Koch Bros private affair in CO goes public.

I am so fucking sick of the Koch Brothers and their smarmy, corporate asses. They want to bring America, as we currently know it, down to their level..which means only classes..the upper class and the lower class. Those great folks over at CommonCause and ProgressNowColorado have made sure that the national media, like the LATimes as an example, knows about the Koch Bros rightwing nutter-fest this weekend in Vail. This is the second nutterfest the Koch's have held this year, the other was in Palm Springs. From the LAT writeup:

An invitation-only conference of wealthy conservative activists organized by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch will convene just outside Vail, Colo., this weekend.

Common Cause -- a group that describes itself as nonpartisan and headed by a former Democratic congressman -- and ProgressNow Colorado have organized a protest outside the Ritz Carlton at Bachelor Gulch, where they believe the conference will be held.
   
The groups have urged their followers to arrive with signs that read, "UnVail the Kochs," "Corporations are not people," and "Stop the War on the Middle Class."

This is the second Koch-organized conference this year.  The previous event, held in late January in Palm Springs, drew about 800 to 1,000 protesters who rallied against the Kochs' libertarian agenda. About 25 protesters were arrested for trespassing. 

The Kochs have been a target of liberal activists for their funding of research institutions and other groups that push a limited-government agenda. They control Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate that is the nation's second-largest privately held company.  They are credited with helping to organize the "tea party" and allied groups that spent millions to defeat Democrats in last year's midterm elections.

Now, why does the LAT have to verbally paint the folks at CommonCause and ProgressNowCO as liberal activists targeting those fuckwads? Its a bad phrase to some folks. They couldn't say groups dedicated to protecting the rights of individuals over those of the Corporations?

Senator Bernie Sanders and the BraveNewFoundation know what's what. Their website,
KochBrothersExposed, is a good place to send folks. Their video below is worth your time.



As they say on the website..we must create an Echo Chamber of Truth to combat the millions of bucks these corporate welfare whores spend to thwart the rights of individuals, via their lobbying efforts, swiftboat-type campaigns and these types of little get-togethers. Uncloak the Koch's...NOW, before the elections take place next year. That way Joe and Jill Mainstreet know the truth about these rightwing extremists who only hold allegiance to one thing..money. Mutha Fuckas need to be brought down to our level. They want a fight, then we have to give it to them...all of us, not just the liberal activists. The people in the video are elderly American's the most vulnerable among us to the fuckery being foisted upon us by the R's and their friends in The Corporatocracy. They are willing to fight for what is right..why aren't the rest of us??

Obama wants us to cut him some slack...believe me dude..we have..until now.

Filched from PulitzerPrize.org

Perhaps not as much as he would like, but I know that I have let a lot of things he hasn't done or has done just slide right out of my mind. I could sit here and name them all for you folks..but you would probably change the channel and I really don't want that.

I only got a few of you reading these bitchfests and frankly I want to keep you. It's a pain in the ass to think I am only talking/writing to myself...and all those damn cats laying on my bed at this moment.

So, lets let Cornel West and Harry Belafonte say it for me. They are far wiser and more eloquent than moi, take my word for it. Plus, they don't drop a dozen f-bombs in every paragraph like I do. That is always a plus.

Chris Hedges over at TruthDig tells us why Cornel West went ballistic. I like and trust Mr. West. I might not always agree w/thim but I do more times than naught. From the writeup, which I start mid-paragraph:

West would warn Obama that the quality of a life is defined by its moral commitment, that his legacy will be determined by his willingness to defy the cruel assault by the corporate state and the financial elite against the poor and working men and women, and that justice must never be sacrificed on the altar of power.

Perhaps there was never much of a struggle in Obama’s heart. Perhaps West only provided a moral veneer. Perhaps the dark heart of Emanuel was always the dark heart of Obama. Only Obama knows. But we know how the play ends. West is banished like honest Kent in “King Lear.” Emanuel and immoral mediocrities from Lawrence Summers to Timothy Geithner to Robert Gates—think of Goneril and Regan in the Shakespearean tragedy—take power. We lose. And Obama becomes an obedient servant of the corporate elite in exchange for the hollow trappings of authority.

