Pretend Outrage

An article in the Nation magazine written by Jeremy Scahill states, “I would not say that the CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized,” Philip Giraldi, a retired career case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.” the CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now.”

“Giraldi noted on the “long term consequence” of the militarization of the CIA: “every bureaucracy in the world is best at protecting itself. So once the CIA becomes a paramilitary organization, there’s going to be built in pressure to keep going in that direction. Because you’ll have people at senior levels in the organization who have come up that way and are protective of what they see as their turf,” he told me. “That’s the big danger.”

In light of this, was Libya a CIA operation? Is anyone asking this question? Does anyone care to know the answer? Obviously not, the issue is who said what and when. That’s the sad part; we do not know what our government is doing. James Madison said, “a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives”.

We are powerless, we lack the knowledge of what the CIA is really doing. If the deficit is so important, is anyone inquiring into how much this militarization of the CIA is costing tax payers? These are some of the questions the Republicans should be asking. But they’re not asking these questions because they’re too busy performing in the political theatre of ‘pretend outrage’ directed at Susan Rice.

To invest or not to invest

Mark T. Bertolini Chairman and CEO of Aetna, said, “future generations rely on us to spend our money wisely and invest for the future.”

Sherle R. Schwenninger director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation writes in the Nation magazine, “Over the past two decades the private sector has done a questionable job of allocating capital, over-investing in the technology sector by more that $3 trillion in the 1990’s and then recycling global surpluses into an even larger housing and mortgage bubble in the early 2000’s, all the while neglecting pressing infrastructure needs. Today, the banking and financial sector is sitting on more than $2 trillion, largely content to “arbitrage” the difference between near 0 percent short-term rates and somewhat higher longer-term rates rather than make new loans and investments in the real economy.”

Insurance companies are very much a part of the financial sector, the very same ones sitting on that capital.

Martin Leffler Professor of American history at the University of Virginia writes in the Nation magazine, “In 1959, “a congressional committee estimated that about 85 percent of electronics research was funded by the government, much of which went to major corporations like IBM, Burroughs, Control Data and Sperry. At this time, the government was paying for two-thirds of all computer-related research and development.” Government spending helped to create these mammoth corporations, banks and the financial industry who now refuse to allocate capital into investments which create jobs.

If the government can’t invest and the financial and banking industries refuse to invest, who’s left to invest in job creation?

CEO Mark Bertolini said companies like his aren’t creating jobs because they’re too concerned over the fiscal cliff. Or maybe uncertainty over Obamacare or tax rates will keep them from creating jobs.

In 1947 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said, “there is simply not enough wealth to go around.” “If there is to be no ceiling on the amount of money a man can take out of our economy, then concomitantly there can be no firm foundation below which a human being cannot sink.”

They aren’t creating any jobs because they don’t want to, they like it just the way it is, taking wealth out of the economy and keeping it rather than investing it. We haven’t yet seen how low humans are willing to sink to maintain that control.

Immutable truths of war

Before the Vietnam war started, a fact finding mission was sent there to see if the US should become militarily involved. The report came back, either bring all the US forces up to strength and go in all at once or stay out. We did neither, we committed a grave administrative error, which is why the war ended up like it did in Vietnam. Then, through media coerced by the Administration, the country blindly blamed it on the troops. The Vietnamese were friends by day but would kill the troops by night. They hated the US soldiers, and we still don’t understand these truths of war.

Failing to learn these lessons led to the US repeating it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Invasion and occupation on behalf of Big Oil will always bring hatred and killing, it cannot be changed.

Lost in the blame game in the deaths of four Americans in Libya, is this same immutable truth, friends by day, enemy by night.

As reported in the Washington Spectator, Dan Senor who spent 13 months in Iraq as “senior advisor“ to Paul Bremer and the failed CPA “left behind a great deal of damage, yet learned nothing from Iraq.” Senor is Romney’s Middle East expert. The Spectator continues; “In an alternate universe of some GOP elites, the CPA, which Iraqis dubbed “Cant’ Provide Anything, remains a nation-building model, a deep well of neocon wisdom”. “Even as he rails about Iran, he is never questioned about the Iraqi regime he and Bremmer helped put in place, an instant Iranian ally that is now accused of aiding Syria’s regime.”

According to the Nation magazine neighborhoods where Sunnis, Shiites and Christians lived together peacefully, are now segregated, people are walled off from one another and are divided up. Bet the Iraqis are friends by day and enemies by night.

A Romney win could mean this same Middle East neocon wisdom will prevail with Dan Senor as head of the highly secretive NSA.

Vietnam is ancient history, but that doesn’t mean the lessons we should have learned do not apply to this day. Will Dan Senor understand that continued global conquest for Big Oil brings friends by day and enemies by night?

Numbers, they don't add up

On the NewsHour, former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said, “the top 5 percent pay the vast majority of income taxes, over 60 percent at this point.”

Candidate Romney said forty seven percent of the country pay no income taxes. Sixty percent and forty seven percent equals one hundred and seven percent.

If 47 percent pay no taxes, then that leaves 53 percent paying taxes. Sixty percent and fifty three percent equals 113 percent.

If it’s only the top five percent paying 60 percent, then does that mean the remaining 95 percent pay forty percent? So how does candidate Romney come up with 47 percent when it’s forty percent not paying their fair share?

If the percentages were true, we’d have an extra percentage being collected in taxes. These numbers don’t reconcile very well. Math doesn’t lie, but the Republicans do, they skew the statistics to score points.

