Are You Upset Because the Torture Report Was Released Just Before Christmas?

Whoopi Goldberg is.  On The View she expressed her disappointment that this nasty (my word) report was brought out at this time.  And I’m betting she isn’t the only one.  How dare we let reality ruin our Christmas.  This is the attitude that is crushing our democracy.   

Shame on those that are disappointed at the timing, but actually, the question of why at this time is a great question.  Whoopi and others won’t look deep enough to find the answer.   

It appears to me that the timing was aimed at getting the report released when the American public was most distracted.  A Friday night news dump wasn’t good enough.  This is a Christmas news dump. 

So what is Whoopi so upset about?  The facts that reveal that we, the supposedly “Good Guys” used techniques that we associate with the evil fascists?  Or because the information might bring us down at this happy time of year? 

We let this happen.  Are we going to let it be normalized?  The question is rhetorical, of course we are.

Senator Sanders Unveils a 12 Point Economic Plan

Sanders detailed a 12-point economic program to break the Oligarch’s strangle hold on our economy and the neck of the middle class.   

From:    http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/02/bernie-sanders-unveils-12-point-economic-plan-break-koch-oligarchs.html

- Invest in our crumbling infrastructure with a major program to create jobs by rebuilding roads, bridges, water systems, waste water plants, airports, railroads and schools.

– Transform energy systems away from fossil fuels to create jobs while beginning to reverse global warming and make the planet habitable for future generations.

– Develop new economic models to support workers in the United States instead of giving tax breaks to corporations which ship jobs to low-wage countries overseas.

– Make it easier for workers to join unions and bargain for higher wages and benefits.

– Raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour so no one who works 40 hours a week will live in poverty.

– Provide equal pay for women workers who now make 78 percent of what male counterparts make.

– Reform trade policies that have shuttered more than 60,000 factories and cost more than 4.9 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs.

– Make college affordable and provide affordable child care to restore America’s competitive edge compared to other nations.

– Break up big banks. The six largest banks now have assets equivalent to 61 percent of our gross domestic product, over $9.8 trillion. They underwrite more than half the mortgages in the country and issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards.

– Join the rest of the industrialized world with a Medicare-for-all health care system that provides better care at less cost.

– Expand Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and nutrition programs.

– Reform the tax code based on wage earners’ ability to pay and eliminate loopholes that let profitable corporations stash profits overseas and pay no U.S. federal income taxes.

My comment – The Republicans counter with their plan that hinges on cutting taxes on the wealthy and services to the lower 99%.

Lack of Voter Turnout Isn’t the Problem

Lack of votes in and of itself is not our problem.

In 2000 when the Republicans and SCOTUS stole the election, lack of votes wasn’t the problem.

In gerrymandered districts, more votes won’t change the outcomes. For example, if a district is 90% Democrats and the Democrats always win; more votes won’t change a thing. In a district that is split 60% Republican and 40% Democrats, and the Republicans win 60 – 40, more votes would not change the results.

The problem is the lack of Progressive Votes.

Our voting system is set up to disenfranchise and discourage Progressive Democrats from voting and/or render Democratic votes meaningless.

A bad analogy would be to assume our voting system is one big giant DieBold voting machine. No matter who you want to win, the results are what the Oligarchs want. Shoving more votes into the machine won’t change what comes out the other side.

So what are the real problems?

The basic problem is that we get too few Progressive votes.

And one big reason is that our voting system is corrupted. Until that’s fixed, getting more people to vote won’t solve our problem.

Also, the voters are mislead by the Corp-Media. We must figure out how to counter that. If we don’t fix this, the “more votes” we get may be for Conservatives.

Another reason we don’t get more Progressive votes is that we have too few Progressive candidates at the national level and the candidates we have won’t speak out against Conservatism loud enough to convince the public that there is a different between the parties.

If you want to get more Progressive Democrats to vote, work on solving the above problems. Simply complaining about lack of turnout is counter productive.

GOP Want to Reduce Corporate Taxes - Can You Say Quid Pro Quo?

The following is from Robert Reich's facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/RBReich?fref=nf

Corporate tax "reform" is high on the Republican agenda because the GOP's corporate patrons are demanding payoff from their investments in the 2014 election. Watch your wallets. Here are the four biggest right-wing whoppers about corporate taxes:

1. The U.S. corporate tax rate of 35% is one of the highest among advanced countries. True but misleading. The effective corporate income-tax rate – what corporations actually pay after all deductions, credits, and loopholes – is 27.7%, close to the average of all rich countries (27.2%).

2. Today's corporate tax rate is high by historic standards. Baloney. In the 1950s it was over 50%.

3. The corporate tax reduces corporate profits, which makes it harder for corporations to hire. Wrong. Corporate profits today are the highest they've been since World War II as a percentage of the economy.

4. Lowering the corporate income-tax would spur economic growth. Baloney. There's no relation between corporate tax rates and growth. In the 1950s and 60s, when the corporate tax was over 50%, the economy grew faster (at an annual average rate of 3.9%) than it has since the rate was reduced.

