Fracking-Friendly Bills Flourish as Industry Donations Skyrocket

Friday, November 22, 2013 by Common Dreams
'House Majority Leadership showed they’ll sacrifice anything for the oil and gas industry'
by Sarah Lazare, staff writer

A wave of legislation friendly to the fracking industry in the House of Representative appears to be following skyrocketing donations from the fossil fuel industry.

A Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington report this week reveals that from 2004 to 2012, oil and gas industry contributions to Congressional campaigns climbed 231 percent in fracking states and districts.

Several bills passed in Congress this week suggest these contributions are paying off.

In a landslide 252 to 165 vote, the GOP-controlled House rammed through the fracking industry friendly HR 1900 on Thursday that would fast-track pipeline construction if signed into law.

It follows two other bills passed in the House earlier this week that would make it easier to get fast permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and roll back federal fracking regulations.

While none of these bills is expected to advance in the Senate, critics charge they nonetheless reveal a Congress hijacked by the fracking industry.

"This week, House Majority Leadership showed that they’ll sacrifice just about anything for the oil and gas industry, whether it’s the hunters and fishermen who enjoy using our public lands, parents trying to protect their children from the health impacts of fracking, even the rights of property owners along proposed gas pipeline projects," said Earthjustice Senior Legislative Representative Jessica Ennis.

"The reason for this loyalty? Look no further than a damning report out yesterday showing a 231 percent increase in industry contributions to candidates in areas of fracking activity," she added.

The Corporate Mad Dogs of Citizens United

Wednesday, October 31, 2012 by Creators.com

by Jim Hightower

 

As feared, our people's democratic authority has been dogged nearly to death by the hounds of money in this election go 'round, thanks to the Supreme Court's reckless decree in the now-infamous Citizens United case. 

That rank political power play by five black-robed judicial partisans unleashed the Big Dogs of corporate money to bite democracy right in the butt this year, poisoning our elections with the venom of unlimited special-interest cash. But there's also been another, little-reported consequence of the malevolent Citizens United decision: It has unleashed mad-dog corporate bosses to tell employees how to vote.

Prior to that 2010 Court ruling, top executives were barred by federal law from using corporate funds to instruct, induce, intimidate or otherwise push workers to support particular candidates. No more, thanks to the five Supremes. Having been given a legal pass, bosses have openly and aggressively conscripted employees to be political troopers for corporate-backed candidates.

For example, CEO David Siegel of Westgate Resorts, a major peddler of time-share schemes, warned his 7,000-strong workforce against voting for Obama. To do so, he wrote in a letter to each of them, would "threaten your job." Obama, Siegel declared, planned to raise taxes on multimillionaires like him, which would give him "no choice but to reduce the size of this company."

Likewise, Dave Robertson, president of the Koch brothers' industrial empire, notified 30,000 workers that they would suffer assorted "ills" if they helped re-elect Obama. In case that message was too subtle, Robertson helpfully included a slate-card of Koch-approved candidates for them to take into the polling booth.

Of course, corporate chieftains say they're not making threats — just suggestions. As Boss Siegel disingenuously put it: "There's no way I can pressure anybody. I'm not in the voting booth with them."

But, of course, he can see (or be told by watchful managers) if any employee dares to sport an Obama campaign button, bumper sticker or lawn sign. And he can find out if any rebellious worker has gone to a Democratic Party event, volunteered in the wrong campaign or made a donation to Obama (now there's a chilling irony — under Citizens United, Siegel can secretly shovel a million bucks or more straight out of the corporate treasury into an anti-Obama campaign group, but a regular person's $200 donation has to be disclosed for all to see, including the boss).

So, sure, this is America, where we're all equal as citizens — you, me and the Fortune 500. And don't forget that you're perfectly free to defy the guy who can fire you for whatever reason he makes up — or for no reason at all. Good luck with that.

For a rich example of unbridled boss power in today's political process, harken back to August, when Mitt Romney appeared on a stage with a group of Ohio coal miners arrayed behind him. "I tell ya," the clueless candidate cheerfully exclaimed, "you've got a great boss."

That would be Robert Murray, CEO of Murray Energy, who'd previously held a $1.7 million fundraiser for Romney. But if Mitt had just turned around and seen the scowls on the soot-smeared faces of the Murray miners, he would've had a clue that they didn't quite share his enthusiasm for their "great boss."

One reason for their grumpiness is that they hadn't volunteered to be there, but had been directed by Bossman Bob to attend. Also, Bob was docking them a day's pay for "taking the day off" to serve as stage props for Mitt's campaign. In effect, they were compelled to donate to the Republican. That'll make you grouchy.

As uncovered in an investigative report by The New Republic, such involuntary support is routinely demanded from the salaried employees of Murray Energy. They get hit up again and again for donations to Romney and such other designated candidates as Sens. Rand Paul, Scott Brown, Jim DeMint, and David Vitter.

Murray himself sends dunning letters to employees' homes, specifying to each one how much to give and instructing them to send their checks directly to corporate headquarters. Staffers there maintain a list of those who did as told — and those who didn't. "If you don't contribute, your job's at stake," one employee bluntly explained. "There's a lot of coercion," he adds, "They will give you a call if you're not giving."

Indeed, Murray deploys his lieutenants to squeeze the laggards — as the boss put it in one letter to them last year: "Please see that our salaried employees 'step up,' for their own sakes." And, in another letter this March, he pointedly named names: "I do not recall ever seeing the attached list of employees ... at one of our fundraisers."

After Romney's "great boss" statement, he added that Murray "runs a great operation here."

Yeah — a political shakedown operation by the 2012, court-sanctioned, corporate version of political bossism. If you needed another reason to support a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, there it is.

How Corporations Like Monsanto the Devil Have Hijacked Higher Education

Academic research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards. 

By Jill Richardson, AlterNet
Posted on May 11, 2012,

Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education.

"When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer's markets, the first one told me that 'no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,’” said a PhD student at a large land-grant university who did not wish to be identified. “My academic adviser told me my best bet was to write a grant for Monsanto the devil or the Department of Homeland Security to fund my research on why farmer's markets were stocked with 'black market vegetables' that 'are a bio-terrorism threat waiting to happen.' It was communicated to me on more than one occasion throughout my education that I should just study something Monsanto the devil would fund rather than ideas to which I was deeply committed. I ended up studying what I wanted, but received no financial support, and paid for my education out of pocket."

Unfortunately, she's not alone. Conducting research requires funding, and today's research follows the golden rule: The one with the gold makes the rules.

A report just released by Food and Water Watch examines the role of corporate funding of agricultural research at land grant universities, of which there are more than 100. “You hear again and again Congress and regulators clamoring for science-based rules, policies, regulations,” says Food and Water Watch researcher Tim Schwab, explaining why he began investigating corporate influence in agricultural research. “So if the rules and regulations and policies are based on science that is industry-biased, then the fallout goes beyond academic articles. It really trickles down to farmer livelihoods and consumer choice.”

The report found that nearly one quarter of research funding at land grant universities now comes from corporations, compared to less than 15 percent from the USDA. Although corporate funding of research surpassed USDA funding at these universities in the mid-1990s, the gap is now larger than ever. What's more, a broader look at all corporate agricultural research, $7.4 billion in 2006, dwarfs the mere $5.7 billion in all public funding of agricultural research spent the same year.

Influence does not end with research funding, however. In 2005, nearly one third of agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry. Corporations endow professorships and donate money to universities in return for having buildings, labs and wings named for them. Purdue University's Department of Nutrition Science blatantly offers corporate affiliates “corporate visibility with students and faculty” and “commitment by faculty and administration to address [corporate] members' needs,” in return for the $6,000 each corporate affiliate pays annually.

In perhaps the most egregious cases, corporate boards and college leadership overlap. In 2009, South Dakota State's president, for example, joined the board of directors of Monsanto, where he earns six figures each year. Bruce Rastetter is simultaneously the co-founder and managing director of a company called AgriSol Energy and a member of the Iowa Board of Regents. Under his influence, Iowa State joined AgriSol in a venture in Tanzania that would have forcefully removed 162,000 people from their land, but the university later pulled out of the project after public outcry.

What is the impact of the flood of corporate cash? “We know from a number of meta-analyses, that corporate funding leads to results that are favorable to the corporate funder,” says  Schwab. For example, one peer-reviewed study found that corporate-funded nutrition research on soft drinks, juice and milk were four to eight times more likely to reach conclusions in line with the sponsors' interests. And when a scrupulous scientist publishes research that is unfavorable to the study's funder, he or she should be prepared to look for a new source of funding.

