Category Archives: Current Events

Post Racial America?

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On the anniversary of the murder of civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, his wife, Myrlie Evers-Williams, was interviewed on Politics Nation with Rev. Al Sharpton. Although acknowledging that much has changed since that day 50 years ago, Myrlie Evers-Williams said, “Jim Crow is still alive and it’s dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, instead of a white robe.”

I believe that statement to be all too true.

Despite the fact that we have a president of African-American heritage, there are still racist attacks. As pointed out by Evers-Williams, on the night that President Obama was re-elected, there was rioting on the University of Mississippi campus. Across the country, Tea Party rallies have displayed racist representations of President Obama along with the battle flag of the Confederate States of America. Teapublican-dominated legislatures have put in place voter ID laws designed to suppress minority votes. African-Americans are arrested at a rate many times that of white Americans for drug use. As a result, our prisons are over-flowing with minorities. Teapublican politicians are determined to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, which is often the only medical provider in minority neighborhoods. And African-Americans are still arrested for “driving while black” in some cities and neighborhoods.

Post racial? I don’t think so.

Certainly, we have come a very long way since June 12, 1963. But we have a very long way to go until we have ended racism in the United States.

How Quickly We Forget!

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A new poll by Gallup has found that 49 percent of Americans now view President George W. Bush favorably, while 46 percent view him unfavorably. Assuming that the poll is more accurate than Gallup polls from the 2012 election, it would seem to indicate that 49 percent of Americans are either uninformed, misinformed or blissfully ignorant. The only other possible explanation is an epidemic of Attention Deficit Disorder!

What exactly did Dubya do that could be considered good?

Was it the fact that he used his brother’s position as governor of Florida to steal the 2000 election? Was it his failure to pay attention to pre-9/11 warnings of a terrorist attack? Was it his campaign of lies and misinformation leading up to the Iraq War? Was it his apparent disinterest in completing the mission in Afghanistan? Was it his administration’s failure to regulate our nation’s largest financial institutions leading to an economic collapse? Was it his policies that led to the loss of millions of jobs? His bailout of the too-big-to-fail banks?

Was it Dubya’s embrace of “extraordinary renditions,” torture, no-bid contracts to military suppliers, or warrantless wiretaps? Was it his administration’s failure in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina? Was it his administration’s embrace of the oily executives who control our nation’s energy policies?

Yes, by all means, let’s sit back and, through the haze of fading memories, fondly remember those halcyon days of incompetence, corruption and abject failure.

Rx For Economic Depression And World War.

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Last week, the Romney-Ryan campaign released its plan for the transition of power from the Obama administration had they won the 2012 election as they expected. Titled the Romney Readiness Project 2012, the 138-page report reads more like a plan to destroy our nation than to lead it forward.

Among the recommendations were 20 percent across-the-board tax cuts for individuals and 10 percent cuts for corporations. The plan also recommended eliminating labor agreements in federal contracts, eliminating regulations on Big Coal and Big Oil, repealing “Obamacare” while quietly maintaining its cuts to Medicare, cutting Medicaid by offering block grants to states, and “voucherizing” Medicare.

As for foreign relations, the report recommended restoring military funding to pre-sequestration levels, confronting China’s trade policies and designating it as a currency manipulator, sustaining troop levels in Afghanistan beyond 2014, asserting US military might in Syria, and confronting Russia over human rights and its support of Syria and Iran.

In other words, Romney would have dramatically cut revenues while greatly increasing expenses (And you thought Teapublicans were concerned by deficits!).  At the same time, he would have tried to bully other nations, including some of our allies.

By re-electing President Obama, we very likely dodged a bullet…literally!

How The Wealthy Avoid Taxes.

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Last fall’s presidential election shed light on the issue of offshore tax havens. Thanks to the fact that, as a presidential candidate, Mitt Romney was forced to reveal his income tax returns, many people now better understand how the world’s wealthiest people avoid taxes by stashing their often ill-gotten fortunes offshore.  According to the Tax Justice Network, up to $32 trillion in assets are stashed in a country where the owner of those assets has no legal or tax residence.

The primary reasons for sending assets offshore? Tax avoidance and money laundering.

