Corruption

We are about to lose another freedom. The right to die uninusured. The right to die uninsured, that is, without paying a fine for being uninsured because we cannot afford the insurance that would keep us alive.

I think we can safely categorize this as an “insult to injury.” You thought you and your fellow citizens were entitled to humane universal health care, single-payer-Medicare-for-All-suckers? Think again. You can go ahead and die without insurance, but don’t think you can get away with that without having paid a fine for not having the insurance you can’t afford that might have saved you!

Am I the only one confounded and angered by this situation? Recently Jim Hightower referred to Obama as the President of Absurdistan. The “audacity of amorality”?

The new plan is being touted as a favor to us in these times that try one’s sanity as well as one’s soul. The so-called health care reform mandate rule that every citizen must be a customer of a mega-corporation-vendor or pay a fine to the IRS is actually a colossal super-gift to the medical corporate complex by the Prez and the super-majorities in the Congress. Millions of involuntary customers! Was it valiant whistleblower Wendell Potter who first called the faux reform the “Health Insurance Enrichment Act”?

How Banks Prey on the Unemployed

By BARBARA KOEPPEL

While posting breathtaking profits in the last two quarters – Wells Fargo’s $3.2 billion, Citigroup’s $3 billion and Chase’s $2.7 billion – U.S. banks have figured out a way to squeeze some extra dollars from those who can least afford it, the unemployed.

Good for SMUD!

These thieves have been getting away with stealing from unwitting municipalities for years. As a refresher click here to read how JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley deceived city leaders and school boards in Pennsylvania since at least 2003. And the luxury jets JPMorgan Chase bought after receiving $25 Billion in TARP funds And this warning of the coming recession from two years ago

Bank of America, UBS, JPMorgan Sued Over Derivatives

By Joel Rosenblatt

Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., UBS AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were sued by a California public utility over claims they rigged sales of municipal derivatives and shared illegal profits through kickbacks.

The lawsuit, filed by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, is based on federal and state antitrust claims. It alleges Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and more than a dozen other banks conspired to pre-select winners of municipal derivative auctions, coordinated their pricing, and accepted kickbacks disguised as fees from co-conspirators.

Pa.thet.ic. Pelosi allowed a grand total of one amendment to this bill and it wasn't the Kucinich Amendment to allow states like California to pass their own Single-Payer bill

Saturday Night Special: "Historic" Vote Kills Health Care Reform for Another Generation

Rachel Maddow talks to Glenn Greenwald about Joe Lieberman's threat to filibuster the health care bill if it contains a public option, Evan Bayh quickly following suit and the financial gain being made by both men and their spouses for doing so.

Strange Geographies: The Little Town That Los Angeles Killed

by Ransom Riggs - September 18, 2009 - 6:37 AM

There are lots of dry lake beds in California, and to the untrained eye, Owens Dry Lake is just like the rest. But there is one key difference: while most of the state’s stark, white alkali flats have been dry for thousands of years, Owens was an enormous, gem-blue lake stretching more than a hundred miles square — and an important habitat for millions of migratory birds — as recently as 1917. That’s when the City of Los Angeles stole it, diverting the streams that fed Owens Lake into an aqueduct that watered the booming metropolis 200 miles to the south. As the lake slowly dried up, so did the once-thriving town of Keeler, which had been both a mining town and something of a lakeside resort. Nowadays, the “lakeside” town of Keeler is more than a mile from the “shoreline” of Owens Lake — little more than a collection of marshy mudpits surrounded by an endless expanse of salt flat, the surface of which can reach 150 degrees on hot summer days.

Click the picture to see how they did it 55 years ago

Honduras: Military Coup Engineered By Two US Companies?

By John Perkins

August 07, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- I recently visited Central America. Everyone I talked with there was convinced that the military coup that had overthrown the democratically-elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, had been engineered by two US companies, with CIA support. And that the US and its new president were not standing up for democracy.

Earlier in the year Chiquita Brands International Inc. (formerly United Fruit) and Dole Food Co had severely criticized Zelaya for advocating an increase of 60% in Honduras’s minimum wage, claiming that the policy would cut into corporate profits. They were joined by a coalition of textile manufacturers and exporters, companies that rely on cheap labor to work in their sweatshops.

Memories are short in the US, but not in Central America. I kept hearing people who claimed that it was a matter of record that Chiquita (United Fruit) and the CIA had toppled Guatemala’s democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 and that International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), Henry Kissinger, and the CIA had brought down Chile’s Salvador Allende in 1973. These people were certain that Haiti’s president Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been ousted by the CIA in 2004 because he proposed a minimum wage increase, like Zelaya’s.

