Office Of Congressional Ethics

Am I the only one who sees the absurdity and corruption in this report?

Congress creates an independent organization with no enforcement powers in order to investigate congressional members for possible ethics violations, and then to report their investigative results back to the people they're investigating for enforcement.

And now we're supposed to be outraged that (OCE), a toothless and costly organization that hasn't accomplished it's mandate of improving congressional ethics, and should never have been created in the first place, may be disbanded by Congress?

WTF? No wonder this country is in the dire financial straits that it's in. Happy Frigging New Year.

The Untouchables | PBS Frontline

It seems like a common occurrence that individual bankers continue to escape criminal prosecution for their corporate crimes, and those corporations are allowed to settle their cases and continue with business as usual. Why is that allowed? Are the CEOs of mega-banks too big to jail?

Though fraudulent practices at banks contributed to America’s financial meltdown, to date no Wall Street titan has been convicted of a crime connected to the crisis. FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street’s leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.

Here's the trailer. The entire report can be seen online at PBS.

Michigan: A Right-To-Work State

A paradigm-shift just happened in one of the States that led the nation in workers' rights.

The corporations and moneyed interests running the show, with the support of their Republican lap dogs, have effectively busted organized labor in the state of Michigan.

With Republicans in control of the legislature and the governor committed to sign the laws, Michigan could become the 24th right-to-work state by the middle of the week, dealing a stunning blow to the power of organized labor in the United States.

So, a few years into the future when you're bitching about how your lives have been marginalized by the people that you foolishly thought were on your side, make sure that you don't forget that it was "YOU" who voted the Republicans into office, and that it was "YOU" who unleashed the devil.

Voiceless | A Short Film

Swedish short film from 2012. A successful advertiser faces trouble while losing his voice prior to a meeting with an important client. In his mute state he is forced to do something unusual: start to listen and to observe the reality around him.


Voiceless (Röstlös) from Waway Film on Vimeo.

Locked Out | A Documentary

What do you think is the real reason why the Republican party to want to do away with publicly-funded television, like PBS? I think you can figure it out for yourself after watching this documentary.

As millions of American workers are facing cuts in their pay, their pensions and their benefits, a group of unionized miners in the desert town of Boron, California said "NO" when their employer, Rio Tinto, a giant global mining corporation, tried to slash their wages and benefits.

In retaliation for refusing to accept these cuts, Rio Tinto, locked these workers out of their jobs and hired replacements from around the U.S. But the miners and their families stood strong and organized a mass support system both in the U.S. and abroad.

This documentary reveals what happened during a 4 month struggle between the workers and their employer. Locked Out is an award winning documentary film about the David & Goliath struggle of ILWU Local 30 against corporate greed. It's now playing on your local PBS station

Addressing The Fiscal Cliff

I love the way Senator Bernie Sanders speaks his mind and tells the truth. Here's a recent interview of him after winning re-election, from The Erectile Dysfunction Show.

What's The Greatest Threat To Democracy?

According to Tavis Smiley, it's poverty. Can't say that I disagree. I believe more and more Americans are being marginalized every day, and most of us don't even realize it, or don't even care.

The American People Are Angry

The American people are angry my friends, and with good reasons. I don't think I can explain the cause of that anger better than Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

And The Award Goes To..

A group of demonstrators yesterday gatecrashed The Banker's Innovation in Investment Banking awards ceremony at The Sheraton on Park Lane and presented Barclays with a fake award for 'Innovation in Interest Rate Manipulation'.

A Thousand Cuts

Source: Ligorano/Reese

ALEC Rock

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights.

These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, Global Corporations Are Scheming to Rewrite YOUR Rights and Boost THEIR Revenue.


Source: Mark Fiore | Bill Moyers

I've Just Read A Good Book

The Conservative Lorax

The Universe of Political Money

In the cold vacuum of space, a rover begins its mission of curiosity and discovery..


