Corzine's Gamble

As we now see Jon Corzine's firm go belly up with the attendant investigations and potential subpoenas it’s worth noting how corrupted the system has become by the huge amounts of money available on all sides. To those who support the dem party with the fervent belief that things would get better if the damn repubs would just get out of the way, this is reality check time.

Corzine gained favor in political circles by shifting a substantial portion of Goldman’s contributions to the Democratic Party. He rode those investments to power, both in terms of his ability to help Goldman Sachs influence the debate over efforts to remove the restrictions which prohibited banks from using their own funds to make investments, the repeal of Glass-Steagull, as well as his ability to rise in power both as Senator and later as Governor or NJ.

As an elected official Corzine was reliably liberal, supporting universal health care, increased support for pre-school education, taxpayer funding for college, mandatory gun registration, and so forth.

As head of MF Global Corzine bet vast sums of the firms money on derivatives in European bonds. France and Germany in exchange for their willingness to bail out the weaker economies of Europe are demanding that the bond holders take at least part of the hit, something that did not happen in many cases in the US government TARP bailouts. Apparently that demand is sinking Corzine and MF Global.

Money Talks

In 1972 five men were arrested at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, DC, while attempting to break in to the headquarters of the Democratic national committee. As the story unfolded the country would discover that Nixon was using both the CIA, and especially the FBI to spy on domestic opponents of his policies. Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP, or Creep in the vernacular of the day) used ex-CIA to do the break in.

G. Gordon Liddy, an ex-CIA wingnut, and later a right wing talk show host was found to have masterminded much of the shenanigans. But it was also determined that White house aides including Chuck Colson, Edward Haldeman (Chief of Staff at the time) and John Ehrlichman were all aware of the details of the plot and all were eventually convicted for trying to cover up the plot, as was John Mitchell the Attorney General of the United States, who also had a moonlighting job at the time as Chairman of Creep.

In addition to the break ins and surveillance the committee was found to have engaged in dirty tricks designed to shape or tarnish the Democratic Party opposition. In one particularly egregious circumstance it was said that a letter had been faked and then leaked by Creep.  The Canuck letter, as it was known was a silly forged document that suggested Edmund Muskie a candidate for President at the time, didn’t particularly like people with French accents. That letter put then candidate Muskie in a particularly bad light. The candidate handled the whole letter deal pretty poorly, crying in the snow and all, and soon dropped from the race. There was much conjecture at the time that Creep was molding the election to get the candidate they wanted. That was never directly proven, but there was broad consensus that Creep was manipulating the entire process.

It came to light at the time that no less than AG John Mitchel maintained a slush fund in a safe in his office and that the funds contained therein  were provided by among others a fugitive financier named Robert Vesco—then living in Cuba-- trying to curry favor with the administration. Vesco had put at least $200,000 into the fund. Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury and sentenced to two and a half to eight years in prison. The sentence was later reduced to one to four years by Judge John J. Sirica. Mitchell served only 19 months of his sentence.

The slush fund itself was…Wait for it… $500,000.

How quaint.

Immediately following the Watergate convictions, Nixon’s resignation and so forth, strict campaign finance laws were passed. Later in 2002 recognizing that the reforms put in place after Watergate had been far outpaced by the lawyers for both parties and that money was pouring into the system, Congress passed McCain Feingold.

Yet the 2008 election for president and Congress cost more than $5.0 Billion (with a “B”) according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The presidential election alone cost more than $2.0 billion with the candidates themselves raising about $400 million each, and $1.0 billion-plus additionally being poured in by business, labor and other special interest PAC’s.

Obama’s top twenty contributors or bundlers raised $14 million alone of his almost $400 Billion haul. Of this top level bundled contributions about 30% came from Wall Street , Banks and Finance firms, 26%  from institutes of higher learning, 16% from tech companies, 12% from lawyers, and  9% from media companies. GE which as someone pointed out paid no taxes this year contributed $500,000 alone.

While it should be pointed out that the money came from employees of the firm or their vendors. There are limits to what the companies can directly contribute to candidates, but those limits were largely eviscerated by the Jan-2010 Supreme Court decision which qualified “money” as speech and so eliminated most restrictions on corporate contributions to campaigns through PAC’s. This court of apparently activist judges from the right overturned elements of the McCain Feingold bill passed by Congress. As we know activist judges are only activist when they overturn your preferred legislation.

