Joe Camel for Senator!

The inalienable right to free speech was endowed on We The (mere mortal) People by our Creator. But in the most arrogant example of judicial activism ever, Chief Judicial Activist John “Benedict Arnold” Roberts and his merry band of royalist robed reactionary ramblers have both betrayed the founders vision of democracy and bestowed this right on corporations based on the notion that corporations are “persons” something any four year old would immediately recognize as foolishness. Corporations are not people. Did you go to school with any corporations; have you ever seen one walking down the street? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not against corporations, I’m a VP at one and we derive our livelihood from our clients, most of which are also corporations. I just don’t want to be ruled by corporations, for people governed in the interest of others cannot remain truly free.

Yes, I said royalists, you know aristocrats, which our founders fought a revolution against to throw off our backs! Thomas Jefferson warned America to, “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.” After all, the Boston Tea Party was as much about the corporate stranglehold that the monopolistic and transnational East India Company sought to place on the colonist’s livelihoods as it was about defiance of the despotic British monarch.

The extreme court could have simply ruled on the merits of the Citizens United v FEC case, they chose activism, expanding the breadth of the ruling and sweeping away 100 years of state and federal legislation and legal precedent from Teddy “Trust Bustin” Roosevelt to McCain-Feingold. Progressive Republican Teddy Roosevelt recognized the threat to democracy that large corporations posed in the last gilded age when he proposed public funding of all elections and said, “All contributions by corporations to any political committee for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.” But the five corporatist appointees on the bench did their master’s bidding and loosed the floodgates of the corporate ownership’s cash on our elections, allowing unlimited advertising during election campaigns for political propaganda. Injustices Roberts and Alito should be impeached for lying under oath since both provided sworn testimony during their confirmation hearings that they would respect existing law and uphold established precedent. Priestly robes aside, these were either exhibitions of very poor judgment by Roberts and Alito or worse, outright lies.

Ask yourself, what is an American Corporation? Corporations aren’t born, they’re not naturalized, and don’t get to vote when they turn 18, they are not citizens. Saudi Arabia’s or China’s government owned oil companies ARAMCO or PetroChina, respectively can incorporate in Delaware for $20 making them legal “American” Corporations. Transnational and foreign corporations with American subsidiaries will be able to use unlimited funds to fill the airwaves with slanted information and outright lies during elections from Dog Catcher to President. Once corporations have successfully used legalized blackmail to cow a couple of our representatives or bribery to install their representatives to replace ours, the rest will dutifully fall in line for free out of fear of the corporate funds, yielding a tremendous return on their investment.

Imagine a corporation approaching a lawmaker with positions in the public interest, but not theirs and making it known that they are prepared to launch a media blitz smearing him or her in the last weeks of their campaign. Or a corporation buttonholing a sympathetic, attractive person and telling them, you don’t need to raise funds from the citizen constituents of the office we’ve selected you for, we will run all your campaign ads for you, oh and here is a list your positions on the issues. Heck, why not just cut to the chase and introduce the altruistic representative from the Altria Group, Senator Joe Camel?

This anti-democratic atrocity must not go unchallenged. Laws must be enacted to restrain this aggregated corporate power, because when profits are involved we certainly cannot count on corporate restraint. Passing the Fair Elections Now Act, requiring shareholder approval for such expenditures and holding CEO’s (actual persons) personally accountable for such messages would be a good start. But ultimately the Constitution must be amended to reserve the rights of personhood to real human beings only and to deny super-personhood to these immortal, omnipresent, amoral, faceless artificial beings. Go to movetoamend.org or freespeechforpeople.org for information.

Are we going to replace the word “men” with “corporations” in the Pledge, Preamble and Declaration of Independence? Will we still yet hold the truth self evident that our government is instituted among Men and derives its just powers from the consent of the governed? Or will we hoist the logo spangled banner of corporate servitude?

The Burlington Area Progressives are hosting Attorney Eugene Gasiorkiewicz to present “The Ethics of Corporate Entitlement in U.S. Elections” and psychologist Dr. David Nichols, Ph.D. to speak about “The Electorate’s Feelings of Disenfranchisement and Suppression of the Vote”. The event will be Thursday February 18th – 7:00 PM at the CATHE Center, 125 East State St. in Burlington. The public should be outraged and all are encouraged to attend! Admission is free however donations are accepted to defray the costs. Speak now or forget about it! For more information call (262) 237-4351.

Sean Cranley – Corporate Serf No. 399-22-0812
Burlington, Inc.

Morons Cut off Nose to Spite Face

"Charlie Sykes says some towns are going back to gravel roads" was my first clue about the pervading mentality at our special town meeting of electors last night to vote on a proposal by the Board to borrow $1.5 million to reconstruct some roads and build a new community center: http://www.springprairiewi.com/

Essentially, the Town borrowed $5M several years ago to reconstruct some aging roads that were getting too expensive to continue repairing. They did it when the economy was down and they could borrow and hire cheaply and they promised not to raise taxes, a promise which they kept.

The Board is very fiscally conservative and not prone to promoting fanciful projects and the Chairman laid out the rationale masterfully. The Town hall was built in 1885 as a one room school house and had a small addition put on in the 50's. Both are in sad shape and will require significant cost to repair which is unknown until they actually open up walls, foundations and the roof and see what's there. Two retired residents who worked in construction said it's a money pit and putting more into it for maintenance and repair is just throwing money away. Reading the list of defects is hilarious, like "Furnace goes out when the wind blows." and "Septic tank has not been pumped in at least 35 years", no one living knows.

We're going to need a new town hall eventually, hell there wasn't enough room (I was in the kitchen other were in the hallway) fror everyone who showed and cars were parked up and down Spring Prairie Road on both sides of busy HWY 120 in the snow in the dark. We can borrow money and hire conctractors cheaply in this economy so it''ll cost more later. AND they promised again not to raise taxes and laid the figures plain as day. Not only that but our taxes would actually drop for the first two years at a minimum due to the finances and the lower maintenance costs for the new building. People kept asking the same dumb questions over and over that either someone else had already asked or that had been explained in the first place and some people were just plain rude and hostile. They voted it down with 60 to 70% against, because of the moronic belief that any government borrowing or spending is evil!

So instead of wrapping the $1M from the previous loan in with the new $1.5M, speading it out over 6 years, lowering taxes and getting a new hall that will serve for the next 100 years we're going to keep and repair the deteriorating spithole at unknown expense, keep taxes the same and wipe the $200K in the reserve fund that needs to be tapped to to pay off the old loan without raising taxes. The Board could have just done it on their own, but they wanted to take it to the voters. The voters elected these people, they are their friends and neighbors and they're not spend thrifts by any stretch. Yet they thumbed their noses at their studied recommendations and threw the money spent on an architect down the spitter. What a bunch of buffoons. Honestly, what a thankless job. I wouldn't be surprised if they resign. They're all older retired guys, who the hell the needs those kind of headaches?

I mean people were upset that there was going to be an office available to the sherriff where they could do paper work. "That's the county's responsibility!" Yeah and the county would pay for the supplies and equipment (phone, radio, computer). We wouldn't want a sherriff's deputy right here in our "community" (using the word very loosely) more often, hell it's only 20-25 minutes from Elkhorn!

How much longer do I have on this planet? I won't have to spend eternity with these "spirits" right?

NFL a Triumph of Socialistic Capitalism

This Sunday millions of Americans will gather watch the spectacle of the NFL Superbowl, a triumph of socialistic capitalism. The NFL is by far the most successful professional sports enterprise in America today. And the reason for this great success? Revenue sharing among the individual franchises that make up the league, you know socialism. They share revenue on everything from tickets and TV to towels and t-shirts, with the individual franchise keeping a portion of the sales and the rest going for equal distribution among all the teams.

Make no mistake about it, the NFL and the individual franchises (except for the most-glorious Green Bay Packers) are capitalistic ventures intent on making a profit and a return on investment and that is as it should be. But the NFL, unlike it's now weaker cousin MLB (America's former passtime) long ago realized that the health and well being of the whole is directly related to and dependent on the health and well being of each individual member.

By socializing their success the NFL has been able to produce a superior product with most of the teams being competative at any given time and a fairly rapid turnover of championship teams. And this has been good for their customers, the fans who get competative teams to root for and close , entertaining games to watch, which in return is good for the NFL and all it's members. There are no Yankees in the NFL, using their big media market renvue advantage perenially to buy their way to success. There are no Cubs, perpetually refusing to re-invest revenue in a superior product, secure in the monopoly over their mindlessly loyal and long suffering fans. It's better to be successful on a wheat pile than king of a dung heap.

