Censored Whig Letters

Is the Republican Victory Plan Another Great Depression?

It seems like the Republicans in Congress have decided that sabotaging economic recovery and employment growth is their best tactic for electoral gains in the November elections. Indications of this plan have been around since the Democratic victories in 2008. It seems that all doubt about facilitating the economic downturn as a path to political power for Republicans have been removed by recent legislative votes.

Economic recessions and depressions almost always result from insufficient “effective” consumer demand for goods and services produced domestically. In economic terms, wanting something is not “effective demand” . For a want to become a demand for goods or services, it must accompany the desire to buy with the ability to actually purchase. Money is required.

Jobs are not created by just having large pools of investment money available. There must be the opportunity to invest in a business that will have customers who can buy the goods and services before the investment money flows into job creation activities. The Republican Right economic theory that economic prosperity and employment ” trickle-down from the wealthy” has proven to be unsound by historical experience.

Tax cuts for the wealthy create huge investment money pools but not jobs. Our nation has plenty of money setting idle in corporate and personal coffers. Corporations have almost a trillion dollars setting essentially idle in corporate accounts at this time.

Republicans are seeking to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy by falsely stating that increases in taxes for the upper 2% of income earners would hurt demand and prolong the economic downturn. Experience and history prove otherwise.

Tax cuts at the highest marginal incomes brackets do concentrate wealth and political power in the hands of the economic elite. The resulting political power by the economic elite pushes government policy in directions that dramatically cut the percentage of the nation’s wealth and income held by the vast majority of Americans. This reduces the ability of most Americans to buy goods and services. As a result, the economy unwinds because customers do not have enough disposable income to keep the flow of goods and services at a healthy economic level. The former middle class disposable income now controlled by the economic elite funds speculation and unsound “bubbles” in the economy instead of a healthy economy because sound businesses now lack paying customers.

Deregulation helps corporations charge excessive prices. Not enforcing anti-monopoly laws permits price gouging. Not capping interest rates concentrates wealth and reduces consumer spending. Outsourcing jobs to foreign nations reduces incomes available to buy goods and services. Union-busting keeps wages and benefits down which undermines the purchasing power of workers.

Privatizing government services costs consumers more in out of pocket expenses once provided by government. This reduces disposable income for these consumers. When employers reduce benefits and increase co-pays, it increases the cost-of-living for workers. As a result, these workers have less disposable income to spend on goods and services.

Middle class tax cuts do help the economy because they increase the disposable income of those members of society who spend the vast majority of their incomes and have little left over to save. The money changes hands over and over again instead of setting idle. This is the multiplier effect in economics.

Extending unemployment benefits has a huge multiplier effect. This is because unemployment benefits are so low that essentially all of it gets spent on goods and services immediately.

Excessive concentration of wealth and income unwinds our economy. All the Republican policies for the past 100 years have been designed to concentrate wealth and income in the hands of the very few. Every time they reach the economic concentration levels that currently exist, we have a serious depression. This is a direct result of increasingly “Republicanized” governmental policies over the previous 30 years.

Economic concentration of wealth and income are currently at levels very similar to those just before the Great Depression in 1929. The only reason our current situation has not quite deteriorated to that of the last Great Depression is that the Republicans have not been completely successful in undoing the reforms put in place as a result of the New Deal. Despite repeated attacks by Republicans our social safety net remains only damaged but not destroyed. It is not from lack of trying by Republican politicians.

Republican attempts to gut Social Security continue. Privatization keeps coming back to threaten the stability and viability of Social Security. Cutting Social Security benefits instead of increasing revenue seems to be the most effective avenue for the current attack. This approach is being pushed by most Republicans and some corporatist Democrats. A wiser economic approach would be to remove the income ceiling over which Social Security tax is not paid.

Why should almost all workers be taxed at over 13% while those making a million a year are paying closer to 1% and those making 10 million dollars a year are taxed at around 1/10th of 1% on their income? Social Security taxes are the most regressive tax system I know of in our current system. The poor and middle classes pay much, much more in percentage terms than the wealthy.

For decades, working people have been paying in far more than the current needs for each respective year of Social Security payments. These surpluses were “borrowed” by the federal government so they could fund annual deficits created by cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, cutting taxes on corporations by huge margins and nearly eliminating taxes on imports. It is only fair that corporations, wealthy Americans and foreign exporters selling in the American market pay higher taxes to fund these previous decades of “borrowing” since they reaped the benefits of that “borrowing”.

Republicans only want to look at cutting benefits instead of making Social Security taxes fairer by equalizing the Social Security tax rate for all income levels! These Republicans do not want to pay back the Social Security tax money borrowed by the federal government to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, fight two wars on credit and allow the near elimination of taxes on imports.

