TP’s Lee Fang Discusses The ‘Kochtopus’ Network On Countdown

For the past two years, ThinkProgress researcher Lee Fang has been digging into the nefarious activities of the Koch family, reporting on their funding of the tea parties, the depth of their astroturfing, and their family’s record of right-wing radicalism.

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Janet Ritz
Publisher, editor, the-environmentalist.org
Posted: August 23, 2010 05:06 PM
Koch Brothers Called Out for Waging War Against Obama

Jane Mayer, reporting on The New Yorker magazine, has written a comprehensive article entitled: “Covert Operations, The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama”. In it, Mayer gives an exhaustive report on the Koch brothers’ funding of extreme right-win opposition to the current administration.

The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry–especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers’ corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a “kingpin of climate science denial.” The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies–from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program–that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

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Senator Simpson: He’s Not Just Offensive, He’s Ignorant
Dean Baker

Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission, has sparked calls for his resignation after sending an offensive and sexist note to Ashley Carson, the executive director of the Older Women’s League. While such calls are reasonable — Simpson’s comments were certainly more offensive than remarks that led to the resignation of other people from the Obama administration — the Senator’s determined ignorance about the basic facts on Social Security is an even more important reason for him to leave his position.

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I was also a recipient of one of Simpson’s tirades. As was the case with the note he sent to Carson, Simpson attached a presentation prepared for the commission by Social Security’s chief actuary. Simpson implied that this presentation had some especially eye-opening information that would lead Carson and myself to give up our wrong-headed views on Social Security.
While I opened the presentation with great expectations, I quickly discovered there was nothing in the presentation that would not already be known to anyone familiar with the annual Social Security trustees’ report. The presentation showed a program that is currently in solid financial shape, but somewhere in the next three decades will face a shortfall due to an upward redistribution of wage income, increasing life expectancy, and slow growth in the size of the workforce. The projected shortfall is not larger than what the program has faced at prior points in its history, most notably in 1982 when the Greenspan Commission was established to restore the program’s solvency.
It was disturbing to see that Simpson seemed surprised by what should have been old hat to anyone familiar with the policy debate on Social Security. After all, he had been a leading participant in these debates in his years in the Senate.
Simpson’s public remarks also seem to show very little knowledge of the financial situation of the elderly or near elderly. He has repeatedly made references to retirees driving up to their gated communities in their Lexuses. While this description may apply to Simpson’s friends, it applies to very few other retirees, the vast majority of whom rely on Social Security for the bulk of their income. Cutting the benefits of the small group of genuinely affluent elderly would make almost no difference in the finances of the program.
Furthermore, the baby-boom generation that is nearing retirement has seen most of its savings destroyed by the collapse of the housing bubble that both wiped out their housing equity and took a big chunk of the limited money they were able to put aside in their 401(k)s. Simpson shows no understanding of this fact as he prepares to cut benefits for near retirees.
He also doesn’t seem to have a clue as to the type of work that most older people are doing. While it is possible for senators to continue in their jobs late in life, nearly half of older workers have jobs that are either physically demanding or require they work in difficult conditions. Simpson seems totally clueless on this point when he considers proposals to raise the retirement age.
The key facts on Social Security are not hard to understand. The shortfall is relatively minor and distant. Most retirees have little income other than their Social Security, and most workers would find it quite difficult to stay at their jobs in their late 60s or even 70. We might have hoped that Senator Simpson understood these facts at the time when he was appointed to the commission, but we should at least expect that he would learn them on the job.

His determined ignorance in the face of the facts is the most important reason why he is not qualified to serve on President Obama’s commission. Someone who is co-chairman of such an important group should be able to critically evaluate information, not just insult and demean his critics.

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Ryan Grim
ryan@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
Alan Simpson: Social Security Is ‘A Milk Cow With 310 Million Tits’ [UPDATE]
First Posted: 08-24-10 07:32 PM | Updated: 08-25-10 09:19 PM

UPDATE: Wednesday 8:30 p.m. – Simpson isn’t going anywhere, the New York Times reports. “Alan Simpson has apologized and while we regret and do not condone his comments, we accept his apology and he will continue to serve,” White House spokesperson Jennifer Psaki told the Times.

UPDATE: Wednesday 3:59 p.m. – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) called on President Obama to fire Alan Simpson from the deficit commission for referring to Social Security as “a milk cow with 310 million tits!” in an email this week to OWL executive director Ashley Carson.
The letter, provided to HuffPost, concludes:

The statement by Senator Simpson that Social Security is “like a milk cow with 310 million tits” is really quite beyond comprehension. Today, Social Security provides the majority of income for two-thirds of the nation’s elderly and for one-third it provides nearly all their income. Without it, millions of Americans would be living in abject poverty as was the case before the creation of Social Security. It is false and demeaning to say that these people, the vast majority of whom have worked their entire lives and contributed into the Social Security system, are somehow “milking” the system.

Read more.