McCain, not to be outdone, also rose close to $400 million. Though the overall funds total were similar, Obama’s actually raised more direct contributions than McCain. His top twenty bundlers still raised close to $4.0 million with almost three quarters coming from finance firms including Citibank, Goldman and so forth which funded both candidates.

There are NO labor unions on either candidate’s list of top top contributors. Though we can be sure that democrats especially draw substantial support from unions, we also know that it is no longer their biggest source of funds. Corporations especially those in certain industries far outspend labor.

This is before PAC money is counted. The Supreme Court did maintain the requirement that the corporations had to publish their contributions and how they raised the cash so the info is easily available on the net. Citibank’s PAC raised and spent an additional million dollars, making their total contributions for the cycle close to $2 million dollars. Goldman Sachs, a major proponent of privatizing social security contributed in hard (direct to candidate) and soft (PAC’s) money almost $6 million in the cycle, supporting both candidates and both parties with their contributions. According to Open Secrets the three headed monster of Finance, Real Estate, and Insurance has already committed nearly $100 million this year to candidates and PAC’s with more to come in an election cycle which has barely started and is still more than a year away.

Pharmaceuticals contributed $32 million in 2008 and an astoundingly similar amount in the non-presidential year 2010 of over $30 million. The health care lobby is also quite active on the lobbying side spending over $200 million in lobbying in 2008, 2009, and 2010. That is $600 million in lobbying in three years.

The critics of OWS and apologists for Wall Street know these truths, but they toss Molotov cocktails of smoke and illusion designed to distract or wear down a public that is massively confused by the theatre they have been witnessing. Obama is all over Wall Street and slyly taking up the OWS cause, hoping that no one looks peeks behind the curtain and sees the piles of cash on which he rests.

Romney, a former scion, a founding partner even, of Bain capital an investment fund which puts money into underperforming companies, spruces them up and resells them to the street for a profit now says he understands the OWS protesters, whatever that means. This firm invested in some great, or near great retail giants in the US including Staples, Michael’s crafts, and others, so it cannot be argued that the funds entire growth has rested on the heels of layoffs and deteriorating worker conditions. In the odd way they make the case for why capitalism can be a good thing in America with well-directed and well researched investment capital enhancing companies with great ideas to thrive and grow. But to suggest that Bain is anything other than another Wall Street Player is absurd. The current value of the Bain fund is $66 Billion. Bain through its partners and employees by the way has contributed over $4.0 million since 1989.

Nixon, Creep, and that old gang of black bag men were amateurs. The system is completely corrupted by this wash of cash that soils everything it touches. Perhaps the OWS crowd can’t articulate their rage well, but they know a rat when they see one and as with millions of other American’s there is such a general sense that power lies in someone else’s hands, just out of our line of sight or field of reach. It is the corruption of this money which led the SEC and the Fed to look the other way, which allowed all these firms to engage in a riotous Ponzi scheme investing in sub-prime loans and then bundling them as hi-grade derivative investments, insured by AIG, and sold to Fannie and Freddie. The market, deregulated by Clinton, and heated up by low interest rates put in place right after 9-11 ran amok and everyone was making so much money no one wanted to look at the rot and corruption behind the curtain. Capitalism itself, always morally weak when left on its own, was corrupted by an overabundance of cheap money and lack of regulatory zeal.

The reason that nothing gets done in Washington is that there is always a financial interest on the other side that doesn’t want it to get done. This is not republicans and democrats, tea party and OWS. America built this. We created this system where hard right and hard left squabble while millions in the middle struggle. We fight, we bicker, we lose track, and while we weren’t watching someone stole our house, actually came in during the dark of night and took it away.

Shameless, Utterly Shamless

Re Charles Krauthammer Editorial "Who Lost Iraq"

I cannot state how truly disgusting this is to me. These *&^%$ neocons were all over Bush for having the “courage” to go to Iraq. The months later when it was clear it was a complete disaster I read an article in Vanity Fair where the pig**** mice that they are they all tried to blame bad execution or misplaced policies or whatever. There was little remorse of shame for what they had been directly responsible for perpetrating. Now these same people want to suggest that the whole venture will come down to failure because Obama could not negotiate a deal to keep some soldiers there. This when the final sticking point was Obama’s unwillingness to trade National sovereignty to the Iraqis by refusing to give up the premise that crimes of US soldiers would only be tried by Americans in American courts.  The Iraqis wanted the power to have trails as they chose according to their laws. Obama, sensing the danger in that said no. If he had said yes, god forbid, the repubs would have pilloried him.