Sound economics says government should run surpluses in good economic times and deficits during economic downturns. Following this advice helps reduce the severity of economic cycles. Under the Republican Presidencies of Reagan and both George Bushes, we did exactly the opposite and created both the current downturn and the debt crisis. The vast majority of our total national debt developed under these three conservative Republican Presidents.

Currently, the Republicans in Congress have fought every measure to increase employment and help small businesses. They have fought all kinds of economic reforms that would curb corporate abuses of consumers, shareholders or workers. They have fought all attempts to curb excessive corporate political or economic power. They have been against any measures that would increase demand for goods and services or levels of employment.

By their actions, it is hard not to conclude that the Republicans want to worsen the economic downturn until it reaches Great Depression levels. The economic downturn was created by “Republicanizing” our economy and the Republicans want to blame the Democrats instead! With tons of corporate money behind them and a corporate dominated media helping them, it might just work.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

www.americansunitedforchange.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Lauren Weiner, 202-470-5870
July 29, 2010 Jeremy Funk, 202-470-5878

Senate Republicans Offer “Alternative” to Democratic Bill to Hold BP Fully Accountable for Devastating the Gulf Coast: ‘Do the Polar Opposite’

Huffington Post: GOP’s Oil-Spill Liability Bill Would Have BP Only Paying $150 Million

Washington DC – Senate Republicans wasted no time this week unveiling a big-oil-friendly “alternative” to the Democratic Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act, oil-spill-victim-focused legislation that would hold BP fully financially accountable for the cost of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, lower energy costs and create over 160,000 jobs through investments in energy-efficiency, and cut down the nation’s dependence on oil.

Yesterday, Senator David Vitter (R-La.), who has taken $791,335 from the big oil and gas industry, laid out the Grand Oil Party’s plan for letting BP off the hook for their recklessness — with the American taxpayers in its stead. As reported by the Huffington Post: “Under the leading Republican plan for BP’s post-spill economic liability, those affected would receive potentially as little as $150 million due to the oil giant’s expected record loss in this latest quarter.”

Tom McMahon, Executive Director, Americans United for Change: “No surprises here – just outrage. While the well has been dry on new ideas and real solutions from Congressional Republicans for some time now, you can always count on them to offer “alternative” legislation whenever the bottom line of their big corporate donors is threatened. For all their talk about the deficit, not even the biggest oil spill disaster in U.S. history could give Senate Republicans pause before seriously proposing something that would put taxpayers on the hook for the untold billions of dollars in damages BP left in its wake.

“For all their talk about jobs, Senate Republicans will no doubt work overtime to block this legislation that will put over 160,000 Americans back to work through smart investments in energy efficiency. After creating zero net private sector jobs and turning a record surplus into a record deficit during the Bush years, Republicans in Congress are not the economic stewards they think they are. These Republicans need to stop asking themselves, ‘What would Bush do?” or “What does BP want us to do?” and start asking themselves “How can we help clean up the mess we made?”

MORE FROM HUFFINGTON POST:

[T]he GOP has rallied around a counter-proposal, authored by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that would cap an oil company’s liability at an amount equal to its profits of the last four quarters. If the company had not made a profit in the past four quarters, it would be liable for $150 million (or twice the current cap).

To be sure, BP still has a chance to turn around its profit margin during the next three quarters. But in terms of net earnings, it is now operating out of a $17 billion hole. If Vitter’s version of economic liability legislation were the law of the land, there would be open concern about the damage payments that Gulf residents would end up recouping. As a Democratic operative working on the issue notes:

When Vitter introduced the bill, we pointed out that one of the co-owners of the Deepwater Horizon rig, Andarko, had not made a profit in the last year. But with this news today, if BP doesn’t overcome this quarter’s losses, next year they could be responsible for a disaster as bad as or worse than the one in the Gulf and they would only be liable for $150 million if Vitter’s bill were law.

UPDATE: An astute reader points out that another Senate candidate, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), has sponsored legislation similar to Vitter’s in the House.

article by Scott Horton
——————————————————————————–

http://IleneProctor.net

Media Contact, Ilene Proctor 310-858-6643

Cell: +1 310-721-2336

Collateral Damage Justice in Mississippi

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice

Oliver E. Diaz

Republican Judge Says Bush DOJ Targeted Him

Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz was indicted in 2003 on charges relating to his receipt of a loan guarantee from trial lawyer Paul Minor — a personal friend and the largest Democratic donor in Mississippi — to help defray campaign debts. A Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney, Dunnica Lampton, brought charges of bribery against Diaz, Minor and two other Mississippi judges. Diaz was acquitted of all those charges. Within days of his acquittal, Diaz was indicted for a second time, and again acquitted.