Purity is not always a good thing and often comes with severe drawbacks and shortcomings. It's true with dogs and horses. Constant inbreeding in the quest for purity ends up accentuating inherent weaknesses and in general, mutts tend to be healthier than purebreads. The same is true with economic systems. Pure capitalism and pure socialism soon show the cracks of their inherent weaknesses that inevitably lead to crisis and failure. But the balancing act of a healthy blend allows the strengths of both to come through while keeping expression of the weaknesses of each to a minimum.

So remember this Sunday when when your witnessing a prime display of sucessful socialistic capitalism that even the Saints can, at long last have a chance to reach the top and enjoy their day in the sun when there is a reasonable sharing of resources and a level playing field. Go NFC Saints!

Corporate Superpersonhood, Meet the Boss

New Pledge: I pledge allegiance to the corporations of the Transnational States of America,
and to the profits for which they stand, one nation, under Wall> Street, bought and paid for,
with liberty and justice for those who can afford it.

New Preamble: We the Corporations, in order to form a moreprofitable union, provide for the tort defense, promote the corporate welfareand secure the blessings of free-markets for our owners and our subsidiaries, doimpose and establish this Constitution on the United States of America.

If corprations are people then:
Why can't they be put in prison when they break the law?

Why can't they be given the death penalty when they murder people?

How come they're immortal?

How come they can be in multiple jurisdictions and even countries all at once?

Why didn't they go to my school so I could have a corporation as a friend?

Why can't they vote?Why don't they need a passport ot enter or leave the country?

Why aren't they counted in the Census? Isn't the census primarily about allocating representation to the PEOPLE? Am I missing something!?

How come they have different tax rates then say, oh I don't know, people?

If money is speech then:
Speech must be money,so how come they don't tax speech?

Why can't I put my speech in a CD and collect interest in my speech?

If I commit an infraction, how come I may have to forfeit my money, but not my speech?

Why can't I fold my speech up, keep it my wallet and get it out later when I need it?

Well at least we needn't fret about donating our hard earned money to candidates anymore. Why try to change the ocean with a dribble.I can't wait for a foreign corporation like Saudi Arabia's ARAMCO TO STARTPICKING THEiR REPRESENTATIVES IN OFFICES FROM DOG CATCHER TO PRESIDENT!

Welcome to the Ownership's Society

As the prescient Chief Justice of Wisconsin's Sumpreme Court said to the UW Law School graduates in 1873 on the the cusp of the last robber barron infested gilded age:

"[There] is looming up a new dark power . . . the enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marching, not for economical conquests only, but for political power. . . The question will arise in your day, though perhaps not in mine, which shall rule - wealth or man; which shall lead - money or intellect; who shall fill public stations - educated and patriotic freemen, or the feudal serfs of corporate capital . . ."

Robert La Follette, Teddy Roosevelt and the progressives movement answered this call then saving democratic-representative governance. Chief Judicial Activist John "Benedist Arnold" Roberts and his corporatist collaborators on the Extreme Court Bench undid their efforts and 100 years of estblished law and precedent with one deep bow to their masters of the owenship society. Who will answer today in the hope of proving Frank Zappa wrong when he said:

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."

Five corporate apointed Supreme Injustices just took down the scenery. Is the curtain next?

Chris Hedges has written an interesting and ominous article about the illusion of democray and the emergent inverted totalitiarianism. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/25

You're free to move about the country.

Warm Rememberances,

Sean Cranley - Corporate Serf No. 394-74-2812

NADA - Not A Democracy Anymore

Mike McCabe, Executive Direcor of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign authored this statement on behalf of WDC regarding the recent traitorous and judicially activist supreme (Extreme) court ruling that has surpassed even bu$h v Gore in terms of audacity and damage to our democracy and the freedom of the American People http://www.wisdc.org/pr012110.php

Historically democracies have lasted about two hundred years or so before the plutocrats and feudal lords re-exert their control. Well America, it was nice while it lasted.

The narrowest of majorities on the U.S. Supreme Court legislated from the bench today, effectively enacting a radical vision of the First Amendment and a bastardized version of democracy that has never been approved by elected representatives of the American people and strays far from the ideals spelled out so elegantly by the nation’s founders.

The Court majority’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a continuation of the judicial activism on election finance that began in earnest in the 1970s and substantially expands the scope of this policymaking by unelected and unaccountable judges for life.

Boiled down to its essence, five of the nine justices ruled that money is speech, corporations are people, public offices are commodities and elections are the marketplace where these commodities are bought and sold. The majority opinion asserts the appearance of big money influence over elections will not cause the public to lose confidence in the democratic process. The cluelessness demonstrated by such a declaration begs the question: What planet do these justices live on?

This ruling further chips away at both the letter and spirit of the federal McCain-Feingold law and favors the corrupt status quo in national politics. The five justices overlooked the corrupting effects of allowing massive sums of wealth to be brought to bear in election campaigns. Their ruling throws century-old law on the use of corporate and labor union treasury funds to influence elections on the scrap heap.

On the other hand, a super-majority of justices upheld the constitutionality of disclosing money spent on elections. This leaves the door open to meaningful disclosure reform at the federal and state levels.

Unaddressed in this case and untouched by today’s ruling are public financing programs like the one just enacted for state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin. Such programs remain on sound constitutional footing and now become all the more important as one of the few remaining tools to guard against political corruption and ensure the voices of ordinary citizens are heard.

It is also important to note that this case involved a challenge to a federal law, not any state law in Wisconsin. However, today’s ruling does have state-law implications, which we will be assessing in the days and weeks to come.

An Open Letter to the President

Dear Barack --
While you have done many admirable things in the first year of your presidency, you're getting cooked in the media and by the Republicans because your accomplishments are not direct enough -- and, therefore, can't be explained in brief messages (of just a few words).
You need to re-concentrate your efforts on the 4 things you were elected to do -- and you need to do them in a way that you can explain in a simple phrase. (Not, "We removed the insurance companyies' ability to discriminate on pre-existing conditions," but "We created Medicare for all.")
The four things you were elected to do are:
1) Create Jobs
2) Fix Health Care
3) Save the Environment
4) End the War

One of the reasons we lost a Senate seat in MA was the lack of easily explainable progress in any of these areas.
There is no one in the country that thinks you have done any of these four things. Further, there is no one that can explain any of your accomplishments in these areas in simple, direct terms.
If you can't explain it in simple, direct terms, the American people won't buy it or believe it.
You need to redouble your efforts to take simple, direct action. You need to be courageous.
Presidents are remembered for their leadership -- not for their ability to be bi-partisan or reach amiable compromises.
You were elected to lead (not to compromise).

It's time to lead and address these issues directly.
Yours Sincerely - Steve Sullivan

My Letter to President Obama in the Wake of What Looks Like a Defeat in MA Senate

I just sent this note to the Whitehouse as I wait for the results in Massachusetts.

I think he needs to get more letters like this.

*

I do not know the outcome of tonight's vote in Massachusetts.  I do know that I sent money and just spent the past hour phoning from Wisconsin to turn out the vote in my old home state.  I hope Martha will win, but the news does not look hopeful.

I do think I know what went wrong - not specifically with her campaign, but overall: You, the President (whom I worked so hard for) have not done enough.  You have not gone far enough with healthcare -- abandoning the Public Option or Single Payer off the bat.  You have not gone far enough in creating jobs, nor in punishing Wall Street for their failures, both in tending our money to begin with and in investing the bailout money in America rather than in enriching themselves.

In short, you have not pushed hard enough or been progressive enough.  You have been Jimmy Carter when we need another FDR.  You have compromised when the country needs you to LEAD.

It's time to wake up and LEAD the country, before there is no country left to lead and none left to follow you.

Please, stand up.  Be President.

Your Supporter (and former office runner),

Steve Sullivan

Learn to Speak Teabag/Wingnutti Death Threats

Apparently the cartoonist (Mark Fiore) responsible for this brief educational video has received numerous death threats from the wingnutti. And he's not even Danish!

Dog! Thou shalt not insult the profit, Michelle Backman!

Perhaps the GoverNOTor Sarah Palincomparison, who as just announced will be the key-note speaker at the next two major teabaggings, has issued a Fatwah for the Teahadists to get this infidel!

Move Your Money!

Wall Street has ceased to be about capitalism, which involves investing in companies that produce goods and services of value and has turned into a casino, betting (not investing) on derivatives and credit default swaps that produce no inherent value. In the process they have damaged the U.S. and world economy and squandered the wealth of millions of innocent Americans.

They have used their money to usurp the people's representation in our government, change the rules that governed themselves and thereby created a crisis whereby the money paid by the citizenry in taxes had to be used to save them and avert a complete global meltdown, diverting attention and resources from other critical needs and boosting federal debt.

Too big to fail should mean too too big to exist, but they'll fight this and any other regulation tooth and nail with their undo influence and bribery. A new movement has been started to encourage people to move their money out of the big Gall Street banks and into community banks to send a message and punish the greedmongers: http://moveyourmoney.info/

Personally, I'd encourage people to join a credit union instead, but I think their on the right track. Take your money away from the bankster-robberbarron-riverboat-gamblers and put it in your own community!

