalists, Pentagon reporter Tom Vanden Brook and editor Ray Locker, worked together on a long and critical feature story — and did follow-up stories — about a Pentagon campaign to improve the image of U.S. military adventures abroad, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon program paid contractors — 172, for example, during a three-year period in Iraq — such as California’s Leonie Industries to run what it calls “information operations.”

Yesterday, USA Today published its own story about what one expert called “reputation attacks” that were likely run by people with experience. USA Today reporter Gregory Korte wrote that after inquiries went in to contractors involved with the Pentagon propaganda campaign and stories were published, fake websites and twitter accounts using the journalists’ names began to pop up. Korte explained:

Full Story Here: USA Today Journalists Become Victims Of ‘Reputation Attack’ After Reporting On Pentagon Propaganda | ThinkProgress.

Between June 2011 and February of this year, 70 percent of all one-on-one interviewees on the four biggest political talk shows — NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday — were Republicans. The numbers were even more lopsided in favor of men and white guests:

Full Story Here: If It’s Sunday, It’s Meet The Republican White Men | ThinkProgress.

If the Koch brothers didn’t exist, the left would have to invent them. They’re the plutocrats from central casting – oil-and-gas billionaires ready to buy any congressman, fund any lie, fight any law, bust any union, despoil any landscape, or shirk any (tax) burden to push their free-market religion and pump up their profits.

But no need to invent – Charles and David Koch are the real deal. Over the past 30-some years, they’ve poured more than 100 million dollars into a sprawling network of foundations, think tanks, front groups, advocacy organizations, lobbyists and GOP lawmakers, all to the glory of their hard-core libertarian agenda. They don’t oppose big government so much as government – taxes, environmental protections, safety-net programs, public education: the whole bit. (By all accounts, the Kochs are true believers; they really buy that road-to-serfdom stuff about the the holiness of free markets. Still, you can’t help but notice how neatly their philosophy lines up with their business interests.) They like to think of elected politicians as merely “actors playing out a script,” and themselves as supplying “the themes and words for the scripts.” Imagine Karl Rove’s strategic cunning, crossed with Ron Paul’s screw-the-poor ideology, and hooked up to Warren Buffett’s checking account, and you’re halfway there.

Full Story Here: The Koch Brothers Exposed | Julian Brookes | Politics News | Rolling Stone.

In 2010, Republicans accused Democrats of “rushing their massive government takeover of health care through Congress” and considering an “unconstitutional legislative trick” called deem and pass for advancing the measure.

“We’ve seen all week, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader [Harry] Reid continuing to scheme and plot trying to find some way to get their big government takeover of health care enacted,” then-Republican Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said in January of 2010, setting the tone for the Republican outrage. Shortly thereafter, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) introduced a resolution stating “that the House disapproves of the malfeasant manner in which the Democratic Leadership has thereby discharged the duties of their offices” and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) took to the floor and accused Democrats of “greasing the skids for an abuse of the budget procedure.” “The arrogance, the paternalism, the condescension to the American people is just breathtaking,” Ryan declared. “This is not just a simple fixer bill either. This is the linchpin for healthcare.”

Well, what a difference two years make. Despite vociferously opposing “deem and pass” in 2010 — a tactic the Democrats ultimately abandoned — Republicans are now relying on the procedure to advance their budget resolution. Yesterday, the GOP claimed that “deem and pass” was necessary to “set in motion a 2013 fiscal plan in the absence of an action or agreement with the other chamber” and approved the measure in a vote of 228-184:

Full Story Here: Republicans Advance Ryan Budget Using An ‘Unconstitutional Legislative Trick’ | ThinkProgress.

Is Obama Kowtowing to the Right? Or Is He One of Them?

The President’s progressive critics blame him for continuing and expanding upon his Republican predecessor’s policies. His supporters point to the obstructionist, Republican-controlled Congress. What can Obama do? He’s being stymied at every turn.

The first problem with the it’s-the-GOP’s-fault defense is that it asks voters to suffer short-term memory loss. In 2009, you probably recall, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. By a sizeable majority. They even had a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. His approval ratings were through the roof; even many Republicans who had voted against him took a liking to him. The media, in his pocket, wondered aloud whether the Republican Party could ever recover. “Rarely, if ever, has a President entered office with so much political wind at his back,” Tim Carney wrote for the Evans-Novak Political Report shortly after the inauguration.