Transference of Wealth

The sub prime mortgage scheme was one of the greatest transferences of wealth this country has ever seen. According to an AP article in the MWDN 9-23-2012-“Collapsing house prices destroyed $6.5 trillion worth of home equity - the biggest source of wealth for most families. More than 1 in 5 home-owners is stuck with a house worth less than the mortgage on it. Feeling poorer, families have limited their spending and paid down debts.”

Money doesn’t disappear, so where did the 16 $trillion go? There are those who will disregard the numbers, saying it wasn’t really there in the first place. If that‘s so, then it’s okay to make up numbers in home value? Doesn’t this mean the over inflated prices of homes were just made up numbers? If that’s he case, then reduce principal, it’s just a made up number anyway. Either that or that $16 trillion is sitting somewhere. Just where it’s sitting is the question. It’s sitting in the banks is where. Just because the house is worth less doesn’t mean a thing to the banks, it’s still owed to them and even though they caused the housing bubble and crashed it with the subprime mortgages, they say the numbers are real to them and they expect to get paid even though they’re the culprits who destroyed the value.

Seventy percent of the economy is consumer spending, and with trillions lost to consumers no wonder spending is down. Either the government does the spending or the people do the spending. Since neither one can, let’s leave it to the financial industry; now there’s signs hanging outside banks to refinance auto loans! According to NPR news, people are refinancing auto loans for up to seven years. The same thing that happened with mortgage loans will happen all over again with auto loans. We’ll wind up with Americans owing trillions in auto loans for something worth thousands less that what they paid for it. The banks will get their bail outs with the taxpayers footing the bill while more unsustainable debt will be strapped to the backs of unsuspecting citizens.

All aspects of life from cradle to grave are now swamped in debt; this is how trillions in consumer debt translates into “redistribution of wealth”, the very thing candidate Romney is against; Guess it must be okay when wealth is transferred from the citizens to the banks for the privilege of existing; but when anyone starts talking about leveling the playing field, well, then it’s redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don’t. That’s not the real story, and it’s an intellectually weak and morally flawed defense on behalf of those who control that $16 trillion.

Taxing issues

If Romney ever gets in the White House, Grover Norquist’s dream of shrinking government down so he can drown it in a bath tub, will come true. A majority of Republicans have pledged their loyalty and devotion to an individual who holds the purse strings to their campaigns, in exchange for no new taxes on the obscenely wealthy.

Eric Alterman writes in the Nation magazine, “Romney’s tax proposals would mean those making $3 million annually will save $250,000” and Republicans call for “raising taxes on 20 million American families by eliminating the tax credits for the middle class, according to Seth Hanlon the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress.”

So when Romney pledges not to raise taxes on anyone, he’s correct he won’t in theory “raise” taxes; he’ll just eliminate the credits that’ll help the poor and the middle class, essentially raising taxes for ordinary citizens.

Another misleading tax issue is the estate tax; initially enacted to prevent dynasties from forming with vast wealth accumulating in the hands of one family over decades. The US is supposed to be an equal society, the current frenzy over the “death tax” is propaganda peddled by the “money power” of mega conglomerates.

Alterman continues, “slashing taxes on the super wealthy means $9 trillion in lost revenue over the coming decade according to the Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.” Which when translated means that a Romney-Ryan win would slash all government spending except defense. Candidate Romney pledges to increase defense spending to $2 trillion over the coming decade. We’ll have no government spending on social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and all of those funds and our taxes will go instead to wars.

Quoting Alterman’s article Grover Norquist said “We just need a president who can sign legislation that the Republican House and Senate pass. We don’t need someone to think. We need someone with enough digits on one hand to hold a pen.”

Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged is coming to life, only the rich can save us… with austerity cuts. Yeah, right. Goodbye cruel world!

Retroactive

Just as the banks eliminated regulations which protected the American populace from their arrogance and greed, many corporations and companies have eliminated pension regulations which protect employees against ‘retroactive’ retirement losses. Maybe Ed Gillespie’s announcement that Mitt Romney ‘retroactively’ retired from Bain Capital isn’t all that odd in today’s politically charged and hostile business climate.

According to Ellen Shultz in “Retirement Heist”, “Under pension law, it’s illegal to retroactively cut someone’s pension. However, Cash balance plans provide a way around this prohibition…” “Cash balance accounts are complex. When companies switch to a cash balance account they essentially freeze the old pension, ending it’s growth. They then convert the frozen pension to a lump sum, which they call the “opening account balance”. The lump-sum amount doesn’t grow each year by multiplying years and pay, both of which would be growing, and thus generating the leveraged growth seen in a traditional pension.”

While millions of employees around the country are experiencing ‘retroactive’ pension losses, this new ‘retroactive’ descriptive adjective certainly gives pause for thought. What they’re doing is just getting the public used to the idea of ‘retroactive’ happenings of any kind, and the changing of the rules so those corporate sponsored changes in the rules enable them to benefit financially. Again, according to Ellen Schultz, “…accounting rules turned retiree benefits plans into cookie jars of potential earnings enhancements, and provided employers with the means to convert the trillion dollars in pension and retiree benefits into an immediate, dollar for dollar benefit for the company.”