That's what happened to a team of researchers at University of Illinois who were funded by a statewide fertilizer “checkoff” after they published a finding that nitrogen fertilizer depletes organic matter in the soil. Checkoffs are a common method used to market agricultural products, and they are funded by a small amount from each sale of a product – in this case, fertilizer. Richard Mulvaney, one of the U of I researchers, feels it is twisted that, in this way, farmers fund research intended to promote fertilizer use with their own fertilizer purchases.
But often the industry influence may be more subtle. Joyce Lok, a graduate student at Iowa State University, said, “If a corporation funds your research, they want you to look at certain research questions that they want answered. So if that happens it's not like you can explore other things they don't want you to look at... I think they direct the research in that way."

John Henry Wells, who spent several decades as a student, professor and administrator at land grant universities sees it a different way. As an academic, he hopes that his research is relevant to real world problems that agriculture faces at the time. “When you ask the question, did I ever outline a research plan with the explicit notion of is this going to be fundable, I would say no. But I thought very deeply about whether my research plan was going to be relevant, and one of the indicators of relevancy would be if the ideas I put forward would get the attention of trade associations, private industry, benefactors, etc.”

If scientists use fundability as an important criteria of selecting research topics, research intended to serve the needs of the poor and the powerless will be at a disadvantage. However, Wells says that this is hardly a new phenomenon: land grants have existed to serve the elites since their creation in the 19th century.

“As its basis, the land-grant university was intended to cater to a narrow political interest of landowners and homesteaders – individuals who had the right to vote and participate in the political structure of a representative democracy.” he says. “Contemporarily, it is not so much that the land-grant university has been corrupted by modern agro-industrial influence, as it has been historically successful in focusing on its mission in the context of our Constitutional framework of governance. For the land-grant university, its greatest strength – a political collaboration spanning the top-to-bottom echelons of influence – has been its greatest weakness.”

Land grant universities and the USDA itself first came into being at a time when the academic view of agriculture was fundamentally changing – even if most farmers at the time ignored the advice of academics, dismissing them as “book farmers” who knew little about actually working the land. Will Allen writes about this period in his book The War on Bugs, telling the story of Justus von Liebig, a prominent agricultural chemist in Germany.

“In the 1830s, Liebig began asserting that the most essential plant nutrients were nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. His theories fueled the development of chemical fertilizers and ushered in a new age of agricultural science and soil chemistry in the 1840s and 1850s.

Though many of Liebig's theories were wrong, he was the first great propagandist for chemistry and for chemical-industrial agriculture.” Perhaps the most significant of his mistakes was his belief that organic matter in the soil was unimportant.

Dozens of Americans studied under Liebig and returned to the U.S. to continue their work. Two of these students established labs at Harvard and Yale, and soon “all agricultural schools and experiment stations in the country followed their lead.” Thus, practically from the start, the elites in this country served the interests of those who peddled chemical fertilizers and other agricultural inputs – even if that wasn't their intent. No doubt many were enticed by the prospect of founding a new, modern, scientific form of agriculture, as they felt they were doing.

The unholy trinity of industry, government and academics promoting industrial agriculture and de-emphasizing or dismissing sustainable methods has a long history and it continues today. In its report, Food and Water Watch advocates a return to robust federal funding of research at land grant universities. But government is hardly immune from serving the corporate agenda either.

Take, for example, Roger Beachy, the former head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the agency in the USDA that doles out research grants. Beachy spent much of his career as an academic, collaborating with Monsanto the devil to produce the world's first genetically engineered tomato. He later became the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Monsanto the devil's non-profit arm, before President Obama appointed him to lead NIFA.

As Schwab noted, policy is often based on research, but good policy requires a basis in unbiased, objective research. In a system in which corporations and government both fund research, but due to the revolving door, the same people switch between positions within industry, lobbying for industry, and within government, what is the solution?
 

 

Business is Booming for the Prison Profiteers

The GEO Group Cashes In
by JAMES KILGORE

Private corrections company The GEO Group celebrated the holiday season by opening a new 1,500 bed prison in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 12th. The $80 million facility is expected to generate approximately $28.0 million in annual revenues.

Though GEO (formerly Wackenhut) is hardly a household name, they are a major player in the private corrections sector, combining a self righteous amorality in profiting from human misery with a ruthless sense of just how to make a buck in this business. The GEO Group is so notorious that they were the target of an Occupy Washington D.C. action in early December. In addition, the United Methodist Church sold off more than $200,000 in stock in GEO Group over the holiday season, judging that holding these shares was “incompatible with Bible teaching.”

While such actions may irritate a few within the company’s rank, the GEO Group is thick-skinned. Over the years journalists have exposed a long history of violence, abuse and corruption in the company’s facilities. Such scandals would have driven most firms out of business, but GEO has always managed to find the way back to prosperity. While the U.S. economy has plummeted in the past eighteen months, GEO has been positioning itself for the future. In addition to opening the Georgia facility, during this period the company has:

• bought up competitor Cornell Corporation and its prisons in 15 states, an acquisition expected to add about $400 million a year to GEO’s revenues. 
• acquired BI Incorporated for $415 million. BI is the U.S.’ largest producer and provider of electronic monitoring units with 60,000 “customers” for their ankle bracelets begun the intake of new detainees at the 650 bed Adelanto ICE Processing Center East in Southern California. Adelanto West is scheduled to bring a further 650 beds online in August 2012.
• expanded their first facility, Aurora Detention Center (founded in 1987) from 400 to 525 beds
• moved ahead with plans to develop a 600 bed Civil Detention Center in Karnes County Texas, expected to generate $15 million in annual revenues

For the first nine months of 2011, GEO reported total revenues of $1.2 billion, an 11% rise over 2010. Shareholders are gloating with the company’s success. A hundred dollars invested in GEO in 2005 would have risen to $322 by 2010. At the top of the profiteers stands long-time CEO George Zoley. The owner of 70% of GEO’s stock, Zoley consistently pulls down annual compensation in excess of $3 million, landing him squarely in the ranks of the one per centers. His Chief Operations Officer Wayne Calabrese, is not far behind at around two million a year.

GEO’s rising profitability is a result of their capacity to change with the times. While the War on Drugs and facility construction were the cash cows of the industry from 1980 to 2001, 9/11 and the sinking economy have shifted the terrain. Immigration and alternatives to incarceration are the new windows of opportunity in the freedom deprivation sector. GEO, as usual, is right on the money. In Zoley’s prosaic jargon, the company is developing a “full continuum of care with leading competitive positions in every key market segment in corrections, detention and treatment rehabilitation services.”

Along with the new centers at Adelanto and expanding Aurora, the acquisition of BI has enhanced GEO’s potential to capitalize on anti-immigrant crackdowns. The takeover included BI’s five year, $372 million contract with ICE for monitoring 27,000 immigrants under Federal supervision but not held in detention centers.

Grabbing BI has also put GEO in a position to take advantage of the early release programs being implemented in California and other states. BI operates a network of daily reporting centers which offer drug treatment, anger management workshops, counseling, and a host of other services to individuals on parole and probation. These centers stand ready to help state agencies address the increasing need for supervision of people released or diverted from prison. In the long run, the large scale privatization of probation and parole functions is an obvious aim.

Further moves in line with the changing times are the firm’s forays into the psychiatric field through their GEO Care division. With mainstream mental hospitals suffering massive cutbacks, GEO Care has found a niche market in facilities for the involuntarily institutionalized, in other words, psychiatric prisons. GEO Care runs three such facilities in Florida alone. Their prize plum is the 720 bed Florida Civil Commitment Center. (Courts impose a civil commitment on those judged a threat to public safety though not convicted of any crime. People with sex offense histories are the most frequent targets.) In addition to its Florida operations, GEO Care has a presence in Texas as well, having gained a contract to run a 100 bed facility for people awaiting trial in 2009.

Predictably, GEO could not have achieved these financial successes without the usual assortment of dirty tricks and influence peddling. The firm’s team of 63 lobbyists has been active in 16 states over the past decade. In the first quarter of this year alone GEO spent more than $100,000 on lobbying in Florida as the legislature was considering a plan to privatize 29 state prisons. Unfortunately for Zoley and company, the initiative stalled this time around but is likely to resurface in upcoming legislative sessions.

GEO complements its lobbying activities with political campaign contributions, which totaled just over $2.4 million between 2003 and 2010.

