U DA MAN?

You would have thought that since Mitt has been running for the presidency since 2008 that he would have learned from his past mistakes and deficiencies and made efforts to avoid repeating them, such as the need to release his income tax reports without prompting by his rivals. When Mitt’s father, George ran for president in 1968 he released ten years of income tax statements. When Mitt was asked if he planned to do the same he was non committal. Mitt has released some income information however which indicated that he had income of 26 million in 2011 and would pay 14% tax, because the income was not wages but capital gains. However Mitt did not file his income tax by the April 15^th deadline, requesting a 6 month extension. What is he hiding and won’t release until just before the election?  Does this sound like a person you can trust in the oval office?

As further evidence of his craftiness is his failure to specifically state his plans if elected, except of course that he has repeatedly said he plans to repeal the health care reform bill which he calls Obamacare.   This will prove difficult for him to argue in the campaign ahead because the health care reform bill was modeled after his own Romneycare which also had a mandate that people buy their own insurance. This is an interesting predicament for the U.S. Supreme Court which will issue their decision on the health care reform mandate in June, since if it rules the mandate unconstitutional they might in fact also be ruling against the Massachusetts health care bill.

Although Mitt has kept his own plans secret, being content to criticize the president while touting his own public sector experience, a clue to Romney’s future plans was accidently revealed to reporters from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News on Sunday April 15, 20012, when in a closed door fundraiser Mitt was overheard telling a group of wealthy donors that he was going to get rid of some tax deductions and eliminate some cabinet departments such as Housing and Urban Development. He said that he would eliminate or combine many government departments including the Department of Education to help offset his proposal to slash all U.S. tax rates by 20%.

By the following Monday Mitt was busy scrambling to distance himself from the comments overheard y the reporters. While not specific the comments that he had made did not go much further in describing his plans on what he outlined in previous public appearances. He said he would line out state property tax deductions now taken by millions of Americans, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The additional issues that Mitt has not addressed are his bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. It may have been necessary for Mitt to have these accounts when he was with Bain Capital, but he has not worked with Bain, since he became governor of Massachusetts. If the taxes he pays there would be the same if that money was in U.S. Banks, what is the real purpose of having his money there.

The New York Times on May 6, 20012, reported that the Senate permanent subcommittee on Investigation in 2008 estimated that at least $5 trillion to $7 trillion was sheltered in offshore jurisdictions like the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Bermuda and the Bahamas. These jurisdictions have little or no tax.  The favorable tax rates encourage corporation to avoid paying American taxes by structuring complicated international transactions.  But it is not just lower tax rates that make these jurisdictions attractive to those following the rules.  The secrecy of offshore jurisdictions   allows some individuals and corporations to engage in outright tax fraud, costing America at least $40 billion each year. And that secrecy makes offshore tax fraud almost impossible for law enforcement to detect. The secrecy laws in those tax havens are at the root of serious crimes: fraud, money laundering and international terrorism. Legislation shaped by Senators Carl Levin, Kent Conrad and Sheldon Whitehouse that would curb some of these tax abuses by giving the Treasury Department the muscle to respond when foreign governments hamper our tax enforcement was recently passed by the Senate, but awaits House action. Don’t hold your breath.  

Double Fist Bump for now!

IN DEEP MITT !

Mitt Romney has been the front runner from the onset of the campaign and although he has had some setbacks and there were some questions about his sustainability, his huge advantage in organization and fund raising more than his Republican rivals left little doubt that eventually he would garner the nomination although it took longer then expected and he definitely has a major issue in not being able to connect with the average voter.
Now that Santorum's exit,  has left Romney free to concentrate his negative ads against President Obama, he has begun in his expected etch a sketch mode to move to the center. He has given us a preview of  his expected attack strategy by endorsing the childish game of "I'm rubber, you're glue" in that he is attempting to be the first to bring up the issues, which he knows will be used against him, such as his war against women and his health care reform, Romneycare.  Mitt will use his organization's skills in prompting up a straw candidate that they can attack so that his weak flip flopping past image can be lost in the process. The war on women issue has to do with Romney's
anti-Planned Parenthood stance. Initially he endorsed Planned Parenthood and a women's right to choose but now that he is seeking the vote of the more conservative white Evangelicals  he has to become anti- abortion and anti- contraception. This puts him in an awkward position where he has to appear that he is not conducting a war against women, while at the same time he is. If anyone can pull this off Mitt can.
He is very experienced in this sort of thing, after all he is the undisputed king of the flip floppers. Another prime example of Mitt's flip flopping is his positions on gun control.

As governor of Massachusetts he supported stiff gun restrictions, an assault weapons ban and the federal Brady Gun Control law. He has endorsed Florida's Stand Alone law and is now under pressure to calm uneasiness in the gun community otherwise known as the NRA, he will assure them that he will not entertain additional gun restrictions. His latest challenge against President Obama is to paint him as un-American using what has been termed as the American Exceptionalism concept. As usual Mitt is behind the times and out of touch, since President Obama stated in a speech in 2004 that his entire career has been a testimony to American Exceptionalism.
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 In his campaign during the primaries beginning in Iowa, Mitt's organization gathered reams of voter data that allowed them to precisely target supporters. His organization has a sophisticated and relentless voter contact program that early locked in supporters, turning them out to rallies, to caucuses, to vote early with absentee ballots and  finally to get them to the voting booths. With a surplus in donations, the Romney team poured resources into data,  mining reams of consumer information from the number of purchases made at a home goods store, William Sonoma to their range of financial investments, to build a model that would allow them to find and identify potential supporters. This micro-targeting program has been used in most of the primaries.
His organization pared this voter data with several hundred thousand paid and volunteer calls. They know that his sweet spot is among older, higher income, voters, those with incomes  of between $75,000 and $150,000 and with upscale interests, such as gourmet cooking. He was particularly appealing to older women and did best with self identified Republicans. They also knew that Romney, the father of five sons, held particular appeal for voters whose consumer preferences  showed a focus on children and family-centered activities. This knowledge guided the millions of dollars that Romney has spent on the primaries, outspending his opponents five to one, including of course the negative ads, aimed at what he termed desperate rivals, which he used to paint them into corners where they were unable to respond because of their limited funding.

Romney's Super PAC "Restore Our Future" has out spent the official Romney campaign. The new guide lines as per the Citizens United Decision, permit donations only to political committees that do not coordinate their activities with a candidates official political campaign, but in the presidential race the candidates and the Super PAC's are intertwined by personnel if not legally. Carl Forti was the political director of Romney's first presidential bid in 2008 and now run the pro-Romney group, Restore Our Future, along with other former Romney Aides

Charles Spies is the treasurer and former general counsel for Romney's 2008 campaign. The group reported raising over 12 million in the first half of 2011 in the form of large donations from approximately 90 wealthy individuals and corporations. Spies declined to discuss specific contributors to the PAC.
 As of August 2011, the largest individual contributor to restore Our Future was John Paulson, a billionaire and hedge fund manager who is  according to Politico, "famous for having enriched himself  by betting on the collapse of the housing industry".  An additional million dollars came from W. Spann LLC, a corporation with no record of actual business activities, which was incorporated, donated to the PAC, and then dissolved in a matter of months.

Several watchdog groups requested that the justice department and Federal Election Commission investigate donations from W. Spann LLC as possible violations of campaign finance law. Restore our Future refused to provide additional details about the donation and asserted that it had complied with existing laws. In response to rumors a spokesman for Romney's prior company, Bain Capital, stated that W. Spann LLC was not affiliated with with Bain Capital or any of their employees.
Shortly thereafter, Edward Conard, a former top executive of Bain Capital and long time Romney supporter came forward to state that he had formed W. Spann LLC and funded and authorized the $1 million donation.

In December 2011, Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post found that a Restore Our Future ad attacking Newt Gingrich in Iowa had a number of "egregious fouls" and "underhanded" treatment of Freddie Mac and abortion issues. The PAC had $3 million budgeted for the Iowa television campaign. Brittany Gross, a Restore spokesperson, declined to answer questions from Kessler about the ad.

Romney was aided by 29 million dollars in ads paid for by Restore Our Future in the defeat of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in the Illinois primary.
Although Romney has lost several southern primaries, including Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi and Alabama,his campaign  raised more then 11 million in February.

Karl Rove is the founder of the Super PAC American Crossroads, a Romney supporter is likely to become the pre-eminent GOP group airing negative ads against President Obama this year.
Mitt Romney's rhetoric during this grueling campaign has been that he started at the bottom, has earned his money and has experience in the private sector and this qualifies him to deal with this nations economic issues. Recently Fox News has started the mantra, "Romney started with nothing".
Not so fast! It is well known that Mitt is the son of three time Governor of Michigan, George Romney, former president of American Motors and was raised in an exclusive sprawling residential area,  Bloomfield Hills, far from the dregs of Detroit, where he attended and exclusive boys school, where his father who was governor of Michigan at the time gave a commencement speech at his high school graduation. It was recently revealed that it was at this exclusive boy's school that Mitt  bullied a young man who he believed was gay. He and some friends held the boy down and cut his hair. While his friends remember the incident, Mitt does not recall it, but still apologized.

