TODAY'S TOPICS: Tar Sands, The Media, Dick Cheney, Jobs Speech, Olbermann, GOP v. Democracy, FEMA, CEO Salaries
I just want to say that there are few more GLARING examples of the failure of our press, and the delusional reality we now find ourselves drowning in, than the wall to wall coverage of the “fight” between Boehner and Obama (Boehner of course won) over when the President should give his jobs speech versus the absence of ANY coverage regarding the latest revelations of the execution style killings of Iraqi women and children by American soldiers (you know”heroes”).
I can only say that, as I watched the coverage of this pointless “fight” over whether to speak during the GOP debate or the football seasons opening day (like an idiot the President backed down…and will now give it on football night!!!), while reading about what our soldiers did to children 5 years old and less (i.e. handcuffed and shot in the head with their mothers present in Iraq), I just put my head in my hands and asked “why”??? Why is the Matrix we have created so totally in conflict with basic humanity? That’s a question for an in person discussion with me some day…not here, not now.
"This pipeline will go to the second largest pool of carbon on earth, which if we heavily exploit will mean it's 'essentially game over' for the climate, according to NASA's Jim Hansen, our greatest climatologist."
-- Bill McKibben
Tar Sands: The Climate Change Game Changer
As I’ve pointed out, EVERYTHING depends on the President’s decision regarding whether we’ll build what could be a species defining (as in signaling the beginning of our end) pipeline across the country. Again, this is ALL his decision…no filibuster, no Congressional obstructionism…only the con man that sits in the White House will make this make or break global warming call.
Sadly, but expected, ALL indicators points to his approval of this environmental abomination (outside of mountain top removal for coal tar sands are the worst). Last week a State Department report gave the go ahead, without even addressing the carbon impact of these tar sands…only the potential of oil spills. Think about that…we’re talking about opening up the second largest pool of carbon on earth and global warming isn’t even ADDRESSED in the environmental impact report???
And now, just the other day, Secretary Steven Chu, once a respected scientist and a scholar (Nobel Prize winner in physics in fact), has been reduced to a cheerleader for polluters on behalf of our puke green President. Yes, he signaled that all is well with the pipeline and tar sands themselves…which must pain his soul to so totally sell out the human race and t his planet.
AS David Dayen notes, “He surely knows the effects of production of tar sands oil on climate change. He knows that it takes a massive amount of energy to do the strip mining necessary to extract tar sands oil. He knows about the potential for environmental damage from a 1,700-mile pipeline to distribute that tar sands oil from the source in Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas.
He’s a smart man.When you don’t really have a scientific argument (and the “great strides” companies are making on reducing the environmental impact of tar sands extraction still put them far above traditional oil drilling, which isn’t exactly clean), you have to go with the political argument. And so you get scientist Steven Chu saying that Canada’s a friendlier oil supplier than, say, Venezuela or Iran. Except the oil Canada will produce won’t go directly to the United States, but to the global market. It will be refined in Texas and sold wherever the demand is. So it doesn’t necessarily reduce US oil purchases from “scary” foreign nations; it merely goes into the mix of producers. This is a fallacious argument. But I guess it’s the only one Chu has. He did manage to call the Keystone XL pipeline a “trade-off,” so that’s something.
But the great environmental betrayal that has also epitomized this Administration didn’t end with what is becoming his clear intention to drastically intensify the climate change crisis…no, it also decided to delay new ozone standards which the EPA had already written, claiming that “the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty” outweighs clean air.
Think about this…in context…at the SAME TIME they’re about to approve the pipeline they also bow to GOP demands on ozone and air pollution. Where does it end I ask? Is this all a nightmare?
Again, I turn it over to David Dayen, this time on the fact that once again, the GOP is asking for more in the face of getting, once again, EVERYTHING they want from this black puppet of Wall Street, stating “So strangely, after conceding a demand from the opposition, the opposition isn’t satisfied and wants more concessions! Who’d-a thunk it. This kind of regulatory rollback has been on the wish list of the Chamber of Commerce for some time. Similar ozone rules put into place by some local governments in the late 1990s correlate with higher job growth in those communities than the national average. The President’s statement focuses on all of the costs of implementing new rules and none of the benefits, to public health, public safety and quality of life. And those benefits are tangible and far outweigh the costs. This only helps businesses that want to pollute and don’t want to pay the costs of upgrading their facilities.”
