All Entries in the "Corruption" Category

Gingrich and Romney Want to Say Adios to Bilingual Ballots

The GOP front-runners endorse a plan that could disenfranchise millions of voters—including their own.

As Republican primary voters head to the polls in Florida on Tuesday, both GOP front-runners have endorsed a policy that would contradict existing law and could disenfranchise millions of voters across the country.

During a recent debate, both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney supported getting rid of bilingual ballots when the topic was brought up by the moderator. “I would have ballots in English,” Gingrich said. “And I think you could have programs where virtually everybody would be able to read the ballots.” Romney agreed. “I think Speaker Gingrich is right with regards to what he’s described,” he said.

That wasn’t much of a stretch for Gingrich, who once called Spanish “the language of living in a ghetto.” Yet their glib demand for English-only ballots would require amending the Voting Rights Act and doing away with hard-won legal requirements that have existed for decades. It’s a sharp turn away from the Bush administration, which despite a spotty civil rights record filed more ballot access cases on behalf of non-English speakers than any administration had before.

Full Story Here: Gingrich and Romney Want to Say Adios to Bilingual Ballots | Mother Jones.

GOP Pushes to Further Corporatize Elections

RNC: Ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates unconstitutional

An effort by the Republican National Committee may further corporatize the electoral process.

The RNC filed a legal brief Tuesday arguing that a ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates is unconstitutional.

The Huffington Post reports:

The ban, part of a 1907 anti-corruption law that helped curb the influence of corporate robber barons, is one of the last bulwarks of campaign finance law left after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision two years ago.

As ThinkProgress notes, an overturning of the ban would have massive consequences:

Full Story Here: GOP Pushes to Further Corporatize Elections | Common Dreams.

Republicans Try to Impose Selfishness on American People

In the iconic Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.

The banker’s town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair. The people’s town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

The film’s happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion. They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his “every man for himself” philosophy to triumph. In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.

Full Story Here: Republicans Try to Impose Selfishness on American People | Truthout.

The GOP History of Hostage-Taking

Special Report:

Since the days of Richard Nixon, Republicans have pursued an anything-goes brand of politics that often has the look of hostage-taking, with Democrats usually caving in. But, Robert Parry asks, has President Obama finally learned that the only way to stop bullying is to stand up to it?

By Robert Parry

There is a reason why governments refuse to give in to demands from hostage-takers: because otherwise it encourages more hostage-taking. That is an obvious lesson, but it seems it has taken Democrats many years to learn it, as they have faced Republican strategies of grabbing hostages for decades and have quietly given in, paying ransom again and again.

Yet on those rare occasions when Democrats do stand up – such as against House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s government shutdowns in 1995-1996 and against House Speaker John Boehner’s blockage of a payroll tax cut extension this week – the Democrats usually prevail politically.

Full Story Here: The GOP History of Hostage-Taking | Consortiumnews.

‘Anonymous’ Stratfor Hack Reportedly Start Of Weeklong Assault

Hackers on Sunday claimed to have stolen 200 GB of e-mails and credit card data from United States security think tank Stratfor, promising a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.

Members of the loose hacking movement known as “Anonymous” posted a link on Twitter to what it said was Stratfor’s secret client list – including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, Goldman Sachs and MF Global.

“Not so private and secret anymore?,” the group taunted in a message on the microblogging site.

Anonymous said it was able to get credit details, in part, because Stratfor didn’t bother encrypting them – an easy-to-avoid blunder which – if true – would be a major embarrassment for any security company.

Full Story Here: ‘Anonymous’ Stratfor Hack Reportedly Start Of Weeklong Assault.

The Post-Truth Campaign

Paul Krugman :-:

Suppose that President Obama were to say the following: “Mitt Romney believes that corporations are people, and he believes that only corporations and the wealthy should have any rights. He wants to reduce middle-class Americans to serfs, forced to accept whatever wages corporations choose to pay, no matter how low.”

How would this statement be received? I believe, and hope, that it would be almost universally condemned, by liberals as well as conservatives. Mr. Romney did once say that corporations are people, but he didn’t mean it literally; he supports policies that would be good for corporations and the wealthy and bad for the middle class, but that’s a long way from saying that he wants to introduce feudalism.

But now consider what Mr. Romney actually said on Tuesday: “President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort, and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others.”

Full Story Here: The Post-Truth Campaign – NYTimes.com.

State Rep. Dennis Baxley Admits No ‘Voter Fraud’ Probs in FL, Lies About GOP’s New Suppression Laws

I don’t have time today to thoroughly debunk all the reprehensible, anti-democratic, anti-American horseshit hurled by this FL State Rep. Dennis Baxley — the original sponsor of Florida’s new voter suppression laws, limiting early voting hours and imposing new big government regulations and huge fines against voter registration workers — as seen in the following interview on Al Sharpton’s Politics Nation show on MSNBC this week.

Fortunately, most readers of The BRAD BLOG will be able to smell the bullshit of the smirking, democracy-hating Baxley a mile away even without my point-by-point rebuttal. So I’ll just run the video here for now without much comment, as it needs to be seen to be believed.

Near the front of the interview, Baxley admits that there’s been no voter fraud problem in FL, and by the end he’s charging (without a stitch of evidence, naturally) that the non-partisan League of Women Voters, who have been registering voters in the Sunshine State for some 72 years — but who have now canceled their registration program for 2012 thanks to the onerous new GOP restrictions and fines on registration workers — is actually a partisan Democratic organization! Who knew?

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : State Rep. Dennis Baxley Admits No ‘Voter Fraud’ Probs in FL, Lies About GOP’s New Suppression Laws.

Nancy Pelosi provides Newt Gingrich ethics report

In case you haven’t been watching cable TV, two former House Speakers named Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich are having a bit of a fracas related to all that Gingrich baggage about which GOP primary voters in Iowa appear to be blissfully ignorant.

Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat and now House minority leader, promised to release records that are public but haven’t seen much sunshine lately about the congressional ethics investigation of Gingrich back in the day.

Gingrich said that would be foul play and promised to retaliate, claiming Pelosi was threatening to disclose non-public information. But Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said Pelosi was “clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware.”

Hammill helpfully provided public links and we provide them here.

Full Story Here: Nancy Pelosi provides Newt Gingrich ethics report | Politics Blog | an SFGate.com blog.

Suskind’s Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama’s Credibility

Barack Obama is heading back onto the campaign trail, running as a champion of the middle class and even hoping to harness the Occupy movement’s public anger at Wall Street.

But the higher he soars with his populist rhetoric, the more he calls attention to the enormous gap between the promise of hope and change that he campaigned on in 2008 and the actions he has taken as president — especially regarding the economy, which is still stagnating, and Wall Street, which remains unpunished and unbowed even after causing the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

As a result, voters will inevitably be asking themselves: Who is this guy, really? Does he mean what he says? Will he do what he says? And would a second-term Obama be different?

One answer to why Obama underperformed is laid out in searing detail in Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ron Suskind’s latest book, Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President.

Full Story Here: Dan Froomkin: Suskind’s Confidence Men Raises Questions About Obama’s Credibility.

Paper Ballot Election Results Flipped After ‘Recount’ Finds New Tally ‘Extremely in Favor of Opposite Candidate’

‘We’re doing recounts of recounts of recounts,’ says candidate announced as ‘loser’ on Election Night…

After the Municipal Council elections in Provo, Utah on November 8, residents had been told that Gary Winterton had narrowly defeated Bonnie Morrow for the District 1 seat — by just 9 votes.

The margin was close enough that Morrow was allowed to ask for a recount of the paper ballots which were tallied on Election Night by the city’s optical scan systems made by Diebold Election Systems, Inc. (Following years of failure of Diebold’s voting systems, the company changed their name to Premier, only to see the assets of the failing company finally purchased last year by Dominion Voting, a Canadian firm which now services the machines.) The same optical scan systems are used all over the country, and are set once again for use in the New Hampshire’s “first in the nation” GOP Presidential primary to be held in January.

The first “recount” of Provo’s Municipal Council District 1 ballots — carried out on the same op-scan systems that tallied them in the first place — was held yesterday, only to be abruptly called off

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : Paper Ballot Op-Scan Election Results in Utah Flipped After ‘Recount’ Finds New Tally ‘Extremely in Favor of Opposite Candidate’.

Blue Dog Democrats Endorse Balanced Budget Amendment That Would Double Unemployment, Gut Social Safety Net

Congressional Republicans are still trying to persuade Americans that they are focused on job creation, but each time they propose another piece of legislation, it is exposed as a gimmick that will do little, if anything, to create jobs. Such was the case with their anti-regulatory policies, their attempts to repeal health care reform, and virtually every other policy proposal they have brought forth.

Next up in that line, unfortunately, is a rehashed form of a radical Balanced Budget Amendment, a plan that according to recent analyses would actually cost America 15 million jobs. But thanks to the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, the Republicans won’t be alone in their chase for a radical budget amendment that could help push the country back into the throes of recession.

Despite the fact that House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said yesterday he would encourage his party to vote against the radical plan, Blue Dog Democrats endorsed the amendment on a press call today, Politico’s Marin Cogan reported on Twitter. ThinkProgress confirmed that endorsement with a spokesperson for Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR), the Blue Dog Coalition’s co-chair for communications. According to the Hill, Ross said on the call that Blue Dogs favored such an amendment “before balanced budget amendments were cool”:

Full Story Here: Blue Dog Democrats Endorse Balanced Budget Amendment That Would Double Unemployment, Gut Social Safety Net | ThinkProgress.

Super Committee Democrats Propose Scrapping Bush Tax Cut Debate In Exchange For Billions In Revenue

Under their latest proposal to the deficit reduction super committee, Democrats would agree to undertake comprehensive tax reform that included a pledge to avoid letting Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy expire.

According to a private document, the authenticity of which was confirmed by a leadership aide, super committee Democrats are eyeing between $950 billion and $1 trillion in revenue raisers and tax hikes as part of a $2.3 trillion deficit reduction package. Between $300 billion and $350 billion of that would come from what one congressional aide described as “low-hanging fruit” — ending tax incentives for corporate jet owners, closing loopholes for oil and gas companies, changing ethanol subsidies, and so on.

The remaining $650 billion in revenue that committee Democrats are targeting would be raised through a set of “Fast Track Procedures For Tax Reform.” As part of those procedures, Democrats would agree to three guiding principles: “(a) corporate tax reform to enhance competitiveness, (b) an individual rate no higher than 35% and (c) a distribution of changes that ensures a tax code as progressive as current law.”

Full Story Here: Super Committee Democrats Propose Scrapping Bush Tax Cut Debate In Exchange For Billions In Revenue.

OPS: Cowards!  Well, you didn’t really expect multimillionaires to scrap THEIR OWN TAX BREAKS – did you?

