Two Areas The “Super Committee” Should Take A Look At!

Here are two stories from todays news that illustrate the warped spending priorities of the US government.  While we debate how much to “reform” Social Security and cut medical aid the black hole that is the military/security complex. Both come to us from CommonDreams.org

The Decade’s Biggest Scam

Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by Salon.com
by Glenn Greenwald

The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic “homeland security” projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of “9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret” to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles.  All of that — which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all — is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat:

To read this entire post click here.

Windfalls of War: Pentagon’s No-Bid Contracts Triple in 10 Years of War

Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by iWatchNews.org
Taxpayer is the loser when Pentagon doesn’t require competition among contractors. “The lack of competition is a scandal,” says one expert.
by Sharon Weinberger

As U.S. military deaths and injuries from roadside bombs escalated after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon rushed to find solutions.

Competition is normally the cornerstone of better prices and better products, but the urgency of dealing with improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, has been cited to justify a number of sole-source contracts to companies promising quick solutions over a decade of war.

One such company was Tucson-based Applied Energetics , which markets a futuristic weapon that shoots beams of lightning to detonate roadside bombs. The company won over $50 million in military contracts for their lightning weapon, all without full and open competition, even though there was another company marketing similar technology. Despite test failures, the company, in part thanks to congressional support, continued to get funding.

Have We Found Something That Democrats & Republicans Can Agree On?

The answer my friends may indeed be blowing in the wind. For both our energy needs and as a way for Democrats and Republicans can come together wind power seems to offer that potential. It is safe available almost everywhere can be generated on both large and small scale. The complaints that have been manufactured against wind pale compared to the case against nuclear and coal. Add to the increase in employment from construction and maintaience and you have a real winner.

Today we share a story from The American Wind Association .

24 governors ask President to focus on wind energy deployment
Both parties’ candidates told how wind creates jobs and U.S. manufacturing

Iowa, Aug. 24—A coalition of 24 governors from both major parties and each region of the country has asked the administration to take a series of steps to provide a more favorable business climate for the development of wind energy, starting with a seven-year extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) to provide stable, low tax rates for wind-generated electricity.

A letter from the governors, sent last month to the White House, has since been made public by the Governors Wind Energy Coalition. Signed by coalition chair Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I-RI), and vice chair Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA), the letter says:

“Although tax credits for wind energy have long enjoyed bipartisan support, they are scheduled to expire next year. Wind-related manufacturing will slow if the credits are not extended, and some of the tax credits’ benefit will be lost if Congress pursues a last-minute extension. It is important to have consistency in policy to support the continued development of wind manufacturing in the United States. Extending the production tax credit and the investment tax credit, without a gap, is critical to the health of wind manufacturing in our nation. The wind manufacturing industry in the U.S. would benefit even greater if the extension of these credits would be for at least seven years.”

“Governors have always focused on jobs and economic development as their main responsibility. Now that Washington is following suit, it helps for these Governors to tell Washington what has been putting people to work in their states,” said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. “It is also helpful for them to support the removal of roadblocks that can occur in administrative agencies, so that deployment objectives are not unintentionally thwarted.”

To read this entire press release click here.

Here is a video of republican Iowa governor Terry Branstad talking about wind energy.

Obama Fiddling As Wall Street Burns?

One of the greatest financial scams in history has taken place in the first years of the 21st century. Everything came to a head in the fall of 2008 with the meltdown and bailout of the financial services industry. Barack Obama was elected president in part because his slogan

“change you can believe in” was welcomed by a nation tired of business as usual.
Sadly what we have gotten out of the Obama administration has been more of the same.  His economic team was staffed with the very people who oversaw the financial disaster that occurred. The Justice department headed by a former corporate lawyer Eric Holder has shown more aggression towards medical marijuana than the crook and scamsters on Wall Street. And the President himself fought for financial reform about as hard as he fought for single payer or higher taxes for the rich.Which is to say not much.
We have presented a number of posts on this subject. They can be fond under our American Racket category. Today we present a couple of stories first is from Shahien Nasiripour on Huffington Post about the removal of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from a task force investigating foreclosure abuses. The second is from Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi shady practices in the Securities & Exchange Commission. We also have an interview from Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! w/ Mr Taibbi

New York Attorney General Kicked Off Government Group Leading
Foreclosure Probe

“Schneiderman, a Democrat who’s in his first term as New York’s top law enforcer, has been among a group of state legal officers who has also questioned the desire for a speedy resolution. He’s leading his own investigation into mortgage improprieties, subpoenaing documents from the nation’s largest financial institutions and reviewing court records for possible illegal home repossessions.

The Obama administration officials — in particular, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan — have publicly stated on numerous occasions that they want a quick resolution to the 50-state mortgage probe.

