Sunday, October 30, 2011

Fwd: The Take Poster

Hi -- See the poster? That's what we will be
doing on Friday evening Nov. 11th. Pass this on
to anyone who might be interested.
--Kim


>Heeeeeer it is……………………..

ANS -- Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?

Matt Taibbi says, in his book Griftopia, that all the other banks have contempt for Citibank, who is dirty even by dirty banking standards. (note the "who"?  They are "people" now....) (Nasty, dirty, thieving, conniving people, but people....)
This is just one thing they were doing while we weren't looking.
Find it here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/friedman-did-you-hear-the-one-about-the-bankers.html?_r=1&emc=eta1  
--Kim



Op-Ed Columnist


Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?


By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN


Published: October 29, 2011

CITIGROUP is lucky that Muammar el-Qaddafi was killed when he was. The Libyan leader's death diverted attention from a lethal article involving Citigroup that deserved more attention because it helps to explain why many average Americans have expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The news was that Citigroup had to pay a $285 million fine to settle a case in which, with one hand, Citibank sold a package of toxic mortgage-backed securities to unsuspecting customers ­ securities that it knew were likely to go bust ­ and, with the other hand, shorted the same securities ­ that is, bet millions of dollars that they would go bust.
[]  

Josh Haner/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman



It doesn't get any more immoral than this. As the Securities and Exchange Commission civil complaint noted, in 2007, Citigroup exercised "significant influence" over choosing $500 million of the $1 billion worth of assets in the deal, and the global bank deliberately chose collateralized debt obligations, or C.D.O.'s, built from mortgage loans almost sure to fail. According to The Wall Street Journal, the S.E.C. complaint quoted one unnamed C.D.O. trader outside Citigroup as describing the portfolio as resembling something your dog leaves on your neighbor's lawn. "The deal became largely worthless within months of its creation," The Journal added. "As a result, about 15 hedge funds, investment managers and other firms that invested in the deal lost hundreds of millions of dollars, while Citigroup made $160 million in fees and trading profits."

Citigroup, which is under new and better management now, settled the case without admitting or denying any wrongdoing. James Stewart, a business columnist for The Times, noted that Citigroup's flimflam made "Goldman Sachs mortgage traders look like Boy Scouts. In settling its fraud charges for $550 million last year, Goldman was accused by the S.E.C. of being the middleman in a similar deal, allowing the hedge fund manager John Paulson to help choose the mortgages and then bet against them without disclosing this to the other parties. Citigroup dispensed with a Paulson figure altogether, grabbing those lucrative roles for itself." (Last Thursday, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case demanded that the S.E.C. explain how such serious securities fraud could end with the defendant neither admitting nor denying wrongdoing.)

This gets to the core of why all the anti-Wall Street groups around the globe are resonating. I was in Tahrir Square in Cairo for the fall of Hosni Mubarak, and one of the most striking things to me about that demonstration was how apolitical it was. When I talked to Egyptians, it was clear that what animated their protest, first and foremost, was not a quest for democracy ­ although that was surely a huge factor. It was a quest for "justice." Many Egyptians were convinced that they lived in a deeply unjust society where the game had been rigged by the Mubarak family and its crony capitalists. Egypt shows what happens when a country adopts free-market capitalism without developing real rule of law and institutions.

But, then, what happened to us? Our financial industry has grown so large and rich it has corrupted our real institutions through political donations. As Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, bluntly said in a 2009 radio interview, despite having caused this crisis, these same financial firms "are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place."

Our Congress today is a forum for legalized bribery. One consumer group using information from Opensecrets.org calculates that the financial services industry, including real estate, spent $2.3 billion on federal campaign contributions from 1990 to 2010, which was more than the health care, energy, defense, agriculture and transportation industries combined. Why are there 61 members on the House Committee on Financial Services? So many congressmen want to be in a position to sell votes to Wall Street.

We can't afford this any longer. We need to focus on four reforms that don't require new bureaucracies to implement. 1) If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big and needs to be broken up. We can't risk another trillion-dollar bailout. 2) If your bank's deposits are federally insured by U.S. taxpayers, you can't do any proprietary trading with those deposits ­ period. 3) Derivatives have to be traded on transparent exchanges where we can see if another A.I.G. is building up enormous risk. 4) Finally, an idea from the blogosphere: U.S. congressmen should have to dress like Nascar drivers and wear the logos of all the banks, investment banks, insurance companies and real estate firms that they're taking money from. The public needs to know.

Capitalism and free markets are the best engines for generating growth and relieving poverty ­ provided they are balanced with meaningful transparency, regulation and oversight. We lost that balance in the last decade. If we don't get it back ­ and there is now a tidal wave of money resisting that ­ we will have another crisis. And, if that happens, the cry for justice could turn ugly. Free advice to the financial services industry: Stick to being bulls. Stop being pigs.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on October 30, 2011, on page SR11 of the New York edition with the headline: Did You Hear the One About the Bankers?.
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ANS -- In Colorado, a Power Struggle Towards Moving to Municipally Owned Energy

I have two things to say about this:
1) It is always cheaper to go Municipal than a private for-profit company.  We've proved that over and over again in the last forty years, as every time we have privatized something, the rates have gone up.
2) Note in the article it says that the power company especially fears, if it happens, that it would start a trend in the direction of taking back our energy companies to public ownership.  I certainly hope so, as I believe that's where it belongs. 
Find it here:    http://www.truth-out.org/colorado-power-struggle-towards-moving-municipally-owned-energy/1319990106   
--Kim


In Colorado, a Power Struggle Towards Moving to Municipally Owned Energy

Saturday 29 October 2011
by: Kirk Johnson, The New York Times News Service | Report

Boulder, Colo. - Many Americans these days, from the huddled masses of Occupy Wall Street to the coifed confines of the presidential campaign, are talking about the future of capitalism.

Here, that debate is focused on electricity, specifically whether this city should, in Tuesday's election, sever its relationship with a corporate utility and move toward a home-ruled, municipally owned one that would be environmentally greener and locally accountable.

Kristin Johnson, a 57-year-old lawyer, summed up her planned vote to oust the company, Xcel Energy, in seven succinct words.

"They don't have our interest at heart," she said.

Xcel, a Minneapolis-based company that supplies electricity across eight states, including most of Colorado, is fighting back hard, arguing that a divorce would be devastatingly expensive for Boulder residents through higher electricity rates and start-up costs. And if talk of home-rule is really about having more renewable, carbon-reduced energy generation, well then, the company has said in advertisements and letters to residents, a big corporation with deep pockets can help get there cheaper and faster than any city, however well intentioned.

"I can't find the numbers for how Boulder is going to do it better," said Bob Bellemare, an Xcel consultant.

Proponents of ballot issues 2C and 2B, which includes a $1.9 million tax increase in the first year to pay for planning and analysis, say that the utility industry desperately fears a public awakening, and that a John Brown-like raid on a monopoly in one place could galvanize electricity consumers all across the nation to push for change.

Leaders of the effort concede that huge challenges await if the city goes forward, and that Xcel is not the worst provider to have. Partly prodded by a Colorado law requiring 30 percent renewable energy by 2020 ­ one of the most aggressive standards in the nation ­ the company has become a big producer of wind electricity. It has also spent more than $40 million here in Boulder building a pilot project called Smart Grid, with sophisticated metering that can help customers reduce electricity use.

Not enough, some say.

"Boulder can do better," said Shaun McGrath, a former mayor and a leader of the ballot drive.

"We were making some headway with our carbon reductions," Mr. McGrath said, referring to the relationship with Xcel, which is still, like most utilities, dependent on coalfor much of its output. "But really what we kept bumping into was this ceiling of where our electricity was coming from."

The backdrop, both sides say, is the city itself, a mountain-fringed college town about 45 minutes from Denver that is consistently one of the most liberal and idealistic corners of Colorado politics. President Obama carried Boulder County with 72 percent of the vote in 2008.

In the electricity fight, left-leaning politics have been aligned with hard science, supporters say, creating a unique platform for thinking creatively about electricity and democracy.

Climate and weather research, in particular, has a huge presence in the city, at federal institutions like the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with the tech-heavy University of Colorado that sprawls through the center of town. More than two-thirds of the population over age 25 has a bachelor's degree or higher, according to census figures ­ compared with just over 36 percent for Colorado as a whole.

A passionate outdoor youth and fitness culture ­ a weekend run or ride on a Boulder bike path can feel like a border crossing to Spandex nation ­ completes the demographic circle from which the anti-Xcel forces have drawn support. A youth-centered group called New Era Colorado has been phone-banking for the electricity measures for weeks.

