Replies to post #174919 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Romney Campaign Misled Reporters On Timeline And Involvement Of Gay Spokesperson



Posted in Liberaland by Alan • May 3, 2012, 12:53 PMET

When Richard Grenell resigned, the Romney campaign said he hadn’t started yet, which was not true [ http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/03/475950/romney-campaign-misled-reporters-grenell/ ]. And he was asked to stay silent on an important conference call that he organized.

As Andrew Sullivan reported last night and the New York Times later confirmed, Grenell helped organize a Romney campaign conference call to pre-empt Vice President Joe Biden’s foreign policy speech last week. Sullivan reported that after Grenell’s voice was not heard on the April 26 call, which he’d helped set up, people started to ask questions.

And the New York Times reported [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/us/politics/richard-grenell-resigns-from-mitt-romneys-foreign-policy-team.html ]:

It turned out [Grenell] was at home in Los Angeles, listening in, but stone silent and seething. A few minutes earlier, a senior Romney aide had delivered an unexpected directive, according to several people involved in the call.

“Ric,” said Alex Wong, a policy aide, “the campaign has requested that you not speak on this call.” Mr. Wong added, “It’s best to lay low for now.”

Copyright © 2012 Alan Colmes

http://www.alan.com/2012/05/03/romney-campaign-misled-reporters-on-timeline-and-involvement-of-gay-spokesperson/ [with comments]


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Wife Of NC Legislator Behind Amendment Heard Saying It’s Needed To Preserve “Caucasian” Race



Posted in Liberaland by Alan • May 2, 2012, 5:46 PMET

Winston-Salem journalist Chad Nance says [ http://yesweeklyblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/racialized-remark-about-marriage.html ] he heard from poll workers that wife of North Carolina Senator Peter Brunstetter that her husband sponsored the legislation to “protect the Caucasian race.”

Nance said he recorded a conversation with the woman, whose name is Jodie Brunstetter, on video, and that she confirmed that she used the term “Caucasian” in a discussion about the marriage amendment, but insisted that otherwise her comments had been taken out of context by other poll workers…

Nance paraphrased the remarks, as told to him by those who were present: “During the conversation, Ms. Brunstetter said her husband was the architect of Amendment 1, and one of the reasons he wrote it was to protect the Caucasian race. She said Caucasians or whites created this country. We wrote the Constitution. This is about protecting the Constitution. There already is a law on the books against same-sex marriage, but this protects the Constitution from activist judges.”

Brunstetter says she used the word “Caucasian” but can’t recall the context [ http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/02/475141/brunstetter-caucasian/ ], and that “it wasn’t race related.”

Copyright © 2012 Alan Colmes

http://www.alan.com/2012/05/02/wife-of-nc-legislator-behind-amendment-heard-saying-its-needed-to-preserve-caucasian-race/ [with comments]


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Heartland Justice


Ben Wiseman

By FRANK BRUNI
Published: May 5, 2012

DES MOINES

WE tend to think of people who play pivotal roles in the advancement of social justice — and who pay steep prices for it — as passionate advocates with intense connections to their cause. We imagine them as crusaders.

Marsha Ternus wasn’t. She just tried to be fair.

The first woman ever to preside over the Iowa Supreme Court, she was asked three years ago to rule on a challenge to an Iowa statute banning same-sex marriage. She looked at the case and at the law and deemed the ban a violation of equal-protection language in the state’s Constitution, which said that no privileges should be reserved for a limited class of citizens. Her six fellow justices agreed. Their unanimous decision [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/04iowa.html?pagewanted=all ] is why Iowa is among the minority of states in which two men or two women can marry.

It’s also why Ternus lost her job. The following year, she and two other justices came up for what are usually pro forma retention votes, and Iowans booted them from the bench. National groups on the religious right had mounted a furious campaign against them, calling them members of “an arrogant elite” with a “radical political and social agenda.”

“We laughed about that,” Ternus told me, referring to the accusation, not its career-ending consequence. “I mean, honestly, I can remember the first time somebody used the words ‘gay marriage.’ And I said, ‘What is that?’ ”

Which happened... when?

“Sadly, not that long ago,” she said, looking embarrassed.

It was news to Ternus when I mentioned that on Tuesday, North Carolinians would be voting on a constitutional same-sex marriage ban, which will probably pass [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/05/marriage-amendment-still-leads-by-14.html ]. She doesn’t track the issue, though it continues to dominate the news, as it did last week when an openly gay aide supportive of marriage equality quit [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/romneys-foreign-policy-spokesman-quits.html ] Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. And she has rarely given interviews about the ouster of her and her colleagues David Baker and Michael Streit, who have been similarly reticent. None of them, she said, wanted their hurt feelings in the foreground.

“The important thing that happened wasn’t us losing our jobs,” she said over dinner here on Thursday. “It’s what it represents about what people think of justice and the rule of law and constitutional rights.”

Ternus, who is 60, agreed to meet with me because on Monday, she, Baker and Streit are receiving Profile in Courage awards from the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston. The timing, she said, felt right.

But she worried that she was talking too much about herself and too far beyond her authority.

“I’m just a judge from Iowa,” she said, speaking of the past in the present tense. “What do I know?” She had just been to the hairdresser’s — her flight to Boston was in the morning — and was allowing herself a Key lime martini.

Until she encountered so much religious opposition to the court’s decision, some of it from Catholics, she was a loyal member of her local Catholic parish. Two of her three children graduated from Catholic high schools. One went to Notre Dame University.

Ternus’s parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were all farmers, and she’s the oldest of six children reared among fields of corn and soybeans, with a wood-burning stove in the kitchen.

“Don’t make me sound like ‘Little House on the Prairie,’ ” she pleaded. She said her childhood wasn’t nearly as austere as that.

At the University of Iowa, she majored in home economics. Law school entered her thoughts only when a job after college as a bank teller bored her to tears.

I asked about gay people in her life. She mentioned a man who lived in a nearby apartment at college and an architect she has worked with. “But was my best friend gay or anything like that?” she said. “No.” Nor are any relatives, as far as she knows.

She said that after the ruling, “when I saw and heard the reaction of people whom it actually impacted, I just couldn’t — I mean — it was amazing to me. I just had never been conscious of how meaningful it was to gay and lesbian couples.”

Ternus spent her early legal career as a litigator specializing in insurance law. She was appointed to the Supreme Court, her first judgeship, in 1993, by a Republican governor. In Iowa, voters weigh in at later intervals, usually every eight years, but many don’t bother to. Their rejection of Ternus, Baker and Streit was the first such dismissal of Supreme Court justices in the history of the state’s current system.

