Police Riot at Oakland Occupy Wall Street Protest, + Glenn Greenwald Interview on Democracy Now!

[Edited 10/27/11]

In This Edition:

- Police Riot in Oakland: Iraq War Vet Hospitalized with Fractured Skull After Being Shot by Police
- The Times They Are A Changin'
- Glenn Greenwald on Occupy Wall Street and More
- Dean Baker--Doesn't NPR Know That the Wage Matters for Workers?
- Robert Reich on Flat Tax plus great interview on Letters & Politics
- Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free
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Since at least the Clinton administration, the police in America have been in training to act as an arm of the military, with many of the weapons that militarization implies, to control any outbreaks of discontent on the streets of our cities and hometowns. You can see it in the SWAT teams that converge on suspected crime scenes, but now it is being used to squelch first amendment rights to protest and free speech. More video footage is now available on YouTube from last night's (10/25/11) police riot in Oakland, California, exposing the violent, over the top, militaristic response by the elite to the threat of common people standing up for their free speech and other rights. Please also listen to the analysis of constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now! Much More-- (below).
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WEDNESDAY OCT 26, 2011 8:01 AM
Police Turn Oakland Into War Zone
BY ALLISON KILKENNY
(Updated 4:24 p.m. ET)

"As always, it's important to remember that regardless of police accusations, the charges against protesters listed above (sanitation issues, graffiti, etc.) are relatively minor offenses given the nature of this police retaliation in which OPD turned downtown Oakland into a war zone."

Incredible footage emerged from downtown Oakland last night - not of basic law enforcement efforts to maintain public "health and safety" as the police have been claiming - but of a war zone in which police shot tear gas, bean bags, wooden dowels, flash grenades, and rubber bullets at protesters.


Occupy Oakland video: Riot police fire tear gas, flashbang grenades



Tear gas! Thrown at Occupy Oakland!


[See article link for all videos and many photos]

Rather than using the weaponry once in a final effort to subdue the crowd, officers reportedly used them over and over again in what @OccupyOakland describes as a "relentless" assault on the thousands of activists gathered near City Hall.
. . . .
The police claim they were ever-so-distressed that they couldn't get medical responders through to attend to the wounded protesters, and they ultimately expressed this concern by shooting the remaining activists with tear gas and rubber bullets. Reportedly, activists retaliated by "throwing paint" on police officers.

Oakland Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said that a total of 102 arrests have been made so far, but as of last night that number was still increasing. Eighty-five of those arrests were made early Tuesday when officers raided the Occupy Oakland encampment at Oscar Grant plaza along with an annex in Snow Park near Lake Merritt.

During the assault, police dressed in full riot gear as if preparing to battle a zombie horde or terrorist cell (photo by @garonsen). . . . .

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Added 10/27/11:

Oakland Policeman Throws Flash Grenade Into Crowd Trying To Help Injured Protester


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Iraq War Vet Hospitalized with Fractured Skull After Being Shot by Police at Occupy Oakland Protest
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Showing a good example, Police reacted differently in Albany, NY.
New York cops defy order to arrest hundreds of ‘Occupy Albany’ protesters

By Andrew Jones
Monday, October 24, 2011
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Occupy-Wall-Street-Revolution (Bob Dylan -The-Times-They-Are-A-Changin)‬



There was a time in recent years when I thought that the times were a changing in a totally different direction from what those of us who were young in the sixties actually thought, but as Dylan said, "don't speak too soon, For the wheel's still in spin," so perhaps after 40 or 50 years, the times might actually be changing. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm hopeful.
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October 26, 2011

Glenn Greenwald on Occupy Wall Street, Banks Too Big to Jail and the Attack on WikiLeaks

The prominent political and legal blogger Glenn Greenwald comments on the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. "What this movement is about is more important than specific legislative demands. It…is expressing dissent to the system itself," says Greenwald. "It is not a Democratic Party organ. It is not about demanding that President Obama’s single [jobs] bill pass or anything along those lines. It is saying that we believe the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it. And that’s infinitely more important than specific legislative or political demands." Greenwald also discusses the possible shutdown of the online whistleblower website WikiLeaks due to a "financial blockade" led by MasterCard, Visa and PayPal. "The reason why all these companies cut off funds is because the government pressured and demanded that they do so," Greenwald says. "So, no due process, no accusation of criminal activity. You could never charge WikiLeaks with a crime. They’re engaged in First Amendment activity. And the government has destroyed them through their pressure and influence over the private sector... WikiLeaks has shed more light on the world’s most powerful factions than all media outlets combined, easily, over the last year, and that’s the reason why they’re so hated."

Guest:

Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. His new book is called With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful. [See also: Democracy for the Few by Michael Parenti Must be totally out of print, glad I saved a copy or two]

Read Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Glenn Greenwald. With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful is his book. Glenn, your book is divided into interesting chapters. One is "Too Big to Jail." Talk about that.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think most Americans realize—and I think you see this driving the Occupy protest movement that you covered at the beginning of the show and that everyone is aware of now—that there wasn’t just economic—poor decisions that precipitated the financial crisis, but massive, system- and industry-wide fraud on the part of Wall Street and the banking industry. And yet, there has been virtually no criminal investigations of any kind, let alone prosecutions or accountability.