“After I was indicted and before my trial, my home was also broken into,” recalls Diaz. “Our door was kicked in and our documents were rummaged. Televisions, computers and other valuables were not taken, despite the fact that we were out of town for several days and the home was left open by the burglars. We could not figure out a motive for the burglary and reported it to the Biloxi Police Department. The crime was never solved.”

There is now substantial evidence that Judge Diaz’s prosecutions will shortly be exposed as being politically motivated and directed. In any event it is clear that they were designed to, and did, have a key role in influencing elections in Mississippi for the benefit of the Republican Party.

.Justice Diaz was charged and acquitted twice in federal court. After reviewing the Diaz case in some detail, it is clear that no independent prosecutor would ever have brought these charges, that the prosecution was inspired and driven by political appointees in the Bush Administration working together with Diaz’s political opponents in Mississippi, and that the prosecutions served a manifestly partisan, and inherently corrupt, political agenda.

But to understand the Diaz prosecution, it’s essential to start in Washington, with the man widely viewed as the most powerful Mississippian in the nation’s capital. In 2002 Haley Barbour, one of the key figures in recent Republican party history, told friends and supporters that he had decided to return to Mississippi and seek to capture the Jackson statehouse for the G.O.P. in 2003. Under Barbour’s leadership, the G.O.P. captured both houses of Congress—a red-letter event since the G.O.P. had not controlled the House of Representatives for forty years. Along with Newt Gingrich, Barbour was one of the architects of the new Republican majority that wielded great influence in Congress even during the Clinton years, and emerged as a real powerhouse after Bush brought the G.O.P. back into the White House in 2001.

Barbour ran the G.O.P. as its chair from 1993-97. But on the side, lobbying work was his passion and he quickly became a fixture of the K Street community. In 1991 he founded Barbour Griffith & Rogers LLC, (BGR) which Fortune magazine labeled the most powerful lobbying firm in the United States in an article run in 2001. While recently profiled here in connection with the firm’s representation of wannabe Iraqi strongman Ayad Allawi, BGR is best known as the lobbyist of choice for the tobacco industry—in 1997 alone, it took in $1.7 million from tobacco sources.

If the tobacco industry had a principal adversary in the eighties and nineties, it might have been Michael Moore—not the documentary film producer, but the attorney general of Mississippi. While serving from 1988-2004, he brought the state into litigation against big tobacco in a major way. The state was represented by Dickie Scruggs and a group of trial lawyers based in the Gulf Coast area. In 1997, Moore settled Mississippi’s claims in the tobacco litigation, leading to a plan for tobacco companies to pay Mississippi about $4 billion over the next quarter century. Scruggs and dozens of other trial lawyers who funded the case, split $1.4 billion in attorney fees from the companies.

The settlement made a number of lawyers in south Mississippi profoundly wealthy. Paul Minor was one of these men. They were, for reasons that should be obvious, by and large supporters of the Mississippi Democratic Party, its attorney general, Michael Moore, and governor Ronnie Musgrove. The trial lawyers were a core constituency of the Democratic Party of Mississippi before 1997. But with the settlement money that came their way during that year, they emerged as the party’s treasury. Moreover, the south Mississippi trial bar was closely tied to the Democratic administration in Jackson, providing the key pool for the recruitment of judges and appointed and elected officials. If the Republicans had wanted to deliver an incapacitating blow to their political opposition, there is no question how it could be delivered: by going after the south Mississippi trial bar that funded Democratic campaigns and supplied key Democratic candidates.

As the fall of 2002 approached, and thoughts began to turn to the looming election, something curious emerged. It was learned that FBI agents were busy all over the southern part of the state looking at the dealings of prominent Mississippi trial lawyers. Investigators were examining money given by trial lawyers to judges as loans and campaign contributions. They were also reviewing the judicial appointments of Governor Musgrove, with a focus on anything that involved south Mississippi trial lawyers. In the coming election it appeared that large sums of money from the business community gushed through the Law Enforcement Alliance of America and on to the coffers of Republican candidates for office and G.O.P.-favored judicial candidates. Another key source of campaign money had ties to the casino gambling interests represented by Jack Abramoff. Yet no investigative or prosecutorial resources were being channeled into an examination of these very shadowy campaign funding processes.

On July 25, 2003—ninety days before the gubernatorial election between Musgrove and Barbour—the U.S. Attorney in Jackson, Dunn Lampton, secured indictments of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, his ex-wife Jennifer, Chancery Judge Wes Teel, former Circuit Judge Whitfield, and attorney Paul Minor. The accusations revolved around loans made to the judges and claims that they were corruptly influenced in their decisions. The indictments were trumpeted very loudly in the Mississippi media by U.S. Attorney Lampton, and played a focal role in the election campaign of Haley Barbour. The G.O.P. campaign used reports about the indictments and criminal investigations very prominently in print and broadcast media.

