February 22, 2010

2010 Midterm Election Prediction

Here is my 2010 midterm election prediction:

Gasoline prices are about to start climbing, and will continue to climb through the summer, and well into the fall. No one will be able to pin down exactly why.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:46 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 6, 2010

Did Bush Leave Us Bankrupt, Corrupt, Ungovernable?

From Open Left

When you sell the farm, the farm's gone.

Is it already too late for America? I’m starting to think that the anti-tax, anti-government conservative movement that started in the mid-70s, elected Reagan and led to the terrible Bush Presidency may have effectively destroyed the country, leaving it bankrupt, corrupt,ungovernable, ruled by a wealthy elite -- and we're only now just starting to realize it. To cover tax cuts we stopped maintaining the infrastructure and started borrowing. To satisfy their hatred of government we increasingly stripped away rule of law, regulation, and belief in one-person-one-vote. We are seeing the consequences of all of that coming back to roost now.

Reagan left us with massive debt and ever-increasing interest payments. Bush left us with $1.3 trillion deficits and a destroyed economy that would force further increases in the borrowing for years - to be blamed on Obama. The "free marketers" gave away our manufacturing base that will take decades and massive capital investment to recover. Obama can try, but it may just be too late to do anything about the borrowing. We need massive investment in jobs and infrastructure, and a national economic/industrial plan. But, with their own Reagan/Bush debt as ammunition, conservative ideologues continue to block every effort at investment to get out of the mess we are in.

The conservatives destroyed the regulatory structure of the government. They removed the inspectors, administrators, regulators and replaced them with corrupt cronies.

The conservatives killed off, contracted out or sold off - "privatized" - so much of our in-common resources and heritage of public structures. Water systems, oil and mineral leases, government functions, elements of the military, etc.

The conservatives destroyed the rule of law, leaving behind public perception of rule by cronyism, favoritism and mob.

The conservatives destroyed public understanding of democracy, leaving behind a one-dollar-one-vote system that their Supreme Court just formalized, along with a corporate media that works to keep people uninformed. And to make matters worse, now the telecoms can argue before Federalist Society judges that their "speech rights" are violated by rules making them carry labor and progressive websites over the internet lines they control. And forget about the idea of them ever letting anti-corporate-rule candidates raise money on "their" internet.

I hate to reference Friedman but this from last week has been sticking in my mind. He says the world is looking at the mess in the US and is turning away from democracy as a result.

[Foreigners] look at America and see a president elected by a solid majority, coming into office riding a wave of optimism, controlling both the House and the Senate. Yet, a year later, he can’t win passage of his top legislative priority: health care.

“Our two-party political system is broken just when everything needs major repair, not minor repair,” said ... who is attending the forum. “I am talking about health care, infrastructure, education, energy. We are the ones who need a Marshall Plan now.”

Indeed, speaking of phrases I’ve never heard here before, another goes like this: “Is the ‘Beijing Consensus’ replacing the ‘Washington Consensus?’ ” Washington Consensus is a term coined after the cold war for the free-market, pro-trade and globalization policies promoted by America. ... developing countries everywhere are looking “for a recipe for faster growth and greater stability than that offered by the now tattered ‘Washington Consensus’ of open markets, floating currencies and free elections.” And as they do, “there is growing talk about a ‘Beijing Consensus.’ ”

The Beijing Consensus, ... is a “Confucian-Communist-Capitalist” hybrid under the umbrella of a one-party state, with a lot of government guidance, strictly controlled capital markets and an authoritarian decision-making process that is capable of making tough choices and long-term investments, without having to heed daily public polls.

It is too late to recover?

Accountability is a first step. If the current administration would hold the corrupt actors accountable, maybe we could begin to restore governance. And the public would know who to blame for what has happened to us, enabling them to support policies that will get us out of this. But so far they won't. If they won't even investigate torture and illegally invading a country why should we expect any accountability for the financial collapse, corrupt government contracts, bribery, embezzlement, corruption and other crimes of the Bush era?

More equitable distribution of the fruits of our economy is another step. Our system worked so much better back when the top tax rate was 90%. The returns from our investment in infrastructure were more widely shared. And back when it took many years to build a fortune businesses had an interdependence with their communities. Executives needed the schools and roads and other public structures functioning well. They needed long-range business and community planning. But just imagine trying to do something about the concentration of wealth today.

So where do we go from here. Is democracy over? Is rule of law a thing of the past? Is predatory monopoly control by the largest corporations the way things are and will be? Does the world now move to governance by a wealthy elite?

Or is the winter and the rain and the snow just getting to me?

What are your thoughts?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:00 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 31, 2010

NYT Propels Anti-ACORN Propaganda

The NY Times ran a story today about the "high jinks" of the right-wing smear artist O'Keefe, repeating the smears on ACORN, without mentioning the investigations that concluded his ACORN videotapes were doctored and that ACORN employees did nothing wrong.

High Jinks to Handcuffs for Landrieu Provocateur - NYTimes.com

Mr. O’Keefe made his biggest national splash last year when he dressed up as a pimp and trained his secret camera on counselors with the liberal community group Acorn — eliciting advice on financing a brothel on videos that would threaten to become Acorn’s undoing.

There is a problem with this NY Times report of the ACORN affair: O'Keefe was not dressed as a "pimp" when visiting the ACORN office, instead representing himself as a candidate for Congress trying to save girls from exploitation. He only dressed as a "pimp" when publicizing his videos, using the racist stereotype to amplify his false claims.

Compare the impression left by this NY Times story with : ACORN Report Finds No Illegal Conduct, which describes former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's investigation of the accusations. Among the investigation's conclusions,

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles's comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

I located this information after using The Google for maybe two minutes. I propose that the New York Times consider offering Google Training to its "reporters."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 1, 2010

Bad Newspaper Business Model: Catering To The Right

My local newspaper runs the Mallard Fillmore comic strip. Today's strip tells readers they shouldn't read newspapers.

This is brilliant thinking on the part of the big corporate owners of the news media. Cater to the right, which wants to destroy the news media. The right tells people not to trust the media. People stop reading newspapers. Brilliant. Business. Model.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 30, 2009

A New Economy from Old Roots?

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.

How do we build a new economy out of the collapse of the old economy? How do we start fresh to begin creating jobs again, while building in economic and environmental sustainability, as well as workplaces that respect human needs and rights? How do we change things so that we all get to share the benefits of the economy rather than just contributing to the increasing wealth of a few vastly wealthy people?

While we look for a vision for a new economy, we should examine what has worked in the past. America had periods in which regular people enjoyed sustained increases in their standard of living. For a long time it was a conventional wisdom that each American generation would do better than the previous generation, more people would receive good educations, medical care would get better, the middle class would grow, leisure time would increase, poverty rates would decrease, retirement would be easier, etc.

But this pattern stopped. Beginning in the late 1970s and especially in the 1980s incomes began to stagnate, wealth increasingly concentrated at the top, working hours and workplace pressures steadily increased, availability of good health care started to decrease, etc. The standard of living of most Americans began to and continues to decline. At the same time corporations became more predatory as consumer protections vanished. Meanwhile outsourcing, deunionization and other anti-worker policies led to increasingly unpleasant, stressful and unrewarding worklives for more and more people.

Many of today's problems are traceable directly to the policy results of anti-government propaganda that was blasted out from well-funded conservative think tanks starting in the 1970s. The anti-government campaign led to defunding of many national, state and local government programs that improved education, helped the poor or enriched people's lives. We suffered deregulation in many areas where the government had protected consumers, workers, investors and the environment. Huge reductions in taxes for the wealthy were either offset by tax increases for the rest of us or government borrowing. And that borrowing has led to increasing problems of paying the interest and threats to funding even basic programs like Social Security and education.

So what worked, before the conservatives trashed the place?

Regulation

One thing we know for sure now, learned the hardest way thanks to the financial crisis: regulation worked. Regulation was necessary, it worked, it kept firms from taking risks that could bring down the economy. And we can also see now how regulations protected consumers from predatory corporate activities, workers from wage theft or unsafe working conditions, and the environment from exploitation and destruction.

Taxes

Before Reagan the tax rates at the top were very high. After you reached - and took home - a certain very high income you paid a high percentage of the rest in taxes. This had many beneficial results – even for the people who paid higher taxes. Government could afford to keep the physical, education and legal infrastructure in good condition without borrowing. Government could afford to invest in programs that improved our standard of living, health, knowledge and technology, which helped businesses grow. Businesses thrived in such well-watered soil.

The high tax rates also kept the bad side of human nature in check. When it took years to build up a fortune businesspeople had to rely on the health of the greater community to nurture their own wealth-building enterprises and keep them thriving over a long period. They had to think and act long-term. The roads needed to be kept in repair, the schools needed to provide excellent education to potential employees, the courts needed to be functional to enforce contracts, and they wanted the communities they were going to have to stay in to be pleasant places to live.

But once taxes were lowered vast windfalls could be realized from a single event and it made more sense to try to fleece the community with quick-buck schemes than to rely on it. We began to see corporate raiders break up solid, ongoing companies, steal pension funds, etc., while encouraging communities to cut spending on schools, roads, etc. It became more profitable sell off or outsource our manufacturing capacity. And then, as things fell apart, the few who benefited could just fly away in their private jets or sail away in their huge yachts. The greater community was no longer any use to them except as crops to be harvested. Vulnerable consumers are the only crop that is coming up in this economy.

Big Government

Government is We, the People making the decisions. "Big government" is simply another way of saying that more of the important decisions are made by the people. Shrinking government means handing the decisions over to big corporations. In the real world this is the choice. And in the real world big corporations make decisions that benefit them, and only them. Before you badmouth government think carefully about what the alternative is.

Old-Fashioned Government Planning

As I said in a post a few months ago,

The phrase “industrial policy” sounds so Walter Mondale, 1970s, smokestacks and brick factory old-fashioned. I suspect the subject turns people off, eyes glaze over, hands reach under the table for iPhones and Blackberries…

But here we are without an industrial policy. How’s that working out for us? Every other country has one. China seriously has one. We instead have huge trade deficits. We don't make things here so we have to borrow money to buy things made elsewhere.

To add insult to injury, recently Deutsche Bank released a research note advising investors that the U.S. was not a good investment because of our lack of a government industrial policy. See Deutsche Bank: Absence of US Clean Energy Policy Will Send Global Capital Elsewhere.

While we envision a new direction for our economy, maybe we should also be looking at returning to a few old-fashioned ways of doing things, too.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 20, 2009

The Right's Strategic Propaganda Effort

Always worth reading again: Tentacles of Rage: The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history

This is a 2004 story looking at the history of how the right became so prominent in American politics in recent decades, roughtly from Gioldwater to George W. Bush. They had enormous funding - in the hundreds of millions per year - in those decades. Huge checks went to anyone who would promote right-wing corporate values. For example, mid-1970s:

... the terms of the offer an annual salary of $200,000, to be paid for life even in the event of my resignation or early retirement—spoke to the seriousness of the rightist intent to corner and control the national market in ideas.

In the 1970s $200K a year promised for life wasn't bad at all. And supplemented with speaking fees, book advances, the occasional $10K check for an article denying global warming, etc...

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:41 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 2, 2009

Republican Infrastructure

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

Why are Republicans so successful, even though they only have a tiny minority representation in our state government?  Read on.

An invitation was sent for the upcoming California Republican Party Convention, which will be September 25-27 at the Rennaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa in Indian Wells, outside of Palm Springs.

Nestled at the base of the majestic Santa Rosa Mountains in the exclusive community of Indian Wells, the luxurious Renaissance Esmeralda Resort & Spa is the desert's finest oasis. Offering unparalleled service and all the amenities of a world-class resort, Esmeralda invites you to indulge your every whim.

[. . .] Spa Esmeralda is designed to nourish your soul. Marble floors, glass corridors and the sounds of a trickling stone fountain greet you. From that moment on, a transformation begins to take place.

Gaze at the alluring desert landscape from the tranquil Spa Garden and soothe away the day's stress under a therapeutic waterfall spa. This is Spa Esmeralda. This is Paradise.

Featuring,

• Spa with lush garden
• Golf Club House
• Lounge with live entertainment
• Room Service
• 36-Holes of Championship Golf
• 3 swimming pools & Pool Bar
• Fitness Center
• Tennis
• Concierge
• In-room movies
• Complimentary in-room coffee
• Complimentary newspaper
• Restaurants

Nice!  Where do they park their yachts in the desert, though?

I noted on the web page, "Special Thanks to San Manuel Band of Mission Indians for their generous support of the California Republican Party and the fall convention." Sponsorship is solicited on the following terms:

$100,000 Official Convention Title Sponsorship
For organizations seeking maximum exposure and opportunities to network with Republican candidates for Governor, Congress and State Legislature, this Title Sponsorship opportunity is ideal, providing exclusive benefits. Title sponsorship of the California Republican Party's fall Convention is limited to one partner with a speaking opportunity during the convention and a customized sponsorship marketing plan tailored to your needs which will include ... Private meeting with all top state party leaders during convention.

There are also $50,000, $25,000 and $15,000 opportunities.

I especially was interested in The Workshops At The '09 CRP Fall Convention, which are put on by various people including:

• David Kralik, Silicon Valley Representative for Newt Gingrich's American Solutions 
• David Avella, Executive Director of GOPAC
• Philip R Hinderberger: Senior V-P & Govt. Affairs Counsel, NORCAL Mutual Insurance Company
• Larry Greenfield, The Reagan Legacy Foundation
• Mackenzie Eaglen, Research Fellow for National Security Studies, Heritage Foundation

Some background on some of the above:

• If you don't know, a Senior V-P & Govt. Affairs Counsel is a LOBBYIST.
• The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project was formed in 1997 as a project of Americans for Tax Reform - Grover Norquist's organization.  According to SourceWatch: "Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is ostensibly a group that pushes for lower taxes. It has close ties to the Republican Party and has frequently allied itself with the tobacco industry."
• Heritage Foundation is the premier right-wing, anti-government "think tank" located in Washington, DC.

So this is a luxury event, sponsored by corporations, with workshops from elements of the conservative infrastructure.  These are organizations that are supposed to be non-partisan, are often funded with tax-deductible contributions, exist outside of the party structure, but in this case are closely bound with the party itself.

These third-party groups lay the groundwork for elections by bombarding the public with corporate-funded messaging that is almost always anti-government and anti-tax, advocating the corporations replace government in our national and state decisionmaking.  Grover Norquist is famous for saying he wants to make the government "small enough that it can be drowned in a bathtub" and this is why his organization has demanded that office-seekers sign a pledge to oppose taxes in all forms.  They believe in "defunding" government, so that it cannot effectively regulate corporations. 

After enough of this drumbeat of anti-government propaganda, with no response from people who believe in demcoracy and community, the public doesn't have much choice but to believe the only voices they hear, and turn against government and the taxes that support democracy.  

This third-party infrastructure is why conservatives have been so effective at strangling government in California.  It is funded by corporations and every Republican has take "the pledge."  The corporations pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into our elections to put just enough of them over the top to keep the state from functioning. 

What we need is a progressive infrastructure of organizations that reach the public and explain progressive policies, creating acceptance of progressive values and demand for progressive solutions that help everyone, not just a select, wealthy few.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:31 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 6, 2009

Marriage of Republican Party and Birthers & Teabaggers - Very Dangerous

Sara Robinson says the marriage of the Republican Party with the birthers, teabaggers and town hall disruptors is a very, very dangerous sign for our country.

This is a must-read!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

June 9, 2009

More Republican Hatred Of America

Last month a Republican governor talked about his state leaving the United States. Now we learn that a Republican Congressman met privately with Chinese Government officials and told them they should not believe the Obama administration's budget numbers. He was asking them to stop lending to the U.S. and dump US dollars, which would result in economic panic and otherwise great harm to our country.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:33 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

April 25, 2009

MUST Prosecute

There is a great diary over at Daily Kos: They Are Telling Us They Will Torture Again. Go read.

This is the deal: We HAVE TO investigate and prosecute, or they will just keep doing it. Senators can write strongly-worded statements and lock them in a safe, as Sen. Rockefeller did to protest illegal wiretapping, and it won't stop anything. Investigate and prosecute. Lay down the law. Make the statement that we do not tolerate this, and will punish those who do it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 22, 2009

Why They Used Torture

One argument against the "ticking bomb" rationale for torture is that it doesn't "work." It is useless for extracting real information, but it is a great tool for making people say what you want them to say.

Yet the Republicans tortured prisoners, and defended the practice, saying that it yielded important information. So what is "important" to Republican? Protecting people? Of course not. But getting people to say what you want them to say to justify launching an aggressive war against a country in order to take over its oil fields -- now that is important.

Paul Krugman Blog summarizes what is being learned:

Let’s say this slowly: the Bush administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So it tortured people to make them confess to the nonexistent link.

Repeat: they tortured poeople to get them to say things that could be used as propaganda to justify invading Iraq to steal the oil. It was never about protecting anyone.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 13, 2009

Teabagger Parties - Remember The Seeing the Forest Rule

The Seeing the Forest Rule: When right-wingers are accusing others of something it is usually a cover for something THEY are doing. Today's variation is when they claim they are doing the honest, innocent thing it usually means they doing are the dishonest, conniving thing. The promoters of the upcoming anti-Obama "tea parties" claim that they are "grassroots" but really they are one more corporate-funded, lobbyist-organized Republican bait-and-switch operation, tricking their supporters into supporting even more corporate tax cuts and tax cuts for the rich.

Here is what I am talking about. The NY Post is owned by the same company as FOX News. SO take a look at this: TEA PARTIES: REAL GRASSROOTS - New York Post,

...these Tea Party protests aren't the same old rituals with the same old marchers.

These aren't the usual semiprofessional protesters who attend antiwar and pro-union marches. These are people with real jobs; most have never attended a protest march before. They represent a kind of energy that our politics hasn't seen lately, and an influx of new activists.
[. . .] Instead of the "astroturf" that has marked the ACORN-organized AIG protests, this movement is real grassroots. So if you've had enough, consider visiting a Tea Party protest in your area -- there's bound to be one.

It's your chance to be part of an authentic popular protest movement, one that just might save America from the greed and ineptitude of the folks who have been running it into the ground.

There are numerous posts and articles like this one, all claiming this is a "spontaneous" and "grassroots" event. In fact, as Jane at Firedoglake points out, the tea parties are organized, funded and promoted by a big lobbyist organization. Think Progress also writes about this and Media Matters writes about how these anti-Obama events are receiving exhaustive on-the-air promotion from FOX News, to the point of calling them "FNC Tea Parties." (So does Think Progress.)

Also be sure to read Oliver Willis, The Seminal, Crooks & Liars, Washington Monthly, Newshounds and DownWithTyranny writes about the calls to violence associated with the tea parties.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:48 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

April 9, 2009

Conservative Leaders and Media Whipping Up Trouble

The wingnuts are being whipped into an ever-increasing frenzy by the conservative leadership and media. And, of course, all, all, all of it is about attempts to reign in corporatism and concentration of wealth at the top. Taxes on the rich are "socialism" (even though the top rate was 90% and even more for a lot of the last century.) Obama's 4% increase in the military budget is "gutting" the military. Adding a public option to health insurance is "taking over" the health care system. etc...

Here is an example of the kind of nuttiness and militancy that the conservative leadership and media is encouraging. Citizen grand jury indicts Obama>,"If the government does not amend the error within 40 days after being shown the error, then the four members shall refer the matter to the remainder of the grand jury," it says. "The grand jury may distrain and oppress the government in every way in their power, namely, by taking the homes, lands, possessions, and any way else they can until amends shall have been made according to the sole judgment of the grand jury."

Swensson said the indictments were delivered to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, state officials and leaders of the Georgia Senate and House.

He told WND that since the action in Georgia, he's been contacted by groups in at least 20 other states who want to pursue a similar action.Try to read the entire article. It is not a "report" it is an incitement.

The conservative leadership is intentionally whipping "the base" up to an extreme level. They are encouraging eventual violence.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:07 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 2, 2009

Watch Out For Wikipedia

Try this: start or edit a Wikipedia article that includes information that might be unfavorable to conservative corporate interests, perhaps in the area of tort reform (incl medical malpractice, etc) or trade/protectionism, etc. Try adding citations to studies that show that tort reform is a corporate-funded effort to keep people from being able to sue companies that harm them... I tried it and it was removed in a few minutes.

Or try to edit the entry on Protectionism, perhaps adding something like the words "unfair competition" as in protecting America jobs from unfair competition from countries that exploit workers. Someone did this the other day and the edit lasted a few minutes before it was removed because it changed the "long accepted definition of protectionism." In other words, the idea that our standard of living should be protected from competition using exploited workers is unfair goes against the corporate-interest meaning of the term.

Try editing entries covering other issues around trade, economics or corporate issues. See how long it takes before a pro-corporate viewpoint is returned to the article. Or add an article about a progressive organization. I added an article about the Commonweal Institute, and it was immediately removed, so I put another up and it was immediately flagged for removal. (I am working to save it...) An article about me - put up and edited by others - was also removed twice. The circumstances involved a professional "leading tort-reform advocate" -- while I'm the person who wrote this report about how the tort reform movement is involved with the corporate/conservative movement. Go figure.

This is a problem at Wikipedia. It is quite possible that there are people who are paid to show up and push Wikipedia to reflect a conservative, pro-corporate viewpoint. And why wouldn't this be the case as it is in so many other areas where corporate interests are affected? (I know of one corporate-funded conservative movement insider who spends much of the normal workday and evenings editing Wikipedia.) So it seems the Wikipedia organization may be unable to sufficiently police the site to keep this from happening, and to keep new people from having unpleasant experiences and being shouted down and driven away. There are so many areas of political life where conservatives shout down or intimidate everyone else until they give up and go away. Wikipedia is fast becoming one more.

This has real-world implications. Wikipedia shows up at the top of many if not most Google searches, and people tend to believe this means it is a reliable source. This positioning implies a public-interest responsibility for accuracy and objective presentation of material. On non-controversial topics Wikipedia is a very reliable and possibly the best source for information because over time the "wisdom of crowds" effect brings increased expertise to bear.