"It's probably going to get passed because it is such a Boulder thing," said Jane Imber, 55.

Ms. Imber, a freelance copy writer, said that she planned to vote no, even though she believes strongly in clean energy. "I think we have a better chance of changing Xcel from the inside than the outside," she said.

Some supporters of the separation, though, say that local history ­ notably a long-simmering conflict over a coal-fired power plant in the city, called Valmont, which Xcel plans to retire by 2017 ­ has poisoned the well. Valmont has been the site of numerous protests over the years.

"There's a special distrust of Xcel," said Kate Clark, 27, a graduate student in environmental studies at the University of Colorado and a ferocious opponent of coal. Ms. Clark, who said she had also visited the Occupy Denver protest site several times in recent weeks, has volunteered at New Era Colorado.

The two ballot measures would not immediately initiate a break with Xcel or the creation of a new provider. The soonest that could happen, both sides say, given the many technical and legal issues ­ and the question of compensation to Xcel for the assets and customers it would lose ­ is probably 2017.

And Xcel officials have said there would be other bumps.

Because of the intense environmental ethos here, for example, Xcel customers in Boulder have been disproportionate enrollees in the company's existing solar energy and conservation programs. The city's 48,000 Xcel customers account for only 3.4 percent of the statewide ratepayer base, but 15 percent of the solar participants.

What that means is that solar installation rebates, Xcel officials said, totaling more than $38 million to Boulder customers since 2006, have been disproportionally borne by other customers around the state ­ a subsidy pipeline that could dry up with separation, though that decision would require regulators to weigh in.

And how green is green, anyway? Under Colorado law, shareholder-owned companies like Xcel are covered by the 30 percent renewable energy mandate by 2020. Municipally owned utilities of the size that Boulder would require would have to get to only 10 percent by then.

Jack Begg contributed research.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
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ANS -- How the 99 Percent Really Lost Out - in Far Greater Ways Than the Occupy Protesters Imagine

Here is a piece about why the 1% having way more than the other 99% is really theft, and it is theft the occupiers are objecting to.  this theft talked about in the article is a bit more abstract than the simple cheating by Wall St that is the other part of the theft, but no less real....
Find it here:   http://www.truth-out.org/how-99-percent-really-lost-out-far-greater-ways-occupy-protesters-imagine/1319561990  
--Kim


How the 99 Percent Really Lost Out - in Far Greater Ways Than the Occupy Protesters Imagine

Saturday 29 October 2011
by: Gar Alperovitz, Truthout | Op-Ed
[]  

Joanne Kathleen Farrell, a protester from Occupy Albany, waved an American flag on Washington Avenue, which borders Academy Park near the state Capitol, in Albany, New York, October 26, 2011. (Photo: Nathaniel Brooks / The New York Times)

"Property is theft," French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously declared in 1840 - a judgment clearly shared by many of those involved in the occupations in the name of the 99 percent around the country, and especially when applied to Wall Street bankers and traders. Elizabeth Warren also angrily points out that there "is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody." Meaning: if the rich don't pay their fair share of the taxes which educate their workers and provide roads, security and many other things, they are essentially stealing from everyone else.

But this is the least of it: Proudhon may have exaggerated when, for instance, we think of a small farmer working his own land with his own hands. But we now know that he was far closer to the truth than even he might have imagined when it comes to how the top 1 percent really got so rich, and why the 99 percent lost out. The biggest "theft" by the 1 percent has been of the primary source of wealth - knowledge - for its own benefit.

Knowledge? Yes, of course, and increasingly so. The fact is, most of what we call wealth is now known to be overwhelmingly the product of technical, scientific and other knowledge - and most of this innovation derives from socially inherited knowledge, at that. Which means that, except for trivial amounts, it was simply not created by the 1 percent who enjoy the lion's share of its benefits. Most of it was created, historically, by society - which is to say, minimally, the other 99 percent.

Take a simple example: In our own time, over many decades, the development of the steel plow and the tractor increased one man's capacity to farm, from a small plot (with a mule and wooden plow) to many hundred acres. What changed over the years to make this possible was a great deal of engineering, steelmaking, chemistry and other knowledge developed by society as a whole.

Another obvious example: Many of the advances that have propelled our high-tech economy in recent decades grew directly out of research programs financed and, often, collaboratively developed, by the federal government and paid for by the taxpayer. The Internet, to take the most well-known example, began as a government defense project, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), in the 1960s. Today's vast software industry rests on a foundation of computer language and operating hardware developed, in large part, with public support. The Bill Gateses of the world might still be working with vacuum tubes and punch cards were it not for critical research and technology programs created or financed by the federal government after World War II.

The iPhone is another example: Its microchips, cellular communication abilities and global positioning system (GPS) all flowed from developments traceable to significant direct and indirect public support from the military and space programs. The "revolutionary" multi-touch screen was developed by University of Delaware researchers financially supported by the National Science Foundation and the CIA. It is not only electronics: of the 15 modern US-developed "blockbuster" drugs with over $1 billion in sales, 13 received significant public research and development support.

But taxpayer-financed government programs (including, of course, all of public education!) are only the tip of the iceberg. And here we are not talking rhetoric, we are talking the stuff of Nobel prizes. Over the last several decades, economic research has begun to pinpoint much more precisely how much of what we call "wealth" society in general derives from long, steady, century-by-century advances in knowledge - and how much any one individual at any point in time can be said to have earned and "deserved."

Recent estimates indicate, for instance, that national output per capita has increased more than twentyfold over the 200-plus years since 1800. Output per hour worked has increased an estimated fifteenfold since 1870 alone. Yet the modern person is likely to work each hour with no greater commitment, risk or intelligence than his counterpart from the past. The primary reason for such huge gains is that, on the whole, scientific, technical and cultural knowledge has grown at a scale and pace that far outstrips any other factor in the nation's economic achievement.

A half-century ago, in 1957, economist Robert Solow showed that nearly 90 percent of productivity growth in the first half of the 20th century alone, from 1909 to 1949, could only be attributed to technical change in the broadest sense. The supply of labor and capital - what workers and employers contribute - appeared almost incidental to this massive technological "residual." (Solow received the Nobel Prize for this and related work in 1987.) Another leading economist, William Baumol, calculated that "nearly 90 percent ... of current GDP [gross domestic product] was contributed by innovation carried out since 1870."

The truly central and demanding question is obviously this: If most of what we have today is attributable to knowledge advances that we all inherit in common, why, specifically, should this gift of our collective history not more generously benefit all members of society? The top 1 percent of US households now receives far more income than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. The richest 1 percent of households owns nearly half of all investment assets (stocks and mutual funds, financial securities, business equity, trusts, nonhome real estate). A mere 400 individuals at the top have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 60 percent of the nation taken together. If America's vast wealth is mainly a gift of our common past, how, specifically, can such disparities be justified?

Early in the American republic, Thomas Paine urged that everything "beyond what a man's own hands produce" was a gift that came to him simply by living in society, and, hence, "he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came." Another American reformer, Henry George, challenged what he called "the unearned increment" that is created when population growth and other societal factors increase land values.

To be sure, someone who genuinely makes a real contribution deserves to be rewarded. But Proudhon is right on target for many, many others: when what is created by all of society for many centuries gets turned into wealth, and, somehow, directly or indirectly, shunted away from the 99 percent by the 1 percent, much of that process, in fact, is reasonably described as "theft." The demand of the occupations that this theft stop, that it be reversed, is also right on target - both in what we know about how wealth is created, and, above all, in what we know about how a just society ought to organize its affairs.
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Friday, October 28, 2011

ANS -- Supreme Court To Rule On Corporate Personhood For Crimes Against Humanity

Here is an article about another Supreme Court trial dealing with the ramifications of corporate personhood.  Maybe I'm being cynical, but I expect they will not be considered persons for purposes of being sued for harm internationally.  They will get to have their cake and eat it too..... but, maybe not.....
Find it here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/supreme-court_n_1015953.html?ref=tw  
--Kim


Supreme Court To Rule On Corporate Personhood For Crimes Against Humanity

Supreme Court  

First Posted: 10/17/11 01:39 PM ET Updated: 10/17/11 07:16 PM ET



WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday morning agreed to hear a case over whether corporations can be sued in federal courts for human rights violations occurring overseas.

The case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, arises out of a suit by a dozen Nigerian plaintiffs claiming that Royal Dutch and two of its Shell Oil subsidiaries worked with the Nigerian government to torture and extrajudicially execute individuals protesting against the companies' oil exploration.

