Government Handouts. What their Money can buy. Lies, Deceit and Fraud. Bill O'Reilly: 'I Have More Power Than Anybody Other Than The President' Bill O'Reilly made a rather bold declaration during a recent interview with Newsweek. The Fox News host was promoting his new book (a historical thriller about the Lincoln assassination), and he clearly had the presidency on his mind, because he told interviewer Peter Boyer that he was almost as powerful as the holder of that office.
"I have more power than anybody other than the president, in the sense that I can get things changed, quickly," he said. "I don't have to go through the legislative process; I don't have to do any of that. I can just bring it to the people, and say, look, this has gotta be dealt with. " O'Reilly has a history of making grand statements about his reach. There a bunch of good nuggets in the Newsweek profile.
It's certainly true that, as the nation's leading cable news host by some length, O'Reilly has a very large reach and influence. Deutsche Börse Group - Eurex Clearing. Gregpalast. The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul "The Vulture" Singer, Ken Langone and the Kochs—and why they need to buy the White House by Greg Palast for TruthOut/Buzzflash Greg Palast's investigative reports are broadcast by BBC Television's Newsnight. His new book, Vultures' Picnic: a Tale of Oil, Sex, Radiation and Investigative Reporting will be released by Penguin USA on November 14. [October 5, 2011] Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses. What he chews down is sickening, but just as nausea-inducing are his new table mates: Ken Langone and the Koch Brothers, Charles and David.
Singer has called together the billionaire boys club for the purpose of picking our next president for us. Welcome to the nightmare. Let me give you a run-down from my sulphur-scented files on these men who would be king-makers. BILLIONAIRE 1: Ken Langone Langone likes to be known as the founder of Home Depot, just your local tool guy in a blue apron with a little bag of screws.
Executive Pay. TeleComm. UK to look at media ownership after hacking scandal. A History of Failure. Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower took office in 1953. The top tax rate stayed frozen at 91% his entire presidency and remained so throughout JFK's. A Republican president taxed the rich 91%. Amazing huh? Things must have been horrible in the 50's, right?... President Eisenhower Presided over one of the most prosperous and thriving economies in American history. The only downside was a world-wide recession in 1957 caused by foreign trade deficits that lasted 8 months.
Who knows how the economy was so good under a rich-taxing, government agency creating socialist like Eisenhower... We'll skip ahead a few decades and see how a real conservative does it... Republican President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. With the Reagan years being an 8 year Christmas for the rich, things must have been great in the 80's right?... President Reagan So the rich had their taxes cut in half over the Reagan years and it wasn't Heaven on Earth? Democratic President Bill Clinton took office in 1993. Democracy Now! Mobile.
Why "Conflict-Free" Diamonds Are Unreliable: Kimberley Process is "Pandora's Box" of Ethical Issues. Image: ljv via flickr It's not exactly breaking news, but this topic is worth a recap. The Kimberley Process was established to prevent diamond sales from funding conflict—"blood diamonds"—but in reality, not a whole lot has changed.
Chances are good that those "certified conflict-free" diamonds you might be shopping for as an ethical consumer are just as connected to violence and forced labor as any pre-Kimberley Process diamond was. Martin Rapaport, chairman of Rapaport Group, which runs a diamond-pricing service, said last month, "Even a child can see the [Kimberley Process]'s emperor has no clothes. "The Focus Is On Zimbabwe, But It's A Global IssueRapaport was referring to the KP certification of more than $200 million worth of diamonds from Zimbabwe's Marange fields, which are notorious for human rights abuses, including state police and private security guards "shooting, beating and unleashing attack dogs" on local miners. A Lonely BattleBack to Zimbabwe. 12,000 Take IRS' Amnesty Deal for Offshore Loot - Agency pulls in $2.7 billion. Secret Diplomatic Cables Reveal Microsoft’s “Win-Win” Deal with Tunisian Police State.
Following revelations by Bloomberg Markets Magazine that a spun-off intelligence unit of German electronics giant Siemens, Trovicor, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Perusa Partners Fund 1 LP, a shadowy investment firm headquartered in Guernsey, had sold surveillance gear to Bahrain deployed against the pro-democracy movement, it has since emerged that Microsoft established an IT training program for Ministry of Justice and Interior officials in Tunisia. A secret State Department cable published by the whistleblowing web site WikiLeaks, 06TUNIS2424, “Microsoft Inks Agreement with GOT,” 22 September 2006, noted that “during the Microsoft Government Leaders Forum in South Africa July 11-12, the GOT and the Microsoft Corporation signed a partnership agreement that provides for Microsoft investment in training, research, and development, but also commits the GOT to using licensed Microsoft software.”
Not much has changed since 2003 when that report was issued. Bingo! Which ones? Plutocracy with a Pleasant Philanthropic Face. Local Ordinances and Land Grabs: Democracy Convention Panels Discuss Food Sovereignty. Democracy Convention Attendees of the Democracy Convention in Madison in late August were treated to panels on a host of different issues, from democratic media to racial inequality. The Center for Media and Democracy was one of the sponsors of the convention, and our own Lisa Graves and Brendan Fischer addressed democracy activists. At panels on food sovereignty, we heard from a range of experts, including local Wisconsin dairy farmer Jim Goodman, Massachusetts food and farming activist Barbara Clancy and Jim Tarbell of the Alliance for Democracy (publishers of Justice Rising), and Ronnie Cummins, leader of the Organic Consumers Association.
Food Sovereignty Defined At a Friday morning panel on "Using Local Laws to Create Food Sovereignty," Jim Goodman defined the seven principles of food sovereignty (a term coined by members of Via Campesina, the "International Peasant Movement") as: (To learn more, ask the Family Farm Defenders.) Reorganizing Food Trade: Local Food Ordinances Corn Ethanol. Many Millionaires Do Enjoy Lower Tax Rates. SOURCE: AP/Susan Walsh President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, September 19, 2011.
By Seth Hanlon | September 20, 2011 The Associated Press today published a strange “fact check” of the “Buffett rule,” the principle articulated yesterday by President Barack Obama that no household making more than $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of its income in taxes than middle-class families pay. The AP’s fact check faults President Obama for “mak[ing] it sound as if there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries,” and states that “[t]he data tell a different story.”
In fact, tons of data—including data cited in the AP article itself—confirm the compelling need for a Buffett rule because large numbers of super-rich individuals are indeed paying lower taxes than middle-class families. Consider: The upshot: AP’s “fact check” misses the point of the Buffett rule. Lockheed Martin's CEO Is After Your Social Security Check! Must-Read Tell All: “Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult” By Climate Guest Contributor on September 5, 2011 at 12:19 pm "Must-Read Tell All: “Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult”" TruthOut has published an amazing tell all by a former GOP Congressional staffer, Mike Lofgren. The piece, “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,” is reprinted below in its entirety.
It opens: Barbara Stanwyck: “We’re both rotten!” Fred MacMurray: “Yeah — only you’re a little more rotten.” — “Double Indemnity” (1944) Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. . …. Lofgren retired in June 17 after 28 years as a Congressional staffer. James Fallows, the great columnist for The Atlantic, explains, “Lofgren’s name is barely known to the general public, but among people who have covered or worked in the national-security field, he is a familiar and highly esteemed figure.” by Mike Lofgren … Both parties are captives to corporate loot. John P. 1. Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt, Chad Holliday Urge Taxpayer-Funded Innovation. For Manny Pacquiao, losing this fight—a rematch against the man who robbed him of victory two years ago—will probably mean the end of one of the most sensational boxing careers ever.
When Manny Pacquiao steps into the ring at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas this Saturday night for a rematch with Timothy Bradley, there will be more on the line than the welterweight title of the World Boxing Organization. Thirty-five-year-old Pacquiao is fighting for his country, the Philippines, where he is worshipped; he devotes a substantial chunk of his purses to charities there, as he did two years ago to victims of the super typhoon and earthquake. And Manny’s purses may well represent one of the most substantial flows of cash going into the Philippine Islands. For Bradley, a defeat wouldn’t be disastrous; if he goes the distance he will remain an attractive opponent for other contenders and perhaps even for Mayweather. But for Manny, every remaining fight will be for his professional life. Foreign Company Uses Eminent Domain in Texas.
For Immediate Release: September 28, 2011 Media Contact: Debra Medina We Texans* debra@wetexans.com 979-253-0220 Austin, TX – Debra Medina, We Texans executive director, and Terri Hall, executive director of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom joined Public Citizen and the Sierra Club on Wednesday to raise concerns about the proposed Trans Canada Keystone Pipeline project slated to cut across 18 counties in north and east Texas. “Texas is where it is today because she has been blessed with oil and natural gas and entrepreneurs who knew its value and how to get it to energy hungry consumers,” Medina said.
“But Texans also got where we are today because of our fierce independence and skepticism of any government sanctioned project whose only claim is “trust us, we know best, this will be good for you.” “When a Spanish company wanted to take control of the future of our highways a few years back, Texans revolted. *Not paid for by any campaign. Seven U.S. states band together against AT&T, T-Mobile merger. The battle for AT&T and T-Mobile is heating up by the day. The latest move comes from seven U.S. state attorney generals who have lent their support to the Department of Justice in an effort to block the proposed $39 billion merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. Those states are California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Of course, AT&T retaliated by telling Reuters that it has "11 state attorneys general and hundreds of other local, state and federal officials" on its side already. This move comes just a day after a collective of 15 House Democrats rallied with a letter to the White House asking for President Obama to ask the DOJ to settle the lawsuit so that it may be approved. Naturally, Sprint chimed in to support this move. After a comprehensive review of the facts related to AT&T’s proposed takeover of T-Mobile, seven state attorneys general have reached the same conclusion as the U.S. Related: Carnegie Mellon to open branch campus in Rwanda.
The Wealthiest 5% Grabbed Most of the America’s Gains - The Wealth Report. By Robert Frank After my last post on the national income pie, many readers asked about wealth, i.e. accumulated assets. A new chart from the Economic Policy Institute, using data from NYU Economist Ed Wolff, shows that more than 80% of the nation’s wealth gains between 1983 and 2009 went to the wealthiest top 5%. The top 1% gained 40% of the nation’s total wealth gain, while the next 4% gained 41.5%.
The share of wealth held by the bottom 60% dropped 7.5%. Put another way, the top 1% gained an average of $4.5 million per household, while the next richest 4% gained $1.2 million. The chart appears below. This is dismal news, of course, and highlights once again the rise in inequality and the increasingly top-heavy nature of the global economy.
Yet the numbers also beg some perspective. First, while the gains going to the top rose dramatically, this gain isn’t quite as dramatic when you look at total share of wealth held by each group. The share of the bottom 50% declined from 3% to 2.5%. Amnesty Program Yields Millions More in Back Taxes. The voluntary disclosure program, which was in effect from February until last week, is part of an initiative to deter tax evasion via offshore bank accounts. Since the I.R.S. began its previous amnesty program in 2009, more than 30,000 taxpayers have reported their secret overseas accounts, and the federal government has collected $2.7 billion in taxes and penalties. The United States began its most recent offensive against offshore tax evasion in 2009, when the Justice Department reached a settlement with the Swiss bank UBS that required it to pay $780 million and reveal details about 4,500 clandestine accounts that were believed to hold undeclared assets of United States residents.
Douglas H. Shulman, the I.R.S. commissioner, said that the agency would continue to pressure tax evaders to come forward or face prosecution. “The world has clearly changed,” Mr. Shulman said in a news conference on Thursday. Many international tax lawyers agreed that the amnesty had been productive. Telecom Front Group Misrepresents Net Neutrality. I don’t believe that money is speech, but I’ve seen that money motivates dishonest speech, much of it uttered by paid “experts.” This kind of dishonesty comes up with many issues, including the important and misunderstood matter of Net Neutrality. As I recently wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I am concerned about the long-term prospects for Net Neutrality, the guiding principle preserving the free and open Internet.
Telecommunications companies want to assume the role of Internet gatekeeper, but as for-profit entities, their instinct is to manipulate our Internet choices to make ever-greater piles of money. Telecoms want to control how we use the Internet just as cable TV companies shove users into programming packages to maximize profit. Not long after my letter on Net Neutrality appeared, the Post-Dispatch published an opposing letter from Stephen DeMaura, president of Americans for Job Security. According to AJS, Net Neutrality will hurt the economy. Google Antitrust Hearings: Microsoft Finally Gets Some Payback. One utterly confounding and intriguing question lies at the very heart of 'Mad Men': How many women can one married man sleep with over the course of 92 hour-long episodes?
Mad Men, the ambitious, award-winning AMC series, is embarking upon its seventh and final season this Sunday. Throughout its epic run, Mad Men has attempted to answer a myriad of fascinating and complex questions. They include: what is the American Dream? What does it mean to be a man? Can anyone ever be truly happy? But one utterly confounding and intriguing question lies at the very heart of the series: How many women can one married man sleep with over the course of 92 hour-long episodes? According to our count, the current number stands at over a dozen—and we still have all of Season 7 to go. Betty Draper Francis (January Jones) Betty Draper burst onto the small screen with an undeniable presence befitting the wife of the enigmatic Don Draper.
Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt) Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) Poor Ms. Dr. Class Warfare? Raising Millionaires Taxes Will Affect 4.78% Of Americans. Hitachi-LG venture to plead guilty to price-fixing. Google Battles Charges Of Search Bias - Government - Policy & Regulation. Anglo American shareholders urge mining group to buy De Beers | Business | The Observer. Why The Market Is Declining: Deficit Reduction And Profits. Letters: As middle classes suffer, the rich demand a tax cut - Letters, Opinion.
Fast Fraud with 4G. Livewire. Millionaires, The Middle Class, and Taxes -- Actual Numbers. Businessman accused of paying for university course for banker's son | Law. California, Florida Have Biggest Share of Millionaires, But So Do Illinois, Texas. California Passes First-Ever State Bill on Congo Conflict Minerals. Private Cities Coming To Africa. New Monopoly – now in your ATM. R+D Magazine: Carnegie Mellon to open br... The Big White Lie: The Truth About Corporate Accountability. Justice Dept. Sues to Block AT&T's Bid to Buy T-Mobile - Says combining No. 2 and No. 4 carrier would raise prices.
CEO's belief that white privilege just isn't high enough. The Real Price of Amazon's Free Shipping. Tourism in Estonia booms with record visitor numbers. General Electric Made $14.2 Billion in Profits in 2010 and Paid $0 in Taxes. Justice Department Moves To Block AT&T/T-Mobile Merger On Antitrust Grounds. US Chamber spells out its own job agenda. Friday Bout: Open Society Foundations Vs. US Chamber of Commerce - Corruption Currents. What's next at Verizon? Shark fin soup faces extinction in California. Ivan Seidenberg - Corporate Tax Dodger. U.S. Moves to Block AT&T Merger with T-Mobile.