Group items tagged

Fraudulent Defense Contractors Paid $1 Trillion

When Congress updated copyright laws and passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in 1998, it ushered an era of investment, innovation and job creation.  In the decade since, companies like Google, YouTube and Twitter have emerged thanks to the Act, but in the process, they have disrupted the business models and revenue streams of traditional media companies (TMCs).  Today, the TMCs are trying to fast-track a couple of bills in the House and Congress to reverse all of that. Through their lobbyists in Washington, D.C., media companies are trying to rewrite the DMCA through two new bills.  The content industry's lobbyists have forged ahead without any input from the technology industry, the one in the Senate is called Protect IP and the one in the House is called E-Parasites.  The E-Parasite law would kill the safe harbors of the DMCA and allow traditional media companies to attack emerging technology companies by cutting off their ability to transact and collect revenue, sort of what happened to Wikileaks, if you will.  This would scare VCs from investing in such tech firms, which in turn would destroy job creation. The technology industry is understandably alarmed by its implications, which include automatic blacklists for any site issued a takedown notice by copyright holders that would extend to payment providers and even search engines.   What is going on and how exactly did we get here?

Join Senator Franken: Stand with me to save Net Neutrality and stop the Corporate Takeover of our Media

Thanks to intrepid twitterers like Sarah Posner and our own Addie Stan, I'm getting a good picture of the utter depravity on display at the "values voters" summit without having to actually listen to it on C-Span. Here are some bits from newly-minted Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell's Palin-esque speech.

With the November elections quickly approaching, the majority of  Americans will be thinking one thing: "Who cares?" This apathy isn't due  to ignorance, as some accuse. Rather, working people's disinterest in  the two party system implies intelligence: millions of people understand  that both the Democrats and Republicans will not represent their  interests in Congress.  This begs the question: Whom does the two party system work for? The  answer was recently given by the mainstream The New York Times, who  gave the nation an insiders peek on how corporations "lobby" (buy)  congressmen. The article explains how giant corporations - from  Wall-mart to weapons manufacturers - are planning on shifting their  hiring practices for lobbyists, from Democratic to Republican  ex-congressmen in preparation for the Republicans gaining seats in the  upcoming November elections: "Lobbyists, political consultants and recruiters all say that the  going rate for Republicans - particularly current and former House staff  members - has risen significantly in just the last few weeks, with  salaries beginning at $300,000 and going as high as $1million for  private sector [corporate lobbyist] positions." (September 9, 2010) Congressmen who have recently retired make the perfect lobbyists:  they still have good friends in Congress, with many of these friends  owing them political favors; they have connections to foreign Presidents  and Kings; and they also have celebrity status that gives good PR to  the corporations. Often, these congressmen have done favors for the corporation that  is now hiring them, meaning, that the corporations are rewarding the  congressmen for services rendered while in office, offering them million  dollar lobbyist jobs (or seats on the corporate board of directors)  that requires little to no work.  The same New York Times article revealed that the pay for 13,000  lobbyists currently bribing Congress is a combined $3.5 bil

At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later, as a result of an amendment that I was able to include in the Wall Street reform bill, we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, and the American people now have this information.

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama's deficit commission, have signaled for months that they are not friends of Social Security. In August, Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, wrote that Social Security is "a milk cow with 310 million tits." Last February, Bowles, who made his fortune on Wall Street and served as a top aide in the Clinton White House, boasted in a speech to bankers, "We're going to mess with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security."

On 22 March 2005, the renowned author, educator and linguist Professor Noam Chomsky delivered the third and final lecture of the 2004/2005 Gifford Lecture Series, Illegal but Legitimate: a Dubious Doctrine for the Times. The Gifford Lecturers are recognised as pre-eminent thinkers in their respective fields. The Gifford Lectureships were established in 1888. Adam Lord Gifford (1820-1887) was a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland.

The founding fathers were very concerned about the danger of democracy and spoke quite openly about the need to construct the democratic institutions so that threat would be contained.  That's why the Senate has so much more power than the House, to mention just one example.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, In fresh episode of Meray Mutabiq Talk With Dr Mubashar hassan(PPP), Wajeeh-u-deen Former Chief Justice Sindh High Court.

Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, In fresh episode of Meray Mutabiq Talk With Ansar Abbasi Investigation Analyst, Rauf Klasra Analyst, Salhiya Zafar Sen. Analyst.

The following is the transcript of Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, as recorded by CQ Transcriptions.

Dr. Abdul Qudeer Khan Atomic Scientist, Ali Moeen Nawazish Pakistani Student Nominated for GBWR, Senator Babar Awan Fed. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, in special episode of Kal Tak Disqualified with Javed Chaudhry.

Ayaz Mir PML_N, Zahid Hussain Analyst, Senator Safdar Abbasi PPP, Kamran Shafi Analyst, Hamid Nasir PML_N, in fresh episode of Live with Talat Discusses Currant Issue with Talat Hussain.

Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo Fed. Min. for Industries and Production, Senator Tariq Azeem Khan Sec. Information(PML-Q), Rana Sanaullah Former Provincial Law Min. (PML-N), in fresh episode of Live with Talat Discusses Currant Issue with Talat Hussain.