Amaryllis
Amaryllis's JournalCorporate America Just 6 States Short of Constitutional Convention- Pushed by ALEC and Kochs
March 14, 2016
Corporate America Is Just 6 States Short of a Constitutional Convention
If ALEC succeeds in rewriting the constitution to mandate a balanced budget, we’ll be stuck with supply-side economics for at least a generation.
BY Simon Davis-Cohen
In February, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) signed on to a call for a constitutional convention to help defeat “the Washington cartel [that] has put special interest spending ahead of the American people.”
Cruz, along with fellow Republican presidential aspirants Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Gov. John Kasich (Ohio), has endorsed an old conservative goal of a Constitutional amendment to mandate a balanced federal budget. The idea sounds fanciful, but free-market ideologues associated with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a secretive group of right-wing legislators and their corporate allies, are close to pulling off a coup that could devastate the economy, which is just emerging from a recession. Their scheme could leave Americans reeling for generations. A balanced budget amendment would prevent the federal government from following the Keynesian strategy of stimulating the economy during an economic depression by increasing the national debt. (Since 1970, the United States has had a balanced budget in only four years: 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.)
Article V of the Constitution lays out two routes for changing the law of the land: An amendment can be proposed by Congress or by a constitutional convention that is convened by two-thirds of the states (34). Either way, three-fourths of the states (38) have to ratify it. Previously, changes to the country’s founding document have been achieved by the first process. But as of today, 28 states—six shy of the two-thirds threshold required by Article V—have passed resolutions calling for a constitutional convention to consider a balanced budget amendment.
The ALEC-affiliated Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force (BBATF), which proffered the pledge signed by Cruz, is hoping to meet that 34-state threshold by July 4. BBATF is one player in an astroturf movement backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and embraced by right-wing state legislators.
A balanced budget amendment has long been a holy grail for the Right since the 1930s. In the 1980s, conservatives made a push for a balanced budget constitutional convention and, 20 years later, the idea was resurrected as part of the Tea Party platform. That’s when BBATF was formed to carry the movement forward. With 16 resolutions held over from the previous wave of conservative activism, BBATF has since passed resolutions in Alabama (2011), New Hampshire (2012), Ohio (2013), Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Michigan, Louisiana (2014), South Dakota, North Dakota, Utah (2015) and West Virginia (2016), bringing the total to 28. This year, BBATF is targeting 13 states: Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In six of these states Republicans control both legislative bodies and the governorship, making passage a real possibility and leaving BBATF one state shy of the magic 34.
More - important information:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18940/alec-balanced-budget-corporate-constitutional-convention
Must be a patriot somewhere in IRS who'd leak the tax returns...but if T is laundering dirty money..
aren't there myriads of ways to keep dirty laundered money off tax returns? Aren't mob guys really good at that?
This way cool sign by Nasty Women Get Shit Done PDX is popping up all over Portland. You want one.
Yard signs, car/window signs, flags, more. Rep. Blumenauer had a town hall Saturday and had a huge one above him on the stage.
“We want this not to be a moment, but a movement,” said U.S. Rep Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) during a meeting with NWGSDPDX. He noted that women are the leaders who are stepping up to organize and lead grassroots groups all across the country.
All kinds of free downloads in 10 languages: https://www.nwgsdpdx.org/download
/v1/fill/w_1218,h_804,al_c,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/a140c5_7db88045c5634cdeae074679fb4dd633~mv2.png
NWGSDPDX emerged to actively resist the xenophobia, racism, misogyny, ableism, anti-LGBTQ, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Earth platform and policies of the new administration.
Our strength lies in understanding that our fundamental rights and freedom are bound to justice for all. We strive to listen, learn and take the lead from people within marginalized and targeted groups.
We seek to understand the role of our own power and privilege in building a united and intersectional resistance.
Our monthly meetings include an educational component so that we can continue to learn ways to be allies within our community.
Mission Statement:
To support an era of activism, democracy and progressive politics in which we advocate for social, financial and environmental justice.
All proceeds from sales and donations are donated to local non-profits that support the values on the flag.
Go check out their site! THere is tons of good stuff to inspire you.
https://www.nwgsdpdx.org/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPuBU7df93MZDPHOQavO6fw
https://www.nwgsdpdx.org/press-lutheran
House Intel Chair Devin Nunes's One-Man War on the Pentagon; possibly more Russia stuff?