Companies have been able to use the earnings of their employee’s pension plans for corporate gain and executive pay, hence we now have the “trillion dollar” under-funding of pension plans. the newest latest reality catch phrase circling in the news cycle is “looming liabilities” which is what the retirement account, now looted of it’s funds is called. But the corporate mouthpiece which from the media has one message: “blame the people” just don’t blame the companies…and their lobbyists…and your representatives…and your senators…and your judges who allowed these rules for under-funding to be created. The banks have already taken their savings, so if pension plans and Social Security are eliminated, how are retirees supposed to survive when they can no longer work?

Short term profits mismanage an economy

In his book “The Age of Greed the triumph of finance and the decline of America, 1970 to present” Jeff Madrick states, “Expansion of financial firms does not lead to economic growth.” and “executives make decisions that are best for themselves.”

Government sanctioned tax deductible debt led to corporate take overs and opportunities for hedge funds to further channel more capital into their pockets.

According to Madrick, in 2010, hedge fund manager John Paulson’s firm earned one billion in short sales (betting against securities) while investors lost one billion. Paulson was selecting the securities to be sold to investors and “chose the securities because he believed they whose go bad”. John Paulson earned four billion in total that year.” “In 2006 CDO’s ( junk bonds) produced $8.6 billion in underwriting and management fees for Wall Street.” “That same year Merrill paid $500 million in bonuses to 100 employees.”

In the news on July 18, 2012 from the MWDN 7-18-2012- “Goldman Sachs Administration Services administers about $200 billion in hedge fund assets for approximately for 150 clients.”

The Washington Spectator states-“Alexander Hamilton believed a strong centralized government should shepherd private enterprise toward goals in the national interest. On the other hand is the school of Thomas Jefferson, who preferred a nation of small farmers, small business owners, and a limited government to serve them.”

Having an economy based on rapid short term profits for the few is in neither one of these beliefs, precisely because it is not a fair and equitable way to manage a nation’s economy.

Concentration of wealth is occurring, and Bain Capital is very much a part of this dysfunctional system. Electing a man whose company helped corrupt the country’s economy will bring more suffering.

Season of campaign cash

David Brooks said on the NewsHour, that the huge amounts of money being spent on the presidential election will not have any influence. Now why would the wealthy and the powerful spend millions when it won’t have any effect? Why don’t they spend that money on charities or veteran’s organizations where their money would have a huge effect? It doesn’t make sense, but then again we live in unreasonable and non sensical times; and that’s why David Brooks expects people to believe something that just isn’t true, such as the wealthy will spend millions and billions for nothing while expecting no results.

The laws of science state that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Spending millions and billions on elections will most assuredly have an effect, and it’s irrational to believe it won’t. It’s a well proven and practiced concept that more money spent on advertising increases sales. If your message is the only one heard, or your message drowns out the opposition, you’re golden. If your message is the only message the consumer/voter hears, they have no choice.

Nobody spends money for nothing, and that’s the reality of the situation. We haven’t seen the end results of all this campaign cash yet; the laws of human nature dictate it will turn government by the people and for the people into a government of the Corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, just as Eisenhower predicted; Military/Industrial Complex here we come.

Ilusionary indignation

The indictment of Attorney General Eric Holder misses a point. One reason cited, is that the family of the slain American border agent deserve an investigation. Which is not to say this shouldn’t be investigated, but the politically selective use of this governmental responsibility just keeps a broken system going.

The family of Pat Tillman certainly deserved an investigation which his mother had to undertake, because the government refused to investigate. Where were the Republican calls for that family? They were mute.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, trucks full of pallets of cash and weapons just disappeared into thin air. This certainly warranted inquiry, but of course resulted in no investigations and no indictments, as the republicans ran the war.

The US has just sold $10 billion in military equipment to Saudi Arabia who is now supplying the rebels in Syria. Anyone keeping track of those weapons supplied by the US?

The Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knows, and what they tell us, are two different things. In light of this, we should understand that the government lies to us about everything, in this case the misappropriations of guns.

Blackwater Security was accused of killing innocent Iraqis. The investigation was silenced. That’s why this indictment is so hypocritical.

Mark Shields suggests this is political, stating Eric Holder is a nemesis and adversary to voter ID laws.

Guns, weapons and wars are some of the most lucrative businesses in the world. The current Republican indignation isn’t going to change it. That’s the sad part.

The Banks lose and the people pay

Why do the losses of Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase matter? The Federal Reserve allowed investment banks to convert to bank holding companies, now owning commercial banks, which are FDIC insured.

William Greider writes in the Nation magazine, “JPMorgan Chase parks all of its vast derivatives holdings in its commercial bank subsidiary, which means the tax payer is on the hook for these losses since commercial banks are FDIC insured.” Greider further states “In the event of a collapse, the banks can use its deposit base to pay off the derivatives, while leaving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to reimburse depositors if their money runs out. JPMorgan has contracts totaling $72 trillion and 99 percent of them are booked at its FDIC- insured bank.”

Continuing-“We are “insuring” other big boys of banking in the same way. Citigroup has nearly all of its $53 trillion in derivatives in its FDIC-insured bank; Goldman Sachs has $44 trillion parked at and FDIC-backed institution. After Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch, BoA began transferring the securities firm’s derivatives to the FDIC-insured bank, which now holds $47 trillion in contracts.” And the Ryan Republicans want to invest Social Security with these same bankers?

FDIC insurance is New Deal legislation designed to prevent runs on banks and to protect Mom and Pop investors, not to allow banks risk free betting while refusing to allow homeowners to refinance at historically low rates. Why is it only the New Deal social programs or banking regulations that need to be repealed so our economy can regain its health? Why aren’t the deficit hounds looking into these banking budget busters?