At the same time, the United States is the largest prison state in the world. We imprison more of our citizens than any country on earth, including China and India and other countries with many more times the people that we have, for even trivial infractions, things that no other country in the Western world imprisons people for. And this chasm between how we treat ordinary Americans in the justice system, imprisoning them for petty and trivial offenses, versus how we treat the world’s most powerful and wealthiest individuals, who can commit the kind of fraud on the massive scale that we saw in 2008 with no accountability, pure impunity, is really what drove me to write the book and I think is what is driving so much citizen anger.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: How do you explain, actually, the convergence of the two? The legal immunity for the elite classes, and at the same time—because the period coincides exactly, four decades. From 1972 to 2007, imprisonment rates in the U.S. increased fivefold, from 93 per 100,000 to 491 per 100,000.

GLENN GREENWALD: Right, well, one of the illustrative ironies is that Richard Nixon, of course, is—what I argue in the book, the pardon of Richard Nixon was the template that created how elite immunity is now justified and how it seeped into the private sector. And of course, Richard Nixon’s career, throughout the 1960s and then into the early 1970s, was made as a law-and-order Republican, demanding no leniency for criminals, harsher and harsher sentences for people who commit crimes. And this is the divergence between how the elite class treats itself when it commits crimes and how they treat ordinary Americans, what Occupy Wall Street calls the 99 percent, that has really destroyed the rule of law, because the rule of law ultimately was intended to be the sole anchor guaranteeing equal opportunity and equal treatment that would then legitimize outcome inequality, and we no longer have that.

. . . .

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I want to turn now to one of the—to Occupy Wall Street, because a lot of the things that the protesters say, you bring up in your book. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been critical of the Occupy Wall Street protesters. He recently said the protests were unproductive, since the biggest tax base for New York City was in fact Wall Street.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: The protests, that are trying to destroy the jobs of working people in the city, aren’t productive. And some of the labor unions, the municipal unions that are participating, their salaries come from the taxes paid by the people that they are trying to vilify.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Your comments, Glenn?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, this is the propagandistic template that has been used to try and persuade Americans that it’s not only something they should accept, but cheer for, when the wealthiest in our society are permitted to prosper without constraints. It was the Ronald Reagan cliché of "a rising tide lifts all boats," meaning the richer the rich get, the better off you are. And, of course, it’s in Michael Bloomberg’s interest to propagate this mentality, as well. And I think, for a while, Americans believed that. And yet, what they’re seeing now is that that’s actually completely untrue, that the richer the rich get, nothing trickles down. Inequality starts to explode, and their opportunities start to become destroyed, because the richest are able to use the power that accompanies that wealth, the political power, to ensure that the system doesn’t work [to] create equal opportunity, but works only to entrench and shield their own ill-gotten gains. So this kind of—these platitudes that Michael Bloomberg is spewing are no longer working, because people compare their own experience to what they’re teaching and see that it’s false.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. You talk about the press secretary for Ford quitting, saying here we’re—you’re protecting the elite, and you have all these conscientious objectors that are going to jail. In a sense, would you describe this whole Occupy Wall Street movement around the country as a kind of conscientious objection to the system? These are conscientious objectors, too. You have more than 2,500 of them who have been arrested around the country. Compare that to the number of executives in the last two years, since the economy has just completely tanked, then the number of crimes that have gone unprosecuted.

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, it’s interesting. You watch the images, which are police state images, that you showed in Oakland, and we’ve seen this elsewhere, with pepper spray abuses and other kinds of police abuses. What this really is, is using the law to protect criminals, which are the people hiding in Wall Street buildings, from people who are really committing no crimes, who are exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. It’s exactly how the law has been perverted.

But this is, I think, a really important point that you just asked about. In the beginning, people were criticizing Occupy Wall Street, including people who might otherwise be sympathetic, on the grounds that they didn’t have any policy platforms, they didn’t have PowerPoint presentations of the legislation they wanted. And I wrote very early on in defense of them repeatedly, because I think that what this movement is about is more important than specific legislative demands. It is exactly what you just said, which is expressing dissent to the system itself. It is not a Democratic Party organ. It is not about demanding that President Obama’s single bill pass or anything along those lines. It is saying that we believe the system itself is radically corrupted, and we no longer are willing to tolerate it. And that’s infinitely more important than specific legislative or political demands.

AMY GOODMAN: And what it would mean for Wall Street executives to be held accountable, and watching President Obama go around the country—last Sunday, he dedicates the Martin Luther King Monument. Not miles away is Cornel West and others being arrested in front of the Supreme Court, Cornel West saying, "If Martin Luther King is being honored today, someone’s got to be arrested."

GLENN GREENWALD: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And having President Obama referencing Occupy Wall Street, saying he understands, but traveling the country raising millions of dollars for the Democratic Party, saying, well, the Democratic Party plans to raise, what, a billion dollars for President Obama’s 2012 run.

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I mean, there’s clearly an effort on the part of the Democratic Party to co-opt the energy that is behind the Occupy movement and to reinject the Obama campaign with the enthusiasm that it had in 2008, and which it now lacks obviously. And the reason why that’s so destined to fail is because, although President Obama was funded overwhelmingly by Wall Street in 2008, that fact was not very extensively reported or appreciated. And yet, now people have seen him in office shielding Wall Street from investigations.
. . . .