One Last Note on Mike Bloomberg

| Matt Taibbi |

I’m getting a number of letters, mainly from conservatives and libertarians, who seem to think that my response to Mike Bloomberg’s “It’s not the banks’ fault” rant means I “don’t believe in personal responsibility.”

Apparently, people feel that by explaining how the banks profited from tfhe explosion of subprime home loans, I’m somehow letting the ordinary homeowner who over-borrowed off the hook.

But the question was never, Do ordinary homeowners share any blame for the crisis? The question, as implicitly posed by Bloomberg, was, Is it true that the banks had NO blame for the crisis?

Full Story Here: One Last Note on Mike Bloomberg | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.

Maddow – Republican War on Voting

New Florida voter registration laws (as well as other such laws around the country) are making it harder to register/vote.

Video belongs to MSNBC.

Full Story Here: Maddow – Republican War on Voting – YouTube.

The Median Net Worth Of A Member Of Congress Is Five Times Higher Than The Median American Household

Part of the reason the richest 1 percent of Americans have captured our politics is because they are able to finance political races, issue campaigns, and lobbyists. But the other reason some of the richest Americans have been able to control our politics is because they themselves have gotten elected to positions of power at a much higher rate than the rest of us.

As Roll Call points out today, the estimated median net worth for a member of Congress in 2010 was $513,000 (this is strictly an estimate as assets are reported in ranges). Meanwhile, the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s David Rosnick points out that the net worth of the median household in the United States that same year was closer to $100,000:

For Congress, the median net worth in 2010 was about $513,000. For regular households, the Federal Reserve Board pegged that number at about $120,000 in 2008, and that number this year is probably around $100,000, [said economist David Rosnick]. While it is hard to make an exact comparison between Congress and the rest of the nation, what is clear is lawmakers “are all a lot richer than anything you would call a typical American,” Rosnick said.

Full Story Here: The Median Net Worth Of A Member Of Congress Is Five Times Higher Than The Median American Household | ThinkProgress.

Who Stole the Election?

Dominating many state legislatures, Republicans have launched a full-on assault on voting rights.

When Charles Webster was a member of the Maine House during the 1980s and 1990s, he and his Republican colleagues routinely proposed bills that would create restrictive voting laws—or, as Webster sees it, legislation to tamp down on the rampant threat of voter fraud. “Every year we tried to solve this problem,” he says, “and it was always a partisan vote,” with Democrats supporting laws intended to increase turnout. As a result, Webster says, “We have one of the most loosey-goosey, lax election laws in the country.”

Others would call Maine’s voting laws a striking success. Most states struggle to get citizens to the polls; national turnout for a presidential election hasn’t topped 60 percent since 1968, and turnout for midterm elections hovers in the 30s. That puts the United States far below the participation level in other Western democracies. Yet for the past four decades, Maine has stood apart. With an array of regulations that encourage voting—the state has allowed voters to register on Election Day since 1973—Maine consistently places among the top five states for turnout. Seventy-two percent of the eligible population voted in 2008 when Barack Obama carried the state.

Republicans like Webster, who now chairs the state GOP, argue that too many people are voting in the state—at least, too many illegal immigrants, out-of-state college students, and people who live in hotels. “What I don’t want is somebody coming in stealing elections who doesn’t live in the town,” Webster says.

Full Story Here: Who Stole the Election?.

Bring Back the Glass-Steagall Act

In the summer of 1991 I got a call from Rep. Ed Markey’s office. Markey wanted me to come back to Washington to testify at a hearing, and oppose the repeal of the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act.

The act was passed in the wake of the Wall Street and banking collapse that led to the last Great Depression, barring commercial banks from speculating in the stock markets.

In order to get people to put their money back in banks they no longer trusted, congress also established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) insuring the safety of their deposits.

Full Story Here: Bring Back the Glass-Steagall Act | The Smirking Chimp.

Not an Employee? Herman Cain Had Mailing and Email Addresses at Koch’s Americans For Prosperity HQ

Cain’s campaign staff say he wasn’t an employee of the Tea Party group founded by David Koch. But he did have a desk and an email address at its headquarters.

As the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer wrote earlier this week, members of Herman Cain’s campaign staff are loath to discuss his longstanding ties to Americans for Prosperity and the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the organizing groups founded by billionaire David Koch, about whom Mayer famously wrote a comprehensive profile last year. AlterNet, which began reporting on Cain’s ties to Koch last June, has learned that Cain’s work for AFP at one time had all the appearances of a staff position.

In Mayer’s 2010 exposé, “Covert Operations,” she detailed the network of right-wing think tanks and organizations funded by David Koch and his brother Charles, principals in Koch Industries, the second-largest privately held company in the United States, according to Forbes.

Now, Mayer has turned her gaze to the ties between Koch and Cain, seeking to find out how much Cain earned from Americans for Prosperity and its foundation, and whether or not Cain has ever been considered an employee of either entity. She writes:

Full Story Here: Not an Employee? Herman Cain Had Mailing and Email Addresses at Koch’s Americans For Prosperity HQ | Tea Party and the Right | AlterNet.

Super Committee Keeps Negotiations Under Wraps

The congressional super committee tasked with reshaping the social contract between the government and the American people has not had a public meeting since the middle of last month. The next public hearing, meanwhile, is scheduled for October 26th, more than a month after last one was held. On Wednesday, the Gang of Six, which also conducted much of its deliberation behind closed doors, met privately with the super committee members.

As the panel’s opacity becomes more conspicuous, centrist advocates have begun to defend the necessity of shielding the public from its decision-making process. “[G]reater openness by the panel, officially known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, would actually be harmful to the public interest. Private meetings are essential to give the committee’s six Republicans and six Democrats the freedom to step away from party orthodoxies, conduct serious negotiations and search for common ground, rather than engage in political posturing,” wrote Jordan Tama in a widely read New York Times op-ed Wednesday.

The fundamental problem that the committee faces is that it is attempting to pass legislation that is widely opposed by the American people. Large majorities are against cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or other elements of the social safety net. There is similarly little appetite for significant tax increases on the middle class. The only deficit cutting provisions that are palatable to broad swaths of the American electorate — cuts to the Pentagon and tax hikes on the wealthy — are fiercely opposed by key power centers in Washington.

Full Story Here: Super Committee Keeps Negotiations Under Wraps.

State for Sale: How the GOP practices politics

The New Yorker:-:

A conservative multimillionaire has taken control in North Carolina, one of 2012’s top battlegrounds.

n the spring of 2010, the conservative political strategist Ed Gillespie flew from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh, North Carolina, to spend a day laying the groundwork for REDMAP, a new project aimed at engineering a Republican takeover of state legislatures. Gillespie hoped to help his party get control of statehouses where congressional redistricting was pending, thereby leveraging victories in cheap local races into a means of shifting the balance of power in Washington. It was an ingenious plan, and Gillespie is a skilled tactician—he once ran the Republican National Committee—but REDMAP seemed like a long shot in North Carolina. Barack Obama carried the state in 2008 and remained popular. The Republicans hadn’t controlled both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly for more than a century. (“Not since General Sherman,” a state politico joked to me.) That day in Raleigh, though, Gillespie had lunch with an ideal ally: James Arthur (Art) Pope, the chairman and C.E.O. of Variety Wholesalers, a discount-store conglomerate. The Raleigh News and Observer had called Pope, a conservative multimillionaire, the Knight of the Right. The REDMAP project offered Pope a new way to spend his money.

That fall, in the remote western corner of the state, John Snow, a retired Democratic judge who had represented the district in the State Senate for three terms, found himself subjected to one political attack after another. Snow, who often voted with the Republicans, was considered one of the most conservative Democrats in the General Assembly, and his record reflected the views of his constituents. His Republican opponent, Jim Davis—an orthodontist loosely allied with the Tea Party—had minimal political experience, and Snow, a former college football star, was expected to be reëlected easily. Yet somehow Davis seemed to have almost unlimited money with which to assail Snow.

Full Story Here: Art Pope, Citizens United, and North Carolina Politics : The New Yorker.

Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control

Exclusive: A laboratory shows how an e-voting machine used by a third of all voters can be easily manipulated

It could be one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date.

Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

“We believe these man-in-the-middle attacks are potentially possible on a wide variety of electronic voting machines,” said Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team “We think we can do similar things on pretty much every electronic voting machine.”

Full Story Here: Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control – 2012 Elections – Salon.com.

One Betrayal Too Many

Robert Scheer :-:

It’s getting too late to give President Barack Obama a pass on the economy. Sure, he inherited an enormous mess from George W., who whistled “Dixie” while the banking system imploded. But it’s time for Democrats to admit that their guy bears considerable responsibility for not turning things around.

He blindly followed President Bush’s would-be remedy of throwing money at the banks and getting nothing in return for beleaguered homeowners. Sadly, Obama has proved to be nothing more than a Bill Clinton clone triangulating with the Wall Street lobbyists at the expense of ordinary folks.

That fatal arc of betrayal was captured by a headline in Tuesday’s New York Times: “Soaring Poverty Casts Spotlight on ‘Lost Decade.’ ” The Census Bureau reported that there are now 46.2 million Americans living below the official poverty line—the highest number in the 52 years since that statistic was first measured—and median household income has fallen back to the 1996 level. As Harvard economist Lawrence Katz summarized this dreary news: “This is truly a lost decade. We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”

Full Story Here: Robert Scheer: One Betrayal Too Many – Robert Scheer’s Columns – Truthdig.

Why the GOP is going after the EPA

Republican lawmakers aim to cut back or even abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, even though it pays for itself

When Richard Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by executive order, politicians of all stripes agreed the US needed reforms, even if it cost a small amount of economic growth. Yet, after four decades of the EPA’s helping to improve our land, air and water quality, ask whether we need federal regulation and the answer depends on whom you question.

Ask ordinary people in the US and, according to a 2011 Pew survey (pdf), 71% respond, across the political spectrum, that they agree with the statement,”This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.”

Ask most Republican politicians, some Democrats and the polluting industries that provide them substantial funding, and you’ll get a very different answer. And this divergence may be ramping up in the wake of the Citizens United supreme court decision, which equated free speech and political contributions.

Full Story Here: Why the GOP is going after the EPA | Beth Wellington | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten – how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats’ health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats’ rank capitulation to corporate interests – no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

Full Story Here: Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult | Truthout.

Tax-dodging CEOs gave big to both parties

Highly-compensated leaders at companies that pay little in taxes have been extremely generous to politicians

The Institute for Policy Studies has a new report out looking at 25 of the highest-paid CEOs in the country who took home more money than their companies paid in annual income taxes.

The tax avoidance going on here — much of it ascribed to off-shoring corporate activity to tax havens — is all enabled by politicians, so we were curious whether any of the CEOs on the list are major donors to the two political parties.

