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Ron Paul, Paul
Craig Roberts, and the Constitution
Editorial by Rudolph Lewis
I am not yet ready
to support Paul for president, but I see where some
other people—including you—probably make more sense than
I do—Wilson
I am not a fan of Ron Paul. I am a
supporter of certain positions held by Dr. Paul. His
libertarian views extends to an anti-war position and to
a defense of civil liberties. That is where our
alliance begins and ends. In one aspect, my views align
with those of Paul
Craig Roberts, a former
Reaganite and presently an opponent of the
War on
Drugs and the
War on Terror. Roberts has written two
pieces on Ron Paul, namely, "America's
Last Chance" and "More
on Ron Paul."
In both pieces,
Roberts emphasizes a concern for the erosion in
America of the rule of law with respect to the
Constitution and its Bill of Rights, which under both
the Bush and Obama administrations have been under
assault as a result of the
War on Terror. Roberts fears
justifiably like Paul, a future threat to the civil
liberties of American citizens. He fears a police state
as many on the left, as I do. Educated in Virginia, I
learned in elementary school the state bird (cardinal),
the state flower (dogwood), and the state motto (sic
semper
tyrannis).
Some Virginians jokingly, in reference to the imaged seal,
translate the Latin as "get
your foot off my neck." Virginians, romantic in the
tradition of John Wilkes Booth, interpret the expression
as, "Death to tyrants."
Paul made his anti-war stance tonight
in Florida during the Republican debate. Oh, how pleased
I was! The moderator Brian Williams raised war
questions with regard to both Iran and Cuba. Of the four
candidates, including Santorum, Romney, and Gingrich,
Paul alone shed real light on those instances. First, he
pointed out that the USA has been threatening Iran
unjustly by a
blockade and that Iran had a right to
protect its own sovereignty and its rights to trade with
the rest of the world. Suppose, he said if some other
nation was blockading the Gulf of Mexico. Second, Paul
compared Cuba to China. We, he pointed out, can trade
and borrow money from authoritarian China. China,
Paul
suggested, poses much more of a threat militarily
and economically to the US than Cuba. If we have an open
door policy with China and Vietnam, he questioned, and
had an open door policy with the Soviets, why not Cuba?
Paul made the case of his compatriots
appear absurd and silly. Maybe that scored few points
with the Florida audience or with the MSNBC pundits,
but
definitely not with FOX pundits and other chickenhawks. But
Paul's
fans were sustained by the clarity of his argument. he
told his compatriots that they were still living in the
early 60s. Santorum,
Romney, and Gingrich kowtowed to the older anti-Castro generations
of Little Havana. But as conservative as Little Havana
may be, they too would prefer a more open door policy
than that offered by the more bellicose Santorum. Newt
and Mitt also did their best to be
militantly militaristic in their derisive remarks about
the death to the Castros.
You will discover that
Paul Craig Roberts mentions very little about Dr.
Paul's anti-war libertarianism, except to criticize the
incompleteness of his argument. More reserved than Paul,
Roberts's foreign policy might be more moderate than
either the left or the right wing libertarians. Like
SenatorObama, Roberts
might speak of "unnecessary" wars, e.g., Iraq. But
Roberts might consider necessary a large military for
geopolitical concerns and interests, like his
former boss Ronald Reagan. In any case Roberts has sense
enough to understand that our present military policies
are wrong-headed, which includes US sanctioning
Israel to reduce Gaza to "the world's
largest concentration camp." Roberts also understands
that our trillion dollar wars are a threat to Social
Security and Medicare, a criticism that is too
understated by the progressives and the left. The
problem is that Paul does not make that connection
either to his own political hurt, especially in a state
like Florida with a considerable elderly population.
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Ron Paul should be making
the point that Social Security and Medicare
are threatened by multi-trillion dollar wars
that are funded by debt, by bailouts of a
deregulated banking system, and by money
creation to keep the banks afloat.
Libertarians support deregulation, but their
position has always been that deregulated
industries must not be bailed out with
public subsidies, much less subsidies that
are so extensive that they threaten
government solvency and the value of the
currency.
