original post is on http://persquaremile.com/2012/11/08/population-density-and-the-2012-presidential-election/
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
21 November 2012
election map
came across an interesting map on dangerous minds...comparison of population density with vote percentage...
06 February 2012
right left
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/why_conservatives_and_liberals_see_the_world_differently1
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
interesting videos that examine liberals and conservatives
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html
interesting videos that examine liberals and conservatives
17 January 2012
sopa blackout
wikipedia went dark and google covered up their logo to spread the word about sopa...reddit should be next...clicking on google's logo gives you this page...i want to sign the petition, but my paranoid side makes me wonder what the gubment will do with my email
16 January 2012
Noam Chomsky at Kutztown University - Nov. 21, 2011
lecture by chomsky about the US and the rest of the world...you have to skip to about the 10-12 minute mark for his lecture to start, but it is very interesting to listen to one of the brightest minds in the world break down pretty complex issues...there have been a lot of questions about what the occupy wallstreet movement is, and the question and answer portion of the video has a good explanation about the frustration felt by the general public that led to the occupy wallstreet movement (1 hour mark)...there is also a funny part about him talking about ron paul (1:13 mark)
15 January 2012
what percent are you?
ny times posted a little app that lets you see where you fit it...according to this, you need to make $700k/yr to be the top 1% for the whole country...new york is the highest as expected
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?src=tp
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-percent-map.html?src=tp
19 November 2011
uc davis
dumbass cops...how can the uc allow this?...these students were just sitting there...nice way to tell future potential students to stay away since the school is willing to pepper spray their customers...i wonder what the response would have been if these were harvard or stanford students...they probably wouldn't protest since those students would be part of the 1%
sopa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
good video that summarizes what sopa is about...under the guise of protecting intellectual property, this law will give media corporations blanket authority to shut down any site they deem is using copyrighted material illegally...the law is worded so broadly that you could even go to jail if you posted a video of yourself singing a copyrighted song
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-sopa-save-the-internet.html
Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet democracy groups know it. BoingBoing knows it. But, the Internet hasn't been told yet -- we're going to get blown away by the end of the year. The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. Law is very real here in the United States and legal language is often different than stated intentions -- this law would give government and corporations the power to block sites like BoingBoing over infringing links on at least one webpage posted by their users. Believe the EFF, Public Knowledge, Google when they say this bill is about much more than copyright, it's about the Internet and free speech everywhere.
The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here's the big point-- they know they have gotten their message through to Congress -- the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.
PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites "by accident," mistakenly, or for NOT doing "enough" to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples' sites, including slowing down your connection. That's right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.
This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.
Everyone, the entire Internet community needs to stand together if we don't want to see this bill actually become law. Internet and democracy groups are planning an Internet-wide day of protest called American Censorship Day on Wednesday, November 16th for the day Congress holds a hearing on these bills to create the first American Internet censorship system. Every single person with a website can join and needs to.
Boing Boing, Grooveshark, Free Software Foundation, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Demand Progress, Open Congress/PPF, TechDirt, Fight for the Future and dozens of other sites have created this day to ask you to join them to stop S. 978 and HR 3261, as hard as you can. Write them, protest, call them, protest, support your favorite sites, protest, sign a letter, block out your site, protest.
Many public intellectuals who are often the ones to help win the public interest over and over are about to come out to lead the charge to stop PROTECT IP/ SOPA - they have to when they learn that the House and Senate will be working to pass this bill before the Christmas. From those doing work on the hill, it's very clear we have been stacked comparatively lightly. The House bill has 40 co-sponsors and major industry support. The only thing that will change the dynamic now is if Congress gets a knock on their door by CEO"s of small and large tech companies, blogs, and news sites and if Internet users start piling on, one by one, and protest.
Tech companies, blogs, news sites are already in a death-do-die battle cry -- listen to them -- it's a few days before the hearing on this bill. But, we need more tech companies, blogs, new sites before the hearing on this bill. Help get them.
I've been trying to think about whether or not the world is going to end if this bill passes like it's supposed to -- and the answer is, "kind of yes". When small sites, and it's the small sites that get turned off in the night and no one for the most part notices, say my friend's political blog or news site gets blocked by the US government and she has no way to get it back up even though everything she did was legal according to current law, and no one can help her except she can choose to file suit to defend herself, I feel like I die inside a little. Living in a country where you are being shut out and left powerless to really defend yourself is like living in another country, the ones you hear about. Life starts to feel shot when that happens, especially to our friends or our favorites sites.
Every site who has user-generated content, posts links or videos to anything copyrighted in it could face new legal threats.
