The leadership of the Democratic Party is on the verge of passing health insurance reform. The centerpiece of the “reform” is requiring Americans to buy overpriced insurance from private corporations. But, it is evident that many in the Democratic voting base see the insurance industry as the problem – not the solution – and are getting angry about a new law that will force people to buy from corporations they don’t trust.

Just a few weeks ago the Mobilization for Health Care for All was announced. The Mobilization focuses on the denial of doctor-recommended care by the insurance industry. Sit-ins were planned at health insurance companies with demands that insurance corporations stop the denials. The Mobilization sought 100 people willing to sit-in at insurance corporations and risk arrest as people sat in at lunch counters two generations ago.

The response has been explosive, nearly 800 have signed up to risk arrest and thousands have signed up to join the protests. In the last 20 days 78 people have been arrested protesting the real death panels – the private insurance industry – who according to a California study deny doctor recommended care 20% of the time.

The Mobilization hoped to have “patients not profits sit-ins” in three cities last week, and instead it had them in nine cities. On the next Mobilization day, October 28th, there is likely to be twice as many cities protesting the insurance industry – just as Congress considers forcing Americans to buy insurance. This may be developing into the largest campaign of non-violent civil resistance since the Civil Rights era.

Many of the protesters supported Obama and were active in Democratic campaigns. Does the Democratic Party think that people willing to risk arrest against the corruption of the insurance industry will support Democratic candidates with time, money and votes who force them to buy insurance from these corporations?

These are protests the Democratic Party should not ignore. At the Washington, DC mobilization one woman, Linda from Annapolis, spoke to president Obama, said she had helped him get elected in part because he promised real change in health care. She still wants him to come through but reminded him – “we elected you, we can un-elect you.” Linda reflects the view of many Democratic Party activists who are angry at the pro-insurance bill being pushed by Congressional leaders.

As people come to understand the reform bill, which began as health “care” reform but devolved into health “insurance” reform, the anger will grow – not just from the right, but from the Democratic voting base who voted for the hope of real reform, not more of the corporate-dominated Washington, DC non-solutions to problems Americans face every day.

Indeed, Americans of all stripes will be angry. At the Washington, DC mobilization police allowed the sit-in to occur, despite it being illegal, and refused to arrest the participants. We later found out that the police had to make wage concessions to keep their health care. And, when I was arrested protesting the Senate Finance Committee hearing dominated by the insurance industry, one officer told me about his mother who had lost her job, was too young for Medicare and could not afford COBRA payments. The abuse of insurance affects all Americans and they will not be happy being forced to feed corporate gluttonous greed.

Why will Americans hate this “reform?”

First, this unnecessarily complex plan will not achieve any of the goals originally set. It will not cover all Americans, indeed tens of millions will be left without insurance ten years after it is enacted. And, it will not control costs as the insurance industry has said that their already too expensive premiums will increase by 111% in the next decade under “reform.”

Second, few Americans will benefit from the plan. In fact, the greatest beneficiary will be the insurance industry and other health care profiteers. Every ten million people forced to buy insurance by the government will give the industry $100 billion in new revenue – at current insurance rates. With 50 million uninsured that is potentially hundreds of billions in new revenue. In other words, the corporations that are the root of the problem will get rich off of the income of working Americans. This at a time when American salaries are stagnating, debts are high, costs are going up and there is constant fear of unemployment and bankruptcy. Further, those who have insurance but do not like their insurance plans will not be given any choice under the “reform.” They will be stuck with their current, overpriced insurance with rising premiums, co-pays and out of pocket expenses. This is a recipe for populist rebellion, but it does not stop there.

The plan does not create affordable health care. Families earning $90,000 will find themselves paying 20% of their income on health insurance. And, the subsidies for poor and working Americans will be insufficient. The leading source of increased poverty is America’s working poor. How can these working families afford to buy insurance – even if they are forced to by the government – when they cannot even put food on the table? Americans will ask – why are struggling workers being forced to pay the $10 million salaries of insurance executives?

By the time most of this plan takes effect in 2013, the year after the next presidential election, insurance premiums will have increased by 20% to 25%. During the election year, Americans will be looking toward 2013 and seeing increased insurance costs and realizing they will be forced to buy overpriced insurance at the threat of increased taxes. Because of the lack of cost controls and the increased insurance requirements, e.g., like requiring acceptance of people with pre-existing conditions and putting no limits on lifetime benefits, the insurance industry will be increasing rates even more quickly. The failure of “reform” will become evident before it takes effect.

