Wisconsin Clean Elections Coalition

Corporate

July 31 edition of Business Week has an excellent article: When Outsourcing Turns Outrageous - Contractors may be saving the Army money. But fraud changes the equation: "The U.S. Military has lost billions to fraud and mismanagement by private contractors in Iraq who do everything from cooking soldiers' meals to building hospitals to providing security. That raises a question: Does Pentagon outsourcing make sense?" Of course it doesn't; what is it that they don't understand about campaign contributions? See the article here.

On CEO pay, though I particularly like the one on office grumbling….. www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org/ceo_pay.jpg

Left but right!  Stock Option Outrage, by Robert Reich. More than 60 companies have disclosed investigations—including 40 grand jury investigations—into whether they’ve backdated executive options to coincide with days when their stock prices were low. And a raft of shareholder lawsuits have been filed. At least 17 people have been fired or quit in connection with the unfolding scandal. See complete article here.

Federal

F-22 Money Pit -- Last month, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., led a battle in the Senate to stop multi-year production of the F-22 fighter jet. This $72 billion program, launched in the late 1980s, had been plagued with major cost overruns and technical setbacks. But like other Cold War weapons still being built by the Pentagon, and with some crafty political engineering, the F-22 escaped this modest proposal by a vote of 70 to 28. Click here for complete story.

I am not militarily qualified to cast a vote on this. With Iran and North Korea brewing we may need them. But I do know that if money wasn't changing hands at the political level they'd determine damned fast whether or not this was wasted money.

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From TomPaine.com: The Wealthy's IRS -- From the IRS comes more evidence that the government continues to work very well for the very wealthy. After all, Bush calls them his "base." Why wouldn't he deliver? David Cay Johnston in The New York Times reports  that the IRS is cutting  the jobs of those who audit the "tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans." Speaking off the record to Johnston, some IRS lawyers accused the Bush administration of trying to "shield people with political connections and complex tax-avoidance devices from thorough audits." In other words, the IRS is making it easier for tax dodgers and tax cheats—as long as they're wealthy—to get away with their crimes.

Allowing rich Americans to avoid paying their fair share is unjust on its face. Making it easier for rich Americans who might be politically connected to the administration to escape IRS scrutiny is plainly unethical. But when considered on top of evidence Johnson uncovered earlier this year that the IRS unfairly targets low-income Americans, it's outrageous. (This link is a must-read)

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As well, don't miss TomPaine.com's reports at UnCommon Sense

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See the new Project Vote-Smart Interest Group Ratings for your congressman here. Just click on his or her name and go to the bottom of the page.

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See the new Citizen's Against Government Waste ratings on your congressman's vote here, but make sure you agree with their assessment. It may indeed be opposite of your own.

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Democracy 21 releases summation of new Feingold-Meehan campaign finance proposal here.

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State

Not much going on at the state level, but what more can you expect. The assembly Republicans killed the ethics reform bill and Governor Doyle is wiping his brow. He dodged a bullet by letting die an ethics law he would have had to comply with. He can still call a special session to force a vote, but he seems to like things just as they are.

Governor Candidates Lean Heavily on Few Big Donors - Doyle raised $1 of every $3 from outside Wisconsin -- Madison - Democratic Governor Jim Doyle and Republican challenger Mark Green accepted the majority of their campaign contributions between January and June 2006 from wealthy donors who gave them $1,000 or more, a Wisconsin Democracy Campaign preliminary analysis shows.

Tidbits

Disclosure: I refer occasionally to New York Times articles on health care, though I am not generally a Times fan. I am a center-right Republican and my reading ranges from National Review on the right to The Nation on the left (though I avoid Ann Coulter and Al Franken at the opposite edges). I am no more pleased with the left-wing Times' irresponsible disclosures of national security data than I am of the irresponsible outing of Valerie Plame by the right-wing Robert Novak. But when it comes to health care issues, I respect the data because I spent 35 years in the health care industry and know it well. I have found the Times' reporting on this subject to be very accurate. Unfortunately. While some may prefer shooting the messenger, I will continue to accept even left-wing reporting that I feel is or I know to be accurate. This issue is far too critical to let politics interfere.

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Letter sent to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (not yet printed)

The Internet neutrality debate as discussed in Sunday’s Crossroads is complicated. The only thing we can know for sure is that it is not what’s best for the public that matters. It is now and always has been true that whichever side of the issue contributes the most to political campaigns will win, the public be damned.

The same can be said of all issues, whether they be the need for universal health care, highways to nowhere, increased government spending, and the tax shifting from the wealthy to the poor. Follow the money and you’ll virtually always find a politician at the other end with his hand out. They should be ashamed and their families and constituents should be outraged as democracy slowly shifts to those who are willing to share their wealth with the politicians that make it all happen.

Only public funding of campaigns will fix this problem, and it can all be had for $15 per taxpayer per year to cover both state and federal elections. That’s why I’ve authored www.ThrowTheRascalsOut.org. Only when we affect both of the political parties in the voting booth will we see a turn of events.

Also click here or on the image from TooMuchOnline.org for a bibliography of articles from Emmanuel Saez, Professor of Economics at University of California, Berkeley.

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A Message: To the Republicans in Congress: Too little too late, and rhetoric won't cut it any more. We don't care about today's promises, we care about yesterday's failures. We care that you've been giving our assets to the special interests, and we know that won't stop if we put you back in control. To the Democrats, show us that you deserve control and are not just weaklings dipping into the same corporate trough. Make ethics and campaign reform happen, or stand out of the way and let a good center candidate try his hand at it.

Give me a Break!

A good video on internet scams.

Click here to see the Evolution of Dance

Click here, put in your address and click the button.

Click on the guy in the lower right corner

My favorite bumper sticker: Horn is broken... Watch for finger!

Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

This only looks weird...it reads ok though 

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid.  Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy 
by Si Kahn, Elizabeth Minnich (ISBN: 1576753379)

One Amazon reviewer: "In this 'must-read' book, Kahn and Minnich demonstrate persuasively that privatization is not a viable solution to public problems and is not an isolated phenomenon. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples, they argue that privatization is part of a corporate strategy to shift "public funds into private pockets," thereby creating the very problems it purports to fix. Although they see these growing efforts as a serious assault on our democratic rights and the public good, with this book they hope to reverse this trend by activating our spirits of resistance and cooperation. The embedded poems, songs and stories infuse the book with special richness and warmth."

It is clear to me that either extreme is bad; we don't want a total welfare state where everybody is working for the government, nor do we want zero government and everybody working for a corporation. Turning what should be public functions over to private profit-making corporations with greedy CEOs is not what I want for my grandkids. We can see what that's done to our privatized electoral campaign system. We must have wise decisions, and that can only be had by removing the private money from our public electoral system. This book shows what can happen if the totally-right-wing gets its way. I agree that it is a must read.

Also note the author's website at: www.grassrootsleadership.org. Listen to their Private Prison Contractors audio at Crime Pays