President Obama Announces Initiative to Help Stop Exporting American Jobs

President Obama Announces Initiative to Help Stop Exporting American Jobs

The White House announced Wednesday that it would step up its efforts to improve the economy by encouraging both U.S. and foreign companies to generate more jobs at home of the sort that have been shipped overseas or lost to foreign competitors, a process being called by the new buzzword, "in-sourcing." Included in those efforts will be tax breaks and $12 million in new resources for the SelectUSA initiative begun last year:

    “Since day one, this Administration has been focused on encouraging investment and job creation here at home,” Vice President Biden added. “The business leaders coming here from across the country today have looked at the facts and concluded what the President and I have been saying all along: that America is the best place in the world to do business and create jobs.  We’re calling on other companies to follow their lead and bring jobs back to America—jobs that provide middle-class families not just with a paycheck, but with a fundamental sense of dignity.”

The process of "out-sourcing" has for many years contributed to the off-shoring of millions of American jobs to foreign companies and the shuttering of businesses coast to coast. The practice has hit U.S. manufacturing especially hard as emerging nations have taken advantage of an intensification of globalization, which encourages a relatively free flow of goods, services, capital and financial capital across international boundaries but maintains more or less strict immigration laws.

As a counterpoint, in-sourcing seeks to reverse the flow of jobs with government policies that encourage businesses, both U.S. businesses and foreign ones, to invest in the States. Those policies can include not only tax breaks but also tax disincentives for those who continue sending jobs overseas.

The White House announcement was made in conjunction with an in-sourcing forum that brought 14 large and small U.S. companies to meet with President Obama and discuss what kinds of policies might work to encourage the generation of jobs here instead of abroad. The 14 were Ford, DuPont, Otis Elevator, Intel, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, Rolls Royce, Master Lock, Lincolnton Furniture, GalaxE Solutions, AGS, KEEN, Chesapeake Bay Candle and NOVO 1.

This might be all for nothing since conservatives are doing everything they can to increase the number of unemployed before the election to try and make the president look bad.

The Conservative claim that the NAACP "demands" food stamps shows why Republicans still have racism issues

The Conservative claim that the NAACP "demands" food stamps shows why Republicans still have racism issues

If Rick Santorum is upset that pretty much nobody believed him when he said he wasn’t talking about “black people” living off “somebody else’s money,” he has Newt Gingrich to blame. A day after the GOP’s flavor of the week changed stories and claimed, “I didn’t say black,” when he said,  “I don’t want to make [something sounding like black] people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” Gingrich again called President Obama “the food stamp president.” He told reporters in New Hampshire, “I will go to the NAACP convention and tell the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps.”

On Thursday I performed the mental exercise of giving Santorum the benefit of the doubt, and laid out the way the GOP’s ’60s era rhetoric about “welfare queens” and “welfare cheats” has been updated to include much of the multiracial working class, including whites – including anyone who has a public sector job, a union-protected job, or collects unemployment, Social Security or Medicare. It seemed theoretically possible – while still hard to believe – that Santorum was merely sharing the new GOP line that we’re all welfare queens now, any of us who’ve ever benefited from a government program.

Then Gingrich made my thought exercise seem unduly kind, by demonstrating exactly why people should be inclined to distrust Santorum’s new story and believe he was talking about black people: The modern GOP seems unashamed of its prejudice.

It’s impossible not to believe that having our first black president unleashed a new round of GOP race-baiting, even leaving birtherism aside. In August, one of Obama’s few Republican friends, Sen. Tom Coburn, lapsed into shameful racial stereotyping trying to “defend” the president, telling an Oklahoma constituent that Obama’s “intent is not to destroy … It’s to create dependency because it worked so well for him … As an African-American male, coming through the progress of everything he experienced, he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs.” A black guy raised by a (white) single mother gets into Harvard Law School: In the everyday vocabulary of today’s Republican Party, he’s looking for a handout.

Ronald Reagan wrapped up the ugly racism of earlier Republicans in pretty paper when he claimed, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won,” and made the case that welfare — which he associated with Democrats — created “dependency” that harmed its recipients. You didn’t have to be angry or racist anymore to oppose welfare programs; you could say you were trying to help their recipients. Reagan also muted the rhetoric that associated welfare with race, at least a little. More than 30 years later, having a black president makes it seem safe, and necessary, to unwrap Reagan’s pretty paper and once again make plain the GOP’s political association between welfare and African-Americans.  Make that, having a black Democratic president. This wouldn’t happen to President Herman Cain, would it?

Whether it is now or the 1980s most people receiving aid to dependent children ( what everyone calls welfare, but requires that the recipient work forty hours a week) there are more white folks receiving it than African-Americans. Yet when conservatives talk about aid programs to help the working poor they always seem to drag black Americans into the discussion. Newt said "And so I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps". Why didn't he say he was ready to meet with poor southern whites and ask why they don't demand paychecks instead of food stamps and having their jobs shipped to China because of conservative trade policy. 

Conservative Republican ALEC-Linked Group Revealed As Attacking Average American's Most Fundamental Rights

Conservative Republican ALEC-Linked Group Revealed As Attacking Average American's Most Fundamental Rights

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

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

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

Per state law, however, the identity of donors must be revealed within 45 days after the election. In fact, the entire $250,000 worth of late money came from a single source: the American Justice Partnership.

The AJP is a conservative legal organization based not in Maine, but in Michigan. On their website, the group states they are fighting against “the scheming George Soros money machine” which is “trying to sabotage your right to vote,” a claim apparently made without a hint of irony. Though the AJP doesn’t disclose where its funding comes from, the Bangor Daily News notes that it has partnered with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in the past, a group that has been instrumental in the proliferation of voter ID laws across the country.

The AJP’s secret $250,000 contribution ultimately accounted for over 78 percent of all the money raised by the No On 1 campaign. In other words, over three-quarters of the funding for opponents of election day registration in Maine came from Michigan. (This money was then used to run ads decrying “outsiders from other states” who were influencing the Maine election.) With Mainers of all stripes explaining to ThinkProgress why they cherish having the option to register at the polls on election day, it’s not altogether surprising that the predominance of financial support for No On 1 came from out of state.

Though AJP’s website correctly warns that “Your right to vote is at stake”, it’s groups like AJB and ALEC that are threatening that right in the first place. Maine voters stood up to the influence of voting rights opponents in November, however, passing Issue 1 by an overwhelming 61-39 margin and restoring election day registration in the Pine Tree State.

Radically UnAmerican, Republicans Intent on Bringing Back Elements of Jim Crow Laws

Radically UnAmerican, Republicans Intent on Bringing Back Elements of Jim Crow Laws

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

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

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

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

A spokesman for the House Republican Caucus insisted that Mitchell was given bad information and should’ve been allowed to vote, even with an expired state ID. But even if that’s the case, her ordeal illustrates the inevitable disenfranchisements that result when confusing voting laws enable state officials to apply the law inconsistently.