Perhaps even more worrying than the GEO Group’s political maneuverings, however, are their efforts to export the U.S. model of mass incarceration and immigration detention. In the late 1990s, GEO (then Wackenhut) had a financial stake in Australia’s notorious Woomera Immigration Detention Center. UN Envoy Justice Bhagwati visited the facility and said he felt he was “in front of a great human tragedy.” Barbara Rogalia who worked there as a nurse, echoed these sentiments: “It reminded me of a Nazi concentration camp I visited in Czechoslovakia, now a museum. The only thing that was missing from the gate, at the top near the razor wire, was a sign saying ‘Arbeit macht frei‘ (‘Work sets (you) free’).”

Following massive demonstrations by community activists, a string of uprisings by those detained and a series of escapes the center closed in 2003. A corporate restructuring process ensued and the company’s corrections wing re-emerged as GEO Australia and continues to operate four prisons.

GEO’s ventures in the UK have had a slightly smoother landing. In 2011 GEO UK won a contract for prison escort services worth $150 million a year. In addition, they took over management of the 217-bed Immigration Removal Center in Glasgow, Scotland.

GEO Group’s last overseas venture is a 3,000 plus bed prison in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Not long ago, it appeared that South Africa was preparing to embark on a large-scale prison privatization project, with GEO in the lead. However, a change in cabinet personnel landed Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as Minister of Corrections. She has declared her intention to keep all facilities in state hands. Unlike in the U.S., at least someone in a national position of power in South Africa is prepared to say no to the private prison industry.

At the moment there doesn’t seem to be a Mapisa-Nqakula emerging in the Obama administration. Instead, the GEO Group looks set to make an increasing variety of projects “shovel ready.” If the halting of private profiteering from freedom deprivation is to become a reality, we will need a lot more Occupiers and political leaders with the courage to listen and act.

Buddy Roemer's Speech to National Press Club

(As soon as you dismiss everyone affiliated with a political party, along comes someone with the views similar to yours that help you consider more than you might have before you were made aware of them. I differ with most Buddy Roemer's views--except for the most crucial ones, and the most crucial issue of our time and of this country is the amount of corporate influence over the electoral process and government. I find Buddy's views mirror mine on this issue, and any candidate who campaign's that s/he will reduce or eliminate corporate control over our government will get a serious look from me in 2012. This is a speech he gave recently--see if you don't agree with what he says about corporate influence and control over elections and the government. I do disagree with him about regulations--I think the process needs to be reformed, not eliminated.--jef)

Speech to National Press Club in Washington DC on Monday the 15th of august, 2011

Good morning.

I believe America is a great nation. A nation where all things are possible, regardless of your starting point in life.

Most nations have points of strength, decent people, and some opportunity.

But America has always been a special land.

Begun with a declaration of independence to stand against the tyranny of a foreign king and a culture of elitism and class segregation in England, America choose to build on a written foundation of constitutional law.

And build it did. America has prospered into the world’s greatest economic power.

The Land of Opportunity.

I run for president because America is a great nation and a great people.

And America is in trouble, needing bold action by a leader free of any consideration other than what is good for a rising America.

America is in trouble.

20% of its workforce –25 million Americans – are out of work in this “recovery”, or have quit looking, or are underemployed.

We have a million fewer jobs than we did 12 years ago and the jobs we have, pay less.
We have given away our manufacturing jobs. We don’t make things any more. We distribute them. Bad trade.

“Made in America” is an endangered species. We are now dependent on “consumption” and “government”.

We owe more than any nation ever, and much of it to our competition, face endless deficits, averaging $1.1 trillion a year for the next decade, which is as far ahead as they count.

We have a spending addiction, undisciplined by any budget constraints. To maintain the habit, we borrow 42 cents of every dollar spent.

On the revenue side of the ledger, we have a tax code unfair, unreadable, written by lobbyists, and crammed with the loopholes of the special interests.

For good measure, we are addicted to foreign oil, refuse to seal our own borders, and have decided to spend money we don’t have to rebuild other nations, while paralyzed in attempts to help our own.

It is unsustainable.

Economic growth is the only solution, if we plan a nation better than the one we received, if we plan to work our way free again.

Growth is essential to having a land of opportunity.

We can do this. I am positive on America. We can grow again.

At least half a dozen strong policies must be initiated immediately to turn the ship of state.

First, we must stem the outflow of our best jobs, currently leaving America in record numbers to reside in “cheap” labor lands.

“cheap” is one thing, but the use of child labor, forced labor, prison labor, factories without work standards for health and safety, and competition from a system without environmental investment is unfair trade practice, and will be halted. The days of talking “free trade” while we get robbed of our best jobs by “unfair trade” are over.

Some of these same unfair competitors employ a myriad of hidden trade barriers to prevent and delay American exports to enter their country, and use sophisticated currency manipulation techniques to compound the crime.

There are no guarantees for jobs, and we know that technological advances, bad management, and outrageous labor practices can imPACt the size and quality of job demand. But unfair trade practices, if ignored, will cause the loss of entire industries and can ruin a nation. We intend to halt the practice of ignoring or trying to wish away these systematic abuses of “free trade”.

My remedies will include tax reform revision specifics and a fair trade adjustment to the most patent of the violators’ products. I will outline in some detail these set of remedies in my next major speech on the subject of fair trade to be given in the next two weeks.

A president must defend American jobs from unfair foreign competition. We have waited too long, and, for some, it is too late, but these unfair practices will no longer be tolerated when i am president.

In addition, we must win the battle to control federal spending. At 25% of GDP, federal spending is excessive by any standards, unsustainable under any hypothesis, and erodes confidence in the financial management of our nation’s government. For the past 6-months, I’ve detailed a plan of 1% reductions in spending ($140 bn per year) over a 5-year period.

We could begin with elimination of all energy subsidies, including oil, gas, ethanol, unproven energy technology, and the department of energy itself. We could modify social security and Medicare by slowly raising the eligibility age by one month a year for 24 years and by block granting Medicaid with a cap. There are hundreds of other sound spending reductions available and necessary (foreign aid, agriculture and housing subsidies, standardizing software, consolidating information technology, unnecessary overseas military bases, etc.), but you get the point: it can be done, but leadership is required and growth is the essential goal.

Further, i propose that we deregulate small businesses so that they can grow jobs. Small businesses grow 2 out of every 3 new jobs in America over the past 60 years. They are flexible, hard-working, often family owned, work long hours, and are the beginning point of every large company. They are the key to our economic future. They are our competitive advantage over china.

And what do they get from Washington? Nothing, but taxes and regulations, and now, mostly regulations.

If you think federal spending out of control, just look at the growth of regulatory directives! There were 81,000 pages of regulatory comment in the federal registry last year alone. There are more than 4,400 new federal regulations in the pipeline this morning.

Business spent more in regulatory compliance to federal regulations last year ($1.7 trillion) than they did in taxes ($1.5 trillion). This increasing regulatory pressure is particularly disastrous for small business as they usually don’t have a compliance officer, or an in-house lawyer, or a lobbyist in Washington. They are defenseless against this onslaught.

Regulations are the new taxes. And we are “taxing” small business to death. It is the chief reason why small business is not creating new jobs.

We are over-regulating this critical element in our economy.

To restore balance, i propose a halt in the enforcement of all small business regulations implemented since January of 2008. I will restore only those that imPACt safety, health, and have a positive cost/benefit ratio. Further, i will stop implementation of any new regulations on small businesses for the next 4-years, except those that demonstrate health, safety, and a positive cost/benefit analysis.

I’m sending a message to every small business woman and man: dream again, grow again, let’s put America to work again.

In this short list of bold actions required to re-start America, I highlight the need to reduce health care costs. Quality is great. Cost is prohibitive. I would eliminate Obamacare, but keep insurance coverage of pre-existing conditions. I will initiate tort reform, eliminate pocket monopolies by allowing medical insurance coverage across state lines, expose pharmaceuticals to price discounting from competition for service, and incentivize providers to reduce service expenses by allowing them to keep 25% of the savings.

One key action that ties in with jobs, cash management, currency valuation, foreign policy, and discipline in federal spending is my intention for the u.s.to be energy independent within a decade. I will drill where oil and gas are found, do so environmentally safely using modern technology putting 1,000,000 Americans to work, tariffing foreign oil except Canada and Mexico, save $500 billion annually in trade imbalance, restore value of the dollar and reduce the price of gasoline proportionally, open the yucca mountain facility for nuclear waste storage, utilize all forms of domestic energy with the market controlling selection, and eliminate the department of energy.

A complete revision of our unreadable, complex, non-growth oriented tax code is another giant step in our pursuit of solid economic growth. Simple will be the foundation principle, with the elimination of loopholes, exemptions, and deductions to achieve low marginal tax rates for individuals and corporations. With corporate rates at 15% and with a sharp reduction in capital gains rates and on savings, the United States can be a tax haven for capital, fueling the investment necessary in rebuilding the land of opportunity.