If Obama had wanted to pursue a progressive agenda—banning foreclosures, jailing bankers, closing Guantánamo, stopping the wars, pushing for the public option he promised in his healthcare plan—he could have. He had ample political capital, yet chose not to spend it.

Full Story Here: A President Who Doesn’t Even Try | Common Dreams.

OPS: BO has been and is, a moderate republican.

Ellen Brown :-:

The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers.

In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress.  But to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the bailout was a one-time affair.  Paulson’s plea for a permanent bailout fund—the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP—was opposed by Congress and ultimately rejected.

By December 2011, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion Euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone’s permission.  And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was passed in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press.  The ESM imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers on the hook for whatever the ESM’s Eurocrat overseers demand.

Full Story Here: How the Goldman Vampire Squid Captured Europe | Common Dreams.

by Jim Hightower :-:

The Lone Ranger was a masked man who was out to bring bad guys to justice. Ed Conard is a masked man who is out to bring bad guys to power.

A multimillionaire financier who was a top henchman in Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s old outfit of corporate plunderers, Conard is currently riding with the small but fearsome Citizens United Gang, which has taken over presidential politics in our country.

Unlike the James Gang, the Dalton Boys and other robbers of yore who stole from banks and railroads, these thieves are bankers and high-rolling railroaders. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s edict in the infamous Citizens United case, they are now able to use unlimited amounts of their corporate wealth to create Super PACs, which are proving to be devastating weapons against democracy.

Full Story Here: The Citizens United Gang by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

A California woman is facing foreclosure from Bank of America after taking out a loan to make her home more accessible for her disabled daughter, shining light on yet another improper foreclosure practice perpetuated by America’s largest banks.

Dirma Rodriguez fell behind on her original loan after spending thousands of dollars installing tile floors and a wheelchair ramp to make it easier for Ingrid Ortiz, her daughter who has cerebral palsy, to move around the house. When Rodriguez fell behind on her original loan, Bank of America offered her a trial modification. Even though Rodriguez kept up with those payments for more than a year, the bank sold her home at auction, and the new owner is pursuing eviction, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Rodriguez took out a loan to retrofit her house for her special-needs daughter. After she fell behind on her payments, the Bank of America lowered her monthly obligation, but then sold the house at a foreclosure auction last September. The new owner, a house flipper from El Segundo called West Ridge Rentals, moved to evict the family. [...]

Full Story Here: Bank Of America Forecloses On Homeowner With Disabled Daughter.

How exactly did Mitt Romney Get So Obscenely Rich? Robert Reich explains The Magic of Private Equity in 8 Easy Steps

Despite the Internal Revenue Service’s promise to bring new scrutiny to tax avoidance schemes used by the super rich, a new report finds that of the nearly 8,300 individuals recently reporting adjusted annual gross income of $10 million or more, as few as a dozen may have actually been audited by the special unit devoted to the task.

The report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a Syracuse University organization that monitors government performance, found that the IRS’s Global High Wealth unit, announced to much fanfare in late 2009, completed audits of only 36 super-high-income returns in its first two and a half years. Because returns from more than one year may be considered, it’s possible that as few as 12 individuals were audited.

The relatively few number of audits nevertheless generated a fairly substantial amount of cash for the government: $47,729,198, or over $1.3 million per audited return.

Full Story Here: IRS Audits Of Super Rich Still Few And Far Between, Report Finds (UPDATE).

Privacy is eroding fast as technology offers government increasing ways to track and spy on citizens. The Washington Post reported there are 3,984 federal, state and local organizations working on domestic counterterrorism. Most collect information on people in the US. Here are thirteen examples of how some of the biggest government agencies and programs track people

One. The National Security Agency (NSA) collects hundreds of millions of emails, texts and phone calls every day and has the ability to collect and sift through billions more. WIRED just reported NSA is building an immense new data center which will intercept, analyze and store even more electronic communications from satellites and cables across the nation and the world. Though NSA is not supposed to focus on US citizens, it does

Two. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Security Branch Analysis Center (NSAC) has more than 1.5 billion government and private sector records about US citizens collected from commercial databases, government information, and criminal probes.

Full Story Here: Thirteen Ways Government Tracks Us | Common Dreams.

In my last column, I asked if Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker might be a conservative without conscience. Stated a bit differently, my question is whether the Governor is what social science describes as a “double high authoritarian,” an outlook that has proven itself not to be particularly well-suited for governing in a democratic fashion. I raised this question because Walker is facing a recall vote, in which voters will decide whether to remove him from office, on June 5.

