Paul Ryan Still Doesn’t Get It

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 by RobertReich.org

by Robert Reich

 

Republican House Budget chief Paul Ryan still doesn’t get it. He blames Tuesday’s upset victory of Democrat Kathy Hochul over Republican Jane Corwin to represent New York’s 26^th congressional district on Democratic scare tactics.

Hochul had focused like a laser on the Republican plan to turn Medicare into vouchers that would funnel the money to private health insurers. Republicans didn’t exactly take it lying down. The National Republican Congressional Committee poured over $400,000 into the race, and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads provided Corwin an additional $700,000 of support. But the money didn’t work. Even in this traditionally Republican district – represented in the past by such GOP notables as Jack Kemp and William Miller, both of whom would become vice presidential candidates – Hochul’s message hit home.

Ryan calls it “demagoguery,” accusing Hochul and her fellow Democrats of trying to “scare seniors into thinking that their current benefits are being affected.”

Scare tactics? Seniors have every right to be scared. His plan would eviscerate Medicare by privatizing it with vouchers that would fall further and further behind the rising cost of health insurance. And Ryan and the Republicans offer no means of slowing rising health-care costs. To the contrary, they want to repeal every cost-containment measure enacted in last year’s health-reform legislation. The inevitable result: More and more seniors would be priced out of the market for health care.

The Ryan plan has put  Republicans in a corner. Some, like Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and, briefly, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, are rejecting the plan altogether. Most, though, are holding on and holding their breath. After all, House Republicans approved it — and voters don’t especially like flip-floppers.

Senate Democrats will bring the Ryan plan for a vote Thursday in order to force Senate Republicans on the record. Watch closely.

Some GOP stalwarts say the Party must clarify its message – a sure sign of panic. Former Republican congressman Rick Lazio says the GOP “must do [a] better job explaining entitlements.”

It’s just possible the public knows exactly what entitlements are – and is getting a clear message about what Republicans are up to.

All this should give the White House and Democratic budget negotiators more confidence – and more bargaining leverage – to put tax cuts on the rich squarely on the table.

And, while they’re at it, turn Medicare into a “Medicare-for-all” system that forces doctors and hospitals to shift from costly tests, drugs, and procedures having little effect, to healthy outcomes.

Outside Cash Leaves Scorched Earth in US Campaign

by Stephen Collinson - Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — Nerve jarring music races to a crescendo, shadowy pictures flash across the screen, and in doom-laden tones, a narrator warns: "Obama -- he promised change... now he's desperate, on the attack."

This is not the inspirational candidate who moved thousands to tears at his Chicago victory party, nor the one who tilted at history with the most impressive legislative record of any Democratic president for decades.

This is President Barack Obama through the eyes of Americans for Prosperity, a group lambasted by Democrats since a Supreme Court decision opened a spigot of outside spending on next month's mid-term elections.

Expensive, bombastic political ads are hardly new to American politics -- both sides of the political aisle fling half truths and explosive claims across television screens every election season.

But Democrats, fearing heavy losses in Congress due to the sluggish economic rebound and high unemployment, are crying foul this year, after the Court rulings dismantled a raft of restrictions on corporate spending.

Independent groups -- not openly linked to the political parties -- can now suck up unlimited corporate cash, and spill it on elections, without revealing the source of their largesse.

Conservative groups currently dominate the spending binge -- profiting from Republican grass roots anger over the Obama administration ahead of November 2 polls in which Democrats fear heavy losses.

The Americans For Prosperity ad is, in fact, a riposte to Obama's own claims that no one knows who the group is or how it is financed.

"Who is he afraid of? Americans For Prosperity? People like you?" the hard-hitting ad run by the activist group says.

Research by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending, shows conservative independent groups have splashed out $25.8 million on advertising since September 1, compared to $5.6 million by liberal groups.

Detractors argue that the benign names of some groups, like Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Job Security and Working America belie the nakedly partisan nature of their advertising.

"You know, they call themselves 'Americans for Apple Pie' or 'Moms for Motherhood' -- and then they use their voice to drown out yours," Obama quipped in September.

Under campaign finance laws, corporations or individuals are limited in how much they can give each candidate -- but since the Supreme Court ruling, there are no such curbs on how much a group can spend on ads under its own banner.

This Democrats say, is unfair and means big corporations can remain anonymous and swamp the voice of the average voter at the polls.

Republicans charge corporations as well as individuals have a right to free speech, and point to heavy labor union financing of Democratic campaigns.

In Nevada, Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid is desperately trying to cling on to his seat, against Republican Sharron Angle, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement.

American Crossroads, a group for which former George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove raises money, has stepped in with a hard-hitting ad.