If a copyrights holder disliked links you have on your site, they could simply file a complaint with a payment processor (Visa, PayPal), who would then have 5 days to respond to their request or risk legal ramifications. If bills like this are allowed to pass, we'll be spending another $47 million dollars every year to help corporations fill out and enforce Internet blacklists.
Sites that would be legal under the DMCA and its safe harbor provisions would now risk losing everything for allowing user generated content. It also has added in the streaming felony bill that would make it so ordinary Internet users are at risk of going to jail for 5 years for post any copyrighted work that would cost $2,500 to license. And because copyright is so broad, that means videos with copyrighted music in the background, kids in a school play, people singing karaoke could all be a risk.
Because the law affects almost every Internet user and the sites they use every day and have come to love, and because granting sweeping blacklisting powers is just sickening to almost everyone, we need your help -- if you can encourage your favorite site to join the protest, and help drive the maximum number of people to contact Congress on November 16th (until the bill dies), please help.
These bills represent a major blow to openness and freedom on the Internet, free speech rights, and the fabric of the Internet itself. If SOPA is allowed to pass, the Internet and free speech will never be the same again.
good video that summarizes what sopa is about...under the guise of protecting intellectual property, this law will give media corporations blanket authority to shut down any site they deem is using copyrighted material illegally...the law is worded so broadly that you could even go to jail if you posted a video of yourself singing a copyrighted song
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/11/stop-sopa-save-the-internet.html
Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet democracy groups know it. BoingBoing knows it. But, the Internet hasn't been told yet -- we're going to get blown away by the end of the year. The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. Law is very real here in the United States and legal language is often different than stated intentions -- this law would give government and corporations the power to block sites like BoingBoing over infringing links on at least one webpage posted by their users. Believe the EFF, Public Knowledge, Google when they say this bill is about much more than copyright, it's about the Internet and free speech everywhere.
The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here's the big point-- they know they have gotten their message through to Congress -- the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.
PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites "by accident," mistakenly, or for NOT doing "enough" to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples' sites, including slowing down your connection. That's right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.
This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.
Everyone, the entire Internet community needs to stand together if we don't want to see this bill actually become law. Internet and democracy groups are planning an Internet-wide day of protest called American Censorship Day on Wednesday, November 16th for the day Congress holds a hearing on these bills to create the first American Internet censorship system. Every single person with a website can join and needs to.
Boing Boing, Grooveshark, Free Software Foundation, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, Demand Progress, Open Congress/PPF, TechDirt, Fight for the Future and dozens of other sites have created this day to ask you to join them to stop S. 978 and HR 3261, as hard as you can. Write them, protest, call them, protest, support your favorite sites, protest, sign a letter, block out your site, protest.
Many public intellectuals who are often the ones to help win the public interest over and over are about to come out to lead the charge to stop PROTECT IP/ SOPA - they have to when they learn that the House and Senate will be working to pass this bill before the Christmas. From those doing work on the hill, it's very clear we have been stacked comparatively lightly. The House bill has 40 co-sponsors and major industry support. The only thing that will change the dynamic now is if Congress gets a knock on their door by CEO"s of small and large tech companies, blogs, and news sites and if Internet users start piling on, one by one, and protest.
Tech companies, blogs, news sites are already in a death-do-die battle cry -- listen to them -- it's a few days before the hearing on this bill. But, we need more tech companies, blogs, new sites before the hearing on this bill. Help get them.
I've been trying to think about whether or not the world is going to end if this bill passes like it's supposed to -- and the answer is, "kind of yes". When small sites, and it's the small sites that get turned off in the night and no one for the most part notices, say my friend's political blog or news site gets blocked by the US government and she has no way to get it back up even though everything she did was legal according to current law, and no one can help her except she can choose to file suit to defend herself, I feel like I die inside a little. Living in a country where you are being shut out and left powerless to really defend yourself is like living in another country, the ones you hear about. Life starts to feel shot when that happens, especially to our friends or our favorites sites.
Every site who has user-generated content, posts links or videos to anything copyrighted in it could face new legal threats.
If a copyrights holder disliked links you have on your site, they could simply file a complaint with a payment processor (Visa, PayPal), who would then have 5 days to respond to their request or risk legal ramifications. If bills like this are allowed to pass, we'll be spending another $47 million dollars every year to help corporations fill out and enforce Internet blacklists.
Sites that would be legal under the DMCA and its safe harbor provisions would now risk losing everything for allowing user generated content. It also has added in the streaming felony bill that would make it so ordinary Internet users are at risk of going to jail for 5 years for post any copyrighted work that would cost $2,500 to license. And because copyright is so broad, that means videos with copyrighted music in the background, kids in a school play, people singing karaoke could all be a risk.
