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San Antonio Elections: Requiem for a once great republic
Our beloved republic is a foregone dream. Even the founders were convinced of it. The social experiment is over. The revolution is lost. Jefferson and Adams realized it even as they reached the end of their lives within hours of each other on the same day---4 July 1826.
The big money never loses. They just keep moving from one continent and culture to another. And when at last we move on to another planet or a different time-space the oligarchs will rape, pillage and plunder there as well. It is their wont.
This isn’t me being morose. It is me being realistic. It is what the futurists have known. The rich and powerful are little more than capricious, mean-spirited bullies, unthinking and malevolent. It is the history of the world.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the headlines. Open your eyes.
San Antonio greatly affected if proposed budget is signed into law
Texas House Approves 2-Year Budget
Budget Makes Massive Cuts To Public Education, Health Care For Poor
http://www.ksat.com/politics/27418257/detail.html
Crisis? What Crisis? Average Bank Pay Kept Rising at the Same Rate
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/crisis-what-crisis-average-bank-pay-kept-rising-at-the-same-rate
The clear trend, in both nominal and absolute terms, is up: Over the last eight years, average compensation for a full-time bank employee has risen 35% to $83,050, twice the rate of inflation. In 2003, the banking industry's 1.3 million full-time employees took home $78.3 billion. In 2010, its 2.1 million employees took home $168.1 billion.
In the first half of that period, raises were to be expected given climbing industry profitability and bank equity's market gains. But the financial crisis appears to have had little impact on pay. Total compensation per full-time employee rose at the same pace from 2007 to 2010 as it did from 2004 to 2007. In the later time period, profitability plunged and the KBW bank index fell by more than 50%.
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/crisis-what-crisis-average-bank-pay-kept-rising-at-the-same-rate
The U.S. Chamber doesn’t speak for me
http://chamber.350.org/sign/pc/
Public Citizen
- $750 million: The amount President Barack Obama raised and spent in the 2008 campaign
- $1 billion: The estimated amount his campaign will cost in 2012
Oklahoma City Council members make just $12,000 a year, but apparently they are powerful enough to attract big bucks to their campaigns. Candidates and groups running independent campaigns to support candidates have raised $1.2 million and spent $1 million of that – an unprecedented amount, the Oklahoman reports. Two groups alone account for $545,000 of that. Although they are required to identify their donors, they merely list a nonprofit group as a donor, leaving the public in the dark as to who is really funneling money into the races.
Citizens United affects even local races, like this one in Alaska
An independent group is diving into the race for Anchorage’s Assembly, which is its city council. The new group, which is getting its money from developers and commercial real estate owners, is running ads designed to oust three progressive incumbents. Such independent spending would not have been possible for the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, an Alaska official told the Anchorage Daily News. That ruling gave corporations the green light to spend unlimited amounts of money to sway elections.
Tens of millions being raised for redistricting fights
Top Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are raising millions of unregulated money from hidden sources for redistricting fights, Politico reports. The lawmakers could raise upwards of $30 million. The Federal Election Commission has given its blessing; it voted last year to allow lawmakers to raise money for an organization called the National Democratic Redistricting Trust. It is anticipated that much of the money will go toward legal costs.
Two former White House aides mull creation of independent political group
Remember how in 2008 candidate Barack Obama decried special interests raising money for independent campaign efforts? How times have changed. It appears as though two former White House aides are going to launch an independent political group to help Obama and combat the flood of independent group spending on the GOP side.
Top 10 things every voter should know about money in politics
Our friends at the Center for Responsive Politics have put together the top 10 things every voter should know about money in politics. Number 8: Enforcement of campaign laws is weak. No. 7: The fundraising never stops. No. 2: Incumbents nearly always win. No. 1? Click here to find out.
U.S. Supreme Court hears challenge to Arizona clean elections law
U.S. Supreme Court justices this week heard arguments in a case challenging part of Arizona’s clean elections law. For proponents of the law, things didn’t go so well.
With higher dues, realtors may get say in political spending
The National Association of Realtors in May will ask its members if they support a dues increase to pay for political efforts to press for things like preserving the mortgage interest deduction. So far, the group has funded its political work by voluntary contributions. But since the Citizens United decision, the goalposts have changed, the groups said. The International Business Times summarized the group’s position: “[I]n the new political financing environment, it is both unrealistic and unnecessary to expect voluntary contributions to increase to the extent needed for realtors to maintain their influence.” If approved, dues would be raised from $80 to $120.
Romney giving lots of money to the Republican Party
Potential presidential contender Mitt Romney is currying favor with the Republican Party by sending money. Romney has sent $25,000 to New Jersey’s Republican Party, $5,000 each to the Wisconsin and Massachusetts state parties and $6,000 to New Hampshire’s state party. Oh, and he also has given more than $300,000 to Republicans in Congress.
Visit DemocracyIsForPeople.org to learn more!
When the products of our apartheid public education system armed with little, if any, knowledge and understanding and even less ability to think profoundly are in charge the republic is imperiled. It is what Alexander Hamilton termed “The Beast.”
From Texas Red: a cratered landscape of prisons, deplorable apartheid public education, lack of healthcare and politicians and majority population intent on keeping it that way…
Hasta Siempre,
More:
“It’s All Relative”
http://baselinescenario.com/2011/04/02/its-all-relative/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BaselineScenario+%28The+Baseline+Scenario%29&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail
New Dark Ages here we come…
Tea Party Gains Wide Support Among Conservatives
As Democrats accuse Republican congressional leaders of being co-opted by the Tea Party in the federal budget negotiations, a new survey shows that half of all conservative voters ardently support the movement.
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/135011774/tea-party-gains-wide-support-among-conservatives&sc=nl&cc=ph-20110403
A New Hampshire woman is upset that NPR isn't treating Japan's nuclear crisis seriously. Another complains that earthquake coverage is "trivial." Someone wonders if a story about neon lights going dim in Tokyo is worthwhile when 27,000 people are dead or missing.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2011/04/01/135039540/npr-s-coverage-of-japan-is-trivial-say-what?sc=nl&cc=omb-20110402
Why the Housing Market is Three Times Worse Than You Think
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/why-the-housing-market-is-three-times-worse-than-you-think.html
13 Bankers
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future
PEW religion and democracy in the U.S
Bill Moyers on Plutonomy
A People's History of the United States – Howard Zinn
Women’s Reality: An Emerging Femail System
The Conscience of a Liberal
Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
the quintessential compassionate conservative Christian nutjob
Florida pastor Terry Jones’s Koran burning has far-reaching effect
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/florida-pastor-terry-joness-koran-burning-has-far-reaching-effect/2011/04/02/AFpiFoQC_story.html?nl_headlines
Noam Chomsky - The Political system in the USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk8pxyAWTBk
Feds seek $7M in privately made 'Liberty Dollars'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_liberty_dollars_raid
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