As of this writing, the losses at JPMorgan Chase aren’t fully known, with estimates ranging between $2 to $7 billion. What is known, especially by the bankers, is that full responsibility for their risk taking rests with the US tax payer, even though the majority of the tax payers don’t know it.

William Greider closes with “..someone is going to have to take on Jamie Dimon and his banking friends. If neither Congress nor the Federal Reserve has the nerve, the bankers could be setting us up for an even uglier crash.”

But let’s keep looking at Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and another New Deal program, unemployment insurance. The banksters have us convinced that somewhere amongst government cut backs on the dead beats and welfare bums lies economic salvation.

Underming the Economy

The world has been down this road before, Spain, Ireland and the US all have high real estate debt. During WWll, a Chaplain encouraged a pilot who wanted to quit flying bombing missions over Germany because he thought too many men were dying needlessly, and he couldn‘t see any point to their deaths. The chaplain explained that even though it seemed like it wasn’t worth dying for, it was imperative the pilot continue his missions. The Chaplain explained that the world had periods of light and darkness, and if he didn’t continue to fly those missions the world would be plunged into a terrible darkness and it would last hundreds of years. This real estate debt has the potential to plunge the world into economic darkness for the 99% ‘ers that will last hundreds of years.

It’s happening now, in the US we have three classes, high end, low end and the class in the middle, the working class, who are being squeezed into the low end in this “new economy” of ‘The New World Order’. Corporations are sitting on two trillion dollars they’re not investing to create “new” jobs. It’s an inefficient allocation of capital in this “free market” system.

Maybe if they pay no taxes at all they’ll create more jobs, which is unlikely. Higher taxes on the wealthier corporations prevents concentration of influence, but government has shown that it no longer has the power to raise revenue from the ultra wealthy or prevent the abuse of consolidated power.

Without the ability to raise revenue from these trillion dollar corporations government will cease to function. Precisely what Karl Rove and his gang want, a bankrupt government which can no longer provide social services for those in need, or protections from those with too much influence. The real estate debt coupled with hobbling governments to do anything about it means that those in the middle and low end of the economic spectrum face financial servitude that will last hundreds of years.

So…we’re back to where we started… indentured servitude. And now with Bush’s recent change of the bankruptcy laws, we are without any legal rights or recourse, just a lifetime of work, paying off insurmountable debt, which in reality, can never be paid off.

Neocons Cheer for War

According to an article in the Nation magazine by Ari Berman, over seventy percent of the neocons who ran the Iraq war have signed up as foreign policy advisors to Mitt Romney. Elliott Cohen served as counselor to Condoleeza Rice and in 2009 urged the Obama administration to “actively seek the overthrow of Iran’s government.” Robert Kagan the author of Romney’s American exceptionalism stance; Robert Joseph National Security Council who inserted the famous “16 words” in Bush’s 2003 SOTU address claiming Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger; Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA under Paul Bremmer, and Eric Edelman a top official at the Pentagon under President Bush.


Many of these advisors belonged to the PNAC, an influential neoconservative advocacy group founded in the ‘90’s. It has morphed into the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) launched by Kagan, Edelman and Senor. They advocate for regime change in Iran and a more confrontational stance with Russia. They are opposed to cuts in military spending.

Berman’s article goes on to quote Merrill Goozner, who wrote in the Fiscal Times “Romney’s plan to increase military spending coupled with tax cuts would require shrinking domestic spending to levels not seen since the Great Depression-before programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid began and would likely throw the US economy back into recession.”

“How do you get out of this state of interminable war?” asks Lawrence Wilkerson former chief of staff to Colin Powell. Certainly not with Mitt Romney and his foreign policy advisors advocating for more war.

Almost two thirds of the country believe the Iraq war was a mistake, yet Romney’s foreign policy advisors disagree with and advocate against the wishes of a majority of the voters.

Right now the largest US embassy is in Iraq, employing 16,000 contractors. To be fair, Obama wants to reduce that number to 8,000, but still, that’s a lot of jobs for small town USA.

Another term for Obama will not end perpetual war. It’s written in stone, no president can change it. That’s the real point, the decision has been taken out of the hands of the president and the voters. The empire marches on, while the neocon crowd cheers for more blood.

Too big to fail or too small to matter?

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is insurance on loans to insure the lender of payment if default occurs, it’s called hedging, and on Wall Street, they’re easy to buy. First, the companies take out a loan from the bank, then the banks who loan the money and sell the CDS’ buy or sell stock in the borrowers’ company which manipulates the price of the stock and the value of the company.


JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion in six weeks with depositors money on CDS’. So who’s defaulting on their payments and why aren‘t we hearing about it?

The Volcker Rule in the Dodd/Frank law which recently passed allows for hedging of risk, but doesn’t allow banks to use depositors money to make high risk bets, since the deposits are insured by the federal government. CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon urged traders in their London office to take more risk and at the same time saying he didn’t know what was going on, he had people he trusted. Now he’s calling the practice an “economic hedge.” The new definition of a bankers’ casino bets gone bad.

The real risk eliminator on Wall Street has been the US Government, bailing out banks since Nixon was president. Subsequently, and with the implicit backing of the US tax payer, risk knows no bounds on Wall Street. It’s a different story on Main Street, make a bad bet and you lose, no hedging for us. Yet Jamie Dimon won’t even so much as lose his job making bad bets with depositors’ money, as “moral hazard” has been eliminated for big banks too big to fail. But it‘s still held as a major obstacle against a reduction of principal amongst those too small to matter, or can’t afford the lobbyists.