Okay…for a little levity, because I can’t convey how dismaying this enviro, let me share a classic fake news clip from the Onion on the media tour underway by one of the great mass murderers of our time, Dick Cheney:
New Cheney Memoir Reveals He's Going To Live Full, Satisfied Life Without Ever Feeling Remorse And There's Nothing We Can Do About It
NEW YORK—The publication this week of Dick Cheney’s memoir, In My Time, has revealed the former vice president enjoys a fulfilling life unaffected by any sense of guilt or regret and there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do about it. “This unique look at an otherwise intensely private man’s inner thoughts shows us he couldn’t be prouder of his life’s work and will never feel one single moment of anguish over his actions no matter how desperately we want him to,” book critic James L. Warner writes of the 576-page memoir’s disclosure that Cheney would spend his retirement never second-guessing his advocacy of a disastrous war, the torture of detainees, illegal wiretapping, or tax cuts that created devastating budget deficits and crippled the U.S. economy. “Nothing we do will ever change the fact that this man sleeps very soundly at night and, in fact, looks back fondly upon a long, rewarding career. You almost have to admire that.” The book also reveals that none of the former vice president’s five heart attacks has caused him even the slightest amount of pain.
Jobs Speech and Latest Cave In
I really, really hate to keep laying it on Obama…but these are the facts…and what purpose does it serve to just keep pointing out the GOP is a fascist, terrorist network? We know this, we know what they are and what they’re trying to do…more important however is what the other party, the Democratic Party, and our President continues to do…and on that front, this big jobs speech is important…and I KNOW he will gravely disappoint.
I hope some of you remember just how irate I was a few years ago when, in the face of a recession and massive unemployment numbers Obama created a Deficit Commission rather than a Jobs Commission. This of course was prophetic…because it signaled that we were in for one helluva austerity ride.
Now, as August shows ZERO jobs created, and an economy in decline (as I predicted), we are set to hear the President likely present a bunch of “bipartisan” slop that won’t get a god damn GOP vote anyway…and would do little to create jobs if they did.
So, rather than DEFINE the debate and make clear what he and left are FOR, he’s going to present a plan that splits both sides down the middle…further confusing the electorate. By the way, there is a poll of 2008 Obama voters commissioned by MoveOn.org that was released yesterday in which 81 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that "Obama should lay out a broad plan to create millions of jobs and hold Republicans accountable if they block it." Only 16 percent said the president should "focus on smaller measures that Republicans have supported" in order to assure some victories in Congress.
That encouragement has also already been coming from Obama's progressive allies:
- The Campaign for America's Future joined a coalition of 68 progressive groups in a letter to President Obama calling for him to move beyond "half-measures designed to appeal to a narrow ideological minority" and instead announce a program that would be "big, bold, and create jobs directly."
- The co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Reps. Keith Ellison and Raul Grijalva, sent a letter to the president Thursday calling for "significant emergency jobs legislation to put Americans back to work now." Some Progressive Caucus members have been backing legislation that would spend $227 billion over two years to create more than 2.2 million jobs. The letter also called for the creation of a National Infrastructure Development Bank to help fund rebuilding projects to "boost our economy and create badly needed jobs."
AS for what SHOULD be advocated…here’s more from the Campaign for America’s Future: The specifics of what progressives would consider a "bold" jobs plan are spelled out in "Big Ideas To Get America Working," a series of posts published on OurFuture.org in August. Most of the key elements are also summarized in the AFL-CIO's six-point agenda for good jobs:
1. Rebuild America’s schools, roads, ports, airways and energy systems.
2. Revive U.S. manufacturing and stop exporting good jobs overseas.
3. Put people to work in communities doing work that needs to be done by directly creating millions of jobs.
4. Help state and local governments avoid more layoffs and service cuts by increasing federal Medicaid funding during periods of high unemployment. Ensure that we have our priorities straight so we can fund essential federal government functions—not slash them to the bone.
5. Help fill the massive shortfall of consumer demand by extending unemployment benefits and keeping homeowners in their homes.
6. Reform Wall Street so it helps Main Street create jobs by encouraging lending to small businesses, enacting a financial speculation tax and ending Wall Street cheating and fraud.