But like so many things today, in areas where corporate resources can be focused, the subject matter increasingly reflects the viewpoint that serves the interests of the few at the top. Wikipedia's prominence is the likely reason this conservative information-purging occurs. It is also the reason Wikipedia has a responsibility to do something about it.

(Edited a bit for clarity, focus.)

PS also see this about article deletions.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:59 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

February 8, 2009

Let's Challenge Radio Station Licenses

Should we be organizing challenges to the licenses of radio stations that do not serve their communities in a balanced way?

Earlier I pointed to Bill Press' op-ed on how corporate radio shuts our progressive voices, Seeing the Forest: Corporate Radio Not Balanced. Press reminds us that companies are given radio licenses by We, the People and,

... according to the terms of their FCC license, "to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance."

Obviously many radio stations are violating the terms of their licenses, using OUR airwaves to spew anti-democracy corporatist right-wing crap all day every day.

Shouldn't we be organizing challenges to the licenses of these stations?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:40 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 13, 2009

The "Tax Freedom Day" Trick

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

It takes a 2/3 vote to pass a budget in California. As we have seen this means any budget that does not completely meet the hard-core anti-tax, must-cut-government position of the Republicans in the legislature is voted down. Even though there is enormous public support for government - schools, roads, firefighters, etc. - they will not compromise at all. They demand that we gut the government, lay off tens of thousands of workers, or nothing. So California races toward economic ruin.

What do your taxes buy you? The average person benefits greatly from strong government. By gathering together into a community that is jointly managed (i.e. government) people can pool their resources and accomplish great things that cannot be accomplished by people who are on their own. Roads and bridges are examples of things that people cannot accomplish individually. Police, firefighters, public schools are other examples. Law and courts and a monetary system are still more. And then there are benefits like Social Security and the "safety net" of programs for people who lose jobs to food programs for those of us without enough to eat.

The reason we have almost everything that we value as a society, our education and (until recently anyway) jobs, the internet, buildings that don't easily burn down or blow away, drinkable water coming to our houses and sewage systems leaving them and (until fairly recently, anyway) a health care system that stops epidemics is our government. All of the businesses we see around us exist because of our government -- a corporation cannot even exist without the government that establishes it and the legal system that maintains it.

But there are some who would personally benefit more in the absence of government than in its presence. History has taught that there are some who would organize themselves to take what others have worked to build rather than do that work themselves. One need only look at the walls built around cities in the past to understand this. There have also been organized gangs and other criminal enterprises that take rather than build, and more recently we have seen that organized predatory enterprises also find ways to victimize and prey on people. Fraud, confidence and ponzi schemes, consumer scams and all manner of trickery prey on people who are left unprotected by their community. Government is what has always protected regular people from such predators.

Government -- the people banding together to guard and accomplish their interests -- serves to protect people from those who would just take rather than work with the rest of us to build.

So why did Ronald Reagan famously say "government is the problem" in his first inaugural address and he loudly and repeatedly attack the idea of taxes? The foundation and strength of government is the taxes it collect. Taxes are what provide government with its strength to do all of the good things described above. This is why anti-government ideologues reason that the way to cut government (and thereby bring in its alternative) is to cut taxes. They say that if they can just cut out the foundation of government, it will fall. Or, more famously, that they can "drown it in a bathtub."

One way that anti-government ideologues have worked to accomplish this is to turn people against their own government, tricking people into misunderstanding how taxes work and what government does for them. last week, in What Are Tax Brackets, I explained how one of these tricks works -- that you only pay bracket rates taxes on income that falls in that bracket, not on all income earned up to that bracket.

Another way they turn people against taxation and government is to misrepresent how much is collected and how it is used. Exaggerated statements like, "We pay half our income in taxes" are commonly heard, along with under-representation and misrepresentation of the benefits we receive from government.

"Tax Freedom Day" is one example of this technique. Tax Freedom Day is a product of The Tax Foundation, which is funded by the very same collection of right-wing donors that fund the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute and so many other components of the anti-government "conservative movement."

Tax Freedom Day is widely publicized by corporate media, and usually described as being when "the average American" has earned enough income to pay their taxes. Tax Freedom Day for 2008 is April 23. To calculate Tax Freedom Day the The Tax Foundation adds up all the taxes paid to the government from all sources, but it only includes certain forms of income. It doesn't include capital gains income, for example, yet includes capital gains taxes on the tax side of the calculation. These misleading calculations of course result in a much higher tax amount than "the average America" really pays. So while they say that 30.8% of "our" income went to pay taxes in 2008, anyone reading this who looks at their own tax bill can see that their taxes are substantially lower than this figure.

So the next time you hear about Tax Freedom Day, keep in mind who is making this claim, and why.

Click through and join the discussion at Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:26 PM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos

December 23, 2008

Deep Thought On Rule Of law

Ford pardoned Nixon, which led to the crimes/bribery/theft/fraud/lies/wars of the Reagan/Bush I administration. It also led to a common understanding that in America the big fish operate under different rules and are held to a different standard.

Reagan was let off the hook for Iran/Contra and Bush I pardoned everyone who otherwise might have testified against him. Then under Clinton they let bygones be bygones, bribery remain unpunished and stolen money stay stolen which led to the crimes of Bush II. (It also paved the way for Clinton's impeachment because they knew the Dems would let them get away with anything and the public was ready for a story about people at the top not being let off the hook.)

If you don't prosecute lawbreaking and hold accountable the lawbreakers, it will just happen over and over, worse each time. Throughout the Bush II administration the Dems refused to hold anyone accountable and look what's happening today.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 14, 2008

Republican Opposition To Unions

A quick thought about Republican opposition to unions. I keep reading that Republicans are "ideologically" opposed to unions.

Republicans are opposed to unions because they are paid to oppose unions. Is this really "ideology?"

If they oppose unions because they believe America should be ruled by a few wealthy people, and that democracy is a bad thing, that is an ideology. In my opinion, if they oppose unions because those wealthy people pay them to work to destroy people's ability to fight corporate power, that isn't ideology, that's opportunism.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:42 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

November 1, 2008

Palin Movement Urges 'Godly' To 'Plunder' Wealth of 'Godless'

Just go read: Daily Kos: Palin Movement Urges 'Godly' To 'Plunder' Wealth of 'Godless'

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:59 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 29, 2008

One Of The Worst?

This is one -- just one -- of the sleaziest Republican smear/deceit ads this year. Sen. Dole in North Carolina hires a voice impersonator to sound like her opponent, to say "There is no God" in an ad, saying her opponent "took godless money."

Wow. That's really creepy. And Sen. Dole apparently thinks North Carolina voters are really, really stupid. Is she right?

One thing that comes out of this election: I think it has become pretty obvious what the Republican Party is about. They say nasty and things to trick people who don't follow the news into voting for them, and then they hand over public money to a few wealthy corporation owners who fund all of this.

I think people are starting to become well-enough aware of this game to start doing something about it. ONE thing would be to stop allowing a few people to use corporate resources to influence our politics. It isn't corporations that are the problem, it is this abiloity of a few people to access corporate resources and use them to subvert democracy.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:43 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 21, 2008

Would A McCain Win Mean A Legitimate Government?

McCain is running an entirely negative, divisive, racist campaign based on lies, intending to trick, manipulate, deceive, divide or otherwise do whatever it takes to get enough people to vote for him.

And we all know it.

So if it works, where are we? Do we accept such a government, elected based on the appeal his campaign is making?

Set aside for a minute all the the voter suppression, problems with voting machines, etc. -- that's not what I want to write about here, go here for what to do about that -- and instead imagine that Nov. 5 we learn that McCain is the "winner of the election" and that it comes from a surge of voters responding to his current campaign.

What would that mean? And what do we do? Do we accept a government that we all know is in power entirely based on lies, division and racist appeal? This is a serious question: is such a government legitimate?

I'm asking for a discussion, not making a declaration.

Update - An email I received:

Unless there is evidence of illegal activity, yes, we must accept such a government, and, yes, it is legitimate. It is not illegal for an individual operating in an unofficial capacity (as a presidential candidate as opposed to a senator) to lie. Citizens have a responsibility to verify the accuracy of the information they receive. If they choose not to verify it and choose to believe a lie and to act on it with their vote, that is their right, and they deserve to be governed by the lying president they've chosen. There's nothing in a democratic political system that requires a candidate to tell the truth. It is we, each individual citizen, who must require it by refusing to accept any information we haven't verified for ourselves. We fail miserably at that, so we generally get the government we deserve.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:28 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 18, 2008

Election - Final Stretch

We're about to see the full force power and fury of the right-wing machine unleashed. I'm not so sure Obama will keep his lead through the next phase, or if there will be a country when they're done.

The RNC and the McCain campaign has been accusing Obama and Democrats of being "un-American" or "anti-American" and "dangerous" and "terrorists" and anything they can think of. Today McCain said Obama's tax policies are "Socialist." Across the country the first phase of robo-calls has started, with nasty smears, lies, fear-mongering and you-name-it being pumped into people's homes at all hours.

It is only going to get worse. And then it will get worse. And then it will get really nasty. The next two weeks will go down in history. The corporate right faces the prospect of the people bringing them back under control, and a look at where all the money went. The authoritarian right faces investigations for torture and war crimes. The party operatives face jail time for illegal politicization of the entire government. They will not go without a huge fight.

I really don't know where things will go in the next two weeks, but keep up your spirits, and fight back.

And, of course, watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:31 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 17, 2008

Obama Campaign Asks Special Prosecutor To Look Into DOJ/McCain Campaign Collusion On ACORN Charges

The Obama campaign today sent a letter to Attorney General Mukasey asking that he expand the scope of the ongoing investigation into Justice Department politicization to "include a review of any involvement by the Justice Department and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC)'s systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud."

Briefly, the DOJ politicization scandal stems from Republican efforts to conduct partisan vote fraud investigations before the 2006 election. Prosecutors who refused were fired, prosecutors who played along were not fired (and are still there). After an outcry and the resignation of Attorney General Gonzales the new Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, appointed a special prosecutor to look into the politicization. The current vote fraud accusations and accompanying Justice Department, FBI and White House involvement follow the same pattern, and are based on no credible evidence, so the Obama campaign believes that it may be related to the ongoing partisan politicization of the government's law enforcement.

More coming...

Update - Ari Melber at The Washington Independent has more,

Citing an “unholy alliance” between Republican operatives and potentially illegal conduct by law enforcement targeting voter fraud, the Obama campaign demanded Friday that the U.S. special prosecutor looking into the U.S. attorney scandal investigate the matter.

General counsel Bob Bauer sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey charging that coordinated “misconduct” by McCain campaign representatives and GOP officials were relevant to the special prosecutor’s work, because the activities may relate to the dismissal of seven U.S. attorneys in late 2006.

The letter requests that the special prosecutor’s inquiry “include a review of any involvement by Justice Dept. and White House officials in supporting the McCain-Palin campaign [and RNC's] systematic development and dissemination of unsupported, spurious allegations of vote fraud.”

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:19 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 12, 2008

Palin's Accusation That Obama is A Terrorist

Sarah Palin repeatedly accuses Obama of having various "ties" to terrorists, and pretty buch of being a terrorist himself.

Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans Accuse it is a good idea to see if it is what THEY are really doing. The accusation serves as an inoculation. It works like this: Billy steals a cookie from the cookie jar. Billy runs to mommy and tells her Bobby took a cookie. Bobby responds with "No, mommy, Billy did it." This gets Bobby is serious trouble, and Billy gets away scott-free -- plus a cookie.

So of course an investigation into Sarah Palin reveals ... you guessed it. A DailyKos post explains, and David Neiwert has a summary at his blog:
# That Gov. Palin, when a Wasilla city council member, formed an alliance with some of the more radical far-right citizens in Wasilla and vicinity, particularly members of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party who were allied with local John Birch Society activists. These activists played an important role in her election as Wasilla mayor in 1996.

# Once mayor, one of Mrs. Palin’s first acts was to attempt to appoint one of these extremists (a man named Steve Stoll) to her own seat on the city council. This was a man with a history of disrupting city council meetings with intimidating behavior. She was blocked by a single city council member.

# Afterward, Mrs. Palin fired the city’s museum director at the behest of this faction.

# She fomented an ultimately successful effort to derail a piece of local gun-control legislation which would simply have prohibited the open carry of firearms into schools, liquor stores, libraries, courthouses and the like. The people recruited to shout this ordinance down included these same figures, notably the local AIP representative (who became the AIP’s chairman that same year).

# She remained associated politically with the local AIP/Birch faction throughout her tenure as mayor on other issues, particularly a successful effort to amend the Alaska Constitution to prohibit local governments from issuing any local gun-control ordinances.

But really, what did you expect?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 10, 2008

WHY Are Republicans Accusing ACORN Of Voter Fraud?

The Republican noise machine is going absolutely full-force after ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), accusing them of committing vote fraud on a massive scale. You can't turn on the radio or TV without hearing that millions of illegal votes will be cast for Obama because of ACORN's massive vote fraud. If you Google "Acorn" and "rigging" you get over 50,000 hits.

The Republican National Committee website is headlining the effort. And they are issuing accusation press releases all day, every day, to drive this effort. They have a "fact sheet" listing numerous accusations.

Here's the thing: ACORN is registering voters and is REQUIRED BY LAW to submit voter reg forms as the voter fills them out. Even so, the total "fraudulent" registrations they are accused of submitting nationwide is very low, maybe a few thousand. This is across the entire country when they have registered more than 1.3 million new voters. And this is all about registration forms that are filled out wrong by the voter, not ACORN, or a voter submitting more than one registration. This is what all the noise is about.

This is the key thing to know: None of these faulty registrations are capable of resulting in a single fraudulent vote. The problem is ACORN workers turning in forms that were filled out wrong, in some cases by the workers themselves to make it look like they were working when they weren't. But vote fraud? The most common problems is duplication but if someone fills out 12 registrations, they're still only goign to vote once. It is up to county election officials, not ACORN to worry about election fraud. And on a call today with ACORN they pointed out that while there are bad registration forms submitted, there is not one case of a person commiting actual vote fraud as a result of ACORN's efforts. Not one, ever, anywhere.

So the question is, why? Why the huge hissy fit over ACORN?

Remember the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans accuse, it is because it is what they are doing themselves.

Working on the Election Protection Wiki I am seeing more and more accusations of a massive nationwide effort to throw millions of voters off of the registration lists, and otherwise keep them from voting. One example accusation: states like Florida are purging voters whose names do not exactly match their Social Security or drivers license, so "Bob" on one and "Robert" on another disqualifies them from voting. Another, across the country the Republicans are accused of mailing faulty absentee voter applications to Democrats -- they have incorrect addresses for sending the application, or when they can send them in they are thrown out for various reasons to do with the forms. Another: across the country students are being told they can't vote. These are just a few examples -- you may have heard that some states are even throwing people off voter registration roles if their homes are foreclosed.

Could THIS be why there are so many accusations against ACORN? To provide cover for the REAL voting scam that is going on?

Among the accusations is that they have "employed convicts to register people." That sure SOUNDS bad, but so what? Also among the crimes they are accused of is submitting duplicate registrations for voters. Here is the thing to keep in mind, when a duplicate registration is submitted, the person is registered once and the duplicates are thrown out. Again, so what?

ACORN is an organization that helps poor and minority communities. One thing ACORN does is organize people to vote. They have submitted over 1.3 million new voter registrations this year. From their website,

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities.

This sounds exactly like something Repubicans would hate. A lot.

Among the hundreds and hundreds of stories, these today:

ACORN Investigations Provide Rallying Cry for Republicans

Is Acorn Stealing the Election?

Obama Hired ACORN For GOTV

It’s time to shut down ACORN, work against voter fraud

GOP Renews Complaints Over Voter Registrations

ACORN’s Crimes

RNC: CNN Exposes How ACORN Steals Votes & Ties to Obama

Jive Turkey Rides Again

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 19, 2008

Let Bush Manage Bailout?

The Treasury Secretary wants the largest tax expenditure in history to be considered and passed IN A WEEK, just before an election. And then the BUSH ADMINISTRATION will manage how the bailout is handled.

Does this set off any alarm bells, people? The BUSH ADMINISTRATION is going to be in charge of deciding how trillions of our dollars are going to be allocated? The incompetent, "no bid contract," Halliburton, billions in cash disappearing in Iraq, Katrina, CORRUPT BUSH ADMINISTRATION allocating ALL THE REST OF THE MONEY IN THE TREASURY???

Hey, people, this is all of it. This is your retirement money, your hopes for a health care plan, your ability to buy food, all coming up in one massive spending bill IN A WEEK.

Tell me, what do you THINK is about to happen???

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Shock Doctrine Bailout: Taxpayers To Cover Debts Of Wall Street Zillionaires

Treasury Secretary Paulson just used the words, "A significant investment of taxpayer dollars." That's OUR dollars. And where is the money going? The plan is for U.S. taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. Not just a few firms this time, but all of it. The financial markets are, of course, soaring on the new bailout plan.

Where did all this bad debt come from? In the last few years millions were talked into borrowing money from Wall Street using houses as collateral. Sometimes to buy those houses, other times to buy cars and ... stuff. This paid for Wall Street's multi-million-dollar salaries and bonuses for the past several years. The easy borrowing ran up the price of houses, but now the party is over and the bill comes due.

What does this bailout plan mean to regular Americans? First: It means no money for a health care plan.

Second: it means no money for retirement. It means no money to cover what the government borrowed from Social Security to give those tax cuts to the rich. (The corporations long ago quit providing pensions to the people who did the work. THAT scam -- 401Ks instead of pensions; money transferred from workers to shareholders -- is what started the big Wall Street runup.)

In summary, this plan means our standard of living will drop in order to cover the mess Wall Street made while handing out those multi-million dollar bonuses.

The plan will be presented to Congress in these last days of the Bush administration, and a climate of disaster emergency urgency will be used to get it passed before anyone has time to consider the ramifications of what is happening.

Alternative: instead use the money to retrofit the entire country to a green economy. Make every building energy efficient. Replace the oil and coal-based electricity generation with alternatives. Build efficient power lines to the new wind generation system we will build in the Plains states. This would give every unemployed person a job, create an efficient economy, and pay dividends forever. This would probably cost much less than the bailout.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:53 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

September 17, 2008

The Conservative Economic Experiment

The government just took over insurance giant AIG, at a cost of $85 billion to the taxpayers. They just finished bailing out Bear Sterns and Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into other financial bailout efforts?

Since Reagan almost all of us are getting poorer, while a very few get vastly richer. Wages have largely stagnated since Reagan's election even as GDP and productivity have gone up. Pensions are a thing of the past. Health insurance is becoming a thing of the past as well.

As a result of the Reagan and now Bush tax cuts for the rich the government's debt is just about $10 TRILLION.

And corporations now rule us instead of democracy.

The conservative economic experiment failed a long time ago. When are we going to admit it and get things back on track? Will we wait until the United States declare bankruptcy? We're almost there now.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:29 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

September 14, 2008

McCain Campaign Lie Strategy - Will It Work?

The McCain campaign is being called out on some of the lies they have been telling. The campaign spokesman says that they are in this to win and don't care what the "media filter" says.

I think we will get a test of their theory that the "media filter" doesn't matter anymore. This is to a large degree about who controls the information channels now. The conservative movement has been building to this with their well-funded "liberal media" campaign. They have they're mouthpieces like Rush constantly telling his audience not to ever believe the media. The right has a very large following. The result is that most of the public believes that the major news media is a propaganda machine for liberals and should not be trusted.

And they have the advantage that repetition of messages does work. They are running ads that say Obama will raise your taxes, force sex talk on your kindergartners and all that stuff -- even one that says Obama is the anti-Christ. They have the money to run those ads over and over on shows that lots of people watch. And they have the wealthy and corporate-backed front groups running ads and robo-calls and smear campaigns, etc. against Obama. People don't necessarily watch or believe mainstream news, but they will see these ads again and again.

So do the authoritarian conservatives have the power to override facts and "create their own reality" as they did in the lead-up to the Iraq war? I really don't know the answer and wouldn't bet my house on it either way.

Remember, tobacco company marketing is able to get people to kill themselves, but to hand over much of their money in the process. Modern marketing methods can convince almost anyone to do or believe almost anything.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 9, 2008

How McCain/Palin Administration Will Operate

Go read: Brandon Friedman: Alaska National Guard General Changes Story; Palin Promotes. Summary: Commander of Alaska Nat. Guard undercuts Palin's "experience" argument. Then the commander changes his story to support her and three days later gets a big promotion.

Another: McCain and Palin once again play 'Barracuda'. Summary: if a teenager downloads a tune, he is prosecuted. But if a Republican Presidential campaign steals tunes, refuses to get permission or pay royalties or stop using the tune when the artist demands -- too bad.

Another: Palin Again Recites Lie About Bridge To Nowhere. Summary: Candidate tells a big lie. Won't stop. Press refuses to make an issue of it.

This is a small sample of what's coming if McCain wins. If you think Bush was an incompetent, warmaking liar you will soon long for the days of Bush. Get ready for that. And watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:55 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 30, 2008

HANG?

Why is the McCain campaign running an ad in which the word "hang" appears with a picture of Obama?

Is it just a mistake? Maybe, but the McCain campaign has a track record of running very carefully prepared ads that include code words designed to trigger a particular reaction from targeted segments of the Republican base. Recently the McCain campaign ran an ad about Obama being "The One" -- meaning the antichrist. The McCain campaign denied it but the authors of the "Left Behind" series understand this to be the meaning of the ad.

So what segment of the Republican base is the McCain campaign reaching out to with this ad? And what exactly are they hoping to trigger?

P.S. read this about that Denver assassination plot I linked to in the previous paragraph.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:39 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 17, 2008

McCain's "Cross In Dirt" Story Questioned

In a book, at campaign stops and in an ad John McCain tells a story about a North Vietnamese prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt:

In his 1999 memoir, Faith of My Fathers

"We both stood wordlessly looking at the cross until, after a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away. I saw my good Samaritan often after the Christmas when we venerated the cross together."

In his campaign ad in December, he adds mention of "the true light of Christmas":

"We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas. I will never forget that no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up."

