Secret Money Scandal

Michael Winship at Salon War Room has an interesting article, Secret Cash, The worst political scandal of all.

Sometimes I feel like Gus, the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" -- you know, the guy who thinks you can cure all maladies with a spritz of Windex and declares, "Give me a word, any word, and I show you that the root of that word is Greek."

Only in my case, it’s give me a scandal, any scandal, and I’ll show you how the corrosive influence of money on politics is at its root and makes what’s bad even worse (okay, maybe not in the case of Anthony Weiner -- yet). It’s not an especially effective party trick, I know, unless you’re at a really dreary policy wonk picnic, but you work with what you’ve got.

John Edwards’ illegitimate child? The legal case being built against the freshly indicted former presidential candidate isn’t about paternity or custody or any of that kind of stuff, but revolves around felony campaign finance charges; whether or not two wealthy backers -- his now deceased fundraising chair Frederick Baron and 100-year-old heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon -- provided hundreds of thousands in contributions that in reality paid for the hiding of Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, and their baby.

Gingrich and Tiffany

Newt Gingrich and his wife Callista’s big fat, revolving, no interest credit account at Tiffany's? It might be tin-eared and wrong for someone who purports to be a fiscal conservative and a man of the people to throw around big bucks for expensive bling, but that ain’t necessarily the scandal. Look a little deeper. On May 24, Jeff Stein of The Washington Post blog "Spy Talk" reported:

"At the same time Tiffany & Co. was extending Callista (Bisek) Gingrich a virtual interest-free loan of tens of thousands of dollars, the diamond and silverware firm was spending big bucks to influence mining policy in Congress and in agencies over which the House Agriculture Committee -- where she worked -- had jurisdiction, official records show."

Until 2006, Ms. Gingrich was chief clerk at the committee. During the years between 2005 and 2009, Tiffany's annual lobbying costs shot up from around $100,000 to $360,000, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The jewelry giant strongly denies any connection: "We had no reason to lobby the Agriculture Committee and we did not… Our focus has been on the Natural Resources Committee." The company also said it had never spoken with Newt or Callista Gingrich about federal mining policy.

But hang on, there’s more.

Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner reports:

"Christy Evans, formerly a top staffer to then-whip Newt Gingrich, is a registered lobbyist for Tiffany’s, the high-end jeweler where Gingrich and his wife enjoy an extraordinary line of credit. Evans, former floor assistant to Gingrich and now a lobbyist at the legendary K Street firm Cassidy & Associates, has represented Tiffany's on mining issues since 2000, according to lobbying filings."

The revolving door between government and corporate interests, revolving credit… the saga of Newt "Holly Golightly" Gingrich spins on. The whole affair is reminiscent of the preferential loan treatment now-collapsed subprime mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corporation reportedly gave a few years ago to Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson (he resigned as a result), North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad (chair of the Senate Budget Committee), former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd (who served as chair of the Senate Banking Committee), and former cabinet secretaries Alphonso Jackson and Donna Shalala.

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United

Yet all this greed and venality pales against the dark heart of the worst political scandal of all, the continuing nightmare caused by Citizens United and other court decisions that have unleashed a monster of unlimited and frequently anonymous private and corporate campaign cash against a nearly defenseless citizenry.

The recent disclosure that the conservative, "grass roots" advocacy organization American Action Network received first year revenues of $2.75 million from fewer than a dozen unnamed, wealthy donors (and 82% of the money from only three of them) led Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethic in Washington, to cite AAN as just one example of how "very few people are having a disproportionate impact on our country’s elections." (The group, affiliated with Karl Rove’s American Crossroads political action committee, raised another $24 million in the four months before the 2010 midterms, funding attack ads against Democratic Senate candidates in Wisconsin, Florida, Washington State and Florida described by progressive watchdog Media Matters as "bogus," "deceptive" and "stripped of the facts.")

Secret Donors and Corporate Money

This revelation follows superb investigative reporting by a Bloomberg News team last month headlined "Secret Donors Multiply in U.S. Election Spending." They found that outside, or non-party organizations, including "trade groups, unions and non-profits started by political operatives that raise and spend money for advertising" spent $305 million on the 2010 elections, four times more than similar groups spent four years ago. They plan to raise even more money for the 2012 campaign. Contrary to law, five of those groups have failed to report to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) more than $4 million spent on attack ads in last year’s races.

