Electronic Pen

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Four North Georgia senior citizens may have redefined what it means to have a senior moment. Were four old guys sitting around eating waffles and just blowing smoke, or were they really interested in a final shot at immortality? If the allegations that they planned to assassinate government officials and wreak havoc on the city of Atlanta are true, those seniors' "bucket list" contained a heap of militia movement mayhem.

According to government officials, Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, Ray Adams, 65, and Samuel Crump, 68, all of Toccoa, were involved in a plot to attack federal office buildings and to disperse a deadly biological poison in Atlanta (http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_U.S.%20news/Crime%20&%20courts/GAmilitia.pdf).

"Their alleged plot was revealed to the FBI by a confidential informant last spring, and members of the group have been meeting since May with someone they thought was a black-market weapons dealer but who turned out to be an undercover federal agent, according to court documents," NBC News' Pete Williams reported.

"I'd say the first ones that need to die is the ones in the government buildings," Adams was overheard saying in an April 16 meeting, according to the FBI. "When it comes down to it, I can kill somebody," he allegedly said.

The FBI also alleges that, "Thomas, Roberts and others discussed the need to obtain unregistered silencers and explosive devices for use in attacks against federal government buildings and employees, as well as against local police."

"While many are focused on the threat posed by international violent extremists, this case demonstrates that we must also remain vigilant in protecting our country from citizens within our own borders who threaten our safety and security," said U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates.

"While the details of the plot may sound implausible at first glance, further details about those involved indicate that the potential for serious harm was very real," Devin Burghart, vice president of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR), told me in an email. "Some of the individuals arrested for this plot had been steeped in the violent conspiracies of the militia movement for over a decade and they may have felt that they had nothing left to lose-a potentially deadly combination that needed to be taken seriously. Thankfully no one was harmed."

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

In a stunning analysis of the "performance artist" known as Herman Cain, Rachel Maddow lays out a devastating argument that we are being "punked" by a "satirical" campaign that has heavily borrowed from the video game Sim City, the kids' movie "Pokemon" and even a quotation from Chris Tucker in "Rush Hour 3."

No, Maddow is not making this up. Last week, at a high-profile meeting of the Koch brothers' America for Prosperity, Cain delivered the crowd-pleasing line: "I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother." Maddow followed Cain's paraphrased statement with the original line uttered by Chris Tucker in "Rush Hour 3."

Where might Cain's dubious 9-9-9 tax plan have been formed? Maddow makes a strong case it is derived from the tax structure used in the fictional video game Sim City. As for a key section of Cain's closing statement at an Iowa GOP presidential debate, it came verbatim from a song in the animated movie version of "Pokemon."

Maddow points out that Cain pulls Sarah Palins at every turn in terms of being unaware of basic foreign policy and domestic issues that would face a president, baffling even Chris Wallace and John Stossel of Fox with his answers to questions.

One could argue that Cain's high GOP polling numbers are due to the successful Madison Avenue "packaging" of a presidential candidate. That would make the Cain bid consistent with the modern era of national campaigns as detailed in the seminal book by Joe McGinniss on the 1968 Nixon campaign, "The Selling of the President." But Cain's "run for the presidency" is closer to Jerzy Kosinki's, "Being There," a novel about a gardener lacking in knowledge whose simple statements are mistaken for wisdom and who rises to the highest levels of government influence.

Calling Cain's daily gaffes "too perfect" not to be planned, Maddow believes that Cain never expected to be taken seriously, but was just looking for his moment in history as flavor of the month. But the American public, or at least many Republicans, can no longer distinguish between plagiarized entertainment sound bites and effective public policy.

Speaking of "flavor of the month," Maddow notes that Cain asserted that if he were an ice cream flavor that he would be Haagen Dazs black walnut, because it's a flavor, like him, that will always be around - that, according to Cain, "has staying power."

Haagen-Dazs, Maddow clarifies, no longer manufactures the flavor black walnut.

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BOB FITRAKIS AND HARVEY WASSERMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Tuesday's most important vote is the repeal of Ohio's vicious anti-labor Issue 2.

Polls show the repeal winning by 20% or more. But will it - like the 2004 presidential election - be stolen by a 1% intent on crushing working people and stealing huge sums of money?

Like Wisconsin's millionaire assault on the bargaining rights of public unions, the thoroughly bought Ohio legislature has passed a draconian law aimed at crippling the organizing ability of working people.

