Internet Bill SOPA Was Introduced By Republicans. SOPA is a Clear Attack on the First Amendment.

Internet Bill SOPA Was Introduced By Republicans. SOPA is a Clear Attack on the First Amendment. Why Do Republicans Hate America?

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School, argues the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) violates the First Amendment in a memo sent to members of Congress on Thursday.

The bill would empower the Justice Department and copyright holders to demand that search engines, Internet providers and payment processors cut ties with websites "dedicated" to copyright infringement.

Tribe argues the bill amounts to illegal "prior restraint" because it would suppress speech without a judicial hearing.

Additionally, the law's definition of a rogue website is unconstitutionally vague, Tribe writes.

"Conceivably, an entire website containing tens of thousands of pages could be targeted if only a single page were accused of infringement," Tribe writes. "Such an approach would create severe practical problems for sites with substantial user-generated content, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and for blogs that allow users to post videos, photos, and other materials."

He argues SOPA undermines the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, which protected websites from being held responsible for the actions of their users. 

The bill would "effectively require sites actively to police themselves to ensure that infringement does not occur," he writes.

Tribe concludes the result is that the law would chill protected and lawful speech.

"The threat of such a cutoff would deter Internet companies from adopting innovative approaches to hosting and linking to third party content and from exploring new kinds of communication," he writes.

In a footnote, Tribe acknowledges that he was hired by the Consumer Electronics Association, which is lobbying against SOPA, but he adds, "The views expressed in this paper represent my own views as a scholar and student of the Constitution."

A spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee Republicans pointed to a competing legal analysis by constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams.

 The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2] Now before the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the Protect IP Act.[3]

"In addition to domain-name filtering, SOPA would impose an open-ended obligation on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent access to infringing sites...Preventing access to specific sites would require ISPs to inspect all the Internet traffic of its entire user base—the kind of privacy-invasive monitoring that has come under fire in the context of 'deep packet inspection' for advertising purposes", said Center for Democracy and Technology lawyers David Sohn and Andrew McDiarmid in an article written for The Atlantic.[33]

"Is this really what we want to do to the internet? Shut it down every time it doesn't fit someone's business model?" asks Harvard Business Review blogger James Allworth, concluding that the bill would "give America its very own version of the Great Firewall of China."[44]

The legislation would lead to many cloud computing and Web hosting services moving out of the U.S. to avoid lawsuits, predicted Christian Dawson, COO of Virginia-based hosting company ServInt. "I see SOPA as a stimulus package for Asia and Europe and their Internet economies," he said.[45]

Today In Dishonest Fox News Charts - It looks like Fox is trying to mislead its viewers on the unemployment rate. Again. As more and more Americans are learning Fox News is an anti-American propaganda channel run by the Rupert Murdoch international media empire. Its goal is to spread authoritarian style government over as much of the world as possible. It is a secret conspiracy. Fox personnel frequently espouse the virtues of what historians call proto-fascism.

Is Mitt Romney Morally Fit to Be President - He refused to help decorated Iraq war veteran become a cop

Is Mitt Romney Morally Fit to Be President - He refused to help decorated Iraq war veteran become a cop

In an article documenting Mitt Romney's decade-long campaign for the presidency comes this extraordinary profile in political and moral cowardice:

    As Steve LeBlanc of The Associated Press documented in 2007, Romney issued no pardons or commutations while serving as governor, despite some seemingly benign pleas.

    In one of them, Anthony Circosta, a decorated Iraq war veteran, requested a pardon so he could pursue a career as a police officer.

    His background was marred because, as a 13 year old, he was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB gun.

    The shot that did not break the other child’s skin.

    Nonetheless, Circosta’s plea was among the 100 requests for commutations and 172 requests for pardons that all were denied during Romney’s four years in office.

Apparently, Mitt Romney didn't want to risk having a Mike Dukakis-style Willie Horton issue appear on the campaign trail. Of course, even though Circosta "worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard, and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq’s deadly Sunni triangle," Romney refused to help.

When it came to addressing George W. Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence, Romney defended it, however. So why the sudden shift from Romney? Simple: He was running for office, for Pete's sake. Republican office.