SHE said that she and the other justices knew there was risk in taking on the same-sex marriage case and began researching it months before hearing arguments. They agonized over the wording of the decision.

As for the decision itself, they learned in the first hours of discussion that none of them saw any way to square the marriage ban with equal-protection language. “Everyone’s jaws dropped — that we had a unanimous decision,” she recalled.

Theodore B. Olson [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/us/19olson.html ], one of the lawyers who has argued the high-profile case against California’s same-sex marriage prohibition, praised the Iowa justices’ ruling for its painstaking thoroughness.

“What the Iowa Supreme Court did — and they did a terrific job of this — was to go through the objections systematically,” he told me.

That same-sex marriage offended tradition? Well, many musty traditions proved indefensible over time. That marriage was for procreation? Childless couples abounded. That it undermined religious tenets? The court was dealing with civil marriage, not church weddings. That it devalued male-female unions, as conservative religious groups claim?

Ternus told me: “If these organizations are really worried about marriage, rather than being motivated by bigotry and hatred, then they would be going after the divorce laws. But they’re not.”

What most concerns her, though, is what she sees as the politicization of the judiciary, with elected officials and partisan groups firing warning shots at judges and screening them for preordained allegiances. The judiciary, she said, can check and balance legislatures — and mete out true justice — only by being less casually reactive to public opinion.

A registered independent, she said that she and her fellow justices divorced politics from their thinking.

Referring to her subsequent punishment at the polls, she said, “If people think that what happened here doesn’t influence other judges, they’re really naïve.”

She now gives speeches (usually for no charge) on that topic. Even so she has time for once neglected chores.

“The first week I was off, I took everything out of the kitchen cupboards and I washed them all down,” she said. “And then I cleaned every closet in the house. And I’m telling you, the pleasure that gave me was indescribable.”

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Related News

Romney Foreign Policy Spokesman Quits (May 2, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/us/politics/romneys-foreign-policy-spokesman-quits.html

Iowa Court Voids Gay Marriage Ban (April 4, 2009)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/04/us/04iowa.html

Times Topic: Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, and Domestic Partnerships
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/same_sex_marriage/index.html

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© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/bruni-heartland-justice.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/opinion/sunday/bruni-heartland-justice.html?pagewanted=all ] [with comments]


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4 Years Later, Race Is Still Issue for Some Voters


Diane Woods, right, said that when President Obama talks, “it makes sense to me.”
Michael McElroy for The New York Times


Stephanie Montgomery said she voted for John McCain in 2008 for his conservative views.
Michael McElroy for The New York Times


Louis Tripodi, who voted for Mr. Obama, said opposition to him has "a lot to do with race."
Michael McElroy for The New York Times

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: May 3, 2012

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — This is the land of die-hard Democrats — mill workers, coal miners and union members. They have voted party line for generations, forming a reliable constituency for just about any Democrat who decides to run for office.

But when it comes to President Obama, a small part of this constituency balks.

“Certain precincts in this county are not going to vote for Obama,” said John Corrigan, clerk of courts for Jefferson County, who was drinking coffee in a furniture shop downtown one morning last week with a small group of friends, retired judges and civil servants. “I don’t want to say it, but we all know why.”

A retired state employee, Jason Foreman, interjected, “I’ll say it: it’s because he’s black.”

For nearly three and a half years, a black family has occupied the White House, and much of the time what has been most remarkable about that fact is how unremarkable it has become to the country. While Mr. Obama will always be known to the history books as the country’s first black president, his mixed-race heritage has only rarely surfaced in visible and explicit ways amid the tumult of a deep recession, two wars and shifting political currents.

But as Mr. Obama braces for what most signs suggest will be a close re-election battle, race remains a powerful factor among a small minority of voters — especially, research suggests, those in economically distressed regions with high proportions of white working-class residents, like this one.

Mr. Obama barely won this county in 2008 — 48.9 percent to John McCain’s 48.7 percent. Four years earlier, John Kerry had an easier time here, winning 52.3 percent to 47.2 percent over George W. Bush. Given Ohio’s critical importance as a swing state that will most likely be won or lost by the narrowest of margins, the fact that Mr. Obama’s race is a deal-breaker for even a small number of otherwise loyal Democrats could have implications for the final results.

Obama advisers acknowledged that some areas of the state presented more political challenges than others, but said that the racial sentiment was not a major source of worry. The campaign’s strategy relies in large part on a strong performance in cities and suburban areas to make up for any falloff elsewhere among Democrats in this or other corners of Ohio.

The Obama campaign aggressively monitors any racial remarks made against the president, but officials rarely openly discuss Mr. Obama’s race. The president released his birth certificate last year in an effort to quell a growing controversy about whether he is a United States citizen. He said last month that race in America was still “complicated.”

“I never bought into the notion that by electing me, somehow we were entering into a post-racial period,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with Rolling Stone.

“I’ve seen in my own lifetime how racial attitudes have changed and improved, and anybody who suggests that they haven’t isn’t paying attention or is trying to make a rhetorical point,” he said. “Because we all see it every day, and me being in this Oval Office is a testimony to changes that have been taking place.”

Researchers have long struggled to quantify racial bias in electoral politics, in part because of the reliance on surveys, a forum in which respondents rarely admit to prejudice. In 50 interviews in this county over three days last week, 5 people raised race directly as a reason they would not vote for Mr. Obama. In those conversations, voters were not asked specifically about race, but about their views on the candidates generally. Those who raised the issue did so of their own accord.

“I’ll just come right out and say it: he was elected because of his race,” said Sara Reese, a bank employee who said she voted for Ralph Nader in 2008, even though she usually votes Democrat.

Did her father, a staunch Democrat and retired mill worker, vote for Mr. Obama? “I’d have to say no. I don’t think he could do it,” she said.

But the main quarrels Democratic voters here have with Mr. Obama have nothing to do with race. They include his rejection of one proposed route for the Keystone pipeline, a stance they say will harm this area, whose backbone, the Ohio River, is lined with metal mills and coal mines.

And the economy, on the rise nationally, is still stuck here. About one in three residents in Steubenville live in poverty, double the national rate. Shale gas, which has begun to bring profits to some counties in Ohio, has yet to take off here, and downtown is a grid of empty storefronts behind dusty glass.

“The big word was ‘change,’ but there’s not been much of that,” said Christopher Brown, a union leader in Steubenville, who said more than 200 of his members were still out of work. “Members are saying, ‘What has President Obama done for us?’ ”

As for race, he said, “It’s not on the front table, it’s in the back seat.”