 There are two great, well probably more, but two great books that I read. Imperial Life in the Emerald City (Rajiv Chandrasekaran) and Fiasco (Thomas Ricks). I never supported the effort in Iraq, ever. But the history of the thing is that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney bollixed it up something terrible, and arrogance to an immeasurable extreme was at the root of much of the failure. All these neocons thought that they too knew better than all the critics—many of which were and are in the military. The waste in human life (both Iraqi & American) and national treasure is obscene.

 Now they have the nerve to come around after all that loss, after all the lies, after all of the failure and talk about how Obama is blowing it. Wow! That takes balls.

Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq war from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won. The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans. Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with U.S. backing, by the forces of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City.

Al-Qaeda decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government. U.S. casualties at their lowest ebb in the entire war. Elections approaching. Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world’s only democracy.

He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of Dec. 31, the U.S. military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.

And it’s not as if that deadline snuck up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated. And all major parties but one (the Sadr faction) had an interest in some residual stabilizing U.S. force, like the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany and Korea.

Three years, two abject failures. The first was the administration’s inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs — one predominantly Shiite (Maliki’s), one predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi’s), one Kurdish — that among them won a large majority (69 percent) of seats in the 2010 election.

Vice President Biden was given the job. He failed utterly. The government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition where the balance of power is held by the relatively small (12 percent) Iranian-client Sadr faction.

The second failure was the SOFA itself. U.S. commanders recommended nearly 20,000 troops, considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan and 54,000 in Germany. The president rejected those proposals, choosing instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

A deployment so risibly small would have to expend all its energies simply protecting itself — the fate of our tragic, missionless 1982 Lebanon deployment — with no real capability to train the Iraqis, build their U.S.-equipped air force, mediate ethnic disputes (as we have successfully done, for example, between local Arabs and Kurds), operate surveillance and special-ops bases, and establish the kind of close military-to-military relations that undergird our strongest alliances.

The Obama proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness. It became clear that he simply wanted out, leaving any Iraqi foolish enough to maintain a pro-American orientation exposed to Iranian influence, now unopposed and potentially lethal. Message received. Just this past week, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurds — for two decades the staunchest of U.S. allies — visited Tehran to bend a knee to both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It didn’t have to be this way. Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world’s second most important power.

He failed, though he hardly tried very hard. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem and overcame it. Obama had little desire to. Indeed, he portrays the evacuation as a success, the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

But surely the obligation to defend the security and the interests of the nation supersede personal vindication. Obama opposed the war, but when he became commander in chief the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure. His obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved.

He did not, failing at precisely what this administration so flatters itself for doing so well: diplomacy. After years of allegedly clumsy brutish force, Obama was to usher in an era of not hard power, not soft power, but smart power.

Which turns out in Iraq to be . . . no power. Years from now, we will be asking not “Who lost Iraq?” — that already is clear — but “Why?”

No Jobs, No Justice- Lies My Representative Told Me

I follow Cantor and Boehner on twitter. Both have them have been going crazy posting that the house has passed multiple bills to create jobs, but Reid won’t move the bills. Reid is sort of a milquetoast, but if he blocked this pile of crapola then my hats off to him.

Here is the list. Everything noted here is NOT proposed legislation. Everything here was PASSED BY THE HOUSE. Even if the Repubs won the Senate, I doubt that any of this would survive senate filibuster, but it is a stunning list of what they really want and a clear record of what they would do if given the chance. Is it deregulation or dismantlement?? Obama has been saying that none of this is serious job creation and especially not in the near to med term. If he's wrong someone needs to point out where that would be. The list comes directly from Cantor's site. The description of the legislation comes from www.govtrack.us. The full text of the bills is available there.

1) HR2018 Clean Water Cooperative Federalism-- The bill amends the Clean Water Act (CWA), which would allocate the primary responsibilities for water pollution control to the states- Holy crap! That's a whopper! This has passed and while not explicitly eliminating the EPA it would eviscerate it's authority in water pollution control. Water and airways do not stop at state borders. F***ing ridiculous!

2) HR72-- Review of Federal Regulations-Directing certain standing committees to inventory and review existing, pending, and proposed regulations and orders from agencies of the Federal Government, particularly with respect to their effect on jobs and economic growth. Obama is endorsing similar though more restrictive legislation.