The incident is the just latest in a series of reports of senior citizens being denied their constitutional right to vote under restrictive new voter ID laws pushed by Republican governors and legislatures. These laws are a transparent attempt to target Democrat constituencies who are less likely to have photo ID’s, and disproportionately affect seniors, college students, the poor and minorities.

As ThinkProgress reported, one 96-year-old Tennessee woman was denied a voter ID because she didn’t have her marriage license. Another senior citizen in Tennessee, 91-year-old Virginia Lasater, couldn’t get the ID she needed to vote because she wasn’t able to stand in a long line at the DMV. A Tennessee agency even told a 86-year-old World War II veteran that he had to pay an unconstitutional poll tax if he wanted to obtain an ID.

Conservatives can shroud their radical UnAmerican agenda in five layers of Flags and Bibles to hide the stench. At the end of the day there is nothing patriotic about the conservative agenda. Wake up America, the anti-democracy movement known as conservatism is destroying our democratic republic one step at a time.

Happy New Year From Anti-American Fox News Who Dreams of the Day All Americans Hate Each Other

Happy New Year From Anti-American Fox News Who Dreams of the Day All Americans Hate Each Other - Fox's History Of Mainstreaming Hate

Fox & Friends recently hosted Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has labeled an anti-gay "hate group." Lafferty, who has described SPLC's designation of her group as a "badge of honor," is the latest member of an organization that SPLC has designated as a hate group or otherwise criticized for propagating hateful rhetoric to be invited to speak on Fox News.

...Southern Poverty Law Center: TVC Is An Anti-Gay "Hate Group"

SPLC Labels TVC An Anti-Gay "Hate Group." According to the SPLC, TVC will be listed as an anti-gay hate group as of 2011. SPLC elevates anti-gay groups to hate group status "based on their propagation of known falsehoods -- claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities -- and repeated, groundless name-calling." From SPLC:

    The group has at times enjoyed remarkable access to the halls of power -- during the George W. Bush Administration, Sheldon and Lafferty visited the White House a combined 69 times, meeting personally with Bush in eight of the visits. But that does not mean that it has not long had a record of extreme gay-bashing.

    In 1985, [TVC founder Lou] Sheldon suggested forcing AIDS victims into "cities of refuge." In 1992, columnist Jimmy Breslin said that Sheldon told him that "homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual." Sheldon later denied that he made the comments, but his website today includes strikingly similar language..

...TVC Is Just The Latest Hate Group Or Individual Criticized For Hateful Rhetoric To Be Mainstreamed By Fox

Fox & Friends Hosted President Of FAIR, Which SPLC Designated An Anti-Immigrant Hate Group. On the March 30 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Carlson hosted Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) President Dan Stein to attack immigrants. According to SPLC, FAIR is an anti-immigrant hate group. SPLC noted:

    Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR's founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country. One of the group's main goals is upending the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a decades-long, racist quota system that limited immigration mostly to northern Europeans. FAIR President Dan Stein has called the Act a "mistake." [Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed 3/30/11; Media Matters, 3/30/11]

Beck Hosted Author Who Was Member Of League Of The South Hate Group. On the June 8, 2010, edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Beck hosted author Thomas Woods, who has been a member of League of the South, which SPLC describes as:

    [A] neo-Confederate group that advocates for a second Southern secession and a society dominated by "European Americans." The league believes the "godly" nation it wants to form should be run by an "Anglo-Celtic" (read: white) elite that would establish a Christian theocratic state and politically dominate blacks and other minorities. Originally founded by a group that included many Southern university professors, the group lost its Ph.D.s as it became more explicitly racist. The league denounces the federal government and northern and coastal states as part of "the Empire," a materialist and anti-religious society. [SPLC, accessed 8/4/11; Media Matters, 6/8/10]

Beck Promoted Book By "One Man Hate Group" Eustace Mullins. On the September 22, 2010, edition of his Fox News show, Beck attacked 20th century diplomat Edward House by promoting a book by Eustace Mullins called Secrets of the Federal Reserve. Mullins was described as a "nationally known white supremacist and anti-Semite" in his obituary and was "described in 2000 by the SPLC as a one-man organization of hate." From the Daily News Leader in his hometown of Staunton, VA:

...Fox Has Repeatedly Hosted Pam Geller, Subject Of SPLC "Hatewatch" Post. Fox News has repeatedly hosted anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, even after she was the subject of an August 25, 2010, "Hatewatch" post by SPLC titled, "White Supremacists Find Common Cause With Pam Geller's Anti-Islam Campaign." From the SPLC's description of Geller:

    Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals. [SPLC, 8/25/10; SPLC, accessed 8/5/11; Media Matters, 7/25/11]

Fox Hosted Head Of Anti-Gay Hate Group Family Research Council To Attack Gender Diversity Education. On the May 26 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, co-host Martha MacCallum hosted Family Research Council president Tony Perkins to attack a school in California that was teaching a gender diversity class. The Family Research Council has been labeled by the SPLC as an anti-gay hate group.  

Rupert Murdoch's Fox news and other right-wing media want Americans to be intolerant, hateful and suspicious of each other because they and their organizations make millions of dollars doing so. It also gets conservatives with radical anti-American agendas elected to office. One might call the whole operation a kind of pyramid scheme of hate. As long as it pays, they'll keep telling the lies, dispensing distorted information and stirring up division among the American people.

What Caused the Financial Crisis? Or What Some Call The Great Recession

What Caused the Financial Crisis? Or What Some Call The Great Recession

One group has been especially vocal about shaping a new narrative of the credit crisis and economic collapse: those whose bad judgment and failed philosophy helped cause the crisis.

Rather than admit the error of their ways — Repent! — these people are engaged in an active campaign to rewrite history. They are not, of course, exonerated in doing so. And beyond that, they damage the process of repairing what was broken. They muddy the waters when it comes to holding guilty parties responsible. They prevent measures from being put into place to prevent another crisis.

Here is the surprising takeaway: They are winning. Thanks to the endless repetition of the Big Lie.

A Big Lie is so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. There are many examples: Claims that Earth is not warming, or that evolution is not the best thesis we have for how humans developed. Those opposed to stimulus spending have gone so far as to claim that the infrastructure of the United States is just fine, Grade A (not D, as the we discussed last month), and needs little repair.

Wall Street has its own version: Its Big Lie is that banks and investment houses are merely victims of the crash. You see, the entire boom and bust was caused by misguided government policies. It was not irresponsible lending or derivative or excess leverage or misguided compensation packages, but rather long-standing housing policies that were at fault.

Indeed, the arguments these folks make fail to withstand even casual scrutiny. But that has not stopped people who should know better from repeating them.