In case you do not remember Scooter Libby lied to protect V.P. Cheney from being prosecuting for exposing the identity f a CIA NOC agent who specilized in Middle-East WMD intelligence. Romney has the same priotites as every wing-nut conservative - party first, America and decency last.

OWS Comes to the Aid of Right-wing Reporter From Daily Caller.

Republicans Claim The Stimulus Did Not Create Jobs and Government Cannot Create Jobs

Republicans Claim The Stimulus Did Not Create Jobs and Government Cannot Create Jobs

I have to admit, I never tire of stories like these.

    …Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) kicked it old school on Thursday by cutting the ribbon on a new road that received millions from the same spending bill he opposed.

    Guinta spoke at the opening ceremony for Raymond Wieczorek Drive, a new access road connecting various towns to the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. Later he posted a picture of the event on his official Facebook page. Other attendees included Gov. John Lynch (D) and New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien.

    “It’s going to help us with our tourism, our economy, and it’s going to provide us greater flexibility for our residents, our business commuters, and those visiting our state,” Guinta said at the event. “It’s a real example of how when we put our mind to it we can accomplish anything we want to accomplish.”

These examples are a lot less common now, not because GOP officials have become more responsible, but because Recovery Act funding has just about been exhausted. But when the instances come along, they tend to be doozies.

In this case, Guinta absolutely loathes stimulus spending — his hatred for these public investments was a central part of his 2010 campaign platform — but that didn’t stop him from trying to take credit for the infrastructure project that was financed by stimulus spending. That this new project wouldn’t exist if Guinta had his way didn’t interfere with his smiles at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Now, every time these examples come up, I get some pushback. As the argument goes, these Republican lawmakers who hate stimulus spending and want stimulus spending at the same time aren’t really doing anything wrong, because once the funds are available, members of Congress have a responsibility to look out for their districts’ interests.

There’s certainly some truth to this, and I can fully appreciate the importance of fighting for a slice of a pie. After all, their taxpaying constituents are paying for these investments whether they like it or not.

The problem, though, is the ways in which this practice pokes holes in the larger Republican ideology. GOP lawmakers like Guinta run around telling the public that public investments can’t create jobs and are bad for the economy. GOP lawmakers like Guinta then also tell the public investments can create jobs and are good for the economy.

Look again at those remarks the conservative Republican lawmaker made at the ribbon-cutting ceremony: because Congress agreed to spend this money, over his objections, Guinta’s community will get a larger economic boost. But if that’s true, why has Guinta fought so hard to kill this and related investments? Isn’t boosting the economy a worthwhile goal?

If there’s money on the table, and Republicans want to fight for some of it, fine. But what gets me are the ideological arguments that are as wrong as they are cynical — public spending will undermine the economy, unless it’s in my area, in which case it will be good for the economy.

One way to explain how conservatives look at the world is whatever benefits them is good - there s no real underlying system of beliefs. They're like children who want a piece of candy are are going to stomp their feet and cry until they get. Everything else they say or do is just so much noise. Some conservatives still try to get away with calling themselves the party of Lincoln. That was around the last time the Republican party stood for any principles.

Anti-American Fox News Tries to Hide Connection Between Fox and Georgia Based Domestic Terrorists

Anti-American Fox News Tries to Hide Connection Between Fox and Georgia Based Domestic Terrorists

Fox News is now actively concealing a link between an Alabama-based blogger repeatedly featured on the network as an expert and allegations of a domestic terrorist plot.

This morning on America's Newsroom, Fox News ran an extensive report on yesterday's arrest of four Georgia men accused of plotting an attack on federal employees and U.S. citizens using explosives, guns, and the biological toxin ricin. At the end of the segment, correspondent Jonathan Serrie pointed out that one of the defendants "allegedly cited the online novel Absolved, which discusses small groups of citizens attacking U.S. officials," with the defendant allegedly "saying that the attacks would be based on events in that novel."

Charging documents indeed state that accused plotter Frederick Thomas repeatedly cited as an inspiration the novel Absolved, in which underground militia fighters declare war on the federal government over gun control laws and same-sex marriage, leading to a second American revolution. But Fox's report neglected to mention the allegedly inspirational novel's author, who is no stranger to Fox viewers.

Indeed, the author, Mike Vanderboegh, has been mainstreamed by the network, which has repeatedly featured him as an expert on the ATF's failed Operation Fast and Furious. Fox has identified Vanderboegh as an "online journalist" and an "authority on the Fast and Furious investigation," and has consistently failed to acknowledge his extremist views, actions, and affiliations.