Please read the rest of this important interview at Glenn Greenwald on Occupy Wall Street, Banks Too Big to Jail and the Attack on WikiLeaks. Greenwald comments on the "end" of the war in Iraq, government and corporate cooperation to destroy WikiLeaks and your privacy [Fascism], and more.
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You probably know that Dean Baker (Center for Economic And Policy Research), a constant and valiant critic of mainstream media's inaccuracies in economic reporting, isn't exactly Atilla the Hun, but he is willing to take the politically dangerous position of saying there is something missing from NPR's reporting on immigration policy. NPR, in their frequent orgies of self adulation during fund raising drives, tells their listeners, oft repeated by the latter as they open their wallets, that they are God's gift to accurate and unbiased reporting. There are many examples testifying to the contrary (actually, they are just another agenda ridden media outlet), but here is a report by Baker that goes to the heart of their reporting on immigration:

Doesn't NPR Know That the Wage Matters for Workers?

Dean Baker, Center for Economic And Policy Research
Monday, 24 October 2011 05:23

Workers work for pay. Most of the country understands this fact, but apparently the reporters and editors at National Public Radio do not. A Morning Edition segment [sorry, no link yet] on the impact that Alabama's crackdown on illegal immigrants is having on the ability of farms in the state to get workers never once mentioned the wages being offered for this work.

The piece repeated complaints by farmers that they could not get citizens or green card holders to work in their fields because the work is too hard. The inability to get workers presumably reflects the pay being offered. For example, if the farmers were offering $40 an hour plus health care benefits, then they would likely be able to find people willing to work in their fields.

Of course offering higher wages would make most of these farms unprofitable, but it is not true that people in the United States are literally unwilling to do farm work. The question is the wage at which they would be willing to work.

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The Flat-Tax Fraud, and the Necessity of a Truly Progressive Tax

Robert Reich, 10/21/11

Herman Cain’s bizarre 9-9-9 plan would replace much of the current tax code with a 9 percent individual income tax and a 9 percent sales tax. He calls it a “flat tax.”

Next week Rick Perry is set to announce his own version of a flat tax. Former House majority leader Dick Armey – now chairman of Freedom Works, a major backer of the Tea Party funded by the Koch Brothers and other portly felines (I didn’t say “fat cats”) — predicts this will give Perry “a big boost.” Steve Forbes, one of America’s richest billionaires, who’s on the board of the Freedom Works foundation, is delighted. He’s been pushing the flat tax for years.

The flat tax is a fraud. It raises taxes on the poor and lowers them on the rich.. . . .
Rather than merely oppose the flat tax, sensible people should push for a truly progressive tax – starting with a top rate of 70 percent on that portion of anyone’s income exceeding $5 million, from whatever source.

See link above for entire post by Robert Reich.

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written thirteen books, including The Work of Nations, Locked in the Cabinet, Supercapitalism, and his most recent book, Aftershock. His "Marketplace" commentaries can be found on publicradio.com and iTunes. He is also Common Cause's board chairman.

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Robert Reich on Letters & Politics

Must listen audio for those seeking understanding of the progressive (as opposed to regressive) perspective from a person who has devoted his life to socio-economic theory/history, public service, and teaching.

Letters and Politics - October 24, 2011 at 10:00am

Click to listen (or download)

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Iris Dement Wasteland Of The Free


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The Unwelcome Guest - Billy Bragg and Wilco

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Virginia Judge Rules Mandatory Health Insurance Unconstitutional; also: Obama Tax Deal Update & WikiLeaks

In This Issue:

- Virginia Judge Rules Mandatory Health Insurance is Unconstitutional

- Two Articles From Dean Baker at CEPR on Tax Deal

- Black Caucus Opposes Tax Deal, Wants Relief for 99ers

- Entertaining Video--Ellsberg Talks WikiLeaks on "The Colbert Report"
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Virginia Judge Rules Mandatory Health Insurance is Unconstitutional

This is one aspect of "Obamacare" that got stuck in the craw of many across the political spectrum, including myself.
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Virginia health-care ruling strikes down key provision of Obama's plan
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 13, 2010; 2:39 PM

RICHMOND - A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that a key provision of the nation's sweeping health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, the most significant legal setback so far for President Obama's signature domestic initiative.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson found that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.

In a 42-page opinion, Hudson said the provision of the law that requires most individuals to get insurance or pay a fine by 2014 is an unprecedented expansion of federal power that cannot be supported by Congress's power to regulate interstate trade.

"Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market," he wrote. "In doing so, enactment of the [individual mandate] exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I [of the Constitution.]

Hudson is the first judge to rule that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. He said, however, that portions of the law that do not rest on the requirement that individuals obtain insurance are legal and can proceed. Hudson indicated there was no need for him to enjoin the law and halt its implementation, since the mandate does not go into effect until 2014.

See original article for all.

December 13, 2010
Judge Voids Key Element of Obama Health Care Law
By KEVIN SACK
New York Times

A federal district judge in Virginia ruled on Monday that the keystone provision in the Obama health care law is unconstitutional, becoming the first court in the country to invalidate any part of the sprawling act and ensuring that appellate courts will receive contradictory opinions from below.

Judge Henry E. Hudson, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, declined the plaintiff’s request to freeze implementation of the law pending appeal, meaning that there should be no immediate effect on the ongoing rollout of the law. But the ruling is likely to create confusion among the public and further destabilize political support for legislation that is under fierce attack from Republicans in Congress and in many statehouses.

In a 42-page opinion issued in Richmond, Va., Judge Hudson wrote that the law’s central requirement that most Americans obtain health insurance exceeds the regulatory authority granted to Congress under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The insurance mandate is central to the law’s mission of covering more than 30 million uninsured because insurers argue that only by requiring healthy people to have policies can they afford to treat those with expensive chronic conditions.

The judge wrote that his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme.”