Just how far back is a question no one can definitively answer. “Race in America is always a work in progress,” said Clement A. Price, a professor of history at Rutgers-Newark. “It’s often a proxy for social anxieties, such as this long recession, joblessness and the war abroad.”

Stephanie Montgomery, who is black and a graduate of Franciscan University in Steubenville, said her race came up so often in her job search in this area that she developed a technique for recognizing when it was happening. The sign: when warmth on the phone turns cool in person, and “they lose eye contact with you.”

“You almost need a corporate environment to get a fair shot,” she said while standing at a job fair in the Steubenville mall. She said that she did not vote for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she preferred Mr. McCain’s more conservative platform, but that Mr. Obama seemed to be a lightning rod for criticism, in part because of his race.

“He’s everything they hate,” she said, referring to ultraconservatives. “An affirmative-action baby. Got the Nobel Prize without deserving it.”

Many who raised race as a concern cast Mr. Obama as a flawed candidate carried to victory by blacks voting for the first time. Others expressed concerns indirectly, through suspicions about Mr. Obama’s background and questions about his faith.

“He was like, ‘Here I am, I’m black and I’m proud,’ ” said Lesia Felsoci, a bank employee drinking a beer in an Applebee’s. “To me, he didn’t have a platform. Black people voted him in, that’s why he won. It was black ignorance.”

Louis Tripodi, a baker in Steubenville who voted for Mr. Obama, blames talk radio and Republican rhetoric for encouraging such attitudes. “ ‘He’s a Muslim, he’s a socialist, he’s not born in this country,’ ” he said. “It’s got a lot to do with race.”

Race has also helped Mr. Obama. It increased voter turnout among blacks in 2008, and some younger voters said it was part of why they voted for him. But now that history has been made, it is less of a pull.

“It was kind of like a bandwagon that a lot of young people jumped on because it was history,” said Dee Kirkland, a 22-year-old working in a pizza shop in nearby Yorkville. “It was a fad to like him,” she said, adding that “race shouldn’t hinder you, but it also shouldn’t help you.”

Mr. Obama still has a number of enthusiastic supporters here. Diane Woods, the owner of Pee Dee’s Brunch and Bar, a diner in downtown Steubenville, described him as “regal, and presidential,” and said she would vote for him again because “when he talks, it makes sense to me.”

The fact that race came up at all in 2008 “really showed how divided we still are,” she said, cooking eggs one gray morning last week. “Blacks came out to vote for the first time because he was black, and you had all these whites saying, ‘Oh, there’s another vote from some drug addict.’ ”

Mr. Corrigan, who supports Mr. Obama, said he believed that the president would ultimately win this mostly Democratic county but that it would be very close, a prediction he said was underscored by a recent flurry of Republican visits. Rick Santorum came here twice during his campaign, and Gov. John R. Kasich, a Republican, gave his annual address here this winter.

“It’s going to be a nail-biter,” said Mr. Brown, the union official.

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting from Washington.

© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/us/politics/4-years-later-race-is-still-issue-for-some-voters.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/us/politics/4-years-later-race-is-still-issue-for-some-voters.html?pagewanted=all ]


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Citing Trayvon, People Allegedly Threw Bottles at Black Students From Fraternity Roof

May 6, 2012
By Jeff Stein

Updated with new information from Sigma Pi

Allegedly taunting them with references to Trayvon Martin, a group of people on the roof of the Sigma Pi fraternity house reportedly threw bottles and other objects at black students who were walking by the house early Sunday morning, according to several accounts.

Sigma Pi President Zach Smith ’13 said in an email Sunday afternoon that the fraternity has “figured out who the perpetrator was, and will turn his name over to police.” The individual identified was not a brother of the fraternity, he said.

Cornell Chief of Police Kathy Zoner confirmed that people were “reportedly making racial references” and throwing bottles from the roof of Sigma Pi. She added that she could not disclose more information because the investigation, which is being led by Ithaca Police, is ongoing.

Beverly Fonkwo ’14 said she was walking home with a friend when, unprovoked, the group on the fraternity roof began throwing objects that landed near a group walking behind them.

When the people walking behind Fonkwo asked them to stop, the people on top of the fraternity continued to throw objects — including a Jack Daniels that landed near the group behind and an unopened beer can that landed near Fonkwo and her friend — she said.

When they asked them to stop again, the group responded, “‘Come up here, Trayvon,’ and started making all these other racial comments,” Fonkwo said. A black teenager from Florida, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in February — a death that was widely perceived as unprovoked and galvanized African American activists across the country.

“I feel like it was targeted and racially motivated … we felt very threatened,” Fonkwo said of the incident Sunday. Meanwhile, the assailants “were just laughing at the whole situation until we called the police and then they ran inside,” she said.

Smith, the Sigma Pi president, said the fraternity is "sorry the incident happened on our premises." He said that a large number of outsiders — including alumni and friends of brothers — were attending the event.

Smith added that he was “shocked” upon learning of the incident later Sunday morning.

“We pride ourselves on having a very diverse house,” he said. “It’s not the character of our house and not any way we’d like Sigma Pi to be represented.”

That may be of little consolation to Sade Samakinwa ’14, who said she saw her friends outside the house “pretty shook up” after the incident.

“I think the most shocking thing was not that bottles were being thrown but that they were shouting Trayvon,” Samakinwa said. “To use that boy’s name so disrespectfully while disrespecting someone is absolutely insane.”


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Related

Number of Alleged Assailants Undetermined in Sigma Pi Controversy
May 7, 2012
http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/05/07/number-alleged-assailants-undetermined-sigma-pi-controversy

Sigma Pi Chapter Suspended
Fraternity in trouble for alcohol poisoning
January 30, 2008
http://cornellsun.com/node/26714

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©2012 The Cornell Daily Sun

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/05/06/citing-trayvon-people-allegedly-threw-bottles-black-students-fratern [with comments]


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Feds to Alabama: Immigration law could have harsh, lasting effect


The Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice holds a protest in Montgomery urging the Alabama Senate to repeal HB 56.
(Lloyd Gallman / Montgomery Advertiser / May 1, 2012)

By Michael Muskal
May 4, 2012, 2:44 p.m.

Even as the Supreme Court is deciding what to do about Arizona’s tough law on illegal immigration, the Justice Department has warned Alabama that its law could have “continuing and lasting” consequences for Latino children.