The Big Lie made a surprise appearance Tuesday when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, responding to a question about Occupy Wall Street, stunned observers by exonerating Wall Street: “It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp.”

What made his comments so stunning is that he built Bloomberg Data Services on the notion that data are what matter most to investors. The terminals are found on nearly 400,000 trading desks around the world, at a cost of $1,500 a month. (Do the math — that’s over half a billion dollars a month.) Perhaps the fact that Wall Street was the source of his vast wealth biased him. But the key principle of the business that made the mayor a billionaire is that fund managers, economists, researchers and traders should ignore the squishy narrative and, instead, focus on facts. Yet he ignored his own principles to repeat statements he should have known were false.

Why are people trying to rewrite the history of the crisis? Some are simply trying to save face. Interest groups who advocate for deregulation of the finance sector would prefer that deregulation not receive any blame for the crisis.

Some stand to profit from the status quo: Banks present a systemic risk to the economy, and reducing that risk by lowering their leverage and increasing capital requirements also lowers profitability. Others are hired guns, doing the bidding of bosses on Wall Street.

They all suffer cognitive dissonance — the intellectual crisis that occurs when a failed belief system or philosophy is confronted with proof of its implausibility.

And what about those facts? To be clear, no single issue was the cause. Our economy is a complex and intricate system. What caused the crisis? Look:

*Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent — levels not seen for half a century — and kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. This caused a spiral in anything priced in dollars (i.e., oil, gold) or credit (i.e., housing) or liquidity driven (i.e., stocks).

*Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities. Nearly all of them failed to do adequate due diligence before buying them, did not understand these instruments or the risk involved. They violated one of the most important rules of investing: Know what you own.

*Fund managers made this error because they relied on the credit ratings agencies — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.

• Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission changed the leverage rules for just five Wall Street banks in 2004. The “Bear Stearns exemption” replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. These banks ramped leverage to 20-, 30-, even 40-to-1. Extreme leverage leaves very little room for error.

•Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.

• The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.

• These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.

• “Innovative” mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers. These include 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, piggy-bank mortgages (simultaneous underlying mortgage and home-equity lines) and the notorious negative amortization loans (borrower’s indebtedness goes up each month). These mortgages defaulted in vastly disproportionate numbers to traditional 30-year fixed mortgages.

*To keep up with these newfangled originators, traditional banks developed automated underwriting systems. The software was gamed by employees paid on loan volume, not quality.

*Glass-Steagall legislation, which kept Wall Street and Main Street banks walled off from each other, was repealed in 1998. This allowed FDIC-insured banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the government, to engage in highly risky business. It also allowed the banks to bulk up, becoming bigger, more complex and unwieldy.

*Many states had anti-predatory lending laws on their books (along with lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency federally preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. Following this change, national lenders sold increasingly risky loan products in those states. Shortly after, their default and foreclosure rates skyrocketed.

Bloomberg was partially correct: Congress did radically deregulate the financial sector, doing away with many of the protections that had worked for decades. Congress allowed Wall Street to self-regulate, and the Fed the turned a blind eye to bank abuses.

The previous Big Lie — the discredited belief that free markets require no adult supervision — is the reason people have created a new false narrative.

All the right-wing conservative Anti-American presidential candidates have done their part in telling the Big Lie. They seem to anyone - working class Americans, minorities, government, liberalism. The truth hurts. The free market is great when it workers. It only works when properly regulated. That's not communism or fascism or any other ism, its common sense and an honest history of the greed that always kicks in when regulations are too lax or not enforced.

Banana Republic Democracy In Wisconsin Guns Welcome Cameras Excluded

Banana Republic Democracy In Wisconsin Guns Welcome Cameras Excluded

Eighteen people were arrested Tuesday for using cameras in the Wisconsin Assembly gallery, including the editor of The Progressive magazine, Matt Rothschild.

Rothschild and others had gone to the capitol to protest a series of arrests in recent weeks of individuals who carried signs or took photos or video in defiance of an Assembly ban.

"We ought to have a right to take a picture," Rothschild said.
Guns, Yes. Cameras, No.

The protest was organized through a Facebook event called "Concealed Camera Day at the Capitol!" The event coincided with the implementation of Wisconsin's new concealed carry law, which allows residents to carry a concealed firearm -- including inside the Assembly gallery.

Stephen Colbert said Governor Walker was bringing "a new freedom to America's dairyland" with the concealed carry law, but said people would not see "images of gunfire in the statehouse" because of the camera ban. "Thank God. Cameras are dangerous," he said.

On the agenda in Tuesday's session was a bill to institute the Castle Doctrine, a "shoot first, ask questions later" bill that gives a person immunity from civil and criminal liability if they shoot another in self defense in their home, work, or vehicle. The American Legislative Exchange Council also has a model Castle Doctrine bill -- see the side-by-side here.

Event organizers were clear that the protests were not about the gun laws, but instead about protecting First Amendment rights.
But is it Legal?

The Open Meetings law includes this provision (§19.90):

    "Use of equipment in open session. Whenever a governmental body holds a meeting in open session, the body shall make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting. This section does not permit recording, filming or photographing such a meeting in a manner that interferes with the conduct of the meeting or the rights of the participants."

The statute also contains this provision (§ 19.87(2)):

    "No provision of this subchapter which conflicts with a rule of the senate or assembly or joint rule of the legislature shall apply to a meeting conducted in compliance with such rule."

The legal issue here appears similar to the one that arose in the challenge to Governor Walker's collective bargaining law. In that case, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne alleged that the union-busting law should be struck down because it was passed in violation of another provision of the Open Meetings law requiring notice. In part, Ozanne's challenge failed because the legislature had passed a rule that trumped the Open Meetings law.

Likewise, here the Assembly had a rule banning cameras and video, but under the court's ruling in the Ozanne suit, that rule trumped the Open Meetings law permitting their use.

Despite this, both the Wisconsin and U.S. Constitutions have provisions protecting the right to free speech, free assembly, and a free press. "The gallery is a free speech area," says attorney Jim Mueller, who was ticketed in October for violating the Assembly rule. "Even if there are rules against signs, they're unconstitutional. It is our right to peaceably assemble and petition the government."

If we said how funny it was that Governor Walker and other Rethugicans allowed guns but no sunshine from the free press, we would be mistaken in thinking this is some kind of weird aberration of the the Soviet Union's old Politburo here in the U.S. There is nothing strange here. Republicans know that the greatest threat to their anti-American, anti-Democracy agenda is letting the public know what they're doing. Sunshine, like that brought by cameras and recorders is the kind of disinfectant that conservatives know will shine a light on their shady corrupt style of gov'mint. 