I was told by a Panamanian bank vice president, “Every multinational knows that if Honduras raises its hourly rate, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean will have to follow. Haiti and Honduras have always set the bottom line for minimum wages. The big companies are determined to stop what they call a ‘leftist revolt’ in this hemisphere. In throwing out Zelaya they are sending frightening messages to all the other presidents who are trying to raise the living standards of their people.”

"Don't know much about history"

~ Sam Cooke

Mr. Panetta Needs a History Lesson

CIA director Leon Panetta implied Sunday that the "reality of 9/11" excused the unconstitutional and criminal acts of the Bush administration:

The country was frightened, and political leaders were trying to respond as best they could. Judgments were made. Some of them were wrong.

Panetta makes it sound like all of the illegal decisions were made after 9/11, in response to that horrific event.

But as I've previously pointed out:

* The government's spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here)

* The Patriot Act was written before 9/11 [*note below*]

* The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11

* The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11

* The decision to launch a war against Iran was made before 9/11

* Cheney advocated strengthening the powers of the White House to the point of monarchy before 9/11

In addition, while the decision to torture appears to have been made after 9/11, it appears to have been made for the purpose of creating a false linkage between Iraq and 9/11 in order to justify the Iraq war. In other words, the post-9/11 decision to torture appears to have been made to rationalize the pre-9/11 decision to invade Iraq.

Moreover, it was known long before 9/11 that torture doesn't work to produce accurate intelligence.

Click the header to read the links

[**] The link for the article on the Patriot Act being written prior to 9/11 is dead, but I found a reprint and will reprint it in it's entirety below

The USA PATRIOT Act Was Planned Before 9/11

NYTimes: Big Banks Paid Billions in Bonuses Amid Wall St. Crisis

MSN Money: CitiGroup's Possible $100 Million Bonus to ONE PERSON

RATM: Sleep Now In The Fire

It's Not Hard to Be a Job-Slashing, Pension-Grabbing CEO -- If You're a Sociopath

By Thom Hartmann, Smirking Chimp. Posted July 28, 2009

CEOs in America pull in the big bucks because there's a shortage of people willing to destroy the lives of many other human beings.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available."

One of the questions often asked when the subject of CEO pay comes up is, "What could a person such as William McGuire or Lee Raymond (the former CEOs of UnitedHealth and ExxonMobil, respectively) possibly do to justify a $1.7 billion paycheck or a $400 million retirement bonus?"

It's an interesting question. If there is a "free market" of labor for CEOs, then you'd think there would be a lot of competition for the jobs. And a lot of people competing for the positions would drive down the pay. All UnitedHealth's stockholders would have to do to avoid paying more than $1 billion to McGuire is find somebody to do the same CEO job for half a billion. And all they'd have to do to save even more is find somebody to do the job for a mere $100 million. Or maybe even somebody who'd work the necessary sixty-hour weeks for only $1 million.

So why is executive pay so high?

I've examined this with both my psychotherapist hat on and my amateur economist hat on, and only one rational answer presents itself: CEOs in America make as much money as they do because there really is a shortage of people with their skill set. And it's such a serious shortage that some companies have to pay as much as $1 million a day to have somebody successfully do the job.

But what part of being a CEO could be so difficult -- so impossible for mere mortals -- that it would mean that there are only a few hundred individuals in the United States capable of performing it?

In my humble opinion, it's the sociopath part.

CEOs of community-based businesses are typically responsive to their communities and decent people. But the CEOs of most of the world's largest corporations daily make decisions that destroy the lives of many other human beings.

[For an idea on why Tim Geithner's inept plan for "regulating" derivatives is wrong - read this - Myron Scholes Intellectual Godfather of Credit Default Swap: ‘Blow ‘em all up’. Seriously, watch the two videos, and read what Myron Scholes (Nobel Prize winner in Economics) said about blowing them up]

Hearings on Independence of the Federal Reserve, and Derivatives This Week

One of the friends of TBP on Capitol Hill sent a note yesterday about two important hearings before the House Financial Services Committee:

“Lots of interesting hearings coming up in the next month (next Monday is one on Too Big to Fail and one on Insider Trading by Government Officials). It’s a very critical month; Barney wants to get regulatory restructuring done by the end of July, so this is going to be an extremely heavy legislative session. This week has (among other things) hearings on the independence of the Federal Reserve and on derivatives on Friday (with Geithner). The links are below.”

[...]

Friday at 10am (7am Pacific): A Review of the Administration’s Proposal to Regulate the Over-the-Counter Derivatives Market

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/hrfc_081009.shtml (Live video at link)

[...]