2. Revive U.S. manufacturing and stop exporting good jobs overseas.
3. Put people to work in communities doing work that needs to be done by directly creating millions of jobs.
4. Help state and local governments avoid more layoffs and service cuts by increasing federal Medicaid funding during periods of high unemployment. Ensure that we have our priorities straight so we can fund essential federal government functions—not slash them to the bone.
5. Help fill the massive shortfall of consumer demand by extending unemployment benefits and keeping homeowners in their homes.
6. Reform Wall Street so it helps Main Street create jobs by encouraging lending to small businesses, enacting a financial speculation tax and ending Wall Street cheating and fraud.
GOP Attack on FEMA????
What can I say…the GOP is now going after FEMA…even as people die in the storm and watch their homes and livelihoods wash away…yet, and again, why doesn’t the President SLAM THEM EVERY DAY FOR THIS, House Republicans are holding FEMA funding hostage, saying that the $3.6 billion in emergency storm relief funding must be offset by cuts in other federal programs.
And, morons like Ron Paul (yes…he’s good on some civil libertarian stuff… but he’s also a NUT when it comes to all things government, from FEMA to Medicare to Social Security to enviro protections to gay rights to women’s rights and the list goes on), are going even further, and stating we don’t need agencies like FEMA at all…but thankfully, there are Democrats that still have some fighting spirit…one is the young Governor of Connecticut who simply calls Paul what he is on this issue…an idiot.
Or even better, watch the great Bernie Sanders explaining the meaning of “One nation” in the Constitution and why all these GOP attacks on everything communal is so…anti-American….
CEO’s Making More Than Company Pays in Taxes
You probably all heard about this…but check out this report by the Institute for Policy Studies on high CEO pay and the low effective corporate tax rate…According to the report, 25 of the 100 highest-paid corporate CEOs took home more in compensation in 2010 than their company paid in federal taxes. That’s a neat little stat, and it fits with some other information we’ve seen. For example, the most profitable of the 25 companies was General Electric, who received a notorious $3.3 billion tax refund, even while making $5.1 billion in pre-tax income. They also spent $41 million on lobbying, more than they did on taxes. CEO Jeffrey Immely took home over $15 million.
Other companies profiled in the report include Prudential, Verizon, Bank of New York Mellon, Boeing, Marsh and McLennan, Stanley Black & Decker, International Paper, Chesapeake Energy and eBay. CEOs at the 25 companies averaged $16.7 million in compensation, and averaged a $304 million tax refund. That’s on average global profits of $1.9 billion per company.
How did they manage this feat? Most of the companies, 18 out of 25, operated offshore tax havens to shield their income from Uncle Sam. 20 of 25, as mentioned above with respect to GE, spent more on lobbying than corporate taxes, and that lobbying has appeared to pay off for the bottom line. And most are paying their workers less relative to the boss – the gap between average CEO pay and average worker pay is up to 325-1. It was 263-1 in 2009.
There’s actually a Senate bill (S. 1375) that’s been introduced to end this loophole, which would generate $25 billion in revenue over 10 years.
I’m sorry to depress everybody…I really am…please keep in mind my post from June 2nd on my birthday when seeing all this…as I said…we’re headed down, the question is what we build in its place…and every new day I feel this is becoming clearer and clearer…and election theft is yet another one of these signs….
New Republican-passed voting restrictions for 2012 lead experts to warn there could be 'chaos in a dozen states as voters find themselves barred from the polls'...
While readers of The BRAD BLOG may be familiar with many of the items covered in Ari Berman's fine new article "The GOP War on Voting" at Rolling Stone today (and in its Sept 15, 2011 issue on newsstands), it's great to have a summary of all of the latest state-based assaults on voting rights instituted to date, in the wake of last year's Republican wave election, all in one place.
Berman covers all of these and more in his piece on the "unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008," described by one civil rights advocate as "the most significant setback to voting rights in this country in a century"...
FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8707
VIDEO SECTION
Keith Olbermann on the Pima County GOP Chairman Pro Tem Mike Shaw and his decision to raffle off a Glock handgun, the same kind of weapon that was used to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ).
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell talked to author Frank Rich about his recent column in New York Magazine which takes a look at the real tragedy in America since the attacks on 9-11…
Cenk Uygur on the new numbers on CEO salaries versus corporate taxes:
Ed Schultz: Republicans don’t give a damn about you! I’d like to see more of this attack…
As Keith Olbermann noted in his opening, "The real life impact of Republican Scott Walker's anti-union wage is now taking shape, manifest in a mass exodus of public workers, choosing to retire in lieu of accepting the draconian cuts in benefits and collective bargaining rights."