A History of Sexual Harassment is The Least of The Corrupt Wing-Nut Herman Cain's Problems

A History of Sexual Harassment is The Least of The Corrupt Wing-Nut Herman Cain's Problems

Mark Block, whose face is now familiar to thousands as the Smoking Man in the Cain campaign's latest video, told reporters that Cain was unaware of any settlements paid to the two women who made the accusations while Cain served as president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association, as Politico reported. But the reasons for Block's discomfort likely went beyond Cain's situation to his own. Just hours before Politico burst forth with its explosive accusations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel laid out a case that suggests significant illegal campaign activity on Cain's behalf by a nonprofit organization, Prosperity USA (also known as America's Prosperity Network), controlled by Block and linked to David Koch's Americans for Prosperity. As AlterNet has reported, Block, the former director of AFP's Wisconsin chapter, has long been known for playing dirty in politics.

Pay to Play?

Prosperity USA, described as a 501(c)(3) in its incorporation documents (and which now seems to be defunct), appears to have been footing the bill for Cain campaign expenses, including a highly unusual payment of $100,000 to the right-wing Congress of Racial Equality in advance of a major speech by Cain. Daniel Bice, who writes the Journal Sentinel's No Quarter blog, reports that the payment to CRE appears to have been disbursed from $150,000 in loans raised from unnamed donors. While Bice asserts that Cain was apparently not paid for that appearance, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer this month uncovered information suggesting that Cain's speaking fees are not directly reported as such on his disclosure forms to the Federal Elections Commission, but are shielded from public view as transactions that take place between his private company and the speaker's bureau representing him. Writes Mayer:

    Yet, mysteriously, Cain discloses no payments from the Washington Speakers Bureau on his federal forms. Instead, on his 2011 F.E.C. form, he lists unspecified payments of between $50,000-$100,000 to his company, the New Voice, which he describes as a “public speaking” and “publishing” entity.

A Visit With Mr. Koch

Among Bice's revelations is a record showing that Prosperity USA paid for Block's travel to meet with David Koch, the billionaire right-wing funder behind Americans for Prosperity and its foundation, and AFP president Tim Phillips in Washington, D.C., in January -- after Block was named "chief of staff" of the Cain campaign. Although the records Bice combed through do not specify a date for that trip, we know that both Phillips and Koch were in the nation's capital to celebrate the swearing in of the new congress on January 6, and to see the speaker's gavel passed from Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Koch and Phillips had much to celebrate that day, not only in the transfer of power from the Democrats to the Republicans in the House of Representatives, but also for the high number of Tea Party-allied freshmen lawmakers in the new class who owed their good political fortunes to Koch and Americans for Prosperity. They were particularly successful in Wisconsin, where they helped to elect two new congressmen, Sean Duffy and Reid Ribble, and managed to unseat long-time U.S. Sen. Russell Feingold with their ally, Ron Johnson.

Until he signed on as Herman Cain's campaign manager in December, Block ran the Wisconsin state chapter of Americans for Prosperity. In addition to helping to send a handful of Koch-backed lawmakers to Washington, Block also helped elect Scott Walker to the governor's mansion along with a cadre of right-wingers to the state legislature, where they wasted no time in launching an assault against Wisconsin's public employees and their unions. And it was Block who recruited Herman Cain to run for president.

Taxpayer Subsidy for Cain's Private Jet?

Nonprofit organizations classified as 501(c)(3) under the IRS code are forbidden to engage in electioneering. Yet Prosperity USA lists on a rather messy statement of profit and loss, uncovered by Bice, that it is owed more than $40,000 from Friends of Herman Cain (the official name of the fundraising arm of Cain's presidential campaign), including at least $16,000 for Cain's travel on the charter jets of Hill Aircraft to appear at events sponsored by Americans for Prosperity, as well at an event in Chicago called RightNation, which the statement says Cain attended at the "request of AFP." Hill Aircraft, on its Web site, offers this description of its services:

    Our world class FBO facilities offer all the amenities for both passengers and pilots, including computer work stations with internet access, plasma TV screens for catching up on national and world events, pilots lounge with theatre seating and security camera monitors and state of the art flight planning facilities. Our line technicians are NATA Safety 1st trained and Hill Aircraft is a State of Georgia recognized drug free workplace. Our concierge services can take care of passenger and crew ground transportation, hotel reservations and catering, we can even arrange for sporting event tickets or a round of golf. Let Hill Aircraft show you why we have been named the #1 FBO in Georgia multiple times.

Payment for this campaign travel by a tax-exempt organization, which Prosperity USA claims to be, would amount to a taxpayer subsidy of plush accommodations for a political candidate. It appears, according to the Journal Sentinel, that Prosperity USA also forked over $3,700 for iPads used by the Cain campaign.

Koch-Linked Nonprofit Pays Singer of Cain Anthem

The records unearthed by the Journal Sentinel also note a payment of $1,500 to Krista Branch, who sings the Cain anthem, "I Am America" in the campaign's videos. Bice also reports that Branch's husband, who composed the song, works for the Cain campaign:

    Branch's husband, Michael, who wrote the song, has been paid $11,250 in his role as the Cain campaign's Tennessee director and $7,360 as a fundraising consultant.

Prosperity USA also appears to have provided the funding for Prosperity 101, the Koch-linked workplace indoctrination program on which AlterNet (in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute) published an exposé last June. Our reporting showed Prosperity 101, which was fronted by Cain and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore, to be a for-profit venture, with Linda Hansen, the Cain campaign's current fundraiser, listed as its registered agent. Prosperity USA's profit and loss statement shows $12,000 billed to the nonprofit by Hansen's apparently for-profit workplace program, with a note saying that another $30,000 worth of bills from Prosperity 101 had just been submitted by Hansen for payment.

Perhaps Cain should be running for president of some backwards banana republic. One that buys and sells power and votes like the infamous Koch brothers. Conservatives have long run an extensive shadow network of dirty money. Its what they do. Conservatism by definition is the corruption of democracy. That is why they wrap in in the flag in the bible. They have actually got some poor rubes believing they love their country and want the best for America.

Republican Presidential Candidates Offer America More Voodoo Economics and No Solutions

Republican Presidential Candidates Offer America More Voodoo Economics and No Solutions

Key proposals from the Republican presidential candidates might make for good campaign fodder. But independent analyses raise serious questions about those plans and their ability to cure the nation's ills in two vital areas, the economy and housing.

Consider proposed cuts in taxes and regulation, which nearly every GOP candidate is pushing in the name of creating jobs. The initiatives seem to ignore surveys in which employers cite far bigger impediments to increased hiring, chiefly slack consumer demand.

"Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today," writes Bruce Bartlett. He's an economist who worked for Republican congressmen and in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, "It's just nonsense. It's just made up."

Government and industry studies support his view.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks companies' reasons for large layoffs, found that 1,119 layoffs were attributed to government regulations in the first half of this year, while 144,746 were attributed to poor "business demand."
Mainstream economic theory says governments can spur demand, at least somewhat, through stimulus spending. The Republican candidates, however, have labeled President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus efforts a failure. Instead, most are calling for tax cuts that would primarily benefit high-income people, who are seen as the likeliest job creators.