In a letter to Alabama education officials released this week, the Justice Department warns of the harmful effect of Alabama’s law, known as HB 56. The letter also noted that the Justice Department is charged with enforcing laws that bar “discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin” and helping those for whom English is not a native language.

HB 56 has “diminished access to and quality of education for many of Alabama's Hispanic children, resulted in missed school days, chilled or prevented the participation of parents in their children's education, and transformed the climates of some schools into less safe and welcoming spaces for Hispanic children,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, wrote to Alabama schools Supt. Thomas R. Bice.

The letter [ http://images.politico.com/global/2012/05/doj_letter_5-1-12.html ] is dated May 1 and was released Thursday in Alabama.

Federal courts have prevented some parts of the law from going into effect, including the principal section dealing with education. Under the law, signed on June 9, 2011, Alabama officials are required to collect information on the immigration status of children in public school. The law does not prevent the children from attending classes, a right already upheld by the Supreme Court in a case dating from 1982.

But even with part of the law on hold, Perez argued that there had already been negative effects, pointing to data the state provided the federal government on April 4.

According to the Justice Department, “Hispanic students' absence rates tripled while absence rates for other groups of students remained virtually flat.” The rate “of total withdrawals of Hispanic children substantially increased,” with 13.4% of such children dropping out by February since the beginning of the school year, Perez wrote.

In addition, absences “by Hispanic students receiving ELL [English language learner] services rose significantly, with the result that hundreds of students failed to receive the educational services to which they are legally entitled,” Perez wrote.

Alabama officials have stood by their law despite protests, demonstrations and the legal battles. Supporters of the law dismissed the latest letter.

“The Department of Justice has already made it clear they're on the side of illegal immigration,” state Sen. Scott Beason, a Republican from Gardendale, told the Montgomery Advertiser. “Anything they say or do to try to bully the state of Alabama or other states across the country does not surprise me at all.”

[e-mail]

Copyright © 2012, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-alabama-immigrants-20120504,0,280563.story [with comments]


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Elizabeth Warren’s Birther Moment


Elizabeth Warren at a campaign stop in Shrewsbury, Mass., on Sunday.
Steven Senne/Associated Press

By KEVIN NOBLE MAILLARD
May 4, 2012, 12:33 am

If you are 1/32 Cherokee and your grandfather has high cheekbones, does that make you Native American? It depends. Last Friday, Republicans in Massachusetts questioned the racial ancestry of Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate. Her opponent, Senator Scott Brown, has accused her of using minority status as an American Indian to advance her career as a law professor at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas. The Brown campaign calls her ties to the Cherokee and Delaware nations a “hypocritical sham.”

In a press conference on Wednesday, Warren defended herself, saying, “Native American has been a part of my story, I guess since the day I was born, I don’t know any other way to describe it.” Despite her personal belief in her origins, her opponents have seized this moment in an unnecessary fire drill that guarantees media attention and forestalls real debate.

This tactic is straight from the Republican cookbook of fake controversy. First, you need a rarefied elected office typically occupied by a certain breed of privileged men. Both the Presidency and the Senate fit this bill. Second, add a bit of interracial intrigue. It could be Kenyan economists eloping with Midwestern anthropologists, or white frontiersmen pairing with indigenous women. Third, throw in some suspicion about their qualifications and ambitions. Last but not least, demand documentation of ancestry and be dissatisfied upon its receipt. Voila! You have a genuine birther movement.

The Republican approach to race is to feign that it is irrelevant — until it becomes politically advantageous to bring it up. Birthers question Obama’s state of origin (and implicitly his multiracial heritage) in efforts to disqualify him from the presidency. They characterize him as “other.” For Warren, Massachusetts Republicans place doubts on her racial claims to portray her as an opportunistic academic seeking special treatment. In both birther camps, opponents look to ancestral origins as the smoking gun, and ride the ambiguity for the duration.

Proving Native American ancestry is a complex, bureaucratic process. It’s more than showing up at the tribal enrollment office with a family bible and some black and white pictures. Many people are rejected, even when family lore tells them otherwise. Tribal citizenship depends on descent from an enrolled ancestor, and every tribe has its own requirements.

In the Cherokee Nation, there is no minimum blood requirement, which would allow someone with as little as 1/128 Cherokee blood to enroll (that would be a great-great-great-great-great grandparent). Finding that remote relative is not conclusive, however. The ancestor may not have enrolled himself. Or he could have favored assimilation and counted himself as white. Or her application was rejected or she became ineligible for citizenship.

Like Elizabeth Warren, I am a law professor who was born in Oklahoma. I am enrolled as a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which, along with the Cherokee Nation, has recently experienced great strife [ http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/09/15/tribal-sovereignty-vs-racial-justice ( http://is.gd/agKF05 )] in defining what it means to be Native. In the past year, the arguments have escalated nationwide. Some members say that tribes should be composed only of members with high degrees of Indian blood. Others say it should be geographically based. And some others say citizenship should be based on history and culture, regardless of blood or residence. In my personal opinion, it’s whether you have a fry bread chef-lady as a relative. (In my family, I’m that “lady.”)

Even within Indian Country, the meaning of race and citizenship is contested. And now the Brown campaign wants to dictate Warren’s own belief in her identity. According to the Brown campaign, Warren could not be Indian because she is blonde, rich and most of all, a Harvard law professor. Her 1/32 Cherokee ancestry, sufficient for tribal citizenship, is not enough for the Republican party. To most people, she appears as white as, well, Betty White, but to the Scott Brown campaign, she is just Dancing With Wolves.

The Brown campaign asserts that Warren knowingly classified herself as Native American in the 1990s when Harvard weathered sharp criticism for its lack of faculty diversity. During this time, they argue, Warren relied upon this classification to enhance her employment opportunities and to improve Harvard’s numbers. Her faculty mentors at Harvard deny this [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warrens-ancestry-irrelevant-in-hiring-law-schools-say.html ( http://is.gd/w1v2xl )] and assert that the law school hired Warren without any knowledge of her ancestry.

Admittedly, news of Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware ancestry comes as a surprise. There simply are not enough places in legal academia for Native American professors to hide. The community is tight and small. It’s like “Peyton Place,” but with academic arguments over subject matter jurisdiction. According to the Association of American Law Schools, Native law professors are only .5% of all law faculty — about fifty people out of 11,000.

Native faculty are familiar with “box checkers”: those students and faculty who become Native for the temporary moment of admissions or employment. As soon as the application is mailed or the interview completed, the candidate returns to life as usual. The Cherokee Princess Grandmother served her purpose, and her memory is revived at convenient times.