No one grasps this tragic descent better than West, who did 65 campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.” (emphasis mine)

Head of the American killing machine. Jesus H. Christ...I wonder how he feels about that title. And he might like it or plain not give a shit, who the hell knows anymore? It's not a positive statement unless you are The Shrub, aka George Bush or his BFF The Big Dick Cheney..or my personal favorite Donald Rumsfeld. I thought Obama wanted more than to kill people and continue Bush's bullshit 'War on Terror'...I thought he wanted to talk it out, to solve it w/words and good deeds not bullets and bombs..to be better than the previous man that occupied the Oval Office, his staff of warmongers and his hired henchman aka federal contractors, who btw, Obama continues to employ many of the same War Profiteers.

Because I am friggin sick and tired of dead and/or maimed soldiers, or those that will eternally suffer the mental effects, like PTSD, for the rest of their lives. I am sick and tired of American, Pakistani and Afghanistan families coping with the carnage of our forever wars. Wars that will never 'be won' in the traditional sense, just in some happy horseshit that gets spewed during a presser in DC, or a high-ranking military mind grinning, like he just won the fucking lottery, for the embedded journalists. One war has lasted us just short of TEN-FUCKING-YEARS m'dear reader.The second one not far behind in time and soon...in soldiers deaths and permanent maiming and emotional scars that will also last them forever.

I hope that you will read Hedges writeup..its great and its also sad as hell at the same time. It's about an intelligent, good, kind  man, Cornel West, that believed in the change Obama talked about in all his campaigning last time around and so far, Professor West has been let down like a kid who's dad forgets his birthday and comes home drunk to boot. Many of us have been let down by Obama and those he hired to surround himself with whilst he made the hard decisions. 

Now, on to Harry Belafonte. A man that has been through the civil rights and equality wars here in the good ole US of A for decades, long before many of us were born, or became politically active. A man that knows his shit, who knows what is what is not and he also knows who is full of shit. From Bruce A. Dixon @ TheBlackAgendaReport, a small blurb of Belafonte's DemocracyNow Interview, with the wonderful and talented Amy Goodman.... both pieces are well worth listening and/or reading:

Belafonte was asked by host Amy Goodman whether he'd used his occasional access to directly share his many critical and valuable public policy insights with the White House. Belafonte replied that his only access to the president has been for a few seconds at a time, not long enough for any substantive discussion. But, he said, at one such event President Obama approached him to inquire when Belafonte and Cornel West were going “to cut me some slack.”

“What makes you think we haven't?” Belafonte replied to the president? At this point the brief encounter was over.

Let's pause to think about that. When President Obama cusses out Cornel West and personally demands that historic stalwarts of the movement for peace and justice “cut him some slack” on black unemployment, on foreclosures and the prison state, on torture and the military budget, on unjust wars and corporate welfare, on fulfilling the just demands of those who elected him, our first black president is revealing his real self. Far from saying “make me do it,” President Obama is saying how dare you pressure me to do what you elected me to do.

What say you m'dear reader? Do you think we expect too much from our President? Do you think that all politicians say most anything to get elected and therefore we should take it has standard procedure that 'not everything they promise to do, will be done'? Do you think we haven't cut Obama enough slack? Tell me..tell me if I am the only one that thinks the time to cut him slack is way the hell over.

President Obama still has a lot of time left. But my pov is that most of that time will be spent squeezing money out of supporters at fancy, expensive dinners and speaking engagements for his next campaign to be our President after the 2012 elections. He will have little precious time left to do the things he promised us during his last campaign for the 2008 Presidency. 

To understand the phrase "make me do it", you have to read Dixon's entire but short article. But the following paragraph really grabbed the hell out of me:

Harry Belafonte has done a great public service in helping us distinguish the imaginary Barack Obama of “make me do it” from the real Barack Obama, who demands our support, but expects us to “cut him some slack.” Rather than agitating and organizing in our communities to “make him do it” all the real President Obama wants of movement activists is for us to sit down and shut up, until it's time to help chase everybody out to vote for him in 2012.

I don't know about you all, but I have been getting daily emails about 'organizing for Obama' and how important it will be to get out the vote for him, from our President himself or his campaign people. It's almost at spam level if you want my personal opinion.  I actually unsubscribed last week, but I am still getting them.

Because I won't be doing any organizing or getting out the vote for President Obama this time around. I don't feel the man has earned my vote much less my shoe leather and hours and hours of phone calls like I did for him last time, the week before the election.

When he took office and Holder continued to support many of the legal cases that were started against President Bush for spying, lying and all sorts of shit..I really went batshit crazy. Then, not only did Gitmo not close, but they seem to be keeping everyone there that was there before Obama took office, not to mention starting up those kangaroo courts known as Military Tribunals again.