More
on Ron Paul |
Roberts levels a stinging
criticism of Dr. Paul's libertarianism, "My
complaint is that the only candidate who could bring
back the Constitution cannot be elected because of the
inflexibility and sectarianism of his base" ("More
on Ron Paul"). Two
inflexible positions that Paul emphasizes in almost
every address are on state's
rights and small government. The former threatens blacks
and possibly other minorities and women; the latter
threatens the elderly and those who will be elderly. The
small government position Paul used last evening to
justify the housing boom and bust, which is ideological
but that argument does not adjust to the actual facts
why Wall Street failed.
Paul joins other GOP
conservatives in blaming the
Community Reinvestment Act
(CRA) for the housing
crisis, that is to say, he argues that the federal
government or liberals or the Democrats caused bankers
and other financial investors to write collateralized
debt obligations (CDOs),
and synthetic CDOSs and
credit default swaps (CDSs).
The intent of the CRA is
however to eliminate discrimination against minorities
in acquiring mortgage loans. Janet L.
Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of
San Francisco, has testified that "the
CRA has increased the
volume of responsible lending to low-and moderate-income
households" (Les Leopold,
The Looting of America,
p. 76). Leopold concludes,
"There is scant evidence that it [CRA] has
had a substantial impact on the housing bubble and bust,
let alone on the broader economy" (p.
75).
The
CRA has thus been used as a shield, as a racial
wolf whistle by conservatives to conceal the underhanded
work of the Wall Street financiers and securities
sellers. These derivatives—collaterized debt
obligations (CDOs),
synthetic CDOSs and credit
default swaps (CDSs)—dealers wrote for those who wanted to hedge their bets were
not authorized by or encouraged by the federal government and
they certainly were not regulated by the Feds, a
point truthfully made by Mitt during Monday night's debate.
Romney, however, did not
inform his Republican audience that it were these
derivatives, rather than Fannie and Freddie, that caused
the collapse of Wall Street and its fantasy casinos. He
does not want to admit that capitalism and capitalists
are not always moral, just or civically responsible. Such a
truth would then put him back under the light to account
for his own business ethics, if he indeed has any. Nor
did Mitt inform the Florida audience that it were
financiers like himself who encouraged banks investment
houses, and hedge funders to demand more subprime loans so that
the toxic waste of CDOs
and CDSs could be written
as a means of creating more wealth through fees for
those who wanted to bet on whether the subprime loans
would default or not.
It was the manufacture
and dealing of CDOs and
CDSs, as a means of
hedging against default of poorly designed
mortgages, and the manipulation of the risks as a means
to increase fees to billions of dollars on toxic
securities that add up to tens of trillions of dollars
unbacked by real assets or
real property. Banks and insurances companies like
AIG that indulged in these practices, encouraged them
and wrote them and issued them, lacked the liquidity to
cover the bets when the housing market plummeted because
demand finally did not meet a supply supplementing by
overbuilding, all of which caused panic and the failure
of Wall Street institutions.
It is true that
Fannie
Mae and
Freddie
Mac followed reputable financial institutions in the
buying of these derivatives (toxic waste) and got into
trouble like
Bear Stearns. But the
CRA nor Fannie and Freddie
began or created the fantasy casinos, no more than
school districts or states who also invested in the
CDOs and the synthetic
CDOs and CDSs
and lost taxpayers money or their employees pensions to
these crooked financial houses who knew they were
selling shoddy goods to the ignorant and unaware. If I
can discover this truth, then Ron Paul knows its truth
as well. In short, it is regrettable that Dr. Paul
limits his criticism to Big Government and altogether
allows Big Finance to escape a just criticism, as if
governments and corporations cannot both be excessive
exploiters of the non-propertied classes, and the
gullible. It was private individuals who created
slavery, not government, as my friend Wilson reminds me.
Governments come later to support the claims of its
citizens.