Finally, banking reform must be reworked to include having capital ratios rise with bank size, eliminating too big to fail as a regulatory policy, and by restoring a version of Glass-Steagal, separating commercial banking from investment banking. The megabanks are risk prone and dangerous to the overall economy by requiring a regulatory double-standard and by the elements of moral hazard. Banking is too important to be left to the bankers. The regulation of the industry must be a fine balance between too much and too little. The dangers of size and speed must be recognized. Currently, neither are appreciated. Trouble looms.

These seven areas require bold, clear action, as does the resolution of sealing our borders to illegal immigrants, targeting the proliferation of nuclear weapons capability in a shrinking world, and restoring the local component of educational excellence.

But today, i want to talk about why these bold actions will not take place, will not happen.

Special interests own this town.

And the special interests have never been so well off. They are in control, and in a land run more and more by the government, they finance the choice of national candidates, and the presidential election itself.

We are broken and need to take bold action to grow again, but the special interests have never had it so good —- why change?

I agree with those who say that our political system, our nation’s capital, is institutionally corrupt.

For example, special interests write the tax code. You cannot read it. They can. General electric is the largest corporate giver in the last election cycle, made a profit last year of $5.2 billion and paid zero federal income taxes, while the average profitable small business person pays 36%. Fair?

Every year the costs of elections rise, and the same 1% or 2% of America give the money.

98% give nothing. That’s the system and it results in special favors and provisions and opportunities for those at the top who give the money.

We are owned from the top down by special interest money, political action committee (PAC) money, by wall street money, and by the big check.

Institutionally corrupt and it’s getting worse.

Look at the record.

Healthcare reform under president Obama was designed to lower the cost of healthcare yet it didn’t include tort reform. The tort lawyers are big givers to both parties.

It didn’t eliminate the protection that insurance companies have to prevent competition from out of state. Big givers, those insurance companies.

It didn’t require pharmaceutical companies to discount prices on government business. Oh no! Big bucks and the threat of big bucks from these multi-nationals.

A 2,300 page bill, unconstitutional at its core with the insurance mandate, and it didn’t even touch three of the most expensive healthcare costs.

Special interest money wrote the healthcare bill.

Did you know that PACS and lobbyists with Washington DC area addresses gave more money in the last presidential campaign than 32 states combined? Washington dc is a boom town and the rest of America is hurting.

Now, four years later, it’s worse.

The PACS are now uncountable. They can give twice as much as individuals. Why? There is no disclosure, no names, and no accountability as to purpose or source.

Then there is the “bundler”, who collects checks from others, delivers them to the candidate in a bundle with political credit going not to the sucker who give their $2,500 or $5,000, but to the collector who gives the PACkage to the candidate at $100,000 or $200,000 or $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 political value.

I recently read a paper written by a Harvard law school student about bundling and the selection of united states ambassadors under Obama and his predecessors. Checkbook diplomacy he called it.

Historically, all presidents have appointed about 30% political appointees versus 70% professional Foreign Service selections. President Obama is at 65% political (58 out of 90), and the major portion went to “bundlers”, such as:

• Roos to Japan with a $500,000 bundle
• Susman to Great Britain with a $500,000 bundle 
• Rivkin to France with a $800,000 bundle
• Gutman to Belgium for a $775,000 bundle
• Beyer to Switzerland for a $745,000 PACkage.

On and on it goes.

And this is just 5 out of the first 24 bundler-nominees put forth by president Obama. These 24 nominees bundled more than $11 million minimum without counting their contributions to other fund raising opportunities such as the inaugural committee, the president’s leadership PAC, and the democrat national committee. There is no end to the cash these bundlers give and to the power and control it buys.

Both parties have done it, but Obama is the master.

We are selling important public jobs for special favored private money like a third world country.

The Tyranny of the Big Check. Position for sale!

It doesn’t end there.

Lobbyists have become fundraisers in an institutionally corrupt system. Lobbyists have been a critical source of information and focused industry knowledge since the beginning of our nation. It is a position considered honorable and necessary to the function of a representative democracy.

But it should not be combined with the role of a political fundraiser, where the danger is that the size of the check should determine the action of the representative.

Vote buying is a dangerous and slippery slope in a world where fair play and level playing field are as American as “apple pie”.

In short, a registered lobbyist should not be allowed to both lobby and fund raise. His/her choice, one or the other.

Jack Abramoff is a name that comes to mind.

The American bar association just endorsed this separation of registered lobbyist from the act of fund raising.

Special interest money, PAC money, bundled money. They never stop. They never cease. They never sleep.

Announce a new committee or a new appointment? A fundraiser by the special interest lobbyist immediately follows!

Two weeks ago congress agreed on a pitiful budget-debt ceiling resolution which called for a special committee of six dems and six republicans with awesome power of spending cuts and tax increases. It was a bad idea in my opinion, but it is now the law.

We immediately contacted the office of the speaker of the house and the president of the senate asking that all meetings of the special committee be held in a public forum and that members selected pledge not to accept PAC or lobbyists checks during the remainder of their term of office. Let the vote of the people be the ultimate decider of the choices inherent in this unusual situation, not the power of a special interest check.

No response from the congressional leadership.

Last week the leadership’s selections were made public and 24 hours later one of the members selected, congressman Becerra, had leaked the fact that he had accepted a major fundraiser by a group of lobbyists at $1,500 a ticket high lighting the fact that he was on the committee that would imPACt their special interests, their budget earmarks, and their tax loopholes.

It never stops. Incredible.

And Becerra’s answer? “I will continue to do what i have to do as a member of congress. So yes, we are going to move forward.”

So exactly what is his role as a member of congress? Collect fat special interest and lobbyists and PAC checks to get re-elected?

Or to represent his district and help rebuild America?

Watch the money!!!

We challenge the leadership of the house and the senate. Let the people decide these issues at the voting booth, not the special interest cash and check booth.

It is not too late to make a statement. Ask members of the special committee to eschew lobbyists, PACS, and special interest fundraising for the duration of this term. Ideas are welcome. Contributions from the vested interests are not.

The system is institutionally corrupt. Both parties are guilty and it is getting worse.

Which leads me to something new: “SUPERPACS”.

SUPERPACS do not have to disclose the contributions received and dollar amounts are unlimited. Their only requirement is that they have to be independent of any candidate although concepts can be shared.

What a joke!!

Independent? Romney’s SUPERPACS (or does he have two?) Got a $1 million contribution from a corporation formed special for that purpose and which dissolved after the check was delivered. When word leaked out about the million, Romney reluctantly revealed the source. Why was the million dollars hidden?

Independent? The PAC is run by former chief of staff, business partners, former employees, and is funded by individuals who already have contributed the maximum amount.

This is not disclosure or independence. This is phony, shadowy, hidden, corrupt in the truest sense of the word, corrupt in every sense of the word.

And I don’t want to pick on Romney alone. He is not unique. It is revealed that governor Rick Perry has seven SUPERPACS headed by former associates, staff, and maximum operatives. Bachmann has a SUPERPACS as does Paul and Huntsman.

Don’t do it. I challenge them. Don’t do it.

Join with me and let’s give ourselves a chance to take bold, clean action to restore America and to energize the plain people of our country who fight the wars, build the roads, start the small businesses, teach the kids, and raise the families of America.

Let’s restore honesty, and faith, and transparency to this corrupt political system.

These SUPERPACS are phony. They are not independent. They are just bald-faced efforts to hide the facts of the power of the big checks from the American people. They are just special interests buying yet more influence. You don’t believe the SUPERPACS are phony in their pretending to be independent? Do you know that the candidate can attend the fundraising dinner, speak and be acknowledged, have it run by his henchman, and claim independence?

It is a joke, but a joke on our country. Don’t do it candidates. Join with me.

Still unsure about the below the surface corruption of our system? Look at the so-called banking reform of last year. Read Grethchen Morgenson in the New York Times every Sunday as she describes banking corruption, or ask a community banker in your town.

Our financial system is still not out of the woods, because “banking reform” did not eliminate too big to fail. Glass-Stegal is still dead. Goldman Sachs is still the largest political contributor in the financial sector and no one went to jail after they lied to the congress and abused their client privilege. And Obama is on wall street a month later having a huge fundraiser at $35,000 a ticket.

See how this corrupt system works? Jobs for sale. Wink and nod for change. Oh the president is a great fundraiser. Just what I’m looking for in a president — how about you?