At the Saddleback Civil Forum:

"For a minute there, it was just two Christians worshipping together."

Well guess what, a Kos diarist has come up with something interesting: Cross in the Dirt" story stolen from Solzhenitsyn,

A story about Alexander Solzhenitsyn from his times in the Soviet Gulags.

Slowly he looked up and saw a skinny old prisoner squat down beside him. The man said nothing. Instead, he used a stick to trace in the dirt the sign of the Cross. The man then got back up and returned to his work.

As Solzhenitsyn stared at the Cross drawn in the dirt his entire perspective changed. He knew he was only one man against the all-powerful Soviet empire. Yet he knew there was something greater than the evil he saw in the prison camp, something greater than the Soviet Union. He knew that hope for all people was represented by that simple Cross. Through the power of the Cross, anything was possible.

The source of that story about Solzhenitsyn is The Sign of the Cross, Fr. Luke Veronis, In Communion, issue 8, Pascha 1997 but clearly the story was known before 1997 for Fr. Veronis to cite it here. Update - the source is Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, published in the West in 1973.

In the winter of 1974, unbound and mimeographed samizdat copies of The Gulag Archipelago began being surreptitiously passed between Soviet citizens. These initial readers were normally given 24 hours to finish the work before passing it on to the next person, requiring the reader to spend an uninterrupted day and night to get through the work. Years later, this initial generation of Soviet readers could still recall who had given them their copy, to whom they had passed it on, and who they had trusted enough to discuss their thoughts about the book.

Here is McCain in his ad:

Here is McCain, being "reluctant" to tell this "powerful story" about his "faith":

John McCain is more reluctant to talk about his own faith. And he has had rocky relations with religious conservatives. But McCain is a believer, and he has a powerful story about the time his own faith was tested — when he was being tortured as a prisoner of war.

One Christmas morning, he was allowed out of his cell for a few moments. As he stood alone in the prison courtyard, one of the Vietnamese guards — who had shown some small kindness to McCain in the past — walked up to him.

"Then with his sandal, the guard drew a cross in the dirt," McCain said. "We stood wordlessly there for a minute or two, venerating the cross, until the guard rubbed it out and walked away. To me, that was faith: a faith that unites and never divides, a faith that bridges unbridgeable gaps in humanity. It is the faith that we are all equal and endowed by our creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is the faith I would die to defend."

... That story is often about all the Arizona senator will say about his faith, much to the chagrin of his evangelical supporters.

Here is the Dallas Morning News, writing about last night's event:

It is a well-worn story for veterans of the McCain campaign, but it was concrete and direct, without a whiff of Christian apologetics, and it produced one of the evening’s many bursts of sustained applause.

So, is this story just more carefully-crafted Republican propaganda, one more "powerful story" intended to trick the Christians into voting for them, so they can give ever-greater tax cuts to the rich and subsidies (and drilling leases) to oil companies?

Update - Andew Sullivan points out that McCain's early accounts of captivity do not include this story, and asks when McCain first told it.

Update - No "cross in the sand" for McCain in 1973,

Shortly after John McCain came back from Vietname in 1973, he wrote a detailed 12,000 word report of his experiences that was published in US News and World Report.

Even though McCain goes into a lot of detail in that story and mentions religion a few times, there is no mention of the cross in the sand story, even though it would have fitted in well with the whole narrative. There are numerous mentions of Vietnamese guards in the reports, mostly bad ones but also good ones, but there is no indication at all that any of them would have been Christian, although "[a] lot of them were homosexual".

And in 2000 McCain told the story - saying it was a different prisoner.

Looks like McCain really WAS telling a whopper to get votes. And he's been caught red-state-handed.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:26 PM | Comments (6) | Link Cosmos

August 9, 2008

If You Can't Do The Time, Don't Do The Crime

A new group called Accountable America is warning conservative donors about staying within election laws. The New York Times wrote about this the other day with the misleading headline, Group Plans Campaign Against G.O.P. Donors.

Of course it isn't a "campaign against GOP donors" it is a campaign warning against unlawful and unethical activity. But stopping unlawful activity just might dry up a lot of the Republican Party's -- and the right's supporting infrastructure's -- cash flow. This includes 501c3 tax-free "charity" think tanks and 501c4 "issue" organizations that are really illegally engaged in candidate activity, or otherwise acting as conduits for corporate money or for those who have "maxed out" (reached the legal limit) for political donations.

The other day I wrote about,

... companies intimidating workers to vote a certain way, churches, think tanks, front groups incorporated as c4s but doing candidate work, campaigns violating election laws, etc.

... Suppose [we could create] some concern among the Wal-Marts and the Sheldon Adelsons that they had better think about following the law?

What would this do to the funding sources of the right's machine?

So I guess great minds think alike. Heh.

There is plenty of need for an effort to get conservative and corporate donors to follow the law. Just for example -- last week's news about "curious" bundled political contributions made by employees of oil companies receiving billion-dollar contracts from the government to McCain and Republicans. Some of these donations came from people clearly unable to make such a donation on their own. This makes it appear that the companies may have illegally given these people money to give to McCain and the Republican Party and groups are demanding an investigation (that will never happen).

[Public interest groups] want the Justice Department to investigate whether bundlers for John McCain's presidential campaign are using "straw" donations -- those made in the name of someone else to evade contribution limits.

A story at TPM elaborates,

"An executive from a company that has a billion dollar contract to deliver oil to U.S. bases in Iraq possibly violated election law to funnel contributions to McCain. We think that warrants an investigation."

And on the Hess matter ... : "An office manager for an oil company that stands to gain millions in profits from offshore drilling makes donations for the first time this cycle to McCain, and did it at the same time nine other Hess donors do. That's worth an investigation."

Now that Accountable America is on the scene maybe corporations and big donors who are thinking about engaging in illegal activities will think twice.

If you want to help this effort you can donate by clicking here.

Update Kathy G writes about Accountable America in her post Liberal fascism strikes again!

* The new group will offer a $100,000 reward to those providing information that leads to the conviction or judgment against a conservative or business-related organization that violates the law.

* Accountable America will provide information to the public through television ads, mailings, phone calls and its Web site.

* Next week the organization plans to send a mailing warning nearly 10,000 Republican donors of the consequences of funding organizations that break or skirt the law.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 30, 2008

Right Infiltrates Orgs at Top Levels

The NRA hired "a self-described 'research consultant,' who for decades has covertly infiltrated citizens groups for private security firms hired by corporations that are targeted by activist campaigns" to infiltrate gun-control and environmental organizations.

See There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole,

Mary McFate was a prominent gun control activist. Mary Lou Sapone was a freelance spy with an NRA connection. They are the same person. A Mother Jones investigation.

My question: WHO ELSE?

Watch your backs. Really.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 28, 2008

Even That Record Deficit Is Another Lie

Have you heard about the massive budget deficit that the Republicans are gifting us with this year? Even that is a lie. Correntewire caught it: Department of burying the lede,Ho-hum, in the middle of an article about the latest record federal deficit comes this aside:

The administration actually underestimates the deficit, however, since it leaves out about $80 billion in war costs. In a break from tradition — and in violation of new mandates from Congress — the White House did not include its full estimate of war costs.

Go read.

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July 8, 2008

Press Praises Wealthy America-Hater Templeton

John Templeton Sr. died today. He had moved away and renounced his US citizenship because he hated our country.

But he was extremely wealthy, which makes him a hero to some. The Washington Post, for example: Billionaire Investor John Marks Templeton Dies at 95. Others called him a "philanthropist"

Even though he had renounced his citizenship and our country Templeton was a "conservative sugar daddy" who funded many U.S.-based anti-government organizations (as well as proponents of creationism and "intelligent design.") He funded many far-right-wing causes and includingpoliticians.

His son carries on.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 4, 2008

Jesse Helms Dies

Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies - CNN.com,

Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died Friday at the age of 86, the Jesse Helms Center announced.

Helms once said his job was to derail the freight train of liberalism.

Conservatives admired him for his opposition to abortion and what he called "indecent art," while liberals accused him of using race as a wedge issue to defeat black opponents.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 26, 2008

Supreme Court Strikes Down "Millionaire's Amendment"

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

Nearly every Supreme Court ruling is 5-4 these days, with the far-right winning over the right. I guess they understand the need to dance with the wealthy corporatists that brung them. And I think they understand that this balance could change next year so they are rushing to establish as many far-right precedents as they can before that happens.

This one today is rich - literally. The Court ruled that allowing candidates to raise extra money if they face a self-financed millionaire violates the self-financed millionaire's freedom to use money to dominate all speech. Do you think I'm joking?

Supreme Court strikes down part of campaign finance law

The Supreme Court struck down on Thursday part of a U.S. campaign finance law that relaxes contribution limits for candidates facing wealthy, self-funded opponents, a ruling that could affect congressional elections in November.

By a 5-4 vote, the high court declared unconstitutional the provision known as the "millionaire's amendment" that Congress adopted out of concern that rich, self-financing candidates would have a competitive advantage.

Alito agreed with the arguments by [the rich candidate] that the law violated the constitutional free-speech rights of self-financed candidates, impermissibly burdening [rich candidate's] rights to spend his own money for campaign speech. [emphasis added]

Enabling the other candidate to raise as much money - from regular people - is "burdening" the rich guy. Wow.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:16 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 20, 2008

Teacher Fired For Assigning Malcolm X

A teacher assigns students to read Malcolm X, is fired because her curriculum was too "Afrocentric."

Go read: Latina teacher fired for not regurgitating the same old crap

Here is a video made by her students:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 19, 2008

War Crimes -- No Question, Says General

Go read: TAGUBA ON TORTURE.

A general saying the White House is guilty of war crimes! Is impeachment still "off the table?"

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 13, 2008

Denied Vet Benefits Because VoteVets member

Go read this DailyKos diary: Military Declares War On Obama, VoteVets. A veteran was denied PTSD benefits by the VA because he was a VoteVets member.

I don't know what's more troubling - that the VA KNOWS who shows up to political rallies ..., or that they're willing to use participation in an organization as the reason for denying care to the sick. We send these soldiers off to war to supposedly defend Constitutional freedoms, and then when the soldier upon returning home tries to exercise one, namely the freedom of speech, he is denied treatment.

The first part of the diary is about the military broadcasting anti-Obama smears from right-wing blogs to the troops.

Every branch of our government has been turned into a Republican Party-controlled propaganda-and-party-enforcement vehicle.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 30, 2008

Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of the Religious Right

I LOVE this one: Talk To Action | Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of the Religious Right, including Al Gore's secret global warming plot to destroy capitalism and take over the United States, Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno's secret plot to destroy Christianity and take over the United States and make it a Lesbian country. (Or is it Thespian?)

They left out MY secret plot to use blogging to take over the United States and make everyone drink better coffee.

Go read.

Update - I just got an e-mail from Human Events titled, "Obama U.N. Global Tax Scheme Gaining Steam"

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 28, 2008

Republicans Pretending To Govern

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

A good op-ed appeared Saturday in the Boston Globe, America's faux government. The writer discusses how many parts of our federal government seem to no longer be functioning.

They sent everybody home a long time ago, set timers to make the lights go on, and locked the doors. Government is so much more cost efficient if nobody actually does anything.

We read about drugs harming people while drug companies make huge profits -- where was the Food and Drug Administration? We read about the Federal Aviation Administration asking the airlines to inspect themselves, and the airlines having to cancel so many flights because they didn't,

Whoever is still pretending to work there must have made Employee of the Month.

Why is this happening?

So we're now living in a Libertarian country, where the government doesn't actually provide any services except defense. The problem? We're paying taxes as if we live in a social democracy where the government provides all services except defense. They don't need defense because they have found that if you stop teaching history in schools, people forget that you actually need it sometimes.

How can you tell that we are Libertarians now? Because business is not complaining all the time. When the government is actually showing up for work, business groups say that they are being Crushed By Overregulation. Choked by Bureaucracy. I haven't heard a word of that in a long time, but it used to be the anthem of American business. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was on the news every night - truly, every night. When was the last time you heard of OSHA showing up for a surprise inspection?

Please go read the rest.

The column is written partially as humor, but the reality is there. We elected people who hate government to run our government, and look what has happened. They said regulations are bad, inspectors are intrusive and oversight should be "voluntary." The have stopped the regulators and inspectors and overseers from regulating and inspecting and overseeing.

The last several years saw the libertarian dream realized. Government was largely shut down. And what happened? Did this experiment bring "liberty?" Did the working person prosper in an "ownership society?"

No, what happened was what all the reality-based, experienced, practical people said would happen if we implement a libertarian system: the corporations immediately filled the vacuum and began to enrich themselves at the public's expense. And when Katrina came around, people were left on their own.

So what do we learn from this? I think it is important to remember that "the government" is not some "they" that just showed up from nowhere and "tells us what to do." The government is US, you and me and the rest of us, organized together to help each other. And it is up to US to keep an eye on things, for each other. When we listen to smiling hucksters who offer easy answers using nice-sounding words we ought to be extra careful. Tax cuts have brought us mountains of debt. Government cutbacks have brought us bad roads, bad schools and really, really bad disaster relief. And deregulation has brought us a corporate state.

Taxes, services, regulation and oversight have all become bad words. But now that we have performed the libertarian experiment we can see the consequences of this kind of thinking. It turns out that taxes are an investment in our future. It turns out that government services are us taking care of each other. It turns out that regulations keep the marketplace playing field level, which allows to enjoy the benefits of innovating businesses. It turns out that oversight keeps our government honest. And it turns out that conservative disdain for all of these didn't make government better, it made government worse.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:26 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 26, 2008

Republicans Say Troops Not Patriotic

Republicans voted down benefits for veterans, saying if there are benefits, current troops will leave the military. Seriously, that's their argument.

See Senate Guru:: Senate Republicans Call Our Troops Unpatriotic,

As most of us know, twenty-two Senate Republicans voted against Senator Jim Webb's new G.I. Bill. The most frequently cited excuse given by these Republicans for trying to shortchange our brave fighting men and women was that Senator Webb's bill would "hurt retention." In other words, these Senate Republicans suggested that our soldiers would bolt the military if the benefits they were given for putting their lives on the line in service to our country were too generous.

Yes, it's both as disgusting and as illogical as it sounds.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 19, 2008

All You Need To Know about Republican Accusations

When you are deciding whether to listen to a Republican when they talk about Democrats as "appeasers," consider this. Crooks and Liars has the story of Oliver North on Fox News backing up Republican accusations that Democrats are "appeasers."

So who is Oliver North? Oliver North is the guy that Republican President Ronald Reagan sent to provide weapons and missiles to Iran.

Let me repeat that because many people today are either too young or don't remember what happened in the 1980s. Not long after the Iranians stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took several American diplomats hostage for 444 days, Republicans gave them missiles and other weapons. Oliver North, hero of the American Right and Fox News pundit, gave advanced weaponry to Iran.

And now they call Democrats "appeasers."

It's called the Seeing the Forest Rule: When Republicans accuse others of something, it usually means it is something they are doing. (See also.)

Is there anything else you need to know about Republicans?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 17, 2008

Doctoring Audio And Video Clips To Fit The Republican Line

Get ready for a new kind of attack in this year's campaign.

More and more I am hearing about doctored audio and video circulating. For example, on May 9 conservative news outlets were pushing a story that was based on an audio clip that "spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something which he did not."

On May 15 ">CNN edited a video clip of Obama communications director Robert Gibbs to remove from the middle of a paragraph his statement about Bush's Defense Secretary calling for talks with Iran the day before Bush said Obama was an "appeaser" for saying exactly the same thing.

The right and corporate media are becoming more comfortable with this tactic, so check and double-check everything you are hearing to be sure it is true before you let it influence your thinking.

And watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 15, 2008

Bush Authoritarianism Opens HUGE Corporate Security Problem

The Bush administration insists on the right to search and download to keep the contents of any memory device or hard drive taken across a border. That means that the government can now make copies of any laptop hard drive or "thumb drive" crossing the U.S. border.

Travel group warns: Corporate data at risk from laptop searches at border,

Companies need to review their policies to see if such searches will cause privacy problems for them or their customers, she said.

"For example, if you are carrying personnel information on your laptop, there are certain privacy violations that can ensue" if that data is accessed and downloaded as part of a border search, Gurley said. Other kinds of sensitive and proprietary information -- including intellectual property -- can sometimes be exposed via such searches, she said.

Many companies, especially in Europe, are having compliance officers look at the broader implications of such searches and have begun curtailing the kind of information their executives can carry on their laptops when traveling to the U.S, she said.

You can just imagine that big Republican corporate donors will see an opportunity here to get competitive info. "YCorp's patent guy is crossing the border at 11. Get us all the data on his hard drive." And if you and I can imagine it, you can be sure that YCorps' people are thinking about it, too.

So as a result of this every single corporate employee in the world is going to have to clean up everything on every device that might cross an American border. And this kind of cleanup is not easy. It is cumbersome, inconvenient, expensive, and might not be enough. I can foresee policies requiring installing fresh hard drives before any travel. (This includes Canada and Mexico.

All of a sudden corporate cronyism isn't looking so good to all those corporate types.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 14, 2008

Do Republicans Believe In Free Markets?

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

A news story on Monday, McCain urges free-market principles to reduce global warming. Which"free-market principles" does McCain mean?

McCain's major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program on carbon-fuel emissions, like a similar program in the Clean Air Act that was used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that triggered acid rain.

Summary: the government sets a limit on how much CO2 companies will be allowed to emit. The government sets a fee for any emissions above that level. The government allows companies with emissions below that limit to sell "credits" to companies above the limit.

McCain describes this as a "free market" approach.

Conservatives always come up with nice-sounding ways to describe their ideas. They talk about "free markets." "Free" sounds so good. Has a nice ring to it. But is there really such a thing?

In McCain's example every single component of this market is defined, set up and regulated by government. But conservatives always say that government is the enemy of freedom and of markets. Do they not see the contradiction?

In fact, is there a market that is not defined, set up and regulated by government? Would markets even exist if there were no government? First, there is the money that is exchanged in a market. Unless we revert to a pure barter system where goods are exchanged money is entirely a creation of government. And it is entirely regulated by government. Next are the laws that, excuse the word, "govern" the market system. These laws are entirely a creation of government and it is government that enforces them and government that runs the courts that resolve disputes. And yes, these laws are "regulations."

So when conservatives complain about "government" and "regulation" and advocate "free markets" what is it they are really saying? The best way to understand what they want is to look at what they do, not what they say. If we look closely at the results of those times when conservatives gain power we can see that they really seem to mean they will use the power of government to protect the wealthiest people and biggest corporations.

For example, conservatives in government have always defended the big energy companies against threats to use of their products. They oppose mass transit, alternative energy research, even requiring cars to get better gas mileage.

A closer look reveals that what they really stand for is a protection of the status quo, defending the rich and powerful against the rest of us.

Click through to Speak Out California

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 13, 2008

Buy High, Sell Low

Bush insists on buying oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at very, very, very high prices. Congress is trying to stop this.

Question, has there been a pattern of buying at high prices and selling at low prices? An enterprising investigative report might find a story here.

Is this a manipulation of oil prices, to the benefit of funders of the right and the anti-Gore global warming denial industry?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:47 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 8, 2008

ANOTHER McCain Preacher Problem

See for yourself:

So when do you think the corporate media will start running these scary preacher tapes over and over?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 6, 2008

Teacher Performs Magic Trick, Gets Fired For "Wizardry"

Here we go... A Florida teacher performed a "disappearing toothpick trick" and a parent complained. The teacher was fired for "wizardry."

Substitute Teacher Says Wizardry Accusation Cost Him Job

She told Piculas there had been a complaint about his performance at Rushe Middle School in Land O' Lakes.

He asked what she meant.

"She said, 'You've been accused of wizardry,' " Piculas said.

He said the statement seemed bizarre to him, like something out of Harry Potter.

Piculas said he replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

He said he also told Sinclair, "It's not black magic. It's a toothpick."

Better not have a license plate with '666' on it in Florida!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Elderly Indiana Nuns Can't Vote - Nuns Don't Have ID

Even though there has never been a case of voter fraud in Indiana the Republican Supreme Court upheld an Indiana voter-suppression law forbidding the elderly, poor and minorities from voting because they have trouble obtaining ID. (These groups tend to vote Democratic.)

It was estimated that this law would prevent approx. 43,000 people from voting. Here is an example of the law's effect: Indiana nuns lacking ID denied at poll,

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place ... because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

. . . The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one [ID] but came to the precinct anyway.

. . . Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.

They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."

So these were just 12 of the 43,000 who will not be allowed to vote now.

See Digby, too.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 29, 2008

Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law

Please read Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law | Center for Media and Democracy.

Note that "Pentagon" means the Republican Party appointees in the administration who run the Department of Defense, which resides in the Pentagon.

The Pentagon was conducting "information operations" targeting the American public. This program was blatantly illegal.

Note that almost NO news outlets involved are reporting on this story at all. What does that tell you?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 25, 2008

Pentagon Propaganda Story

Did Anyone see John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy on the Newhour yesterday? PBS was the first outlet to even mention the New York Times story about the government waging a huge propaganda campaign to sell the war to the public. All the networks, the Pentagon and everyone else involved refused to take part in the segment.

Here is an article by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Pentagon Propaganda: So Much Worse Than We Thought,

Thanks to the two-year investigation by the New York Times, we today know that Victoria Clarke, then the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, launched the Pentagon military analyst program in early 2002. These supposedly independent military analysts were in fact a coordinated team of pro-war propagandists, personally recruited by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and acting under Clarke's tutelage and development.

[. . .] Since the 1920s there have been laws passed to stop the government from doing what Barstow has exposed. It is actually illegal in the United States for the government to propagandize its own citizens. As Barstow's report demonstrates, these laws have been repeatedly violated, are not enforced and are clearly inadequate. The U.S. Congress therefore needs to investigate this and the rest of the Bush propaganda campaign that sold the war in Iraq. (Emphasis added)

Ari Melber: PBS Breaks Media Blackout of Pentagon Propaganda Bombshell - Media on The Huffington Post,J

ohn Stauber, coauthor of "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq," contended that the Pentagon's "surrogate" program violated federal law against domestic propaganda and called for a congressional investigation. "This war could have never been sold if it were not for this sophisticated propaganda campaign," he said.

