Month: December 2012

The House of Saud Tried to Buy Our Elections

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This is the natural result of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United Decision:

The “American” in American Petroleum Institute, the country’s largest oil lobby group, is a misnomer. As I reported for The Nation in August, the group has changed over the years, and is now led by men like Tofiq Al-Gabsani, a Saudi Arabian national who heads a Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) subsidiary, the state-run oil company that also helps finance the American Petroleum Institute. Al-Gabsani is also a registered foreign agent for the Saudi government.

New disclosures retrieved today, showing some of API’s spending over the course of last year, reveal that API used its membership dues (from the world’s largest oil companies like Chevron and Aramco) to finance several dark money groups airing attack ads in the most recent election cycle.

Last year, API gave nearly half a million to the following dark money groups running political ads against Democrats and in support of Republicans:

• $50,000 to Americans for Prosperity’s 501(c)(4) group, which ran ads against President Obama and congressional Democrats.

• $412,969 to Coalition for American Jobs’ 501(c)(6) group, a front set up by API lobbyists to air ads for industry-friendly politicians, including soon to be former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

• $25,000 to the Sixty Plus Association’s 501(c)(4), which ran ads against congressional Democrats.

Jack Gerard, the president of API, was a close ally to the Mitt Romney campaign. Like the US Chamber of Commerce, API is one of several large trade associations that has spent heavily in support of Republican candidates.

Seriously, I’d rather have Greece’s Fascist Golden Dawn party involved in our politics than the House of Saud.

This is About a Political Rear Guard Action

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There is a context to the Republican moves in Michigan to pass a right to work law.

When you see increasing levels of rejection by the electorate, along with an increasingly radical and delusional base pushing in the other direction, your only alternative is to direct your actions toward political advantage by things like Gerrymandering, and going after your opponents’ power base, and you dry to prevent them from voting.

That’s why you see Republicans going after labor unions, plaintiff’s lawyers, and actively suppressing voter turnout.

Well, there’s that, there’s the fact that they, as Lee Atwater said, scream N***er, N***er, N***er, albeit with increasingly sophisticated code words.

If this passes, and it almost certainly will, then when the Democrats get power back in Michigan, repealing this is the first order of business.

I Love Ed Asner*

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Ed Asner narrated a video for the California Federation of Teachers, which, among its images, had the 1% pissing on the rest of us.

Well, professional idiot Sean Hannity took offense, and he sent a producer to ambush interview Mr. Asner, who then offered to demonstrate the principal by pissing on the producer ::

Emmy Award-winning The Mary Tyler Show actor Ed Asner recently asked a Fox News producer if he could “piss on” him after he was confronted about a California Federation of Teachers video that showed cartoon rich people urinating on poor people.

Fox News host Sean Hannity and other conservative pundits first began attacking Asner on Tuesday after the animated ad that he narrated appeared on the federation’s website to explain how rich people used tax evasion, tax loopholes and tax cuts to become even richer.

On Wednesday, Hannity announced that he had sent an ambush producer out to confront the “left-wing Hollywood actor” outside his job at a New York City theater over the “disgusting hit piece.”

“I don’t remember a thing I said on it or a word I said on it,” Asner told the producer. “But I agreed to do it for California teachers. I approve this message.”

“There’s a part of it where talking about things trickling down and they have like rich people peeing on poor people,” the producer explained.

“How disgusting,” the actor snarked. “It should be reversed.”

“So you don’t remember that?” the producer pressed.

“Do you have any money?” Asner later asked.

“Ah, yeah,” the producer replied.

“Can I piss on you?” the actor quipped.

Heh.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.

I am in the Wrong Line of Work

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Dick Armey just got an $8 million golden handshake from FreedomWorks:

Dick Armey left the deep-pocketed tea party group he helped build over a clash with a top lieutenant who Armey and others in the organization believed was using the group’s resources to pad his pockets, POLITICO has learned.

Armey received an $8 million buyout to step down as chairman of FreedomWorks at the end of last month, but the dispute between him and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, is still straining the organization.

An $8 f%$#ing million severance?

I need to become a conservative Republican rat f%$#er.

The money might be worth my immortal soul.

The Goal is Not Recovery, It’s the Dismantling of the Social Safety State

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That’s what the right wing push for austerity is all about.