ARTICLE SECTION
Deceit of Shakespearean Proportions, by Robert Scheer
A FEW CLIPS:
Here is a man who, more than anyone else in the Bush administration, trafficked in the campaign of deceit that caused tens of thousands to die, wasted trillions of dollars in resources and indelibly sullied the legacy of this nation through the practice of torture, which Cheney defends to this day. Still this villain claims that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the horrid methods he endorsed were a necessary response to the threat of Osama bin Laden. How convenient to ignore that it was Barack Obama, a resolutely anti-torture president, who made good on the promise of Cheney and the previous administration to take down the al-Qaida leader.
SNIP
Powell, who, inside the administration, clearly opposed the invasion of Iraq—“If you break it, you own it”—was cast as a puppet who in a dramatic appearance before the United Nations lied to the world when he said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. But despite Powell’s woefully misplaced sense of loyalty to President George W. Bush, Cheney is merciless in condemning the general for allegedly undermining the administration. Powell has fired back at what he termed Cheney’s “cheap shots” and reminds us that “Mr. Cheney and many of his colleagues did not prepare for what happened after the fall of Baghdad.”
It is not clear that Cheney is a true believer in military mayhem as much as he is an uncontrollable careerist who finds war talk a convenient tool for advancement. He seems to have no real sense of the cost of the Iraq War beyond what it might have done to hurt his own legacy. If his memoir has any enduring value, it is not as another offering of hollow excuses for an unjustifiable war but rather as a study in what the famed historian of European fascism, Hannah Arendt, termed the “banality of evil.”
Dick Cheney, the Ultimate American Terrorist, by William Rivers Pitt
A FEW CLIPS:
If there were any justice to be found in this deranged country, Dick Cheney would have penned his pestiferous, self-serving little memoir by the light of a bare bulb inside the cell of a federal prison. If there were any justice to be found, Mr. Cheney would be forced to contend with the "Son of Sam Law," which, according to World Law Direct, "refers to a type of law designed to keep criminals from profiting from their crimes, often by selling their stories to publishers. Such laws often authorize the state to seize money earned from such a deal and use it to compensate the criminal's victims."
The Son of Sam, a.k.a. David Berkowitz, killed six people and wounded several others during his notorious summer-long shooting spree in New York. Berkowitz is an absolute piker compared to Dick Cheney, whose actions directly caused deaths and injuries that number in the hundreds of thousands. The deaths he is responsible for are ongoing to this day, in fact. If there were any justice to be found, whatever profits he earns from his book would be spread out between the families of dead and wounded soldiers whom he lied into war in Iraq, between the families of dead and wounded Iraqi civilians, and between Americans like Valerie Plame, who along with numerous other intelligence figures, had their lives bulldozed by Cheney's eight-year rampage through our system of government.
SNIP
There is so much to remember about Dick Cheney's time in office. There was the Office of Special Plans, which he created to formulate the most effective lies possible about Iraq, WMD, and connections to September 11. There was the torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, which he referred to as "the dark side" and which he championed with great vigor. There was his dismissal of lawfully-issued congressional subpoenas, and his dedication to the idea of a "Unitary Executive" which is beholden to nothing and no one. There was his broad plan to spy on millions of Americans without a warrant, which he wanted to continue even after the whole thing was declared to be illegal. There was (and remains) the program of indefinite detention without due process of law, which was his baby, and there was the coddling of known criminal and double-agent Ahmed Chalabi, who was his pal.
SNIP
Dick Cheney is the ultimate American terrorist, one who not only lacks respect for American law and government, but who spent his eight years in office actively working to destroy and dismember the functions of that government. He tore the place up, deliberately and with intent, because he hated the law and the government it supported, and we will be a long time recovering from his deeds. He is directly and personally responsible for thousands of deaths and injuries. If this is not terrorism in the raw, then the word has no meaning.
Dick Cheney has blood on his hands, but will remain free for the foreseeable future because the administration that replaced his lacks the honor, integrity and intestinal fortitude to address what he has done. Until such a reckoning is at hand, all I can do is remind Mr. Cheney, and anyone who will listen, of another fact of law that, God willing, will be brought to bear against him someday. There is no statute of limitations on murder, and murder is exactly what he did.
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