The plaintiffs filed suit in United States district court under the Alien Tort Statute, which empowers the federal courts to hear cases by "an alien" bringing a civil suit for wrongs committed "in violation of the law of nations." The first Congress passed the ATS into law in 1789.

While the ATS indicates who can sue, it does not say who or what can be sued. In Kiobel, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals held, by a 2-1 vote, that only natural persons, and not corporations, may be held liable under the ATS. "Corporate liability is not discernible" under the ATS, wrote the majority, because "no corporation has ever been subject to any form of liability (whether civil or criminal) under the customary international law of human rights."

The D.C. Circuit and 7th Circuit split with the 2nd Circuit shortly after its Kiobel decision. Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit, in his opinion for a unanimous panel, found the "factual premise of the majority opinion in the Kiobel case incorrect," citing the allied powers' dissolution of German corporations that had aided the Nazi government in violation of customary international law.

Even so, Posner continued, that fact "has nothing to do with the issue of corporate liability." Rather, as the D.C. Circuit put it, courts should look to whether the cause of action -- in Kiobel, a claim such as torture -- is "clearly established in the law of nations," and then ask whether corporations are generally held liable in domestic lawsuits.

The Supreme Court will now step in to resolve the circuit split, but Kiobel's outlier status does not signal an easy reversal. The D.C. Circuit's dissenter, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, agreed with the 2nd Circuit's approach in Kiobel and found that "customary international law does not recognize corporate liability." Kavanaugh's dissents in the past have served as clarion calls for the Court's conservatives, so what he believes may be a good indicator for how the justices may come out. And Kavanaugh, a former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy, believed that "it would be quite odd for a U.S. court to allow a customary international law-based ATS claim against a corporation when no international tribunal has allowed a customary international law claim against a corporation."

Yet for many, it would also be quite odd for the Court, which found in Citizens United that the Framers intended the First Amendment to apply to corporate persons, to reject the concept when it comes to corporate liability for crimes against humanity under a Founding-era statute.

The Court will likely schedule oral argument in Kiobel for February, with a decision to be handed down by late June.

ANS -- TEARS STREAM AS CITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY AGREES ‘OCCUPY TENTS ARE A FORM OF SPEECH’

I had to pass this one on to you: it's a bit of real hope for the process.  This is about the Occupy Movement in Orange County, and how the city council spent a long time in sincere debate about it, and decided, unanimously, that it is a form of Free Speech!
It's a short article, but inspiring, especially the ending. 
The city they are talking about in the article is Irvine.
Find it here:  http://www.occupy-oc.org/tears-stream-as-city-council-unanimously-agrees-occupy-tents-are-a-form-of-speech/#.TqkFa2E9X0F.facebook   
--Kim


TEARS STREAM AS CITY COUNCIL UNANIMOUSLY AGREES 'OCCUPY TENTS ARE A FORM OF SPEECH'

Posted on 10/26/2011 by Synthian

[]

Late last night after a 5 and-a-half hour marathon city council meeting,
in which 72 speakers took the floor to express the need for the Occupy OC
Tent Village to be accepted as a form of free speech, the city council
passed an emergency motion to add the needs of "The 99%" to their official
agenda. This was a feat which, according to one more conservative
Councilman, he had never seen in 7 years of service.

The council members each spoke in turn to the civility, articulateness and
peaceful process represented by the Irvine Occupation at contrast with the
several other Occupational Villages in California, which were, at that
very moment being tear-gassed. The general sentiment being: "This is quite
clearly the model. And the occupation most in tune with city needs."

One councilman stated clearly, "I disagree with most of what you're
saying. But you've clearly shown that this is an issue of free speech. So
if you need to sleep on our lawn… by all means… sleep on our lawn."

Shortly after, a motion was brought to the council to grant license to the
occupiers to occupy the public space overnight citing the unusual form of
the movement. (Another first in council history.)

It was then passed unanimously to the sound of thunderous applause.

Shortly thereafter, the City Council was invited to attend the General
Assembly of the People. (Which takes place each night in the Occupation
Village at 7:00 PM.)

On a personal note… I myself was stopped by the Mayor on my way up the
hall, when he said, "You know what concerns me?" "What's that", I asked.
Expecting him to cite a civil code. – "Do you have enough blankets, or
should I get you some?" He asked.

And that… my friends… is a reason for hope.

Video to be provided in short order.

ANS -- Filming and Photographing the Police

This is a very short article from the ACLU.  Know your rights! (and I love the graphic!)
Find it here:  http://www.aclu.org/filming-and-photographing-police 
--Kim


Filming and Photographing the Police

camera-flag.jpg Filming and Photographing the Police

Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right ­ and that includes the outside of federal buildings, as well as transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties.

However, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs or video in public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply.

The ACLU, photographer's groups, and others have been complaining about such incidents for years ­ and consistently winning in court. Yet, a continuing stream of incidents of illegal harassment of photographers and videographers makes it clear that the problem is not going away.
---------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL FEATURE
> A Guide to Photographers' Rights
> Article: Law Enforcement Harrassment of Photographers

Fwd: ANS -- UPDATE: With A Stroke Of His Pen Obama Strikes Back At Citizens United

Hi -- Just to be clear, I have been searching and I can't find any evidence that Obama has yet signed this executive order.  As of Sept.
--Kim



Here is an article saying that Obama is going to sign an executive order to say that corporations that don't disclose where their political donations went, can't get government contracts.  Is it true?  Can he do that?  Is it a great idea?
Find it here:  http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-citizens-united
--Kim


With A Stroke Of His Pen Obama Strikes Back At Citizens United



April 21, 2011
By Rmuse
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A little over a year ago the Supreme Court of the United States made a controversial ruling that says corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited. The case known as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission allows corporations to use their general funds to buy campaign ads that was prohibited under federal law, and opened the door for unlimited contributions by corporations as well as unions. The high court cited the 1st Amendment's guarantee of the right of free speech, and it was the first time a corporate entity was treated like a person. Detractors of the ruling cried foul and correctly pointed out that, "The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election." The ruling also opened the door for foreign governments to affect the outcome of United States elections.

There was an attempt to assuage the damage from Citizens United in the form of the Disclose Act that passed in the Democratic controlled House last year but failed in the Senate because Democrats couldn't muster the super majority needed to overcome Republican's filibuster threat. The failed legislation provided tough new disclosure rules for groups that invest in the election process. President Obama summed up the necessity of the Disclose Act calling it "a critical piece of legislation to control the flood of special interest money into our elections," and, "that it mandates unprecedented transparency in campaign spending, and it ensures that corporations who spend money on American elections are accountable first and foremost to the American people." Since Republicans are enamored with the notion of unlimited special interest money without transparency or accountability, it was not surprising they threatened to filibuster the measure. The 2010 midterm elections confirmed Americans' fears with money from special interest groups and corporations flooding the airwaves with fallacious assertions and inaccurate characterizations of everything from the health law to socialist tendencies of Democratic candidates. It appeared that since the Disclose Act failed, elections would be bought by the highest bidder for years to come, but a report today gives some hope that democracy is not dead in America; yet.

On Wednesday it was reported that President Obama was drafting an executive order that would require companies pursuing federal contracts to disclose political contributions that have been secret under the Citizen's United ruling. A senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Hans A. von Spakovsky, lambasted the proposed executive order saying that, "The draft order tries to interfere with the First Amendment rights of contractors." Mr. von Spakovsky dutifully made all the right-wing, neo-con arguments including bringing Planned Parenthood and unions into the discussion. The draft order did not exempt any entity from disclosure rules and presents a reasonable requirement on contractors seeking government contracts. Several states have similar "pay to play" laws to prevent businesses from using unlimited donations to buy lucrative state contracts from slimy legislators. Thus far the only legislator who has railed against the proposed order was Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell called the proposal an "outrageous and anti-Democratic abuse of executive branch authority," and went on to say, "Just last year, the Senate rejected a cynical effort to muzzle critics of this administration and its allies in Congress."

McConnell is working under the assumption that the draft order is an attempt to restrict free speech, but there is nothing in the order remotely resembling free speech violations. The exact wording of the president's executive order says, "The Federal Government prohibits federal contractors from making certain contributions during the course of negotiation and performance of a contract." There is no free speech issue and the order applies to union contractors as well as non-union contractors. There is no special dispensation of muzzles or prohibitions on political support; only certain contributions during negotiations and performance. Republicans must hate the idea of corporations like Halliburton or Koch Industries losing the ability to contribute unlimited money to legislators for special treatment in securing government contracts, especially no-bid contracts like the ones Dick Cheney's company's received in Iraq and Afghanistan. In lieu of veracity, McConnell accuses President Obama of muzzling critics and suppressing free speech when in fact, the order will bring increased transparency and accountability to the process of awarding contracts. Republicans made it their goal to increase transparency and accountability in government in the lead up to the midterm elections, so McConnell should be thrilled that President Obama is helping them achieve their goal.

The real objection Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have with the order is that it removes the possibility of corporate money influencing government more than it already does. The Citizens' United ruling was a gift to Republicans who do the bidding of corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and it became obvious after reports that two Supreme Court Justices attended a secret Koch Industries strategy meeting prior to voting to extend free speech rights to corporations just in time for the 2010 midterm campaigns.

The midterm elections saw a record amount of campaign contributions from anonymous sources that were illegal for years until the high court broke with precedent and gave personhood to corporations. The rash of Republican governors' victories and subsequent corporate favoritism and tax cuts at the expense of poor and working class Americans is evidence that there is a serious need for accountability and transparency in campaign financing.

The response from McConnell and the Heritage Foundation is not unexpected and is most likely the tip of the iceberg as far as criticism and false indignation are concerned. The screed from Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation is a preview of the propaganda right-wing outlets like Fox News and their pundits will spew on an hourly basis once the order becomes common knowledge.

Conservatives are not known for their veracity, and based on von Spakovsky's portrayal of the order, there is no telling how Fox, Limbaugh, Beck and myriad Republican presidential hopefuls will spin the story, or to what end their faux outrage will take. One thing is certain; Republicans will make the order tyrannical and un-Constitutional before the dust settles and that should be a signal that the president's proposal is appropriate and in keeping with democratic principles of fairness. Of course, any attempt at ensuring fairness in government is contrary to Republican principles of corruption, fear mongering, and doing the bidding of the Heritage Foundation.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

ANS -- With A Stroke Of His Pen Obama Strikes Back At Citizens United

Here is an article saying that Obama is going to sign an executive order to say that corporations that don't disclose where their political donations went, can't get government contracts.  Is it true?  Can he do that?  Is it a great idea?
Find it here:  http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-citizens-united
--Kim

With A Stroke Of His Pen Obama Strikes Back At Citizens United

April 21, 2011
By Rmuse
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105

[]

A little over a year ago the Supreme Court of the United States made a controversial ruling that says corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited. The case known as Citizens United v Federal Election Commission allows corporations to use their general funds to buy campaign ads that was prohibited under federal law, and opened the door for unlimited contributions by corporations as well as unions. The high court cited the 1st Amendment's guarantee of the right of free speech, and it was the first time a corporate entity was treated like a person. Detractors of the ruling cried foul and correctly pointed out that, "The Supreme Court has handed lobbyists a new weapon. A lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election." The ruling also opened the door for foreign governments to affect the outcome of United States elections.

There was an attempt to assuage the damage from Citizens United in the form of the Disclose Act that passed in the Democratic controlled House last year but failed in the Senate because Democrats couldn't muster the super majority needed to overcome Republican's filibuster threat. The failed legislation provided tough new disclosure rules for groups that invest in the election process. President Obama summed up the necessity of the Disclose Act calling it "a critical piece of legislation to control the flood of special interest money into our elections," and, "that it mandates unprecedented transparency in campaign spending, and it ensures that corporations who spend money on American elections are accountable first and foremost to the American people." Since Republicans are enamored with the notion of unlimited special interest money without transparency or accountability, it was not surprising they threatened to filibuster the measure. The 2010 midterm elections confirmed Americans' fears with money from special interest groups and corporations flooding the airwaves with fallacious assertions and inaccurate characterizations of everything from the health law to socialist tendencies of Democratic candidates. It appeared that since the Disclose Act failed, elections would be bought by the highest bidder for years to come, but a report today gives some hope that democracy is not dead in America; yet.

On Wednesday it was reported that President Obama was drafting an executive order that would require companies pursuing federal contracts to disclose political contributions that have been secret under the Citizen's United ruling. A senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Hans A. von Spakovsky, lambasted the proposed executive order saying that, "The draft order tries to interfere with the First Amendment rights of contractors." Mr. von Spakovsky dutifully made all the right-wing, neo-con arguments including bringing Planned Parenthood and unions into the discussion. The draft order did not exempt any entity from disclosure rules and presents a reasonable requirement on contractors seeking government contracts. Several states have similar "pay to play" laws to prevent businesses from using unlimited donations to buy lucrative state contracts from slimy legislators. Thus far the only legislator who has railed against the proposed order was Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell called the proposal an "outrageous and anti-Democratic abuse of executive branch authority," and went on to say, "Just last year, the Senate rejected a cynical effort to muzzle critics of this administration and its allies in Congress."

McConnell is working under the assumption that the draft order is an attempt to restrict free speech, but there is nothing in the order remotely resembling free speech violations. The exact wording of the president's executive order says, "The Federal Government prohibits federal contractors from making certain contributions during the course of negotiation and performance of a contract." There is no free speech issue and the order applies to union contractors as well as non-union contractors. There is no special dispensation of muzzles or prohibitions on political support; only certain contributions during negotiations and performance. Republicans must hate the idea of corporations like Halliburton or Koch Industries losing the ability to contribute unlimited money to legislators for special treatment in securing government contracts, especially no-bid contracts like the ones Dick Cheney's company's received in Iraq and Afghanistan. In lieu of veracity, McConnell accuses President Obama of muzzling critics and suppressing free speech when in fact, the order will bring increased transparency and accountability to the process of awarding contracts. Republicans made it their goal to increase transparency and accountability in government in the lead up to the midterm elections, so McConnell should be thrilled that President Obama is helping them achieve their goal.

The real objection Republicans and the Heritage Foundation have with the order is that it removes the possibility of corporate money influencing government more than it already does. The Citizens' United ruling was a gift to Republicans who do the bidding of corporations in exchange for campaign contributions and it became obvious after reports that two Supreme Court Justices attended a secret Koch Industries strategy meeting prior to voting to extend free speech rights to corporations just in time for the 2010 midterm campaigns.

The midterm elections saw a record amount of campaign contributions from anonymous sources that were illegal for years until the high court broke with precedent and gave personhood to corporations. The rash of Republican governors' victories and subsequent corporate favoritism and tax cuts at the expense of poor and working class Americans is evidence that there is a serious need for accountability and transparency in campaign financing.

The response from McConnell and the Heritage Foundation is not unexpected and is most likely the tip of the iceberg as far as criticism and false indignation are concerned. The screed from Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation is a preview of the propaganda right-wing outlets like Fox News and their pundits will spew on an hourly basis once the order becomes common knowledge.

Conservatives are not known for their veracity, and based on von Spakovsky's portrayal of the order, there is no telling how Fox, Limbaugh, Beck and myriad Republican presidential hopefuls will spin the story, or to what end their faux outrage will take. One thing is certain; Republicans will make the order tyrannical and un-Constitutional before the dust settles and that should be a signal that the president's proposal is appropriate and in keeping with democratic principles of fairness. Of course, any attempt at ensuring fairness in government is contrary to Republican principles of corruption, fear mongering, and doing the bidding of the Heritage Foundation.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

ANS -- A pair of articles: Shame and Pride

Here is a pair of articles from Doug Muder.  They go together. 
They are about how the Right uses both our shame and our pride against us. 
Apparently it has some "bad words" in it: be warned!

Find them here: http://weeklysift.com/2011/10/10/turn-the-shame-around/  and
http://weeklysift.com/2011/10/17/suck-it-up-using-our-pride-against-us/  


--Kim




Turn the Shame Around

For the longest time I didn't get Occupy Wall Street, but then Herman Cain helped me out: He said something so monumentally wrong that my reaction against it pointed me in the right direction.

Here's Herman:

Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself! … It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed.

That's when I got it. An unjust system's first line of defense is shame. As long as we're ashamed to admit that we're victims, as long as we're ashamed to identify with the other losers, we're helpless.

It would be great to have a 10-point plan that solves everything. It would be great to have a party that endorses that plan and a get-out-the-vote movement to put that party into office. But none of that is going to happen until large numbers of us cast off our shame, until we turn the shame around: We need to stop being ashamed that we couldn't crack the top 1%, and instead cast shame on an economic system that only works for 1%. The people who defend that immoral system and profit from it ­ they should be ashamed, not us.

That's what Occupy Wall Street is about. OWS isn't about plans and parties and votes. That all comes later. OWS is about casting off shame and learning to identify with the other losers.