The increased costs of health insurance will affect all businesses small and large. In a “recovery” that is already not producing jobs, these costs will ensure a jobless recovery. The failure to create jobs will be a rallying cry against the Obama economic and health care plans. Democrats should be concerned because Americans traditionally vote based on their wallet more than any other issue.

In fact, bottom line business people and others who can do the math, realize that the U.S. spends double per person than dozens of better rated health care systems in Europe and Asia. If the U.S. merely adopted any of these plans (almost all variations on single payer) we would save $4,000 per person EVERY YEAR. That is a savings of $1.2 trillion every year – a huge recurring stimulus with savings flowing to businesses and others who pay some or all of their health insurance. Quickly thereafter goods made domestically would be competitive again, companies would have faith in a better future and hire employees again, and America would break the stranglehold of corporate-government. None of this will happen under the Democratic “reform” because the waste, fraud and abuse of the insurance industry will continue.

During the next four years the Republicans will use the Democratic “reform” as a political punching bag. The plans to cut Medicare by hundreds of billions of dollars based on increased efficiency will frighten senior citizens. The bureaucracy being put in place by the “reform” will be evident to all. The complexity of the law will include federal rules on what employer-based insurance plans are “qualified.” All Americans will see new income tax forms for the individual mandate and to determine income eligibility for insurance subsidies. The new federal insurance bureaucracy will be ridiculed by the Republicans.

Labor unions will see good health insurance coverage they fought years to get for their members disappearing as taxes on their plans go into effect. These high taxes are likely to cause employers to cut back on the derisively labeled “Cadillac” plans, which are really the kinds of health coverage all Americans should have. The result: more people will be uninsured by employers and forced to buy health insurance on their own, or more working Americans will find themselves joining the large pool of tens of millions of Americans who are underinsured. Reform will make the problems worse for these Americans.

The problem of insurance companies denying care recommended by a doctor is likely to get worse under “reform.” A recent study in California found that insurance company denials can occur in up to 40% of cases with some insurance companies. Congress could fix the problem by giving consumers the power to sue insurance companies for denial of care. But, despite lobbying by consumer advocates, they refused to do so. The industry has few ways to control costs so experts predict that there will be increases in denial of care. “There are going to be a lot of denials,” said insurance industry analyst Robert Laszewski, a former health insurance executive, told the Los Angeles Times. Denial of care is the issue the Mobilization for Health Care is protesting.

During the four years it takes to put the “reform” into place, more than 100,000 Americans will die each year from preventable illness. That is the current rate of annual preventable deaths, something the U.S. leads all developed nations in, and it will not slow when Obama signs the pro-insurance reform bill. Will the Congress close its eyes and watch 400,000 Americans die during Obama’s first term? Or, will it do the obvious and open up Medicare to all during this period of transition? The Democrats paymasters in the insurance industry will urge them to quietly let Americans die so people do not experience that Medicare, America’s single payer system, works.

And, those who were shut out of the process of developing real health care reform – the majority of Americans who favor a single payer, improved “Medicare for All,” national health system – will keep organizing. The Mobilization for Health Care for All, will be one of example of many. Those shut out will fight back and keep pointing out how simple and efficient the reform could have been. How the Democrats could have reduced bureaucracy instead of increased it, helped the economy rather than hurt it and made sure every dollar went to health care rather than 31% of spending going to insurance industry profits and the bureaucracy the insurance industry creates. The already popular single payer system, which Obama himself used to support, will become even more popular. The control of the Democratic Party by big business interests will become evermore evident and “reform” will be understood as a multi-hundred billon dollar corporate giveaway.

The Democrats, like generals so often do, are fighting the last war. The Clinton experienced taught them that failure to pass health care reform cost them elections. The Obama administration experience will teach them that passing legislation that is only good for the insurance industry will cost them elections and could cost Obama a second term. A bad bill will be worse than no bill, will be the new lesson.

Americans voted for Obama who said in 2005 that the country would get single payer when the Democrats won back the House, Senate and Presidency. They even prefer the Obama of the presidential campaign who promised health care for all and opposed insurance mandates. They want the Obama they supported to return and put their interests ahead of insurance company profits.

Simply expanding and improving Medicare so it covers all Americans is the only way to avert this populist revolt. Will the Democratic leadership recognize this and change course or will they steer themselves into a disaster in order to satisfy their big donors in the insurance industry? There is a single payer bill, HR 676, in the House that will be voted on when Rep. Weiner introduces it on the House Floor. Let’s hope for the sake of all Americans that the Democratic Party leadership wakes up and puts the necessities of the American people before the profits of their donors. They still have time.

