Fox News

Murdoch: News Corp. Too Big to Know

Leo Gerard — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:10:03 -0400

The Bush administration told taxpayers to hand over hundreds of billions of their hard-earned dollars to bail out Wall Street banks because the financial institutions were too big to fail. Now, Rupert Murdoch, owner of politically powerful publications and broadcast stations, claims his News Corp. is too big to know.

Murdoch, who’s in the news industry, essentially a business based on knowing and knowing first, told an investigating committee of the British Parliament this week that he’s a know-nothing. The CEO of News Corp., owner of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, said he was clueless about the phone hacking and other illegality endemic at his company. News Corp., he said, was just too big for him to keep track of its criminal activity. Others were to blame, he blathered. Others are responsible. But not him, not the guy in charge. Here’s what he said:

“I feel that people I trusted — I don’t know who, on what level — have let me down, and I think they have behaved disgracefully, and it’s for them to pay.”

Basically, he said, he deserves the profits that his underlings make for him by bribing police officers and hacking phone lines. But if his underlings do something wrong —like bribing police and hacking phones — he can’t be held accountable because News Corp. is too big for him to know. He claims he certainly would not be behaving disgracefully as CEO for failing to know. And he’s saying he certainly shouldn’t have to pay for his underlings’ bad behavior on his watch. No, the way it works is he gets paid. No matter what.

Brilliant, as the Brits would say.

Banks are too big to be held accountable. Murdoch is too big to be held accountable. Only the little guy, like a laid off minimum wage earner, should be held accountable when he can’t make his mortgage or car payment.

In the United States, everyone is equal, except the guys who are more equal, the big shots like Wall Street banksters who rake in tens of millions in bonuses even when they lose gambles on collateralized debt obligations and the likes of Murdoch, now under investigation for violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act — which Murdoch earlier had tried to defang through donations to a Republican congressman who floated legislation to make foreign bribery less, well, illegal, and to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce campaign supporting that.

British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband blamed both the international banking crisis and the Murdoch scandal on those in the more-than-equal class shirking responsibility. Referring specifically to News Corp., he said:

“This was an organization that thought it was beyond responsibility. Its power was so immense, its influence so great, from prime ministers downwards. Nobody confronted them. Nobody held them to account. Nobody seemed willing to challenge them. Not the police, not most front-line politicians, nor most of the press.”

Here’s a little bit of what got News Corp. into trouble: The now-defunct News Corp.-owned The News of the World hacked into the phones of innocent people including, investigators believe, victims of terrorist attacks, the royal family, a prime minister and other politicians, celebrities and a 13-year-old kidnap victim, Milly Dowler. In her case, the paper wrote stories based on her voice mails, and then, police believe, erased some of her messages when her box filled up, leading her family to believe that she might be alive and hindering investigation into what ultimately turned out to be a murder.

News Corp. paid some people who threatened legal action millions for their silence. Evidence indicating that The News of the World paid police for information was withheld from authorities for four years. The corporation destroyed the computer of a key editor at The News of the World and failed to safeguard e-mail evidence. Ten employees and former employees now have been arrested, including a woman described as Murdoch’s most trusted lieutenant, Rebekah Brooks. Britain’s top cop, the commissioner of Scotland Yard, and one of his deputies resigned this week over questions about the delay in investigating the phone hacking.

In the U.S., the FBI and the Justice Department are probing the actions of the U.S.-based News Corp. because if it bribed British police, that may violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and because of allegations that the hacking may have included the phones of American families of 9-11 victims.

In addition, Les Hinton, formerly executive chairman of News International, resigned last week as publisher of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), claiming, like Murdoch, that he “was ignorant of what apparently happened.” Hinton served as executive chairman of the News Corp. unit that oversaw its British tabloids for 12 years, a period during which The News of the World hacking occurred, and he was responsible for News Corp.’s 2007 internal inquiry into the hacking of Milly Dowler’s voice mails. He quit the WSJ after British papers suggested his testimony about the Dowler case to Parliament was, as American conservatives are fond of saying, “not meant to be factual.”

As the scandal escalated, Murdoch withdrew News Corp.’s $12 billion bid to buy controlling interest in British Sky Broadcasting, the country’s dominant satellite TV network. This must have felt like a wooden stake to the heart for the political power broker, to whom candidates for prime minister bowed and scraped. He was, for example, the second person David Cameron invited to Downing Street after Cameron’s 2009 election as prime minister. And Cameron hired as his communications director former The News of the World editor Andy Coulson. Coulson now is one of 10 facing charges in the phone hacking and police bribing debacle.

Murdoch needs to get out of American TV as well. Federal communications law contains a morals clause requiring owners of television stations to be “of good character.” Murdoch has proved that he is not.

He either permitted phone hacking, police bribing and a costly cover-up, or he is so incompetent that he failed to know. Either way, Murdoch’s character could hardly be described as good.

Unlike Britain, the United States doesn’t have kings. But Murdoch assumed the role of kingmaker here — aiming to control American elections with his newspapers including the WSJ, his broadcast stations including Fox, and millions in contributions to conservatives and conservative causes like the Chamber of Commerce. If he can’t be held accountable for his corrupt business dealings because of his self-induced amnesia, at least the FCC can hold him responsible for his corrupt character.

Time for the FCC to oust Mr. Know-Nothing.

Can US Hold Corporations Accountable Anymore?

Dave Johnson — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:48:38 -0400

In the UK the News-Of-The-World/News Corp/Murdoch scandal seems to be reawakening democracy. A big, powerful corporation has been found to be engaged in criminal activity, manipulating news, paying off police and politicians, and generally getting its way. The people, press and politicians are rising up, holding the company and its executives legally accountable and are taking back control of their system. Could this happen in the US?