A quick search of the campaign finance database reveals that, yes, they are. That doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a causal link between these CEOs’ political contributions and the tax policies that allow their companies to pay little or nothing to Uncle Sam. But it is still worth noting as a measure of political clout.

Here’s a sample of some of the biggest givers on the list of 25:

Full Story Here: Tax-dodging CEOs gave big to both parties – War Room – Salon.com.

The Dangerous Reagan Cult

Ronald Reagan’s anti-government philosophy inspires Tea Party extremists to oppose any revenue increase, even from closing loopholes on corporate jets. Democrats try the spin that “even Reagan” showed flexibility on debt and taxes. But Robert Parry says it is the “Reagan cult” that is at the heart of America’s crisis.

By Robert Parry

In the debt-ceiling debate, both Republicans and Democrats wanted Ronald Reagan on their side. Republicans embraced the 40th president’s disdain for government and fondness for tax cuts, while Democrats noted that “even Reagan” raised the debt limit many times and accepted some tax increases.

But Reagan – possibly more than any political leader – deserves the blame for the economic/political mess that the United States now finds itself in. He was the patriarch for virtually every major miscalculation that the country has made over the past three decades.

Full Story Here: The Dangerous Reagan Cult | Consortiumnews.

Obama Nominates Top Advisor To Tea Party Senator As U.S. Attorney

President Obama nominated a very odd candidate to be the next U.S. Attorney in Utah, the chief legal advisor to the Senate’s most radical tenther, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT):

President Barack Obama tapped Sen. Mike Lee’s legal counsel to be the next U.S. attorney for Utah, a move that infuriated Democrats from the state and ended a lengthy political drama over who would claim the high-profile position.

The White House on Tuesday announced the nomination of David Barlow. He will need to win Senate confirmation before he can claim the spot as Utah’s top federal prosecutor, a job that has remained vacant since the end of 2009.

As ThinkProgress explained after news broke that Barlow was being vetted for this job, Barlow’s close association with Lee raises very serious questions about whether he can be trusted to enforce laws intended to protect ordinary Americans ability to earn a living, be safe from natural disasters and enjoy a secure retirement. Before the Senate even considers confirming Barlow to be the top federal attorney in Utah, Barlow should be required to answer a number of difficult questions about whether he shares any of Lee’s most indefensible positions on the Constitution:

Full Story Here: Obama Nominates Top Advisor To Tea Party Senator As U.S. Attorney | ThinkProgress.

Republican Leaders Voted for U.S. Debt Drivers

House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington.

“In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,” the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. “I’ve got news for Washington – those days are over.”

Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.

Full Story Here: Republican Leaders Voted for U.S. Debt Drivers – Bloomberg.

Further Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide

“To believe that Bush won in 2004 you must also believe that…”

OPS: this is a highly detailed and extensively linked bit of research with lots of charts and analysis. 

Full Story Here: Further Confirmation of a Kerry Landslide: The Linked Set.

The Great Evil

The current political environment and the debt-crisis debate remind me of the 1997 science-fiction film “The Fifth Element.”

Stick with me. It’s complicated.

In the film, the Great Evil, a giant ball of fire, hurtles toward Earth, intent on destroying it. This thing shows up every so often. It’s annoying.

Anyway, a group of gentle aliens have a weapon that can stop it. It has been used before, and it’s really simple: It uses four stones that represent the four classical elements but a fifth element, the Supreme Being, must activate them.

The gentle aliens promise to return to Earth with their weapon the next time the Great Evil threatens. Sounds good. But on their way back, another group of aliens — simple-minded, warriors called Mangalores who work for an evil, wealthy industrialist — shoot down their ship.

Full Story Here: The Great Evil – NYTimes.com.

Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party

The president’s attacks on America’s social safety net are destroying the soul of the Democratic party’s platform

In 2005, American liberals achieved one of their most significant political victories of the last decade. It occurred with the resounding rejection of George W Bush’s campaign to privatise social security.

Bush’s scheme would have gutted the crux of that entitlement programme by converting it from what it has been since the 1940s – a universal guarantor of minimally decent living conditions for America’s elderly – into a Wall Street casino and bonanza.

Progressive activists and bloggers relentlessly attacked both the plan and underlying premises (the myth that social security faces a “crisis”), spawning nationwide opposition. Only a few months after he unveiled his scheme to great fanfare, Bush was forced to sheepishly withdraw it, a defeat he described as his biggest failure.

Full Story Here: Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

Wisconsin ‘Government Accountability Board’ Shuts Down Recall Election Exit Polling

Says nonpartisan polling ‘electioneering’ because candidates’ names appear on exit poll ‘ballot’

Two national election integrity organizations jointly conducted exit polling at a pair of poll sites yesterday, during round one of Wisconsin’s recall elections. Election Defense Alliance (EDA) and Protect California Ballots teamed up with local activists to poll voters as they exited from voting in now-infamous Waukesha County, with the goal of checking the accuracy of the official election results.

According to a press release (see below) issued yesterday by EDA, despite local volunteer pollsters being equipped with copies of regulations from Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state’s top election authority, and a letter from the agency’s Executive Director outlining permission for exit polling, the rules were apparently changed during the day and pollsters forbidden to hand out the exit polling ‘ballot’ voters were asked to complete anonymously.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : Wisconsin ‘Government Accountability Board’ Shuts Down Recall Election Exit Polling.

Blowing It: Democrats, Unable to Be a Party of the People, are Sinking Themselves

Dave Lindorff  :-:

The smoking ruin that is the the Obama White House, and the rotting corpse that is the Democratic Party, have, incredibly, together been boxed into a corner by, of all things, the certifiably insane Republican Party.

This amazing situation has resulted not through any brilliant strategy on the part of the Republicans, but by the self-inflicted wounds of the Democrats.

Faced with a collapsing economy that is at serious risk of performing a reprise of the Great Depression, Congressional Democrats and President Obama were in a perfect position to grab the flag and run home with it by declaring war on unemployment and on the party that has unequivocally declared itself openly to be the standard bearer of the wealthy and powerful.

All the president and Congressional Democrats had to do was announce that Social Security, Medicare, education and programs to protect the poor were all off limits in any discussion of the federal budget, and to declare an immediate 25% cut in military spending, as called for earlier by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Full Story Here: Blowing It: Democrats, Unable to Be a Party of the People, are Sinking Themselves | This Can’t Be Happening.

October Surprise Evidence Surfaces

In November 1991, as Newsweek and The New Republic were ridiculing the idea that Ronald Reagan’s campaign chief William Casey might have made a secret trip to meet Iranians in Madrid in 1980, a senior State Department official was informing George H.W. Bush’s White House that Casey indeed had gone to Spain on a mysterious visit.

State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson told associate White House counsel Chester Paul Beach Jr. that among the State Department “material potentially relevant to the October Surprise allegations [was] a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown,” Beach noted in a “memorandum for record” dated Nov. 4, 1991.

In other words, as Newsweek and The New Republic were making the October Surprise story into a big joke in mid-November 1991, Bush’s White House had information that contradicted the smug self-certainty of the two magazines. Not surprisingly, the White House made no effort to clarify the record.

Full Story Here: October Surprise Evidence Surfaces | The Smirking Chimp.

If Obama cuts Social Security…

 David Sirota

The president indicates that funding for the hallmark Democratic program is on the table. Is this the last straw?

Wednesday night, the Washington Post reported that on top of the big cuts to Medicare he’s already proposed, President Obama is now considering endorsing cuts to Social Security. In making this announcement (which formally embraces the concept of Social Security cuts first proposed by Obama’s debt commission), the White House has lost all credibility in arguing that its 2012 political problems are the result of unfair expectations, particularly on the left. At the same time, the White House has finally exposed the strategy behind what so many of its apologists insisted was deft “three dimensional chess” on behalf of old-school liberalism — and as we see, these tactics have nothing to do with liberalism and everything to do with Orwell-ism.

To review: The Wall Street Journal reports that “across a wide range of measures — employment growth, unemployment levels, bank lending, economic output, income growth, home prices and household expectations for financial well-being — the economy’s improvement since the recession’s end in June 2009 has been the worst, or one of the worst, since the government started tracking these trends after World War II.” In light of this miserable situation, it’s no surprise that Gallup’s Frank Newport reports that the president’s job approval rating “has been hovering near the fault line between probable re-election and probable ‘one-term’ presidency.”

Full Story Here: If Obama cuts Social Security… – David Sirota – Salon.com.

Report: Paul Ryan May Personally Benefit From Preserving Billions In Taxpayer Oil Subsidies

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the GOP budget plan, has put forth a plan that calls for ending a number of tax subsidies. However, he has hedged multiple times when asked about oil subsidies. When given the opportunity to end billions in taxpayer giveaways to big oil companies, Ryan voted to preserve the generous subsidies.

The Daily Beast’s Daniel Stone is reporting that Ryan’s protection of billions in wasteful oil subsidies may relate to his own personal fortune. Newly released personal finance disclosures reveal that Ryan and his wife “own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan’s budget plan.” Stone reports that those companies are among his most valuable assets:

Ryan’s father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.

Full Story Here: Report: Paul Ryan May Personally Benefit From Preserving Billions In Taxpayer Oil Subsidies | ThinkProgress.

A Little Less Corporate Political Corruption

Obama is thinking about issuing an executive order that would mitigate some of the damage done to our democracy by the Supreme Court’s dastardly Citizens United edict.

Jim Hightower  :- :

Come on, Obama, do it. Stand up, stand tall, stand firm. Yes, you can!

President Barack Obama is thinking about issuing an executive order that would mitigate some of the damage done to our democracy by the Supreme Court’s dastardly Citizens United edict, which unleashes unlimited amounts of secret corporate cash to pervert America’s elections.

Obama’s idea is simply to require that those corporations trying to get federal contracts disclose all of their campaign donations for the previous two years, including money they launder through such front groups as the Chamber of Commerce.

Full Story Here: A Little Less Corporate Political Corruption – OtherWords.

Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich

If politicians care almost exclusively about the concerns of the rich, it makes sense that over the past decades they’ve enacted policies that have ended up benefiting the rich.

In 2008, a liberal Democrat was elected president. Landslide votes gave Democrats huge congressional majorities. Eight years of war and scandal and George W. Bush had stigmatized the Republican Party almost beyond redemption. A global financial crisis had discredited the disciples of free-market fundamentalism, and Americans were ready for serious change.

Or so it seemed. But two years later, Wall Street is back to earning record profits, and conservatives are triumphant. To understand why this happened, it’s not enough to examine polls and tea parties and the makeup of Barack Obama’s economic team. You have to understand how we fell so short, and what we rightfully should have expected from Obama’s election. And you have to understand two crucial things about American politics.

Full Story Here: Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich | Civil Liberties | AlterNet.