Matt Taibi of Rolling Stone magazine said of Wall Street Bank Goldman Sachs, that they’re a “giant squid on the face of humanity”. It’s all the banks, they have become one giant financial system herding people and governments into giving them global fortunes and international power.

Housing Crisis Threatens Stagnation

Free market fundamentalists instituted the ideology that unfettered free markets would self correct, maintain financial stability and demand for workers, this led to the banking crisis which caused millions of Americans to be trapped in housing debt. The banks blame the people, it’s their own fault. But this distracts from the reality that housing debt is one of the main reasons the US economy is not improving.

Even the Federal Reserve is saying the people need help. Ben Bernanke lowered mortgage interest rates to jolt the economy, but as William Greider states; “Bankers, investors and especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were preventing homeowners from taking advantage of the reduced rates.” “They threw up various obstacles to refinancing…”

Reducing principal is imperative to improving the economy; William Greider quotes the Fed “Because foreclosures are so costly, some loan modifications can benefit all parties concerned, even if the borrower is making reduced payments.”

William Dudley president of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs alumnus said “most people in trouble, are victims of bad luck-they bought their house at the peak of market prices or they became unemployed through no fault of their own. “Punishing such misfortune accomplishes little.” But punish it we do, rights for the average homeowner have been diminished along with the value of their homes.

William Greider writes the current Obama administration “protected the bankers and other financial players who have resisted the painful reckoning needed to unfreeze the housing sector”.

Government won’t do anything about the housing crisis created by the banks. The Federal Reserve says the people need help, so where is that talking point on the campaign trail?

The Fed warns, “If nothing changes in the housing market, adjustments “will take longer and incur more deadweight losses, pushing housing prices still lower and thereby prolonging the downward pressure on the wealth of current homeowners and the resultant drag on the economy at large.”

All the candidates can do is blame each other along party lines. This administration is not helping people and the next administration is not going to help the people.

The Federal Reserve actively came out and said it strongly urges the banks for the lowering of mortgage interest rates and reduction of principle on underwater loans, either that or this blanket of debt will continue to smother the economy and diminish the wealth of homeowners, prolonging stagnation.

Neither candidate can or will eliminate this choke hold on the economy.

Soldiers of Fortune vs. Food Stamps

Juan Cole; Professor at the University of Michigan states-”Drone strikes, electronic surveillance and stealth engagements by military units such as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as dependence of private corporations, mercenary armies and terrorist groups, are now arguably more common tools of US foreign policy than conventional warfare or diplomacy.”

Jeremy Scahill, interviewing the commander of government forces in Yemen about the devastating attack by militants in 2011, the commander said as the Yemeni military began fighting the militants, the men from Yemen’s Central Security Forces (CSF) fled, abandoning heavy weaponry as they retreated, leaving behind heavy artillery pieces, modern antiaircraft weapons, a number of tanks and armored transports in addition to large quantities of different kinds of ammunition. When the Yemeni forces tried to repel the militants in early June, they were attacked by the militants using artillery seized from the CSF units”. The counter terrorism unit is armed, trained and funded by the United States.

From the AP March 11, 2012-”Officials warn that the group (AQAP) has taken broad advantage of the unrest in Yemen to expand its foothold in the south, capture weapons, ammunition and equipment and score successes against the Yemeni military. “

From the same AP article, “While no agreements have been cemented, U. S. defense officials said the Pentagon and the State Department are putting together as much as $75 million in military assistance which could begin to flow this year.” Oh that’s right, since they have a “new” government, we can start sending them money again, it’s that easy!

An article in the Nation magazine said Ron Paul’s largest donor founded a controversial defense contractor Palantir Technologies. “The company profits from government espionage work for the CIA, the FBI and other agencies. Last year it was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US will supply rebels in Syria with intelligence. Which contractor is going to be gathering the “intelligence” to be supplied?

We have money for contractors and mercenaries, but the GOP wants to cut back on food stamps to prevent cuts to the defense Department. From the AP 4-18-12 “Republicans controlling the House are eyeing big cut to food stamps as they piece together legislation to trim $261 billion from the federal budget over the next decade, hoping to forestall major Pentagon cutbacks.

Government is being privatized but the privateers have convinced everyone that food stamps are a major cause of government deficit. Never mind all the defense, security and “intelligence” gathering contractors behind the curtains, they’re just protecting America. After all, somebody’s gotta supply the enemy, might as well be us, right? And think of all the jobs created for mercenaries, the job market must be tough in this economy.

Blaming Regulations Rings Hollow

I keep hearing that government is incompetent, can’t do anything right and should get out of the way, especially when it comes to financial regulations.
As reported on the PBS NewsHour: “The JOBS Act supporters in Congress argued it will create jobs by helping startup firms raise capital. Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS law, such companies have longer exemptions from disclosing financial information and don't have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission until they have 2,000 shareholders, instead of the current 500. The statute also permits so-called crowd funding, allowing small online sales of stock to a large number of investors.”

John Coffee is a professor of law at Columbia Law School specializing in corporate and securities law. He testified about the new law on Capitol Hill and said, “Congress is in effect saying, welcome back, go and sell stock your old-fashioned way by promoting it with inflated recommendations. That may work for a couple offerings, but that's a short-term perspective. You will lose investor confidence. And when you lose investor confidence, the cost to capital goes up and all companies will be hurt.” Where’s the charges of incompetence in failing to safeguard “business confidence” now?