Below, I have set forth in summary form what I discovered about Scott Walker after using Lexis-Nexis, ProQuest, Google and similar search tools and putting my findings in the context of the relevant social-science studies. Moreover, many people responded to my Twitter solicitation of information about Walker. Surprisingly, to date, no one has written a truly in-depth biographical profile of Walker, so I suspect that Wisconsin voters really do not know much about their governor.

Typologies have their problems. But based on what I found, there is little doubt in my mind that Scott Walker is a classic authoritarian.

Full Story Here: Why Scott Walker is a Classic Authoritarian » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.

Full Story Here: Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law.

Since the Trayvon Martin story has received national attention, Sanford, Fla. has gone from a virtually unknown city to the center of the spotlight. Now, a group of neo-Nazis are patrolling the area, saying they are “prepared” for violence in case a race riot ensues, the Miami New Times reports.

The Detroit-based group said they are not advocating violence, but instead are responding to white residents’ fear of a race riot.

“Whenever there is one of these racially charged events, Al Sharpton goes wherever blacks need him,” Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement told the news outlet. “We do similar things. We are a white civil rights organization.”

Full Story Here: Trayvon Martin Case: Armed Neo-Nazis Patrolling Sanford.

 Another round of the game we call Congressional Creep. After months of haggling and debate, Congress finally passes reform legislation to fix a serious rupture in the body politic, and the President signs it into law. But the fight’s just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law.

They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They unleash hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spend millions on lawyers who relentlessly pick at the law, trying to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. Before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual.

It’s happening right now with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act — passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Just last week, for example, both parties in the House overwhelmingly approved two bills that already would change Dodd-Frank’s rules on derivatives — those convoluted trading deals recently described by the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as “the largest dark pool in our financial markets.”

Full Story Here: The Best Congress the Banks’ Money Can Buy | Common Dreams.

Ralph Nader:-:

The Republican Party has a sense of humor, however inadvertently. Its ardent advocates regularly accuse the Obama Administration of heavy handed regulation of business.

Tell that to the hundred federal poultry inspectors who just picketed the Department of Agriculture in opposition to a proposal that would allow those crammed, bacterial poultry slaughterhouses to do their own inspections. The picketers fear that with this license, the poultry bosses will speed up the slaughter rate to 175 birds per minute from the present 70.

Tell that to the Securities Exchange Commission that will have to allow the return of the notorious boiler room practices where “start-ups” with up to $1 billion in annual revenues can sell stock to investors like the old Wild West days with little discourse or regulation. After the recent devastating Wall Street crash and bailout, here they go again—just throw the federal cop off the corporate crime beat.

Full Story Here: Obama’s Weak-Kneed Regulatory Regime | Common Dreams.

And Why Taxpayers Shouldn’t Stand for It Any More

Along with “fivedollaragallongas,” the energy watchword for the next few months is: “subsidies.” Last week, for instance, New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez proposed ending some of the billions of dollars in handouts enjoyed by the fossil-fuel industry with a “Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act.”  It was, in truth, nothing to write home about — a curiously skimpy bill that only targeted oil companies, and just the five richest of them at that. Left out were coal and natural gas, and you won’t be surprised to learn that even then it didn’t pass.

Still, President Obama is now calling for an end to oil subsidies at every stop on his early presidential-campaign-plus-fundraising blitz — even at those stops where he’s also promising to “drill everywhere.” And later this month Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce a much more comprehensive bill that tackles all fossil fuels and their purveyors (and has no chance whatsoever of passing this Congress).

Full Story Here: Payola for the Most Profitable Corporations in History | Common Dreams.

Polls show the public overwhelmingly supports disclosure…..

This week has showcased a dire need, a need to spotlight the unregulated money overwhelming our democracy. Reform groups, investors, state elected officials and more have demanded that Congress and federal agencies do their jobs and make elections transparent to the people voting in them.

First, on Monday morning organizations and investors gathered to urge the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require publicly-traded companies to disclose contributions when they engage in electoral politics. Today, the DISCLOSE Act will come up for a hearing in the United States Senate.

Both SEC rules and congressional action are critical to closing the gaping loopholes in our system left by the Citizen United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) decision and ineffective FEC regulations on the disclosure of political spending.