Tale of the Tapes: Wisconsin’s ‘Dog-and-Pony Show’ Faith-Based Supreme Court Election ‘Recount’

As the count nears its end, more irregularities emerge, including mis-dated poll tapes, unprinted ‘paper trails’, duct taped bags and the state’s unwavering faith in the machine…

For weeks, we’ve been reporting on the mess seen in the statewide “recount” of Wisconsin’s very close and very contentious April 5th Supreme Court election between Republican incumbent Justice David Prosser and his challenger, Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

As The BRAD BLOG obtained evidence of new irregularities this week — to add to previously reported revelations of, among other irregularities, ballot bags discovered “wide open” with mismatched or missing serial numbers as well as ballots discovered completely unsecured, all in violation of the secure chain of custody, and other similar messes and mistallies across the state — we wanted to find out if the state’s chief election agency, the Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), was able to confirm that the ballots counted during the “recount” were actually the ones cast on Election Day. And, if so, how they could confirm that.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : Tale of the Tapes: Wisconsin’s ‘Dog-and-Pony Show’ Faith-Based Supreme Court Election ‘Recount’.

Prosser wins recount in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

With the weeks-long recount complete, unofficial numbers confirm that state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg in the April 5 election.

But the battle may not be over yet, as Kloppenburg mulls whether to challenge the results in court.

And if a legal contest goes on long enough, attorneys say it could delay efforts to swear Prosser in for a new term on Aug. 1, leading to a temporary vacancy on the closely divided high court.

Final recount numbers submitted to the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board show Prosser with 7,006 more votes than Kloppenburg.

Full Story Here: Prosser wins recount in Wisconsin Supreme Court race – JSOnline.

EXCLUSIVE: CITY OF BROOKFIELD BALLOT BAGS FOUND ‘WIDE OPEN’ IN WAUKESHA COUNTY, WI

Chain of custody violations continue to emerge, particularly in Waukesha, during state Supreme Court election ‘recount‘

ALSO: $25,000 reward offered for evidence of WI election tampering..

Five out of six bags of ballots from first batch to be counted out of the City of Brookfield in Waukesha County, WI, today were discovered “almost wide open” during Day 9 of the statewide Supreme Court election “recount.” The bags were open and unsealed, according to both photographic evidence and an eye-witnesses account from the counting room. (Many more exclusive photos posted below.)

“When the ballot bags were taken out and placed upon the counting table, we were literally stunned,” one of the citizen observers, Mary Magnuson, a Kloppenburg volunteer, told The BRAD BLOG this morning. “5 out of the 6 ballot bags were almost literally wide open, and ballots could be clearly seen.”

The ballots in those bags were among the 14,000 said to have been cast in the April 5th election, but left off of Waukesha County’s tally as reported to the media on Election Night.

Full Story Here: The BRAD BLOG : EXCLUSIVE: CITY OF BROOKFIELD BALLOT BAGS FOUND ‘WIDE OPEN’ IN WAUKESHA COUNTY, WI.

Wis. Dems Alleging GOP Fraud In Recalls

Wisconsin Democrats, who are seeking to win a majority in the state Senate through recalls against six incumbent Republicans, have filed a challenge to Republican efforts to recall three Dems, alleging that vast levels of fraud will disqualify the Republican recall efforts against Democrats.

The Dems had previously announced that they would file such a challenge, citing stories of voters being misled into signing petitions. The Dems also alleged that Republican signature-gatherers were brought in from out of state and paid on a per-signature basis.

The Dems rolled rolled out their official complaint on Thursday, after making phone calls to almost 1,800 petition-signers, and acquiring affidavits from signers who say they were falsely told that the petitions were for other things — such as supporting a local park, recalling a Republican state senator in a different district, or recalling Gov. Scott Walker.

Full Story Here: Wis. Dems Alleging GOP Fraud In Recalls | TPMDC.

Republicans Push Back On Obama Plan To Force Disclosure Of Political Contributions

Republicans are predictably pushing back against President Obama’s proposed executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations to third-party groups.

House GOP leaders and 19 other Republicans sent a letter to Obama Friday urging him not to issue the executive order, arguing it would introduce politics into the federal-government contracting practice and stifle political speech.

“This proposed EO seems like a blatant attempt to intimidate, and potentially silence certain speakers who are engaged in their constitutionally protected right to free speech,” the House Republicans wrote.

Full Story Here: Republicans Push Back On Obama Plan To Force Disclosure Of Political Contributions | TPMDC.

Wisconsin Republicans rush agenda before recalls

Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders have launched a push to ram several years’ worth of conservative agenda items through the Legislature this spring before recall elections threaten to end the party’s control of state government.

Republicans, in a rapid sequence of votes over the next eight weeks, plan to legalize concealed weapons, deregulate the telephone industry, require voters to show photo identification at the polls, expand school vouchers and undo an early release for prisoners.

Lawmakers may also act again on Walker’s controversial plan stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights. An earlier version, which led to massive protest demonstrations at the Capitol, has been left in limbo by legal challenges.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin Republicans rush agenda before recalls.

Maddow: Wisconsin Republicans bought recall petition signatures with shots

Last night, Rachel Maddow looked at the competing fights to recall various Wisconsin state legislators in the wake of Governor Scott Walker’s (R) moves to strip public unions of their collective bargaining rights. And, while Democrats are looking to recall some Republican state Senators in districts that are now trending more Democratic, Republicans did get enough signatures to put some Democratic state Senators through recall fights themselves.

Though, as Amanda Terkel of the Huffington Post first reported, there’s just a slight problem with some of those petitions: out-of-state signature collectors may have bought those votes in exchange for shots. It’s legal, apparently, but doesn’t make the Republicans look any better.

Watch the video, which first aired on The Rachel Maddow Show on April 21, 2011, below:

Full Story Here: Maddow: Wisconsin Republicans bought recall petition signatures with shots | Raw Replay.

Wisconsin Democrats MIA as Election Stolen by Repub Thugs

I’m thinkin’, woohoo!! politicians are finally going to step up.

Then upon reading further you find that this Democratic support consists of 1 state representative saying he supports the letter 1 House Dem (Tammy Baldwin) sent to the Justice Department. You know, AG Holder, the same guy that is letting Wall St. criminals off the hook, his office will review the letter.

Wow! That’s some mighty Democratic power! WooHoo! We’re Saved! Surely fascism will never take hold in America with that kind of Democratic Muscle being thrown about.

In case you’ve been reading some crap news site like Google News, you might have missed these headlines:

* Waukesha, WI Follies: 97.63% Turnout in 2004? 20,000 More Votes Than ‘Ballots Cast’ in 2006?

* Why Don’t Republican Election Officials Ever Make “Errors” That …

more……

Full Story Here: Wisconsin Democrats MIA as Election Stolen by Repub Thugs | FU Corporate Media .com.

Count Every Vote

Wisconsin Common Cause:-:

Many voters went to sleep in Wisconsin and thought they woke up in Florida on Friday after a “Republican activist” county clerk announced that she discovered an extra 14,315 votes in a hotly contested Supreme Court race. Not surprisingly, the votes went to the conservative candidate giving incumbent justice David Prosser a 7,500 vote lead over challenger Joanne Kloppenburg. Oddly, 7500 was the exact number of votes Prosser needed to avoid a statewide recount.

The Supreme Court race has garnered national attention as a proxy vote on Governor Scott Walker’s radical proposal to end collective bargaining in the state and cut a billion dollars from public schools.

Long Time Republican Apparatchik

The county clerk in question is long-time Republican apparatchik Kathy Nickolaus. Nickolaus got her start in GOP politics in 1995, when the Republican Speaker of the Assembly was — that’s right — David Prosser. She worked for Prosser’s Republican Assembly Caucus, one of four GOP and Democratic legislative groups that were shut down following a criminal investigation for illegal campaign activity on state time.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin Common Cause: Count Every Vote | Center for Media and Democracy.

Wisconsin Election Bombshell: How Plausible?

Perhaps the most convincing evidence so far that human error explains the initial omission of Brookfield’s results comes from our colleagues at the Brookfield Patch. On election night, they reported a vote total for Brookfield that exactly matches the vote total Kathy Nickolaus did not include in the County level count until Thursday. As Joe Petrie and Lisa Sink of the Brookfield Patch reported on Thursday (via Mickey Kaus):

On election night, the City of Brookfield reported that Prosser received 10,859 votes from city residents, or 76 percent of the vote, compared to the 3,456 votes cast for challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. The Brookfield Patch reported those numbers in a story with chart posted about 12:30 a.m. election night.

[Brookfield City Clerk Kristine] Schmidt said her office also posted the results on the city’s web site before going home on election night.

WASHINGTON — Faith in America’s electoral-tabulation processes took a hit late this week when a Wisconsin county clerk who announced a bombshell correction: nearly 15,000 missed votes, which dramatically upended the state’s supreme court race.

Full Story Here: Wisconsin Election Bombshell: How Plausible?.

Will SCOTUS Nix Public Campaign Financing?

Several states have provisions to subsidize candidates that voluntarily restrict themselves to small private donations, when opponents with heavy corporate financing run against them. Criminal corporations claim that violates the Constitution. SCOTUS hears oral arguments tomorrow. Will SCOTUS become a kangaroo convention, as they did in Citizens United?

Citizens United opened the door for campaign contributions. To counteract that law, the State of Arizona implemented a policy where if a candidates is running against major corporate donations it would make up the difference to the opponent. That policy is subject of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Monday…

As conservative Ninth Circuit judge Andrew Kleinfeld wrote in his concurring opinion rejecting constitutional arguments against the Arizona system, “there is no First Amendment right to make one’s opponent speak less, nor is there a First Amendment right to prohibit the government from subsidizing one’s opponent, especially when the same subsidy is available to the challenger if the challenger accepts the same terms as his opponent.” Similarly, Charles Fried, a solicitor general in the Reagan administration, argued in an amicus brief that it is the wealthy candidates and interest groups who “in reality are seeking to restrict speech.”

Full Story Here: Will SCOTUS Nix Public Campaign Financing? » Politics Plus.

At Least 130 Congressional Staffers Are Former Lobbyists, Study Finds

Up to 130 of 990 congressional chiefs of staff and legislative directors are former lobbyists, and many of them worked a number of lobbying jobs before moving to Capitol Hill, according to a study out Wednesday.

Researchers for The Center for Responsive Politics and Remapping Debate found the majority of those staffers lobbied for corporations or trade organizations.

The ex-lobbyists work for Republicans and Democrats in about equal number.

Full Story Here: At Least 130 Congressional Staffers Are Former Lobbyists, Study Finds.

OPS: Government of by and for Corporations. We use to call it Fascism.