Judge Hudson is the third district court judge to reach a determination on the merits in one of the two dozen lawsuits filed against the health care law. The others — in Detroit and Lynchburg, Va. — have upheld the law. Lawyers on both sides said the appellate process could last another two years before the Supreme Court settles the dispute.

Find entire article here.
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Obama Tax Deal Update

Two Articles From Dean Baker at CEPR

The Tax Deal and the Apocalypse

Excerpt:

To be an important person in Washington these days requires a solid record of failure. That is why we have 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. And those who got us into this disaster are still overwhelmingly the ones calling the shots. So people who want a realistic assessment of what the defeat of this tax package means for the economy may not want to rely on the usual suspects.

Dean Baker
Truthout, December 13, 2010

See article on original website

The proponents of the tax deal that President Obama and the Republicans negotiated last week have gotten out their TARP and Iraq War hysterics. All the important people are now telling us that if Congress doesn’t approve the package it will be the end of the world!!!!!

To be an important person in Washington these days requires a solid record of failure. That is why we have 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or out of the labor force altogether. And those who got us into this disaster are still overwhelmingly the ones calling the shots. So people who want a realistic assessment of what the defeat of this tax package means for the economy may not want to rely on the usual suspects.

As I have noted before, the major risk of this deal is that it would undermine Social Security. The deal temporarily lowers the Social Security tax by 2 percentage points. In principle the tax rate will go back to its current rate after the end of next year.

However, several prominent Republicans have already made it clear that they will call the expiration of this tax cut a tax increase. And they will point out that it is an extremely regressive tax increase that disproportionately hits low and moderate-income workers.

At the end of the 2011 the unemployment rate is virtually certain to be well above 8.0 percent and quite likely above 9.0 percent. In this context does anyone seriously believe that President Obama will refuse to go along with efforts by the Republicans in Congress to continue the tax cut beyond the scheduled deadline?

If the payroll tax is indefinitely lowered by 2.0 percentage points, then Social Security’s finances will appear much more shaky. As it stands, Social Security is fully funded through the year 2037, but that doesn’t keep the Washington Post and National Public Radio from running endless scare stories about the program’s funding crisis.

If the payroll tax is permanently reduced by 2.0 percentage points it would double the program’s projected 75-year shortfall. This would give far more ammunition to the Social Security fear mongers.

While Obama’s deal ostensibly provides for general revenue to be placed into the trust fund to make up the lost payroll tax revenue, there is little reason to believe that this funding would persist beyond the first year. Again, does anyone believe that President Obama will stand up for Social Security on this point?

In short, this deal is a very large first step toward cutting and/or privatizing Social Security. If the President wants to remove this risk he can simply arrange to have the exact same tax cut given to workers from general revenue. There is no legitimate reason for the Republicans to reject this change in structure, unless their intent is to destroy Social Security.

It’s really that simple. The structure of the deal would be changed unless the point is to undermine Social Security.

What about the threatened apocalypse if we don’t do the deal? Well, the deal would provide a net stimulus to the economy and also give money to unemployed workers who really need it. Not getting this boost would be bad news.

But it is hard to stomach the whining from people who were too damned lazy or incompetent to think about the consequences of the collapse of an $8 trillion housing bubble. These workers are unemployed because the folks calling the shots messed up.

In other words, the reason that we have 25 million people unemployed or underemployed is that people like Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers messed up royally on their jobs. Fortunately for the folks on top, employment is not dependent on performance.

More to the point, this will not be our last chance to extend unemployment benefits or get additional stimulus. Unemployment benefits are hugely popular across the political spectrum. Even conservatives understand that the reason people are unemployed is because the economists messed up, not that the workers themselves lack the necessary skills or desire to work.

Congress will feel considerable pressure to extend benefits. In the same vein, the Republicans in Congress know that they will be evaluated in large part on the state of the economy in 2012. This means that they will have incentive to support additional stimulus, under whatever name they choose to give it.

In short, the train is not leaving the station. If this deal goes down, there will be other deals in the months ahead.

Remember, it was the Gingrich Congress that gave workers the first increase in the minimum wage in more than 15 years. They needed something to show for the 1996 elections. This Republican Congress is likely to feel the same pressure. [Bold Emphasis Added]

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Social Security Tax Cut: A Deal Breaker

Dean Baker
The Hill, December 9, 2010

Exerpt:

In principle there is nothing wrong with financing a portion of Social Security benefits with money from general revenue. This was in fact the original intention of President Roosevelt when he designed the program. However, the fact is that the program has always been financed exclusively by the Social Security tax that is taken from workers’ wages. This makes the tax regressive, but it has the advantage that workers can quite legitimately say that they have paid for their benefits. This will be to some extent less true if a portion of the funding comes from general revenue rather than payroll taxes. In short, getting funding from general revenue opens a new line of attack on the program.

The prospect of this tax cut being the basis for a renewed attack on Social Security could be dismissed if the program had defenders in high places, but this does not appear to be the case. Most of the Republicans would almost certainly like to privatize Social Security.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration cannot be counted on to defend the program either. In fact, top officials in the administration seem to view attacks on Social Security and its supporters as a way to prove their manhood. President Obama’s decision to appoint two arch-enemies of Social Security to chair his Fiscal Responsibility commission certainly does not inspire confidence among supporters of Social Security.

In short, supporters of Social Security have good reason to oppose the tax deal. It is easy to have the same stimulus with an expanded version of President Obama’s Making Work Pay tax cut. Supporters of Social Security should reject the latest deal and tell President Obama to stand behind his own tax cut. This is what presidents are supposed to do.

