Church Uses Marquee To Speak Out Against Beck:

 ‘Sorry Mr Beck, Jesus Preached Social Justice’

This week, Christian religious leaders have been criticizing Fox News host Glenn Beck for his controversial remarks that churches that promote social and economic justice are somehow dangerous. “If you have a priest that is pushing social justice, go find another parish,” said Beck. Progressive Christian group Sojourners has even launched a campaign calling on Christians to speak out against Beck.

What in the fires of hell is Beck's problem and why won't Fox Fire him?

A story posted on CNN today has a photo of a United Church of Christ congregation in Wantagh, NY that took its message right to the community:




Today, ThinkProgress spoke with Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church Pastor Ronald Garner, who explained that he put the sign up yesterday when he decided that he had to do something more public than just e-mailing Beck:

GARNER: Wantagh Memorial Congregational Church is a very progressive church. We’re open and affirming in our denomination, which means we accept into the full life of our church gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. We are a peace church, and so I just felt that it was a sign that should be in front of our building to say that Mr. Beck’s comments about the social justice being a perversion of the gospel was a total distortion of anybody that’s even given a cursory reading to the words of Jesus. [...]
I feel it was an unwarranted attack on Christians, and I felt like something needed to be said.

The pastor said that a priest in the area who liked the sign originally submitted it to CNN. He added that so far, he has received only positive responses to the church’s message.



Let The Sun Shine In......

The Country is Getting Mugged

There has got to be a way to make these fools pay for what they are doing!

Ask the Chamber of Commerce: Why is Too Much Not Enough?

By BILL MOYERS and MICHAEL WINSHIP

Living in these United States, there comes a point at which you throw your hands up in exasperation and despair and ask a fundamental question or two: how much excess profit does corporate America really need? How much bigger do executive salaries and bonuses have to be, how many houses or jets or artworks can be crammed into a life?   After all, as billionaire movie director Steven Spielberg is reported to have said, when all is said and done, "How much better can lunch get?" But since greed is not self-governing, hardly anyone raking in the dough ever stops to say, "That's it. Enough's enough! How do we prevent it from sweeping up everything in its path, including us?"

Look at the health care industry saying to hell with consumers and then hiking premiums - by as much as 39% in the case of Anthem Blue Cross in California. According to congressional investigators, over a two-year period Anthem's parent company WellPoint spent more than $27 million dollars for executive retreats at luxury resorts. And in 2008, WellPoint paid 39 of its executives more than a million dollars each. Profit before patients.

This week, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the health insurance industry's lobby, announced they'd be spending more than a million dollars on new television ads justifying their costs.

Speaking at their annual policy meeting in Washington - and without a trace of irony - AHIP's president and CEO Karen Ignagni declared, "The current debate about rising premiums has demonstrated that, in fact, we have a health care cost crisis in this country. Unfortunately, the path that has been followed is one of vilification rather than problem solving."

Beg pardon? You're lamenting a health care cost crisis and raising your premiums?  Isn't that like the guy complaining there's an obesity epidemic in America while ordering a double Big Mac with extra fries?

Of course, a million is a mere bagatelle in the shadow of the $544 million that was spent on lobbying by the health sector last year, plus more than $200 million in advocacy ads. And a million's just the curtain raiser to what will be spent in these final weeks of health care reform debate.   Two weeks ago, The Washington Post reported, "Washington interest groups have burst back into action in hopes of bolstering or defeating a new Democratic push on health-care reform legislation, sparking another wave of rallies, lobbying efforts and costly advertising campaigns."

This in spite of the projection that over ten years the Obama plan would plop an additional $336 billion into the insurance companies' pockets - in the form of subsidies given to those who can't afford to buy health insurance on their own.

Okay, this is getting weird: We're going to help the poor by enriching their exploiters?

But apparently even that won't satisfy big business' voracious appetite for more. On Tuesday, Employers for a Healthy Economy, a coalition of 248 business groups, led by the U.S Chamber of Commerce, and including construction and manufacturing interests, as well as health insurance companies, said that over ten days they will spend up to $10 million on ads aimed at putting the screws on members of Congress to vote against health care reform.

Goodness knows, it isn't just because their profit margins may dwindle. No, according to Neil Trautwein, vice president of the National Retail Federation, one of the trade associations involved, "These bills are job killers. Retail simply cannot afford any higher benefit costs or burdensome mandates."  (Never mind that extrapolating from baseline forecasts made by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment Projections Program, the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, projects that health care reform possibly could create an average of as many as 400,000 new jobs a year.)

But beyond the health care fight, and perhaps far more significant in the long run, this effort is just one more example of life, Pandora-style. The Company has arrived, only it's called the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and it's got its sights on anything that moves, damn the natives, full speed ahead. During 2008, 86% of contributions from the chamber's political action committee went to GOP candidates. The conservatives have found their Avatar, AKA Frankenstein. 

Of course there is not actually a Chamber of Commerce, at least the way we might imagine it. This is no confederation of congenial, small town business groups that pass out maps of Main Street and souvenir key rings. The chamber in question is a front group.  Yes, yes, it reports a membership of three million businesses, but tax records indicate that in 2008 a third of its contributions came from 19 companies paying between $1 million and $15.3 million. Don't hold your breath: the chamber is not required to reveal who those 19 are.

The March 8 edition of the Los Angeles Times reports that "internal documents suggest the organization's treasury is filled in substantial part by contributions from a couple dozen major corporations most affected by Washington policymakers."

Got it? Predators who prey together stick together.

With all that cash, the Times notes, "The chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees. The chamber is expected to substantially exceed that spending level in 2010."

This elite organization of oligarchs has been emboldened by the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, which now allows corporations to spend freely on political campaigns right up until Election Day, and by the chamber's recent success contributing a million dollars for ads supporting Republican Senator Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

What's more, writes the Los Angeles Times, "Using trade associations such as the chamber as the vehicle for spending corporate money on politics has an extra appeal: These groups can take large contributions from companies and wealthy individuals in ways that will probably avoid public disclosure requirements."

So with the spring comes anonymous greed run rampant. "In the past a lot of companies and wealthy individuals stood on the sidelines" of politics, a corporate lawyer at Washington's influential law firm Covington & Burling told the Times.

"That cloud has been lifted," he said.

As the sun sets on democracy.

No wonder demonstrators outside that health insurance meeting in Washington this week surrounded the hotel with yellow crime scene tape.

The entire country is being mugged.

Let The Sun Shine In......

Whose Had Enough Of The Cheney Cuckoo Clocks?

by Laura Flanders

At what point do we call them the family of mass intimidation and simply stop playing into the Cheney clan’s tired old terror tactics?

Liz is the latest. Cheney child number one made the headlines this week, with an innuendo-laced video questioning the loyalty of lawyers who represent Guantanamo detainees. “The Al Qaeda 7: Who are they?" Asks the voice on a video released by Cheney's supposedly nonprofit, non-partisan new hit squad. (They call it an advocacy group?)

Liz is playing from a battered old family play book. Shortly after September 11, it was her mother out there, accusing people of lack of patriotism. Lynne Cheney teamed up with Senator Joseph Lieberman to release a report which accused colleges and universities of being the “weak link in America’s response” and naming 117 professors and students whom they called “short on patriotism" and "hostile to the US and western Civilization."

Not to be outdone by his women, barely a month has passed between 2001 and today in which Darth Vader patriarch Dick Cheney didn’t accuse some Democrat or another of endangering the homeland. The former vice president's training in bait and snitch dates back to the 60s when when he spied on Students for A Democratic Society meetings, jotting down names for his then-boss Donald Rumsfeld in an attempt to cut government funding for public colleges.

Teachers, lawyers, politicians... in case it’s not entirely clear, the Cheneys aren’t too hot on the independent professions of a free democracy, but they are red hot for the contemporary equivalent of red-baiting and they've gotten it down pat; how to harness the money media to do their bidding.

After all, it's thanks to the media it works. Even concerted attacks on campus progressives, lawyers, and political candidates don't successfully discredit their targets without the help of the media who carry the allegations and innuendos. Facts be damned, it's the accusations that do the work: intimidating scholars, chilling freedom of expression, driving lawyers and politicians out of the line of fire.

The media -- like FOX -- who went ahead this week and obediently printed the names of the Cheney-tagged "7" place the dead horse heads in the beds. Without them, the Cheney mob are simply name callers.

It's time the media started greeting Cheneyisms with the reaction they deserve. Snore. And most important of all, silence.

The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Follow GRITtvor GRITlaura on Twitter.com.

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY

Let The Sun Shine In......

The Sham Recovery

FRIDAY, MARCH 12, 2010

Are we finally in a recovery? Who’s “we,” kemosabe? Big global companies, Wall Street, and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments are clearly doing better. As to the rest of us – small businesses along Main Streets, and middle and lower-income Americans – forget it.

Business cheerleaders naturally want to emphasize the positive. They assume the economy runs on optimism and that if average consumers think the economy is getting better, they’ll empty their wallets more readily and – presto! – the economy will get better. The cheerleaders fail to understand that regardless of how people feel, they won’t spend if they don’t have the money.

The US economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. That sounds good until you realize GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy. For example, part of the increase is due to rising health care costs. When WellPoint ratchets up premiums, that enlarges the GDP. But you’d have to be out of your mind to consider this evidence of a recovery.

Part of the perceived growth in GDP is due to rising government expenditures. But this is smoke and mirrors. The stimulus is reaching its peak and will be smaller in months to come. And a bigger federal debt eventually has to be repaid.

So when you hear some economists say the current recovery is following the traditional path, don’t believe a word. The path itself is being used to construct the GDP data.

Look more closely and the only ones doing better are the people and private-sector institutions at the top. Many of America’s biggest companies are sitting on huge amounts of cash right now, but that says nothing about the health of the U.S. economy. Companies in the Standard&Poor 500 stock index had sales of $2.18 trillion in the fourth quarter, up from $2.02 trillion last year, and their earnings tripled. Why? Mainly because they’re global, and selling into fast-growing markets in places like India, China, and Brazil.

America’s biggest companies are also showing fat profits and productivity gains because they continue to slash payrolls and cut expenditures. Alcoa, for example, had $1.5 billion in cash at the end of last year, double what it had on hand at the end of 2008. Sounds terrific until you realize how it did it. By cutting 28,000 jobs – 32 percent of workforce – and slashed capital expenditures 43 percent.

Firms in S&P 500 are now holding a whopping $932 billion in cash and short-term investments. And they can borrow money cheaply. Corporate bond sales are brisk. So far in 2010, big U.S. corporations have issued $195.2 billion of debt, excluding government-guaranteed bonds. Does this spell a recovery? It all depends on what the big companies are doing with all this cash. In fact, they’re doing two things that don’t help at all.

First, they’re buying other companies. (Walgreen last month spent $618 million for New York drugstore chain Duane Reade; Bank of New York Mellon, $2.3 billion for PNC Financial Services; Monster, $225 million for jobs.com; Diamond Foods, $615 million for Kettle Foods.) This buying doesn’t create new jobs. One of the first things companies do when they buy other companies is fire lots of people who are considered “redundant.” That’s where the so-called merger efficiencies and synergies come from, after all.

The second thing big companies are doing with all their cash is buying back their own stock, in order to boost their share prices. There were 62 such share buy-backs in February, valued at $40.1 billion. We’re witnessing the biggest share buyback spree since Sept 2008. The major beneficiaries are current shareholders, including top executives, whose pay is linked to share prices. The buy-backs do absolutely nothing for most Americans.

(None of this, by the way, is stopping supply-side fanatics from arguing government needs to cut taxes on big corporations in order to spur the recovery. Their argument is absurd on its face. Big companies don’t know what to do with all their cash they have as it is. They aren’t investing it in new plant and equipment and new jobs. So why should the government cut their taxes and enlarge their cash hoards even more?)

The picture on Main Street is quite the opposite. Small businesses aren’t selling much because they have to rely on American – rather than foreign – consumers, and Americans still aren’t buying much.

Small businesses are also finding it difficult to get credit. In the credit survey conducted in February by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, only 34 percent of small businesses reported normal and adequate access to credit. Not incidentally, the NFIB’s “Small Business Optimism Index” fell 1.3 points last month, just about where it’s been since April.

That’s a problem for most Americans. Small businesses are where the jobs are. In fact, small businesses are responsible for almost all job growth in a typical recovery. So if small businesses are hurting, we’re not going to see much job growth any time soon.

The Federal Reserve reported Thursday that American consumers are shedding their debts like mad. Total US household debt, including mortgages and credit card balances, fell 1.7 percent last year – the first drop since the government began recording consumer debt in 1945. Much of the debt-shedding has been through default – consumers simply not repaying and walking away from homes and big-ticket purchases.

This is hardly good news. But here’s the Wall Street Journal’s take on it: “the defaults are leaving many people with more cash to spend and save, jump-starting the financial rehabilitiation” of the economy.

Baloney. As of end of 2009, debt averaged $43, 874 per American, or about 122 percent of annual disposable income. Most economic analysts think a sustainable debt load is around 100 percent of disposable income – assuming a normal level of employment and normal access to credit. But unemployment is still sky-high and it’s becoming harder for most people to get new mortgages and credit cards. And with housing prices still in the doldrums, they can’t refinane their homes or take out new loans on them. The days of homes as ATMs are over.

Some cheerleaders say rising stock prices make consumers feel wealthier and therefore readier to spend. But to the extent most Americans have any assets at all their net worth is mostly in their homes, and those homes are still worth less than they were in 2007. The “wealth effect” is relevant mainly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, most of whose net worth is in stocks and bonds. The top 10 percent accounted for about half of total national income in 2007. But they were only about 40 percent of total spending, and a sustainable recovery can’t be based on the top ten percent.

Add to all this the joblessness or fear of it that continues to haunt a large portion of the American population. Add in the trauma of what most of us have been through over the past year and a half. Consider also the extra need to save as tens of millions of boomers see retirement on the horizon. Bottom line: Thrifty consumers are doing the right and sensible thing by holding back from the malls. They saved a little over 4 percent of their disposable income in fourth quarter of 2009. In the months or years ahead they may save more.

Right and sensible for each household but a disaster for the economy as a whole. American consumers accounted for 70 percent of the total demand for goods and services in the American economy before the Great Recession, and a sizable chunk of world demand.

So what happens when the stimulus is over and the Fed begins to tighten again? Where will demand come from to get Main Street back, create jobs, raise middle class wages? Not from big businesses. Certainly not from Wall Street. Not from exports. Not from government.

So, where? That question is the big unknown hanging over the U.S. economy. Until there’s an answer, an economic “recovery” for anyone other than big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy is a mirage.

Have the huge corporations declared war on the Obama administration and the people? It surely seem like it, does it not?


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Let The Sun Shine In......

Disapproving of Israeli Policy.......

.........is not the same thing as being antisemitic or anti-Jewish in any way.  Given the aid Americans give to Israel every year, we have a right to have an opinion and I'm afraid that my opinion of Israel has slid downward over the last 7 years or so. I'll write more at Pelican's Perch on this topic.

MIDDLE EAST

A Partner For Peace?

This week, Vice President Biden arrived in the Middle East to attempt to restart peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. On Tuesday, shortly after he assured Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, "Every time progress is made, it's been made when the rest of the world knows there's no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security," the Israeli Interior Ministry announced plans "to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews" in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem. In response, Biden issued an unusually strong statement: "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel." Jerusalem is an especially sensitive area; Israel insists that it will remain its "undivided" capital, but the Palestinians claim Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. A European Union investigation last year found that the Israeli government was "working deliberately to alter the city's demographic balance and sever East Jerusalem from the West Bank." Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reiterated his position on Wednesday that he would not move forward with proposed peace talks with Israel unless settlements were halted. In an emergency meeting Wednesday, the Arab League "demanded that Israel reverse the East Jerusalem housing decision," but did not revoke its endorsement of proximity talks.
 
APOLOGY FROM NETANYAHU: As former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk noted on MSNBC yesterday, it's unfortunately a common occurrence for the Israeli government to announce new settlements either just before or after a visit with U.S. officials, which damages American credibility in the region. This happened numerous times under the Bush administration. It also happened the day before Biden arrived in Israel, when the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. It is uncommon, however, for Israel to announce new settlements during a visit from a high official like the vice president of the United States, especially when he had come to deliver a message of support. Interior Minister Eli Yishai apologized on Wednesday "for causing domestic and international distress" with the timing of the announcement, and Netanyahu reportedly told Biden, "No one was seeking to embarrass you or undermine your visit -- on the contrary, you are a true friend to Israel." According to the New York Times, aides say Netanyahu "was blindsided by the announcement from Israel's Interior Ministry, led by the leader of right-wing Shas Party. But he didn't disavow the plan." Meir Margalit, a member of Jerusalem's City Council told Israel's Ynet News that the Interior ministry "meant to sabotage the announcement that Netanyahu issued today regarding the renewal of indirect negotiations with the Palestinians. It is also a kind of slap in the face of the American administration."

A DEEPLY INGRAINED SETTLEMENT ENTERPRISE: A New York Times editorial suggested that President Obama "miscalculated... when he insisted that Israel impose a full stop on all new settlement building," noting that "one of the basic rules of diplomacy is that American presidents never publicly insist on something they aren't sure of getting -- at least not without a backup plan." Israel committed to freeze settlements under the "road map for peace" promulgated by the Bush administration in 2002, but has consistently failed to meet that commitment. While agreeing to a partial settlement moratorium last November (which specifically exempted Jerusalem), Netanyahu's own position in favor of settlement expansion is clear. The evening before Biden's arrival, "Netanyahu appeared onstage with Pastor John Hagee in Jerusalem." Hagee is a conservative American preacher who opposes the two-state solution and supports unlimited Israeli settlement expansion with millions of private American dollars. Hagee has said that "[i]f America puts pressure on Israel to divide Jerusalem we are following the blueprint of the Prince of Darkness." Israeli planning officials also told Haaretz that "some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval," and that "Jerusalem's construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem." In a recent article examining how deeply ingrained the settlement enterprise is in the various institutions of the state of Israel, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer writes, "The challenge for the United States is how to pursue the issue in a persistent and intelligent manner. It should do so with the confidence that, ultimately, it will end up aligned not only on the right side of history generally, but even on the right side of the history of Zionism."

HOLDING ALL PARTIES ACCOUNTABLE: The Obama administration has made clear that resolving the conflict between Israel and its neighbors is one of its highest priorities, but the last year has been a frustrating one. None of the parties -- Israelis, Palestinians, or the Arab states -- seem willing to take the necessary bold steps to move the process forward. There is also the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a major source of resentment among Palestinians and in the broader region. In a Center for American Progress report last July, authors Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and Robert Adler stated that "the window of opportunity for achieving a viable two-state solution is rapidly closing -- at a time when Israelis and Palestinians seem incapable and unwilling to achieve a sustainable peace agreement." The report called on the Obama administration "to reassure Israel that it will continue to support its security and work to maintain a close bilateral relationship while also pushing forcefully for a two-state solution which it sees as in the best interests of the region," which is precisely what Biden's trip to Israel was intended to do. Meeting with Abbas on Wednesday, Biden said, "Our administration is fully committed to the Palestinian people and to achieving a Palestinian state that is independent, viable, and contiguous. Everyone should know, everyone should know by now, that there is no viable alternative to a two-state solution, which must be an integral part of any comprehensive peace plan." In a speech earlier today in Tel Aviv, Biden promised that "the US will continue to hold both sides accountable for any statements or any actions that will inflame tension or prejudice the actions of these talks."


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Let The Sun Shine In......

What a Smashingly Good Idea!

NYC Central Park, Sunday March 14, 2010
Rumsey Playfield & Strawberry Fields

March 19, 2010 marks the seventh year since the US-led invasion of Iraq.  To date, 4,382 US soldiers have been killed.  By some accounts, over 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians are reported dead as a result.

The Iraq Memorial to Life (IMtL) remembers and honors the lives of these civilians. This year it will first be installed in Central Park, New York City, on March 14th.  It will then be placed on The National Mall, Washington D.C., at the base of the Washington Monument facing the White House on the seventh anniversary, March 19, 2010.  The traveling Arlington Midwest Memorial remembering the US service women and men killed will be set up near by.
Help build this memorial onsite.  Arrive at the memorial site early to help set it up.   Please be one of the volunteers that help set up the memorials in Central Park, NYC, or at the Washington Monument in Washington DC.
 
CAN WE COUNT ON YOU TO HELP?  KINDLY LET US KNOW:  douglas.mackey@iraqmemorialtolife.org
NYC Central Park, Sunday March 14, 2010:  Arrive as early as you can, between 5 and 7 am, at 72nd Street and 5th Avenue entrance of Central Park; signs will direct you to memorial set up leaders wearing white arm bands.  The Central Park Dedication Ceremony will be held at 12 noon at the IMtL Banner in the Rumsey Playfield area.

Visit the Iraq Memorial to Life, 2010.
 
Central Park, Rumsey Playfield & Strawberry Fields. NYC, Sunday March 14:
72nd Street entrances of Central Park (E or W); signs will direct you to the memorial.  Dedication Ceremony will be held at 12:00 pm with Bruce Wallace (121 Contact), Salam Hassan Talib & Nisreen (Iraqis in USA) and Mark Johnson, Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
 
Washington DC, Washington Monument (north), Open daily from March 19 - March 22, Sunrise to Sunset
 
3/19: 9:30 pm Candlelight Procession; 10:30 pm Silent Observance concurrent in several US locations.
 
3/20: 10:00 am Dedication Ceremony with Josh Stieber, Salam Hassan Talib, Dahr Jamail, Mark Johnson, Cindy Sheehan, and others.  Dedication closes with Path of Understanding ceremony.
 
 3/22: 10:00 am (tentative) Closing Ceremony - A reading from the people of Iraq.  Help take down the memorial and pack it for the future.

Please help fund the memorial. It does cost us to laminate these - please give even a small amount; anything helps!  Checks may be made out to Fellowship of Reconciliation ("IMtL" on the memo line), 521 N. Broadway, Nyack, NY  10960.  You may also donate online at the website www.iraqmemorialtolife.org.

For more information, contact:
Douglas Mackey, IMtL Coordinator (360) 485-3764
douglas.mackey@iraqmemorialtolife.org
 
Iraq Memorial to Life, Traditions Fair Trade, 300 5th Ave. SW, Olympia, WA  98503

NYC-UFPJ is supporting this event. Please forward widely.

---

NYC UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
www.unitedforpeace.org/nyc | 212-868-5545
PO Box 607; Times Square Station; New York, NY 10108

To subscribe, visit www.unitedforpeace.org/email

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Indeed, Give Ms. Cheney Just Enough Rope

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Because Congressional Republicans goosestep across our television screens and throughout our printed pages in the tightest of political formulations, an appearance of unshakable right-wing unity dominates the national scene.

Yet it is well to remember that not all is ideological bliss within greater ultraconservative circles. The RNC, for instance, is in laughably disuniting freefall; Tea Partyers continue to exacerbate the right's preexisting condition of genetic drift; and now we see another rift opening on the right, headlined in yesterday's NY Times as "Attacks on Detainee Lawyers Split Conservatives."

These attacks, as you know, have been spearheaded by Just-give-me-enough-rope Liz Cheney and her plucky little propaganda mill of Keep America Safe, which, as you also know, have, in the scurrilous spirit of Joe McCarthy and A. Mitchell Palmer, "questioned the loyalty of Justice Department lawyers who worked in the past on behalf of detained terrorism suspects."

These attacks, this questioning, indeed the entire Cheney humbuggery has been roundly denounced in and by the mainstream media; but, reports the Times, they've also "split the tightly knit world of conservative legal scholars. Many conservatives, including members of the Federalist Society ... have vehemently criticized" Ms. Cheney and her tactics, saying they violate the fundamental "American legal principle that even unpopular defendants deserve a lawyer."

How fundamental? Ms. Cheney's former law professor and mentor, Richard Epstein, of the University of Chicago, said bluntly that her extermination of principle is "something truly bizarre." Added Epstein, with either a dram of disingenuity or buckets of political naivete: "I don’t know what moves her on this thing."

Well, Richard, let's just call it irrational exuberance, upon which a veritable "Who’s Who of former Republican administration officials and conservative legal figures" -- including even the legally creative Ken Starr and several Bush II officials -- are heaping intellectual piles of abuse. On Sunday, these conservative Who's Who-ers publicly signed a Brookings Institution letter that sternly reproached Ms. Cheney & Co. as "shameful," "unjust," and "destructive."

Needless to say, some notable Bush IIers were elsewhere; that is, in characteristic disaccord with legal tradition and Constitutional wisdom. My favorite Cheney-defense came from -- who else? -- John Yoo, whom the University of California-Berkley now inexplicably permits to teach law:

"What’s the big whoop?" asked Yoo. "The Constitution makes the president the chief law enforcement officer. We had an election. President Obama ... can and should put people into office who share his views" and then the electorate "can decide whether they agree with him or not."

I repeat: This clown is actually teaching young people the law, or at least his most peculiar version of it, which sounds remarkably like Dick Nixon's, so famously encapsulated in the 2008 film, "Frost/Nixon": "If the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

Literal translation: The U.S. Constitution contains but the idiosyncratic vagaries of individual administrations; the document is valid, as presidentially interpreted, for four years or eight, and no longer.

This is real banana-republic stuff, which, oddly enough, when confirmed by the Yoo-Cheney School of Peculiar Law, means President Obama would in Constitutional fact have every executive right to install demonstrably treasonous anti-American, pro-Qaeda types in the Justice Department. Impeachment Articles be damned.

Yoo's runner-up in the "something truly bizarre" department? David M. McIntosh, former Congressman and Federalist Society co-founder, who Socratically enlightened us thus: "Was the [Justice Department] person acting merely as an attorney doing their best to represent a client’s case, or did they seek out the opportunity to represent them or write an amicus brief because they have a political or personal agenda that made them more interested in participating in those [terrorist] cases?"

And with that, as though there's any necessity to point this out, Mr. McIntosh gave us McCarthyism Unbound -- an Inquisitional, Paranoid and Partisan Style of governance in which every official is subject to endless investigations into past associations and curious affiliations with "front groups."

But I digress. The principle point to savor is that as ultraconservatism moves ever ultra, it leaves behind yet another bloc of vestigial conservative conscientiousness, as evidenced by the outraged peeling away of the "Brookings Institution 22," so instinctively opposed to the unpardonable scurrility of Ms. Cheney's "Al-Qaeda 7."

The Cheney Group. continuing to dismantle everything good about this country, is truly disgraceful and I'm sure our Muslim enemies are watching with glee and our friends, Muslim and otherwise, are watching with horror.

Please respond to P.M.'s commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact him at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Roberts blasts Obama.

Excuse me, but isn't this, to say the least, inappropriate? I mean, we have the Chief of the Supremes yapping on about the Pres. during war time. I though that was treasonous, or so we were told during the BuCheney years.


It's Obama vs. the Supreme Court, Round 2, over campaign finance ruling


By Robert Barnes and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2010; A01



President Obama and the Supreme Court have waded again into unfamiliar and strikingly personal territory.

When Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told law students in Alabama on Tuesday that the timing of Obama's criticism of the court during the State of the Union address was "very troubling," the White House pounced. It shot back with a new denouncement of the court's ruling that allowed a more active campaign role for corporations and unions.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats followed up with pointed criticism of Roberts, and at a hearing on the decision, a leading Democrat said the American public had "rightfully recoiled" from the ruling.

The heated rhetoric has cast the normally cloistered workings of the court into a very public spotlight. Democrats hope to make the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission part of their strategy to portray the conservative justices as more protective of corporate interests than of average Americans.

A Democratic strategist who works with the White House said the fight is a good one for Obama, helping lay the groundwork for the next Supreme Court opening. "Most Americans have no idea what the Supreme Court does or how it impacts their lives," the strategist said. "This decision makes it crystal clear."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) opened the hearing on the ruling Wednesday by declaring that "the Citizens United decision turns the idea of government of, by and for the people on its head." The committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions (Ala.), countered that Obama and Democrats are mischaracterizing the ruling for political gain.

"There has been too much alarmist rhetoric that has been flying around since this decision," Sessions said, advising his colleagues not to "misrepresent the nature of the decision or impugn the integrity of the justices."

The court ruled 5 to 4 in January that corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to use their general treasuries and profits to spend freely on political ads for and against specific candidates. The court overturned its own precedents and federal law in the decision, which was hailed by conservatives and a few liberals as a victory for free political speech, and was denounced by Obama, who said in his State of the Union address that it would lead to elections being "bankrolled by America's most powerful interests."

Want to vote against the corporations? Just vote for the candidates with the least money and the ones who have the most donors, donating under $50.00. 

Obama's blunt criticism, while six black-robed justices sat at the front of the House chamber, set off a round of public debate about whether he was both wrong and rude, or whether Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. violated judicial custom by silently mouthing "not true" while the president was speaking.

Presidential historians said that while other presidents have criticized Supreme Court decisions or called upon Congress to remedy them, Obama's was the most pointed and direct criticism in a State of the Union address since President Franklin D. Roosevelt took on the court for blocking his programs.


An issue of 'decorum'


Round 2 began Tuesday, when Roberts spoke at the University of Alabama law school. He did not mention Citizens United in his speech and declined to answer a question about criticism of the ruling.

But when asked whether the State of the Union address was the "proper venue" in which to "chide" the Supreme Court, Roberts did not hesitate.

"First of all, anybody can criticize the Supreme Court without any qualm," he said, adding that "some people, I think, have an obligation to criticize what we do, given their office, if they think we've done something wrong."

He continued: "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according to the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."

The White House struck back quickly -- not at Roberts's point, but at the decision. "What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections -- drowning out the voices of average Americans," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision."


'People disagree'


White House officials said the debate helps underscore differences between the president and the conservative court and puts into relief what will be at stake when there is another opening on the bench. There is speculation that Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 next month, will retire at the end of this term.

At a time when the administration is struggling to prove that it can work across political lines on a health-care overhaul and other matters, Obama officials insisted they were not seeking a partisan fight with the court. Yet they acknowledged that a debate over campaign finance fed into Obama's central campaign promise of transparency and reform. "This is really about the president's change agenda," a White House official said. 

There should be no partisan battles with the Court as the Supremes is not supposed to be political, but I guess those days are long over.

"This is the functioning of democracy at its highest," the official said. "People disagree, they discuss, they debate."

Administration officials did not question whether Roberts's comments were appropriate, noting that he had replied to a question.

But the fracas is the kind the justices usually like to avoid. Justice Clarence Thomas told a Florida law school audience last month that the controversy reinforced his decision to skip the State of the Union address. "One of the consequences is now the court becomes part of the conversation, if you want to call it that," he said. ". . . It's just an example of why I don't go." 

Thomas actually made a decision on his own? Damn, that's a first!


Roberts, who has attended the event since joining the court in 2005, indicated at the Alabama event that he may now agree with Thomas.

"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," he said.

Everything has degenerated into a political pep rally, Even decisions to go to war unnecessarily  and, I might add, criminally. This started long before Obama. If money is speech, then refusing to pay for said war is the only language of conscious we have.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Democracy? What Democracy?

by Chisun Lee, ProPublica

The Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend more money on aggressive election ads. But if businesses take advantage of this new freedom, the public probably won't know it, because it's easy for them to legally hide their political spending.

Under current disclosure laws for federal elections, it's virtually impossible for the public to track how much a business spends, what it's spending on, or who ultimately benefits. Experts say the transparency problem extends to state and local races as well.

"There is no good way to gauge" how much any given company spends on elections, said Karl Sandstrom, a former vice chairman of the Federal Election Commission and counsel to the Center for Political Accountability. "There's no central collection of the information, no monitoring."

Companies invest in politics to win favorable regulations or block those "that could choke off their business model," said Robert Kelner, chairman of Covington & Burling's Washington, D.C., political law group. But they'd rather hide these political activities, he said, because they fear backlash from customers or shareholders.

For instance, a company may want to help Democratic politicians who support health care reforms that would benefit the company, but it worries about offending "Republican shareholders who may care more about their personal ideology than about their three shares of stock in the company," said Kelner, who says he represents many politically active Fortune 500 companies. "The same would be true on the other side of the political spectrum."

Businesses must reveal their identities on public reports to the Federal Election Commission if they buy advertising on their own. But one popular and perfectly legal conduit for companies wanting to influence politics under the radar is to give money to nonprofit trade groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber and its national affiliates spent $144.5 million last year on advertising, lobbying and grass-roots activism -- more than either the Republican or Democratic party spent, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of public records -- while legally concealing the names of its funders. The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the Chamber is building a grass-roots political operation that has signed up about 6 million non-Chamber members.

Some of the positions the Chamber has successfully advanced on behalf of its donors include a nationwide campaign to unseat state judges who were considered tough on corporate defendants and opposition to a federal bill that would have criminalized defective auto manufacturing.

Now the Jan. 21 Supreme Court ruling that increases the potential political clout of businesses is drawing fresh attention to the problem of tracking them.

That decision (PDF), Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allows corporations to run television ads that don't merely speak to an issue but say outright whether a candidate should be elected, and allows them to do so any time they want to, using their general funds. The ruling also gives nonprofit groups like the Chamber these new freedoms, because they are technically structured as corporations.

Before, corporations had to rely on employee and shareholder contributions to a separate political account to finance the most explicit commercials and, in the months before an election, any issue ads that mentioned a candidate. Although the decision addressed federal election rules, its constitutional rationale also dismantles similar restrictions in 24 states.

Soon after the ruling, two Democrats -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York -- announced they were writing a bill to make it easier to tell which companies are backing which ads in federal elections. An outline (PDF) of that bill, which is expected to be introduced this week, proposes forcing nonprofit groups to identify those who fund their political commercials.

At present, nonprofit groups don't have to disclose the sources of their advertising money, unless the donors specified that their contributions were intended for political ads.

"Unless you're sort of dumb enough to designate your contribution to the Chamber," said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center, "no one will ever know who's the source of those funds."

Politically active nonprofits exist across the ideological and policy spectrum and include unions as well as trade groups. Their funders include both corporations and individuals, some of them very wealthy. But campaign finance experts say groups that advocate specifically for business tend to have the greatest resources, simply because corporations have the most money to give.

The lack of tracking mechanisms sometimes leaves company officials themselves in the dark about their organization's political activities, said Adam Kanzer, managing director and general counsel of Domini Social Investments, which files shareholder resolutions to push corporations to adopt self-monitoring and disclosure practices.

"In a lot of our conversations with companies, they say, 'We don't know exactly how our money is getting spent. It's hard to get those answers,'" Kanzer said. One major drug manufacturer, he said, signed on for voluntary disclosure after learning that its funds had supported a state judicial campaign that many voters -- who could be customers or shareholders -- viewed as racist.

The public price of spotty disclosure is not being able to gauge the real effects of corporation-backed politics, McGehee said. She questioned one argument, often made by defenders of the Citizens United decision, that the 26 states that have long allowed unlimited corporate advertising in their elections haven't suffered more political corruption than the rest of the nation.

"How would you know? Most of those states have next to no disclosure," McGehee said. Corporations "could be buying outcomes left and right, but because of no disclosure, we don't know." A 2007 examination by the National Institute on Money in State Politics found that, while 39 states required some degree of disclosure by political advertisers, the laws in most were riddled with loopholes. Only five states required enough detail to link sponsors with specific ads, the report said.

Rep. Van Hollen said the disclosure requirements he and Schumer are drafting would uncover the corporate political money flowing through nonprofit channels.

"If corporations spend money in these campaigns, we cannot allow them to hide behind sham organizations and dummy corporations that mislead voters," he said in a written comment to ProPublica. "Voters have a right to know who is delivering and paying for the message."

The requirements would apply to unions and liberal nonprofits as well as trade groups, according to the early outline of the bill. The proposal mentions additional transparency requirements -- such as mandating corporate disclosures to shareholders and "stand by your ad" appearances by CEOs of companies that finance commercials directly -- and seeks outright bans on political advertising by government contractors, bailout recipients and companies significantly controlled by foreigners.

A strong disclosure law would be "hugely effective" in revealing who is paying for political speech, said Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman and head lawyer for John McCain's presidential campaigns, who is now general counsel at Campaign Legal Center.

But precisely for that reason, Potter said, politics may get in the way of any serious reform. He expects trade groups on the right, unions on the left and other cause groups across the board to fight hard against such legislation.

Already the political battle is taking shape.

Asked to comment on the push for more disclosure, the Chamber's chief legal officer and general counsel, Steven Law, instead attacked the political motives of the proponents. "Unions overwhelmingly support those who are pushing this legislation," he said in an e-mail. "This isn't about reform, it's about politicians trying to secure advantages for themselves before an election."

That reaction drew fire from one of the nation's most politically active unions, the Service Employees International Union, which also declined to comment on the new disclosure proposals. "The coming flood of corporate and foreign money into our elections through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a threat to democracy, plain and simple," said Anna Burger, SEIU's secretary-treasurer, in an e-mail. She called on legislators to "drag the Chamber's practices into the light of day."

The Chamber revealed more about its view of disclosure in an amicus brief (PDF) it filed in the Citizens United case on behalf of the 3 million business members it says it has. It supported the plaintiff, a nonprofit corporation called Citizens United, which wanted the Supreme Court not only to lift corporate advertising bans but also to strike down the existing disclosure requirements.

The Chamber argued that those requirements inhibited corporations from speaking out. If the public discovered that corporations were "taking controversial positions," it might punish them, the brief said. As an example, it pointed to a 2005 boycott of ExxonMobil products after the public learned the company was lobbying Congress to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

That argument failed to persuade the high court, which by an 8-1 majority decided to leave the current disclosure laws intact.

Transparency is important, wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the majority, because it helps voters "give proper weight to different speakers and messages," and because it allows citizens to "see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests."

BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
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Let The Sun Shine In......

Bob Kerrey Says 9/11 was pre-planned?

One of the 911 Commissioners Bob Kerry (Gov Nebraska) was speaking on
Climate Change at a conference .

After it was ended , he was answering questions as he was walking to his next
engagement. He stopped and talked for a few minutes to people of the "We Are Change LA "
.

They talked of 911 , and Kerrey claims 911 was a 30 year conspiracy.

The conversation went like this;

LA CHANGE :"Do you support a criminal investigation into 911, Because I know

yours was a exposition investigation, it was not a criminal investigation.

Kerrey : "No I don't think so, but I don't know, but I do support a permanent
commission to examine not just that , but lots of things in this area so...

LA CHANGE : But if it's a permanent cover up... its, a It's a act of war and it's hiding things, which everyone on your commission knew that the Pentagon was changing their stories , lying to you , then its a cover up of a act of war and under Article 3 Section 3 of the Constitution ... Its treason , so unless we get to the very bottom of it , were still talking a Treasonous exposition.

Kerrey : This is a longer conversation , I'm not sure we will ever to the bottom of it.

LA CHANGE : We have to or I don't think we can save our country sir.

Kerrey : I don't think, Well if that's the condition upon which we'll be saving our country, because , the problem is it's a 30 year old conspiracy.

LA CHANGE : No, I'm talking about 911.

Kerrey : That's what I'm talking about

LA CHANGE : Oh , you are..
If this wasn't just a rounded off number, 30 years takes us back to the Nixon administration and a democratic Congress. People say that conspiracies cannot be kept secret for that long. I guess they can when the corporate news media and the corporate newspapers are stingy with the investigative reporting and exposes.

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Let The Sun Shine In......

Chruches That Teach Social Justice....

....are evil, according to Glenny.

by Jeffrey Joseph
It was probably just a matter of time before Glenn Beck starting making accusations that would put him at odds with Christianity as a whole. Based on statements from his radio program and his FOX show, he has willingly endeavored to do just that.
Attempting to incite his audience into mass action, Beck decided to warn his listeners and viewers to beware churches that preach about the need for social justice. He pleaded, "I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words." To ensure that no one misinterpreted Beck's call to action, he followed that immediately by saying, "Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Indeed, Beck, under the guise of a concerned Christian, unconvincingly compared calls for social justice with extremists from both ends of the political spectrum and demanded people leave their churches over the topic. "Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right," said Beck. "But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner... But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."

It should not surprise Beck that social justice, the term coined by Jesuit priest Luigi Taparelli D'Azeglio to promote compassion and humanitarian efforts for fellow individuals, would include calls for stronger democracy. It began as an effort to help others in a practical manner, such as promotion of democracy or clothing the naked and caring for the sick. In fact, social justice has become so ingrained within the Catholic faith that it bears mentioning in the Catholic Catechism. Being raised Catholic, Beck surely understood the gravity of simultaneously conflating the Catholic Church with both Nazism and Communism. Still, he may not have recognized how wide a swathe of Christians his baseless attacks also opposed, including members of the Mormon faith with whom he purports to agree.

Then again, Beck's theological aptitude led him to conclude that God would not support the right to an education. He must see no need for anyone to read the Bible or any of the books Beck so famously shills on his program; the acquired ability to read would, after all, necessitate some form of education. If Beck does not want to promote the ability to read even the book at the core of Christian faith, would that not mean he opposes the faith altogether, as well?

Beck's crusade against humanitarianism, or "social justice" as it sometimes is called, proves how little he cares about others, even his unfortunate viewers and listeners. In his zeal to fear monger about movements of Nazis or Communists, he successfully alienated Christian churches around the world, though he claims to be a Christian himself. Perhaps it also illustrates that Beck has a better understanding of social justice than he lets on. The movement began as a worldly way for Christians to fulfill their spiritual compulsion to help others. Beck simply inverted and corrupted the equation, letting his worldly desire for infamy and money lead him to vilify any spiritual compulsion or actions intended to help anyone but him and his preconceived message.

The time has come to send a message to Beck to quit his misguided attempts at a warped theology -- one that actually takes aim at Christians everywhere -- and choose to Turn Off FOX.

Please send in tips and success stories to turnofffox@gmail.com, look out for us on Twitter @turnofffox, and join us at BuzzFlash in the Campaign to Turn Off FOX News. And please forward this article to a friend. You can drive the message home by obtaining a Turn Off FOX Bumper Sticker. Just Click Here.
Originally posted at Turn Off FOX.

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Let The Sun Shine In......