This merits a reexamination of the difficult question of what it means to be Native. Does that make the Chickasaw kid from Buckhead in Atlanta any less Native than the Navajo faculty candidate from Windy Gap? What does a Native even look like? It’s more than long black hair, feathers and beads. At the same time, it is more than checking a box.

Someone’s subjective opinion about her heritage may conflict with tribal requirements for membership. The standards are not constant, and they may change with new tribal governments. This happened in my tribe in 2002, when the new chief decided that some members were not “Indian enough [ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/us/who-is-a-seminole-and-who-gets-to-decide.html?pagewanted=all ( http://is.gd/zCjbnk )].” Even at home, the tribal government falls into stereotypes.

For the Cherokee Nation, Warren is “Indian enough;” she has the same blood quantum [ http://www.cherokee.org/OurGovernment/Executive/PrincipalChiefsOffice/24811/Information.aspx ] as Cherokee Nation Chief Bill John Baker. For non-Natives, this may be surprising. They expect to see “high cheekbones,” as Warren described her grandfather as having, or tan skin. They want to know of pow wows, dusty reservations, sweat lodges, peyote and cheap cigarettes. When outsiders look at these ostensibly white people as members of Native America, they don’t see minorities. As a result, Warren feels she must satisfy these new birthers and justify her existence.

Looked at from the inside, however, the Warren controversy is all new. When the Brown campaign accused Elizabeth Warren of touting herself as American Indian to advance her career, this was news to Native law professors. We have a good eye for welcoming faculty to the community and identifying promising scholars. We know where people teach, what they have published and we honor them when they die. Harvard Law School named its first Native American tenured professor? Really? In our small indigenous faculty town, we would have heard about it already.

Kevin Noble Maillard [ http://twitter.com/noblemaillard ] is a law professor at Syracuse University and a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. He is the co-editor of “Loving v. Virginia is a Post Racial World: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Marriage,” which will be published later this month.

© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/elizabeth-warrens-birther-moment/ [with comments]


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Romney Refuses To Stand Up To Woman Who Says Obama Should Be Tried For Treason

Published on May 7, 2012 by ThinkProgress6

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/05/07/479577/romney-woman-treason/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V8aMagOIdU

*

Romney rally attendee accuses Obama of 'treason'

By EMILY SCHULTHEIS | 5/7/12 4:00 PM EDT

POLITICO's Reid Epstein reports from Ohio, where a woman at Mitt Romney's rally accused President Obama of "treason":

Faced with a questioner who declared that President Barack Obama should be “tried for treason,” Mitt Romney calmly answered the woman’s question about constitutional principles and then allowed her a follow-up question.

The interaction was the first instance of Romney facing cries from supporters that Obama is acting in a criminal way, with treason a federal crime punishable by death. As of late March, the campaign had not discussed a plan for handling such situations [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74573.html ], though overzealous supporters contesting Obama’s birth and religion bedeviled rival GOP presidential campaigns.

“We have a president right now who is operating outside the construction of our Constitution,” the woman asked Romney during a town hall in Euclid, Ohio. “And I do agree he should be tried for treason. But I wanna know what you are going to be able to do to help restore balance between the three branches of government and what you’re going to be able to do to restore our Constitution in this country?”

Unlike John McCain, who in 2008 memorably corrected a woman who declared Obama was “an Arab,” Romney bypassed her allegation.

“As I’m sure you do, I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired. I believe the same thing about the Declaration of Independence,” he said. “And I believe that, unlike what the president said about the Supreme Court, when he suggested that, he said that it would be unprecedented for the Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the legislature. Actually, that’s their role. So I will respect the different branches of government if I’m fortunate enough to become president.”

Romney then told the woman: “If you’ve got some specifics you want me to address in terms of policy, I’m happy to.”

She obliged, offering a conspiratorial suggestion.

“Specifically, some of the executive orders that he has done in just in the last three weeks, some of the executive that he has made with regard to the Secret Service and protection of people and being allowed to express ourselves with our First Amendment rights to protest in the presence of the Secret Service,” she said. “And some of those other types of executive orders that he has done just recently.”

Romney jumped back in before the woman could go on, again not mentioning her treason remark.

“I’m not familiar with the orders with regard to the Secret Service,” he said. “But I will, I’ll be happy to take a look at what he does with regard to the Secret Service and protesting, you obviously have a right to protest in this country and express our viewpoints. … Obviously we’ve all been disappointed by, hold on one second, we’ve been disappointed by a number of things that have happened at the government level and I’ll look at those executive orders. I would reserve the right of our president to place executive orders. One I’d be happy to place, as I mentioned off the top, I’d be happy to place an executive order that grants a waiver from Obamacare to all 50 states.”

As the event ended, Romney told reporters on the ropeline if he agreed that Obama should be tried for treason.

“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head. “No, of course not.”

And Ohio Auditor Dave Yost, who introduced Romney at the event, blasted Obama and his family for the cost of their vacations.

"March of 2010 the first lady and her daughter spent spring break in New York City. This was, by the way, doesn’t include the date night. Anybody fly to New York just to have a date night with your spouse? No, I didn’t think so. It goes on and on," he said. "We’ve got 17 vacations here, including the million and a half dollars spent for their Christmas 2011 vacation. Mr. President, that’s not middle class, and you stop lecturing us about our lives!”

The Obama campaign quickly jumped on both the treason incident and Yost's comments, blasting out this statement from spokeswoman Lis Smith:

“Today we saw Mitt Romney’s version of leadership: standing by silently as his chief surrogate attacked the President’s family at the event and another supporter alleged that the President should be tried for treason. Time after time in this campaign, Mitt Romney has had the opportunity to show that he has the fortitude to stand up to hateful and over-the-line rhetoric and time after time, he has failed to do so. If this is the ‘leadership’ he has shown on the campaign trail, what can the American people expect of him as commander-in-chief?”

© 2012 POLITICO LLC

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/05/romney-rally-attendee-accuses-obama-of-treason-122686.html [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Crossroads GPS Argues Ads Attacking Candidates Aren't Political (VIDEO)



Dan Froomkin and Paul Blumenthal
Posted: 05/07/2012 8:27 am Updated: 05/07/2012 11:07 am

WASHINGTON -- Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, the political ad-buying organization cofounded by Republican strategist Karl Rove in 2010, has officially submitted its first tax forms [ http://www.propublica.org/article/read-the-tax-returns-from-karl-roves-dark-money-group-donors-still-a-myster ] with the Internal Revenue Service, and as expected, the group is formally requesting that the IRS treat it as a nonprofit operating under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

But that's a tricky proposition for a group that spends the vast majority of its money on ads decrying one political candidate or another.