The attack has the loud, persistent support of Wall Street's hand-picked Governor John Kasich, who made millions as a Foxist commentator and Lehman bond dealer. Among other things, Kasich helped pawn $400 million in Lehman's junk bonds onto the Ohio teacher's pension fund, making him a multi-millionaire. Control of that money would be directly affected by the outcome of this referendum.

The legislature's original passage of the anti-labor bill drew thousands of demonstrators to the statehouse lawn and key locations throughout the Buckeye State. The pre-occupy rallies got ardent support from progressive, union and working people across Ohio's political spectrum.

But the vast, apparently limitless resources of corporate America have been polluting the Ohio media and distorting the nature of the vote in an attempt to thoroughly confuse voters, who must vote no on this issue to defeat the bill. Since corporations are now considered "people," with no real limits on what can be spent, the corporate anti-labor deluge has been horrific.

But, that's only the beginning. In 2004, the Ohio's GOP control of the governorship and Secretary of State's office made possible the theft of the presidency for George W. Bush. Though highly sophisticated exit polls showed John Kerry winning the state by more than 4%, the "official" outcome had him losing Ohio's 20 electoral votes - and thus the White House - by more than 2%.

By all credible estimates such a shift of more than 6% was a statistical impossibility. It was primarily engineered by Bush consigliere Karl Rove and Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Rove and Blackwell helped knock a half-million or more primarily Democratic voters off of Ohio's registration rolls prior to election day. Despite the obvious irregularities that defined the registration process, voting procedures, ballot tabulations and final electronic manipulations, John Kerry conceded Ohio - and the election - with more than 200,000 votes left uncounted.

In July of this year, www.freepress.org posted the architectural maps used in Blackwell's 2004 voting operation in Ohio. His electronic reporting operation was designed by a partisan Republican firm, GovTech and linked directly to servers at the premier Republican and right-wing tech company SmarTech in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In the 2005 election, a corporate coalition parallel to the one fighting to crush worker rights this year worked on a comparable issue. In reaction to the theft of the vote in 2004, a popular uprising had designed Issue 2 to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early by mail or in person.

Two days before the 2005 vote, the Republican-leaning Columbus Dispatch poll showed that Issue 2 passed by 26 points, 59% to 33%.

But, on that November 8 (the same day as this year's vote), Blackwell oversaw the defeat of Issue 2 with the utterly implausible support of 63.5%. Once again, the shift from pre-election polling to final "official" vote count was a virtual statistical impossibility.

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NIKOLAS KOZLOFF FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As an undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley in the late 1980s, I did not visit the nearby city of Oakland very frequently. For the most part, I was ensconced in my own student circles and, to the extent that I got involved in politics, it was the local campus activist scene which drew me in with its focus on Central America and US counterinsurgency efforts in the region. To be sure, Oakland had a radical tradition going back to the 1960s and the Black Panther movement, yet by the time I was in school that era was already a distant memory for many.

If there was any doubt about Oakland's radical stripes, however, then yesterday's general strike will certainly dispel any such notions. Galvanized by tumultuous developments over the past several weeks, in particular a nasty police crackdown on a local "Occupy" encampment, activists moved to effectively shut down the city by carrying out a general strike. Activists were particularly incensed by violent police tactics including use of tear gas and even grenades. During nighttime unrest, an Iraq war veteran was hit with a projectile and suffered a skull fracture.

Spurred on by the need to end police brutality, defend schools and libraries against local closures, and put an end to overall economic inequality, Occupy Oakland called for a day of action in which the circulation of capital would be blockaded, students would walk out of class, and various occupations would be staged around the city. Oakland is particularly important to commerce as the local port is the fifth largest in the country, and though union officials did not authorize a strike, many longshoremen voiced support for Occupy's efforts.

The Unusual Weapon of the General Strike

As I explained in another piece, general strikes are practically unheard of in the United States. Indeed, the Oakland unrest marks the first general strike in the country in 65 years. One notable exception to this pattern of labor docility was the Seattle general strike of 1919, which in my estimation holds profound historic lessons for anti-capitalist protesters in Lower Manhattan. For the most part, however, US labor has shied away from such confrontational tactics, and this has posed a great tactical dilemma for the left according to veteran organizers.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Does Boehner mean it or is this lifelong
Smoker just blowing smoke? Anyhoo,
This kinda sounds like Dubya did when
He used to call Ken Lay “Kenny Who?”

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A BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT NEWS ALERT

The following is a statement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont - I):

As a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, the American people have experienced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs, homes, life savings, and ability to send their kids to college. Small businesses have been unable to get the credit they need to expand their businesses, and credit is still extremely tight. Wages as a share of national income are now at the lowest level since the Great Depression, and the number of Americans living in poverty is at an all-time high.