Source: Mark Fiore's Animations

How To Fix The Economy

America For Sale | Follow The Money

According to the Senator Sanders, the six heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune own more wealth than the bottom 30 percent of Americans. Today, the top one percent own 40 percent of all wealth, while the bottom sixty percent owns less than 2 percent. Incredibly, the bottom 40 percent of all Americans own just 0.3 percent of the wealth of the country.

Senator Sanders describes an American economy which has more wealth and income inequality than at any time since the 1920s. The Senator says, "the wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom half of America - 150 million people." And what are they doing with all of that that money?


Source: Senator Sanders: The People Are Angry

The Price Of Inequality

A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist, Joseph E. Stiglitz. The Nobel laureate assesses the current state of the U.S. economy, inequality and poverty in the country, as detailed in his text, The Price of Inequality.

The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Professor Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

Here's the trailer. Watch the full interview on Tavis Smiley.

We're Not Broke

America is in the grip of a societal economic panic. Lawmakers cry “We’re Broke!” as they slash budgets, lay off schoolteachers, police, and firefighters, crumbling our country’s social fabric and leaving many Americans scrambling to survive.

Meanwhile, multibillion-dollar American corporations like Exxon, Google and Bank of America are making record profits. And while the deficit climbs and the cuts go deeper, these corporations—with intimate ties to our political leaders—are concealing colossal profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. income tax.

WE’RE NOT BROKE is the story of how U.S. corporations have been able to hide over a trillion dollars from Uncle Sam, and how seven fed-up Americans from across the country, take their frustration to the streets . . . and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.

Here's the trailer -

Trickle-Down Economics Simplified

Corporate America | Who's Going To Save Us?

Who can stop de-evolution of the human race?
Look at you, Corporate America, you're in disgrace
Globalize; cigarettes, business jets, you love it
Maximize; but you can take your bottom line and shove it

Gotta get away (gotta get away)
Gotta get away, but I need a little help tonight
What 'ya gonna say (what 'ya gonna say)
What 'ya gonna say when you never even seen the light
See the light

Corporate America, look out, look out
Corporate America, who's gonna save us, who's gonna save us now?

You and I; DVDs, SUVs and cyberspace
Flying blind, virtual reality is in our face
This Earth desecrated by the human race
Now what's it worth? When do we evacuate to outer space?

Corporate America, look out, look out
Corporate America, who's gonna save us, who's gonna save us now?

I see the future in the past, the reckless ride of modern man,
Just took the corner way too fast,
Flattened everything that stands
Fooled by the sales pitch for progress at a dizzy pace
We idolize the filthy rich for giving us synthetic taste
Computer calls, urban sprawl
Is the world a better place, is the world a better place?

Fare thee well, global extinction's forever
So what the hell, order your Mercedes in leather
Veal crates, ozone holes, and toxic waste
And don't count out religious hate
Who can survive this manmade fate?

Gotta get away
Gotta get away, and I need a little help tonight
What 'ya gonna say
Wha 'ya gonna say when you couldn't even see the light
See the light
Yeah

Zero Accountability

Four years after the 2008 economic crisis, not a single top Wall Street executive has gone to jail. "These executives knew that they could take these huge risks and even break laws and pay no real price, and that's what happened," says Glenn Greenwald, author of "With Liberty and Justice For Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful," and a blogger for Salon.

"It's not just a travesty of justice that we haven't punished them for past transgressions. The real danger is that we're continuing to send the signal to the world's most powerful financial actors that they don't have any fear of criminal accountability when they commit these obvious crimes."


Source: Democracy Now!

Trans-Pacific Partnership

Trans-Pacific Partnership = TPP. It is the dream of the 1%. With 600 U.S. corporations as officials advisors, this stealthy international agreement has been negotiated behind closed doors over the past two years – with talks heading to San Diego in July.

What would TPP mean for the 99%? Millions more American jobs offshored. Backdoor deregulation for financial firms to wreck the economy again. Floods of unsafe food and products. Higher medicine prices. A ban on Buy America policies needed to create green jobs and rebuild our economy. Foreign corporations empowered to attack our environmental and health policies in foreign tribunals.

