Ours is for sale.
We are not a theocracy, despite what Christians may think. Strictly speaking, we’re not a one man, one vote democracy either. Increasingly, we have become a plutocracy, a government of wealth.
Do you have as much influence as, let’s say, Gulf Oil Company, or the National Rifle Association, or the Chamber of Commerce, or billionaire Diane Hendricks— who contributed more than $500,000 to help re-elect Wisconsin Congressman Scott Walker, and, incidentally, paid absolutely no taxes in 2010? Can you and your friends get together and contribute the almost $2,200 per hour Diane Feinstein must raise in order to remain in Congress? Probably not—that would take millions, or, at least a Super PAC and a couple of anonymous rich guys from somewhere—they don’t have to say who or from where.
It takes a fortune to get elected to City Council. It takes hundreds of millions to get elected President. But all it takes for the rich to rule is deregulation.
Thanks to the Supreme Court and Citizens United, you can say goodbye to any regulations on the financial market. In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy opined:“This court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” In other words, corporations are people, money is speech, and there is no corruption. What the hell was he smoking?
Suggestion—a plea, really: demand full disclosure—vote to know who spends how much on what! Vote for laws that promote transparency. Vote for fair, just regulations on Wall Street, banks and the so-called free market. Do not vote against collective bargaining—union workers should have a say in government, just like their bosses.
Republicans do not want workers to have a say—period! Republicans do not want any regulations on the financial or any other market. And Republicans want to pay lower taxes than they do in Abu Dhabi. My suggestion for Republicans: stop drinking the tea.
Jac Flanders is the author of “What I Learned On The Way Down,” eBook and paperback versions from Amazon.com
"Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has been in the headlines in recent months thanks to his role as a major investor in Solyndra LLC, the now-bankrupt California solar panel maker hailed by President Obama as a model for America's "clean energy future." ...But the Solyndra scandal is far from Kaiser's first brush with political controversy. As the Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison reports today, Kaiser has become extraordinarily wealthy by taking advantage of the federal tax code in ways that some tax experts - including the IRS - believe to be illegal. As Allison describes it in his Sunlight post today, "in one six year period, during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the Internal Revenue Service just once, totaling $11,699--equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62."" Lousy Republicans!
http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/gallery/diane-hendricks http://www.forbes.com/profile/diane-hendricks/ Wanna hear how she and her husband got there without cheating on their taxes?
" I find the future outlined by the testimony presented to this sub-committee to be indescribably dreary and depressing. It paints a future of increasingly severe government-induced shortages, higher and higher electricity and water prices, massive taxpayer subsidies to politically well-connected and favored industries, and a permanently declining quality of life for our children who will be required to stretch and ration every drop of water and every watt of electricity in their bleak and dimly lit homes – homes in which gravel replaces green lawns and the toilets constantly back up. I see a different future for our nation: I see a new era of clean, cheap and abundant hydro-electricity. I see great new reservoirs to store water in wet years to assure abundance in dry ones. I see a future in which families can enjoy the prosperity that abundant water and electricity provides; and the quality of life that comes from that prosperity. I see a nation whose children can look forward to a green lawn, a backyard garden, a family swimming pool, affordable air-conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, brightly lit homes and cities and abundant and affordable groceries from America’s agricultural cornucopia. These are two very different visions of America, and a choice must be made – not just by this subcommittee or this Congress, but by the American people." http://mcclintock.house.gov/2012/03/examining-the-proposed-fiscal-year.shtml
" The U.S Department of Energy wasn't the only government agency to invest heavily in Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. Last November, an obscure state board agreed to give the Fremont-based company a $34.5 million tax break, the largest one handed out under an alternative-energy subsidy law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger attended Solyndra's groundbreaking in September 2009 and declared it a cause for "great celebration." Schwarzenegger used the event to push for the tax breaks to help clean technology companies buy equipment for "design, manufacture, production, or assembly" operations in California. He said the subsidies would create new jobs for laid-off auto workers at the shuttered NUMMI plant a few miles away." http://www.baycitizen.org/solyndra/story/schwarzennegers-solyndra-subsidy/ Cronies.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2056723,00.html?xid=fblike
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2056723,00.html?xid=fblike Overall Crime Rates per Person Sweden 0.1300 United Kingdom 0.1048 Belgium 0.0889 Netherlands 0.0850 Germany 0.0795 Austria 0.0654 France 0.0576 South Africa 0.0531 Switzerland 0.0387 United States 0.0378 http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population#List
Hendricks... was a high school dropout who joined his father in the roofing business, reshingling houses on weekends. He eventually started his own firm, which grew into a 500-man multi-state operation by 1971, a time when most roofers were still local. After giving the company to the employees so he would have more personal time, he started ABC Supply by purchasing 3 failing Bird and Sons locations. Through the years ABC Supply has expanded to almost 500 stores through new start-ups and acquisitions.... Hendricks and his wife Diane owned and ran several other companies through the Hendricks Group. He was known for his interest in green building technology, and was set to build an environmentally friendly roof for a complex at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hendricks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soczkiJea0Y
The song may be a bit hokey, but the 62-year-old Hendricks identifies with the underdog. As a kid growing up in nearby Janesville, he sensed the contempt "the country club set" had for his blue-collar family because of his father's humble job as a roofer. "They looked down their noses at him," Hendricks says. "He went to work every single day of his life. That wasn't good enough? Some kid got to go to a fancy school and that made him different than me? That just sets in your gut." ... An aspiring architect, Hendricks dropped out of high school at 17, when his girlfriend got pregnant. He took two jobs, one on a repair truck for Wisconsin Power & Light. While driving around town he kept his eyes peeled for houses with worn shingles. After his shift he'd go back, knock on the door and offer to reshingle the roof that weekend.
But overseeing dozens of simultaneous job sites kept him on the road for months at a time. For a man with five kids it was an unsustainable pace. He burned out and gave away the business in pieces to his employees...." http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1129/184_print.html
And I agree, Jac; Allen must be one of the funniest men who's ever lived. (Evidently however, his comic gifts are lost on certain people participating in this exchange. I won't mention any names, but here's a hint: he's currently running for office, and wears a stupid hat.)
http://temecula.patch.com/articles/citizen-reader-shares-mining-sounds