Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Dictatorship.  Enabling Act.

These terms are not too strong to use in response to the latest obscenity being floated by the Billionaire Bootlicking Beltway Versailles Villager Idiot Evil Elite.

Evil ek?

The proposal “on the table” for a joint bi-partisan “Super Committee” is nothing less than taking away your right to vote.

It doesn’t get any more fundamentally evil than that.

Taking away our right to vote?

Elections have consequences, for now.  If your party loses you lose Committee Chairmanships, Members, and Votes.  You lose your ability to advance your agenda whether it be progressive or radically reactionary.  “More and Better”?  Under this proposal you could have a “Democratic” Super Majority of 80% and the Rump Republican Teabagger Twenty Percent would have equal representation, equal influence, and no majority however large elected by the people regardless of the margin of victory would be able to stop them.

Of course as we have seen no super majority is enough for the cowardly “Democratic” Party and their leader, Barack Obama.

Teddy Partridge is not wrong to compare it with the fall of the Roman Republic-

One phase critical to undermine democracy and set citizens’ constitutional protections aside is when The Owners replace the people’s elected representatives (proven dysfunctional through a series of invented ’emergencies’) with a super-governing body of Owners’ Overseers to decide what’s best for everyone.

…

Stripping the people’s elected representatives of their constitutional right to legislate is a crucial step in ensuring that messy democratic principles no longer interfere in the upward escalator of wealth.

This is nothing new, of course: when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he effectively implemented imperium within Rome, something previously prohibited for generals serving in the territories and provinces ruled by the imperium but outside Rome. A general ‘crossing the Rubicon’ was seen to be subverting the people’s elected representatives with military might under his command. It hadn’t happened until Caesar did it.

But things were going so badly in Rome on January 10th, 49BC! No one remembers exactly what was going quite so wrong, anymore; we only remember that representative Roman democracy ended that day.

Only one question remains for our current Old Congress: will they flee in fear and with their dignity intact as the people’s representatives, as did Pompey and the elected Roman pro-consuls and Senators? Because it seems, observers, that if Ryan Grim’s Super Congress reporting is true, alea iacta est : the die is cast.

This is why there is a United States.  Our Founders fought a war for freedom from exactly this kind of tyranny.  Our “Greatest Generation” died in droves on the Normandy beachheads and around the world to prevent exactly this kind of corporate fascism.

If you will stand by and let tyrants take your liberty you are a Quisling, a Benedict Arnold who had at least the excuse of poor treatment and did great things in service of country before turning traitor.

Oh my yes.  You remember Silverstone don’t you?

Things are not happy in the Formula One Teams Association, there’s also the fact the Concorde Agreement has expired and is extended only through a letter, not a contract, through 2012 following a heated dispute that led many teams to threaten to go CART.  While nominally guided by Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren and Ross Brawn of Mercedes the FOTA is widely viewed as a tool of Bernie Ecclestone who has a distinct conflict of interest and a hazy history of influence on the FIA itself with his cozy relationship to Max Mosley the fifth columnist Nazi’s son who got the boot for his sexcapades.

Interestingly enough this was the scoop of the recently deceased and unlamented News of the World who published sick Nazi Sex Orgy by Neville Thurlbeck so who knows what to think?

Well, Neville’s in trouble again-

Rupertgate Friday – “For Neville”

By Gordonskene, Crooks&Liars

July 22, 2011 03:58 PM

As was reported yesterday, there are now growing questions over the honesty of the testimony given by James Murdoch during the Inquiry hearings on Tuesday. One centers around Neville Thurlbeck, who was a registered unpaid Police informant and has been a key suspect in the phone hacking scandal and an e-mail and attached file that carefully listed transcribed hacked messages.

Murdoch denies any knowledge of the e-mail, however former NoTW editor Colin Myler and former head of legal affairs for News Of The World Tom Crone claim the younger Murdoch had full knowledge of the “For Neville” e-mail and file and has been lying to the Commission. If this winds up being true, and Murdoch is found to be lying, it tosses an enormous question mark over the entire testimony on Tuesday and puts James Murdoch in the position of being arrested and held for further questioning.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

I found a piece, again by Kevin Gosztola, last night.  Titled In Support of the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers it has excerpts of 13 statements of support collected from The World Can’t Wait website.

The highlighted contributors are-

• Susan Sarandon
• Dr. Cornel West
• Mark Ruffalo
• Gloria Steinem
• Nawal El Saadawi
• David Straithairn
• Boots Riley
• Edward Asner
• Richard Falk
• Kathleen and Henry Chalfant
• Jeff Kaye

There are many more statements here and Kevin Gosztola urges you to send your own statement to- debrasweet_at_worldcantwait.net (replace that _at_ with a shifted 2).

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Public Policy Polling as cited by John Aravosis and Taylor Marsh–

For the first time since last July Barack Obama does not lead Mitt Romney in PPP’s monthly national poll on the 2012 Presidential race. Romney has now pulled into a tie with the President at 45%.

Obama’s approval rating this month is 46% with 48% of voters disapproving of him. There are 2 things particularly troubling in his numbers: independents split against him by a 44/49 margin, and 16% of Democrats are unhappy with the job he’s doing while only 10% of Republicans give him good marks. Republicans dislike him at this point to a greater extent than Democrats like him and that will be a problem for him moving forward if it persists.

…

Obama’s numbers are worse than they appear to be on the surface. The vast majority of the undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama’s doing but aren’t committing to a candidate yet while they wait to see how the Republican field shakes out.

How undecideds change the race if you allocate them based on their approval/disapproval of Obama-

Those are terrible numbers.  Do you think it might have anything to do with this?

Mitch McConnell for President! Or, No Wonder Ed Schultz Is Confused

By: Scarecrow, Firedog Lake

Wednesday July 20, 2011 11:00 am

The saddest part of Jane Hamsher’s interview on Ed’s show last night was listening to Ed groan in the background as Ms. Hamsher calmly explained that it was his supposedly Democratic President who was insisting on putting Social Security and Medicare at risk as a condition for avoiding a default on the national debt. How could this be?

Ed’s cognitive dissonance only got worse when Ms. Hamsher noted that Mitch McConnell’s original “clean” debt limit bill would have been acceptable, but the Democrat Harry Reid, on orders from the White House, demanded the bill be made “dirty” enough with harmful spending cuts to attract Tea-GOP votes. So when she pointed out this absurd revision was designed to make up for giving away the store last December in extending the Bush-Obama tax cuts, he couldn’t handle it.

But who can blame poor Ed, one of cable television’s most ardent liberal defenders, for snapping, wondering who is on whose side? One can only handle so much betrayal and cognitive dissonance before the mind’s defenses kick in to invent excuses for why your heroes only appear to be nuts.

…

So now we get to watch Harry Reid be the puppet for the CREEPs working for Mr. Obama as he turns a clean, common sense, analytically correct solution from Mr. McConnell into a “dirty” bill that slashes spending by a trillion and a half dollars or so and sets up procedures that allow Congress to slash more and be even less accountable and transparent than it already is. And the most tempting logical targets for the slashers in this process will be Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

The White House is not content with that terrible solution. No, they want something worse, like the Gang of Six mess whose framework and priorities mimic those of the Cat Food Commission. Since the media views only the debt reduction totals as the measure of the public interest, they have conveniently forgotten that the Simpson-Bowles recommendations, like the Gang of Six version, would worsen the inequality and maldistribution of the nation’s wealth.

That’s right. These geniuses believe the nation’s fiscal and economic problems stem from the richest not being favored enough and everyone else not giving enough to shared sacrifice. At the end of the day, the middle class and poor would be worse off, the wealthy would be even richer, and that outcome is what has the millionaires in the US Senate excited. They and their contributors would win, the rest of you would lose.

TheMomCat and I have been persuaded by long time contributor davidseth’s advocacy to support the California Prisoner’s Hunger Strike (commonly called the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike, though it has spread to other institutions).

What that means for you as readers and contributors is that we’ll be featuring pieces related to the strike as often as we can, even if there is some duplication in content and information.  This doesn’t mean that we’re uninterested in other subjects, but if you have something you’d care to add on the topic we certainly encourage you to do so.

It’s with that in mind I’d like to direct your attention to this post from FDL contributor Kevin Gosztola, who, with Jeff Kaye (Valtin), is now covering the civil liberties/justice/war crime beat (emptywheel and bmaz are now at www.emptywheel.net).

Pelican Bay Prisoner Hunger Strike: Prison Staff Not Following Medical Protocol

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Tuesday July 19, 2011 11:33 am

Prisoners engaged in a hunger strike at Pelican Bay supermax prison have been on strike for more than fifteen days now.  With a growing group of supporters on the outside, the strike against solitary confinement and other conditions in the prison has spread to at least thirteen other prisons. But, those providing support for the prisoners are concerned about the deteriorating physical conditions of the prisoners and whether the prison will be able to provide the prisoners with proper medical care.

Carol Strickman, staff attorney for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and staff to the mediation team representing the hunger strikers, reports medical protocol is not being followed. They are supposed to be doing “daily assessments after two days and that includes weighing, physical condition, emotional condition, vital signs (such as blood pressure) and hydration status.

…

Scales for weighing prisoners are not synchronized and sometimes the prison staff weighs prisoners with chains and sometimes without chains. So, the accuracy of information is questionable right now. Additionally, the doctors are supposed to be performing physical exams. Strickman reports, instead of providing physical exams, “The medical staff is doing what I have been told are called drive-by exams, where they stand outside the door with no physical contact and just ask if people are okay, which is basically saying, ‘Are you alive?'”

Strickman further reports “medications are being eliminated entirely or reduced.” Multivitamins and salt tablets were to be provided to prisoners. Prisoners were given a sheet of medical advice on what to do during the strike. Yet, none of the prisoners have been provided with any tablets.

…

“Many of these prisoners are older and have pre-existing conditions such as advanced lymphoma, congestive heart failure, hypertensive disease, debilitating muscle disease and so on,” Strickman explains. “So for all these reasons every day the situation is becoming more critical.”

News of deterioration of prisoners’ health may lead one to suggest that is what a prisoner gets for engaging in hunger striking or prisoner resistance activity. That may be true, but there is a callousness and inhumanity to such a statement. The prisoners have five core demands and, according to Molly Porzig, Critical Resistance representative in the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, they are asking for “incredibly standard” and “basic” adjustments to prison policy.

I hope this is resolved soon and without permanent damage to the striker’s health.

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Can Obama Pull a Clinton on the GOP?

Robert Reich

Friday, July 15, 2011

Some in the White House and on Wall Street assume the anemic recovery will turn stronger in the second half of the year, emerging full strength in 2012. They blame the anemia on disruptions in Japanese supply chains, bad weather, high oil prices, European debt crises, and whatever else they can come up with. These factors have contributed, but they’re not the big story.

When the Great Recession wiped out $7.8 trillion of home values, it crushed the nest eggs and eliminated the collateral of America’s middle class. As a result, consumer spending has been decimated. Households have been forced to reduce their debt to 115% of disposable personal income from 130% in 2007, and there’s more to come. Household debt averaged 75% of personal income between 1975 and 2000.

We’re in a vicious cycle in which job and wage losses further reduce Americans’ willingness to spend, which further slows the economy. Job growth has effectively stopped. The fraction of the population now working (58.2%) is near a 25-year low-lower than it was when recession officially ended in June 2009.

Wage growth has stopped as well. Average real hourly earnings for all employees declined by 1.1% between June 2009, when the recovery began, and May 2011. For the first time since World War II, there has been a decline in aggregate wages and salaries over seven quarters of post-recession recovery.

This is not Bill Clinton’s economy. So many jobs have been lost since Mr. Obama was elected that, even if job growth were to match the extraordinary pace of the late 1990s-averaging 300,000 to 350,000 per month-the unemployment rate wouldn’t fall below 6% until 2016. That pace of job growth is unlikely, to say the least. If Republicans manage to cut federal spending significantly between now and Election Day, while state outlays continue to shrink, the certain result is continued high unemployment and anemic growth.

Electoral Victory my ass.