The administration is eliminating regulations, which according to John Coffey, lessen government oversight creating the same situations which allowed shadow banking of sub prime derivatives sold with triple A ratings. Even when the current administration “gets government out of the way” it’s barley noticed. Yet the charge of too many regulations due to an incompetent government will continue, even though, it may not be true.

This bill curbs SEC authority and says John Coffey “It tells a variety of basically sensible self-regulators, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and other self-regulators, they no longer have any authority over these emerging growth companies.” “But you have written some permanent rules now that allow those companies that want to hide in the dark to do so.”

Letting banks operate in the dark is what led to the global financial meltdown. Where’s the charge of incompetence now? It should be evident that self regulation does not exist in the gargantuan financial industry that has become the US economy. Add to that more opportunities to take advantage of weaker rules, all on line with little supervision.

The complaint of too many regulations isn’t always necessarily true but it does redirect focus away from laws like this that pass without much attention. Maybe that’s the point.

Regression isn't just about receding hairlines

Talking about birth control is regressive. But then again maybe that’s the whole point, to roll back all progressive legislation ever passed from 1900 forward.

Many of the New Deal banking laws have been eliminated or circumvented, and according to Jeff Madrick in his book “The Age of Greed- “during the Reagan years antitrust bashing was fashionable rhetoric through the rest of the 1980,’s” wrote an antitrust lawyer. Funding for the Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Justice Department to investigate the monopolistic implications of mergers were cut in half over the course of the Reagan administration. Large size and market share were no longer standards for judging abusive monopoly power.”

Between regression on banking regulations and corporate consolidation, monopolies have gained the power to control the issues. Controlling a woman’s choice over birth control is an issue, but corporate control of wages and prices resulting in upheaval and a rise in poverty is not an issue. Controlling women’s bodies is in vogue, controlling abusive power isn’t even noticed, and it’s certainly not an issue. Just goes to show how the public aim is directed away from more important in depth issues such as the economy; the housing crisis, and ever-rising gas prices to focus on personal, divisive and hot button issue such as contraception.

We don’t want public money going to pay for anyone’s birth control, nor do we want public money going into regulatory agencies to protect against monopolistic abuses of power either.

Birth control is only a diversion, a misdirected stepping stone to complete regression on all progress made on behalf of all citizens in the past century. This is just a smoke screen to cause emotional distress over already settled personal issues, meanwhile the corporate/banking industry is consolidating it’s power over a country of distracted citizens. The saddest and most disturbing aspect of this is how easily the public is fooled into looking the other way, as if on command. It’s truly a shame how far we’ve fallen; literally to the point where we’re stabbing each other in the back as we cut our own throats. Meanwhile our elected politicians sworn to protect the voters best interests are laughing along with their gift-bearing lobbyists all the way to their banker-backers.

Bilking the Boomers

When President Reagan raised payroll taxes Back in the ‘80’s it was to create a nest egg for Social Security. Now the nest egg is due, but since we skewed the books to cover the banks mistakes and endless wars; bailouts and corrupt payoffs, we talk about dismantling Social Security amid hysterics over baby boomers retiring and getting what‘s owed to them, the pittance that it is. Lost is the fact that millions of these same citizens were drafted to fight in Vietnam. That’s the final insult to our veterans after the way they’ve been treated for the last forty years. There’s plenty of bumper stickers supporting the troops, well, until they retire, then we’re afraid of paying their fair share. If you listen to the bankers and the politicians, now they’re a threat to the financial future of our nation.

Over the decades we’ve been trained to believe that we don’t have to take our obligations to fellow human beings as seriously as we do towards banks. The US government has been bailing out banks since Nixon was president. Once commercial and investment banks were allowed to merge, the banks used taxpayer deposits to make bad bets, and every time we bailed them out with taxpayer money. All administrations said we had to cover these bad bets or it would affect all assets of the economy.

According to the banks, and the politicians who they (own) lobby, these massive bank bad bets aren’t considered a burden on the nation’s debt, only the “boomers” are a burden, the very people who paid into it for ‘security’. and then paid to bail them out. For decades economists told us reducing taxes on the rich and powerful wouldn’t create deficits, it would shrink government, which plainly hasn’t worked, it’s had the opposite effect.
The motto of VEVA (Vietnam Era Veteran’s Association) is: “Never Again Will One Generation of Veterans Abandon Another“. Society should take a lesson from these retiring veterans they so were so willing to first sacrifice, and now blame for the economy.

Corporations Without Conscience

There once was a time in the US, when actions had moral consequences. The book “The Gentle Infantryman” by William Boyd Young is about an American soldier fighting in Germany during World War ll, and while the names are fictitious, the book states the events are real.

The soldier writes of an officer planning the moves of the troops using push pins on a bulletin board without fully realizing that the push pins represented real people. His bulletin board movements are difficult to accomplish on the battlefield and wreak much suffering upon the troops doing the actual fighting. The commanding officer is later encouraged to tour the scene of battle, and after seeing all the carnage resulting from his bulletin board strategy, this officer resigned immediately.

Unlike the General who was willing to observe the consequences of his actions, there is a great disconnect between actions and consequences of global corporations. The leaders of these corporations push us around like we’re pins on a bulletin board. Just as the WWll officer was detached from his actions, so aren’t the CEO’s of banks and mega corporations. They have no clue what their actions inflict upon real people. Furthermore, unlike the officer, they don’t care about the suffering the consequences of their actions bring to millions, as long as they make the most profit possible.