"I don't care about that," Texas Gov. Rick Perry told The New York Times and CNBC, referring to tax breaks for the rich. "What I care about is them having the dollars to invest in their companies."

Many existing businesses, however, have plenty of unspent cash. The 500 companies that comprise the S&P index have about $800 billion in cash and cash equivalents, the most ever, according to the research firm Birinyi Associates.

The rating firm Moody's says the roughly 1,600 companies it monitors had $1.2 trillion in cash at the end of 2010. That's 11 percent more than a year earlier.

Small businesses rate "poor sales" as their biggest problem, with government regulations ranking second, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Of the small businesses saying this is not a good time to expand, half cited the poor economy as the chief reason. Thirteen percent named the "political climate."

More small businesses complained about regulation during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, according to an analysis of the federation's data by the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Such findings notwithstanding, further cuts in taxes and regulations remain popular with GOP voters. A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found that most Democrats and about half of independents think "reducing environmental and other regulations on business" would do little or nothing to create jobs. But only one-third of Republicans felt that way.

The GOP's presidential hopefuls are shaping their economic agendas along those lines.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says his 59-point plan "seeks to reduce taxes, spending, regulation and government programs."

Businessman Herman Cain would significantly cut taxes for the wealthy with his 9 percent flat tax plan. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said in a recent debate, "It's the regulatory burden that costs us $1.8 trillion every year. ... It's jobs that are lost."

The candidates have said little about another national problem: depressed home prices, as well as the high numbers of foreclosures and borrowers who owe more than their houses are worth.

After the Oct. 18 GOP debate in Las Vegas, a center of foreclosure activity, editors of the AOL Real Estate site wrote, "We didn't hear any meaningful solutions to the housing crisis. That's no surprise, considering that housing has so far been a ghost issue in the campaign."

To the degree the candidates addressed housing, they mainly took a hands-off approach. "We need to get government out of the way," Cain said. "It starts with making sure that we can boost this economy and then reform Dodd-Frank," which is a law that regulates Wall Street transactions.

Bachmann, in an answer that mentioned "moms" six times, said foreclosures fall most heavily on women who are "losing their nest for their children and for their family." She said Obama "has failed you on this issue of housing and foreclosures. I will not fail you on this issue." Bachmann offered no specific remedies.

Romney told editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom. Allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up."

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said the Texas governor's "immediate remedy for housing is to get America working again. ... Creating jobs will address the housing concerns that are impacting communities throughout America."

Bartlett, whose books on tax policy include "The Benefit and the Burden," recently wrote in the New York Times: "People are increasingly concerned about unemployment, but Republicans have nothing to offer them."

The candidates and their supporters dispute this, of course. A series of scheduled debates may give them chances to explain why their proposals would hit the right targets.


A recent study published by Bloomberg shows that the elitist conservative presidential candidates are either out of touch with reality or are lying to the American people about business regulation. Obama Wrote 5% Fewer Rules Than Bush

President Barack Obama’s “tsunami” of new government regulations looks more like a summer swell.

Obama’s White House has approved fewer regulations than his predecessor George W. Bush at this same point in their tenures, and the estimated costs of those rules haven’t reached the annual peak set in fiscal 1992 under Bush’s father, according to government data reviewed by Bloomberg News.

The average annual cost to businesses under Obama is higher than under his predecessors, the Bloomberg review shows. The increase is estimated to total as little as $100 million or as much as $4.1 billion, or at most three one-hundredths of a percent of the total economy.

The scope of government regulation has emerged as a major issue in the 2012 presidential race and on Capitol Hill. Republican presidential candidates have accused Obama of stifling job creation by imposing rules on businesses, and House Republicans have vowed to rein in proposed regulations on everything from the environment to health care to banking.

“This is getting picked up and talked about, but not for any good reason,” Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at the New York University School of Law, said in an interview. “There’s nothing new about this attack: It comes and goes in good times and in bad.”

How Obama Compares

Obama’s White House approved 613 federal rules during the first 33 months of his term, 4.7 percent fewer than the 643 cleared by President George W. Bush’s administration in the same time frame, according to an Office of Management and Budget statistical database reviewed by Bloomberg.

The number of significant federal rules, defined as those costing more than $100 million, has gone up under Obama, with 129 approved so far, compared with 90 for Bush, 115 for President Bill Clinton and 127 for the first President Bush over the same period in their first terms. In part that’s because $100 million in past years was worth more than it is now due to inflation, Livermore said.

What Liberal Media - ABC News Fisker "Exclusive" Is Actually A Recycled Fox News Story From 2009

What Liberal Media - ABC News  Fisker "Exclusive" Is Actually A Recycled Fox News Story From 2009

A story touted as "an ABC News exclusive" actually rehashes a flawed narrative pushed by Fox News more than two years ago.

In collaboration with iWatch News, Brian Ross and ABC's "investigative unit" reported late last week that Fisker Automotive, a hybrid car maker that received a federal loan, "is assembling its first line of cars in Finland." The loan itself, however, can only be used to support operations based in the U.S.

ABC published the story, titled "Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland," on Thursday night and Ross reported the "ABC News exclusive" on Friday's edition of Good Morning America. Ross said that World News and Nightline would also feature the story on Friday, but ABC did not run those segments.

Instead, Ross appeared on the Fox Business Network Friday night, where he told host David Asman that those in the administration criticizing his reporting "just don't like the takeaway, which is that they got the loan and they're building the car in Finland."

But this news isn't new. In fact, it was explained by the Department of Energy (DOE) in a September 2009 press release announcing the conditional loan. According to the release, "final assembly" of the high-end Fisker Karma "will be done overseas." Indeed, Fisker had a contract to assemble the Karma in Finland before the company ever received funds from DOE. ABC failed to note this fact and the misunderstanding was compounded by other news outlets covering ABC's report.

The loan supports design work carried out in Michigan and California for the Karma, as well as the assembly of Fisker's lower-cost hybrid, Project Nina, which will take place at a former GM factory in Wilmington, Deleware. Fisker began hiring for the Delaware plant in June.

Following the DOE announcement in September 2009, Fox ran a series of segments and an online article exclaiming that the government "gave a half a billion dollars" to "a car company that is creating jobs in Finland," in the words of America's Newsroom anchor Martha MacCallum. Fox characteristically botched some important details, spurring a response from Henrik Fisker, who criticized news reports that "ignored or marginalized the truth, or sensationalized irrelevant aspects of the loan and our company." "It is unfortunate how false information can be disseminated and it is our intention to correct as much of it as possible," Fisker said in a press release at the time.