Case in point, the chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who is saying that since austerity is further depressing the British economy, it has become necessary extend austerity until at least 2018:

Britons, many already weary of government austerity budgets that some economists say are impeding the country’s recovery, are going to have to wait even longer for relief.

The architect of the austerity program, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, told Parliament on Wednesday that the government had missed one of its self-imposed debt-cutting goals and would have to extend the belt-tightening into 2018, a year longer than previously promised.

Although Mr. Osborne maintained that the debt reduction plan was still on track, his presentation drew heckling and laughter from some opposition lawmakers, particularly after he argued that new tax measures would show that “we’re all in this together.”

The next general election in Britain will take place in 2015, well before the end of austerity measures that have included cuts in welfare services and the elimination of tens of thousands of public sector jobs.

On Wednesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility, a nonpartisan body that is monitoring the economy, said it now expected full-year data to show that the economy shrank 0.1 percent this year, instead of growing 0.8 percent, as the office had previously forecast.

It also said the economy would grow 1.2 percent next year as opposed to the 2 percent predicted earlier.

“It’s a hard road but we are getting there,” Mr. Osborne told Parliament. “Britain is on the right track. Turning back now would be a disaster.”

The evidence is clear: Austerity in a depressed economy further depresses the economy, and reduces tax revenues.

Austerity is not about creating growth, nor is it about reducing deficits.  It is merely camouflage for an assault on social insurance.

Creationism Lose

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A federal judge has just ruled that public funding of private schools with creationist curriculums violates the 1st amendment:

A Louisiana District judge named Tim Kelley recently ruled that a Louisiana voucher program which used public money to pay for tuition for private religious schools has been deemed unconstitutional to the cheers of some, and sneers of others.

 In July Republican Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, enacted legislation that allowed more than $11 million taxpayer dollars to be given to schools that teach Christian creationism. At the time this was a big win for Jindal, who is a self-professed Christian.

 According to Reuters.com the state argued public money was well within the rights of the state to grant to religious institutions, but Judge Kelley disagreed. He ruled that:

Louisiana’s annual education appropriation, calculated under a complex formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, was intended exclusively for public schools. To divert it violated the state constitution.

It’s a loss for the people who are trying to divert public funds to private schools in order to fund religious education and desegregate the schools, which makes it a win for the good old US of A.

One interesting thing though, the article, from the Examiner uses a very interesting turn of phrase to describe Bobby Jindal.  They called him a, “Self-professed Christian.”

Why the hell do they call him that?

There are any number of reasons to dislike Jindal, he is, after all, a right wing Republican who spends much of his time pandering to the basest instincts of the right wing, but his record regarding his personal faith has been very consistent.

I note this, because the Examiner has a noted right-wing editorial bent, and Bobby Jindal has a surfeit of pigmentation, and I think that the two are linked.

They are doubting his religiosity because he is not white enough.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

And Congress Gets Into Antivax Bullsh%$

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What a surprise, the conman Darryl Issa supports this, and rather depressingly Dennis Kucinich jumps in with both feet:

I’m not exaggerating. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing trying to look into the cause and prevention of autism. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) launched into a several-minute diatribe (beginning at 12:58 in the video above) that starts off in an Orwellian statement: He claims he’s not antivax. Then he launches into a five-minute speech that promotes long-debunked and clearly incorrect antivax claims, targeting mercury for the most part. Burton has long been an advocate for quackery; for at least a decade he has used Congressional situations like this to promote antiscience.

In the latest hearing, Burton sounds like a crackpot conspiracy theorist, to be honest, saying he knows—better than thousands of scientists who have spent their careers investigating these topics—that thimerosal causes neurological disorders (including autism). He goes on for some time about mercury (as does Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) starting at 21:44 in the video), making it clear he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. For example, very few vaccines still use mercury, and the ones that do use it in tiny amounts and in a form that does not accumulate in the body.

Talking about the danger of mercury in vaccines is like talking about the danger of having hydrogen—an explosive element!—in water. It’s nonsense.

I won’t go further into details, because this shameful travesty of truth and medical health goes on for an hour. On Forbes.com, Steven Salzberg wrote a fantastic article about this Congressional farce. I strongly urge you to read it, since Salzberg brings the hammer down on the Congresscritters who think they know more about science than the scientists who actually devote their lives to this topic.