Roberts
neither agrees with the neo-cons nor sanctions
neo-liberalism (or
global labor arbitrage). Paul stands against the
former but is muddy on the second because of his
inflexibility on the issues of small government and
state's rights. There is an exception he mentioned last
evening with respect to the federally-aided state
programs to save the Everglades. This flexible instance
may be a sign of hope that Paul understands that
politics demands more than ideological purity. But we
are probably in for worst conservative garbage from
Romney
and Gingrich. It is possible that Roberts' fears are
exaggerated. Maybe our “last chance” of redemption does
not lie in of a 70-year old white Texas congressman, who
regrettably is too sectarian and too inflexible.
To
hunger for a better
Ron Paul, Roberts must realize, is daydreaming and
merely a means to put the question before America the
real threats to the Constitution that lie ahead. All of
us need to make demands on the next president (likely
Barack Obama), the absolute need to bring an end to the
War on
Drugs and the
War on Terror, both of which have
spawned an infectious and frightful abuse of the
Constitution and American civil liberties, thus
curtailing the possibility of peace and prosperity in
our life time.
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Community
Reinvestment Act had nothing to do with subprime
crisis—Aaron Pressman—29 September 2008—Fresh
off the false and politicized attack on Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, today we’re hearing the know-nothings blame
the subprime crisis on the Community Reinvestment Act —a
30-year-old law that was actually weakened by the Bush
administration just as the worst lending wave began.
This is even more ridiculous than blaming Freddie and
Fannie. The Community Reinvestment Act, passed in 1977,
requires banks to lend in the low-income neighborhoods
where they take deposits. Just the idea that a lending
crisis created from 2004 to 2007 was caused by a 1977
law is silly. But it’s even more ridiculous when you
consider that most subprime loans were made by firms
that aren’t subject to the CRA. University of Michigan
law professor
Michael Barr testified back in February before the House
Committee on Financial Services that 50% of subprime
loans were made by mortgage service companies not
subject to comprehensive federal supervision and another
30% were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts which
are not subject to routine supervision or examinations.
As former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich said in an August,
2007, speech shortly before he passed away: “In the
subprime market where we badly need supervision, a
majority of loans are made with very little supervision.
It is like a city with a murder law, but no cops on the
beat.”— BusinessWeek
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The NDAA's Historic Assault on American Liberty—2 January 2012—Jonathan Turley's Blog—By signing into law the
NDAA, the president has awarded the military extraordinary powers to detain US citizens without trial—President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment, to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country … and citizens partied in unwitting bliss into the New Year. Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely (see the text of the statement here). Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the president would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Senator Carl Levin (Democrat, Michigan) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House and insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.—CommonDreams |
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Blacks for Ron Paul…? / Dick
Riding Obama Music Video By Will I. Am
Blacks for Obama? Don’t Assume That Anymore
(Harris)
Exploring Romney's Shifting Stances
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Iran slams EU
oil embargo, warns could hit U.S.—23 January
2012—The United States, which imposed its own sanctions
against Iran's oil trade and central bank on Dec. 31,
welcomed the EU move, as did Israel. It has warned it
might attack Iran if sanctions do not deflect Tehran
from a course that some analysts argue could potentially
give Iran a nuclear bomb next year.— Reuters
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Obama delivers a
confrontational State of the Union address—The
president opens an election-year debate on the role of
government, drawing contrasts with Republicans on taxes
for the wealthy and mortgage refinancing.—David Lauter—24
January 2012— Only a few months ago, many voters had
seemed on the verge of writing Obama off. But in recent
weeks, two developments have given him a chance to ask
those voters for another look. One is the economy, which
has started to show signs of improvement— declining
unemployment, rising consumer confidence and reduced
levels of household debt. The other is the way the
Republican primary race recently has focused on the vast
wealth (and relatively low tax burden) of the party's
sometimes front-runner, Mitt Romney.
Obama drove straight at the wealth issue with the
signature proposal of his speech: a minimum tax for
millionaires that formed part of his call for all
Americans to pay their "fair share." The proposal,
requiring people with incomes of more than $1 million to
pay at least 30% in taxes, would conveniently —
administration officials insist coincidentally —double
the taxes that Romney paid last year, according to the
tax return the former Massachusetts governor released
earlier in the day.