Does President Obama remember how the Democrats regained the majority in the House and Senate? Does he remember how he bested Hillary Clinton in the primaries? Here’s a reminder.

Republicans dominated politics for the first eight years of the 21st Century. When President Bush attacked Iraq and pulled the U.S. into a war quagmire resulting in mass deaths of civilians and soldiers as well as bleeding of the U.S. treasury, the peace movement reacted. They highlighted the failures of the war, the lies that got America in to Iraq and the death, destruction and economic catastrophe the war was bringing. Peace activists demonstrated in Congress, sat-in the offices of elected officials and protested whenever Bush administration officials testified in Congress.

The public began to hear the full story – the weapons of mass destruction were a lie, there was no link between Saddam and Osama, the casualties of war were increasing, the cost of war was escalating, the largest mercenary force in history was violating laws. Opinion rapidly turned against the war. The result, in 2006, the voters threw out the Republicans and gave the Democrats solid control of both Houses of Congress.

In 2008, the front runner, then-Senator Hillary Clinton, was running a campaign for the presidency that seemed unstoppable. The media and politicians treated her election as an inevitable fait accompli. But, Clinton had voted for the Iraq invasion and this did not sit well with the American public, especially with anti-war Democrats – the base of the Democratic Party. The media anointed then-Senator Barack Obama as the “peace” candidate because of a speech he gave opposing the war before being elected to the U.S. senate. Aware of the mood of the voters he began his speeches with the promise: “I will end the war in Iraq.” Anti-war Democrats were enough to carry him through the primary and into the presidency.

In both cases, voters opposed to war were critical to determining the outcome.

But now, the Obama administration is ignoring those voters. The day after the protests at the White House it was reported in Talking Points Memo that the administration said: “White House officials say Obama is not focusing on antiwar protesters — neither the more than 60 who were arrested yesterday at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue nor the handful outside the White House gates today — or on a MoveOn email petition circulating asking him for a clear military exit strategy.”

The peace movement is noting that the president is ignoring their calls to end the war. Even worse for the president, this time we are starting as the majority. Polls show that more than 70% of Democrats oppose the Afghanistan war and sending more troops to the region as do a majority of Americans.

Obama is forgetting how he and the Democrats came to power. Who does Obama think provides much of the person-power for their elections? Or, the small grass roots donations? What do Obama and the Democrats think will happen if the peace movement stays home in 2010?

And, to make matters worse, he is repeating the mistake made in the health care debate. The president has been unable to excite grass roots support for reform because he and Congressional leaders took the most popular option, a single payer national health program, off the table. They would not consider the approach most Americans preferred. Instead, the Democrats have pushed a scheme that will enrich the health insurance industry – corporations that Americans hate and see as corrupt – by forcing Americans to buy their overpriced insurance.

So, what is his administration doing when it comes to Afghanistan? Making the same mistake. They are considering all options except the one Americans want. They have taken off the option list getting out of Afghanistan. Secretary Gates said this week “We are not leaving Afghanistan. This discussion is about next steps forward.” And, the president’s press secretary Robert Gibbs said: “I don’t think we have the option to leave. That’s quite clear.”

At a time when the Republicans are energizing their base by challenging President Obama, the Democrats are turning off their base whether on health care, bailing out Wall Street or now on the Afghanistan war. Do the Democrats really have the hubris to think they can turn their base off and stay in office? If they do, they are likely to learn a very painful lesson in 2010 and 2012.

Re: The Convention Against Torture Requires the Investigation and Prosecution of Torture by an Independent Prosecutor Mandated to Investigate the Facts and Apply the Law. Selective Prosecution of Some Instances of Torture, or Limiting Prosecution to Low Level Officials, Will Not Satisfy the Requirements of the Convention Against Torture or Other Laws Proscribing Torture.

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

I am writing as the attorney for the Disbar Torture Lawyers Campaign, a coalition of more than 150 organizations representing over a million members, in order to request that you appoint a special prosecutor to fully investigate all aspects of the torture issue, and to then follow where the evidence leads. We are concerned, based on various media reports quoting anonymous sources in your office, that you will soon announce a very narrow probe focusing limited instances of torture rather than the full investigation required by law. If the Department of Justice is going to restore its credibility and America’s reputation as a nation of laws, then it must even handedly apply the rule of law, especially in tough situations such as torture.