See entire article on original website
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy. He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.
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Black Caucus Opposes Tax Deal, Wants Relief for 99ers

December 12, 2010 - by Donny Shaw

Hot on the heels of Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee’s [D, TX-18] statement Thursday on the House floor that an extension of unemployment insurance for 99ers should be added to Obama’s tax deal, the Congressional Black Caucus has announced that adding 99ers relief is essential for winning the support of their members.

“The CBC has reached a consensus on three areas that we believe we can unite behind, ”http://www.opencongress.org/person/show/400364_Robert_Scott">Rep. Bobby Scott [D, VA-3] said at a press conference on Friday. “First, we support the 13-month extension of unemployment insurance benefits, but we all agree that we also ought to extend benefits for the so-called 99ers — those who are exhausting the benefits they have.”
View the full press conference here.

The deal brokered by Obama and congressional Republicans would extend the four tiers of unemployment benefits that expired on December 1st, but would not create a new tier of benefits for those who have moved through those tiers and are still unemployed. The four tiers provided up to 99 weeks of benefits in some states, and we’re now more than 99 weeks out from the brunt of the ‘08 financial crisis. That means that, before the tiers expired, a wave of people who lost their jobs as a direct result of Wall Street recklessness and regulatory incompetence began being dropped off the backend of the federal insurance programs. There’s no official estimate of how many 99ers there are already, but most estimates put the number around 5 million.

The Congressional Black Caucus has 42 members, which might not be enough to force a change in the tax deal. If all House Republicans vote for the bill, only 39 Democratic votes would be needed to secure passage. In September, 31 conservative Blue Dog Democrats wrote a letter to the leadership advocating for all of the Bush tax cuts to be extended, so they can be counted as likely yeses. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Obama Administration is currently working to round up the final votes they need by lobbying lame duck Democrats in the House who lost re-election in November and are no longer accountable to voters.

Ultimately, whether or not additional weeks for 99ers can be added to the bill is up to Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi [D, CA-8] and the House Democratic leadership. The Senate is expected to pass the bill early this week, and Pelosi and crew have the choice of passing it as is, or passing it with an amendment. Even if Pelosi goes with an amendment, it’s possible that it would address other items — the estate tax or the length of the extension of the existing unemployment tiers — and not seek to add anything for the 99ers. As the WSJ reports today, Pelosi is “walking a perilous path” by attempting to satisfy her Democrats, who strongly oppose the deal, while at the same time trying to shepherd some form the deal into law so the tax cut debate is not pushed back to the next, more Republican, session of Congress.

See article for other links.
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Video--Ellsberg Talks WikiLeaks on "The Colbert Report"

Daniel Ellsberg on Colbert Report: Julian Assange is Not a Criminal Under the Laws of the United States

"[Daniel's segment starts at 4:06]

ELLSBERG: Julian Assange is not a criminal under the laws of the United States. I was the first one prosecuted for the charges that would be brought against him. I was the first person ever prosecuted for a leak in this country—although there had been a lot of leaks before me. That’s because the First Amendment kept us from having an Official Secrets Act. . . . The founding of this country was based on the principle that the government should not have a say as to what we hear, what we think, and what we read. . . .

If Bradley Manning did what he’s accused of, then he’s a hero if mine and I think he did a great service to this country. We’re not in the mess we’re in, in the world, because of too many leaks. . . . I say there should be some secrets. But I also say we invaded Iraq illegally because of a lackof a Bradley Manning at that time."

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Billy Bragg and Wilco-- "The Unwelcome Guest"
By Woodie Guthrie

Obama Critics-- Change that's Not; plus Gambling and Gluttony by the Disproportionately Powerful Led to Financial Collapse, & More

In This Issue:

- John Pilger: Change that's Not: 'Obama on Bush route'

- Cindy Sheehan: Hopium and Hypocritium

- Decline of the Middle Class as Metaphor for the Decline of America

- Disproportionate Representation on the Supreme Court (& Elsewhere) [Edited 8/12]

- Dean Baker's Beat the Press: Immigration and Population Comments
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John Pilger: Change that's Not: 'Obama on Bush route'

RussiaToday | August 11, 2010

Recent sanctions against Iran are an attempt by the US to return the country to its sphere of influence, claims veteran journalist John Pilger. "Iran was a pillar of the American empire in the Middle East. That was swept away in 1979 by the Islamic revolution, and it has been American foreign policy to get that back," he said. "It has absolutely nothing to do with so-called nuclear weapons. The nuclear power in the Middle East is the fourth biggest military power in the world and that is Israel. It has something like 500 or more nuclear warheads. It is never discussed." Pilger added that Barack Obama has failed to change the trajectory of US foreign policy and following George W. Bush's line. "For the first time in US presidential history -- it has not happened before -- a president has taken the entire defense department bureaucracy, and the Secretary of State for Defense, from a previous discredited administration. We have basically Robert Gates and the same generals running American foreign policy with a lot of help from people of like mind."

[As I shared with used to be "Yes We Can--Hope & Change" democrat friends at the time of his appointments, the ramifications of Obama's selection of aids, councilors, and cabinet members, foretold the future we are now experiencing (but what does a poor white boy know? Criticism automatically becomes suspect racism. Frankly, I much prefer Martin Luther King or Malcom X to Obama.). - Chris]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UJ87MptxaU

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Hopium and Hypocritium

By Cindy Sheehan

August 11, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- The arrogance of the Bush administration could never be surpassed, right? Wrong!

