The Only Way Republicans Can Stay In Congress...

... is by blanketing the airwaves with their paranoid, militarist, racist - quoting Winston Churchill's immortal phrase - "terminological inexactitudes".

To do that they need huge amounts of cash.  And they would dearly love to have all limits taken off their ability to receive these bribes - which is what they are.

Why are they bribes?  Because the rich - should we call them people; are they actual humans like the rest of us? - persons who pay these dues to "conservative" politicians, know full well that what they are buying is the right to have the laws passed that suit them - see my earlier posts about A.L.E.C., the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Now the Supreme Court is going to rule on a case called McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission.  (I mentioned this case a month ago, in Goddammit, What Did I Just Say?, and pointed out that "Judging by the Supremes' unconscionable decision in Citizens United, we may have a problem, Houston.") The hearing on McCutcheon was this past Tuesday.

A group called SierraRise is calling on us to raise our voices against this travesty of a case that should never have been filed, let alone taken seriously by the Supreme Court.

They say, "This is pretty crazy: There's a Big Coal CEO demanding the right to donate as much as he wants in an election cycle."

The message continues, ending in a Petition for your signature - 

"The CEO's name is Shaun McCutcheon. His case would end campaign finance law as we know it -- and the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, is on board, eager for all that coal cash. ^[3] If they get their way, corporate polluters will be able to buy more politicians and elections than ever before, launching a brutal assault on all the environmental progress we've made together.

But there is good news: Several leaders in Congress are standing up and fighting back. These lawmakers are pushing for major reforms that would reduce the amount of dirty money in politics -- and with the Supreme Court considering the McCutcheon case, that work has never been more important.

Will you take 30 seconds right now to push back against billionaire polluters? Let campaign finance reform champions know that we're 100% behind fair elections!

McCutcheon's Supreme Court case, which the justices are considering right now, is just the beginning -- imagine a system where billionaires could just keep giving and giving. As the U.S. solicitor general told the Court, take away those limits and "Less than 500 people can fund the whole shooting match. The government will be run of, by, and for those 500 people." ^[4] These are the people trying to replace our democracy with their dollars, and our health and climate with their profit. We must stop them in their tracks.

McCutcheon is the CEO of Coalmont Electrical Development in Alabama. He filed his lawsuit with the Republican National Committee, and Senator McConnell jumped at the chance to join them. McConnell, who's up for re-election, is one of the biggest coal champions in the country, and he couldn't be more excited to take all that dirty money -- even sending his lawyers to join McCutcheon at the Supreme Court.

Environmental champion Senator Bernie Sanders took a different approach outside the Court that day, and told it like it is: "Freedom of speech, in my view, does not mean the freedom to buy the United States government." ^[5]

We can turn the tide. Our allies on this in Congress, known as the DARE task force, want to "disclose, amend, reform and elect." ^[6] They're fighting for several critical changes: overturn Citizens United, provide more public campaign financing by matching small donors, block efforts to stop Americans from voting, and require donor disclosure for political front groups like those run by Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers.

Tell the DARE task force to keep at it -- let's send them a petition with 60,000 names so they'll know we've got their backs!

In it together,

Nathan Empsall
SierraRise Senior Campaigner

P.S. Five signatures are even more powerful than one -- after you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends, family, and colleagues!
"

Bernie Sanders, Truth-Teller, on the Koch Bros and Paul Ryan's Blackmail

For your Sunday Morning delight - some straight talking about what's happening in Washington: excellent commentary from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders -

On the 12th day of a government shutdown, Senate Republicans on Saturday made the crisis worse by blocking a measure to raise the debt limit so the country can pay its bills. Within days, the Treasury Department expects the government will run out of borrowing authority and default. One of the immediate impacts could be a significant increase in interest rates on mortgages, credit cards, student loans and other debts owed by ordinary Americans. Yesterday, the Republicans were demanding that in order to reopen the government and pay our debts the Affordable Care Act had to be repealed. Today, they are demanding concessions on Social Security, Medicare and other programs. The leader of this gambit is House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, the 2012 candidate for vice president who ran on a ticket that lost by 5 million votes. “It is imperative that Republicans stop holding the American people hostage and let us reopen the government and pay our bills. Frankly, given the enormous problems facing this country, it is beyond belief that we have wasted weeks debating whether, for the first time in our history, the largest economy in the world should default and plunge the world into a severe financial crisis,” Bernie said.