The hitch is that the tax code [ http://www.irs.gov/charities/nonprofits/article/0,,id=96178,00.html ] says 501(c)(4) groups "must be operated exclusively to promote social welfare" -- the promotion of which "does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office."

Rove depends on Crossroad GPS getting that 501(c)(4) status for one reason. Avowedly political groups, like Crossroads GPS’ sister organization, the American Crossroads Super PAC, have to disclose their donors; 501(c)(4) groups don't (although that could be changing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/fec-disclosure-ruling_n_1460145.html ]).

In order to promise anonymity to donors giving tens of millions -- sometimes $10 million at a time [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/13/karl-rove-crossroads-gps-funded_n_1424688.html ] -- Rove and his colleagues called Crossroads GPS a “policy and grassroots advocacy [ http://www.crossroadsgps.org/about/ ]” organization.

The group insists that most of the ads the organization produces comprise "issue advocacy" rather than political campaign activity. It argues that since less than 50 percent of its budget goes to what it terms “direct” political spending, the group qualifies as being "primarily" a social welfare group.

The big question the IRS will have to address, therefore, is whether the ads that Crossroads GPS and similar groups call "issue advocacy" ads are, in fact, "on behalf or in opposition to any candidate for public office."

That would include ads like one attacking Democratic Virginia Senate candidate Tim Kaine [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZl3uVDKvwg ] for being “Obama’s partisan cheerleader,” or one savaging Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0OitVLuAxc ], who at the time was running for reelection, for having “sold out to Obama,” or one attacking progressive Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78NZk1o8nr0 ] for, of all things, siding with big banks.

The Federal Election Commission’s hair-splitting rules allow Crossroads GPS to make the argument that these sorts of ads aren’t exactly the same as campaign ads. According to the FEC rules, in fact, advertisements from outside groups are only considered reportable as "independent expenditures [ http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-title11-vol1/xml/CFR-2011-title11-vol1-sec100-16.xml ]" if they are "expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate." For the FEC, that involves literally using one of the magic words such as "elect" or "vote against" in their ad.

Over the years, political groups have interpreted that to mean that as long as they avoid those particular words, they can pretty much get away with anything -- at least as far as the FEC is concerned.

So Crossroads GPS will end a blistering attack ad on a Democratic federal candidate in a swing state not with an encouragement to vote them out of office -- which would be reportable -- but with an incitement of some sort, for example, calling the candidate to complain about their position on an issue.

That little dodge lets them fly under the FEC’s radar. But the IRS, rather than drawing or adhering to the FEC's distinctions, is supposed to use what's called a "facts and circumstances" test to determine if someone is breaking the rules. In this case, that means using common sense.

More than 50 percent of Crossroads GPS' budget goes toward these ads. On its 2010 tax form [ https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/339122-crossroads-gps-990-2010 ], the group reported using $15.5 million for "direct" political spending and $8.2 million for "grassroots issue advocacy" -- out of $42 million total.

To bolster its "social welfare" creds, it also donated more than $15 million to politically active charitable groups, ostensibly earmarked for non-political purposes.

On its 2011 tax form [ https://www.propublica.org/documents/item/339124-crossroads-gps-990-2011 ], it reported spending $18.9 million on issue advocacy and $1.6 million on direct political activity -- out of $22 million total.

American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS spokesman Jonathan Collegio would not explain to The Huffington Post the origin of those numbers. "Crossroads carefully analyzes each of its ads to determine their status, and categorizes them accordingly," he responded in an email.

But the amount listed for "direct political activity" in 2010 is nearly identical to how much Crossroads GPS reported in "independent expenditures" to the FEC that year, here [ http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C90011719/502133/ ] and here [ http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C90011719/711813/ ].

Therefore, it's reasonable to discern that any ad not reported to the FEC was considered by the group to be "issue advocacy."

The acknowledged political activity adds up to 26 percent of its total budget in both years. The “advocacy” ads total 42 percent. So if the IRS concludes that the advocacy ads are really political campaign ads, then Crossroads GPS would not qualify for (c)(4) status. And that's even if the under-50-percent standard for political spending is being used; some reformers argue that anything more than 5 or 10 percent should be disqualifying [ http://www.democracy21.org/index.asp?Type=B_PR&SEC=%7b91FCB139-CC82-4DDD-AE4E-3A81E6427C7F%7d&DE=%7bD68E818D-632A-4F25-B4E3-979BD1139FA4%7d ] for a (c)(4).

If a group acts like a (c)(4) -- for instance, by not disclosing its donors -- but then gets its status denied or revoked, tax experts say the consequences can be severe [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/irs-political-groups-501c4-_n_1333389.html ], including fines of up to 70 percent of the money they raised and spent in secret. The groups might even have to make donors' names public after all.

Reform groups have been pressuring the IRS to enforce its rules for months -- and recently hailed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/08/irs-political-groups-501c4-_n_1333389.html ] some faint signs that the IRS might be preparing to take action related to bogus (c)(4)s.

But the biggest thing in Rove's and the organization's favor, is that these policies are not likely to be resoIved before the 2012 election -- a race in which Crossroads GPS and its sister group have said they intend to spend $300 million [ http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/us-usa-campaign-rove-idUSBRE83I1K120120419 ] to elect Republicans.

Video above produced by Sara Kenigsberg.

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/crossroads-gps-karl-rove_n_1477833.html [with embedded video report, and comments]


===


Many G.O.P. Freshmen Who Stormed the House Find It Harder to Stay Seated


Representative Bobby Schilling, the first Republican elected to his Illinois seat in nearly three decades, met with a group of party volunteers known as the Old Glories, including Mary Jane Nelson of Hampton, in Moline last week.
Stephen Mally for The New York Times

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Published: May 5, 2012

MOLINE, Ill. — Representative Bobby Schilling’s face was twisted with tension. Another official event, another group of Democrats who craved to see him wiped from the Congressional map. Plus, he would have to smile.

“I’ve got butterflies,” Mr. Schilling, Republican of Illinois, said as he walked into a news conference about a bridge that has needed renovation for years, one that Democrats have accused him of abandoning by backing a Republican ban on setting aside federal money for such home-state projects.

“If Durbin is here,” he said, referring to Senator Richard J. Durbin, the state’s senior senator, “I’ll give it right back.”

He looked around and saw that Mr. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a man unafraid of a partisan confrontation, was absent. “Whew,” he said. “Makes things smoother.”

