Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation: The Bigger Story?

While giant breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood – and it’s reversal in the face of a backlash – is certainly newsworthy, there may be a much bigger story.

As the Daily Beast notes, this is more about business than charity:

The competition for big bucks is fierce, and she has inevitably left a number of disgruntled charities in her wake, among them small-town philanthropies who use “for the cure” as part of their message. These include “Kites for the Cure,” “Cupcakes for a Cure,” and “Mush for the Cure,” which involves sled-dog racing.

Some of these have complained that they have faced legal threats from Komen, have little money to fight back, and feel squelched by the powerful group.

“Komen plays hardball and is determined to stay on top,” says a member of another cancer organization, who declined to be identified. “Let’s be honest about all this: people think of breast cancer as a charity, but it’s really a major business.”

And if even half of what these doctors claim is true, then the entire “cancer business” is riddled with fraud and corruption. If true, then – without doubt – that’s the bigger story.

Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood: The Bigger Story was originally published on Washington's Blog

Widespread Protests Are Starting to Turn the Tide Against Anti-Democratic Bill

The widespread protests against the anti-democracy bill ACTA by the Polish people have forced Poland’s prime minister to stall – or perhaps even back out – of the treaty. As TechDirt notes:

Following the growing protests about ACTA in Europe, as well as signs of US meddling, Poland’s prime minister is making it clear that Poland will not ratify ACTA for the time being, leading to speculation that the EU may not actually join ACTA.

Tusk’s backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union. As it stands, there are already five member countries that have not even signed ACTA.

“I share the opinions of those who from the beginning said that consultations were not complete,” Tusk said, according to a report in Wirtualna Polska. The 54-year-old prime minister added that a Polish rejection of ACTA is now on the table, and admitted that he had previously approached the agreement from a “20th century” perspective, due to his age.

The Slovenian ambassador to Japan has apologized to her country and her children for signing ACTA, saying she signed it because her government told her to, and “out of civic carelessness” in not bothering to understand what ACTA meant before signing it.

Bulgarian and Polish MPs wore Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA. Again, from TechDirt:

We recently pointed out that a bunch of Polish politicians wore Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks in Parliament to protest ACTA:

It appears that some politicians in Bulgaria thought that was a good idea, and have done the same thing:

Indeed, even the elderly are wearing Guy Fawkes masks in protest of ACTA:

European Parliamentarian Marietje Schaake writes:

As a Member of the European Parliament, I very much welcome the increased attention the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received in the past weeks. It has taken a while for massive outcry to emerge, but we are seeing protest voices getting louder and louder.

ARS Technica reports that the Greek Ministry of Justice was hacked by anonymous:

The Greek Ministry of Justice had its Web site defaced by Greek and Cypriot Anonymous-affiliated hackers (a mirror of the defaced site is available here). The hackers included a video message (now removed) complaining that the Greek government had abandoned the democratic will of its people and was instead bending to the will of the IMF and the EU.

Greece is expected to accept IMF funds in an effort to allow its government to bring some semblance of sustainability to its finances, but Anonymous believes that this move will “introduce a new dictatorship upon [the Greek] people’s shoulders and allow the bankers and the monarchs of the EU to enslave them both economically and politically.”

The defaced site itself focused on an anti-ACTA message. It warned that Greece had two weeks to “stop ACTA,” and that if it failed to do so, some 300 sites would be defaced. The next targets will include both media and ministry sites, with the hackers announcing that they already had passwords for most sites and that this was “JUST the BEGINING [sic].”

Swedes are out in force protesting ACTA. As The Local reports:

Over 10,000 Swedes had pledged to take part in demonstrations in Stockholm and other cities on Saturday to protest against the ACTA anti-piracy legislation which is set to go before the Riksdag later this year.

The demonstration, held at midday on Sergels Torg in the centre of Stockholm, featured speeches from MEPs Christian Engström of the Pirate Party, Carl Schlyter of the Green Party and Mikael Gustavsson of the Left Party.

Over eleven thousand people had signed up to attend the Stockholm demonstration on Facebook by 10am on Saturday.

Christian Engström told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily that with indications that Poland’s parliament is set to reject the controversial international anti-piracy legislation, the pirate movement had wind in its sails.

“1.4 million signatures have been collected through an online petition and there have been riots in Poland. There now seems to be a commitment among citizens so I feel very hopeful,” he told DN.

By all accounts, the number of ACTA protests in Europe is overwhelming:

But that only tells half of the story.

As Pirate Party found Rick Falvinge reports:

Just look at this map. I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of people all across Europe demanding their freedom of speech and being angry against backroom corporativist deals that steals their most basic civil liberties.

***

This is not Hollywood versus Silicon Valley, as oldmedia likes to frame it. This is Hollywood versus The People. For decades, they have trained us to think in black and white, in good versus evil fighting for domination of the free world. And now, they’ve gone and put themselves in the role of evil villain.

The copyright cartel thought they were battling Google.

They’re not.

They’re waging war against the people, with the help of the politicians.

And we’re not standing for it. We can’t change the copyright cartel, but we can send a clear message to the politicians that 250 million Europeans sharing and preserving contemporary culture is not a problem. It is a power base of 250 million voters that will kick you out of office if you dare so much as touch the net.

And there are visible cracks in the façade, especially seeing Poland falter and the copyright cartels visibly shaken from the SOPA defeat in the US, with the politicians having started to pay attention to what the Internet wants. We can win this.

Today, Sweden rallies. List of rallies below (via Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament):

• Stockholm: Sergels Torg, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Göteborg: Götaplatsen, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Malmö: Stortorget, at the Karl X Gustav statue, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Helsingborg: at the Magnus Stenbock statue, 13:00. [Facebook]
• Umeå : Apberget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Kalmar: Giraffens Köpcentrum, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Sundsvall: Torget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Karlstad: Stora Torget, 12 noon. [Facebook]
• Borlänge: Jussi Björlings torg, 12 noon. [Facebook]

(The observant will note that less than half of these rallies are marked on the already-impressive map of European rallies. Makes me wonder what the map would look like if all rallies were included.)

Most of Europe will rally next Saturday, on February 11. That’s going to be something, too. Let’s give Europe the best of precursor to those rallies from Sweden that they could possibly get!

As of early morning on February 4, 11,000 people have committed to coming to the Stockholm rally, with another 3,500 maybes. Those are numbers that would overfill the Plattan plaza by a wide margin. I’ll be at the rally in Stockholm, Sweden, and will be taking plenty of imagery and will follow up here.

UPDATE AT 1500: ***

Rally at the Sergels Torg plaza in Stockholm, Sweden. Anna Troberg, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party, speaking (at left) and maybe 1/3 of the crowd.

The turnout was like nothing I’ve seen for a February rally in Sweden. In -20°C, there were well over a thousand people protesting corporate rights over their freedom of speech; normally, you’re lucky getting 50.

Also, there was a very clear recurring theme among the Members of European Parliament speaking, MEPs from three different parties. They all told the story of how software patents had been defeated in Europe, followed by the crucial “amendment 138″ in the Telecoms Package, which aimed to shut people off en masse from the Net. Well, thanks to diligent activists and people on the inside, we managed to get as strong safeguards in place as possible against shutting people off. But the monopoly lobbyists never quit. Now they’re at it again, this time saying that if authorities can’t shut people off en masse due to that “amendment 138″, maybe they can get private corporations – the ISPs – to do it instead through third-party liability forcing certain terms of service and wiretapping. Hence, ACTA.

Fortunately, and this was a consistent message from all Members of European Parliament, we have the blueprint for defeating ACTA. We need to repeat what we did with the software patents and with the Telecoms Package. It takes hard work, it takes tons of activism, but we know exactly what to do and how to do it, and most importantly: we know that we can win.

As the rally concluded, everybody was determined to win this fight, having heard the clear message that it takes work but is perfectly doable.

UPDATE 2: There are more photos from Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament here. Free for any use (CC0 / Public Domain). Here’s one of his photos, showing the protester crowd:

Europe Rises Up Against ACTA was originally published on Washington's Blog

Government Misrepresents Employment Picture

While everyone is popping the champagne corks over the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 243,000 jobs were created in January, the facts are slightly different.

Lee Alder notes:

The seasonal adjustment fudge that the Gummit adds to the mix grossly overstated what the actual survey data showed. Here’s a picture. The red line is the actual survey numbers. The blue line is the fake seasonally adjusted number.

Remember: Red… actual. Blue… fake. Just so you know your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, let’s zoom in to just the past 13 months. There you have it. The headline, fake, number was up by 243,000, purportedly the biggest increase since 2006. But what’s this? The actual survey number showed a decrease of 1.1 million jobs. In the world of seasonally adjusted government data, down can be up.

Karl Denninger writes:

There are times when one questions a report as possibly being wrong or in error, and then there are times when one has to raise a flag and say “This is an intentionally false picture being presented by a government agency.”

I’m in the latter camp with this one, and it is rare for me to brand something as not possibly wrong and in error, but intentionally fraudulent.

***

Remember that last month the alleged 200,000 jobs that were gained were a phantom; when one looked inside the household data we found instead deterioration in both the employment participation rate and a decline in the absolute number of employed persons, while population rose. That is, the actual counts (as opposed to black-box statements) said that the labor picture deteriorated in December, contrary to the reported numbers.

This month it was worse. Far worse.

Let’s start with the “base picture” that is causing the cheering:

That nice red line looks good, right? Well……

“Not in labor force” numbers leaped upward on an annualized basis (seasonally adjusted the “right way”) and what’s worse on a raw basis 1.572 million people exited the labor force last month.

This is reflected in the percentage of those not in the labor force as a percentage of the working-age population, which hit an all-time high going back to the initiation of the data series I’ve tracked since 1999:

That’s 0.6% of the entire labor force that departed the working population in one month, three times the alleged drop in the unemployment rate. This means that internally, the numbers were even worse than they first appear!

Indeed, the total number of employed persons fell. A lot. To put a number on it, the total number of employed persons fell by 737,000 by actual count.

Now the cheerleaders will state that this is a common thing in January, and indeed it is. But the correct adjustment is to look at the population increase and subtract that back off as well. In other words, we take the loss of employment and add the population growth. When we do this we get a whopping 2.422 million in the wrong direction which was bested only by the -2.618 million in January of 2009 through the process of this downturn!

In fact other than January 2009 there has never been a single month in my table, which dates back to 1999, that put up a worse combined number. This “performance” rates a literal “second from utter despair and disaster”, and the employment rate shows it:

This is not a strong report folks, and in fact documents an actual and ongoing collapse in the US labor force, despite the crooning on the mainstream media disinformation channels!

Zero Hedge points out:

It appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Chart below shows it all – that jump is not a fat finger!

And Labor Force Participation:

This is the largest absolute jump in ‘Persons Not In Labor Force’ on record…and biggest percentage jump in 30 years.

Chart: Bloomberg

Mish writes:

• In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,565,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,145,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,420,000.
• In January, the Civilian Labor Force rose by 508,000.
• In January, those “Not in Labor Force” rose by an amazing 1,177,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
• Participation Rate fell .3 to 63.7%, taking out a 1984 low
• Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.

Some of those labor force numbers are due to annual revisions. However, the point remains: People are dropping out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artificially low.***

The official unemployment rate is 8.3%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 15.1%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Grossly Distorted Statistics

Given the complete distortions of reality with respect to not counting people who allegedly dropped out of the work force, it is easy to misrepresent the headline numbers. Digging under the surface, the drop in the unemployment rate is nothing but a statistical mirage.

In January, those “Not in Labor Force” rose by a staggering 1,177,000. Things are much worse than the reported numbers indicate.

And TrimTabs says:

Either there is something massively changed in the income tax collection world, or there is something very, very suspicious about today’s BLS hugely positive number.

***

Actual jobs, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments – made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists – that 2.9 million fewer jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs.

For background on why more jobs haven’t been created, see this this and this.

Zero Hedge also notes that the gap between implied and reported unemployment is soaring, and that there is a marked shift from high-paying to low-wage jobs.

Update: see this rebuttal.

Contrary to Government Claims of 243,000 Jobs Created, Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs Were Actually LOST In January was originally published on Washington's Blog

 

Preface: Roubini says that attacking Iran would lead to global recession. The IMF says that Iran cutting off oil supplies could raise crude prices 30%. War with Iran would kill the American economy. And see this and this.

So yes, this is a newsworthy economic and financial story.

 

American and Israeli Hawks Beat War Drums … But the People Want Peace

While the same neoconservatives who pushed the Iraq war are now loudly beating the drums of war against Iran, neither the American or Israeli people want war.

A new United Technologies/National Journal “Congressional Connection Poll,” finds that only 13% Americans think the U.S. should “take covert action against Iran such as sabotage and assassination of scientists working on their nuclear program”.

Only 17% support “tak[ing] military action against Iran, including bombing weapons facilities inside the country.”

And most Israelis are against war with Iran as well.

As University of Maryland professor of government, and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Shibley Telhami and director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, Steven Kull, note in the New York Times:

Despite all the talk of an “existential threat,” less than half of Israelis support a strike on Iran. According to our November poll (.pdf), carried out in cooperation with the Dahaf Institute in Israel, only 43 percent of Israeli Jews support a military strike on Iran — even though 90 percent of them think that Iran will eventually acquire nuclear weapons.

Most important, when asked whether it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favored the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons.

The Israeli public also seems willing to move away from a secretive nuclear policy toward greater openness about Israel’s nuclear facilities. Sixty percent of respondents favored “a system of full international inspections” of all nuclear facilities, including Israel’s and Iran’s, as a step toward regional disarmament.

Given that the elites who profit from war will do their best to try to pretend we must attack Iran to protect ourselves, we must all be wary of a false flag attack against Iran. Indeed, it almost seems as if some have already hinted in that direction.

Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

- Nazi leader Hermann Goering

Less than One-Fifth of All Americans Favor Military or Covert Action Against Iran … Less than Half of Israelis Want to Attack Iran, and 65% Want the Entire Middle East – Including Israel – to be a Nuclear-Free Zone was originally published on Washington's Blog

By leading anti-war activist David Swanson, author of Day Break and War Is A Lie, who runs the websites DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet.org)

When Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on June 9, 2008, the 35 had been selected from drafts of nearly twice that many articles.

President Obama has accumulated his own massive list of high crimes and misdemeanors that were unavailable for Bush’s list (thing’s like openly murdering U.S. citizens, launching massive drone wars, selectively and abusively prosecuting numerous whistleblowers as spies, holding Bradley Manning naked in isolation, attacking Libya without so much as bothering to lie to Congress, etc.).

Nonetheless, it is instructive to review the 35 Bush articles in the Obama age.  It quickly becomes apparent that Obama has either exactly duplicated or closely paralleled most of the 35.  Here’s what I mean:

Article XXVI
Announcing the Intent to Violate Laws with Signing Statements.

Click the link to read the article introduced against Bush.  Obama campaigned against this abuse and has routinely engaged in it as president.  Worse, he has established the policy of silently relying on previous Bush or Obama signing statements rather than restating his intention to violate laws each time such intention is relevant to a bill he is signing.

Article XXII
Creating Secret Laws.

Obama similarly uses Department of Justice arguments to reverse the commonly understood meaning of laws (bombing Libya is neither war nor hostilities, for example).  And he similarly uses arguments that are kept away from public sight.  While the United Nations, foreign nations, and human rights groups have questioned the legality of drone strikes, Obama has not provided his legal defense or even felt obliged to make any assertion as to which victims were intended and which were “collateral damage.”  This week the ACLU sued for release of such information.  In addition, Obama announced in 2009 that he would review all of Bush’s signing statements and decide which ones to keep as law and which to discard, but the public has never been told the outcome of that review.

Article XVII
Illegal Detention: Detaining Indefinitely And Without Charge Persons Both U.S. Citizens and Foreign Captives.

Obama did this from day one, proclaimed it in front of the Constitution in the National Archives, formalized it in an executive order, signed it into law this past New Year’s Eve, and expanded the practice at Bagram.

Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Obama has continued each abuse detailed here and added to them, including through his use of the military to keep journalists away from the BP oil disaster and in an effort to break a strike at the ports of the Pacific Northwest.

Article XIX
Rendition: Kidnapping People and Taking Them Against Their Will to “Black Sites” Located in Other Nations, Including Nations Known to Practice Torture.

Obama has publicly claimed the power to continue this practice, in fact continued this practice, maintained black sites despite announcing an end to them, and worked to coverup and protect related crimes by his predecessor.

Article XX
Imprisoning Children.

Obama has continued this practice and added to it the murdering of children, refusing to say that Abdel-Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki was not intentionally targeted or that he, Obama, does not have the legal power to murder U.S. children.  Non-U.S. children continue to die in significant numbers from drone strikes and by other means (including intentional targeting from helicopter) as part of Obama’s escalated war on Afghanistan.

Article XVIII
Torture: Secretly Authorizing, and Encouraging the Use of Torture Against Captives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Other Places, as a Matter of Official Policy.

Obama has claimed the power to torture, worked to coverup and protect related crimes by his predecessor, and continued to allow torture.  He has also pressured other nations, including Spain, to drop prosecutorial investigations of U.S. crimes of torture.

Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment.

Obama has continued these practices and worked to coverup and protect related crimes by his predecessor.

Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.

Obama has continued these practices and worked to coverup and protect related crimes by his predecessor and guilty corporations.

Article XXI
Misleading Congress and the American People About Threats from Iran, and Supporting Terrorist Organizations Within Iran, With the Goal of Overthrowing the Iranian Government.

Obama has continued these practices.  In his most recent State of the Union speech he said, “America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.  But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible . . . if Iran changes course.”  When Iran recently took down a U.S. drone, Obama simply asked that it be returned.

Article XVI
Reckless Misspending and Waste of U.S. Tax Dollars in Connection With Iraq and US Contractors.

Obama’s Pentagon is no more audited or accountable, nor the routine scandals involving misplaced millions or billions of dollars less frequent.  No-bid contracts have increased.  Privatization has increased.  Secrecy has increased.  The use of Special Forces in secret non-war wars has spread to more nations.  The permanent stationing of U.S. troops has spread to more nations.  Secret agencies, including the CIA, have been given larger war-making roles.  And Obama continued the war on Iraq long beyond the date by which he had promised to end it, and continues to maintain thousands of mercenaries in Iraq, and to use drones in the skies of Iraq.  He has also worked to coverup and protect related crimes by his predecessor.

Article XV
Providing Immunity from Prosecution for Criminal Contractors in Iraq.

Obama’s insistence on continuing this practice not just beyond 2008 but beyond 2011, combined with the Iraqi government’s refusal to agree, resulted in Obama’s decision to comply with the Bush-Maliki treaty to end the war on Iraq by this past New Year’s Eve.

Article XXX
Misleading Congress and the American People in an Attempt to Destroy Medicare.

The details have to be changed to apply this article to Obama.  The changes are not in Obama’s favor.  Obama met in secret with the CEOs of health insurance corporations and pursued a vision of healthcare reform that they had secretly influenced.  In so doing, he misled Congress and the American people.  He is quite open, in contrast, about his willingness to slash Medicare, as well as Medicaid.

Article XXXI
Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency.

The victims of Katrina have still not been compensated, nor the environmental and urban damage undone.  Instead the BP oil disaster has been added.  Obama intentionally misled the Congress and the public, downplaying the quantity of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.  He allowed a clean-up operation that was nothing of the sort.  No real clean-up or recovery is planned.  Nor have the corporations or their supposed regulators been held accountable.

Article XXXII
Misleading Congress and the American People, Systematically Undermining Efforts to Address Global Climate Change.

Obama’s approach to systematically undermining efforts to address global climate change has included blocking possible global agreements at meetings in Denmark and South Africa, while promoting “clean coal,” “natural gas,” and “safe fracking.”

Article XIV
Misprision of a Felony, Misuse and Exposure of Classified Information And Obstruction of Justice in the Matter of Valerie Plame Wilson, Clandestine Agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The exposing of a secret agent has not been repeated, but retribution against whistleblowers has been taken to new heights with more prosecutions under the Espionage Act than by all previous presidents combined.

Article XXXIV
Obstruction of the Investigation into the Attacks of September 11, 2001.

We’re still waiting.

Now, we come to the launching of the war on Iraq:

Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.

Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.

Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.

Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.

Article V
Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression.

Article VI
Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114.

Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.

Article VIII
Invading Iraq, A Sovereign Nation, in Violation of the UN Charter.

Article XII
Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation’s Natural Resources.

Article XIIII
Creating a Secret Task Force to Develop Energy and Military Policies With Respect to Iraq and Other Countries.

It was too late for Obama to exactly duplicate these offenses, as the war against Iraq was already underway.  But President Obama has embraced the lies that launched that war.  He claimed in 2010 that the war on Iraq had been launched in order to disarm that nation.  In the news around the world on the day of Obama’s most recent State of the Union speech was the anger among Iraqis at the failure of the United States to hold anyone seriously accountable for the 2005 massacre in Haditha.  The story was a useful reminder of how the operations of the U.S. military over the past decade have fueled hostility toward our nation.  President Obama began his speech by claiming the opposite, asserting that the war on Iraq has made us safer and “more respected around the world.”  Obama has repeatedly used such rhetoric to pivot to promotion of his escalated war in Afghanistan or other military operations.  Similarly, President Obama misled the nation about the purpose and nature of a war on Libya that has left Libya, like Iraq, in worse shape, and which has left Constitutional war powers in tatters, as the Congress declared itself opposed to the war and the war continued.  Meanwhile misleading propaganda about Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other nations continues to emerge from the Obama administration.  The Director of National Intelligence has just claimed that Iran is a threat to the United States.  While the Iraq War may have “ended,” the Authorization for the Use of Military Force has been kept in place allowing Obama to use it as a legal argument for other military operations and abuses of civil rights.  Also emerging with ever greater frankness from the Obama White House and Pentagon, including from the President, is the claim of presidential prerogative to launch military attacks on sovereign nations, involving deaths to both militants and civilians, without any consideration of Congress, the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, the United Nations or its Charter, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, or any other law.

There is no quantitative way to measure whether Obama’s additions to the presidential powers accumulated by Bush and Bush’s predecessors equals or exceeds those added by Bush.  But measured against the pre-Bush baseline, or against the written rule of law, Obama’s power abuses far outstrip Bush’s, while in the category of immediate death count Bush retains a significant lead.

Would Romney or Gingrich be even worse?  That’s quite likely.  If we continue to self-censor on these matters, Obama Part II will also be significantly worse.  A popular movement against these abuses could make any White House occupant better than the current one, even if it’s the same individual.  Remember what Howard Zinn taught: It’s not who is sitting in the White House; it’s who is doing the sit-ins.

27 of 35 Bush Articles of Impeachment Apply to Obama was originally published on Washington's Blog

What’s wrong with the world, mama, is the 1%’s criminal wars and rapacious looting.

Occupy exposes the 1% that allows a million children to die every month from preventable poverty when just 1% of our income saves their lives while reducing population growth. Occupy documents and proves the 1%‘s  fear-mongered, unlawful, lie-started wars in nation after nation that kill millions, and now legislated with NDAA to “disappear” Americans who stand-up to their crimes. Occupy demands ending debt-damned economics and trillions of the 99%’s dollars transferred to the 1% banksters.

Occupy stands for policy and love for 100% of humanity. Love will manifest when the criminal 1% is arrested and removed from power to harm.

“Where Is The Love?”

What’s wrong with the world, mama

People livin’ like they ain’t got no mamas

I think the whole world’s addicted to the drama

Only attracted to things that’ll bring you trauma

Overseas, yeah, we “try” to stop terrorism

But we still got terrorists here livin’

In the USA, the big CIA

The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race

Then you only leave space to discriminate

And to discriminate only generates hate

And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate, yeah

Madness is what you demonstrate

And that’s exactly how anger works and operates

Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight

Take control of your mind and meditate

Let your soul gravitate to the love, y’all,

 

People killin’, people dyin’

Children hurt and you hear them cryin’

Can you practice what you preach

And would you turn the other cheek

 

Father, Father, Father help us

Send some guidance from above

‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’

Where is the love (Love)

 

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love

The love, the love

 

It just ain’t the same, always unchanged

New days are strange, is the world insane?

If love and peace is so strong

Why are there pieces of love that don’t belong

Nations droppin’ bombs

Chemical gasses fillin’ lungs of little ones

With ongoin’ sufferin’ as the youth die young

So ask yourself is the lovin’ really gone

So I could ask myself really what is goin’ wrong

In this world that we livin’ in people keep on givin’ in

Makin’ wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends

Not respectin’ each other, deny thy brother

A war is goin’ on but the reason’s undercover

The truth is kept secret, it’s swept under the rug

If you never know truth then you never know love

Where’s the love, y’all, come on (I don’t know)

Where’s the truth, y’all, come on (I don’t know)

Where’s the love, y’all

 

People killin’, people dyin’

Children hurt and you hear them cryin’

Can you practice what you preach

And would you turn the other cheek

 

Father, Father, Father help us

Send some guidance from above

‘Cause people got me, got me questionin’

Where is the love (Love)

 

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love (The love)

Where is the love, the love, the love?

 

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder

As I’m gettin’ older, y’all, people gets colder

Most of us only care about money makin’

Selfishness got us followin’ the wrong direction

Wrong information always shown by the media

Negative images is the main criteria

Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria

Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema

Yo’, whatever happened to the values of humanity

Whatever happened to the fairness in equality

Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity

Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity

That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ under

That’s the reason why sometimes I’m feelin’ down

There’s no wonder why sometimes I’m feelin’ under

Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found

Now ask yourself

 

Where is the love?

Where is the love?

Where is the love?

Where is the love?

 

Father, Father, Father help us

Send some guidance from above

‘Cause people got me, got me questioning

Where is the love?

 

Sing with me y’all:

One world, one world (We only got)

One world, one world (That’s all we got)

One world, one world

And something’s wrong with it (Yeah)

Something’s wrong with it (Yeah)

Something’s wrong with the wo-wo-world, yeah

We only got

(One world, one world)

That’s all we got

(One world, one world)

 

52 million views, 4-minutes, Occupy’s main point: Where is the Love? was originally published on Washington's Blog

Leak at San Onofre Nuclear Plant

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday:

Officials at the San Onofre nuclear power plant shut down one of the facility’s two units Tuesday evening after a sensor detected a possible leak in a steam generator tube.

The Orange County Register pointed out:

After an unplanned, precautionary shutdown of a reactor at the San Onofre nuclear plant Tuesday, a plant spokesman said Wednesday that a possible leak in one of the reactor’s steam generator tubes could have resulted in a tiny release of radioactive material into the atmosphere.

AP notes today:

A tiny amount of radiation could have escaped into the atmosphere from a Southern California nuclear power plant after a water leak prompted operators to shut down the reactor as a precaution, officials said Wednesday.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Victor Dricks said radioactive gas “could have” escaped the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on the northern San Diego coast.

***

The leak occurred in equipment that was installed in the plant in the fall of 2010. The leak occurred in one of thousands of tubes that carry radioactive water from the Unit 3 reactor.

However, the company has found damage to other tubes, Dricks said.

“The damage that they have found to many other tubes is unusual, and they are attempting to identify the reason,” Dricks said.

While the nuclear operator – Southern California Edison – says that only a tiny amount was released, and would pose no health problems, that’s what operators always say after a nuclear accident.

EneNews points to the following videos of the Three Mile Island accident:

Radioactive Leak at California Nuclear Power Plant was originally published on Washington's Blog

The Mayans didn’t predict the end of the world this December.

But constitutional expert Jonathan Turley says that the indefinite detention of Americans authorized by the NDAA is the real Mayan apocalypse.

Here’s another take … on ACTA and the other web censorship bills:

Maybe THIS Is What the Mayans Were Talking About … was originally published on Washington's Blog

By leading anti-war activist David Swanson, author of Day Break and War Is A Lie, who runs the websites DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet.org)

Imagine if a bunch of the craziest war-hungry Republicans in the House filmed themselves in a nutty bat-guano video packed with lies addressed to the President of the United States. And then imagine President Barack Obama almost immediately agreeing with them. I can think of two ways in which such a series of events could go unnoticed, as it just has.

First, it could be about something insignificant. But this was about undoing the automatic cuts to the military mandated by the failure of the Supercommittee (remember, the top news story of a few months back?). The military, across various departments, swallows over half of federal discretionary spending, and there’s no greater obsession in the corporate media than the great Spending vs. Cuts issue. This is NOT insignificant.

Second, it could be about something that the elites of both major parties agree on, the media therefore ignores, most Republican voters love, and Democratic voters pretend not to notice because the President is a Democrat and an election is less than a year away.

If you’re guessing the second option, you are right. (Tell them what they’ve won, Leon!) You are now the proud owners of the most expensive military ever seen, plus coming increases that will be presented as “cuts.”

When the Supercommittee failed, automatic federal budget cuts were to kick in — half to things we need and half to the bloated military. The military cuts would take us back to 2004 spending. We seem to have survived 2004 and the years preceding it OK.

The Pentagon claims to be making other cuts already, but they are “cuts” to dream budgets resulting in actual budget increases — and that’s not even counting increased war spending through other departments.

House Republicans have sent President Obama this crazy video opposing military cuts and introduced legislation to slash 10% of non-military government jobs instead. In the Senate, John McCain is said to be working on a similar bill.

Meanwhile “Defense” Secretary Leon Panetta has just announced the Obama Administration’s position: They will oppose the automatic cuts, or any other actual cuts, to the military. This will mean severe cuts to education, transportation, and — as President Obama indicated in his State of the Union speech — to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

At last Thursday’s press conference the first question following Panetta’s remarks was:

“Mr. Secretary, you talked a little bit on this, but over the next 10 years, do you see any other year than this year where the actual spending will go down from year to year? And just to the American public more broadly, how do you sort of explain what appears to be contradictory, as you talk about, repeatedly, this $500 billion in cuts in a Defense Department budget that is actually going to be increasing over time?”

Panetta had no substantive answer. And he didn’t need one. The media almost unanimously put out the false story that the military was undergoing serious cuts. That first year’s cut, by the way, is 1%, to be followed by nine years of larger increases.

You might have forgotten that in 2008, three times in three presidential debates, Senator John McCain proposed cutting the military, while Senator Obama campaigned on increasing it — one promise he has actually kept.

Lately supporters have been saying that the President will become the Obama of our Dreams once he’s a lame duck. But the history and the logic of lame duck officials is that they become less, not more, representative of the public will. And the public will is strongly in favor of major cuts to the military.

Others may be inclined to suggest that while Obama and Panetta are increasing the military and calling it “cuts,” they are actually cutting the budget for wars. Some may have been misled by this line in the State of the Union: “Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.”

But in reality, Obama and Panetta are proposing to cut the war budget by only $27 billion. Meanwhile, the $27 billion has already been spent elsewhere in the Pentagon budget. Plus military spending is on the rise in other departments. Plus any new wars and confrontations — like in Iran or Syria — will offer the opportunity for supplemental bills. And less expensive but more secretive and equally deadly wars are underway, investment will increase in drones and special forces, and I have doubts we could rebuild our nation here at home for $13.5 billion even if we had it, while continuing to dump over $1 trillion into preparations for the crime of war year after year.

We do have the option to resist.

A Crazy Republican Attack that Obama Himself Agrees With was originally published on Washington's Blog

“Constitutional governments and aristocracies are commonly overthrown owing to some deviation from justice…the rich, if the constitution gives them power, are apt to be insolent and avaricious… In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, more especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses in time eats up a fortune.” – Aristotle, Politics, Book V. 350 B.C.E.

“The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both Congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it.” -  “Abraham Lincoln, [September 16-17, 1859] (Notes for Speech in Kansas and Ohio),” Page 2.

Occupy is a non-violent 2nd American Revolution. Revolution is from the Latin, revolutio, a “turn around” of political power. Occupy is turning around the 1%’s political power from criminal wars and  rigged-casino economics to create policies for 100% of humanity.

Occupy will succeed because Americans are recognizing central factual claims are easily verified as objective data. Indeed, once obfuscating spin is removed, the facts are not contested and therefore uncontroversial.

Occupy’s victory will follow a sudden and resounding “emperor has no clothes” experience.

Occupy is overcoming “American exceptionalism”: the beliefs of “it can’t happen here” or we’re “too modern” for such criminality. This belief exists despite acknowledged history of every other developed country in the 20th Century engaging in wars of aggression disguised by government propaganda as “defensive,” and/or wars for empire. Abraham Lincoln empathized:

“I know the American People are much attached to their Government;–I know they would suffer much for its sake;–I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.” – Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, 1838.

Occupy is similar to the Civil Rights Movement if Dr. King asked you directly for your help, or ending parasitic imperialism if Mohandas Gandhi asked you personally for your help.

How you help is up to you. Look to your heart and mind’s best inspirations.

Occupy is of life-and-death importance, as the 1% lies for more criminal war on Iran (here and here, after this War Crime history, and at risk of false-flag initiation), tortures, assassinates Americans, legislated to “disappear” Americans under NDAA 2012, and continues year-after-year allowing 45,000 Americans to die from lack of health care and a million children every month to die from preventable poverty rather than invest 1% of our income to save their lives while decreasing population growth.

The benefits of Occupy’s victory are literally peace, trillions of dollars annually freed for constructive investment (yes, trillions), and the final breakthrough for humanity’s transformation of realized cooperation.

Understanding and speaking the facts why Occupy is with the law, and the 1% are psychopathically in violation will take time to learn. Investment of reading and purposeful discussion to command the essential facts makes Occupy exponentially more effective. But hey, art is also exponentially powerful, as PuppetGov’s video shows.

Occupy’s good news is that the factual claims are objective data anyone can verify. High school education provides everyone with the academic training to command and speak the facts.

More good news is Princeton’s Professor Frankfurt’s 2005 bestselling book, On Bullshi*, that describes the only form of communication available to the 1% because all the facts expose their crimes: 

“Bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant… bullshi* is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”

You will rightfully receive appreciation for your role in Occupy from family, friends, and the public upon critical mass of the 99% having an “emperor has no clothes” breakthrough (and perhaps receive fearful scorn before the breakthrough, as so many of you know). Your acts will also reflect in whatever spiritual spheres exist that honor love, justice, and intelligence.

Occupy respectfully reminds our brothers and sisters considering their roles  of the ancient Greek word for those who chose non-participation in important policy; so powerful it remains un-translated today: idiot.

In respectful appreciation of the time we’ll spend together if you accept my offer for teaching law, economics, and history important for Occupy’s victory, please understand the art of my communication must balance respect for your time with the requirement for sufficient documentation:

“At first blush, a man is not capable of reporting truth; he must be drenched and saturated with it first.”  - Henry David Thoreau, I to myself: an annotated selection from the journal of Henry D. Thoreau, 1837. Thoreau, like Abraham Lincoln in a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, recognized claimed “reasons” for a “defensive war” against Mexico were obvious lies when inspected.

Here is my humble contribution. Parts 2 and 4 are from previous work in slightly different context; I’ll reformat to specifically address Occupy participants and supporters. I, too, scramble and adapt in this, our interesting “hobby” and vocation/calling that is not a career with money.

Part 1: Why Occupy? A government/economics teacher explains (you’re reading it)

Part 2: Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, all begun with lies

Part 3: How an economics teacher presents Occupy’s economic argument, victory

Part 4: Open proposal for US revolution: expose corporate media as propaganda

Occupy This: US History exposes the 1%’s crimes then and now (6-part series)

Why Occupy? A government/economics teacher explains was originally published on Washington's Blog

 

It turns out that the current version of ”W3 Total Cache” – an excellent WordPress plugin for reducing bandwidth usage – interferes with RSS feed updates.

Specifically, the “Minify” function needs to be disabled, configured manually or the cache needs to be cleared before the RSS feed will update.

W3 Total Cache needs to release an update to fix this bug.

RSS Feed was originally published on Washington's Blog

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi’s 4-minute speech powerfully communicates what US wars are: criminal Wars of Aggression.

The US mass-murders of millions of our brothers and sisters ends when critical mass of Americans understand and demand the arrests and removal from power of US War Criminals.

The wars of today are all based on lies. The wars of yesterday are all based on lies. They are not close to lawful.

The war of tomorrow in Iran is hyped on lies (here, here) and a history of US War Crimes on Iran (helpful analogy here). It has no basis in law, and likely will be foisted upon Americans under the lie of a false-flag attack.

It can end now. US military can, and should, take a leadership role to restore the US to the ideal of unalienable rights under just law.

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

– James Madison, “Political Observations” (1795-04-20); also in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison (1865), Vol. IV, p. 491.

Note: legally, the crime of US wars is Crimes Against Peace, or War of Aggression; the initiation of wars of choice and in violation of US treaties authorized by the US Constitution as US “Supreme Law.” The term, “War Crime” has a legal meaning of criminal acts during war. I choose terms that I feel most efficiently and effectively communicate the US’ 1% mass-murdering in order for the 99% to recognize and end these crimes.

4-minute video: US war-murders end when US War Criminals arrested was originally published on Washington's Blog

Illinois Nuclear Plant Vents Tritiumd

Exelon nuclear power company – the largest nuclear operator in the U.S. – issued a press release today stating:

Operators at Byron Generating Station  [around 110 miles from Chicago] declared an Unusual Event at 10:18 a.m.CT, due to the loss of offsite power and Unit 2 coming offline.

The nuclear facility’s diesel generators activated as designed to provide power to the facility when there is a loss of offsite power to the facility. The facility remains in a safe condition. Station engineering experts are looking into the cause of the loss of offsite power.

Byron Station is designed to depressurize to reduce steam pressure as part of the many redundant safety systems built into the facility. Steam from the unit is released through safety relief valves that are specifically designed for this purpose. The steam, which will evaporate quickly, contained expected levels of tritium. Local residents may see or hear the steam release in progress, which will continue throughout the day until the unit cools down. These types of station releases are regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

There is no health or safety impact to workers or to the public from the release, and Exelon Nuclear has notified all appropriate local, state and federal officials of the Unusual Event.

***

Tritium is produced in greater concentrations in commercial nuclear reactors and is routinely discharged into the environment under strictregulatory guidelines.

Indeed, an AP investigation found that 75 percent of American nuclear plants leak tritium. And many plants leak tritium into local water supplies above maximum allowable levels for drinking water.  (Nuclear plants are making up bogus excuses for refusing to test for tritium.)

While nuclear apologists pretend that “small” releases – like at Three Mile Island – cause no health effects, this is contrary to scientific evidence. See this and this.

And there have been so many accidents recently, that it makes one wonder whether we have the maturity to operate such inherently dangerous systems.  See this, this, this and this.

Even When Operating Normally, Nuclear Plants Vent Radioactive Materials Which Cause Cancer

It’s not just tritium … and it’s not just accidents.

While the nuclear industry and its lapdogs in the nuclear agencies say that living near a nuclear plant is safe, numerous scientific studies have found that – even when operating “normally” – the plants cause cancer.

For example, numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies from around the world show that the incidence of leukemia is much higher for people living near nuclear plants. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

The bottom line is that nuclear power can be safe – or it can be cheap … but it can’t be both.

Illinois Nuclear Power Plant Loses Power … Vents Radioactive Steam was originally published on Washington's Blog

While liberals rave about FDR (and conservatives hate him and say that he prolonged the Depression), everyone should love his cousin Theodore.

Teddy was the one who had the guts to break up the big trusts.

Here’s everyone’s image of Teddy Roosevelt:

But here’s a little-known portrait of the trust-buster as a young man, showing his fierce determination:

And Teddy won a medal of honor for his bravery in the Spanish-American war:

CITATION awarding the Medal of Honor to Theodore Roosevelt:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of The Congress the Medal of Honor to:

LIEUTENANT COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT UNITED STATES ARMY
for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty.

Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt distinguished himself by acts of bravery on 1 July 1898, near Santiago de Cuba, Republic of Cuba, while leading a daring charge up San Juan Hill. Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt, in total disregard for his personal safety, and accompanied by only four or five men, led a desperate and gallant charge up San Juan Hill, encouraging his troops to continue the assault through withering enemy fire over open countryside. Facing the enemy’s heavy fire, he displayed extraordinary bravery throughout the charge, and was the first to reach the enemy trenches, where he quickly killed one of the enemy with his pistol, allowing his men to continue the assault. His leadership and valor turned the tide in the Battle for San Juan Hill. Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

That’s the type of can-do energy we need today to turn the country around.

Unless we get tough like Teddy and break up the big banks, we’ll stay mired in this Herbert Hoover like status quo … and the economy will never recover.

Portrait of the Trust-Buster As a Young Man was originally published on Washington's Blog

(adapted from Open proposal for US Revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic/criminal economics; a call for Americans to lawfully, non-violently, and literally turn around/revolve from the 1% crimes that kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions of the 99%’s dollars)

I’m going to discuss trillions of dollars in a moment. As an economics teacher, I understand numbers this large are extremely difficult to imagine. If you are among the majority with this difficulty, I recommend that you follow the expert testimony that paints the picture, and know that success in this area of public education transformation that unleashes trillions of our dollars for human creative capacity in unimaginable power is sufficient to end the current economic crisis.

This is the longest section of my call for Revolution. If you tire in reading, please consider that at trillions of dollars of annual public benefits, you literally have nothing more valuable to do than understand the following facts that document the theft of our money.

Please take your time with this. You can read it in sections. This minor investment of your reading to understand trillions to empower 100% of humanity includes contributions to Occupy’s success from many of our brightest economic minds.

Here we go:

Harvard’s Linda Bilmes co-authored a paper with Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz estimating the long-term costs of current US wars at now $3 to $5 trillion ($30-$50,000 per US household of $50,000/year income), with total debt increase since 2001 of over $10 trillion. Remember, as demonstrated by the evidence disclosed by our own government, all the reasons Americans were told to go to war were known to be lies as they were told and applicable law proves these wars Orwellian unlawful.

Just down the Charles River from Harvard, MIT’s Simon Johnson (and former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund) describes our economy being lead by gambling oligarchs who have captured government as in banana republics (his words), and might plunge the US into an economy worse than the Great Depression. From his article under the telling title, The Quiet Coup:

“Elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.”

He concludes fraud is the heart of Wall Street. Under the poignant title, Goldman Sachs: Too Big to Obey the Law: “The behavior and de facto immunity of the biggest banks is out of control.” He cites the financial crisis was engineered by the largest banks to consolidate power: in 1995 the leading six banks had assets of 17% of US GDP; today they have 63%.

His immediate best-selling book, 13 Bankers: The Wall Street takeover and the next financial meltdown, was discussed with President Johnson’s Press Secretary and journalist with over 30 Emmy Awards, Bill Moyers, to explain the oligarchy, the loss of trillions of American taxpayer dollars to oligarchs’ manipulation as a matter of definitive fact, the oligarch’s looting of America is protected by their purchased political muscle, and without transformation “the next financial meltdown” is certain:

BILL MOYERS: Let me get to the blunt conclusion you reach in your book. You say that two years after the devastating financial crisis of ’08 our country is still at the mercy of an oligarchy that is bigger, more profitable, and more resistant to regulation than ever. Correct?

SIMON JOHNSON: Absolutely correct, Bill. The big banks became stronger as a result of the bailout. That may seem extraordinary, but it’s really true. They’re turning that increased economic clout into more political power. And they’re using that political power to go out and take the same sort of risks that got us into disaster in September 2008.

BILL MOYERS: And your definition of oligarchy is?

SIMON JOHNSON: Oligarchy is just- it’s a very simple, straightforward idea from Aristotle. It’s political power based on economic power. And it’s the rise of the banks in economic terms, which we document at length, that it’d turn into political power. And they then feed that back into more deregulation, more opportunities to go out and take reckless risks and– and capture huge amounts of money….The American democracy was not given to us on a platter. It is not ours for all time, irrespective of our efforts. Either people organize and they find political leadership to take this on, or we are going to be in big trouble, okay?… That’s absolutely the heart of the problem. I would also say and tell you, and emphasize, these people will not come out and debate with us. The heads of these companies or their representatives, they will not come out. They’re afraid. They don’t have the substance. They don’t have the arguments. We have the evidence. They have the lobbyists. And that’s all they have.

BILL MOYERS: They’ve got the power, the muscle, the money.

SIMON JOHNSON: They have money.

BILL MOYERS: You just have the arguments. You just have the facts. On your side.

SIMON JOHNSON: Absolutely. That’s exactly what it comes down to.

Most people don’t read professional economists’ writing. I do, and can tell you that leaders such as Simon Johnson are using unprecedented strong language to provide the facts. Again, in his choice of words: the US economy is under attack by a colluding and unlawful oligarchy. Without Revolution that forces political leadership to transform the US economy to serve the public rather than the oligarchy, as Johnson says above:

“The American democracy was not given to us on a platter. It is not ours for all time, irrespective of our efforts. Either people organize and they find political leadership to take this on, or we are going to be in big trouble, okay?”

Harvard’s Elizabeth Warren explains the economy in language just as fierce. She professionally observes that the US economy is run by “reckless gamblers” who exploit a system they know in advance will “privatizes gains and socializes losses.” She documents the increasing destruction of the US middle class as US financial “leaders” write their own laws “behind closed doors,” and choose regulators who will protect them and not the public in order to “fleece consumers.” As you may know, Ms. Warren is the Leo Gottlieb Professor at Harvard Law School and Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the so-called “bailout” program.

Ms. Warren admonishes: the US economy is in the “last chapter” with “all the chips on the table.” She says either the US public will demand their political and economic leaders end the fleecing because they “took the cops off the beat,” or the US middle class will devolve to live from paycheck to paycheck as Wall Street’s debt peons, “and the game really will be over.”

The good news is that solutions to the crisis are simple.

But let’s first continue with crucial facts and testimony. Take a deep breath. This is the civic economics education leaders like you must be responsible for or else you’re damned for condoning US War Criminals and ongoing plunder of trillions of our families’ and children’s money. 

Chris Hedges, Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times, best-selling author, and Pulitzer Prize recipient in 2002, writes that American taxpayers are on the road to permanent serfdom under a police state from oligarchs’ “rapacious looting” and their purchase of a politically-protected luxurious lifestyle. He calls our economic system “criminal” and “totalitarian capitalism” lording over the exploited slave-labor class the American public has become (Resist or Become Serfs and video, “Chris Hedges on poverty and the permanent lower class”). Mr. Hedges also writes and lectures that current US wars are criminal Wars of Aggression (here, among dozens of his works). From Wall Street will be back for more:

“These corporations don’t make anything. They don’t produce anything. They gamble and bet and speculate. And when they lose vast sums they raid the U.S. Treasury so they can go back and do it again. Never mind that $50 trillion in global wealth was erased between September 2007 and March 2009, including $7 trillion in the U.S. stock market and $6 trillion in the housing market. Never mind that the total amount of retirement and household wealth trashed was $7.5 trillion or that we saw $2 trillion in 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts evaporate. Never mind the $1.9 trillion in traditional defined-benefit plans and the $2.6 trillion in nonpension assets that went up in smoke. Never mind the job losses, the foreclosures and the 35 percent jump in personal and small-business bankruptcies. There are bundles of new money, taken again from us, to make deals and hand out outrageous bonuses. And when these trillions run out they will come back for more until our currency becomes junk.”

Mr. Hedges poignant assessment matches the acknowledged government data. According to the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report, these financial oligarchs’ “trading” in non-wealth producing market derivatives increases the price of gasoline for all Americans somewhere from 33 to 60%. Market analysis in other commodities’ “trading” brings the total cost to American consumers of padded prices over $1 trillion every year. This is an incredible increase of prices to US households of ~$10,000 for every $50,000 of annual income!

“It’s one of the most frustrating things. We essentially have had modern-day bank robbers — except that they wore gray suits and not masks — and there’s been no accountability for it …

Every day we see energy speculators, war profiteers, managed health-care providers, media propagandists, and/or financiers given some unfair advantage over the average consumers and taxpayers, and the cumulative effect of the American people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest has been an undermining of the public’s trust in government.

There’s no question the system is rigged against the little guy. The bigger interests have a lot more information. They jerry-rig the system so that they always win.” – Senator Byron Dorgan

This admission is crucial data. However, considering Elizabeth Warren and Simon Johnson’s expert testimony of a captured government who collude rather than end this parasitic cost to Americans, the Senate report should force government compliance under existing law to stop cartels, not merely report on how many trillions they’re costing the American public under the Senate’s “oversight.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, and Columbia economics professor, Joseph Stiglitz, agrees the US economy continues under oligarchic domination:

“What the Obama administration is doing is…ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a “partnership” in which one partner robs the other. And such partnerships — with the private sector in control — have perverse incentives, worse even than the ones that got us into the mess.”

The economic fraud isn’t just protected by government non-regulation; the government is one of the principle embezzlers. The Pentagon admitted they “lost” $2.3 trillion dollars and then didn’t follow-up with investigation. The American public heard about this news only once that anyone has been able to document from corporate media. Let $2.3 trillion sink-in:

• $23,000 for every US household, or
• embezzling $1,000,000 from a military project 2,300,000 times, or
• embezzling a million dollars a day for 6,300 years, or
• embezzling over 600 million dollars a day, every day, for ten years.

The solvable problems center around economic policy that creates protected parasites that collect unregulated and illegal gambling profits on the way up (the FBI reported 80% of the subprime mortgage fraud came from lenders), subsidized losses through “bailouts” on the way down, and then celebrate with unprecedented bonuses to themselves while publicly claiming to be doing “God’s work.” Future bailouts get guaranteed in advance without questions by government, while the symbolic program to help struggling homeowners is hyped in corporate media but not implemented.

The most egregious documentation of government fraud is in the data of collective government Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) that reveal trillions of our dollars invested while lying in omission that they have no money for budgets. This takes some time to understand; the data is explained and documented here. For an example to understand what this means, the University of California system (UC) had a budget deficit that resulted in thousands of students denied enrollment, thousands of staff laid-off, a 32% tuition raise, and a 10% employee pay-cut with furloughs to reduce education days. The deficit could have been fully-funded with less than one-fifth of one percent of California’s documented investments. And no, the amount required for retiree benefits is only one-half of one percent of the total; that’s the specious and usual “official” lie. The above link will walk you through those trillions, if this is of interest.

The cartels taking billions of our dollars are in many industries. Dr. Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and currently a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Medical School documents:

“The combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion).”

Importantly, “profit” is distinct from “research” in understanding these figures. This is prima facie evidence of unlawful collusion among a cartel, yet government doesn’t investigate. Dr. Angell concludes that US government will never provide universal health care because both political parties’ “leadership” obeys health insurance companies’ lobbyists rather than legislate for the public good. The lack of health care kills about 45,000 Americans every year according to the recent study championed by Harvard’s Medical School. Cost-benefit analyses range between $100 to $300 billion annual cost increase to the US by keeping health care companies between doctors and patients. That is, Americans would collectively save $100 to $300 billion every year with universal health care, no insurance companies, and no administrative red tape.

Is academic economics the proper place to work for solutions rather than a Revolution? Let’s look.

In light of the evidence so far of oligarchic control in the US economy, it’s troubling that professional economics journals’editorial boards have half the members receiving money from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is the pinnacle bank of the current banking system; with a majority of shares owned by the same banks that Simon Johnson reports have consolidated their assets to 63% of US GDP. This circumstantial evidence suggests that professional consideration of ideas contrary to existing monetary policy may be censored. We’ll examine omission of competing ideas you’ll conclude should be under political and public consideration shortly.

Jeffrey Sachs, best-selling author and one of the world’s best-known economists, agrees that competing ideas are missing in government and corporate media of our most important economic areas. He sharply writes:

“Cynics believe that the Geithner-Summers Plan is exactly what it seems: a naked grab of taxpayer money for Wall Street interests. Geithner and Summers argue that it’s the least bad approach to a messy situation, in which we need to restore banking functions but don’t have any perfect ways to do that. If they are serious about their justification, let them come forward to confront their critics and to explain to the American people why the other proposals are not being pursued.

Let them explain the hidden and not-so-hidden risks to the American taxpayer of the plan that they have put forward. Let them explain why they are so intent on saving the banks’ bondholders, even the long-term unsecured creditors who clearly knew they were taking market risks in buying Citibank bonds. Let them work with their critics to fashion a less risky and less costly plan. So far Geithner and Summers tell us that their plan is the only option, but without a word of further explanation as to why.”

Leading academic economists testify that something is indeed missing from their understanding of crucial national economic understanding. Several professors from Harvard’s Economics Department admitted to the Boston Globe that they both didn’t see the economic collapse coming and don’t have solutions. They acknowledged limitations in their current theories and thinking:

“Everyone that I know in economics, and particularly in the worlds of academic finance and academic macroeconomics, is going back to the drawing board,” said David Laibson, a Harvard economist. “There are very, very, very few economists who can be proud.”

“You can’t just say, ‘I have a model for tremors that works great – I just can’t explain earthquakes,”‘ said Kenneth Rogoff, an economist at Harvard who has studied financial crises.

“We have a very restrictive set of language and tools, and we tend to work on the problems that are easily addressed with those tools,” said Jeremy Stein, a financial economist at Harvard. “Sometimes that means we focus on silly questions and ignore greater ones.”

Let’s examine some evidence of how Revolution for these trillion dollar issues can breakthrough what Harvard’s Professor Stein calls “silly questions” to demand professional cost-benefit analyses of alternative models of economic management clearly discussed by many of America’s brightest historical minds.

The Great Depression in the US (1929-1941) motivated professional economists to comprehensively and creatively address its causes. Upon consideration of previous US economic depressions in 1837, 1873, and 1893, prominent economists led by Henry Simons at the University of Chicago proposed monetary reform as the nation’s most effective and practical policy response, known as the Chicago Plan (and here). This proposal was endorsed by Simons’ colleague, Paul Douglas, Frank Graham and Charles Whittlesley of Princeton, Irving Fisher of Yale, Earl Hamilton of Duke, Willford King of NYU, and sent to a thousand academic economists for their input. Three hundred twenty responded to the mailed proposal and survey (an impressively high number for a cold-call proposal and survey) from 157 universities, with 73% in full agreement with the proposal, 12.5% in approval with various considerations in its implementation, and only 14% in disagreement.

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman would become the proposal’s best-known champion. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has current legislation proposed.

This proposal was the shift from banking industry creation of “money as debt” through loans (technically “credit” and not money because it exists only and always as increasing and unpayable debt in the macro economy), to the government creating debt-free money for the direct payment of public goods and services. This policy has several extraordinary benefits (details in the links):

• The national debt is paid rather than always increased.
• It’s the only policy that accomplishes the goal of full employment as the government becomes the employer of last resort.
• This policy ends the economic crisis almost instantly; and once the program is established will guarantee no further unemployment crises.
• If the GDP value of government employment exceeds its costs (consider infrastructure that returns far more than costs), the US would have the double benefit of decreasing prices as well as full employment.
• For an example of interest, considering the US Department of Education reports that between 100,000 to 300,000 US public education positions are in danger of termination for the 2010-2011 school year, this policy creates money directly to rehire unemployed teachers and fill all school needs. Our current economic model will suffer the layoffs and decrease in education quality.
• State-of-the-art infrastructure.
• Elimination of almost all social costs of poverty.
• If banking were nationalized rather than being “bailed out” in the present, interest rates could be non-profit (think 1 or 2% mortgages that would reduce the cost of homeownership by 50% and eliminate need for any state taxes).
• Creating debt-free money could be combined with public-created credit. This could take the form of state-owned banks.

Despite 86% of academic economists in favor of this proposal, its 1934 policy proposal in Congress was defeated. Paul Douglas, leading economist and Senator from Illinois from 1949 to 1967 wrote:

“This proposal will of course be opposed by the bankers from whom it takes the lucrative privilege of creating purchasing power. It would however insure the safety of deposits, give large revenues to the government, provide complete social control over monetary matters and prevent abnormal fluctuations in the capital market. At the same time it would permit the allocation of productive resources…to remain primarily in private hands. All in all it seems the most promising program for the reform of our monetary and credit system…”

So: why isn’t this proposal considered by Harvard’s economists, Congress, and leading Americans known to you today?

Consider the possible answer of oligarchic control of American “leadership” for generations as we consider the next piece of revealing evidence: Thomas Edison and Henry Ford understood the mechanics of money, and went on a media tour together to explain this transformative education.

Thomas Edison’s 1921 media tour with Henry Ford included traveling to the site of a hydroelectric dam to explain to the public through the media the economic breakthrough to build the dam apart from the parasitic and captured finance we still have today that Simon Johnson and Elizabeth Warren so strongly describe. Edison explained fully to the New York Times reporter how public works can and should be funded by government directly creating and paying for the project. This is less than half the cost of the continuing method of government borrowing money. Edison concluded the interview by explaining that ideas for the public good that challenged corporate oligarchs have always been defeated by the oligarch’s purchased propaganda campaigns:

“Certainly there is a complete set of misleading slogans kept on hand for just such outbreaks of common sense among the people. The people are so ignorant of what they think are the intricacies of the money system that they are easily impressed by big words. There would be new shrieks of ‘fiat money,’ and ‘paper money’ and ‘green-backism,’ and all the rest of it – the same old cries with which the people have been shouted down from the beginning.

But maybe we have passed beyond the time when the thoughtful 2 per cent – you know, I gather from my questionnaire that only 2 per cent of the people think,” and Mr. Edison smiled broadly. “Maybe they can’t shout down American thinkers any longer. The only dynamite that works in this country is the dynamite of a sound idea. I think we are getting a sound idea on the money question. The people have an instinct which tells them that something is wrong, and that the wrong somehow centers in money. They have an instinct, also, which tells them when a proposal is made in their interests or against them.”

In conclusion of this section of literal trillion dollar importance, there is a human face to our current economic condition calling for Revolution.

We live in a present political/economic “leadership” environment that allows a million children to die from preventable poverty every month. These million human beings die every month, year after year, despite the investment to save their lives is less than 1% of our income (the annual investment is ~$100 billion a year for about a ten-year project to end poverty forever). In addition, every nation that has ended poverty has also reduced their population growth rates to sustainable levels. This human cost is remarkably under-reported compared with the death toll of 3,000 innocent lives on the one day of 9/11 (allegedly the reason for US wars – to stop such innocent loss of future lives).

Preventable poverty kills 30,000 every day, ten times the deaths on 9/11, for a total of over 100 million innocent human beings killed since 9/11. And please remember the 45,000 dead Americans every year and our combined annual loss of $100 billion to $300 billion because US political “leadership” chooses cartel profits over physician-managed health care.

According to Jeffrey Sachs, when polled, the American public think we give 25% of our government budget to help the poorest of the poor, are willing to give 10%, and would be outraged to understand the actual figure we give is less than one-sixth of one percent of our income. American media and political leadership allow this disinformation to continue at the cost of 30,000 lives every day while Congress passed HR 4173 to guarantee future so-called bailouts for banks at $4 trillion dollars without hearings.

In review, this section has presented data and expert testimony that the US “modern” economy is still a Robber Baron-era oligarchy. Logically, only one of the following two conclusions seems to be possible:

1. Either people like Jeffrey Sachs, Thomas Edison, 86% of academic economists in the 1930s, and others of our brightest historical American minds beginning with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were too stupid to understand that corporate bankers creating a national debt supply rather than a money supply is best for Americans, and best without consideration or ethical refutation of their competing and wrong ideas. Things like the banking bailout should be done without Congressional hearings and passed immediately when banking insiders say so because they’re experts. And just because what you’re reading proved government and corporate media Orwellian war lies, those two groups wouldn’t collude with corporate bank and finance cartels to parasitize millions, billions and trillions of dollars because they respect law and honesty with money. Oh, and Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Paul Grayson and all the third parties are extremists with impractical ideas of monetary reform that don’t deserve explanation. Even though Pew Research reports 92% of Americans oppose our current economic management, we don’t need civic education on alternative models. Or…

2. The US “modern” economy really is an oligarchy that suppresses competing ideas and parasitically costs Americans trillions of dollars every year. Without Revolution, this parasitic cost will continue with current trends indicating the costs will increase.

“When our Federal Government, that has the exclusive power to create money, creates that money and then goes into the open market and borrows it and pays interest for the use of its own money, it occurs to me that that is going too far. I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money… The Constitution of the United States does not give the banks the power to create money. The Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to create money, but now, under our system, we will sell bonds to commercial banks and obtain credit from those banks. I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with this Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue. I make that statement after years of study.”

- Wright Patman, Representative in the U.S. Congress from 1929 to his death on March 7, 1976, and Chair of the House Committee on Banking and Currency for 40 years. For 20 of those years, he introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act of 1913. This quote is from excerpts of September 29, 1941, as reported in the Congressional Record of the House of Representatives (pages 7582-7583).

Revolution unleashes trillions of our dollars. Revolution exposes and ends what history will frame as the end of “Robber Baron” corporate/political cartels. Revolution enters America into a golden age unimaginable in the present.

And fortunately, the structural solutions are obvious, simple, and have been understood and advocated by leading American minds for literally centuries. Even if the economic solutions proposed beginning with Benjamin Franklin are too complex for you to invest your time to understand, the case for Revolution should be obvious by the suppression of these competing ideas that either are worthy of consideration or should have been professionally refuted (“refutation” is distinct from denial or propaganda as Thomas Edison explained).

If you want more economic data that piles-on additional proof of an oligarchy collusion between corporate cartels and owned regulators looting our economy, I recommend the brilliant comprehensive explanation and documentation of David DeGraw in his no-holds-barred paper, “Time for law-abiding American citizens to stop paying taxes, start a new government?”

And if you’re ready to take the rational next step to embrace the possibility of economics that fully utilizes technology, watch Zeitgeist Addendum and/or Zeitgeist: Moving Forward. This planetary breakthrough potential is explained at The Venus Project.

“Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans to gain or maintain power… What is more, those who choose not to empathize may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it through our own apathy… If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” – J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement, June 5, 2008

 

How an economics teacher presents Occupy’s economic argument, victory was originally published on Washington's Blog

SOPA, PIPA, ACTA … What’s Next?

We just beat back SOPA and PIPA with the web blackout.

Now everyone is talking about ACTA. But – because ACTA is complicated, and is just starting to receive coverage – most are not sure exactly what ACTA really is, or why we should be concerned about it.

We’ll give you an executive summary of what you need to know.

Instead of giving you the specifics about what’s actually in the bill (we provide links at the end for those who want to know), we’ll explain why the procedure used is a recipe for disaster.

Why are we stressing procedure over substance?

Because, as awful as ACTA is, there are other horrible bills such as the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement waiting in the wings … which may be even worse than ACTA.

Unless we understand the rotten, anti-democratic process which is causing these bad bills to be introduced, we will be caught off-guard by the introduction of one draconian bill after another … and we will lose the fight for Internet freedom.

(The problem is that powerful men are making laws in secret to protect their interests.)

Hollywood Tries to Ram U.S. IP Policies Down the Throat of Europe

On the most superficial level, ACTA is an attempt to ram American intellectual property policies down Europe’s throat.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Eva Galperin told me:

The United States will continue to use multi-national treaties negotiated in secret without the consultation of civil society or other key stakeholders as a way of ramming US IP policy down the throats of other countries.

But this is a superficial analysis. Specifically, it is also an attempt to ram Hollywood’s interests down the throats of the American people … and Congress.

A Handful of Powerful Men Are Trying to Railroad Democracy and the Constitution to Protect Their Interests

The fastest way to understand ACTA is to look at the way in which its backers have tried to trample the normal democratic processes in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere in order to railroad it through.

As an international treaty, ACTA is supposed to be ratified by the American Senate and other appropriate government legislatures. But this is not at all what has happened.

Instead, ACTA has been negotiated for years in secret, without disclosing its contents – let alone seeking approval from – Congress or other legislatures.

In the United States, for example, President Bush and President Obama hid ACTA negotiations under the veil of “National Security”, thus keeping it away from prying eyes … including Congress.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa says that ACTA is more dangerous than SOPA:

As a member of Congress, it’s more dangerous than SOPA. It’s not coming to me for a vote. It purports that it does not change existing laws. But once implemented, it creates a whole new enforcement system and will virtually tie the hands of Congress to undo it.

Democratic Senator Wyden has argued for years – in letters to USTR ambassador Ron Kirk, President Obama, and the administration’s top international law expert Harold Koh. – that adoption of ACTA is unconstitutional unless without Senate approval.

For example, Wyden wrote last October:

Regardless of whether the agreement requires changes in U.S. law, the executive branch lacks constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congress’ authority, absent congressional approval.

The Member of the European Parliament who was appointed to be the rapporteur for ACTA in the European Parliament (Kader Arif) quit last week in protest. Arif said:

I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.

As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands.”

Everyone knows the ACTA agreement is problematic, whether it is its impact on civil liberties, the way it makes Internet access providers liable, its consequences on generic drugs manufacturing, or how little protection it gives to our geographical indications.

This agreement might have major consequences on citizens’ lives, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. That is why today, as I release this report for which I was in charge, I want to send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation. I will not take part in this masquerade.

As Harvard professors Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig wrote in the Washington Post in March 2010:

The much-criticized cloak of secrecy that has surrounded the Obama administration’s negotiation of the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was broken Wednesday. Theleaked draft of ACTA belies the U.S. trade representative’s assertions that the agreement would not alter U.S. intellectual property law. And it raises the stakes on the constitutionally dubious method by which the administration proposes to make the agreement binding on the United States.

***

Normal constitutional procedures would require the administration to submit the final text of the agreement for Senate approval as a treaty or to Congress as a “congressional-executive” agreement. But the Obama administration has suggested it will adopt the pact as a “sole executive agreement” that requires only the president’s approval.

Such an assertion of unilateral executive power is usually reserved for insignificant matters. It has sometimes been employed in more important contexts, such as when Jimmy Carter ended the Iran hostage crisis and when Franklin Roosevelt recognized and settled expropriation claims with the Soviet Union.

***

The president has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, and there is no long historical practice of making sole executive agreements in this area. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.

***

When the George W. Bush administration suggested it might reach a deal with Russia on nuclear arms reduction by sole executive agreement, then-Sen. Joe Biden wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell insisting that the Constitution required Senate consent and implicitly threatening inter-branch retaliation if it was not given.The Bush administration complied.

Congress should follow Biden’s lead. If the president succeeds in expanding his power of sole executive agreement here, he will have established a precedent to bypass Congress on other international matters related to trade, intellectual property and communications policy.

***

Congress should resist this attempt to evade the checks established by our Framers.

Over 75 law professors – some of them quite prominent – wrote a letter to President Obama in October 2010 stating:

ACTA’s negotiation has been conducted behind closed doors, subject to intense but needless secrecy, with the public shut out and a small group of special interests very much involved. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) has been involved in negotiations relating to ACTA for several years, and there have been drafts of portions of the agreement circulating among the negotiators since the start of negotiations. Despite that, the first official release of a draft text took place only in April, 2010. And following that release the USTR has not held a single public on-the-record meeting to invite comments on the text. Worse, in every subsequent meeting of the negotiating parties, the U.S. has blocked the public release of updated text.

***

This degree of secrecy is unacceptable, unwise…. Rather than seeking meaningful public input from the outset, your Administration has allowed the bulk of the public debate to be based upon, at best, hearsay and speculation. Yet, ACTA is a trade agreement setting out a range of new international rules governing intellectual property; as the G-8 called it, a “new international framework.” It is not (the claims of the USTR notwithstanding) related in any way to any standard definition of “national security” or any other interest of the United States similarly pressing or sensitive. The Administration’s determination to hide ACTA from the public creates the impression that ACTA is precisely the kind of backroom special interest deal – undertaken in this case on behalf of a narrow group of U.S. content producers, and without meaningful input from the American public – that you have so often publicly opposed.

Second, the Administration has stated that ACTA will be negotiated and implemented not as a treaty, but as a sole executive agreement. We believe that this course may be unlawful, and it is certainly unwise.

Now that a near-final version of the ACTA text has been released, it is clear that ACTA would usurp congressional authority over intellectual property policy in a number of ways. Some of ACTA’s provisions fail to explicitly incorporate current congressional policy, particularly in the areas of damages and injunctions.[1] Other sections lock in substantive law that may not be well-adapted to the present context, much less the future.[2] And in other areas, the agreement may complicate legislative efforts to solve widely recognized policy dilemmas, including in the area of orphan works, patent reform, secondary copyright liability and the creation of incentives for innovation in areas where the patent system may not be adequate.[3] The agreement is also likely to affect courts’ interpretation of U.S. law.[4]

The use of a sole executive agreement for ACTA appears unconstitutional.[5] The President may only make sole executive agreements that are within his independent constitutional authority.[6] The President has no independent constitutional authority over intellectual property or communications policy, the core subjects of ACTA. To the contrary, the Constitution gives primary authority over these matters to Congress, which is charged with making laws that regulate foreign commerce and intellectual property.[7] ACTA should not be pursued further without congressional oversight and a meaningful opportunity for public debate.

The USTR has insisted that ACTA’s provisions are merely procedural and only about enforcing existing rights. These assertions are simply false. Nearly 100 international intellectual property experts from six continents gathered in Washington, DC in June, 2010 to analyze the potential public interest impacts of the officially released text. Those experts – joined by over 650 other experts and organizations – found that “the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators.”

***

Academics and other neutral intellectual property experts have not had time to sufficiently analyze the current text and are unlikely to do so as long as there is no open public forum to submit such analysis in a meaningful process.

***

Finally, we are concerned that the purpose that animates ACTA is being deliberately misrepresented to the American people. The treaty is named the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”. But it has little to do with counterfeiting or controlling the international trade in counterfeit goods.

***

Our conclusion is simple: Any agreement of this scope and consequence must be based on a broad and meaningful consultative process, in public, on the record and with open on-going access to proposed negotiating text and must reflect a full range of public interest concerns. For the reasons detailed above, the ACTA negotiations fail to meet these standards.

Indeed, just as most copyright lawyers actually oppose SOPA and PIPA, the secrecy and dishonest end-run which has characterized the ACTA process mean that the main U.S. and international intellectual property organizations have had no input into the drafting of ACTA.

We Can Still Stop It

While ACTA has already been signed by dozens of countries, it will not go into effect unless the European Union parliament ratifies it in a couple of months.

We can still stop it. And see this and this.

* Note: Many others have given substantive critiques of ACTA. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

ACTA: “Would Usurp Congressional Authority”, “Threatens Numerous Public Interests”, a “Backroom Special Interest Deal”, a “Masquerade” was originally published on Washington's Blog

Human beings with intellectual integrity and moral courage see, speak, and act for humanity’s Great Awakening: critical mass of the 99% recognizing “emperor has no clothes” facts that the “1%” are War Criminals who murder by the millions, corporate cartels that collude by the billions and banksters who loot by the trillions, and purchased corporate media that constantly lie to hide these crimes.

The 1%’s Wars of Aggression has been a principal factor of US history since President Polk blatantly violated a treaty with Mexico to steal 40% of their land in 1846 (despite “Honest Abe” Lincoln’s brilliant speech to the House of Representatives to explain and document the crime).

The artistic power of this 8-minute video communicates humanity’s current position, and what is possible with out awakening.

An obvious response to being awakened is to speak and act to arrest the 1% to remove them from any power to cause more harm.

This breakthrough of awakening by the 99% leads to peace, immediately ending the most pressing problems of poverty, and creating an inspirational future of breakthroughs (The Venus Project and wanttoknow.info for examples of what’s possible).

The Great Awakening: Humanity’s “emperor has no clothes” breakthrough was originally published on Washington's Blog

New Violence and Press Intimidation

Kevin Gosztola notes:

Oakland police in riot gear fired smoke, tear gas, flash bang grenades and rubber bullets at Occupy Oakland protesters trying to take a vacant building this afternoon.

Here is footage:

As usual at Occupy protests, reporters were harassed. Indeed – because of the intentional harassment of reporters at Occupy protests – the U.S. has fallen to 47th in global press freedom rankings.

For twitter updates – which include protesters taking over city Hall and police brutality – see this twitter feed and these livestreams:

January 28th: Oakland Police Fire Tear Gas, Flash Bang Grenades and Rubber Bullets at Occupy Oakland Protesters was originally published on Washington's Blog

Jeb Bush

Republicans face a drawn-out nomination fight shredding the party’s chances against a vulnerable President Obama and Democratic under-ticket. To the rescue last week came former Alabama Democratic Congressman Artur Davis, who urges Republicans to draft former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as nominee.

Republicans are contending under new rules this year that may prevent any from first-ballot victory when delegates assemble Aug. 27 for the national convention. Imagine if delegates return to the “brokered convention” tradition whereby they vote on the first ballot for primary and caucus winners, and do whatever they want on the next ballots.

Two developments last week suggest that Bush, portrayed above, is well-positioned to unite the party as its convenes in Tampa in his home state. If so his selection would undermine Obama opposition research on current candidates and potentially unite Republicans for November:

Davis, Alabama’s most prominent Democrat until he lost his race for governor in 2010, published Jan. 24 in the National Review Online, “Draft Jeb Bush: A charismatic and accomplished governor can save the Republican Party.” He wrote:

Artur Davis

Enter the last dream date that Republicans may have at their disposal. His name is Jeb Bush, and this time, there is a feasibility around the idea that seemed unthinkable months ago. To be sure, the Jeb scenario will need more instability in order to flourish.

The likeliest path involves Gingrich’s momentum carrying him through Florida; the February races in Arizona and Michigan dividing between Romney and Gingrich; Romney rebounding in March in moderate-leaning Midwestern states such as Illinois and Wisconsin; Gingrich winning easily in the Deep South on Super Tuesday and Texas in early April, with Romney proving equally strong in New York and the rest of the Atlantic coastline, while states like Ohio and Indiana fail to resolve the split.

Second, Bush published an OpEd the next day in the Washington Post, “Four ways Republicans can win Hispanics back.” Bush’s column fostered the image as a sage rather above current battles. Neither he nor his brother have endorsed a contender.

The Bush bio identified him as co-chair of the Hispanic Leadership Network Conference, suggesting (like the Davis column) an appeal to minorities. The Hispanic Network is a center-right affiliate of the American Action Network. The latter’s GOP leaders include former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, financier Frederic Malek and former Bush I White House Counsel Boyden Gray, whose connections include Freedom Works, which funds Tea Party activities.

The Davis and Bush columns last paved the way for Bush to tell CNN’s John King Jan. 26, “I don’t think a party can aspire to be the majority party if it’s the old white guy party.” The full interview video and transcript are here.

Maybe this is all just coincidence or luck. But smart players, whether in politics, sports or any other gamble, put themselves in a position to benefit from breaks that come their way.

Here are reasons why conventional wisdom could change on whether a Jeb Bush nomination this summer might be too close to his older brother George’s terms from 2001-2009.

– Newt Gingrich’s nasty back-and-forth with Mitt Romney is likely to continue, especially since Romney started the toughest invective with Super PAC ads that badly hurt Gingrich in Iowa.

– Gingrich may have irreparably harmed Romney by forcing disclosure of his tax returns and otherwise transforming his image. Washington Post Columnist Dana Milbank, for example, reported last week, “Gingrich is Obama’s best surrogate.”

– But even some Republicans perceive Gingrich as too risky to be nominee. Thus, Post Chief Correspondent Dan Balz published “Neither Romney nor Gingrich give GOP voters confidence of a White House win” and “The GOP empire strikes back at Gingrich.”

– The Citizens United decision and Super PACs make it easier for candidates to go negative in a big way with more ability to deny personal involvement than in the past.

At least as important as any of this, Republicans changed their nominating rules this year in ways that can extend the battle far longer than in the past. The much-touted January contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida provide relatively few delegates, in part because GOP leaders reduced Florida’s normal delegate totals in view of its early start date. New rules divide up later contests primarily on a proportional basis, enabling hopeful losers to stay in the race.

The grudge-match between Romney and Gingrich makes reconciliation there difficult. And the niche platforms of Ron Paul and Rick Santorum provide strong incentive for each of them and their supporters to extend their campaigns all the way to the convention, especially the better-financed Paul. Paul, who is poised to corral delegates in caucus states, could well have the ability to prevent a first-ballot victory in Tampa by anyone else, regardless of whether Santorum continues.

More generally, pollster Stuart Rothenberg connected dots by describing the fear among Republican leaders of a colossal missed opportunity next November: “Will GOP Risk Goldwater II with Newt Gingrich in 2012?”

If a Draft Bush scenario I’ve sketched is an actual possibility why isn’t it being aired more prominently now?

It’s hardly in the interests of the key players to describe their plans and options, except in a low-key way to a loyal audience like the National Review’s. Campaigns, pundit and many others are invested in letting the campaigns play out. Until recently, it looked like Romney would win easily. Other candidates are enhancing their stature, causes and personal opportunities (whether books or potential for leadership positions in or out of government) with almost every passing day. Campaign operatives, pollsters, political reporters, and broadcast networks make their livings on campaigns, not in killing enthusiasm.

The public would feel cheated if confidence waned that votes and all of the excitement really matter. Jeb Bush and his advisers would know this. So, Bush (or any other dark horse) must appear to be only a reluctant, last-minute choice drafted into service first by a grateful Republican Party and then in November by the nation.

To be sure, the best I can do is assemble the evidence in plain sight and confirm the logic with trusted sources who must remain behind the scenes. The key players have scant interest in describing all of their options and intrigues on camera or otherwise.

For example, Alabama Democrats widely suspected Davis, above, in 2010 of abandoning their core concerns in a fruitless bid to ingratiate himself with the state’s business and Republican powers, as I described for the Huffington Post in, “Why Alabama Democrats Rejected Centrist Artur Davis, Obama’s Pal.” Even during the campaign, neither Davis nor his campaign spokesman wanted to talk about such concerns. As a result, he experienced a humiliating defeat in his party’s gubernatorial primary that drove him from politics with a Nixon-like denunciation of his critics and voters. Thus his enthusiasm is entirely logical for a Jeb Bush candidacy under the auspices of new friends at the National Review.

Jeb Bush, left, former President George H.W. Bush and President Obama

You can observe a lot just by watching, as Yogi Berra used to say. But sometimes that’s not enough.

Jeb and former President George H.W. Bush visited the White House the evening of Jan. 27, as portrayed above. We don’t know what they discussed with President Obama, but can suspect it wasn’t about carpet and drape sizes needed at the White House next January for a new era for the Bush Dynasty. Measures, as best as possible under the circumstances, seem already to be underway.

Fearful GOPers, Failed Dem Prepare for Jeb Bush Draft was originally published on Washington's Blog

Congressman Oscar Callaway lost his Congressional election for opposing US entry into WW 1. Before he left office, he demanded investigation into JP Morgan & Co for purchasing control over America’s leading 25 newspapers in order to propagandize US public opinion in favor of his corporate and banking interests, including profits from US participation in the war. Mr. Callaway alleged he had the evidence to prove Morgan associates were working as editors to select and edit articles, with the press receiving monthly payments for their allegiance to Morgan.

One of the leading papers, The New York Times, printed the story of Congressman Callaway’s call for investigation from Washington, D.C., but the editor chose a curious obfuscating headline:

FOR PRESS INVESTIGATION

Moore Asks Inquiry Into Charges

on Preparedness Campaign.

The US eventually followed “opinion leaders” into the war, despite no national security risk from the sinking of a British ship (Lusitania) carrying over four million rounds of ammunition to kill Germans, and Germany’s offer to Mexico to attack the US with an empty promise of German help if, and only if, the US declared war on Germany first (Zimmermann telegram; Mexico rejected the offer immediately as a military impossibility and a ploy for Americans to busy themselves killing Mexicans instead of Germans). The US then imprisoned people who questioned the war, including US candidates for President.

Both my grandfathers risked their lives in the American Expeditionary Force, as did your relatives, in a war media-fed to the public with lies of commission and omission.

Congressman Callaway joined Congressman Abraham Lincoln in being deposed from Congress for challenging lying war rhetoric and being branded as “unpatriotic.”

I found no follow-up report of Mr. Callaway’s request for investigation. However, we have abundant evidence that US corporate media is controlled for propaganda in our world of the present to cover-up the US’ history of unlawful wars. Consider this as one example:

The Church Senate Committee hearings had the cooperation of CIA Director William Colby’s testimony that over 400 CIA operatives were controlling US corporate media reporting on specific issues of national interest in what they called Operation Mockingbird. This stunning testimony was then confirmed by Pulitzer Prize reporter Carl Bernstein’s research and reporting. Of course, corporate media refused to publish Bernstein’s article and it became the cover-story for Rolling Stone. 

1917: J.P. Morgan bought US corporate media to be 1%’s lying sacks of spin? was originally published on Washington's Blog