Here is my position: in a time of crises, in a time of peril, in a time of deep uncertainty, a president must be free to lead a resurgent nation. If he must continually compromise with the special interests who own the office, bold action will never come.

So i ask my republican colleagues to limit contributions to the individual allowed amount of $2500. Accept no PAC money, no SUPERPACS money, no lobbyists working as fundraisers, no bundlers as ambassadors to be.

Let Obama raise a billion dollars from the special interests. Let him choose to be weighted down with the demands of the special interests.

We will win with fewer dollars but with greater support from the American people, because we will show them that we are truly free to lead.

I want a pledge, since you fellow candidates are pledging to everything else. Join with me and pledge that we (you) will make the reform of this institutionally corrupt system a must do during your tenure as president and that you will apply your leadership skills to achieving this goal.

Historically, this debate has always been between “disclosure” and “limits”. Liberals have weighed in on the “limits” side of the discussion, while we conservatives have questioned the constitutionality of “limits” and have argued for the sunlight of “full disclosure”.

In this election, the protection of the law has been compromised such that we have neither “limits” nor “disclosure”.

We have the worst of both worlds. We have a system that is institutionally corrupted at a time when a premium will be placed on an honest, full discussion on the best steps to take in preserving and rebuilding a great nation.

We are in danger of allowing the special interests and their PACS and their big checks to decide the outcome. This realization was the very reason that I decided to get back in the political arena to attempt to break the corrupt political—special interest system.

Some commentators have expressed the excuse that due to the recent Supreme Court rulings that money is a form of speech and is thereby protected in the first amendment, and there is nothing to be done.

These comments are in error and i believe the Supreme Court gives clear opportunity for the congress to act in a constitutional manner to provide broad limits and disclosure guidelines.

In short, congress could act if it so desires to protect our system from abuse by the special interests. The president should lead with recommendations to congress and start the process. These recommendations should include the following points:

1. Full disclosure, regardless of size of the contribution. 
2. Real time reporting, not quarterly. I recommend a 48 hour cycle beginning when the contribution is received. 
3. A prohibition against a “registered” lobbyist participating in a fundraiser. 
4. Criminal penalties for violations of the rules. This must have “bite”. 
5. Eliminate “super” PACS entirely. Full disclosure and 48 hour reporting at a minimum. 
6. Either eliminate PACS altogether or reduce their limit to be no more than the $2,500 individual limit.

I challenge my fellow republican candidates to stand with the people, the plain people, against the undue influence of the special interests and adopt these 6 rules of engagement.
This new tyranny of hidden, massive, special interest contributions is pulling America down the corrupt path of money over issues, of cash over conscience, of re-election above all other things. It has candidates for office hiding contributions, committing to legislation unseen, and forming alliances with special interests who are prospering while America is hurting.

I am the only person running for president who has been both a congressman and a governor, who has fought the crushing power of the PACS and the special interests and the institutional corruption of this political system from his first day running for office in Louisiana.

For the better part of 20 years I have been out of government as a main street banker, restructuring small businesses and putting people back to work, while not taking one penny of government bailout money.

I know the need for confident planning and the power of leadership in an uncertain world.
The challenges facing the next president are indescribable, and the worst challenge is probably not yet known.

But this i believe and it is as old as time: the president must be free to lead.

I challenge all who stand for this job, who would be taken seriously for this great venture, to send back the special interest money. To take only individual, fully disclosed contributions.
And to commit to lead on this battle against institutional corruption.

So there will be no misunderstanding or ambiguity, here I stand from day one!

• $100 limit on contributions from an individual
• No PAC contributions, only individuals
• All funds fully disclosed regardless of size.

Free to lead.

To win this election, I need a million people to stand with me and invest $100 in a free to lead president, who will build a team of republicans and independents and tea partiers and conservative democrats to cooperate in rebuilding America’s future.

We are not yet well known. We have not been on the public’s payroll for 20-years. We hope to make the next debate. We are spending weeks on end in New Hampshire to earn that right.

And when we get that far and make that debate, we will challenge the field to stand free of the special interests and put the people back to work again.

By the way, the race is wide open. You can’t pick a winner. But you can make one. Free to lead a rising America.

Buddy Roemer Was Not Invited

Decline of the Empire 09/08/2011

Those vying to become the leaders of the Republican "cult" (as renegade congressional staffer Mike Lofgren put it) held a "debate" last night. It apparently has not occurred to anyone on National Public Radio this morning that any  "debate" featuring Michele Bachmann, who is always painted as a front-runner, indicates the complete collapse of political legitimacy in the United States. I wonder how Angela Merkel views this. Not to mention Hu Jintao.

Former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer was not invited to participate, although he is running for President on the Republican side. Unlike Michele, he does not have enough support yet to warrant a spot on the Big Debate Platform. Buddy has a pet peeve about politics in America. His problem with the whole process is that special interests run the show. Here is an excerpt from his speech to the National Press Club on August 17, 2011. He called his talk The Tyranny of The Big Check. I will quote it at length. I've presented Roemer's remarks on money in politics just as they appear on his campaign website.

But today, i want to talk about why these bold actions will not take place, will not happen.

Special interests own this town.

And the special interests have never been so well off. They are in control, and in a land run more and more by the government, they finance the choice of national candidates, and the presidential election itself.

We are broken and need to take bold action to grow again, but the special interests have never had it so good —- why change?

I agree with those who say that our political system, our nation’s capital, is institutionally corrupt.

For example, special interests write the tax code. You cannot read it. They can. General electric is the largest corporate giver in the last election cycle, made a profit last year of $5.2 billion and paid zero federal income taxes, while the average profitable small business person pays 36%. Fair?

Every year the costs of elections rise, and the same 1% or 2% of America give the money. 98% give nothing. That’s the system and it results in special favors and provisions and opportunities for those at the top who give the money.

We are owned from the top down by special interest money, political action committee (PAC) money, by wall street money, and by the big check.

Institutionally corrupt and it’s getting worse.

Look at the record.

Healthcare reform under president Obama was designed to lower the cost of healthcare yet it didn’t include tort reform. The tort lawyers are big givers to both parties.

It didn’t eliminate the protection that insurance companies have to prevent competition from out of state. Big givers, those insurance companies.

It didn’t require pharmaceutical companies to discount prices on government business. Oh no! Big bucks and the threat of big bucks from these multi-nationals.

A 2,300 page bill, unconstitutional at its core with the insurance mandate, and it didn’t even touch three of the most expensive healthcare costs.

Special interest money wrote healthcare.

Did you know that PACS and lobbyists with Washington dc area addresses gave more money in the last presidential campaign than 32 states combined?

Washington dc is a boom town and the rest of America is hurting.

Now, four years later, it’s worse.

The PACS are now uncountable. They can give twice as much as individuals. Why? There is no disclosure, no names, and no accountability as to purpose or source.

Then there is the “bundler”, who collects checks from others, delivers them to the candidate in a bundle with political credit going not to the sucker who give their $2,500 or $5,000, but to the collector who gives the PACkage to the candidate at $100,000 or $200,000 or $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 political value.

I recently read a paper written by a Harvard law school student about bundling and the selection of united states ambassadors under Obama and his predecessors. Checkbook diplomacy he called it.

Historically, all presidents have appointed about 30% political appointees versus 70% professional Foreign Service selections. President Obama is at 65% political (58 out of 90), and the major portion went to “bundlers”, such as

Roos to Japan with a $500,000 bundle
Susman to Great Britain with a $500,000 bundle
Rivkin to France with a $800,000 bundle
Gutman to Belgium for a $775,000 bundle
Beyer to Switzerland for a $745,000 PACkage.

On and on it goes.

And this is just 5 out of the first 24 bundler-nominees put forth by president Obama. These 24 nominees bundled more than $11 million minimum without counting their contributions to other fund raising opportunities such as the inaugural committee, the president’s leadership PAC, and the democrat national committee. There is no end to the cash these bundlers give and to the power and control it buys.

Both parties have done it, but Obama is the master.

We are selling important public jobs for special favored private money like a third world country.

The Tyranny of the Big Check. Position for sale!

It doesn’t end there.

Lobbyists have become fundraisers in an institutionally corrupt system. Lobbyists have been a critical source of information and focused industry knowledge since the beginning of our nation. It is a position considered honorable and necessary to the function of a representative democracy.

But it should not be combined with the role of a political fundraiser, where the danger is that the size of the check should determine the action of the representative.

Vote buying is a dangerous and slippery slope in a world where fair play and level playing field are as American as “apple pie”.

In short, a registered lobbyist should not be allowed to both lobby and fund raise. His/her choice, one or the other.