Similarly, the speech's other major domestic proposal—a
plan to make mortgage refinancings more available to
homeowners who owe more than their homes' value— would
insert the government more directly into the housing
market. Republicans have adamantly resisted higher taxes
on those they term "job creators." And they have called
for the federal government to get out of the housing
market entirely, saying that federal involvement has
only made the country's foreclosure crisis worse.— LaTimes
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Dear Friends, last evening Mr. Obama gave Newt Gingrich
a lesson in how one throws red meat to the mob. See
below.
You may note the construction of his Address: it begins
and ends with US militaristic bravado. Speaking of
flipping the script, the murdered becomes the murderer
and the murderer the hero who knows how to complete his
mission with a trillion-dollar budget.
Who can tolerate in any good conscience this kind of
chest-beating? America is Back? A large wealthy nation
with a military more powerful than China, Russia, UK,
China and a dozen other nations put together and Mr.
Obama has the damn gall to boast of battering and
disrupting and decimating fourth and fifth rate nations.
Yet those peoples have the courage and fortitude to bog
down a great nation for over a decade.
Back? Poverty growing in black communities by leaps and
bounds, wealth continuing to rush upward on Wall Street!
What a vacuous and arrogant boast! What outrageous
theatrical superficiality!
And we think we are getting a bargain when the nation's
wealth is ripped from the nation's poor and transferred
into the hands of greedy elites or dropped as deadly
bombs on the weak and impoverished! And we eat up as if
we have been given cake!
To paraphrase Nikki
Giovanni,
"Do we have any shame?"
Peace Be Still!—Rudy
(25 January 2012)
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Remarks by the President in State of the Union
Address—24 January 2012—We gather tonight knowing
that this generation of heroes has made the United
States safer and more respected around the world. For
the first time in nine years, there are no Americans
fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades,
Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country.
Most of
al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The
Taliban’s
momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan
have begun to come home. . . . As the tide of war
recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle
East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a
to Tripoli. A year ago,
Qaddafi was one of the world’s longest-serving
dictators—a
murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is
gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad
regime will soon discover that the forces of change
cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be
denied.
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How this incredible transformation will end
remains uncertain. But we have a huge stake
in the outcome. And while it’s ultimately
up to the people of the region to decide
their fate, we will advocate for those
values that have served our own country so
well. We will stand against violence and
intimidation. We will stand for the rights
and dignity of all human beings—men
and women; Christians, Muslims and Jews. We
will support policies that lead to strong
and stable democracies and open markets,
because tyranny is no match for liberty.
And we will safeguard America’s own security
against those who threaten our citizens, our
friends, and our interests. Look at Iran.
Through the power of our diplomacy, a world
that was once divided about how to deal with
Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.
The regime is more isolated than ever
before; its leaders are faced with
crippling sanctions, and as long as they
shirk their responsibilities, this pressure
will not relent.
Let
there be no doubt: America is determined to
prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,
and I will take no options off the table to
achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution
of this issue is still possible, and far
better, and if Iran changes course and meets
its obligations, it can rejoin the community
of nations. The renewal of American
leadership can be felt across the globe.
Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are
stronger than ever. Our ties to the
Americas are deeper. Our ironclad
commitment—and I mean ironclad—to
Israel’s security has meant the closest
military cooperation between our two
countries in history. |
We’ve made it clear
that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in
Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we’ve
built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve
led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve
dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral
example, America is back. . . .
One of my proudest
possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with
them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of
their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be
Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it
didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat
next to Bob Gates—a
man who was George Bush’s defense secretary—and
Hillary Clinton—a
woman who ran against me for president. All that
mattered that day was the mission.— Whitehouse
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Obama renews anti-Iran war rhetoric—25 January
2012—US President Barack Obama has once again renewed
threats against Iran, saying that Washington will
maintain pressure on the Islamic Republic over its
nuclear program. On December 31, 2011, President Obama
signed into law fresh economic sanctions against the
Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in an apparent bid to punish
foreign companies and banks that do business with the
Iranian financial institution. The bill requires foreign
financial firms to make a choice between doing business
with the CBI and oil sector or with the US financial
sector.The US sanctions, as well as unilateral embargoes
imposed on Iran's energy and financial sectors by
Britain and Canada, came after the IAEA issued a report
on the Iranian nuclear program in early November 2011,
accusing Tehran of seeking to weaponize its nuclear
technology.—PressTV
Ralph Nader Reviews Obama's State of the Union Speech
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Romney Paid Low
Rate on Millions in Investment Income—Mitt Romney
has released tax forms showing he paid an effective tax
rate of 15.4 percent last year and an even lower rate of
13.9 percent the year before—substantially lower than
the rate of most working Americans. Overall, Romney
reported income of $43.6 million for 2010 and 2011,
virtually all of it from investments. Romney’s
charitable contributions included $4.1 million to the
Mormon Church.
Also, ABC News has revealed Romney has hidden tens of
millions of dollars in offshore tax havens in the Cayman
Islands. Romney is said to have invested more than $33
million in more than a dozen funds listed in the
Caymans, while his former company, Bain Capital, holds
138 accounts there. Although Romney would still pay U.S.
taxes on any investment income, the use of the tax
havens would grant him other financial benefits
including greater foreign investment.—Seeingblack
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Gingrich Confronts History in the
South—William Loren Katz—25 January
2012—“It’s not that I’m a good debater. It’s
that I articulate the deepest-felt values of
the American people,” announced the
victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina.
Republican voters [only 2% were African
Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial
language as straight talking. He eagerly
strummed racial themes—Black urban pupils
serve as assistant janitors to learn what is
really needed in school which is how to
stick to a job, make and spend money. And
then he suggested the urban poor need to get
a job and learn decent work habits rather
than accept handouts from the “greatest food
stamp president.” He was also comfortable
with violent rhetoric.
To a
voter who suggested he punch President Obama
in the mouth, he responded, “I’d like to
knock him out!” As for the Second
Amendment—it is “not just for hunting
pheasants” but a “political right.” He
tongue-lashed a TV journalist for
questioning his casual approach to marriage.
He not only slapped down the African
American Fox News’ moderator Juan Williams
for questioning his racial appeals, but then
ran his rant against the African American as
a campaign add. Gingrich is the winner, and
so is his in-your-face, openly racial,
campaign style. We have repeatedly tried to
walk away from this kind of divisive, nasty
politics.—Counterpunch |
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Monkeys and Stimulus Bills
The build-up began
of course with Obama’s entry into the presidential
primaries that brought so many death threats the Secret
Service provided him earlier protection than any
candidate in history. Rupert Murdoch was an eager
participant. On May 25, 2008 his Fox TV News co-anchor
Liz Trotta in New York signed off her Sunday evening
news broadcast by urging that “somebody knock off Osama,
um, Obama—well both, if we could.” On February 18th 2009
the day after now President Obama signed the Stimulus
Package, New Yorkers awoke to a cartoon in Murdoch’s New
York Postthat showed two white policemen identifying the
dead chimpanzee they just shot as the author of the
stimulus package. Does a comment on a TV news broadcast
heard by millions, or a newspaper cartoon seen by tens
of thousands simply disappear into the night, or does it
linger?
Gingrich’s words in
praise of General Andrew Jackson’s red-meat belligerence
in South Carolina are worth thinking about, and have a
personal revulsion for me. On January 16th he lectured
voters on history. “South Carolina and the Revolutionary
War had a young 13-year-old named Andrew Jackson. He was
sabred by a British officer and wore a scar his whole
life. Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear idea about
America’s enemies: Kill them!” The crowd loudly
approval.—William
Loren Katz, Counterpunch
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Remarks by the
President in State of the Union Address—January
2012—And I will
not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to
play by its own set of rules. The new rules we passed
restore what should be any financial system’s core
purpose: Getting funding to entrepreneurs with the best
ideas, and getting loans to responsible families who
want to buy a home, or start a business, or send their
kids to college.
So if you are a big
bank or financial institution, you’re no longer allowed
to make risky bets with your customers’ deposits.
You’re required to write out a “living will” that
details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you
fail—because the rest of us are not bailing you out ever
again. And if you’re a mortgage lender or a payday
lender or a credit card company, the days of signing
people up for products they can’t afford with confusing
forms and deceptive practices—those days are over.
Today, American consumers finally have a watchdog in
Richard Cordray with one job: To look out for them.
We’ll also
establish a Financial Crimes Unit of highly trained
investigators to crack down on large-scale fraud and
protect people’s investments. Some financial firms
violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real
penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for
consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers
and financial service professionals who do the right
thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for
fraud count.
And tonight, I’m
asking my Attorney General to create a special unit of
federal prosecutors and leading state attorney general
to expand our investigations into the abusive lending
and packaging of risky mortgages that led to the housing
crisis. This new unit will hold accountable those who
broke the law, speed assistance to homeowners, and help
turn the page on an era of recklessness that hurt so
many Americans.
Now, a return to
the American values of fair play and shared
responsibility will help protect our people and our
economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay
down our debt and invest in our future.— whitehouse
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Government Cuts Heating Assistance to 1 Million Homes—Claudio E. Cabrera—7 January 2012—It's going to be a cold winter for many across the nation. Congress and the White House have cut heating assistance to nearly 1 million homes in the Low Income House Energy Assistance Program [LIHEAP]. The program, which provides families with incomes up to 150 percent of the poverty line, or 60 percent of a state's median income, will be reduced in funding by 25 percent. Most households receive an average of $417 a month for heating expenses.
LIHEAP reached nearly 9 million households in 2011, and at least one member of each family who applied for the subsidy was older than 60, younger than 18 or disabled. A gallon of heating oil costs $3.83 and is at the highest its been since 1990. . . . A few members of Congress battled the cuts in this bill. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) urged the White House to set funding at $4.7 billion for his forthcoming 2013 budget proposal. The senators wrote a letter to the president that included the following: Even though the number of households eligible for the program continues to exceed those receiving assistance, this funding has been a lifeline during the economic downturn and rising energy costs, helping to ensure that people do not have to choose between paying their energy bills and paying for food or medicine." The cut in funding in this legislation is just another example of the have-nots being shafted by the government.—TheRoot
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Close Ties to
Goldman Enrich Romney’s Public and Private
Lives—Nicholas Confessore, Peter Lattman, and Kevin
Roose—27 January 2012— When Bain Capital sought to
raise money in 1989 for a fast-growing office-supply
company named Staples,
Mitt Romney, Bain’s founder, called upon a trusted
business partner: Goldman Sachs, whose bankers led the
company’s initial public offering. When Mr. Romney
became governor of Massachusetts, his blind trust gave
Goldman much of his wealth to manage, a fortune now
estimated to be as much as $250 million. And as
Mr. Romney mounts his second bid for the presidency,
Goldman is coming through again: Its employees have
contributed at least $367,000 to his campaign, making
the firm Mr. Romney’s largest single source of campaign
money through the end of September.
No other company is
so closely intertwined with Mr. Romney’s public and
private lives except Bain itself. And in recent days,
Mr. Romney’s ties to Goldman Sachs have lashed another
lightning rod to a campaign already fending off
withering attacks on his career as a buyout specialist,
thrusting the privileges of the Wall Street elite to the
forefront of the Republican nominating battle. . . . But
other elements of Mr. Romney’s personal and business
ties to Goldman may prove more controversial. Bain’s
mid-1990s acquisition of Dade Behring, a medical device
maker with factories in Florida, has become a totem of
the economic upheaval that
private equity can inflict. Goldman invested in the
acquisition, which brought the bank $120 million and
Bain $242 million—but led to the layoffs of hundreds of
workers in Miami.
Democrats hammered
Mr. Romney over the deal this week. When Mr. Romney was
building Bain into one of the world’s premier private
equity firms, Goldman’s bankers clamored for Bain
business, and won assignments advising or financing an
array of Bain deals, including Bain’s 1997 $800 million
buyout of Sealy, the nation’s largest mattress company,
which it later sold. As Mr. Romney amassed his fortune,
Goldman also offered up the services of an elite
Boston-based team in the bank’s private wealth
management unit. The relationship gave him access to
Goldman’s exclusive investment funds, including private
equity vehicles known as Goldman Sachs Capital Partners.—NYTimes
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Herman Cain
endorses Newt Gingrich for president—Kim Geiger—28
January 2012— Former Republican presidential candidate
Herman Cain endorsed Newt Gingrich for president
Saturday night in what was billed as a surprise
appearance by the retired pizza chain executive. “I
hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt
Gingrich for president of the United States,” Cain said
in a brief speech at the Palm Beach County GOP Party
Lincoln Day Dinner in West Palm Beach, Fla. . . . “One
of the biggest reasons is the fact that I know that
Speaker Gingrich is a patriot,” Cain said. “Speaker
Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas. And I also know
that Speaker Gingrich is running for president, and
going through this sausage grinder—I know what this
sausage grinder is all about. I know that he’s going
through this sausage grinder because he cares about the
future of the United States of America. We all do.”
Cain dropped out of the Republican
presidential race in December after repeated allegations
that he had inappropriate.— LaTimes
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Paul pursued
strategy of publishing controversial newsletters,
associates say—Jerry Markon and Alice Crites—27
January 2012—A person involved in Paul’s businesses, who
spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid
criticizing a former employer, said Paul and his
associates decided in the late 1980s to try to increase
sales by
making the newsletters more provocative. They
discussed adding controversial material, including
racial statements, to help the business, the person
said. “It was playing on a growing racial tension,
economic tension, fear of government,’’ said the person,
who supports Paul’s economic policies but is not backing
him for president. “I’m not saying Ron believed this
stuff. It was good copy. Ron Paul is a shrewd
businessman.’’
The articles
included racial, anti-Semitic and anti-gay content. They
claimed, for example, that the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. “seduced underage girls and boys’’; they ridiculed
black activists by suggesting that New York be named
“Zooville” or “Lazyopolis”; and they said the 1992 Los
Angeles riots ended “when it came time for the blacks to
pick up their welfare checks.’’ The June 1990 edition of
the Ron Paul Political Report included the statement:
“Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were
far better off when social pressure forced them to hide
their activities.”
It is unclear
precisely how much money Paul made from his newsletters,
but during the years he was publishing them, he reduced
his debts and substantially increased his net worth,
according to his congressional and presidential
disclosure reports. In 1984, he reported debt of up to
$765,000, most of which was gone by 1995, when he
reported a net worth of up to $3.3 million. Last year,
he reported a net worth of up to $5.2 million.—WashingtonPost
Lawrence O’Donnell—Rewriting American Airlines
Bankruptcy
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Maryland
Governor Signs Castle Doctrine Bill—21
May 2010—Delegate
Mike Smigiel—In what amounts to a
stealthy victory for Second Amendment
advocates in Maryland, yesterday, the
Governor signed into law a modified
“Castle Doctrine” bill (SB-411). This
new law will provide civil immunity for
a person defending their dwelling or
place of business. This immunity
provides that the person is not liable
for damages for a personal injury or
death of an individual when protecting
yourself in your home. Maryland added
the proviso that the doctrine only
applies as long as the persons defending
themselves are not convicted of a crime
related to the act for which the
immunity is being sought. Second
Amendment supporters should take hope in
the passage of this modified “Castle
Doctrine.” Not only have we been
successful in defeating anti-second
amendment legislation such as HB-820,
(the registration bill from this past
session), we have been incrementally
advancing pro-Second Amendment bills
into law. These advances are done
without a lot of pomp and circumstance
so as not to draw the attention of the
gun-fearing progressives. So don’t
believe that nothing is being done to
recapture the liberties that the
progressives have taken from us. There
have been many such small victories
which receive little or no press
coverage. Know that you can make a
difference and that your pro-Second
Amendment legislators are not only
killing the bad bills we are obtaining
small victories every session.—delegatemike |
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Donald Ritchie—Foundations of the U. Senate
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American Creation
Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of
the Republic
By
Joseph J. Ellis
This subtle, brilliant
examination of the period between the War of
Independence and the Louisiana Purchase puts
Pulitzer-winner Ellis (Founding
Brothers) among the finest of
America's narrative historians. Six stories,
each centering on a significant creative
achievement or failure, combine to portray
often flawed men and their efforts to lay
the republic's foundation. Set against the
extraordinary establishment of the most
liberal nation-state in the history of
Western Civilization... in the most
extensive and richly endowed plot of ground
on the planet are the terrible costs of
victory, including the perpetuation of
slavery and the cruel oppression of Native
Americans. Ellis blames the founders'
failures on their decision to opt for an
evolutionary revolution, not a risky
severance with tradition (as would happen,
murderously, in France, which necessitated
compromises, like retaining slavery).
Despite the injustices and brutalities that
resulted, Ellis argues, this deferral
strategy was a profound insight rooted in a
realistic appraisal of how enduring social
change best happens. Ellis's lucid,
illuminating and ironic prose will make this
a holiday season hit.—
Publishers
Weekly /
American Creation (Joseph Ellis
interview) |
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The Revolution: A Manifesto
By Ron Paul
Congressman,
Republican Presidential candidate and author Paul (A
Foreign Policy of Freedom) says "Let the revolution
begin" with this libertarian plea for a return to "the
principles of our Founding Fathers: liberty,
self-government, the Constitution, and a
noninterventionist foreign policy." Specific examples
demonstrate how far U.S. law has strayed from this path,
particularly over the past century, as well as Paul's
firm grasp of history and dedication to meaningful
debate: "it is revolutionary to ask whether we need
troops in 130 countries . . . whether the accumulation
of more and more power in Washington has been good for
us . . . to ask fundamental questions about privacy,
police-state measures, taxation, social policy." Though
he can rant, Paul is informative and impassioned, giving
readers of any political bent food for thought. With
harsh words for both Democrats and Republicans, and
especially George W. Bush, Paul's no-nonsense text
questions the "imperialist" foreign policy that's led to
the war in Iraq ("one of the most ill considered, poorly
planned, and . . . unnecessary military conflicts in
American history"), the economic situation and rampant
federalism treading on states' rights and identities
("The Founding Fathers did not intend for every American
neighborhood to be exactly the same"). Though his policy
suggestions can seem extreme, Paul's book gives new life
to old debates.—Publishers Weekly |
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King of the Mountain
The Nature of Political Leadership
By Arnold M. Ludwig
“People may choose to ignore their animal heritage by interpreting their behavior as divinely inspired, socially purposeful, or even self-serving, all of which they attribute to being human, but they masticate, fornicate, and procreate, much as chimps and apes do, so they should have little cause to get upset if they learn that they act like other primates when they politically agitate, debate, abdicate, placate, and administrate, too."—from the book King of the Mountain presents the startling findings of Arnold M. Ludwig's eighteen-year investigation into why people want to rule. The answer may seem obvious—power, privilege, and perks—but any adequate answer also needs to explain why so many rulers cling to power even when they are miserable, trust nobody, feel besieged, and face almost certain death. Ludwig's results suggest that leaders of nations tend to act remarkably like monkeys and apes in the way they come to power, govern, and rule. Profiling every ruler of a recognized country in the twentieth century—over 1,900 people in all, Ludwig establishes how rulers came to power, how they lost power, the dangers they faced, and the odds of their being assassinated, committing suicide, or dying a natural death. Then, concentrating on a smaller sub-set of 377 rulers for whom more extensive personal information was available, he compares six different kinds of leaders, examining their characteristics, their childhoods, and their mental stability or instability to identify the main predictors of later political success. Ludwig's penetrating observations, though presented in a lighthearted and entertaining way, offer important insight into why humans have engaged in war throughout recorded history as well as suggesting how they might live together in peace. |
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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music, and more)
posted 25 January
2012
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