During his 2010 campaign, Mr. Schilling, a pizza parlor owner and political novice, labored to persuade people that a Republican deserved a chance in a seat that Democrats had held for almost three decades. Now, like scores of other Republican freshmen across the country who triumphed that year in a Republican wave, he must prove he should be permitted to stay.

For Mr. Schilling and roughly two dozen other Tea Party-backed Republican freshmen who now find themselves in districts where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, a re-election campaign is a remarkably tricky task.

They are the subject of constant attack ads, assailing them for votes on a budget that would change the Medicare system, accusing them of trying to curtail protections for women and criticizing their support for earmark bans that could impede local projects. But they are also scrutinized by conservative activists who were crucial to their election and want to make sure they do not stray too far from Tea Party orthodoxy in pursuit of a second term.

Republican freshmen like Chip Cravaack of Minnesota, Robert Dold of Illinois and Ann Marie Buerkle of New York are among those eager to prove that they are more than flukes who rode in on a wave only to paddle back out to the sea of one-termers.

It is one thing to run as an outsider taking aim at Washington dysfunction; when you are the incumbent, with Congressional license plates and a voting record for all to see, it is a whole new ballgame.

“Here’s the problem,” Mr. Schilling said. Colleagues in highly Republican districts “put up bills that make them look tough back home,” he said, “and that makes for tough votes.”

He recalled another freshman lawmaker, from a safe district in Indiana, who criticized him for “voting like a Democrat.” “I said, ‘I’ve got to vote my district, thank you very much!’ ” said Mr. Schilling, who punctuates most of his sentences with a blinding smile, a hearty laugh and “Oh, my goodness!”

Nice try, local Democrats say. “He is out of step with the district,” said Steve Brown, a spokesman for the Democratic Party of Illinois. “I don’t know what he puts forth to voters that would make them retain him.” Mr. Brown said Mr. Schilling’s challenger, Cheri Bustos, a onetime alderwoman from East Moline and former baby sitter to Mr. Durbin’s children, would return the district to the Democrats.

In recent months, in part to curry favor with crucial independent voters who wish for more comity in Congress, some freshmen in closely contested districts have worked to be more bipartisan. They have spoken out against their party’s bill for long-term transportation funding and voted for measures that they had originally campaigned against.

“When it came to the debt ceiling vote, I once said, ‘Oh, I’d never do one of those,’ ” Mr. Schilling said. “But when you came down to the reality of what would happen if we didn’t, and I talked to local businesses about that,” the need to vote yes became clear, he said.

At a series of public stops on Monday, he bragged repeatedly about his work with Representative Dave Loebsack, Democrat of Iowa, to pester Illinois for money to fix the aforementioned bridge, which links their states and districts.

But Mr. Schilling and other Republicans, perhaps believing that their message will be embraced by swing voters worried about the budget deficit, still dish out plenty of tough talk against Democratic lawmakers and President Obama.

“They are very anti-capitalist,” Mr. Schilling told a dozen female Republican volunteers, who call themselves the Old Glories because all are over 70, during a recess trip home. Responding to one woman who asked whether he thought Mr. Obama had campaigned in 2008 with a strategy “to make America fail,” Mr. Schilling said of the slow economic recovery, “A lot of people think this is being done on purpose.”

But even among conservative groups on Monday, the word “tea” never escaped Mr. Schilling’s lips, not even as a drink. (He starts his days with a concoction involving three shots of espresso. He calls it “the warrior.”)

“I still have a good relationship with those folks,” he said, but in recent weeks he has had at least as many meetings with union officials as with Tea Party groups around his state.

Mr. Schilling is also trying to rebuild his party in this part of western Illinois, where Republicans have historically had trouble winning elections. When he showed up in 2010 at Republican county offices, he was told, “Thanks for filling the ballot,” said Christie Schilling, his wife.

On Monday morning, the Old Glories stared with awe at their first success story in decades. They sang “God Bless America” accompanied by live piano (“What a way to start the day!” Mr. Schilling said), served up some very fine coffee cake and talked socialism, yard signs and taxes.

Mr. Schilling the outsider has also become more of an insider. He replaced his inexperienced chief of staff, whom he had thought would be refreshing, with a seasoned Hill expert, realizing, he said, “that you need people who know people up there.” He sends out a slew of mailings, which he had knocked the incumbent Democrat for doing back in 2010.

Democrats are using every tool in their box to attack Mr. Schilling, as they have since the day he stepped in, and he is prepared. Knowing he would face the “war on women” accusation that Democrats have turned on his party, Mr. Schilling enlisted his wife, who spent most of the 2010 campaign caring for the youngest of their 10 children, to campaign with him.

She never left his side Monday. “I love being able to brag about his accomplishments,” Mrs. Schilling said. She has had several coffee meetings with local women to deconstruct the fight over access to contraception. “Calling it a woman’s issue turns women into sex objects,” she said.

Mr. Schilling knows his battle will be fierce. “But you’re talking to a guy who sided his entire house with a ladder,” he said. “By himself!”

© 2012 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/us/politics/re-election-tricky-for-house-republican-freshmen.html [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/us/politics/re-election-tricky-for-house-republican-freshmen.html?pagewanted=all ]


===


(linked in):

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75295106 (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75271789 (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75308097 (and any future following)

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=75244227 and following

[StephanieVanbryce]

Citi Cuts 11,000 Jobs Rather Than Lower Pay, Illustrating Rentier Capitalism in Operation

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Citi is a particularly blatant example of a way of operating that has become endemic in American business: when things get tough, throw as many employees as possible over the bus, and use that to maintain or even increase the pay of the top echelon. In investment banking, the number of folks who are spared from corporate austerity is larger than in other businesses, since those businesses have more profit centers (a single trader can have his own P&L) but the same general principle applies.

William Cohan of Bloomberg highlights this phenenomon:

Watch the TWO MIN. VIDEO here:
[ http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/citi-cuts-11000-jobs-illustrating-rentier-capitalism-in-operation.html ]

This is the reverse of how business used to operate. When I was a kid on Wall Street, the line at Goldman was that partners lived poor and died rich. Even though everyone’s pay would suffer if the firm had a bad year (that was the poing of bonuses, you knew your pay depended on firm performance), the partners took more of the variability in pay themselves and did everything necessary to preserve employment levels. The first time Goldman had actual layoffs, as in fired people because the firm was having a bad year (as opposed to for individual performance reasons) was in the early 1990s, and it was highly traumatic. And this attitude was not unusual in Corporate America. A CEO would reduce his pay if his firm was suffering; broad headcount cuts were seen as a sign that a business was in very serious trouble, and the market often did not react well to them.