Jack Abramoff is a name that comes to mind.

The American bar association just endorsed this separation of registered lobbyist from the act of fund raising.

Special interest money, PAC money, bundled money. They never stop. They never cease. They never sleep.

Announce a new committee or a new appointment? A fundraiser by the special interest lobbyist immediately follows!

Two weeks ago congress agreed on a pitiful budget-debt ceiling resolution which called for a special committee of six dems and six republicans with awesome power of spending cuts and tax increases. It was a bad idea in my opinion, but it is now the law.

We immediately contacted the office of the speaker of the house and the president of the senate asking that all meetings of the special committee be held in a public forum and that members selected pledge not to accept PAC or lobbyists checks during the remainder of their term of office. Let the vote of the people be the ultimate decider of the choices inherent in this unusual situation, not the power of a special interest check.

No response from the congressional leadership.

Last week the leadership’s selections were made public and 24 hours later one of the members selected, congressman Becerra, had leaked the fact that he had accepted a major fundraiser by a group of lobbyists at $1,500 a ticket high lighting the fact that he was on the committee that would imPACt their special interests, their budget earmarks, and their tax loopholes.

It never stops. Incredible.

And Becerra’s answer? “I will continue to do what i have to do as a member of congress. So yes, we are going to move forward.”

So exactly what is his role as a member of congress? Collect fat special interest and lobbyists and PAC checks to get re-elected?

Or to represent his district and help rebuild America?

Watch the money!!!

We challenge the leadership of the house and the senate. Let the people decide these issues at the voting booth, not the special interest cash and check booth.

It is not too late to make a statement. Ask members of the special committee to eschew lobbyists, PACS, and special interest fundraising for the duration of this term. Ideas are welcome. Contributions from the vested interests are not.

The system is institutionally corrupt. Both parties are guilty and it is getting worse.

Which leads me to something new: “SUPERPACS”.

SUPERPACS do not have to disclose the contributions received and dollar amounts are unlimited. Their only requirement is that they have to be independent of any candidate although concepts can be shared.

What a joke!!

Independent? Romney’s SUPERPACS (or does he have two?) Got a $1 million contribution from a corporation formed special for that purpose and which dissolved after the check was delivered. When word leaked out about the million, Romney reluctantly revealed the source. Why was the million dollars hidden?

Independent? The PAC is run by former chief of staff, business partners, former employees, and is funded by individuals who already have contributed the maximum amount.

This is not disclosure or independence. This is phony, shadowy, hidden, corrupt in the truest sense of the word, corrupt in every sense of the word.

And I don’t want to pick on Romney alone. He is not unique. It is revealed that governor Rick Perry has seven SUPERPACS headed by former associates, staff, and maximum operatives. Bachmann has a SUPERPACS as does Paul and Huntsman.

Don’t do it. I challenge them. Don’t do it.

Join with me and let’s give ourselves a chance to take bold, clean action to restore America and to energize the plain people of our country who fight the wars, build the roads, start the small businesses, teach the kids, and raise the families of America.

Let’s restore honesty, and faith, and transparency to this corrupt political system.
These SUPERPACS are phony. They are not independent. They are just bald-faced efforts to hide the facts of the power of the big checks from the American people. They are just special interests buying yet more influence. You don’t believe the SUPERPACS are phony in their pretending to be independent?

Do you know that the candidate can attend the fundraising dinner, speak and be acknowledged, have it run by his henchman, and claim independence?

It is a joke, but a joke on our country. Don’t do it candidates. Join with me.

Still unsure about the below the surface corruption of our system? Look at the so-called banking reform of last year. Read Grethchen Morgenson in the New York Times every Sunday as she describes banking corruption, or ask a community banker in your town.

Our financial system is still not out of the woods, because “banking reform” did not eliminate too big to fail. Glass-Stegal is still dead. Goldman Sachs is still the largest political contributor in the financial sector and no one went to jail after they lied to the congress and abused their client privilege. And Obama is on wall street a month later having a huge fundraiser at $35,000 a ticket.

See how this corrupt system works? Jobs for sale. Wink and nod for change. Oh the president is a great fundraiser. Just what I’m looking for in a president — how about you?

I don't have much to add. See my post The Root Of All Political Evil. Today's post should not be taken as an endorsement of Buddy Roemer, but he's the only one running who is willing to talk about the only issue that matters. I'm never going to vote again, and I recommend you do the same.

More Capitulation: Obama Halts EPA Regulation On Smog Standards (2 articles)

(Hey, Obama--capitulate much? All the time? That's right, you do...here's an idea: big corporations need to figure out how to expand business without making the air too hazardous to fucking BREATHE! See, breathing clean air is kind of important if you don't want to die a horrible death from lung cancer or asphyxiation. Asshole!--jef)

Smog is Fun for Everybody!!! Wheeeee!!!!
Huffington Post - Sept. 2, 2011
 
WASHINGTON — In a dramatic reversal, President Barack Obama on Friday scrubbed a clean-air regulation that aimed to reduce health-threatening smog, yielding to bitterly protesting businesses and congressional Republicans who complained the rule would kill jobs in America's ailing economy.

Withdrawal of the proposed regulation marked the latest in a string of retreats by the president in the face of GOP opposition, and it drew quick criticism from liberals. Environmentalists, a key Obama constituency, accused him of caving to corporate polluters, and the American Lung Association threatened to restart the legal action it had begun against rules proposed by President George W. Bush.

The White House has been under heavy pressure from GOP lawmakers and major industries, which have slammed the stricter standard as an unnecessary jobs killer. The Environmental Protection Agency, whose scientific advisers favored the tighter limits, had predicted the proposed change would cost up to $90 billion a year, making it one of the most expensive environmental regulations ever imposed in the U.S.

However, the Clean Air Act bars the EPA from considering the costs of complying when setting public health standards.

Obama said his decision was made in part to reduce regulatory burdens and uncertainty at a time of rampant questions about the strength of the U.S. economy.

Underscoring the economic concerns: a new report Friday that showed the economy essentially adding no jobs in August and the unemployment rate stubbornly stuck at 9.1 percent.

The regulation would have reduced concentrations of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, a powerful lung irritant that can cause asthma and other lung ailments. Smog is created when emissions from cars, power and chemical plants, refineries and other factories mix in sunlight and heat.

Republican lawmakers, already emboldened by Obama's concessions on extending Bush-era tax cuts and his agreement to more than $1 trillion in spending reductions as the price for raising the nation's debt ceiling, had pledged to try to block the stricter smog standards as well as other EPA regulations when they returned to Washington after Labor Day.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had muted praise for the White House Friday, saying that withdrawal of the smog regulation was a good first step toward removing obstacles that are blocking business growth.

"But it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stopping Washington Democrats' agenda of tax hikes, more government `stimulus' spending and increased regulations, which are all making it harder to create more American jobs," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the move was "an enormous victory for America's job creators, the right decision by the president and one that will help reduce the uncertainty facing businesses."

White House officials said the president's decision was not the product of industry pressure, and they said the administration would continue to fight other efforts by Republicans to dismantle the EPA's authority.

But that was little consolation for many of the president's supporters. The group MoveOn.org issued a scathing statement, saying Obama's decision was one it would have expected from his Republican predecessor.

"Many MoveOn members are wondering today how they can ever work for President Obama's re-election, or make the case for him to their neighbors, when he does something like this, after extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich and giving in to tea party demands on the debt deal," said Justin Ruben, the group's executive director.

The American Lung Association, which had sued the EPA over Bush's smog standards, said it would resume its legal fight now that Obama was essentially endorsing the weaker limit. The group had suspended its lawsuit after the Obama administration pledged to change it.

Obama's decision, in fact, mirrors one made by Bush in 2008. After EPA scientists recommended a stricter standard to better protect public health, Bush personally intervened after hearing complaints from electric utilities and other affected industries. His EPA set a standard of 75 parts per billion, stricter than one adopted in 1997, but not as strong as federal scientists said was needed to protect public health.

In March, the EPA's independent panel of scientific advisers sent a letter to the agency's director, Lisa Jackson, saying it was its unanimous recommendation to make the smog standards stronger and that the evidence was "sufficiently certain" that the range proposed in January 2010 under Obama would benefit public health.

But the White House, which has pledged to base decisions on science, said Friday the science behind its initial decision needed to be updated, a process already under way at EPA. The smog standard now is to be revised until 2013.

Whether Obama still occupies the White House at that point depends on the outcome of next year's presidential election.