Let’s be clear, the anti-vaxers do more than hurt themselves, and their hapless children. They harm those for whom vaccines have limited effectiveness, or who are too young, like Dana McCaffrey, because they destroy herd immunity.

The modern version of this was started Andrew Wakefield by a con man who had an interest in a (surprise, non working) “treatment” alternative ginned up a phony controversy to line his own pockets.

The people who support this crap are being either evil or stupid.

They’ve Lost the F%$#ing Heritage Foundation

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Yesterday, I mentioned that the Republican budget proposals were fact free, well, it appears that people at the right wing Heritage Foundation agree with me:

The House Republican leadership has offered a substantive counteroffer to President Obama’s frivolous fiscal cliff proposal of last week. At first blush, it appears little more than categorical, pre-emptive capitulation.

To be fair, the details of the Republican proposal are extraordinarily vague. Nor is much clarity or comfort gained from the three-page accompanying letter sent to the President and signed by Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and three other senior members of the House Republican leadership.

Much can and likely will come out in the days ahead clarifying what a few figures and labels on a single sheet of paper mean. One can only hope the additional clarity substantially improves the picture. However, it is very difficult to be hopeful.

That’s gonna leave a mark.

Normally, I think that the Heritage foundation is full of crap.

Even amongst the right wing think tanks, it’s hacktacular.

Full disclosure, a friend of mine was fired by the Heritage Foundation because she got cancer, so I am not favorably inclined toward these guys.

H/t Talking Points Memo.

Wakka Ding Hoy!!!

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The bankster lobbyists lost, and Elizabeth Warren will get a seat on the Senate Banking Committee:

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the harshest critics of the financial sector, is being tapped to serve on the Senate Banking Committee.

The Harvard law professor is expected to join Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on the committee in the next Congress, according to a Democratic Senate aide.

The decision is pending final approval from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), but would mean that Warren will play a lead role in overseeing the financial firms that have sparred with her for years over consumer protections and regulations.

Warren originally came to Washington as head of the government’s official bailout watchdog, and later served as President Obama’s architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

She butted heads with congressional Republicans as an adviser to the CFPB, and Obama ultimately selected one of her top deputies, Richard Cordray, to serve as its first director. Warren was recruited by Democrats to run for the Senate from Massachusetts, where she defeated Sen. Scott Brown (R) last month.

Boo Yah!!!!

Seriously, The Republicans Must Be Running Out of People to Piss Off………

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So now they have decided to go after the disabled.

The Republicans in the Senate just killed a treaty on rights of the disabled:

The Senate rejected a United Nations treaty aimed at banning discrimination against individuals with disabilities Tuesday, falling five votes short of the two-thirds needed in a 61-38 vote.

 The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities calls on participating countries to work to attain equality in access to education, healthcare and more, and was based largely on the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. It was negotiated by President George W. Bush’s administration in 2006 and has since been signed by President Obama. So far, 126 countries have ratified the treaty.

 The treaty, which passed through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before an attempt to ratify it through a voice vote fell flat in August, had a broad base of support, with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) standing next to each other Monday to implore senators to join their cause.

 Former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), backed by his wife, fellow former Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), attended Tuesday’s vote to urge the treaty’s ratification. The former Senate majority leader looked on from his wheelchair as senators voted from their desks instead of approaching the room’s podium.

 But many Republicans, who accounted for the 38 opposing votes, have been vocal in their opposition to the treaty, which they say infringes on U.S. sovereignty.

It appears that was as a result of the tinfoil hat conspiracy theories from the “whacko, my parents are first cousins, X-Files wannabe, black helicopter, tinfoil hat wearing, stupid, dim-witted, thinks pro wrestling is real,” lunatics*from the right wing of the home schooling movement that now defines the Republican base.

*Sorry, I think that I just channeled the comedian Denis Leary.

I Don’t Think that I Often Say This, But ………

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Props to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Joe Baca never saw it coming, and neither did Gloria Negrete McLeod.

But as state Sen. Negrete McLeod replaces Baca in Congress, the dueling San Bernardino County Democrats witnessed first hand the beginnings of a change in gun politics, courtesy of billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

No doubt the strongest gun control advocate on Forbes’ list of the fabulously rich, Bloomberg seized an opportunity to unseat Baca, a pro-gun Democrat, by spending $3.3 million on television and mail attacks. Given his estimated $25 billion fortune, $3.3 million is couch cushion change. But it was three times the sum Baca and Negrete McLeod raised between them. By homing in on a loyal National Rifle Association politician, Bloomberg altered a long-standing element of American politics.