[] I didn't get OWS because (like a lot of other people) I kept trying to fit it into the wrong model. It's not the 20th-century labor movement, marching for a minimum wage and a 40-hour week. It's not Rosa Parks demanding her seat on the bus. It's not last spring's occupation of the state capitol in Madison, demanding  the restoration of collective bargaining rights, a reversal of education cuts, and maybe even the recall of Gov. Walker.

Those were fine movements, but they're not this movement. This is more like feminism in the late 60s or gay rights in the 80s.  Specific demands will play their role eventually, but consciousness-raising has to come first.

Remember what we were told in those days? Feminists were women who had to work because they were too ugly to get a man. Gays were perverts too limp-wristed to defend themselves. They were losers. If you resembled them or sympathized with them, you were supposed to be ashamed.

Somebody had to be the first to go out in public and absorb that scorn. I remember my shock the first time I saw Dykes on Bikes, or a troop of guys in drag chanting "We're here. We're queer." I remember trying to imagine how much courage that took, and what else must be possible if this was possible.

But other than a vague sense that they ought to be treated more like human beings, I don't remember their demands. I wonder if they remember.

[] Now go look at the pictures at We Are the 99%. One person after another is saying, "Look at me. I'm losing in this economy, and I'm not ashamed who knows it."

That's powerful. I think everybody who looks at those pictures feels a little bit of their own shame melt.

Maybe the economic story you're ashamed to tell is no great shakes compared to people who have lost their homes or got sick without insurance or had to move back in with Mom and Dad. But you probably have one.

Saturday night at dinner, talking about OWS led an old friend to admit to me that he had taken a pay cut. He's got a job; he's surviving. But still ­ a pay cut ­ that's not the image of himself he wants a lot of people to see.

Here's the story I don't tell: After things started going south, I was gullible enough to believe the bankers who said they had it under control. I put a chunk of my retirement savings into Citicorp and lost it. I'm not going to be eating cat food any time soon, but the story shows me being a sucker, so I don't tell anybody. I don't like being a sucker. I want to project an image of the 1%, not the 99%.

That's got to change. Just about all of us ­ around 99%, I figure ­ are losers these days. We need to stop being ashamed of it. We need to tell our stories, and when we hear each other's stories we need to embrace them, not distance ourselves.

Most of all, we need to turn the shame around. The bankers who stole a bunch of our money and lost the rest ­ they should be ashamed. The CEOs who have corrupted our political system so that it serves their interests instead of the people's ­ they should be ashamed. The politicians who take the billionaires' money, rig the economy in their favor, and then tell the rest of us it's our own fault we're not rich ­ they should be ashamed.

You don't have to tell me: Change requires more than just consciousness-raising. I know.

The old rules still apply. We're going to need policies. We're going to need agendas and lists of demands. We're going to need leaders to represent us and armies of volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls and write letters to the editor. We're going to have to register millions of voters and get them to the polls. None of that is going to happen automatically just because people lose their shame about being victims of an economy run by and for the 1%.

But I don't believe that stuff is going to happen at all ­ not on the scale we need ­ until people lose their shame about being victims and losers. It's just a first step, but I don't think we can skip it.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suck It Up: Using Our Pride Against Us

Last week I talked about the role of shame in maintaining an unjust system: A lot of people are losers in such a system, but who wants to identify with losers? The closer you are to the abyss, the stronger the temptation to deny that you bear any resemblance to the people who have already fallen in.

This week we got to see the slip side of the same phenomenon: how the rich and powerful take advantage of the legitimate pride many struggling people feel in the virtues that keep them afloat.

It started a week ago Wednesday with a cruel joke: Erick Erickson, founder of the right-wing blog Red State and recently a CNN commentator, started the We Are the 53% web site to parody the emotionally powerful We Are the 99% site I linked to last week. He posted a photo of himself disguised in a working-class t-shirt and holding up his story:

[] I work 3 jobs. I have a house I can't sell. My family insurance costs are outrageous. But I don't blame Wall Street. Suck it up, you whiners. I am the 53% subsidizing you so you can hang out on Wall Street and complain.

The "53%" are from a right-wing talking point that is debunked here and in more detail here: 47% of American households pay no net income tax, mostly because they don't make enough money to qualify. (They pay plenty of other taxes, however, some at a higher percentage of their income than many rich people.) The point of "the 53%" is to evoke an image of a hard-working majority that pulls the weight of everyone else. It is part of the right-wing argument that minimum-wage-earners (and not the rich) should be paying more taxes.

And in Erickson's case, it is ridiculous. His "jobs" consist of doing what he enjoys, and he could stop any time he wants. The only things he "sucks up" are money and fame, not abuse or anxiety. But one of the talents that puts Erickson firmly in the 1% is his understanding of working-class resentment and how to turn it against the weak rather than the powerful. So people with legitimate stories to tell have followed his example and posted to his site. Like this guy:

[]
I am a former Marine. I work two jobs. I don't have health insurance.

I worked 60-70 hours a week for 8 years to pay my way through college. I haven't had 4 consecutive days off in over 4 years.

But I don't blame Wall Street. Suck it up you whiners. I am the 53%. God bless the USA!

Minus the suck-it-up closing, this could be a 99% posting. This guy is a victim of the economy, but he doesn't like being a victim, so he identifies with the lords rather than the serfs. Damn those whining serfs, for claiming to be like him.

A similar (if less in-your-face) story has been forwarded all over Facebook:

[]

Like the ex-Marine, this woman (the fingers and handwriting look female to me) has virtues worth taking pride in: She's talented enough to get a scholarship, hard-working, and with enough self-control to spend less than she makes. Her version of "Suck it up, you whiners" is less insulting, but just as distancing: "I am NOT the 99%, and whether or not you are is YOUR decision."

Really? I don't think so. We can all decide not to identify with the people who work more and more for less and less, but we can't decide not to resemble them.

I picture this student sitting in her cheap apartment, maybe watching somebody's cast-off picture-tube TV rather than going to the movies with her friends, eating something sensible that she cooked herself, planning to get back to her homework in another few minutes ­ and identifying with the 1%.

"That's how it's supposed to work," she writes. She's supposed to "work my @$$ off" for whatever she gets, and hope that she doesn't get sick, and hope that when she picked her major she didn't guess wrong about where the jobs would be. Meanwhile, the ever-increasing bounty of this rich planet goes to other people ­ many of whom aren't as talented, didn't scrimp and save, and don't work their asses off.

That's how it's supposed to work?

[]

It's tempting to pour scorn on these two, but that's just falling into Erickson's divide-and-conquer trap. The 99% are supposed to fight each other. The field slaves are supposed to resent the house slaves, and vice versa.

So what is the right response? Max Udargo nailed it in Open Letter to that 53% Guy. It's absolutely worth reading in its entirety (it has become the most shared post in the history of Daily Kos), but this is the key point:

I understand your pride in what you've accomplished, but I want to ask you something.

Do you really want the bar set this high? Do you really want to live in a society where just getting by requires a person to hold down two jobs and work 60 to 70 hours a week? Is that your idea of the American Dream?

… And, believe it or not, there are people out there even tougher than you. Why don't we let them set the bar, instead of you? Are you ready to work 80 hours a week? 100 hours? Can you hold down four jobs? … And is this really your idea of what life should be like in the greatest country on Earth?

It would be one thing if life was just that hard, if producing enough for everybody to get by required everybody to work 70 hours a week and never make a wrong move. But that's not true. We know it's not, because things used to be different. Americans used to have secure 40-hour-a-week jobs that paid well enough to raise a family on one income. Per capita GDP has gone up considerably since then, but the surplus has all accumulated at the top.

That's not natural; it didn't happen to nearly the same extent in other countries. It happened here because the very wealthy got control of our political system and ran it for their own benefit. It happened because we changed the rules to reward financial sleight-of-hand over making things and serving people. It happened because we devalued the public sector ­ the schools, the roads, the parks, the safety net ­ and let our whole society get split into First Class and Coach.

Fixing that is what the 99% movement is about. It's not about making talent and hard work and wise choices irrelevant. But how talented, how hard-working, how wise ­ and how lucky, never forget the role of luck in your success ­ should a person need to be to have a decent life? How unforgiving do we want to make our society?

If the 99% win and the system changes, the economic race will continue and some people will still outrun the others. Nobody grudges them that. But we don't have to live in a society where the Devil takes the hindmost. And we can still have empathy for the people we pass. That's a virtue too.