Today, Whore House (again, with my apologies to my sex-worker friends) spokeswhore, Robert Gibbs, was quoted as saying this of the “professional left” who liken Obama to his predecessor:

“(They) need to be drug tested,” and that these principled critics of the Empire are “crazy.” This kind of hearkens back to earlier in the Changery when Rahm Emmanuel, Obama Chief of Staff and committed Zionist, called us: “F@#king Retards.” Nice, huh?

Rahm Emmanuel is almost as sensitive as Dick Cheney and Robert Gibbs is almost as smart as Ari Fleischer—George’s first Press Secretary.

These quotes of Gibbs’ (who’s not nearly as perky as Dana Perino) highlight two things for me: the slipperiness of the Obama regime and the stubborn hopenosis of its supporters.

First of all, we were force fed daily doses of mass-media propaganda during the presidential campaign telling us that Obama was a “community organizer,” a “man of the people” and don’t forget the famous, “If you want Obama to do the right thing, then you have to make him.” Now the Changer in Chief’s staff is telling us if we are critical of him from the “professional” left, we are drug-crazed lunatics—not principled opponents of the Empire.

I know I have been out in front of Chéz Obama (loudly) expressing my views on his foreign policy many times (so much so, I was banned from the Whore House for four months) and single-payer healthcare advocates were doing the same during the entire fascist healthcare give-away to the corporations. Our voices and vision for a more peaceful, sane, and healthier way of doing things have not even been given a seat at the proverbial table. So, what Gibbs is telling us is to: “Just shut the eff up—we don’t care what you say or want.”

During the same interview where Robert Gibbs called me (yes, I take it personally) a “drug-crazed lunatic,” he also used the time-tested logical fallacy known as a non-sequitur (it does not follow) to say that we would only be happy if the president delivered “Canadian style healthcare,” and “closed the Pentagon.”

Of course, we advocated for single-payer healthcare and only a war-crazed maniacal empire needs a War Department the size of many small countries with budgets to match. But the “president” didn’t even get in the same universe as “Canadian style healthcare” and has vastly increased funding to the Pentagon and Bush’s wars of terror.

Also, the acceptance of this Imperial Faux Pas (IFP) illustrates how far this country is divided along faux political lines. The only change Obama has brought with him to the Whore House is negative, bad, bad, bad, change. We cannot, should not, must not, and better not criticize the Imperial First Family (IFF). However, we are supposed to take up pitchforks and torches when the barely functioning Sarah Palin says something stooopid and forget and forgive the Obamas for Imperial Excess (trips to Spain on our many dimes, $6000 handbags, etc) and their stooopidity.

We also have to ask ourselves a very important question—why did Gibbs do this? Of course, these people don’t make mistakes—even when they allow their true feelings to shine forth for the entire world to see, it is for very calculated reasons. Could it be because of the dismal jobless “recovery?” Could it be because of the obvious continuation and escalation of the wars? Could it be because the Obamas are finally being criticized for their “Let them eat cake” mentality? Could it be because Gibbs wants to blame the “professional left” for Obama’s failures and make it our fault when the Democrats get creamed in November?

So, I want to take Gibbs up on his offer—I will submit a vial of my urine to a location of his choosing—hell, I will even go and pee in the bathroom of the press corps room and hand him a warm sample, if that makes him happy—if he does the same. I seriously doubt that 535 members of Congress would pass the pee-test and I seriously doubt many denizens of the Whore House would, either.

I also wonder when Obama’s supporters will quit smoking the Hopium or taking their daily dose of Hypocritium—those are the people who need to be drug tested, not the ones who have remained ideological pure. What is so “crazy” about wanting things like indiscriminate killing of civilians to end globally and social justice here locally?

I’ll match my pee up against theirs any day!

Please visit Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox
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Decline of the Middle Class as Metaphor for the Decline of America

By Raymond J. Learsy

August 09, 2010 "Huffington Post" - -Over the last decade this nation has experienced a massive loss of productive and high value jobs in manufacturing, trade, and the professions sending many overseas and having many destroyed through the egregious misdirection of the self serving priorities of our financial institutions encumbering viable companies making real goods and services with untenable debt. Leveraging their assets in order to maximize profits for the financial engineers before flipping the company or taking it to market as an IPO. Too often the workers who made the company are left with little or nothing while the Wall Street "whiz kids" march off with a bundle having destroyed the vision, imagination and the hard work that went into creating these companies, to their benefit and to the detriment of its workers and society at large.

'Disproportionate' is the freighted word that shackles our society. Over the past few years some two-thirds of the gain in national income has gone to the top one percent of Americans. Mostly those in the financial industry harbored in such government protected entities as 'bank holding companies', part of something that has come to be ominously called the "shadow banking system". They bring virtually nothing viable to the economic landscape other than egregious speculation gorging on complex derivatives enriching the financial players, while through their malign impact, impoverishing great swaths of the American and world economy (i.e. betting on the collapse of the housing market). When these bets go dramatically wrong also collapsing the institutions that took the long side of the bets, they are then bailed out by the government making good the value of these 'bet' instruments whose function had no greater economic justification than a compulsive gambler's casino bets. And the grim irony, when the red comes up instead of black it's the local inhabitants of the casino's venue who are asked to pay to keep the casino afloat, while the casino lets the gambler keep his chips.