Because the law affects almost every Internet user and the sites they use every day and have come to love, and because granting sweeping blacklisting powers is just sickening to almost everyone, we need your help -- if you can encourage your favorite site to join the protest, and help drive the maximum number of people to contact Congress on November 16th (until the bill dies), please help.
These bills represent a major blow to openness and freedom on the Internet, free speech rights, and the fabric of the Internet itself. If SOPA is allowed to pass, the Internet and free speech will never be the same again.
16 November 2011
more ows
damn cops pepper sprayed an 84 year old woman...
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/dorli-rainey-octagenarian-pep.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/16/dorli-rainey-octagenarian-pep.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29
 |
| http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/occupy-seattle-octogenarian-activist-dorli-rainey-on-being-pepper-sprayed-by-seattle-police-importance-of-activism |
15 November 2011
occupy wall street
ows ended last night after cops pepper sprayed, beat, lrad'ed protesters...lrad is long range acoustic device which is basically a sound cannon...i spent about an hour watching it on http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution after seeing #ows overflow with tweets...no major networks were covering what was happening, and the only way to get information was through twitter and live video feeds that people at the protest were uploading...whether one agrees with ows and their agenda or lack of, what you can't condone is preventing the press from covering the protest in order to allow cops to beat protesters without worry of it being aired on national tv...it seems like a bad precedent was set, and the same might be done at other "occupy" locations where police brutality is used under a press blackout to kick out the protesters...the fear is that other more traditionally defiant areas might erupt in riots... the bay area could be one of those areas since oakland is already pissed off with what the police did and historically has had a bad relationship with them...critical mass might be building in berkeley after the protesters in oakland moved there (hope they don't trash the campus)...it also signals a change in how we receive news...not through the major media channels like tv and radio where it is filtered, censored, and skewed, but live and direct from the source over the net...one of the main reasons why i keep a twitter account even though i tweet very seldomly
people say that ows has no agenda, but i think that the agenda is an overwhelming frustration with the overall corruption of both financial and government institutions...the people have no other viable outlet to voice their frustration since the media is controlled by those same institutions...protesting in public was the only way to get any message out...also, it is impossible to have a narrow and defined agenda for something as broad as trying to fix financial and government systems that feed off each other's corruption
this shouldn't be about a liberal or conservative agenda...this is to try to stop the rich and powerful from rigging the system to help themselves year after year...i read franzen's freedom recently, and two quotes from it summarize the ows situation very well
“It’s all circling around the same problem of personal liberties,” Walter said. “People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”
“The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.” - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
people say that ows has no agenda, but i think that the agenda is an overwhelming frustration with the overall corruption of both financial and government institutions...the people have no other viable outlet to voice their frustration since the media is controlled by those same institutions...protesting in public was the only way to get any message out...also, it is impossible to have a narrow and defined agenda for something as broad as trying to fix financial and government systems that feed off each other's corruption
this shouldn't be about a liberal or conservative agenda...this is to try to stop the rich and powerful from rigging the system to help themselves year after year...i read franzen's freedom recently, and two quotes from it summarize the ows situation very well
“It’s all circling around the same problem of personal liberties,” Walter said. “People came to this country for either money or freedom. If you don’t have money, you cling to your freedoms all the more angrily. Even if smoking kills you, even if you can’t afford to feed your kids, even if your kids are getting shot down by maniacs with assault rifles. You may be poor, but the one thing nobody can take away from you is the freedom to fuck up your life whatever way you want to.”
“The reason this system can’t be overthrown in this country,” Walter said, “is all about freedom. The reason the free market in Europe is tempered by socialism is that they’re not so hung up on personal liberties there. They also have lower population growth rates, despite comparable income levels. The Europans are all-around more rational, basically. And the conversation about rights in this country isn’t rational. It’s taking place on the level of emotion, and class resentments, which is why the right is so good at exploiting it.” - Freedom, Jonathan Franzen
06 November 2011
politics is crap
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57319075/jack-abramoff-the-lobbyists-playbook/?tag=contentMain;contentBody
Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook
Jack Abramoff, the notorious former lobbyist at the center of Washington's biggest corruption scandal in decades, spent more than three years in prison for his crimes. Now a free man, he reveals how he was able to influence politicians and their staffers through generous gifts and job offers. He tells Lesley Stahl the reforms instituted in the wake of his scandal have had little effect.