Noel Hillman, the head of the Public Integrity Section, whose focal role in the Siegelman prosecution was portrayed here, also occupied the central role in these cases. His presence helped develop media coverage for the cases. Hillman, a political protégé of Michael Chertoff, was touted as a “professional prosecutor,” and his involvement was used to show that the cases were not politically motivated. And as the case developed it became apparent that Hillman had taken control of it. Indeed, during the trial, U.S. Attorney Lampton suggested that he had “recused” himself and that the case was being managed by lawyers from Washington. It appears that this “recusal” was at least as illusory as Leura Canary’s in Montgomery, however. When the point was pushed, Lampton clarified that he had not recused himself, but Peter Ainsworth, the Public Integrity trial attorney who sat as first chair in the trial, told the court that the case was being carried by Washington rather than the Jackson U.S. Attorney’s office.

Most lawyers I spoke with said they were mystified by the Government’s decision to go after Diaz. “I don’t get it,” said one, “the bottom line is that Diaz never participated in any cases in which the loan would have made a difference. He recused himself from all the cases.” Diaz was represented up to the indictment by former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, and afterwards by Rob McDuff. Pigott expressed his amazement that the case was being pressed even after investigators had established that Diaz did not participate in Minor’s cases. He couldn’t understand why his client was being charged. Pigott met with Noel Hillman on one of his visits to Jackson in 2004, before the indictment was announced, trying to dissuade him from proceeding. Pigott describes Hillman as being resolute and indifferent to the points which ultimately controlled the case in the mind of the jury. But it could be that Hillman had something else on his mind. These events line up with Hillman’s pursuit of a judicial appointment and frequent interaction with the White House in connection with his application.

The First Target: Oliver E. Diaz, Jr.

A graduate of both the University of South Alabama and the University of Mississippi School of Law, Oliver E. Diaz was elected as a Republican to the Mississippi House of Representatives, serving from 1988 to 1994. During this period he also served as City Attorney for D’Iberville, Mississippi. Later Diaz was elected in a non-partisan contest to Mississippi’s intermediate appellate court. While a Republican, Diaz states that he entered the Mississippi legislature in the same class with Senator Ronnie Musgrove. The two soon became good friends, and their philosophies about life and the law showed they had more in common than the party labels reflected. Diaz was appointed to fill an unexpired term on the Mississippi Supreme Court by Musgrove in March 2000.

Mississippi lawyers describe Diaz as a respected judge who was, despite his Republican Party affiliation, viewed as more pro-plaintiff than most. He hails from the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi and has close connections with the successful plaintiff’s bar centered there. After being appointed to the Supreme Court by a Democratic governor, he had to mount an expensive campaign for election to the court in his own right. He sought financial support for the campaign. This led to Diaz’s financial dealings with the Democratic Party’s principal contributor and fundraiser in Mississippi, Paul Minor. With financial support from Minor and other sources—largely from the trial lawyers of Mississippi—Justice Diaz was elected to an 8-year Supreme Court term in 2002.

The charges eventually brought by U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton accused Diaz, along with Minor and two other Mississippi judges, of bribery and mail fraud crimes. Specifically, Diaz was accused of accepting loans from Minor with the understanding that Diaz would influence a libel case pending against Minor’s father, the celebrated Louisiana and Mississippi journalist Bill Minor. Diaz was also accused of giving Minor an unfair advantage in cases in which he was involved.

From the start, however, local federal prosecutors raised questions about the legitimacy of the case. Diaz never actually participated in the deliberation or resolution of any case involving Paul Minor either directly or in which Minor was counsel. Diaz did participate in the decision of the case involving Minor’s father, which was resolved in a unanimous ruling by the Court. And at no point were any of Diaz’s fellow judges interviewed about their knowledge of impropriety on his or Minor’s part. Had they been, the interviewer would have learned that Diaz did nothing to attempt to influence the court or his fellow judges about the case.

However, a number of aspects of the investigation and prosecution of Diaz reflect serious irregularity. In the Supreme Court election, Diaz had faced stiff opposition from a Mississippi trial judge named Keith Starrett, who had been backed by G.O.P. interests. Starrett’s mentor and friend, who took a deep interest in his election campaign, was none other that U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton, and Starrett’s law secretary was Donna Lampton, a close relative of the prosecutor. So from a distance, the investigation and targeting of Diaz looked suspiciously like payback for an unanticipated election defeat. Moreover, the investigation had proceeded as an inquiry into just who financed the judges supported by the Democrats, and how. The Republicans appeared to be astonished at their poor showing in many of these races, into which large sums of money had flowed from the business community. There was, it seems, a strong interest in shutting off the flow of cash to the political opposition to better their electoral odds.