3) HR 872 The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act-To amend the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify Congressional intent regarding the regulation of the use of pesticides in or near navigable waters, and for other purposes.

4) HR 910 The Energy Tax Prevention Act-- To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes.

5) HJ Res 37 Disapproval of FCC's Net Neutrality Regulations- The specific decision the House Resolution is referring to is in relation to the FCC vote last December on a proposal stating that internet providers could not limit a consumers access to websites. Apparently some internet browser sites are limiting consumer access to sites of the competition, in some cases erroneously stating that the limit is a result of bandwidth restrictions.

6) HR 1315 Consumer Financial Protection & Soundness Improvement Act-- Amends the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to authorize the Chairperson of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to issue a stay of, or set aside, any regulation issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) upon the affirmative vote of the majority (currently, two-thirds) of Council members, excluding the Chair of the Commission of the CFPB (as provided for in this Act). They ought to be ashamed of this one, a complete capituation to Wall Street.

7) HR2587 Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act-To prohibit the National Labor Relations Board from ordering any employer to close, relocate, or transfer employment under any circumstance.

8) HR2401 Transparency In Regulatory Analysis Of Impacts On The Nation To require analyses of the cumulative and incremental impacts of certain rules and actions of the Environmental Protection Agency, and for other purposes.

9) H.R. 2681: Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 To provide additional time for the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue achievable standards for cement manufacturing facilities, and for other purposes.

10) H.R. 2250: EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 To provide additional time for the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue achievable standards for industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers, process heaters, and incinerators, and for other purposes.

11) H.R. 2273: Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act To amend subtitle D of the Solid Waste Disposal Act to facilitate recovery and beneficial use, and provide for the proper management and disposal, of materials generated by the combustion of coal and other fossil fuels. Sounds so innocuous…

12) H.R. 674: 3% Withholding Repeal and Job Creation Act  To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the imposition of 3 percent withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities, to modify the calculation of modified adjusted gross income for purposes of determining eligibility for certain healthcare-related programs, and for other purposes.

Now that’s a record of givebacks to industries of all sorts that you can run on if you’re a republican.

We need to register and then we need to vote.

A Letter to An Angry Woman

Bless you, Ms Hartle. I am fascinated by the demonstrations and counter moves happening in social media where everyone takes their crack. Would be fascinated to know who posted their pic and statement first, because it sure has morphed into a tactic for both sides. Understanding that no one is really talking to the other party at the moment—both right and left are largely speaking to their own constituencies—but the heightened sense of dialogue one would hope would be a good thing. That is so long as it does not devolve into the sickening ethos of the Loudoun County GOP in Virginia.

Of course you are right to point out how petroleum dominates our consumer culture and the myriad ways that it does that. It also cannot be argued how interdependent we are on each other.

Elizabeth Warren made such a compelling argument this campaign season, dominated as it is by the various positions over who contributed and who didn’t and who is getting too much, and who needs to give something back. It seems to me that your point (from the right) is very similar to the argument that Warren makes, and in so doing you illuminate the absolute correctness of Warren’s central thesis which is that we all depend on each other on this world.

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own - nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to a market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."

Taken further one could also make the point that if we hope to continue to innovate and lead and create prosperity we need to continue to work together.

By the way I googled the salary of an average oil worker, came up with about $70,000. The President of Exxon Mobile, Rex Tillerson, in 2010 made in salary and bonus—which does not include the long list of additional perks and benefits-- nearly $6 million. He was also awarded 225,000 options of Exxon stock.  At the end of the 2010 when those shares were issued, Exxon’s share price was about $70, so the options awarded would have been about $18 Million, making his combined haul around $24 million.

So Exxon valued the contribution of the CEO at roughly 350 times that of your husband. On a tax basis, the shares are not taxable, so at max, Rex’s tax bill for 2010 would have only been calculated against his $6 million salary, and about 75% of his actual compensation would have been protected from taxation. We can be sure and take heart in the fact that you could have taken advantage of the standard deductions. However, all of that income would have been liable to taxation after deductions. Occupy.

I went to the 53% website. It seems to me that this sort of “democracy” serves the well to do, because it highlights and strengthens the schism between the middle and working class and the poor in this country. So long as these entities argue over where tax or health or jobs policy should be, the people with resources and the influence that purchases are free to legally use their immense wealth to continue to place a heavy thumb on the scales of justice. It really is stunning how many people on the 53’er site are struggling so mightily and yet direct all their anger to people that have even less than them. Actually, it seems that’s the whole point of the site.