Vanderboegh, a former member of the militia and Minuteman movements and now a leader of the "anti-government extremist group" the Three Percenters, which claims to represent the three percent of gun owners who "who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act" but will instead, "if forced by any would-be oppressor, ... kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution."

The complaint against Thomas details a similar scenario:

    THOMAS described a scenario in which he felt would be the "line in the sand" that would result in the activation of militias. THOMAS believed that soon, during a protest action, a protestor would be shot. It is his opinion the militias would act and respond by openly attacking the police. He then openly discussed having complied what he called the "Bucket List" which is a list of government employees, politicians, corporate leaders and members of the media he feels needed to be "taken out" to make the country right again."

Vanderboegh has stated that "another civil war in this country is the last thing I want,"writing in the introduction to Absolved that the novel is "a cautionary tale for the out-of-control gun cops of the ATF," who "need to know how powerful" the "armed citizenry" "could truly be if they were pushed into a corner."

Fox News has repeatedly presented Vanderboegh as a credible source. Their failure to mention his authorship of a novel that allegedly inspired a terrorist plot is telling.

UPDATE: In a subsequent report, Fox's Serrie said that Absolved was written by "the former leader of an Alabama militia," and briefly flashed an image of the book's cover that showed Vanderboegh's name. Serrie did not note Vanderboegh's connection to Fox News.

As Congressional Republicans do everything they can to stop employment programs and make life harder for the unemployed, the conservative media id trying to hide its ties to radical anti-American Republicans. P.T. Barnum once said there was a sucker born every minute. He might as well have been talking about modern day conservatives who keep falling for the conservative movement hiding its anti-American agenda behind the flag and the Bible.  


Subprime Loans, Foreclosure, and the Credit Crisis. What Happened and Why? - A Primer(pdf)

By 2007, subprime loans accounted for 29% of total home loans. The vast majority of the subprime loans causing today’s massive foreclosures were issued by institutions and independent mortgage brokers not covered by the CRA.

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. 

This Is What Evil Looks Like

No Apology From Rush Limbaugh For Defending ‘Christian’ Terrorists

Rush Limbaugh is nothing if not stubborn. He’s now obstinately resisting an international outcry over his incendiary comments about Africa’s Lord’s Resistance Army.

This band of child-abductors, rapists and killers is acknowledged as bad news by pretty much everyone. Everyone, that is, except for Limbaugh, who took to the air shortly after President Obama announced he was dispatching 100 military advisers to help take them on.

    “Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them. Have you ever heard of Lord’s Resistance Army, Dawn? How about you, Brian? Snerdley, have you? You never heard of Lord’s Resistance Army? Well, proves my contention, most Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord’s Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan.”

Much to Limbaugh’s amusement, this passage is now part of the Congressional Record, as last week Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) quoted it on the Senate floor. Inhofe cited this exchange between Limbaugh and his helpers, and then moved on to tackle Limbaugh for taking the vicious LRA’s religious claims at face value.

“I want to make sure everyone knows that [the LRA’s leader] was officially disavowed by the Catholic Church in Uganda,” Inhofe said.

Limbaugh did not respond to this part of the criticism. Instead he tried to wriggle his way out. He completely ignored the dressing-down about the LRA’s well documented brutality, and instead conceded that he had been “misinformed” about whether the advisers President Obama deployed were intended for active combat.

The radio host then noted that Inhofe’s smack-down had included a mention of Limbaugh’s studio assistants, Dawn, Brian, and Snerdley. He transformed this into one big joke, while also implying that Inhofe’s umbrage had come from the fact the crew had never heard of the LRA, rather than the fact that they had fallen for the group’s propaganda hook, line, and sinker. From Limbaugh’s transcript:

    “I wanted to play the sound bites primarily ‘cause you three are now in the Congressional Record. All three of you. And you’re in the Congressional Record because you didn’t know something. How does it feel?”

At no point did Limbaugh address the fact that he had in effect defended a reviled group first listed as terrorists by President George W. Bush.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this wasn’t enough to stop the story from spreading. On Monday the Times of London ran an article about a young woman, Evelyn Apoko, who it said had been “horribly mutilated while working as a human ‘mule’ for the LRA.”