In the book, "The Real Romney",  Michael Kranish and Scott Helman write that Romney's religion pulls a curtain over parts of his life story because some important moments for Mormons are restricted to Mormons.  After Mitt and Ann were married in Michigan in 1969, they flew to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake Utah for a ceremony where Mitt wore white robes and they were "sealed" for eternity. But Ann's parents were not Mormon so they were not allowed inside to see it.

As a Mormon Romney went to Paris as a missionary and received two deferments from the Vietnam war,  (Wouldn't it have been grand to spend two years in France and Paris, instead of two years in the hot jungles of Vietnam)?
 Mitt attended Stanford University not on a scholarship but on an allowance from his father.
When his allowance was cut back by his father to make him study. Mitt did not have the money necessary to pay his way back to Michigan to see Ann. He missed her so much that he auctioned off his camel's hair overcoat to pay for the trip home to see her. Does his father supporting him after his marriage, paying his way through University and Harvard law school while he was married, and graduating without having to worry about an $80,000 student loan, cause you to believe that he started with nothing?
Michael Kranish and Scott Helman in an adaption of their book, the Real Romney wrote in the
February edition of Vanity Fair, that in 1983 at the age of 36, Mitt Romney was approached by Bill Bain founder of Bain and Company a consulting firm which worked with one business at a time, providing analysis and attention to what made the companies work, scoped out the competition and then submitted a plan to the company. Bain would be able to watch it's clients prosper only from a distance, taking handsome fees  but not directly sharing in the profits.

The new work model was that Bain would invest in companies and share in their growth, rather then just advise them. Bain Capital would raise tens of millions of dollars, invest in start-ups and troubled businesses, apply,  Bain's brand of management advise, and then resell the revitalized companies or sell their shares to the public at a profit. Romney did not immediately accept  the offer working with this new concept. He worried that if it was a failure that he would lose his reputation, earnings and position with Bain. The pot was sweetened and Romney was promised that if the business plan was not successful that he would be able to return to his prior position with Bain and a story would be floated that he was leaving Bain Capital to return to his prior position  due to his value as a consultant. He was in essence covering his rear end before gambling on an untried business plan.

For the next 15 years Romney worked at Bain Capital and now boast about those years, how he helped create jobs, at new or under performing companies  and knows how jobs and businesses come and go. He was involved in over a hundred deals, many of which have received little notice because  the companies  involved were privately held and not household names.
The most thorough analysis of Romney's performance during this period comes from a private solicitation for investment in Bain Capital's funds written by the wall street firm, Deutsche Bank. The company examined 68 major deals that had taken place on Romney's watch. Of those Bain lost or broke even on 33.
Overall though, the numbers were stunning. Bain was nearly doubling it's investors money annually, giving it one of the best track records in the business. Bain names Staples as one of his success stories.

A former super market executive was trying to sell venture capitalist on the idea of a cheaper way to sell office supplies.  Romney did not stumble on the idea on his own. He was invited by a venture capitalist from another company to sit in on a meeting with the super market executive and after that Romney took the lead. Bain Capital invested $650,000 to help staples open it's first store in May 1986. In all it invested 2.5 million in the company. Three years later Staples sold shares to the public when it was barely turning a profit and Bain Capital reaped more then $13 million. Since then Romney has boasted that he helped create tens of thousands of jobs. But neither Romney nor Bain directly ran the business.
When the IPO was issued, Staples was a firm of 24 stores and 1,100 full and part-time employees. Romney resigned his seat on the Staples Board in 2001 in preparation for his run for governor.
A decade later, the company had more then 12,200 stores and 89,000 employees. The Staples gain in employment were offset by losses elsewhere,  smaller mom and pop stationary stores and suppliers were  being squeezed and some went out of business entirely. Staples steamrolled the competition, under-cutting prices and selling in large quantities.

Leverage buyouts or LBO's  were the main investments for Bain Capital. . Whereas a venture capital deal bet on a new business, pursuing an LOB meant borrowing huge sums of money to buy an established company,  typically saddling the target with big debts, with the goal being to mine the value that others had missed,  to quickly improve profitability by cutting costs and then selling.

Not every deal turned out well for Romney and his investors. Bain invested 4 Million in a company called Handbag Holdings, which sold pocketbooks and other accessories. When a major customer stopped buying,  the company failed and 200 jobs were lost.

Bain invested 2.1 million in a bathroom fixture company called PPM and lost nearly all of it. An investment in a company called Mothercare Stores also didn't pan out; by that time Bain dumped it, fellow Bain Partner Robert White said Bain lost its $1 million and blamed a difficult retail environment.
 In some cases, Bain Capital's alternative strategy of buying into companies also ended in trouble.  In 1993, Bain bought GST Steel, a maker of rod iron rods, and later more than doubled it's $24 million investment. The company borrowed heavily to modernize plants in Kansas City and North Carolina and to pay out dividends to Bain. But foreign competition increased and steel prices fell. GST Steel filed for bankruptcy and shut down it's money losing the Kansas City plant, throwing some 750 employees out of work. Union workers there blamed Bain, then and now, for ruining the company, upending their lives and devastating the community. (This is the subject of the Ads now running about Romney and his success in the private sector).

In 1994 Bain invested 27 million as part of a deal to acquire Dade International, a medical diagnostics equipment firm from its parent company, Baxter International. Bain Ultimately made nearly 10 times its money, getting back 230 million, but Dade ended up laying off more than 1,600 employees and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002, amid crushing debt and raising interest rates. The company with Bain in charge had borrowed heavily to do acquisitions accumulating $1.6 billion in debt by 2000. The company cut benefits to some of its workers at its acquired firms and laid off others. When it merged with Behring Diagnostics, a German company, Dade shut down three U.S.
plants . At the same time Bain paid out $421 million to Bain Capital investors and investing partners.

In one of his Leverage Buyout Mitt sought the services of junk bond king, Michael Milken and his company Drexel Burnham Lambert to solicit scarce cash. During this time it was well known that Drexel and Milken were under investigation by the SEC, but Drexel was still the big player in the junk bond business and Romney needed the financing, ( for the $300 million purchase of two Texas Department Store chains, Bealls and Palais Royal to form Speciality Retailers Inc).

On September 7, 1988, two months after Bain hired Drexel to issue junk bonds to finance the deal, the SEC filed a complaint against Drexel and Milken for insider trading. Instead of backing out of the deal Romney went forward with the transaction. Mitt's deal with Drexel went well for him and Bain Capital which put $10 million into the retailer and financed most of the rest of the $300 million deal with junk bonds. The new company later known as Stage Stores, refocused on its small store, small town roots. Seven years later in October 1996 the company issued an IPO, selling shares at $16.

By the following year the stock  rose to $53 a share and Bain Capitol and a number of it's officers and directors sold a large part of its holdings. Bain made a $175 million gain by 1997. It was one of the most profitable leverage buyout in that era.
Romney and Bain Capitol officers and directors sold at just the right time. Shares plunged in value the next year amid declining sales. The department store company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in 2000, struggling with $600 million  in debt, and a reorganized company emerged the following year. So ended the story that Romney would definitely not be telling on the campaign trail, the highly leveraged purchase, financed with junk bonds from a firm that became infamous for it's financial practices, of a department store company that had subsequently gone into bankruptcy.
For Romney and Bain Capital, however, it was a huge win, a 175 million gain!

During those 15 years, that Romney had been in the business of "creative destruction" (as he coined the term in his autobiography, Turnaround), and wealth creation, he has made claims of job creation? Though the Bain Company surely helped expand some companies that had created jobs, the layoffs and closures at other firms would lead Romney's political opponents to say that he had amassed a fortune in part by putting people out of work and called him a vulture capitalists. To avoid the use of the name venture capitalists the term equity funding was utilized. The lucrative deals that made Romney wealthy could exact  a cost.
Maximizing financial return to investors  could mean slashing jobs , closing plants, and moving production overseas. It could also mean clashing with unions  workers,serving on the board of a company that ran afoul of federal laws and loading up already struggling companies with debt.

In response to Romney's claim that he helped create tens of thousands of jobs, Howard Anderson, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and a former investor of Bain Capital said, "what you really cannot do is claim every job was because of your good judgement, You're not really running those organizations. Your financing them, your offering your judgement and your advise . I think you can only claim credit for the jobs of the companies you ran".
In his 2004 autobiography, Turnaround, Romney admitted,"I never actually ran any of our investments, that was left to management"
When it comes to buyout firms the objective is to make money for investors . It is not to maximize jobs . Romney had a fiduciary duty to investors to make as much money as possible . Marc Wolpow , a former Bain Partner who worked with Romney on many deals  said the discussion at buyout companies typically does not focus on whether jobs will be created. "It's the opposite, What jobs can we cut".

Mitt explained it by saying if we didn't buy these companies  and impose efficiencies on them, the market would have done it with disastrous consequences. This was his point of view when he wrote a 2008 op-ed piece in the New York Times opposing a federal bail out for automakers that the newspaper headlined, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt". It was good that his his advice went unheeded and his prediction that "you can kiss the American automobile industry goodbye  if it got a bailout has not come to pass. Mitt now claims sucess for the General Motors revival.  Somehow in his convoluted thinking, he surmises that if GM had followed his advice and gone bankrupt they would have also been successful.

Mitt's present net worth is estimated at $ 250 million dollars and he has millions of these dollars in investment funds in the Cayman Islands. A spokesman for Romney said that Romney follows all tax laws  and he would pay the same in taxes  regardless of where the funds are based.

On or about January 18, 2012, Romney disclosed that he has been paying a far lower percentage  in taxes then most Americans, around 15 percent of his annual earnings, because his earnings are from capital gains and not wages. It was only until his Republican rivals forced him to release his income tax returns that he shared his returns. "I can tell you, we follow the tax laws ", Romney said, "And if there is an opportunity to to save on taxes, we like anybody else in this country will follow that opportunity."

Tax experts at ABC News said there maybe other reasons why Romney may not want the public viewing his returns. As one of the wealthiest candidates to run for president in recent times,, Romney has used a variety of techniques to minimize the taxes on his estimated $250 million fortune. In addition to paying a reduced tax rate on his investment income, Romney has $8 million invested in at least 12 funds listed on a Cayman Island registry. Another investment which Romney reports as being worth between $5 million and $25 million, shows up on security records as having been domiciled in the Caymans. Official documents reviewed by ABC News show that equity partnership that Romney once ran, has set up 138 secretive offshore funds in the Caymans. Romney campaign officials and those at Bain Capital Tell ABC News that the purpose of setting up those accounts in the Cayman Islands a is to help attract money from foreign investors.and that the accounts provide no tax advantage to  American investors. The decision to locate some funds in the Caymans is routine and a benefit only to foreign investors. who do not want to be subjected to U.S. Taxes. Tax experts agree that the offshore accounts have provided Romney and Bain with other potential financial benefits , such as higher management fees  and greater foreign interest, all at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. Rebecca J. Wilkins, a tax policy expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, said the federal government loses an estimated $100 billion a year because of tax havens.

FIST BUMP FOR NOW!

IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT!

The great thing about our country is that anyone has the opportunity to be president, at least that's what teachers tell their students to motivate them. The only problem with that is that not everyone is actually qualified IQ and ethically wise, although one slipped in from 2000 to 2008, which resulted in two unwarranted wars and a collapsed economy as a result of deregulation in the banking and investment industries.

This election year's Republican crop for the nomination has it's share of unqualified, unethical, not dealing with a full deck candidates . Starting with Herman Cain who wasn't even able to see the flaws in his 999 plan. Michele Bachmann complained about federal spending while at the same time receiving $260,000 in federal farm subsidies on the family plot in Wisconsin and also receiving $30,000 from the state of Minnesota for her husband's counseling clinic, where he was working on turning gay people straight. While complaining about President Obama's stimulus programs she requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district, arguing that transportation projects should not be considered pork.
It's a waste of space to comment on Texas Governor Rick Perry who self destructed during the debates.
John Huntsman, former ambassador to China,who speaks Mandarin was more then acceptable but he was the extra Mormon in the crowded field and his primary contributor was his multimillionaire father.
Congressman Ron Paul had some strong points but he was not taken seriously by the Republican mainstream primarily because he was his own man and could not be controlled.

Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house was forced out of office and fined $300,000 for ethics violations and then went to work for Freddie Mac, the federally backed mortgage guarantor, a GOP villain in the housing meltdown as a historian (while Mitt refers to him as a lobbyist) earning $1.6 million dollars during the housing crisis. The Thrice married, former speaker has been married for almost 50 years,  just not to the same person, with his three marriages overlapping, having a history of starting a new relationship while still in his old relationship. He started young, he said when he was 18, dating his high school geometry teacher who was 26 at the time. His second wife in an Esquire Magazine article, said that he was actually 16 when he started the relationship. The second wife, who he divorced, after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, went public with new details about his request for an open marriage while in his 6 year affair with a former congressional staffer who is now his third wife. This explains a great deal about Newt. He was actually a victim and his first wife can be classified as a predator and this may be why he had no qualms about divorcing her when she was battling cancer. This is common news but the media has not raised this issue. Gail Sheehy stated in a 1995 Vanity Fair article that his first marriage was an" independent act to escape the totalitarian regime of his stepfather's home. "He chose a path that women have used for generations: he made a jailbreak marriage attaching himself at the tender age of 19 to his high school geometry teacher,a buxom blond, seven years his senior."

Newt Gingrich who was carpet bombed by Governor Romney in Iowa and Florida, in a series of blistering and unrelenting attacks after winning the South Carolina primary has been painted as an erratic, unreliable Washington insider.
Gingrich's Super PAC, "Winning Our Future" is funded by Sheldon Adelson, a  Las Vegas casino billionaire, (The Venetian and Sanda Expo and Convention Center) with a personal fortune estimated at more than 20 billion, who along along with his wife, Miriam has already given $16.1 million dollars, based on Gingrich's support for Israel. Adelson is the eighth richest man in the world. In 2001 he went into the casino business with the Chinese Government, building the Macao at a cost of 4.4 billion dollars, whose revenue generates more than all the casinos in Las Vegas. His interest is that Israel retains all the land west of the Jordan River and is adamant that there be no compromise with the Palestinians and is a big proponent of going to war with Iran.
 Adelson stated that as of April 1, 20012, after the Wisconsin primary that he will no longer contribute to the Gingrich Campaign and will be supporting Romney.

Gingrich describes Romney's venture capital occupation as a flawed system where a hand full of rich people can manipulate the lives of thousands of other people and walk off with the money by looting a company and leaving behind broken families and fallen neighborhoods

Gingrich has based his campaign on fear mongering, stating the President Obama is one of the most dangerous men ever.  Grandiosity and being flamboyant are part of Newt' s persona. He has promised to  reduce the price of gas to $2.50 a gallon.  One of his future plans for the country if he was elected president, is to colonize the moon. he called himself the "Regan conservative"and proposed an immigration plan which included an allowance for legal residency for illegal residents who have been in the nation for a long time and have ties to their communities. It also included securing the boarder, an enhanced guest worker  and visa program , and steeper penalties  for employers who hire those in the country illegally. He was not being altruistic and was primarily seeking the Latino votes. He took heat from conservatives for refusing to support proposals to kick out all illegal immigrants out of the country.


Rick Santorum

Santorum
Santorum,  however has always been middle class, his parents went to college and he was raised on a federal payroll. His father was a psychologist and his mother was an RN, both worked for the Veteran's Administration living on hospital grounds in federal housing. He owes his initial upbringing, housing and education to the federal government, but to hear him say it government should stay out of everyone life..

Santorum believes that he can make any statement he wants when he is speaking in the hinterlands such as in Fargo, North Dakota when he said that Federal and for that matter state money should not be used  to support public education . It should be left up to small villages and townships to do so. Parents should be responsible to home school their children. He also said that President Obama has a
phony theology and not one found in any bible. When questioned by Bob Schieffer, on Face the Nation, he back down and explained that he was talking about global warming and whether it was caused by man and questioned man's responsibility to protect the earth and it's environment.

He recently criticized President John F. Kennedy for his 1960 Separation of Church and State Speech saying it made him want to throw up, because the government has pushed the separation of church and state too far. Kennedy had given the speech in Houston to a group of Baptist ministers to reassure them that his Catholic faith would not mean that he would be influenced by the Vatican. Kennedy stated "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute" and goes on to state that he believes in an America where no religious body seeks to impose it's will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of it's officials.

This is basic First Amendment law. It's what the founding fathers considered as necessary to prevent a state religion being forced on a new country to the exclusion of other religions. Santorum back tracked about his statement regarding J.F. Kennedy and his statement could be considered an off the cuff slip of the tongue, but for the fact that he first made these statements in 2002. Santorum believes that a man of faith should not leave his religion if he is elected president, which certainly not a prerequisite in assuming office..
This is what the Taliban does in Afghanistan forcing their laws, customs, traditions on all others, regardless of their personal beliefs.
So women are not allowed to get an education, they can not go out into the streets without a male relative as a chaperon, they cannot drive a vehicle,they must wear a burka and must cover their arms and legs at all times.

Although Santorum may not realize what he is saying this in fact is what he is advocating. He is against birth control and considers the health care bills insistence that health insurance cover birth control as an attack on religion.
The founding fathers were not hostile towards religion, many of them were deeply religious and many of the colonies were founded to escape religious persecution in their prior countries. The goal of the founding fathers was to protect individual religious liberty, especially the liberty of those in the religious minority
Santorum is so engrossed in his own importance and his own religious concepts that he is unable to see this. He complains of government interference and the need for freedom, and yet he feels that it is his right to interfere in a woman's health care decisions. If he does not have the cognitive reasoning ability to analyze this, he certainly is not fit to hold any elective office much less the Presidency. His political philosophy is infused with his own brand of uber-Catholicism which lacks humanity.

The Los Angeles Times Nation Edition, Sunday March 25, 2012, reported that Santorum, last fall, before he became a front runner, told a Conservative Christian blogger in Iowa, that he would use the White House bully pulpit to promote his concerns about something most people considered settled, birth control. "One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about is, I think  the dangers of contraceptives in this country". The whole  sexual libertine idea".
"Many of the Christian faith have said , contraception is OK, It is not OK., it's a license  to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be".
 Isn't that what the separation of church and state is about? One should not force his religious beliefs on others .
This country has gone through social experiments in the past, where the beliefs of the so called righteous were forced on others, such as involuntary sterilization to combat crime and poverty in the 1920's and of course the well meaning Volstead Act, the 18th amendment, commonly known as Prohibition enacted on January 16, 1920 and not repealed for 13 years until December 5,1933, which denied citizens the right to buy or sell alcoholic beverages, in the belief that this would curtail alcoholism, and crime.

Santorum has become infamous for his gaffes and his back tracking. His foot in the mouth incidents have come so frequently that they are almost a daily occurrence. Beginning with his statement while in Puerto Rico that it would never become a state unless English was it's first language. Talk about attacking someones culture. His next gaffe was in Illinois on the eve of their primary, saying I don't care how high unemployment gets, it doesn't matter to me. Mitt of course immediately answered eloquently, "I do care about unemployment, it does matter to me!" That Mitt is really quick on the repartee. You can't put anything over on him.

Santorum followed that gaffe with, the statement that there was no difference between Romney and Obama and if Romney was the nominee, we might as well stay with what we have. Of course when questioned he at first denied saying that and when the video was played for him as proof of his statement he once again back tracked saying, I said "we" as in the people," I didn't mean that we should vote for Obama". "I will support the Republican nominee". Someone should point out to him that "We" includes the person using the term.

His latest gaff if you want to call it a gaffe is a yelling rant  on March 25, repeating over and over that Romney is the worst Republican candidate ever, and of course when questioned by a New York Times reporter, he turned it around, angrily stating that the reporter was distorting what he had said, what speech are you listening to, he questioned. He said "that's bullshit" much to the chagrin of one of his daughters who was standing nearby.He said he was talking about health care reform and Romney being unable to raise this issue in the campaign.

If elected, Rick Santorum would not be able to back track on statements made about foreign policy and definitely would be a very dangerous and unpredictable person to have in charge.

Rick Santorum has carried this flawed thinking into other aspects of his personal prejudices. In 2003 when questioned about gay marriage he equated it with bestiality and pedophilia and during the New Hampshire primary he also equated it with polygamy for good measure. When questioned as to how he could believe that all men are created equal and still object to two men in love marrying, he began to ramble "so if everyone has the right to be happy, so if you're not happy unless your married to five other people is that O.K.? Well what about three men?" He was asked if he would protect gay rights since gays are also children of God and he responded. " Serving in the military is not an unalienable right, it's a privilege, you're selected", said Santorum, who wants to restore "don't ask, don't tell" He also called marriage a "privilege not a right", for the purpose of procreation.

Dan Savage, a sex columnist and gay rights activist as a response to Rick Santorum's anti gay remarks held a contest among his readers to create a new definition for Santorum. The results of the contest can be found when you google Santorum's name. Rick Santorum has tried to get google to remove this from the web site but has not been successful.
Rick Santorum's super PAC, Red, White and Blue, is supported by conservative Christian Millionaire, Foster Friess who made the statement that the only birth control pill that women should need is an aspirin that they would keep between their knees.

Santorum started his political career with an upset win unseating a 7 term Democrat, Doug Walgren by a 2 point margin, criticizing him for living in the wealthiest area of Virginia. He made absolute promises that he would never live in Virginia, that his residence has always been in Pittsburgh. However 4 years later when he was elected to the senate Santorum and his family settled into a home in Herndon Virginia, and later moved to a larger home purchased for $643,000 in affluent Leesburg Virginia. He explained to a reporter that his pledge never to live in Virginia only applied while he served in the house. He enrolled his 5 children in an online Pennsylvania charter school at an estimated cost of $100,000, to the Pennsylvania tax payers, but they were not living in Pennsylvania. He defended his actions saying that although they were not living in Pennsylvania that he was still a tax payer there, paying property taxes etc.

He is criticized by Romney as being a Washington insider. He was part of the pay as you play group, meeting with top lobbyists every two weeks. When he left office in 2007 his net worth was estimated at between  $550,000 and  $1.9 million and as a result of his K Street connections in 2011 his net worth was estimated at $1.2 million to $4 million. He was a contributor for Fox News earning $239,153 for his 2012 cable appearances. He calls President Obama a socialist and preaches fiscal conservatism and yet he did not hesitate, while in the senate to make sure that money from the Medicare program went to Puerto Rico on behalf of a home town firm, Universal Health Care Services,serving as a board member, receiving $400,000, in director's fees and stock options. This hospital was accused by the Justice Department in 2010 of submitting fraudulent claims for medicaid reimbursements.

Rick Santorum on the issue of abortion has said that there is only one place to be from the stand point of  science and faith. He calls his wife Karen, a neonatal nurse and an attorney, "the rock which I stand upon" Before their marriage they made a re commitment to their Catholic faith, which was a reversal for his wife who had lived  with a well know abortion provider 40 years her senior and had openly supported abortion. The New York Times reported in an article on March 4, 2012, that Karen Santorum nee Garver in 1982, became a couple with Dr. Tom Allen an obstetrician- gynecologist who founded Pittsburgh's first abortion clinic. The two became romantically involved after Karen, a nursing student in her 20's rented the basement apartment in the building where Dr. Allen, in his 60's, lived and worked. Dr. Allen knew Karen's father, also a doctor and had delivered her when she was born.

The two hosted fundraisers for liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union as well as his clinic, expressing strong support for abortion rights. The couple spent 6 years together. Karen left the relationship when she met Santorum, making a 180 degree change in  her political orientation.
In a recent television interview Karen Santorum indicated that she was just going through a phase at that time.
The relationship was originally reported in the Philadelphia City Newspaper in 2005.

This aspect of Senator Santorum life is not meant to denigrate him in any way since he did not know his future wife at that time. However if Santorum was able to accept and forgive Karen for what he would consider,  her past digressions, then he should have a more realistic view of society, a knowledge that people have their own judgement, can live their own lives and contribute to society in their own way.  He should be able to accept that not everyone is made in the same mold and it should be clear to him, that individuals can still be upstanding individuals..

Instead he is living a very rigid, almost monastic philosophy, eschewing birth control, home schooling his children,and believing that women should leave their careers behind to raise their children. I'll leave it to the reader to determine if Rick Santorum has the right philosophy or cognitive reasoning to become a leader of the free world.

On Tuesday, April 9th, Rick Santorum without giving a complete explanation held a press conference in which he declared that he would be suspending his campaign . Rick announced that he was pulling out and that was unusual in that he was always steadfast about birth control!
 Santorum was successful in defeating Romney and winning 11 states . There was a question as to whether he would be able to win the primary in his home state of Pennsylvania on April 24th, and a defeat there would be a death knell for his ongoing campaign. Santorum raised a total of  $15,621,893 for his campaign as of February 29, 2012, according to the Los Angeles Times. He has spent $13,033,588 and has $2,598,305 cash on hand. The  campaign's present debt is $922,448 and it is expected that this debt will be repaid from any available super pack as part of Santorum's eventual endorsement of Romney.

His 3 year old daughter Bella suffers from a genetic disorder, known as trisomy 18, the majority of those with this illness die before their first birthday. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia this past weekend and this may have contributed to Santorum decision to suspend his campaign. There is no doubt that Santorum will play a prominent role in the Republican Party's future and possibly another presidential run in 2016.

HE WON, GET OVER IT!

It's surprising that there are so many people who have no interest in the political arena, yet they are the first to complain about government action or inaction. Recently I 've run into people who say they are independents (which means that they have not taken the time to evaluate the party platforms), and astonishing enough, some people who say that in their estimation both parties are to blame for the poor state of the economy and that is the reason they refuse to vote.
Meanwhile the hate goes on. The sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, 79 year old, Joe Arpiao, who is under investigation as a result of a federal grand jury finding of abuse of power for racial profiling, last week held a press conference with a copy of President Obama's birth certificate, questioning it's authenticity, stating that in his opinion it is a computer-generated forgery.
Imagine all this time and the birthers keep up their claims about the President's birth place and citizenship. It's the old gamesmanship of using an offense for his defense of the federal charges. They believe that if you repeat a lie enough times it will be accepted as gospel.

Another act of hate and racism, this time in an unlikely place, a federal court in Montana by an unlikely individual, a Federal Court Judge ,Richard Cebull, Montana's chief federal judge on Wednesday, February 29,2012 acknowledged forwarding an email to friends about President Obama that appears to equate African Americans with dogs and raises questions about the president's mixed ancestry, saying "normally I don't send or forward a lot of these, hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
The Montana Human Rights Network's Travis McAdams said the email, "flies in the face of honor and dignity." The judge, when interviewed by The Great Falls Tribune which obtained the email, conceded that it was racist but not that he was racist. Say what!

Rush Limbaugh was recently the big winner of  the spew hatred and venom contest,  by calling a 30 year old, Georgetown Law student, Sandra Fluke,  one of a group of "feminnazis"who effectively wanted government to subsidize their sexual activity. He addressed her as a slut and prostitute after she testified before congress about the need for health care insurance to provide birth control medication and contraception information.  If he disagreed with her position and statements he could have certainly have said so but this would not have caught the attention of his loyal following.. She did not say that she personally needed this to prevent  pregnancies, instead she was testifying in behalf of a friend who as a result of cancer had lost an ovary and needed the birth control pills to help stabilize her menstrual cycle. She never mentioned that she needed to be paid  to have sex or that she had so much sex that she couldn't;t afford to buy her own pills. Yet this is the tact that Limbaugh took when he called her a slut and a prostitute and to add insult to injury then added, that if she wanted to get paid to have sex,that she should post the videos on the Internet so he and other voyeurs could watch . When his sponsors started to withdraw advertising from his syndicated  programs, Rush quickly apologized, actually 3 times within an hour saying that his choice of words were not appropriate. Soon there after  however he and his cohorts began to back tract, saying that the liberal left and NPR had previously used language equally provocative against right wing personalities. That it was the leftist who had instigated the ugly tone on the contraception debate.