The powerful Republican is battling the DoD to move a massive intelligence complex to an isolated island in the Azores, at a reported extra cost of $1.2 billion. Why?
Air-traffic controllers waved off the plane carrying Representative Devin Nunes (R., Calif.) and several congressmen from the House Intelligence Committee as it descended toward the single runway at Lajes Field, a sleepy U.S. Air Force base perched along a windswept Azores island 1,000 miles from the European mainland. High winds sweeping in from the sea prevented the plane from landing, and the delegation was hastily diverted to an airstrip on a neighboring island 80 miles away.
After months of wrangling with the Defense Department, Nunes and his fellow lawmakers had come to Lajes last May to urge American officials to reverse a planned downsizing of the base. The lawmakers wanted Pentagon officials to instead move a massive, strategically vital intelligence center planned for the United Kingdom to the isolated mid-Atlantic base. The officials objected, citing a cost increase of $1.2 billion and serious operational and logistical concerns, including the base’s single runway and the area’s inclement weather, which the congressmen had experienced just the day before.
An after-action report from a Defense Department engineer shows that the group from Washington wouldn’t take no for an answer. “A few of the members and staffers were very confrontational,” the report reads. “One quote that was repeated several times was, ‘This is going to happen [relocating the intelligence facility to Lajes]. You better jump on board the train or you are going to get run over by it.’”
The incident was another skirmish in the increasingly nasty war between Nunes and his allies in Congress and a group of top Pentagon officials over the fate of the obscure airbase. As chairman of the powerful Intelligence Committee, Nunes has brought the full weight of his influence to bear on the issue, inserting provisions in four separate defense bills that would stop work on the planned U.K. base and accusing the DoD of “lying” about the intelligence complex’s Lajes price tag. Recently, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into how the military calculated the estimated cost of basing the project in the Azores.
snip
Pentagon officials’ qualms with Nunes’s plan go beyond its price tag. Some worry that an additional delay in the facility’s construction would make it harder to monitor Russian activity in Europe, and most are loathe to relinquish a close intelligence-sharing relationship with the British. “There are routine meetings that occur on an almost daily basis” between American and British intelligence agents, one official explains.
Lots more suspicious stuff:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421842/devin-nunes-pentagon-fight-lajes-air-force-base
And Nunes is the guy who decides what House Intel does with Russia investigation...
US Attorney Preet Bharara Was Investigating Fox News When Trump Fired Him
US Attorney Preet Bharara Was Investigating Fox News When Trump Fired Him
ZACHARY PLEAT
President Donald Trump’s decision to fire U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara happened as Bharara’s office was reportedly probing Fox News over its alleged failure to inform shareholders about repeated settlements for allegations of sexual harassment and assault by former Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes and other executives against female employees. Reports indicate Trump may pick one of Ailes’ former lawyers to replace Bharara.
Fox News Faced Numerous Sexual Assault And Harassment Allegations
Ailes Left Fox News Amid Flurry Of Sexual Harassment Allegations. In early July, former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson sued the network’s CEO and Chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Carlson’s attorney told The Washington Post that 25 women had “come forward with what they describe as similar harassment claims against Ailes that stretch across five decades back to his days in the 1960s as a young television producer.” 21st Century Fox tasked a law firm with conducting a review of Ailes' conduct and “the initial findings were damaging enough that the Murdochs decided they had to escort Ailes out,” according to CNN’s Brian Stelter. New York national affairs editor Gabriel Sherman reported that sources briefed on the investigation said former Fox News host Megyn Kelly told investigators that Ailes had also sexually harassed her. [The Washington Post, 7/22/16; CNN, The Lead with Jake Tapper, 7/21/16; New York, 7/19/16]
Fox’s Culture Of Sexual Harassment Extends Beyond Ailes. The New York Times reported on July 23 that Fox News may have “a broader problem in the workplace,” that extends beyond Ailes after at least “a dozen women” told the Times that “they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or intimidation at Fox News or the Fox Business Network, and half a dozen more who said they had witnessed it. Two of them cited Mr. Ailes and the rest cited other supervisors.” [The New York Times, 7/23/16]
Fox Recently Settled With Former Contributor Over Sexual Assault Allegation That Resulted In Executive’s Firing. The New York Times recently reported that Fox settled with former network contributor Tamara Holder in February for more than $2.5 million after the said she was sexually assaulted by an executive at the company’s headquarters two years ago. The Times reported that Fox “investigated her claims, and the executive, Francisco Cortés, the vice president for Fox News Latino, was terminated, according to two people familiar with the matter.” [The New York Times, 3/8/17]
https://mediamatters.org/research/2017/03/12/us-attorney-preet-bharara-was-investigating-fox-news-when-trump-fired-him/215644
RNC on Ossoff race: We must protect our majority at all costs or risk getting Pres Trump impeached
Got this email from Daily Kos today that included a shot of a fundraising email the RNC sent out about Jon Ossoff:
First the RNC email shows a Daily Kos tweet stating that they raised over $1 million for Jon Ossoff in six weeks.