Limbaugh obviously has a staff of assistants who could have done some research. perhaps it would be expecting too much for the mulch-millionaire pundit who makes a living telling other people what to think and feel because he knows it all, to do some research himself. All Limbaugh knows is that sending military advisers to Africa is president Obama's idea. Anything Obama is for, Limbaugh is against. Limbaugh is not pro good or pro America, he is pro conservatism. If that means being pro evil it doesn't bother Limbaugh or his lunatic followers.

Anti-American Zealot Rep. Allen West(R) Exploits Martin Luther King Jr to Justify His Elitist Agenda

Anti-American Zealot Rep. Allen West(R) Exploits Martin Luther King Jr to Justify His Elitist Agenda

At the dedication of the national Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial last Sunday, the Rev. Bernice King said her father Dr. King would support the 99 Percent Movement: “I hear my father saying what we are seeing now all across the streets of America and the world is a freedom explosion.” She reminded the nation that civil rights leader worked not just for racial justice, but for economic justice as well. “We should never adjust to the one percent controlling more than 40 percent of the wealth,” she said.

Florida Rep. Allen West (R), however, was “born and raised” in the same town that Dr. King grew up in. Therefore, he asserted as a fact today in a Newsmax interview that “Martin Luther King, Jr. would not back these types of protesters”:

    WEST: I was born and raised in the same town that Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up in. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have backed these type of protesters. First of all, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a focus, he had a message. He was divinely inspired. I don’t know what the inspiration is for these individuals.



Unfortunately for West, geographical proximity clearly did not provide West any insight into the man himself. Like the 99 percent movement, King consistently called for economic justice. He critiqued unregulated free marketism as a system that permits “necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few.” He envisioned a “Poor People’s Campaign” in which a multiracial coalition would march through the capital to “demand that President Lyndon Johnson and Congress help the poor get jobs, health care, and decent homes.”

King was assassinated just weeks before the march on May 12, 1968. Rev. Ralph Abernathy carried his legacy to DC, stating, “We come with an appeal to open the doors of America to the almost 50 million Americans who have not been given a fair share of American’s wealth and opportunity, and we will stay until we get it.” This, incidentally, is what the 99 Percent Movement is about.

This, however, is also what West sees as “contradictory to the foundational principles and values that we have in the United States.” If West grew up anywhere near Dr. King and his legacy, he has now turned his back on him.

Many Americans may know West as the man who terrorized a bound unarmed man in Iraq. He was kicked out of the military for his cowardly behavior. Unlike what West would have done, the military took pity on him and gave him his tax payer funded military pension. Now West is in Congress ( once again making a living off the government he says he hates) West is doing his best to stop President Obama from creating jobs, while also fighting for even more tax cuts for millionaires. West doesn't seem to have a genuine patriotic bone in his body, no wonder right-wing conservatives love him.

Private Wall Street Companies Caused The Financial Crisis — Not Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Or The Community Reinvestment Act

Five Myths About The Economy That Conservatives Keep Repeating

Five Myths About The Economy That Conservatives Keep Repeating

The Top Five

Here are five “conventional wisdom” doses of economic nonsense that we have been fed:

1. Business does everything better than government ?

Corporate conservatives argue that businesses and their one-dollar-one-vote system of decision-making is better and more efficient than We, the People's government and its one-person-one-vote system. They argue that constant competition, placing companies under constant fear of going under and people under constant fear of job-loss, focuses the mind like a pending execution. They say it leads them to do only what they should be doing and no more, in the best possible way, always looking for the best and most “efficient” ways, forcing innovation to occur.

But as we have seen, what actually happens in this kind of dehumanized “Force You” system (as in “F.U.”) is that businesses are forced to cut every corner, cheapen every product, cut out every service, lay people off, cut people’s wages while adding hours, gut benefits … and probably go under anyway because when every business does the same 99 percent of us can’t afford to buy or do things anymore.

The effect on people (human beings – remember them?) is worse. Stress-induced illness is rampant in our fear-based society. People do not get sufficient sleep, skip vacations, work long hours, spend less time with their families, spend very little time in nature, and the rest of the things that make us human.