Also, if you will notice on my right sidebar, I keep track of how many of our soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan under Bush and under Obama. The numbers are staggering but what really chaps my ass is that the number of dead soldiers under Obama has almost doubled, to 924..and he has only been in office a couple of years. Bush had eight years to kill 575 soldiers. Now, I know that Bush pretty much put Afghanistan on the back burner...but still..a dead soldier is a dead soldier to me. It's someone's brother, father, son, nephew or husband (or the female equivalents). My niece was there, so I can talk to this subject, I don't give a shit who it pisses off. I am just happy as hell that she got out before it got real bad over there, although I worried daily about her safety..both on the battlefield and when she was alone in her tent..but that former one is for another day and time. She was never raped or physically attacked thank goodness, and far too many of our female soldiers were..but like I said..I digress.

So now I will let Mr. Belafonte, say for me, why I believe we must now speak out about the shortcomings of the Obama Presidency. It's not to undermine him or his second run for the Office of the President..its to speak truth to power in the hope that he hears us and changes his course which looks more and more like he represents the powerful, or as I call it, The Corporatocracy:

    AMY GOODMAN: And to those who say, "If you want President Obama re-elected, you will undermine him if you criticize him; and consider the alternative"?

    HARRY BELAFONTE: I think we will not only undermine him, but undermine the hopes of this nation, if we don’t criticize him. Absence of protest in the times of this kind of national crisis—Theodore Roosevelt once says, "When tyranny takes over the national agenda, it is that time that the voices of protest must be awakened. And if you don’t raise your voice in protest, you are a patriotic traitor." And I believe that patriotism is betrayed by those voices that are not heard. Those who would detract you from that fact are those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Nothing will happen but good for Barack Obama and the United States of America, and indeed the world, if everybody stepped to the table and said, "This is the course we must be on."

Thank You Mr. Belafonte. Thank You Mr. West. Thanks to both of you for speaking the truth to the most powerful man in this hemisphere, if not the world.  Lets hope for change...this time...real change. Change on immigration, the forever wars, financial changes aka accountability of the greedy Wall Streeters as to how they do 'business', jobs and not bailouts for the corporations shipping their jobs outside our borders and finally... education opportunities for everyone regardless of race or station in life without the fear of being in debt for decades or even worse, not getting the loans or grants needed to better themselves and contribute to our nation and make us once again number one in all areas and issues.

1st quarter lobbying: How the Corporations rank.

FromThe Center for Responsive Politics CNBC has gleaned enough information so that they can provide a decent writeup about The Corporatocracy and who is spending how much in the world of lobbying our elected congress critters:

According to the Center, the US Chamber of Commerce topped the list, with spending of just over $17 million in the three-month period. Next was General Electric, a minority owner of NBC Universal and CNBC, with just over $9 million, and AT&T, with spending of just over $6.8 million.

The highest ranked non-business interest group was AARP, which placed ninth with $5 million in quarterly lobbying spending.

Ranked by sector, the pharmaceutical and health industry topped the list with spending of over $62.5 million, followed by the insurance industry with just under $40 million and the oil and gas sector with $39.4 million in spending.

 Lets not forget the gun lobby! After the Tucson Massacre that lovely bunch of fools went from $40,000 during the first quarter of 2009 to $75,000 during the first quarter of 2011.” According to the CNBC report.

Don't you just love Democracy! Thank You SCOTUS for Citizens United...you fucks.

Today's number: 12

That number represents the top 12 Corporations that not only don't pay taxes, and actually get a refund check from the IRS. So, lets look at a few of these fuckers and how they keep all their money and take some of our money in the form of tax rebates by using a new report put out by PublicCampaign.Org.

Twelve large American corporations have been identified by news reports, nonprofit organizations, and elected officials as paying little or no federal income taxes. Collectively, these one dozen corporate tax dodgers have benefited dramatically – in tax loopholes, bailouts, and subsidies – from the more than $1 billion dollars they have invested into influencing Washington. As Americans pay their taxes this month, it is important to understand that our political system lets these corporations off the hook while the rest of us foot the bill.