Meanwhile, when small-business owners were being turned down for loans at private banks and millions of Americans were being kicked out of their homes, the Federal Reserve provided the largest taxpayer-financed bailout in the history of the world to Wall Street and too-big-to-fail institutions, with virtually no strings attached.

Over two years ago, I asked Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, a few simple questions that I thought the American people had a right to know: Who got money through the Fed bailout? How much did they receive? What were the terms of this assistance?

Incredibly, the chairman of the Fed refused to answer these fundamental questions about how trillions of taxpayer dollars were being spent.

The American people are finally getting answers to these questions thanks to an amendment I included in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill which required the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to audit and investigate conflicts of interest at the Fed. Those answers raise grave questions about the Federal Reserve and how it operates -- and whose interests it serves.

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A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

The following is a November 4th statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus opposing a slap on the wrist White House settlement with big Wall Street banks who committed mortgage fraud and ruinous speculation:

Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), Co-Chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), today released the following statement in response to the proposed $25 billion settlement currently under negotiation by the state Attorneys General and the U.S. Department of Justice with banks largely responsible for the national foreclosure crisis:

"Across the country, Americans are outraged and taking to the streets to demand accountability from the big Wall Street banks whose reckless actions cost millions of families their homes and wreaked havoc on the American middle class.

We applaud President Obama and the Justice Department for this effort to hold these banks accountable. However, a $25 billion settlement pales in comparison to the trillions of dollars in lost home equity, retirement savings and exploding public debt caused by these institutions.

We stand in support of the numerous Attorneys General that have demanded a better deal for homeowners in their states, from New York to California.

Instead of immunity for Wall Street banks, let's stand with the American people and demand a fair deal for homeowners."

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As has been now widely reported in the national and local media, after a peaceful march on Wednesday, November 2nd that shut down the Port of Oakland, a relatively small band of people occupied an abandoned building in downtown Oakland, broke windows around the downtown area, and spray-painted slogans during the early Thursday morning hours - defacing many small downtown businesses, including businesses that had been supportive of the goals of Occupy Oakland.

Every nascent movement has its fair share of mischief-makers. Sometimes police provocateurs lurk in a crowd waiting for an opportunity to disrupt a demonstration. Sometimes there are those who see no other way forward but by instigating violence; some call it heightening the contradictions.

The November 2nd General Strike shut down several city banks, garnered support from a number of other businesses and blocked the night shift at the Port of Oakland the fifth busiest port in the U.S. Some 7 to 10,000 peaceful protesters (including yours truly) - from all walks of life - participated in these marches and rallies.  Labor was broadly represented.

Many who participated were undoubtedly new to political action. Tired but euphoric, Occupy campers and thousands of protesters returned to their tent city and homes believing that the General Strike -- the first in Oakland since 1946, succeeded in its mission.

Demonstrators in several cities around the country, including Philadelphia and New York, held solidarity rallies with Occupy Oakland. The early reporting in the mainstream press and on local television lauded the protesters for their numbers, their diversity and their non-violence.

It had been a good day for Occupy Oakland and the Occupy movement in general.

And then a small band of protesters sprang into action. The mayhem that ensued was unfortunate, counter-productive and stole the day.

An abandoned building in downtown was occupied, many storefront windows were shattered - including those of businesses that had supported the strike, fences were ripped down, graffiti sprayed, and the police predictably attacked. This time, unlike the police riot in late October - when the police used tear gas and rubber bullets, during which Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was hospitalized with a critical skull fracture after he was hit with a projectile -- which brought national attention to Occupy Oakland, and support from all across the country, police use of tear gas and "flash bang" grenades action would not garner sympathy from folks across the country.

Instead of headlines about the huge crowd, its' diversity and peacefulness, the headlines on Thursday morning read: "Occupy Oakland Protesters Tear Gassed by Police" (ABC News); "Riot police fire projectiles, arrest dozens of Occupy Oakland protesters" (Los Angeles Times); "Occupy strike descends into chaos" (San Francisco Chronicle); "Peaceful Occupy protests degenerate into chaos" (AP). The Oakland Tribune, the local daily newspaper, headlined its story "Occupy Oakland, city regroup after night of confrontation."

Movement building is both an art and science, and its ebb and flow can be shaped by unforeseen events. In the case of Occupy Oakland, it was the confluence of the initiative of a few dozen protesters, a city of political activists, a righteous cause "We are the 99%," and a police riot that ultimately brought thousands to downtown Oakland.