VIDEO here

Bernie Sanders' website, with more informative Videos, is here.

AND it links to a Report from the Reuters News Agency - "Richest 1 Percent Hold 46 Percent Of The World's Wealth" - which you can read here.

Finally, someone in Washington says "Tax The Rich!"

"Everybody knows the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows...."

                                                     Leonard Cohen

The fine Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, hated by Wall Street, is joining Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island in proposing a "Job Preservation and Sequester Replacement Act" - after 4 1/2 years of the Ha-Ha Socialist's Presidency.

She says, "Washington is rigged for the big guys -- the ones who can afford to hire an army of lobbyists, lawyers, and accountants to create and find the loopholes and special breaks that let big corporations off the hook for paying taxes.

• It's rigged for the five biggest oil companies, which made $118 billion in profits last year -- and yet still collected billions of dollars worth of government subsidies.


• It's rigged for multinational corporations, which get tax breaks to ship U.S. jobs overseas and stash their investments abroad.


• And it's rigged for hedge fund managers and billionaires, who pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.

The Job Preservation and Sequester Replacement Act closes corporate tax loopholes so everyone pays a fair share. And it implements the Buffett Rule so that people who make more than $1 million a year pay it forward so the next kid has a chance to make it big.

This is a sensible way to deal with our financial problems. But I need your help to build national support that puts pressure on Congress to pass the plan."

You can show your support and "Become a citizen cosponsor" here

Too big to fail? Too big to exist!

"If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist."

Bernie Sanders rolls up his sleeves....

Finally, a Senator tells us what we've been saying since the hypocritical nonsense began in 2008.  Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont says  “... the six largest financial institutions in this country (J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) today have assets of nearly $9.6 trillion, a figure equal to about two-thirds of the nation's gross domestic product. These six financial institutions issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards, over half of all mortgages, control 95 percent of all derivatives held in financial institutions and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits in the United States.”

 - and he is introducing legislation to do something about it.  Here's his announcement in HuffPost: 

"Too Big to Jail?
By Senator Bernie Sanders - We are supposed to be a country of laws. The laws should apply to Wall Street as well as everybody else. So I was stunned when our country's top law enforcement official recently suggested it might be difficult to prosecute financial institutions that commit crimes because it may destabilize the financial system of our country and the world.

"I am concerned," Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee, "that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute -- if we do bring a criminal charge -- it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy."

The attorney general was talking about some of the same financial institutions that received billions, and in some cases trillions, of dollars in taxpayer bailouts after their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior plunged the country into a terrible recession. Over my opposition, Congress approved a $700 billion taxpayer bailout of financial institutions that were on the brink of collapse which some in Congress considered "too big to fail."

In addition, the Federal Reserve provided over $16 trillion in total financial assistance to these same institutions during the financial crisis (which only became public after an amendment I inserted into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requiring the Fed to disclose this information).

The attorney general's view seems to be that if you are just a regular person and you commit a crime, you go to jail. But if you are the head of a Wall Street company, your power is so great that a prosecution could have destabilizing consequences with national or even worldwide implications.

In other words, we have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail. That view is unacceptable.

The attorney general's troubling acknowledgement has revived interest in an idea that is drawing more and more support. It is time to break up too big to fail financial institutions.

The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger today than they were before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis.

U.S. banks have become so big that the six largest financial institutions in this country (J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) today have assets of nearly $9.6 trillion, a figure equal to about two-thirds of the nation's gross domestic product. These six financial institutions issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards, over half of all mortgages, control 95 percent of all derivatives held in financial institutions and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits in the United States.

I will soon introduce legislation that would give the Treasury secretary 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that the Treasury Department determines are too big to fail. The affected financial institutions would include "any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial government assistance." Within one year after the legislation becomes law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions identified by the secretary.

Breaking up the too big to fail financial institutions is a notion that has drawn support from some leading figures in the financial community. Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, wrote this: "The safer the individual banks, the safer the financial system. The ultimate destination -- an economy relatively free from financial crises -- won't be reached until we have the fortitude to break up the giant banks." James Bullard, the head of the St. Louis Fed, also weighed in. "I do kind of agree that 'too big to fail' is 'too big to exist.'" Thomas Hoenig, the former Kansas City Fed president, was an early supporter of the idea of breaking up big U.S. banks. "I think [too big to fail banks] should be broken up. And in doing so, I think you'll make the financial system itself more stable. I think you will make it more competitive, and I think you will have long-run benefits over our current system, which leads to bailouts when crises occur."

In my view, no single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of American jobs or to our nation's economic wellbeing. No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis. And, perhaps most importantly, no institution in America should be above the law. We need to break up these institutions because of the tremendous damage they have done to our economy.

If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist"

Bernie says: "Tax Corporations!"

Please vote in Sen. Bernie Sanders Poll.

"Some $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts are due to take effect beginning Friday unless President Obama and Congress agree on an alternative. In poll after poll, large majorities of Americans agree with Bernie that the way to lower deficits is to stop letting the wealthiest Americans and profitable corporations use offshore tax shelters and other loopholes to evade taxes. The American people also are clear that they do not want cuts in Social Security, Medicare, education and other important programs. “It's unfortunate,” Bernie told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing on Wednesday, “that Congress is not listening.”

Watch the Video: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/media/view/?id=1aede735-5056-a032-529f-9e1c43af66e2

The Poll is here: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/polls/?uid=b6ddcbb9-6f60-48e6-b98b-4ea97e490d41

Have a great day!

The Truth about Corporations

Senator Bernie Sanders posted this in Huffington Post:

A Choice For Corporate America: Are You With America Or The Cayman Islands?

By Senator Bernie Sanders
February 9, 2013

When the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street drove this country into the deepest recession since the 1930s, the largest financial institutions in the United States took every advantage of being American. They just loved their country - and the willingness of the American people to provide them with the largest bailout in world history. In 2008, Congress approved a $700 billion gift to Wall Street. Another $16 trillion in virtually zero interest loans and other financial assistance came from the Federal Reserve. America. What a great country.

But just two years later, as soon as these giant financial institutions started making record-breaking profits again, they suddenly lost their love for their native country. At a time when the nation was suffering from a huge deficit, largely created by the recession that Wall Street caused, the major financial institutions did everything they could to avoid paying American taxes by establishing shell corporations in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens.

In 2010, Bank of America set up more than 200 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands (which has a corporate tax rate of 0.0 percent) to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It worked. Not only did Bank of America pay nothing in federal income taxes, but it received a rebate from the IRS worth $1.9 billion that year. They are not alone. In 2010, JP Morgan Chase operated 83 subsidiaries incorporated in offshore tax havens to avoid paying some $4.9 billion in U.S. taxes. That same year Goldman Sachs operated 39 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to avoid an estimated $3.3 billion in U.S. taxes. Citigroup has paid no federal income taxes for the last four years after receiving a total of $2.5 trillion in financial assistance from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis.

On and on it goes. Wall Street banks and large companies love America when they need corporate welfare. But when it comes to paying American taxes or American wages, they want nothing to do with this country. That has got to change.

Offshore tax abuse is not just limited to Wall Street. Each and every year corporations and the wealthy are avoiding more than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income offshore.

Pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly and Pfizer have fought to make it illegal for the American people to buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and Europe. But, during tax season, Eli Lilly and Pfizer shift drug patents and profits to the Netherlands and other offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

Apple wants all of the advantages of being an American company, but it doesn't want to pay American taxes or American wages. It creates the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, and iTunes in the United States, but manufactures most of its products in China so it doesn't have to pay American wages. Then it shifts most of its profits to Ireland, Luxembourg, the British Virgin Islands and other tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes. Without such maneuvers, Apple's federal tax bill in the United States would have been $2.4 billion higher in 2011.