This is my last full day in the UK. The top story in the media for the two weeks I have been here has been the News-Of-The-World "phone-hacking" story that I explained in some detail last week. This newspaper was engaged in criminal activity, was caught a few years ago, but used American-style damage-control techniques to manipulate the government, police and public opinion into accepting that the criminality was limited to the sacrificial lamb they threw to them. So the damage to Murdoch's News Corp. was limited at the time, and News Corp appeared to have impunity. But, unlike how things are now done in the US, investigative reporters (particularly at the Guardian) continued to dig into the story and continued to reveal to the public that News Corp. was engaging in criminal activity until the story could no longer be ignored by the powerful.

The latest big news is that the head of Scotland Yard has resigned, in part because earlier investigations into Murdoch-corporation activities "didn't get to the bottom of this." The press is full of questions about how this criminal company was able to operate for in this manner so long, and who in the government looked the other way. This is now as big a story as the original and ongoing criminal activities of Murdoch's companies.

Another story is the way executives left Murdoch's companies and entered government into positions where they could protect the interests of Murdoch's company, including influencing the phone-hacking investigations. And finally, the story here is about politicians who are "cozy" with Murdoch's media empire, who were propelled into government by the power of that empire.

Not yet part of the story: the manipulation of government policy to serve the interests of the owners of the criminal company. In fact, just as the media was beginning to touch on this aspect of the story the company took extraordinary steps to build a firewall and attempt to contain the scandal. Top executives in the UK and in England were removed from their posts, an "apology" was printed in all the papers here, and Murdoch himself made public apologies and News Corp started a major counterattack. So far News Corp's second-largest shareholder, Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal has been kept in the background. Prince Al Waleed was interviewed by the BBC Thursday on his yacht in Cannes. Immediately the firewall began to be constructed.

(These are questions, not accusation. While being part-owner of the conservative News Corp., Al Waleed also speaks out for democratic reform and women's rights in Saudi Arabia.)

But questions about News Corp. pushing policies that benefit its owners have yet to be pursued. Does News Corp. push climate-change denial to benefit the interests of oil-producing Saudi Arabit? Did News Corp push the invasion of Iraq to benefit Saudi Arabia?

What About In The US?

Does all of this sound familiar to any of you reading this in America?

And so the parallels to American standard-operating-procedure stand out. Criminal corporations manipulating government, police and public opinion. A revolving door through which corporate executives pass into government and protect the interests of their companies. A conservative media empire manipulating news and propelling politicians to benefit their financial interests. Politicians cozy with corporate executives who never seem to be held accountable.

As Richard Eskow wrote the other day, Want to Solve All your Problems, Rupert Murdoch? Become A Banker.,

But there's an easy way for Mr. Murdoch to protect himself from these inquiries and save his company at the same time: Turn the News Corporation into a Wall Street bank. There won't be any prosecutions, and the government will even sweeten the deal with billions of dollars in easy money. And if Murdoch follows the trail blazed by bankers like Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase, soon they'll be begging him to acquire more companies.

... By contrast, despite its long list of proven crimes nobody at [JPMorgan Chase CEO] Dimon's bank has been arrested. Apparently arrests, like the financial consequences of one's actions, are for borrowers only. And Dimon only appears before our elected representative for cozy private get-togethers, not public enquiries.

Seriously, there was just enough democracy left in the institutions of the UK to enable a media giant like News Corp to be held accountable. Just how accountable is yet to be seen, but with the press in full investigative mode, parliamentary investigations, resignations and arrests at the tops of big, powerful corporations that are way-to-cozy with politicians we are seeing a reaction to this story that is simply not imaginable in our own country today.

Some Tests

Here is one test that will tell us if accountability is still possible here. What follow-up will we see from the Justice Department in response to the revelation that members of the Financial Crisis panel illegally leaked inside information, including plans to investigate foreign banks, to lobbyists? See Financial Crisis Panel Commissioners Leaked Confidential Information To Lobbyists, Report Alleges,

Republican commissioners on the panel created by Congress to probe the roots of the financial crisis leaked documents to partisan allies and shared confidential information with influence peddlers, according to a Wednesday report by Democrats on a Congressional oversight committee.

Another area for investigation is the revolving door through which lobbyists or top people of the criminal corporation became government officials and government officials become executives or lobbyists. Are they using their influence in government to protect the interests of the companines that paid or will pay them? That sure looks like bribery, whatever other words one might use.

Another area of investigations is companies that fund or otherwise infleunce public opinion and politics and campaigns or reward politicians or fund their campaigns. That is bribery, because companies have to act in the financial interest of shareholders and rewarding a politician in the interest of shareholders is bribery by definition.

Please, add some more tests in the comments. What stories have you seen revealing illegal activity and collusion between elected representatives, government officials and big corporations with no one held accountable? Obviously there is Wall Street, mortgage fraud and securities manipulations. There are all the crimes from the Bush era that went uninvestigated. (Who ended up with all that money that went missing in Iraq?) But there are so many instances of crimes reported but not investigated and certainly not prosecuted. There are so many clear cases of big corporations using media to manipulate public opinion. And there are so many cases of our election laws violated with impunity.

Are we going to be able to take back democracy and accountability here? Or not? Will our own Department of Justice start to hold law-violators accountable? Or not.

UK Media Scandal Reveals Weakness Of US Media

Dave Johnson — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:45:33 -0400

I am in the UK this week. You can barely turn on the TV here without hearing about the “phone-hacking” scandal from outraged voices across the spectrum. It is a full-blown, 24/7 scandal. The thing that might be most astonishing to Americans, though, is that people are hearing about it at all. In fact, news shows here in the UK are featuring people questioning the power and influence of Murdoch’s news operations and its relationships with politicians, and authorities are investigating criminal activities by the media. Can you imagine any of that happening here?