When the Supreme Court said corporations are people, they created a moral inequality based on money, considering the fact that the corporatists (the corporate people) have more money than many citizens will ever earn in a lifetime. They used this wealth to build an industry of financial tactics to dismantle all New Deal banking regulations, bringing millions of Americans into economic hardship and financial insecurity.

After decades of this legal onslaught, it’s now just a handful of men who control giant industries upon which we all depend. And they will have no argument to their decisions, much as the WWll officer heeded no warnings and men died needlessly.

This is why corporations are not people, unlike the officer of a different time, they have no conscience. They exist only to maximize profits at whatever the human cost. They are detached from real human beings and think only of mega profits and who’s “earning” the most.

Conservative Crush

An Iraq War veteran writes in the Nation magazine about one of his missions in Iraq to restore order. As he explains it “you go in with one mentality: crush the other side.”

After attending the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park, this same veteran said “Of course, if my goal was to crush free speech, I might use a little misdirection too. As in any war, I would dehumanize the enemy: make sure the protesters aren’t perceived as ordinary people with legitimate concerns but rather as hippies and anarchists who force police to work overtime on the tax payer dime. Then I would send far more police than necessary, pre-emptively ordering some troops into riot gear, to stir tension and make escalation inevitable. The singular focus thus becomes the “clashes”: police and protesters absorb one another’s frustrations, and I’ve successfully contained the problem by pitting the 99 percent against itself, while eclipsing the issues that led to the protest in the first place.”

And this from an AP news brief -“Boston spent $1.4 million on police overtime at the Occupy Boston encampment, but overall police overtime was down in 2011 by about 6 percent.“ “A media representative for Occupy Boston tells the Boston Herald there was no need to spend $1.4 million to patrol and dismantle the encampment because protesters were not “an armed gang“. Both of these articles were printed in February 2012. Chilling when read side by side.

The tactics of suppression of free speech are being used at this very moment, but this is being eclipsed by taxpayer funded contraception, and bases on the moon. The Occupy protests did not require restoration of order, because there was no dis-order. They required the rule of law be applied for a redress of grievances, which was denied. The law, our law, is being subverted; but no political party seems to be interested in this assault on freedom and liberty. The “made for TV“ assaults capture all the attention.

And since conservatives admire experience so much, perhaps they could appreciate the experiences of a recent combat veteran who understands when laws are not upheld, suppression will be enforced; with the singular goal of “crushing the other side“, even if it’s the side of our constitutional rights to legally change our laws for the common good. Those in power holding the purse strings will suppress any and all that gets between them and total control. No public outcries of disagreement will be allowed.

Class Envy Doesn't Discriminate

Mitt Romney said he is not going to apologize for being successful, which misses the whole point. Success is not on trial, it’s the less than stellar, and underhanded business/banking practices conducted throughout the past half century that should be on trial.

According to the book “Age of Greed”, by Jeff Madrick, during the seventies when stock prices were low, Wall Street investment banks began looking for other ways to make profits, and created the LBO (leveraged buy out). If a company had low stock prices, they became a potential target for a hostile takeover. To stay in business, many companies began acting like they were being taken over by lowering wages and slashing employees.

Wall Street investment banks started the LBO mania, and investment banks represented both the buyer and the target. This allowed them to have insider information concerning a company which was being targeted or purchased. Knowing both sides of the merger prompted Wall Street bankers to take big risks betting on the new merged companies. This was just one of their “less than stellar” business practices which corrupted the rest of the sectors of the economy to the point of being totally dependent upon the financial engineering of Wall Street to make a profit.

When Wall Street investment banks became public, they could use other people’s money, subsequently they became the innovators in this new world economy of finance where risk was no longer a deterrent to bad business practices.

Hostile takeovers still rage today; Bain Capital is involved and helps fund them. This is why there is discontent and resentment for those who have been successful in the bad business practices banks have brought us. On top of that, the banks get their funds replenished from the Federal Government, and it’s back to business as usual. But for homeowners and taxpayers in general it’s a totally different story. Millions of Americans have lost all financial value in our savings and especially in our property. Our life’s work, gone. But after loosing all that, it’s our taxes that are replenishing the coffers of the banks. We’re not envious at all… we’re angry that we’ve been robbed for following the rules. Look what the banks along with the government’s help has done to us. Mitt Romney calls it class envy. Far from it, it‘s an understanding that banks have wrecked the financial system as we knew it.

Nomi Prins in her book “It Takes a Pillage” said, “on Wall Street it’s not even how much, it’s who is making the most money that counts.” Talk about class envy, it’s everywhere, and especially on Wall Street not just Main Street.

Carousel of Clowns

We don’t have elections anymore, we have popularity contests with constant reporting on the amounts of campaign cash a candidate has raised, and who raised the most. Basically, it amounts to the candidate with the most money, is the one Wall Street, the top 1%; and the major corporations are backing. You know this candidate is never for the ‘common good’ but instead is going to cover Wall Street’s back if elected.

After the New Hampshire primary, Mark Shields syndicated columnist said the biggest difference he’s seen in this election since the Citizens United ruling is that “money is king”. It was reported that Rick Santorum did poorly in the New Hampshire primary because he couldn’t afford TV ads. During the week of the South Carolina primary Mitt Romney went from being in first place to Newt Gingrich being in first place. When Gwen Ifill asked voters what prompted them to change their minds, they couldn’t pinpoint any specific reasons. David Brooks, columnist for the NY Times, said, all those ads have absolutely no influence on voters.