Then the text of the RNC request to send money:
"Help Protect Our Majority NOW!
We must protect our majority at all costs or we risk getting President Trump impeached.
The Democrats already said they would try to impeach him.
The only thing that stands between them and President Trump is you."
Donate here, etc.
This is the accompanying email Daily Kos sent:
"The response to our endorsement of Democrat Jon Ossoff is unprecedented. In just six weeks, Daily Kos readers have contributed an astonishing $1 million to Ossoff's campaign.
And now the GOP has taken notice: Check out this desperate email from the National Republican Congressional Committee that I've included, begging their donors to help "preserve our majority at all costs" because "we risk getting President Trump impeached." (They're not even two months into the Trump administration and they're already worried about getting impeached. )
The GOP is scared as hell they're going to lose this special election in Georgia. Can you chip in $5 to Democrat Jon Ossoff now?
Here's a quick refresher on this race in case you need one:
• This district was held by former GOP Rep. Tom Price, who resigned his seat in Congress after being appointed Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services—aka the GOP point man on killing Obamacare
• Jon Ossoff is an investigative filmmaker who worked for civil rights legend—and Trump antagonist—Rep. John Lewis
• This is a red district where Trump is deeply unpopular: Mitt Romney won here 61-37 in 2012, but Trump won by just a single point, 48-47—a stunning 23-point collapse for the GOP
• One Republican super PAC has already announced a massive $1 million attack ad campaign against Ossoff
• The election is being cast as the first real referendum on Trump, and a Democratic victory here would send shockwaves through Congress, confirming the GOP's deepest fears that Trump is sinking their party and potentially upending the congressional GOP's efforts to repeal Obamacare
• The election is scheduled for April 18—that's just 39 days away!—with a runoff set for June 20 if no candidate captures a majority in the first election
All eyes are on Georgia. Chip in $5 to Democrat Jon Ossoff now.
Daily Kos
Bernie on Trump & the resistance - advice for those who are scared: Despair is not an option
Bernie Sanders on Trump and the resistance: 'Despair is not an option'
Guardian
Friday, March 10
snip
“These are very scary times for the people of the United States, and … for the whole world. We have a president who is a pathological liar. Trump lies all of the time.” And Sanders believes the lying is not accidental: “He lies in order to undermine the foundations of American democracy.” Take his “wild attacks against the media, that virtually everything the mainstream media says is a lie.” Or Trump’s denigration of one of George W Bush’s judicial appointees as a “so-called judge”, and his false claims that up to 5 million people voted illegally in the election. Such statements, which Sanders calls “delusional”, are meant to lead to only one conclusion, he says: “that the only person in America who stands for the American people, who is telling the truth, the only person who gets it right, is the president of the United States, Donald Trump. That is unprecedented in American history.”
He travels even deeper into dystopian territory when I ask what, in his view, Trump’s endgame might be. “What he wants is to end up as leader of a nation that has moved a significant degree towards authoritarianism; where the president of the United States has extraordinary powers, far more than our constitution has provided for.”
snip
Thankfully, that’s not the end of the narrative. Sanders is too driven a person, too committed to his own worldview, to leave us dangling in a dystopian fog. And with reason: he remains a formidable force to be reckoned with. Though he’s less in the conversation these days than he was at the height of his epic battle with Clinton, no one should make the error of thinking that Sanders is done.
snip
Stand up and fight: it’s classic Bernie Sanders. And it brings us back to the original quandary: how to respond to the authoritarian threat that is Trump. What word of advice would he give a young person, a twentysomething who is scared and who feels that their country is moving against them? What should they do?