I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the original person who posted, your post, or those that responded in support. It cannot be denied that good corporate citizens pay taxes. I understand that contractors that build homes also often have to build roads and other infrastructure to support the families they hope to sell to. This is part of the investments these companies make to be good citizens in the community and so reach potential customers. Those contractors though did not build the interstate highway system. That was built on the collective tax base of the American public. We all know that much of our infrastructure is funded with federal tax dollars. 

But you seem well informed and must also know that many corporations have gamed the system up to and including the point of actually getting their paid lobbyists to help write legislation which is extremely favorable to them. In 2009 a total of $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying. That money was spent to support narrow economic interests. Almost 10% of it was spent by the healthcare and insurance industries alone, and their lobbying specifically was invested to protect their profits both now and in the future. I understand that there are those that think that their interests intersect with those of the industries, but capital unfettered by regulation tends to grow perversely. Corporations by their nature are there to create profits. They are not there to serve people.  I do not wish that they go away, but I do believe that an unregulated market ran amok.

The system is completely corrupted by this wash of cash, and it soils everything it touches. Perhaps the OWS crowd can’t articulate their rage well, but they know a rat when they see one and as with millions of other American’s there is such a general sense that power lies in someone else’s hands, just out of our line of sight or field of reach. It is the corruption of this money which led the SEC and the Fed to look the other way, which allowed all these firms to engage in a riotous Ponzi scheme investing in sub-prime loans and then bundling them as hi-grade derivative investments, insured by AIG, and sold to Fannie and Freddie. Just this week Citibank, a huge TARP recipient, admitted to and agreed to pay a fine for betting against the derivatives they sold.

The market, deregulated by Clinton, and heated up by low interest rates put in place right after 9-11 ran amok and everyone was making so much money no one wanted to look at the rot and corruption behind the curtain. Capitalism itself, always morally weak when left on its own, was corrupted by an overabundance of cheap money and lack of regulatory zeal. It seems to me that when the TEA Party crowd got started they were pretty angry about the corruption that TARP represented, especially the government bailouts of the big banks and financial institutions. That anger has now been displaced by ever more heated rhetoric against the poor or disenfranchised. Is it just a coincidence that this rhetoric parallels so nicely with the political needs and desires of the rich and super rich?

I see you’re retired now, and I’m sure put in your time. Do you really think that is a good thing? GE earned over $10 Billion and paid no taxes last year? Was there ever a year that you did not pay a dime? I know that since I was 17 there never was a year like that for me. Why all the anger and the poor and none at those with real wealth, those that have abused their power, and who it seems still hunger for a greater and greater piece of the pie, especially those that use taxpayer provided TARP money to start lobbying against any regulation of their markets before the ink was dry on the legislation???

I am confused about the Microsoft reference. Bill Gates is a brilliant guy and spends most of his time now doing good things. Great things even, as I am sure many of those do who made their fortunes on Microsoft. But does that mean that the CEO of Exxon is righteous in accepting compensation at a level 350 times that of the average oil field worker. Is it right that benevolent though he is Bill Gates should sit on a $50 billion pile of cash while a working mother of two has to decide between asthma medicines for her son, or new school clothes for her daughter. Should that mother who now may be exempt from paying taxes be forced to pay more than he Social Security payroll tax as many of these flt tax proposals would require? What message is that? Where is the morality of a country that demands that? Does the republican right really believe that 20 million unemployed and 10 million more underemployed are really just lazy? Is there no sense of the horrible thuggery of it all where selfishness masquerades as fairness?

I see devout Christians  speak in support of the original 53’er that started this all, but it seems to me  obscene to accept without  comment that so many of the least among us suffer so greatly while others amass unimaginable wealth. I am mystified that some with little real wealth of their own would from a Christian perspective defend that in any way. By the way I am neither unemployed nor poor. I am just angry at the absolute indecency of our current political and business environment.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Mark 10

But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Luke 14

If Only The Whole World Was Watching

Sixteen cops were arrested Friday in NY and charged with ticket fixing. In addition to the more than 300 doctored ticket summonses involved, the indictments also include taking bribes related to drug dealing, hiding an assault, and leaking classified info. In response 100 cops and their Union leaders showed up at the Bronx Courthouse in Protest.

Carrying signs that mimicked what the mayor had said about the length of time it had been going on, many made the argument that “It’s a courtesy, not a crime”, and that this was the way business was done in the NYPD, saying it was part of the “NYPD Culture”.