Ah yes...loopholes and lobbying, why it's the American Way people! First one on the OIL list is ExxonMobil:

Quick Facts on ExxonMobil
Campaign Contributions: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $5.7 million
Lobbying Expenditures: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $138 million
Government Contracts: $840 million in 2008; $6.8 billion from 2000-2008
Profits in 2009: $19 billion
Taxes Paid for 2009: $0
Tax Rebate for 2009: $156 million

Well, I guess that nice little tax rebate probably paid for most of their lobbying, with a few million left over to hand  out to their top execs. Now, lets look at the top bank that royally fucked us over AND got a lovely parting gift in the form of Bailout Funds to boot ...Bank of America:

Quick Facts on Bank of America
Campaign Contributions: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $11 million
Lobbying Expenditures: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $24 million
Bailout Funds: $20 billion to save itself, $25 billion to buy Merrill Lynch, $118 in loan guarantees
Profits in 2010: $4.4 billion
Tax Refund for 2010: $1.9 billion

Gee, I really think BofA should be the top dog in screwing us over as they got a tax refund and bailout funds as well. The third group is known as the Transportation group. Their top carpetbaggin fuck is....drumroll please...Boeing:

Quick Facts on Boeing
Campaign Contributions: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $10 million
Lobbying Expenditures: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $115 million
Government Contracts: $24 billion in 2008; $169 billion from 2000-2008. Recently received $35 billion contract from Pentagon.
Taxes Paid in 2010: $0
Tax Refund in 2010: $124 million

All those nice government contracts, zero paid in taxes and a beautiful tax refund to boot. What more could they ask for? Next is the Telecom and Technology groups:

Quick Facts on Verizon
Campaign Contributions: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $12 million
Lobbying Expenditures: Total Over 10 Years (2001-2010), $131 million
Government Contracts: $488 million in 2008; $5.1 billion from 2000-2008
Profits in 2010: $12 billion
Taxes Paid for Last 2 Years: $0

Verizon's CEO must be very very happy, wouldn't you think? After all, they fucked us on lots of different levels.Their campaign contributions round out to roughly 1.2 million a year.

Shared sacrifice my brown ass. None of these batshit bastards share, they just take and take and then pay off all those lovely Congress Critters. I guess you could say they share with their bought and paid for Congress Critters, they sure as hell aren't sharing with us, the taxpayers.

Obama said yesterday that he wants to tax the rich...he needs to start with taxing The Corporatocracy, and shit-canning all those loopholes they use to fuck us over..all the while, with a smile on their faces and cute commercials about how they give back by helping Main Street.

The group, Americans Against Food Taxes is anything but.

Like the Koch Brothers, The Corporations behind the new commercial being run, Americans against food taxes want you to believe the group is a groundswell of Americans that are tired of being taxed to death by Big Government. The commercial and their website are loaded with images of average Americans when the reality is: this is a bullshit misleading front group for The Corporatocracy once again. From Sourcewatch:

Americans Against Food Taxes (AAFT) is a front group funded by the beverage industry which consists of major restaurant chains, food and soft drink manufacturers and their associated lobbying groups. It was organized by the American Beverage Association to fight a proposed three to ten cent tax on soda, sugary drinks and energy drinks to help fund health care reform in the United States. ^[1][2]

Its Web site states that Americans Against Food Taxes is a "coalition of concerned citizens – responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country" who opposed a government-proposed tax on food and beverages, including soda, juice drinks, and flavored milks. But its extensive membership consists mainly of lobbying groups for packaged food and soda companies, chain restaurant corporations and the world's large food and soft drink manufacturers and distributors, including the Coca-Cola Company, Dr. Pepper-Royal Crown Bottling Co., PepsiCo, Canada Dry Bottling Co. of New York, the Can Manufacturers Institute, 7-Eleven Convenience Stores, and Yum! Brands.

There could very well be a group of American's that do not want to pay small taxes on sodas and so-called energy drinks to fund anything, but this group ain't one of them, although they state they have 83,000 individual members, there are no names of them on the website..only corporations. When I sign a petition I allow my name to be used publicly.  Here in California a poll has shown that a majority of Californian's would rather pay a two percent tax on soda's and energy drinks than see more cuts in  education funding.

Why can't they be up front with us is the question that American's need to ask them. Why are they lying and misleading us with their commercials and their website? Once again, it's Bullshit for the Masses my friends..eat it up! They count on it.