Shots of the Democratic veteran are juxtaposed with a lacerating script: "Bailouts, deficits, Obamacare... haven't you done enough?"

Though such ads steal headlines, David Damore, a professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas said the group's work on the Republican ground game may actually have more impact than the air war.

"Rove's group is doing a lot of turnout -- there is a real Republican disadvantage (in that area) in the state right now," Damore said.

Some experts believe independent groups may be most effective in House races where electorates are smaller and a sudden cash boost can tilt the scales.

In Virginia, Democrat Rick Boucher is in danger of losing a seat he has held for years. He is known as a conservative Democrat but Americans for Job Security is shackling him to House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a hate figure for Republicans.

"Boucher has failed to protect our jobs -- now it is time Rick Boucher loses his," an ad says.

AJS describes itself on its website as an "independent, bi-partisan, pro-business issue advocacy organization" but does not disclose donors, saying its membership could be misinterpreted by politicians or the media.

In its counter attack, the White House has highlighted the reports that the US Chamber of Commerce, which leans Republican, has used funds from foreign funds for electoral campaigning.

The Chamber denies the charges, but the White House is demanding proof.

Rove has also weighed in: "This is a desperate and I think disturbing trend by the president of the United States to tar his political adversaries with some kind of enemies list," he told Fox News Sunday.

Corporations Become Humans and Curse Their Creator

Money Talks (and Swears)
By TOM TURNIPSEED

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, gave corporations, unions and individuals First Amendment rights to donate unlimited amounts of money to buy political ads for candidates without disclosure. Meanwhile, corporate fat-cats, whose corporations are created by government, rant and rave against government and condemn government creation of public sector jobs programs for the poor and unemployed.

In Citizens United the five conservative justices composing the majority said,

“… this court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or to the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.” 

Can we keep faith in a government whose highest court makes such an absurd comment about big bucks being spent by “speakers” sponsored by the US Chamber of Commerce and other special interests who lobby government for corporate and big moneyed interests? The Chamber’s lobbyists led the defeat of the Disclose Act to close the loopholes created by the Citizens United decision.

Foreign corporations contribute money that goes into a Chamber of Commerce fund used to pay for political ads to defeat candidates who do not tow the line for their profits over people agenda. Playing key roles in the effort are Karl Rove who was George W. Bush’s political hatchet man and the late Lee Atwater’s protégé, and Ed Gillespie, former Republican National Committee Chairman and another Bush advisor. They are involved with a group called Crossroads GPS and its associated organization, American Crossroads. The groups are running ads in key Senate and Congressional races and are trying to raise $52 million for ads in the November elections.

The Court’s conservative majority of justices were appointed by conservative politicians in the White House and confirmed by conservative US Senators who owed much of their political success to wealthy contributors and corporate interests. The history of corporate influence and control of our government is depressing.
In the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the U.S. Supreme Court “ruled” that corporations are "persons" and have the same rights as human beings based on the 14th Amendment, which was intended to protect the rights of former slaves. However, in the decision itself the Supreme Court never ruled on personhood, but a former railroad president named J.C. Bancroft Davis who was the court reporter put the “ruling” in the decision’s headnote:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

Headnotes are not law but subsequent cases dealing with the issue accepted the headnote as precedent to give corporations rights under the Fourteenth Amendment like natural persons. Justice William O. Douglas's later lamented that, "corporations were now armed with constitutional prerogatives."

The Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1976 said donations could be restricted as potentially corrupting, but there should be no ceiling on expenditures since that could be like limiting speech itself (money equals speech). The McCain-Feingold law in 2002 closed a loophole that allowed companies to spend money "independently" just before elections designed to defeat targeted candidates, but that loophole was re-opened with Citizens United. The Court struck down the provision of the McCain–Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications” that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election.

Ironically, government initiatives that would put people to work rebuilding our infrastructure are condemned as socialism by the plutocrats of corporate America. In an Orwellian twist the money magnates would have us forget that corporations are created by government statutes. Government limits their personal liability for acts perpetrated by them under the auspices of their corporations.

Corporations would not exist if government statutes did not allow them to make profits and shield shareholders from liability if the corporation is caught stealing, or otherwise damaging people. Corporate employees, including CEOs and other officers of a failing corporation can lose their jobs but are not personally liable to the corporation’s creditors for their mismanagement. Corporations control the system that creates them by making campaign contributions to our elected officials, and by lobbying and influence peddling. Hiring relatives and staff of members of Congress also helps the big money interests to manipulate our government. Such tactics have enabled them to water down attempts to regulate their out-of-control greed that caused the worst economic recession since the great depression.

Democracy dies when corporations are given the rights of human beings and corporate bribery becomes free speech.