ANS -- A View from Dewey Square

Here is an interesting interpretation of why the Occupy Movement is different, and what it has gained from computer games.
Find it here:   http://weeklysift.com/2011/10/17/a-view-from-dewey-square/
--Kim


A View from Dewey Square

I doubt the world needs another occupation-protest eye-witness blog post. People much better known than me have already been there: Michael Moore, Chris Hedges, Rick Perlstein, and Jeffrey Sachs, just to name a few. And Pistols At Dawn already did the ordinary-person-checks-out-the-hype thing pretty well.

Still, when I heard there was an Occupy Boston protest at Dewey Square (at the South Station T stop across from the Federal Reserve), I couldn't resist taking a look. And having been there, I now can't resist writing about it. But I'll try to restrain myself from repeating what's already been said hundreds of times.

Two things struck me about Occupy Boston. First, Dewey Square is tiny. I didn't do a count, but Salon's description of a "field … filled with hundreds of tents and tarps" is a vast exaggeration. We're talking at most a few dozen small tents, and they totally fill the available space but for a walkway. Mayor Menino's warning " you can't tie up a city" is similarly absurd. Any occupation confined to Dewey Square isn't even a mosquito bite on a city the size of Boston.

Second, the way conservatives try to make the Occupation movement sound scary is ludicrous. Eric Cantor's talk about "mobs" and Glenn Beck's warning that "They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you" ­ we're in Fantasyland here. People who say things like this are just hoping you don't bother to get any genuine information.

I was at Occupy Boston on Tuesday (the same day as The New Yorker; their photo shows about a third of the encampment). Monday the camp had tried to expand to the next park down the Greenway (for obvious reasons; they're out of space), and police violently ejected them at 1:30 in the morning. The video got national attention, and not in a way that made the police look good. Veterans For Peace positioned itself between the police and the protesters, and the police manhandled them.

So if ever the Occupiers were going to be surly and vengeful, it would have been Tuesday.

But I didn't run into anybody surly and vengeful. Annoyed, maybe.  Some of them were amazed (in that way educated white people get) to realize that police don't necessarily act reasonably or even obey the law. But everyone seemed to understand that the Occupation is nonviolent by definition. If they get provoked to violence, they've lost the argument.

Two of the people I talked to were white-haired folks who reminisced about the Vietnam War protests of their youth. One had a Santa-Claus beard and was selling anarchist pamphlets, probably for less than it cost him to photo-copy them. (I bought one for 50 cents.) The other was a woman who was trying to figure out how to start an occupation in Cambridge.

A young man wearing a pink wig was holding a sign about police abuse, so I asked him about the previous night's confrontation. He told the same basic story I eventually heard from just about everyone (each in their own words rather than rehearsed or programmed): The police were violent and the demonstrators peaceful.

The clean-cut 20-something geeks in the media tent told me the most outrageous Monday-night story: Someone had rented a hotel room overlooking the square and were broadcasing a live feed of the police raid, until the police came up and stopped them ­ on no particular grounds anybody could imagine.

But as in the famous John Gilmore quote, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." The geeks were excitedly processing all the Monday-night video they could get their hands on and posting it to the Web. That seemed to be all the revenge they needed.

The guy at the information table was collecting bail money. At the logistics tent they were hoping for donations of tents to replace the ones the police had thrown in a garbage truck Monday night.

Everybody was careful not to speak for the group. Future strategy was going to be a topic of that evening's General Assembly, and nobody wanted to prejudge the outcome. (The Occupiers were proud of their democratic process, though they all admitted it was tedious.)

Anger? Not so much. There was stuff to do. Venting or riling each other up wasn't going to get it done. No one seemed hurried or panicked, but many seemed focused.

Like so many middle-aged people who see an Occupation protest, I can't resist making a sweeping generalization: I don't think people my age appreciate the effect a lifetime of computer games has had on the rising generation. They are both more strategic and more relentless than we expect them to be.

So they did not experience Monday's police raid as some primitive horror; it was just the new challenge that marked the Occupation's progress to Level 2. It's something else to overcome, like bad weather. So the Occupiers bail people out, get more tents, and keep going until they can find the door to Level 3.

[I haven't been to Occupy Wall Street, but the way they met the weekend's park-cleaning challenge sounded similar. This level has a new obstacle; how do we marshal our resources to overcome it?]

If the authorities think they're going to get rid of these protests through slow escalation, they'd better think again. They'll just be training the protesters to reach ever-higher levels of proficiency.

ANS -- Eliminate the Work Penalty

Here is a really great framing job, and a good idea to boot.  Why should wages be taxed at a higher rate than non-work income?
Find it here:  http://weeklysift.com/2011/10/24/eliminate-the-work-penalty/   
--Kim


October 24, 2011 – 12:54 pm Categories: Weekly summaries | Post a comment


Eliminate the Work Penalty

Like clockwork every four years, Republican presidential candidates propose to "simplify" the income tax by replacing it with a "flat" tax ­ an income tax where all income is taxed at the same rate.

As I'll explain below, a flat tax doesn't simplify anything, but progressives could respond with a proposal that would: Eliminate the work penalty. Don't tax dividends and capital gains separately from wages or at a lower maximum rate. Treat all income the same.

Fake simplification. Here's what's wrong with the idea that a flat tax is simple. An income tax has two parts:
  1. defining what income is
  2. saying how much tax a person at each income level pays.

If you've ever filled out your own tax return, you know that the complicated part is (1). Once you know your taxable income, you just look up your tax on a table.

But a flat tax only changes (2), so it doesn't make your life simpler at all, and it doesn't shrink the "three million words of the current tax code" that Rick Perry rails about. It slightly simplifies the formula the IRS uses to compute the tax tables, but that's about it.

The only purpose a flat tax serves is to cut taxes for rich people and raise them for everyone else. "Simplification" is a just ruse to sell the change to people who aren't rich.

Deductions. Now, sometimes a flat-tax proposal is coupled with eliminating a bunch of deductions. Depending on how it's implemented, that could simplify both your tax return and the tax code. And it might or might not be a good idea, depending on which deductions get eliminated and whether or not the corresponding tax expenditures are replaced with subsidies.

But that part has nothing to do with flattening the tax. If getting rid of a bunch of deductions is a good idea, we could do that while continuing to tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor or the middle class. The two ideas are unrelated.

The Work Penalty. However, there is a way progressives can steal the tax-simplification issue, and simultaneously put the plutocrats on defense: We could propose eliminating what Andrew Tobias has aptly called "the work penalty".

Currently, if your money makes any sizable amount of money for you through dividends and capital gains, you fill out a way-too-complicated worksheet in the instructions for Schedule D. (Check out page D-10.) That's because we don't really have one income tax system, we have two: One for people who make money by working, and a different one for people who make money by having money.

Guess which system has the lower rates?

For the last several years, tax rates on wages have started at 10%, jumped to 15% when a single wage-earner's taxable income got over $8,500, gone up to 25% at $34,500, and kept rising from there to max out at 35%.

Meanwhile, the tax rate on qualifying dividends and capital gains is capped at 15%. So (because of how tax-brackets work) a wage-earner whose taxable income tops $38,750 ends up paying a higher tax rate than an idle billionaire whose income is all dividends and capital gains.

That's a work penalty. If you work, you pay more than if you had acquired the same amount of money by being idly rich.

Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan would make the work penalty bigger by not taxing capital gains at all. Cain would tax dividends at the same rate as wages, but this is mostly a ruse, because corporations would stop paying dividends. Instead, they'd use their excess cash to buy back stock, which raises their stock price and so converts taxable dividends into tax-free capital gains.

Making tax simplification a liberal issue. The work penalty is the reason that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. President Obama has proposed to fix this by adding a new Buffett Rule to the tax code: a higher minimum tax rate for people whose income is higher than $1 million a year, however they acquire it.

But rather than tack on an extra rule, why not go for the heart of the beast? Eliminate the work penalty. Treat all income the same.

If we made this proposal revenue neutral, tax rates on wages could go down. (Whether we need more revenue in general should be debated separately.) The tax booklet would get slimmer. The income tax would get conceptually simpler, and the Schedule D worksheet would go away. Plus, it would eliminate all the games that make astronomical CEO and hedge-fund manager wages look like capital gains. It's a win all around, unless you make a lot of money off your money and pay somebody else to do your taxes.

And the framing is tremendous. The work penalty captures the part of the Occupy Wall Street message that most resonates with the general public: the feeling that the rich have special privileges. ( Robert Reich's tax proposals address the work penalty, but he buries it at the end of his article, not realizing the power of the idea.)

It also follows the pattern of the marriage penalty, a concept the Right has put a lot of effort into publicizing. (Marriage and work are both traditional American values that don't deserve to be treated badly by the tax code.) It associates liberals with working people and conservatives with the idle rich. It steals the tax simplification and tax reform memes from conservatives.