The most amazing disclosure to come out post-trial goes to FBI agent Kevin Rust. He had managed the inquiry into Diaz, put the case together, testified before the grand jury, and sat through the trial. Yet an examination of campaign finance records similarly links Rust to the political campaign of Diaz’s opponent, Keith Starrett. Under applicable ethics rules, neither Rust nor Lampton should have participated in any way in the case. Yet it appears that they built and propelled it. Was it payback for the election defeat of their friend Keith Starrett, now a federal judge?

The Acquittal, a Second Indictment, a Second Acquittal

The jury did not think much of the charges and evidence against Diaz. He was acquitted on all charges in 2005. But no sooner was the jury’s verdict returned, than Lampton unsealed another indictment of Diaz: on income tax charges. That case went to trial and resulted in a second acquittal.

The Diaz case reflects another astonishing example of highly partisan justice–timed, presented and calculated to boost the electoral prospects of Haley Barbour. Diaz was acquitted twice, but the major objective of the prosecution—the election of Haley Barbour—was achieved. Barbour become governor, ousting Musgrove. As November 2007 approaches, Mississippians find Barbour seeking a second term.

One of the striking aspects of the case is the extremely heavy hand of Noel Hillman, who personally monitored and managed the case. In the past the presence of Public Integrity was taken as a guarantor of “no politics,” but in this case in Mississippi, like the Siegelman case in Alabama, Hillman’s involvement amounted to “politics 24/7.”

Most clearly, the case was an example of discriminatory prosecution. An investigation occurred which was directed with laser-like precision against the major donors of the Democratic party. No comparable investigation occurred that examined Republican party funding and campaign operations. The message that the prosecutors–Hillman should be singled out–delivered is simple: those who fund Democrats will be targeted and fly-specked; those who fund Republicans have nothing to worry about.

The prosecution served a double function. Democrats were discredited and humiliated, during an election cycle, for the benefit of their political opponents. In addition to this, their campaign resources were dried up so that the Republicans secured a further unfair advantage in future elections. These tactics are a pernicious corruption of the political process by politically appointed Justice Department officials posing as its guardians.

Information supplied by Scott Horton in Harper’s

The Tea Party “Catch 22”

The Tea Party movement has started to come unglued over a series of internal contradictions that amount to an identity crisis. The Tea Party is caught in a “Catch 22” position that has largely been ignored by the corporate mainstream media.

Just this morning I watched a local PBS show where a Republican operative claimed that the Tea Party movement was not “Republican, Right Wing or racist.” The comment appears to be the Republican Right Wing official spin on all things “Tea Party” in nature. Unfortunately, the claim really lacks credibility because it conflicts with the facts on the ground all over the nation.

Anyone who really watched the development of the Tea Party movement, as part of the anti-healthcare reform effort, understands that it was a creation of Fox News and corporate funded Right Wing Republican operatives. Despite many claims to the contrary, it brought very few new faces into the political process.

What the Tea Party public relations campaign did was simply “re-brand” the various largely discredited, Right Wing fringe elements in the Republican Party under a new name. It did con the mainstream corporate media very effectively into calling blatant corporatist, economic elitist policies “populist.” It was a bad joke that the media completely missed or just ignored.

Like the fake ACORN pimp and voter registration scandals, the storyline falls apart completely when the details are examined in any detail. The spin relies on manufactured “facts” that are really outrageous lies being told over and over again. In time, the storyline falls apart but often the damage has been done. It appears the mainstream corporate media has learned absolutely nothing from their Iraq War-Weapons of Mass Deception experience.

The reality is that there is probably not much of a Tea Party movement outside of Republican Right Wing corporate control. When it comes to economic populism, the Tea Party has either been completely missing in action or in outright opposition to every proposal that is populist in nature.

Our middle class has been under constant attack by corporate forces for decades. The Reagan-Bush Republicans have been pushing changes in government policy that benefit only the most elite of economic elitists for 30 years. American workers are being driven out of the middle class by government policy and market power. The Republican Right has successfully placed many of the levers of power in government in the hands of the corporatist economic elite. Some Democrats assisted parts of this corporate take-over of government but it was overwhelmingly Republican effort.

The government is not the enemy if it is controlled by the majority of middle class Americans. It is a check on excessive corporate power under those circumstances.

The genius behind the Tea Party campaign is that it is a corporate created public relations/political campaign designed to promote pro-corporate economic policies via government while calling the movement “anti-corporate and anti-government.” The racism angle is a just a way to hook “poor and middle class whites” into an effort designed to economically benefit the wealthiest of the wealthy at the expense of “the poor and middle class of all colors.”