This is a childish response, admit your inartful use of the English language, (if  that's what you want to call it ) and leave it at that. It's like saying "they started it".   Rush therefore feels vindicated, and has no guilt about targeting a virtually private citizen with sexual slander  and will continue with his trash talk and his millions of listeners will cling to every word and idea he espouses.

This would have been a great opportunity for the  Republican presidential  contenders to step  forward in the defense of the law student because certainly they would agree that Limbaugh's statements were indefensible however none of the candidates wanted to alienate "El Rushbo" as he calls himself and of course his conservative supporters and chose to tread lightly.
Mitt Romney said it was not the language that he would have used.
Rick Santorum alibied for Limbaugh by saying "he's an entertainer who should be given some latitude to be absurd.
Newt Gingrich's Super PAC, "Winning our Future: demonstrated whose side they were on when they increased their ads on the Limbaugh show.
Only John McCain had the cajones to speak up, stating "Those statements were unacceptable in every way and should be condemned by everyone, no matter what their political leanings are".

A close friend described Limbaugh as a, "closet Democrat", because he may have caused more damage to the brand of the Republican party than any Democrat has done so far this election year.
Let's hope that El Rushbo can keep it up.

Fist Bump Time!

SIT BACK OR FIGHT BACK !

It's a stretch of the imagination to accept the premise  that billion dollar corporations would manipulate information to gain an advantage and profit at the expense of the tax payer. That a CABAL would be created for this purpose sound like a plot from a Tom Clancy or John Le Carre novel. However as they say truth is stranger then fiction.

 In an feature article in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday January 15, 2012, David Finkelstein writes that in 2006, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and the World Health Organization in Geneva issued  warnings of an imminent danger of an avian flu pandemic of lethal proportions comparable to the Spanish Flu of 1918 which resulted in the deaths of between 50 million and 100 million  people. A drug "Tamiflu, was represented in 8 or 9 studies as being effective in reducing the secondary complications of the flu, bronchitis and pneumonia.  Because the writer and his wife were going overseas on a writing assignment they sought to purchase the drug but found it very difficult to obtain because the fear of the pandemic had prompted panic buying and the drug was very scarce. President George W. Bush had stock piled the drug at a cost of more then a billion dollars. (it was not possible to acertain whether the pharmaceutical company, through another corporation or individuals donated to any George W. Bush Fund). The avian flu did not materialize as predicted but in 2009, the threat of another pandemic, swine flu loomed, and once again the drug Tamiflu was touted as effective. However in a  magazine report in 2011 it was revealed that a doctor had challenged the findings of the drugs effectiveness on the grounds that in a review of the data,  8 of the 10 studies had not been published. In seeking the raw data from the studies the doctor was stalled by excuses as to why the actual data could not be produced. Finally two employees of  a communications company revealed that they had been paid to ghost write some of the Tamiflu studies with specific instructions to emphasize that the flu was a serious threat and Tamiflu was the solution. The Pharmaceutical companies in effect had conned the public on issues of health in order to market their product at expense, of course of the taxpayer.

 Was this an isolated incident, perhaps not unless you have already forgotten about Enron, an American Energy Company based in Houston. Investors lost more than 60 billion dollars with the collapse of Enron in 2002. On February 20, 2000 Enron stock closed at $75.09 and by December 2,2001 the stock closed at .26 cents. Yet for the period of time while the stock was in free fall the stock was continued to be touted by corporate officials.

 In November 1997 Kenneth Lay bought out a partnership stake in a company called JEDI and sold the stake to a firm it created called Chewco, which was to be run by Enron officers. Thus began a series of transactions that enable Enron to hide debts.. The primary motivations for Enron's accounting and financial transactions seem to have been to keep reported income and cash flow up, assets value inflated and liabilities off the books. The Wall Street Journal did not report the existence of the Chewco Partnerships until October 26, 2001.The Justice Department did not launch a criminal investigation until January 9, 2002 . On January 10, 2002, John Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General recused himself from the investigation because he had received a donation of $57,499 from Enron, when he ran for the U.S. Senate.  

On April 17, 2001 Enron Chairman,  Kenneth Lay met with then Vice President Dick Cheney and other energy people in the first of 6 meetings . During the Enron Investigation Dick Cheney refused to provide minutes of the meetings to congress, citing executive privilege.

 Arthur Andersen and company, founded in 1913, one of the big five accounting firms in the country was the accountant and consultant for Enron. During the investigation, Arthur Andersen had their legal counsel instruct  the staff who audited Enron's books to destroy all but the most basic documents. Documents were shredded from October 23, 2001 to November 9, 2001 when the company was served with a subpoena. The resulting investigation led to the felony conviction of the company (later reversed on appeal)  which  resulted in the dissolution of the 89 year old firm which had 85, 000 employees in 84 different countries. 

 Kenneth Lay hosted two fund raisers for former president George H.W. Bush.  Karl Rove waited five months after taking office in January 2001 to sell more than 100 thousand shares of Enron Stock. George W. Bush received $312,500 in contributions from Enron for his gubernatorial race and $413.000 for his presidential war chest and inaugural fund.

Kenneth Lay had received 200 million dollars in salary, stock and other compensation since 1999.

 I'll leave it to the reader to connect the Legos,  and determine whether having friends in high places enabled Enron to defraud it's investors.

Again isolated cases?  Would billion dollar corporations lie and connive for profits without regard for the consequences of their actions. One has to look no farther then the tobacco industry, which has long been among the most powerful in the United States.

 The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that world wide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million death annually by 2030.  In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e, about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these tobacco-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure). On Average, smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.

 The cigarette industry spends billions each year on advertising and promotions, spending 12.5 billion in 2006, 34 million dollars a day.

Who can forget the testimony of the 7 CEO's of big tobacco on April 14, 1994, before the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment, that to their knowledge "Nicotine was not addictive." They were testifying because the subcommittee  has legislative jurisdiction over issues that effect our health, and no health issue is as important as cigarette smoking.

 As a result of the sustained criticism and legal action beginning in mid twentieth century did the tobacco industry take steps to improve the product or curb the sale of the single most dangerous consumer product ever sold?  No, guess again Muchacho,  instead the industry sought out scientists and paid them to make an 'objective appraisal' of whether secondhand smoke was harm to non-smokers, a move they hoped would dispel the 'extreme views' of some anti-smoking activists.

"The scientists, who came from prestigious institutions such as Georgetown University and the University of Massachusetts, did not consider themselves to be working on behalf of cigarette makers even though they were being paid by the industry. Government lawyers showed documents during a federal trial "that described the research initiative as a 'weapon' to be used in a battle with anti-smoking groups and that the scientists were to stick to the tobacco industry line.' according to Reuters. (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml? domestic news&storyID)

 The Tobacco Industry also formed the Tobacco Institute to defeat legislation unfavorable to the the tobacco industry, put a positive spin on the industry, bolster the industry's credibility with legislators and the public and help maintain the controversy over "the primary issue" (the health issue). In a February 1989 speech to the executive committee of the Tobacco Institute, , the group's senior vice president Charles Powers sought to save the industry's covert "Scientific Witness Program" from impending budget cuts. The program he said featured experts "who are our front line of defense in tax, public smoking and advertising hearings every day".it takes money he said. "The institute can't do it and be taken seriously. We need people who have earned reputations as serious researchers...who can review and critique articles, publish and act as peer reviewers" He estimated that it cost an average of $40,000 and took six weeks to identify and train a single expert.

 A new study at the University of California, San Francisco found that the Tobacco Industry "recruited and managed an international network of more than 80 scientific and medical experts in Europe, Asia and elsewhere in a bid to avoid regulations on secondhand smoke".

 The Tobacco Institute was the umbrella trade and lobbying association for the U.S.Tobacco Industry. As a result of settlement of a legal action brought against the industry by the U.S. National Association of Attorney General( NAAG) which resulted in a master settlement agreement in 1998 the institute was forced to disband and its internal records were placed in a searchable website (http://www.tobaccoinstitute.com/)which revealed a disinformation campaign conducted by the institute on behalf of the American cigarette manufacturers. Also revealed were the strategies to take the focus off of the health, safety and environmental hazards posed by detrimental products and shift attention onto topics considered more favorable to the industry.

 The basic argumentation strategies are as follows:

 1) Shift the focus away from health. safety issues caused by a product and onto the economic contribution that the detrimental product makes to the country.

 2) Argue that legislation against the detrimental product is unnecessary, and that personal responsibility and industry self-regulation are preferable to legislation; (sound familiar?)

 3)  Argue that advertising is a necessary conduit through which important information is delivered to consumers;

 4) Argue that business would be seriously disadvantaged by legislation regulating the damaging product;

 5) Draw analogies between the detrimental product and less hazardous or bothersome products that require no warnings or pose no threat;

 6. Propose or introduce weak legislation or regulation that would yield no measurable impact on production or sales of the product, but that would create an appearance that something is being done to ameliorate the problems the detrimental product causes;

7) Pretend to take internal action to ameliorate problems caused by the detrimental product by developing internal programs, funding coalitions, "independent" research,etc.;

 8) Fund research through "credible" third parties showing the detrimental product is not dangerous or problematic, or is less dangerous or problematic than thought.