Now Citi may have some fat in selected areas, and it is a famously badly run firm. But given how aggressive banks have been in wringing efficiencies out of their operations, and how much pressure Citi has been under to rationalize its businesses, these cuts look to be reactive, to reassure the Investor Gods that Action is Being Taken.

On a broader basis, Henry Blodget wrote today [ http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-need-to-share-more-profits-with-employees-2012-12 ] how destructive the “cream for the top, crumbs for everyone else” business attitude is:

The first chart shows that big American companies now have the highest profit margins in history.

The second chart shows that the companies are now paying the lowest wages in history as a percent of the economy.

If you happen to be an owner of a big American corporation, these charts could be construed as good news: You’re coining it!

If you happen to be a rank-and-file employee, however–or someone hoping to be such an employee–this is bad news: You’re sharing less than ever before in the success of American industry.

This situation, by the way, is only temporarily good news for the company owners. Because, by pumping so little back into the economy in the form of employee wages (and capital investments–the other area where companies are scrimping), our companies are constraining the growth of the economy.

Why?

Because the rank-and-file employees of America’s corporations are also mainstream American consumers–the folks who account for ~70% of the spending in the economy.

Almost every dollar these folks earn in salaries gets spent–on food, clothing, houses, education, entertainment, cars, and other goods and services that big American companies produce.

So, if, instead of hoarding their wealth by hiking their profit margins ever higher, companies invested more in employees and equipment, they would help the whole economy.

And the companies would also, of course, help their employees–the people who are dedicating their lives to helping the companies earn such vast profits.

This situation, by the way, is only temporarily good news for the company owners. Because, by pumping so little back into the economy in the form of employee wages (and capital investments–the other area where companies are scrimping), our companies are constraining the growth of the economy.

Why?

Because the rank-and-file employees of America’s corporations are also mainstream American consumers–the folks who account for ~70% of the spending in the economy.

Almost every dollar these folks earn in salaries gets spent–on food, clothing, houses, education, entertainment, cars, and other goods and services that big American companies produce.

So, if, instead of hoarding their wealth by hiking their profit margins ever higher, companies invested more in employees and equipment, they would help the whole economy.

And the companies would also, of course, help their employees–the people who are dedicating their lives to helping the companies earn such vast profits…

The business-ethos pendulum in this country has now swung so far toward “profit maximization” that most American companies would never dream of voluntarily sharing more wealth with their employees.

These employees, after all, are not viewed as people. They’re viewed as “costs”–cash outflows that just drain financial value away from owners…

Think about that for a minute.

Some of the richest, most revered companies in this country–companies that are currently generating record-high profits–pay their full-time employees so little that they’re poor.

Even more depressing is the fact that concepts like “fairness” and “sharing” are now seen as evidence of bleeding-heart socialism–as though the only way to be a bona fide capitalist is to treat your employees like costs and pay them as little as possible.

But Citi and its ilk are perpetuating this race to the bottom. We’ve had a radical shift in business and cultural values in a mere 30 years. Neofeudalism seems to serve the elites just fine, and many of those who are not on at top of the food chain seem reluctant to believe that the system has been restructured to exploit them.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/citi-cuts-11000-jobs-illustrating-rentier-capitalism-in-operation.html

[fuagf]

Dems Grapple With Renewed GOP Debt Limit Threats

By Brian Beutler | TPM – 7 hrs ago

House Republicans are privately contemplating a quiet surrender in the fight over Bush tax rates for top earners, and a quick pivot to a new fight over raising the debt limit, in which they'd demand steep cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The White House's official position on this plan is: cram it. Officials say they will not negotiate, or pay a ransom. Congress has to raise the debt limit, period.

"I will not play that game," Obama told the Business Roundtable on Wednesday. "We are not going to play that game next year. We've got to break that habit before it starts."

But privately, Obama and Democratic leaders have sought to weave a debt limit increase into ongoing negotiations to avert automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the end of the year. Their clear preference is to defuse that bomb now, in a bipartisan way, rather than to stare down the House GOP pointing a gun at the country's economy.

And recent remarks by Democratic leaders and interviews with top congressional aides suggest Democrats have no consensus plan to execute if the debt ceiling isn't increased before the end of the year.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Dem leaders say that once the long fight over Bush tax cuts for the rich is resolved, the playing field will be evened, and the parties can negotiate further deficit reduction next year.

"If we can take the middle-income tax cuts off the table, then we end the hostage taking that the Republicans have been engaged in," Pelosi said at a Wednesday media availability when asked about the Democrats' debt limit contingency plan. "We're not going to do that unless you give tax cuts to the wealthy. I think that clears the debate to find areas of agreement as we go forward.

Her No.2, Steny Hoyer (D-MD), simply argued against using the debt limit for political leverage, without saying if or how Democrats could prevent Republicans from taking that tack.

"The debt limit ought not to be held hostage to anything," Hoyer said. "It hurt our economy, we were downgraded for the first time in my career and I think in history by one of the rating agencies. The creditworthiness of America ought not to be put at risk, it ought not to be a negotiating item."

Neither of those responses constitutes an answer to the GOP's ongoing demand that new borrowing authority be matched dollar for dollar with cuts to federal spending.

One top Democratic aide ceded that party leaders involved in negotiations are more focused on the near-term goal of winning the tax fight than on how they'd address a new debt limit showdown if they can't get it increased before the end of the year.

Another said they'll stand with the White House and simply refuse to negotiate on GOP terms. The public's already on the Democrats' side in a relatively narrow tax fight, the aide said, "why would the American people look more favorably on the prospect of total economic collapse than they would on the prospect of a tax hike on the middle class?"

Boehner may have no votes to raise the debt ceiling without concomitant budget cuts, but "that's not our problem," the aide said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) echoed this assessment, more gently, at a Wednesday press availability.

"I think they learned their lesson with the debt ceiling," he told reporters. "I don't think it's leverage for them at all. The whole thing turned around when it looked like they'd be willing to let the United States forego its payment of debt in 2011. The whole thing turned around and we began to get the upper hand. I think they've learned that mistake, and any talk that that is leverage for them I think is false."

http://news.yahoo.com/dems-grapple-renewed-gop-debt-limit-threats-193406109--politics.html

See also:

Tax the Rich: An animated fairy tale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwg4DB-EeEA .. fastlizzy, Ed Asner narrated, GOOD ONE!
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=82169847