Koch Bros Convention draws plenty of protesters

From LAT

The rich folks in Rancho Mirage were not amused by protesters that showed up to voice their distaste with the Koch Brothers Billionaire Caucus this weekend. To which I say: Too effin bad mutha fuckas! From Dave Dayden’s piece over at FDL:

Twenty-five protesters were arrested in Rancho Mirage, California today, at a protest in front of the Rancho Las Palmas resort, site of the “Billionaire’s Caucus,” an annual meeting put on by the Koch Brothers and other corporate entities and conservative movement operators.

Riverside Sheriff’s deputy Melissa Nieburger said that the sheriff’s department did have contacts with protest organizers, which included the California Courage Campaign, CREDO, MoveOn.org, 350.org, the California Nurses Association, United Domestic Workers of America and the main sponsor, the good-government group Common Cause, prior to the event, and that they were aware that some protesters would seek to be arrested for trespassing. She would not guarantee that all 25 who were arrested were part of that coordinated operation. The police, who wore riot gear, batons and helmets, did put the arrested into plastic handcuffs. Nieburger described them as “passive restraints.” They were being processed at press time, and Nieburger would not say whether they would be released or would spend the night at the jail in Indio.

Nieburger estimated between 800 and 1,000 activists at the “Uncloak the Kochs” event. Event organizers chartered buses from several locations around Southern California and claimed 1,500 people signed up for those buses, on top of any local activists who attended. It appeared from the ground that well over 1,000 protesters were there.

While the sheriff’s deputy claimed no knowledge of who called out the Riverside County sheriffs and the Palm Springs police department to the proceedings, Common Cause was contacted by the sheriff to see what they were planning and coordinate appropriate resources. The city of Rancho Mirage contracts with the Riverside County sheriff’s department for their law enforcement needs.
Van Jones, the former green jobs deputy in the Obama Administration and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, described the anti-Koch rally as “the beginning of our fight back.” The leadership of Common Cause, generally a far more congenial organization, was a bit unusual, part of a new aggressiveness and penchant for direct action from the group. “I think you’re going to see a new Common Cause.”

The Koch Brothers, billionaires who have generously funded conservative and libertarian causes for over a generation – including the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and tea party groups like Americans for Prosperity – put together an annual meeting, typically held in the California desert, with fellow corporate CEOs and conservative operatives, to plan the year ahead. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and 2012 Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain were reputed to attend the gathering at the sprawling Rancho Las Palmas resort. The Kochs bought out the entire resort for Saturday and Sunday. Some activists who stayed at the resort Friday night and booked dinners at their restaurants on Saturday had their reservations canceled by the resort, and were given $150 each for their trouble.

Common Cause organized the protest weeks ago, and set up a stage in the parking lot across the street from the Rancho Las Palmas resort. But from the beginning, activists were far more interested in the resort site, and they massed themselves across the street and then eventually in the driveway of the resort. The police, in their riot gear, came out very early to guard the resort, only letting in authorized personnel. Hotel guests, presumably attendees to the Koch Brothers meeting, looked on, holding smart phone cameras and taking pictures of the display. In addition, conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart, resplendent in shorts and roller skates, mulled around the crowd with a couple lackeys and a small video camera, talking to (and arguing with) attendees. I asked Breitbart exactly who necessitated the riot police, the lady with the papier-maché puppet or the Code Pink lady’s umbrella, and he claimed to have seen unspecified “internal emails” proving the potential for violence and the need for security. Surely that will come out in the next few days. I didn’t want to keep him from his workout, so I wrapped up the interview.

Violence..come on..there was no violence. Breitbart was smoking crack if he alluded to any violence on the left’s side at this event. This time around there was plenty of press of the left’s protest of these heathen bastards. From an LAT writeup:

Protest organizers said they hoped to raise awareness about the Koch brothers and what activists portray as their shadowy attempts to weaken environmental protection laws and undercut campaign contribution limits.

The brothers control Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest privately held company. They have funded groups pushing a limited-government, libertarian agenda, helped organize “tea party”groups and contributed $1 million to a failed ballot initiative to suspend California’s law to curb greenhouse gases.

At least the LA Times gets it right that the Koch Bros have funded measures to circumvent laws that help save the environment, and that they organized the astroturf group known as the Tea Party.
No one single person or group has worked harder to bring America back into the dark ages than the Koch Brothers.  These guys would spend their last dime to drag us backwards and put The Corporatocracy into control.

Issa asks big business what they want him to change.

First off, you have to give Darrell Issa credit for not hiding who he represents..big business. From the yokels at Politico:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wants the oil industry, drug manufacturers and other trade groups and companies to tell him which Obama administration regulations to target this year.

The incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - in letters sent to more than 150 trade associations, companies and think tanks last month - requested a list of existing and proposed regulations that would harm job growth.

Darrell, you really do have a large set of nads dude. Yes, jobs are important, but to sell our souls for jobs is not only a bullshit reason to undo regulations, it shows us who you support..and it ain't the folks on Main Street you bag of sheep shit. I would hasten to bet that you would love to roll back the minimum wage to two bucks an hour ..am I right on that point you worthless douchenozzle?

Darrell is worth a minimum of $250 million dollars, so it should come as no surprise that he represents The Corporatocracy. At least we know who he represents, as most Rethugs will bust their asses to hide that fact...but not Cali's Darrell Issa..oh hell no..he is proud of that fact.

Issa will probably be our Fucktard of the Year...anyone wanna bet?

Ayn was so full of sh*t- bet her eyes were brown.

The rightwingers really love the hell out of....cough..so-called philosopher, but really just a fucking novelist with only two big sellers, Ayn Rand. Personally, I think the broad was nothing more than a rich, uppity cunt that thought the majority of the world was there to make her and her buddies in the Corporatocracy more money.

The idiot that started our financial slide into hell, Alan Greenspan, was a friend and follower of Rands btw. She later cast him aside after he went to work for the gasp...government.  Matt Taibbi says it best for me in the latest Alternet Q&A with him regarding his new book:

She was this great novelist who wrote all these very ponderous long novels like The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The general theme of all of them was that there were two classes of people: the producers and the parasites. In her books, the producers were the great industrial figures who actually created businesses and commercial empires, and everybody was somehow feeding off of them. You were either making something, or you were a parasite. That ethos is still very much alive; it’s part of the Tea Party rhetoric. They talk about “water carriers and water drinkers” and split the world up into those two categories. Greenspan actually spent a lot of time with Rand, they had these little tea parties at her house, and he was under her tutelage. He was one of her protégés who directly carried the flame for her religion. But it was ironic that he ended up being the chief regulator of the economy that had been an anathema to everything that she believed, being a government regulator. Yet he somehow did it and didn’t feel contradicted about it.

The religion of Ayn Rand...how telling is that? Talk about class warfare, that nasty cunt believed in two classes, the have's and have not's who's only goal in life should be to service the rich...or as she thought of them...the producers. I got a good view of how popular this cunt has become by reading this article entitled: 10 Shameless Right-Wing Tributes to Ayn Rand That Should Make Any Sane Person Blush.The article points out that since it seems the religious wingers are taking a backseat to the teabaggers now, Rand has been elevated to the pinnacle of Nutterville, thanks to the likes of Glen Beck and other alum's of Nutter U. The article identifies Rand's followers as Randroids...I love it! Here is an interesting passage:

An excellent example is this March 2010 nugget from the Christian Science Monitor: "Apple vs. GM: Ayn Rand knew the difference. Do you?"

You may wonder what "Apple vs. GM" means. (God help us, not an iCar!) But Yaron Brook and Don Watkins of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights aren't talking about anything so dull as a market conflict -- they're talking about a moral struggle between "producers" like Apple -- those few, sterling individuals who wrest value from the earth -- and "looters" like GM, whom they describe as "pseudobusinessmen" whose "business isn't business, but political pull."

You'd think Brook and Watkins could find better examples of looters than GM -- Enron, say, or Goldman Sachs, or Jack Abramoff. But Randroids are generally quiet when such people use political pull to amplify profit, even illegally. (In fact, way back in the scandal-ridden days of 2002, USA Today did a story about suits who found themselves harassed by "prosecutors, regulators" and "a Republican president"; these poor, rattled execs read Ayn Rand, USA Today said, to "remind themselves that self-interest is not only the right thing to do from an economic standpoint but is moral, as well.")

Apple has it's products manufactured in China. This is interesting to me since Apple computers are the most expensive fuckers on the market.  HP also manufactures most of it's systems overseas as well, but at least I can friggin afford one of those. GM manufactures all but 15% of their vehicles in the US and all Enron ever did was drive the price of electricity through the fucking roof...But back to the Randroids...They have been waiting forever for the movie version of Atlas Shrugged. Well, it went from a major studio $70 million dollar production with Angelina Jolie to an indy version with a paltry budget of $5 million bucks. Again, from the Alternet 10 Shameless tributes  writeup:

The $5 million project is now only part one of a proposed Atlas Shrugged trilogy (the three parts to be titled Atlas Shrugs, Atlas Takes a Load Off and Atlas Shows All You Bastards, presumably). Mediaite's Frances Martel is dazzled: "The progress on the set of Atlas Shrugged," she gushes, is really "a much more important story to both pop culture and the political world" than, say, the recent Shirley Sherrod scandal, which the damn liberal media chose to follow instead "because race is a sexy thing to cover," unlike wonkish subjects like Hollywood movies.