In terms of derivatives, a joint Financial Services-Agricultural Committee hearing will be held Friday. There may be over a hundred members of Congress and one witness: Tim Geithner. As many of you know, I have been very critical of Geithner and his pandering to Wall Street. I continue to believe that the loans to AIG are in violation of the FRA because they are not fully collateralized and thus not sell-liquidating.

I asked the HFSC to explain the rational for having Secretary Geithner as the only witness for the joint hearing on OTC derivatives:

“Why is Chairman Frank only inviting Geithner for the OTC hearing? Aside from the fact that he is a puppet of JPM/GS/SIFMA, he does not really understand the subject matter!”

A senior staffer replied: “Ha! Answer: because Geithner appears to have forgot what happened to Icarus, although that is a more-global problem for him than just this one hearing.”

[By Congress, he means people like Dianne Feinstein (video). Who, btw is your Senator who you can ask to support S 703. SF Phone: (415) 393-0707; Washington DC Phone: (202) 224-3841.

You can also ask Doris Matsui to make up for her war vote by supporting HR 676. Sacramento Phone: (916) 498-5600; Washington DC Phone: (202) 225-7163

If you want, you could remind them of the only healthcare plan that will save $350 BILLION and put 2.6 MILLION people to work

Congress to Transfer Hundreds of Billions in Tax Dollars to the Insurance Industry

Tuesday 16 June 2009

by: Kevin Zeese, t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Single-payer witnesses show the common-sense path, but Congress is listening to industry donors.

Yesterday, as Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) left the health-care hearing room, he leaned over to me and said:

"I used to sell insurance. The basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools - separate health care plans - and that is why health care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient and less expensive and one pool would be the least expensive. That's why single payer is the answer."

Nothing like common sense.

But, common sense was not on display in the Senate yesterday. Instead, the Senate is seeking a path to the goal of universal coverage by protecting the least-efficient model - the for-profit insurance industry that through waste, fraud, abuse and bureaucracy eats up 31 percent of the cost of health care.

Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) who chaired the hearing, standing in for the ailing Ted Kennedy, has received $2.1 million from the insurance industry throughout his career, another $547,000 from the pharmaceutical industry and $467,000 from health care professionals. Dodd opened the hearing stating the stark facts:

Americans spend more than $2 trillion on health care every year - more than 18 percent of our GDP. By 2040, 34 cents of every dollar we spend could be on health care. That is not simply unacceptable - it's unsustainable. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs for individuals and families alike continue to skyrocket.

It was evident throughout the day that money was on the minds of the senators. But, they could not look into the face of the obviously most efficient path, single payer. Instead, they were going through contortions to protect their benefactors in the insurance industry.

[I've wanted to do this for a week but haven't had time. And I know this has been covered ... a little bit ... but no where near as much as the Iranian elections which have had wall-to-wall coverage. Wonder why that is? And it's nice that the Peruvian Parliament has "suspended" the disputed laws which caused the protests, but I have a feeling they will go back into place once the US military base at Palanquero, Colombia gets built - what? you haven't heard of it? Hmmm, sounds like one of the next blogs. Anyway click the links for the three articles, and here's another really good one from indymedia Ireland]

Massacre in the Amazon: The U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement Sparks a Battle Over Land and Resources

Raúl Zibechi | June 16, 2009

On June 5, World Environment Day, Amazon Indians were massacred by the government of Alan Garcia in the latest chapter of a long war to take over common lands—a war unleashed by the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Peru and the United States.

Three MI-17 helicopters took off from the base of the National Police in El Milagro at six in the morning of Friday, June 5. They flew over Devil's Curve, the part of the highway that joins the jungle with the northern coast, which had been occupied for the past 10 days by some 5,000 Awajún and Wampi indigenous peoples. The copters launched tear gas on the crowd (other versions say that they also shot machine guns), while simultaneously a group of agents attacked the road block by ground, firing AKM rifles. A hundred people were wounded by gunshot and between 20-25 were killed.

The population of the nearby city of Bagua, some thousand kilometers northeast of Lima near the border with Ecuador, came out into the streets to support the indigenous people's demonstration, setting fire to state institutions and local office of the official party APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana). Several police officers were attacked and killed in the counter-attack, and other indigenous protestors were killed by police. At the same time, a group of 38 police who were guarding an oil station in the Amazon were taken hostage. Some were killed by their captors, while some 1,000 Indians threatened to set fire to Station Number 6 of the northern Peruvian oil pipeline.