This idea that people are best when operating under constant fear is similar to the conservative mantra that everyone should carry a gun because then you have “a polite society.” Perhaps constant fear and stress keeps people on their toes and makes them “behave” but in the long run it’s just no way to live.

Another “feature” of this top-down, one-dollar-one-vote, “market” system that the corporate conservatives advocate is that only those at the top levels of the corporate/financial ladder make the decisions for, and receive the benefits of, society. This is great if – and only if – you are in that 1 percent. But one-person-one-vote, democratic government decision-making means all of us have an equal say with equal access and equal opportunity, and society operates for the benefit of all of us.

2. Rich people are “job creators.”?

This is the old “trickle-down” idea -- that if you give enough money to the already-rich eventually some of that money will trickle down to the rest of us. This is also called the “getting peed on” theory of economics.

The basis of this thinking comes from the theories of Ayn Rand, who argued that society consists of “producers” and “parasites.” Rand’s fundamentally anti-democratic ideology says that democracy is a form of “collectivism” in which people who don’t want to work and produce use their numbers to steal from a gifted few who are the “producers” of goods and services. Rand’s followers claim that wealthy people are rich because they “produce.” The rest of us are “parasites” who “take money” from the productive rich, by taxing them. This revenue is “redistributed” to the parasites to pay for our “entitlements.”

They say that if wealthy people have more money they will use that money to start businesses and hire people. But anyone with a real business will tell you that people coming in the door and buying things is what creates jobs. In a real economy, people wanting to buy things – demand – is what causes businesses to form and people to be hired.

History – and a quick look around us today – shows that when all the money goes to a few at the top demand from the rest of us dries up and everything breaks down.  Taxing the people at the top and reinvesting the money into the democratic society is fundamental to keeping things going.

3. Government and taxes take money out of the economy?

Yes, they actually say that government and taxes “take money out of the economy.” They argue that the money government collects is a) pocketed by politicians; or b) stuffed under a giant mattress; or c) is just wasted.

In reality the taxes that government collects are invested in the “public structures” that create the prosperity and lifestyle we enjoy – or at least did before taxes were cut. Tax revenue builds the infrastructure of transportation, courts, schools, universities, research facilities and other institutions that enable our businesses to grow and prosper and the consumer protection, safety inspection, water and sewer, health, parks and arts that help us live and enjoy our lives.

But there is a powerful reason for people to feel the government does seem to be providing value for the money it costs us: so much of the federal budget goes to military and military-related spending. Spending on wars, the "Defense" department (military), intelligence, nuclear weapons, veterans, and related budget items (including interest on money borrowed for past military spending) is a significant portion of the budget, and people instinctively feel that the country is not getting back services that match what they are putting in.

High top tax rates also reduce the incentive to be greedy and destructive, which can overcome many of us and make us do things we shouldn’t. Cutting top tax rates in the '80s forced a change in business models away from long-term planning and building wealth by building sustainable businesses over decades. Instead, since you could take home a fortune overnight, it made more sense to go for the get-rich-quick, sell-the-farm-style schemes so prevalent today.

4. Regulations Kill Jobs?

Corporate conservatives say that “government just gets in the way” and costs money, which leaves less room for hiring. This is a corollary to the “business knows best” argument and to the idea that society consists of a few “producers” who are inherently superior to the masses of people. The thinking is that We, the People don’t know what we are doing, and businesses with their top-down structure will do the right thing more efficiently.

Those engaged in a business do know the business better than outsiders.  But regulations that protect the public, employees and the environment govern how the actions of businesses affect the rest of us.  A business wants to make a profit, and will only care how regulations affect that goal.  It makes sense for government to set up regulations because the rest of us are concerned about the larger world of the rest of us, and therefore understand more clearly how the actions of a business will affect the rest of us.

In may cases regulations keep businesses from doing things that kill jobs – and people.

5. “Protectionism” hurts the economy.

Corporate conservatives argue that “free trade” is always good under all circumstances. They say we get lower prices and our businesses are able to reach more customers. Of course trade can be a wonderful thing, increasing the standard of living on both sides of the trade border.

But the trade deals of recent decades have not been free or fair, and can’t really even be called “trade.” What has happened is countries sell to us but do not buy equally from us, causing huge trade deficits that have drained our economy and our jobs and our wages. Instead of increasing prosperity they have been used to increase exploitation of working people and the environment for the benefit of a wealthy few.

