Please get me the names of the Jews. You know, the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats. Could we please investigate some of those c---suckers?
--Richard. M. Nixon, from the Nixon Tapes.

This is a story from the New York Times [LINK] written by Steven Greenhouse. It was brought to my attention by Nathan Newman's blog.

For many workers in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the possibility of receiving the legally required time and a half for overtime, even when they work 80-hour weeks, seems as likely as winning the lottery.

"They always told us work faster, faster, and the money was really bad," said Deisi Cortes, who worked as a stocker at Super Star 99 until April when she was fired, she said, for being pregnant. "We'd ask for a raise, and all they'd say is, 'Maybe later on.' " 'It's pretty stunning the extent to which stores here break wage and hour laws," said Deborah Axt, a lawyer with Make the Road by Walking, an immigrant advocacy group in Bushwick. "The violations seem epidemic."

Have you ever noticed that hate and selfishness have to have a scapegoat and an excuse, whereas love and consideration need no justification at all.

For those with little to no experience or education, the vulnerability in the labor market is very real. Intimidation is a constant factor, as common as overbearing and mind-game playing mid-level managers, where the employee is essential interchangeable with someone else who can do the same job.

And in a large market with plenty looking for work, there's no reason for any employer to keep on an employee at higher cost unless experience matters, or the employer is an individual who values devotion more than profit.

The new york times had a story today [LINK] by David Kay Johnston -- one of my favorite journalists. The story: the tax rate for the super wealthy is signifigantly less than the moderately wealthy.

Specifically, the effective tax rate for those who make $100,000 to $10 million is a higher portion of their income than those who earn more than 10 million.

Those who earn $50,000 to $75,000 pay 17.4% of their income. The top 400 tax payers pay 17.5% of their income.

Here is a helpful graphic.


Interestingly enough, the top tax rate during the 1950s was 90% for all income over 1 million. If you made 10 million dollars, the first 1 million was taxed at the lower rate. The remaining 9 million dollars was taxed at 90% -- 8.1 million.

Extreme wealth does not necessarily get invested in ways that are beneficial to the nation and the national well-being. This money goes abroad, gets uselessly wasted on conspicuous consumption, or gets spent aggregating more revenue sources -- not necessarily of benefit to the consumer or nation. Using economic resources to accrue monopolistic control or external profit sources (outside the U.S. -- like Walmart inporting Chinese manufactured goods) is usually not in the long-term interest of the nation, although a small assortment of wealthy individuals might make a lot of money.

Thus, the whole point of the extra taxation of extreme wealth ensures that this money is invested in ways that are beneficial to the nation. In the 1950s, that surplus tax money was invested in education and the interstate highway system.

The assumption of noblesse oblige by the wealthy is not credible. Donations to charity and non-profits are not equivalent because they are too narrow and diffused to have the desired effect. The history of the last 100 years shows this to be true.

The problem is not taxation. The problem is unfair taxation and wasteful spending by the government. There are a plethora of potent government investments. Such as ....

  1.) Reduced class size for all classes to 20 students per teacher, thereby employing more teachers, and increasing the ability of each teacher to reach each student more effectively.

  2.) subsidizing College tuition expenses based upon income instead of student loans, or at least very low (2 percent) interest-rate loans

  3.) Metro rail systems for urban areas of more than a million, reduces traffic congestion, and energy consumption

  4.) investment in solar energy and wind stations across the country.

  5.) pension fund for all workers high and low, instead of burdening business with the costs of providing pensions. No exceptions

  6.) Month long paid vacations for all workers, thereby increasing the number of possible employed.

  7.) Government subsidized minimum wage and cost-of-living supports for all workers who are at the bottom. That way business is not the first front for maintaining a living wage for all workers.

  8.) One single insurance plan for all citizens, and a central regulations board which oversees all state regulations boards for doctors and hospitals. Multiple insurance companies are the main source of cost overrun.

Discussion of what is in the national interest has been captured by multi- national corporations, which are only the legal forms of the super-wealthy. Not that this is entirely bad. Philosophical perspectives are not a function of wealth or lack thereof. Enlightened ideas are not lacking from those with large financial resources. However, only through diversity has the resemblance of democracy and freedom been maintained. With each decrease in this diversity, and with each concomitant increase in concentration of economic power into smaller hands, the resemblance to democracy and freedom diminishes accordingly.

This is from Americablog who discusses and article from the newspaper Toledo Blade. A link for the story is provided below.

The Headline:

"Noe fallout taints early candidates to succeed Taft; Democrats take aim at GOP trio"

The main article in the Toledo Blade [LINK] gives the overview of the scandal and how the GOP leaders are involved.

Here is a portion of the Blade article.

------

Tom Noe has outraged and angered the governor of Ohio, caused the President to return his campaign contributions, and his $50 million state-coin funds are in disarray.

But the Maumee coin dealer's biggest political victims might be Attorney General Jim Petro, Auditor Betty Montgomery, and Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell - who are competing to become Ohio's next governor.

The three Republican officeholders running for governor have all received campaign cash from Mr. Noe and have been criticized for their slow reaction to the growing coin scandal.

Now they find themselves on the defensive, quickly distancing themselves from the prominent Republican campaign fund-raiser, who is facing multiple investigations, including a probe into whether Mr. Noe violated campaign- finance laws by laundering money into the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. All of the candidates say they have known Mr. Noe for years and they returned thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from him and his wife, Bernadette, last week.

That piece alone was a good read...but it gets better. In separate articles, The Blade examines each of the three GOP candidates for Governor (Blackwell, Montgomery and Petro) and their relationship to Noe and the scandal.

Secretary of State Ken Blackwell

Blackwell had few concerns at first:

In fact, Mr. Blackwell told The Blade on April 5 that "most people" wouldn't find it "unreasonable" that the state had invested in rare coins with Tom Noe, who has said through his attorneys that at least $10 million of the state's assets are missing.

"When you run a fund the size of $18 billion and you're looking at $50 million, beyond what one's disposition might be, is that an irresponsible amount of risk? Most people would say no," Mr. Blackwell said on April 5 - two days after The Blade's initial report on the coin investment.

State Auditor Betty Montgomery

Montgomery insists she didn't delay action on audit: it took 43 days after The Blade's first story for Ms. Montgomery to announce that her office would do a special audit of the rare-coin investment.

Democrats have charged that Ms. Montgomery, a former Wood County prosecutor and state senator, didn't act sooner because she has known Mr. Noe for several years and has received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from him and his wife, Bernadette. She relinquished $8,150 in contributions last week.

Attorney General Jim Petro

Petro saw no 'sense of illegality' at first in coin scandal: Attorney General Jim Petro waited more than a month to begin taking legal action after learning that two state-owned coins worth $300,000 were reportedly stolen from the suburban Denver office of Tom Noe's rare-coin venture with the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

But Mr. Petro, who first read about the bureau's $50 million investment with Mr. Noe in The Blade on April 3, is adamant he took appropriate measures to protect the bureau's assets as soon as there were questions of wrongdoing.

"The first story simply said he was an influential guy in the Republican Party and he had a contract with BWC," Mr. Petro told The Blade last week. "I might have looked at it that it's not the world's greatest investment from my perspective, but that's not a cause of action."

A "breach" of contract, "possible misappropriation," or "misdeed" - would be necessary to begin legal proceedings, but there "was not any sense of illegality at that point," he said.

------

What a great way to spend a Sunday...reading about squirming, nasty Ohio Republicans wrapped up in the biggest scandal to hit that state in decades. And, they are all involved.

"We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true. But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You even think like the tube. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion."
--Howard Beale

"In my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."
--George Bush

"Effective propaganda must limit its points of a few and these points must be repeated until the audience understands what is meant by them."
--Joseph Goebbels

They will even lie about those who consider themselves patriotic. The spin must not reveal the ugly truth.


From the NewYork Times [LINK]

Pat Tillman, for example, was a popular N.F.L. player who, in a burst of patriotism after Sept. 11, gave up a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers. He was sent first to Iraq, and then to Afghanistan, where he was shot to death by members of his own unit who mistook him for the enemy.

Instead of disclosing that Corporal Tillman had died tragically in a friendly fire incident, the Army spun a phony tale of heroism for his family and the nation. According to the Army, Corporal Tillman had been killed by enemy fire as he stormed a hill. Soldiers who knew the truth were ordered to keep quiet about the matter. Corporal Tillman's family was not told how he really died until after a nationally televised memorial service that recruiters viewed as a public relations bonanza.

Mary Tillman, Corporal Tillman's mother, told The Washington Post:

"The military let him down. The administration let him down. It was a sign of disrespect. The fact that he was the ultimate team player and he watched his own men kill him is absolutely heartbreaking and tragic. The fact that they lied about it afterward is disgusting."

Thanks to bartcop and E Boyd

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're 30 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude." She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, then you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but, somehow, now it's my fault."

Thank you Juan Cole. Thank you.