$11,000 Pay Raise for Wisconsin State Senator’s Mistress

Salary boosted for worker with ties to Hopper (R-Fond du Lac)

A state worker with ties to Sen. Randy Hopper is being paid $11,000 more annually than her predecessor in a position at the department of regulation and licensing.

State officials said the woman, 26, was hired to a limited term, communications specialist position last month, with a salary equivalent to $42, 328 annually.

State officials Friday said the woman’s predecessor left the position in January, with a salary equivalent to $31,200 annually. No explanation was given for the new hire’s higher pay.

Full Story Here: Salary boosted for worker with ties to Hopper.

Wisconsin GOP Leader Admits The Truth About Assault on Unions — It’s All About Stopping Obama in 2012

It’s not like we didn’t know it – but who would have thought they would be so brazen as to voice it out loud?

Appearing on Fox News, Wisconsin Sen. Majority Leader, Scott Fitzgerald had this to say-

If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin.

Via Rawstory

With bills similar -or worse- pending in many states led by GOP governors with legislative majorities, it is becoming increasingly clear that doing away with public employee unions or outlawing dues paying for all members is just a bonus for these forces – the real target is wiping out the union treasure chests to deny the president the benefit of their assistance in the 2012 election.

If you are having difficulty believing that Sen. Fitzgerald could possibly be so stupid as he appears to be, watch this-

Full Story Here: Wisconsin GOP Leader Admits The Truth — It’s All About Obama – Rick Ungar – The Policy Page – Forbes.

EXCLUSIVE: GOP Senator Yanked Off Committee Speaks Out, Was Informed 30 Minutes Before Anti-Union Vote

On Wednesday, just moments before a key committee in the Ohio State Senate was to vote on a GOP bill that would effectively dismantle public employees’ right to collectively bargain, the Senate’s Republican leader replaced a GOP committee member who opposed the bill with someone who supported it to ensure the measure passed. It was a brazen and nearly unprecedented move, and even more so considering that State Sen. Bill Seitz (R) told ThinkProgress that he is good friends with, and has been roommates for ten years with State Senate President Tom Niehaus, who yanked Seitz off the committee. Indeed, they were sworn in to the state House on the same day and eventually followed each other to the Senate, sharing an apartment in the capital throughout.

In a telephone interview with ThinkProgress yesterday afternoon, Seitz recounted how he was informed of the move by his good friend Niehaus just a half hour before the vote. Seitz, a conservative Republican who proudly noted that he works for a “management-side” law firm founded by the namesake of the very pro-management Taft-Hartley Act, said he supports “85 percent” of Senate Bill 5, but ultimately opposed it because it “goes to far.”

Asked about his abrupt removal from the committee, Seitz said it was “not unheard of, but not commonplace.” He couldn’t recall a time when something similar had occurred in the Senate. Moreover, he noted that his abrupt removal sends a bad signal to Ohio workers concerned about their own future:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » EXCLUSIVE: GOP Senator Yanked Off Committee Speaks Out, Was Informed 30 Minutes Before Anti-Union Vote.

Obama budget to propose cuts in heat subsidies for the poor

President Obama’s 2012 budget will propose cutting $2.5 billion from a program that helps low-income people cope with high energy costs in the cold of winter and heat of summer, according to a source familiar with the budget process.

The reduction is steep, and might impact millions of families. In 2010, the program received $5.1 billion in federal funds, which were then distributed to states that have both low average incomes and high energy costs.

The administration is quick to point out that the reduction will bring the funding down to $2.57 billion, which is exactly the same as the fiscal year 2008 level.

Full Story Here: Obama budget to propose cuts in heat subsidies for the poor – Feb. 11, 2011.

Shocker: Obama’s Less Trusted Than Bush on Social Security

Social Security Works has assembled a set of slides that illustrate the Democratic Party’s striking decline in voter opinion on the issue of Social Security. They’re all worth seeing, but one of them especially demands attention:

Full Story Here: Richard (RJ) Eskow: Shocker: Obama’s Less Trusted Than Bush on Social Security.

Sen. Sanders : Obama may cut Social Security,

One-year payroll tax holiday key to toppling seniors’ safety net, Sanders warns

berniesanders Exclusive: Obama may cut Social Security, Sen. Sanders tells RawSocial Security may be on the White House chopping block, a US Senator recently told Raw Story, expressing deep uneasiness about President Barack Obama’s noncommittal attitude toward staving off cuts to the cherished program.

“I have to tell you, I have been on the phone to the very, very, very highest levels of the Obama administration, and the responses that I am getting are not assuring,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in an exclusive interview. “What I’m told is that no definitive decisions have been made on the issue of Social Security – I expect that is probably true.”

Progressive activists, fearing that the holy grail of American liberalism could fall prey to a bipartisan deal on Capitol Hill, have launched a campaign to pressure the White House and Congress to oppose cuts. And Sanders has stepped up as their champion in the Senate, confirming their concerns based on knowledge drawn from his relative proximity to the president.

Full Story Here: Exclusive: Obama may cut Social Security, Sen. Sanders tells Raw | Raw Story.

Giffords warned in March of ‘consequences’ to Palin’s violent rhetoric

Fox News employee Sarah Palin’s violent rhetoric caused concern back in March 2010, when she released a map of the United States with gun crosshairs over 20 congressional districts, including Arizona’s eighth.

The representative for that district, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), now lays in a hospital after a gunman put a bullet in her head, shooting 18 others before his violent eruption ended.

And in an unsettlingly accurate premonition back when Palin “targeted” Democrats encouraged supporters to “reload” and “take aim” at them, Giffords predicted that there would be “consequences” for the escalation of violent rhetoric in the media.

Full Story Here: Giffords warned in March of ‘consequences’ to Palin’s violent rhetoric | Raw Story.

The New Era of Cooperation Between the White House and Big Business

Robert Reich:

Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., praises the President’s agreement with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts.

“If we’re going to strengthen our economy and grow jobs, this type of outreach — and cooperation between the administration, Congress, and the private sector — are critical,” says Dimon.

Dimon met last week with the President. Thirty other CEOs are meeting with him today.

Dimon’s compensation over the last three years has averaged $21,991,394 a year. The tax deal agreed to between President Obama and the Republicans will give Dimon and extra $1,179,000 next year, according to an analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice.

Full Story Here: Robert Reich (The New Era of Cooperation Between the White House and Big Business).

OPS: There now appears to be a contest between the Democratic and Republican Leaderships, That is, Who can implement Fascism first.

President NAFTA Backs President Shafta

It was a stunning spectacle yesterday when former President Clinton took the podium from President Obama in the White House briefing room to help shove the Obama-GOP tax deal down the throats of Democratic activists and Congress members.

It was a fitting spectacle too (carried live on CNN) — since Bill Clinton paved the way in teaching how a Democratic president can win battles through the votes NOT of his own party but the Republicans.

Remember NAFTA, the trade deal loved by big business and Republicans — and opposed by Democratic constituencies like unions, environmentalists and consumer advocates? President Clinton passed NAFTA in 1993 with the votes of nearly 80 percent of GOP senators and almost 70 percent of House Republicans. Meanwhile, House Democrats opposed NAFTA by more than 3 to 2.

Full Story Here: President NAFTA Backs President Shafta | CommonDreams.org.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN): GOP “Beyond Redemption”

That the Republican Party is beyond redemption sounds like something I’d say. The party represents only fat cats and criminal corporations. They crave power so desperately, they don’t care where they get their support, so they goose-step in perfect lock step with racists, bigots, homophobes, and even revolutionary seditionists. They happily obstruct anything that mike make the current administration look good, even if an item was originally their own proposal, no matter how desperate the need for passage by Main Street Americans. However, “beyond redemption” did not come from me, but from one of their own.

In an age when far-right tea party activists have taken over the Republican Party and demanded lockstep allegiance, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) has been one of the few GOP lawmakers to step out of line. In particular, Lugar, the ranking GOP member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blasted his own party for relentlessly blocking ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia, calling on his fellow GOP senators to “do your duty for your country” and complete the pact.

Full Story: GOP “Beyond Redemption” » Politics Plus.

More on this Story:
Former Republican Sen. Warns GOP May ‘Have Gone So Far Overboard That We Are Beyond Redemption’

Obama’s Problem Simply Defined: It Was the Banks

James K. Galbraith:

Obama must break his devil’s pact with the banks in order to succeed.

Bruce Bartlett says it was a failure to focus. Paul Krugman says it was a failure of nerve. Nancy Pelosi says it was the economy’s failure. Barack Obama says it was his own failure — to explain that he was, in fact, focused on the economy.

As Krugman rightly stipulates, Monday-morning quarterbacks should say exactly what different play they would have called. Paul’s answer is that the stimulus package should have been bigger. No disagreement: I was one voice calling for a much larger program back when. Yet this answer is not sufficient.

The original sin of Obama’s presidency was to assign economic policy to a closed circle of bank-friendly economists and Bush carryovers. Larry Summers. Timothy Geithner. Ben Bernanke. These men had no personal commitment to the goal of an early recovery, no stake in the Democratic Party, no interest in the larger success of Barack Obama. Their primary goal, instead, was and remains to protect their own past decisions and their own professional futures.

Full Story: Obama’s Problem Simply Defined: It Was the Banks » New Deal 2.0.

Meet The Corporate Chairmen: Incoming Committee Chairs Have Deep Ties To Lobbyists And Big Business

One of the results of Tuesday’s Republican takeover of the House of Representatives is the future installation of new chairmen in the chamber’s various committees. While none of the upcoming chairmanships are set in stone — members have to run and be elected to chair committees — it is generally true that ranking members of these committees are the ones most likely to take over.

Today, the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI) released a report titled “The Chairmen: New House Leaders Have Familiar Ties to Business, Revolving Door,” which takes a close look at the likely incoming chairmen of the various House committees. The CPI report finds that most of the likely incoming chairs “have deep ties to the business community or the industries they will soon oversee.” Here are some of the highlights of these possible chairmen with “deep ties” to lobbyists and big business:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Meet The Corporate Chairmen: Incoming Committee Chairs Have Deep Ties To Lobbyists And Big Business.

Only $4.2 Billion To Buy This Election?

Robert Reich

This, from the Washington Post’s conservative pundit George Will:

Total spending by parties, campaigns and issue-advocacy groups concerning every office from county clerks to U.S. senators may reach a record $4.2 billion in this two-year cycle. That is about what Americans spend in one year on yogurt, but less than they spend on candy in two Halloween seasons. Proctor & Gamble spent $8.6 billion on advertising in its last fiscal year.

Those who are determined to reduce the quantity of political speech to what they consider the proper amount are the sort of people who know exactly how much water should come through our shower heads — no more than 2.5 gallons per minute, as stipulated by a 1992 law. Is it, however, worrisome that Americans spend on political advocacy — determining who should make and administer the laws — much less than they spend on potato chips, $7.1 billion a year?