The Fallacy of the GOParty Line

Because they must criticize Obama no matter what he does or says, all the little GOPpositionsits, including of course Paully the Parrotboy” Ryan are running around spouting the same approved gandabyte talking point; if we set a time table, our enemies will just wait us out. The thing is, if you have audacity to think about it for a moment, this tired old party line (they said the same thing about Iraq) falls apart utterly. And of course they conveniently ignore the inconvenient truth that President Obama explicitly stated that the drawing down of forces would be contingent on conditions on the ground.

If the matter was as simplistic as the GOPsters “logic” would have us all believe (or as their mental constructs allow) the Taliban need only have stopped fighting a couple years ago and we’d be leaving now based on favorable conditions on the ground, in country. They could then start their movement back up again. But movements don’t work that way, they’re like sharks, they either move or they die.

So we see yet again that when exposed to a modicum of critical thinking the GOPlogic that seems to make sense on the simplistic surface is hollow in the middle like a rotten tree. But I guess they feel they must come up with something negative with which to prop themselves up. And of course, never meeting a war they didn’t love, they’ll never be satisfied with anything less than war without end, amen.

Weapons of Mass Murder Should Be Illegal

It’s time make hand guns like the Fort hood shooter used illegal. These weapons are easily concealed, highly powerful and with high capacity, easily interchangeable clips they allow a shooter to spray hundreds of bullets in a few minutes and reload in seconds. They are weapons of mass murder, serving only evil and have no legitimate purpose whatsoever. In fact their only purpose is to kill people, lots of people, quickly.

The Virginia Tech shooter fired 170 rounds in 9 minutes and left 32 people dead and 30 more people horribly injured. The Fort Hood shooter fired 100 bullets in 3 minutes. He had high capacity magazine clips with 20 rounds per clip. With a gun in each hand that’s 40 rounds before he has to reload and he reloaded more than once which only takes seconds when exchanging clips. Frankly, with barrages like that I’m amazed they both didn’t kill more innocent people.

If either of these shooters had to reload more often and spend more time doing it they would have been quickly overwhelmed by the crowd of people who were their intended victims. But these semiautomatic guns stack the deck entirely in the favor of the mass murderer.

If you want to have a revolver or a deer rifle for self defense and sporting purposes, fine. Can these weapons also be misused? Of course, but they don’t place the kind of overwhelming force into one person’s hands that these weapons of mass murder do. You say it’s your constitutional right to own weapons of mass murder? You’re wrong, you can’t own machineguns, grenades, bazookas or a host of other arms either. That is because they serve no legitimate non-military purpose while delivering much too highly concentrated destructive force, endangering public safety. Anyway, when the Second Amendment was written a very skilled musketeer could manage at most four inaccurate rounds per minute. Reality has changed with the times.

And for those of you naive enough to think you need these kinds of weapons as hedge against a tyrannical government. Think again. Look at the resistance in Iraq. They quickly found that fighting the American military with guns was a sure way to die. That’s why they resorted to tactics like car bombs and IEDs. Thinking you’d fare any differently with your little pistol is plain foolishness.

Yes, people kill people and with these weapons of mass murder one person can kill lots of other people in a few seconds. The only people who think we need these guns are the profiteers who make and sell them, their lobbying arm the NRA, gun nuts and just plain nuts. Of the 14 worst mass shootings in the last 40 years 7 of them have been here in America. This time we need to actually do something and rid ourselves of this kind of dangerous garbage before it happens again.

United Healthcare Against Reform But For Penalties

Yet another reason for me to hate United Healthcare, the health insurance company selected for me by my employer, largely because Wisconsin is not a competative health insurance market. 75,000 UH employees and that's just one insurance company!

Gee, do you think there's a little overhead cost there for our healthcare system? The entire U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the Medicare program for 100,000 million Americans has only 60,000 employees! Yeah no public option AND higher penalties for people who don't become customers in the custody of their monopoly. Nice. I wish I could fire their ass.

From Friday's Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/13/headlines

Insurance Giant Recruits Employees to Oppose Public OptionThe nation’s largest health insurer is recruiting employees to lobby against congressional proposals for healthcare reform. Newly released emails show UnitedHealth Group wrote 75,000 employees this week to ask them to lobby their senators against inclusion of a public insurance option in the Senate healthcare bill. Form letters provided to employees also call for imposing higher financial penalties on Americans who choose not to buy health insurance.

Names of the Dead Website

Congressman Alan Grayson, who gained in notoriety for succinctly summarizing the GOPish plan for healthcare "don't get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly," has created a website http://www.namesofthedead.com/ to honor the 44,000 Americans who die every year, because they don't have health coverage according to a Harvard University study and of course to shame those who would stand in the way of preventing the equivalent of twelve 9/11s a year, every year, year after year.

GOPocrits

The list of 55 GOPocrits who oppose the Public Option for others, but are on Medicare themselves http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1364 is as follows:

Rep. Ralph M. Hall; Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett; Rep. Sam Johnson; Rep. C.W. Bill Young; Rep. Howard Coble; Sen. Jim Bunning; Sen. Richard G. Lugar; Rep. Don Young; Sen. Charles E. Grassley; Sen. Robert F. Bennett; Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers; Sen. Orrin G. Hatch; Sen. Richard C. Shelby; Rep. Jerry Lewis; Sen. James M. Inhofe; Rep. Ron Paul; Rep. Henry E. Brown; Sen. Pat Roberts; Sen. George V. Voinovich; Sen. John McCain; Rep. Judy Biggert; Sen. Thad Cochran; Rep. Harold Rogers; Rep. Dan Burton; Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon; Rep. Frank R. Wolf; Sen. Christopher S. Bond; Rep. Michael N. Castle; Rep. Joe Pitts; Rep. Tom Petri; Sen. Lamar Alexander; Rep. Doc Hastings; Rep. Cliff Stearns; Rep. Sue Myrick; Rep. John Carter; Sen. Mitch McConnell; Sen. Jon Kyl; Rep. Phil Gingrey; Rep. Nathan Deal; Rep. John Linder; Rep. Kay Granger; Rep. John L. Mica; Rep. Walter B. Jones; Sen. Jim Risch; Rep. Ed Whitfield; Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner; Rep. Virginia Foxx; Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison; Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite; Sen. Saxby Chambliss; Sen. Michael B. Enzi; Rep. Elton Gallegly; Rep. Donald Manzullo; Rep. Peter T. King; Rep. Ander Crenshaw

Old Glory Is So Yesterday

Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign http://wisdc.clearsender.com/tracker.php?link=220888262::239::59516 has written a great piece about "conservative" judicial activism and the danger to our Constitution and our democracy posed by a forthcoming Supreme Court ruling that could blatantly hand OUR government and OUR so-called representatives over to the concentrated power of the big corporations once and for all: http://www.wisdc.org/blog/2009/10/old-glory-is-so-yesterday.html

We the Corporations, in order to make it illegal to form a union, provide for our legal defense, promote our welfare and secure the blessings of resources to ourselves and our subsidiaries, do ordain this revised Constitution of the Corporate states of America.

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

“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” - Sinclair Lewis

"The really dangerous American fascists, are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power. - FDR's Vice President Henry Wallace, April 1944.

Baucus Bill Bogus!

So now we find out, thanks to Bill Moyers (Indefatigable Defender of Democracy) and the Public Accountability Initiative's LittleSis database that the "heathcare bill" to be voted on tomorrow by the Senate Finance Committee was NOT written by Sen. Max (Prophet for the Insurance Profiteers) Baucus. The bill was in fact written by the former Vice President for Public Policy for Wellpoint Insurance, the biggest profiteer of them all. Talk about the fox guarding the people's house!

Read the Moyers article here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/10-0

My favorite passage from the article references David Graham Phillips who in 1906, (in the last Gilded Age) wrote "The Treason of the Senate" for Cosmopolitan Magazine including the following quote;

"Treason is a strong word, but not too strong, rather too weak, to characterize the situation which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be, and vastly more dangerous: interests that manipulate the prosperity produced by all, so that it heaps up riches for the few: interests whose growth and power can only mean the degradation of the people, of the educated into sycophants, of the masses toward serfdom."

The public outrage provoked by Phillips and other muckrakers contributed to the ratification of the 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the direct popular election of senators, who until then were elected by easily bought-off state legislators. Where is our outrage today!

InFOXication and GOPish Sincerity

Glenn Beck rubs Vick's under his eyes to cry on cue and give the appearance for his teabaggin indoctrinants of heartfelt concern and sadness for America. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj4I2f0ZO6g

What a creepy and disturbing little deceptaCON / GOPropagandist he is.

