Corporations vs. People

I’ve had several friends that seemed confused that I was so upset when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled as they did a week ago last Thursday. That day, I attended a department meeting and almost launched into a tirade before controlling myself and changing the subject. I’ve frequently had heated discussions since that ruling. I have a very elementary problem with the decision.

It has been pointed out numerous times over the past ten days that the Supreme Court overturned a century of precedents in one ruling, and they did so in a way that opens the floodgates that will most certainly further corrupt our already corrupt political system.

For years it seemed that corporations had two votes for every one vote for the public. Now they have something like three. Corporations achieved the unimaginable with the SCOTUS ruling.



Regarding the simple act of voting: People heading the corporations can naturally vote. So can the public.
+1 Corporations
+1 People



Corporate lobbyists already have far, far more access and influence with congress than the public.
+1 Corporations
+0 People



And now:

Money: By overturning a century of legal precedents, private corporations have now been given more power to outspend the public. $ = Time. $ = Visibility. $ = Power.
+1 Corporations
+0 People

Corporations = 3
People = 1

The fact is that corporations have one bottom line: Profits.
They only answer to one group: Their investors.

Politicians are supposed to answer to one group: Their constituents.
Of course, many would reasonably argue they answer to a different group: Lobbyists.

It used to be a cynical view that a politician’s job was to get re-elected even though his/her job is (once was), in reality, to represent the people.

Chalk up one more for the monied interests.

Now, move on and learn your new Pledge of Allegiance.

Supreme Court FAIL

From Mother Jones:

Justice John Paul Stevens, in a stinging dissent written for the minority, argues that the right wing of the court has engaged in a brazen act of activism--and has done so to award corporations more legal rights than they have previously been afforded.

A few excerpts:

* Even more misguided is the notion that the Court must rewrite the law relating to campaign expenditures by for-profit corporations and unions to decide this case.

* The conceit that corporations must be treated identically to natural persons in the political sphere is not only inaccurate but also inadequate to justify the Court’s disposition of this case.

* Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it. They cannot vote or run for office. Because they may be managed and controlled by nonresidents, their interests may conflict in fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

* The financial resources, legal structure,and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.

* The majority’s approach to corporate electioneering marks a dramatic break from our past. Congress has placed special limitations on campaign spending by corporations ever since the passage of the Tillman Act in 1907....We have unanimously concluded [in 1982] that this “reflects a permissible assessment of the dangers posed by those entities to the electoral process"...and have accepted the “legislative judgment that the special characteristics of the corporate structure require particularly careful regulation...The Court today rejects a century of history when it treats the distinction between corporate and individual campaign spending as an invidious novelty born [in a 1990 opinion].

* The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution.

Glenn Beck is an idiot

I don't care if he is only faking it and I wouldn't have been surprised had he actually done it. Why do you look up to this douchebag, people?



Edit:
Turns out there is a website devoted to this topic:
Glenn Beck is an Idiot (.com)

Lies about Healthcare

Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 1

Exclusive - Betsy McCaughey Extended Interview Pt. 2

A Peaceful Reminder

Aug 6th and Aug 9th... a reminder to take a moment.

just a peaceful reminder

Taxes, bombing, etc...

It shouldn't surprise me that the States that complain the most about taxes are the ones that get the most taxes from the federal government (put in a dollar, and get back $2, then complain like mad. Nuts). What is truly surprising to me, however, is how far down Nevada is on the list.

A massive portion of Nevada is owned by the government (specifically, the military, which uses a lot of it for bombing ranges - including the Nevada Test Site, home of over 900 nuclear tests). It is also the State where all of our nuclear waste is to be dumped (Yucca Mountain). Certainly Nevada deserves a bit more.

So, basically, the State the federal government uses as a wasteland and bombing range is near the bottom of the list.

Huh.

Kurt Vonnegut

I have been lamenting over the past few years that radicals of one ideology have pushed me away from more moderate positions. I began questioning whether this was a bad thing, then someone reminded me of this Vonnegut quote:

"Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
- Kurt Vonnegut

Beth Thielen and BerkShares

This is Beth Thielen (left) with one of her projects. Beth is another artist and activist I met at the Blue Mountain Center. She told us about an experiment in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts where they are printing their own currency which they call BerkShares. Exchanging $100 gets you $105 BerkShare dollars.



Beth sent me an email this morning (with the image above) and the message, "What better way to participate in an experiment for an alternative economic future than to buy my morning coffee with BerkShares!"