The following is a script of "The Lobbyist's Playbook" which aired on Nov. 6, 2011.
Jack Abramoff may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time. He was at the center of a massive scandal of brazen corruption and influence peddling.
As a Republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s, he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. He was so good at it, he took home $20 million a year.
Jack Abramoff: Inside Capitol corruption
How corrupt is lobbying in Washington, DC? Enough to get "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl angry when she hears how Jack Abramoff bribed and influenced legislators.
It all came crashing down five years ago, when Jack Abramoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials, tax evasion and fraud, and served three and a half years in prison.
Today he's a symbol of how money corrupts Washington. In our interview tonight, he opens up his playbook for the first time.
And explains exactly how he used his clients' money to buy powerful friends and influence legislation.
Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn't figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.
Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.
Abramoff: As I look back it was effective. It certainly helped the people I was trying to help, both the clients and the Republicans at that time.
Lesley Stahl: But even that, you're now saying, was corrupt?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: Can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman?
Abramoff: I was actually thinking of writing a book - "The Idiot's Guide to Buying a Congressman" - as a way to put this all down. First, I think most congressmen don't feel they're being bought. Most congressmen, I think, can in their own mind justify the system.
Stahl: Rationalize.
Abramoff: --rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way.
Abramoff would provide freebies and gifts - looking for favors for his clients in return. He'd lavish certain congressmen and senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golf destinations like St. Andrews in Scotland. Free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area's sporting events; including two skyboxes at Washington Redskins games.
Abramoff: I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what not at all the venues.
Stahl: A million dollars?
Abramoff: Ya. Ya.
Stahl: For the best seats?
Abramoff: The best seats. I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.
Stahl: And the congressman or senator could take his favorite people from his district to the game--
Abramoff: The congressman or senator uh, could take two dozen of his favorite people from their district.
Stahl: Was all that legal?
Ira Rosen is the producer.
Abramoff: We would certainly try to make the activity legal, if we could. At times we didn't care.
But the "best way" to get a congressional office to do his bidding - he says - was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.
Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.
Neil Volz: Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that's how persuasive he was.
Neil Volz was one of the staffers Abramoff was talking about. He was chief of staff to Congressman Bob Ney, who as chairman of the House Administration Committee had considerable power to dispense favors. Abramoff targeted Volz and offered him a job.
Stahl: You're the chief of staff of a powerful congressman. And Jack owns you and you haven't even left working for the congressman.
Volz: I have the distinct memory of, you know, negotiating with Jack at a hockey game. So we're, you know, just a few rows back. The crowd's goin' crazy. And Jack and I are havin' a business conversation. And, you know, I'm-- I'm wrestlin' with how much I think I should get paid. And then five minutes later we're-- he's askin' me questions about some clients of his.
Stahl: When you look back was that the corrupting moment?
Volz: I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship. So there were several corrupting moments. There isn't just one moment. There were many.
Abramoff: At the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street, wanted to be lobbyists.
Stahl: You're telling me this, the genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff, say. I'm having two reactions. One is brilliant. And the other is I'm sick to my stomach.
Abramoff: Right. Evil. Yeah. Terrible.
Stahl: 'Cause it's hurting our country.
Abramoff: Shameful. Absolutely. It's the worst thing that could happen. All parts of the system.
Stahl: I'm mad at you.
Abramoff: I was mad at me--
Stahl: I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.
Abramoff: Look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I'm ashamed of the fact I was there, the very reason why now I'm speaking about it. And now I'm trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was-- it was wrong of me to do it.
One of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend, the Majority Leader Tom Delay, eventually hiring his deputy chief of staff and his press secretary, and going into business with Delay's chief of staff.
Stahl: Did you own his staff?
Abramoff: I was as close to his staff as to any staff. I had a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff.
Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?
Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.
Stahl: Come on.
Abramoff: No.
Stahl: A hundred offices?
Abramoff: In those days, I would view that as a failure. Because that leaves 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in.
Stahl: Did he own you?
Bob Ney: Oh, I don't believe Jack Abramoff owned me. But were we involved in the culture of corruption together? Absolutely.
Former Republican Congressman Bob Ney was ambitious and looked at Abramoff as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader.
Ney: I wanted to be speaker of the House and Jack Abramoff was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with, Tom Delay.
Abramoff began inviting Ney on golf trips including one to Scotland and to his restaurant Signatures, where Ney was given food and drinks on the house, a violation of the congressional gift limit laws. Ney says he was hardly the only one crossing the line.