We are pleased to announce that the Burlington Area Progressives (BAP), in conjunction with Organizing For America (OFA) and Health Care for America Now will be beginning our fall schedule with

Health Care Forum
September 24th
CATHE Building,
125 East State Street
Burlington, WI
begins at 7PM

Featured speaker: Brian Rothgery of Health Care for America.
This group was just featured on the Stephen Cobert Report and
Brian is the Wisconsin representative for them.

Penny Sharp, manager of the largest
state certified mental health outpatient clinic in Southeastern WI.

Our third speaker will be a volunteer from
Organizing for America

Topics will include problems with our existing health care system in the US and alternatives and solutions. Following the presentations (aprox. 1 hour total) we will have an open discussion forum with a Q&A format.

We look forward to seeing you there!

One Stop Shopping for Election Thievery & CU vs FEC

In a consolidation of control, Electronic Solutions & Software (ES&S) the largest maker of blackbox voting machines will buy the division of Diebold, Premier Election Solutions that is the second largest producer of blackbox voting machines: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/9/8/headlines

So we as the American Public not only do not own our elections or our representatives, the lobbyists have bought and paid for those, but we increasingly do not own the very machines we're to cast our ballots on. In fact we're not even allowed to see the codes that make them work and ensure that votes are counted properly.As we saw in Ohio in 2004, the real prospect that a few thousand votes might have been flipped in a swing state in a close election is all that is necessary to call into question the electoral results and there democratic representation.

Oh well, today's opening arguments before the Sumpreme Court in the case of Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission may just overturn rules against corporate contributions put in place by Teddy Roosevelt beginning in 1907 and strengthened and upheld as precedent ever since: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/06/AR2009090601188.html

If that happens our elections, our country, our government, our democracy and our freedoms may finally be absorbed as wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state.

Healthcare Security

Perhaps we liberals/progressives should be framing the debate in terms of Healthcare Security. There seem be a lot of people out there who are expressing callous indifference to the uninsured. After all they've got their's and everyone else be damned. But are they sure they're secure? Do they have security with regard to healthcare? Of course not!

If these people want to be afraid of something and obviously they do, then why not the specter of losing their coverage?

I know personally that I have health coverage, in fact it seems to be pretty good so far as my family and I have made use of it, which isn't extensively. But do I have security, do I feel secure in that coverage? Hell no!

With premiums going up 15% to 25% per YEAR my employer may decide/be forced to discontinue coverage.
OR
The insurance company selected by my employer may decide not to pay for treatment if I or a family member gets seriously ill.
OR
The insurance comapny selected by my employer could use recision and drop us from the rolls entirely if I or a family member gets seriously ill.
OR
I could lose my job and therefore my coverage.

Notice that NONE of these potentialities have ANYTHING to do with "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" on my part. It's all pretty much out of my hands.

Am I unique among Americans in this regard? Hell NO! I am the norm. And I and most American's have little if any security when it comes to healthcare. We're all one step away from having our families becoming one of the uninsured with no meaningful access to critical healthcare if the need arrises.

And anyway I feel that the I've got mine, let them (and their kids) get their's is not only short sighted and foolish, but also self-centered and morally bankrupt.

Healthcare Security for ALL!

GOPish Fear and Loathing in Racine

Are the GOPsters ginning up the next Timothy McVeigh? We’ve already had rightwing terrorist nuts murder a doctor who provided abortions and a security guard at the Jewish museum in DC. Now extremists are showing up at events with President Obama armed with guns and wearing t-shirts the same slogan that McVeigh wore - The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

We’ve got ignorant people scared to death by lies GOPropagated by the usual GOPropagandists so that their spouting all manner of crazy and hateful things with veiled threats of violence (and some actual minor altercations). And they’re stupidly accusing Obama of being both a fascist and socialist as if he could be both, a prime example of their appalling ignorance of history and political ideologies.

And now we have a direct threat of violence in Racine, presumably Paul Ryan’s Thursday August 27th “Listening Session” at 1:30-2:30pm at Gateway Tech Room #114, 901 Pershing Drive. The following email was recently sent to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as reported by the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/08/unions-receive-increasing_n_254704.html

“You socialist f---s have the nerve to say stop the violence at the town hall meetings when they weren't violent until you p---ies showed up because your n----- leader obama said to?????? When we have ours in Racine, Wi, I want you there. I want one of your little b----- to put his hands on this Marine. I want one of you to look or talk to me wrong. I'll be the last thing your ignorant faux body guards will remember for a very long time. You can f---ing guarantee that.”

I guess this racist “Marine” either didn’t understand it or didn’t mean it when he swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. He apparently believes he’s justified in using violence against an American citizen who has different beliefs than he does or who looks or talks to him in a way that he deems to be “wrong”. Unfortunately he doesn’t appear to be alone in his zealotry, the wing-nutti are coming out of the woodwork like flying ants.

These idiots are seriously off their rockers and they’re being whipped into a frenzy by the Republicans and their corporate funded shell groups like Dick Armey’s Freedom Works and the Teabaggers. But what is really scary and grossly irresponsible on the part of the GOPsters is that it is the fear and hatred that these people harbor that is being played up and manipulated. It is their racism, xenophobia and their deluded notion that they need to “take our country back” for “real Americans” because they lost an ELECTION!

It’s a very dangerous game that the Republicans are playing with these frightened and ignorant people and when the next one acts out violently on his delusions the Republicans will bear no small responsibility for their shameful incitement and demagoguery.

A Closer Look at Paul Ryan's Closer Look

The following excellent analysis of yet another attempt at deception by Paul Ryan (this time on healthcare) is published with permission of the Author, Kelly Gallaher of Yes We Can Racine. http://yeswecanracine.com/

Congressman Paul Ryan has been very busy talking about the health care crisis and touting his plan called “The Patients’ Choice Act”. My local newspaper invited him to write a series of articles to examine the “facts” of current legislation. After reading his article on July 27th, I realized they offered it with no rebuttal or factual verification. A day later, I received a mailing from Ryan criticizing current health care reform proposals while stressing the benefits of his plan. Ryan’s plan sounds great, while U.S. House of Representatives Bill H.R. 3200 sounds scary. This time I sat down and read very closely every idea and derision posed in Ryan’s mailing. With a small amount of research I was able to refute every statement of criticism contained in the mailing. All of them. I was also able to dismantle the benefits Congressman Ryan claims his “Patients’ Choice Act” contains and discovered a pattern of distorted language designed to misrepresent and confuse constituents about health care. I will illustrate a few of the worst:

Regarding his proposed tax refund of $5,700 for every family or $2,300 for individuals, Ryan says:

“My plan, The Patients’ Choice Act, ensures universal affordable health care for all Americans.” and “Allows everyone to use this tax credit to select from a group of comprehensive health insurance plans that fit their specific needs-just like Members of Congress and federal employees do now.”
• Last year family coverage in the private market averaged $13,000 and exceeded $16,000 per year in some states and is predicted to keep rising nationally. A figure far more than double the tax credit would allocate.
• Republican Senator Richard Burr admitted that Ryan’s credit is not sufficient to cover American families. Burr says “that probably won’t meet the equivalent of an FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefit Program) plan.” Even Ryan’s friend in Congress says this isn’t equivalent to the coverage they have.
• Under Ryan’s plan, families with employer paid insurance would be taxed on the entire amount the employer contributes just as if it were wages.
• Replacing the current employer tax exclusion with an individual tax credit would significantly weaken employer-based coverage because individuals receive the credit and employers no longer have an incentive to contribute.
• Unlike health reform proposals that the House and Senate committees are developing, Ryan’s plan does not set meaningful minimum standards on what benefits insurers must cover. It doesn’t limit deductibles or out-of-pocket costs leaving private insurers to determine those themselves state by state.

On current proposals being debated in the House and Senate, Ryan says the following:

“Total costs would exceed $1 trillion.” and “Creates an entitlement that will cost another trillion over the next ten years, on top of the trillions the government is already scheduled to spend on health care.”
• The initial report by the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) in early July calculating estimated costs has been used by Ryan and his colleagues frequently and unfairly. The CBO did not calculate savings that health care reform will produce. On July 20th the CBO recalculated that the H.R. 3200 reform bill would not only be budget neutral, it will produce a surplus of $6 billion over time.
• The real threat to government spending is the system we have now. According to the Kaiser Foundation: by 2018 health care costs are expected to top $4.4 trillion if nothing is done.
• House and Senate committee reforms would reduce overuse of expensive healthcare technology and cut back on preventable medical error-two of the greatest cost drivers in the entire system. According to the Center for Health Research: comprehensive reform could save as much as $1.4 trillion over ten years.