I rest my case...the Randroids are such fuckwads, it gives me a migraine just thinking about them and their allegiance to Rand and her self-absorbed bullshit that masquerades as philosophy.  Besides, if Limbaugh, Beck and other extreme rightwing nutters quote this woman, it shows you how fucked up she really was.

RepubliCorp!

Love it...from MoveOn's twitter feed:

How corporations have laundered campaign money.

RawStory has a how-to regarding the corporations and how they have managed to fund political ads inspite of the FEC laws. Of course it utilizes Swiss bank accounts and the assholes at the Chamber of Commerce. The new ruling from SCOTUS just makes it that much easier for these greedy carpetbaggers to affect our public elections for their own personal gain. From the RawStory link:

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.

“One of their favorites right now is spending through trade associations,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

Trade associations are considered tax-exempt non-profit organizations under US law. While they must report contributions received from other corporations to the Internal Revenue Service, the document itself remains confidential and is not made available to the public.

“Money coming through the trade association doesn’t get disclosed,” Torres-Spelliscy explained. “You can’t tell if it came from particular corporations.”

For example, she said, “The disclaimer form is likely to just say, ‘This is brought to you by the Chamber of Commerce,’ with no extra ability to see behind that.”

The Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest trade association representing at least 300,000 businesses and organizations.

A fellow non-profit that works on campaign finance, the Center for Political Accountability, calls trade associations “the Swiss bank accounts of American politics.”

God Bless those Fucking Loopholes! But the corporations don’t have to rely loopholes now..oh hell no..SCOTUS made it legal for them to lie and obsfucate against candidates that represent the people instead of the Corporatocracy.

It’s an educational read over at RawStory. Check out the entire piece here.

From our Dept of WTF?

SCOTUS has ruled that corporations now have civil rights. I shit you not. SCOTUS just opened up a huge can of vile, carpetbagging, worms.

You can read the ruling here (pdf). This decision is total crap. Corporations are not human, they are always money-making operations.

I am pretty sure the First Amendment was not created to protect The Corporatocracy.From Public Citizen:

Today, in the widely-publicized Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC, the Justices ruled in a 5-4 decision that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.

        Shed a tear for our democracy.

Today, in the case Citizens United v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.

Money from Exxon, Goldman Sachs, Pfizer and the rest of the Fortune 500 is already corroding the policy making process in Washington, state capitals and city halls. Today, the Supreme Court tells these corporate giants that they have a constitutional right to trample our democracy.

In eviscerating longstanding rules prohibiting corporations from using their own monies to influence elections, the court invites giant corporations to open up their treasuries to buy election outcomes. Corporations are sure to accept the invitation.

The predictable result will be corporate money flooding the election process; huge targeted campaigns by corporations and their front groups attacking principled candidates who challenge parochial corporate interests; and a chilling effect on candidates and election officials, who will be deterred from advocating and implementing policies that advance the public interest but injure deep-pocket corporations.

Because today’s decision is made on First Amendment constitutional grounds, the impact will be felt not only at the federal level, but in the states and localities, including in state judicial elections.

So, wtf were those five assholes thinking?

Billionaire brothers spend millions to stop ‘the liberal agenda’.

These men rape the earth and make billions doing it. Their father founded the John Birch Society. I don’t give a tinker’s damn how much they give to the Smithsonian or any other non-profit, non-political organization, they are pond scum because they lie to the public at large and they finance the extreme rightwing nutter factory. From The Progress Report:

Billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch are the wealthiest, and perhaps most effective, opponents of President Obama’s progressive agenda. They have been looming in the background of every major domestic policy dispute this year. Ranked as the 9th richest men in America, the Koch brothers sit at the helm of Koch Industries, a massive privately owned conglomerate of manufacturing, oil, gas, and timber interests. They are best known for their wealth, as well as for their generous contributions to the arts, cancer research, and the Smithsonian Institute. But David and Charles are also responsible for a vicious attack campaign aimed directly at obstructing and killing progressive reform. Over the years, millions of dollars in Koch money has flowed to various right-wing think tanks, front groups, and publications. At the dawn of the Obama presidency, Koch groups quickly maneuvered to try to stop his first piece of signature legislation: the stimulus. The Koch-funded group “No Stimulus” launched television and radio ads deriding the recovery package as simply “pork” spending. The Cato Institute — founded by Charles — as well as other Koch-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, produced a blizzard of reports distorting the stimulus and calling for a return to Bush-style tax cuts to combat the recession. As their fronts were battling the stimulus, David’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) spent the opening months of the Obama presidency placing calls and helping to organize the very first “tea party” protests. AFP, founded in 1984 by David and managed day to day by the astroturf lobbyist Tim Phillips, has spent much of the year mobilizing “tea party” opposition to health reform, clean energy legislation, and financial regulations.

STOPPING CLEAN ENERGY: David Koch presents himself as a champion of science. Next year, because of his donations, a wing of the Smithsonian will be named after him. Nevertheless, Koch has done more to undermine the public’s understanding of climate change science than any other person in America. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, funded in part by Koch foundations, has waged an underhanded campaignHot Air” tour, a nationwide roadshow using a balloon to depict climate change science as “hot air.” Despite the brothers’ extravagant wealth, Koch’s Americans for Prosperity has run populist ads mocking environmentalists as spoiled brats more concerned about their “three homes and five cars” than about economic conditions. In addition to its efforts to misinform the public, Koch Industries has spent nearly $9 million dollarsattempting to crash to falsely charge that a set of hacked e-mails somehow unravels the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring. Koch finances the ” so far on direct lobbying, much of it on climate change legislation. With a team of Koch-funded operatives going as far as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this week, the brothers may succeed in scuttling any prospect for addressing climate change.

STOPPING HEALTH REFORM: Much of the fierce opposition to health reform can be credited to Koch organizations. As the health care debate began, AFP created a front group, known as “Patients United,” dedicated itself to attacking Democratic health care reform proposals. Patients United has blanketed the country with ads distorting various provisions of the health reform legislation, particularly the public option. Patients United even centered a media campaign around Shona Robertson-Holmes, claiming she had a brain tumor the Canadian system refused to treat. However, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Patients United has been exaggerating Holmes’ case, and that she in fact had a benign cyst. In their quest to block health care reform, Koch-funded groups have fostered extremism. A speaker with the roving Patients United bus tour repeatedly compared health reform to the Holocaust while an eight-by-five foot banner at an AFP health care rally with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) read, “National Socialist Health Care: Dachau, Germany” superimposed over corpses from a concentration camp. Although many were surprised at the level of anger AFP channeled into Democratic healthcare town halls in August, it wasn’t the first time Koch groups have helped to hijack the health reform debate. Back in 1994, Americans for Prosperity, then known as Citizens for a Sound Economy, worked closely with then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich to bring mobs of angry men to health reform rallies with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

A LONG HISTORY OF STOPPING PROGRESS: The Koch brothers clearly have a financial stake in blocking reform. Koch Industry oil refineries are major carbon dioxide polluters, and George-Pacific, a Koch Industries timber subsidiary, is one of the largest contributors to the loss of carbon-sink capacity. According to the EPA, Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the U.S. and has leaked three million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters. So there are clear business-related reasons why Koch would want to block regulatory enforcement, clean energy, labor, and other reforms. But part of their opposition stems from a long family tradition of funding conservative movements to shift the country to the far right. Fred Koch, father of Charles and David and the company’s namesake, helped to found the John Birch Society in the late 1950s. The John Birch Society harnessed Cold War fears into hate against progressives, warning that President Kennedy, Civil Rights activists, and organized labor were in league with communists. By presenting progressive reform as a capitulation to the Soviet Union, Fred Koch and the other industrialists bankrolling the Birch Society were able to galvanize hundreds of thousands of middle class people into supporting their narrow agenda of cutting corporate taxes and avoiding consumer regulations.

Rich irony alert: Obama is not a liberal, you douche nozzles. Anything that makes America better, for the people, is viewed as a liberal agenda by these uber rich racists, environmental rapists and haters. Their agenda is to maintain the status quo for the Corporatocracy..it’s as simple and horrific as that.

The Job Market we will be seeing soon..

A tip of the hat to Tom over at Bring it On! for this video ;)