Savvy organizers were able to mobilize quickly and effectively. The movement broadened from dozens in tents camped out at Frank Ogawa Plaza (renamed by the protesters Oscar Grant Plaza after the young unarmed man killed by BART police) to thousands. Teachers, public employees, office workers, the unemployed, students, seniors, and Mothers with children in strollers joined the activists that initiated Occupy Oakland. In terms of age, ethnicity and race it was a very diverse crowd.

Growing a movement often depends on how it is perceived. If it is dynamic, creative and achieves some of its goals, more people will join. Even small victories will bring more people and more energy to the movement.

Randy Gould, the Kansas City, Missouri-based editor of Scission (formerly The Oread Daily), who has been involved with his local Occupy movement and closely following national developments, offered this perspective:

"Most every Occupy Site in the country has people arguing about this today. Many opinions are being expressed. Keep in mind that the whole Occupy Movement is one big populist shindig.  It may vary from place to place, but the 'Occupations' are full of people from all over the political spectrum.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The right-wing American Family Association (AFA) victimizes women twice when it comes to the violence and profound emotional trauma of being raped.

The AFA is vigorously supporting voter approval next week of a Mississippi State constitutional amendment to recognize fertilized eggs as "persons," thus making abortion - and even certain birth control methods - an act of murder.

In an AFA email for their online newsletter, OneNewsNow.com, there is a link for a story exclaiming: "Rape no excuse for abortion." Clicking on the story, one meets Ashley Sigrest of Brandon, Mississippi, who was raped and had an abortion, which she now regrets, 13 years ago. Sigrest held a news conference, at which she stated, according to the AFA:

"My rape was nothing compared to what I did to my child," she stated to the gallery. "What my rapist did to me does not compare to what I chose to do to my baby ... out of shame, out of guilt, out of fear because of what a man did to me. Rape is no excuse for abortion...."

As for the rapist, Sigrest says she prays for him every day. And when asked how she will vote on the amendment next Tuesday? "I am going to vote yes - very proudly and very loudly - on 26 [the number of the ballot initiative]."

It is important to remember that allowing a women - the victim of rape, incest, or otherwise - to have an abortion did not in any way prevent Sigrest from having borne the child that was conceived as the result of a heinous crime. That was and is her choice right now in the State of Mississippi and throughout the United States.

But the Mississippi constitutional amendment would forbid victims of rape who do not want to bear a rapist's child from aborting the violently forced pregnancy.

According to the Feminist Majority Foundation:

"The implications are staggering. By giving constitutional rights to a fertilized egg, the amendment could ban emergency contraception, birth control pills and IUDs as well as all abortions, even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the woman or girl. It could eliminate medical choices for women, such as some cancer treatments or in vitro fertilization. It could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage. Undoubtedly it would lead to many court cases."

The amendment is so egregious that even the conservative, heavily anti-abortion Gov. of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, is expressing his "concerns" about the implications of the initiative.

Legalizing "personhood and constitutional rights for a fertilized egg" is taking away those rights from women.

No one forced Sigrest to have an abortion. It was her own personal choice, as it should be.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

BuzzFlash at Truthout was hacked this morning by those who can't stand the truth.

We removed the locked "survey screen" that was maliciously inserted by an outside party that obviously wishes to drive readership away from the site.  BuzzFlash at Truthout has been a vigilant, irreverent watchdog for more than 11 years. The truth will not be stopped.

These type of attacks -- although varying in form -- have also been launched on Truthout, our parent site, in the past year.  It is clear that there are Americans and agendas simply too threatened by fearless sites and bold reporting and commentary.

BuzzFlash and Truthout do not accept any corporate advertising -- in fact, any advertising -- and that is a threat to many, because we can't be bought.

BuzzFlash and Truthout may be hacked again, but we will forge ahead with our mission of getting you the news and opinion that discloses the truth and energizes change.

You can help us overcome those who would prefer darkness to light by encouraging others to read BuzzFlash and Truthout. Sign up for our newsletter at the upper right hand corner of Truthout.org, follow BuzzFlash and Truthout on Facebook, or make a tax-free contribution by going to our donation page.

Trust us. In the end, no hackers will hack away at the truth, however they might try.

Your energized readership and support makes sure of that.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Some Iraq/Afghanistan veterans finally are fighting in a war worth winning: the battle for America's 99 percent.