Fox is now using the ABC report to launch another round of outrage. Fox News and Fox Business have already devoted at least 18 segments to the story since Friday.

It's worth noting that Ford Motors, which received by far the largest of DOE's loans, has numerous overseas manufacturing plants. Oil and gas companies that benefit from taxpayer subsidies also conduct business all over the world. So the notion that federal incentives should not be available to companies with multinational operations has implications far beyond Fisker.

The recent media storm surrounding ABC's report has some at Fox scratching their heads. "I've been talking about it for literally two years," Eric Bolling said Friday night on his Fox Business show. "What happened yesterday that all of a sudden this story is on every single show that I watch?"

ABC's framing might provide a clue. The network's October 20 article referred to "intense scrutiny" of DOE's clean energy investments "in the wake of the administration's failed $535 million investment in solar panel maker Solyndra" and asked if "another Solyndra is in the offing."

On Thursday night, the Drudge Report hyped the ABC report as a "SOLYDRA-like story" before it was even published, citing unnamed "sources":

Drudge Headline

And on Good Morning America, Ross mentioned "questions about whether [Fisker] could end up as another taxpayer boondoggle." ABC followed up Monday with an article titled, "Obama Admin. Defends Fisker Cars From Solyndra Comparison."

CNN also adopted the Solyndra association, despite the lack of any indication at this point that Fisker -- which included in the Wall Street Journal's 2010 list of "Top 10 Cleantech Companies" -- will default on the federal loan. Introducing the story, CNN's Wolf Blitzer said on Friday: "It might, repeat, might just be another Solyndra in the making. That's what some of the critics are charging."

ABC News was among the media outlets that most persistently pursued the Solyndra story. As we showed last month, ABC dedicated more airtime to Solyndra than did CBS and NBC during the month after the solar panel maker announced its bankruptcy filing. In the same month, ABC virtually ignored a report by the Commission on Wartime Contracting which concluded that $31-60 billion has been lost to waste and fraud through contracts related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, costing taxpayers 56 times more than Solyndra's failure.

ABC's Solyndra reporting was at times misleading and littered with unsupported insinuations that political favoritism played a role in the company's loan guarantee. ABC also reported excerpts from emails leaked by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee which were later shown to be taken out of context.

After the Obama administration pointed out that the Bush administration intended to give Solyndra the loan guarantee, a claim backed up by internal documents, ABC posted the headline: "Blame It On Bush, Say Obama Officials." 

As in Fisker's case, Fox News embraced ABC's Solyndra reporting and Bill O'Reilly hosted Brian Ross on September 14. During his appearance, Ross said "there are serious questions about whether influence was involved" in the loan guarantee. Asked by O'Reilly if Solyndra "is Enron 2," Ross replied: "It has that aspect. And you know, there are lots of big names that could be drawn in. I think we will be hearing about this all the way through next November."

Like the loan guarantee program that provided financing to Solyndra and other solar companies, the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program was designed to fund innovative projects that inherently carry some risk.

The program was signed into law by President Bush in 2007 and Congress allocated $7.5 billion to cover the costs of any defaults. The $529 million Fisker loan is 7 percent of that amount. The Department of Energy told ABC that Fisker has not missed a loan payment or asked to restructure the agreement.

UPDATE (10/26/11):

ABC posted another report last night titled, "Republicans Call for Probe of Obama's Green Car Program." Brian Ross also appeared on Nightline and World News with Diane Sawyer to discuss the loans to Fisker and Tesla Motors. ABC is promoting the World News segment with the title, "Another Green Company Going Bankrupt?"

On Nightline, Ross said Fisker promised to create jobs in Delaware, "but so far the only cars being made have come off the line at this plant in Finland." Of course Ross didn't explain that when Fisker got the loan in 2009, the company said it would produce the cars in Delaware starting in late 2012.

The major take-away from the story. Bush signed off on the Fisker loan. it was understood even than that Fisker would be assembling the car in Europe. None of the loan money was used for the overseas part of the Fisker company operations. The loan did create American jobs. Ross and ABC have slanted the story along Obama hating right-wing talking points. ABC and Brian Ross have been caught previously acting as a fax machine for right-wing conservative talking points about the "war on terrorism". Finally, Fisker is making the repayments on its loan on schedule. All the negative publicity coming from anti-America conservatives may do more to hurt the company's chances of success than anything else. Why are conservatives always cheering for the failure of American technology and science.

Mitt Romney Used To Have a Heart Now He is Running as a Far Right Conservative - Romney Supported President Bush’s Government Program To Refinance Mortgages

Mitt Romney Used To Have a Heart Now He is Running Far Right Conservative - Romney Supported President Bush’s Government Program To Refinance Mortgages

This week, in an attempt to boost the economy without having to deal with Congress, the Obama administration announced an overhaul of its mortgage refinancing program known as HARP. The changes will allow more people to take advantage of low interest rates, freeing up more money for them to spend elsewhere.

As we noted yesterday, this idea is supported by 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s top economic adviser, Columbia University’s Glenn Hubbard. Hubbard called Obama’s refinancing plan “a big deal.” “It looks like a good plan; I’m glad they’re doing it,” he said. And as it turns out, Romney himself supported a refinancing plan when President Bush announced one in 2007.
In late August 2007, as the subprime mortgage crisis built up, Bush introduced an initiative overseen by the Federal Housing Authority to “help struggling homeowners find a way to refinance” and stem foreclosures. According to Bush, while it was “not the government’s job to bail out speculators,” there were a lot of homeowners “who could get through this difficult time with a little flexibility from their lenders or a little help from their government.”

A week later, during an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Romney professed no concerns about the program:

    Well, the President has taken action that should calm a good portion of the market, which is he said look, these people who borrowed money from the sub-prime world with these reset provisions, where the payments go up in later months, and they were told by their mortgage banker in many cases don’t worry about that, we’ll refinance it when that time comes, well, now the mortgage banker’s gone, they can’t refinance it. And so he’s saying, the President’s saying let’s have the FHA refinance these mortgages. It’s not a bailout, but it is a setting which gives people stability, and will calm the markets to a certain degree.

In an interview last week with the Las Vegas Review Journal, Mitt Romney opined that the Obama administration has no right to provide assistance to homeowners facing foreclosure, saying that the foreclosure process ought to “run its course and hit the bottom.

However, he did add, “I think the idea of helping people refinance homes to stay in them is one that’s worth further consideration.” So given his prior support for the idea, is Romney on board with the administration’s effort?

Romney keeps drifting back towards being moderate when far right-wing conservatives who control the Republican Party like a brain dead cult want absolute purity. They don't want to help people stay in their homes, but have no problem with too big to fail banks reaping near pre-recession profits. How is it that Wall Street gets government backing and homeowners - who are not responsible for losing $17 trillion of America's wealth get all the protection conservatives can provide.

Republicans Criticize Obama's Withdrawing From Iraq On The Time-Table Bush and Republicans Agreed To

Republicans Criticize Obama's Withdrawing From Iraq On The Time-Table Bush and Republicans Agreed To

Why it’s safe to ignore Republican criticism of Obama’s policy in Iraq.

This is getting all too predictable. President Obama announced that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, in compliance not only with his election pledge but also with the terms of a U.S.-Iraq treaty. In response, the Republicans moaned and hollered that Obama is playing politics with national security, or that he could have negotiated a better outcome, or that he’s surrendering to Iranian domination.

It’s a safe bet that, had Obama announced he was keeping 10,000 troops in Iraq for the indefinite future, most of the same Republicans would have moaned and hollered that he was breaking a promise to the American people, draining the Treasury, and boosting the chance of a terrorist attack by Muslims angered at our continued occupation.
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More than this, their complaints are unfounded, based on either ignorance or deliberate distortion.

First, it is crucial to note that this withdrawal and its timetable were set in a treaty called the Status of Forces Agreement, signed Nov. 17, 2008, not by Obama (who wasn’t president yet) but rather by George W. Bush. SOFAs, as they’re often abbreviated, are treaties—bearing the force of national and international law—that presidents sign with each country that hosts U.S. armed forces. They set the terms and conditions under which those forces can stay.

The SOFA with Iraq states, in Article 24: “All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, waters, and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.” That’s as definitive as these things get.
Article 30 does allow for amendments to the treaty, but only in the event of the “formal written approval of both parties and in accordance with the constitutional procedures in both countries.” For the past few months, U.S. officials (including some former Bush officials called back to join the delegation) have tested the waters to see if Iraqi lawmakers would allow—or, more to the point, wanted—an amendment that would permit some of the current 40,000 American troops to stay on. Their conclusion: The Iraqis had no such desire, and not much need.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and some others have suggested that the sticking point was over a clause giving U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution for alleged crimes. This is a standard feature of such treaties, including of the earlier arrangement with Iraq. It’s true that the Iraqis refused to grant the immunity. But there was no leeway to negotiate an exemption, because the main sticking point was, and is, that the Iraqis simply do not want American troops in their country anymore. One U.S. official in Iraq said in a phone interview, “Even our erstwhile friends [among Iraqi politicians] want us out by the end of the year. None of them lifted a finger to keep us.”

Do Obama’s Republican critics, who have made such a big deal of Iraq’s bourgeoning democracy, really think Obama should (or could) have disregarded the democratically elected parliament of a sovereign nation—a sovereign ally, at that—in order to keep U.S. troops on that nation’s soil, allegedly for its own interest (as defined by us, not by them)? We would then become nothing but an occupying power, sure to trigger an escalation of armed resistance and appear hypocritical in the extreme.

Meanwhile, we have been withdrawing troops steadily for some time. And so far, violence has not been on the rise. In fact, it’s been sharply declining.

The authors also note two other things Republicans cannot seem to get through their partisan addled brains. Iraq has shown no signs of wanting to sign up with any of Iran's agenda. There are about 40,000 troops still in the region on the Kuwait border plus a naval task force in the area should Iraq need protection from invaders. Too bad conservatives seem more obsessed with trying to make Obama look bad than they are with creating jobs. Isn't that what they campaigned on in 2010. How many jobs bills have Republicans passed? Zero. Yet they have opposed Obama's Job Bill because it would make billionaires pay a few more dollars in taxes. How is it again that conservatives are not the self absorbed elitists. 

Something Devious Going On - Why Is Darrell Issa (R-CA) Ignoring Bush Era Fast and Furious Type Program

Something Devious Going On - Why Is Darrell Issa (R-CA) Ignoring Bush Era Fast and Furious Type Program

As House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) continues to try to pin the flawed "gun walking" tactic employed in Operation Fast and Furious on the Obama administration, it's becoming increasingly clear that problems with ATF's Phoenix division date back at least into the Bush era.

TPM has obtained the documents relating to another Bush-era ATF operation (on top of Operation Wide Receiver) which deployed the "gun walking" tactic. The development was first reported by Pete Yost of the Associated Press.

In fact, ATF officials wrote in 2007 that the gun walking tactic had "full approval" of the U.S. Attorney's Office being run by an interim Bush appointee and that the U.S. Embassy in Mexico was "fully on-board."

Under DOJ policy, illicit arms shipments are supposed to be intercepted whenever possible. But the emails show that just like in Operation Fast and Furious, official planned to allow guns to "walk" across the border and into Mexico in an attempt to identify traffickers higher up in the operation (rather than low ranking "straw purchasers," who are difficult to prosecute thanks to the lack of an anti-trafficking gun law).

On Sept. 27, 2007 -- when the Justice Department was reeling from the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- ATF agents in Phoenix and Mexico were conducting partial surveillance of suspects who purchased numerous weapons at a federally licensed firearms dealership.

After they watched the group purchase 19 weapons on Sept. 21 and 24 and additional weapons on Sept. 27, they watched as the weapons crossed the border into Mexico.

"Phoenix AZ ATF agents observed this vehicle commit to the border and reach the Mexican side until it could no longer be seen," ATF assistant director Carson Carroll wrote in a Sept. 28, 2007 email. "We, the ATF (Mexico) did not get a response from the Mexican side until 20 minutes later, who then informed us that they did not see the vehicle cross."

A few days later, William Newell -- the ATF official in charge of the Phoenix division -- tried to assure colleagues that everything would be okay.

"I know you have reservations but please rest assured that this will go as planned, as allowed per MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty) with Mexico, with full approval of the USAO (confirmed again late this afternoon), and will have big payoffs for us and the Department in addresing (sic) Mexico's concerns that we (US) aren't doing enough to address their concerns," Newell wrote in an Oct. 4, 2007 email. "Trust me, I'm with Gov't."

"Wow, I feel so much better," William Hoover, the ATF Assistant Director for Field Operations wrote in an email the next morning.

Hoover's emails lay out all the questions that congressional and Justice Department investigators are examining about Fast and Furious.

"This is a major investigation with huge political implications and great potential if all goes well. We must be very prepared if it doesn't go well," Hoover wrote in a Oct. 5, 2007 email.

"I would like to discuss the following: Have we discussed the strategy with the US Attorney's Office re letting guns walk? Do we have this approval in writing? Have we discussed and thought thru the consequences of same? Are we tracking south of the border?" Hoover wrote in the email.

Current Attorney General and Obama appointee Eric Holder was investigating the Bush era gun walking program. So a fair minded American has to ask themselves who Issa is making it sound as though all this gun walking is some how Eric Holder's fault. Gosh do you think this is yet another political witch-hunt by right-wing conservatives that has about as much substance as Rush Limbaugh's brain. Maybe, just maybe Issa is also trying to distract attention from his own corruption - American Family Voices asks for investigation of Issa.

Rabid Florida Conservatives Take The State Back to 1964

Florida secretary of state argues 1965 Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional

The Republican drive to repeal the 20th century continues. In this Florida-based version, we learn that the 1965 Voting Right Act, which prevents states from making laws that discriminate against voters and requires the federal government to issue approval for changes in voting laws in certain, shall we say, problem areas, is unconstitutional. Because the Republican secretary of state in Florida says so:

    The complaint — which was filed today by Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning — argues that federal preclearance requirements for state election laws are “unconstitutional.” [...]

    Working to implement the Legislature’s elections overhaul, Browning’s office has asked a federal judge to approve four of the law’s most controversial measures: new restrictions on third-party voter registration drives, a shortened “shelf life” for signatures collected for ballot initiatives, new restrictions on voters changing their registered addresses on election day, and a reduction in the number of early voting days. In the 62 Florida counties not covered by Section 5, Browning’s office has already implemented the new elections rules.

You might note that each of these new restrictions is meant to reduce the number of people voting, and/or make it more expensive for people to vote. It's not quite poll tax territory (the new ID requirements being pushed by multiple states fills that role nicely), but it's still intended to be discriminatory by making it more difficult for people to support initiatives, to register, or to vote, come election day. Since poorer voters tend to be less able to overcome increased barriers to voting than better off people, this benefits Republicans. Same story as always.

I'm not sure why Browning is going all out for a "the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional!" approach. Perhaps it is the only argument they have; perhaps Browning is feeling especially emboldened of late, and thinks it's high time to make the good Republican case that having states implement discriminatory voting laws is their damn right, you federal government communists. Maybe we'll get to hear about "upholding southern tradition" or the like. Who knows? It's a brand new era in Republicanism, an era in which every element of progress on civil rights or economic justice that took place in the last hundred years needs to be dismantled, so we can get back to the good old days of slave labor (see: Georgia's new indentured servitude laws, for Christ's sake) or speculator-driven economic collapses.

Just contemplate that for a bit. Republicans are now fighting over whether to keep the 1965 Voting Rights Act. "Conservative" seems a weak word for that; reactionary seems the better choice.

Previously right-wing Floridan put the state in their time machine and took the state back to the golden age of corruption with the election of known criminal Rick Scott. Now Kurt Browning wants to return the state back to the good old days of voter disenfranchisement. There is nothing patriotic about browning or Scott no matter how tightly they wrap their anti-American garbage in the flag.

Conservative Republicans Show True Colors - American Blackshirts Against Voting

Conservative Republicans Show True Colors - American Blackshirts Against Voting

Total shock: Voter ID laws prevent people from voting
For white male property owners only.
This isn't a bug, this is a feature:

    Dorothy Cooper is 96 but she can remember only one election when she's been eligible to vote but hasn't.

    The retired domestic worker was born in a small North Georgia town before women had the right to vote. She began casting ballots in her 20s after moving to Chattanooga for work. She missed voting for John F. Kennedy in 1960 because a move to Nashville prevented her from registering in time.

    So when she learned last month at a community meeting that under a new state law she'd need a photo ID to vote next year, she talked with a volunteer about how to get to a state Driver Service Center to get her free ID. But when she got there Monday with an envelope full of documents, a clerk denied her request.

    That morning, Cooper slipped a rent receipt, a copy of her lease, her voter registration card and her birth certificate into a Manila envelope. Typewritten on the birth certificate was her maiden name, Dorothy Alexander.

    "But I didn't have my marriage certificate," Cooper said Tuesday afternoon, and that was the reason the clerk said she was denied a free voter ID at the Cherokee Boulevard Driver Service Center.

Cooper was able to vote during the days of Jim Crow, but under Tennessee's recently passed voter ID law, she can't get an ID because she didn't have every single last piece of documentation the state would require. Now, some might say that Cooper's case is just an unfortunate incident of a well-meaning system failing a select few individuals, but it's not: Making it harder for immigrants, minorities, students and poor people to vote is exactly part of the plan. It's like Rep. Steve King said as he longed for the days when only white property owners could vote:

    KING: As I roll this thing back and I think of American history, there was a time in American history when you had to be a male property owner in order to vote. The reason for that was, because they wanted the people who voted—that set the public policy, that decided on the taxes and the spending—to have some skin in the game.

    [...]

    Now I don't think they're paying taxes. But many of them are voting. And when they vote, they vote for more government benefits.

Not that Rep. King is alone. This is what New Hampshire State House Speaker William O'Brien had to say this spring in defense of a bill that would have made it significantly harder for students to vote in New Hampshire:

    New Hampshire's new Republican state House speaker is pretty clear about what he thinks of college kids and how they vote. They're "foolish," Speaker William O'Brien said in a recent speech to a tea party group.

    "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings.

Got that? If you vote as a liberal, you don't deserve to vote. The only way you deserve to vote is if you're the type of person who will vote to enrich the class of male property owners. That's why 38 states have introduced some form of suppressive voter ID law; after all, the people who are likely to be affected by them aren't the people that "deserve" to be voting, and white property owners will likely have the resources to get the IDs they need.

And in case it wasn't clear enough, the sponsor of the bill in Tennessee doesn't have high regard for the people her law could affect:

    In this video, the House sponsor of the photo ID voter law defends it against questions from a gaggle of pesky reporters. Rep. Debra Maggart, R-Hendersonville, dismisses Democratic claims that many poor people don't have photo ID. She wonders how "all these people" are able to buy beer and cigarettes without driver's licenses. Later in the interview, she denies she's referring to poor people. Maybe she was talking about wealthy Republican voters.

    Maggart: Tell me how people are buying beer and cigarettes? They have to have an ID to do that, a photo ID to do that. I have a hard time believing that all these people don’t have an ID. … You have to have a photo ID to get public housing. You have to have a birth certificate to get public housing. … I think there’s more people with a photo ID than they want to admit.
    ...

    Q: You were referring to housing project residents? You think they buy an inordinate amount of beer and cigarettes?

    Maggart: No, I didn’t say that. I’m just saying a lot of people have photo ID.

Poor people: they're all a bunch of drug-addicted losers on public housing, so who cares if they vote, right Rep. Maggart? Just shameless.

Conservatives like to portray non-conservatives as elitist yet they want to run the USA as an elte country club where only the chosen elite can participate in democracy. Or what is left of democracy after these fake patriots finish gutting it.

As crazy as an old barn bat - Herman Cain Claims That His Tax Plan Is ‘Not Regressive On The Poor’ — Economists Disagree

Bush-era probe involved guns 'walking'

The federal government under the Bush administration ran an operation that allowed hundreds of guns to be transferred to suspected arms traffickers - the same tactic that congressional Republicans have criticized President Barack Obama's administration for using, two federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday.