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Save Our Democracy

Bob Fertik — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:33:47 +0000

19802 of 100000 people have signed this petition.

Background

In January, five radical Republicans on the Supreme Court overturned 100 years of American law.

They gave huge corporations a Constitutional right to spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates at all levels, from Mayor to President.

As President Obama declared in his State of the Union address, this ruling "will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people."

In 2009, the Chamber of Commerce spent $145 million to defeat healthcare and global warming laws - twice as much as the Democratic Party. In November, they could spend 10 or 100 times as much simply to defeat all Democrats.

This radical ruling could destroy American Democracy if we do not act in time for this November's elections. Please join our nationwide movement to keep Corporations out of politics.

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Final Stretch On Health Care: The Middle Class Losers, and A Public Option After All?

Chip — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:42:33 +0000

After a frequently cantankerous year of deliberations and debate, the Democrats are posed to move forward Sunday by voting on health insurance reform. On this, as well as much other legislation, the Republicans appear ready to continue their year-long legislative obstructionism.

Anticipating that all Republicans will vote against the bill, CNN is keeping a sampling tally of 100 House Democrats, which is less than half of the necessary 216 votes needed for passage. Speaker Pelosi is on the record as saying that she will not call the vote before she has the votes for passage.

The proposed legislation meets the 3 bedrock principles President Obama stipulated were necessary for his signature: reduced costs, guaranteed choice, and ensuring quality care for all. Today, speaking at George Mason University, President Obama framed the debate as about a system "that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people."

Speaker Pelosi outlined 18 key provisions in the pending legislation. The first one is key to the health and well-being of our work force, and when implemented, will assist small businesses with tax credits of 35%, increasing to 50% in 2014, to provide employee health insurance. This is really meaningful because small businesses employ just over half of all private sector employees.

As the only industrialized nation that doesn’t provide health care for its citizens as a human right, our employer-based health insurance system originated during World War II when health benefits were offered as a way of attracting scarce labor. That was the era when 40-year careers with the same company, culminating in a gold watch, were pretty common.

Of course, now it's common for workers to change jobs 7 to 10 times throughout their working careers, so the fear of losing health insurance keeps some unhappy workers in their jobs, while placing many laid off workers in health and financial jeopardy. Baby boomers in particular have been highly mobile, moving from employer to employer, and now face higher premiums due to age, if they are insurable. Succeeding generations exhibit just as much job mobility, as businesses require greater staffing flexibility to meet the continuously changing competitive demands of the global marketplace. The absence of affordable, portable insurance is a drag on the American economy for both employers and employees. Escalating health insurance costs place American employers and the American economy at a competitive disadvantage against other industrial nations that provide affordable health care for their workers.

This past week, many progressives were bitterly disappointed and vehemently outraged with the standard bearer of single-payer Medicare-for-All, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, appeared to capitulate to the proposed health care legislation, announcing that he would vote “Yes” on the health insurance reform legislation. Nonetheless, he vowed to continue to work for states rights to implement single-payer systems.

And his work is particularly important to the middle-class, which a recent report by the Robert Wood Foundation is losing health care at a faster rate than the poor, who have the Medicaid safety net; “the number of middle-income earners who obtained health insurance from their employers dropped by 3 million people from 2000 to 2008.”

Now, Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida has taken the banner of increasing competition to make health care more affordable through the public option. He has introduced a simple, 4 page bill, HR 4789, the Public Option Act, that would allow anyone, regardless of age, to buy into Medicare. He is petitioning Speaker Pelosi to call for a vote on the bill.

Such a move would invigorate the American work force with a renewed dynamism through affordable, portable health insurance and help all workers with job mobility, reduce pressures on employers to forego salary increases in order to pay for employees’ continuously increasing insurance premiums, and provide another choice to Americans evaluate and select new health insurance options, further fulfilling one of President Obama's bedrock principles of health insurance reform.

John Yoo Celebrates Sunshine Week

davidswanson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:27:26 +0000

By David Swanson

Sunshine Week, according to its website, is "a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know."

The University of Virginia here in Charlottesville is doing its part by hosting book tour stops for the chief author of the worst secret laws ever established. John Yoo will be speaking at the Miller Center and at an event hosted by the Federalist Society. Yoo will be speaking in support of unlimited presidential power, including the power to create secret laws.

When we think of government openness, we usually think in terms of allowing the public to verify that the government is properly executing the laws. There are no provisions for allowing the public to request access to know what the laws are, because laws are by definition public. Unless, that is, the laws are memos written by people like John Yoo at the request of a president.

Why would such memos be kept secret? Because sometimes the purpose of the memos is to legalize blatant crimes, to overturn actual laws with secret laws -- something a U.S. president does not have a constitutional right to do, no matter whether it's "wartime" or not. News of presidential "laws" legalizing obvious crimes could stir up concerns. Better to keep them in reserve as a legal defense if needed. In fact, Yoo wrote memos to legalize some crimes that had already occurred. But who was going to know which came first, the crime or the "law", as long as it all stayed secret?

Yoo legalized aggressive war at the whim of any president, brushing aside the US Constitution, the War Powers Act, and the UN Charter, creating a new (secret) law in their place. Yoo legalized imprisoning people without any due process, tossing out habeas corpus and half the Bill of Rights. He legalized warrantless spying and torture, in blatant violation of real laws, public laws, laws passed by the legislative branch of the government and placed in the US Code of Law.

Yoo used shoddy scholarship, amateurish lawyering, and absurd reasoning to "legalize" just about whatever the president wanted legalized. Yoo explains now that he was hurried and pressured. Yet he does not retract any of his claims of presidential power. In fact, Yoo has made clear that he wants no limits whatsoever on presidential power. A president, in Yoo's view, can nuke a city if he is so inclined, and another and another until the world is gone. That's his right. So, of course, he can spy without warrants, torture, and anything else he likes, regardless of how many precedents the memos overlook or misconstrue.

Bush might not have attacked Iraq without Yoo's work to secretly "legalize" that invasion. A million Iraqis could still be alive if not for what Yoo and his colleagues did. And had the public been permitted to see what they were doing, we would not have allowed it.

Friday will be Yoo's second appearance at the Miller Center, which claims they invite him to balance out those who speak against him. Yet the Miller Center has never, to my knowledge, invited a member of the ANTI-war movement to speak.

On Friday Cindy Sheehan (Peace of the Action), Susan Harman (National Accountability Network), Ray McGovern (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), Charlotte Dennett (Robert Jackson Steering Committee), Mike Ferner and Ann Wright (Veterans for Peace), Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait), Shahid Buttar (Bill of Rights Defense Committee), Nancy Mancias (CODE PINK: Women for Peace), Dahr Jamail (journalist), and Mark Lane (attorney), will be leading an anti-war march and a rally to protest John Yoo's defiance of the rule of public law. We think we'll be adding more to Sunshine Week than Yoo will. Join us: http://hoosagainstyoo.org

Send Your Opinion On Health Care Vote Now!

Chip — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:11:44 +0000

Healthcare Not Warfare Vigils in 82 Districts on March 17th

Chip — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:53:41 +0000

HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE VIGILS IN 82 DISTRICTS ON MARCH 17 | Press Release

Labor and advocacy groups organized "brown bag" lunch vigils against war funding in 22 congressional districts in January and 67 in February. Currently 82 are planned for March 17th, with more being added. Organizations participating include: Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), AfterDowningStreet, the Backbone Campaign, Democrats.com, the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee, Healthcare Now, CodePINK, and United for Peace and Justice.

On March 10th, 65 members of Congress voted to end the occupation of Afghanistan. Yet only 14 have publicly committed to voting No on funding the same war. A $33 billion supplemental spending bill for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is expected to be voted on in April or May.  Brownbaggers are asking members of the House to publicly commit to voting No on any bills that fund wars, and to publicly urge their colleagues and the House leadership to make the same commitment. As lesser steps in the same direction, the Brown Bag Vigils are encouraging congress members to cosponsor HR 2454, calling for an exit strategy from Afghanistan, and HR 3699, prohibiting any increase in the number of U.S. Armed Forces in Afghanistan. Congress members' commitments are tracked at defundwar.org.

Vigil participants, who support a shift in resources from warfare to healthcare, are also asking their representatives to join the growing movement calling for "Medicare for All" by demanding passage of the Kucinich amendment facilitating state-level single-payer healthcare and by offering their support to single-payer efforts moving forward in state legislatures, including in California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Among those congress members whom brownbaggers have been pressuring and who voted to end the Afghan war on Wednesday is the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee David Obey (D., Wis.). Obey said last June that he would not support any more supplemental war bills, said last October that he was not inclined to fund an escalation in Afghanistan, and said last November that he would not fund wars unless a war tax were created to pay for them. Another vigil is planned for Obey's office on March 17th.

Other highlights include New York and DC:

NEW YORK, NY: Congressional candidates are taking part in a number of vigils. In New York City, Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini will join a vigil being organized by Healthcare Now!, PDA and others outside the offices of Senators Gillibrand and Schumer. 
When: Wed. March 17th--Noon
Where: Meet at 3rd Ave and 48th St (NW Corner) 
Contact: info@healthcare-now.org or 212-475-8359

WASHINGTON, DC: Vigil participants will gather across Independence Avenue from the Rayburn House Office Building. 
When: Wed. March 17th--Noon 
Where: U.S. Capitol across from Rayburn House Office Building. 
Contact: 773-617-4493.

Complete information on past and upcoming Brown Bag Vigils is available online here.

Check out past events in January and February:

• videos
• reports
• photos

Typical of many congress members who have not yet committed to voting down the funding, Congressman Jim McDermott's office told <a href="http://defundwar.org/">DefundWar.org</a> this week "Unless attached to funding for vitally important programs, Rep. McDermott will vote against funding to continue the war in Afghanistan as he did in December."

PDA National Director Tim Carpenter said, "We are asking congress members to treat war and peace with the importance the matter deserves and commit to ending war funding and bringing Americans home from foreign occupations no matter what nice but smaller measures are attached to a bill. Those nice things could be passed separately, and everybody knows it."

Vigils have been planned in the following districts. These are almost all at noon on Wednesday, February 17th, but a few are at odd times or days, so check the details:

AZ-01 Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick
AZ-05 Rep. Harry Mitchell
AZ-06 Rep. Jeff Flake
AZ-08 Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
CA-01 Rep. Mike Thompson
CA-02 Rep. Wally Herger
CA-04 Rep. Tom McClintock
CA-05 Rep. Doris Matsui
CA-06 Rep. Lynn Woolsey
CA-09 Rep. Barbara Lee
CA-10 Rep. John Garamendi
CA-18 Rep. Dennis Cardoza
CA-22 Rep. Kevin McCarthy
CA-23 Rep. Lois Capps
CA-28 Rep. Howard Berman
CA-29 Rep. Adam Schiff
CA-30 Rep. Henry Waxman
CA-31 Rep. Xavier Becerra
CA-33 Rep. Diane Watson
CA-34 Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard
CA-37 Rep. Laura Richardson
CA-40 Rep. Ed Royce
CA-41 Rep. Jerry Lewis
CA-42 Rep. Gary Miller
CA-44 Rep. Ken Calvert
CA-45 Rep. Mary Bono-Mack
CA-46 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
CA-48 Rep. John Campbell
CA-49 Rep. Darrell Issa
CA-50 Rep. Brian Bilbray
CA-53 Rep. Susan Davis
CO-04 Rep. Betsy Markey
FL-07 Rep. John Mica
FL-09 Rep. Gus Bilirakis
FL-10 Rep. Bill Young
FL-17 Rep. Kendrick Meek
ID-01 Rep. Walt Minnick
 IL-07 Rep. Danny Davis
IN-09 Rep. Baron Hill
KY-01 Sen. Mitch McConnell
MA-01 Rep. John Olver
MA-02 Rep. Richard Neal
MA-03 Rep. Jim McGovern
MA-05 Rep. Niki Tsongas
MA-08 & 09 Sen. John Kerry
MA-10 Rep. Bill Delahunt
MD-04 Rep. Donna Edwards
MD-07 Rep. Elijah Cummings
ME-01 Rep. Chellie Pingree
MI-09 Rep. Gary Peters
MS-01 Rep. Travis Childers
MS-04 Rep. Gene Taylor
NJ-04 Rep. Chris Smith
NJ-06 Rep. Frank Pallone
NJ-06 Rep. Frank Pallone
NY-15 Rep. Charles Rangel
NY-18 Rep. Nita Lowey
NY-20 Rep. Scott Murphy
NY-28 Rep. Louise M. Slaughter
NY- Senators Gillibrand and Schumer
OH-06 Rep. Charlie Wilson
OH-13 Rep. Betty Sutton
OH-17 Rep. Tim Ryan
OR-02 Rep. Greg Walden
OR-04 Rep. Peter DeFazio
OR-05 Rep. Kurt Schrader
PA-01 Rep. Bob Brady
PA-02 Rep. Chaka Fattah
PA-07 Rep. Joe Sestak
PA-15 Rep. Charlie Dent
RI-01 Rep. Patrick Kennedy
RI-02 Rep. James Langevin
SC-01 Rep. Henry Brown
SC-04 Sen. Lindsey Graham
TN-05 Rep. Jim Cooper
TN-05 Sens. Alexander and Corker
UT-03 Rep. Jason Chaffetz
WA-02 Rep. Rick Larsen
WA-03 Rep Brian Baird
WA-06 Rep. Norman Dicks
WI-03 Rep. Ron Kind
WI-07 Rep. David Obey 

Protest John Yoo in Charlottesville

davidswanson — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:36:49 +0000

Protest John Yoo in Charlottesville, Va., on March 19

On the day Year 8 begins in the Iraq War, and as Afghanistan escalates, come protest the lawyer who "legalized" these wars.

2 p.m. March With Funk the War: meet on grass across from The Corner at the University of Virginia.

3 p.m. Rally to Protest John Yoo: meet in front of Minor Hall at the University of Virginia to protest John Yoo, who speaks in Minor Hall at 3:30.

Speakers at Protest include: Cindy Sheehan (Peace of the Action), Susan Harman (National Accountability Network), Ray McGovern (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity), Charlotte Dennett (Robert Jackson Steering Committee), Mike Ferner and Ann Wright (Veterans for Peace), Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait), Shahid Buttar (Bill of Rights Defense Committee), Nancy Mancias (CODE PINK: Women for Peace), Dahr Jamail (journalist).

Print flyer, and find map of locations and directions:
http://hoosagainstyoo.org

This event is supported by After Downing Street, Backbone Campaign, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, CODE PINK: Women for Peace, Defenders for Freedom Justice & Equality, Democrats.com, Joyful Dissent, May Day RVA 2010, National Accountability Action Network, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, Socialist Party of Central Virginia, Veterans for Peace, Virginia People's Assembly, War Criminals Watch, World Can't Wait.

About John Yoo:

At the U.S. Dept. of Justice, John Yoo authored and coauthored memos authorizing aggressive war (including the Sept 25, 2001, and probably the Oct. 23, 2002, memos) as well as warrantless spying, torture, and indefinite detention, giving presidents powers to violate laws. Yoo has claimed that a president has the right to crush a child's testicles, massacre a village, or drop nuclear bombs on cities.

The Dept. of Justice found that Yoo "committed intentional professional misconduct". Spain is seeking to indict Yoo but is facing strong resistance from the White House.

Aggressive wars, torture, lawless imprisonment, and warrantless spying are continuing because Yoo and his co-conspirators have not yet been prosecuted. And they are not being prosecuted because the new president is continuing the crimes. We must raise our voices for the rule of law.

Yoo does not deny his crimes, but claims power on behalf of a president to commit them in a time of war. But war is the supreme crime, and Yoo has the blood of over a million Iraqis and Afghans on his hands. We should give Yoo what he has helped deny to thousands: a fair trial.

I'm Down With Dennis

davidswanson — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:34:11 +0000

By David Swanson

Let me get this straight. The Senate will pass a public option if the House will. And the House will, because it already did. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t allow it. So the mortal enemy of public-option backers is . . . Dennis Kucinich.

Why? Because when Congressman Kucinich said he'd stand for a public option he stupidly thought he was supposed to mean it.

Let's review a brief history of the disease known as "health insurance reform."

When the president and the speaker of the House thought it would be strategic to censor any talk of single-payer healthcare, almost every member of Congress and almost every astroturfing party-before-country activist group and labor union, and almost every follower of those groups, fell obediently into line. "We'll open the debate with the least we'll settle for, a pathetic token public-option," they thought cleverly, rubbing their hands together. "Then we'll compromise down from there."

But after demanding the "public option," too many people refused to toss it overboard, and public pressure grew to keep it in. So 60 congress members signed a letter to the speaker last summer insisting that they would not settle for a health insurance bill that lacked a serious public option. When they were presented with a bill that did not meet their demands, almost all of them voted for it anyway.

Now 51 senators say they will pass a bill including a super-pathetic token public option of the sort passed by the House last summer, but Pelosi wants to pass a bill without anything even called a "public option" in it. Almost all of the congressional public-option stalwarts want to go along with the speaker and the president. And almost all of the astroturfing party-before-country activist groups want to fall obediently into line.

Meanwhile several states are moving single-payer healthcare bills through their legislatures, but they face likely lawsuits from insurance companies over conflicts with federal law if they try to actually get their residents healthcare. Senator Bernie Sanders is advertising the Senate bill as solving this problem, routinely failing to mention that his solution, if it is one, does not kick in for seven years. But an amendment passed in a House committee last summer would have clearly and unequivocally taken care of states' concerns. The president told the speaker to strip that amendment out of the bill, and almost no members of Congress complained when she did so.

Where does Dennis Kucinich fit into this story? He's the reason the word "almost" appears in it so many times. He didn't open negotiations by proposing the lowest he'd accept. He pushed for a real single-payer solution. He single-handedly framed the public option as a compromise rather than a communist plot. Kucinich signed the letter committing to take a stand for at least a public option. But he made the mistake of thinking people actually wanted him to mean it. So he took that lonely stand. And he introduced and passed the amendment that would have allowed states to provide their residents with a serious healthcare solution.

Now, all the astroturfers applauded and encouraged taking a stand for a public option when there were 60 congress members pretending to do it, without apparently giving any thought to how greatly weakened progressives would be in Congress if they didn't follow through. Did they think the chance that a bluff might work was worth damaging all future campaigns? Did they disbelieve all their own talk about how the bill would be worthless without the "public option." It's hard to know. The so-called public option had shrunk to such a token gesture that it was always hard to know what good they imagined it would do if included. And today they talk about passing a bill without even that token included, and passing it "for political reasons," usually avoiding the question of whether the bill is actually better or worse than nothing.

But suppose that you honestly thought the public option was worth at least pretending to take a stand for, and now you no longer do, but you think the remaining bill does more good than harm. Why would you have no complaint with Pelosi who could put the "public option" back in and pass the bill? Why would you have no complaint with congress members who oppose the bill on the grounds that it protects abortion rights? Why would your complaints be focused on the one guy who stuck to what you used to want him to stick to? Could embarrassment be a factor here? Shame? Humiliation? Do you feel uneasy about asking that ever congress member be an obedient slave to the president? Do you sense that progressives would then be excluded entirely? Does it worry you that you're protesting insurance companies in support of a bill that causes insurance companies' stocks to rise?

Even the activist groups that have acted on principle throughout this ordeal have fallen short of Kucinich's actions. Kucinich knew that real progress would come through the states, so he worked to pass an amendment permitting state single-payer. And virtually nobody backed him up. Activist groups either prattled on in a fog about national single-payer, or they focused exclusively on the so-called public option. These two camps wouldn't talk to each other, but they both agreed on leaving states' concerns by the wayside.

If, in stark contrast to what was done, labor unions and activist groups and progressive media had taken their agenda from their membership and brought it to Washington, rather than the reverse, then very quickly Kucinich would not have been alone in demanding single-payer, and the right-wingers would have soon been begging for a token public option as a compromise.

Healthcare is only one issue. There are dozens of stories like the one above, with different issues but the same characters and plot. When dozens of congress members commit to opposing war funding, Kucinich commits and then follows through. When it comes to ending the wars or impeaching the war criminals, Kucinich leads, in opposition to his political party but in support of his constituents, the American people, the rule of law, and the stated goals of progressives.

I hope self-loathing partisan sycophants realize that the corporate media will equally depict either passage or nonpassage of a "health insurance reform" bill as a defeat for Democrats. And, in this case, rightly so. But the long-term impact of a reform that doesn't reform, one that rather compels Americans to pay their hard-earned money to institutions even more hated than Congress, namely health insurance companies -- THAT would be the real political loser, with or without a privately run program for 3 percent of us called "the public option." And, again, rightly so. Kucinich is saving the Democrats from themselves by helping to block their health insurance bill, but they can't see what's in front of them through the fog of their constant dreaming about mountains of money and a naked Rahm Emanuel poking them in the chests.

Disclosure Laws Needed to Inform the Willfully Ignorant

davidswanson — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:42:44 +0000

By David Swanson

While new disclosure laws on corporate political spending are not needed to see the forest, they may be required for seeing the trees. Knowing which corporations funded what won't, on its own, end or reduce the corruption. And the big picture of corporate spending cannot easily be hidden. Already, pre-Citizens United, it dominated Washington. And the threat alone of massively increased spending is corrupting Washington further already. But those who, for various reasons, think we need to see the details, or would be helped by seeing the details, require new legislation.

"Higher Corporate Spending on Election Ads Could Be All but Invisible," reads a headline on ProPublica:

"The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending."

That is, the public will know the basic corporate interests behind the propaganda, but not necessarily the original sources of the money. The example ProPublica uses to illustrate this is telling. At issue in it is not the public's need to know who's running the country, or any corporation's interest in hiding its corrupting influence per se. Rather, the token expert cited in the article imagines an example in which a corporation might want to back the pro-corporate policy of one political party without offending the irrational ideologues in the other pro-corporate political party:

"For instance, a company may want to help Democratic politicians who support health care reforms that would benefit the company, but it worries about offending 'Republican shareholders who may care more about their personal ideology than about their three shares of stock in the company,' said Kelner, who says he represents many politically active Fortune 500 companies. 'The same would be true on the other side of the political spectrum.'"

Spectrum may be somewhat too broad a term in this brave new world for the range of political positions held, not by people, but by those worthy of corporate largesse.

As we transition from dusk to darkness, it's worth looking at some of the areas corporations control. One is the rapidly dying environment known as planet earth. The Atlantic reports on How Campaign Ads Could Finish Off the Climate Bill:

"Even before the Supreme Court's ruling, which allows corporations and unions to spend money directly to help elect or defeat candidates for office, the energy industry spent ten times more on political donations than environmental interests. . . .

"As election season approaches, oil and coal companies could fund attack ads on vulnerable legislators who have supported emissions reductions or cap-and-trade. . . .

"Whether or not these companies choose this approach, the mere possibility of their doing so may convince waffling politicians not to jeopardize their seats by voting for a climate bill. Since the Supreme Court has given corporations a big stick, all they may need to do is speak softly."

Now THAT's invisibility!

Here's another area I've recently written about: education. Already corporations are persuading senators to block student loan reform that would allow more students to afford a college education.

Of course complete fixes are possible through amending the US Constitution, and partial ones, such as disclosure, are possible through congressional legislation. But all things are more easily done better through states. States can limit corporate and union spending on elections reads the headline of Maryland state senators Brian Frosh's and Jamie Raskin's article in Saturday's Washington Post:

"The 50 state legislatures (and the D.C. Council) that charter, supervise and regulate nearly every corporation in the land are still responding to the court's dramatic recasting of the political landscape. (Washington state has passed a bill that is waiting for the governor's signature.) In fact, the state legislatures have power to constrain runaway corporate and union political spending -- if they are willing to exercise it. . . .

"A group of more than 20 concerned Maryland legislators has joined with us to propose a package of bills to limit the worst aspects of the decision. Specifically, our bills would:

"-- Require that any corporate executives or union leaders seeking to make political campaign expenditures first obtain a majority vote of shareholders or union members approving the specific expenditure, which would guarantee that the move would reflect the will of shareholders or union members, not the whims of the chief executive or union leader.

"-- Ban "pay to play" corruption (and its appearance) by preventing state contractors from making campaign expenditures on behalf of state political candidates and their campaigns.

"-- Compel public disclosure of all corporate and union political disbursements."

Ohio state legislators are now among those proposing to block pay-to-play as well. The Columbus Dispatch reports:

"The ban would kick in if more than 10percent of a company's revenue comes from state contracts. The ban also would apply to companies that benefit from state grants, tax credits or low-interest loans."

Pennsylvania is now among the states where state legislators are pursuing what is ultimately needed: a U.S. Constitutional Convention:

"Several area lawmakers are hoping to start a trend to amend the U.S. Constitution to effect campaign finance reform."

Here's to hoping, and to doing more than hoping.

Senators Versus Students

davidswanson — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:38:20 +0000

By David Swanson

As long as we're going to dump most of our money into wars and the military and Wall Street and health insurance bailouts, students are going to have to go into debt to afford college. But it would cost the students less and the government less, if private companies were not permitted to act as middlemen profiting off public loans to students.

One of the companies so profiting, Sallie Mae, is based here in Virginia and funnels millions of dollars from its profits into lobbying to make sure the free money keeps flowing. Senators Warner and Webb have chosen to side with the parasites rather than the students, but disguised their choice as one of concern for jobs, the jobs of the loan sharks who could find respectable work in a better educated society. I grew up in Reston, where Sallie Mae's jobs are, and I know there are people there who will find a way to publicly say thank you for Sallie Mae's help in driving our nation deeper into ignorance and debt.

But our representatives are in Washington, not Reston, and they represent their donors, the media, and the president, not us. Student lending is an issue on which the White House officially supports good legislation. But no congress members are getting hounded with promises or threats the way they do when it comes to funding wars. Clearly the corporate media couldn't care less. Educated students, after all, are statistically the least likely to watch the crap we call television news. And the legalized bribes always weigh against public needs, not for them.

While I would choose to end the wars and make college free, or -- as a distant second choice -- to make Webb and Warner pay off students' loans by cleaning Virginia's highways in orange jumpsuits for $0.25 an hour, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act is admirable for its sensible approach to keeping student debt as low as the military will tolerate. It's also admirable for the remarkable irony that -- were it not for the corruption of Webb (202-224-4024) and Warner (202-224-2023) and a few other senators -- this legislation might be included in a health insurance bill that takes the exact opposite approach.

I recall watching a performance at the White House several months back at which the president answered pre-approved questions from the public about healthcare and the economy and student loans. His argument for cutting out the student-loan middleman and saving money was direct and coherent, just as his support for single-payer healthcare had been when he served as a state senator in Illinois. Now his approach to healthcare is to empower the parasitical middlemen, the insurance companies, and require us to hand our money to them.

Yet, rarely is the excuse used that our society could not find respectable jobs for former employees of the Sickness Industry. Instead, the claim is repeated so many times that it begins to sound plausible, that we, the customers, are actually too comfortable with our victimizers to give them up. If it becomes necessary, you'll begin to hear about the public's affection for student loan companies too. That may sound crazy now, but that's only because you haven't heard it 10,000 times yet. Our trepidation about parting with HMOs would have sounded like lunacy before the "health insurance reform" debate got going.

And let’s not imagine that the health insurance corporations will succeed in passing a public mandate to buy their useless and murderous products without every other industry noticing. We may soon learn about the public's deep attachment to all sorts of crap that just won't sell. "Education reform," anyone?

Coffee, Tea & Thee

Chip — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:25:26 +0000

Across the nation today people are gathering in over 350 events for the national kickoff of the Coffee Party movement, which started on Facebook. The Coffee Party movement aims to reform government through civility, accountability by lawmakers and an end to obstructionism. The Coffee Party movement rejects the idea that the Tea Party represents “Real America.” There are now 60 groups nationwide, and at last count, 123,000 members.

CNN dropped by on one Coffee Party gathering this morning at Washington DC’s Busboys and Poets and interviewed its owner, Andy Shallal, an Iraqi-American artist, activist and restaurateur. Asked about the Coffee Party as a political party, he called it a “people’s version. It’s something that I think has been missing in the dialogue, which is the voice of the people. Oftentimes the media takes a certain sound bite and they explode it and it makes it sound as though the whole world is thinking this way. I think most people in the United States want to see a more progressive agenda.”

Rachel Maddow interviewed Annabelle Park, originator of the idea of the Coffee Party. She described the movement as being about three things: for civility, for cooperation in government, and for affirming the American community - "that we don’t have to be so divided over our differences of opinion."

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One of the DC participants agreed: “This isn’t an alternative to anything. This is sort of a nascent place for people like me who believe that things need to get done without labels. I’m just so upset by how nothing is moving in Congress.“ (Rachel Maddow pointed out recently that the House has passed 290 pieces of legislation, but that the Senate doesn’t act.)

The Atlanta Coffee Party organizer, Stacey Hopkins, denied that the movement is “left leaning,” acknowledging that “Some people may want to portray it that way because we do seem to attract Democratic and progressive minds. But we are open to everyone, and we want to hear those conservative and Republican voices because we do share a lot of commonality. We do not like big government. We want to see the taxes reduced and spent more frugally, so we do have some areas where we have a general consensus, and we can build on that because there is strength in numbers.”

Paul Steinhauser, CNN’s Deputy Political Director, wrapped up the segment with this observation: “It’s interesting. Some of the grievances are the same among the Tea Party movement and this brand new Coffee Party movement. They are upset with Washington that isn’t working for the average American citizens, but unlike the Tea Party - which is a conservative movement that calls for smaller big government - Coffee Party members, it seems, want to work with government to reform it and improve it.”