Kamala Harris Made The Case: Trump's Presidency Has Failed

This Kamala Harris speech she gave this afternoon is good, not the greatest, not even that special-- except for one thing: it was carried live yesterday as Trump was getting ready to addressed the #CocaineConvention. Viewers of MSNBC, PBS and CNN have heard it all before. Fox viewers hadn't-- until today. Heads must have been exploding.

"Donald Trump," she explained to people who have never heard it before, "has failed. At it's most basic level Donald Trump doesn't understand the presidency. He thinks it's all about him. Well, it's not. It's about you; it's about all of us, the people... Donald TRump has failed at the most basic and important job of a president of the United States. He failed to protect the American people, plain and simple. Trump showed... a reckless disregard for the well-being of the American people. A reckless disregard for the danger a pandemic would pose to American lives, for the devastation it would do to our economy. For the damage it would do to communities of color who have been subjected to structural racism for generations. For the chaos that would upend of daily lives, make it impossible for many of our children to go to school; make it impossible to live normally with a sense of certainty. He never appreciated that a president swears an oath before God and country to protect America against threats seen and unseen. It's his duty; it's his obligation to protect us. And yes, he has failed, miserably.

Donald Trump's incompetence is nothing new. That has always been on full display. But in January of this year, it became deadly. Thats' when the threat on a virus that would endanger the world first emerged. Trump dismissed the threat... Trump still doesn't have a plan. He still doesn't have a plan... President Trump got it wrong from the beginning and the he got it wrong again and again. And the consequences have been catastrophic. And here's why Trump has been so unwilling-- and unable-- to deal with this crisis. First, he was fixated on the stock market... He was convinced that if his administration focussed on this virus, it would hurt the market and hurst his chances of being reelected. That mattered to him more than saving American lives. Second, right at the moment we needed Donald Trump to be tough on the Chinese government, he caved... Instead of rising to see the most difficult moment of his presidency, Donald Trump froze. He was scared and his was petty and vindictive."

While she was talking and while Trump was no doubt chopping up his Adderall for tonight's event, Change Research released a new nationwide survey showing that "The economy, jobs, and cost of living remains the number-one issue in the country and in the battleground. This issue was thought by many to be Trump’s strength and his best case for re-election before COVID-19, but majorities nationally disapprove of the job he is doing handling the economy (53% disapprove) and helping people’s pocketbooks (54% disapprove), and only 51% approve of his handling of his handling of the economy and pocketbooks in the battleground. While the shifts among Republicans were the most significant, the assessment and outlook of Democrats and independents also improved. 60% of battleground voters still rate the economy negatively, 59% still rate the US job market negatively, 51% are still pessimistic about the US economy in the year ahead, and 56% are still pessimistic about the unemployment rate. But this is also the first time that we have seen these economic metrics moving in a positive direction in several weeks."

That said, this is from our good friends at Brave New Films...

A Battle In Congress: The Reformers vs The Corruptionists

Friday, Brave New Films released this short, powerful clip of Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), Vanita Gupta (of the Leadership Conference) and Sherrilyn Ifill (of the NAACP) at the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on H.R.1, the new bold and decisive groundbreaking reform package that includes voting rights, campaign finance and anti-corruption ethics reforms. They are seen here schooling one of the Republican witnesses/proud voter suppressors. The bill shouldn't be seen as partisan-- just one that pits corrupt members of Congress against reformers who want to start ridding the institution of the grotesque corruption that plagues it. (Key word there was "start," since Congress will never emerge from the swamp/sewer until this is instituted:

Last week Ella Nilsen, writing for Vox, noted that the lobbyist community is mounting an opposition strategy to the package of legislation.

The National Association of Business Political Action Committees and its members met at the law offices of their legal counsel Wiley Rein on Tuesday to discuss the bill’s impact. The group is calling the anti-corruption bill, commonly known on the Hill as HR 1, “potentially onerous legislation,” and told its members to “immediately begin engaging on this topic with your donors, senior executives and Hill allies.”

This isn’t the only group concerned about Democrats making HR 1 their first priority in the new Congress. The wide-ranging bill would require Super PACs to make their donors public, enact lobbying registration requirements with more oversight of foreign agents, set up nonpartisan redistricting commissions to end partisan gerrymandering, and create national automatic voter registration, among other actions.

The Conservative Action Project released a memo on Monday calling the bill “the ultimate fantasy of the left,” which was signed by Republican figures including former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese III, and former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. (Delay resigned from Congress in 2006 after questions about his ties to infamous DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and was convicted of campaign money laundering in 2010.)

Conservative and libertarian group FreedomWorks has been circulating a form letter to members for the past two weeks, calling HR 1 a “dangerous bill” and saying it would restrict free speech and open up the country to one-party rule by Democrats.

Washington’s lobbyist and influence industries seem nervous, but they can rest easy for at least two more years; there’s absolutely no chance that HR 1 will become law under the current Congress. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell outlined his staunch opposition to the bill in detail in a Washington Post op-ed a few weeks ago-- all but guaranteeing it won’t see the light of day in the Senate.

But perhaps anticipating an era similar to the post-Watergate reforms, pro-business and lobbying organizations are starting to worry.

“No matter when this kind of bill would be put on the calendar, we’re going to oppose it, based on what it is,” FreedomWorks press secretary Peter Vicenzi told Vox.

The most common attack on HR 1 is that its transparency requirements for donors to Super PACs and “dark money” organizations are a blow to constitutionally protected free speech. Groups like the Conservative Action Project say the bill would upend free speech by making public which donors are giving to PACs. The 2010 Supreme Court decision on Citizens United in effect gave corporations the same powers as citizens in political spending.

The aim of HR 1 is to cut down on the excess of money influencing who gets elected and how policy is made in Washington, DC, but these groups often frame their arguments by saying the bill will unjustly hurt small donors as well.

“This hurts Americans by revealing their names when they might want privacy,” Vicenzi said. “This isn’t even for big donors, this hurts the little guy.”

Of course, the amount of money big donors are spending on Super PACs dwarfs that of individual small donors. The top 10 donors to super PACs in 2018 were millionaires and billionaires (a mix of Democrats and Republicans)-- together, they account for more than $400 million donated to super PACs in 2018 alone, according to OpenSecrets data.

The 2018 midterms cycle was the most expensive midterm election in history and became the second-most expensive cycle ever when it came to outside spending, considering both midterm and presidential elections, per an OpenSecrets analysis.

Washington’s influence industry has other problems with HR 1. Jan Baran, the attorney who is providing guidance to NABPAC on the legislation, outlined concerns that the provisions in the bill meant to restrict foreign nationals from influencing American elections would also restrict the ability for American corporations who may have a foreign national as an executive or a shareholder to keep their PACs or donate to them.

“If a corporation with even one foreign national executive, director, or shareholder with voting shares is considered a ‘foreign national’ under HR 1, then the corporation would be subject to the same prohibitions,” Baran wrote in a presentation to NABPAC that was shared with Vox. (Baran was involved in the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court case, he wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the US Chamber of Commerce that was cited in the court’s decision.)

Conservative groups and politicians, including McConnell, have also outlined concerns about HR 1’s steps to eliminate partisan gerrymandering by incentivizing states to set up nonpartisan redistricting commissions. They also object to its proposed restructuring of the Federal Elections Commission to seat five commissioners instead of six. Democrats say this will reduce gridlock on the commission (something that former FEC commissioners of both parties have complained has paralyzed the body from doing its job), but conservative groups say it will make it more partisan.

“From the First Amendment to your ballot box, Democrats want to rewrite the rules to favor themselves and their friends,” McConnell wrote in his op-ed. “Upending the FEC, squeezing taxpayers, attacking privacy and jeopardizing our elections are a price they’ll happily pay for this partisan power grab.”

Combined with the fact that more politicians coming to Washington and running for president are taking a no-corporate PAC pledge, Democrats see signs the influence industry is scared they are serious about real reforms.

“I think [McConnell] and others perceive that if we get this passed in the House and make this strong declaration to the public... that begins to create momentum and pressure on him,” said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD), the main sponsor of HR 1.

You caught that plea from the the National Association of Business Political Action Committees for members to reach out to their allies on Capitol Hill (above)? Well, who are those allies? Lobbyists and their firms have contributed $305,244,150 to members of Congress' election kitties since 1990. These are the crooks who are still in Congress who have accepted the biggest amounts from the lobbyists; first the dozen lobbyist-friendly senators:

Mitch McConnell (R-KY)- $1,770,235
Patty Murray (D-WA)- $1,627,145
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)- $1,612,054
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)- $1,537,906
Ed Markey (D-MA)- $1,501,730
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)- $1,458,602
Rob Portman (R-OH)- $1,420,104
Jon Tester (D-MT)- $1,388,462
Bob Casey (D-PA)- $1,352,250
Roy Blunt (R-MO)- $1,297,522
Mark Warner (D-VA)- $1,208,669
Sherrod Brown (D-OH)- $1,171,185

And now the dozen distinguished members of the House who don't seem to think there's anything wrong with taking massive contributions from people whose only job is to get you to vote the way the people who pay them want you to vote. That this isn't illegal is simply mind-boggling. One brief note-- Frank Pallone, a notoriously corrupt New Jersey pol, is the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Richard Neal (D-MA) is the chairman of House Ways and Means:

Steny Hoyer (D-MD)- $1,229,341
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)- $930,214
Greg Walden (R-OR)- $926,327
Don Young (R-AK)- $885,255
Frank Pallone (D-NJ)- $754,219
Fred Upton (R-MI)- $735,089
Pete Visclosky (D-IN)- $668,422
Steve Scalise (R-LA)- $653,062
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)- $642,589
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)- $608,142
Richard Neal (D-MA)- $605,220
Jim Clyburn (D-SC)- $598,029

New Campaign Videos

Campaign videos don't have to be expensive to be effective. I asked Mike Siegel what this one cost him. I caught up with him just as he was headed out the door to meet Beto for a rally in Elgin. He told me the video was part of a package that includes 12 clips and some mailers, but that if you break down the package, you could say the video cost around $1,500. "This is what a resistance campaign in 2018 looks like," he told me. "Focused messages targeted at specific segments of voters. Our goal is to let the Texas 10th know how the current representative has betrayed their interests, and how specifically I will fight for them."

Nate McMurray is running against indicted Republican crook (and Trumpist) Chris Collins in the part of western New York between suburban Buffalo and suburban Rochester. Nate's campaign is very grassroots-oriented and very DIY--  and this pretty effective video cost them... exactly nothing (other than a donated ancient TV from somebody's basement).



It sure would be great if they had the money to put it up on the air in the two relatively inexpensive media markets in the district. If you'd like to help Nate-- and any of the other congressional candidates on this page-- they all happen to be Medicare-For-All supporters, so you can find them on this page and contribute to their campaigns.



This brand new Randy Bryce ad (above) starts running on TV this week. With Bryan Steil and his allies pouring over $2 million into a vicious personal smear campaign against Randy, he's sticking to the issues that southeast Wisconsin voters care about and hitting back by showing his opponent's record in the private sector.

Bryce's campaign manager, David Keith, thinks this video is going to have a strong impact on voters. "The standard Beltway Democratic formula is to ignore Trump his (and Ryan’s) horrid policies," he told us, "and just about anything else that motivates working class folks. The belief is that if you present yourself milk-toast on steroids, you win in this 'wave' environment. That may be so in Democratic seats currently held by Republicans, but it’s not so in swing seats. In Wisconsin-1 we are doing it much, much differently. We are drawing a bright blue line between Trump and the decent people of southeast Wisconsin. Those that stand with Trump, good for them. We believe southeast Wisconsin has a good bullshit meter and a whole lot more voters will stand with the true working class candidate, Randy Bryce. Let’s not forget what is on every voters mind in a mid term: Trump, who in this case, is a buffoon who represents neither working class values nor aspirations, but rather those of Wall Street, K street and... the Kremlin."



Andrew Gillum is on the top of the ticket in Florida. Democrats are counting on him to win the governor's seat, save Bill Nelson's Senate seat and drag a bunch of sub-par DCCC recruits over the finishing line and into Congress. This ad is exactly the kind of thing that could help. Andrew makes the crucial connection between the state's environmental catastrophe and special interest money that has turned Florida politics into a sewer. In a non-wave cycle an ad like this might make voters think not just about Ron DeSantis, Andrew's crackpot Trumpist opponent (currently hiding under his bed and refusing to come out), but also corrupt Democraps like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Alcee Hastings, who take as much money from the same shady special interests that help Republicans.

It's an extraordinarily good ad and I sure hope Andrew's campaign gets it out widely in this state, which is one of the most expensive in the country for TV. You can help Andrew do that here.



Brave New Film's produced two high quality videos for two high quality progressive candidates, Kara Eastman (above) and J.D. Scholten (below). The top guy at the studio, Robert Greenwald, told me today that they "decided to get involved directly in the Kara Eastman and J.D. Scholten races because it seemed that:

1- They were  good progressive candidates who would benefit from video
2- What we do well at Brave New Films is tell stories, and both campaigns embraced and understood value of story telling. The narratives are about character... rather then just 30 second lists of facts or information
3- Both campaigns seem committed to multiple and wide use of the videos.

And this last one... well, I'll call this a free campaign song for Blue America, 2022. Listen closely, DCCC assholes:

And if it's a bunch of clowns you voted in
Election Day is comin' 'round again

The Republican War Against Immigrants Will Backfire In Their Faces-- It Always Does

I guess eventually Trump will stand in front of bit and pieces of border wall and claim he built it. I maybe Congress will feel sorry for him and toss him a few dollars to build a little piece of wall himself. Other than that-- despite what the neo-Nazis claim-- that wall ain't happening. A few days ago Sessions was in Nogales, a border town in Raúl Grijalva's district. Very early in their career, I once booked the Barenaked Ladies to play a bowling alley in Nogales; a good time was had by all. Tuesday, Sessions addressed a group of border patrol agents with a very different message than the Ladies-- yammering on how "We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens. It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth." He went on and on, conflating immigrants with "international cartels [which] flood our country with drugs and leave death and violence in their wake."

Grijalva couldn't have been too pleased to have Sessions show up in his district to spread hatred and sow discord. "This week Jeff Sessions went to the border," Grijalva explained to his constituents, "declaring it 'ground zero' of the Trump administration's relentless attack on immigrants. Here's the deal: immigrants were inevitably going to bear the brunt of having a white supremacist like Sessions as the head of the Department of Justice. But now that Trump and Sessions want to target non-threatening immigrants at our border, they are sacrificing public safety for their political goals. Sessions rolled out plans to crack down on immigration enforcement, including a mandate to detain all adults at the border. He also directed federal prosecutors to make immigration cases their top priority in order to fast track immigrants through deportation proceedings. I will not tolerate this administration's systemic criminalization of immigrants... During his border visit, Sessions didn't even use the word 'immigrant.' Instead, he chose the term 'criminal aliens' to describe the women and children crossing our border, many of them fleeing violence in their home countries. This is a blatant attempt to strip immigrants of their dignity while trying to justify the Trump administration's inhumane treatment of border crossers. These new policies will tear immigrant families apart and make entire communities live in fear of deportation. I refuse to stand by while Trump and Sessions try to carry out their anti-immigrant agenda."

Yesterday, Grijalva and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly; Kevin McAleenan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and CBP as a whole seeking a court order for a supplemental programmatic environmental impact statement for the U.S.-Mexico border enforcement program. If successful, the suit will force a federal assessment under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of the impacts of the entire program, which-- in addition to the Trump administration’s proposed border wall-- includes regional road construction, off-road vehicle patrols, installation of high-intensity lighting, construction of federal agency base camps and checkpoints, and other activities. Grijalva: "Our environmental protections should apply to the borderlands just as they do everywhere else. These laws exist to protect the health and well-being of our people, our wildlife, and the places they live. Trump’s wall-- and his fanatical approach to our southern border-- will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them."

This ugly strain of nationalism isn't new to Sessions and Trump. It's been around among the ignorant and bigoted and those eager to exploit the ignorant and bigoted from the earliest days of our country. It wasn't that long ago that the identical "arguments" the Trumpists are making about Mexicans were being made by their ideological antecedents about Germans, Irish, Italians, Slavs, Jews, Chinese, Japanese... The hatred is part of what "conservatism" is and has always been and will always be. Monday, though, a federal judge in Houston dealt this ugly strain a good hard kick in the balls.

A federal judge ruled on Monday that the voter identification law the Texas Legislature passed in 2011 was enacted with the intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters, raising the possibility that the state’s election procedures could be put back under federal oversight.

In a long-running case over the legality of one of the toughest voter ID laws in the country, the judge found that the law violated the federal Voting Rights Act.

...For decades, Texas and several other mostly Southern states with a history of discrimination had been required to seek federal approval before making changes to their voting laws. But the states were freed from that requirement in 2013, after a Supreme Court decision that invalidated key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

The finding of intentional discrimination could once again put Texas under federal supervision. It would be the first state brought back into so-called preclearance since the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling. Judge Ramos did not address whether she would order Texas to undergo federal oversight, but will examine the issue during the next stage of the case.

...[A] panel of judges in San Antonio ruled that the Legislature drew congressional districts in an intentionally discriminatory manner. The Republican lawmakers who passed the voter ID bill in 2011 also drew the discriminatory Congressional-district maps.

“The State of Texas must turn away from this pattern of discriminatory behavior,” said Janai Nelson, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represented an African-American voter affected by the voter ID law.

Tom Wakely, the congressional candidate running for the TX-21 seat currently occupied by GOP bigot Lamar Smith, told us that ""Federal Judge Nelva Ramos, hit the nail on the head when she ruled against the State of Texas. My state has always discriminated against anyone who wasn't Anglo and Christian. I remember as a kid walking with my Dad in downtown San Antonio in the late 1950's and noticing the signs in the windows of the stores and restaurants-- 'No dogs or Mexicans Allowed.' As late as the mid-1990's, when I was living and working out in East Travis County, in Manor, Texas, the KKK was organizing. I remember the flyers spread around town announcing a recruiting rally. Today, racism is still alive and well in Texas but it is no longer personal, thrown up in your face with signs like 'No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.' It has become institutionalized and fighting institutional racism is the biggest challenge we face today not just in Texas but throughout the country, the world."



Tom's wife, Lety, asked if she could contribute to the discussion, this being an issue near and dear to her heart: "I as a Mexican immigrant, I always thought that United States is a country of opportunities for a lot better than my birth-country and now I can prove It. In the 14 years I have been here I have my own house, my own car, my own business, accomplishments than in my country I couldn’t have achieved in my life. Everything was great until the new President came and offended us, especially Mexicans, calling immigrants thieves, rapists etc. Who is he to say that? His people, of course, were Immigrants too. This is a country of Immigrants. In my country we had ancestors that are originally born there like Aztecas, Mayas, Olmecas, Tarahumaras etc. in this Country everybody came from Europe at the beginning. So why this racism? Every human being deserves to be treated with respect and equality. It's too bad that in this century there are people who don’t want to talk to me because of my accent."

Doctor and cancer researcher Jason Westin is running for the congressional seat held by John Culberson in Houston. He reminded us that when SB14 was passed in 2011, it was "immediately challenged and blocked by Attorney General Eric Holder due to it being poorly worded and clearly aimed to discriminate: a handgun license was considered valid, but a student ID was not. The law survived however due to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling (Shelby vs. Holder, 5-4) which struck down the heart of the original Voting Rights Act (Section 5) by effectively removing the need for 'pre-clearance,' or Federal approval prior to changing election laws. Texas was one of the 9 states that required 'pre-clearance' due to its history of discriminatory voter laws. This new ruling may trigger Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which could place Texas back under pre-clearance if intentional discrimination is suspected. The 15th Amendment states: the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. I believe it is time that a modern version of the voting rights act be considered, focusing on removing discrimination but also on making it easier for citizens to vote. In 2016, a depressing 58.4% of registered voters in Harris County actually voted. We must work to reach those chronic non-voters, both by removing barriers and by engaging them to learn about and vote on issues that matter in their everyday lives."

One Week From Today: Tax Day And The GA-06 Special Election-- And, Yes, They Are Connected

Tax Day is nearly here-- April 18. When right-wing Congressman Tom Price was confirmed by the Senate as Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal decided to make Tax Day the date of round one of the special election. That's one week from today. The Republicans had every intention of making the election about their usual claptrap about "tax and spend Democrats," something fewer and fewer rubes still fall for. The brand new Brave New Films video is exactly the tie-in Jon Ossoff needs to be pushing in GA-06. The video calls out Trump on his repeated pledges to tax carried interest prior to surrounding himself with Wall Street and Goldman Sachs executives in his cabinet and throughout his Regime.

Perhaps you watched Alec Baldwin's Trump insisting on Saturday that "In Trump's America, men work in two places-- coal mines and Goldman Sachs." Trump's war on the middle class continues to gear up and his reactionary tax proposals are a major part of it. Ossoff studied economics and has a Masters in the subject from the London School of Economics. Part if his campaign is talking about how his training in economics and his international business experience will help him craft smart, effective economic policy that empowers GA-06's community’s businesses to compete globally, create good-paying jobs with benefits, and build Georgia into an economic powerhouse. He talks about "standing up in Congress for a dynamic, forward-looking, fiscally responsible economic policy that maximizes opportunity for entrepreneurs, workers, and investors [and promising to] work to level the playing field for small businesses so they can grow and create jobs that will empower Georgians to strive, save, send our kids to college affordably, and retire comfortably." He makes a point of campaigning on the idea of "reducing the tax burden on small businesses and simplifing small business tax filing [and promising] work to repeal wasteful, anti-competitive special interest subsidies that make it hard for entrepreneurs to raise capital, enter the market, create jobs, and compete with larger firms who have lobbyists in Washington." Although the Republicans can attack him-- and already are-- for his statement that "the minimum wage should be a living wage," they can't fault him on his tax plans. In fact it's Trump's proposals that are more likely to make GA-06 voters disgruntled, not Ossoff's.

Congress and 8 states (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Rhode Island, Maryland and Minnesota) have pending bills already introduced that would take away the tax loophole that lets private equity and hedge fund managers pay lower taxes then teachers and fire fighters. Not many billionaires live in GA-06 but the ones who do might want to vote for the Republican because billionaires are saving $18 billion a year through this tax break--$180 billion over ten years.

Yes, April 18 is Tax Day and it's election day in GA-06... and if Ossoff continues to play it right, he could rack yp the 50% +1 a week from today so that there will be no June runoff.

The Koch Billions' Toxic Effect On American Democracy

Last week we talked about how Republicans were unleashing a barrage of attack ads against weak conservative Democrats, like John Barrow, for voting with Republicans. Democrats who crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans to cut Social Security benefits for retired people are now being bombarded with ads-- that are true, regardless of the disingenuous source-- pointing out that they are the enemies of working people. That's what Blue Dogs and New Dems like John Barrow-- he's both-- deserve anyway.

Taking it a step further, the Koch brother's Americans For Prosperity went after Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor this week for being out of touch with income inequality in America. Mindboggling! Pryor has had a repulsive tendency to vote for the same interests the Kochs promote-- even if he's doing it on behalf of even richer plutocrats than the Kochs-- the Walton family. Take a look at the trailer for Brave New Films Koch Brothers Exposed, 2014 immediately below this paragraph. "Day in and day out, we see the Kochs using their billions to purchase politicians-- and policy-- taking a terrible toll on democracy... stomping on poor people."

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today's GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year's midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate... The company's troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions-- augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle­-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP.

...[I]in the real world, Koch Industries has used its political might to beat back the very market-based mechanisms-- including a cap-and-trade market for carbon pollution-- needed to create the ownership rights for pollution that Charles says would improve the functioning of capitalism.

In fact, it appears the very essence of the Koch business model is to exploit breakdowns in the free market. Koch has profited precisely by dumping billions of pounds of pollutants into our waters and skies-- essentially for free. It racks up enormous profits from speculative trades lacking economic value that drive up costs for consumers and create risks for our economy.

The Koch brothers get richer as the costs of what Koch destroys are foisted on the rest of us-- in the form of ill health, foul water and a climate crisis that threatens life as we know it on this planet. Now nearing 80-- owning a large chunk of the Alberta tar sands and using his billions to transform the modern Republican Party into a protection racket for Koch Industries' profits-- Charles Koch is not about to see the light. Nor does the CEO of one of America's most toxic firms have any notion of slowing down. He has made it clear that he has no retirement plans: "I'm going to ride my bicycle till I fall off."

It's worth pointing out that, at least in passing, that Daniel Scarpinato, national press secretary for the NRCC, noted that some Democrats have been similarly masquerading as Republicans-- i.e., the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Scarpinato sent HuffPo a dozen campaign ads to demonstrate his point. One is from Montana Democratic House candidate John Lewis, who brags about his high NRA approval rating and attacks his Republican opponent for supporting gun control. Another shows Nick Rahall (Blue Dog-WV)-- who the DCCC and their House Majority PAC have already wasted and unprecedented $5,020,316 on (including $702,799 just this week)-- denouncing the Environmental Protection Agency (and President Obama).

The Koch's are laughing their asses off as their extremist puppets, like Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Joni Ernest in Iowa, Cory Gardner in Colorado, Mike Rounds in South Dakota, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, Shelly Moore Capito in West Virginia and Steve Daines in Montana are propelled towards the Senate takeover the Kochs are willing and able to underwrite. Vice President Henry Wallace warned about Koch-types that "the American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information." And that's exactly what the Kochs have been doing. Do you help bankroll them by buying their products? It's worth thinking about. So is Jon Stewart's welcome to the Koch's as a new advertiser on his Comedy Central show:



NOTE: Short of losing control of the House, which-- thanks to Steve Israel-- is an impossibility this cycle, no House result anywhere in America would damage the Kochs more than losing their Energy Committee chairman, Fred Upton, in MI-06. A dark money group they finance and control, "American Future Fund," has rushed hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race in the last few days to try to save Upton. Lawrence Lessig: "Fred Upton has already taken $2.1 million from Big Oil and energy interests and voted to give away billions in tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Now, a shadowy group that has been largely bankrolled by two billionaire oil barons is pouring money in Southwest Michigan to support him. Voters have a right to know if the hundreds of thousands of dollars AFF is spending to send Fred Upton back to Washington comes with strings attached... The Koch brothers have billions of dollars invested in the very industries that Fred Upton oversees as Chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. If they are funding a last ditch effort to save Fred Upton, voters deserve to know about it."

Steve Israel may be working to protect Upton but Alan Grayson just endorsed Paul Clements. "On Tuesday," he told his supporters today, "we have a chance to take out the reigning king of the polluters, Rep. Fred Upton, the Republican Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The Los Angeles Times has called Fred Upton "one of the biggest threats to Planet Earth on Planet Earth."

Upton has tried to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. He says that Congress's failure to act against climate disruption-- a failure that he is largely responsible for-- means that the EPA must sit on its hands, as well. Upton says that doing anything to fight carbon pollution would "hamstring our economic recovery."

But Upton's not all bad. He cosponsored a bill to make light bulbs more energy efficient. Then he led the fight to prevent President Obama from enforcing it.

Let me put it this way: When Upton was an infant, his first words were "drill, baby, drill."

...Upton's opponent is Paul Clements, a political science professor at Western Michigan University. Clements isn't pulling any punches: he says that environmental protection is THE issue. He is running against Upton because defeating Upton means defeating climate change. Clements wants to bring more clean-energy jobs to Michigan.

It looks like Clements has Upton on the run. A poll last week showed Clements down by only four points, within the margin of error, with ten percent of the voters still undecided. Clements has momentum. He can win. With our help, Paul Clements can beat Fred Upton.

Please keep Paul Clements in your prayers this week. Last minute contributions can be made here.

Why Hasn't Obama Fired John Brennan Yet?

We've been going through Michael Gurnow's book, The Edward Snowden Affair and finding some pretty awful facts about domestic spying. Basically, Cheney put a system in place they allowed for no privacy from government snooping for anyone for any reason at any time. Neither Bush nor Obama was completely comfortable with it-- but comfortable enough to leave it in place.

Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, for example, accounted for 98% of PRISM data intake. They and all the commercial internet firms were facilitating the government to spy-- unconstitutionally-- on their own customers. And then they lied about it.

Speaking on behalf of Apple, Steve Dowling announced, "We have never heard of PRISM" while the chief security officer for Facebook, Joe Sullivan, declared, "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers," despite the PRISM slide which includes the phrase, "Collection directly from the servers of."

A couple weeks ago, Conor Friedersdorf, writing for The Atlantic asked an uncomfortable question: Does John Brennan Know Too Much for Obama to Fire Him?. Brennan's broken a lot of law and lied his ass off, as you can see in the BraveNewFilms clip up top. And he's pissed off a lot of senators. But Obama says, he still has confidence in his CIA chief. The two of them were certainly in cahoots in regard to drone strikes of dubious legality.

When John Brennan assured the country that the CIA hadn't improperly monitored the Senate team that compiled a report on Bush-era torture, he fed us false information. That much is clear from Thursday's news that "the C.I.A. secretly monitored a congressional committee charged with supervising its activities." Either the CIA director was lying or he was unaware of grave missteps at the agency he leads. There are already calls for his resignation or firing from Senator Mark Udall, Trevor Timm, Dan Froomkin, and Andrew Sullivan, plus a New York Times editorial airing his ouster as a possibility.

President Obama could surprise the country by axing his former counterterrorism adviser, explaining that under Brennan's management, employees broke laws and undermined the separation of powers core to our democracy. Obama may well make a good-faith effort to act in the national interest. But it's impossible to believe that he won't be aware of the following: No U.S. official knows more than Brennan about Obama's many drone killings. Some of the killings were solidly grounded in international law. And others may have violated the Fifth Amendment, international law, or the laws of war.

In the past, Brennan has been willing to lie about those drone strikes to hide ugly realities. For example, he stated in the summer of 2011 that there had been zero collateral deaths from covert U.S. drone strikes in the previous year, an absurd claim that has been decisively debunked. What if he grew more forthright, either in public statements or by anonymously leaking information?

…I am not suggesting that Brennan is blackmailing Obama, or even that he would necessarily retaliate if fired. Still, if Obama is like most people in positions of power, he fires no subordinate without first asking himself, "Could this person damage me?" If Obama is a normal person, rather than an unusually principled person, the answer factors into his decision. Look at what Brennan said in March, immediately after denying that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, when Andrea Mitchell asked if he'd resign his post if that turned out to be wrong: 

... if I did something wrong, I will go to the president, and I will explain to him exactly what I did, and what the findings were. And he is the one who can ask me to stay or to go. 

He's a smart man.

All this may be irrelevant to his continued tenure. Perhaps Obama has always believed and continues to believe that Brennan is doing a heckuva job. But just as secret torture acted as a cancer on the U.S. government, encompassing acts so barbaric and criminal that, even recently, the CIA spied on a Senate subcommittee investigating the subject, America's semi-secret policy of semi-targeted killing rendered everyone involved complicit in activities sufficiently dubious that all desire their secrecy. Would you fire a guy who knows as much about your most morally fraught acts as Brennan knows about who Obama has killed in secret? Yeah, me neither. This isn't the biggest cost of presidents who hide arguably illegal actions by declaring them state secrets. But it is certainly one of the costs.

There's inevitably a need to review the job performance of people party to these secrets. They typically keep their jobs. So George W. Bush left us a CIA staffed partly with people willing to torture, and Obama will likely leave us with a CIA that includes torturers, people willing to kill American citizens in secret without due process, and people willing to spy on their Senate overseers. The Senate intelligence committee was established precisely to stop this sort of thing from playing out, but it is failing in its duties, as yesterday's crimes spawn today's efforts to spin or suppress those crimes. If the Senate doesn't act now to rein in the CIA, what will it take?

Alan Grayson-- The Essential Member of Congress

Blue America doesn't do many live events. But on November 12, 2011 we were very excited to offer all of our Southern California members an opportunity to meet Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson at the Brave New Films studios in Culver City. John Amato, Digby and I had worked with Robert Greenwald to host the free event featuring Grayson. I blogged about it that day and again last July on the occasion of Britain granting one of World War II's greatest heroes, Alan Turing, a posthumous pardon for the crime of being gay.

That day at the Brave New Films studios was a wonderful day for the Blue America members from L.A., Ventura, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties who came to hear Grayson speak. It was also the beginning of an important relationship between filmmaker Greenwald and the most outspoken Member of Congress. That led, eventually, to a new film about how Grayson and the grassroots progressive movement stopped an "inevitable" attack on Syria. There's a clip up top you should watch. Grayson:

In late August, war with Syria appeared inevitable. The President said we were going to war. So did the Secretary of State. But over the course of two weeks, something extraordinary happened. Americans rose up and said, "No way." Nearly 100,000 signatures, 80,000 Facebook shares, and more than 10,000 tweets later, a war with Syria was no longer inevitable, or even possible. Together, we won the war against the war.

A coalition, unlike anything we've ever seen before, banded together to say "Peace!" International pressure came when Members of the British Parliament rejected their own Prime Minister's call for war. Reasonable Republicans joined with war-disgusted Democrats, and said, "Enough is enough."

And we established an important principle: On war and peace, it's our money, and it's our blood. So it must be our decision.

That's why it's so important to reelect Alan Grayson and help him ascend the leadership ladder in the House. If you're a regular here, you'd probably rather see a Speaker Grayson one day than a Speaker Hoyer, a Speaker Wasserman-Schultz or a Speaker Crowley. Unfortunately, hat doesn't just happen based on a contest between ideas. You can help Grayson help us all here on the main Blue America page.

Drones And You

I'm not sure how much I agree with it but I completely respect the work people are doing in questioning the rights of the Executive Branch to use drones to kill American citizens without trials. Maybe the Executive should have a hearing to strip the accused of their citizenship before murdering them. My problem with drone policy, though, is different, the "collateral damage" abroad and the shredding of Constitutional protections domestically.

As someone who has spent years in places, like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mali, where U.S. drones are reigning terror and death down on the heads of innocent civilians-- including women and children-- the "collateral damage" in these drone strikes is neither remote nor abstract. To me the policy seems dangerously psychotic. Brave New Films has done incredible work on the subject. Please watch their video up top; I wish every Member of Congress would... or every voter. Here's the Executive Summary of their report:

In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts.

This narrative is false.

Following nine months of intensive research-- including two investigations in Pakistan, more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting-- this report presents evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of current US drone strike policies. Based on extensive interviews with Pakistanis living in the regions directly affected, as well as humanitarian and medical workers, this report provides new and firsthand testimony about the negative impacts US policies are having on the civilians living under drones.

Real threats to US security and to Pakistani civilians exist in the Pakistani border areas now targeted by drones. It is crucial that the US be able to protect itself from terrorist threats, and that the great harm caused by terrorists to Pakistani civilians be addressed. However, in light of significant evidence of harmful impacts to Pakistani civilians and to US interests, current policies to address terrorism through targeted killings and drone strikes must be carefully re-evaluated.

It is essential that public debate about US policies take the negative effects of current policies into account.

First, while civilian casualties are rarely acknowledged by the US government, there is significant evidence that US drone strikes have injured and killed civilians. In public statements, the US states that there have been “no” or “single digit” civilian casualties.” It is difficult to obtain data on strike casualties because of US efforts to shield the drone program from democratic accountability, compounded by the obstacles to independent investigation of strikes in North Waziristan. The best currently available public aggregate data on drone strikes are provided by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), an independent journalist organization. TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228-1,362 individuals. Where media accounts do report civilian casualties, rarely is any information provided about the victims or the communities they leave behind. This report includes the harrowing narratives of many survivors, witnesses, and family members who provided evidence of civilian injuries and deaths in drone strikes to our research team. It also presents detailed accounts of three separate strikes, for which there is evidence of civilian deaths and injuries, including a March 2011 strike on a meeting of tribal elders that killed some 40 individuals.

Second, US drone strike policies cause considerable and under-accounted-for harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians, beyond death and physical injury. Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning. Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior. The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims. Some community members shy away from gathering in groups, including important tribal dispute-resolution bodies, out of fear that they may attract the attention of drone operators. Some parents choose to keep their children home, and children injured or traumatized by strikes have dropped out of school. Waziris told our researchers that the strikes have undermined cultural and religious practices related to burial, and made family members afraid to attend funerals. In addition, families who lost loved ones or their homes in drone strikes now struggle to support themselves.

Third, publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best. The strikes have certainly killed alleged combatants and disrupted armed actor networks. However, serious concerns about the efficacy and counter-productive nature of drone strikes have been raised. The number of “high-level” targets killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low-- estimated at just 2%. Furthermore, evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. As the New York Times has reported, “drones have replaced Guantánamo as the recruiting tool of choice for militants.” Drone strikes have also soured many Pakistanis on cooperation with the US and undermined US-Pakistani relations. One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the US an enemy.

Fourth, current US targeted killings and drone strike practices undermine respect for the rule of law and international legal protections and may set dangerous precedents. This report casts doubt on the legality of strikes on individuals or groups not linked to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011, and who do not pose imminent threats to the US. The US government’s failure to ensure basic transparency and accountability in its targeted killing policies, to provide necessary details about its targeted killing program, or adequately to set out the legal factors involved in decisions to strike hinders necessary democratic debate about a key aspect of US foreign and national security policy. US practices may also facilitate recourse to lethal force around the globe by establishing dangerous precedents for other governments. As drone manufacturers and officials successfully reduce export control barriers, and as more countries develop lethal drone technologies, these risks increase.

In light of these concerns, this report recommends that the US conduct a fundamental re-evaluation of current targeted killing practices, taking into account all available evidence, the concerns of various stakeholders, and the short and long-term costs and benefits. A significant rethinking of current US targeted killing and drone strike policies is long overdue. US policy-makers, and the American public, cannot continue to ignore evidence of the civilian harm and counter-productive impacts of US targeted killings and drone strikes in Pakistan.

This report also supports and reiterates the calls consistently made by rights groups and others for legality, accountability, and transparency in US drone strike policies:

• The US should fulfill its international obligations with respect to accountability and transparency, and ensure proper democratic debate about key policies. The US should:

• Release the US Department of Justice memoranda outlining the legal basis for US targeted killing in Pakistan;

• Make public critical information concerning US drone strike policies, including as previously and repeatedly requested by various groups and officials: the targeting criteria for so-called “signature” strikes; the mechanisms in place to ensure that targeting complies with international law; which laws are being applied; the nature of investigations into civilian death and injury; and mechanisms in place to track, analyze and publicly recognize civilian casualties;

• Ensure independent investigations into drone strike deaths, consistent with the call made by Ben Emmerson, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism in August 2012;

• In conjunction with robust investigations and, where appropriate, prosecutions, establish compensation programs for civilians harmed by US strikes in Pakistan.

• The US should fulfill its international humanitarian and human rights law obligations with respect to the use of force, including by not using lethal force against individuals who are not members of armed groups with whom the US is in an armed conflict, or otherwise against individuals not posing an imminent threat to life. This includes not double-striking targets as first responders arrive.

• Journalists and media outlets should cease the common practice of referring simply to “militant” deaths, without further explanation. All reporting of government accounts of “militant” deaths should include acknowledgment that the US government counts all adult males killed by strikes as “militants,” absent exonerating evidence. Media accounts relying on anonymous government sources should also highlight the fact of their single-source information and of the past record of false government reports.

Population-wise, Pakistan is the 6th biggest country in the world with 182,173,000 people. Compared to the U.S. or Europe it's very backward in many ways. But it is nuclear-armed. The regime in charge right now-- which has questionable legitimacy-- is surreptitiously on board with the U.S. drone policy. The people of Pakistan aren't-- not even a little. And the regime won't last forever. In fact, the regime is probably going to be around only a very short time. The hatred for America being engendered by this drone policy is very serious and it isn't being taken seriously by Congress. We'll get to that in a moment. Even a clown-- and war criminal-- like former Congressman Allen West recognizes the danger... at least now that he's no longer in Congress.

Now, as for the domestic problems with drones. As we warned all through the 2012 election cycle, House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon, a crooked little shit from Santa Clarita, CA, with a nose for graft and corruption, founded and chairs the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, AKA, the Drone Caucus. Busy creating a post-congressional career for himself, while helping to funnel millions of dollars in Military-Industrial Complex legalistic bribes into GOP coffers, McKeon is perfectly willing to trample of sacred American constitutional rights for the sake of his buddies at the drone manufacturing companies. He wrote and passed legislation that will fill American skies with tens of thousands of spy drones over the next decade. Yes, American skies, not just Pakistani, Afghani, Yemeni and Somalian skies. So what, you ask? This week Thom Hartmann tackled that question well:

Imagine you’re being stalked from the sky. Every time you go in or out of any building, it’s recorded. Everybody you talk with. Everyplace you drive or take public transportation. Your sky-stalker can see through your windows, read your lips, and, using infrared cameras, can even see if you’ve lit a cigarette-- of any type.

Shouldn’t this be illegal?

...Police helicopters, police trucks that can use infrared to see inside your house, and GPS units cops can attach to you car. In every case there’s a legitimate police use for these technologies, as well as an incredible potential for abuse.

The Fourth Amendment, part of the Bill of Rights that Jefferson demanded Madison put into the Constitution as the price of getting Virginia’s ratification, is one sentence long. It says:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

In other words, they can’t spy on you-- on you, personally-- unless they have enough proof to bring before a judge that you’re up to something that’s probably illegal.

In the case of the police helicopters, trucks, GPS units, and phone taps, to some extent both state governments, Congress, and the Supreme Court have brought their use into at least a marginal compliance with the Fourth Amendment.

Not so with drones. At least yet.

And that’s why the City of Charlottesville, Virginia-- a stone’s throw from Thomas Jefferson’s home-- did a beautiful thing this week in passing a resolution calling for a ban, for the moment, on drones in their skies.

The Rutherford Institute proposed the first draft of what ultimately became the resolution that was promoted by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice. It included language that said:

“WHEREAS, the federal government and the Commonwealth of Virginia have thus far failed to provide reasonable legal restrictions on the use of drones within the United States; and

“WHEREAS, police departments throughout the country have begun implementing drone technology absent any guidance or guidelines from law makers…” there should be at two-year moratorium on using information obtained from them, or on weaponizing them.

As David Swanson notes in his blog on the CCPJ site, “without proper safeguards, these drones, some of which are deceptively small and capable of videotaping the facial expressions of people on the ground from hundreds of feet in the air, will usher in a new age of surveillance in American society. Not even those indoors, in the privacy of their homes, will be safe from these aerial spies, which can be equipped with technology capable of peering through walls.”

And that doesn’t even include the capability of these police drones to be weapon-equipped, from bullets to nerve gas. Or their ability to be hacked, or their data streams to be hijacked by malicious corporations, weird stalkers, or foreign governments.

What about your city council? Your state legislature? Congress is too corrupted by Military Industrial Complex cash. But would your local officials pass resolutions like the one Charlottesville did? Ask them... especially if they're running for office-- which they basically always are. It seems to be working in Seattle, where Mayor Mike McGinn ordered the police department to abandon its plan to use drones after residents and privacy advocates protested.

Buck McKeon-- riding drones all the way to the bank

The master Koch-heads boast: "Everything we do is within the law"

I just donated to get a copy of a new documentary that will blow the lid off the Koch Brothers multi-million dollar hold on our democracy. Please join me by clicking on this link to get the film and the action guide to make a difference!


Get the Koch Brothers Exposed DVD and take action!

[duly copied-and-pasted by me]

by Ken

The quote I put in the head of this post, "Everything we do is within the law," is "the favorite Koch claim" of Brave New Foundation Executive Director Jim Miller in an e-mail sent out to BNF's e-mail list. I too love that delicious formulation -- with its suggestion that a task force of scientists with state-of-the-art measuring instruments were gathered for the purpose and, sure enough, found everything the Kochs do measurably "within the law" -- and we'll come back to it, but first let's see what exactly Jim Miller has to say, in case you didn't get his e-mail or whizzed past it.

Dear Friend,

After the March 29th premiere of our Koch Brothers Exposed documentary, they wasted no time and immediately started to attack our investigative work. Although the attack has spawned angry, defamatory and downright scary emails/calls/letters, my favorite Koch claim is that "Everything we do is within the law."

Unfortunately, for the most part, that statement is true which is exactly why we need to fight against the money they are pouring into our society to change laws, attitudes and opinions. Please get the Koch Brothers Exposed DVD now, watch it with friends, and download our Action Guide to see what you can do to make a difference.

Since the release of the film, the founder of our company, Robert Greenwald, has been hit particularly hard by the Kochs and their cohorts. The Kochs have bought Google ads that link to slanderous (in my humble opinion) misinformation about Robert when people search for our company or films. Their lawyers have threatened reporters who want to do articles about our work. We have obviously hit close to home and we need to keep the pressure on.

Please get the DVD today and let your friends see what these brothers our doing to our country. Or you can donate here and we will send a free copy to a school or library.

As always, thanks for your support. We couldn’t do this work without you.

Note that all BNF is asking as a contribution for a single copy of the DVD is $20. (For $30 you can get two copies, and for $300, 30 copies.) Seems like a good deal to me, which is why I pulled the trigger on it.)

NOW, ABOUT THAT CLAIM THAT EVERYTHING
THE KOCHS DO IS "WITHIN THE LAW"

I think Jim Miller covers this pretty well when he writes, "Unfortunately, for the most part, that statement is true which is exactly why we need to fight against the money they are pouring into our society to change laws, attitudes and opinions." I would just make, or perhaps emphasize, a few points.

(1) That "for the most part" qualification is important, and perhaps overly generous. A team of investigators with a mandate to investigate fully and fairly wherever the evidence leads them would, I suspect, come up with a much wider range of outside-the-law activity than "for the most part" suggests. I think what the Kochs mean is something like: "Most of the stuff we do that people know about is, well, maybe not legal exactly, but not exactly illegal either -- and therefore qualifies, technically speaking, as "within the law." I think too that that imaginary team of investigators would quickly develop leads to all manner of outside-the-law activity perpetrated by recipients of large globs of Koch cash.

(2) As Jim Miller suggests, those vast reservoirs of Koch cash that we know about are paying, not just for masssive propaganda aimed at overwhelming the free speech that's so crucial to our democratic framework (this would be the assault on "attitudes and opinions" Jim refers to), but more importantly, for taking indirect and even direct control over our organs of government -- as with the case of the puppet governor established -- and perpetuated -- in Wisconsin, to institutionalize the Kochs' mega-corporate, energy-industry-driven vision of government and not incidentally work toward the extinction of one of the few segments of society standing in the way of oligarchical supremacy, the labor unions.

(3) All that, and they're still able to make the ringing claim that their activities are by golly "within the law." What sweethearts!

Now, I don't mean to entirely dismiss the potential value of a declaration of strict within-the-law behavior. Considering the habitual law-breaking of recent presidents of the U.S. (I mention no names, but I think we all know who I have in mind; their initials are G.W.B. and B.H.O.), an iron-clad pledge from all 2012 presidential candidates to resign immediately in the event that any significant presidential activity of theirs should be shown to be illegal -- well, that would interest me.

Still, for the Kochs to be bragging about acting "within the law," well, it's not what I was led to hope for in my high school American-government class. But then, not much about what actually goes on in American government was discussed (or anticipated) there.

#

A shout-out to our friends at Brave New Foundation

by Ken

Probably most DWT readers are on the Brave New Foundation mailing list, but even so I thought it was worth taking note of the celebration our friends at BNF are throwing for themselves, for which they've put together a 10-DVD box set of their crusading videos as well as an "exclusive collection."

Let our friend Robert Greenwald, the mastermind behind BNF, tell us about it:

Can you believe it? Since 2004, we’ve been fighting for a more just America with such films as Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Have you seen them all? Do you know a passionate activist that would love our work? We have our first five years of videos compiled into one big box set including the ones mentioned above PLUS Iraq for Sale, Rethink Afghanistan and hundreds of shorts. This is the perfect gift for a like-minded friend or family member this holiday season!

Click here to buy the entire 10 DVD set!

We have also just put together an exclusive collection of 49 videos from our 2011 campaigns running well over 2 hours. You will see the best from Koch Brothers Exposed, Rethink Afghanistan and Cuéntame. Get the DVD here for yourself or as a gift for a friend or family member.

Koch Brothers Exposed is letting the public know how these billionaire brothers are using their money to change the political landscape. Rethink Afghanistan has been fighting to cut corrupt military spending in Afghanistan and War Costs has now expanded to cover the Pentagon. Cuéntame launched a successful expose against Private Prisons and is now focusing on corporate corruption against the Latino community.

Want to know the best part? By getting these DVD’s, you’re helping us in continuing to expose injustice – and keeping our work available for free online. A recent right-wing article called me a “snarling, angry guerilla warrior” but also warned readers that the way Brave New Foundation “urges viewers to action is innovative and creative”.

Will you help us keep up the good fight?

Yours,
Robert Greenwald

It's a cause that's clearly worth supporting, and you get some great viewing in exchange. A genuine win-win deal.

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We Were ALL Waiting For This To Happen-- Weren't We?

A couple night ago Montana populist Democrat Franke Wilmer was campaigning in Pablo and she added some inspiration she had gotten from Van Jones's comment that the OccupyWallStreet protesters show that we need to "take back the American Dream and rescue the middle class." Her paraphrase was "restore the American Dream and take back the middle class." Once she paraphrased Granny D to me: "I like corporations OK. I just want them to make our cars, not our laws." I asked her how she felt the demonstrations are going. Here's what she told me today:

CEOs now make 343 times more than their average worker, the largest gap in U.S. history. CEO pay keeps going up, while companies continue lay off workers and ship jobs overseas. Wall Street's irresponsible business practices led our country into one of the worst recessions in our nation’s history. There was a time in this country when Wall Street was held accountable and the DOW prospered along with the middle class. I am not surprised to see that people are fed up and are drawing attention to the issue. I know I have had enough, that's why I decided to run for Congress.

If you'd like to donate to her campaign, you can do so here. 


UPDATE: Brutal Out-Of-Control NYPD Thugs Go On The Attack

Late tonight, it's being reported that undisciplined New York police officers are attacking, unprovoked, peaceful demonstrators at OccupyWallStreet. The video at the link of a baton-wielding fascist is horrifying. I kept expecting to see a contingent of these things come charging up Broadway on camels brandishing whips. Aweful about that Fox reporters who got maced and roughed up too.

And A Late Night Update From Franke

Just returned from teaching a class, she wrote, "Van Jones provides the kind of leadership/articulation we need. But we all have to do the work. It was not easy to found this country; it's founding was not perfect either, and it will not be easy to keep the Dream alive and at the same time, and collectively, develop our character.

"I have often said the Framers of our Constitution expected us to become better people than they were" and I mean that from the bottom of my patriotic heart. I will pass that dream along-- believing that those who follow us several centuries into the future can be better people than we were because we gave them a system that enabled, and even expected them to be exactly that. And because we lived up to the promise of those who preceded us. We are entrusted with that promise... They said 'liberty and justice for all'... I just think there's no liberty without justice. That in itself is hard to live up to."