England is in the middle of a full-blown, nation-engrossing scandal over the criminal behavior of Rupert Murdoch's media companies. There is a full-on media frenzy. There are police investigations. The Parliament is looking into things. The Prime Minister is appointing an investigative commission. People will be arrested and will go to jail if found guilty. Things are different in the UK from how they are in the US.

Initially the phone-hacking scandal was a little 2007 story about a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, News Of The World, that was involved in hacking into the voicemail messages of members of the royal family. The scandal bubbled around but wasn’t getting much coverage at all until July 4, when The Guardian broke the story that Murdoch's News Of The World had people hacking into the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old murder victim who had disappeared in 2002. The voicemail hackers deleted messages from the full mailbox so they could get more messages left by the girl's distraught mother, thereby making police think the disappeared girl was alive, impeding the investigation and giving her family false hope.

This revelation outraged the public and brought focus on previous relvelations. It also triggered numerous new revelations of criminal activity that went beyond News Of The World, beyond just phone-hacking and into all kinds of things incuding bribing plice and operating with impunity at several other Murdoch-owned media outlets in the UK. The revelations have brought to public attention the cozy relationship between conservative government officials and Murdoch's organization, with the Conservative Prime Minister even employing the paper's Sunday editor - who had to have known about the paper's criminal activities - as his spokesperson. And the revelations continue, with new criminal activities disclosed at more and more Murdoch-owned outlets every day.

Murdoch tried to contain the scandal by closing News Of The World, but this gave the appearance if not the reality of a cover-up. There was speculation that the paper was involved in many more criminal activities that would have come to light if the paper remained open, and the closure was an effort to keep police from being able to serve search warrants, leading to accusations of a Watergate-style shredding operation at the closed paper's facilities.

Meanwhile the people at the top of Murdoch's empire continue collecting paychecks, while the employees of News Of The World are the casualties of the conservatives at the top of the the operation. The people who did the work, staffed the offices and pones, ground out the paper every day, etc., are now on the street, without jobs, thanks to the criminal shenanigans of those at the top. Does this sound familiar? (Hint: Lehman Brothers, Enron, the entire US economy...)

Murdoch In The US Is FOX, WSJ and the New York Post

FOX News is a well-known Murdoch-owned outlet in the US. The New York Post is another. The Wall Street Journal is one more. The Journal's publisher is Les Hinton, who has worked with Murdoch for 52 years and who oversaw News Of The World before coming to the Wall Street Journal. In 2007 Hinton reassured an investigative committee of the British Parliament that an internal investigation of Murdoch's media outlets in the UK showed them to be operating within the law after the initial phone-hacking was discovered.

As Media Matters put it, "That's right: Hinton, who ran the show for Murdoch as phone hacking became standard operating procedure, is now publisher of the one of the largest newspapers in the U.S."

The story is beginning to reveal much about the power and influence of Murdoch's conservative media operations. It is showing very cozy relationships between Murdoch and conservative politicians who enjoy favorable coverage from his outlets. Of course, the immediate closing of a profitable newspaper also revealed that the Murdoch operation saw the paper as a propaganda operation, not a business.

So in the UK this scandal is breaking wide open, and is forcing a look at Murdoch's empire, its influence, its relationship with politicians, and the extent to which it maintains a culture of operating outside or above the law.

Not Like The US

This scandal was broken and pursued by persistent investigative journalism, the kind that is rarely funded by American corporate media these days. It involves the willingness of media organizations to look into the practices of other outlets. It also involves the willingness of some media outlets to question the coziness of conservative leaders and conservative media.

Coverage of the scandal reveals differences between the British and US media. It is shocking to see actual discussions on every news show about whether the media has gotten too close to politicians, and is providing them cover. There are very loud demands for investigations into criminal activity that has been exposed, coming from a diverse array of voices. There are media organizations criticizing their competition and questioning their practices. Compare all of this to the way American news outlets work now.

In the US there are winks and nods all the way around. "Journalists" understand which side their bread is buttered on and where the best career paths are found. Just when was the last time you saw, heard or read a representative of a labor organization explaining to people the benefits of joining a unions? All can see that few rise in their career by questioning the practices of big corporations or Wall Street. None rise questioning America's militarism or stratospheric military budget. But careers are harmed by going after certain interests in our country, while certainly no careers are harmed by going after liberals, environmentalists, or those who wish to protect consumers or working people or labor organizations.

Maybe this Murdoch scandal will bow up to the point where the unimaginable happens here. Will Republicans hold hearings looking into the operation of Fox News or the Wall Street Journal? I think the expression we Yanks still use in America is "Fat Chance."

P.S. Media Matters has a petition to Congress, asking them to hold hearings looking into News Corp's practices here. Click here to go sign it.

If You Can Write Hate-Filled Emails To Total Strangers, Thank a Public Employee

Richard Eskow — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 02:13:48 -0400

An email entitled "Lies of Eskov in HP AOL Ariticle" (sic) was received this morning at the office of the Campaign For America's Future and forwarded to me with the comment, "Here's a nice complimentary one ... geez." Hate mail comes with the job and this note was unexceptional, but it got me thinking anyway.

What follows isn't "work safe." The email began this way (but with the words unredacted):

PROGRESSIVE = SOCIALISM
SOCIALISM = FAILURE
ESKOW = BULLSH*T

The article this Commie assh*le, given light by the F*ckingTonPost, is a disgrace. How can you support a fake and a liar of this stature? I know!!! You are Muslim funded and your goal is to destroy FREE ENTERPRISE !!