Other news outlets are ignoring this huge story.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Flag Pins And Hypocrisy

I was thinking about the "flag pin" question, and went and looked at the video. Sure enough, the woman accusing Obama of being unpatriotic for not wearing a flag pin ... wait for it ... isn't wearing a flag pin. The smarmy anchorman implying Obama isn't patriotic for not wearing a flag pin ... guess what ... isn't wearing a flag pin.

And, of course, if you go to Google Images and look for pics of John McCain, none of them show him wearing a flag pin. Of course, that means that Google in unpatriotic.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:50 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 24, 2008

Strongly-Worded Statement

A Senate committee issued a strongly-worded statement to Sen. Domenici for his involvement in the US Attorney scandal.

With that out of the way, the US Attorneys who didn't get fired (because they were willing to play along with Republican corruption and politicization) will now start indicting Senate Democrats in time for the election. And the Democrats will again issue strongly-worded statement. From prison. Because they just don't seem to know better than to bring strongly-worded statements to a machine-gun fight.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 19, 2008

Found Bound and Gagged In Lake - Declared A Suicide

A Texas man ran a charity for Palestinian children that the FBI was "investigating." So he's found dead in a lake, bound and gagged, and police declare it a "suicide." Go read: Informed Comment: Palestinian Children

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 31, 2008

80-Year-Old Church Deacon Arrested For Anti-War T-Shirt

This is the new America.

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall,

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as "graphic anti-war images." Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words "Dead" and "Enough." The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 24, 2008

Moon And The Republicans

Please watch this video about the Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his organization's political influence with the Republicans. This is an important story. Moon, for example, owns the Washington Times. Front groups set up by his organization have been receiving millions of tax dollars from the Bush Administration.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

And definitely get the new book on Moon, Bad Moon Rising, by John Gorenfeld

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 12, 2008

Bush Vows To Keep Airwaves One-Sided

At a convention of religious broadcasters Bush today vowed to keep progressive viewpoints off the nations airwaves. At issue is the Fairness Doctrine, which requires broadcasters using public airwaves to present different sides of issues. The doctrine was originally put in place because of concerns that wealthy corporate interests would buy up all the stations and use the power of mass broadcasting to dominate public discussion. The fear was that the corporations would then push public attitudes in the direction of their own interests.

And, of course, this is exactly what has happened. When was the last time you heard on the radio or TV about the benefits of forming a union?

Bush: ‘Fairness Doctrine’ unfair,

In Nashville today, during a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, President Bush said there’s nothing fair about the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” that once required broadcasters to offer air time for competing ideologies.

We, the People stiff have a few rights, and a bit of power. If you don't speak out about this, we will lose the last little bit of opportunity to present alternative ideas.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 11, 2008

Spitzer

People do idiotic things. Not too long ago Republican Senator David Vitter turned up on a list of prostitution customers. How did the Justice Department respond? Well, it didn't. It helped keep his name secret. And good for them for doing that.

But this time it was a Democratic Governor who has been going after securities fraud cases. And the Republican Justice Department responded very differently. First of all, there are questions about how they found out about this at all -- questions that bring the letters FISA to my mind. Next, they organized a major prosecution of the Governor. Then, they gave his name to the press. Then they included details of wiretapped conversations intended to drive a press frenzy.

There is no question that this is another political prosecution. The Justice Department would not have gone full-steam into this if it were a Republican, and if it were not a Democratic Governor. A federal task force because a guy was seeing a prostitute?

Firedoglake has Some Questions About the Spitzer Incident. Please go read.

I have warned that political prosecutions are going to accelerate as election-time approaches. Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 8, 2008

Bush Vetoes Torture Ban

The President of the United States - YOUR United States - today vetoed a bill banning torture.

Bush Announces Veto of Waterboarding Ban,

President Bush said Saturday that he has vetoed legislation meant to ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics because it "would take away one of the most valuable tools on the war on terror."

Congress can not override the veto because most of the Republicans voted against the ban, and continue to support torture.

It is time to be in the streets.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 7, 2008

New McCain Ad

So McCain has the nomination and the professionals are starting to shape his image. Here is a new McCain ad that is chock full of manipulative psychological gimmicks, code words, and the beginning of the narrative development for the campaign. How many things can you spot? What is the campaign going to be about? What is the overarching story?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 22, 2008

It Is Important To Understand This

The Bush Justice Department politicization case is about the corruption of our government to work in support of one political party.

They used our government to reward their friends, including financially, and to punish their enemies. And their enemies were Americans like you and me. In one case they were able to put a Governor in jail for being a Democrat. If you don't believe me, 52 former states’ attorneys general from both political parties are making the same case.

Kagro X writes about this over at Daily Kos. Every American should read his post: Daily Kos: If it can happen to a Governor...,

Nobody indicted by the Bush-Cheney DOJ can possibly help but wonder whether they're being targeted by the White House political machine. Not Don Siegelman. Not Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio. Nobody.

And once America realizes this really can happen (it's previously been unimaginable, and therefore all too easy to dismiss as "conspiracy theory"), you can bet your last dollar that any Republican indicted by a Democratic administration will be making that claim, too.

We've already watched in horror and amazement as Bush-Cheney, flouting the law left and right, painted the Congress into the "impeachment is off the table" corner for fear (among other things) of being tarred with the "revenge for Clinton" and "tit for tat" brushes. One hardly need stretch the imagination to foresee precisely this hurdle being thrown up in the path of a Democratic administration elected with a mandate to clean out the Republican Culture of Corruption.

If it could happen to a Governor it could happen to anybody -- including you.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 13, 2008

Further And Further Towards Police State

People take their queues from the top. A torture-accepting mentality trickles down. Over time America becomes more ruthless, less humane and people get used to it. It happens in little ways that add up. But add up they do...

Pam's House Blend:: The police state continues: quadriplegic dumped from wheelchair. Just go see for yourself.

And then go read This is your police state - woman violently strip searched and The Blend TASER brutality files

Pam is sounding a warning, and she's right.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 10, 2008

Driving A Wedge

The Drudge Report is a right-wing site that is used to drive right-wing propaganda into the large, corporate media outlets. When a story is featured at the Drudge Report, you always have to ask why, and ask what is the right's intent behind getting this story into circulation.

Today Drudge points us to a story, Wilder Still Sore Over Clinton Comment. This story is obviously an effort to drive a wedge between supporters of Senators Obama and Clinton. It uses out-of-context, incomplete quotes and mischaracterizes the intent and meaning of the quotes to drive up tensions.

The nation's first elected black governor said Saturday he is not ready to excuse comments former President Bill Clinton made about Barack Obama.

In campaigning for his wife last month on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Clinton called Obama's opposition to the Iraq war "a fairy tale." Clinton suggested Obama had toned down his early anti-war fervor during his 2004 Senate campaign.

. . . Clinton also implied that an Obama victory in South Carolina would amount to a reward based on race, like the Rev. Jesse Jackson's 20 years earlier.

Wilder said the former president's comments stung him and other black voters and diminished their respect for Clinton.

"It's not just me (who) feels that; any number of people feel that," Wilder said. "A time comes and a time goes. The president has had his time."

This is propaganda at its best.

Readers know that I do not favor one candidate over the other. I think they are both great candidates who would make excellent Presidents, but neither offers the transformational, progressive change I believe would most benefit the country and world. I defend BOTH of them from attacks -- and wish they would defend each other and us from attacks.

This is an attack. It is an obvious attempt to split the Democratic Party and its supporters, going into the elections. Duh!

Are you going to let them play you like a fiddle? Keep in mind who the enemy is here. The stakes are high: If we let the primary contest divide us how many hundred thousand Iraqis or Iranians will be killed before the 2012 elections, how much more will corporations take over our democracy, how much more concentration of wealth at the top will we see? Please do not be fooled by this stuff! If it appears at DRUDGE, you KNOW something is going on.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 6, 2008

Republicans Filibuster Stimulus Package - Because It Gives Unemployment, Senior & Disabled Veteran Beneits!

The Republicans blocked the stimulus package from passing because it contained unemployment benefits, a small payment to seniors and some money for disabled veterans.

John McCain didn't show up to vote on this.

Republicans block Senate plan to boost economy,

Senate Republicans on Wednesday narrowly blocked a Democratic-backed economic stimulus plan valued at about $157 billion that would have provided benefits for the long-term unemployed and expanded proposed tax rebates to include retirees and disabled veterans.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 26, 2008

What Does Corporate Control Of Media Mean?

Think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

Almost all of the outlets for news and information in the United States are now owned by five corporations. From The New Media Monopoly,

When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five.

Think about that. Five corporations control almost everything that most people in the country "know."

Again, think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

So, do you think these five corporations are using this near-total control of information for their own benefit, or not?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 25, 2008

Another Anti-Government Propaganda E-Mail

I received one of those anti-government propaganda e-mails today. Look how they do it. It's a really funny story, until they inject the propaganda point as the last line:

The Firewood Story

It was already late fall & the Indians on a remote reservation in South Dakota asked their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold & that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared. But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea.

He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service & asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?' 'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the chief went back to his people & told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?' 'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going to be a very cold winter.'

The chief again went back to his people & ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find. Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold' 'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more & more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'

'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked. The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.' Always remember this story whenever you get advice from a government official!

As if a corporate weather source would somehow be different. The government is US, and stories like this carry a profoundly anti-democracy message, intended to make people think that somehow privatizing government functions to corporations would be better for us.

But a corporate information source would be about screwing the customers and the employees and the public so the CEO could get a bigger jet. No one except a very few already-wealthy power brokers benefit when we hand over our common interests - even weather reporting - to corporations as they are presently constituted.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:14 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 23, 2008

Republican Senator Get Navy Veteran Fired For Opposing War

Please read this DKos diary: Daily Kos: Must Read: McConnell Ignores Navy Veteran, Then Gets Her Fired

If they can get away with denying jobs to people who oppose the Iraq war, people will be afraid to speak out.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 6, 2008

Impeach!

Every American should read Why I Believe Bush Must Go byGeorge McGovern in today's Washington Post.

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December 31, 2007

On Corporate Power

"The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power."
- - Franklin D.Roosevelt

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."
- - Benito Mussolini

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The Unity Party - Meet In The Middle?

Chris at Open Left talks about the "need" for a "middle" party of Unity"

. . . over the last five years, Democrats in Congress have only blocked the following pieces of legislation:

* Three conservative judges (out of several dozen)
* Privatization of Social Security
* Retroactive immunity for telecom companies in the warrantless spying program.
* Legislation to deport millions of illegal aliens
Given that these are the only conservative pieces of legislation that Democrats in Congress have blocked in the past five years, one must assume that a "government of national unity" means a government that will confirmation 100% of all conservative judges, the destruction of social security, retroactive immunity of telecom companies, and the mass deportation of twelve million people. If this third-party did not favor these things, then there would be absolutely no need to form "a government of national unity." Those four things are the sum total of what Democrats in Congress have prevented Republicans from passing, and thus are the entirety of what Democrats have contributed to "gridlock in Washington." Every other reform has been blocked by Republicans.

Go read.

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December 29, 2007

Shock Economics - Arm Yourself With Information

After a traumatic event people are in shock. And that is when the capitalists push through a series of radical changes to the system, all in their favor, before citizens get a chance to catch their breath, understand what is happening to them, and fight back. For example, since 9/11 how many things have changed here in favor of the big corporations and against the citizens? (The Department of Homeland Security prohibited unions and outsourced all those government workers. The war in Iraq. The Constitution no longer means anything. Oil company profits are beyond belief, etc...)

Watch this short film about Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism:

This short film concludes that the best defense is to arm yourself with information. To that end I strongly, strongly recommend that you watch the four-part series The Century of the Self.

Here is episode one, but it is so much better to go to the Google Video site and see it in higher resolution.

Go see Episode two
Episode three
Episode four

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December 26, 2007

Iowa Political Prosecution?

Bleeding Heartland:: Register columnists question McCoy prosecution

As you recall, a federal jury recently acquitted Matt McCoy after deliberating for less than two hours--an embarrassing outcome for the prosecution.

Marc Hansen, who for my money is the best columnist at the Des Moines Register, wrote a good column about speculation that politics influenced McCoy's prosecution. Key passage:

Most Democrats you talk to around here say politics was behind the prosecution of state Sen. Matt McCoy.

They have their reasons. Some even sound legitimate, especially in light of a recent University of Minnesota study that brings hard numbers to the discussion.

For every elected Republican the Justice Department has investigated during the George W. Bush years, seven elected Democrats have been investigated, the research says.

Can that be right? Are there really that many more bad-apple Democrats?

The jury took about an hour and a half last week to decide that McCoy wasn't guilty of attempted extortion. And that includes lunch.

Go read the rest

I think we are going to see LOTS of news stories about Democratis "investgated" by the Justice Department before the 2008 elections. Those prosecutors are still there - the ones who wouldn't play ball and investigate Democrats are drop investigations of Republicans have been sacked.

And the Senate has issued strongly-worded statements - but done little else.

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December 19, 2007

Conservative Minority Rules by Filibuster

They aren't "about" governing, they're about getting their way. They're about handing over the people's funds and resources to a few rich corporate paymasters.

Unprecedented. Without precedent. Never before. All records broken. Every.Single. Piece. Of. Legislation. Blocked. Obstructed. No cooperation. Party-line votes. Record-breaking use of the filibuster for every bill.

Go read about it at Campaign for America's Future :: RECORD-BREAKING: SENATE CONSERVATIVES,

The Republican Senate minority today filibustered an omnibus budget bill, setting a modern-day record for blocking the most legislation during a congressional session. A new report released today by the Campaign for America's Future details the 62 times conservatives have used the filibuster to block legislation (or force modification of bills) in the first session of the 110th Congress. In just the first year of this two-year Congress, their use of the filibuster in the Senate topped the previous record, reached during the entire 107th Congress.

The new report outlines every bill filibustered, vetoed or threatened to be vetoed by President Bush. Conservatives filibustered bills to end the occupation of Iraq, provide soldiers in Iraq rest time equal to their deployments, support renewable energy and grant residents of the District of Columbia representation in Congress. Today's record-breaker involved a $516 billion budget package passed by the House to fund the federal government in 2008. The conservative minority demanded $20 billion additional funding for the war and opposed House language to bring troops home, and threatened a filibuster to prevent the bill from getting an up or down vote.

And just WHAT is being obstructed?

What have conservatives obstructed this year? Here's just a partial list:

-- Ending the disastrous occupation of Iraq.

-- Providing health insurance to millions more kids.

-- Empowering Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.

-- Taking away handouts to Big Oil so we can invest in renewable energy.

-- Repealing the effective ban on embryonic stem cell research.

-- Investing more in health research.

-- Making it easier for workers to join unions.

-- Investing more in fighting poverty and training workers.

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December 18, 2007

Even MORE Media Concentration Coming!

Do you think the media is corporate-controlled, and offers only one viewpoint? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.

FCC to vote on media ownership,

Despite intense political pressure, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to approve a proposal Tuesday that will allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper — overturning a 32-year-old ban.

Republican Chairman Kevin Martin says his plan is a "relatively minor loosening" of the rule, but it has received a considerable amount of opposition.

On Monday, 25 senators, including four Republicans, sent him a letter threatening that if he goes ahead with the vote, they will move legislation to revoke the rule and nullify the commission's action.

Hmm ... this would be in place just in time for the next election. I wonder which party these corporate-controlled news outlets will be pushing? Hmm...

Update - It's done. FCC Votes To Relax Cross-Media Ownership Rule,

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to loosen media ownership restrictions in the 20 biggest U.S. cities, despite objections from consumer groups and a threat by some U.S. senators to revoke the action.

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December 16, 2007

Setting the Agenda

Cobalt6:: Who sets the Agenda?

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December 6, 2007

Corporate Media Working To Further Conservative Agenda

When are progressives going to stop being all shocked and surprised that the corporate media are working hand-in-hand with conservatives to further the conservative/corporate agenda? Face it, people, it's just the way it is. Times have changed. Stop being so chocked and awed by it.

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November 23, 2007

The Bush Secrecy List

A list of all the way s the Republicans are keeping the public from knowing what their own government is doing:

TPMmuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Bush Admin: What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Us, 2007 Version,

Last year, we launched the insanely ambitious project of recording every significant instance of this administration stifling government information. As we said then, "they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps." To be sure, the list will continue to grow through January, 2008.

My wife likes to say, whenever I point out the things the Republicans are doing - So what? Who is going to do anything about it?

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November 20, 2007

Dodd Demands New Atty General Investigate White House Cover Up

Dodd Calls on Mukasey to Investigate McClellan Charges of White House Cover Up | Chris Dodd for President,

Chris Dodd today released the following statement in response to the claims of former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan that he "unknowingly passed along false information" to the American public and that "the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in [his] doing so," including the Vice-President and the President:

"Today's revelations by Mr. McClellan are very disturbing and raise several important questions that need to be answered. If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust.

"During his confirmation process, Attorney General Mukasey said he would act independently. Accordingly, today, I call on the Attorney General to live up to his word and launch an immediate investigation to determine the facts of this case, the extent of any cover up and determine what the President knew and when he knew it."

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November 11, 2007

Now Comcast Censoring Stations

Here's another possible reason TV networks won't put progressives on the air - the big media carriers will drop them. In Portland Oregon Comcast Decreases Customers' Access to MSNBC - the week they announce they might start adding progressives, due to the ratings sucess of Olbermann.

Remember, Clear Channel refuses to allow their stations to play Dixie Chicks or Springsteen.

These are not business/profit-based decisions - unless you realize that the huge corporations that are doing this make more money from right-wing government decisions than from the business activities. So the "business" decision here is to work to get right-wing government in office.

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November 1, 2007

Bush Demands Gas Rationing, Draft, Tax Increases For War!

President Bush today called for gas rationing, a draft and tax increases to fight the greatest threat the country has ever faced.

Bush to Democrats: 'We are at war'

President Bush compared Congress' Democratic leaders Thursday with people who ignored the rise of Lenin and Hitler early in the last century, saying "the world paid a terrible price" then and risks similar consequences for inaction today.

... "Unfortunately, on too many issues, some in Congress are behaving as if America is not at war," Bush said during a speech at the Heritage Foundation.

... Bush said denial that "we are at war" is dangerous. "History teaches us that underestimating the words of evil, ambitious men is a terrible mistake," Bush said. "Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. And the question is, will we listen?"

What? I'm sorry? You're saying he was asking for the right to wiretap without warrants, and nothing else?

Oh ... never mind.

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October 30, 2007

Clear Channel Stations WOn't Play Sprinsteen Because Not Conservative

What happens when you let a few big corproations control all the media outlets?

DownWithTyranny! CLEAR CHANNEL, REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA NETWORK, OUT TO KILL SPRINGSTEEN'S MAGIC?,

Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, isn't interested. Is it because Springsteen has been an outspoken campaigner for Democrats and progressives? Clear Channel has taken a political stand with its programming in the past. Just think back to their boycott of the Dixie Chicks. Oh, no... not way back, just back to when they released their most recent album. Despite being one of the top 10 best-selling American albums of the year-- across all genres and demographics-- radio studiously ignored it. There were maybe half a dozen country stations that even played it at all. What Clear Channel did to the Dixie Chicks is a watertight case for the need to break the media companies up into a thousand pieces. (John Sununu disagrees; he's pro-censorship.) I spoke with an old friend who heads a record company and preferred to speak off the record.

"When you have artists like the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen who have overtly spoken out against this Administration, they are taken to task in spite the clear and undeniable indications from the marketplace that people want to hear their music. What seems to be happening-- if sales are any kind of a barometer of what the marketplace is-- is that these politically-connected radio networks like Clear Channel are not looking to succeed as radio stations as much as pushing forward some political agenda.

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October 21, 2007

War Profiteering and Corruption -- Here Is Something You Can Do

Frank Rich's column today, Suicide Is Not Painless, talks about the systematic corruption of defense contracting, especially where Iraq is involved.

Here's the thing. You and I read the blogs, so we already know at least something about what is going on. You and I know about, for example, the truckloads of cash that were shipped to Iraq to be handed out in bricks. We know about the $9 billion that just disappeared. But most people in the country are not exposed to the information that blog readers take for granted, haven't heard about it, and would have a hard time believing that anything like this is going on. I'm serious. But remember, a huge chunk of the population still thinks that Iraq attacked us on 9/11 - or was at least involved - and there's a big chunk that believes that weapons of mass destruction were found.

There is something we can all do to help. Today's column about the corruption should be sent around by e-mail to people who don't usually read blogs.

Please help with this by e-mailing it to people. People need to know about the corruption and fraud that our huge "defense" budget is generating. If more people understood what is going on, there would be less vulnerability to Republican propaganda that says cutting military budgets - or even having hearings looking into the corruption - is unpatriotic. That kind of talk is nothing but a game to keep the corruption going, but it will keep working unless more people learn about what is going on and where their money is going.

The Abramoff corruption machine was modeled after the defense-contractor scheme, but was tiny and amateurish in comparison. (For example, the Abramoff operation didn't actually buy entire media companies as a way to help keep people from learning about the racket, as defense contractors have done.)

Please read Frank Rich's column today, and please, please send it to friends and relatives who might not otherwise see what is going on. And ask them to send it on to others!

Please read it, and e-mail it to others. Then, after you have done that, read Billions over Baghdad, another story about the massive corruption.

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October 14, 2007

The Wiretapping Started BEFORE 9/11

Pre-9/11 wiretap bid is alleged,

Nacchio's account, which places the NSA proposal at a meeting on Feb. 27, 2001, suggests that the Bush administration was seeking to enlist telecommunications firms in programs without court oversight before the terrorist attacks.

The implications of this need some time to sink in. Bush started the wiretapping before 9/11. Bush took office on January 20, 2001, and by February 27 the NSA was putting the screws on the phone companies to let them listen in on our calls and e-mails. That means the plan was developed during the transition and immediately upon taking office they started implementing it. It was one of the first things they did - setting up a system to collect information about our calls and e-mails. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.