On Wednesday, in a dramatic display of support for the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, veterans of America's recent wars for oil marched and spoke in support of OWS. They were not the first veterans to back economic democracy at home, in this case with a military precision march through southern Manhattan. Indeed, many of them participated in yesterday's show of support for OWS in honor of Scott Olsen. Olsen is still recovering from a traumatic head injury sustained in last Tuesday's Oakland Police Department assault on Occupy Oakland.

A few weeks ago, a video clip went viral of an Iraq war veteran, in uniform, berating New York Police Department (NYPD) members for their continued attacks on OWS protesters. It was a remarkably dramatic moment, with one former marine facing off against a phalanx of NYPD officers. "Why are you hurting these [unarmed] people?" the former marine exclaimed, "There is no honor in this."

It is speculative, but undoubtedly true, that few of the top 1 percent or their offspring serve as the cannon fodder in our wars for oil, natural resources and geo-positioning for corporate markets. Just look at Mitt Romney's five sons. Not a one of them entered the military.

To see veterans participate in the now-famous human microphone (to avoid the NYPD arresting them for using a megaphone) is to be stirred to a renewed sense of patriotism. To hear them declare that "this is the only occupation [OWS] that I believe in" is to receive a chill down the spine.

As a nation, we sent these volunteer soldiers - many of whom joined the military because they couldn't find jobs elsewhere and came home to unemployment - to fight in wars to largely benefit the interests and finances of the top 1 percent.

The "Masters of the Universe" on Wall Street and the political status quo in DC cannot easily dismiss them.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Bashar Assad seems quite unaware; guys like

Him being out of touch are legion ---

So much so he seems not to know big temblors

Have already been hitting that region.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's not your father's (or grandfather's) Woodstock and it isn't a tea party!

To borrow a construct from New York magazine writer at large Frank Rich, "Few movements can muscle their way onto center stage in our Corporate-Democratic/Republican Party saturated political universe." Against all odds, Occupy Wall Street, and spin offs across the country, is muscling its way, albeit non-violently, and has transformed the national dialogue; in under two months.

One of the reasons, that the Occupy Movement may have a longer shelf life than the Tea Party movement is that it is becoming a cultural phenomenon. While the Tea Party with its angry, white, flag-waving older demographic, has stimulated lots of media coverage, warmed the hearts of its billionaire funders (read that: the Koch Brothers), and has managed to amass a significant amount of political power, it has had limited appeal to the majority of Americans. And, it is a movement that has been fading rapidly.

Flags, guns, tea bags, and three-cornered hats while popular with a certain segment of the public, are not cutting-edge cultural expressions. In contrast, Occupy Wall Street is more inclusive; lots of young people, Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, small business owners, and labor and progressive activists have brought new ideas and insights about the building of a movement. And, along the way, this burgeoning movement has unleashed sparks of creativity Tea Partiers could just dream about; the posters at Occupy Wall Street, and my hometown, Occupy Oakland, are truly amazing (http://www.occupyoakland.org/2011/10/awesome-posters-for-nov-2-general-strike/.)

However, wherever there is a potentially responsive youth demographic, commercial hucksters will certainly be lurking.

Unlike the early days of some of its predecessor movements --  hippies, anti-war, women's, civil and gay rights movements, Occupy is trying to mainstream its message - "we are the 99 percent."

Invariably with mainstreaming comes commercial expression and exploitation, a mixed blessing to be sure.

How deeply is the Occupy Movement embedding itself in our mass culture? Right now, it is too early to tell. The Occupy Movement, which is about being present - non-violently -- to protest economic inequities, corporate greed, and the corporate control of our democracy, has been building through twenty-first century social networking -- Facebook, tweets, YouTube, simultaneous transmissions of video, blog posts. But the key element is being there, tents on the ground.

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There is a tendency in this country for people to insist that coverage of every issue be "fair and balanced." In fact Fox cable news has used that very description to claim an impartial-observer status that is laughably far from accurate. Most of us have given up even trying to ferret out a basis for its claim and have settled on the preponderantly partisan message it delivers instead of real news coverage.

Thus, when members of Congress, pundits on the right and candidates for office suggest that the Democratic Party and its advocates speak out of self interest and follow the dictates of their leaders one is inclined to look more closely at exactly what is going on. Should the ground be leveled to include all points of view and discussions include a give- and-take that avoids being set in ways that preclude compromise and a clear vision of 'the big picture?'