Perhaps the worst lie Congressman Ryan is telling:“A recent study predicts two out of every three Americans will lose their current employer-provided insurance under the government plan.”
• The “recent study” he refers to is a study conducted by the Lewin group who is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group (UHG), one of the nation’s largest insurers. The Lewin Group is part of Ingenix, a subsidiary of UHG that was accused by the New York attorney general and the AMA for helping insurers shift medical expenses to consumers by distributing skewed data. In January, UnitedHealth paid a $400 million dollar settlement covering conduct going back to 1994.
• According to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities it is Congressman Ryan’s “Patients’ Choice Act” that “would significantly erode employer-based coverage” while it “fails to create a viable alternative for people losing employer coverage.”

Lastly, Congressman Ryan decries government interference in health care. However, he completely avoids discussing that his plan for the uninsurable constitutes a huge government system itself. Nearly 100 million chronically ill Americans (representing up to 75% of health care spending) who cannot afford coverage except at colossal premium costs would be funneled into a state/government run health insurance exchange with prices and language determined by private carriers in each individual state. Ryan’s plan is devoid of the competition a public option offers and entrusts insurance companies to police themselves.

Ultimately, Congressman Ryan’s “Patients’ Choice Act” benefits for-profit, private health insurance companies by retaining and defending their central role in this billion dollar industry. Perhaps then, it is no coincidence that the insurance industry has been Congressman Ryan’s top contributor since 1989. In fact, he has received $1,143,560.00 in campaign contributions from health care industries over the last decade.

As 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every single day, Paul Ryan offers nothing new; he is obstructing real reform and offering us more of the same. His “Patients’ Choice Act” is a retread of two bills already introduced in 2008 and both were recycled by John McCain in his unsuccessful run for President. In contrast, H.R. 3200 has included 160 Republican amendments, which proved to be smart, constructive and bipartisan, but you won’t hear that from Paul Ryan.

I believe we will have comprehensive health care reform this year and I hope it will be a good plan. It is clear that my U.S. Representative, Paul Ryan, intends to play no role in helping to shape this historic legislation. He said last week on MSNBC, “let’s have an honest debate.” My reply to him is: you first.

Waterford Solidifies Status as Racine Co.'s Reactionary Refuge

Waterford took a great pains on Saturday to solidify it's status as Racine County's refuge for reactionary wingnuts. As we ussually do on the 4th, we went to our friend's house in Waterford to watch the parade. It's typically a nice little parade, a few too many trucks one can see on any road any day of the year and not enough marching bands pounding out John Phillip Souza, but nice nonetheless. But this year I was aghast to see a pickup truck in the parade flying too large confederate flags. I stood and booed.

What kind of moron thinks that the stars and bars has any place in a parade celebrating the 233rd anniversary of the declaration of independence of our nation!? What official approved of the moron's entry into the parade? I sat back down and thought the whole thing was some kind of a fluke when another big confederate flag goes by. I stood and booed again.

I was so taken a back by this display of drool that I didn't even notice the groups or businesses that were advertizing themselves in this disgusting way.

Let us recall that Waterford is the town where last year a minority student, a wonderful young man by the way, who grew up in the area was driven out Waterford High School by repeated racist harassment by other students that went largely unchecked by the administration. It is also Waterford where I was shocked to hear a grandmotherly woman tell Paul Ryan to bomb all those sandnigger's in the middle-east. What's it gonna be next year Waterford, the imperial dra-goon of the ku klux fux leading the grand march?

Let us also remember the this is WISCONSIN, you know the north, the Union, the side of right and the side that won the civil war thank God and put an end to the attrocity of slavery that that pathetic flag stands for. To parade this symbol of racism and national division down Main Street on the Fourth of July was absolutely repugnant and totally inappropriate.

Unfortunately, despite (perhaps because of) the fact that we've elected a black president this sort of small mindedness still comes out of the wood work. We have a country where people have a right to this sort of rednecked bigotry and ignorance. But that doesn't mean we have to let them put it on public display while celebrating our nation's birthday. Shame be upon you Waterford!

Another Blow to Utopian Conservative Ideology

Behavioral Economics explains why the conservative totem of Free-Market Fundamentalism is a fallacy. IF free markets existed (they don't) they would not work as the pitchmen of the GOP would have us all believe: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104803094&ft=1&f=1001

Why not?

-Humans are easily overwhelmed by choices
-Humans are easily overwhelmed by information
-Humans don't have the information they need or the time and resouces to gather it
-Humans routinely make poor decisions even when they have good information
-Humans are lazy by nature
-Humans are not rational actors in their own self-interest as economic models assume
-Humans are not as intelligent, on average as economists who assume that other humans will make decisions like they do.

Once again we see the wishful thinking of conservative dogma running headlong into the pillars of human nature and getting knoocked back squarely on its ass.

What a Lying Little Dickster

"You know, Dick Clarke. Dick Clarke, who was the head of the counterrorism program in the run-up to 9/11. He obviously missed it."-- Dick Cheney, on Richard Clarke

Subject lines of Richard Clarke emails to Bush Administration prior to 9/11/01:

"Bin Ladin Public Profile May Presage Attack" (5/3/01)
"Bin Ladin's Networks' Plans Advancing" (5/26/01)
"Bin Ladin Attacks May Be Imminent" (6/23/01)
"Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats" (6/25/01)
"Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks" (6/30/01)
"Planning for Bin Ladin Attacks Continues, Despite Delays" (7/02/01)

Oh yeah, and what, in front of Congress and the Camera's, did Condi have to admit was the title of the Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefing from Early August 2001? - Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States.

I guess that little Dickster was too busy with the secret Energy briefings where he was dividing up Iraq's oil fields among his cronies to take a clue and so he was caught completely unawares. Now he's got to spin and find someone else to take the blame.

Morsels of Truth - Cookies Beat Torture

The Dickster is of course lying about the torture he authorized and it's effectiveness. He can't help it, he lies out of reflex now the habit is so ingrained. And he's a frightened and pathetic little man. But it turns out that what really worked, what really provided the most and the best actionable intelligence was a cookie, sugar free cookies to be precise: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1901491,00.html

One of the FBI's top experts on terrorism and interrogation and a harsh critic of the bu$hite tactics of torture, Ali Soufan, interrogated the man closest to Osama who has ever been in custody, his bodygaurd Abu Jandal. A man charged with protecting Bin Laden and ensuring that he was never captured alive. He got nowhere until he gave the diabetic man sugarfree cookies. He thereby showed him respect and became a human being in his eyes instead of an evil westerner.

Soufan has testified before congress about the ineffectiveness of torture and says that contrary to Cheney's claims that torture was used succesfully it was these types of methods, not the harsh techniques, that prompted al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to give up the identities of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attack and Jose Padilla the dirty bomber. Soufan says that once the CIA brought a private contractor to start the rough stuff, Zubaydah stopped cooperating.

Apparently, top experts in the field of interrogation agree with Soufan that resorting to torture, means you've lost control of the situation and leads to poor results compared to standard techniques. I know personnally I'd spill my guts for some oatmeal scotchies warm from the oven. But I can't help but wonder, if the recruiting pamphlets that Al Qiada is handing out all over the middle-east showed Americans bearing cookies instead of chains, electrical wires, sexual/religious humiliation and water-boarding might they not be having the success they've had at demonizing us with our own actions.

Anyway you can't be a beacon of light when you're working on the darkside like the slimebucket war criminals, Cheney and friends.

Fundamentals of Rightwing Domestic Terrorism

Once again we see domestic terrorism arising from the wing nuts on the extreme right in this country. It looks like the guy (Scott Roeder) who shot the abortion provider has been affiliated with antigovernment groups like The Freemen (of Jordan MT standoff fame) and the Kansas Unorganized Citizen Militia, a former Commander of which refered to him as a Good Ol' Boy. Yeah "good" right. (Commander - Unorganized, how stupid is that?). Reoder was also convicted of criminal use of explosives and possessing bomb components. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/ap_on_re_us/us_tiller_shooting

Apparently inspired by fundamentalist religious zeal, this fanatical terrorist forgeting about the inconvenient Thou Shalt Not Kill and Vengience Is Mine Sayeth the Lord stuff gunned the man down in his church while he was ushering and his wife was singing in the choir. While Operation Rescue President Troy Newman disavowed any connection between Mr. Roeder and his organization, it's interesting to compare the statement made by Newman about the victim legal activities:

• "We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down, Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning."

And this post on Operation Rescue's website apparently made by the murderer:

• "Bleass everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp,"
  

Bringing justice. Isn't that what the fundamentaist islamic terrorists claim they're trying to do with their bombings and beheadings and Sharia Law? I ask you.

Hey shouldn't we send this guy to Gitmo and and give him some "enhanced encouragement" to tell us who his congregants, I mean cell memembers are? Where's the Dickster when we need him? Will these groups with which he is affiliated be declared terrorist organizations and have their assets frozen? Should the FBI start secretly attending church services and snatching white looking men off the streets for secret indefinite detention and send them to say Egypt or Syria or other black sites for torture and interrogation? Or is that treatment only reserved for people who look less like "us"?