Don't let the right get away with their whoppers about corporate taxes. Spread the truth. 

When corporations paid their fair share, the national economy thrived and we built the greatest middle class the world has ever known.  Reducing taxes on corporations has turned our nation into an oligarchy and killing the middle class. 

Once Again President Obama Chooses a Fox to Guard the Henhouse.

President Obama’s pick to be Treasury Under Secretary for Domestic Finance is Antonio Weiss. His new job would be to oversee the domestic financial system—including the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform act, and consumer protection.  He is currently the global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd, a firm that has put together several major inversion deals.  Why is this significant? 

“Since 2003, more than thirty-five American companies have dodged taxes through similar deals, which are known as “corporate inversions.””

A number of progressive Senators, lead by Sen Warren have reservations.   "Warren has a number of problems with Weiss. The first is the fact that his career has been focused on international transactions. “Neither his background nor his professional experience makes him qualified to oversee consumer protection and domestic regulatory functions at the Treasury,” she wrote. The second is that he’s tied up in the corporate-inversion trend, which, as she notes, the Obama administration has criticized and tried to stop."

Sen Warren further stated, “It’s time for the Obama administration to loosen the hold that Wall Street banks have over economic policy making.”

Sen Warren’s third concern is “about the fox guarding the henhouse. She ticked off a long list of people with close ties to the financial industry who now serve in high-level economic-policy positions in the Obama administration, including Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and US Trade Representative Michael Froman. Letting former Wall Streeters roost in top government perches “tells people that one—and only one—point of view will dominate economic policymaking. It tells people that whatever goes wrong in this economy, the Wall Street banks will be protected first,” she wrote.”

Read more at The Nation Magazine - http://www.thenation.com/blog/191289/next-big-fight-between-progressives-and-wall-street-dems

Obama Continues the Bush Policies of Secrecy

Some of us naively thought during the terrible Bush decade that if we could replace the heavy handed Security State of the Republican administration by electing a Democratic president and that we could reestablish our tattered democracy.  In hindsight how foolish we were.  We thought that Obama, who campaigned on government transparency and rolling back the Patriot Act would end the dominating control of the most powerful NSA/CIA Security State made strong by 8 years of zero oversight and an unlimited budget.  We were wrong.  How could we think that those in power would relinquish that power just because a new president was inaugurated?   Sadly, some here in DU think that’s exactly what happened in spite of the evidence otherwise.

In “The Nation” magazine of Oct 27, there is a good article, “The Government’s War on Whistleblowers.”  
http://www.thenation.com/article/173521/obamas-crackdown-whistleblowers

“To date, the Obama administration has charged nine people with violating the …… Espionage Act – far more that all other administrations combined.”

As bad as that sounds, that is the tip of the iceberg.  Many others have undergone Espionage Act “investigations” that didn’t result in prosecutions, but most likely destroyed careers.  Some see this as heavy-handed intimidation.  

“In its 2011 Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the FBI formally authorized the use of national-security letters to obtain the call records of journalists who are witnesses to a crime. (NSLs are secret orders that the FBI can issue with no judicial review. Recipients are prohibited from telling anyone they’ve received such an order.)”

The article goes on to detail how Obama’s DOJ used subpoenas to gather records of 100 journalists exposing their sources whether or not the sources were relevant to the justification for the subpoenas.

It is apparent that our powerful NSA/CIA Security State, via the DOJ, has declared war on whisleblowers and investigative journalists.

When Obama became president he inherited a very powerful Security State from the Bush/Cheney administration that operated with an unlimited budget, carte blache authority and zero oversight.  It appears that Security State has grown even more powerful under President Obama.  This threat to our democracy should be obvious to all but those living in a state of denial.  And those that applaud the president for the gains we’ve made must realize that without democracy those gains can disappear quickly.  

Majority Say Brennan Violated Checks and Balances, and Must Go

Posted by Dan Froomkin Oct. 1, 2014 on “The Intercept”

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/01/majority-say-brennan-violated-checks-balances-must-go/

“According to a new poll, a sizeable majority of American voters believe CIA officials violated the constitutional system of checks and balances when they hacked into computers being used by Senate staffers investigating torture.”

“And by a two-to-one margin (54 percent to 25 percent, with 22 percent not sure) they believe that CIA Director John Brennan should resign on account of the misleading statements he made about the incident.”

“The poll found overwhelming public support for release of a long-completed report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The report is said to disclose abuse that was more brutal, systematic and widespread than generally recognized, and to expose a pattern of deceit in the Bush administration’s descriptions of the program to Congress and the public.”

“Calls for Brennan’s ouster emerged quickly after Feinstein’s floor speech in March, describing a blatant violation of the principle that Congress conducts oversight over the executive branch, not vice versa. Brennan quickly issued an angry denial whose qualifications were widely overlooked. A CIA Inspector General’s report, whose conclusions were made public in July, confirmed Feinstein’s allegations.”

Some might believe that Brennan has a higher pay grade than the President. Just sayin'.