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Richard (RJ) Eskow
Consultant, Writer, Senior Fellow with The Campaign for America’s Future
Posted: August 24, 2010 07:44 PM
“310 Million Tits” — If Simpson Doesn’t Resign, the President Must Fire Him

(UPDATED below to address Simpson’s statement of apology)

Alan Simpson is the co-chair of President Obama’s Deficit Commission, which is charged with creating a bipartisan consensus for balancing the budget. Lately Simpson’s foulmouthed tirades have drawn at least as much attention as the Commission’s actual work. His latest rant — which includes denigrating an activist for women’s issues with remarks about “a milk cow with 310 million tits” — crosses the line once and for all. It demonstrates conclusively that he possesses neither the judgment, the ability, nor the emotional stability to carry out his mission. He’s become an embarrassment to the President and an impediment to his Commission’s objectives. He must resign immediately. If he’s unwilling to do so, the President must fire him.

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August 25, 2010
AUGUST CANDIDATES FORMALLY SUE DUE TO IMPROPRIETIES IN ELECTION

Ten countywide candidates in the August 5th election have formally filed an election contest in Shelby County Chancery Court requesting injunctive relief. The ten plaintiffs in the suit include certain non-partisan judicial candidates as well as certain Democratic nominees, all of whom competed in the County General Election earlier this month. Based on an inspection and investigation of the Shelby County Election Commission (SCEC) and of August 5th election records, the suit claims that the election process was incurably flawed to the extent that the citizens of Shelby County were denied a free and equal election as required by Article I of the Tennessee Constitution.

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Justice ends investigation of former House GOP leader DeLay
By Jordan Fabian and Susan Crabtree – 08/16/10 12:07 PM ET
Read more.

and yet….

Don Siegelman and the Evil of a Political Prosecution
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When Wall Street Rules, We Get Wall Street Rules
Whacking the Middle Class
By DEAN BAKER

The middle class is getting whacked by the Great Recession. Fifteen million people are out of work, another 9 million workers can only find part-time jobs, and millions more have given up looking for work altogether. Those lucky enough to be employed are unlikely to see any substantial wage gains for years to come.

Millions of homeowners are facing the loss of their home and more than 10 million are underwater in their mortgage. Most of the huge baby boom cohort is approaching retirement with little other than Social Security to support them, now that the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed their home equity and much of the rest of their savings.

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And let’s be clear: force-feeding is torture, as Luke Mitchell notes so cogently in Harper’s, at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/0082566.

MCM

via Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG):

Ramadan at Guantánamo: Nightly force-feedings
BY CAROL ROSENBERG

Here’s a new twist in the U.S. military’s Islamic sensitivity effort in the prison camps for suspected terrorists at the Guantánamo Bay Navy base:

Military medical staff are force-feeding a secret number of prisoners on hunger strike between dusk and dawn during the Muslim fasting holiday of Ramadan.

The prison camps spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Bradley Fagan, says it is U.S. Southern Command policy to no longer reveal the exact number of detainees being shackled by guards into restraint chairs for twice daily feedings.

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Hard Times Are Getting Harder: Why The Silence?
by Danny Schechter

Aren’t job losses and foreclosures as important as a “Ground Zero Mosque” (which isn’t a mosque, and hasn’t been built and wouldn’t be at ground zero?)

We know we live in hard times that are on the verge of getting harder with 500,000 new claims for unemployment last week, a recent record.

The stock market may be over for now as fear and panic drives small investors out. Big corporations hoard stashes of cash rather then hire workers. The D-Word (depression) is back in play.

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Fox News shareholder funded ‘Ground Zero mosque’ imam
By Raw Story

The second largest shareholder in News Corp. — the parent company of Fox News — has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to causes linked to the imam planning to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, says a report from Yahoo!News.

According to the report from Yahoo!’s John Cook, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who owns seven percent of News Corp., “has directly funded [Imam Feisal Abdul] Rauf’s projects to the tune of more than $300,000.”

Cook reports that Prince Al-Waleed’s personal charity, the Kingdom Foundation, donated $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a project sponsored by two of Rauf’s initiatives, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which is building the Manhattan mosque.

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Editorial: Cannibalism or Disinfectant? Missing the Plot in Arizona
by Denis G. Campbell

Sunlight is a great disinfectant, but it’s cloudy and raining over the Arizona election desert. In the few hours since t r u t h o u t ran my article on transparency and hacking problems with vote scanning machines in Arizona, two events occurred demonstrating a continued preference to attack accusers rather than the problem.

Having watched past Arizona vote machine election official fiascos for three years from abroad, UK Progressive recommends that since the Arizona election system seems to be so badly broken:

1. Federal observers, led by US Attorney General Eric Holder be dispatched to Arizona county tabulation and polling centres from the moment ‘vote by mail’ balloting begins until a final count is determined.

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From Josh Mitteldorf:

Mark,

Though I have no firsthand knowledge, I’ve seen enough research to find it plausible that the truth was that Tillman was murdered by a military firing squad because the Bush Administration saw his potential to become a potent spokesman for the anti-war movement.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/25159

Josh

Here’s that piece (from July, 2007):

New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed

Army medical examiners concluded Tillman was shot three times in the head from just 10 yards away, no evidence of “friendly fire” damage at scene, Army attorneys congratulated each other on cover-up, Wesley Clark concludes “orders came from the very top” to murder pro-football star because he was about to become an anti-war political icon.

Prison Planet | July 27, 2007
Paul Joseph Watson

Astounding new details surrounding the death of Pat Tillman clearly indicate that top brass decided to execute the former pro football star in cold blood to prevent him from returning home and becoming an anti-war icon.

These same criminals then engaged in a sophisticated conspiracy to create a phony “friendly fire” cover story.

Read more.