Most of the countries housing the assets are chosen for their secrecy, their low tax rates and willingness to help the wealthy get around the laws of their own countries. Of course, Switzerland is the most famous of these tax shelters and, not surprisingly, the largest in terms of offshore assets. Others, in descending order, are Hong Kong/Singapore, Ireland/Channel Islands, Caribbean/Panama, the United Kingdom, the United States (yes, some time in the 1980’s, we changed our tax laws to create tax havens for non-US citizens), Monaco/Dubai/Luxembourg and assorted other playgrounds for the rich.

An investigative series on offshore money by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists exposed the extent of “the global offshore money maze.” And it’s not just shady business tycoons who take advantage of offshore tax havens. Those who stash their money in other countries include royal families, bankers, celebrities, lawyers, politicians, doctors, publishers, mercenaries, hackers, drug lords and more.

The practice may not be illegal. But it is unethical and highly destructive to the countries where the money was obtained. Meanwhile, people like you and me make up for the taxes the wealthy avoid.

What Passes For Government In Arizona.

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If you think the right wing lunacy in Arizona is limited to the unconstitutional anti-Latino bill SB 1070, anti-federal government nullification laws, unrestricted gun sales, and the nation’s most corrupt…er…toughest sheriff, you haven’t seen anything.

A few weeks ago, the Arizona legislature held a hearing on Agenda 21 that brought out the Tea Party Parasites to vent their paranoia about the non-binding UN proposal to ensure the sustainability of our planet. Of course, the Parasites’ fear and loathing paled in comparison to that of our tinfoil hat legislators…both those holding the hearing and the wacko woman (who is herself an Arizona State Senator) decrying the new world order.

Here are the video highlights for your amusement and enjoyment: Arizona UN Agenda 21 Hearing Highlights.

As you can see, the tinfoil hat crowd can’t answer simple questions about Agenda 21 and basic city planning. All they can do is recite the lies and paranoia of Glenn Beck and others. They hate the federal government and they HATE the UN, yet the State of Arizona relies on generous federal subsidies to even exist!

Big Oil And Its Worldwide Oiligarchy.

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If oligarchy is a power structure in which all political power effectively rests with a few people, Oiligarchy is the perfect term to describe what has become the most powerful industry on Earth. Since World War II, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others have gained increasing control over the US government, along with our foreign policy and our military.

Oiligarchy operatives and lobbyists are a virtual Who’s Who of American politics, including Presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, as well as former Secretaries of State James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Condoleezza Rice, former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator Bob Dole, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former CIA Director James Woolsey, and many, many, many others.

Their connections to the oily empire are deep. Richard “The Dick” Cheney was previously CEO of oil giant Halliburton. Condoleezza Rice served on the board of Chevron and even had an oil supertanker named in her honor. And before Dubya failed as president, he experienced multiple failures in the oil business.

At times, these people have sided with Big Oil at the expense of national security, the environment and human rights. Indeed, the oil companies’ greed, along with our thirst for cheap gasoline has resulted in wars, dictatorships, genocides, toppled governments and a growing worldwide hatred of the US.

Following the Cheney-inspired Project for a New American Century, Bush, Cheney and their minions helped Big Oil elbow its way into the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions in order to steal oil from Russia and keep it from Iran. In the process, we took the side of Chechen rebels who were led by Muslim extremists in their fight for secession from Russia.

The war in Afghanistan was preceded by US demands for an oil pipeline across that country. The war in Iraq was a cynical and clumsy attempt to control Iraqi oil. Even our unyielding support for Israel seems driven less by a desire to protect Israel from its Arab neighbors than by Big Oil’s desire to have a powerful ally near Middle East oil fields. And in an especially cynical move, US-backed Big Oil and Russia are in a race to lay claim to Arctic drilling as the polar ice cap melts. (Ironically, oil-caused global warming is creating an opportunity to capture and burn even more oil!)

Not content with its lethal impact on international politics, Big Oil has set its sights on further destroying our environment in its quest for ever larger profits. The Oiligarchy is demanding that the Obama administration approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which is intended to carry oil from the newly-fracked oil fields in North Dakota and the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to refineries in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast. The claim is that the pipeline will create “tens of thousands” of new jobs in the US, but a review by the Cornell University Global Labor Institute estimated that the pipeline would add only 506 to 1,387 new jobs.