Is it possible to ignore the obvious flaws in partisan declarations and just say people have a right to express opinions that some of us don't like? As is often pointed out, however, of course everyone is entitled to an opinion but not to a deviant set of facts. Imagine, in the latest dustup over candidate Cain's inability to get his story straight, that charges of sexual harassment on his part are false. So be it. But the amazing part is that all the usual suspects on the right have come out swinging to defend him, recalling the so-called "high tech lynching" of Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas and insisting that Cain's problems are the result of liberal tinkering because, as Ann Colter would have it, the left simply can't abide a black conservative on any level. Of course it makes no sense whatsoever for liberals to attack Cain for partisan reasons since he is such a buffoon he seals his own fate every time he makes a public statement.

And ignore for the moment the non-stop character assassinations of Anita Hill, who made the charges against Thomas. And forget that he is one of the least distinguished jurors in recent times to make it on to the court. It seemed obvious at the time that President Bush chose Thomas to replace Thurgood Marshall because he was black, and conservative at that, although he was in no may a match for the man he was replacing either in character or jurisprudence. Bush injected the racial issue in a strange sort of way and now the court must indulge this very inadequate person who passes judgment in cases about which he has predetermined the outcome even before they are presented before the court. Recently Thomas' wife called on him to apologize to Anita Hill for attaching validity to the claims she made during the confirmation process. A right-wing promoter, Mrs.Thomas should really just tend to her knitting behind the scenes instead of of introducing her far-right perspective into the business of the court.

It is difficult indeed to pretend there's a balanced way to discuss some of the political positions foisted upon the public. Is it reasonable to assume that Republicans in Congress are so convinced of their positions that they vote en-masse to negate any proposals the President and Democrats make or does the term "obstructionist" fit perfectly? Why is it Senate Leader McConnell's statement that his party's most important objective is to make Obama a one-term president strikes such a strident note? What should be done about unemployment, the deficit, rising health-care costs? Are those inconsequential matters and not the business of elected leaders? How does one square the oath of office holders swore to uphold with the pledge so many of them took in response to that angry-looking Muppet, Grover Norquist, not to raise taxes?

There's an absurdist quotient in some of the positions Republicans take that makes it hard to accept them as reasonable contributors to the national debate. Recently on Al Sharpton's show there was a visual showing the huge disparity between the very wealthy top one percent, the next much lower percent of wage earners and the bottom - - a stark depiction of what has happened to the country in terms of wealth distribution. In response Michael Steele, former Republican Party Chairman suggested that the illustrations failed to acknowledge how many in the middle had climbed into the top one percent, as if that were even a remotely relevant possibility. Please.

Reasonable people may disagree, but reason should nevertheless inform the debate, something that isn't happening with any regularity in political circles these days.

ROBERT C. KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

"Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014."

I pluck a paragraph from the New York Times and for an instant I'm possessed by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, aquiver with puzzlement down to my deepest sensibilities. I hold you here, root and all, little paragraph. But if I could understand what you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what empire is, and hubris . . . and maybe even, by its striking absence, democracy.

The paragraph contains the careful verbiage of exclusion, which is the only language in which the geopolitical powers that be are able to communicate.

The paragraph, one of many that could have been plucked for study and put under the microscope of outrage, is from a story just before Halloween, by Thom Shanker and Steven Lee Myers, informing us that, while the United States will be pulling troops out of Iraq at the end of the year, the regional war is anything but over: The U.S. military will be massing troops in Kuwait, sending more warships to the region and tightening its military alliance with the six nations that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain), in order to develop "a new security architecture" in the Gulf and establish its "post-Iraq footprint."

Or in the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region." And this, she explains, "is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region," which we care about because it "holds such promise" - oh God, the compassion is killing me - "and should be freed from outside interference to continue on a pathway to democracy."

What's striking, first of all, is that the "news" is presented to us, under the guise of objective reporting, as a fait accompli: Our supreme leaders have the following plans, the cursory details of which they are nice enough to let us in on.

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STEVEN JONAS, MD, MPH FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

I have just finished a book by John Grisham entitled The Broker, published in 2005.  "The Broker" in question is not a real estate or stock-broker, but rather one of an ilk that when I was a boy many years ago was called an "influence peddler."  They now go by the more polite name of "lobbyist."  Anyway, this larger-than-life Jack Abramoff-type had been caught dabbling in some very highly sensitive security-stuff (which Abramoff himself was apparently smart enough never to have done).  The plot revolves around the determination of the CIA to have him dead, for a variety of reasons.  They have two problems.  A) he is in Federal prison and B) US government agencies cannot, under the law, just go around murdering US citizens.  And so, the CIA arranges to have him paroled by a neer-do-well outgoing President and then ships him off to Italy where, they hope, one of several nations interested in achieving the same end will find him and do the job themselves.