Once again as in all issues the line is drawn, either you believe the TV ads or you don’t. Mark Shields said “when Jim Lehrer used to host the debates he would go out beforehand and tell the audience, no yelling or screaming and no applauding. And if it happens, I'm going to put the camera right on you and humiliate you.”

The Romans used to say “give them bread and circuses”, now we don’t even get the bread, we get the orchestrated media circus of these pep rallies fixed with ringers in the crowd, all conveniently camouflaged as intellectual debates. These present day examples of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ just goes to prove that P.T. Barnum was right, even today there’s “a sucker born every minute”.

Policing Battle Ground USA

Hypocrisy is in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately most of it relates to the sex life of Newt Gingrich and not the real hypocritical issues, such as states having rights. Republicans contend that states have rights and should decide for themselves whether or not they have to comply with the mandatory purchase of health insurance.

In Vermont, the state legislature passed a law prohibiting pharmacies from selling prescription information to pharmaceutical corporations. The view of the state is that the prescribing information belongs to the physician and the physician has the right to decide whether or not to sell this information. The Supreme Court over ruled the state, saying the decision violated free speech.

The people in the state of California voted to ban sale of violent video games to anyone under 18. The Supreme Court over ruled the voters and tossed out the state mandate.

When the state of Georgia passed laws protecting citizens from unethical lending practices, the federal government over ruled them, saying federal laws prevailed over state laws.

In matters of corporations and banks the federal government decides. With the federal government outsourcing our wars to military contractors, and the SJC’s allegiance to the rights of corporations over states, declaring the US a battleground is all the more disconcerting. Will the federal government over rule the states to team up with corporations as a means of policing the new battleground USA?

Where is the Republican outcry against this assault on laws protecting states from the unconstitutionality of military law imposed by the federal government?

And this is not to be construed as a defense for Democrats, they’ve been silent on this abominable declaration that the US is now a battlefield, it’s just easier to point out Republican hypocrisy on this issue.

In the end, both Republicans and Democrats are paid off to support military contractors along with the collusion of the federal government with corporations as a means of providing services, including policing the streets of America; building prisons and using the police to fill them to capacity and beyond.

Individualism vs. Collective Monopoly

Milton Friedman argued that reducing the government and lowering taxes kept inequality from rising, and helped the poor more than social programs ever could.

Hard to believe considering the Nation magazine reports the collective wealth of the bottom third of Americans is barely hovering above the poverty line. One in three Americans either lives in poverty or is one broken leg away from it. Friedman also argued as a nation of self reliant individuals, too many government regulations and social programs like those in the New Deal, led to the struggle between individualism vs. collectivism.

For decades the monopolies who make up the “collective” few have campaigned to eliminate equality of opportunity for individuals by convincing us, the public, that without steadfast devotion to the “unfettered free market”, our liberties and freedoms would disappear.

However it seems the opposite has happened. With fewer laws and less regulations, millions of Americans have become poorer and powerless against the “collective few“. With millions ending up with less economic freedoms, fewer liberties and no political influence, the inequality of wealth has become glaringly obscene, unconscionable, and downright cruel.

Adam Smith, proponent of the free market, believed rules were necessary to reign in the crookedness of human nature. Smith said, even though it’s unlikely that members of the same trade speak together, the conversation usually ends up in a conspiracy against the public. 　

Who is ALEC?

Who’s writing the laws? ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is writing the laws. ALEC is described in the Nation magazine as “the Nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public private membership association of state legislators” and is made up of 2,000 legislators and 300 corporate members.

The Washington Spectator reports ALEC is the single largest source of pro-corporate anti-regulatory legislation in the country, and describes them as a “corporate funded corporate bill-mill, cross dressing as an association of state legislators.” The Nation wrote ”dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in statehouses coast to coast, with no regard to the public interest” says Bob Edgar of Common Cause.”

According to the Washington Spectator, ALEC was founded in 1973 by a small right wing group of activists and elected officials such as Paul Weyrich, who with help from brewing magnate Joseph Coors, set up the Heritage Foundation. Buz Lukens another founder lost his seat in 1990 after being convicted of paying a 16 year old girl for sex. And Woody Jenkins whose campaign commission paid a fine for filing false disclosure forms while Tony Perkins (now director of the Christian right Family Research Council) was his campaign manager.

The Nation also reports bills introduced in Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Illinois and South Carolina, mirror the ALEC model’s with some state’s bill coming directly from ALEC written legislation. Stacks of new ALEC inspired laws passed in Ohio and Wisconsin with both governors former ALEC alums. Voter ID is an ALEC agenda with 33 states introducing voter ID laws. And the Nation magazine states-“Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces”.

The Spectator lists some of the corporations supporting ALEC as Koch Industries; Exxon-Mobil; Wal-Mart; AT&T Services; and GlaxoSmithKline. ALEC’s private enterprise board includes Exxon-Mobil; Koch Industries; Entergy, and Peabody Coal.

Between the secretive writing of legislation and the legalized corporate ownership of politicians, thanks to Supreme Court‘s Citizens United ruling, it seems pretty well sewn up to be a corporate government against the people. Real issues affecting the lives of everyday Americans will not be addressed by any politician; their corporate masters won‘t allow it. The problem is, with all the corporate money being paid to buy the politicians, and pay the media to overlook; spin & whitewash the issues, most people see only the PR spin, and are hoodwinked… they buy it “hook, line and sinker“, and even clamor for more of the same.