While it is not clear that the protestors that showed up represent the entire force—it was after all an investigation maintained by the Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) of the NYPD—it is very clear that the Union leadership is coming out hard saying the charges are illegitimate. When asked about the charges NYPD Benevolent Association Leader Pat Lynch said, “I say to them, in every profession there's professional courtesy," Lynch said. "In every profession your coworkers look out for you. I say they do that in their jobs. It's just a courtesy."

The head of the Union which now arrests OWS protesters for the nefarious crime of staying on the sidewalk indicates that he feels it’s only fair to have two sets of rules, one for his members and one for the public at large.

Interesting…

Multiple news outlets also reported that the demonstrating officers made demeaning and racially charged remarks to people in line nearby applying for welfare benefits.

This is not to indict the force of nearly 30,000 officers en masse, but the recent developments clearly indicate there are issues with at least some members, and those difficulties extend at least in some cases to contempt for the community which NYPD “serves and protects” as well as the law itself.

Seeing What is Left After All This Right

Hopefully, the country has gotten smarter after seeing their intentions.

You think so, Mark? I am asking sincerely. 20 years ago Romney, or at least the positions he claims to have would have been considered conservative. Today's conservative wants to dismantle the EPA, outlaw abortion, and cut taxes for the rich in ways that even Reagan would not have tried. They want an electrified fence and belittle each other for any policy of another candidate that espoused an ounce of human decency. Poor old Herman Cain comes out and says that a woman that is raped should have the choice to get an abortion though he would be personally opposed, and he is hounded by his opponents into an extreme position. Americans complain that they don't like the candidates, but in 1968, we had Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy, and McGovern competing for the dem nomination.

On the Republican side the conservative Nixon beat the East Coast Rockefeller. In Vietnam & Chile Nixon was pure evil, and domestically he was a creep, but he also created the EPA, signed the first Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and signed off on OSHA, not to mention opening relations with China, and initiating détente with the Russians and signing the Ballistic Missile treaty. While running racially divisive campaigns in the south, Nixon also signed off on affirmative action programs at the federal level and supported the ERA. His record is to the left of Obama’s in most areas except foreign policy. Of course, he was a kook and a crook, but in exactly what ways has Obama led us into a more just progressive agenda. He has been stymied no question, but he has brought some of that on himself, by being astoundingly timid.

The whole country knows that Bush ran us into a ditch. If do-overs were allowed most Americans would judge Bush incapable of handling the office. But a scant three years later there is an enormous appetite to support far right candidates that would only provide more of the same, albeit with perhaps greater brain power.  Bush set that bar very, very low.

Polls, smolls, by the time we get to Election Day it will be a 51-49 vote, or maybe 52-48, and a very tight electoral college vote. I don't think we have learned s***, and that makes Americans the problem at least as much as our politicians.

It's My Rule Never to Lose My Temper Until It Would Be Detrimental to Keep It. Sean O'Casey

I have ignored the other candidates because other than Romney they ain’t going nowhere, although I had hoped we would have “the devil is in the details” Bachman to kick around for a bit longer.

I am not going to get into a back and forth on tax policy. Everyone knows the system is rigged to service special interests. My bottom line is that this gets better when we find some way to wring the obscene amount of money out of the electoral system. I would love to see the OWS crowd start banging that drum.

As long as Koch and others can find malleable boobs to carry their water arguing that dollars equals speech there will always be Herman Cain’s around. But the debilitating corruption in the system, which has to a great extent created this hard-right hard-left world we now operate in has affected both parties in very sinister ways.

Maybe it will never get better, I don’t know. I keep watching for that solitary figure, that political figure that shies from neither the poor or the well to do. We hoped Obama would be that leader that would make us want sacrifice and get us on a more correct path.

You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?” George Bernard Shaw wrote it, but Bobby Kennedy ran on it. What did we get? Two parties arguing over what levels to subsidize the out of control conglomerate of insurance companies and the medical establishment. 50 million uninsured and the dems want to solve it by giving the insurance companies, that already exert too much control, even more power and wealth while the other party essentially says f*** them, offering no real solution to the crisis. Good things were in the bill I won’t argue that, but the real deal is how the lobbyists will mold the final execution—IF we ever get that far—and as we can see with the with the reregulation of Wall Street money talks and B*S* walks.

But I digress…

Cain has engaged in religious bigotry, proposed a tax policy which has a catchy name, but which everyone knows (including the entire republican field) would further exacerbate the transfer of wealth in America (just a huge problem in the US and around the world for that matter), and because he has shamelessly shilled for wealthiest and most powerful and had the unmitigated balls to blame the country’s problems on the unemployed, immigrants and so forth. He is not new. He is just the last in line. I didn’t like it in 1980 and I sure as hell don’t like it now.

The elements of this story are imaginary, but we all know there are millions like this. There is an unemployed mother of two. She has two kids and is trying to raise them well. Every day she makes decisions between rent & food, maybe medicine for an asthmatic boy, or clothes for a teenage daughter trying to find her way through the first year of middle school. The rich f*** millionaire that arrogantly sits back and says defiantly on national TV that her struggles are her fault, and that the fat bastards on Wall Street had nothing to do with her circumstances or millions of others with similar stories, deserves all the outrage any of us can muster. His statement is wholly and completely immoral.

The debates have shown the dark underbelly of the body politic. We have seen boos for a gay soldier, religious right nut-jobs cheering for the execution of 200-plus in Texas, and people shouting out that a hypothetical guy with no health insurance deserves to die if he gets sick and cannot pay for a doctor. None of the candidates, most especially Romney have acquitted themselves particularly well, each time standing in stony silence or claiming they couldn’t hear what was said, never once challenging the thuggery behind it all. And now we have this figure joking about executing desperate aliens on the border with electric fencing. Actually he said he was joking, but did want the electrified fence.

Yet they all court the religious right, god fearing people who are so happy with an eye for an eye, but ignore the teachings to feed the hungry, and care for the least among us. I am not particularly religious, but those on the religious right that claim all this in the name of some distorted God are neither religious nor right.

$5 bil is proposed for disaster relief. Now they argue for fiscal restraint, but a few years ago they were authorizing 5.0 bil a week to prosecute two wars, one of which was certainly engaged in for wholly unethical reasons.

So yeah, I’m spitting mad. At the moment Cain is the flag bearer for this whole parade of sycophants and criminals, so he gets all my bile. To speak to that with moderation- to me at least- his cowardly. Perhaps we cannot change all this, but we start by calling that which is immoral exactly what it is. I hope the bastard lives to be a hundred, I could care less, but I oppose everything he and those like him stand for.

Herman Cain is Brilliant!

Just check this copyrighted article from the North Star Writers Group dated Sept-01, 2008 in which in his own words Cain presents his prescient views on the state of the economy. This was written two weeks before the bankruptcy of Lehman and the whole spiral of AIG, Freddy & Fannie, TARP, etc.

Herman Cain:

“Once again, when Democrats don’t like the facts, they just ignore them with the help of the mainstream media.

“On August 26, Investor’s Business Daily reported data from the Internal Revenue Service showing that the average U.S. income had increased every year for five straight years through 2006...

“The following day, Sen. Joe Biden declared in his vice-presidential acceptance speech that ‘John McCain thinks that during the Bush years we’ve made great progress economically, I think it’s been abysmal!’ Great progress or abysmal, you make the call…

“... The supposed failure of Bush’s economic policies has been a constant theme of the Democrats since the 2006 elections, when the Democrats regained control of the House and Senate by convincing enough of the voters that the economic sky was falling, and that the war in Iraq could not be won. Based on all of their convention speeches, they plan to continue those themes right through Election Day on November 4.

“They are counting on a gullible and uninformed electorate to win the White House and a larger majority in Congress.”

Seven weeks later on Oct-20,2008, Cain wrote a second article for the Northstar Writer’s Group. This article, also copyrighted by Cain, offered full throated support for the creation of the TARP program enacted Oct-08, 2008 and signed into law by Bush. This legislation the soul of the US government’s efforts to protect those too big to fail while letting thousands lose their homes and millions fall into unemployment and poverty, is at the heart of WHAT OWS anger is about. TARP was first installment of $300 billion in what would become a multi trillion aid effort. The programs, too timid in their execution and too top heavy in their formulation, did save US & world from economic catastrophe, primarily be propping up big banks, Wall Street trading firms, insurance giants, and the auto companies, but left millions more in dire financial straits. The inequitable distribution of those monies along with the certain knowledge that tax payer monies used to bail out these firms is now being used to lobby to weaken regulations to prevent this sort of calamity again is what OWS all about.

Cain both suggested that the potential for catastrophe was small, and then weeks later came out in favor of the TARP bailout funds. The Tea Party types, initially outraged by the bail outs, now hold Cain as their champion. The level to which we are ill informed even with the multitude of information and media outlets available to us is truly stunning. And the speed at which Tea Party has been coopted by big biz interests and the conservative repub machine is mind boggling.

Herman Cain:

“Earth to taxpayers! Owning stocks in banks is not nationalization of the banking industry. It’s trying to solve a problem.

“The unprecedented financial crisis has caused the Treasury of the United States to take unprecedented measures to help solve the problem of frozen credit and cash flow for U.S. businesses.

“Most of us had dreams of what we wanted to be when we grew up as children. Some of us wanted to grow up and become a fireman, a policeman, a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer, a teacher, an actor, an engineer, a writer, a dancer, a chef or any number of other professions.

“But some of us wanted to own a bank because that’s where the money is!

“Wake up people! Owning a part of the major banks in America is not a bad thing. We could make a profit while solving a problem.

“But the mainstream media and the free market purists want you to believe that this is the end of capitalism as we know it. It is not for several reasons that they have conveniently not explained.”

I would love to see Cain make this speech again. Perhaps at tonight’s debate.

Post Script: Cain did defend his posture on TARP. Socialism is only really bad and can only really be called that when the government uses its resources to help the poor. TARP was crisis management. That's a whole different deal!

Herman Cain Defends America

Herman Cain is catching up with Bachman in the loonie kazoonie department. Last night on Jay Leno he again “clarified” remarks on his the Sharia law and the prospects of Muslim Americans joining his cabinet or administration. Many state legislatures have passed bans against Sharia law, including some where the percentage of Muslims is microscopic. Most of the republican candidates have also gone “on record” in their opposition to Sharia law as well, all too happy to jump on an unconstitutional McCarthyite bandwagon which demonizes all Muslim Americans in a least common denominator chase for conservative votes. There is of course zero chance that Sharia law will be incorporated into the laws of any state or the federal government.
But Cain tried to do them one better by saying that he would not appoint a Muslim in his administration and telling Christiane Amanpour that “I get upset when the Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.”

Though Cain later apologized to Muslim groups, he has continued to spout his anti-sharia law rhetoric on the campaign trail. The issue came up with Jay Leno last night.
After Leno suggested the position “didn’t seem very American” Cain clarified his remarks. "I wanted to drive home the point that there are peaceful Muslims, and then there are those that want to kill us. And I basically, when I was asked that question, I did answer, would you appoint a Muslim, and I said no. I was thinking jihadist, and I did not qualify that point, but I qualified it later." Oh, so now I understand, he did not mean to cast all Muslims in the role of terrorists for the chance to chase votes, what he was really saying was that he would not appoint a jihadi terrorist-- “those that want to kill us”-- to his cabinet. Apparently some of other candidates think it would be OK. Well, that is very clear and does not sound like pandering to the Tonight show audience at all.

In fairness, not all of the republicans are xenophobic hotheads. Chris Christie appointed a Muslim Judge, Sohail Mohammed, a lawyer with long history of defending the civil rights of those in his community, like civil rights lawyers have done since the founding days. Few remember that as a lawyer John Adams defended a British Soldier in a capital case long before he was a founder, but I digress.
Forced to defend the nomination at a town hall meeting Christie said, “If it is disqualifying for the bench to be an Arab-American in New Jersey who represents innocent people and gets them released, then this isn’t the state I believe it is,” Christie said. “I’ve known this man for 10 years. He’s a good, decent American and New Jerseyan, he’s an outstanding lawyer, and he deserves the opportunity to be on the bench. I am proud to have nominated him.”

If Christie refused to take the “not one dollar in taxes for ten dollars in spending decreases” pledge as all the others have done, and actually proposed policies designed to unite rather than play to the narrow minority it might have been interesting. As Tom Friedman wrote today, it would have likely forced Obama into a more conciliatory centrist posture. As a liberal that is pretty sick of that posture, I am not sure that would have been a good thing, but I do think this campaign would have been much more about ideas than slogans.

Now we’re stuck with a Texan that can put a sentence together, a patrician New Englander that hates most the policies he himself proposed and authorized while Governor of Massachusetts , Ron Paul, and a cast of wing nuts, extreme in their positions, bizarre in their statements, safely unelectable. And Herman Cain. At least we know he will not appoint any “people that want to kill us” to his administration. Whew… That was close.