Full Story Here: This Week in Unregulated Super PAC Spending….

A nearly seven-decade carve-up has seen Americans lead the World Bank and Europeans head its sister organisation the International Monetary Fund.

But this year that is facing an unprecedented challenge from two developing-nation candidates, reflecting the increasing importance on the world stage of emerging economies.

Full Story Here: American World Bank president defends U.S. monopoly on World Bank presidency | The Raw Story.

The lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas (the State where Cato was incorporated and home to Charles Koch) has opened up a nasty can of worms. Unknown to the public at large, the Cato Institute, a stronghold of free market, libertarian writers and speakers, has been privately owned by a handful of men for 35 years, notwithstanding its receipt of hundreds of millions of dollars in donations — which the wealthiest 1 percent have used as tax deductions to lower their tax tab to Uncle Sam; in itself a neat maneuver to shrink government.

The can of worms is this: the Internal Revenue Service warns that charitable organizations like the Cato Institute, organized as a 501(c)(3) “must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual.”

Full Story Here: Koch Brothers, Worth $50 Billion, Sue Widow Over $16.00 of Nonprofit’s Stock » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The spring air in the small, sand-dusted town has a soft haze to it, and clumps of green-gray sagebrush rustle in the breeze. Bluffdale sits in a bowl-shaped valley in the shadow of Utah’s Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west. It’s the heart of Mormon country, where religious pioneers first arrived more than 160 years ago. They came to escape the rest of the world, to understand the mysterious words sent down from their god as revealed on buried golden plates, and to practice what has become known as “the principle,” marriage to multiple wives.

Today Bluffdale is home to one of the nation’s largest sects of polygamists, the Apostolic United Brethren, with upwards of 9,000 members. The brethren’s complex includes a chapel, a school, a sports field, and an archive. Membership has doubled since 1978—and the number of plural marriages has tripled—so the sect has recently been looking for ways to purchase more land and expand throughout the town.

But new pioneers have quietly begun moving into the area, secretive outsiders who say little and keep to themselves. Like the pious polygamists, they are focused on deciphering cryptic messages that only they have the power to understand. Just off Beef Hollow Road, less than a mile from brethren headquarters, thousands of hard-hatted construction workers in sweat-soaked T-shirts are laying the groundwork for the newcomers’ own temple and archive, a massive complex so large that it necessitated expanding the town’s boundaries. Once built, it will be more than five times the size of the US Capitol.

Full Story Here: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) | Threat Level | Wired.com.

This week, Crossroads GPS announced a $650,000 nationwide television ad campaign called “Deflect.” The 30-second spot falsely blames Obama administration actions for the rise in gasoline prices since 2009.

Crossroads GPS is a tax-exempt 501(c)(4) group, affiliated with the American Crossroads super PAC. Karl Rove has been linked to both groups.

The spot begins by noting gas prices “then and now” — going up from the unusually low prices of January 2009 to the higher prices of today. A narrator asks what has made the difference.

The narrator then claims the reasons for higher gas prices are:

Full Story Here: Rove-Linked Crossroads GPS Launches $650,000 False Ad | ThinkProgress.

If you want to know where the real government of the United States is located, just check out one of the documents received by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund in response to their Freedom of Information Act request to the Dept. of Homeland Security relating to surveillance of the Occupy Movement. That document, from the Secret Service, dated September 17, 2011, the day the Occupy movement began on Wall Street, from the US Secret Service Intelligence Division, titled Prism Demonstrations Abstract, list the location as “Wall Street Bull” — a reference to the bronze statue of a bull on Wall Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange, and the “protectee” as “The United States Government.”

As the National Lawyers Guild comments dryly, “American taxpayers might find it odd to learn that the Secret Service was on duty to protect the Wall Street Bull in the name of protecting the U.S. Government. But there it is.”

Full Story Here: Evidence Homeland Security Coordinated Occupy Crackdown » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

Robert Reich:-:

Greg Smith, a Goldman Sachs vice president, resigned his post Wednesday with a stinging public rebuke of the firm on the oped page of the New York Times — accusing it of no longer putting its clients before its own pecuniary goals.

But if Mr. Smith believes his experience at Goldman is something new, he doesn’t know history. In 1928, Goldman Sachs and Company created the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation, which promptly went on a speculative binge, luring innocent investors along the way. In the Great Crash of 1929, Goldman’s investors lost their shirts but Goldman kept its hefty fees.