Like I said, the implications of this need some time to sink in.

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October 5, 2007

Hillary Letter Of Support For A Moonie Group?

Rick Perlstein in Reporters: man your engines,

Rev. Sun Myung Moon is claiming a "letter of support" from Hillary Clinton. I sure hope he's lying.

Does anyone know more about this?

Go read Rick's piece.

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September 14, 2007

UC - Criticize Bush, Lose Your Job

Erwin Chemerinsky, a noted legal scholar, was offered a job as dean of the new University of California at Irvine law school. Then he wrote an op-ed criticizing the Bush administration - Alberto Gonzales in particular - so the university withdrew the job offer.

Scholars Decry Law School's About-Face on New Dean,

According to Chemerinsky, the UC-Irvine chancellor told him on Tuesday that he "knew I was liberal but didn't know how controversial I would be." The chancellor also said "some conservative opposition was developing," and the University of California regents would have "a bloody fight" over approving him, Chemerinsky said.

The intimidation continues unabated.

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September 11, 2007

THIS Week's Rabid-Anti-Gay-Republicans-Exposed-As-Actually-Gay Scandal

No NOT Sen. Craig. That one is so last week...

Pam's House Blend:: Untangling the latest GOP gay scandal

... the convoluted latest, woefully under-reported GOP scandal -- the bizarre murder-suicide in Florida of a Republican consultant and two of his "friends".
* the bodies of Republican political consultant Ralph Gonzalez, 39, president of The Strategum Group, his roommate David Abrami and "a friend," Jason Robert Drake, were found in an Orlando apartment.
... * BradBlog has shown the ties between Gonzalez and Florida's vote-tampering congressman, Tom Feeney.
...* Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry has ties to Gonzalez and Drake, the latter was determined to be the shooter in the murder-suicide.
... * McHenry's apparently a good friend of the former National Young Republican Chairman, Glenn Murphy. Yes, that Glenn Murphy -- the one arrested for sexually assaulting a sleeping man, performing oral sex on him...
... And if you thought that was all that was dogging Patrick McHenry, take a look at the latest bit of business passed on today -- at least $182,000 of McHenry's 2004 campaign funds ($923,975) came from an organization donating under fraudulent circumstances. That's almost 20% of McHenry's campaign war chest. Who is behind that? It just keeps on coming, folks.

Go read, there's much more and you can click through the links.

(Note, the first comment is great:

I've been following politics and political scandals for more than 30 years and never have I witnessed ONE story with so much graft, corruption, sex, and murder. This one truly has it all with the possible exception of loose women, or any women at all. ,,,

And there is more over at Down With Tyranny, WHO'LL BE THE NEXT REPUBLICAN HYPOCRITE TO BE DRAGGED OUT OF THE CLOSET SCREAMING ABOUT MEDIA WITCH HUNTS?,

... The murdered gay Republicans include Ralph Reed's purported ex-lover, Ralph Gonzalez (former head of the rabidly homophobic Georgia Republican Party), David Abrami and McHenry guy-pal Robert Drake, the shooter.

... More sordid GOP details are available. Meanwhile there are jailed Republicans, dead Republicans, outed Republicans... And McHenry's office... well, the press secretary is on vacation so they have no comment.

There is much more there as well so go read.

Sheesh.

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September 9, 2007

All You Need To Know About Petraeus' Report

Featured today at the Drudge Report this morning:

Following their testimony to Congress, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will appear exclusively on FOX News Channel on Monday at 9pm EDT for a one hour live interview with Brit Hume... Developing...

That's really all you need to know about Petraeus and his report, don't you think? Drudge Report and Fox. Yup.

Will they also give an exclusive interview to Rush Limbaugh this week?

Update - Now the right is trying to change the narrative, claiming that MoveOn.org is calling Petraeus a traitor.

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September 1, 2007

How People's Thinking Changed

This is a great post on how people's attitudes were shaped in the last few decades. Daily Kos: My neighbor, John

Read down the comments, as well, they're a good part of understanding the thinking.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 31, 2007

A Propagandized Military Is A Danger to Democracy

There is an important story out today, Lawmakers Describe 'Being Slimed in the Green Zone', about how troops in Iraq are provided with propaganda denouncing Democratic lawmakers who visit Iraq.

Talking Points Memo Disgusted but really only gets part of what it means

.It's all par for the course for this administration, how they've politicized every branch of the government and every agency, eroding democratic institutions in American while they pretended to build them in Iraq. In fact, from the start the White House tried to stock the Green Zone and the US occupation authority with GOP operatives.

Here is why this is important. Combine this propaganda effort with past practices like Armed Forces Radio pushing Rush Limbaugh while refusing to offer other points of view (this has changed due to pressure from Democratic lawmakers) and the history of government-paid propaganda promoting the Republican Party viewpoint, and this represents a danger to democracy. It is a very bad idea to have a propagandized military supporting one party.

Demonstrating The Party's politicization-of-troops efforts, Bushist Don Surber writes,

Moran and Tauscher are part of a clique of Democratic politicians who want us to lose in Iraq so they can gain on Republicans.

Is this what the troops are being told? Bushist-blog Wizbang shows what the propaganda is intended to make the troops think,

Do these antiwar Congressmen think the troops don't know who supports them and who does not?

To really get the feel of what the right is advocating, read the comments at these sites.

Update - Think Progress is now censored - troops can not visit their website since they allowed Ret. Maj. Gen. John Batiste to guest-blog in opposition to Bush's policies.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 26, 2007

The War On Terror

The country is at war on terror. Why? Because terrorists can kill us.

Cigarettes kill about 400,000 Americans a year. Cars kill about 44,000 Americans each year. Guns kill about 30,000 Americans each year. And then there are the deaths from diseases related to obesity caused by processed and fat-laden foods, deaths from various causes stemming from lack of health insurance... Do I need to go on? These are all examples of Americans killed while big corporations keep us from bringing them under control.

I think the war on terror might just be about distracting us from the things that really CAN kill us.

Who is our economy FOR, anyway?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 13, 2007

Rove Resigning - Updated

Karl "Party over Country" Rove is resigning "to spend more time with his family."

Karl Rove did more to divide America than anyone since Newt Gingrich. (See Language: A Key Mechanism of Control)

Just one example, after 9/11 Rove engineered the creation of the Homeland Security Department, which was entirely a "wedge" device for use in the 2002 elections. The core of the concept was to get rid of government employee unions. The idea was to force the Democrats to either vote against unions or pound them as "unpatriotic." And then, to pound them as unpatriotic anyway.

Updates:

Simon Rosenberg, How Rove will be remembered,

Karl Rove was the "architect" of one of the worst governments in American history, and the one who engineered the end of modern conservatism, one of the most successful ideological movements of recent times.

Brilliant yes. Bold, without a doubt. A compete and utter failure who left his country and his movement weaker than the found it? Yep.

Eventually, perhaps, disgraced.

Shakesville,

How typical of him to slink off out of the bunker and leave the mess for someone else to clean up.

FDL,

All Karl ever wanted was to be left alone to work in secret to destroy America’s political landscape, and not be held accountable.

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August 1, 2007

US Attorney Put On Firing List For Refusing To Aid Corruption

Apparently the US Attorney firings were not JUST about political prosecutions. At least one was fired because he wouldn't play ball with the corruption machine.

Talking Points Memo | Rotten to the Core has this from the Washington Post,

The night before the government secured a guilty plea from the manufacturer of the addictive painkiller OxyContin, a senior Justice Department official called the U.S. attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down, the prosecutor told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday.

John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney in Roanoke, testified that he was at home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received the call on his cellphone from Michael J. Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine U.S. attorneys last year.

Brownlee settled the case anyway. Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired.

With this in mind, look back at a few other examples of the Justice Department's handling of big-money corporate cases. Remember when the Bush Justice Department let Microsoft off the hook after the Clinton Justice Department had already won the case? And how about when the Bush Justice Department let the tobacco companies off the hook on payment for killing millions?

How many similar cases can you recall? These cases were worth billions of dollars to the companies involved. How much money changed hands? There are some nice, fat Swiss bank accounts out there.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 31, 2007

Justice Dept. Corruption: Stevens Tipped Before Search

You may have heard that the FBI searched Republican Senator Stevens' house yesterday.Senator Stevens. But you may not have heard that the Republican Justice Department gave him a warning and time to clear out any evidence.

Is That Legal?: Justice Department Tips Off Senator Stevens Before Searching His Home!,

Stevens said in a statement that his attorneys were advised of the impending search yesterday morning.

I spent nearly 9 years as a federal prosecutor. I'm not aware of a single instance when any prosecutor or agent told anyone outside the Justice Department that a search warrant was going to be executed later in the day.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Impeachment Question

I think on principle impeachment is important. We have never seen lawlessness and defiance of the Constitution like this. It is important to make the statement that leaders cannot do this,

But a question: What happens if the House impeaches and enough Republicans in the Senate block conviction. Wouldn't that mean that Bush is excused and is free to continue on as he pleases? Does it set a very dangerous precedent?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 24, 2007

What The Public 'Knows' - Politicization Of Government

Do you remember that Al Gore was accused of improperly making a fundraising call from a government office, and of improper fundraising when he visited a Buddhist temple? The right's machine was able to turn these insignificant events into major, major scandal stories that are still repeated to this day. A Google search yields more than half a million websites that mention these. They even tried to get another special prosecutor just for this, claiming that the Clinton Justice Department would cover up Gore's crimes. (Remember, lack of evidence of ANY Clinton or Gore wrongdoing was proof of a massive coverup conspiracy.)

The Republicans even made an accusation that Clinton used his Christmas card list for political purposes into a major story, with a Congressional investigation and days of hearings. They even made a huge scandal out of an accusation that the Clinton White Hose "tracked donors."

As a result much of the public to this day thinks that the Clinton White House improperly used the government to help them raise funds.

Compare and contrast - does thie public "know" about the Bush corruption of the entire government for political purposes? Is is getting the same coverage in the media? Political Briefings At Agencies Disclosed,

White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday.

The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said.

This is not about fundraising, this is about use of the power of the government itself to promote the interests of a political party.

And today, not just the Bush Justice Department and the General Services Administration, also the State Department,

Karl Rove ... instructed his White House deputies to repeatedly brief State Department officials and U.S. ambassadors in key foreign missions about GOP electoral priorities.

[. . .] raises the question of how U.S. foreign policy, and specific binational relationships, is unfolding right now to serve a partisan agenda rather than the national interest.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:38 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 16, 2007

The First Problem in Iraq is BUSH

People say we should not impeach Bush because it will divert us from getting out of Iraq. I think that approach has things backwards. I think we can’t deal with the problems of Iraq until we deal with getting Bush out. With Bush in charge we can't have a rational debate about the best options for Iraq.

1) I believe that it’s wrong to just pull our forces out of Iraq. We invaded, we destabilized and we destroyed the existing institutions of order. We created the mess there. We created the civil war. We created the threat of regional conflict. So I think it is America's legal and moral responsibility to provide security for the people of Iraq. And that's also what international law says. Of course, providing security for the people of Iraq is not going to happen with Bush in office.

(Someone told me this idea is like being raped and then getting a ride to the hospital from the rapist. I can understand the sentiment, but the U.S. is not a person and Iraq is not a person. We and they are a bunch of people all with their own differing needs and interests. Countries have to deal with where things are on a given day, before they deal with where things were on a previous day. In other words, Bush did what he did -- but where do we go from here that is best for us and best for them NOW?)

2) It is wrong to blame the Iraqis for what we have done and it would be wrong to abandon them to the mess we made. But the way our forces are being used by Bush just makes things worse. This must change but it will not change with Bush in charge of policy decisions.

3) Suppose we do vote to withdraw with Bush in office? How do you think a Bush administration will execute that withdrawal? Will they do it in a way that makes things better -- or much worse? And will they just refuse, necessitating the impeachment I say has to happen first? In other words, we can't deal with Iraq until we deal with Bush.

4) There is also a national security component. The current situation in Iraq really is making us less safe here. Leaving might only make that worse. This needs to be debated rationally - impossible with Bush in office spouting his focus-group-tested bullshit, designed to put up a smokescreen and distract us from reality.

5) Bush's propaganda is causing us to doubt terror warnings that may be real. What if our intelligence agencies discovered that al Queda really is getting ready to use a nuke on an American city, for example? We simply can not trust our government right now to tell us the truth. The threat of a terrorist attack is too serious to allow this incompetent, lying gang of criminals to remain in office even one day longer than it takes to get them out.

6) Similarly, Bush's lies about Iraq have forced us to doubt the claims about threats presented by Iran. But Iran is not Iraq, and their theocratic rulers are not our friends. We need to be able to trust what is being said to us and we can't with ush in office.

So I think that the right path lies in a different direction from working to get the troops out. Options beyond the simplistic choice of doing what we are doing now or just leaving need to be discussed. But we are not going to be able to do what is right until we change the national leadership here. We are not even going to be able to properly debate the issues.

Finding the answers to the problems of Iraq begins with solving the problem of Bush.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:16 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 6, 2007

Court Dismisses NSA Lawsuit

An appeals court dismissed the ACLU lawsuit to stop illegal NSA spying on Americans - writing that even though the spying is illegal they can't sue because:

1) They can't prove they are being spied on personally, and
2) They aren't allowed to find out if they are being spied on.

Court orders dismissal of U.S. wiretapping lawsuit,

The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs could not sue because they can't prove they were affected by the program, and at the same time, ruled that details about the program, including who was targeted, are state secrets.

But according to a Reuters report,

The ACLU plaintiffs included lawyers who said they could not defend clients accused of terrorism because the government, under the wiretapping program, could listen into attorney-client conversations.

But the two judges in the majority opinion said the plaintiffs had failed to prove they were under surveillance.

And, of course, the ruling is another product of Republican politicization of the judicial system,

The two judges in the majority, Julia Smith Gibbons and Batchelder, are Republican appointees, named by Bush and his father, respectively.

Judge Ronald Lee Gilman, appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, dissented. Gilman said he would uphold the ruling last year on the grounds that the program violated the 1978 law.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 5, 2007

Broder Weighs In Against Democracy

I have been saying here for some time that we are at a turning point for democracy. The corporatist authoritarians, disguised as an ideological movement, have been waging a propaganda war for decades. They want to convince us that "markets" and "market solutions" are superior to self-governance and a common-good, watch-out-for-each-other society. The result is that we are increasingly a one-dollar-one-vote instead of a one-person-one-vote country. Pay-or-die health care is just one example. Stopping government inspection of food-processing plants is another.

Today the "dean" of the Washington pundits weighs in - against democracy. David S. Broder - A Mob-Rule Moment

A particularly virulent strain of populism has made official Washington altogether too responsive to public opinion.

Broder complains about Congress "caving" to public insistence on adding labor and environmental minimum requirements to trade deals, writing, "But the action by the House means that any further deals are unlikely as long as Bush is president." And that's the public's fault, for wanting a living wage and a clean environment, not Bush's for being against those.

Broder ends by writing, "In today's Washington, the "wants" of people count far more heavily than the nation's needs." His prescription to remedy this?

You can win elections by promising people what they want. But you win your place in history by doing what the country needs done.

And by this he means pro-corporate and cheap-labor trade and immigration deals.

Are you for democracy or are you for corporate rule? It is time to choose.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:44 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 2, 2007

No Choice But Impeachment

The Democrats in Congress have been trying to avoid having to face what we are dealing with in this country at this time.

We have a President asserting that he is above the law. He is backed by an authoritarian political movement that feels that laws should not apply to them, either. They have been and are working to destroy the agencies of government and fracture each and every one of the institutions of civil society. They have politicized the system of justice in the country to the point where we don't just wonder, we know that people are prosecuted or left alone based on their political affiliations.

They have launched aggressive war.

The pendulum is not swinging back. This is not a normal time. This is not business as usual. We can't think that impeachment will get in the way of "getting things done."

This is about principles and the Constitution. This is about Rule of Law and democracy. This can no longer be avoided.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 30, 2007

Transcript Of My Questions For Speaker Pelosi

Mike Stark has posted a diary at DailyKos that includes a transcript of my "Rule of Law" questions for Speaker Pelosi. Daily Kos: I talked impeachment with Nancy Pelosi (audio),

[. . .] Dave Johnson (of Seeing the Forest): We seem to be at a historic time right now with an administration that is starting to frankly assert that they are above the rule of law, and I’m wondering if you as Speaker can give us a short statement on this issue and what Congress is prepared to do to re-assert the rule of law of the people of the country.

And you have to go there to read the answer. (Remember to click the Recommend button while you are there.)

BONUS - My follow-up question, "Dave: Just a quick follow-up. What are you going to do about it?"

Update - More, with analysis, at BraveNewFilms Blog: Speaker Pelosi on The War, Impeachment and Accountability.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 22, 2007

Talk Radio Study Demonstrates Misuse Of Public Airwaves

Free Press and The Center for American Progress have teamed up to produce a report on tal radio that is very interesting. The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Some excerpts from the summary:

...in recent years, Americans listened on average to 19 hours of radio per week in 2006.

Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week.

And what options are presented to the public by these stations?

* Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.
* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
* A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

Yikes! This study demonstrates that consumers are not allowed choices of different opinions and analisys. These stations are licensed to use public airwaves. By limiting choices in this way, are they serving the public interest?

Is it a licensing issue? Again, from the study,

Ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance based on the data. Quantitative analysis conducted by Free Press of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stin, from the study,ations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.

In contrast, stations controlled by group owners—those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market—were statistically more likely to air conservative talk.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 16, 2007

What The Public 'Knows' - Congressional Spending

I often write about what the public 'knows.' (For example, the public 'knew' that Iraq attacked us on 9/11 and was about to attack us with weapons of mass destruction before we invaded.)

Right now the public 'knows' that in the last few years Congress went way out of control with the spending. And Republicans understand that the public 'knows' that Democrats tax and spend.

I'm not sure that the public knows - or cares - that it was the Republicans who controlled Congress who were the spenders. I am sure that they won't remember that for very long because it is not being repeated and is not being tied to a larger narrative about Republicans.

What is being repeated is that Democrats tax and spend. And the Republicans are busy reinforcing that: Bush blasts Democrats over budget spending,

"I will use my veto to stop tax increases and runaway spending that threaten the strength of our economy and the prosperity of our people," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He was spending the weekend at his Texas ranch.

"By keeping taxes low and restraining federal spending, we can meet my plan to have a balanced budget by 2012," he said. "The Democrats in Congress are trying to take us in a different direction."

I wonder if the Democratic leadership understands what is happening. Everything that the public is upset about after years of Republican government is being transferred - in the public mind - over to them.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:55 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 12, 2007

Getting Rid Of Public Schools - They MEAN It

I've said before that when you try to tell people about the right's agenda, they think YOU are the crazy person.

I've said before that when I try to talk about the stuff that the Republicans are up to, to people who don't really follow the news, they think I'M the crazy person!

I remember a few years ago telling my liberal aunt that the right wants to get rid of public schools. She's STILL mad at me for saying such an extremist, ridiculous thing. I MUST be an exaggerator, making up these things I say about the conservatives...

Today, another example. In the LA Times: Do away with public schools talks about "government-lovers" and "political correctness" and "bureaucrats" and mocks public schools for teaching about the civil rights movement. And there it is in the LA Times.

The right uses a tactic called "The Overton Window". This is the Overton Window at work. In a talk to an education group recently I discussed how this works:

The Overton Window is a sophisticated tactic to help move the Right’s self-described “unthinkable” ideas all the way to becoming policy.

The strategy is to make radical ideas seem acceptable and comfortable.

They describe a “ladder” of steps – degrees of public acceptance. They say they work to walk the public up this ladder step by step.

According to the Overton Window concept, when the public FIRST hears ideas like getting rid of public schools, they consider them unthinkable, but with time and repetition, these ideas begin to be considered only radical, then with familiarity they become acceptable, and eventually sensible and worth putting into policy.

This is another example of the use of this tactic. It is intended to shock us. Then, we get used to it. Watch this video clip I used in my talk to introduce the topic. As I said in my talk,

Anything LESS extreme sounds almost moderate by comparison – in the window of “thinkable.” THIS is why they say those outrageous things. They’re walking people up the ladder. It’s part of the long-term strategy.

These people are serious.

A few years ago I worked on a report titled, Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions, describing the organized effort to attack public education, and making some suggestions for countering this effort. Countering this effort requires more than just informing some people about facts and issues. The effort to privatize schools is part of a larger, coordinated attack on community and government itself. They MEAN it. It is past time that we understand what we are up against here.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:01 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 9, 2007

Conservative Movement Sleeper Cells

Atrios links to Digby, who writes that the appeals court is likely to reverse Scooter Libby's conviction because the particular judges are Federalist Society activists who have been working behind the scenes for years to reverse convictions of conservative movement operatives like Oliver North, while bending the law as far as possible to enable political investigations of Democrats like Bill Clinton.

And it does go back. Digby quotes from Robery Parry, writing about what Iran/Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh found himself up against - facing some of these same judges.

"Walsh recognized that many of the appeals judges held a "continuing political allegiance" to the conservative Federalist Society, an organization dedicated to purging liberalism from the federal courts.

"It reminded me of the communist front groups of the 1940s and 1950s, whose members were committed to the communist cause and subject to communist direction but were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party," Walsh wrote."

Atrios calls it a "conservative protection racket."

And now we know from the Justice Department probe that these operatives are in place throughout the government - "sleeper cells" waiting to jump out and sabotage any attempt at actual positive governance. Digby writes,

Sentelle and Silbermann appointed Ken Starr, whom Robert Bork defended for his high minded, straight devotion to duty.

Sentelle is still on the court. Lawrence Silberman is now a senior judge. Rehnquist's replacement, John Roberts was on that same court. The extremist Janice Rogers Brown is also on that court.

Perhaps the long term friendships, shared legal history and blind partisan loyalties among these people will not be relevant in this case. But let's just say I wouldn't be shocked if we get a surprising appellate decision based upon a novel, intellectually inconsistent theory set forth by a bunch of powerful wingnut legal enforcers. It happens.