In exchange for that meager number of jobs, Big Oil wants us to risk the inevitable spills of a substance the EPA says is virtually impossible to clean up. The US has already experienced at least two spills of the particularly dirty and gooey tar sands oil. In one of the spills, a pipeline belched 200,000 gallons of oil into a Michigan river. Nearly three years later, the oil has sunk to the bottom of the river and has not biodegraded. It likely never will.

Worse yet, the bituminous oil from tar sands is often referred to as “junk oil.” As a fuel source, it is terribly inefficient, creating an inordinate amount of pollution relative to the energy it provides. Once it flows (or more accurately, oozes) onto the market, it will dramatically increase greenhouse gases, leading environmental experts to state that it will be “game over” for our planet.

Big Oil doesn’t seem to care.

Spending billions in attempts to elect subservient politicians, to lobby Congress and to confuse voters, Big Oil owners like the Koch brothers deny the impact of fossil fuels on climate change. Ignoring the findings of almost every climate scientist in the world, they and their bought-and-paid-for politicians claim that climate change is “unsettled science,” a “sham,” the “greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.”

If they’re wrong (and it’s almost certain they are), they won’t pay the price. But our planet and most of its inhabitants will.

Darrell Issa Has Long Been An Expert On Lies And Corruption.

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It seems that Rep. Darrell Issa sees lies and corruption everywhere in the Obama administration; Fast & Furious, Benghazi, IRS and AP. Yet after months of “investigations” Issa has yet to find any evidence of White House involvement in these scandals.

In fact, to use the term “scandal” is a misnomer.

So why is Issa so intent on seeking evidence of corruption when even members of his own party say there is no there there? Aside from the obvious political motivation to discredit the president, it may be because Issa has walked a rather shady path in his own life. Indeed, few are more inclined to expect to find corrupt activities than someone who has committed many of his own.

To wit, Issa lied about his military record. He was indicted by a grand jury for the alleged theft of a Maserati. After being stopped for driving the wrong way on a one-way street, he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of an unregistered firearm. He was indicted a second time for grand theft auto, but the prosecution dropped the case.

Issa’s personal fortune stems from Steal Stopper, a company he obtained through foreclosure when its founder missed a payment on a $60,000 loan. But the company’s offices and factory were destroyed by fire. A fire investigation found that the fire had started in two places aided by an accelerant such as gasoline. Interestingly, Issa was accused of increasing the fire insurance policy by 462% just a few weeks earlier and of removing computer equipment containing accounting and customer information prior to the fire.

Suspicious of an apparent arson, the insurance company paid about one-tenth the insured amount, which still was enough to provide Issa with a tidy profit. Issa later rebuilt the company and sold it to a California-based maker of car alarms making himself wealthy.

And this is the guy who, as Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is now in charge of Congressional investigations? It would seem that if Issa is serious about finding corruption, he’d be more successful by investigating himself.

New Poll Finds 33 Percent Of Americans Are Batcrap Crazy!

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A recent HuffPost/YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Americans view Rep. Michele Bachmann unfavorably while 33 percent had a favorable view of one America’s most ignorant and batcrap crazy politicians!

That tells us less about Bachmann than American voters.

Keep in mind, this is the woman who confused John Wayne with John Wayne Gacy; who believed “the shot heard ’round the world” for American independence took place in Concord, New Hampshire; that the slave-owning Founders “worked tirelessly to end slavery;” that an overabundance of CO2 in our atmosphere is harmless; that the Census is a government plot to round up dissenters; that Congress is full of communists; that evolution is just a theory.

During her six years in office, Bachmann has had only one bill passed by the House – the repeal of “Obamacare” – and none signed into law. Indeed, even fellow Minnesota politician, Tim Pawlenty described Bachmann as having “a legislative record of offering failed amendments.”

That’s being kind.

As leader of the Tea Party delegation in Congress, Bachmann presided over the most destructive element in US history. She is the leader of the misguided, the uneducated, the uninformed, the misinformed and the heavily armed. She and her colleagues measure success by how much legislation they can block; how completely they can destroy safety nets for the poor and the vulnerable; how completely they can undermine education; how thoroughly they can destroy our own government.

She and her Tea Party parasites even held hostage the faith and credit of the US Treasury, causing the US to lose its AAA bond rating for the first time in history. And, even though she has announced that she won’t seek re-election, she’s not done. She still has more than a year to cause further obstruction and destruction.