And the local inhabitants pay dearly. Their services are curtailed, their stores are forced to close, their local banks are driven to the edge, the value of their houses plummet or are repossessed. Not having insider status their financial assets deteriorate dramatically and even in desperation had they wanted to get back into the casino to try their own luck given their new world being bereft of all other opportunity, the house wont extend them credit. Its just as well, because they wouldn't have to see our compulsive gambler swilling Dom Perignon and downing a small mountain of Pate de Foie Gras after having feasted on Beluga Caviar at the casino's resplendent restaurant.

The gambler is there, and he or his proxy will always be there. And the town and its inhabitants, tattered and poorer are still there trying to make do as best they can and trying to contain their simmering anger at the unfairness of it all, not quite knowing what to do. Some joining in the regional meanderings of the Tea Party, or some equivalent movement that promises to address the clear wrongs that are being inflicted and tolerated by those in charge.

When all is said and done it becomes clear that it is the Casino that needs fixing because it is the Casino that the set the rules, it is the Casino that has permitted the outrages that have resulted in the destabilizing of the norm and sanctioning the unexpected and unfair.

Now with a small leap of imagination lets transpose our government for the nefarious Casino. Clearly it needs a new management or a new way of managing. What has come before is not functioning and major changes are needed. The local inhabitants need a voice in running the Casino, which in a sense has been denied them because they are unable foot either the entry tab, or the needed cash to play at the tables. And that is what it has come to be, without access and without money no one at the Casino pays attention.

And that must now change for the inhabitants to ever again have a chance to rectify the wrongs imposed by the Casino's management and to fairly share in an equitable distribution of benefits should they accrue ahead.

As here, today too much of our political system is bought and paid for. Too much of our political system is self serving, responsive to the wings of our two parties and indifferent to the day to day concerns of middle Americans in spite of the incessant lip service extended to them. Yes, there is limp Wall Street reform, but no clawback of the exigencies that drove the nation to the brink. Yes there is a stimulus program, but faltering shamelesly through lack of clear direction. Yes, there is an alternative energy program without clear mandates nor meaningful results as the transfer of billions to the oil providers continues unabated. Yes, there are our soldiers dying in fragmented nation states far away without a modicum of sacrifice being asked of the home front. Yes, there are moneyed interests both domestic and foreign who have access to those who govern, without limitation and a shameless Congress ready to do their bidding in spite of the promises made in Presidential campaigns to curtail their influence. Yes we have courts of law who, through judicial minutiae rather than pragmatic sense of national welfare have given these moneyed interests even greater influence by striking down financial restraints on the powerfully funded in election laws, that make the middle class even more disenfranchised. Yes, there is talk of restraining government spending while special interests with access to government and its earmarks are encumbering the nation into ever greater indebtedness. Yes, while Main Street and middle class Americans continue to lose jobs, the pay checks on Wall Street and corporate boardrooms continue in their unabated and inflated manner while middle class Americans are absorbing pay cuts or shortened work weeks if they have any jobs at all, while teachers, the backbone of the nations future, police and firemen are losing their employment.

And so it goes, leaving the nation with a Frankenstein system whose core objective of governance has become self preservation of power and personal influence. This, while governing for the greater good of the nation has become a secondary and distant gerrymandered priority leaving the great body of the American electorate virtually without meaningful representation and forestalling and diminishing America's middle class' engagement with its government with every passing day.

And yet something is stirring. People throughout the land understand that the political system is broken and American's throughout the length and breadth of the county that their government no longer speaks for them no matter which party happens to be in power. They feel the system is gamed from within, for and about those who have access and the money to follow through to assure their parochial interests are taken into account and acted upon. How those interests impact the greater good has become dangerously secondary. Checks and balances seem to have gone by the board long ago.

Grass roots movements are beginning to stubbornly emerge from the depths of these frustrations of which I have touched on only a few, as the list could go on almost endlessly. Yes, there are the Tea Parties, and they should be listened to in order to begin to understand how people feel. But out there something much more significant is beginning to take hold. A movement new to many, headed by people of impeccable credentials who are devising a program using the new age technology to bring all Americans back into the political process in a meaningful way and most importantly in a way that each American can once again feel that he/she as a citizen once again has the stature and sense of prideful responsibility that his vote was meant to convey unto him as a meaningful participant in the process of nationhood.

The new organization is called "Americans Elect". I don't want to steal its thunder because it can much better directly convey its goals and points of engagement. It has the potential of becoming the salutary wave of America's political future. Their contact information is given as Kahlil.Byrd@AmericansElect.org.

Raymond J. Learsy, Scholar and author, "Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil's Grip on Our Future"
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Disproportionate Representation on the Supreme Court (& Elsewhere)

The article above refers in the second paragrah to the word disproportionate:

'Disproportionate' is the freighted word that shackles our society.

I have to agree.

disproportionate

dis·pro·por·tion·ate (dspr-pôrsh-nt, -pr-)
adj.
Out of proportion, as in size, shape, or amount.

adj [ˌdɪsprəˈpɔːʃənɪt]
out of proportion; unequal

Think of the Supreme Court, with 9 Justices. Six Catholics (around 22% of the US Population, 66% of the Court; three Jews (1-3% of the US population, 33% of the Court); zero white Anglo-Saxon protestants (55-60% of the US population and changing fast).

Back when I was in college, in the late 60s and early 70s, WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) were seen as America's oppressive elite and were stereotypically demonized for having disproportionate representation and power in America. Given their lack of representation on the Supreme Court of the land today, I guess the demonization of WASPs has succeeded beyond the proponents wildest expectations.