In a word, Mr. Will, yes.

Full Story: Robert Reich (Only $4.2 Billion To Buy This Election?).

THE CORPORATE ASSAULT ON AN HONEST SENATOR

Jim Hightower:

If you look at the whole flock of 535 congress critters, it’s hard not to giggle – or break out in uncontrollable sobs at the thought that – oh my God! – this is the United States Congress. As Peggy Lee sang years ago: “Is that all there is?”

Well, no – within the manure pile, there are quite a few genuine gems, and one of the finest is a fellow who consistently stands for common sense and the common good. He’s Russ Feingold, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin.

He’s a Democrat – but really he’s a populist maverick who has refused to go along to get along, even when that means going against his own party and against what the political consultants tell him is his own best interests. For example, he was the lone senate vote against the autocratic, liberty-busting Patriot Act in 2001. Feingold also had the stuff to vote against Obama’s escalation of the misguided war in Afghanistan, and not only did he oppose the 2008 bailout of Wall Street banksters, but he also said “no” this year to Obama’s Wall Street regulatory reforms, blasting them as too week and meek.

Full Story: Jim Hightower | THE CORPORATE ASSAULT ON AN HONEST SENATOR.

The New Democrats: The Coalition Pharma and Wall Street Love

As Congress entered the final weeks of its struggle to overhaul regulation of Wall Street in May, several hundred friends and colleagues slipped out of Washington for a private weekend on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Most were lobbyists for large banks, pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies, and big-ticket trade groups. However, 28 were members of Congress, and 29 were legislative staffers, all part of a coalition of House Democrats with a business-friendly agenda.

The retreat was held in honor of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of 69 lawmakers whose close relationship with several hundred Washington lobbyists has made their organization one of the most successful political money machines since the Republican K Street Project collapsed in 2007. In the past year and a half, New Democrats have pulled in more than $18 million in campaign contributions from their lobbyist fundraising network. The lobbyists, in turn, have mingled with lawmakers and their staffers at least 850 times during fundraising events and informal get-togethers.

Full Story: On The Hill: The New Democrats: The Coalition Pharma and Wall Street Love.

Dems have raised more than $1 million this cycle from foreign-affiliated PACs

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate criticizing GOP groups for allegedly funneling foreign money into campaign ads have seen their party raise more than $1 million from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies.

House and Senate Democrats have received approximately $1.02 million this cycle from such PACs, according to an analysis compiled for The Hill by the Center for Responsive Politics. House and Senate GOP leaders have taken almost $510,000 from PACs on the same list.

Full Story: Dems have raised more than $1 million this cycle from foreign-affiliated PACs – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Funded By Top Offshoring Companies

While it tells the American public it cares about American jobs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually works to send jobs overseas on behalf of its corporate members, which include some of Asia’s top offshoring companies. Its secretly-funded $75 million political ad campaign attacks the “anti-jobs record” of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Alexi Giannoulias (D-IL), Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV), and others.

As ThinkProgress previously noted, the Chamber has repeatedly sent out issue alerts attacking Democratic efforts to encourage businesses to hire locally rather than outsource to foreign counties. The Chamber has also bitterly fought Democrats for opposing unfettered free trade deals. The Chamber’s anti-American jobs agenda serves not only the profit-seeking of right-wing corporate executives in the United States, but also works to send jobs overseas to the following outsourcing companies, who are some of the dozens of foreign corporations that pay member dues to the Chamber of Commerce’s 501c(6) account, which is used to fund its political ads:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Funded By Top Offshoring Companies.

72 Hill staffers traded stocks in companies their bosses oversee: WSJ

The perception among many Americans is that there’s no shortage of corruption in Washington or on Wall Street, and a new report finds possibly unseemly activities between dozens of Capitol Hill staffers and the businesses their offices tasked with keeping honest.

At least seventy-two Congressional staffers traded stock shares of companies their bosses were involved with overseeing and writing laws for in 2008 and 2009, a Wall Street Journal investigation found Monday.

Although the aides in question denied that they were involved with unethical activity, their positions afford them access to information that individuals who are trading could profit from. “Even if they had done so,” the Journal notes, “it would be legal, because insider-trading laws don’t apply to Congress.”

Full Story: 72 Hill staffers traded stocks in companies their bosses oversee: WSJ | Raw Story.

“Stealing Democracy”

DNC Ad: “Stealing Democracy”

House GOP Website Promising To Let ‘Sunshine’ Into Earmarking Process Goes Dark

Last month, when House Republican leaders unveiled their much-anticipated “Pledge to America,” conservative activists were nearly universally disappointed by the “milquetoast” agenda, especially for its failure to include a ban on earmarks. “There is definitely someone playing out of tune by not talking about earmarks,” said David Keating, the executive director of the far-right anti-tax group Club for Growth.

Republicans countered by noting that they have already implemented a temporary moratorium on earmarks, and say they plan to extend it after it expires. “Republicans, we’re going to continue this earmark ban. We’ve already done the earmark ban. That’s why it’s not in the pledge,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) told Good Morning America late last month.

But Roll Call reports today that House GOP leaders may not be as committed to earmark transparency as they are letting on. A House GOP website set up early this year to provide a searchable database of federal earmark requests “has disappeared.” Sunshine.gop.gov now links only to a March press release which trumpets the House GOP’s supposed commitment to transparency:

Full Story: Think Progress » House GOP Website Promising To Let ‘Sunshine’ Into Earmarking Process Goes Dark.

Obama ally briefly claims White House traded away public option to insurers, hospitals

A close ally of President Barack Obama admitted Tuesday – before retracting the claim – that the White House negotiated away the public option to win over the support of insurers and hospitals early in last year’s health care debate.

“It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others,” former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) told Igor Volsky of Think Progress.

Daschle, who nearly became the Obama administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, first alluded to the assertion in his new book “Getting It Done.” He wrote that the White House gave up the public option in July of 2009 out of a believed necessity to placate health industry groups and thus neutralize its opposition.

Full Story: Obama ally briefly claims White House traded away public option to insurers, hospitals | Raw Story.

Shadowy, Outside Money Fuels Conservative Campaigns Nationwide

Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from.

The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms. In that election, the vast majority of money – more than 90 percent – was disclosed along with donors’ identities. This year, that figure has fallen to less than half of the total, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.

The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.

Full Story: Interest-group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret.

The Tax-Cut Racket

Paul Krugman:

“Nice middle class you got here,” said Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. “It would be a shame if something happened to it.”

O.K., he didn’t actually say that. But he might as well have, because that’s what the current confrontation over taxes amounts to. Mr. McConnell, who was self-righteously denouncing the budget deficit just the other day, now wants to blow that deficit up with big tax cuts for the rich. But he doesn’t have the votes. So he’s trying to get what he wants by pointing a gun at the heads of middle-class families, threatening to force a jump in their taxes unless he gets paid off with hugely expensive tax breaks for the wealthy.

Most discussion of the tax fight focuses either on the economics or on the politics — both of which suggest that Democrats should hang tough, for their own sakes as well as that of the country. But there’s an even bigger issue here — namely, the question of what constitutes acceptable behavior in American political life. Politics ain’t beanbag, but there’s a difference between playing hardball and engaging in outright extortion, which is what Mr. McConnell is now doing. And if he succeeds, it will set a disastrous precedent.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – The Tax-Cut Racket – NYTimes.com.

Resignations follow California Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement of Whitman for governor

UC President Mark Yudof and the chancellor of the state community college system quit their positions on the board of directors, saying they will not participate in a partisan operation.

The president of the University of California and the chancellor of the California community college system have quit the California Chamber of Commerce board of directors after the group voted to endorse Republican Meg Whitman for governor.

The endorsement is the latest example of the state’s largest business organization increasing its political profile.

Jack Scott, a former Democratic state senator from Pasadena who was appointed as community college chancellor by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, announced his resignation Friday in a letter to chamber President Allan Zaremberg after the endorsement vote.

Full Story: Resignations follow California Chamber of Commerce’s endorsement of Whitman for governor – latimes.com.

No lie: Ethics probe of Joe Wilson’s travel wider than disclosed

The congressional ethics investigation of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is broader than previously disclosed and goes well beyond his use of $12 in per diem expense money to buy six decorative goblets in Afghanistan last year.

Congressional staff members with detailed knowledge of the probe said ethics investigators are examining Wilson’s unusually high number of foreign trips — at least 30 in the past eight years — and his use of per diem expense money while traveling abroad.

Wilson, a relatively unknown lawmaker until he shouted “You lie!” as President Barack Obama addressed Congress last year, has a reputation among his peers as a frequent foreign traveler, these staff members said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.

Full Story: No lie: Ethics probe of Joe Wilson’s travel wider than disclosed | McClatchy.

Eight lawmakers may soon know if ethics probes will proceed

Eight lawmakers may soon know the results of an ethics investigation into possible links between fundraising and their votes on the Wall Street reform bill.

The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) met Friday to determine whether the investigation unearthed enough evidence to warrant further review by the full ethics committee, two House aides told The Hill.

The board must vote on whether to refer the case to the ethics committee or whether to end it completely. Whatever the decision, the OCE’s final report must be sent to the members who were investigated.

Full Story: Eight lawmakers may soon know if ethics probes will proceed – TheHill.com.

REPORT: Conservative Groups Gearing Up To Spend $400 Million On Midterm Election

In the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, corporations and special interest groups now enjoy the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections. Now, with less than 10 weeks until November, it’s clear just how far conservative groups are willing to go to try to influence the midterm elections.

According to a new report from ThinkProgress, conservative organizations have committed (or already spent) $400 million to advance their conservative agenda at the ballot box this year. For comparison’s sake, this outside money alone is more than the Democratic campaign committees spent combined when they took back both houses of Congress in the last midterm election. Indeed, the Wall Street Journal notes that special interest groups have already spent three times as much in 2010 than they had in 2006.

Among the outside groups that plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars electing conservatives are some familiar faces and some new ones as well. While the NRA and the Chamber of Commerce have long supported conservative causes, the former plans to double its spending from $10 million in 2006 to $20 million now and the latter will triple its commitment to $75 million this year. Many new groups are also entering the scene in a big way, including Karl Rove’s American Crossroads group with $52 million and Norm Coleman’s American Action Network with $25 million.

Those conservative groups trying to use $400 million in outside spending to tip the midterm election include:

Full Story: Think Progress » REPORT: Conservative Groups Gearing Up To Spend $400 Million On Midterm Election.

Democrats raise prospect of ‘tweaking’ Social Security

GOP ‘quite frankly lying’ about program’s impending insolvency, DNC spokesman says

socialsecurity Democrats raise prospect of tweaking Social SecurityFears about the national debt among Washington insiders have reignited debate about the future of Social Security, and a Democratic spokesman on Monday dismissed calls for privatization but conceded the program may need to be “tweaked” in order to ensure long-term solvency.