A few years back in a post titled The Right Will Fight Dirty I wrote about the same problem (quoting the same Walsh quotes.) I wrote,

With The Party’s Federalist Society judges in place every special prosecutor appointed to investigate Republican wrongdoing was a right-wing Party operative, and those appointed to investigate Democrats was … a right-wing Party operative. Every motion before the Courts went against Clinton and the Democrats.

... And, finally, the 2000 election. The Supreme Court demonstrated the extent and power of Party operatives, positioned within the mechanisms of our government, whose loyalty is to an ideology and a Party rather than the country.

These years of this Bush's hands on the controls mean that our government is now infested with ideological operatives, waiting for their opportunity to prove that their loyalty lies with The Party, not American democracy.

And here we are, sleeper cells planted throughout the government, just waiting to destroy any Democrat elected to the Presidency while blocking any efforts to hold even a single conservative movement operative accountable for anything.

Suppose a Democrat does win the Presidency in 2008. Will that President be able to accomplish anything? Or will these sleeper cells awaken and wreak havoc?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 4, 2007

Messiah-Candidate Thinking

I hear lots of people express the sentiment, "If only Gore would enter the race (or if only Obama took the lead, etc.), everything would be OK and progressives would win again." This is what I call "Messiah-Candidate Thinking." The example that got me thinking about this was a DailyKos diary today: An Inconvenient Truth: Mr. Gore You HAVE to run in 2008,

Mr. Gore, you are the person best suited to rescue us from the assaults on reason, our Constitution, our environment, our security, and our domestic infrastructure perpetrated on us by the Busheviks and their allies.

I am not faulting the sentiment here. I love Gore and he would be a great President. I think most of the candidates would make great Presidents. But I don't think that one person or one election is going to lead us out of the wilderness. I think there is a lot of work required before progressives can win again and turn America in a progressive direction.

Do the conservatives run great candidates? Is that what has worked for them? Was Bush a great candidate? Or was it something else?

Here is what I think. Liberals and progressives used to win elections. They used to be a majority and everyone got used to it. So a lot of people think that all we need to do is find the right candidate who will articulate things well and get "the facts" out for them -- and the public will turn out in droves again. They look for another John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, thinking that's all that is needed to turn things back around.

But times have changed. The "conservative movement" has spent more than thirty years bombarding the public with coordinated, professionally-crafted propaganda that has changed the thinking of the public. This propaganda has gone unanswered and we are seeing the effects all around us.

Think about this - most people's political thinking developed since Reagan was elected. Heck, a good portion of the population doesn't remember a time before George W. Bush! So most of them have never been exposed to information that positively explains what progressives stand for, or the benefits of unions -- or even peace. This has had a terrible effect on the politics of this country.

This right-wing assault has eroded the public's understanding of (and belief in) democracy and community. It has even eroded understanding of - and faith in - science and reason! So I think there is a lot of work that has to be done to bring things back. We have to spend the money and do the work and take the time to build the think tanks and communications organizations (like Commonweal Institute) that will reach the public and explain and promote the benefits of progressive values and a progressive approach to issues. Over time this effort will restore public demand for progressive candidates.

Messiah-Candidate Thinking is a way to avoid facing the changes that have occurred in America. It is a way to put off the work that needs to be done.

So yes, I am all for Gore running. But I don't think it is the be-all and end-all. There is a lot of work to do before America turns back to a progressive direction.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 3, 2007

Former Canadian Ambassador Say US Already Theocracy

U.S. a theocratic state, says former Canadian ambassador,

Frank McKenna, Canada’s former ambassador to Washington, referred to the United States on Friday as "a theocratic state" in which Christian evangelicalism plays a big role in the Republican administration.

“Right now the United States is in many ways a theocratic state, not dissimilar to some of the other religious states in the world where religion has a huge part to play in government."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 31, 2007

McCain, O'Reilly: It's About Keeping Jews, Blacks and Women Out Of Power

The Democratic Party,

Near the end of the video, there was this exchange:

Bill O'Reilly: But do you understand what the New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you're a part, and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right. So I say you've got to cap with a number.

John McCain: In America today we've got a very strong economy and low unemployment, so we need addition farm workers, including by the way agriculture, but there may come a time where we have an economic downturn, and we don't need so many.

[crosstalk]

O'Reilly: But in this bill, you guys have got to cap it. Because estimation is 12 million, there may be 20 [million]. You don't know, I don't know. We've got to cap it.

McCain: We do, we do. I agree with you.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 29, 2007

Urgent Action On Elections - FEC Nomination

One of the main people behind the Republican scams to keep people from voting has now been nominated by Bush to be ON THE FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION!!!! This is as bad as it gets.

See Keep Yer Vote Thievin' Hans Off the Federal Election Commission: Action Alert!,

... Hans von Spakovsky is up for confirmation June 13 as a member of the Federal Election Commission.

[. . .]
Hans Von Spakovsky will appear before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration on June 13, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. for his confirmation hearing. He must be stopped. Confirmation by the Senate would keep this scourge on the American electoral process on the Federal Election Commission until 2011. Please help keep Hans von Spakovsky off the FEC. Here's the membership of the Committee. I have included telephone numbers and hyperlinked to each Senator's contact page, where you can leave comments electronically.

See the extended entry to learn who to call:

Democrats Dianne Feinstein (CA) - (202) 224-3841 Robert Byrd (WV) - (202) 224-3954 Daniel Inouye (HI) - (202) 224-3934 Christopher Dodd (CT) - (202) 224-2823 Charles Schumer (NY) - (202) 224-6542 Richard Durbin (IL) - (202) 224-2152 Ben Nelson (NE) - (202) 224-6551 Harry Reid (NV) - (202) 224-3542 Patty Murray (WA) - (202) 224-2621 Mark Pryor (AR) - (202) 224-2353

Republicans
Robert Bennett (UT) - (202) 224-5444
Mitch McConnell (KY) - (202) 224-2541
Thad Cochran (MS) - (202) 224-5054
Trent Lott (MS) - (202) 224-6253
Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX) - (202) 224-5922
Saxby Chambliss (GA) - (202) 224-3521
Chuck Hagel (NE) - (202) 224-4224
Lamar Alexander (TN) - (202) 224-4944

If you are a constituent of one of these Senators, please call or write. If you are not a constituent of any of these Senators, please call or write anyway and also call your own Senator. If von Spakovsky makes it through committee, we will need the help of all Senators on the floor.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:01 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 28, 2007

Terrorism From The Right Escalating

Rick Perlstein notes the rise in Right-Wing Terrorism, and the major news media's failure to connect the dots.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 27, 2007

Cheney Lays It Out

Vice President's Remarks at the United States Military Academy Commencement,

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away. These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it. They have given themselves to an ideology that rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. The terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds, and they hate nothing more than the country you have volunteered to defend.

The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology. Their ultimate goal is to establish a totalitarian empire, a caliphate, with Baghdad as its capital. They view the world as a battlefield and they yearn to hit us again. And now they have chosen to make Iraq the central front in their war against civilization.

But no taxes to pay for the war to save civilization, no draft, no cuts in oil use, no sacrifice of any kind. Go shopping, etc. Right.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 23, 2007

Gore on Fire

I saw Al Gore talk at a book signing for his book, The Assault On Reason, in Marin County (north of San Francisco) this evening. He was supposed to talk for a short time, take questions and sign books, but he just got going an gave one of the most inspired, intelligent and I think historically important articulations of the current threat to the American experiment and our democracy that I have heard. He was just on fire.

Gore says our country’s problems go beyond the manipulations and corruptions of Bush and Cheney. He talks about what has happened to this country that we could have ever allow a Bush and Cheney and their lies and evasions and incuriosity to take the reigns of our government – and allowed them to stay there after it became clear what they are about. And he has some very insightful things to say about the historical forces that brought us where we are, and how they might guide us through this.

At times he sounded like a guru, talking about “truthforce,” about how honesty enables us to see clearly without the distortions and distractions that come from constant TV exposure to trivia like gossip about Paris Hilton and Britney and work to push deadly situations like the Iraq war and global warming from our discourse. This is a man who has thought about what is happening to us, and who has the vision and experience to come up with some answers.

He asked how could not just the President, but the Congress, the media and the rest of our system of checks and balances and watchdogs have let Iraq – which he called the worst strategic blunder in our history – happen? How could he public have been fooled into thinking that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? It’s not just Bush who did that – it’s all of us. Bush is just a symptom. We are ALL responsible for the decisions our country makes. So we all have to get involved and start fixing this broken system. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

I have only had time to read excerpts from Gore’s book, The Assault On Reason, but I predict that the conversation it fuels will be fundamentally and historically important. Buy this book! And listen for news of Gore coming to your area, or appearing on TV, to talk about this subject. The guy is just on fire and I think that fire could catch and spread and help bring about the changes we need.

It’s late or I would write more. I am inspired. (does it show?) I hope that a video of this evening’s talk surfaces soon. I'll post about it if I learn of one.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 18, 2007

American Legion Members Blast Leadership

The American Legion is one more organization whose leadership has been taken over by conservative movement operatives. The leadership blindly supports Bush, no matter what -- even when he is cutting funds for wounded troops and family support. Following is a letter I received from a member:

STATEMENT FROM Hal Donahue, Lt. Col. USAF (retired)

District Deputy Commander and Lifetime member of the American Legion

Legion Cuts and runs from wounded troops, active duty troops and veterans

Thursday the American Legion leadership issued a press release. It contained two key elements which I find reprehensible. First, the American Legion condemns Congress for performing its constitutional duty. Second, and most appalling, the American Legion opposes Congressional funding to meet immediate military and veterans needs. These Congressional bills for Emergency Defense Supplemental Appropriations for FY 2007 support our troops. To paraphrase former Senator Bob Dole when informed of the crisis at Walter Reed Military Medical Center, ‘where was the American Legion?’

Congress knows we must give the troops their equipment, and we must take care of the wounded. These congressional bills add additional money for areas slighted, including funding for military and veteran health care. Walter Reed Army Medical Center is included in these bills. I am a patient at Walter Reed and I see the bravery of our troops off the battlefield both trying to recover and trying to provide the best care. I see the effects of neglect caused by the Bush administration everyday; the administration pays lip service but offers no funding. These Congressional bills support the troops, the wounded and veterans. Why doesn't the Leadership of The American Legion?

I say “American Legion leadership” because I know many members of the American Legion were simply embarrassed by positions taken by the Leadership of the organization, which blindly supports this administration's war in Iraq while just as blindly ignoring wounded military living conditions at Walter Reed.

Embarrassment is no longer the word of choice. By actively urging Congress to remove immediate and urgent funding for wounded troops, military and veterans, the American Legion leadership has crossed the line to repulsion. To actively advocate in Congress against immediate support for our troops in combat and our wounded is simply repugnant. Commander Morin and the American Legion Leadership are cutting and running on our wounded, our troops, and our Veterans.

Hal Donahue, Lt. Col. USAF (retired)

District Deputy Commander and Lifetime member of the American Legion

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 14, 2007

Bush Admin Helping Fund Moon Front-Group

Sun Myung Moon front group gets $80,000 in federal money to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day. The money is used to help Moon infiltrate Black churches and organizations.

And the other side of the deal, Bruce Wilson at AlterNet: Bush Family Gets Millions From Cult's Fake "Nonprofit" and at Talk To Action, More Moon Money Flows to Bush Family

Go read.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 3, 2007

Domestic Terrorism Ignored

The other day I wrote about two domestic terrorism incidents that ere ignored by the media. Orcinus: The other kind of terror has more. Go read.

But remember: The FBI has de-emphasized right-wing extremist crimes and displaced them with an emphasis on "eco terror" as far as its chief domestic-terror concern. This is in no small part because this administration is being run by people who don't consider bombings and arson against abortion clinics to be terrorism.

[. . .] Of course, acknowledging that this is the case would require a major readjustment of the media's constructed narrative about the "war on terror." So it continues to turn a blind eye, and in the process it profoundly misinforms the public.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 20, 2007

Alberto Gonzales Isn't The Point

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales can resign or not - so what? The PROBLEM will remain. The PROBLEM is that we have 93 US Attorneys who have already proven - by not being fired - that they will indict innocent Democrats and ignore Republican corruption and criminality. THAT is the problem we have to do something about!

The Republicans learned in the 2006 election that lots of headlines about corruption influences votes. So the plan is to start investigating and indicting lots of Democrats - guilty or not - to provide plenty of 2008 election-time headlines. And the plan is to block as many investigations and indictments of corrupt Republicans as they can. (That brings other benefits to them as well...)

So Gonzales can resign or not - don't be distracted from thinking about how to stop what is coming.

Watch your backs!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 19, 2007

Unprecedented Security Clearances For A Libyan?

And no one knows who bypassed our national security rules and gave the clearance. And, of course, no one will investigate.

From Wolfowitz's girlfriend problem,

State Department officials familiar with the details of this matter confirmed to me that Shaha Ali Riza was detailed to the State Department and had unescorted access while working for Elizabeth Cheney. Access to the building requires a national security clearance or permanent escort by a person with such a clearance. But the State Department has no record of having issued a national security clearance to Riza.

State Department officials believe that Riza was issued such a clearance by the Defense Department after SAIC was forced by Wolfowitz and Feith to hire her.

... But State Department officials tell me that no such letter can be confirmed as received. And the officials stress that the department would never issue a clearance to a non-U.S. citizen as part of a contractual requisition. Issuing a national security clearance to a foreign national under instructions from a Pentagon official would constitute a violation of the executive orders governing clearances, they say.

Come to think of it, Karl Rove still has a security clearance - even after admitting that he revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent!

Is there NO law?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 18, 2007

Don't Reward Failure

At Firedoglake: Don’t Reward Failure By Giving Money to NARAL,

And what did they do with all that cash? They sat it and didn't do a damn thing, didn't lift a finger to fight Samuel Alito. Worse yet, when the Gang of 14 decided to vote in favor of cloture, they said that they did not consider cloture votes "significant" and would not be considering them in their scorecard. They then went on to add insult to injury by asking their membership to thank Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman for the beatings they delivered with their "aye" cloture vote by pretending that their "nay" floor votes were significant. They then poured salt into the wound by endorsing both "short ride" Lieberman and Chafee over their opponents who made it clear that they would not have voted for cloture for Alito, which gave us the 5-4 decision we have today.

Go read.

Don't reward failure. Tell your friends. Don't give money to NARAL when they come knocking on your door to tell you that choice is going down the crapper unless you give them a lot of money, because what you'll be giving money for is Nancy Keenan's ability to point her little pinky over tea at Washington cocktail parties and tut-tut over the state of choice in this country at the hands of the fundamentalists. She'll take no responsibility for the fact that NARAL will not fight, will not back those that fight, and worse yet, that NARAL sucks up all the pro-choice money so nobody else can mount a meaningful fight, either.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 17, 2007

Smoking Politics Alert: Mitt Romney Loves That Dirty Money

A Smoking Politics post by Dave Johnson and James Boyce

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps. And they say you can tell a lot about a politician by the donors he loves. In fairness, any politician can get money from rather unsavory sources, but when patterns emerge you can tell what a politician is like by the donor company he or she keeps.

If this holds true for Mitt Romney it would make him a push-polling, SwiftBoat-lying, racist, immigrant-hating, Hitler-using candidate.

Allow us to explain.

Mitt Romney has a number of great contradictions. For a man who won't swear and doesn't drink, he certainly likes hanging out with some real lowlifes.

Let's start from the top.

Carl Linder is going to be Mitt Romney's Finance Co-Chair in Ohio.

Carl Linder gave over $425,000 to a group called Common Sense Ohio, which ran deceptive ads and push-polling. And by the way, when Mitt Romney was chair of the Republican Governors Association, that organization gave money directly to Common Sense Ohio. What the H-E-double toothpicks Mitt? A direct endorsement of push-polling and deceptive ads? Nice.

Sam Fox gave Mitt Romney's PAC $100,000. (And just think George Bush made Fox an ambassador for a mere $50,000 to the Swift Boat Liars.) Sam Fox may have had amnesia regarding what scum the Swifties were, but Mitt should know. Evidently Mitt doesn't care.

And last but not least, there's Romney National Finance Chair, John Rakolta. You might think that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is a remarkable woman. Mr. Rakolta thinks that she, and some other prominent Democratic presidents, resemble Hitler. (See Romney camp catches flak for Hitler ad)

(The DNC did a great re-cap of these donors and Mitt's dirty money.)

This is cross-posted at Smoking Politics, and we're going to talk about this on our "Smoking Politics Radio Show" at noon Eastern Wednesday. Taylor Marsh, of www.taylormarsh.com will join us with her wonderful and unique perspective.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:29 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 14, 2007

WHY They Say Such Outrageous Things

Jamison Foser writes in this week's "Media Matters",

In the midst of a torrent of comments about "femi-Nazis" and "bitches" and "hos," these more subtle problems are rarely even noticed, and even more rarely discussed among the media elite and those who appear on their shows.

And that may be the most damaging effect of the kind of commentary that we routinely hear from the likes of Imus and Limbaugh and Coulter: Rhetoric that should be unacceptable becomes merely outrageous; that which should be outrageous becomes merely controversial; and that which should be controversial is barely noticed, if at all.

I gave a talk a few weeks ago to an organization that supports public education. My talk as titled We're All In This Together. I began the talk by playing a video clip of Neil Boortz on Fox, saying that teachers unions are more dangerous to America than terrorists armed with nuclear weapons because a nuke could only wipe out 100,000 people but public schools are "destroying a generation."

I talked about the terrible things right-wingers routinely say. Then I explained the Right's Overton Window strategy of walking people's thinking up a ladder that turns unthinkable ideas into acceptable and even reasonable-sounding.

After explaining the Overton Window I said,

NOW we can understand the role of people like the guy from the video clip. He is out at the extreme – on the right side of the see-saw. Anything LESS extreme sounds almost moderate by comparison – in the window of “thinkable.” THIS is why they say those outrageous things. They’re walking people up the ladder. It’s part of the long-term strategy.

If you're interested, I have the whole thing posted over at the Commonweal Institute blog, along with links to reference materials.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

ANOTHER Political Prosecution From A Scandal-Tainted US Attorney?

This looks like it might be yet another political prosecution. This time it isn't a US Attorney engaging in a political prosecution in order to keep the job -- instead it involves one of those NEW, Rove-approved US Attorneys who replaced those US Attorneys fired for failing to engage in political prosecutions. This prosecution shows us what to expect from now on. This one is prosecuting a guy entirely for political and not legal reasons, AFTER the courts threw out the case AND after the judge said they should drop the charges.

This case is about medical marijuana. California voters passed an initiative allowing the use of marijuana for AIDS, cancer and other patients because it helps them to eat and reduces symptoms. The Christian Right doesn't like that so the Bush administration has been prosecuting people for Federal crimes - even though they are legally operating according to state law.

From the article, Prosecutors will retry Ed Rosenthal, known as the `guru of ganja',

Federal prosecutors said today they would retry marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal on cultivation charges, even after a federal judge urged them to drop the case and chastised the government for lodging charges solely to punish the self-proclaimed "guru of ganja."

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer demanded to know who in the Department of Justice made the decision to continue pursuing Rosenthal, who had his original conviction overturned last year.

... Newly appointed U.S. Attorney Scott Schools made the decision, said Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan, but he was not sure if Department of Justice officials in Washington were involved. [all emphasis added]

So here we go, another political prosecution from a Rove-connected prosecutor?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 10, 2007

Bush Orders Congress To "Report" To Him

Bush in full-on authoritarian mode: President Bush Discusses Iraq War Supplemental, War on Terror,

... So I'm inviting congressional leaders from both parties -- both political parties -- to meet with me at the White House next week. At this meeting, the leaders in Congress can report on progress on getting an emergency spending bill to my desk. [emphasis added]

I don't know how many of you took a class called "civics" in school, but that class explained how our government works. Congress does not "report" to the President. In fact, the President is required in our Constitution to report to Congress.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

"Sleeper Cells" Infiltrating Our Government

Yet Another "Sleeper Cell" - "Sleeper Cells" infiltrating the government, waiting for the chance to take over - or to destroy a Democratic Presidency.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 7, 2007

In The Tank For Bush & The Right

Is it just me, or does it seem to you like the media is much more in the tank for Bush and the right since the election?

On another subject, does it seem to you that the US Attorney scandal has faded from the news with nothing being done, leaving in place US Attorneys who let Republicans and corporate criminals off the hook, while investigating or indicting Democrats? My prediction - if these US Attorneys stay in place, the lead-up to the 2008 election will include LOTS of news stories about Democrats being investigated and indicted, and no stories about Republicans being investigated at all.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 4, 2007

Their COVER STORY Was Even Illegal

The Bush administration - again too clever by half.

Clever once: Recently Bush claimed that "executive privilege" prevents staff e-mails from being turned over to Congress. Except in an attempt to keep the e-mails away from legal scrutiny many were illegally routed through the Republican Party, which means they aren't privileged. Too clever by half.

Clever again: When the Bush administration fired US Attorney Iglesias because he didn't indict enough Democrats, they tried to explain it with a cover story claiming he was fired because he took too much time away from the office. Well, you see, Iglesias is a captain in the Navy Reserve. And there is a law that says you can't fire someone because they have to attend Reserve duty.

So Newsweek is reporting that,

Iglesias confirmed to NEWSWEEK that he was recently questioned by lawyers for the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency, to determine if his dismissal was a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against members of the U.S. military.

At the encouragement of Office of Special Counsel director Scott Bloch and his deputies, Iglesias said he is this week filing a formal legal complaint with OSC against the Justice Department over his dismissal on this and other grounds.

I learned about this through TPMmuckraker April 4, 2007 04:56 PM

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March 29, 2007

The New Terrified America

In the New Terrified America, many parents think that pedophile sexual predators lie in wait around every corner, hoping to snatch their kids away. Some parents won't let their kids play outside anymore. Some schools won't allow kids to walk to school without a parent. I think it's idiotic, but it seems to have become the cultural norm now.

Go read FEAR, FEAR, FEAR... (read the comments, too. And an aside - in the comments note how right-wingers feel perfectly free to just make up stuff about "trial lawyers" and expect to be believed.)