I took a snapshot of some of the currency. The top two are the fronts of bills and the remainder are the backs:



From their website, this is an explanation of BerkShares:

"BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a "great economic experiment" by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities. Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares had a robust initiation, with over one million BerkShares having been circulated in the first nine months and over two million to date. Currently, more than three hundred and sixty businesses have signed up to accept the currency. Five different banks have partnered with BerkShares, with a total of thirteen branch offices now serving as exchange stations. For BerkShares, this is only the beginning. Future plans could involve BerkShare checking accounts, electronic transfer of funds, ATM machines, and even a loan program to facilitate the creation of new, local businesses manufacturing more of the goods that are used locally."

Tea boarding

I found this image in a history book at the Blue Mountain Center. The caption read "The punishment of an English spy." They are water boarding him with tea. if you look closely, you can see a noose above him ... and making assumptions based on the weird looking legs, it appears he was also tarred and feathered, but I don't know. Either way, apparently we have been water boarding from the very first days as a country. But with Earl Grey. Interesting.

Edit:
Fun facts: Earl Grey tea was named after Charles Grey, the second earl in his line. He was Prime Minister to King William IV in the early 19th century. The legend is that the Earl was given the recipe by a Chinese mandarin with whom he was friends, and whose life he had saved. [link]

Tortures

by Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing has changed.
The body is susceptible to pain,
it must eat and breathe air and sleep,
it has thin skin and blood right underneath,
an adequate stock of teeth and nails,
its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.
In tortures all this is taken into account.

Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are as they were, it's just the earth that's grown smaller,
and whatever happens seems right on the other side of the wall.

Nothing has changed.
It's just that there are more people,
besides the old offenses new ones have appeared,
real, imaginary, temporary, and none,
but the howl with which the body responds to them,
was, is and ever will be a howl of innocence
according to the time-honored scale and tonality.

Nothing has changed.
Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances.
Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.
The body writhes, jerks and tries to pull away,
its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,
it turns blue, swells, salivates and bleeds.

Nothing has changed.
Except for the course of boundaries,
the line of forests, coasts, deserts and glaciers.
Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,
disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,
alien to itself, elusive, at times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,
while the body is and is and is
and has nowhere to go.


Poems, new and collected, 1957-1997 / Wisława Szymborska translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh.

Chickenhawk Cheney

From Boing Boing:

Jesse Ventura -- former pro-wrestler, Minnesota governor, Navy SEAL -- says that he's ashamed that the US government waterboarded its prisoners, and says that Cheney is a "chickenhawk" who didn't have the guts to fight in Vietnam, but was tough enough to order torture:

"It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders...

"I don't have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney. Here's a guy who got five deferments from the Vietnam War. Clearly, he's a coward. He wouldn't go when it was his time to go. And now he is a chicken hawk. Now he is this big tough guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he's the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation."

Correspondents' Dinner, pt 1

Part 2

Part 3

CEO Nelson

All Politics Is Loco

Omaha has three viable candidates running to be our next Mayor: Jim Suttle (D), Hal Daub (R, and previous member of the US House of Representatives and Mayor from ’95 to ‘01) and Jim Vokal (R).

I work with a liberal colleague who plans to vote for the Republican candidate Vokal because Suttle appears to be an idiot (and we don’t want a Blagojevich). Maybe he likes Vokal because he lives in his neighborhood (talk about local). Or, maybe he is the best candidate. I don’t know. All I know is I’ve never really trusted politicians and still quote the following joke that I’ve been telling since college:

Question: How do you know when a politician is lying?
Answer: His lips are moving.

Sadly, that joke has been far too true this past decade, but there is no question I have recently been far more upset with the Right. Carville famously said, “Politics is like the circus: the worst job is cleaning up after the elephants.” I am so vocally thrilled that Obama was elected that at least one local Omaha “friend” posted nasty comments on this blog. Dems are considered Communists by some in the mid-west (insert eye roll), so it is always amazing when a Dem is elected here that isn’t really just a Republican that simply wears a blue tie. Yeah, I’m looking at you and your vote last week, Sen. Nelson.

With only three real candidates in the mayoral race, one Democrat and two Republicans, you’d think it is an uphill battle for Suttle. Omaha admittedly occasionally elects Democrats for Mayor. The city is the blue spot in a very red State. However, after watching the ads by Suttle, I am wondering if my colleague is correct. Dumb politicians run dumb campaigns.



Watch the video and tell me this isn’t a stupid campaign.

I mean, all three candidates could run idiotic puns if they wanted to, but only one has.