The story is told with Grisham's usual panache, but if he were to try to write it today he could not use the same plot.  For, as is now well-known, the US can, and does, go around murdering (or executing or assassinating [from the Arab word for political murder]) US citizens that it has in its sights.  And it does this without the benefit of physical capture, indictment, trial, or what-have-you, as prescribed under the fourth and sixth Amendments to the Constitution.  The death of Mr. Anwar el-Awlaki at the hands of a US drone aircraft in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011 is just one piece of evidence that what might be called "Cheneyism" has triumphed over traditional constitutional democracy in our nation.

Dick Cheney, self-nominated for the position and accepted, apparently without question, for it, was easily the most powerful Vice-President the U.S. has ever had.  His hand, either openly with is name on it, or covertly without, was on virtually every major foreign and domestic policy decision made during the Presidency of George W. Bush.  And many of them, in one way or another, continue to be followed under the presidency of Barack Obama.  But the essence of cheneyism is its assault on U. S. Constitutional government.  Let us count the ways.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

The dark side of the mayor of New York is blooming.

Yes, in recent BuzzFlash at Truthout commentaries, BuzzFlash has noted that Mayor Bloomberg - who is worth nearly 20 billion dollars - has lately dropped his veneer of being a "sensible centrist" and become a full-out wacko for Wall Street. The normally articulate and poised 12th-richest person in America has started to stumble as he strains to make arguments in defense of the financial industry.

But there is a motivation to Bloomberg's recent ramblings and his strategic and sometimes brutal assault on Occupy Wall Street (OWS); he is embodying crony capitalism. His "third way" veneer of nonpartisan government is giving way to cliched and inaccurate right-wing Republican message points on behalf of the richest Americans.

Take Bloomberg's latest salvo on OWS. The multibillionaire, who made his fortune on a software tool used by the financial industry to assess the risks on their bets, is blaming the federal government for the economic meltdown. This week, he lectured the OWS movement on its alleged "naivete."

According to the web site Capital, Bloomberg told business leaders at a breakfast on November 1:

It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp....

They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it's one target, it's easy to blame them and congress certainly isn't going to blame themselves.

Capital also quoted Bloomberg as saying that it was "cathartic" and "entertaining" to blame people (i.e., the "victims" on "Wall Street").

But numerous experts have refuted Bloomberg's "the 1% are guiltless" Republican claim, including Paul Krugman, who notes, that "the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was irrelevant to the subprime boom, which was overwhelmingly driven by loan originators not subject to the Act."

Media Matters has totally debunked Bloomberg's revisionist exculpation of Wall Street:

Private firms dominated the subprime market boom of 2004-06, and were not even subject to the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act some Republicans vilify. Thanks to decades of financial deregulation, capped by President Bush's decision to appoint Wall Street regulators who believed their job was to help banks rather than curb banking abuses, financial giants were able to turn the mortgage market into a high-stakes casino. As investigative reporters and Congress' Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission have all shown, it was deregulation mixed with irresponsible and potentially illegal practices by private firms on Wall Street that caused both the bubble and the collapse.

In a rambling radio interview a couple of weeks back, Bloomberg claimed that "the protesters are protesting against people who make $40-50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line."

No, the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, Bloomberg is all about protecting his fellow billionaires on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.

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When Timothy Geithner headed the New York Federal Reserve Bank (NYFRB) in 2008, it paid credit-default swaps clients of AIG the full dollar value on their contracts, even though the NYFRB could have almost certainly paid much less.

In essence, according to a November 1 article in The New York Times, that means the likes of Goldman Sachs got a full taxpayer reimbursement for their risky investments gone sour, even though if AIG had been allowed to collapse, the 16 Wall Street AIG "clients" would have likely gotten much, much less - if anything - through bankruptcy proceedings.

Geithner and the NYFRB appeared to treat Wall Street "Master of the Universe" risk takers as deserving of having their bets fully covered by the house - meaning the American taxpayer.

As The New York Times notes about the just-released Government Accounting Office (GAO) report:

Federal Reserve officials in Washington expected that the New York Fed would negotiate discounts with those companies since, without the government's intervention, they might have received far less.

An analysis commissioned by the New York Fed recommended concessions around $1.1 billion to $6.4 billion....

Although the NYFRB offered the GAO many justifications for the generous AIG client payouts under Geithner, "the Fed's actions contrast with the agreement that European governments, led by Chancellor Angela Markel of Germany, secured from some of the same institutions in October to accept discounts of up to 50 percent on their holdings of Greek debt," according to the Times.

Furthermore, even if an AIG client would only have lost 1 percent on the original value of the credit-default swaps, the NYFRB reimbursed that firm 100 percent of that value, according to the GAO.

The GAO report notes, as the Times reports, "the expressed willingness of some of the companies to accept smaller payments. In one case, when a company offered to accept a smaller amount of money, officials at the New York Fed responded that they had decided to pay the full amount of the debt, the report said."

Normally, when a firm can no longer meet its debt obligations, it files for bankruptcy and a judge oversees heavily discounted settlements on the dollar, if there are any remaining assets.

But the GAO report reveals that, once again, under Geithner and Hank Paulsen (Bush's Treasury secretary during the Wall Street crash - and former chair and CEO of Goldman Sachs), if you are a "Master of the Universe" financial firm, your risk is socialized and covered 100 percent by the American taxpayer.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Over the years, the use of the term 'racial reconciliation' by the Religious Right has never been meant to promote social justice, advance the cause of civil rights or strengthen America's tattered social safety net. Instead, 'racial reconciliation' was incorporated into the agendas of various right wing religious/political organization as a marketing tool; an attempt to recruit African Americans to conservative politics. As researcher and writer Rachel Tabachnick recently pointed out at Talk To Action, the New Apostolic Reformation use of Reconciliation ceremonies "are not about pluralism, but about proselytizing - for both charismatic evangelical belief and right wing politics."

During their halcyon days of the late 1990s, the Promise Keepers men's movement made 'racial reconciliation' a focal point. These days, Lou Engle, a prominent player in the New Apostolic Reformation, is using 'racial reconciliation' to promote rallies that his organization, TheCall, has organized.

"it's important to first understand that everything the Religious Right does is in the service of one goal and one goal only: increasing the movement's political power," Rob Boston, Senior Policy Analyst with Americans United, told me in an email. "Over the years, some Religious Right leaders have seen outreach to African Americans and Latinos as a step toward building a powerful voting bloc based on 'culture war' issues.

"The thinking is that since some black and Latino churches oppose gay rights and are wary of legal abortion, members of these communities can be drawn into the Religious Right's orbit. Thus, these sporadic attempts at 'racial reconciliation' have nothing to do with improving relations between the races, facilitating inter-racial dialogue or addressing past instances of injustice. They are merely efforts to add a new constituency to the Religious Right in the hopes of making the conservative movement (read: the Republican Party) more powerful."

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Due to past law enforcement abuses, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) has been operating under the monitoring of a federal judge overseeing a consent decree since 2003.

Although it is difficult to set aside the deplorable record of the OPD in dealing with protesters for a moment - including Occupy Oakland advocates last Tuesday - it has a history of using excessive force on a daily basis. This includes the unnecessary drawing of guns, extortion and framing arrested individuals that is so egregious that the department may be put into receivership by the federal courts.

According to a September 11, 2011 article in the Bay Citizen, just a little over a month prior to the infamous Tuesday assault on Occupy Oakland, the federal judge overseeing the police department lambasted their conduct:

In a hearing that exposed the breadth of the problems facing Oakland, a federal judge blasted the Oakland Police Department Thursday for failing to make court-ordered changes designed to reduce police misconduct and abuse.

Before a courtroom full of city leaders and police department brass, U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson highlighted a series of issues that "indicate to me the city and the department still don't get it."

Shortly prior to the assault on Occupy Oakland, the superintendent of the OPD resigned - after the scathing report by the federal judge - and Howard Jordan was appointed as interim chief of police. What was Jordan's prior role as assistant chief of the OPD? According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Jordan:

has been the Police Department's top authority on bringing the force into compliance with a consent decree ordered after four officers were accused more than a decade ago of systematically beating and framing suspects.

The consent decree is the most critical issue facing the department, as a federal judge warned last week that the city faces the possibility of having its Police Department placed in federal receivership due to its failure to fully comply with the court order. Such a move could result in the city losing control over its police budget, its biggest general fund expense.

Jordan, as interim superintendent, oversaw and directed the police action against Occupy Oakland supporters.

This federal consent decree is separate from the accord that the OPD was compelled to reach in 2004, which prohibits the use of potentially lethal and harmful suppression techniques against peaceful crowds, which BuzzFlash at Truthout pointed out they violated last week.

There's a thin blue line in law enforcement between enforcing the law and breaking the law. It's clear to US District Court Judge Henderson that the OPD keeps crossing that line.

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