Our coalition has been involved with this issue for some time, and we recently filed disciplinary complaints against 15 lawyers who were instrumental in formulating and advocating the use of torture, including all those who prepared the now rescinded OLC memos. The critical law proscribing torture, which the United States must follow, is the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”), adopted by the United States and signed by President Ronald Reagan. CAT is written in mandatory language in order ensure that prosecutorial discretion does not come into play when dealing with state sponsored torture. I have attached a copy of CAT and highlight key portions in this letter.

In the Preamble, CAT notes that that it was enacted to “make more effective the struggle against torture….” Article 1 defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.” [Emphasis added.] Because torture under CAT requires “instigation, consent, or acquiescence” of a government official, the selective prosecution of a few government employees who followed orders, while giving immunity for government officials who gave those orders, would undermine our bedrock rule of law that it applies equally, no matter what position a person holds.

Article 2(2) lays out our position in very clear terms: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” [Emphasis added.] In the case of torture by the United States, it has been said by various officials from both parties that, in light of the shock of 9/11, extreme means were necessary and that officials “were scared” and had to act to stop additional attacks. But CAT specifically prohibits such justifications.

Article 2(3) underscores our position: “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.” The media is reporting that you do not intend to investigate and prosecute the public officials who created the torture policy of the previous administration, and that you do not intend to investigate or prosecute those who followed the OLC memoranda because they were complying with legal opinions and orders issued by the DOJ. But this type of justification is precisely what the CAT forbids. Indeed, the DOJ involvement with justifying torture is one reason why it is critical that the prosecutor be a special prosecutor independent of the DOJ. If legal memoranda could be used to change the definition of torture – which is quite clear under CAT – and justify torture, then the Convention would be meaningless because a government that wanted to use torture would merely have their legal officials provide memoranda to allow it.

Moreover, the “I was just following orders” defense, made famous in the Nuremberg trials after World War II, has been rejected for decades. Nuremberg Principle IV states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” This “defense of superior orders” is not a defense for war crimes, although it might influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty.

Article 4(1) states: “Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law.” The United States has complied with this by enacting a criminal statute prohibiting torture under 18 USC 2340. This is clearly an enabling statute that cannot be ignored. Moreover, in order to comply with Article 4(2) to prohibit “complicity” to torture, the Patriot Act, passed during the same time period as much of the torture of detainees, added this language to Section 2340 under subsection (c): “Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.” Clearly, those who conspired to torture, such as those who used their official position to justify and order it, cannot be excused from the dictates of CAT Article 4 or Section 2340.

Article 5 requires the establishment of jurisdiction over persons covered under Article 4, including citizens of that country, and in cases where the persons are not extradited to face prosecution for torture in another country under Article 8. Clearly, this gives you jurisdiction to prosecute American citizens who committed torture and places the burden on you to do so unless you intend to rely on Article 8 to extradite Americans who may be indicted for torture by a foreign State Party.

Article 6 requires, “after an examination of information available,” that a person who committed torture be taken “into custody” and then that “a preliminary inquiry into the facts” be immediately undertaken. There have been vast amounts of information released, leaked and uncovered, which document who ordered and who committed torture. No doubt an independent investigation would find more evidence of who was responsible for committing these crimes. In our ethics complaints, we included over 600 pages of exhibits, including both the Senate and Red Cross detainee treatment reports and many of OLC memos. See www.DisbarTortureLawyers.com for copies of all exhibits filed. Clearly, this and your own internal “examination of information available” require that you take the known torturers into custody and conduct a more thorough investigation.

Article 7 requires a State Party, unless it extradites a torturer to another country for prosecution, “to submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.” Again, this is not discretionary. In order to follow the law you must investigate and prosecute all those involved with torture and not selectively prosecute certain low level officials involved in only some acts of torture. In the case of American torturers, despite the widespread torture of hundreds of individuals, including at least 98 deaths, not a single case has been submitted for prosecution, “Command’s Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan” by Hina Shamsi and Edited by Deborah Pearlstein, Human Rights First, February 2006.

Article 8 states that torture is a required extraditable offense between State Parties. It may be that you do not intend to prosecute American citizens for torture in the United States because a foreign State Party has notified you of an impending indictment and you intend to extradite those indicted. If that is the case, please confirm that in writing. It has been widely reported that other countries are well on their way to initiating torture charges against Americans.

Article 9 requires each State Party to assist each other in connection with torture prosecutions, “including the supply of all evidence at their disposal necessary to carry out the proceedings.” The United States must therefore, once notified, provide all torture evidence in its possession to foreign State Parties working on torture prosecutions.

Articles 10 requires the education about the rules against torture of all persons involved with detainees, and Article 11 requires the review of all interrogation and custody rules for detainees “with a view to preventing any cases of torture.” This is another powerful reason why the “I was just following orders” defense cannot be used to provide immunity to people who committed torture and why officials who created the torture policy must also be investigated and prosecuted.

Article 12 provides the strongest language for the appointment of a special prosecutor: “Each State Party shall ensure that its competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation, wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed in any territory under its jurisdiction.” Clearly, in the case of torture by American citizens, there is indisputable evidence in various official reports and news articles to require an impartial investigation by a special prosecutor.

Article 13 requires a State Party to investigate all complaints of torture made by persons who have been tortured. Clearly, your office has received many complaints about torture either directly, such as in the case of Jose Padilla, or through proxies such as attorneys representing Guantanamo prisoners, the Red Cross, ACLU, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Amnesty International. Because victims have complained, you must appoint a special prosecutor with broad authority to investigate all acts of torture.

Mr. Attorney General, you have repeatedly stated, in your confirmation hearings and in public statements, that your Department of Justice “will follow the law.” That law, as specified by CAT, outlined above, not only prohibits the use of torture, but requires the investigation and prosecution of those who committed or conspired to commit torture. Applying the rule of law evenly is a key component of our American jurisprudence, and that is why the scales of justice should not be weighted in favor of those who hold positions of power. Our nation suffered a grievous blow to her reputation and moral standing when the previous administration intentionally violated the law by advocating and instituting wholesale torture of detainees. You can restore our moral high ground and the Department of Justice’s reputation as an agency that follows the law by appointing a special prosecutor, independent of the Department of Justice, with the very clear mandate – investigate the facts and apply the rule of law wherever it leads – as required by the Convention Against Torture.

American citizens who ordered and committed acts of torture should be prosecuted in the United States where they will be given the full panoply of legal protections under our Constitution. At trial, they should be allowed to present any defense under the law, and they should be able to argue whatever mitigating factors are applicable during sentencing. They should also be allowed to ask for a pardon or commutation from the President after conviction. However, they should not be granted immunity from prosecution, tantamount to amnesty, in advance of a complete criminal investigation.

Failure to hold those accountable for torture will have numerous repercussions. We believe that anything less than a full torture investigation mandated by your office will result in indictment of American citizens by other CAT State Parties, which will then require you to extradite those citizens and provide evidence against them. It is also likely to result in litigation requesting that the federal court compel your office to comply with your duty to follow the dictates of CAT. We also believe that the failure to prosecute will embolden other Party States and non-party states to ignore international treaties and laws protecting Americans, resulting in future atrocities against our own citizens. Failure to prosecute will also create a de facto exception for future administrations that may decide that torture, or any other atrocity, should be U.S. policy.

In closing, we strongly urge you to quickly appoint a special prosecutor, independent of the DOJ, to investigate and prosecute torture wherever the facts lead, as required by CAT. If I can be of assistance in your investigations, please contact me.

Sincerely,

Kevin Zeese
Attorney at Law

The CBO scored the Kennedy-Dodd proposal, the most robust of the reform proposals actually being considered, and the bottom line is that it will leave 36 million without coverage a decade from now. That is not what the Democrats and Obama have been promising. It is nowhere near universal coverage.

According to the CBO, “Once the proposal was fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million.”

And, the Obama administration has sent word to Democrats to stop using the phrase “universal coverage.” Lynn Sweet reports in the Chicago Sun-Times:

In discussing a ‘public option,’ Obama’s message team is telling Democrats on Capitol Hill to avoid using the phrase ‘universal coverage’ because that phrase is often associated with a single-payer system, which is often associated with ‘socialism,’ which the Obama administration does not support. The Obama team-approved language is instead to talk about ‘guaranteed health care,’ a phrase that is less polarizing.

Guaranteed health care is just another empty marketing phrase by the eloquent, teleprompter wordsmiths in the Obama administration. Despite the new rhetoric there is no guarantee of health care in any of the proposals being considered.