Ney: But I will still tell you, at that point in time, in order to get a drink at Signatures you had to shove White House staffers of George Bush the heck away from the bar. And it was packed with people. And there were members. Now that doesn't mean everybody did everything for Jack. But if you wanna talk about strict interpretation of violation of the-- of-- of the laws of drink and food, Katey bar the door, she was wide open, two shotguns blarin'.
After months of taking handouts, Ney was approached by Neil Volz, his former chief of staff, by then a lobbyist for Abramoff.
Volz: I let you down man and I'm sorry...
Volz asked Ney to insert some language into a reform bill that would give a backdoor license to an Indian casino owned by one of Abramoff's clients. You often hear about lobbyists getting special secret deals for their clients like this. It's an insidious technique that Abramoff perfected.
Abramoff: So what we did was we crafted language that was so obscure, so confusing, so uninformative, but so precise to change the U.S. code.
Stahl: Here's what you tried to get tacked on to this reform bill.
Abramoff: Yeah.
Stahl: "Public law 100-89 is amended by striking section 207 (101 stat. 668, 672)."
Abramoff: Right. Now isn't that obvious what that means? It was perfect. It was perfect.
Stahl: So that's what you tried to get inserted?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And that was gonna provide for a casino?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And who on earth is gonna know that?
Abramoff: No one except the chairmen of the committees.
Stahl: Who stuck it in there?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And that's one of the things you used to do?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And it was deliberately written like that?
Abramoff: Precisely. Yes.
Stahl: And that's done a lot?
Abramoff: Members don't read the bills.
Stahl: You didn't even know what it was for?
Ney: Had no idea. And then when we got the written language--
Stahl: Well-- why didn't you know what it was for?
Ney: I didn't-- I didn't care.
Stahl: Oh!
Ney: It was a great big shell game. And I was in the middle of it, whether, you know, knowing or not. I-- I was dumb enough to not say, "What's this thing do?"
Ney would eventually serve 17 months in federal prison, the only congressman who was ever charged in the scandal. But Abramoff says that there were many other members that did his bidding that could have been charged.
Stahl: Was buying favors from lawmakers easy?
Abramoff: I think people are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting a favor. And that's not the case. The corruption, the bribery, call it, because ultimately that's what it is. That's what the whole system is.
Stahl: The whole system's bribery?
Abramoff: In my view. I'm talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public. At the end of the day, that's really what bribery is. But it is done everyday and it is still being done. The truth is there were very few members who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that.
Abramoff prided himself on being a man who did good. He was devoutly religious and exorbitantly charitable and he says he gave away 80 percent of his earnings. When he fell from grace, his reputation was in tatters because it was not just that he had corrupted Congress - it was found he had cheated his clients, like the Indian tribes.
Abramoff: Most of the money I made I gave away, to either communal or charitable causes. So I thought frankly I was one of the most moral lobbyists out there.
Things began to unravel for Abramoff when the Washington Post published a largely unflattering portrait of him in 2004, reporting that he charged his clients 10 times more than any other lobbyist in town.
Abramoff: My first response was, "What's the big deal? I don't understand what this is about. This is what lobbyists do.
What he didn't understand was the part that said he and a former aide to Tom Delay had overbilled four of his Indian casino clients by $45 million.
In the end, he was brought up on federal charges of tax evasion and ripping off Indian tribes. On the day he went to court and pled guilty, Abramoff looked grim. The judge sentenced him to four years.
Stahl: I really think what you were doing was-- was subverting the essence of our system.
Abramoff: Yes. Absolutely right. But our system is flawed and has to be fixed. Human beings populate our system. Human beings are weak.
Stahl: And you preyed on that?
Abramoff: I did. I was one of many who did. I did. And I'm ashamed of that fact.
He was sent to a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland. When he was released last June, he began working as an accountant at a kosher pizza parlor. Turns out Jack Abramoff was broke, partly because he is paying off nearly $24 million in restitution to the Indian tribes. Today he lives in his old house in Maryland with his wife, five children and the two doberman pinschers Mrs. Abramoff bought to protect the family while he was away.
After the scandal, Congress instituted a package of reforms, making what Abramoff did - like plying members of Congress with free expensive meals - illegal. But he doesn't see the new reforms as being very effective.
Abramoff: The reform efforts continually are these faux-reform efforts where they'll change, they'll tweak the system. They'll say, "You can have a meal with a congressman if they're standing up, not sitting down."
Stahl: Is that serious? Or are you joking?
Abramoff: Oh no, I'm not joking at all.
Stahl: So, it's okay if you pay for lunch as long as you stand up?
Abramoff: Well, it's actually worse than that. You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak of something like that. But you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fundraiser. And have all the same access and all the same interaction with that congressman. So the people who make the reforms are the people in the system.
Stahl: Could you do the same thing today? I'm asking you whether you think the system's been cleaned up?
Abramoff: Could do the same thing that I? Yeah. No, the system hasn't been cleaned up at all.
Stahl: At all.
Abramoff: There's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists, and certainly there was on the part of me and my team, that no matter what they come up we, we're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it. We'll just find another way through. That's all.
He says the most important thing that needs to be done is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington.
Abramoff: If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself. When you're done, go home. Washington's a dangerous place. Don't hang around.
Former Congressman Bob Ney now works part-time as a radio host.
His former chief of staff Neil Volz is currently working as a night janitor at a Florida restaurant.
And Jack Abramoff has written a memoir called "Capitol Punishment."
© 2011 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.The following is a script of "The Lobbyist's Playbook" which aired on Nov. 6, 2011.
Jack Abramoff may be the most notorious and crooked lobbyist of our time. He was at the center of a massive scandal of brazen corruption and influence peddling.
As a Republican lobbyist starting in the mid 1990s, he became a master at showering gifts on lawmakers in return for their votes on legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. He was so good at it, he took home $20 million a year.
Jack Abramoff: Inside Capitol corruption
How corrupt is lobbying in Washington, DC? Enough to get "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl angry when she hears how Jack Abramoff bribed and influenced legislators.
It all came crashing down five years ago, when Jack Abramoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials, tax evasion and fraud, and served three and a half years in prison.
Today he's a symbol of how money corrupts Washington. In our interview tonight, he opens up his playbook for the first time.
And explains exactly how he used his clients' money to buy powerful friends and influence legislation.
Jack Abramoff: I was so far into it that I couldn't figure out where right and wrong was. I believed that I was among the top moral people in the business. I was totally blinded by what was going on.
Jack Abramoff was a whiz at influencing legislation and one way he did that was to get his clients, like some Indian tribes, to make substantial campaign contributions to select members of Congress.
Abramoff: As I look back it was effective. It certainly helped the people I was trying to help, both the clients and the Republicans at that time.
Lesley Stahl: But even that, you're now saying, was corrupt?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: Can you quantify how much it costs to corrupt a congressman?
Abramoff: I was actually thinking of writing a book - "The Idiot's Guide to Buying a Congressman" - as a way to put this all down. First, I think most congressmen don't feel they're being bought. Most congressmen, I think, can in their own mind justify the system.
Stahl: Rationalize.
Abramoff: --rationalize it and by the way we wanted as lobbyists for them to feel that way.
Abramoff would provide freebies and gifts - looking for favors for his clients in return. He'd lavish certain congressmen and senators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golf destinations like St. Andrews in Scotland. Free meals at his own upscale Washington restaurant and access to the best tickets to all the area's sporting events; including two skyboxes at Washington Redskins games.
Abramoff: I spent over a million dollars a year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what not at all the venues.
Stahl: A million dollars?
Abramoff: Ya. Ya.
Stahl: For the best seats?
Abramoff: The best seats. I had two people on my staff whose virtual full-time job was booking tickets. We were Ticketmaster for these guys.
Stahl: And the congressman or senator could take his favorite people from his district to the game--
Abramoff: The congressman or senator uh, could take two dozen of his favorite people from their district.
Stahl: Was all that legal?
Ira Rosen is the producer.
Abramoff: We would certainly try to make the activity legal, if we could. At times we didn't care.
But the "best way" to get a congressional office to do his bidding - he says - was to offer a staffer a job that could triple his salary.
Abramoff: When we would become friendly with an office and they were important to us, and the chief of staff was a competent person, I would say or my staff would say to him or her at some point, "You know, when you're done working on the Hill, we'd very much like you to consider coming to work for us." Now the moment I said that to them or any of our staff said that to 'em, that was it. We owned them. And what does that mean? Every request from our office, every request of our clients, everything that we want, they're gonna do. And not only that, they're gonna think of things we can't think of to do.
Neil Volz: Jack Abramoff could sweet talk a dog off a meat truck, that's how persuasive he was.
Neil Volz was one of the staffers Abramoff was talking about. He was chief of staff to Congressman Bob Ney, who as chairman of the House Administration Committee had considerable power to dispense favors. Abramoff targeted Volz and offered him a job.
Stahl: You're the chief of staff of a powerful congressman. And Jack owns you and you haven't even left working for the congressman.
Volz: I have the distinct memory of, you know, negotiating with Jack at a hockey game. So we're, you know, just a few rows back. The crowd's goin' crazy. And Jack and I are havin' a business conversation. And, you know, I'm-- I'm wrestlin' with how much I think I should get paid. And then five minutes later we're-- he's askin' me questions about some clients of his.
Stahl: When you look back was that the corrupting moment?
Volz: I think we were guilty of engaging in a corrupt relationship. So there were several corrupting moments. There isn't just one moment. There were many.
Abramoff: At the end of the day most of the people that I encountered who worked on Capitol Hill wanted to come work on K Street, wanted to be lobbyists.
Stahl: You're telling me this, the genius of figuring out you could own the office by offering a job to the chief of staff, say. I'm having two reactions. One is brilliant. And the other is I'm sick to my stomach.
Abramoff: Right. Evil. Yeah. Terrible.
Stahl: 'Cause it's hurting our country.
Abramoff: Shameful. Absolutely. It's the worst thing that could happen. All parts of the system.
Stahl: I'm mad at you.
Abramoff: I was mad at me--
Stahl: I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding.
Abramoff: Look I did things and I was involved in the system I should not have been in. I'm ashamed of the fact I was there, the very reason why now I'm speaking about it. And now I'm trying to do something, in recompense, is the fact that I thought it was-- it was wrong of me to do it.
One of the offices he keyed on was that of his good friend, the Majority Leader Tom Delay, eventually hiring his deputy chief of staff and his press secretary, and going into business with Delay's chief of staff.
Stahl: Did you own his staff?
Abramoff: I was as close to his staff as to any staff. I had a very strong personal relationship with a lot of his staff.
Stahl: How many congressional offices did you actually own?
Abramoff: We probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at the time.
Stahl: Come on.
Abramoff: No.
Stahl: A hundred offices?
Abramoff: In those days, I would view that as a failure. Because that leaves 335 offices that we didn't have strong influence in.
Stahl: Did he own you?
Bob Ney: Oh, I don't believe Jack Abramoff owned me. But were we involved in the culture of corruption together? Absolutely.
Former Republican Congressman Bob Ney was ambitious and looked at Abramoff as a way to build alliances with the White House and the majority leader.
Ney: I wanted to be speaker of the House and Jack Abramoff was the beautiful light of day for me to get to the person who I had had some conflicts with, Tom Delay.
Abramoff began inviting Ney on golf trips including one to Scotland and to his restaurant Signatures, where Ney was given food and drinks on the house, a violation of the congressional gift limit laws. Ney says he was hardly the only one crossing the line.
Ney: But I will still tell you, at that point in time, in order to get a drink at Signatures you had to shove White House staffers of George Bush the heck away from the bar. And it was packed with people. And there were members. Now that doesn't mean everybody did everything for Jack. But if you wanna talk about strict interpretation of violation of the-- of-- of the laws of drink and food, Katey bar the door, she was wide open, two shotguns blarin'.
After months of taking handouts, Ney was approached by Neil Volz, his former chief of staff, by then a lobbyist for Abramoff.
Volz: I let you down man and I'm sorry...
Volz asked Ney to insert some language into a reform bill that would give a backdoor license to an Indian casino owned by one of Abramoff's clients. You often hear about lobbyists getting special secret deals for their clients like this. It's an insidious technique that Abramoff perfected.
Abramoff: So what we did was we crafted language that was so obscure, so confusing, so uninformative, but so precise to change the U.S. code.
Stahl: Here's what you tried to get tacked on to this reform bill.
Abramoff: Yeah.
Stahl: "Public law 100-89 is amended by striking section 207 (101 stat. 668, 672)."
Abramoff: Right. Now isn't that obvious what that means? It was perfect. It was perfect.
Stahl: So that's what you tried to get inserted?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And that was gonna provide for a casino?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And who on earth is gonna know that?
Abramoff: No one except the chairmen of the committees.
Stahl: Who stuck it in there?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And that's one of the things you used to do?
Abramoff: Yes.
Stahl: And it was deliberately written like that?
Abramoff: Precisely. Yes.
Stahl: And that's done a lot?
Abramoff: Members don't read the bills.
Stahl: You didn't even know what it was for?
Ney: Had no idea. And then when we got the written language--
Stahl: Well-- why didn't you know what it was for?
Ney: I didn't-- I didn't care.
Stahl: Oh!
Ney: It was a great big shell game. And I was in the middle of it, whether, you know, knowing or not. I-- I was dumb enough to not say, "What's this thing do?"
Ney would eventually serve 17 months in federal prison, the only congressman who was ever charged in the scandal. But Abramoff says that there were many other members that did his bidding that could have been charged.
Stahl: Was buying favors from lawmakers easy?
Abramoff: I think people are under the impression that the corruption only involves somebody handing over a check and getting a favor. And that's not the case. The corruption, the bribery, call it, because ultimately that's what it is. That's what the whole system is.
Stahl: The whole system's bribery?
Abramoff: In my view. I'm talking about giving a gift to somebody who makes a decision on behalf of the public. At the end of the day, that's really what bribery is. But it is done everyday and it is still being done. The truth is there were very few members who I could even name or could think of who didn't at some level participate in that.
Abramoff prided himself on being a man who did good. He was devoutly religious and exorbitantly charitable and he says he gave away 80 percent of his earnings. When he fell from grace, his reputation was in tatters because it was not just that he had corrupted Congress - it was found he had cheated his clients, like the Indian tribes.
Abramoff: Most of the money I made I gave away, to either communal or charitable causes. So I thought frankly I was one of the most moral lobbyists out there.
Things began to unravel for Abramoff when the Washington Post published a largely unflattering portrait of him in 2004, reporting that he charged his clients 10 times more than any other lobbyist in town.
Abramoff: My first response was, "What's the big deal? I don't understand what this is about. This is what lobbyists do.
What he didn't understand was the part that said he and a former aide to Tom Delay had overbilled four of his Indian casino clients by $45 million.
In the end, he was brought up on federal charges of tax evasion and ripping off Indian tribes. On the day he went to court and pled guilty, Abramoff looked grim. The judge sentenced him to four years.
Stahl: I really think what you were doing was-- was subverting the essence of our system.
Abramoff: Yes. Absolutely right. But our system is flawed and has to be fixed. Human beings populate our system. Human beings are weak.
Stahl: And you preyed on that?
Abramoff: I did. I was one of many who did. I did. And I'm ashamed of that fact.
He was sent to a medium security facility in Cumberland, Maryland. When he was released last June, he began working as an accountant at a kosher pizza parlor. Turns out Jack Abramoff was broke, partly because he is paying off nearly $24 million in restitution to the Indian tribes. Today he lives in his old house in Maryland with his wife, five children and the two doberman pinschers Mrs. Abramoff bought to protect the family while he was away.
After the scandal, Congress instituted a package of reforms, making what Abramoff did - like plying members of Congress with free expensive meals - illegal. But he doesn't see the new reforms as being very effective.
Abramoff: The reform efforts continually are these faux-reform efforts where they'll change, they'll tweak the system. They'll say, "You can have a meal with a congressman if they're standing up, not sitting down."
Stahl: Is that serious? Or are you joking?
Abramoff: Oh no, I'm not joking at all.
Stahl: So, it's okay if you pay for lunch as long as you stand up?
Abramoff: Well, it's actually worse than that. You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak of something like that. But you can take him to a fundraising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fundraiser. And have all the same access and all the same interaction with that congressman. So the people who make the reforms are the people in the system.
Stahl: Could you do the same thing today? I'm asking you whether you think the system's been cleaned up?
Abramoff: Could do the same thing that I? Yeah. No, the system hasn't been cleaned up at all.
Stahl: At all.
Abramoff: There's an arrogance on the part of lobbyists, and certainly there was on the part of me and my team, that no matter what they come up we, we're smarter than they are and we'll overcome it. We'll just find another way through. That's all.
He says the most important thing that needs to be done is to prohibit members of Congress and their staff from ever becoming lobbyists in Washington.
Abramoff: If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself. When you're done, go home. Washington's a dangerous place. Don't hang around.
Former Congressman Bob Ney now works part-time as a radio host.
His former chief of staff Neil Volz is currently working as a night janitor at a Florida restaurant.
And Jack Abramoff has written a memoir called "Capitol Punishment."
finance is crap
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/max_keiser_financial_pornography_and_goldman-sachs/
the video shows how financial institutions make up money out of nothing...
occupy wall street might not have an official cause that they are protesting about, but to me, the protest stems from the frustration with major financial institutions that commit crime on a global scale and then expect bail outs
09 August 2011
rant
http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/08/09/dylan-ratigan-mad-as-hell-his-epic-network-moment/
finally someone who understands that both sides are screwing this country up...
finally someone who understands that both sides are screwing this country up...
14 April 2011
rand
a better article about ayn rand that points out that the republicans have used ayn rand's views about capitalism for their own agenda, and they either do not know or are ignoring the fact that many of her beliefs go directly against traditional conservative beliefs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704662604576256782014528702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704662604576256782014528702.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs%3Darticle
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