And finally, it's just the right thing to do. Income is income. There's no moral justification for favoring the idle rich over people with jobs.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fwd: Cancel My Allowance............a good GOP joke:

Just so you know, this is what the right wing considers a funny joke nowadays. 
--Kim



  Cancel My Allowance



My daughter just walked into the living room and said, "Dad, cancel my allowance immediately, rent my room out, throw all my clothes out of the window, take my TV, and stereo, and iPhone, and iPod, and my laptop. Please take all of my jewelry to the Salvation Army or Cash Converters. Then, sell my new car, take my front door key away from me and throw me out of the house. Then, disown me and never talk to me again. And don't forget to write me out of your will and leave my share to my brother."

Well, she didn't put it quite like that... what she actually said was...
 
 
"Dad, I have decided to work for Obama's reelection campaign."





 

Saturday, October 08, 2011

ANS -- It’s not ‘class warfare,’ it’s Christianity

Here is an interesting piece about the relationship between Christianity and Capitalism.  Especially fundamentalist capitalism.
Find it here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/its-not-class-warfare-its-christianity/2011/09/19/gIQAkoMxfK_blog.html   
--Kim



Today's Paper
todays paper

[]  
Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite

» All Posts by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite


It's not 'class warfare,' it's Christianity

President Obama just drew the economic battlelines more clearly in his call to raise $1.5 trillion in new revenue primarily through increased taxes on the wealthy, letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and closing tax loopholes.

"Class warfare!" countered the Republicans.

Americans sharing more equally in the burden of pulling our country out of massive debt, and using tax revenue to stimulate the economy and create jobs isn't "class warfare," it's actually Christianity.

Many Christians are starting to find the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few very rich people to be an enormous moral and ethical problem. Catholic theologians and ethicists took pains recently to challenge Speaker Boehner on Catholic values in regard to his views, particularly on the economy.

But not all Christians agree with those perspectives. Today, not only is economics a political battleground, it is a faith battleground particularly in Christianity. According to some Christian conservatives, unregulated capitalism, with all its inherent inequalities of wealth, is God's plan.

"Christian Captialism" in their view, isn't an oxymoron, it's God's will as revealed in the Bible. God wants you to own property and make money, and if some make a lot more money than others, that's okay. In fact, it's God's will too.

These competing views are very influential in our current public debates. The Christian conservative viewpoint, however, has been more instrumental in shaping our political shift to the right in recent years, not only on social issues, but also on economic issues. You can see this display in the "God Hates Taxes" signs carried at Tea Party rallies.

Let me be clear as I can be. We need to understand the so-called "Christian" underpinnings of the anti-tax, anti-government, anti-the-poor, "let him die" approach to economics and public policy today as completely un-Christian, as well as un-American. What we need to do is re-establish our national values of fairness, equality and opportunity for all, values that I believe are actually the core of the Christian faith, (as well as of other religious traditions and of humanist values).

First, in order to do that, we need to understand how we got to the place where the "ownership of private property" and amassing wealth is accepted by many as the "biblical perspective," and taking care of each other through shared sacrifice, is dismissed as secular humanism. Nothing against humanists here, but the Bible is all about taking care of each other, including taking care of each other by sharing what we have, not through amassing wealth.

Part of the way we got here is by Christian conservatives ignoring a lot of what the Bible says on wealth and poverty, and being highly selective in what they call "biblical." In all these reference to the "Bible," the self-styled Christian capitalists don't ever seem to recall that in the Book of Acts, the early disciples "shared all things in common." As I wrote for On Faith, the early church is Glenn Beck's worst nightmare because it was socialist.

This is what the Bible actually says about the economic practices of Jesus' followers: "Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need." Acts 4:32-35.

Glenn Beck's attacks on the Reverend Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian who works on poverty issues from a biblical perspective, is illustrative of the need of the far right to discredit biblically based anti-poverty political work.

But as I, and Jim Wallis and others have shown over and over and over, the biblical practices on justice for the poor are far more radically egalitarian than anything being proposed in terms of economics today by Democrats.

Not only do we need to understand that "Christian Capitalism" isn't Christian, we need to understand how it is distorting capitalism. The "ultracapitalism" of people like Speaker Boehner and Paul Ryan (among others) is often called "market fundamentalism" and it is the nearly unshakeable faith held by its true believers that the best economic results are obtained when the market is allowed to function without the restraints of regulation. Just reduce taxes and let the "job creators" do their thing. Remember "trickle down economics" from the Reagan years? This is the belief system that launched the Reagan Revolution in the U.S. and started the decades long reduction in real wages of the American middle class and the rise in American poverty levels.

"Market fundamentalism" isn't good, it's the economic theory that is rotten to its core, and, as Kevin Phillips argues, "bad" for our economy. Phillips, in his book Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism shows exactly how it is that the Christian conservative view that unregulated capitalism is God's will props up, or enables, the bad economic theory of unfettered, "reckless" capitalism. In his book, Phillips connects the dots on how conservative religion and market fundamentalism mutually reinforce one another, to the great detriment of the country and the world. He calls Christian fundamentalism the "enabler" of market fundamentalism and shows how conservative Christianity provided the cultural shift necessary so that ordinary Americans would become anesthetized to their previous suspicion of unregulated capitalism born in the 1930's.

Phillips observes that the complete breakdown in the United States these days of realistic thinking about how markets and financial systems actually do work has three sources: "homage to financial assets,…market efficiency" and "evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostal Christianity, infused with a millennial preoccupation with terrorism, evil, and Islam…" These are the three legs of the stool that caused the "de facto anesthetizing, over the last twenty years, of onetime populist southern and western" regions. It should be noted that these are the same sections of the country that are demographically the regions with the highest Tea Party concentration, especially the South.

"Anesthetizing" is a great metaphor for what's happening in our public square about the economy because you have to be nearly unconscious not to realize that "Christian capitalism" is neither good Christianity nor good capitalism. It's not "Christian" because it ignores the central teachings of Jesus on the moral imperative of taking care of the poor in the Sermon on the Mount, and it dismisses the actual economic practice of the disciples as described in the Book of Acts.

It is also lousy capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit in a competive market. The capitalist system relies on self-interest, not "stewardship" to actually run. Theories of markets actually assume that people will act according to their self-interest and not from a disinterested love of others.

This has been known for a very long time. In 1776, Adam Smith, sometimes considered the "father" of modern economics, related human nature and how markets work. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the bakers that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantage."

Capitalism isn't "God's Plan," it's an economic system that runs on the human desire for more, our own self-interest. This is not necessarily evil. It can actually be a very productive system, but it is not beneficent. In order for there to be good values in our economic life, capitalism needs to be regulated so it does not wreck the whole ship with unfettered greed (as happened in the banking industry starting in 2008), and it needs to be supplemented with social safety nets and tax policy to achieve an approximate (not absolute) "freedom from want" as in Franklin Roosevelt's wonderful phrase. It was Roosevelt who translated "freedom from want" into a series of government programs to make it a reality such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, aid to dependent children, the minimum wage, housing, stock market regulation, and federal deposit insurance for banks.

The Christian approach to economics is to be the conscience of the nation and to insist that we regulate capitalism so it does not become reckless and destructive. Christians must call on the nation's politicians to have us share the burdens and the sacrifices, as President Obama is doing, in order get to the "freedom from want" that is in our democratic values and our faith values.

We do this because the Christian conscience is driven by duty to "love God with your whole heart and your neighbor as yourself."

That's in the Bible. Luke 10:27. Look it up.

Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite  | Sep 19, 2011 3:55 PM

Monday, October 03, 2011

ANS -- Occupy Wall Street: FAQ

Here is a basic article about the occupation of Wall Street.  Something big appears to be happening.  Yes! 
Find it here:  http://www.thenation.com/article/163719/occupy-wall-street-faq    
--Kim



Occupy Wall Street: FAQ

Nathan Schneider
September 29, 2011  

Q: I hear that Adbusters organized Occupy Wall Street? Or Anonymous? Or US Day of Rage? Just who put this together anyway?

A: All of the above, and more. Adbusters made the initial call in mid-July, and also produced a very sexy poster with a ballerina posed atop the Charging Bull statue and riot police in the background. US Day of Rage, the mainly internet-based creation of IT strategist Alexa O'Brien, got involved too and did a lot of the early legwork and tweeting. Anonymous­in its various and multiform visages­joined in late August. On the ground in New York, though, most of the planning was done by people involved in the NYC General Assembly, a collection of activists, artists and students first convened by folks who had been involved in New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts. That coalition of students and union workers had just finished a three-week occupation near City Hall called Bloombergville protesting the mayor's plans for budget cuts and layoffs. They had learned from the experience and were itching to do it again, this time with the hope of having a bigger impact. But no one person or group is running the Wall Street occupation entirely.