If Mr. Smith believes such disregard of investors is unique to Goldman, he doesn’t know the rest of Wall Street. In the late 1920s, National City Bank, which eventually would become Citigroup, repackaged bad Latin American debt as new securities which it then sold to investors no less gullible than Goldman Sachs’s. After the Great Crash of 1929, National City’s top executives helped themselves to the bank’s remaining assets as interest-free loans while their investors and depositors were left with pieces of paper worth a tiny fraction of what they paid for them.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (If You Took the Greed Out of Wall Street, All You’d Have Left Is Pavement: Why Greg Smith’s Critique is Way Too Narrow).

There have been virtually no criminal prosecutions for Wall Street wrongdoing related to the crash, and precious few civil actions. Criminal charges are likely to be filed against BP, but the company already has been granted new permits to drill for oil in the Gulf. Massey Energy—now owned by Alpha Natural Resources—was forced to pay $200 million in penalties but avoided any criminal prosecution.

This history notwithstanding, We the People, and our government representatives, do have the power to hold companies accountable for the wrongs they commit. The challenge is to mobilize sufficient political pressure to demand that available tools be used and new mechanisms of accountability be created.

Full Story Here: Nine Strategies to End Corporate Rule | Truthout.

The Washington Post has a long narrative report about the negotiations between Obama and the House Republicans. The narrative frame of the Post’s account is that Obama blew the potential deal at the last minute. That’s a story that people close to Obama’s fired chief of staff, Bill Daley, have been peddling for a long time. But that conclusion is utterly belied by the facts in the Post’s own account. But let’s put that aside for now, because the facts in the Post’s account support a different and far more disturbing conclusion: Obama was even more desperate to cut a deal than previously believed — dangerously desperate, in fact.

It has previously been reported that Obama had offered to John Boehner to make a series of cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and the domestic budget, to reduce top-end tax rates, and to prevent the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, in return for increasing tax revenue (over current tax levels) by about $800 billion over ten years. That is a pitiful sum of new revenue, less than half as much as recommended by deficit proposals by Bowles-Simpson, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and other bipartisan worthies. The blockbuster fact in the Post’s report, which the story does not in any way grapple with, is that even the $800 billion in tax revenue offered by Boehner was not, in fact, $800 billion in tax revenue:

Full Story Here: How Obama Tried to Sell Out Liberalism in 2011 — Daily Intel.

What the story actually shows is that Obama’s disastrous weakness in the summer of 2011 went further toward undermining liberalism than anybody previously knew.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

Full Story Here: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs – NYTimes.com.

David Stockman explains how the cozy relationship between Washington and Wall Street has perverted capitalism and subverted democracy.

BILL MOYERS: This week on Moyers and Company.

DAVID STOCKMAN: Money dominates politics. And as a result we have neither capitalism or democracy. We have some kind of — we have crony capitalism.

BILL MOYERS: And…

GRETCHEN MORGENSON: The big powered, moneyed institutions are in control in Washington, there’s no doubt about it. You and I don’t have a lobbyist and so we are not represented.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. This is the time of year when we keep reminding public television viewers, viewers like you, that you can’t find the kinds of programs you see right here anywhere else. Programs like this one: the second of our broadcasts investigating Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class.

Full Story Here: Encore Broadcast: Crony Capitalism | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com.

Encore Broadcast: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Though lots of people grumble about the government bailing out banks in the financial crisis, we have at least taken some comfort in the idea that the government has turned a profit on that bailout.

Only problem is, that profit comes from taxpayer money — money that was meant to spur banks to develop communities and help small businesses. Instead they’ve used it to develop and help themselves.

All told, including dividend, interest and other payments, U.S. banks have repaid the government $211.5 billion under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP), the first phase of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), according to a report Thursday by the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog. That’s more than the $204.9 billion the banks initially got under TARP.

$211.5 billion minus $204.9 billion equals profit, right?

Full Story Here: Banks Repaid Fed Bailout With Other Fed Money: Government Report.

The White House abruptly announced Monday that it had scuttled plans to hold the upcoming G-8 economic summit in Chicago, and would instead host world leaders at the presidential retreat at Camp David in Maryland.

It was an unusually late location change for a large and highly scripted international summit and came with little explanation from the White House. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel – the former White House chief of staff who personally lobbied President Barack Obama to hold the summit in Chicago – was informed only hours before the official announcement.

