RightWing campaign to minimize importanc

from Firedoglake 

…And So It Begins

Posted: 01 May 2011 10:13 PM PDT

Suspicion, fear, and douchebaggery. It’s their default setting…

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Birtherism is Racism. Period.

from Firedoglake

Early Morning Swim: Say It With Me Now, Everyone — Birtherism is Racism. Period. (VID)

Posted: 28 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT

After you watch this moving video by Baratunde Thurston, read this by former Bushie David Frum.

How did this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation get such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party?

I know there will be Republican writers and conservative publicists who will now deny that birtherism ever did get a grip. Sorry, that’s just wrong. Not only did Trump surge ahead in Republican polls by flaming racial fires – not only did conservative media outlets from Fox to Drudge to the Breitbart sites indulge the birthers – but so also did every Republican candidate who said, “I take the president at his word.” Birthers did not doubt thepresident’s “word.” They were doubting the official records of the state of Hawaii. It’s like answering a 9/11 conspiracist by saying, “I take the 9/11 families at their word that they lost their loved ones.”

Yet even now, the racialist aspect of the anti-Obama movement has not subsided.

Frum’s a little late to the party. Has he heard of the Southern Strategy or Lee Atwater?

But anyway, I blame Obama for not releasing the long-form first, thereby intentionally confusing these well-meaning folks.

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Main Street Rage

The Progress Report from www.thinkprogress.org

At town hall events across the country, Americans are confronting members of Congress who voted for the House Republicans' radical budget, which  effectively ends Medicare, slashes Medicaid, hacks away at domestic spending, and extends tax breaks for the wealthy. The entire House GOP caucus except for four lawmakers voted for Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) budget earlier this month, claiming a mandate from the November elections to drastically reduce domestic s pending. But Republicans went beyond any semblance of responsible budget tightening to a radical deconstruction of core pillars of the health, safety, and security of the country. Recent polls show  Americans are firmly opposed to Ryan's budget proposal, with over 70 percent of Republicans opposing cuts to Medicare, while over 80 percent of Americans overall disapprove of cuts to the social safety net program. And Americans are clearly demonstrating their displeasure with their GOP lawmakers, who are in their home districts for this month on recess from Congress. Last week, as lawmakers began holding town hall sessions in their districts, a number of Washington commentators wondered, "If the Ryan budget is so unpopular, where are the town-hall meltdowns?" This week,&nb sp;in the Washington commentariat got their answer as town hall anger went from a few isolated incidents to a daily deluge of passion and temper from Americans frustrated with their out-of-touch representatives. The town halls, like the opposition to the GOP budget more generally, were slow to begin in part because Ryan was so quick to act. While President Obama and congressional Democrats allowed for over a year of debate, study, and discussion on their health care reform law, House Republicans unveiled and voted on their plan to radically transform Medicare in a matter of weeks, giving opponents almost no time to mobilize against it or educate Americans about its effects. Moreover, those opposed to Ryan's plan don't have the constant cheerleading of right-wing talk radio and Fox News, which directly helped organize and promote the 2009 town halls. Nonetheless, as part of what the Progress Report has dubbed a Main Street Movement of average Americans upset that conservatives want to cut social services and public investment for everyday people while lavishing tax breaks on the wealthy and corporations, Americans are standing up to their lawmakers on their own.

MEDICARE: Many of the town hall protests this month have targeted freshmen Republicans from swing districts who were voted into office in last November's GOP wave. While voters may have wanted to send a message to Washington by electing a Republican, they have been dismayed by how radically right-wing their new congressmen have turned out to be. One of the first documented town hall protests last week was at a stop of freshman Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-PA). During the campaign, Meehan assured his future constituents that he wouldn't vote for Ryan's "agenda," but once in office, he did just that. "Meehan was asked about entitlement reform and Medicare at nearly every town hall he went to" last week, with constituents' anger visible. By the weekend, freshmen Reps. Robert Dold (R-IL), Charlie Bass&nb sp;(R-NH),  Sean Duffy (R-WI), and Lou Barletta (R-PA) had all faced constituent anger of their own over the GOP's Medicare privatization plan. At a town hall in Hillsborough, NH, the first six questions  Bass faced from constituents were about his vote to privatize Medicare. One attendee pointed out that what the Republicans are doing is pursuing a "divide and conquer"strategy by eliminating Medicare for future generations while keeping it for current seniors. At a town hall in Shell Late, WI, Duffy got into a heated exchange with constituents when he insisted that Ryan's plan does not effectively replace Medicare with a voucher system, but attendees repeatedly corrected him. Later, Duffy got huffy; frustrated by his constituents' questions about his presentation, he told attendees, "When you have your town hall you can stand up and give your presentation." Yesterday, cons tituent anger reached a boiling point at a town hall in Orlando for freshman Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) when   "bedlam" erupted as constituents angrily peppered him with questions about his vote for privatizing Medicare. Webster tried to avoid answering many of the questions, and eventually, conservative hecklers fired back at those trying to hold Webster accountable. Police officers flanked Webster and had to tell the crowd to quite down.  