“Social Security needs to be tweaked, not torn apart from its very foundations,” Democratic National Committee communications director Brad Woodhouse told Raw Story on a conference call late Monday afternoon, in response to a question from this reporter.

Woodhouse tore into Republicans for championing “radical” changes to the program, pointing to the GOP-led Congress’s unsuccessful attempt to private it under the Bush administration. While Republican leaders have been vague on specifics, the party’s ranking member on the House budget committee, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), has put forth a plan that would move Social Security into private investment accounts.

Full Story: Democrats raise prospect of ‘tweaking’ Social Security | Raw Story.

The Fine Print In $20 Billion Spill Relief Fund Gives BP An Upper Hand

Although President Obama has been criticized for “shaking down” BP over creation of a $20 billion relief fund, the actual terms of the agreement give the oil company important advantages over the government, according to an independent Washington watchdog group.

BP this week made an initial $3 billion deposit into that fund, from which the company will pay damage claims stemming from its monster Gulf Coast oil spill.

The company agreed to create the relief fund in June under pressure from top White House officials and congressional Democrats.

Full Story: On The Hill: Watchdog: The Fine Print In $20 Billion Spill Relief Fund Gives BP An Upper Hand.

Keyes Hits Graham For Politicizing The 14th Amendment: This ‘Is Not Something That One Should Play With Lightly’

In recent days, several leading Republicans have launched a movement to review or revoke parts of the 14th amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship. While revoking the 14th Amendment has long been a right-wing fringe favorite, conservatives’ current obsession with undocumented immigration has pushed the issue into the mainstream, with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), among others, endorsing a review of the amendment.

Today, at a Tea Party Express gathering of African-American conservative leaders in Washington, ThinkProgress asked for their thoughts on the matter, considering the fact that the 14th Amendment was enacted after the Civil War to extend constitutional rights to African-Americans. Perennial GOP presidential candidate Alan Keyes responded by warning that “the 14th Amendment is not something one should play with lightly,” before singling out Graham for speaking “carelessly” on the topic:

Full Story: Think Progress » Keyes Hits Graham For Politicizing The 14th Amendment: This ‘Is Not Something That One Should Play With Lightly’.

Maxine Waters ETHICS CHARGES: Democratic Rep May Face Public Trial

A second House Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, could face an ethics trial this fall, further complicating the election outlook for the party as it battles to retain its majority.

People familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to be quoted about charges before they are made public, say the allegations could be announced next week. The House ethics committee declined Friday to make any public statement on the matter.

Waters, 71, has been under investigation for a possible conflict of interest involving a bank that was seeking federal aid. Her husband owned stock in the bank and had served on its board.

Full Story: Maxine Waters ETHICS CHARGES: Democratic Rep May Face Public Trial.

ANALYSIS: Both Regular And ‘Shadow’ RNCs Brought To You By Big Oil

Following scandal after scandal, many donors have abandoned the Michael Steele-led Republican National Committee in favor of other right-wing groups preparing to attack Democratic candidates in this fall’s elections. The two biggest beneficiaries of the RNC’s woes appear to be American Crossroads, the “shadow RNC” setup by Bush operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, and the Republican Governors Association, currently chaired by Mississippi Governor and former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour. Despite their apparent strategic differences, these three groups still have one thing in common: massive infusions of cash from Big Oil. Over $4 million of oil-related cash has spewed into the three groups in the second quarter alone.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS: American Crossroads, the shadowy 527 group setup by Rove and Gillespie as a supposed “grassroots” alternative to the RNC, and whose stated goal is to distort the facts in order to brand the BP oil disaster as “Obama’s Katrina,” has received 97 percent of its funding from just four right-wing billionaires. Of these, two made their fortunes in the oil and gas industry, according to a report by Salon. The two Dallas-based oil billionaires, Trevor Rees-Jones and Robert Rowling, each contributed $1 million to the group, which recently began airing misleading attack ads against Senator Harry Reid. Rove and Gillespie have also explicitly taken advantage of the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision to setup a related 501(c)4 organization, American Crossroads GPS, in order to conceal the identity of some of their donors. The public will likely never know where the $5.1 million the group raised in June came from because of “the value of confidentiality to some donors,” but it could have come from other right-wing oil billionaires like tea party-funder David Koch to major corporations like BP America and Goldman Sachs.

RGA: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has moved aggressively to promote the RGA as an alternative to the RNC. In addition to setting up “victory funds” across the country that have long been “the province of the RNC,” Barbour recently told a private audience that “[he] had to raise the RGA budget by $10 million because the RNC is in such bad shape.” Barbour, who has made something of a recent career out of downplaying the severity of the BP oil disaster, has indeed driven RGA fundraising to new heights during his tenure as chairman. As we previously reported, the oil and gas industry appears to have shown its appreciation for Barbour’s Big Oil apologism by contributing more than $2 million to the RGA’s coffers in the last quarter alone.

Full Story: Think Progress » ANALYSIS: Both Regular And ‘Shadow’ RNCs Brought To You By Big Oil.

Rep. Rangel’s Ethics Wrangle: Get the Rundown

The House Ethics Committee has finally come out from behind its veil of secrecy and announced that after a two-year investigation, it has found Rep. Charlie Rangel, D.-N.Y., likely violated ethics rules.

As we reported in March, the ethics committee “admonished” Rangel for violating ethics rules against accepting gifts when he attended conferences in the Carribbean in 2007 and 2008, but the investigation into Rangel’s other alleged violations continued.What were those other violations? The committee didn’t disclose the details of what they found, but we’ve kept a full rundown of Rangel’s ethics record.

The House Ethics Committee also announced the creation of a subcommittee to hear the case against Rangel and make a final judgment. It’ll be the first time such a hearing has happened since 2002, pointed out The New York Times. In that 2002 case, former Rep. James Traficant Jr., ended up being expelled from Congress for bribery and served seven years in prison.

Full Story: On The Hill: Rep. Rangel’s Ethics Wrangle: Get the Rundown.

House panel charges Rangel with ethics misdeeds

A House investigative committee on Thursday charged New York Rep. Charles Rangel with multiple ethics violations, dealing a serious blow to the former Ways and Means chairman and complicating Democrats’ election-year outlook.

The panel did not immediately specify the charges against the Democrat, who has served in the House for some 40 years and is fourth in seniority. The charges by a four-member panel of the House ethics committee sends the case to a House trial, where a separate eight-member panel of Republicans and Democrats will decide whether the violations can be proved by clear and convincing evidence.

The timing of the announcement ensures that a public airing of Rangel’s ethical woes will stretch into the fall campaign, and Republicans are certain to make it an issue as they try to capture majority control of the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had once promised to “drain the swamp” of ethical misdeeds by lawmakers in arguing that Democrats should be in charge.

Full Story: House panel charges Rangel with ethics misdeeds – Yahoo! News.

Halliburton Continues to Flood Lawmakers With Contributions After Oil Spill

Halliburton, the company once headed by former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, contributed $15,500 to federal candidates during June, according to a Center for Responsive Politics review of their political action committee’s most recent campaign finance filing.

That amount represents the third largest month of donations by the PAC this election cycle.

The giving comes at a time when the Texas-based company is weathering a political storm for its involvement on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded on April 20 and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a massive amount oil to spill into the surrounding waters. Investigations are currently underway to determine how and why the spill occurred — and who should be held responsible — by Congress and the Department of Justice.

Full Story: Halliburton Continues to Flood Lawmakers With Contributions After Oil Spill – OpenSecrets Blog | OpenSecrets.

Financial Reform Vote-Buying, Chapter 1

Matt Taibbi: -

Just a quick note on the passage of the financial reform bill, about which I have a piece coming out in the print version of Rolling Stone soon.

An analysis by a group called Maplight.org uncovered an interesting fact about the vote. The 38 Senators who opposed the bill in the cloture vote this afternoon received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks. The 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759.

Obviously this is just part of the puzzle, but it’s worth noting. The pull Wall Street exerts on a bill like this comes via several different avenues — campaign contributions are one, the potential for future employment (a big factor for staffers, and for retiring members like certain Democratic Party committee chairs) is another, the proximity of the lobbyist community (one staffer I know grumbled about the “literal intermarriage” factor, i.e. members married to lobbyists) is another. These cash-rich industries just keep hurling money and personnel at the Hill and even when they lose, like today, they do okay — the final product is much weaker than it would have been without all the lobbying and the cash.

Full Story: Financial Reform Vote-Buying, Chapter 1 — RollingStone.com.

2010 midterms will be most expensive in history with more than $1 billion in play

More than $1 billion has already been spent on the 2010 battle for Congress, which is expected to be the most expensive midterm election in history.

Interest groups riled up by the Obama administration’s far-reaching legislative agenda of healthcare and Wall Street reform are pledging massive expenditures. Democratic strategists have been circulating a four-page memo that chronicles how Republican-leaning independent groups are set to spent $301.5 million this cycle.

Rich candidates are also fueling the political spending spree. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (R) has already funneled $5.5 million from her personal fortune into her Senate campaign and in Florida billionaire Jeff Greene (D) is expected to do the same in his race for the Democratic Senate nomination

Full Story: 2010 midterms will be most expensive in history with more than $1 billion in play – The Hill’s Ballot Box.

Democrats Seeking to Weaken Financial Reform Bill Have Received Far More Industry Campaign Contributions

New Democrat Coalition Members Who Signed Letter in Support of Weaker House Regulations Have Received an Average of $55,000 More This Cycle

The 43 members of the New Democrat Coalition who last week sent a letter urging U.S. House of Representatives and Senate negotiators to weaken the financial reform bill’s regulation of derivatives have received an average of 44 percent more in campaign contributions from the financial services sector than the 25 coalition members who did not sign the letter.

Signatories of the letter have received an average of $180,001 from the financial services sector this election cycle, compared with $124,937 for those who did not sign, according to Public Citizen’s analysis of data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org). As in Public Citizen’s past analyses of financial sector data in the context of the financial reform bill, contributions from the health insurance industry were excluded from the calculations even though it is categorized as part of the financial services sector.

Signatories have received an average of $203,506 from the financial services sector for each campaign cycle, since 1998, compared with $140,738 for non-signers.

Full Story: Public Citizen Press Room.

Joe Barton: The Vultures Circle

Joe Barton’s fate rests with the voters, though they don’t have to wait until November to weigh in. Republican leadership aides say that Barton’s ability to remain the senior-ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee depends on what GOP members hear from constituents back in their districts about Barton’s apology to BP on Thursday, according to House Republican leadership aides.

Those members will report back Tuesday evening, when the House returns to business.