Apparently, there is no background sourcing of the disrespecting of the Quran at Guantanamo. Thus Newsweek is being heavily pressured to recant, and is then being portray as the excuse for why the Afghani's are revolting. It's because of the falsehoods written about by those bad ole liberal reporters at Newsweek.

Wait, stop the presses ...

This from a Lexis-Nexis search-

The Denver Post, January 9

HEADLINE: Nightmare of Guantanamo.... U.S. prison camp in Cuba has become legal black hole, reporter says:

"They were punched, slapped, denied sleep, had seen other prisoners sexually humiliated, hooded and forced to watch copies of the Koran being flushed down toilets. Eventually the pressure proved too much - they gave false confessions that the British intelligence service, MI5, later showed to be untrue. Upon their return to the United Kingdom they were released without being charged."

Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia), January 3, 2005
HEADLINE: Koran prayer torture claim

LONDON -- A British detainee claims he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay for reciting the Koran when talking was banned.

Moazzam Begg told lawyers he was tortured using the strappado, in which a prisoner is suspended from a bar with handcuffs, Britain's Observer newspaper said.

Mr Begg alleged he had been shaven several times against his will and a guard had said on one such occasion: "This is the part that really gets to you Muslims isn't it?""

Financial Times (London, England), Oct 28, 2004
HEADLINE: Four Britons held at Guantanamo sue US government

In August Mr Ahmed, Mr Rasul and Mr Iqbal issued a 115-page dossier accusing the US of abuse, including allegations that they were beaten and had their Korans thrown into toilets.

USA TODAY, October 18, 2004
HEADLINE: Spy case was a 'life-altering experience' for airman

Al Halabi says he did not witness any treatment of prisoners that has now been called into question as abusive. But he says he saw things at Guantanamo that disturbed him. He says guards would purposely mishandle the Koran "just to see the detainees' reaction."

Daily News (New York), August 5, 2004
HEADLINE: ABUSED AT GITMO, FREED BRITS CHARGE

"They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it," Asif Iqbal wrote.

The Independent (London), August 5, 2004
HEADLINE: FATHER CALLS FOR SON'S RELEASE AFTER CAMP DELTA TORTURE CLAIMS BEGG DEMANDS SON'S RELEASE AFTER TORTURE CLAIMS AT CAMP DELTA TORTURE

In the report, released in New York, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul - the so-called Tipton Three - said one inmate was threatened after being shown a video in which hooded inmates were forced to sodomise each other. Guards allegedly threw prisoners' Korans into toilets, while others were injected with drugs, it was claimed.

The San Francisco Chronicle, JUNE 20, 2004
HEADLINE: THE FILE: PRISON ABUSE;

Prisoners have been forced to strip naked -- nudity is a violation of Muslim principles; forced to commit actual or simulated sex acts; prevented from sleeping; threatened with dogs; hooded; given electric shocks; beaten with fists, chains, boots and other objects; forced to maintain painful positions for hours; kept in frigid isolation rooms; subjected to loud music, strobe lights and diets of bread and water; urinated on and prevented from praying or reading the Koran.

The Observer, May 16, 2004
HEADLINE: Inside Guantanamo Bay

'THEY HAD already searched me and my cell twice that day, gone through my stuff, touched my Koran, felt my body around my private parts. And now they wanted to do it again, just to provoke me, but I said no, because if you submit to everything you turn into a zombie.

The Guardian (London) - Final Edition, May 14, 2004
HEADLINE: Guantanamo abuse same as Abu Ghraib, say Britons

According to a source, who has interviewed them in secret since their release, they were initially too ashamed to talk about it, and are only now starting to give details. The source said: "They are embarrassed about talking about it because they feel humiliated. We have had an account that their religion was used against them, that a copy of the Koran was brought in front of them and pages torn out."

The Observer, March 14, 2004
HEADLINE: World Exclusive: Inside Guantanamo: How we survived jail hell

As Muslims, they were shocked when in repeated 'shakedown' searches of the sleeping tents, copies of the Koran would be trampled on by soldiers and, on one occasion, thrown into a toilet bucket. Throughout their stay at Kandahar the guards carried out head-counts every hour at night to keep the prisoners awake.

The Washington Post, March 26, 2003
HEADLINE: Returning Afghans Talk of Guantanamo; Out of Legal Limbo, Some Tell of Mistreatment

The men, the largest single group of Afghans to be released after months of detainment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave varying accounts of how American forces treated them during interrogation and detainment. Some displayed medical records showing extensive care by American military doctors, while others complained that American soldiers insulted Islam by sitting on the Koran or dumping their sacred text into a toilet to taunt them.