TAXES: The other main theme constituents have been pressing their lawmakers on this month is tax fairness. Ryan's budget would   preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans while cutting corporate tax rates -- a proposal even Ryan's own constituents are not happy about. During a town hall meeting in Milton, WI, last week, a constituent who described himself as a "lifelong conservative" asked Ryan about the effects of growing income inequality in our nation. The constituent noted that huge income disparities contributed to the Great Depression and the Great Recession, and thus wanted to know why the congressman was "fighting to not let the tax breaks for the wealthy expire." Ryan responded by saying, "we do tax the top,"  eliciting a a chorus of boos and grumbling from attendees. Yesterday, Ryan faced chants of "Ryan stop lying!" at a town hall in Kenosha, WI, which drew a capacity crowd inside and over a 100 protesters outside. "Do not renew the Bush tax credit for the wealthy," one man demanded. Meanwhile, at a town hall in Salem, NY, Rep. Chris Gibson (R-NY) faced similar outbursts. In answering a question, Gibson said that Americans pay higher taxes because "here are people in the country that are not paying taxes because they're illegal [immigrants]." At this point, a town hall attendee cried out, " You mean like GE?! " forcing the congressman to say that he agreed that the company needs to pay its fair share. Audience members at Dold's town hall said they "don’t believe chopping 10 percentage points off the highest corporate tax rate will create jobs." At Duffy's town hall, one attendee said she agrees with Ryan's concerns about the deficit and "that’s why we have to raise taxes on the rich, and raise taxes on the corporations who have never been richer than they have now. And you guys just cut their taxes again." "Oh yeah!" another constituent responded.

'EVERY RIGHT TO SPEAK': During the 2009 town halls, which mostly targeted Democrats, Republican lawmakers repeatedly  praised tea party activists for their disruptions at town halls, saying it was important to let them have their voices heard. But now that they're on the receiving end of constituents' anger, it's unclear how much Republicans will embrace this democratic process. Ryan abruptly left a town hall yesterday ahead of schedule, citing "security concerns" from hecklers. But Ryan went through with a tow n hall  in 2009 despite credible threats against union members at the event. At a town hall in 2009, when a heckler disrupted Ryan and promoted boos from other audience members, Ryan told the crowd, " She has every right to talk , every right to speak." In an interview with Fox News at the time, Ryan said Obama's policies had driven people to the town halls, which he praised as a grass roots outpouring of "people up in arms" about bad policies. "[T]his is amazing," Ryan told a largely supportive town hall in Aug. 2009. Meanwhile, conservatives are trying to drown out progressives at today's town halls, with American Action Network -- a relatively new conservative front group founded by a group of Wall Street bankers -- loading up conservative activists& nbsp; with softball questions and talking points to bolster Republican lawmakers on the Ryan plan.

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BP profits Q1-2011: $7.1B. Up 16%

Those poor big oil companies. They all need corporate welfare in order to survive. Because TENS OF BILLION$ in just PROFITS isn't enough, so they need tax breaks too that we must pay by cutting healthcare to children, women, seniors, help to students, pensions to retirees and firing workers.

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Balance And Compromise

From Firedoglake

Balance And Compromise

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:01 PM PDT

Yesterday I was reading an excellent Rick Perlstein essayabout how lying became such an effective tool for the right over the last 40 years.  Essentially, his thesis is that the media have abandoned their quest for truth and replaced it with a quest for “balance,” with a little help from profit-minded executives, and a little more from Republicans who successfully rebranded truth as uncivil negativity.

The end result is that most of the media are now unwilling to take a stand for truth or reality.  At best, they present both sides even when only one has merit.  At worst, they present only the side with no merit at all.

Personally, I think Perlstein lets the media off too easy: All the monetary concerns and ref-working pale in comparison to the political interests of corporate and right-wing ownership.  The media use “profitability” as an excuse to gut investigative reporting, and the figleaf of “balance” to obscure naked untruths.

All this reminds me a lot of Barack Obama and the Democratic establishment.  They too depend on corporations for their present and future job security, and need to deliver for them without being too obvious about it.  So what do they do?  They “compromise.”

Even after back-to-back landslides delivered them the White House and huge majorities in both houses of Congress, they refused to take a stand for sound policy or Democratic principles.  Instead, they sought common ground with the Republicans no matter how wrong and cruel they might be, inching ever rightward until they achieved a suitably pro-corporate outcome.  And now that they have a Republican House and an almost-Republican Senate, that inching is even easier.

The media and the Democrats are playing the same game: Regardless of what truth or good policy may be, compulsively seek out a midpoint (or rather, rightpoint) between that and far-right lunacy and then pretend that the resulting mess somehow serves the public interest.

If Paul Ryan released a new “debt-cutting” plan that let all of America’s poor people starve and eliminated taxes on rich people and corporations, Obama would denounce it at first, but eventually announce a grand bipartisan  “compromise”: Let only half the poor starve, and reduce the corporate and upper-income tax brackets to 15% instead of zero.  And the media would praise him for his great courage and seriousness.

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Hedge Funds Abandon Obama

Barack Obama who came promising progressive change and the whole nation supported him with big a victory, later betrayed us all because, well, he had to pay back all that support. Now   After all those special interest got what they wanted from Obama (while the people who put him in office got nothing), they turned to the old ways and are supporting GOP back. What should we think about Obama? He is either a moron who thought hedge funds would be his allies or an opportunist who promised things to ordinary citizens just to get in power but his allegiance was really with the special interests (a tempting theory given all good progressive ideas he has let die). In any way the reality is that ordinary citizens aren't represented by corporate Democrats or Republicans. The only hope for all of us is to elect many more progressives at all levels of government. That is why I say again that progressive should not donate to democratic party organizations (your money will be used to help blue dogs). Donate to Progressive organizations and to Progressive candidates directly.

from Politico

TOP TALKER: HEDGE FUNDS SHORT OBAMA - WSJ's Brody Mullins, Susan Pulliam and Steve Eder on pg. A1: "Hedge-fund managers made a big bet on Barack Obama and other Democrats in 2008. Now, with the 2012 contest gearing up, some prominent fund managers have turned their backs on the party and are actively supporting Republicans. Daniel Loeb, founder of Third Point LLC, was one of the biggest Obama fund-raisers in 2008, rounding up $200,000 for him ... But since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Mr. Loeb has given $468,000 to Republican candidates and the GOP, and just $8,000 to Democrats. ... Mr. Loeb is part of a shift in political allegiance within the world of hedge funds that also includes such big names as Steven Cohen's SAC Capital Advisors and Kenneth Griffin's Citadel Investment Group." http://on.wsj.com/fbtaNp 

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The new corporate business model: higher

From BlogForArizona.com

Update) The new corporate business model: higher profits, fewer jobs

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 11:42 AM PDT

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a story I did not get to last week while the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature was laying waste to our state, the Wall Street Journal reported Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad (subscription) summarized at the Huffington Post, U.S Multinationals Increasingly Hiring Abroad, Firing At Home:

In the last decade, American multinational corporations, which together employ one-fifth of all U.S. workers, decreased domestic employment by 2.9 million workers while adding 2.4 million jobs overseas, the Commerce Department reported on Monday.

In 2009, a devastating year for the global economy, U.S. multinational companies' worldwide employment shrunk by 4.1 percent to 31.3 million workers. But the cuts were much sharper at home than abroad. Domestic employment by the same companies shrunk by 5.3 percent, leaving 21.1 million with jobs, while their overseas counterparts lost 1.5 percent of their workforce, with 10.3 million still employed.

"Emerging markets [are] growing at two-and-a-half times the speed of industrialized countries, which has made it imperative for companies to look abroad for opportunities," said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

For large American multinationals, the geopraphical calculus is simple: Follow the money.

"[The report] is not surprising at all. It is harder and harder for companies in the U.S. to find the right skilled labor at the right price point," said Dave Niles, president of SSA &Co, a global operations consulting firm.

Because for multinational corporations it's always about exploiting "cheap labor." They, of course, deny this:

General Electric Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt [the company that paid no U.S. income taxes] also told the WSJ moving abroad was less about cheap labor than about deploying resources in countries with growing demand for their products. In 2000, GE conducted 30 percent of its business in other countries; today, that figure reaches 60 percent.

This is true, but how exactly does this help Americans who are unemployed?

The Commerce Department's report cuts to the heart of a crucial question about the state of the American economy, economists say. Can growth abroad for U.S. corporations be good for both companies and consumers?

Some argue the trend toward hiring workers abroad benefits both groups. Firms enjoy lowered manufacturing costs and an increased access to foreign markets, while consumers can purchase cheaper goods.

"It's good for companies and its also in someways the unfortunate reality of our economy. Is it good for consumers? Yeah. Because you're getting higher quality product at a lower price," Niles said.

Wait for it, here comes the "Obvious Man" moment of "Doh!":

But other economists point out an apparent Catch 22. Even if some goods become more affordable, consumers' spending power is undercut when jobs disappear from the American economy.

"The long point of all of this is that those jobs that were generating solid wages are very few and far between in the United States now. You look around and ask yourself, where is the middle class? Where are they working and how much are they making?" asked Ken Perkins, president of the RetailMetrics LLC research firm. "The middle class is really what led to the boom of the retail industry ... Where is the American consumer going to get money to spend more?"

And here is the cold hard reality of the new corporate business model: higher profits, fewer jobs:

"One of the things that's generating the huge rebound in profits in the United States -- a rebound that is so astonishing that profits exceed what we saw at the peak of the last economic expansion -- is that the profits of these companies are more and more divorced from their actual operations here in the United States," said Gary Burtless, a economist at the Brookings Institute. "So now we can this situation where companies' profits are going gangbusters even though the U.S. economy has 8.8 percent unemployment."

* * *

"Most of the [new] employment that we will be seeing will be multinationals hiring in developing economies. That's where we'll see the most dynamic activity; that's where economic momentum will remain very strong."

Which begs the question, "why are we giving tax breaks to multinational corporations?" Lower corporate taxes won't create more jobs - Fortune Finance:

One of [Paul Ryan's] key proposals is to lower the income tax rate paid by corporations, from 35% to 25%, by eliminating several tax loopholes and deductions. Simplifying the tax code would certainly remove a lot of uncertainties from today's highly complex tax system. Executives have often complained that one of the reasons they've been holding off on new investments and more hiring is the unpredictable tax environment. But how will lowering the tax burden for companies that are already flushed with record levels of cash really going to make the average American better off?

Compared with other advanced economies, companies doing business in the U.S. already pay low taxes. It's true that at 35% the corporate tax rate is technicallyhigher than most major economies. But because of loopholes and other deductions, most companies pay significantly less – so the effective rate (or the percentage of corporate profits that is paid in federal corporate taxes) is about 13% to 15%, which is relatively low even by international standards. [And less than the rate you pay.]

* * *

[W]hat will lowering the corporate tax do?

For one, it likely won't create much more investment or create many more jobs, says Robert Lynch, economics professor at Washington College, who has done extensive research into taxation and economic development. In a 2004 study, Lynch found that firms don't necessarily relocate or expand to an area more just because it has lower taxes. What's more, while a lower tax rate reduces costs for companies and creates some positive effects on local economies, it doesn't necessarily create substantial jobs.

* * *

What worries the economist is that any cuts to corporate taxes would take funding away from other public services such as education, new roads and infrastructure projects that companies and the overall economy might gain more from. [The short-sighted approach the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature just adopted,]

"Companies aren't suffering from a lack of investment funds," Lynch says, pointing to record cash levels held by America's biggest companies. "What they're suffering from is lack of profitable investment opportunities."

Even as many non-financial companies sit on an estimated $2 trillion at a time when interest rates have remained at nearly 0%, executives still aren't hiring much. Indeed, much of that capital is sitting overseas and there's a coordinated push among some of America's biggest companies to bring those funds home at lower costs. Cisco (CSCO), Apple (AAPL), Duke Energy (DUK) and Pfizer (PFE) are leading an effort for a one-year tax holiday on foreign earnings that would allow companies to repatriate money at a much lower tax rate of about 5%.

Wait for it, here comes the next "Obvious Man" moment of "Doh!":

But while the idea of bringing more capital into the domestic economy sounds like a good thing, it won't likely mean much for the average American. In 2004, Congress approved a one-year tax holiday as part of a jobs package, resulting in companies bringing back $362 billion. But, as Fortune's Tory Newmyer pointed out in February, studies have shown that most of the funds went to shareholders. Even while Congress passed several rules to make sure the funds would get invested back into the companies, not very much went to research, investment or hiring.

* * *

If history tells us anything, [increased wages are] unlikely. The effective corporate tax rate has been steadily declining for decades. Corporations paid more than 49% of their profits in federal taxes in the 1950s, 38% in the 1960s, 33% in the 1970s and 25% in the 1980s. All the while, U.S. wages have been stagnant for years even as productivity has risen. Between 1989 and 2010, U.S. productivity grew by 62.5% -- far outpacing wages, which grew by only 12% during the same period, according to a March 2011 study by the Economic Policy Institute.

So what will a lower corporate tax rate do?

It will make the über-rich even richer and usher in the new order of corporatocracy and serfdom for the rest of us. If we don't reverse the tide now, it may be too late.

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