That article defended contributions veterans have made to this country, and suggested that cutting their Social Security or Medicare would be a poor way to repay them. So the email writer's apparently angry about social benefits being given wounded veterans or families of the fallen.

But the web of his hostility clearly includes government itself, hence the word "socialism." That's interesting - because without government he never could have written that email. In fact, there's a good chance he wouldn't even be alive without government.

The Muslim-bashing's no surprise. It's a favorite activity of Tea Party types manipulated into directed their anger against innocents. Muslim immigrants are just the latest wave of newcomers to be scapegoated for their foreignness, their accents, and their religion. Jews, Irish, Italians, Poles - There are always people who need somebody to hate, and immigrants make an easy target.

Some of our greatest scientists and engineers were immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and their discoveries made the United States a superpower. What might have happened if the Nazis or the Soviets had developed nuclear weapons and the US hadn't? The Manhattan Project was a government project. Does that make it socialist?

If you live in a free and independent United States, thank an immigrant.

Speaking of government spending, it was DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that first developed the Internet. That's right. The Internet was designed and built by the Federal government.

If you can spend hours online reading articles that enrage you, thank the Federal government.

It's hardworking American Capitalists and dedicated workers who've prospered by PRODUCING WEALTH BY PRODUCING COMSUMER GOODS, rather than bull sh*t.

You and your kind are corrupting the young with your tragic and unproven love of Socialism, which has failed in EVERY SOCIETY in history. China was failing until they has allowed private enterprise, Russia failed with it's Communistic attempts at creating wealth.

Our correspondent's right about one thing. Wealth is produced by the production of consumer (or "comsumer") goods. It's not produced by greedy and reckless Wall Street gambling, which has destroyed far more jobs than it has created.

But consumer goods are only produced when there are consumers to buy them. For that you need people with jobs. Once they're earning income, other people will get hired to produce the goods they want. Those new hires will buy more goods, and then even more people will get jobs.

You save a struggling, jobless economy like ours by putting that process in motion. That's how Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Depression and saved capitalism in the 1930's, and it's exactly what's needed today.

If your 1930's ancestors didn't live in a failed United States ripe for Communist or Fascist revolution, thank a New Dealer.

What the f*ck is your main goal, alongs with that of Campaign For America?
A Muslim takeover?

Virulent race hatred was common in the 1930's, too. It gets worse every time there's great economic uncertainty. Back then the radio was filled with the rantings of Father Coughlin, the virulently and violently antisemitic priest who heade a group called the Christian Front.

Now we've got Rush Limbaugh telling an African American caller to "take the bone out of your nose," while the Fox network spreads a relentless stream of fear-mongering and bigoted lies about the 1.2 billion Muslims who are not terrorists. If people really believe that Muslims can "take over" the United States, they'll unquestioningly support wasteful military spending and the erosion of their own liberties.

Which reminds me: If you still have any privacy rights, thank a civil libertarian.

You make me want to puke.

[name redacted] ... AMERICAN CAPITALIST .. and proud to be one.

Capitalist? I'm pretty sure he puts his money in a bank. He'd go out of business if one day his money wasn't there. Fortunately, the government regulates the bank and makes sure that doesn't happen.

If you own a successful small business, thank a regulator.

PS - I know poor! I lived it! However, I found a way out by working for it. You assh*les try to make victims out of everybody !!!!!

The piece that infuriated him so much was a Memorial Day remembrance of my grandfather and uncle. One was wounded in World War I and the other was killed in World War II. Veterans like them sacrificed to keep people like this email writer free and safe, and they - or their survivors - deserve financial security.

Some right-wingers love to say that other people want to make "victims of everybody." But here's the perfect example of the victim mentality. Here's somebody who was kept healthy by government health inspectors, taught by government teachers, protected by government police, and kept free by soldiers who fought and fell to defend him.

Now he feels victimized because somebody wants to make sure that the government's there to do the same things for the generations to come. That's all right. He can keep spitting venom. Millions of government employees will keep working for him every day, whether he expresses his gratitude to them or not.

My guess is that when he says he "knows poor," he doesn't mean really poor. He probably doesn't mean he had a distended belly as a child, that he brushed the flies of the eyes of his dying little sister or watched as his mother prostituted herself to earn a few pennies to feed him. That level of poverty is rare in this country, thanks to a government system of taxation that protects every American from that fate.

Not only did our correspondent avoid that fate, but he learned the basic skills of reading and writing too. Teachers, just like the ones fighting for their rights in Madison, gave him the opportunity to learn those skills. Now he's putting them to enthusiastic, if less than artful, use.

Which reminds me: If you can write a hate-filled, obscenity-laced email to total strangers, thank a teacher.

Sarah Palin: The Koch Brother’s Union Maid

Mary Bottari — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:57:53 -0400

Tax Day was approaching and the righties were out to denigrate government workers and government spending. Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska, who quit her job in 2009, headlined a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, bought and paid for by the front-group [[Americans for Prosperity]] (AFP), but billed as a “grassroots” Tea Party event.

The Koch Brothers-funded AFP set up the stage and programmed 13 buses into Madison, but only six were labeled “full” on their website on Saturday. AFP also likely paid the airfare and fees of the national speakers. Braving the sleet, snow and raucous counter-protesters, Palin earned her money.

The AFP stage was carefully designed so no one could stand behind Palin with embarrassing signs, which were prevalent. “Scott: Pull a Palin, Quit!”, “Teach Walker How to Resign” and “Go Home and Take Walker with You” would have ruined the view. On both sides of the stage, and well into the crowd, there were 10 foot tarp “walls” so that the large crowd of anti-Walker protesters could not be seen by cameras.