Cass Sunstein, the head of the White House regulatory office, said changing the smog regulation now, only to have it be reconsidered again in two years, would create unnecessary uncertainty for the private sector and local governments.

The stricter limits initially proposed by Obama would have doubled the number of counties in violation. Smoggy cities such as Los Angeles and Houston would have been joined by counties in California's Napa Valley and one in Kansas with a population of 3,000. They would have had up to 20 years to meet the new limits, once EPA settled on a final number, or would have faced federal penalties.

In his statement, the president said scrapping the stronger smog standards did not reflect a weakening of his commitment to protecting public health and the environment.

"I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution," Obama said. (Bullshit!--jef)

Even before Friday's decision – announced as many Americans were paying more attention to their Labor Day weekend plans than the news – the White House has faced some criticism for its record on the environment. Obama abandoned a campaign pledge* to set the first-ever limits on the pollution blamed for global warming, and he announced an expansion of offshore drilling before the Gulf oil spill sidelined those plans.

The ground-level ozone standard is closely associated with public health – something the president said he wouldn't compromise in his regulatory review.

(* for those keeping count, we're close to 20 campaign promises he has broken.--jef) 

++++

Obama withdraws smog regulation, overruling EPA

By Kase Wickman
Friday, September 2nd, 2011

President Barack Obama Friday announced that he would overrule the Environmental Protection Agency's controversial anti-smog regulations. Business leaders and Republicans had voiced strong objections to the new smog standards, and they count Obama's decision as a victory.

Obama cited a desire to avoid costly regulations as his reason for telling EPA Director Lisa Jackson to withdraw the smog rule.

Depending on how strict the standards were, the new smog rules were estimated to cost between $19 billion and $90 billion, according to Forbes.

"I want to be clear: my commitment and the commitment of my administration to protecting public health and the environment is unwavering (except when my corporate contributors tell me otherwise, which is all the time--jef)," Obama said in a statement sent by the White House. "I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution, (except that I'm not going to do that at all. I will keep serving the interests of the corporate contributors to my 2012 Presidential Campaign, and nothing comes before that.--jef)"

The rule will be reconsidered in 2013, Obama said, and it was pointless to pay for regulations that would be so soon up for redrafting.

Last week, Obama was chided by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for the number of governmental regulations under consideration as well as the amount of regulations with costs exceeding $1 billion.

"A search of this year’s information, posted online in recent days, reveals that the Obama Administration’s job-crushing regulatory barrage is not being scaled back, but rather expanded, appearing to contradict White House rhetoric this week about President Obama’s intent to reduce the regulatory burden on job creators," Boehner wrote in a blog post.

In his own response this week, Obama outlined "a number of steps" his administration had taken to relieve regulatory burdens and streamline the bureaucratic process.

Friday, the White House posted a blog post by Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, outlining the ways Obama has achieved "Cleaner Air and a Stronger Economy — A Record of Success," as the post is titled.

The announcement that Obama was ordering the EPA to withdraw their drafted proposal came on the heels of the monthly jobs report, which showed that no new jobs had been added in August.

"The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe," Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, told Forbes.

"This is a huge win for corporate polluters and huge loss for public health."

TV Networks Are Out to Sell, Not Tell

Monday, August 22, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
'Monetizing' Electoral Politics
by Danny Schechter

Already the projections are in—not for who is going to win the election in 2012---but for how much it is likely to cost.

Public Radio International concludes: “Campaign spending in the 2012 US election could reach $6 or 7 billion dollars as outside groups pay for electoral influence.”

Here we are in the middle of a deep recession that’s getting deeper by the day, with austerity the unofficial slogan du jour while Republican scheme up new ways to trim, cut and decimate government spending, and parties are spending billions on political horse races.

They decry government spending but they don’t talk much about their own spending, do they?

And neither do the Democrats who are also backing an orgy of spending cuts if only to show their opponents how “responsible” they are.

As both parties slash spending that benefits people, they are in a manic overdrive effort to raise more for themselves and their campaigns.

PRI’s Here and Now program reported, “In 2008, Barack Obama raised some $778 million for his presidential bid. The total cost of the national election, including Presidential and Congressional, was about $5.3 billion. Since then, court decisions like Citizens United have made spending by outside groups easier.

"In 2012," Dave Levinthal, director of the Center for Responsive Politics told PRI's Here and now, "you're easily looking at 6, maybe even 7 billion dollars nationwide."

The Center for Responsive Politics has already reported that Wall Street “bundlers” have generated more money for the Obama campaign than they did four years ago even as anger with the financial behemoths grows in the base of the Democratic Party,

Spending by outside groups was about 4 times higher in 2010 than it was in 2006. Much of that can be attributed to new, looser campaign laws.

Levinthal explains that "the laws changed in a way that effectively allowed these outside groups to raise and spend unlimited sums of money to say whatever they want, to do it whenever they wanted to, and they could do it in as strong a term as they wanted to."

These developments get scant media attention for one good reason: the media is a prime beneficiary of a political system dominated by big money.

Much of these billions are raised for political advertising. The networks get it. No wonder, they are out to sell more than tell.

Listen to the editor of Cable Fax, an industry publication that is planning a Webinar to help TV executives “monetize” (i.e., make more money from) the 2012 elections and its vast “political spend.”

Here’s editor Amy Maclean pitching her media readers in high places:

“The 2012 elections will be here before you know it, so now is the perfect time to start planning your strategy and make sure to maximize your share of the political ad spend. Join us Tuesday, August 30 for our CableFAX Webinar: Monetize Election 2012: Advanced Political Advertising. You'll get sound advice and practical tips to make the most of interactivity and multiplatform campaigns.

“While cable's total of campaign ad dollars continues to climb to record levels, (emphasis mine) the next question is how to make that two-way plan more attractive to campaigns through the use of Video On Demand (VOD,) RFIs, online and other interactive elements.

“Last year, California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman helped put RFI (Request for Information) political spots on the map, using the technology to allow viewers to request things such as bumper stickers and volunteer info. The innovation continues, with 2012 expected to really help the industry further distinguish itself with its advanced political advertising offerings.

“Additionally, the recent Citizens United Supreme Court case opened the way for corporations and unions to drop major coin to back candidates and issues.”

Cable Fax wants its readers to know how best to “navigate the race in November and drive additional advertising revenues,” i.e. (“drop coin” in their pockets.)

The irony is that while most TV networks insist they are bi-partisan and don’t flack for any candidates, their coverage is, in effect, flacking for themselves -- to bolster revenues by siphoning off as many political donations that they can slip and slide into their own coffers.

This corporate self-interest is rarely explained or even admitted but in a tough advertising market---with the economy in collapse mode---politics primes the media pump.

Campaigns are windfalls for broadcasters. The networks that oppose stimulus programs for workers with so many snarky stories, don’t oppose this stimulus for themselves.

Promoting elections has become an industry of its own and TV networks are at the center of it. They are not devoting much time to promoting voter registration or voter education. They don’t provided many free ads and in fact often refuse to run issue-oriented ads bought by activists.

This agenda is wrapped up in the mantle of enabling democracy but it is of course much more than that. Most of the coverage is about the personality parade and horse race, not the issues. It focuses on canddiates more than political organizing. There seems to be little concern with new measures like voter ID cards designed to suppress the vote, or electoral fraud designed to steal it.

The fact is that the political circus is good for business, not democracy. The Providence Phoenix reports, “Political coverage on television is diminishing, and revenue from political advertising is soaring. Critics say free airtime for candidates could help solve the problem:

Writes Ian Donnis, “The Alliance for Better Campaigns (ABC), a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan group that advocates for political campaigns that inform voters and increase their participation in the political process, is pushing a proposal that would force broadcasters to offer free air time to political candidates before elections -- in addition to increasing political coverage overall. Proponents say the idea is the next frontier in campaign-finance reform.

These proposals have been around for years, endorsed by former Presidents and the late Walter Cronkite, but they have gone nowhere. Why? Why should the networks give away air time when they are paid so handsomely for it?

“Nearly every democracy in the world has some kind of mandate for free television time during campaigns. Broadcasters can afford it: profit margins of 30 percent, 40 percent, and even 50 percent are common in broadcasting, according to Paul Taylor, the former Washington Post reporter who serves as president of the Alliance for Better Campaigns. And, since the Communications Act of 1934 was enacted, broadcasters' free and exclusive use of the airwaves has also been conditioned on their agreement to function as public trustees.”

Ha!

It’s hard not to conclude that their inaction, and unwillingness to reform their own practices, is caused by network’s own bottom-line greed--- always justified in the name of preserving the first amendment, of course.