Our prosperity is the fruit of our democracy. 

Conservatives say that it is good that businesses in countries like China are more competitive because they don’t have a lot of regulations to comply with. Countries where the people have little say in things don’t have to spend the money to pay minimum wages, keep the environment clean, keep workers safe and keep products up to standard and they don’t have to worry about lawsuits. They are more “efficient.” So they can charge less.

Conservatives who argue that we should have less regulation, lower wages, fewer benefits, fewer consumer, worker and environmental protections are really arguing that we should abandon democracy. By opening our borders to goods made where people do not have a say we made democracy a competitive disadvantage.

Fed Up With the Nonsense

So as we see all around us today, the economic conventional wisdom nonsense that we were force-fed for decades didn’t work, messed things up, and people finally got fed so much if it that they are fed up. The #occupy crowd got fed up and showed up. They sleep in the park and on sidewalks, marched, and took the batons and pepper spray that seem to always come at us when we protest. They persisted, and awakened the rest of us. Now it has spread to cities across the country.

They shook loose from the shadow-fog of propaganda that shrouds us from morning to night, from radio to TV to newspaper. They didn’t prepare a media strategy with a savvy focus-group-tested message targeting key demographics. They didn’t care how they looked or how they would be seen. They didn’t care what the media would say. They certainly didn’t care what Wall Street would do. They saw clearly where the problem is, and decided to just go ahead and do something.

They said that what is going on is wrong, it is bad, it is hurting people, and that they were not going to put up with that for one more minute. They said it is time to be citizens not consumers.  They are choosing to have some meaning in their lives beyond just being worker bees helping perpetuate a destructive system.

So they decided to “occupy Wall Street” in the name of the 99 percent of us who have been losing out in this economy, and the honesty and clarity of that has caught on.

    “No one is confused about the message. Wall Street got bailed out; Main Street was abandoned. The top 1% rigs the rules and pockets the rewards. And 99% get sent the bill for the party they weren't even invited to.” – Robert Borosage

    Poets, priests and politicians
    Have words to thank for their positions
    Words that scream for your submission
    And no-one's jamming their transmission
    And when their eloquence escapes you
    Their logic ties you up and rapes you

    -“De Do Do Do De Da Da Da,” The Police

When is the last time you heard someone in big corporate media challenge any of these conservative myths. The reason we hear so much news about scandals and missing persons ( stories worthy of coverage, but not the over done exploitative coverage we get) is because those stories take up lots of air time and are easy to cover. The corporate media also tend to act like the most popular kids in school, they don't want to do or say anything that goes against the conventional wisdom because it would put a dent in their popularity.

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.

This is Why We Have Broken Government, The Utterly Insane Idiot Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Calls for Higher Taxes on Middle-class

This is Why We Have Broken Government, The Utterly Insane Idiot Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Calls for Higher Taxes on Middle-class

Paul Ryan Calls For Increasing Taxes On Middle Class But Dismisses Millionaires Tax As ‘Class Warfare’


Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) resumed his attacks on President Obama’s economic policy Sunday morning, suggesting that the President’s plan to tax millionaires’ profits from capital gains in order to fund job creation efforts constitutes “class warfare”:

    RYAN: It adds further instability to our system — more uncertainty — and it punishes job creation and those people who create jobs. Class warfare, Chris, may make for really good politics but it makes for rotten economics. We don’t need to divide people and prey on people’s fear and envy and anxiety. We need to remove the barriers so entrepreneurs can hire people. These tax increases don’t work. [...]

    This is a double tax… If we tax investment and tax more you will get less of it. It looks like to me not a very good sign. It looks like the President wants to move down the class warfare path. Class warfare will simply divide this country more, will attack job creators,  divide people, and it doesn’t grow the economy.


Ironically, Ryan was simultaneously calling for an end to the current temporary tax cuts, which would raise taxes by 50 percent on those making less than $106,000. While launching accusations of “class warfare,” Ryan is the one who would prefer that people with less money pay more, while those with more money keep more.