“I’m Jim Suttle, but I’m not subtle about Omaha!”

“Hi! I’m Jim Vokal and I’m vocal about Omaha!”

“I’m Hal Daub, and by golly, I’ve daubed around in politics for years, so vote for me!”

Okay, so I made the last two up, but I wish I had made the first one up. I would have liked to see a good candidate for Mayor. I’m not sure we have one, regardless of what I am told...

Local politics in the mayoral race is loco this year.

All Politics Is Local

[guest post by Dan Gunderman -- see Bald & Effective link to the right]

First of all, let me thank Artsy Fartsy Tim for inviting me to do a little guest spot while he travels. And hey, Tim, as long as you're down there at SXSW, if it's not too late, you should check out the documentary about Bill Withers, Still Bill, which was directed by a guy I went to college with. I've only seen the trailer so far, but it looks good.

I think it's Tip O'Neill who's credited with the "all politics is local" quotation. We tend to have short memories in this country, and I've found that on my blog it's important that I speak to a certain lowest common denominator (I assume that my demographic is me), so I'll just remind Tim's obviously erudite readers that Tip O'Neill was once House Speaker. He had a very large nose.

For me, local is New York. Remember Spitzer? He was one of ours. We can only partially claim the escort because she grew up in New Jersey, but she was working in New York. And DC, apparently.

Hillary was one of ours, too, and I had no major complaints about her as senator. Mostly, she just hunkered down and got to work. Wasn't crazy about her Iraq War vote, but you know, whatever. Senators disappoint you from time to time. You just hope that it won't be too often. Chuck Schumer's another one. The guy's totally in bed with all of the financial powerhouses now getting bailed out by, uh, Chuck Schumer. And yet I've voted for the guy twice. What the hell is my problem?

But this isn't what I was planning to write about... Local... Right...

So when Hillary moved to the State Department, our Spitzer replacement Governor David Paterson named Kristen Gillibrand to be our new senator. Who's Kristen Gillibrand? I still have no idea to be honest with you. But Gillibrand is apparently one of those Blue Dog Democrats with crossover appeal to Republicans, something very important in her conservative House district, where there is going to be a special election.

Here's where we get local...

This special election features two people I've barely heard of. In one corner, the Democrat Scott Murphy. In the other, Republican Jim Tedisco. It's a local race with national implications. Some of you may have heard of Michael Steele, who took over the Republican National Committee. Because he's a bit of a loose cannon, he's managed to alienate much of the GOP. His fate may rest on the outcome of this one local race.

OK, but really, that's a national issue, not a local one. Back to local...

This is Jim Tedisco, the Republican running for Congress:



This is where it gets really local...

But first let me back up just a hair. So to speak. Heh, heh... Ahem... I'm a bald man. Thanks to testosterone, with baldness comes other random hair issues. Back hair, errant eyebrow hairs, and the hair-that-must-not-be-named. That's right: Voldemort hair.

All politics is local. And I'm talking so local, it's localized...

Look at Jim Tedisco's ear. Man's got some ear hair. I mean, seriously, if you can see it in a photo, it's a lot of ear hair.

Local issues matter. So does ear hair matter? Well, I'm not sure. But I would hope that he, as a public figure, would take care of that. What do grooming habits tell us about the candidate? Do voters care about literal earmarks such as these stray hairs? They will give their answer on March 31st.

Daily Show brilliance

Please give this a minute to load and watch it to the end.
Brilliant.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Edit 3/13: Yowza. Did you catch the Cramer segments all week and his visit to the Daily Show at the end of the week? Check it out.

Wish I was there

You might wish you were here New Zealand, but I sure wish I was there to use my inauguration ticket.

Edit: Malia and Sasha eye Bush.

Inauguration

Beth called to tell me that a ticket to Obama's inauguration came in the mail addressed to me. It is so sad that I can't be there. New Zealand is great, and all, but this is the first time I have actually wanted to attend an inauguration.

Eight days, depending on what time you are counting from (I am one day ahead of Omaha).

Madoff sculpture "returned"

I am in the LA airport and saw the story that Madoff's sculpture was "returned."

Brilliant -- read more

Never have my blog tags "Traveling" + "Art" been more appropriate for a post...

The Bank of Tim

Finally, someone pretty much sums it up. Gonna form my own bank and get my piece of the pie. 14 minutes long, but you could just watch the first half (start to 8 minute mark, or so). Warning - this might make you angry (I hope):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

and if that doesn't bum you out, watch the first half of this one (particularly the spot around 2:17 to 2:40):

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy