News & Articles

If you think that none of today’s presidential candidates care about people like you, check out Republican Scott Walker.
The Wisconsin governor not only cares, he wants to sit down with you, get your ideas, and stay in close touch. No matter who you are, Scottie wants you to join his team, so his presidency can be your presidency! Not a Republican? No problemo, amigo, Walker doesn’t check your papers. Well… except for that million-dollar check you have to write to his Super-PAC.
That’s the ticket price for entering Walker’s inner circle, where you can discuss your policy concerns and seek personal favors – straight from your lips to the candidate’s ear! Even if you’re a common working stiff, just give a million dollars – and you’re in! Is this a great country, or what?
Maybe you’re wondering what, specifically, your money buys. Well, Scott’s Super-PAC even prints out a handy purchasing slip showing that you’ll be an “Executive Board Member” of the Walkerites’ campaign. Thus, you’ll have two private dinners with The Man, a Walker staffer dedicated to your needs, special briefings and weekly emails, bi-monthly conference calls, bi-annual retreats, and – best of all – an “Exclusive Executive Board Pin.”
Golly, I haven’t been this excited or felt so included since the 1950s, when I became a member of “The Mickey Mouse Club” and got my own set of mouse ears.
When the Supreme Court descended into the Alice-In-Wonderland fantasy that corporations are people and money is speech, it was inevitable that American politics would devolve to a frivolous game that shuts out the workaday majority and enthrones a Koch-brothers plutocracy sustained by secret-money Super-PACs and whorish candidates like Walker. To help end this corrupt mockery of our electoral democracy, go to www.DemocracyIsForPeople.org.
“Scott Walker Lets Billionaire Donors Know the Outrageous Sum It’ll Take to Buy Him Off,” www.alternet.org, May 20, 2015.

Banksters: A story of crime and punishment

Big story from that razzle-dazzle place called “El Casino Grande” – otherwise known as Wall Street.
Four massive financial conglomerates –JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Barclays, and the Royal Bank of Scotland – have been caught in a criminal conspiracy to rig the global currency market. Bank regulators have now slapped them with an equally-massive fine, totaling $5.4 billion.
The financial felons coordinated their illegal currency manipulation scheme through online chat rooms with devil-may-care names like “The Cartel” and The Mafia.” The banks’ culture of greed led to such a reckless arrogance that one of Barclays price-fixers offered this bit of ethical encouragement to his chat room pals: “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
Well, taking a $5 billion hit will put an end to that sort of reprobate banksterism, won’t it? Mmmmm… no. While this was the first time that banks themselves had to admit that they are corporate criminals, all of them are free to continue doing currency trading, and no top executives were even charged for the crimes they oversaw. And, while $5 billion is a huge, record-level criminal penalty, it’s easily absorbed by these global casino operations. In the first three months of this year, for example, JPMorgan Chase raked in $4 billion just from its fixed income and currency trading division – about seven times its share of the “penalty” levied against the four corporate crooks.
Citigroup’s CEO called the punishment “an embarrassment” to his bank. But banks can’t feel embarrassed, nor can they commit crimes – only bankers can. And, as should be obvious by now, being embarrassed is no deterrent at all to their endlessly-creative criminality. If we actually want to stop their crimes, the banksters themselves – including those at the top – must feel the punishment.
“Four big banks fined billions,” Austin American Statesman, May 21, 2015.
“Rate Rigging Makes Felons Of Top Banks,” The New York Times, May 20, 2015.
“5 Big Banks Expected to Plead Guilty to Felony Charges,” May 14, 2015.
“Five global banks to pay $5.7 billion in fines over rate rigging,” www.reuters.com, May 20, 2015.


2016 presidential candidates address inequality (sort of)

At last, America’s political leaders indicate that they now feel the pain of the poor and of the millions of working families slipping out of the middle class.
Congress had previously paid no attention to the ever-widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us, but it has recently emerged as a central issue for such Republican presidential contenders as Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio. They are publicly lamenting the wealth gap and – by gollies – proposing solutions. Alas, though, the “solution” proposed by each of them is not to provide help for those who’ve been knocked down, but to offer aid to the same corporate elites who’ve been knocking down the middle class and holding down the poor.
Specifically, their solution is to cut taxes on corporations and the rich, do away with environmental and labor protections, and cut or privatize government programs – from Head Start to Social Security – that ordinary people count on. For example, Sen. Rubio proposes to kill the food stamp program (even though the need for it is greater than ever) and redirect that money into what he calls a subsidy for low-wage workers. Does he think we have sucker-wrappers around our heads? That’s not a subsidy for workers, but for low-wage employers. Why should taxpayers subsidize the poverty pay of profitable giants like McDonald’s, rather than making them pay living wages and cover their own labor costs?
I guess we should count it as progress that candidates are at least having to admit that inequality is a problem, but come on – offering the same old failed, anti-government snake oil is an insult to the American people. Jeb Bush shows how vacuous their flim-flammery is by saying that, to address the ever-widening wealth and income gap, he’ll “celebrate success and… cherish free enterprise.” Gosh, what a comfort that’ll be to America’s hard-hit majority.