As Warren Buffett pointed out last month, the mega-rich pay “practically nothing” in payroll taxes and instead pay far lower tax rates on passive investment income. Congress has “coddled” billionaires, Buffett argued, rather than calling on them for serious “shared sacrific

There is a warfare based on economic classes going on in America. Conservatives have declared war on people who work for a living while defending people whose income has gone up 90% in the last twenty years. If wealth alone created jobs - well where are they. If tax cuts for millionaires created jobs, where are they. Ryan is a mental basket-case. Someone so out of touch with reality he should be under observation in a psych-ward, not pretending to represent the people in Congress.

Republican Liar of the Week - Proto-Fascist Fanatic Michelle Malkin Falsely Suggests Dems Have Not Offered Debt Ceiling Plan

Republican Liar of the Week - Proto-Fascist Fanatic Michelle Malkin Falsely Suggests America's Democratic Party Have Not Offered Debt Ceiling Plan

On Fox & Friends, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin falsely suggested that Democrats have not offered a plan to resolve the debt ceiling crisis, saying that "conservatives ... have something to debate, which is something you can't say about the other side." In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has introduced a plan, which has been assessed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and been widely discussed by media outlets.

Malkin Falsely Suggests Dems Have No Debt Ceiling Plan

Malkin: Conservatives Are "The Ones Who Are Putting Forth Ideas ... Which Is Something You Can't Say About The Other Side." From the July 28 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

STEVE DOOCY (co-host): All right. Let's get moving. What do you think, Michelle?

MALKIN: Well, they sound like such programmed androids. They don't even believe their own rhetoric and spin anymore. I mean --

DOOCY: What do you mean by that?

MALKIN: It's been two years that they've been calling the tea party right-wing extremists who are out of touch with America and reality. OK. We get it. And, of course, the reality is that so many tea party grassroots activists are very unhappy with the compromise bill that Boehner is putting forward and as many conservatives on the Hill and outside the Hill believe is being forced down their throats.

I mean, there's been so much rancor on the right. I think it's a welcome and healthy thing. And the good news is, to look at the bright side for a moment, that despite all of the disagreement there is among conservatives, we're the ones who are putting forth the ideas, have the initiative, have the solutions. At least we have something to debate, which is something you can't say about the other side. [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 7/28/11]

But Reid Has Offered A Plan To Resolve Debt Ceiling Crisis

The Hill: "Reid Introduced His Own Budget Control Act, Which Aims To Cut $2.7 Trillion Over 10 Years" And "Increase The Debt Ceiling." The Hill reported on July 26:

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) late Monday released dueling budget plans, and both took steps to move their competing plans ahead this week.

[...]

On the Senate side, Reid introduced his own Budget Control Act, which aims to cut $2.7 trillion over 10 years. In return, the bill would increase the debt ceiling by enough to get the U.S. past the 2012 elections. [The Hill, 7/26/11]

CBO: Reid's Plan Would "Increase The Debt Limit By $2.7 Trillion," "Establish Caps" On Spending. In a July 27 letter to Reid, the CBO "estimated the impact on the deficit of the Budget Control Act of 2011, as proposed in the Senate on July 25, 2011":

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the impact on the deficit of the Budget Control Act of 2011, as proposed in the Senate on July 25, 2011. The legislation would:

Establish caps on discretionary spending through 2021, including separate caps on new funding for war-related activities,
Allow for certain amounts of additional spending for "program integrity" initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of improper benefit payments and enhancing compliance with tax laws,
Extend and expand authority to auction licenses for parts of the electromagnetic spectrum,
Make changes to the Pell Grant and student loan programs,
Reduce certain payments to agricultural producers,
Increase the debt limit by $2.7 trillion,
Reinstate and modify certain budget process rules, and
Create a joint Congressional committee to propose further deficit reduction. [Congressional Budget Office, 7/27/11]

Moreover, Obama Outlined Specific Details Of Negotiations Made Before Boehner Walked Away From Talks

Obama: "We Had Offered Speaker Boehner ... Over A Trillion Dollars In Cuts To Discretionary Spending ... [And] An Additional $650 Billion In Cuts To Entitlement Programs." During his July 22 address on the default crisis, President Obama outlined several specific measures that he claimed he and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) had negotiated during their talks up to that point, including cuts to entitlement spending:

Good evening, everybody. I wanted to give you an update on the current situation around the debt ceiling. I just got a call about a half hour ago from Speaker Boehner who indicated that he was going to be walking away from the negotiations that we've been engaged in here at the White House for a big deficit reduction and debt reduction package. And I thought it would be useful for me to just give you some insight into where we were and why I think that we should have moved forward with a big deal.