Racism has long been used to divide working Americans up along color lines so they do not demand a better deal from the economic and political elite. Racism serves an economic purpose and always has served an economic purpose. Racism is a sucker bet for working Americans. It has been a key element in building the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party since Richard Nixon. Republican Right wing economic policies are a disaster for 90% of Americans and social wedge issues including race have been the key to Republican victories for more than a generation.

If the Tea Party was really a new creature, it would be fielding third party candidates everywhere under the Tea Party name. Republican and Right Wing operatives claim it is independent of the Republican Party but at the same time strongly oppose real independence. The Republican Party is the Tea Party. The Tea Party is just the most extreme elements of the Republican Party devoted to driving any remaining moderates out of the Republican Party.

You cannot support Pat Toomey-Club for Growth economic policies and still claim to be a populist movement. You have to support economic policies that increase the wages of American workers, support government measures to help the unemployed, curtail the ability of corporations to move jobs outside the United States and sell untaxed imports in our country, shift the tax burden back in the direction of corporations and the Super Wealthy instead of putting it on the middle classes and seek to regulate corporate market power to be an economic populist.

Economic populists do not make excuses for BP like Rand Paul or Sharon Angle. Economic populists do not oppose government deficits during a severe economic downturn nor support government deficits in good economic times, like the Republicans are doing. Opposing better access to affordable healthcare is not a populist position. Giving massive tax cuts to wealthy people while our government is running massive deficits and local governments are firing teachers, firefighters and police is simply stupid economics and has nothing to do with economic populism.

If the Tea Party is” populist” in nature, as they claim, then the policies they support should demonstrate that populism. If the Tea Party is independent of the Republican Party, then they should field independent candidates in the November general elections to prove their independence. If the Tea Party is not racist, then they should condemn the expression of racism from within their movement every time they occur. If the Tea Party is not an expression of extreme Right Wing sentiments, then they should stop supporting the political agenda of the Far Right.

American voters will learn in coming months just how fake and flakey the Tea Party con job is by watching the Tea Party Republicans seeking office in November. You will learn nothing about this from Fox News but the mainstream media should not drop the ball on this story in 2010. The voters deserve a real discussion about the unreality of the Tea Party reality.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

DEMS, GOP READING SAME POLL

House Democrats gathered on yesterday to discuss the results of a national survey on the deficit and manufacturing that House Republicans were passing around late last week. Digging into the survey, which was paid for by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and done by Dem Mark Mellman and GOPer Whit Ayers, hints at an answer to why people are so passionate about the deficit: It’s about jobs. Asking whether Congress should address the deficit or the jobless crisis, therefore, is the wrong question. Create jobs and the deficit concern goes away. Reading into the survey, you find that people relate the deficit to indebtedness to China and indebtedness to China is a proxy for American decline and the collapse of manufacturing, a huge concern among voters. About 45% of respondents said the biggest problem is that “we are too deep in debt to China,” the highest-ranking concern, 58% of folks said the U.S. is no longer the strongest economy, with China being the overwhelming alternative people identified. Three-quarters had an unfavorable view of goods made in China and 83% felt the same toward companies that set up shop there. The number one objection people had to China was the $2 trillion the country holds in U.S. debt. Asked how to improve the economy, the number one solution provided by voters was to “crack down on foreign countries who violate their trade agreements with us.” The survey: http://bit.ly/d4gv1F

Free Trade Agreement with Korea will cost U.S. jobs
Robert E. Scott
July 1, 2010

The Obama administration has announced that it intends to finalize a new free trade agreement with South Korea (KORUS FTA) in time for the next G-20 summit in November. Although the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) projects this will have a small positive impact on the U.S. trade balance, and “minimal or negligible “ impact on U.S. employment, history shows that such trade deals lead to rapidly growing trade deficits and job loss in the United States.

The Charts below compare USITC’s estimates of the impact of the forthcoming free trade agreement with Korea to EPI’s own calculation. Unlike USITC’s forecast of a small positive impact, EPI’s research shows it will increase the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by about $16.7 billion, and displace about 159,000 American jobs within the first seven years after it takes effect…..

Click on this link to see charts mentioned above EPI link

The GOP’s Genetic Link to Big Oil
Wednesday 30 June 2010

by: Jim Hightower, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

If scientists were to compare the DNA of Republican congress-critters and of oil corporations, I’ll bet they’d find that they match perfectly. After all, the two species have identical political instincts and seem to have a natural affinity for each other — so I’m pretty sure they sprang from the same genetic pool.

How else can you explain the remarkable gusher of compassion that Republican lawmakers are presently directing toward Big Oil in general and BP in particular? For example, only hours after winning his party’s nomination for a Kentucky Senate seat, GOP teabag darling Rand Paul was on national TV decrying Barack Obama as “un-American” for daring to demand that BP be held accountable for its human and ecological destruction in the Gulf of Mexico.

Next came Minnesota’s Lioness of Loopiness, Michelle Bachmann, implying that the hard-hit people of the gulf are shiftless moochers who’re using the oil disaster to grab corporate cash. Brimming with tears of compassion, the kooky congresswoman wailed that, “(BP) shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.”

And who can ever forget the astonishing public apology to BP’s CEO by the oil-soaked Texas Republican Joe Barton? After Obama had gotten agreement from BP to set aside $20 billion to cover some of the damages it has caused, Barton called Obama’s actions a presidential “shakedown.” He asserted that it made him “ashamed” to live in America, and he obsequiously begged forgiveness from the reckless CEO whose faulty wells killed 11 American workers and continues to do inestimable economic and ecological harm……

Read the rest of this article at
http://www.truth-out.org/jim-hightower-the-gops-genetic-link-big-oil60922

Wall Street Front Group Celebrates Record Success Electing Radical Pro-Corporate, Pro-BP Candidates

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/26/clubforgrowth-radical-sucess/

Roll Call’s John McArdle reported this week that the radical Wall Street front group “Club for Growth” is “celebrating” a near perfect winning streak this election cycle so far, especially given the results in run-off elections last Tuesday. The Club is known for running hard-hitting attack ads, especially in Republican primaries, against candidates who would consider raising any form of taxes on the rich or have done anything to hold powerful corporations accountable. Noting the Club’s historic role of purging moderates from the GOP, Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) is quoted in the article calling it the “Spanish Inquisition.”

Chaired by prominent Wall Street investors like Thomas Rhodes and Richard Gilder, as well as the wealthy and reclusive Howie Rich, the Club collects funds from employees of J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, while being buoyed by large donations like a $1.4 million contribution from investor Stephen Jacksons of Stephens Groups Inc. The hand-picked candidates of the Club claim to lead the tea party movement, even though polls show that 70% of self identified tea partiers want the government to help create jobs, and nearly half want government to rein in executive bonuses.

Despite this contradiction, the Club-endorsed primary winners are already tacking to the extreme, pro-corporate right. For example, with BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Club candidates are rushing to defend the rights of corporations over the rights of the American victims of the catastrophe:

– State Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate to win in the primary run-off for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, attacked Democrats for holding hearings to investigate BP’s crimes. In a post on his website, Scott said, “Democratic lawmakers seem to enjoy hauling CEOs before their committees so they can grandstand and condescend to them.”

– Mike Lee (R-UT), the Club-endorsed candidate who won in the primary run-off for the Utah Senate seat, said recently that he wants to keep the low $75 million dollar liability cap for companies like BP. Lee said it would be a “mistake” to raise the liability cap for companies like BP and Anadarko, even if maintaining the status quo leaves “taxpayers on the hook for part of the damage.” Lee said he wanted taxpayers, rather than BP, to pay for the oil spill because the low liability cap was part of a “set of settled expectations that you give to a business when it decides to make an investment.”

– Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate who defeated incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) in the primary run-off last Tuesday, was asked in a debate last week if he agrees with Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to BP executives. Gowdy recommended that Barton should have “stuck by his guns” and not apologize for apologizing to BP. He then said that the Obama administration should not “use the criminal justice system to extort money” from BP.

– Sharron Angle (R-NV), the Club-endorsed candidate who won in the Nevada Senate primary, told Nevada Newsmakers that in the wake of BP’s spill, the government needs to further deregulate the oil industry.

– Jeff Duncan (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate who won the GOP nomination in the South Carolina 3rd Congressional district run-off, closed his campaign by arguing for expanded offshore drilling last week. As one of South Carolina’s most right-wing state lawmakers, Duncan proudly refers to himself as a “states’ rights” politician.

– Mike Pompeo (R-KS), the oil executive and Club-endorsed candidate in Kansas’ 4th Congressional district, said his first reaction to BP’s oil spill was the “fervent hope that Congress doesn’t overreact” and curtail dangerous offshore drilling.

While much has been reported on the impact of the tea parties and their role in elections this year, the true driver for the hard right are corporate front groups like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth. Using Wall Street cash, these fronts have helped to boost a cadre faux populists who are really just shills for large banks and foreign oil giants like BP. Notably, financial conglomerate J.P. Morgan, which funds the Club, is one of the largest shareholders of BP.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), a non-partisan partnership of leading U.S. manufacturers and the United Steelworkers.