There’s more to this than just guns, McLeod is fairly pro-gun as well, and there is an important bit a few ‘graphs down, that the NRA is basically a partisan organization, where it’s “my cold dead fingers” philosophy now takes a back seat to party:

It skipped Baca’s race, a telling omission. If any candidate warranted NRA support, Baca was that man. In his 20 years in Sacramento and in Washington, Baca rarely if ever wavered from National Rifle Association orthodoxy. There were times when he was the only Democrat who sided with the NRA.

“Joe was a very good friend of the NRA’s,” recalled Steve Helsley, the NRA’s California lobbyist when Baca was in the Legislature.

Baca sought the NRA’s endorsement this year, but said the NRA turned him down because he failed to join Republicans who voted to sanction Attorney General Eric Holder for the ATF’s bollixed Fast and Furious gun investigation, and because he supported Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as U.S. Supreme Court justice.

I’m not unhappy about the results.  Baca was a Blue Dog, and he had a long history of directing his campaign funds and those of the House Hispanic Caucus for the benefit of his relatives, and then there is the whole thing of his calling Rep. Loretta Sanchez a “whore” (though not to her face) when she confronted him on this and other irregularities.

Here’s what Blue Dogs and New Dems should take away from this whole story:  If you support lax gun ownership rules, good for you, but do not expect the NRA to do anything, even something as minor as an endorsement when you are running against another Democrat.

They are not your political ally.

Obama Has Apparently Switched to a High Fiber Cereal

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

Because he has stopped negotiating with himself, and he is simply putting forward his favored solution to Republicans, and demanding proposals from them:

Amid demands from Republicans that President Obama propose detailed new spending cuts to avert the year-end fiscal crisis, his answer boils down to this: you first.

Mr. Obama, scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table.

Disciplined and unyielding, he argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year. Until Republicans offer their own new plan, Mr. Obama will not alter his. In effect, he is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate to force Republicans to take ownership of the difficult choices ahead.

His approach is born of painful experience. In his first four years in office, Mr. Obama has repeatedly offered what he considered compromises on stimulus spending, health care and deficit reduction to Republicans, who either rejected them as inadequate or pocketed them and insisted on more. Republicans argued that Mr. Obama never made serious efforts at compromise and instead lectured them about what they ought to want rather than listening to what they did want.

So the Republicans have been shocked, that gambling is going on he’s decided to stop conceding at the start of talks.

BTW, the Republicans have now to been forced to make a real in response, only it’s completely number and specifics free. Yes, the propose raising medicare age to 67, which won’t save any money, because the 65-67 year old’s will need insurance subsidies, unspecified loophole closing (gee, they don’t want to be the first ones to propose cutting the mortgage deduction?):

The offer makes no mention of how to handle a looming battle over the federal debt limit, which will soon need to raised above $16.4 trillion. Nor does the offer provide any suggestions for how to carry out the debt-reduction framework and avoid the fiscal cliff. GOP aides said those details are open to negotiation.

“There are multiple ways to get this done,” said one senior GOP aide who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. “The details need to be filled in later.”

(emphasis mine)

The Republicans want to make the Democrats propose specific cuts, and then bludgeon them them with that in 2014.

Do not expect the GOP to bargain in good faith, they are hostage takers, and will be for the foreseeable future.

This Should Not be a Surprise

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The inestimable Murray Waas uncovers the fact that Wall Street’s “favorite private eye” engaged in a systematic spying and character assassination in support of Alan Stanford’s Ponzi scheme:

In 2006, Allen Stanford had yet to be identified as the mastermind of one of the largest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in U.S. history, but he faced mounting pressure.

Federal securities examiners were pushing for an investigation into his investment operation, which tens of thousands of soon-to-be victims had entrusted with nearly $7 billion. Some of the Texas financier’s own employees were threatening to tell authorities what they knew about his fraud.

Stanford was so concerned that a former senior State Department official named Jonathan Winer might expose his colossal con game that he ordered an investigation into Winer’s private life, according to Stanford’s previously secret records obtained by McClatchy.

Kroll Inc., an international corporate intelligence firm that Stanford had retained for over a decade, obliged. Tom Cash, a Miami-based a managing director of Kroll, soon informed Stanford in an email that he was looking into whether Winer’s ex-wife was a lesbian, according to the internal documents obtained by McClatchy.

………

They looked into the sexual orientation of Winer’s ex-wife, and Stanford used the information collected to blackmail regulators, politicians, and journalists.

What’s more, it worked:

SEC examiners concluded as early as 1997 that Stanford was running a massive Ponzi scheme, agency records show. But Stanford was able to stall the opening of any formal inquiry for a full decade, much like the man behind the only bigger U.S. Ponzi scheme, Bernard Madoff.

The biggest whopper told by Kroll, when a representative says that “its employees had no clue they were helping to conceal the second-biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.”

No, they were told to collect information so that Stanford could blackmail people, and it’s clear from the emails from Stanford that this was what he charged them to do.

Sorry, but that dog don’t hunt.

Even if they did not have specific information about Stanford being a fraud, they had to have known from what he wanted that he intended to use this information for to extort silence from people.

H/t Felix Salmon.

No Justice No Peace — Know Justice Know Peace

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Seriously, when a cop is convicted of torture, a pardon is not a good way to resolve the issue:

More than 200 judges across Spain have come out publicly to manifest their anger with the Popular Party (PP) government over its decision to pardon four Catalan police officers who were found guilty of torturing a man who they mistakenly believed was an assailant.

 “The government’s decision is an improper one in a democracy; illegitimate and unethical. For that reason, we cannot just stand back and not raise our voices against the abuses committed in the right to pardon and warn of their effects, which are devastating,” reads a statement released by the judges.

 Among those who signed the document are Supreme Court Justices Perfecto Andrés and Joaquín Giménez, and a senior member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Margarita Robles.

 The four members of the Mossos d’Esquadra were convicted and sentenced in 2008 for torturing the suspect they had arrested. Their convictions had been upheld by the Supreme Court.

 ………

 In February, the Cabinet reduced their sentences to two years and gave them suspensions from the force rather than banning them for life as the court had ruled. It was a decision designed to prevent any of the four from serving time; in Spain jail terms of two years or less handed down to first-time offenders are habitually converted into suspended sentences.

A Barcelona provincial court, which advised the government that it was against the partial pardons, decided that the four officers must serve the remainder of their time in prison. In response the Cabinet last week decided on full pardons and agreed to give them fines.

So, these guys get to be cops again in 2 years.

You just know that they will have enthusiastic support of their fellow officers, so being back on the beat (pun not intended) is highly likely.

This sort of sh%$, abusive police officers and the craven politicians who support them in order to appear “tough on crime” is why you need a strong constitution and a strong judiciary.

You cannot ever trust the police to protect your rights as a citizen.

This Was Foreseeable

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In response to the PA seeking, and getting, non-member state status granted by the UN General Assembly, Israel has announced plans to expand settlements around Jerusalem:

Israel is moving forward with development of Jewish settlements in a contentious area east of Jerusalem, defying the United States by advancing a project that has long been condemned by Washington as effectively dooming any prospect of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A day after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, a senior Israeli official said the government would pursue “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for a development that would separate the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem. If such a project were to go beyond blueprints, it could prevent the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.

The development, in an open, mostly empty area known as E1, would connect the large settlement town of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem. Israeli officials also authorized construction of 3,000 housing units in parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The timing of the twin actions seemed aimed at punishing the Palestinians for their United Nations bid, and appeared to show that hard-liners in the government had prevailed after days of debate over how to respond. That represented a surprising turnaround, after a growing sense that Israeli leaders had acceded to pressure from Washington not to react quickly or harshly.

A UN General Assembly resolution, and $12.75, will get you a Starbucks latte, so the value to the Palestinian Authority is primarily as an tool for its internal struggle with Hamas, and as way to position itself in a slightly more favorable footing in negotiations with Israel.

As to the Israeli plans, it’s value to Netanyahu and the Likud government is as a tool for political advantage against Kadima or Labour in elections, and as as way to position itself in a slightly more favorable footing in negotiations with the PA.

On the plus side, neither action involves either side lobbing rockets at  each other.