[For the record, my mother and her family were Catholic, my father was an atheist, as I am. I was allowed to attend Protestant services with friends when I was a child. If necessary, I can sing the chorus to ""Jesus Loves Me:"

Jesus loves me,
this I know,
for the Bible tells mes so . . . .

Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.]

In a New York Times article titled The Triumphant Decline of the WASP, by Noah Feldman, the decline is attributed to WASPs "hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds:"

But satisfaction with our national progress should not make us forget its authors: the very Protestant elite that founded and long dominated our nation’s institutions of higher education and government, including the Supreme Court. Unlike almost every other dominant ethnic, racial or religious group in world history, white Protestants have ceded their socioeconomic power by hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds. The decline of the Protestant elite is actually its greatest triumph.

Kevin MacDonald, editor of The Occidental Observer and a professor of psychology at California State University–Long Beach, while agreeing that WASPs have stood by their principles, sees the reasons for the WASP decline differently in his article "Elena Kagan and the new (unprincipled) elite," [See article for all links.]:

Indeed, Kagan’s arrival on the Supreme Court is a sort of official coming out party for the new elite. It’s been there for quite some time, but the Kagan nomination is an in-your-face-demonstration of the power of Jewish ethnic networking at the highest levels of government. And the first thing one notices is that the new elite has no compunctions about nominating someone for the Supreme Court even though she has no real qualifications. So much for the principles of merit and inclusion: Inclusion does not apply to WASPs now that they have been deposed. And the principle of merit can now be safely discarded in favor of ethnic networking.

[I should add that WASPs are not strangers to networking (i.e., Who you know--not what you know) of all sorts. Here in WASPy Baker City, the degree of in-group/out-group and religious networking in hiring, as opposed to purely merit-based systems, is truly astonishing in my view. - Chris]

[Back to Kevin MacDonald] As I noted previously:

This is a favorite aspect of contemporary Jewish self-conception — the idea that Jews replaced WASPs because they are smarter and work harder. But this leads to the ultimate irony: Kagan is remarkably unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice in terms of the usual standards: judicial experience, academic publications, or even courtroom experience. Rather, all the evidence is that Kagan owes her impending confirmation to her Jewish ethnic connections (see also here).

The same goes for Jewish over-representation in elite academic institutions–far higher than can be explained by higher Jewish IQ. Does anyone seriously think that Jewish domination of Hollywood and the so much of the other mainstream media (see, e.g., Edmund Connelly’s current TOO article) is about merit rather than ethnic networking and solidarity? And then there’s the addiction of the new elite to affirmative action for non-Whites.

Whatever else one can say about the new elite, it certainly does not believe in merit. The only common denominator is that Whites of European extraction are being systematically excluded and displaced to the point that they are now underrepresented in all the important areas of the elite compared to their percentage of the population. The new elite distinguishes itself mainly by its hostility to the traditional people and culture of those they displaced. It is an elite that cannot say its name. Indeed the ADL was all over Pat Buchanan for merely mentioning that Kagan is Jewish and that, upon her confirmation, Jews would be one-third of the Supreme Court. . . . .

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Dean Baker's Beat the Press: Immigration and Population Comments

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/

Undocumented Workers and Low Cost Labor

Monday, 09 August 2010 04:20

[NPR's] Morning Edition had a piece on people who hire undocumented workers to do tasks like landscaping their yards or cleaning their toilets. It quoted one person as saying that they hire immigrants rather than U.S. citizens or green card holders because she "believes American prices are inflated."

The article doesn't tell listeners what any of the employers in the piece do, but it is an absolute certainty that there would be a huge number of qualified people around the world who would be willing to do their jobs at a much lower wage than they receive. However, most people who work in occupations requiring more education enjoy much more protection from immigrant workers than people who landscape yards or clean toilets.

The position of the people interviewed in this piece is that they are entitled to protection from competition to keep their wages high, while they should be able to hire workers from the developing world at low wages to save money. It would have been helpful if the piece had elucidated their view more clearly.
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Robert Samuelson Is Worried That the United States is Becoming Less Crowded

Monday, 09 August 2010 04:05

Yes, in the strange but true category, we have a columnist with a major national newspaper worrying that population growth in the United States could slow or even reverse. Yes, I have the same fear every time I push my way into the metro at the rush hour or get caught in a huge traffic jam. Imagine how awful it would be if cities were less crowded. It could make housing cheaper, reduce pressure on water and other resources and cut greenhouse gas emissions. Shortages of workers would drive up wages as the least productive jobs go unfilled (e.g. the midnight shift at 7-11 and parking valets at upscale restaurants). It's  a looming catastrophe if ever there was one.

Samuelson bizarrely thinks that slower or negative population growth will hurt the economy. He thinks that it will slow demand growth. There are two simple problems with this story. First, we are in an international economy, so if demand in the U.S. economy is growing less rapidly than we can sell our output elsewhere. The other problem is the big "so what?"
If we can produce everything we want in the United States and still not fully employ our workforce then we can all get longer vacations and have shorter workweeks. In a functioning economic system, having too much is not a problem -- you just work less. In the Netherlands they figured this out -- they use work sharing rather than layoffs to deal with inadequate demand. As a result its unemployment rate is close to 4.0 percent. In Germany, work sharing has been so effective that its unemployment rate is lower today than it was at the start of the downturn.

See, this is really simple for countries that have competent people guiding their economy. It is only inept economic policy that makes a shortage of demand a disaster for people and the economy. Too bad Samuelson won't discuss this failure of economic policy.