SOURCE: Slate.com

The Supreme Court Gets Ready To Turn on the Corporate Fundraising Spigot....The case about the anti-Hillary ad got pushed back till September—and got bigger.

By Richard L. Hasen Posted Monday, June 29, 2009, at 3:02 PM ET

If Republicans were wondering how their 2012 presidential candidate is going to compete against President Obama's $600 million fundraising juggernaut, the Supreme Court seems poised to provide an answer: unlimited corporate spending supporting the Republican candidate, or attacking Obama.

In a Supreme Court term that has had its share of surprises, the court saved one of the biggest for last. Rather than publish an opinion at the end of the term as expected in an obscure campaign finance case, Citizens United v. FEC, the court issued a rare order for reargument of the case in September (before the usual start of the term). At that point, the court will consider whether to overrule its two previous decisions that in 1990 and 2003 upheld limits on corporate spending in federal elections.

SOURCE: - Greg Palast - http://www.gregpalast.com -

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM, Posted By Greg Palast On June 4, 2009 @ 2:34 am

Screw the autoworkers. They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by  Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6  billion.

SOURCE: ProPublica.org

ProPublica Images/Krista Kjellman

Yesterday, the Treasury Department released new rules on how much banks that received TARP money can pay their executives. Among the rules is one that prohibits golden parachutes – defined as any payment to a departing exec simply because the exec is leaving. But an examination of public filings shows that a number of executives at banks that received TARP funds have received large payments just for resigning. It’s unclear if the new rules will apply retroactively. CLICK FOR PROPUBLICA'S FULL LISTING OF EACH HIGH ROLLER THEFT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

I, like many others, believed that changing the Congressional majority in 2006 was going to bring about some of the needed changes; the pursuit of accountability being one. We were proven wrong. In 2008, many genuinely bought in to the promise of change, and thus far, they've been let down.

SOURCE: OpEdNews

May 4, 2009

In Congress We Trust... Not

By Sibel Edmonds

I have been known to quote long-dead men in my past writings. Whether eloquently expressed thoughts by our founding fathers, or those artfully expressed by ancient Greek thinkers, these quotes have always done a better job starting or ending my thoughts - that tend to be expressed in long winding sentences. For this piece I am going to break with tradition and start with an appropriate quote from a living current senator, John Kerry:    "It's a sad day when you have members of Congress who are literally criminals go undisciplined by their colleagues. No wonder people look at Washington and know this city is broken."

In America today, nearly 90% of the nation's voters have their voting rights violated in just about every single election: local, state, and federal.

To quote the popular bumper sticker: "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."

Consider the grassroots civil rights struggles that forged meaningful voting rights reforms in our nation's history:

• In 1868, with Blacks representing 14% of the American population, the 15th Amendment prohibited voting rights discrimination "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude".
• In 1920, with women representing 49.75% of the voting age population, the 19th amendment prohibited voting rights discrimination "on account of sex".
• In 1965, with minorities representing 12 % of the American population, the Voting Rights Act reinforced the 14th and 15th amendments, prohibiting the use of various previously legal strategies that prevented Blacks and other non-white Americans from exercising their right to vote.

In each of these instances civil rights activists spoke the language of liberty, self governance, and the right of every citizen to vote in free and fair and open public elections.

We rose up to enforce the civil rights for 11%, 14%, and 50% of our people. So where is the movement to protect 90%?

Written by Michael Collins

Friday, 01 May 2009

The Senate Millionaires turned down even limited mortage assistance to those facing foreclosure.  The magic Democratic majority in the Senate could produce only 45 Yea votes while 51 voted Nay.  Michael Collins goes behind the scenes of another rigged defeat or the interest of the citizen brought to you by inept leaders.

May 1, 2009 – Washington, DC (electionfraudnews.com) – The United States Senate took a swipe at the spirit of May Day in a spectacular show of callous indifference when it voted down a bill to provide limited assistance to citizens at risk for losing their homes.  The final vote was 45 in favor, 51 opposed to Senator Richard Durbin's (D-IL) mortgage assistance bill.  The original version of the bill covered some but not all of those requiring assistance.  The final version was even more restricted.  It applied to only homeowners currently in foreclosure as a result of actions prior to the start of 2009.

by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica - April 18, 2009

The drum beat continues. Two banks failed last night.

American Sterling Bank of Sugar Creek, Missouri was the first to be announced by the FDIC. As a savings and loan, the Office of Thrift Supervision was American Sterling’s primary regulator.

Actually, the real authors, employed by our old friend, the Dewey Square Group, gave themselves away. Here's how the Eagle Tribune sets up the report.

The Big Takeover

The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

MATT TAIBBIPosted Mar 19, 2009 12:49 PM

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

Senate bill designed to beef up FDA oversight, enhance food safety

By Lisa Stein in 60-Second Science Blog

Coming on the heels of a sweeping salmonella scare, a bipartisan group of senators yesterday introduced legislation designed to give the feds the financial and regulatory muscle they need to protect the nation's food supply.

SOURCE: OpEd News

February 13, 2009

Judd Gregg and his Abramoff problem

By Dengre

We were lucky.

A few weeks ago on a Friday, Todd Boulanger pled guilty for his role in the ongoing Abramoff corruption scandal. He was a key member of Team Abramoff and before that he worked for former NH Senator Bob Smith (one of Jack’s go-to Senators).  Boulanger’s plea identified a Legislative Director for a US Senator as "Staffer F" and laid out the many favors Team Abramoff did for this staffer and some of the deeds done in return.

On January 21 you have the opportunity to attend a public hearing on legislation to rid NH of the scourge of corporate controlled elections. Below is some information about the issue of open source code voting equipment. Open source voting, is naturally opposed by the corporate fraudsters currently controlling America's elections. With the blessing, I might add, of our public officials, such as the NH Department of State and Legislature, which have both granted unconditional approval - providing virtually no public oversight - to the corporate (alleged) fraudster Diebold and its affiliate LHS Associates (whose VP is a convicted drug trafficker) to run NH's elections.

SOURCE: Procon.org

Should source code for electronic voting machines be publicly available?

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