 9) File challenges against any laws or regulations of the product that do pass.

The tobacco industry is still up to it's dirty tricks, utilizing the above rules to prevent any type of legislation that will  discourage smokers and dimish profits through the use of a disinformation 
campaign conducted by the PhillipMorris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Companym. Proposition 29 was a California  measure  to add a $1.00 per pack tax on cigarettes to fund cancer research which is certainly  worth while legislation that no one could oppose and certain to pass. The tobacco companies used their tried and true  strategies of taking  the focus off of the health, safety and environmental hazards posed by their detrimental products and shifted attention onto topics considered more favorable to the industry.  This is an industry that markets and sells a product , that when used as intended , causes disease and kills people.  The tobacco industry made the campaign something other than cancer and tobacco arguing that the measure would creat a bubureaucracy of highly paid executives, that the tax payer money would be spent out of state and that the measure had a 15 year life that could not be changed during that time. After spending $47 million dollars  to run anti tax negative ads they succeeded in a narrow victory in the California  primary on June 5th.  This proves once again that with enough money  the  gullible will accept what ever is fed to them.  

 The above three examples of large multibillion dollar corporations running roughshod over the tax- payer are not isolated incidents. It is the same robber-barron mentality that we thought had disappeared after exposure by the muckrakers They're back, or better said they never left and instead became more sophisticated. 

 The size and scope of the billions of dollars involved in the above three industries and their respective corporations are diminished when compared to the bank bailouts of 2008 enacted by President Bush. While most Americans polled believe that President Obama started the bank bailouts. The Troubled Assets relief Program (Tarp) was enacted on October 3, 2008 by the George W. Bush Administration and signed the same day by President Bush, in response to the subprime mortgage crisis created by the banking industry. It authorized the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson to spend up to $700 billions to purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage backed securities, and make capital injections into banks. Additional unrelated provisions added an estimated $150 billion to the cost of the package.

Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman, Christopher Cox all appointed by President Bush Consulted and with President Bush moved forward to draft the proposal.

However although the 800 billion dollar bailout was nothing to sneeze at,  it appears that the bank bailout was much larger than previously reported.  By December 5, 2008 the emergency fund peaked to one trillion, two hundred billion dollars, yes one trillion, two hundred billion dollars. It was worth repeating.

Bloomberg Markets Magazine details trillions of dollars in secret federal loans made to big banks during the financial crisis, a process that helped them rake in billions of dollars in undisclosed profits. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was quoted as stating that the bank bailout was kept a secret to prevent a stigma against banks that took part.
 According to a new Bloomberg Report, $7.7 trillion dollars is the total amount in undisclosed loans the Federal   Reserve made to struggling financial institutions. Rather than help curb the practice that cause the financial crisis. The Fed and its secret financing helped America’s biggest financial firms get bigger and go on to pay employees as much as they did at the height of the housing bubble.  In order to obtain this information Bloomberg had to review 29000 pages of federal documents courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, and central bank records.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today, (2/9/12), a 25 billion multi-state settlement with the nations’ biggest mortgage lenders over loan servicing and foreclosure abuse that occurred after the housing bubble burst. Five major banks Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial will reduce loans for nearly 1 million households. Checks of $2000, will be sent
to 750.000 Americans who were improperly foreclosed upon. This is the largest settlement in one industry since the 1998  multi-state Tobacco deal.  

I could not  try to explain in a few words what caused the sub prime crash, since it is so complicated that It could be the subject of a doctorial disseration. If you are interested in learning more about these issues of Wall Street greed and government corruption I would suggest you contact Netflix and obtain the Academy Award winning documentary "Inside Job" narrated by Matt Damon.  It will leave you fully informed and very angry. 

This is the first step of the Obama Administration forcing the banking industry  to repay the American tax payer for their misdeeds and this is only a partial settlement.

All of the bank bailouts of course have increased the deficit that the Tea Party is so anxious to reduce but fails to acknowledge was brought about by President George W. Bush.

As the saying goes, money is the mother's milk of politics and the above facts are a testament to that adage. While the tobacco industry pioneered these strategies many of these strategies have since then been adopted and widely utilized by other industry groups and political organization.  The separation gap between the haves and the have more has always been there, but it has only been more visible during the past decade.

 The Koch brothers in order to accomplish their goals have formed "think Tanks on over 300 positions including subjects such as dismantling social security. It's the same old argument that social security is going bankrupt, that it should be privatized and that there is a need to raise the retirement age to the age of  at least 70.  The Koch brothers have donated 28.4 million dollars, which is just chump change to them to four foundations,The Heritage Foundation,3.4 million;The Cato Institute 13.6 million dollars; Mercatus,9 million and the Reason foundation 2.4 million, all working in an effort to espouse the Koch philosophy.

  Republican candidates running for the nomination with the help of Super PAC are working hard to establish their claim by buying their way into power. Everyone has heard of the Citizens United ruling but the background of the decision has gone by the wayside because usually supreme court rulings do not make for bed side reading material.

 The official name of the case is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Citations (in case anyone would like to read the original ruling) 558 U.S.[1]; 130 S. Ct.876, argued March 24, 2009, re argued September 9,2009 and decided January 21, 2010.

 This is considered a landmark decision which held that the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. The Supreme Court in a five- four decision reversed a lower courts decision which had been appealed, striking down provisions of the  Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002,(McCain-Feingold Act) that prohibited all corporations, both for profit and not for profit, and unions from broadcasting "electioneering communications", (defined in McCain-Feingold as a broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that mentioned a candidate) within 60 days of a general election or thirty days of a primary. So far this must seem dry and boring to most of you but here comes the interesting part.

 During the 2004 presidential campaign, Citizens United, a conservative non profit (501 (c) (4) organization), filed a complaint before the FEC charging that ads for the Michael Moore Film Fahrenheit 9/11, which was critical of the Bush administration's response to the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001, constituted political advertising and thus could not be aired 60 days before an election or 30 days before a party convention. On August 5, the FEC dismissed the complaint finding no evidence that the movie ads had broken the laws and dismissed a further complaint filed in 2005, wherein the complaint alleged that the  release and distribution of the film, FAHRENHEIT 9/11 constituted an independent expenditure because the film expressly advocated the defeat of President Bush and that by being fully or partially responsible for the film's release, Michael Moore and other entities associated with the group made excessive and/or prohibited contributions to unidentified candidates. The Commission found no reason to believe that Michael Moore violated the Act because the film, associated trailers and website represented bona fide commercial activity, not "contributions or expenditures" as defined by the Federal Elections Campaign Act.

 Those who saw the film will remember a scene where President Bush was reading a book to elementary school children on 9/11/ 2001.

The first plane had crashed into the twin towers which would have given a normal individual a clue that something was amiss, but there sat President Bush reading his book, A presidential aide then approaches the president and whispers in his ear that a second plane has crashed into the second tower and the president stares into space for a second and then continues reading to the children. This was during a period of time when it was known that a third and fourth plane had also been hijacked and discussions were taking place as to whether a commercial airliner full of passengers should be taken down with guided missiles from U.S.jets..

 It is understandable why Citizens United were upset that the president could be viewed as being useless and unprepared to deal with an ongoing crisis.

As a result of this decision the conservative group Citizen's United sought to run television commercials during the 2008 campaign promoting its political documentary Hillary: The Movie, which was critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and to air the movie on DirecTV.

In January 2008 the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the commercials violated the provisions of the McCain-Finegold reform Act which restricted electioneering communications within 30 days before a primary. Though the conservative group claimed that the documentary was fact-based and non partisan, the District Court found that the film had no purpose other than to discredit Clinton's candidacy for President.

 Citizen's United appeal led, oral argument was heard on March 24, 2009 and re argued on September 29, 2009. The Majority Opinion authored by Justice Kennedy found that prohibition of all independent expenditures by corporations and unions was invalid and could not be applied to spending such as that in Hillary: The Movie.  Kennedy wrote that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech". He also expressed his opinion that since there was no way to distinguish between media and other corporations that  these restrictions would allow congress to suppress political speech in newspapers , books, television and blogs. The court overruled Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which had previously held that a Michigan campaign finance act that prohibited corporations from using treasury money to support or oppose candidates in elections did not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment. Also overruled was McConnell v. Federal Election Campaigning Act's restriction on independent expenditures  to include "electioneering communications". The court's ruling effectively removed the limit on the amount corporations and unions can spend on "electioneering communications". 

 A dissenting opinion by Justice Stevens was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor while concurring in the court's decision in sustaining the BCRA disclosure provisions, held that the court's holding was facially unconstitutional because it was ruling on a question that was not brought before it by the litigants, Citizen's United, and so claimed that the majority on the court " changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law. Stevens concluded his dissent: At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American People, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosvelt.

Citizen's United which during the litigation had the support of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Rifle Association  in myopic thinking held that the Supreme Courts decision allowing it to air it documentary film and advertisements was a tremendous victory for every American who desires to participate in the political process.

The Heritage Foundation (a Koch brother’s funded organization) said "The supreme Court has restored a part of the First Amendment that had been unfortunately stolen by congress and a previously wrongly-decided decision by the court.

 A libertarian from the Cato Institute (another Koch brother’s funded organization) wrote that the restrictions on advertising were based on the idea "that corporations had so much money that their spending would create vast inequalities in speech that would undermine democracy".

 The decision in Citizen's United paved the way for the creation expenditure political action committees, known as Super PAC's. These organizations may accept unlimited contributions from individuals, unions, and corporations (both profit and non profit) for the purpose of making independent expenditures.

 In essence the right wing five members of the Supreme Court (Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Kennedy and Thomas), evidently upset over the fact that Michael Moore was able to release and show Fahrenheit 9/11, 30 day before a primary because it was considered a commercial product, decided to make an example and allow the showing of the film Hillary: The Movie, by Citizens United. In so doing they dispense with the issue of when congress can impose constitutional restraints on the first amendment and removed all impediments going to the extreme to say the the First Amendment allows persons the freedom of speech and if people associate and form a corporation, that corporation should be considered a person and therefore entitle to First Amendment Protection and that decision has been said to match or exceed Bush v. Gore in ideological or partisan overreaching by the court.

 A year after the decision, Common Cause asked the Department of Justice to investigate conflicts of interests on the part of two of the justices in the majority, Thomas, whose wife is the founder and president of Liberty Central, a conservative political advocacy group that would be empowered to accept corporate contributions to run campaign advertisements,  and Scalia, both of whom had participated in political strategy sessions organized by David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, who stood to benefit from the decision by taking advantage of the rights upheld by the court, (yes the same Koch brothers who have their tentacles extended to influence any and all political and governmental issues).

 Democratic Senator Russ Feingold a lead sponsor of the BCRA, (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act) stated that the Supreme Court presented with a relatively narrow issue chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president.

 Republican Senator John McCain, co-sponsor of the BCRA was disappointed by the decision but not surprised, saying that it was clear that Justice Roberts, Alito and Scalia, by their very skeptical and sarcastic comments, were very much opposed by BCRA.

 New York Democratic Senator, Charles E. Schumer and Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, outlined legislation aimed at dismantling the decision by introducing a Disclosure Act which passed in the house but failed in the senate. It would have required  additional disclosure by corporations of their campaign expenditures and would have prohibited political spending by U.S. companies  with 20 percent or more foreign ownership, and by most government contractors. The Disclosure act twice failed to pass  the U.S. Senate, in both instances reaching only 59 of the 60 votes required to overcome a unified Republican filibuster.

 On December 8, 2011 Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the Saving America Democracy Amendment, which would reverse the court’s ruling.

Move to Amend is a national coalition of hundreds of organizations and over 113,000 individuals was formed in response to the ruling. It is seeking legislation or amendments that would restrict corporations or corporate interests groups from excessive influence in elections and law making. The organization has local chapters in many states and sponsors public awareness activities. Locally  meetings are scheduled nationwide. However amending the constitution is no easy feat. Both house have to approve the amendment which would be impossible at this time and then 2/3 of the states have to ratify. The last time it was tried was 1972 with the ERA which ended short of the states needed 35 to 38 before the period of time (7 years) expired. It is still being revived each year, the last time on July 9, 2009 with the 3 state strategy rule (since the ERA was only short by 3 states it would only take ratification by 3 states to amend the constitution). However  some states that had previously ratified the amendment prior to the 7 year expiration date, recinded their ratification, so there are issues with the 3 state strategy.
At this time in this election year it is best to use all your free time and money to work for the reelection of President Obama.  The Republicans have suffered from the SuperPAK millions and will be the first to want to amend the constitution or enact legislation. There will be plenty of time to work for Move to Amend after the November election if necessary!

This has been a difficult read because it forces us to accept the greed and corruption of corporate America which affects our daily lives from health care to free speech, Billionaires are using their enormous wealth through Super PAC’s to force their opinions on the general populace who are too busy trying to earn a living to take notice. The ultraconservative Koch Brothers, Charles and David along with other billionaires have pledged to raise 100 million dollars in order to defeat President Obama’s reelection.

To paraphrase Dylan Thomas, Let’s not go gently into the goodnight –lets burn and rage-rage against the acts of the corrupt, the racists the cynics who conspire to buy the election and assume the power of the presidency for their own selfish interests.  Yes, I know the poem refers to death and we will be going through a slow death indeed, if we allow them to bully us into submission. We have seen what they have done in Indiana, Wisconsin and Arizona to name only a few states. where they view power as an opportunity to blame public employees, unions and collective bargaining for the state of the economy. They use the power of the state to enact legislation to restrict the voting rights of those they view as a threat. They are insidious in the way they infiltrate organizations in order to force their philosophy and viewpoints on others as occurred recently in the Susan G Komen/Planned Parenthood Fiasco.

We cannot allow despotic billionaires, segments of the government and right wing judiciary to trample our freedoms. It is time to get active and assert our rights, there is might in power as was seen when the Bank of American was forced to drop their plan to add $5 as a sur-charge for you to use your own credit card. The Komen Foundation was forced to retreat from the decision to cut funding from Planned Parenthood as a result of the huge outcry.

This and only this is the kind of response that is needed to demonstrate to the 1% that the 99% are alive, strong and will stand up for our rights. 

The latest ploy by the Republican members of congress is to make it appear that a regulation in the 2010 healthcare law that required religiously affillated hospitals, charities and universities to provide birth control coverage for their female employees even if that conflicted with church teachings was an attack on religion itself.  This issue has been resolved and while the employees  still will be offered free birth control coverage, the benefits will come directly from their insurers, and no religious groups' money will be used. 

Not all birth control medication is taken to avoid pregnancy, some who face a greater risk of developing ovarian cancer are forced to take the medications for reasons of health. For those interested in learning more about this subject matter, please google "endometriosis." The Rick Santorum's of this world are not interested in listening to reason.

28 states including California and New York, already mandate that contraception be included in prescription drug coverage.
This is a perfect example of another attempt by the right wing without having all the facts, trying to  discredit the President.
When you hear someone say that the president has failed to accomplish anything,  just remined them of what Maureen Doud  has said, “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors’ is alive.”                                                                                                               

As Clint Eastwood said during the Super Bowl, “I’ve seen lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life, times when we didn’t  understand each other, it seems that we’ve lost heart at times,-the fog of division, discord and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead. But after those trials we all rallied around what was right and acted as one” “Yeah it’s halftime, America, and our second half is about to begin.”

FIST BUMP FOR NOW!

Blu-dog Politics 2012

Welcome to the inaugural  edition of  http:// blu-dog.blogspot.com\ which will consist of a pragmatic ( hell, since pragmatic is the word of the year,(2011), according to Merriam-Webster, I might as well use it in the first edition), running commentary of  the rough and tumble aspect of politics during this election year as well as global issues that matter greatly to the American people. It is anticipated that the political discourse provided will be in the form of comparing and contrasting historical events with the present environment to bring about open discussions among the electorate to aide them in making informed decisions regarding issues and political candidates .

I always thought that a person had to be full of themselves to start a blog since what would make them think that their opinions were worthwhile reading. My reason for starting this blog is that on a daily basis we are subjected to opinions and thoughts from pundits whose opinions are often based on pure calculated sound bites to grab the attention of the uninformed and easily influenced. The news media's editorials and news stories pique the attention of readers and invite them to respond with their reactions. This was my outlet when I wanted to vent and give my opinion when my  view differed from theirs. However In the past my view points were printed in the letters to the editor of the Los Angeles times but lately the response to my letters has been that the L A  Times does not print letters from individuals who have signed petitions, because they do not want to be part of letter writing campaigns.

I can understand the concerns of the press who fear being manipulated by groups or organization who wish to foist their own opinions through a writing campaign, however my letters had nothing to do with the petitions I had previously signed. So my letters were not published and I don't know whether it was because they were not worthy of being published or because I've signed  petitions when I felt that issues had to be addressed..

Since the outlet to express my opinions has been closed I have found it necessary to form this blog in an attempt  to overcome the false and misleading information that is spewing hourly over the airways and news media. This information to a large extent has influenced the voting public whose own news sources are gained from long winded diatribes from right wing radio and fair and balanced television as well as speaking with like minded friends and neighbors who may provide their own input and interpretation.

Chen Xi,an individual classified by the Chinese Government as a dissident was recently sentenced to 10 years in prison for posting political essays online. If that person risked his life to protest human and civil rights violations it is the least that I can do to voice my outrage at salacious and mean spirited attacks on the president by the  right wing corporate conservative establishment in an attempt to hijack the presidential election..

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States was a mile stone, an extraordinary event in U.S. Political history and yet instead of accepting this event as it was viewed world wide, a vindication of democracy, an extreme segment more motivated by animus against the newly elected president then love of country, have taken it upon themselves to oppose any and all of his positions.

Within two weeks of his inauguration the first voices of the Tea Party movement were heard. Where was this righteous indignation when George W. Bush who took office in 2000 with a balanced budget and a surplus in the treasury, left office after 8 years with two on going wars and a deficit of 1.4 trillion dollars?

Most of these Tea Party individuals and Evangelicals are not primarily interested in politics. What entices them to the polls, are social issues that have been specifically placed on the ballot to appeal to the conservative establishment, like gay marriage, abortion, or second amendment gun control issues.and of course immigration.

The conservative establishment express outrage about Washington's intrusion into the lives of Americans and yet seek legislation to prohibit a woman from making a decision about a very personal issue. Conservatives can have strong personal issues about abortion and what they would do, if faced with a decision, however trying to force their opinions, mixing religious issues on others,is the same thing that the Taliban is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fact that Tea Party followers make statements about President Obama being the worst president ever demonstrates their ignorance of history.

If you were to ask them who President Nixon's first Vice President was, or why he had to resign they would find themselves in the dark. If they were asked, what the Watergate Scandal was about, many would not be able to respond. But that was in 1972, a long, long time ago. What about Iran- Contra, would they be able to respond to questions about selling arms to Iran and giving the money to the contras in Nicaragua or what Ollie North's and George H.W. Bush's roles were? No probably not, after all this was in 1986, during the years, the Teflon president Reagan, was in office..

These Tea Party conservatives however did not hesitate to criticize the president even before his administration was formed. Derogatory remarks about President Obama were quickly made such as "he's a socialists"; ( President George W. Bush, bailed out the banks in October 2008, to the tune of 700 billion dollars, and the issue of socialism was never raised). These comments have continued and include statements that, ("He was not born in the U.S.", "he is the worst President ever", " He's taking the country in the wrong Direction", " .and of course the stale"cut spending, cut taxes".One senior citizen even said that she could not support President Obama because "he will take insurance benefits away from senior citizens:." It is well accepted that if the Republicans were to win the presidency that all of the candidates have pledged to repeal health care reform and instead issue vouchers to senior citizens.

Even the main stream media have taken it upon themselves to take cheap shots at President Obama. The Orange County Register in their Sunday Supplement Commentary on December 18,2011 ran an article entitled President Obama's Gaffs, among which it reported that the President referred to the British Embassy in Iran after it was attacked as the English Embassy. ( Evidently the paper was unaware that the country is interchangeably known as England as well as Great Britain), and waving at the audience during a photo shoot, accidentally blocking another person's face. None of the gaffs presented equaled any of the many "Bushisms", the worst ones being "putting food on my family", "Gynecologist are in having a love affair with their patients", and of course the most famous "mission Accomplished".:

As a result of "Bushisms", many of George W. Bush's speeches had to be rewritten before they were release to the press.

On December 12, 2011, the Los Angeles Times carried a short article entitled," Group Portrays Obama as a Skunk". The article states that a Tea Party Group in Kansas says it's depiction of President Obama as a skunk is satire, not racism . The Hutchinson-based Patriot Freedom Alliance says on it's website that like the president, the skunk is "half black and half white and almost everything he does stinks." A local Tea Party supporter defended the statement by saying that Sarah Palin has been the target of worse insults.

On January 3, 2012, the Los Angeles Times carried a story on the front page entitled, "Ohio's Working Class reflects a challenge confronting Obama" in which two seniors who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 say they won't vote for his re-election even though they're noticing positive changes. Is the opinion of two individuals who have the right to their personal opinions sufficient to write an article writing off the state?

Even Michelle Obama has not escaped criticism . Jodi Kantor in her book, "The Obama's", published by Little Brown and Company, recently characterizeced the first lady as an angry black women, in that she was reluntant to move into the White House, wanted no part of politics and had conflicts with the president's staff, all of which the first lady denies..

The election will not be a referendum on President Obama. It will be an election between two candidates and their ability to lead the nation. So far the Republican candidates for the nomination have been too busy criticizing each other to be able to make a decision about their leadership qualifications.

In the opinion of Tea Party activists, President Obama can never do anything right. When Osama Bin Laden was killed on May 8, 2011, a game changer, crucial to bringing down Al Queda, it was said that it was meaningless and just symbolic.

When President Obama, following a time table set by President Bush recently ended the war in Iraq that George W. Bush and Dick Chaney so recklessly started, the complaint has been that "he is leaving Iraq in the hands of a dictator."

After 9/11 Bush, Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice started a war against Saddam Hussein even though he had nothing to do with 9/11, Al Qaeda and did not have weapons of mass destruction primarily as Condoleezza Rice said in her memoirs, because, "They had run out of other options."

Richard Bonin a producer for 60 minutes in his book " Arrows of the night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq" reports that on January 21, 2001, the second day of the George W. Bush Presidency, Chalabi met with Richard Perle, a leading figure in the neo-conservative movement along with several men who within a few months would hold influential positions in the new administration, to discuss how to get the Bush Administration to back Chalabi and overthrow Saddam Hussein. I'll let the reader make up their own minds as to whether 9/11 was conveniently used as an excuse to overthrow Saddam Hussein and whether President Bush misrepresented the fact that Saddam had WMD's as an excuse for the war. The only thing certain about the war is the 4487 American fatalities and a cost of 800 billion dollars.

How was this Tea Party opposition to the new administration so quickly formed? Was it a spontaneous grass roots movement as has been portrayed? How is this Tea Party movement that is located in various states able to speak with the same voice and words?

The New Yorker Magazine in an article dated 8/30/2010 written by Jane Mayer, entitled "Covert Operations" "The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama", describe the Koch Brothers, David 70 and Charles 74, as owners of Koch Industries a conglomerate headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, whose annual revenues are estimated to be a hundred billion dollars. The brothers operate oil refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota and control some four thousand miles of pipeline. Koch industries owns Brawny Paper Towels, Dixie Cups, Georgia-Pacific lumber, Stain master Carpet and Lycra, among other products. They are among the richest men in America with a combined fortune of thirty-five billion dollars exceed only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. They are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimum social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry, especially environmental regulation. In a study by the University of Amherst's political Economy Research Institute, Koch Industries was named one of the top ten polluters in the United States. Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial". From 2005 to 2008, the company outdid Exxon Mobil in donating money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups,funding opposition campaigns to many Obama Administration policies from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program.

David Koch has protested that the "radical press" has turned his family into "whipping boys" and have exaggerated it's influence on American Politics. However, Charles Lewis founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group. said "the Koch's are on a whole different level. There is no else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it, is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of law breaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. They are the "Standard Oil of our times"

What does this have to do with the Tea Party movement? Over the July 4, 2009 weekend, an organization started by David Koch in 2004, "Americans for Prosperity Foundation, held a meeting in Austin Texas .Though Koch freely promotes his ventures, he did not attend this meeting and his name was not in evidence. Five hundred people attended the meeting which served in part as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas. An advertisement cast the the event as a populist uprising against vested corporate interest but made no mention of its corporate funders.

Koch industries sponsors many organizations,all with patriotic names for various purposes and thanks to a supreme court decision last year (Citizen's United), the monies donated to these organizations cannot be tracked.This includes money raised for super PACs that the Republican candidates, used in Iowa, New Hamshire and are now using in South Carolina, to place negative ads against each other and will soon be using against President Obama, once the nominee is selected.

So money from wealthy corporations is used to endear themselves to the conservative establishment and their conservative issues of anti gay marriage, anti abortion, anti immigration and anti gun control legislation and in return these conservative groups are only too happy to endorse what the major corporations lobby for, lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy and less oversight of industry especially environmental issues and denial of global warming.

One cannot write about the Republican Party without mentioning Grover Norquist. He was the subject of a 60 minutes expose several weeks ago but evidently the exposure did nothing to diminish his power. In a Rolling Stone article on November 24, 2011, entitled "Grover Norquist, The Billionaires Best Friend, Grover Norquist is described as a former employee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who is the promoter of the "Tax Payer Protection Pledge". He was tapped to head up an organization with the patriotic name of Americans for Tax Reform . He challenged all GOP Candidates, state as well as federal, to take a two part pledge that they would never raise taxes for any reason, at any time and that they would only close loop holes if the revenue was used to pay for further tax cuts. So elected officials have pledged their support to Norquist, completely ignoring their responsibilities to the electorate. Those elected officials who refuse to sign or violate the pledge quickly find themselves challenged in the next election.

The Tea Party congressmen who were elected in 2010 was the result of a purging campaign against Republican candidates who failed to follow Tea Party policy.

This has given Grover Norquist enormous power over the Republican Party by enforcing this hard line stance and in so doing protecting tax breaks for the rich.

In order to accomplish this Grover Norquist has received funding from America's wealthiest corporations but since corporations are people, they are free to donate to whom ever they wish without accountability.

Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform were mentioned in Senate Testimony relating to Jack Abramoff Indian Lobbying Scandal which resulted in a 2006 guilty plea by Abramoff to three felony counts of defrauding American Indian Tribes and corrupting public officials.

Records released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee alleges that Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform served as a "conduit" for funds that flowed from Abramoff's clients to surreptitiously finance grass-roots lobbying campaigns. Norquist denied that he did anything wrong and was not charged with any crime.

Since President Obama's election Grover Norquist has become a leader of the anti-establishment Tea Party. He has pledged that if a Democratic President was ever elected he would never be able to accomplish an agenda.

Norqust and the Tea Party were responsible for the Debt Ceiling standoff that took place last summer that caused the U.S. Credit rating reduction and for the last minute Payroll tax cut that was only extended for two months.

At the present time Norquist has the signed anti-tax pledge of every top republican running for the presidency, 13 governors, 1300 state legislators, 40 of the 47 U.S. Senators, and 236 of the 242 Republicans in the House.

So at this point you have to ask yourselves the question, does this country still have a two party system, or is it the Democratic party vs. Grover Norquist, the Koch Brothers and wealthy corporations?.

Signing off with a Fist Bump,until the next edition.