At the end of the 2010 legislative session, Barton will have been ranking Republican on the committee for three terms. According to House GOP term limits, his time would be up, preventing him from becoming chairman. But Barton, said GOP aides, had planned on asking for an extension, arguing that years spent as ranking member and years spent as chairman aren’t equal.

Full Story: Joe Barton: The Vultures Circle.

Gulf Spill Highlights Republicans Who Are ‘Owned, Bought And Paid By The Oil Industry’

Pivoting off Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward for what he called a “shakedown” from the White House, the Washington Post noted yesterday that “the episode showed the uncomfortable spot in which some Republicans find themselves”:

[S]ome Republicans are having trouble bringing themselves to say anything bad about an industry that has been so good to them. It was notable that in their statement distancing themselves from Barton, House Republican leaders John A. Boehner (Ohio), Eric Cantor (Va.) and Mike Pence (Ind.) referred to the spill — caused by the explosion of an oil rig — as a “natural” disaster.

The oil industry “has deep pockets, and they have a long history of supporting Republicans,” said political consultant John Weaver, a former strategist for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “Like any kind of addiction, it’s a terribly difficult thing to break.”

Indeed, Weaver’s comments are perfectly illustrated on the GOP side in a U.S. Senate campaign in Kansas. As the Kansas City Star reports, the “state’s next senator is widely expected to be either Rep. Todd Tiahrt or Rep. Jerry Moran,” Republicans who have each “been a consistent vote for oil and gas industry interests — supporting oil exploration subsidies and expansion while opposing Democratic plans to subsidize alternative energy sources.” And for their efforts, the two have been handsomely rewarded:

Full Story: Think Progress » Gulf Spill Highlights Republicans Who Are ‘Owned, Bought And Paid By The Oil Industry’.

OPS: We are seeing some ‘bought and paid for’ Democrats highlighted also

New York Dems Standing Strong For Wall Street

House Democrats representing New York are making a last-minute push to defend the interests of the state’s most profitable industry.

On Monday night, Gary Ackerman, a Democrat who represents Queens, told his fellow caucus members that if reform is too tough on Wall Street — particularly, if it includes a tough derivatives proposal from Blanche Lincoln or a hardened Volcker Rule — the 26 members of the New York delegation may abandon the party on a final vote. He claims that reduced profits for Wall Street translates into lower tax revenue for the state and city, which hurts all New Yorkers.

That would leave Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with only a few votes to spare, with plenty of other opposition from within her caucus still left to overcome.

The conventional understanding of the congressional equation is that the Senate, with its requirement of 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, is the limiting factor. But the House is proving a more difficult obstacle.

Full Story: New York Dems Standing Strong For Wall Street.

Loopholes Grow in Bill to Offset Ruling on Campaigns

Congressional Democrats are pushing hard for legislation to rein in the power of special interests by requiring more disclosure of their roles in paying for campaign advertising — but as they struggle to find the votes they need to pass it they are carving out loopholes for, yes, special interests.

In a deal that left even architects of the legislation squirming with unease, authors of a bill intended to counter a Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations and unions to pour money directly into campaign commercials provided an exception this week for the National Rifle Association, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.

The resulting uproar over special treatment for the pro-gun group led Democrats on Thursday to expand the exception to cover even more interest groups as they tried to secure votes for the measure, which is opposed by most Republicans. But with other powerful groups also weighing in and no assurance that Democrats had the votes they need, House leaders decided late Thursday to put off a planned Friday vote on the campaign bill, increasing doubts about whether Congress can enact it in time for this year’s elections.

Full Story: Loopholes Grow in Bill to Offset Ruling on Campaigns – NYTimes.com.

ACLU asks South Carolina: Don’t erase voting machine records

The American Civil Liberties Union has waded into the controversy over South Carolina’s bizarre Democratic primaries last week, which ended with the Senate nomination going to an unknown, unemployed candidate who won more votes than were cast in some counties.

The ACLU has sent a letter (PDF) to the South Carolina State Election Commission asking it not to allow the state’s counties to erase the voting records from the June 8 primary, which saw favored candidate Vic Rawl lose the Senate nomination to unknown Alvin Greene by a 59-to-41 margin.

“We take no position on whether there were irregularities sufficient to place the outcome of the election in doubt but believe the voters in South Carolina are entitled to know that their votes were properly counted,” the ACLU letter states. “That assurance can only be given if the information on the flash cards is preserved and audited.”

Full Story: ACLU asks South Carolina: Don’t erase voting machine records | Raw Story.

Kerry: Not the ‘right time’ to repeal big oil tax breaks

Climate bill architects Kerry, Lieberman vote against repealing oil industry tax breaks

‘Substance is good, timing is wrong,’ Kerry’s office tells Raw Story

The two chief authors of the Senate energy and climate bill joined 20 other Democrats Tuesday evening to help defeat a motion that would have stripped $35 billion in special tax breaks for big oil companies.

Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) cast their votes against the amendment introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to H.R. 4213, the “American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” It failed 35-61.

Kerry, the Democrats’ designated crusader for clean energy reform and tough emissions regulations, said through a spokesman he was not opposed to the substance of the amendment, but rather the timing at which it was introduced.

Full Story: Climate bill architects Kerry, Lieberman vote against repealing oil industry tax breaks | Raw Story.

22 Dems Join GOP To Save Big Oil’s Federal Tax Breaks

Despite the political fallout from the continuing Gulf oil disaster, and rhetoric about accountability for oil companies, 22 Senate Democrats crossed over to join a united GOP to defeat a measure aimed at stripping big oil companies of their generous federal tax breaks.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ amendment died Tuesday on a lopsided 35-61 vote. The Vermont independent’s proposal would have repealed $35 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks. Sanders argued such taxpayer-funded giveaways to the oil companies were foolish while the energy giants had reported $750 billion in profit in the last decade.

“Some of the most profitable corporations in America pay zero federal taxes and in fact get a tax rebate,” Sanders said in a Senate floor speech ahead of the vote. Sanders had proposed his repeal as an amendment to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act currently under debate in the Senate.

Full Story: On The Hill: 22 Dems Join GOP To Save Big Oil’s Federal Tax Breaks.

Financial lobbyists whine to Wall Street Journal about not having easy access to lawmakers.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers began House-Senate negotiations last week in the final push for comprehensive Wall Street reform. Since the start of this year, the financial industry has invested over $28 million in a platoon of lobbyists to weaken the overhaul and “protect the status quo.” Denied an inital opportunity through “backroom negotiations,” lobbyists “pinned their hopes” on the conference process for face time with key lawmakers. One lobbyist preferred the “behind the scenes” conference to the transparency of the Senate floor, saying “let’s have a few wise fathers sit around the table in some quiet room” to determine the details. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that the stigma of this “lobbying army” is preventing them from “get[ting] through the door”:

Wall Street’s lobbying army is marching around Washington in a push to shape the final financial-overhaul bill. But it has gotten harder to get through the door with some lawmakers.

One bank has complained that it no longer has access to House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.), whose schedule has filled up to accommodate negotiations with his Senate counterparts during the next two weeks. [...]

Full Story: Think Progress » Financial lobbyists whine to Wall Street Journal about not having easy access to lawmakers..

Dems Carve Out NRA Exemption in Campaign Finance Bill

House Democrats have offered to exempt the National Rifle Association from a sweeping campaign-finance bill, removing a major obstacle in the push to roll back the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling.

The NRA had objected to some of the strict financial disclosure provisions that Democrats have proposed for corporations and politically active nonprofits and that had kept moderate, pro-gun Democrats from backing the legislation.

But if the NRA signs off on the deal, the bill could come to the House floor as early as this week. The NRA said it would not comment until specific legislative language is revealed.

Full Story: Democrats: Breakthrough on campaign finance bill – John Bresnahan – POLITICO.com.

BREAKING: U.S. Senate Candidate Files Challenge to SC’s ‘Unreliable, Unverifiable’ E-Vote Results

Vic Rawl says inexplicable Democratic primary contest casts ‘cloud’ over state election; Notes ‘irregularities’, problem reports from voters, poll workers, vows ‘electoral reform’, calls for ‘full and unblinking investigation of overall integrity’ of state’s ES&S voting system…

A formal challenge to the announced results of South Carolina’s Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate has now been filed by Judge Vic Rawl, the candidate who wasn’t announced the winner by the state’s oft-failed, easily-manipulated, 100% unverifiable ES&S e-voting system.

Rawl released an official statement on his website today, in conjunction with the filing and a press conference he held in Charleston this afternoon.

The statement points generally to a number of findings being made by the campaign as independent experts have analyzed the results, voting patterns and problems being reported by poll workers and voters on Election Day where the unknown, unemployed candidate Alvin Greene defeated Rawl on the unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems, performing 11 points better on those machines than he did in the paper-based absentee results. The oft-failed, easily-manipulated ES&S election results reporting system gave Greene a 59% to 41% “victory” over Rawl.

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : BREAKING: U.S. Senate Candidate Files Challenge to SC’s ‘Unreliable, Unverifiable’ E-Vote Results.

Lincoln, Who Gets A Large Amount Of Corporate Cash, Complains About ‘Other People’ Funding Her Opponent

On Tuesday, Arkansas voters will go to the polls to nominate a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate. The race is expected to be close, with incumbent senator Blanche Lincoln facing a tough challenge from former Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who is mounting a populist campaign against Lincoln, claiming she is too close to big corporations.

Today, on CNN’s State of the Union, host Candy Crowley asked Lincoln about how she felt her campaign was going. The incumbent senator said that she has been traveling all over the state to campaign, while Halter has been allowing “other people fund his campaign and do his dirty work”

LINCOLN: I’ve spent the last oh gosh the last week on our countdown to victory tour in 20, 25 county courthouses across the state. Bill hasn’t been doing that, he’s been letting other people fund his campaign and do his dirty work and I’ve been out there with the people.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Lincoln, Who Gets A Large Amount Of Corporate Cash, Complains About ‘Other People’ Funding Her Opponent.

Video: Israel owns the USA

– Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

Sharon to Peres: “We Control America”

Congressional Pandering to Israel proves him Right

by Mohamed Khodr

On October 3, 2001, I.A.P. News reported that according to Israel Radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael an acrimonious argument erupted during the Israeli cabinet weekly session last week between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Peres warned Sharon that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and “turn the US against us. “Sharon reportedly yelled at Peres, saying “don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America.”

“The Israelis control the policy in the congress and the senate.”

– Senator Fullbright, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee: 10/07/1973 on CBS’ “Face the Nation”.

“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews….. terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen …. I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don’t approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country“

—–Sec. of State John Foster Dulles quoted on p.99 of Fallen Pillars by Donald Neff

Full Story: Video: Israel owns the USA – Dr. Paul Craig Roberts « Wake-up Call.