"The organizations face little scrutiny from the FEC, where split votes between Republican and Democratic commissioners have stymied enforcement in case after case for almost three years," Bloomberg reported. "As a result, voters may find themselves choosing the next U.S. president knowing less about those trying to shape their views of the candidates than they have since secret money helped finance the Watergate burglary and re-elect President Richard Nixon in 1972."

The journalists quoted Donald Simon, a director of pro-disclosure organization Democracy 21: "The amounts of corporate money involved in Watergate will look quaint by the standards of secret corporate funding that will take place in 2012."

Republicans and many Democrats oppose all new attempts at campaign finance reform, including a proposed White House executive order requiring corporations seeking government contracts to reveal their political contributions. On May 26, a federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that a long-standing ban on corporate contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional. Unless the composition of the Supreme Court shifts in a new direction, a constitutional amendment that reverses Citizens United and other federal rulings may be our only prayer, the solitary hope we have to prevent the total usurpation of representative government by big businesses with bottomless pockets.

Economic dominance, it’s the biggest scandal of all

The Greeks had a word for it -- "oligarchy" -- political clout based on economic dominance. It is, in the words of economist Simon Johnson, "an antithesis to democracy… a small group with a lot of wealth and a lot of power. They pull the strings. They have the influence. They call the shots."

No accountability, no scruples, no shame. It’s the biggest scandal of all; a republic struck down by a possibly fatal malady that even Gus the Greek’s magic bottle of Windex can't cure.

It is always the wealthy who are continually complaining that the poor are getting things they haven't worked for and therefore don't deserve. But it is only the rich who work hard to buy the votes they want because they truly don't trust our system of democracy.

The Other Side of the NPR Story

Two people who know the ins and outs of NPR are Bill Moyers and Michael Winship. They co-authored the article , In Defense of NPR. Here is an excerpt from the article.

Schiller is a fundraiser, not a news director. NPR keeps a high, thick firewall between its successful development office and its superb news division. The "separation of church and state" - the classic division of editorial and finance - has been one of the glories of public radio as it has won a large and respectful audience as the place on the radio spectrum that is free of commercials and commercial values.

If you would like to see how this integrity is upheld, go to the NPR web site and pull up any of its reporting since 2009 on the Tea Party movement. Read the transcripts or listen to its coverage - you will find it impartial and professional, a full representation of various points of view, pro and con. Further, examine how, over the past few days, NPR has covered the O'Keefe/Schiller contretemps and made no attempt to cover up or ignore its own failings and responsibilities.

Then reverse the situation and contemplate how, say, Fox News would handle a similar incident if it were the target of a sting. Would its coverage be as "fair and balanced" as NPR's? Would Fox apologize or punish an outspoken employee if he or she demeaned liberals? Don't kid yourself. A raise and promotion would be more likely. Think of the fortune Glenn Beck has made on Fox spewing bile and lies about progressives and their "conspiracies."

And oh yes, something else: remember what Fox News chief Roger Ailes said about NPR executives after they fired Fox contributor Juan Williams? "They are, of course, Nazis," Ailes told an interviewer. "They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view." When the Anti-Defamation League objected to the characterization, Ailes apologized but then described NPR as "nasty, inflexible" bigots.

Double standard? You bet. A fundraiser for NPR is axed for his own personal bias and unprofessionalism, but Ailes gets away scot-free, still running a news division that is constantly pumping arsenic into democracy's drinking water while he slanders public radio as equal to the monsters and murderers of the Third Reich.

Read the full article is here.

The Reality of Job Loss in the US

Via Dave Johnson from Campaign for America's Future:

Everyone knows that we have lost a lot of jobs to China since 2001. Now you can find out exactly how many, and where.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing and Economic Policy Institute released a report today titled, “Unfair China Trade Costs Local Jobs” by EPI's Robert Scott. Along with the report AAM has set up a website with an interactive map that shows job losses to by state and Congressional District.

Click the map.

It's bad. According to the report, between 2001 and 2008, 2.4 million jobs were lost or displaced with losses occurring in every Congressional district. (Note - This report does not track service industry job losses, and does not track indirect job losses.)

Here's the surprise: since 2001 we have lost more tech jobs than manufacturing jobs! -- We lost 628,000 tech jobs -26 percent of all jobs displaced by trade- between 2001 and 2008.

The main unfair advantages China uses to its advantage are:
1) Currency manipulation. China "pegs" its currency at a very low, or "weak" rate, so goods from China cost up to 40% less than they otherwise should.
2) Labor-rights suppression has lowered manufacturing wages of Chinese workers by 47% to 86%.
3) There is massive direct government subsidization of export production in many key industries.
4) China allows environmental degradation that ends up affecting all of us.
5) Intellectual property theft and piracy mean that American products that could be sold are stolen instead.
6) China has a number of policies that block U.S. firms from market access.

I joined a press conference call announcing this report, with Senators Charles Shumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Senators Schumer and Graham are introducing legislation in which "the wiggle room will be gone" and the Treasury Department must cite the Chinese for currency manipulation if currency is misaligned without having to say there is "intent," and impose additional penalties. Schumer:

"In the past Dem and Rep admins turned a blind eye to this problem. We are tired of the Chinese not playing by the rules that everyone else has to play by.

Later on the call Senator Schumer said,

Imagine if you had two stores across the street and one had a 40% price advantage – could charge 40% less than the other, where do you think people would shop?

[. . .] Every day we wait is a day we lose wealth, we lose economic advantage, we lose jobs.

Sen. Graham,

It is hard for American political leaders to keep their head in the sand any longer. ... To ignore China''s currency manipulation is to ignore economic reality and the way economics works. ... I am hopeful they [the Treasury Dept.] will go ahead and speak truth to power and the truth is that China's currency is misaligned.

Previous administrations allowed all of this to continue with impunity. It is time to do something about it and bring the world's trade back toward some kind of balance.

A Cause for Students to Unite

In the 60's it was Vietnam. It has taken 40 years and the collapse of our economy for students to again rally against something.

Today it is in California against the University of California for increases in fees. But students across the country are feeling the impact of increase fees and costs.

Via LA Times

Students Storm UCLA Building to Protest Expected UC System Fee Increase

About 30 students stormed UCLA’s Campbell Hall and barricaded the doors with chains and bike locks early this morning to protest a student fee increase that is expected to be endorsed by the University of California’s Board of Regents today.

The proposed two-step student fee increase would raise UC undergraduate education costs more than $2,500, or 32%.The annual cost of a UC education, not including campus-based fees would rise to $10,302.

Increased cost of tuition, reduction in scholarships, grants and loans and a reduction in job availability has led to this student revolt. It is now small but it has potential to grow. Where will the next protest take place?

It's the Money, Stupid!!!

Legalizing marijuana is a hot topic issue. It is now being discussed by the media as well as some lawmakers. There has been a growing consensus that legalizing marijuana makes sense.

In the past few weeks, commentators like David Sirota (The Nation), Kathleen Parker (Washington Post), Paul Jacob (TownHall.com), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), and Jack Cafferty (CNN) have all expressed sympathy for regulating pot. Even Joe Klein at Time Magazine weighed in on the issue, writing this month that "legalizing marijuana makes sense."

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Makes Cents

According to a 2005 analysis by Harvard University senior lecturer Jeffrey Miron -- and endorsed by over 500 distinguished economists -- replacing pot prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcohol would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year.

A separate economic analysis, conducted by George Mason University professor Jon Gettman in 2007, estimates that the total amount of tax revenue derived from cannabis could be far higher. According to Gettman, the retail value of the total U.S. marijuana market now stands at a whopping $113 billion per year. Using standard tax percentages obtained from the Office of Management and Budget, he calculates that the diversion of this market from the taxable economy deprives taxpayers of $31.1 billion annually.

2. Taxes & Regulation

Taxing and regulating cannabis would have the added bonus of taking the production and trafficking of pot out of the hands of criminal enterprises and, increasingly, drug gangs. According to the Associated Press, marijuana is the "biggest source of income" for Mexican drug cartels. Legalizing pot would eliminate this primary income source for these cartels and, in turn, eliminate much of the growing violence and turf battles that currently surround the drug's illegal importation from Mexico.

High Times's has 10 top reasons that marijuana should be legal, part of its 420 Campaign legalization strategy.