White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor simply said that Camp David, the rustic retreat in the mountains of Maryland, was a setting that would allow for more intimate discussions among the G-8 leaders. He said security and the possibility of protests were not factors in the decision, noting that Obama would still host the NATO summit in his hometown of Chicago from May 20-21.

The White House said the G-8 summit would take place May 18-19

Full Story Here: G8 Summit Moved: Chicago Summit Canceled, Shifted To Camp David.

‘The hungriest market is the nation’s 19,000 law enforcement agencies’

Before the September 11th attacks, the US military had only about 50 combat drones. Now that number has grown to over 7,500 as the remotely-controlled aircraft have been deployed across the globe in America’s endless war on terrorism.

The military-industrial complex is rushing to cash in as the demand for expensive drones has syrocketed – both for the growing demand among other nations and US police surveillance agencies.

Full Story Here: Drone Makers Cash In as Other Nations, US Police Enter Market | Common Dreams.

Opponents of U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh fired back at the conservative Illinois congressmen over the weekend after he said the national debate over birth control coverage is “not about women.”

During a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing last week, Walsh told the all-male panel that President Barack Obama’s plan to eliminate co-pays for birth control was an attack on religious freedom.

“This is not about women. This is not about contraceptives. We know, you’ve said it, we’ve said it up here. This is about religious freedom. This is about religious liberties,” Walsh told the panel.

Full Story Here: Joe Walsh: Birth Control Debate ‘Not About Women’ (VIDEO).

OPS: It’s not about women – it’s about men’s ability to control women

The rich are different from you and me, but the really, really, really rich are also different from the merely rich.

For example, the rich can buy caviar and Champagne, but the Triple-R Rich can buy entire presidential campaigns.

Take Sheldon Adelson, the moneybags who’s pumped $11 million so far into Newt Gingrich’s right-wing run. He has single-handedly kept Gingrich’s White House ambitions alive. Without this one guy’s money, The Newt would’ve been long gone. Thanks a lot, Sheldon.

Full Story Here: It’s Official: Money Now Governs America by Jim Hightower on Creators.com – A Syndicate Of Talent.

Top law enforcement officials in several states are signaling they will pressure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to correct what is widely seen as one of the biggest deficiencies of the $25 billion mortgage settlement announced on Thursday: It simply doesn’t help that many homeowners.

Borrowers whose loans are backed by the government-controlled mortgage giants — nearly half of all outstanding mortgages in the United States — are not eligible for payouts under the deal. State officials who negotiated the deal say they could not convince Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the loan giants, to join onto the settlement because they are steadfastly opposed to principal reductions — loan write-downs for borrowers whose homes are at risk of foreclosure.

“This is a glaring weakness of the overall settlement,” said one state official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Fannie and Freddie were absolutely opposed to principal reduction. You’d ask why, and they’d say ‘moral hazard to the taxpayer.’”

Full Story Here: After Mortgage Settlement, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Face Renewed Pressure On Principal Reduction.

Sometimes, public outrage bubbles up, and forces Congress to take action to advance the public interest. The Big Business interests who normally count on the legislative process operating according to plan lose control. And that’s when they really set to work.

And it’s when the public interest advocates and the public itself are tested: With momentum on our side, do we have the attention span and organizational might to defeat aroused corporate interests?

Case in point: The STOCK Act, which aims to block improper use of nonpublic governmental information to gain advantage on the stock market. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor is trying to ensure Wall Street traders will be able to continue this form of insider trading.

There is this curious fact: Members of Congress do demonstrably better on the stock market than average investors. There’s no plausible reason why this should be so other than that Members use their inside knowledge about legislation under consideration to place informed bets on the stock market.

Full Story Here: Eric Cantor’s Wall Street Insider Trading Loophole | Common Dreams.

Earlier today, in response to criticism from Catholic groups, the White House altered its regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide no-cost contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. Churches and religious nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith are still exempt from the requirement, but now religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals that wish to avoid providing birth control can do so. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

Full Story Here: GOP Ups The Ante, Introduces Legislation To Allow Any Employer To Deny Any Preventive Health Service | ThinkProgress.

When state after state slashes education dollars, we see what matters to them–and where they spend while cutting schools tells us even more.

t’s budget time again, and with the economy still in rough shape, that means it’s time for governors to show where their priorities are.

It’s probably not surprising that right-wing governors claim they can’t fund education properly when revenues are low—we’ve been seeing this happen for years, even before an actual economic crisis knocked states sideways. But cutting funds to schools isn’t the only option for states even if they do have to balance their budgets. There are many other places to cut—and of course, they have the option of raising taxes, something the conservative crowd simply refuses to do.

Like any other choice made by a politician, budgeting is a decision laced with ideology. When state after state slashes education dollars (and often at the same time funnels more of the money they do spend to private companies running charter schools, or gives it away as vouchers) we see what matters to them. And when you take a look at the programs that get funded, or the people who get fat tax cuts as money is drained out of the schools, well, you see what matters to state governments.

Full Story Here: 5 Right-Wing Governors Gutting Schools to Fund Prisons, Tax Breaks for the Rich…And a Bible Theme Park | | AlterNet.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce exists to look out for American business interests, but their efforts seem increasingly targeted at helping large, multinational corporations at the expense of small businesses and average Americans. This week they rolled out an expansive $10 million ad campaign aimed almost exclusively at Democratic candidates. Many of the ads are focused on health care, but their purpose appears to be to demonize any candidate who will not toe the Chamber’s line. Given their record of supporting bad policies, such as our failed free trade agreements, Americans should look at any electoral efforts by the Chamber of Commerce with skepticism.

The Chamber has spread their ad buy over 40 different media markets, targeting 12 House races and eight Senate contests. It appears that the Chamber’s ads support the Republican candidate in all cases but one; Utah Representative Jim Matheson is the lone Chamber-backed Democrat. The ads frame health care as an economic issue, saying that the health care plan passed by Obama will be too expensive for employers, leading to job loss. Lost jobs have not prevented the Chamber from supporting politicians or policies in the past. They very publicly supported the recently passed free trade agreement with South Korea (KORUS) which is estimated to cost the U.S. 159,000 jobs.

Full Story Here: Chamber of Commerce Launches Attack Ad Blitz | Economy In Crisis.

A bill has passed in the House and Senate this week that would increase the presence of drones in U.S. civilian airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act requires the FAA to alleviate many current rules on domestic drone authorization. Drones would now be able to fly in the same airspace as commercial airliners, private planes, and cargo jets. Up to 30,000 drones could be allowed in U.S. airspace by the end of the decade.

The Senate passed the bill on Monday, 75-20 and allots $63.4 billion to the FAA. Obama is expected to sign it into law.

ACLU, among other civil liberties groups, is expressing grave concern for civilian privacy, as the legislation does not restrict drone surveillance activities by police and federal government agencies.

Full Story Here: 30,000 Domestic Drones to Fill the Sky, Civil Liberties at Risk | Common Dreams.

It has been said there is no high ground in American politics since any politician who claims it is likely to be gunned down by those firing from the trenches. That’s how the Obama team justifies its decision to endorse a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums for his campaign.

Baloney. Good ends don’t justify corrupt means.

I understand the White House’s concerns. Obama is a proven fundraiser – he cobbled together an unprecedented $745 million for the 2008 election and has already raised $224 million for this one. But his aides figure Romney can raise almost as much, and they fear an additional $500 million or more will be funneled to Romney by a relative handful of rich individuals and corporations through right-wing super PACS like “American Crossroads.”

The White House was surprised that super PACs outspent the GOP candidates themselves in several of the early primary contests, and noted how easily Romney’s super PAC delivered Florida to him and pushed Newt Gingrich from first-place to fourth-place in Iowa.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The Sad Spectacle of Obama’s Super PAC).

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Have you ever spoken to someone who lived through a fascist regime? If and when you do, you might be surprised at what you hear. When they get talking, most people who lived through Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal. Videla’s Argentina, Vargas’s Brazil or Bordaberry’s Uruguay paint surprisingly benign pictures of daily life in those places.

Most Americans who’ve lived abroad have, at one time or another, had the experience of talking with a foreign friend who, though never having lived in the US, is pretty well convinced that they understand the cardinal elements of our culture.  Why?

Because for years, that person has consumed a non-stop diet of Hollywood movies and TV programs.

When, after fully acknowledging cinema’s great value as a tool of cultural knowledge, you try and let them know there are many important social realities this medium cannot convey, they often become annoyed or indifferent.

Full Story Here: A Better Question Might Be, ‘How Is It NOT Fascism?’ | Common Dreams.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

   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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.