The truth is our valiant TV networks are undermining democracy, not bolstering it. These campaigns create jobs for their own pollsters, pundits and partisans. This spectacle does not serve a public deeply disenchanted with sleaze in suits and political corruption,

Instead “monetized election coverage” is a fixture, a part of the problem. The New York Times reports in detail how Rick Perry’s high net worth donors benefited financially when state money went, tit for tat, into their businesses.

The watchdogs have become lapdogs when it comes to monitoring and disclosing their own agendas and profits.

Who will watch the watchers?

Both Parties Now in Dash for Anonymous Cash

(This is a fine example of how the Republicrats and Demacans are really the same party serving the same corporate agenda--the difference being that one wears red, the other wears blue, and they've sold the myth to most voters that they are in opposition to one another--with a terrible one-act play they perform daily--when in actuality, they are owned by the same corporations, sleep with the same people, drink at the same bars, keep their money in the same Wall Street accounts, eat at the same troughs, etc. No difference.--jef)

Tuesday, August 9, 2011 by Politico.com
by Kenneth P. Vogel

If anyone had doubts about the role that anonymous and untraceable money will play in the 2012 campaign ad wars, a flurry of recent reports and voluntary disclosures should put them to rest.

Right-wing independent groups are likely outpacing the left in collecting anonymous cash. The full extent of the anonymous giving is by definition impossible to know. But the recent disclosures as well as interviews with fundraising sources suggest that Republican-allied independent groups are outpacing Democratic ones in collecting undisclosed contributions to fund their political advertising, just as they did in 2010.

But, perhaps more significantly, they show that Democrats, who vociferously attacked that kind of fundraising last year, have set aside their qualms and are now active competitors in the anonymous donor arms race.

The three main anonymously funded Democratic outside groups – Priorities USA, American Bridge 21st Century Foundation and Patriot Majority – collected at least $3.7 million in untraceable contributions, and probably much more, in the first half of the year, according to voluntary disclosures and anecdotal information on ad buys.

While that’s not as much as the $5.8 million in fundraising reported in that same period by the sister organizations of those groups, which do disclose donors – Priorities USA Action, American Bridge 21st Century and Majority PAC — the feeling among some in Democratic fundraising circles is that the balance will likely tilt towards undisclosed donations as the groups seek to expand their donor bases.

And the fact that Democrats are soliciting undisclosed contributions at all at this early stage of the race illustrates the central role anonymous donors are expected to play in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

Democrats “don’t have a choice, because the other side is doing it – would you send David to fight Goliath without a slingshot?” said Erica Payne, a liberal strategist who helped create the Democracy Alliance, a network of major liberal donors.

Many such donors “feel more comfortable donating to groups that don’t disclose,” she said, because some are publicity averse and also because “as soon as their name appears in the paper as having contributed, their phone number goes on the speed dial of every congressmen, committee and party that wants to raise money.”

While it’s impossible to do an apples-to-apples comparison, conservatives seem to maintain a wide edge when it comes to anonymously funded political advertising, with groups that don’t disclose contributions including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Prosperity and the 60 Plus Association – which combined to spend tens of millions on ads boosting Republicans in 2010 – gearing up for even bigger campaigns headed into 2012.

And the biggest spending Republican group this year – Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies – is about midway through a two-month advertising binge attacking President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats that is expected to cost more than $20 million, alone.

Crossroads GPS, as the group is known, is registered under a section of the tax code – 501(c)4 – that does not require the disclosure of donors’ names, but it was actually started as a spin-off of another group that does disclose its donors – American Crossroads. That group, a new type of political action committee known as a super PAC, has seen its fundraising lag behind its non-disclosing sister group. In the first six months of 2011, according to a report filed late last month with the Federal Election Commission, it raised only $3.9 million.

The two-pronged structure of the Crossroads outfit was the model for the new Democratic outside efforts, which were created in response to the explosion of spending by a network of outside groups, including Crossroads, that were conceived by veteran GOP operative Karl Rove.

The Democratic outfits also pair 501(c)4 groups – including Priorities USA, American Bridge 21st Century Foundation and Patriot Majority – with super PACs, including Priorities USA Action, American Bridge 21st Century and Majority PAC.

Patriot Majority recently went up with $225,000-worth of ads in three states pushing back on Crossroads GPS’s attacks on Democratic senators, while American Bridge 21st Century Foundation and Priorities USA told POLITICO they’d raised $1.51 million and at least $2 million, respectively.

But such 501(c)4 groups won’t be required to file reports listing even basic information about their 2011 finances until well into next year — and they probably will never be required to disclose even a single donor’s name, making it likely that we’ll never know who funded many of the political ads aired in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

Meanwhile, the super PACs affiliated with those groups – combined with another linked super PAC called House Majority PAC – collected huge checks in the first six months of the year from labor unions and wealthy liberals in entertainment and finance, according to reports filed late last month with the FEC. And their donors are known.

The Service Employees International Union contributed a total of $1.1 million spread among the groups. Dreamworks Animation chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg contributed $2 million to Priorities USA Action, Chicago media magnate Fred Eychaner gave $600,000 ($100,000 to House Majority PAC and $500,000 to Priorities USA Action), insurance magnate Peter Lewis gave $200,000 to American Bridge and billionaire financier George Soros gave $75,000 to House Majority PAC.

On the Republican side, American Crossroads received almost all of its cash in the first half of the year – $3.8 million – from just a handful of millionaires and corporations. Investor and former Univision chairman Jerry Perenchio gave $2 million through his trust. Dallas investor Robert Rowling, whose firm owns Omni Hotels and Gold’s Gym, gave $1 million. Texas homebuilder Bob Perry gave $500,000.

“Some people want their names listed because they want credit – they want that policymaker or candidate [supported by a super PAC] to know that they’re giving and they want them to know quickly,” said a Democratic operative involved in fundraising for independent groups. “Other people want to stay [anonymous] because they are afraid of retribution or controversy.”

Super PACs and 501(c)4s are barred from coordinating their spending with the candidates they intend to help. But the groups – which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions – are often seen as a way for deep-pocketed donors to have more impact than by merely writing checks to candidates and parties, which are capped by federal rules that also bar union and corporate contributions to candidates.

It was the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC that cleared the way for the advent of superPACs as well as the rise in popularity of 501(c)4s as vehicles for political advertising. The decision, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited money on campaign ads, was widely criticized by Democrats, as was the explosion of advertising spending by anonymously funded conservative groups, which Obama called “a threat to our democracy. The American people deserve to know who’s trying to sway their election.”

But after the election, Obama’s allies dialed back their opposition to big-money outside spending and it wasn’t long before close allies of the president and Democratic congressional leaders had formed their own network of groups.

“We’re following all the same rules that Rove’s Crossroads is,” said Bill Burton, who served as deputy White House press secretary while Obama was attacking anonymous political spending, but now runs the Priorities groups. “We may not like the rules, but we’re not going to let Karl Rove and the (conservative billionaire) Koch brothers play by one set of rules while we are overrun with their millions.”

But Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the Crossroads groups, told POLITICO it’s “brazen hypocrisy” for the Democratic 501(c)4s to accept anonymous donations. “If they really believe it was a threat to democracy, I don’t think you’d get involved in one of these groups,” he told the St. Petersburg Times late last month.

Yet, back when Crossroads started out last year, it, too, shunned secret donations and extolled disclosure. Its chairman, Mike Duncan, described himself in May 2010 as “a proponent of lots of money in politics and full disclosure in politics,” and said Crossroads intended to “be ahead of the curve on” transparency.

Less than one month later, with American Crossroads struggling to raise money from donors leery of having their names disclosed, operatives spun off Crossroads GPS, and its fundraising team, led by Rove, began emphasizing to prospective donors the ability to give anonymous contributions.

Fundraising took off, and together, the groups ended up raising more than $70 million in 2010, with the majority of it – $43 million – going to Crossroads GPS.

Despite their increasing prominence in political advertising, Crossroads GPS and other 501(c)4 groups, which the IRS classifies as “social welfare organizations,” are still considered something of an uncertain legal proposition and also a somewhat more restrictive political vehicle, as a result of the tax code’s requirement that they spend more than half of their money on non-campaign-related activity.

Legalities aside, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who for years was a leading crusader against big money in politics, suggested his party risked losing the moral high ground by joining the chase for undisclosed, unlimited cash.

Feingold – who last week launched a 501(c)4 group of his own but pledged to disclose all its contributions and to only accept only limited individual donations – told POLITICO “Democrats shouldn’t be in the game of influencing elections with anonymous, unlimited money. It’s dancing with the devil.”