Sources said attorneys general like Schneiderman, along with the top legal officers from Massachusetts, Delaware and Nevada, among others, were complicating that goal by questioning the plan to scuttle the state and federal investigations in exchange for a settlement.

These attorneys general have said they’re reluctant to sign on to an agreement that effectively kills their ongoing investigations or prevents new ones from being launched. Beau Biden, Delaware’s top law enforcer, remains on the states’ executive committee.”
To read this entire post click here.

Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crime?

“Many of the destroyed files involved companies and individuals who would later play prominent roles in the economic meltdown of 2008. Two MUIs involving con artist Bernie Madoff vanished. So did a 2002 inquiry into financial fraud at Lehman Brothers, as well as a 2005 case of insider trading at the same soon-to-be-bankrupt bank. A 2009 preliminary investigation of insider trading by Goldman Sachs was deleted, along with records for at least three cases involving the infamous hedge fund SAC Capital.

The widespread destruction of records was brought to the attention of Congress in July, when an SEC attorney named Darcy Flynn decided to blow the whistle. According to Flynn, who was responsible for helping to manage the commission’s records, the SEC has been destroying records of preliminary investigations since at least 1993. After he alerted NARA to the problem, Flynn reports, senior staff at the SEC scrambled to hide the commission’s improprieties.”
To read this entire post click here.

Tomgram: Chris Hellman, The Pentagon’s Spending Spree | TomDispatch

Tomgram: Chris Hellman, The Pentagon’s Spending Spree | TomDispatch.

CLASS WARFARE by WARREN BUFFETT & HOW MUCH DO THE SUPER RICH HAVE.

The problem isn’t the national debt it is that the wealthy have too much money. Their relentless greed has caused them to try to destroy  the middle class way of life across the globe. Most of the media is controlled by a small number of hands and they use it to spread fear and propaganda.

The solution isn’t in cutting services for those in need, selling off our national assets and reducing wages. We must realize that yes this is class warfare and it’s been going on for thirty years. Don’t believe me guess who just said this;

“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term

“To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control of our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30 percent of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18 percent.

In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.

The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4 percent in 2009, down from 30.4 percent in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.

Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955. Corporate tax accounted for 27.3 percent of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9 percent of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3 percent of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3 percent.”

Warren Buffett in the New York Times, to read his entire post click here.

His solution is to of course raise taxes on people just like him. Now if that story doesn’t convince you here’s another interesting post on the same subject which starts w/ another quote from chairman Warren;

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,
the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?
Amped Status via Alternet  By David DeGraw
“While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90 percent of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population”

To read his entire post click here.

America’s Growing Windpower And You Can Join The Revolution

Yes indeed the answer my friends may indeed be blowing in the wind. These two stories from the past couple of days show that wind power is becoming a growing force in this country. It is important to remember there are powerful forces arrayed against wind and other renewable forms of energy. These are industries, and their allies in the GOP, who seek to keep us chained to energy supplies that they control and will continue to exploit no matter what the cost to the environment. Just remember that when people complain that wind, solar and other technologies of the future are heavily subsidized so are oil, gas and nuclear.

Anyway back to the good news. First from the heartland of the mid west comes this story from the Des Moines Register;

Wind Supplies 20% of Iowa Electricity
By Dan Pillar
“Iowa’s wind generation reached 20 percent of the state’s total electricity network during the second quarter, the American Wind Energy Association reports.

Nationally, wind power averaged about 3 percent of the nation’s electricity between January and April 2011, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal that wind will generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030.”

To read the entire story click here.

And now more good news from the Texas(?) via Climate Denial Crock of the Week with Peter Sinclair;
Texas Drought Shows Windpower Vital, Reliable

“Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, writes the Texas heat/drought/power crisis revealed several lessons: wind power enhances a grid’s reliability, conventional power plants can’t operate all the time, wind farms that are dispersed are more dependable, and output from offshore and coastal wind farms can meet peak demand during summer:
It’s over, for the moment: ERCOT, the company that manages the Texas utility system, said Monday that it doesn’t expect peak electricity demand this week to surpass last week’s record levels.
As he did after a sudden freeze stressed the Texas system in February, ERCOT CEO Trip Doggett credited wind power with a critical contribution during last week’s power emergency. Doggett said electricity from wind farms recently installed along Texas’s Gulf Coast began flowing at just the right time to help meet peak demand in the late afternoons.

With that in mind, some lessons from the week’s real-world experience with substantial amounts of installed wind generating capacity on a large utility system:

Adding wind power makes a utility system more reliable, not less.”

To read the entire story click here.

And for those of you that don’t want to wait until wind power comes to your area you can get a system of your own.

A Way Out Of The Woods? A Couple Of Ideas How America Can Come Back

As a lot of Americans are running around like chicken little screaming “the sky is falling”  we have found some solutions. First we take a look at the country of Brazil where 20% of the population has been lifted out of poverty. This is being done through direct government programs to aid the poor. Then we give a listen to the suggestions of political scientist Tom Ferguson  on The Real News Network suggesting what this country needs is a massive jobs program.

by Felix Marquardt posted on Huffington Post
The US Downgrade, the Brazilan Miracle and the Atlantic in the 21st Century
“In recent years, though, this prophecy seemed to finally become reality. Thirty percent of Brazilians are currently enrolled in a school or a university and another twenty percent have pulled themselves out of the most abject poverty in the past ten years, in no small part thanks to wisely distributed government aid, and joined the ranks of an ever growing middle class, an astounding achievement by all accounts. These new consumers buy TVs, computers, phones, cars for the wealthiest of them and a mortgage market has even developed for the broader Brazilian middle class, something unthinkable only a decade ago. With the downgrade of the United States’ rating and the specter of a double-dip recession looming, with Europe struggling to overcome its own sovereign debt issues, having completely failed to make the euro the refuge that the dollar no longer is and with China suddenly in panic as it sees the value of the debt it is sitting on decline by the day, Brazil might well be on its way to becoming the single coolest kid on the global block.”

To read the entire story click here.

One thing seems certain and that is that the status quo cannot go on much longer. In this fun clip MSNBC loose cannon Dylan Ratigan explodes with a great rant at a trio of talking heads.

War Is A Racket! Refelctions On War By Real American Heros

War Is A Racket.
Sounds like some kind of Communist/hippie nonsense right? Propaganda meant to undermine the American way of life that was penned by some peace freak safe up in his/her ivory tower. Someone a little out of touch with reality perhaps? Well those assumptions would all be wrong. And this weekend as we commemorate  Purple Heart     anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it is a good time to be looking at war and it’s cost.
Those words were written by a former commandant of the United States Marines. He was also a man who earned TWO Congressional Medals of Honor. Smedley Butler wrote the book with this title after a thirty-four year military career. One that saw him serve in WW 1, Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean. It is a short book but one well worth reading because it clearly lays out the corrupt rationale that lies behind the reasons we fight most wars.
Mr Butlers fears were echoed almost thirty years later by Dwight Eisenhower when he gave his farewell speech to the American people. In it he warns us about the growing threat posed by the military industrial complex. Sadly these mens warnings were ignored and today   ourselves locked in a permanent war against an enemy that includes anyone that might become a threat.
Right now we are fighting two ongoing public conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya we also have a large number of personal still taking fire in Iraq. If that were not enough we are engaged in a huge covert war being fought by a shadowy mix of government and private forces. There are an estimated seventy covert actions launched everyday against targets in over a hundred countries. At a time of budget cuts, soaring debt and a declining standard of living at home we have an extra 26 billion dollars to spend on 100 hight flying drones.
These last two stories are covered in our previous post below. Here we present the words of Smedley Butler and “Ike”.

American Racket; Debt Deregulation, Bubbles, Bailouts and Gold PlatedLies

     The American Racket is an evolving story about how the once strong American middle class is being destroyed over the by right-wing economic terrorism. What was once a slow process has become dramatically accelerated over the past eleven years. Following the theft of the 2000 elections and the installation of George Bush. Bush was installed by the Supreme Court which also has in recent years has equated money with speech and ruled corporations have the same rights as people.
Since then we’ve doubled, our debt, by spending trillions of dollars on wars we didn’t pay for then made that worse by giving tax breaks to wealthy people and borrowed money to do. We borrowed fifty billion dollars from China to do it. The corporations took their tax break and created jobs in China. We loaned trillions of dollars to bail out the big banks and they sit on the cash.
And now they say we have no money and they a fill us with fear. We have to cut aid to the old and sick. Cut Social Security? Did you know that the SS trust fund has been invested in our debt.? We have been ripped off, lied to, abused and extremely disrespected. It’s a sad story that we are piecing together. One that is told by people like Matt Taibbi, Bernie Sanders Robert Reich, Noam Chomsky and others.

FIND OUT MORE AT THE AMERICAN RACKET CATEGORY

 On our Mindsi 2 YouTube station we have a playlist of videos covering this important story.

Reagan Policy Advisor Explains The Debt Crisis & Says Raise taxes

Bruce Bartlett is a historian who was an advisor to President Reagan and a  Treasury official under George Bush (the dad not the son). So the man is not a flaming liberal by any stretch of the imagination. Currently he writes a blog called “capitol gains and games“. The clip below is from an appearance he made on HardBall w/ Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
In it he destroys all the myths and lies being served up by the current Republican party and shows where the debt came from. He shows that it is the Bush tax cuts, and his unfunded wars and Medicare drug benefit. Had we not done this our debt which was 6 trillion dollars when Bush took office would be GONE now. Furthermore President Obama’s contribution to the debt isput at around a trillion dollars.
Watch listen and learn.