Every citizen in the state of Delaware, the city of Newark and the surrounding region, no matter what their income, education, position, or political leaning should join us to put the critical need to rebuild a new manufacturing economy on the top of the policy agenda. Economists and the public agree that America must have high-quality jobs if we are to have long term prosperity and save America’s middle class. The solution is to rebuild our manufacturing jobs by seizing the opportunity to make green and sustainable products and meet our infrastructure needs. Now is the time, manufacturing is the solution, and you can help make it happen for our nation.

The United States has lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade, and more than 50,000 factories have closed. Manufacturing is critical to the nation’s economic growth and our lawmakers must take action to grow good American manufacturing jobs. Together we can “Keep it Made in America.”

Executive Banquet & Conference Center
205 Executive Dr.
Newark, DE 19702

Tuesday, June 29
6:00-9:00 pm

Speakers followed by a panel discussion. Written questions will be submitted from the floor.

Complimentary Dinner Will Be Served

WHO: Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) & you
WHAT: Delaware Town Hall & free dinner
WHEN: Tuesday, June 29: 6:00-9:00
WHERE: Executive Banquet & Conference Center, 205 Executive Drive, Newark, DE 19702
WHY: “Manufacturing a Solution for America’s Economic Woes” is vital for America today and in the future!

FREE EVENT!

Please RSVP to 866-365-2203
For Information Contact: Gwen Miller 302-283-1330 or Stephen Crockett 443-907-2367.

RSVP is a must. We need an accurate count for the dinner.

Unionists, Environmentalists, Progressives Need to Take Over Democratic Party

It is time to purge the corporatists from the Democratic power structure. The real work of the Democratic Party is done by grassroots activists. These activists are the Democratic Party. They should run it at every level.

This conclusion has become clear in the aftermath of tainted Blanche Lincoln primary victory in Arkansas. It took massive voter disenfranchisement and the intervention of both former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama for Lincoln to squeak out a victory.

Obama still has not learned that the Obama Movement that put him in the White House was not really about Obama. It was about a set of progressive policies that constituted “change we can believe in.”

Former President Clinton started the process of going Republican-lite and selling out parts of the Democratic base around specific policy issues. Union members and American workers were shafted by the false promises surrounding “so-called free trade deals.” Poor Americans really suffered from some aspects of his welfare reform ideas. Deregulation helped create media consolidation that gave the corporations excessive control of public policy discussions and American politics.

Hilary Clinton was the driving force behind the most progressive policy goal of the Clinton Presidency which was the failed attempt at healthcare reform. America would have been a much better place if she had been President instead of Bill Clinton. One note of caution in her background was her position at one point on the Wal-Mart Board but her overall political history is solidly progressive.

President Clinton was not a bad on corporate issues as Reagan or both of the Bushes but he was pretty bad for a Democrat. He was not as bad as Senator Blanche Lincoln. Lincoln received more campaign money from Big Oil than any other Senator regardless of political party. She was the leading force in blocking the public option in healthcare reform.

Blanche Lincoln stopped the Employee Free Choice Act from even getting debated on the floor of the US Senate. She has a terrible record on trade policy, environmental protections, tax policy and deregulation. Blanche Lincoln has proven herself the most “corporatist” Senator in the relatively small “corporatist” wing of the Democratic Party.

Union activists, progressives and environmentalists are the majority of foot soldiers that go to battle for Democratic candidates at every level in every community of the nation. Along with civil rights leaders, civil libertarians, peace activists and the progressive Internet community, these activists give more money to elect Democrats than every corporation combined.

The corporations make the big donations and control the mainstream media but their values are really more Republican than Democratic. They value money over people. They value money over traditional American values. They value money over American patriotism. They value money over ethics, honesty and decency. Their values are directly at odds with the core values of the Democratic base.

We need to return to the values of FDR and the New Deal. We need to capture every Democratic Party office and drive out the corporatists. The Democratic Party is a much better institution because we drove out the Southern racist faction (and the northern one) and we need to do the same with the corporatists.

Obama needs to decide if he is going to the leader of this effort or an obstacle. If he elects to be an obstacle, he will not get a second term. If he joins in this populist effort, he might go down in history as an equal to our greatest American President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

With or without Obama, we need to take over every local Democratic Committee, every Democratic club and elect our “real Democrats” to public office. Government is not our enemy as long as it has not been captured by corporations. The US Constitution says we “the people” are the government. Corporations are not people despite the radical Right Wing Supreme Court rulings.

The Tea Party crowd has been captured and in some cases created by corporate forces. They cannot be the populist engine for “change you can believe in” but you and your friends can be that populist engine. Get angry, get active and fight corporatism regardless of political party.

Written by Stephen Crockett (host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com and Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.midatlanticlabor.com) . Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Email: demlabor@aol.com. Phone: 443-907-2367.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.