Closed-door talks are on-going between the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam; with countries like Japan and China potentially joining later. The 600 corporate advisors have access to the draft text of this deal that could change all of our lives. The public, Members of Congress, journalists, and civil society are excluded. Until now… get involved!


Source: Public Citizen | TPP 2012

Get The Homeopathist, STAT!

Where's The Real Inequality?

Here is the much-talked-about TED talk on economic inequality and the fallacy of the "trickle-down" effect, given by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer.

In Remembrance

On this Memorial Day, I'm remembering and honoring the ultimate sacrifices our service men and women made to preserve our freedoms, while also remembering the corporations who are being allowed to exploit those freedoms.

It's 100% Sugar

In this video, Think Again! TV shares news of a $30 million lawsuit against Shoppers Drug Mart and Boiron Canada related to the selling of homeopathic product Oscillococcinum.


Source: Centre For Inquiry and Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism at CFI

Super PACs Are Superfly

These PACs are bad. But they ain't just fly, they're superfly. When it comes to politicians, they come to them. But it's still not enough. They want a BIG score, and they've got a plan to stick it to the man.

Corporatocracy: The Master Plan

Have you ever wondered why employers were given the powers to control access to healthcare and to control retirement savings? Something to think about. From the 1940s - what could happen if we fully change from a Republic into a Corporatocracy.

Don't Shake The System

Lyrical wit and musical brilliance combined with catchy looks characterize Freddie Fiction's song, "Big Corporation Man". Be careful, if you shake the system, it may be loaded with hilarious satire.


Source: Freddie Fiction

Does Your Employer Own You?

It's being reported in the news recently that more employers are requiring potential employees to give them their Facebook passwords as a condition of employment. As expected, this gross invasion of privacy has created so much outrage that even the ACLU and one Senator have begun to address it.

But, if you think about it, it's not just "employers" who are solely responsible for their dastardly deeds. It's not "employers" who are demanding this information, it's people who are doing it.

It's someone, just like me and you, who was probably in exactly the same position as the person being interviewed, but only months before. It's that same person you went to high school with, your neighbor, the guy you worked out with at the gym, the woman you bumped into at the grocery store, the family you go to church with - WE are enabling employers to do these outrageous things.

For some strange reason that escapes me, many of us feel that once we become employees we're obligated to carry out any order that our employers demand. We seem to freely give up our personal beliefs, our ethics, our morals, and even our rights as individual Americans just because that's what our employers expect. We follow their orders without once ever considering, or caring about, the consequences of our actions.

Why is it that once we're hired, we automatically consider anyone who doesn't work for our employer to be the enemy, or someone to be abused or exploited?

Many of us aren't "getting it" about what's been going on lately in America. We can't see how we are active participants in having our rights subtlety being taken away little-by-little, our lives marginalized, and our futures destroyed. We're allowing ourselves to become manipulated and enslaved. You can blame your employer, but really, it's our own fault for enabling their sinister behavior.

Have some fucking balls and quit being your employer's Huckleberry. Think about what you're being told to do before you do it, and don't be afraid to use that empowering word "NO!" once in a while.

Homeopathy | It's Just Water!

If you believe in homeopathy, get in the fucking sack.

The Official National Bullshit Story

"America is a great country, but it's a strange culture. This has got to be the only country in the world that could ever come up with a disease like bulimia; it's gotta be the only country in the world where some people have no food at all, and other people eat a nourishing meal and puke it up intentionally.

This is a country where tobacco kills over four hundred thousand people a year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! You know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! And now, they're thinking about banning toy guns - and they're gonna keep the fucking real ones!

America's leading industry, America's most profitable business, is still the manufacture, packaging, distribution and marketing of bullshit. High-quality, grade-A, prime-cut, pure, American bullshit.

And the sad part is, that most people seem to have been indoctrinated to believe that bullshit only comes from certain places, certain sources: advertising, politics, salesmen – not true. Bullshit is everywhere. Bullshit is rampant. Bullshit is truly the American soundtrack."

So, I've decided to listen to George and turn off my cell phone, make my own pancakes, rub my own balls, and rock the boat whenever I hear the soundtrack being played.


[Source: My Hero - George Carlin]