Media

[ Click for More ] [ Click to View]
Video: Voices From Liberty Square


So nobody is in charge? How do decisions get made?

The General Assembly has become the de facto decision-making body for the occupation at Liberty Plaza, just a few blocks north of Wall Street. (That was Zuccotti Park's name before 2006, when the space was rebuilt by Brookfield Properties and renamed after its chairman, John Zuccotti.) Get ready for jargon: the General Assembly is a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought, and it's akin to the assemblies that have been driving recent social movements around the world, in places like Argentina, Egypt's Tahrir Square, Madrid's Puerta del Sol and so on. Working toward consensus is really hard, frustrating and slow. But the occupiers are taking their time. When they finally get to consensus on some issue, often after days and days of trying, the feeling is quite incredible. A mighty cheer fills the plaza. It's hard to describe the experience of being among hundreds of passionate, rebellious, creative people who are all in agreement about something.

Fortunately, though, they don't need to come to consensus about everything. Working alongside the General Assembly are an ever-growing number of committees and working groups­from Food and Media to Direct Action and Sanitation. Anyone is welcome to join one, and they each do their own thing, working in tacit coordination with the General Assembly as a whole. In the end, the hope is that every individual is empowered to make decisions and act as her or himself, for the good of the group.

What are the demands of the protesters?

Ugh­the zillion-dollar question. Again, the original Adbusters call asked, "What is our one demand?" Technically, there isn't one yet. In the weeks leading up to September 17, the NYC General Assembly seemed to be veering away from the language of "demands" in the first place, largely because government institutions are already so shot through with corporate money that making specific demands would be pointless until the movement grew stronger politically. Instead, to begin with, they opted to make their demand the occupation itself­and the direct democracy taking place there­which in turn may or may not come up with some specific demand. When you think about it, this act is actually a pretty powerful statement against the corruption that Wall Street has come to represent. But since thinking is often too much to ask of the American mass media, the question of demands has turned into a massive PR challenge.

The General Assembly is currently in the midst of determining how it will come to consensus about unifying demands. It's a really messy and interesting discussion. But don't hold your breath.

Everyone in the plaza comes with their own way of thinking about what they'd like to see happen, of course. Along the north end of the plaza, there's a collage of hundreds of cardboard signs people have made with slogans and demands on them. Bystanders stop and look at them, transfixed, all day long. The messages are all over the place, to be sure, but there's also a certain coherence to them. That old standby, "People Before Profits," seems to capture the gist fairly well. But also under discussion are a variety of other issues, ranging from ending the death penalty, to dismantling the military-industrial complex, to affordable healthcare, to more welcoming immigration policies. And more. It can be confusing, but then again these issues are all at some level interconnected.

Some news reports have been painting the protesters as unfocused, or worse, as hopelessly confused and uninformed. Is there any truth to that?

Sure. In a world as complex as ours, we're all uninformed about most things, even if we know about a few. I remember a police officer remarking of the protesters on the first or second day, "They think they know everything!" That's how young people generally are. But in this case, noticing the over-concentration of wealth around Wall Street and its outsized influence in politics does not require a detailed grasp of what a hedge fund does or the current selling price of Apple stock. One thing that distinguishes these protesters is precisely their hope that a better world is possible. I might add that, for many Americans, such nonviolent direct action is the only chance of having a political voice, and it deserves to be taken seriously by those of us in the press.

How many people have responded to the Adbusters call? How large is the group? And how large has it ever been?

The original Adbusters call envisioned 20,000 people flooding the Financial District on September 17. A tenth of that probably ended up being there that day. Despite a massive Anonymous-powered online social media blitz, lots of people simply didn't know about it, and traditional progressive organizations like labor unions and peace groups were uncomfortable signing on to so amorphous an action. Over the course of a difficult first week, with arrests happening just about every day, new faces kept coming, as others filtered out to take a break. The media coverage after last weekend's mass arrests and alleged police brutality has brought many more. Now, during the day and into the night, one finds 500 or more people in the plaza, and maybe half that sleeping over. At any given time, several thousand people around the world are watching the occupation's 24/7 livestream online.

Rather than a mass movement from the outset, this occupation has ended up depending on a relatively small number of highly determined, courageous young activists willing to sleep outside and confront police intimidation. But that is changing. As word spreads about it, the crowd has been getting older, more diverse. Already, though, this tactic of a somewhat rowdy occupation has garnered influence far greater than a traditional march would. After all, 20,000 marched on Wall Street on May 12­protesting bank bailouts and budget cuts for state employees­and who remembers that?

What would a "win" look like for the occupation?

Again, that depends on whom you ask. As September 17 approached, the NYC General Assembly really saw its goal, again, not so much as to pass some piece of legislation or start a revolution as to build a new kind of movement. It wanted to foment similar, like-minded assemblies around the city and around the world, which would be a new basis for political organizing in this country, against the overwhelming influence of corporate money. That is starting to happen, as similar occupations are cropping up in dozens of other cities. Another big occupation has been in the making for months, slated to begin on October 6 at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, and the organizers of that have been visiting Liberty Plaza on and off, learning all they can from its successes and mistakes.

I've heard some people saying, when Liberty Plaza was swamped with TV news cameras, "We've already won!" Others think they've hardly begun. Both, in some sense, are true.

Are there cops all over the square? How bad has the police brutality been? If I came there, what are the risks?

The police presence is nonstop, and there have been some very scary encounters with them­which also gave occasion for tremendous acts of courage by protesters. The worst incident was last Saturday, of course, but there has been very little trouble since then. A large contingent of protesters has no intention of getting arrested, and almost nobody is interested in taking pointless risks or instigating violence against people or property. The more that ordinary people join the cause­together with celebrity visitors like Susan Sarandon, Cornel West and Michael Moore­the less likely the police will probably be to try to suppress it. As one sign along Broadway says, "Safety in Numbers! Join Us!"

Nonetheless, challenging the powers that be­and doing so impolitely, outside the bounds of a permit­is never going to be 100 percent safe. To the extent that this movement is effective, it will also carry risks. If you take part, it's not a bad idea to keep the National Lawyers Guild's phone number written on your arm, just in case.

If I can't come to Wall Street, what else can I do?

A lot of people are already taking part in important ways from afar­this is the magic of decentralization. Online, you can watch the livestream, make donations, retweet on Twitter and encourage your friends to get interested. People with relevant skills have been volunteering to help maintain the movement's websites and edit video­coordinating through IRC chat rooms and other social media. Soon, the formal discussions about demands will be happening online as well as in the plaza. Offline, you can join the numerous similar occupations that are starting up around the country or start your own.

Finally, you can always take the advice that has become one of the several mantras of the movement, expressed this way by one woman at Tuesday night's General Assembly meeting: "Occupy your own heart," she said, "not with fear but with love."
Nathan Schneider
September 29, 2011  
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A COMMENT

7. posted by: ANON2012 at 09/30/2011 @ 1:21am

Where: Liberty Square (How to get there)
Donations: NYCGA Donation Page
Help & Directions: +1 (877) 881-3020
General Inquiries general@occupywallst.org
Press Inquiries press@occupywallst.org

Live Coverage - http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution
Donate Now - http://nycga.cc/donate/
Donate to Media - http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=BHMV6P88TGGYE
Physical Address - The UPS Store Re: Occupy Wall Street 118A Fulton St. #205 New York, NY 10038
Carpool from other states - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Carpool-to-Occupy-Wallstreet/222614057794752?sk=wall - also try craigslist.org

My Plea to Everyone:

Our obligation to this movement is to donate what we can, at all costs. Allowing our fellow revolutionaries to feed themselves, wash themselves, medicate themselves and feel as comfortable as they can in a concrete jungle under constant scrutiny of police and federal agents. We will and can show our love in very unselfish ways, we must.

There is no reason to feel disconnected from this movement - we are them and they are us. We are the 99% of people who are being beaten, thieved, raped, enslaved and manipulated at every turn. Everything is an illusion - all of it. Every single bit of it from the foods we eat, the water we drink, the homes we live in, the paychecks we earn, the taxes we pay, the air we breathe -...
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Nathan Schneider
Nathan Schneider, senior editor of <em>Killing the Buddha</em>, an online magazine of religion and culture...

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