Once again we see rightwing fundamentalism steadfastly reducing spirituality to it's lowest common denomination.

GOPster Torture and Murder by Proxy

It's entertaining to see Cheney with his 18% approval rating rounding the the talk show circuit making excuses for his crimes and working hard to drive the Republican Party to the extreme wing-nut margins by choosing Rush limbaugh over Colin Powell and calling Powell a Democrat (soon to be Democrat-Socialist per GOPorthodoxy).

But before we on the left embrace the exiled Powell, lets not forget that Powell KNOWINGLY and dutifully lied to the U.N, DIRECTLY paving the way to the Neocon's illegal and very deadly war in Iraq. He's got a long long repentant path to walk before he can redeem himself. And while El Snortbo lies everyday and is in a very real sense directly responsible for the messes our country is in due to conservative dogma run amock, one would be hard pressed to make the case that any one of his lies led DIRECTLY to murder like Cheney's and Powell's.

By the way, here is what Russ Feingold (who is not a documented liar like the three GOPsters above) had to say about the torture memos Cheney wants declasssified to promote his rationalization and war crimes defense in the court of public opinion; "Nothing I have seen — including the two documents to which former Vice President Cheney has repeatedly referred — indicates that the torture techniques authorized by the last administration were necessary, or that they were the best way to get information out of detainees. The former vice president is misleading the American people when he says otherwise."

But speaking of murder, this story http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051103412.html was also reported in Tuesday’s Democracy Now!, so you know it's credible: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/12/headlines

A key witness (and victim) Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi of both the Bu$hites torture and their war promoting lies is conveniently DEAD (supposedly of suicide) in the hands of our new best friend and all around good guy Muhmar Quadaffi of Libya, into whose care our CIA delivered him from their blacksite archapelago. This is HUGE!

Al-Libi was captured by the CIA and when he didn't tell them what they thought he should, they rendered him to Egypt where he was severely tortured (including beatings, waterboarding and mock burial) in our names and on our behalf. To end this torture done at the behest of the Bu$hites, al-Libi agreed to tell his torturers anything they wanted. What they wanted and got was false testimony that Saddam was working with al-Qiada to obtain chemical weapons to kill Americans and that's exactly what they got. This information along with other fabrications was used by Colin Powell and the Neocons to sell the debacle in Iraqle to the American people.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the bu$hites launched their illegal and unconstitutional torture regime to cover their lies and lead us into the quagmire of Iraq from which we cannot (and will not be able to for years) extricate ourselves and which is has now killed tens of thousands (minimum) of innocent people. The ugly truth is coming out and into focus and the more Dick talks the more appearent it becomes what an absolute scumbag he is.

George, Dick, Condi and the rest of the gang are war criminals, plain and simple and they need to be brought to justice before they flee to Uruguay (or is it Paraguay, I forget) like the good little fascists that they are.

Fossil Industry's Smoldering Gun

Remember when it became clear that the tobacco industry had pooled their money to buy “scientists” to skew their data in order to confuse and mislead the American People and their policymakers about the real dangers of smoking? Well that day has now come for the fossil industries (coal, oil and auto) represented by the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) in draft documents that are proof positive that the “scientists” on their payroll knew as early as 1995 that human induced global warming was real, that it was happening and that the science behind it was irrefutable and they said so. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=3&hpw

That inconvenient and unprofitable information was of course suppressed by maleficent corporate entities concerned about their private harvest in the next few quarters and not about the fruits for all mankind in the next quarter century or quarter millennium.

In the draft documents that the auto industry was ironically forced to reveal during the discovery process of its law suit to stop California regulations to limit greenhouse emissions the GCC “scientists” stated the following:

“The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied.”

That inconvenient truth was removed the final version of the document as the GCC used their the might of their money and high paid public relations firms to fight the Kyoto Protocol and any curbs on emissions.

Today we are in the Know. Everyone but the GOPsters, the GOPropagandists, their corporate sponsors and their mislead anti-science and anti-intellectual minions (i.e. the 20% of American dead-enders) recognize the reality that we face as a planet. But we’ve lost more than a decade while the greedy profiteers like ExxonMobil have harvested from us handsomely while mortgaging our children’s future.

As a people, it’s time for us to have civil and perhaps even criminal recourse against individuals and groups like the fossil industries that are found to have fomented ignorance and misinformation to confuse and delay allowing them to privatize the profits while socializing the associated costs.

And as soon as Al Franken is seated as the 60th U.S. Senator providing a filibuster proof majority it’s time for the party of “Know” to push the Party of “No” aside, put teeth back into measures to ensure corporate responsibility and move us beyond the age of the fossil industries to a sustainable and renewable future.

GOPolicy vs the Rule of Law

Apparently to Karl Rove whether one should act legally or illegally is merely a difference in policies between the current administration and the gang of thugs for which he served as Minister of GOPropaganda. On Tuesday Rove in his capacity as paid GOPundit on America's premier pro-torture network Faux news gurgitated the following rant for Desk Chief for Insanity - Sean Hannity:

"What the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous. What they've essentially said is, If we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run colonels in mirrored sunglasses. And what we're going to do is prosecute, systematically, the previous administration, or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration, based on policy differences."

I guess Karl feels that following and upholding the law is a policy choice that need not burden GOPolicy makers. Then, in what would be an astonishing example of bald faced (not to mention headed) hyprocrisy if it came from anyone but a bu$hite he continued his spewings as follows:

"Is that what we've come to in this country? That if we have a change in administration from one party to another, that we then use the tools of the government to go systematically after the policy disagreements that we have with the previous administration?"

Gee Rover, perhaps you've heard of a little thing called the U.S. Attorney scandal under which at your direction, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez attempted to misuse the power of the executive branch government to take action against political opponents, timed to influence elections. Remember how your macheiavllian maneuverings resulted in jail time for innocent people (pawns to you) like Georgia Thompson in the Democratic Doyle Administration here in Wisconsin and Democratic Governor of Alabama Don Siegelman you disgusting little man? Doesn't that sort of backstabbing political hackery remind you of say Castros Cuba or our guy in Argentina, Augusto Pinnochette?

Apparently Karl's memory has much stricter bounds than his dumbfounding hypocrisy as he once again tries to pathetically play his old faux patriotism card of "real Americans vs those people from true blue states like say Illinois as follows:

"Now that may be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by, you know, the latest junta. It may be the way that they do things in Chicago. But that's not the way we do things here in America."

So Herr Karl, if I drive a few miles south am I going to need Mein Paperien or am I already outside of your Amerika? I guess I should take comfort in the knowledge that you and your foxvolken ilk are no countymen of mine.

Perhaps you're right that it really does come down to policy differences. On the left hand we have the founding principle of the American Republic, a nation of laws not men, a rejection of the dictatorship of aristocracy and the divine right of kings. Whereas on the extreme right hand we have the GOPolicy of criminals like you, that laws are made for the little people, not the bluebloods of the GOPster elite.

Maybe I'm only dreaming that equal justice will be served, but I hope the Barbara Bush lives long enough to have her "beautiful mind" troubled by her Georgieboy's having to answer and pay for his crimes from Abu Grahb to Bahgram to Gitmo and beyond along with his co-conspirators, Roverboy and the rest.

Sick Around America and Wisconsin

Man I wish I'd known about Ben Meren's 5:00 show yesterday ( http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/audioarchives_display.cfm?Code=bme )a half an hour earlier whan our insurance guy was here with yet again higher rates, deductibles, and co-pays, talkin HSA's and bemoaning our turn to socialism (yeah right). I am fortunate to still have coverage, for now.

Ben's show was an hour long uninterrupted interview with the documentarian who produced to Sick Around America ( http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/ ) which will air tonight at at 8:00 of channel 10 Milwaukee Public Television. This is a follow-up to last years Sick Around the World which showed how Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, Germany and the U.K. all get much better healthcare, health outcomes and cover all of their citizens at much less cost than in the U.S.

Some of these courties use private insurance, some public, some a combination. All of them have better systems that the the U.S. hands down. In fact the U.N. ranks the U.S. 36 in terms of healthcare. WE'RE 36! WE'RE 36! WE'RE 36!

Of course our health insurance sales man had not seen the show and proceeded to repeat the rightwing radio BS about invadin canadians marauding for health care south o the border.

The horror stories on the Sick Around America show were bad enough, but then our fellow Wisconsinites called in with theirs tales of woe that could happen to anyone of us, no matter what job you have, no matter how solid you think your coverage is.

Our health care system is broken. If we fixed it, business owners who are staffing with part timers could afford to hire people who want full time to work full time. And that would go a long way to supporting family values and the dignity of work and help create an environment where wages are more in line with the cost of living.

Channel 10 tonight at 8:00 or Channel 11 CPTV at 9:00. Open your eyes and be informed.

GOPsterland Slayings

At least 8 people are dead from eating salmonella tainted peanuts and hundreds more have been made ill. GOPsterism is once again in the center of complicity. Why you ask? Two of the core tenents of the GOPster faith are:

- Greed is Good
- Regulation is Wrong

So what we've had is a lax regulatory environment where a producer can "self-regulate" allowing him to knowingly ship contaminated peanuts for over a year without getting caught because the delays in shipping were costing him money. If people hadn't gotten sick and they weren't able to trace it back to the source he'd probably still be doing it. Where are the inspectors? Where are the routine reporting requirements?

So in addition to the sick and the dead we've got an entire industry that is suffering through no fault of their own from the farmers who grow the peanuts, to the processors, to companies that use the peanuts in their products, to the wholesalers and retailers, employees, shareholders, all the way to consumers. And these are only those directly effected.

This comes from regulatory agencies being starved of the resources to do their jobs, a GOPster tactic raised to a fine art under the bu$hites and from regulators that are too cozy with the regulated community and not sufficiently working in the public interest, which is their core mission.

Here we have yet another example of why greed is bad, even deadly, and why sensible regulation is not only good for the public at large, it's actually good for business.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!

Thank you Mr. Darwin for helping to reveal the marvelous workings of the creation. For providing a scientific basis for ethics, the golden rule and how being community minded has allowed humans to be fruitful and prosper together. May we take these lessons and apply them globally, that we might progress further on that path rather than perish from the fear and loathing still lodged in our primitive reptilian brain stems.

The Rotten Core of the GOPconomy

At the rotten core of the GOPconomy: Too much wealth in too few hands.

The “conservative” policies of the last 30 years have inexorable lead to too much wealth in the hands of the uber-rich and too little in the hands of the poor and middle class. This is a condition that is very bad for our economy, for any economy and our society and democracy as well. One need only look at the conditions of the third world where a very few control the vast majority of the wealth and most of rest are dirt poor to see examples of why this is not a good thing and why we shouldn’t be going there like we have been.

It would be bad enough if this were the fairy-tale “free-market” working to cause the condition of an economy that does not serve most of the people, it is not. The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as fairies, frog princes or free markets. These changes have been the direct and conscious result of conservative economic ideology put into practice for three decades. Just ask Warren Buffet who complains that his secretary pays a much higher percentage of her modest income in taxes than he does and says that there is indeed a class war in the U.S. and his class is winning.

Consider these changes (inflation adjusted) in our situation as country:
• The country has twice as much wealth as it did 1980
• A worker that produced $1.00 of value in 1980 now produces $1.70 in the same amount of time
• Almost all of the income growth from the two items above has gone to the top 0.1 and 0.01%
• The top 0.11% now reap the largest share of all income since the late 1920s, (coincidence? I think not)
• 90% of Americans have seen their real wages drop over this time
• The average American makes $73/wk less than they did in 1973.

These are the results of a government whose defacto policy has been to further enrich the rich rather than to build and strengthen the middle class as was the case after the depression and WWII. This is a government that has not only backed away from responsible regulation of markets, but actually worked contrary to transparent market forces and then when the inevitable wages of greed and corruption come due, (at least once per decade over the last 30 years and accelerated under Bu$h), the public is stuck with the bill, shifting the burden down the economic ladder.

Spurred on by the likes Greenspan and predatory lenders, the middle class has now used up the equity that they had been borrowing against to support their consumption of their heretofore middle class lifestyle which could longer be supported by their declining real wages. Now the middle class do not have the wealth necessary to continue to support consumption so they are pulling back on their spending which is further hurting their ability to consume as a group since that causes more of their cohort to lose their jobs or at least feel so insecure in their employment that they're saving instead of spending. Saving is a good thing you say, that money will be loaned out and invested? Not so right, not now anyway.

The uber rich have little incentive to loan/invest the vast sums of money they've accumulated since the dawn of Reagan corporatism by hording to themselves almost all the huge gains in productivity realized lo these one score years and ten. In part this is because there's low confidence that they will be paid back even by those with good credit. Why they may lose their jobs and no matter how good your credit is you can't pay your bills if you lose your job. But even more importantly, they don't want to invest because in an economy driven overwhelmingly by consumerism (bigger even than the dysfunctional financial sector) there's no point in investing when your customers, the folks who do the vast majority of consuming in this country don't have the money to buy your product. So rather than invest, the wealthy look for safe havens like T-bills where at least they can preserve most of their wealth for later. These kinds of investments don't produce jobs or pay wages and so this exacerbates the problems on the other side of the tracks.

In short, our economy has become like a battery where all the charge has migrated and there's not enough potential left to support dynamism. Seems to me it's time for a recharge/redistribution of potential back toward the other pole so we can get the flow going again. Instead through the endless bailouts we're distributing even more wealth to wrong pole where it will sit idle.

We need more than the short fix of government spending to kick start jobs and spending. We need a restructuring of government and tax policy to promote the commonwealth more and the exclusivewealth less.

Greetings All!

Looking for your January stimulus package? You are totally invited to the Burlington Area Progressives celebration and charity fundraiser: BAP's Bye Bye Bush, Bring On Obama Bash!

CONGRATULATIONS!
We've waiting for, and working toward, these moments for lo these many years. So let's have a blast, mingle with old friends from the campaign trail, meet new ones, help our neighbors and keep the momentum of our progressive networks moving forward. We've got a lot of cleaning up to do, but we might as well start with a splash of panache!

CONGREGATE!
Saturday January 24th at 7:00 PM
American Legion Hall
1027 New Street
Union Grove

CONTRIBUTE!
Admission is $10
Everyone is welcome so bring your compatriots
All proceeds will go to local area food banks and homeless shelters

CONVIVE!
Evenings festivities headlined with gypsy swing music by 4th Street Elevator
Warm up provided by Girl with Guitar and Word, Rock & Law

There will be hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar
Dress is casual to cocktail
Please RSVP to bapbash@gmail.com

Grasp for more information at http://www.burlingtonareaprogressives.com/ or call (262) 514-3047
View map at http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=1027+New+St.+Union+Grove&ie=UTF8&ll=42.692278,-88.049412&spn=0.026433,0.054932&z=14

Lose that cabin fever and excersize your right to freedom of association!

CONCLUDE

So, here's the deal. At the Obama office we told people that anything we collected in the way of contributions to the office, the sales of yard signs etc., that was past what was due on the actual offices expenses was going to be donated to a local charity.
Here we are (Mary, Jay, Bill - the director of Love Inc, and me) giving him that leftover money. It totaled $1,167.25. Sweet! Even sweeter was that we found out today that First Banking was matching all cash contributions through Dec. 24th so that is now doubled to $2,334.50 BONUS!
I do have to say it felt pretty damn good to be out in the community doing a good deed on behalf of all the generous Obama supporters who knew that what didn't go to the campaign efforts would go to a good a cause. Let me repeat that. BAP did this on behalf of the Obama supporters. We don't get all the credit, we just did the leg work and suggested it in the first place. BAPpers did contribute also, but most of the excess was from Obama supporters.

BTW, Love Inc. is well known and well respected for doing so much in this area for people in need. And, a FYI........if you want to contribute to the quickly emptying food banks giving some can goods is okay. But, money is the best because they can buy bulk foods at 14¢ a lb. Now, I know it's fun to put some yummy foods in a basket or collection barrel, but really, they need cash to get more food than they can collect easily. Plus then they can buy things that aren't donated like personal care items which don't seem to come in too often (hint, hint).

Also, before this gets into a debate of why and if we could do this. We spoke to an attorney and I called the FEC head office and spoke to an auditor myself and yes we can, so we did!
Feel free to use the link and give something yourself. It will make you feel good.

Depression Economics and the Nobel Prize

Back in 1999 Paul Krugman saw the economic crisis in Mexico, Argentina and Indonesia along with the collapse and bailout of the American hedgefund Long Term Capital Management as a wake up call in his book The Return of Depression Economics. He has recently updated, expanded and re-released the book and is on his way to Sweden to accept the Nobel Prize for Economics. In short he blames the over leveraging (gambling in the $ Trillions of dollars), lack of adequate cash reserves, lack of transparency and lack of common sense regulation of large swaths of the financial industry that allowed this all to happen and imperil people all over the globe.

Linked here is a brief interview with Mr. Krugman from salon.com http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/feature/2008/12/08/paul_krugman/

It's a short piece and well worth the read (especially for those who tend to rely on commercial TV for what passes as news and information there), but I've included a couple of the more pointed experpts below.

Andrew Leonard: What do you think is the one thread that links all these crises together?Paul

Krugman: Two threads, I think: leverage and the economic fragility it creates, on one side, and the limits to monetary policy on the other. The collapse of Indonesia or Argentina was all about leverage, and we've seen that replayed in the collapse of securitization in the United States. Japan showed us that central bankers can't always save the day, and Ben Bernanke is seeing that truth right now.

Andrew Leonard: What practical steps can we take to immunize ourselves from debilitating panics?

Paul Krugman: Well, we had about 60 years of financial stability, basically because we had an effectively regulated banking system. Then we fell prey to a combination of excessive optimism and excessive literalism. We started believing that financial markets always work, and we also believed that everything was OK as long as things we call banks were guaranteed, not realizing that lots of things we don't call banks are nonetheless subject to bank runs. So the answer is to relearn our grandfathers' lessons: Highly leveraged financial institutions have to be regulated and insured.

Andrew Leonard: What explains the growth of the unregulated shadow banking industry to a point where it could imperil the living standards of everyone on the globe? Was it simply the triumph of deregulatory ideology?

Paul Krugman: Ideology played a big role -- but we should also bear in mind that the shadow banking system was making a few people incredibly rich. And that much wealth distorts policy, not just through campaign contributions and the revolving door, but because people who make that much money come across as masters of the universe who know what they're doing.

Andrew Leonard: And how soon do you think it will be before Republican ideologues start blaming Obama for making it worse? Grover Norquist is already making the claim that the bear market is a result of the 2006 election.

Paul Krugman: To some extent you can't fight it -- people will believe what they want to believe. If they can make FDR the cause of the Great Depression, they can do anything. But one thing progressives can do is make sure that the story of the Bush administration is told, in all respects. There's going to be huge pressure from the usual suspects to let bygones be bygones, to forget about everything from torture to reckless disregard of financial warnings. But I want truth and reconciliation across the board, and progressives have to make it clear that it was an ideology, not an act of God, that made this crisis possible.

Torture Leads to U.S. Troop Deaths/Maimings

A Bronze Star awardee and former Special Intelligence Operations Officer in Iraq who obtained the information that lead to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has concluded that the mistreatment and torture of prisoners by American authorities and contractors has lead to a significant portion of the deaths and maimings of American troops in Iraq.HE has written a book; How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq and an article for the Washigton Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242_pf.html

He discovered that the interrogation techniques developed at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were transferred to Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and that the outrage over the torture and abuse that occured at Abu Ghraib was a primary monivating factor for foreign fighters to go to Iraq and attack American troops. He also notes that the revelation, not long after the Abu Ghraib atrocities, that the CIA's repeated use of waterboarding at it's black sites around the globe and by proxy through it's extraordinary rendition program of snatching people, including innocent people and sending them to other countries like Syria and Egypt to be tortured on our behalf added more fuel to the fire, further deminished America's moral standing in the world and provided a great recruiting tool for al-Qaeda.

He concludes that Americans and military officers need to fight to protect our values from al-Qaeda and from those in our own country who would erode them.

And here's another little tidbit for those so enamored with extra-judicial detention and torture, a quote from Bush's, and soon to be Obama's Secretary of defense Robert Gates, stating on Tuesday that closing Gitmo will be a "high priority" and that; “I think it is possible to close it. I think it does require a joint effort with the Congress. I think some legislation probably is needed as a part of it. And I think that it will—I think trying to move forward on that, at least from my standpoint, should be a high priority.”

Change is coming and for the good.

Black Friday Stomp

I see that all the news shows have been hyping that we all get out and shop like good little consumers, even more intensely than ussual and especially today. I rarely leave the house on black friday and absolutely avoid any commercial centers if I do. A couple years ago between beers and turkey samdwiches I imagined what it my be like if I were infected with the sort of crazed consumerism that would get me out in the dark and cold to paticipate in a stampede into a (shudder) mall or (wretch) a Walmart. A happy Thanksgiving and a very peaceful Black Friday to you.

Black Friday Stomp


Friday mornin six AM standin here in line
Thanksgivin that might‘ve been livin, but it’s time to do some buyin
Cold’n damp along the wall, like in years before
Gotta thirst to be the first when they open up them doors
On our black Friday shoppin stomp, parkin lot hoppin romp
Pilgrims flockin by the score to the big box store

Don’t you push, don’t you shove, don’t you cut in line
We ain’t here to mess around, we ain’t got the time
Got our lists clenched in our fists, our marchin orders clear
If you ain’t with us yer agin us, git on outta here
On our black Friday shoppin stomp, parkin lot hoppin romp
D-day is at hand, the moment crouches near

Sakes alive, believe our eyes, the doors flung open wide
Swept along by the throng as we push our way inside
Triumphant cries and giddy smiles fanning out along the aisles
Scanning high, peering low among the mounding piles
Got to have this year’s device, no other will suffice
Stand aside won’t be denied, I’ve traveled all these miles

Round the corner twist and spin, man I’ve got the moves
Weaving out and weaving in, each year my skill improves
Got here fast and glory be there upon the shelve
This year’s gotta have it gadget, gonna grab it for my self
On our black Friday shoppin stomp, parkin lot hoppin romp
Three reasons for my ceasing, quickness, cunning, stealth

There’s the last within my grasp, got here just in time
Hey you git your mits off, that item is mine
In a flash grab it dash off to the cashier
My nemesis will not desist chasin at my rear
On our black Friday shoppin stomp, parkin lot hoppin romp
Dear Lord make fleet my feet, git me outta here

With a last ditch dive, my pursuer brings me to the floor
As I stumbled, nearly fumbled, never done that before
In the aisle a people pile asses, ankles, elbows
Got to be in possession when that whistle blows
Eye gouging, ankle bitting, all to get my grip untightened
Felt the blackness welling up and I slipped below

When I came to and I looked down much to my despair
The space in between my hands, nothing there but air
How could I return home, face my family
See their expectant eyes gazing back at me
On black Friday I got stomped, in the big box I got romped
So I signed aboard a merchant freighter and headed off to sea.

Copyright Sean Cranley November 26, 2004 (till death +75yr)

What Do You Do When Your Party Sucks?

Suck harder!

I found this analysis of the state of our GOPster friends to be such an uplifting read that I simply had to share it and spread the good vibes: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/24

Gotchyer GOPropoganda on the AM Radio

Hello, Be afraid, be very afraid-eo
We gotchyer GOPropoganda on the AM radio.

Linked here is an excellent article from Milwaukee Magazine by a former WTMJ Radio news director which outlines wonderfully the methods and manipulations deployed by rightwing radio: http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046

Those of us who don't count ourselves among the initiated noddinghead indoctrinants of this medium won't be surprised at all by this; those who are will simply choose to ignore it completely or stick it in a corner of their brain where it won't interfere with the machinations of their concrete belief system. But it does provide and interesting insider perspective with real people and real examples.

I have only one critique on the piece. While the author rightly points out how the hosts play on their listeners reptilian fears and their sense of righteous victimhood, he completely misses another avenue of mass mind management they employ, the ego.RWR listeners get their egos stroked on a regular basis. They are incessantly instructed in how they are better than "those people", how they are the bedrock of Merica the greatest nation ever in the universe!. Unlike those other people they are self-reliant, they got where they are all on their own, they don't need nobody else, they are rocks, islands. And so day after day they nod their heads in self-congratulation as they tool on down the public thoroughfare in their ostentatious SUVs. Fear and ego, one need only add greed to make the stool stand, but that's a topic for another day.

I know because I used to listen too. But then I engaged the critical thinking skills that I got from among other places, my public school education and realized they were trying to deceive me, to enlist me as a foot soldier in the War on Reality. So I went AWOL from their boot camp (figuratively, unlike our fearless flightsuit).Of course they don't lie outright, that would be too obvious. So they use the tactics above in concert with half truths and information taken out of context. Of course the intent (deception) and the desired outcome (manipulation) still make it in fact a lie.

Which is why I will not listen anything at all on stations like WTMJ and WISN, they are not serving the public interest as is their charge, quite the contrary. Oh sure from time to time I still get curious and tune in to El Snortbo or one of his clones to see what are the Rovian ganda-bytes of the day. But I always tune them out again at the first easily discerned deception or commercial, so my sessions are exceedingly brief.

Unlike the author though, I'm optimistic. I think the scales are finally falling from a lot of people's eyes and that the power of RWR lies to hold back the realities that are coming to pass from the failures of an extreme and deeply flawed belief system are on the wane. Which leads me to close with renewed confidence in the truth of my axiom:

If you must lie to advance your thoughts, your thoughts are not advanced.

Our President-Elect

BAP Rolls On

This may seem obvious, but I'll say it anyway. The election victory last night does not mean the end of BAP. We'll continue getting together and putting on events and talking about the next election. Though first, we'll probably take a bit of time to enjoy this one. :-) See you soon.