Essentially what we had offered Speaker Boehner was over a trillion dollars in cuts to discretionary spending, both domestic and defense. We then offered an additional $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We believed that it was possible to shape those in a way that preserved the integrity of the system, made them available for the next generation, and did not affect current beneficiaries in an adverse way.

In addition, what we sought was revenues that were actually less than what the Gang of Six signed off on. So you had a bipartisan group of senators, including Republicans who are in leadership in the Senate, calling for what effectively was about $2 trillion above the Republican baseline that they've been working off of. What we said was give us $1.2 trillion in additional revenues, which could be accomplished without hiking taxes -- tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process that could have lowered rates generally while broadening the base.

So let me reiterate what we were offering. We were offering a deal that called for as much discretionary savings as the Gang of Six. We were calling for taxes that were less than what the Gang of Six had proposed. And we were calling for modifications to entitlement programs, would have saved just as much over the 10-year window. In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal. If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue. [White House, 7/22/11]

NYT Ran Graphic Showing Specific Offers Obama And Boehner Had Made Through July 22. In a graphic first published July 21 and updated several times since, The New York Times listed specific measures that both Obama and Boehner had reportedly offered in negotiations. According to the Times, both had agreed to $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, a $250 billion cut from Medicare, and an increase in federal tax revenue of somewhere between $36.2 and $36.7 trillion over a period of 10 years. From the Times:

NYT deal graphic - see chart at top.

Malkin has been trying for years to be taken seriously as a "journalist". One of the reasons no one takes her seriously except for right-wing freaks is that she can't seem to compose a sentence without twisting the truth or telling out right falsehoods. It is an historical fact that fanatics and extremists must distort and lie continually to sell their tyrannical agenda to the the public.

Is Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Crazy or Really Wants to Destroy The American Middle-class

Is Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Crazy or Really Wants to Destroy The American Middle-class

Several Congressional Republicans, including Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), have posited that failing to raise the debt ceiling — and thus forcing the U.S. to default on some of its obligations — would not be bad for the economy. “I don’t think it’s going to have an adverse impact on the economy for the days or weeks or perhaps even months that this would continue,” Toomey said.

These “default deniers” don’t believe that failing to raise the debt ceiling would have the negative consequences that most economic analysts say it will. Radio shock-jock Rush Limbaugh even said yesterday that failing to raise the debt ceiling will improve the nation’s creditworthiness.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), though, believes that default would cause a “crisis.” But, as he told Politico, he actively wants it to happen anyway:

Nunes says the debt cap must be raised at some point but not necessarily before the point of default.

“By defaulting on the debt, in the short and long term, it could benefit us to go through a period of crisis that forces politicians to make decisions” on major policies that affect the budget, he told POLITICO.

The GOP has been playing chicken with the debt ceiling for months, but Nunes is now advocating outright default and all of the consequences such a default would bring. As Princeton Professor Alan Blinder noted in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the U.S. defaulting on its obligations could eventually “reignite the world financial crisis”:

Should it occur, the consequences could be severe. It might, for example, reignite the world financial crisis. Remember how rattled financial markets became last year when it looked like Greece might default? And that was just little Greece and the possibility of default. An actual default by the mightiest nation on Earth would be immeasurably more unsettling. Where, in such a case, would frightened investors run to hide? The U.S. dollar would be among the first casualties. If hot money were to flee what was once its safest haven, the dollar would sink and U.S. interest rates would rise. The latter could lead us back into recession.

There would also be lasting costs to the U.S. government in the form of higher interest rates…How much? Again, no one can know. But even if it’s as little as 10-20 basis points on the U.S. government’s average borrowing cost, that’s an additional $10 billion to $20 billion in interest expenses every year. Seems like an expensive way to score a political point

Bank of America analysts agreed, noting that not raising the debt ceiling “would likely push the U.S. into recession and drag down the stock market.”

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) like many of his proto-fascist friends on the far Right just believes defaulting will be a good thing. With bizarre assertions that it will force politicians to "think". Nunes and his party ran up the largest debt in US history and did nothing to rise revenue. A decision that will haunt America for decades. Was that the kind of thinking Nunes and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) have in mind.