Counter-protestors could not be seen, but they could be heard. Even with all the stage control, experienced Republican apparatchiks were rattled by the huge roar from the opposition which rang cow bells, blew Vuvuleza and endlessly chanted “Re-call Wal-ker,” making it impossible to hear the speakers. Every video of the day is backed by a muffled roar.

Breitbart Screams “Go to Hell!”

Andrew Breitbart, right wing blogger, famous for smearing black USDA employee Shirley Sherrod as a racist, had the honor of introducing the former Governor of Alaska.

Breitbart yelled to be heard: “You know what you are hearing? You are hearing the death of community organizing!” Chutzpa from a man fronting an event for major corporate interests.

“Let’s be honest about what happened here,” said Breitbart, steamed. “Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, who has been to the White House about 1,000 times, has cynically tried to divide American people against each other. Has used Wisconsin to try to pit American against American, and the silent majority won.”

With this spin, Breitbart blames Obama and the unions for the divisive fight over collective bargaining rights, while in fact it is Walker and the national GOP who have devised a brilliant straw man strategy to blame public workers -- and not Wall Street barrons -- for the state of the economy. Walker has attempted to pit public workers against taxpayers, and even figherfighters against teachers by exempting fire and police from his bill. But people are not buying this bait and switch and [[http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/145537-poll-61-percent-oppose-wisconsin-style-limits-on-collective-bargaining overwhelmingly support]] workers collective bargaining rights.

As the booing got louder, Breitbart lost it, screaming at counter-protesters: "To be lectured by you in the periphery, you have lied by getting doctor' notes… you have no right to lecture us on civility. You have no right to lecture us on language with your Koch-suckers business. Go to hell! No seriously - Go to hell! Go to hell! You have been so rude trying to divide us. Class warfare is not American! Class warfare is not American!”

The Madison rally was Mama Grizzly’s first speech since her catastrophically self-serving “blood libel” video after the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Prior to the shooting, Giffords had gently chastised Palin for putting gunsights over Giffords image on a website. Palin had nowhere to go but up, and she did.

Palin As Union Maid

Palin took a different approach. She wrapped herself in her union ties: “I am proud to stand with you in solidarity. As a former union member and as the wife of a union member, what I have to say today I say to our good patriotic brothers and sisters who are in unions… a pension is a promise that must be kept. States must be solvent to keep their promises and that is what he is trying to do. He’s not trying to hurt union members he’s trying to save your jobs and your pensions. Some of your union bosses don’t understand this, don’t care when union workers are laid off… But that is not real solidarity. Real solidarity is coming together for the common good. This Tea Party is real solidarity.”

In this clever piece of spin, Palin picks up on Walker’s job saving theme. Walker threatened 1,500 layoffs in advance of the vote on the union busting bill, then stopped the pink slips from rolling the day after the bill passed. But the threats were all theater. Walker was recently forced to admit at a hearing in Congress that the union-busting provisions had no fiscal impact. “We are doing this to save jobs,” is a great talking point until the bill is implemented and thousands of teachers and municipal workers are given the ax.

“I am here today because this is where real courage and real integrity can be found. Courage is your governor and legislature standing strong in the face of death threats and thug tactics,” Palin continued. “You saw these violent ‘rent-a-mobs’ trash your capitol and vandalize business. Madison, you held your ground your governor did the right thing and you won.”

Palin also apparently doesn’t know that the death threats sent by a wingnut child care provider to Republican legislators were not discovered by news outlets using the open records law until after the bill was passed. They are similar to the death threats sent by other wingnuts to the Democratic senators. ‘Rent-a-mob’ is rich for someone fronting for the Koch’s. As for thug tactics and vandalized businesses, she must be watching too much FOX news. The 300,000 protesters who visited the Capitol over the last few months know that the takeover by UW-students was orderly, clean and respectful. While some may consider regular marches of 150,000 ‘thug tactics’ no businesses were vandalized and the months of protests were terrific for Madison’s downtown restaurants, hotels and small businesses.

Palin got one thing right when she observed: “Madison these are the front lines for the battle for the future of our country… The 2012 election begins here!”

Victory Celebration Turns into a Rout

While the local police put the crowd at 6,500, it was obvious to everyone there that the AFP folks were in the distinct minority. The core group of AFP supporters filled a 20 by 35 foot area paced off by a local reporter. Madison’s NBC affiliate reported: “A solid core of tea partiers were near the stage, but they were flanked on all sides by union protesters who have dominated protests at the Capitol for months. The tea party folks had the microphone, but the crowd had the volume, literally and figuratively.”

What happened to the party? In early February when Breitbart came to Madison, AFP had a good crowd estimated by police and reporters to be 2,500-3,000. This weekend those numbers had shrunk dramatically at a time when they are supposed to be celebrating their victories -- the passage of the collective bargaining bill and the apparent election of Justice David Prosser to the Supreme Court.

At the back of the crowd was a man standing uncomfortably, hands in pockets. On the back of his windbreaker was a taped message which read: “Angry, Ashamed, Former Republican.” He told me he had voted Republican for 30 years, had voted for Palin and Walker, but now was disgusted with what he was seeing. “Fundamentally, it is wrong to take away people’s right to negotiate in good faith. This is overreach by the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln would not be a Republican today.”

John T. Harvey On the Austerity War

Joseph M. Firestone — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:08:57 -0400

Is the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) approach to economics beginning to crack the MSM? Well, very recently, Darrell Delamaide had an anti-deficit hysteria/austerity piece in MarketWatch, that strongly reflected MMT perspectives expressed at last year's Fiscal Sustainability Teach-In Counter-Conference (see the audios, videos and transcripts), which Darrell attended. Then just a few days ago, Bill Mitchell, one of MMT's leading practitioners published a great MMT summary article in The Nation. Then John T. Harvey followed with an anti-austerity article in Forbes Magazine, a paragon of neo-liberal virtue. And today, Mike Norman announced:

”Fox has asked me to do a regular, Friday afternoon debate segment on Bulls & Bears. I will be squaring off against Charlie Gasparino. The format will be a kind of "point-counterpoint" thing.”

I recommend all of these pieces, but this post is primarily about Professor Harvey's piece in Forbes. He begins with:

"I have been a professional economist for almost 25 years, but never have I been more concerned about the state of our macroeconomy. Yet it's not so much the current rate of unemployment or GDP growth that has me scared to death; it's the so-called solutions being pursued in Washington.

Consider this for a moment: As of January 2011, we had 13.9 million unemployed people in the United States (and note that it takes very little to count as "employed"). Recommended cuts in the federal budget have ranged from tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars. In practice, what do these represent? They are at the very least a reduction in the wages of Americans who are currently working, if not outright job loss. This makes them functionally equivalent to a tax increase. Ask yourself this question: How would raising taxes by tens to hundreds of billions of dollars right now lower unemployment and speed recovery? You're right, it wouldn't. In fact, it's not difficult to see that it would make it much worse. Unemployment is not reduced by cutting incomes and destroying more jobs. But that's the policy currently being pursued with great enthusiasm in Washington, and the two parties differ only in degree. We are on the road to economic suicide. The gun is loaded, cocked and aimed squarely at the American worker."

John then follows with a very readable and perspicacious analysis of the flaws of a deficit reduction/austerity strategy, which I urge everyone to read. John's analysis underscores the proposition that an austerity strategy, i.e. taking part in an international competitive austerity race amounting to a race-to-the-bottom is suicidal.

There is one error in John's otherwise very fine analysis, however. At one point in his article he says that if China cashes out its Treasury bonds, the new USD freed up “. . . would be in China.” This is in error. US currency always remains in the US currency zone. China can hold its dollars alright, but it can only hold them in its US reserve account at the Fed at nearly zero interest. It's other choices are selling the currency, buying goods and services for sale in the US currency zone, or re-investing in US bonds. Tom Hickey has a good explanation of why this is true.

John Harvey acknowledges his error, and points out the difficulty of covering complexities like this in a Forbes article given its space limitations and the need to cover so much.

(Cross-posted at All Life Is Problem Solving and Fiscal Sustainability).

Jobless Organize to Remove Republican Royalists From Their Jobs

Leo Gerard — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:34:40 -0400

Glenn Beck made it official on Fox News last week: He’s seeking the office of 21^st Century Marie Antoinette.

The queen of France, beheaded during the revolution, attained infamy for insensitivity toward hungry peasants. Glenn Beck, the Fox talk show host, achieved celebrity for his callousness toward unemployed Americans.

Beck leads a pack of royalist Republicans who have spent the summer mocking, vilifying and denigrating the nation’s 14.5 million unemployed workers. It is the moneyed class smacking down the working class in an attempt to disempower and disenfranchise them. Dispirited workers are less likely to vote – which could give Beck and his gang of royalist Republicans control of Congress.

The unemployed, like France’s 18^th Century peasants, are fighting back, however. The Union of the Unemployed and Working America are organizing the jobless to vote this fall and to demand help from lawmakers. They’re not out to behead Beck and the royalist Republicans, just dethrone them.

Two and a half years after wanton recklessness by Wall Street banksters crashed the economy, the official unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.5 percent. It rises to 17 percent when statisticians add part-time workers seeking full-time jobs and the jobless who’ve abandoned the search out of hopelessness. With the help of a taxpayer bailout, Wall Street has recovered, and those banksters are taking home multi-million dollar bonuses again. But on Main Street, there still are five unemployed workers for every job vacancy, so no matter how hard the jobless try, there are no openings for 80 percent of them.

Routinely, crowds line up before dawn when job openings are announced. In June, in Longmont, Colo., hundreds queued up to vie for 100 low-paid clerk and stock jobs at a new SmartCo Foods. Hundreds of Louisville residents gathered in the dark on Aug. 9 at the Kentucky Exposition Center to apply for 450 state fair jobs paying $7.25 an hour and lasting a total of 20 days.

In addition to jobs, the people on Main Street are losing their homes and life savings at increasing rates. Bankruptcy filings nationwide reached the highest level in five years between April and June. Banks repossessed 92,858 homes in July, up 6 percent from July 2009. For too many, the situation is so desperate that they’re discussing plans for suicide on an on-line forum for the jobless.

Glenn Beck and the royalist Republicans don’t care about all that. Here’s Beck ranting about those who lose unemployment benefits at 99 weeks:

"Have you heard of the 99ers? These people, some of which I, frankly, I bet you would be ashamed to call them Americans, they think 99 weeks of unemployment benefists are not enough. . .Two years is plenty of time to have lived off your neighbors' wallets."


Video of Beck slamming the "99ers" begins at 2 minutes and 33 seconds into this clip.

Beck went on to argue that the jobless who protested last week on Wall Street were not "regular people," like him and his friends:

“Are they just regular people? . . They are socialists and anti-capitalists.”

Then, incongruously, Beck condemned a protestor seeking jobs for all unemployed workers with a sign asserting, “A job is a right.”

“No, a job is not a right,” insisted Beck, making it clear that in his world, the unemployed are “un-American” for not landing jobs, but, simultaneously, it’s perfectly moral and fair that the American economy has failed to produce enough jobs for them to fill.

Beck is the TV mouthpiece for the royalist Republicans who champion this view: a job is not a right, and it’s not right to aid the jobless. Republicans, virtually as a block, oppose extending unemployment benefits for the jobless while they support extending tax breaks for the moneyed class – themselves. They opposed legislation to save the jobs of 319,000 public servants – the people who educate our children and protect our lives -- teachers, police officers, firefighters. Democrats in Congress paid to preserve those jobs by eliminating $11 billion in tax loopholes for corporations that ship jobs overseas -- a provision that ultimately could create jobs in the United States.

Like Beck, they’ve announced their loathing for the unemployed. Royalists Sharron Angle, Jon Kyl, Andre Bauer, Tom Corbett and Orrin Hatch have derided the unemployed as lazy, spoiled, stupid drug users.

The jobless, however, are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore. They’re organizing. The Union of the Unemployed and Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, are mobilizing the jobless.

The Union of the Unemployed is launching a “Bite Back” campaign, targeting those in Congress who tried repeatedly to cut off unemployment insurance and other aid to the jobless. “They will never see us coming,” the first Bite Back ad says, “After all, the politicians whose policies destroyed our lives think we’re ‘lazy’ ‘drug users’ and ‘hobos.’ They are counting on us to be docile as lambs and so depressed we’ll stay in bed on election day.”

Working America, whose members are not in unions but align themselves with the political philosophy of the AFL-CIO, plans to organize hundreds of thousands of the jobless across the nation to vote in workers’ interests. Field organizers will ask the jobless to fill out “Help Wanted” petitions to send to their congressmen and senators asking exactly what they’ve done to create jobs and assist the unemployed.

The jobless removing the royalists from their jobs – nothing could be sweeter, unless this revolution also included dispatching Glenn Beck to his unemployment office.

What the President Didn't Seem to Learn From the Shirley Sherrod Incident

Richard Eskow — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:42:47 -0400

The "teachable moment" cliché may be overused, as Jason Linkins observed the other day, but what the White House really needed this week was a learnable moment. The Administration and other leading Democrats had an opportunity this week to understand the nature of the opposition they face. The President's remarks about Shirley Sherrod's firing suggest that this "learnable moment" may have been lost. Let's hope not.

In what might be described as a "the buck stops there" comment, the President blamed Tom Vilsack for the decision. "He jumped the gun," said the President, "partly because we now live in this media culture where something goes up on YouTube or a blog and everybody scrambles."

No, Mr. President. The problem is that there is a highly motivated, ideologically driven, and extremely well funded movement that is determined to destroy you, your party, and everything you stand for, including the proper role of government in a civil society. Their ideology lies in tatters, destroyed by the economic collapse and the ecological devastation in the Gulf. All they have left is the politics of destruction.

The problem is not blogs and YouTube,. The problem is Fox News. The Right has a very simple and very successful model: Use people like Matt Drudge or Andrew Breitbart to start phony rumors, then use the massive media power of Fox, Rush, and other outlets to spread a lie around the world before the truth can get open its mouth. Fox News.

The "media culture" locution is another one of the President's ways of trying to remain "above left and right." But to do so in this case is to misunderstand the situation. Sun Tzu said "If you know yourself and know your enemy, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." The "media culture" frame is one that suggests he doesn't know his enemy.

It also suggests he doesn't know his friends. I'm here in Las Vegas at Netroots Nation, where progressive bloggers gather to share ideas and hear from their leaders. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be taking questions tomorrow, but I don't see any Administration representatives in attendance (except Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who took part in a panel yesterday). The President likes to disparage progressive bloggers - no doubt egged on by Rahm Emanuel, who's extremely unpopular in this crowd. And he likes to lump progressive bloggers in with their counterparts on the Right, as part of the "media culture" he disdains.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have heard high-level, educated, detailed discussions of policy topics that range from biofuels to counterinsurgency. This group represents a pool of talent the Administration and Congress could use to their advantage, if it weren't for their fear of "outside the Beltway" resources. And not a single one of the thousands of people here has ever doctored a video in order to ruin a career or discredit a Presidency.

The truth is, this "above left and right" routine has never served the President or Democrats particularly well. It's what led the President, a brilliant and gifted man, to make one of the silliest statements he's ever uttered: "Ultimately, there's no dividing line between Main Street and Wall Street. We rise or fall together as one nation. " Sadly (and unequivocally), that is not true. It's great to rise above the battle when you can. But sometimes there are battles, and they are battles worth fighting.

With the passage of the new financial bill, Wall Street reform has just begun. Banks are marshalling their resources to influence upcoming regulations and the actions of the regulators themselves. Lobbyists and the Right will be fighting to roll back the progress that's been made so far. The Administration and Congress are going to need all the help they can get. And now the Right is gearing up to dismantle Social Security, the successful embodiment of a social compact that has worked for generations. To strike a "bipartisan" pose in the face of this threat would be both callous policy and foolish politics.

As for the President's "media culture" comment, it reflectso the same "above the fray" posture as those Wall Street/Main Street comments, and is equally likely to fizzle. Here's an idea: Don't hide your opponents in a verbal cloud, Mr. President. Name them. Call them out. If you don't want to go "left and right," just say that "there are those who would spread misinformation because the facts and the arguments aren't on their side." The ideology of deregulation and unfettered market rapacity is discredited, so they are using racial hatred and smear tactics to distract the public from the failure of their ideas. Remember, know your enemy and you need not fear a hundred battles.

And a hundred battles are certainly coming.

Why the Deficit Dominates DC Thinking

Dave Johnson — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:48:03 -0400

Washington politicians are convinced that the public is demanding cuts in spending, even over creating jobs and restoring the economy. This pressure comes because much of the public believes that "Obama tripled the deficit." This has been the right's drumbeat for over a year and the public has not heard any response. You can barely turn on the radio or TV, or go on the Internet, or read the letters-to-the-editor in your local paper without hearing one or another form of this message repeated.

Fact: Bush's 2009 budget-year deficit was $1.4 trillion. 2009 was President Bush's last budget and included the Wall Street bailouts, unemployment benefits and other costs of the incoming recession, plus Iraq and Afghanistan. This massive deficit was just one more conservative failure.

But the right's propaganda campaign telling the public that this was Obama's deficit, not Bush's has gone unanswered. The Obama administration and their allies are not reaching the public with the truth or any message that counters the lies the right is putting out.

Charts that make it appear that the huge deficit was Obama's doing are an example of how the public is being conned:

The well-funded Heritage Foundation is one leader of the effort to convince the public of this. Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures demonstrates an effort to mislead the public into blaming Obama for Bush's massive deficits.

FOX News had this headline: Obama Triples Budget Deficit to $1.4 Trillion (they have since changed the headline but here is it as it appeared:)

On the radio the drumbeat continues with people like Rush Limbaugh, saying, President Obama Lies About His Massive Deficits and Tax Increases,

People are fed up with this spending. They're scared to death of it. They know full well what it portends. It portends massive tax increases for years on us, our kids and grandkids. It weakens the country. This is just an abomination. Nine years ago we were attacked. Barack Obama cannot tell the truth. Constitutionally, he's not capable of telling the truth. He has increased the deficit, not by twice, not by three times, but by four times... Last year's deficit surged to $1.42 trillion, more than three times the record of the previous year. An imbalance of $454.8 billion in 2008. So Bush's last year budget deficit was $454.8 billion. Obama's budget deficit last year was $1.42 trillion. That's nearly $1 trillion more that he added to it in fiscal 2009.

Here is Sean Hannity claiming Obama "quadrupled the deficit",

This is why the deficit dominates the agenda in DC. This dishonest propaganda campaign is the source of the political pressure to cut spending. Fine. What else would you expect from the right? It's what they do. But why has this campaign gone unanswered? Why haven't the forces allied with the President reached out with the facts? Why have they let themselves be put into this box?

A bigger question, why does the Obama administration still not seem to get it that this is what they do? The right has a coordinated, funded propaganda machine that just lies, and smears, belittles and humiliates people, makes the public afraid, stirs up division - even encourages sedition, all to get their way.

The right is well-funded because there is a monetary payoff to the big corporations and wealthy individuals who fund campaigns like this one. Their anti-government campaign is buying tax cuts, subsidies, deregulation or just non-enforcement of regulations, waivers or just lack of enforcement of anti-trust rules, military contracts, and a long list of other financial benefits.

Meanwhile people interested in democracy and good government are largely unfunded. They are largely shut out of TV and radio. For example, you rarely see a representative of labor on TV, radio or in the news. Bloggers reach a lot of people, but nothing like the talk radio/TV empire of the right. So how can we do this better?

We will be talking about this Tuesday afternoon at the Americas Future Now conference session, Can Bloggers Bring Populism To The Potomac? with Digby, Sara Robinson, Zach Carter, Terrance Heath, RJ Eskow and myself.

How I Became a "Soros Operative"

Cliff Schecter — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:45:57 -0400

Fox News personality John Gibson said I was one—which means, of course, it is true. On his radio show the other day, he opined that because I once worked at Brave New Films (which may get some George Soros money) and the publisher of my new book, The Real McCain, is a friend of Soros', well then case closed. I am on Soros' payroll, which is why one of the two cars my wife and I drive is a Subaru with 125,000 miles on it.

But this is a great anecdote to point out a larger virus that infects conservatism, and has for a long time now: Paranoia. For that, Soros is perfect. Jewish, of foreign birth, living in New York and a "financier," he is a fourfer!

If only he were gay too.

One of the books I have found most useful in understanding the modern Right is The Paranoid Style In American Politics, written by one of the preeminent historians and social commentators of the 20th Century, Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter did not live to see his warnings about the Bircher Wing of the GOP come to fruition to become a full-fledged menace to society (although, in truth, he underestimated their appeal in that he did not realize that having a vast fortune and media megaphone behind these conspiracy theories could do wonders to keep them alive). But he knew what he saw, and related it to our history as a nation better than anyone I have ever come across in prose.

This paranoia is what allows Gibson to write a fantasyland tome called "The War On Christmas," because hordes of Jews and Muslims plan each year—after eating the youngest member of their family for Thanksgiving—how they can cream Santa Claus in the coming month. In reality, as you probably know, Gibson is simply appealing to the worst in people. What Karl Rove has made a career of doing. What Sen. John McCain's friend Pastor John Hagee does on a weekly if not daily basis. (I have a whole chapter on the conspiracy preachers in my book—McCain is knee deep in their influence.)

Tell people that their lot in life has waned because of a conspiracy among some evil group that is holding them back. Liberals. Jews. Muslims. Gays. Blacks. Abortion. People For The American Way. You know, the people Jerry Falwell blamed for 9/11.

If you can do that, then they might never question why CEO salaries have skyrocketed, health care has disappeared and their job is in China. In any case, I am honored to be on Gibson's list. But for the sake of our democracy, we must expose this vile conspiracy-mongering whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.

Cliff Schecter is the author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him And Why Independents Shouldn't. Buy a copy (for only $10!) and keep both his 18-month old son and John McCain in diapers.