And she has the support of 33 percent of Americans??? God help us.

Colbert Exposes Abuses Of The 501(c)4.

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Although known for his comedy, Stephen Colbert has shown an aptitude for investigative journalism that surpasses many of the so-called “legitimate” news operations. His reporting on the IRS “scandal” is but the latest example.

Long before traditional news organizations began reporting on the abuses of political PACs and Super PACs, Colbert exposed the inappropriateness of political organizations being awarded 501(c)4 status. Following the lead of Karl Rove, Sarah Palin and hundreds of right wing groups, Colbert formed his own 501(c)4 called the Colbert Super PAC SHH! in 2011. By simply signing a few papers with the help of Republican attorney and former chairman of the Federal Elections Commission, Trevor Potter, Colbert legally declared his organization a non-profit and began collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to Potter, he did not have to reveal the names of his donors. He did not have to adhere to spending limits. The only restriction was that he could not directly coordinate his expenditures with any candidates.

Interestingly, he never actually filed a 1024 form to request tax-exempt status from the IRS. (Of course, neither did many other Super PACs.) But now that the IRS is under investigation, Colbert realized that he, along with thousands of Tea Party groups, could file the form with the assurance that the IRS would not dare deny it while the IRS, itself, was under investigation. So Colbert filed the form under the new name Making-America-A-Better-Tea-Party-Patriot-9/12-Place-To-Constitution-America-Tea-Party-Nominally-Social-Welfare-Conservative-Political-Action-Tea-Party-Secret-Money-Liberty-I-Dare-You-To-Deny-This-Application-Of-America-Tea-Party.

Once again, Colbert has exposed the reality of 501(c)4s and the absurdity of our political system.

To be clear, the 501(c)4 designation was never intended to be used by political groups…not even by satirical groups such as Colbert’s. It was intended for use by genuine charities that serve the public interest and need to keep their donors anonymous so that the donors would not be hounded by thousands of other charities seeking funding.

But the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashed a torrent of political groups claiming non-profit status so that corporations could keep their political donations anonymous. Not long afterward, the Tea Party movement began swamping the already understaffed IRS with thousands of requests for non-profit status. Is it any wonder, then, that the IRS chose to target these groups for extra scrutiny? What public good did the groups serve beyond providing cover for anonymous donors who wanted to use their money to attack political opponents and affect the outcome of elections?

Whether the IRS decision to request more information was politically-motivated is still unclear. But two things are clear: The IRS should scrutinize such groups, denying 501(c)4 status to those groups that are primarily political, like…say…the Tea Party. And Stephen Colbert is a unique talent.

“RNC Needs To Be Closed For Repairs.”

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That’s what former Senator and Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole said about today’s Republican National Committee. Asked if he would fit into the GOP today, he said, “I doubt it…Ronald Reagan wouldn’t have made it. Certainly Nixon wouldn’t have made it, because he had ideas.”

Now Former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has reiterated Dole’s comments. “The Republican Party is undergoing some, you know, significant and serious changes, and they are going to have to rethink their approach as a political party and how they are going to regroup and become a governing majority party that appeals to a broader group of Americans than they do today,” she said.

Dole and Snowe are the latest in a long line of moderate Republicans to decry their own party…or, more accurately, what’s left of their party.

But don’t expect Dole’s and Snowe’s comments to make much of an impact on the party. Today’s Republicans, especially their Tea Party parasites, simply don’t listen to reason. They live in an imaginary world where faith prevails over science; ideology over mathematics; anger over compromise; fantasy over history.

According to today’s Republicans, Ronald Reagan never raised taxes, Reagan and Bush never presided over deficits, and neither contributed to the national debt. They believe Watergate was merely a second-rate burglary, Reagan never sold weapons to Iran, and Bush never lied about WMD in Iraq.

In Republican World, only liberals and socialists rely on government while Republicans rely on their investments and hard work. On their own Red Planet, Republicans believe that government is unnecessary because free markets are self-correcting and self-policing; if corporations cheat or lie, they simply won’t survive…never mind the impact on consumers.

In Republican World, all scientists are wrong about climate change; all economists are wrong about the negative effects of austerity; and evolution is just a theory.

Most important, in the new Republican Party, all real Republicans toe the party line; independent thought is heresy; and former Republican officials who criticize the party are just that…former Republicans .