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SEC proposal would disclose political donations by public corporations - The Washington Post http://t.co/38N8bKe via @washingtonpost

Both Republicans and Democrats have been explaining that "There Is No Alternative," we need public policies promoting austerity because government is "out of money." The question seems to be not "do we need austerity?" but "will we be austere sooner or austere later?" Meanwhile, the bipartisan consensus is that the government is definitely out of money. But these assertions are at odds with the common knowledge that the U.S. government literally creates its own money. Unlike the euro, the dollar is a sovereign, fiat currency, unconstrained by exchange rates or treaties. And since Nixon closed the gold window, government can issue dollars without waiting for gold or silver mines to provide any backing for them. So we can't possibly be "out of money," any more than the Bureau of Weights and Measures can be "out of inches."

"Until early Wednesday morning, Greg Smith was a largely anonymous 33-year-old midlevel executive at Goldman Sachs in London. Now everyone at the firm - and on Wall Street - knows his name. Mr. Smith resigned in an e-mail message to his bosses at 6:40 a.m. London time, laying out concerns that Goldman's culture had gone haywire, putting its own interests ahead of its clients."

The reason why Democrats so often ignore and betray progressives is that we haven't given them incentives not to. Money, votes, and publicity are what count, and so far progressives have not leveraged these incentives effectively. Also, Democrats really need some leaders who are functional in the worlds of bluffing, bargaining, gambling, and fighting.

G.W. Bush, 2006, National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Agaiinst Kleptocracy, Pledging to Congront High-Level, Large-Scale Corruption by Public Officials and Target the Proceeds of their Corrupt Acts (!! hypocrisy !!)

Michael Moore addresses press on Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats' approach to health care reform at Public Citizen headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009.

*I've been very critical of HCR (1+ / 0-)Obama, and the whole process and what appears that the end result will be.  What would be enough for the democrats opposed to the bill to support it? Personally speaking, I recognize that it's never going to be perfect.  But the sticking point is forcing people to buy a product from a private company without any effective cost control measures.  That's it, anything else I can work with. So for me, I would need either the mandate taken out, strict cost regulation added, or a non-profit pulic option added. What about the rest of you? by Skellen on Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 11:59:13 AM PST[ Reply to This | Recommend ] REPLY by .@avivao: Mandate to buy private insurance? (0 / 0)Exactly. A mandate to buy from private insurers (who're already raising rates in advance of the bill's passage--a way of gaming medical loss ratios, etc.) must be counterbalanced by a substantive public plan (Medicare for All or Medicare for More would be the most expeditious way to go, I suspect). Also, the mandate will surely cause suffering "down the road" unless regulation of insurers is actually enforceable. Still, we must pass this #HCR bill, I think. I'm extremely worried about (1) passing it with a unilateral mandate; (2) not passing it because of a unilateral mandate. How did we get trapped like this? What went wrong? Sure; a lot has gone right. I don't deny it. I'm glad. But we're backed into a corner now on passing this health bill. If we don't pass it, the news is very, very bad. If we do pass it, the news is probably very,very bad (for a different constellation of reasons). I say: #PassTheDamnBill. But I'm very disturbed by the potential consequences of doing so. There are many benefits to this bill; I pray that the liabilities don't outweigh them. We'll see. by avivagabriel on Wed Mar 10, 2010 at 11:56:59 AM PST[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Senate version of the Public Online Information Act of 2010

"(Law enforcement) interviewed Mr. Shahzad . . . under the public safety exception to the Miranda rule. . . . He was eventually . . . Mirandized and continued talking."- John Pistole, FBI deputy director

The profound risk to our national and economic security posed by the prospect of the world's sudden loss of access to Persian Gulf oil contributed greatly to the strategic miscalculations and public deceptions that led to our costly invasion of Iraq...

Clearly, the only thing that limits the power of the banking lobby is the anger of American voters that the very banks that drove the economy over the cliff and were bailed out by taxpayers are now spending lavishly to block reforms needed to insure this doesn't happen again. That popular anger makes legislators reluctant to appear in the banks' pockets in public.

"Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, has agreed to modify a proposal that would require public audits of the Federal Reserve in a potential compromise"

The Pentagon power elite is waging a global war of secret scope...although the public knows more after Osama bin Laden's killing...read on.