“This is what they should do,” he says, pumping out the Bern. “They should take a deep reflection about the history of this country, understand that absolutely these are very difficult and frightening times. But also understand that in moments of crisis, what has happened, time and time again, is that people have stood up and fought back. So despair is absolutely not an option.”
Much more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/10/bernie-sanders-interview-trump-democratic-party-resistance?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=216791&subid=20993289&CMP=GT_US_collection
Anyone familiar with this site? www.putintrump.org
Some highly credentialed people involved in this. I never heard of it before today. Lots of info on Trump/Putin connection. They were around before the election trying to sound the alarm.
About This Project
The Putin-Trump project is funded by the Progress for USA Political Action Committee. This PAC is funded by supporters who believe this issue is centrally important to American Democracy. It was launched by Internet entrepreneur Rob Glaser, founder of RealNetworks and an early employee at Microsoft.
The Putin-Trump Editorial Director is Bill Buzenberg, former head of the Center for Public Integrity, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative news organization, and vice president of news for both National Public Radio and Minnesota Public Radio / American Public Media.
OUR MISSION
WE BELIEVE DONALD TRUMP’S LAVISH PRAISE OF RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, HIS CRITICISM OF OUR STRATEGIC NATO ALLIANCE, AND HIS CAMPAIGN STAFF’S CLOSE FINANCIAL TIES TO PRO-RUSSIAN POLITICIANS IN UKRAINE PUT OUR NATIONAL SECURITY INTERESTS AT RISK.
What is behind Trump’s unprecedented dalliance with a dictator? Why would he give a free pass to Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and possible moves against the Baltic States who are members of the NATO Alliance? We seek to publish the answers to these troubling questions, while calling attention to this very real threat to American democracy. Trump’s repeated views go against 70 years of bipartisan foreign policy consensus. We want to raise questions about Trump’s policy pronouncements and provide answers for the vast numbers of American voters we believe share our national security concerns.
http://www.putintrump.org/about/
FBI Director James Comey meets with Congress 'Gang of Eight'- Just out on CNN
Washington (CNN)FBI Director James Comey spent Thursday afternoon on Capitol Hill meeting with the eight lawmakers who have access to the most highly classified information, sources told CNN.
snip
Comey's visit comes after Schiff accused the FBI director of stonewalling House members in a briefing last week and both Schiff and Nunes aired their concerns that Comey had been withholding information from the group through last year.
Lawmakers have amped up their investigations into Russia's interference in the US elections and communications with the campaign of President Donald Trump. The House Intelligence Committee set an aggressive timeline of gathering intelligence by March 17 and hosting its first public hearing March 20.
Trump's own accusations that he was wire-tapped by the administration of former President Barack Obama only added fuel to the fire -- Republican lawmakers largely stepped away from Trump's unverified allegations, but lawmakers have said they plan to investigate whether surveillance of Trump's Manhattan headquarters was conducted last year.
Meanwhile, some Democrats said they may be ready to issue subpoenas for Trump's tax returns in order to find more answers in their continuing investigations.
Sources on the Senate Intelligence Committee said they want all the potential Trump associates who allegedly spoke with Russian officials to testify before the committee. This includes former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former adviser Carter Page. It's unclear when they would come before the committee, but senators say they haven't ruled out the prospect of subpoenas if those Trump associates don't comply.
This is partly because senators who have gone to CIA headquarters in Langley said they have reviewed information about the extent of the aggressive Russian attacks trying to influence the US election. But the senators have not yet pieced together the information to determine any potential collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a veteran Democrat on the intelligence panel, said she wants Trump's tax returns as part of this investigation.
"The tax returns become a primary lead into a Russia connection -- and that would be Russian money in his businesses. He's visited Russia six times by his own voice on television. Who knows what the situation is?"
Warner told CNN that the Senate committee is getting access to classified intelligence usually reserved for the "Gang of Eight," part of an effort to dig deeply into the issue of Russia's meddling with the US election last year.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/fbi-director-james-comey-meets-with-congress-gang-of-eight/
Sounds like tax returns release is not too far off...
Is there a way to post a PDF to a thread? I have something i'd like to post that is too long
to just copy and paste.
thanks!
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