A comment. A child is about 10,000 times more likely to be hurt or killed in a car than kidnapped by a sexual predator. (There are about 100 cases of kidnapping by sexual predators in the United States per year. About 1 in 7700 of us die in cars each year, about 1 in 1000 of us are injured each year.) Motor vehicles are the leading cause of death in children in the United States. So what does this fear cause parents to do? They put their kids in cars.

I watch some television, and last year (leading up to the election) almost every show seemed to be about child molesters...

Question for discussion -- this really, really serves the interests of authoritarians who want people to be afraid. So is it intentional? Is America being whipped into a frenzy of fear on purpose?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:41 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 21, 2007

Presidential Aides Testifying Before Congress

The latest Republican line is that Congress can't require White House aides to testify, that it would "violate precedent," etc. So see Think Progress - FACT CHECK: There Is No Precedent Barring White House Aides From Testifying To Congress,

...under President Clinton, 31 of his top aides testified on 47 different occasions. The aides who testified included some of Clinton’s closest advisors:

Harold Ickes, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff - 7/28/94

George Stephanopoulos, Senior Adviser to the President for Policy and Strategy - 8/4/94

John Podesta, Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary - 8/5/94

Bruce R. Lindsey, Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President - 1/16/96

Samuel Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs - 9/11/97

Beth Nolan, Counsel to the President - 5/4/00

In contrast, between 2000 and 2004, Bush allowed only one of his closest advisers, then-Assistant to the President for Homeland Security Tom Ridge, to appear in front of Congress. He has also refused three invitations from Congress for his aides to testify, a first since President Richard Nixon in 1972. Clinton did not refuse any.

Hat tip to Digby who asks,

Meanwhile, virtually all the reporters on NBC seem to not know that numerous very close white house advisors were hauled before congress during the Clinton administration. Can't somebody get them an intern?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 13, 2007

Did Clinton Also Fire Prosecutors? - UPDATED -

You're going to hear a story that "Clinton fired 93 prosecutors" when he took office, while this whole prosecutor scandal is about Bush firing only 11.

The fact is that EVERY President changes the US Attorneys when taking office. Bush also did the same thing when he took office. That is different. This has never happened before. THIS scandal is about Bush using the federal prosecutors to only go after Democrats, and to ignore crimes by Republicans.

And here's the thing. The ones that were fired were let go because they wouldn't "play ball." So the question is, what about the ones who were not fired?

It is one more example of how the entire government has been converted into a Party apparatus - as well as working to further the interests of the K-Street/Abramoff corruption machine. You hear about Interior Department employees ordered not to discuss global warming. You hear about the head of HUD telling underlings not to give contracts to Democrats. You hear over and over about "conected" companies getting huge no-bid contracts with no accountability...

IF Bush gets away with this - if the current prosecutors, Attorney General, Bush, etc. remain in place - come election time 2008 the only news the PUBLIC will be hearing is news about federal indictments of corrupt Democrats. That's what this is about.

Update - CREW calls for a Special Prosecutor because obviously the Bush Justice Department isn't going to investigate. But who appoints the special prosecutor?

CREW wants the immediate appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate potential criminal violations related to the recent dismissals of eight U.S. Attorneys. Recent revelations indicate that a top-ranking Department of Justice official knew that statements made by top Department officials were not true. Clearly, the Department of Justice cannot investigate itself and prosecute the misconduct of DOJ officials. CREW also asked the Department of Justice’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the situation.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:03 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 12, 2007

The First US Attorney Firing

The current scandal over political use of US Attorneys is not the first one. In 2002 Bush blocked a corruption investigation into Jack Abramoff by firing the US Attorney just as he was closing in. Bush replaced him with a cousin of one of the targets -- who had been recommended by the local Republican Party.

A 2005 story, Bush removal ended Guam investigation,

A US grand jury in Guam opened an investigation of controversial lobbyist Jack Abramoff more than two years ago, but President Bush removed the supervising federal prosecutor, and the probe ended soon after.

Go read about it.

The Republican corruption machine was in full operation by 2002. Here was Bush covering up Abramoff's crimes by firing a prosecutor.

The statute of limitations has not yet run out on this.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 9, 2007

Authoritarians

I've been thinking that the problem we are dealing with in this country is not an ideological left/right battle at all, but rather the rise of the authoritarian personality-type in our politics. Authoritarians have seized the label of "conservative" but this crowd is not at all conservative - not even anything like traditional Republicans. I have always had the sense that the current crop of "conservative movement" wingnuts would attach themselves to any ideology if it helped them achieve power.

Maybe what the country needs is a personality test before someone can run for office - sort of like the Strategic Air Command tests given to people before they're allowed to handle nuclear missile launch keys...

What do you think?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Questions On US Attorney Firings

Talking Points Memo is asking the right questions about the Republicans firing US Attorneys who wouldn't "play ball" by dropping investigations of Republican corruption, and by launching trumped-up investigations of Democrats.

1) We know about the ones who were fired. What about the ones who were not -- WHY not? The REAL stink is on the ones who WEREN'T fired! What did they do to keep their jobs. Did they improperly drop investigations of Republicans and/or launch improper investigations of Demcorats?

2) Why isn't the Justice Department management? Why aren't we hearing statements from the Justice Department,

about how DOJ will not tolerate elected officials attempting to influence its prosecutors, how DOJ has its prosecutors' backs, how DOJ would remind prosecutors to report any such contacts, and would urge anyone who has not previously reported such contacts to come forward now.

The silence is a statement. It is a threat to employees of the Department that if they come forward there will be retaliation.

And, of course, what does this say about the use of OTHER departments of the federal government?

We have been watching as Government and Party merge. Under these authoritarian Republicans the government has morphed into an enforcement arm of The Party. A better question might be whether there is any agency of the government that has not been corrupted?

One day we will all be shocked - even me - at how close we came to totalitarianism. That is, IF we make it through this. We haven't yet. And we won't until people go to jail for this kind of thing.

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 22, 2007

Bush Forming Religious Police?

Hoo-boy here's one to worry about. Attorney General launches religious freedom initiative at SBC meeting. (SBC means Southern Baptist Convention.)

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales met with Southern Baptist leaders Feb. 20 to unveil a new Department of Justice initiative aimed at educating Americans about their religious liberties and to ask for the Southern Baptist Convention’s help in identifying and reporting abuses of those liberties. [emphasis added]

Great. The government working with the Southern Baptists to identify and report abuses of their religious liberties. And of course, the usual right-wing gibberish accompanies this new campaign,

“Why should it be permissible for an employee standing around the water cooler to declare that ‘Tiger Woods is God,’ but a firing offense for him to say ‘Jesus is Lord’?” he said to vocal affirmation from Executive Committee members. “These are the kinds of contradictions we are trying to address.”

Has anyone, anywhere ever been fired for saying "Jesus is Lord?" Of course not.

So it looks like we are about to experience a massive wave of right-wing Christians screaming that they are being victimized every time a Jewish or Muslim person appears on TV or gets a job they wanted. Backed by the full resources of the government. Just great.

With the unveiling of the “First Freedom Project,” the Department of Justice is creating a department-wide Religious Freedom Task Force, the attorney general told Executive Committee members. Another component is the initiation of a program of public education to ensure that people know their rights. Gonzales said the justice department will hold a series of regional training seminars for leaders interested in religious liberty issues, starting in Kansas City, Mo., March 29.

Also, the department has launched a new website, firstfreedom.gov, with information on the laws they enforce and how to file a complaint. Justice officials will be distributing informational literature to religious organizations, civil rights groups and community leaders on how to file a complaint, Gonzales said.

Talk To Action has more,

Imagine if the religious right's beloved "war on Christmas" was a year-round affair. Legions of lawyers ready to pounce on school and civic administrators, the persistent neon buzz of ACLU-paranoia in the air, Pat Robertson and the Bill O'Reilly Persecution Complex (nice band name...) pressuring corporate America to replace every "gezundheit" with a "God bless you." Now, imagine if the leaders of the effort weren't just the Jerry Falwell Admiration Society, but instead the full weight and force of the Department of Justice...

Watch your backs. Here it comes.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 21, 2007

Bush Cutting Medicaid To Pay For ONE FAMILY's Tax Cut

Who is our economy FOR? Bush is cutting Medicaid by $28 billion. Bush is giving the Walton family (Wal-Mart heirs) a $32.7 billion tax cut. You do the math.

Go see who else wins and loses: Maybe We Deserve to Be Ripped Off By Bush's Billionaires,

If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.

The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

[. . .] That's not only bad government, it's bad capitalism. It makes legalized bribery and political connections more important factors than performance and competition in the corporate marketplace. Beyond that, it's just plain fucking offensive to ordinary people. It's one thing to complain about paying taxes when those taxes are buying a bag of groceries once a month for some struggling single mom in eastern Kentucky. But when your taxes are buying a yacht for some asshole who hires African eight year-olds to pick cocoa beans for two cents an hour ... I sure don't remember reading an excuse for that anywhere in the Federalist Papers.

More information you will not see in your local newspaper or on the news...

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 1, 2007

Start Challenging The Conventional Wisdom

Conservatives have spent literally billions of dollars on a propaganda campaign since the 1970s to convince Americans that corporatism and greed are better for them than democracy and community.

So take a look at AlterNet: Note to Progressives: Challenge Market Fundamentalism asks us to,

...challenge Market Fundamentalism, the exaggerated and quite irrational belief in the ability of markets to solve all problems, an economic fundamentalism that has dominated our national political debate for a generation.

How is Market Fundamentalism a "conventional wisdom?"

Market fundamentalism has become like the air we breathe; we hardly notice it. Every time George W. Bush argues for more tax cuts, he relies on the unquestioned assumption that we all embrace Market Fundamentalism. Like religious fundamentalism, it is based more on faith than on reason. Through constant repetition, however, the American public has been bullied into believing that private spending is rational and efficient while public spending is always wasteful and unproductive. (Tell that to people in New Orleans.)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 30, 2007

Bush Further Consolidates Control

Bush Directive Increases Sway on Regulation ,

In an executive order published last week in the Federal Register, Mr. Bush said that each agency must have a regulatory policy office run by a political appointee, to supervise the development of rules and documents providing guidance to regulated industries.

Recently we heard about the purge of US Attorneys, replaced by political hacks. Now every agency of the government has to have a political officer from The Party oversee its activities.

This is the Stalinist Soviet model. What is Bush planning?

Watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 26, 2007

Republicans Trained To Follow - Now Over A Cliff

The Anonymous Liberal: The GOP's Pied Piper Problem:

For the last decade and a half, the Republican party has pursued an intentional strategy of insulating its base from reality. The goal has been to create a permanent block of loyal Republican voters who will dutifully internalize whatever the party's leaders tell them.

To accomplish this, the Republican political machine has engaged in a relentless and systematic assault on all of the institutions in our society that have traditionally served as arbiters of truth. They have attacked the press, the judiciary, academia, and even science itself. And they've been remarkably successful; we've now reached a point where much of the Republican base simply refuses to believe anything that doesn't come from a trusted partisan outlet.

Any unpleasant news reports can be dismissed as the product of liberal media bias. Any inconvenient studies can be explained away as the work of godless academic elitists. ...

... This strategy has an inherent vulnerability, though. Call it the Pied Piper problem. If you train a bunch of people to follow the Leader reflexively, they're likely to follow him right out of town (or right off a cliff).

Go read.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 18, 2007

Senate Republicans Block Ethics Reform

They're making out too well from the corruption - it is what funds the Republican Party. So new Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell is blocking attempts to reform ethics and lobbying.

Republicans Halt Ethics Legislation,

Senate Republicans scuttled broad legislation last night to curtail lobbyists' influence and tighten congressional ethics rules, refusing to let the bill pass without a vote on an unrelated measure that would give President Bush virtual line-item-veto power.

So here we are.

Everyone who thought the fight was over because the Democrats have a majority in the House and Senate now, raise your hands.

Update - From Sen. McConnell's office,

Republicans didn’t derail the ethics reform bill. They’re enthusiastic about voting for it. Republicans just want earmark reform, as well. (and Democrats have already accepted an earmark reform amendment in the ethics bill, so it’s not really unrelated)

Update II - Evening - Senate passes ethics reform bill

After a spirited debate over the year's first order of business, the Senate reached a bipartisan agreement on ethics reform Thursday and approved a package designed to burnish its image in the wake of recent corruption scandals.

The Senate voted 96-2 for a measure that would prohibit lobbyists from paying for gifts for lawmakers and their staffs, including travel. It also would require full disclosure on which lawmakers have requested funding earmarks for specific projects in lawmakers' home states or districts.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 16, 2007

Marketing Conservatism and Corporatism

"Conservatives and their ideas are good, liberals and their ideas are bad."

You hear the message repeated a thousand different ways, over and over, every day. It is a strategy, an organized marketing campaign to create demand for conservatives, their policies and their candidates. Over time and unanswered, it sinks into the brain.

The fact is, marketing creates demand. So after decades of this, people start to demand conservative policies and candidates and their politicians just ride that wave. In some areas conservative candidates can just point and shout, "liberal, liberal" and win elections. We see the results all around us - trillions of OUR dollars flow to the top. Our resources are "privatized" into the hands of corporations. We work longer hours for lower pay, losing our health insurance and pensions and rights... Our environment is polluted and our resources extracted.

Repeat: this is a strategic marketing campaign to get people to accept being ruled by wealthy corporatists. Marketing creates demand. Repetition drives a point home.

Today's example just came in the morning e-mail. Read this and you'll see that it follows the same tired script: liberals and their ideas are bad, and conservatives and their ideas are good. Marketing creates demand, and this is marketing, promoting conservative values and ideas and candidates.

The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11

"Why do they hate us?" Some conservatives, following President Bush, believe that Muslim anti-Americanism stems from irrational hatred of our freedom and democracy. Others lay the blame on our foreign policy. Now comes bestselling conservative author Dinesh D'Souza to argue that both views, while they contain elements of truth, miss the larger reason. In The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D'Souza makes the startling claim that the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist acts around the world can be directly traced to the ideas and attitudes perpetrated by America's cultural left.

"In faulting the cultural left, I am not making the absurd accusation that this group blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon," D'Souza explains. "I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the non-profit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage - some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice, but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left."

In The Enemy at Home, D'Souza uncovers the links between the spread of America's decadent pop culture, leftist ideas, and secular values and the rise of virulent Anti-Americanism throughout the world. He shows how liberals are responsible for fostering -- and exporting -- a culture that angers and repulses not just Muslim countries but also traditional and religious societies around the world. He also reveals how liberals' outspoken opposition to American foreign policy -- especially our conduct of the war on terror -- contributes to the growing hostility, encouraging people both at home and abroad to blame America for the problems of the world.

Though we are accustomed to thinking of the war on terror and the culture war as distinct and separate, D'Souza argues, they are really one and the same. Conservatives must recognize that the left is now allied with the Islamic radicals in a combined effort to defeat Bush's war on terror. A whole new strategy is therefore needed to fight both wars. It is only by curtailing the left's attacks on religion, family, and traditional values that we can persuade moderate Muslims and others around the world to cooperate with us and begin to shun the extremists in their own countries. In short, writes D'Souza, "to defeat the Islamic radicals abroad, we must defeat the enemy at home."

This is horrible, lying, smearing propaganda, designed to incite hatred against half of America. And it works. We see this stuff in one form or another every single day. Conservatives bathe in it, but the regular public also is showered with it. The worst thing is, it is largely unanswered. People in some parts of the country never hear an opposing viewpoint.

In Are Progressives Good? Then TELL PEOPLE! I wrote,

So it is time to change the game. It is time to start funding organizations that talk to the public about the benefits that progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates bring to them. $1000 given today toward building public appreciation of progressive values could have greater impact than $100,000 spent in support of a candidate in the days before an election.

And I closed that piece by writing,

Marketing creates demand. Let’s create a demand for progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates.

The Commonweal Institute wants to tell people that progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates are good for them. (Commonweal means "the public good" or "the common good.")

As I wrote the other day, I am an unpaid Commonweal Institute Fellow. Let's change that. Click here to help.

Marketing and repetition work, so Click here to help

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 12, 2007

Bush Still President - Corruption, Coverups Continue

Bush is still president, and still has the power to fire prosecutors who go after Republican corruption.

Cunningham Prosecutor Forced Out,

Carole Lam, the San Diego U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the corrupt former lawmaker, is being quietly pushed out by the Bush administration.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 11, 2007

The Escalation

Thoughts:

Surge is a focus-group word, designed to sell an escalation of the war. The strategy is to deflect the incoming Democrats' argument for winding down the war by offering the opposite. And look what we are all discussing. This places "stay the course" as the reasonable middle ground.

It is ALWAYS about appearances and political strategies not reality or the good of the country with this crowd.

EVERYone said from the start that 250-500,000 troops would be needed to occupy Iraq. Bush didn't do this because sending that many troops would undermine political support for the Republican Party. With enough troops there could have been a peaceful Iraq following our illegal invasion. The Iraqi people have paid the real price for this - not us. Yes, we have lost over 3,000 troops dead and how many injured and how many "contractors" and how much money? But the Iraqi people have suffered the loss of hundreds of thousands and of the possibility of going on with their lives in peace - and are instead entering into a horrible civil war because of Bush's choices.

Bush has not asked for tax increases to pay for the war, either. Because it would undermine political support for the party. Instead he offered candy - tax cuts.

Party over country.

Bush and his surrogates say we are fighting "Islamofascism" and it is the worst threat America has ever faced - and then says "go shopping." Fight the worst threat the nation has ever faced by going shopping? Because any kind of sacrifice would undermine support for the Republican Party. Meanwhile fear changes the way people think, and leads much of the population to more easily accept the authoritarian agenda of the right.

Party over country.

In the face of the worst threat the nation has ever faced, and declining readiness of our military - "stretched too thin" - Bush does not ask for a draft to protect the country. Because that would be politically unpopular and undermine support for the Republican Party.

No draft to protect the country. No taxes to pay for the war. No lowering of oil use to cut finding to terrorists states. Nothing that might undermine support for the Republican Party.

Party over country at every turn.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 10, 2007

MySpace Refused Anti-Media Consolidation Ad

MySpace, owned by Fox News, refused to allow Common Cause to run an ad opposing media consolidation.

Update - I originally posted the ad with a link so others could get the ad and post it. Then I visited the Common Cause blog and learned that they are paying some sites to run the ad. Which made me realize they were making fools of all of us who ran it for free - a trick to get free PR from dedicated progressives, while paying the big sites. So I took it out of this post.

MySpace shouldn't have refused the ad and supposed progressive organizations should stop exploiting dedicated progressives.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 4, 2007

Breaking News About Exxon Funding Lies

Reuters - ExxonMobil cultivates global warming doubt -report

Energy giant ExxonMobil borrowed tactics from the tobacco industry to raise doubt about climate change, spending $16 million on groups that question global warming, a science watchdog group said on Wednesday.

"ExxonMobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile , Research) has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer," Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said at a telephone news conference releasing the report.

An ExxonMobil spokesman did not respond immediately to calls for comment.

... U.S. tobacco companies used these tactics for decades to hide the hazards of smoking, and were found liable in federal court last year for violating racketeering laws. [emphasis added]

See also AP - Group: ExxonMobil paid to mislead public

ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in an effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.

The report by the advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain's leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

... ExxonMobil lists on its Web site nearly $133 million in 2005 contributions globally, including $6.8 million for "public information and policy research" distributed to more than 140 think tanks, universities, foundations, associations and other groups. Some of those have publicly disputed any link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.

Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists' strategy and policy director, said in a teleconference that ExxonMobil based its tactics on those of tobacco companies, spreading uncertainty by misrepresenting peer-reviewed scientific studies or emphasizing only selected facts.

Dr. James McCarthy, a professor at Harvard University, said the company has sought to "create the illusion of a vigorous debate" about global warming.

Finally, see this from September, The Denial Industry,

For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 27, 2006

Ford's Mistake

Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, which prevented a full criminal investigation and trial. He felt it would help to heal the country, which had been through assassinations, riots and the divisive Vietnam war. But the pardon had the unintended consequence of creating an impression that those in the highest office really aren't accountable to the public if their actions violate the law.

Four years later the Reagan administration picked up right where Nixon's had left off, and got caught. Other select insiders made the decision not to pursue Reagan.

As chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial.

At a time when thousands were being sent away for years for smoking a joint or doing a line, the country was learning that things really are different for those at the very top.

Bush1 then pardoned everyone involved, especially those being pressured by Lawrence Walsh to testify against him for his own possibly criminal part in it. The public got the message clearly that time.

So by the time Clinton took office the public was ready to believe that all of the country's leaders are corrupt and pay no price for it. The conservatives had an opening to demand that a President finally be held to account. It's the old Seeing the Forest Rule: Republicans accuse others of what they are in fact doing themselves. They accused Clinton of everything, but the investigations found nothing. They impeached him anyway. Now the public understood just who the rules were for and not for. After what Nixon, Reagan and Bush1 had gotten away with, Clinton didn't even have to break any rules, yet he was impeached.

And so here we are. Bush2 can do anything with impunity - and says so with a smirk. His cronies loot, lie and steal. The public and especially the Washington insider class are conditioned to accept that this is the way things are done. All partly tracable back to Ford's subversion of accountability. A mistake. A big one.

Let's learn from Ford's mistake. HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE! Demand that the actions of those in power in the last six years are investigated and any crimes discovered are punished to the fullest extent of the law. Let's set the country and democracy back on course.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 23, 2006

The Right's March

Paperwight's Fair Shot: Lather, Rinse, Repeat,

It's not that the Republicans view Mein Kampf as an instruction manual, but rather that the march toward religio-corporatist totalitarianism tends to pass through the same towns each time.

My comment: What is "the base" hearing? When has Bush ever condemned a surrogate for promulgating the far-right's messages of hate?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 19, 2006

When News Becomes A Corporate "Product"

In the new corporate-owned America a newspaper owner tells people in the newsroom what to print. They quit - or are fired when they won't do what the owner wants because they consider it unethical. Journalists write about the story and are sued for libel and "product disparagement." See Publisher of Santa Barbara paper sues journalist over AJR story

A local barber puts a sign in his shop window supporting the workers, and is threatened with a lawsuit. See Santa Barbara News-Press Owner Threatens Hair Stylist Over Sign

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 15, 2006

Are Progressives Good? Then TELL PEOPLE!

Every time you turn on the radio or a cable news show you hear one form or another of the same old message, “conservatives and their ideas are good and liberals and their ideas are bad.” Think about how often you hear one or another variation of that theme.

But how often do you hear that liberals and progressives are good? How often do you hear that liberal/progressive ideas are better for people than a conservative approach? And if you are reading this you're looking for progressive ideas. So how often do you think the general public is hearing that progressives and their values and ideas are good?

The public does not hear our side of the story very often – if ever.

Why is that? Maybe it’s because we aren’t telling people our side of the story!

There are literally hundreds of conservative organizations that primarily exist to persuade the public to support conservative ideas (and, therefore, conservative candidates.) The people you see on TV or hear on the radio or who write op-eds in newspapers are paid by, or at the very least draw upon resources provided by these organizations. You might or might not have heard of the Heritage Foundation or the Cato Institute or Americans for Tax Reform or the This Institute or the That Foundation or the Government-and-Taxes-Are-Bad Association – but there really is a network of well-funded conservative organizations marketing the conservatives-are-good-and-liberals-and-government-and-democracy-are-bad propaganda every hour of every day and they have been doing so for decades.

Click this link to visit a collection of links to articles, studies, reports and other resources for learning about the right-wing movement, its history, how it is funded and how it operates.

Now, can you think of any organizations that exist to tell the public that progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates are good? Do you know about any organized effort to persuade people to support progressive values and ideas?

People respond to marketing, and conservatives have been marketing their cause while progressives have not. This has been going on for decades, and as a result of this the public’s understanding and acceptance of progressive values - like democracy and community - has eroded. We can see the results of the conservative marketing campaign all around us: War. Debt. Crumbling infrastructure. Falling wages. Loss of pensions. Loss of health insurance. Declining union membership. Massive trade deficits. Distrust of government, courts, schools and other institutions of community. The list just goes on and on.

But really, after decades of conservatives pounding out their message and progressives keeping their message to themselves, what should we expect?

So it is time to change the game. It is time to start funding organizations that talk to the public about the benefits that progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates bring to them. $1000 given today toward building public appreciation of progressive values could have greater impact than $100,000 spent in support of a candidate in the days before an election.

Helping the public understand and accept progressive values will help the efforts of "issue organizations" like environmental groups, pro-choice groups, and others. As the public comes to understand and accept the underlying progressive values they will naturally support organizations that promote particular issues that are based on those values. And as the public begins to demand progressive solutions to problems the candidates they support will also naturally support the efforts of these organizations.

Marketing creates demand. Let’s create a demand for progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates.

The Commonweal Institute wants to tell people that progressive values and ideas and policies and candidates are good for them. (Commonweal means "the public good" or "the common good.")

As I wrote the other day, I am an unpaid Commonweal Institute Fellow. Let's change that. Click here to help.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 14, 2006

It's Not The Bloggers, It's The Blogs

A quick comment on all the big-name pundits and Washington insiders who criticize "the bloggers" and question their legitimacy: Anyone can start a blog.

(pause)

Here is what I am saying. When you criticize "the bloggers" and question the legitimacy of what they are saying, you are questioning the concept of democracy itself. ANYone can start a blog -- so everyone is a blogger. If it makes you uncomfortable that the rabble is allowed to speak and express their opinions you need to think about your own understanding of and commitment to democracy. The blogs that reach prominence do so through an entirely democratic process - people have chosen to read or echo what is being written on them.

It's not the bloggers you have a beef with, it's the blogs themselves -- the tool that lets the public have a say.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 5, 2006

Kicking An 82 Year Old Man: The Right Attacks Jimmy Carter. Again.

[Co-written with James Boyce, originally at Huffington Post]

Jimmy Carter is not remembered as a great President. Most folks might even consider him a failure, the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia. But why exactly do we hold one of the two Democratic Presidents of the last 38 years in such low esteem?

Isn't this the man that held the country together in the years after Watergate? Didn't he bring decency and honesty back to The White House?

Yes.

Isn't it a great American success story for a man to come from such humble beginnings, serve in defense of his country and then ascend to the highest office?

Yes.

Isn't it remarkable that back in 1979 he declared "The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them." Isn't that leadership and vision?

Yes. But it was legacy destroying as well. Our memories of Jimmy Carter are memories laced with the poison of a right wing smear campaign because when Jimmy Carter encouraged us to face the facts of the energy crisis, he faced off against the Oil Companies and as the decades passed, it has become sadly clear that the nuclear physicist Naval Officer peanut farmer came out the worse for it. He was portrayed as naive and as a simpleton. He was routinely mocked. A good man's legacy was taken down.

What some would view as terrific achievements, such as reducing America's oil imports by 1.8 million barrels a day or getting the Crude Oil Windfall Profits tax passed to help fund his energy policies (Any spare copies of that bill around by any chance?) others viewed as terrific challenges to their businesses.

According to AmericanPresident.org, a "comprehensive non-partisan resource available on the history and function of the American presidency," Carter accomplished a great deal as President, particularly his energy packages, but:

"Carter gained a reputation for political ineptitude, even though his actual record in dealing with Congress belied that image. His success rate in getting presidential initiatives through Congress was much higher than that of his predecessors Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and successors Reagan and Bush. One might expect a president with a majority in Congress to do better than presidents facing the opposition party majorities. But Carter was also close to Johnson's success rates, and higher than Kennedy's record. Carter did not like to bargain and remained arrogant and aloof, but at the end of the day, he usually wound up with much of what he sought from Congress. His major problem was that the perception of his leadership did not correspond with the reality of his performance."

Let's repeat that: "the perception of his leadership did not correspond with the reality of his performance." Millions of dollars of smears and attacks will do that to a man. We see the same happening to others, over and over again, to this day. Ask Michael Dukakis or Al Gore or John Kerry or any of the multitude of victims of the right's $mear machine.

We know now that companies like ExxonMobil have created what investigative author George Monboit has called The Denial Industry, consisting of PR attack firms, phony grassroots "astroturf" organizations, think tanks, political front groups and others, all well-paid to confuse the public over the facts of global warming. According to Monboit,

"By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that serious researchers are challenging the consensus."

We can see all around us the effect of this kind of operation and the tragic consequences of the resulting delay in dealing with problems like global warming. We can see the effect of similar operations on our health care policies, our disappearing pensions, our low minimum wage, our campaign finance system, our reduced job security and so many other areas.

With this in mind the question has to be asked: Does our negative perception of Jimmy Carter come from the same kind of corporate-sponsored manipulative operation? Does it come from the same kind of smear operation as the one that led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the "swiftboating" of John Kerry? Was our preception of Carter formed by an attack campaign from the then-newly-forming web of right-wing "conservative movement" organizations funded by extremely wealthy individuals, corporations and foundations?

Jimmy Carter has spent his years since The White House as admirably as any former President. He's focused on hunger and poverty and promoting democracy around the world. He spent years far from the public view.

But now, Jimmy Carter has again been doing interviews and press. Now, at age eighty-two, he seems to have been moving towards a respected elder statesmen role.

So just this week, an anonymous caller called into a C-SPAN interview and ranted at Jimmy Carter, calling him "a bigot, and a racist and an anti-Semite." The caller continued, accusing Carter of "cozying up with every dictator, thug, Islamic terrorist there is."

The rantings of a lunatic who made it through the pre-call screening somehow right? Time to check the systems and make sure it never happens again? No. This was the result of a coordinated smear where the charges of Jimmy Carter being an "anti-Semite" echoed through the right wing blogs and straight to Drudge Report.

This attack was amplified by numerous current right-wing online attacks on Carter at sites such as www.frontpagemag.com. From the right came a wave of attacks, Carter's been "trying to (expletive) the Jews." He's friends with terrorists. He's this and this and isn't it a little pathetic?

Not to the far right. Not to those who have spent forty years developing a machine that sells us the myth of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and Rudy Guiliani while giving us the smearing of Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry.

No, even if Jimmy Carter is eighty-two years old, a dedicated public servant and American hero in the twilight of his career, if people are actually listening and liking what they hear, it's time to smear.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:10 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 4, 2006

Letter From Senators To Exxon Mobil: Stop Supporting The Deniers

Senators Rockefeller and Snowe have written a remarkable letter to the Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, (and cc'd the Board of Directors), asking Exxon to stop funding the global warming "denial industry."

From the letter, "It is our hope that under your leadership, ExxonMobil would end its dangerous support of the "deniers."

Here is the text of the letter:

Mr. Rex W. Tillerson
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
ExxonMobil Corporation
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, TX 75039

Dear Mr. Tillerson:

Allow us to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your first year as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ExxonMobil Corporation. You will become the public face of an undisputed leader in the world energy industry, and a company that plays a vital role in our national economy. As that public face, you will have the ability and responsibility to lead ExxonMobil toward its rightful place as a good corporate and global citizen.

We are writing to appeal to your sense of stewardship of that corporate citizenship as U.S. Senators concerned about the credibility of the United States in the international community, and as Americans concerned that one of our most prestigious corporations has done much in the past to adversely affect that credibility. We are convinced that ExxonMobil's longstanding support of a small cadre of global climate change skeptics, and those skeptics access to and influence on government policymakers, have made it increasingly difficult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy.

Obviously, other factors complicate our foreign policy. However, we are persuaded that the climate change denial strategy carried out by and for ExxonMobil has helped foster the perception that the United States is insensitive to a matter of great urgency for all of mankind, and has thus damaged the stature of our nation internationally. It is our hope that under your leadership, ExxonMobil would end its dangerous support of the "deniers." Likewise, we look to you to guide ExxonMobil to capitalize on its significant resources and prominent industry position to assist this country in taking its appropriate leadership role in promoting the technological innovation necessary to address climate change and in fashioning a truly global solution to what is undeniably a global problem.

While ExxonMobil's activity in this area is well-documented, we are somewhat encouraged by developments that have come to light during your brief tenure. We fervently hope that reports that ExxonMobil intends to end its funding of the climate change denial campaign of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) are true. Similarly, we have seen press reports that your British subsidiary has told the Royal Society, Great Britain's foremost scientific academy, that ExxonMobil will stop funding other organizations with similar purposes. However, a casual review of available literature, as performed by personnel for the Royal Society reveals that ExxonMobil is or has been the primary funding source for the "skepticism" of not only CEI, but for dozens of other overlapping and interlocking front groups sharing the same obfuscation agenda. For this reason, we share the goal of the Royal Society that ExxonMobil "come clean" about its past denial activities, and that the corporation take positive steps by a date certain toward a new and more responsible corporate citizenship.

ExxonMobil is not alone in jeopardizing the credibility and stature of the United States. Large corporations in related industries have joined ExxonMobil to provide significant and consistent financial support of this pseudo-scientific, non-peer reviewed echo chamber. The goal has not been to prevail in the scientific debate, but to obscure it. This climate change denial confederacy has exerted an influence out of all proportion to its size or relative scientific credibility. Through relentless pressure on the media to present the issue "objectively," and by challenging the consensus on climate change science by misstating both the nature of what "consensus" means and what this particular consensus is, ExxonMobil and its allies have confused the public and given cover to a few senior elected and appointed government officials whose positions and opinions enable them to damage U.S. credibility abroad.

Climate change denial has been so effective because the "denial community" has mischaracterized the necessarily guarded language of serious scientific dialogue as vagueness and uncertainty. Mainstream media outlets, attacked for being biased, help lend credence to skeptics' views, regardless of their scientific integrity, by giving them relatively equal standing with legitimate scientists. ExxonMobil is responsible for much of this bogus scientific "debate" and the demand for what the deniers cynically refer to as "sound science."

A study to be released in November by an American scientific group will expose ExxonMobil as the primary funder of no fewer than 29 climate change denial front groups in 2004 alone. Besides a shared goal, these groups often featured common staffs and board members. The study will estimate that ExxonMobil has spent more than $19 million since the late 1990s on a strategy of "information laundering," or enabling a small number of professional skeptics working through scientific-sounding organizations to funnel their viewpoints through non-peer-reviewed websites such as Tech Central Station. The Internet has provided ExxonMobil the means to wreak its havoc on U.S. credibility, while avoiding the rigors of refereed journals. While deniers can easily post something calling into question the scientific consensus on climate change, not a single refereed article in more than a decade has sought to refute it.

Indeed, while the group of outliers funded by ExxonMobil has had some success in the court of public opinion, it has failed miserably in confusing, much less convincing, the legitimate scientific community. Rather, what has emerged and continues to withstand the carefully crafted denial strategy is an insurmountable scientific consensus on both the problem and causation of climate change. Instead of the narrow and inward-looking universe of the deniers, the legitimate scientific community has developed its views on climate change through rigorous peer-reviewed research and writing across all climate-related disciplines and in virtually every country on the globe.

Where most scientists dispassionate review of the facts has moved past acknowledgement to mitigation strategies, ExxonMobil's contribution the overall politicization of science has merely bolstered the views of U.S. government officials satisfied to do nothing. Rather than investing in the development of technologies that might see us through this crisis--and which may rival the computer as a wellspring of near-term economic growth around the world--ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years. The net result of this unfortunate campaign has been a diminution of this nation's ability to act internationally, and not only in environmental matters.

In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world's largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.

Each of us is committed to seeing the United States officially reengage and demonstrate leadership on the issue of global climate change. We are ready to work with you and any other past corporate sponsor of the denial campaign on proactive strategies to promote energy efficiency, to expand the use of clean, alternative, and renewable fuels, to accelerate innovation to responsibly extend the useful life of our fossil fuel reserves, and to foster greater understanding of the necessity of action on a truly global scale before it is too late.

Sincerely,

John D. Rockefeller IV
Olympia Snowe

Cc:
J. Stephen Simon
Walter V. Shipley
Samuel J. Palmisano
Marilyn Carlson Nelson
Henry A. McKinnell, Jr.
Philip E. Lippincott
Reatha Clark King
William R. Howell
James R. Houghton
William W. George
Michael J. Boskin

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 3, 2006

Is This Legal

In a continuing series, STF asks if it is legal for the Secretary of the navy to decide contracts based on the politics of the locality?

Michelle Malkin: Navy to San Francisco: See ya, haters! references a news story, Navy scuttles plan to commission warship here, citing local politics,

Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter vetoed plans to commission the Makin Island, the Navy's newest and most powerful warship, in San Francisco in 2008 because of a perception that the city is anti-military.

So San Francisco is not Republican enough to get military contracts? Didn't we just have an election in which the public voted AGAINST corruption?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 7, 2006

Organized Crime

Whiskey Bar: The Octopus

The modern GOP -- or, more specifically, the Axis of '70s Campus Republicans running it -- really is just a criminal enterprise disguised as a political party.

Dirty tricks, large and small, are a sorry fact of life in American politics, but what the Republicans have done over the past few weeks -- the surrealist attack ads, the forged endorsements, the midnight robo calls, the arrest threats, the voter misinformation (did you know your polling station has been moved?) -- is sui generis, at least at the national level.

Even Dick Nixon never tried anything like this on such a grand scale -- although, of course, he also didn't have the technology. The only thing we haven't seen yet is a break in at DNC headquarters. And if the Rovians thought they could get anything out of it that would be useful in this election (nobody else has) we'd probably be reading about that, too.

It's always possible to point to Democratic/liberal offenses, but at this point the comparisons look pretty silly: some downed yard signs here, a few crooked and/or stoned ACORN canvassers there. Not even in the same universe, much less the same ball park.

Couple the GOP's rat-fucking campaign with all the other stuff we already know about -- the collectivized bribery of the K Street Project, the Abramoff casino extortion ring, the Defense and CIA appropriation scams, the Iraq War contracting scams, the Pacific Island sex trade protection racket, the church pulpits doubling as ward halls, the illegal wiretapping, the lies, perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame case (I really could go on like this all day) -- and it's clear that what we need most isn't a new Congress but a new RICO prosecution, with lots of defendents and unindicted co-conspirators.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 6, 2006

Wanna Be A Republican Leader?

Then watch this:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 3, 2006

Corruption - A $6 Million Gift To Oil Company

In years past this alone would have been a major story and the corruption involved would not be tolerated. But this year it's just one more thing - a relatively small thing. We all know what is behing it - payments from lobbyists. The people involved will be leaving the government soon to "work" at the oil companies for unusually high pay. Gov't drops demand for Chevron royalty,

The department's Minerals Management Service had maintained that Chevron owed an additional $6 million for gas it took under federal leases in the Gulf between 1996 and 2002 and sold to Dynegy Inc., a company Chevron partially owns.

Essentially, the government argued that Chevron undervalued the gas it sold to Dynegy. Chevron paid royalties based on a price that didn't represent fair market value, the government auditors said.

But last summer, the government quietly rescinded its demand for the additional royalties. That decision was reported Tuesday by the New York Times, based on documents the newspaper obtained through a freedom of information request.

The story comes on the same day as a larger story about the Republican Congress getting rid of the only agency conducting ANY oversight of Iraq spending. This is just two stories about corruption today. There will be two more tomorrow and the day after...

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 2, 2006

Go See Olbermann

Anyone who hasn't yet seen Keith Olbermann's special comment yesterday should absolutely, absolutely see it.

Crooks & Liars has it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 31, 2006

Blogger Beat Up By Sen. Allen Staffers

Blogger Mike Stark was assaulted and beaten by staffers of Virginia Senator George Allen today.

Update, now have YouTube video.

Alternet PEEK blog has CNN video.

There is a video of the incident available from a local news station:NBC 29: Count on Us - Incident at Allen Campaign Stop in Charlottesville. The text accompanying the video states:

As Senator Allen was exiting a ballroom, coming to talk to the media, a protestor started yelling and asking, "Why did you spit on your first wife?". He wasn't able to get near the senator as he was tackled by three men wearing Allen stickers, presumed to be staffers. He was pushed and manhandled and ended up on the floor, near windows at the Omni.

I will have more here as the story develops.

UpdateAtrios is on it. Kos is on it too. AmericaBlog now. MyDD has video.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 30, 2006

A Hog Farm Next Door To Your House -- Stealth "Takings" On The Ballot In Four States

There is a law on the ballot in four states that says if I want to open a hog farm or a chemical plant next door to your house and you don't want me to do that, then YOU have to PAY ME not to -- you have to pay me ALL THE MONEY I MIGHT HAVE MADE. I am not kidding. This new law says that if you want to stop a corporation from dumping toxic waste into the river from which you get your drinking water, or stop them from venting dangerous chemicals into the air, then YOU have to PAY that company not to. I am NOT kidding!

The far right says that a government stopping a company from dumping waste into a river is "taking" money from that company. I am not kidding. And you had better take this seriously or YOU will be PAYING companies to not harm you and your families.

Along with EVERYTHING else going on in this election, the far right has managed to get stealth "takings" initiatives on the ballot in four states. In California it is Proposition 90. In Washington it is Initiative 933. In Idaho it is Proposition 2. In Arizona it is Proposition 207.

This is a "private property" and "takings" amendment disguised as a limit to "eminent domain." This means that it is supposed to be about keeping the government from seizing property so it can be used by commercial interests. But what this really does is prevent the states from ANY regulation of property, including ANY environmental regulations, ANY zoning laws, etc.

These ballot initiatives are all funded by one person - a New York real estate tycoon named Howie Rich. And he did this through front groups - organizations disguised as something else. See if you can guess what he plans to do the day after these laws pass? (Hint -- think "hog farm next door to your house.")

See Calitics: Soapblox California :: Prop 90: A Battle we MUST Win and
The Left Coaster: Deceptive Initiatives Designed To Blackmail Your Community and TomPaine.com Monster Stomping The States and The Nation: Rich's Stealth Campaign.

I am not kidding. I understand that saying the things I am saying here makes ME sound like the extremist, but you'd better go read up on these laws right now and see for yourself.

So here is ONE MORE THING to worry about this election. ONE MORE THING to tell friends and family to watch out for. ONE MORE THING to spread the word about. But it's one more IMPORTANT thing so get the word out.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 29, 2006

Responsibility? None

A right-wing radio host calls for assassinating members of Congress and overthrowing the government. A right-wing "news" site reprints his instructions for how to accomplish it - claiming to disapprove. Right-wing Drudge Report sends its readers to the website.

See WorldNetDaily: Assassinate half of Congress, urges Web-radio hatemonger

How about NOT helping him spread the word?

Note - I don't consider the readers of Seeing the Forest as possible candidates for recriotent into this. But maybe I'm also not being responsible by repeating this here. What do you think?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 20, 2006

Drinking Kool-Aid

In case you are not familiar with the term "drinking the Kool-Aid" it referes back to the Jim Jones Jonestown cult, who lined up to drink Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide.

And today, another example: Top US general says Rumsfeld is inspired by God,

The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

While very few in leadership positions in this country have kids in Iraq, outside of the Capital there are families, parents, friends and co-workers of the people serving there. I wonder what they think when they hear this stuff? Are they filled with confidence that the leadership is ... well, sane?

So how is the Right reacting? Predictably, they're lining up to drink more Kool-Aid themselves:

Confederate Yankee is triggered into a fury at "far left liberals" and "the media" - just because AP reported the story,

As is typical of the left-leaning media, they seem amazed that leaders in these modern times pray for guidance from a power higher than themselves, and thought that detail was so newsworthy as to make it this story's lede. Other elements, such as Rumsfeld's controversial leadership style, and an apparent show of support at this ceremony from the military estalishment are far more newsworthy elements of the day's events to most people, but not so to AFP.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:53 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 13, 2006

FEAR and Elections

I have been hearing ads on the radio talking about what to do to prepare for a possible terrorist attack, and directing peope to this government site: Ready.gov - Prepare. Plan. Stay Informed.

I wonder why the Bush administration chooses now to remind everyone to be prepared...

And on a completely, absolutely unrelated point, check out this GREAT post at DailyKos, The Science Behind Scaring The Bejeebers Out Of Voters

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:07 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 9, 2006

All Yo