The versions are contradictory. The government claimed days after the events that there are 11 indigenous dead and 23 police. The indigenous organizations reported 50 dead among their ranks and up to 400 disappeared. According to witnesses, the military burned bodies and threw them into the river to hide the massacre, and also took prisoners among the wounded in the hospitals. In any case, what is certain is that the government sent the armed forces to evict a peaceful protest that had been going on for 57 days in the jungle regions of five departments: Amazonas, Cusco, Loreto, San Martin, and Ucayali.

The Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), part of the Organization of American States, condemned the violent acts on June 8 and reminded the Peruvian government of its obligation to clear up the facts and to compensate for the consequences and called on both sides to promote a process of dialogue.1 On June 9, the National Coordination of Human Rights announced that it found a series of irregularities and possible human rights violations in the Bagua area. It denounced the government's refusal to divulge what police are in charge of the investigation of the events, and expressed concern for the situation of 25 detained at the El Milagro base and the 99 arrested since a curfew was imposed in Bagua.2

President Garcia accused the Indians of being "terrorists" and spoke of an "international conspiracy," in which, according to government ministers, Bolivia and Venezuela are involved because as oil- and gas-producing countries they want to keep Peru from exploiting these resources and becoming a competitor.3 Just a few weeks ago, Peru granted asylum to the anti-Chavez leader, Venezuelan Manuel Rosas, accused of corruption, and three former Bolivian ministers from the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lazada prosecuted for the death of nearly 700 persons during the "gas war" of October 2003.

[...]

Peru: Battle lines drawn over the Amazon

[This is a few years old but it's really important to understand how things work; the corporations have gained supremacy while conversely American citizens have gotten the shaft - just look at the economy and who's benefiting. WRP references the Boston Tea Party which I've wanted to post on for at least the last month or so, but haven't had the time to put together - although I did do one using Thom Hartmann and David Cay Johnston as sources but mistakenly deleted it - will try to resurrect it]

The Supremacy of the Super-Citizen

By William Rivers Pitt

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Originally From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/063005X.shtml

Thursday 30 June 2005

Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations.


~ Andrew Jackson, farewell address, 04 March 1837

The document reads, "All men are created equal." When those words were first put to paper, of course, the literal meaning of the phrase did not match what was written. A more accurate sentence would have read, "All white land-owning men are created equal," but despite the inherent racism and misogyny buried in the original meaning, the words had magic and power enough to lay the groundwork for 200 years of progress.

The words as written became the basis for reform after reform, for the strengthening of the rights of minorities, women, and basically anyone who would be made subservient to anyone else. The struggle took a long time, and continues today with much remaining to do before that equality is truly achieved, but the strength of those words as written has been proven time and again to be more than a match for anyone who would stand on the neck of a fellow citizen.

That's what the billboard reads, anyway. That's the propaganda, the myth, the way we rock ourselves to sleep at night. The truth is significantly different, however, and is at the root of just about everything that has gone wrong with this great democratic experiment.

We are not all created equal, in fact. This inequality is not based on race, or sex, or religion, but upon the slow development of a body of laws that have created and empowered a breed of super-citizens which rule over every aspect of our lives, almost completely beyond the reach of justice. These super-citizens exist today under the familiar name "corporation."

[More from Laura Flanders]

Baucus v. Democracy

By David Swanson

I can't recall a better corporate news video segment in at least the past decade than the story that Ed Schultz just aired on MSNBC in which he interviews Margaret Flowers of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Senator Debbie Stabenow on the topic of healthcare reform.

Here's video.



Sure, Ed slaps a gratuitous insult on the heroines of Code Pink, says he's against protesting and "getting arrested" as a rule but thinks it's OK if doctors in suits and "educated professional people" do it, and pretends to believe (or actually believes) that President Obama favors considering the possibility of creating single-payer healthcare. But the heart of this story is the gaping chasm between majority opinion and the corporate agenda of the United States Senate. And Ed Schultz hits it out of the park.

Ed goes after the health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and the HMOs. He plays video of activist Kevin Zeese speaking up at the recent Senate Finance Committee hearing and being arrested. He explains perfectly what single-payer healthcare is. (I recommend this flyer (PDF).) And he denounces the anti-democratic exclusion of single-payer advocates by Committee Chairman Max Baucus.

And then Ed brings on Margaret Flowers who absolutely nails every question he asks, and he asks the right questions. Flowers lists the polls showing that over 60 percent of Americans and 60 percent of physicians want single-payer, explains that PNHP has 16,000 members and is part of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare which has 20 million members. Flowers points out that the next senate hearing is on March 12th and that advocates are asking for at least one supporter of single-payer to be included.

That sort of mention of an upcoming event and very nearly inclusion of exactly what people can do to improve their country is rare indeed on our televisions. Let me take it a slight step further: Senator Max Baucus's phone number is (202) 224-2651.