Democracy for New Hampshire - Corporations

Black Box Voting on why the DOJ decision on ES&S-Diebold merger won't stop evoting industry problems

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:30:33 -0500

Here's a quick analysis of the possible impact of the USDOJ antitrust decision:

The acquisition by ES&S of Diebold's Premier Election Solutions has been (supposedly) nixed by the US Department of Justice on antitrust grounds.

However, the DOJ erred by not acting promptly to protect the Premier Elections operation from being gutted by ES&S.

The Dept. of Justice claims that the deal flew under the radar so they couldn't stop the pillaging of Premier in time. That's not the case. The records will show that the Dept. of Justice had received -- and acknowledged -- formal complaints in time to put a protective halt on the mass firings of Premier employees.

HERE'S WHY THIS ERROR IS SO SIGNIFICANT:

The USDOJ failed to act to protect the assets of Diebold's Premier Elections unit, resulting in the problem that they now cannot mandate full divestiture of Premier by ES&S, and instead have ordered ES&S to remove itself from Premier's current locations only partially -- or perhaps, not at all.

Icelanders reject bank bailout scheme (unlike US citizens, Icelanders had a vote on it!)

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 07:54:13 -0500

First Iceland, then the World

Written by Michael Collins

SOURCE: DailyCensored.com

Michael Collins
The public is angry. Why should the public pay for the bankers mistakes. Iceland blogger Halldor Sigurdsson

Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn’t fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland’s 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each.

Iceland’s national referendum was the first opportunity for the people of any nation to vote directly on who pays when the financial elite fail.

As citizens voted, Iceland’s Prime Minister was dismissing the importance of the vote and promising to negotiate a payment scheme obligating citizen subsidies for bad debt created by Iceland’s beyond-bad bankers.

SHAHEEN: WELLPOINT’S NEW HAMPSHIRE RATE HIKES ARE WHY WE NEED REFORM NOW

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:38:25 -0500

SOURCE:Senator Jeanne Shaheen

Press Release:

February 24, 2010
(Washington, D.C.)-U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen today called on WellPoint CEO Angela Braly to explain the increase in New Hampshire health insurance rates despite the company's substantial profits. According to a report released today by the Center for American Progress, WellPoint, under the banner of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, intends to increase individual insurance rates in New Hampshire by 12 percent to 13 percent and has already increased premiums in the small group market by 17 percent. Meanwhile, the company posted a 700 percent increase in profits in the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to the same time period the previous year.

The Wall Street Con

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 07:40:09 -0500

SOURCE:Rollingstone

Wall Street's Bailout Hustle
Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren't just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy - they're re-creating the conditions for another crash

MATT TAIBBI

Posted Feb 17, 2010 5:57 AM

Read all about the seven cons. Confidence games are perpetrated by people who take advantage of a person's trust and deprive him of his goods. They are difficult to prosecute in the law because the victim appears to have been a willing participant.

What's to be done? We the people have to take control of our money and cut out the middlemen.

Deprivation under cover of law.

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:44:18 -0500

Deprivation of rights under color of law is a well-recognized, if not frequently prosecuted crime. Indeed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a comprehensive explanation and some interesting statistical data, including a list of the most common categories in which these crimes occur:

• excessive force;
• sexual assaults;
• false arrest and fabrication of evidence;
• deprivation of property; and
• failure to keep from harm.

However, that's not the topic I want to address today. I want to focus on what I call "deprivation of rights under cover of law." But, first it seems important to consider what "deprivation" means.

Ah! Responsibility. VISA Calling

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:10:26 -0500

VISA, the credit card company has a new self-promotional campaign on the net, in print and on TV. Being technically quite advanced, the verbiage on the web site explaining what's up can't just be copied and pasted. So, please bear with the transcription, in case I err.

On second thought, there's probably too much verbiage to go above the fold, so let me just point out that my attention was first caught by the back cover of National Journal (Senator-elect Scott Brown is on the front) where some school teacher in Mecca, California is promoting "financial responsibility" by pointing to greenbacks pinned up on the wall. More apt than the engineers of this campaign probably intended.

What they intended seems pretty well encapsulated in the Introduction of the Currency of Progress Campaign:

Visa is celebrating how the power of digital currency is transforming lives with a new advertising campaign--Currency of Progress.

The Obama brand: Feeling good while they rob you blind?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:02:44 -0500

SOURCE: Alternet.org

BY Chris Hedges

The Obama Brand: Feel Good While Overlords Loot the Treasury and Launch Imperial Wars | Brand Obama makes us hopeful. We like our president and we believe he's like us. But we're being duped into doing a lot of things that are not in our interest.

January 25, 2010

Editor's Note: The following is an adapted excerpt from Chris Hedges' book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009) that first appeared in Tikkun magazine.

Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, armies of corporate lobbyists grease the palms of our elected officials, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia, and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, this product is duping us into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.

The Many Faces of Shafmaster LLC

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 07:35:22 -0500

In a previous diary I called attention to the fact that our (the American people's) generosity, dispensed via low interest loans from the Commerce Department's Fisheries Program, had been repaid by the Shafmaster enterprises by polluting the waters of Great Bay. That is, to recap, Jonathan S. Shafmaster, either in his own name or as Lordco Pier Associates, had collected, over a period of six years, at least nine million dollars in low interest loans from the U.S. Department of Commerce and yet couldn't manage to keep from fouling the Bay.

Hodes: TARP was a flop

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:58:54 -0500

SOURCE: USA Today

Opposing view: TARP was a flop

Target relief to Main Street families and businesses, not big banks.

By Paul Hodes

A year ago, as our nation stood on the brink of economic collapse, Congress decided that to stabilize our financial system, we should spend $700 billion to bail out Wall Street banks. I opposed this move. Some now claim that since our banking system averted collapse, the Troubled Asset Relief Program — TARP — must have been the right approach. Unfortunately, the results show the opposite.

When America spends taxpayer money, we need to make sure it is being spent right. But after sending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street with little accountability or oversight, we still haven't seen an increase in lending, we still face a massive foreclosure crisis and no one can say exactly where all the money went.

End of an Era

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:05:07 -0500

SOURCE:New York Times

C.I.A. Said to End Blackwater Contract
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 11, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- CIA Director Leon Panetta has canceled a contract with the former Blackwater security firm that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan.

Panetta canceled the contract earlier this year and the work is being shifted to government personnel, a person familiar with the contract said Friday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.

The priorities of a failed state: War and banksters over healthcare and homes

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:29:29 -0500

In a failed state, the government’s priorities are totally separate from those of the people. The US can’t afford health care or a bailout for jobless homeowners, but it can afford a pointless war and multi-million dollar bonuses for banksters who wrecked the economy.

SOURCE: Counterpunch.com

The Twin Frauds of Obama

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Goldman Sachs senior executives are arming themselves with New York gun permits, according to Alice Schroeder on Bloomberg.com. The banksters “are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.”

One can understand why the banksters are worried. The company, now known as Gold Sacks, has a large responsibility for the financial crisis and the fraudulent “securities” that wrecked the world economy and Americans’ pensions. A former Gold Sachs CEO had control of the US Treasury during the Bush regime from which he diverted $750 billion to bail out the banks, thus supplying them with free capital. Gold Sachs made $27,000 million during the first three quarters of 2009 and is paying out massive bonuses, leaving the busted taxpayers with the debt and interest charges.

The Prince of Darkness: Blackwater CEO links himself to CIA

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:51:54 -0500

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Citizens United, corporate personhood and the Constitution

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:18:48 -0500

SOURCE: Constitutional Accountability Center

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, expected any day now, Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) has continued to build on the scholarly research discussed in our brief filed with the Court: whether corporations have the same rights as individuals, particularly when it comes to influencing electoral politics in this country.

The result of this work is this discussion draft, tentatively titled “A Capitalist Joker”: Corporations, Corporate Personhood, and the Constitution, which we intend to release more formally in January as the latest installment in our Text & History Narrative Series. The text of our Constitution never mentions corporations and, as our narrative explains, this was deliberate: the framers wrote and the American people ratified the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the three Civil War amendments — the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth — to secure the inalienable rights of “We the People” — living human beings. Governments create corporations and give them special privileges to fuel economic growth, but with these special privileges come greater government oversight. Indeed, in the early 20th Century, the American people added the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the Constitution, at least in part, to ensure greater governmental control over corporations and less corporate influence over our democracy.

Blackwater: Murderous Crusaders for Christ

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:39:57 -0500

This is what happens when you privatize your government

Countdown to Change Rally to Thank Rep Shea-Porterr for her support.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:25:38 -0500

*** Rally Begins 12 Noon at 104 Washington Street***
Representative Carol Shea-Porter’s Office
Thursday, November 12

Rally To Thank Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Urge her to Keep Fighting for Real Health Care Reform

Representative Shea-Porter Has Been A Staunch Supporter of Health Care Reform With A Strong Public Option; Local Residents Commit to Fight Alongside Her

On Thursday, November 12th local residents will gather outside of Representative Shea-Porter’s office to thank her for standing with NH families, and against the insurance industry, by voting for health care reform with a public option in the recent House vote, and to encourage her to keep fighting for the health care reform and NH residents needs. Representative Carol Shea-Porter has been an unwavering supporter of health care reform with a strong public option, a key component of reform that will help reduce costs and expand access to health care for millions of Americans.

Rally participants will also praise Senator Shaheen and urge her to keep fighting for health care reform with a public option as the Senate takes action on health care reform legislation in the coming weeks.