The “universal coverage” phrase was always used by Democrats who opposed single payer as a phrase to confuse the voters. Universal coverage sure sounds like it achieves the goal of single payer — providing health care for all. But, it was always merely a marketing tool. Now that the Democrats and Obama have kept single payer boxed up and removed from consideration they can abandon this PR phrase for fear of looking too “socialist.”

As to cost, the CBO reports $10 trillion in new expenses over ten years. Yes, some will get lower premiums, but that is just a shifting of costs from premiums to taxes. We will still be paying for wasteful and over-priced health care — still paying more per person than any country in the world — just out of a different pocket.

The failure to confront the waste of the multi-payer, profit-oriented insurance-based system ensures that costs will not be controlled. Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told the New York Times that, “The entire discussion has to be centered on controlling or reducing costs.” In fact, if the real goal were to reduce costs, single payer would have been the model they used.

But, the goal is not to control costs; it is to preserve the profits of their donors. Health professionals gave Obama $11,532,962 and the insurance industry donors gave the Obama campaign $2,211,348. The Obama administration’s approach puts their interests ahead of the necessities of the American people and of the American economy.

In his speech to the AMA Obama made the point crisply, “If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM — paying more, getting less and going broke.” But, the Democratic proposals do not really try to fix the broken system; they just pour more tax dollars into it.

Obama’s concern is borne out by the CBO. In discussing the need to confront health care they point out: “The federal budget is on an unsustainable path, primarily because of the rising cost of health care.” Shifting these costs from premiums to taxes does nothing to change this reality. In fact it is likely to make federal budget deficits worse.

More than 80 members of the House of Representatives have co-sponsored a bill, HR 676, which would provide coverage to all Americans — a real guarantee of health care, not teleprompter rhetoric — and that would really control costs.

Will Obama ever have the political courage to actually fight for what he knows is the answer? State senator Obama, circa 2003, said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.” (applause) “And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

Well, the public has given the Democrats all three but Obama and the Democratic leadership have refused to even consider single payer. Instead they fight for the interests of the insurance industry and falsely call it health care reform. Mr. President, please show some political leadership — stand up for what you know is right.

I used to sell insurance. The basic rule is the larger the pool the less expensive the health care. Today we have 1,300 separate pools – separate health care plans – and that is why health care is so expensive; 700 pools would be more efficient and less expensive and one pool would be the least expensive. That’s why single payer is the answer.

Nothing like common sense.

But, common sense was not on display in the Senate yesterday. Instead, the senate is seeking a path to the goal of universal coverage by protecting the least efficient model – the for-profit insurance industry that through waste, fraud, abuse and bureaucracy eats up 31% the cost of health care.

Chris Dodd (D-CT) who chaired the hearing, standing in for the ailing Ted Kennedy, has received $2.1 million from insurance industry throughout his career, another $547,000 from the pharmaceutical industry, and $467,000 from health care professionals. Dodd opened the hearing stating the stark facts:

We spend more than $2 trillion on health care every year- more than 18 percent of our GDP. By 2040, 34 cents of every dollar we spend could be on healthcare. That is not simply unacceptable – it’s unsustainable. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs for individuals and families alike continue to skyrocket.

It was evident, throughout the day that money was on the mind of the senators. But, they could not look into the face of the obviously most efficient path, single payer, instead they were going through contortions to protect their benefactors from the insurance industry.

The senators and witnesses showed there is a lot of division over financing health care and no easy solution – so long as the first goal is to protect the insurance industry. Business groups wanted to tax employee benefits not take away the business tax credit for companies that provide health care. These are the only two big pots of money the senate sees. There was also talk about making Americans healthier to save money, certainly a good goal. But, Sen. McCain (R-AZ), probably correctly if rudely, mocked witnesses who said health care could be paid for by doing away with inefficiencies and wellness programs. McCain favors taxing health care benefits.

Of course, both the business tax credit and not taxing health benefits are two reasons the health insurance industry is able to acquire massive wealth. These are annual, indirect taxpayer giveaways to the insurance industry that demonstrate how government is already paying for health care. Taxpayers are just doing so in the most inefficient way. Rather than actually using tax dollars to pay for health care, they are used to pay for insurance and all the profits and waste that goes with it.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the sponsor of S.703, the single payer bill in the Senate, finally got his chance to speak and railed against the waste of the health insurance model, criticized their massive profits and emphasized that health care was a human right. He pointed his question to the lone witness advocating for single payer of the dozen testifying, Dr. Margaret Flowers of Physicians for National Health Plan.

Flowers, who had been arrested just six weeks ago for protesting the exclusion of single payer from discussions in the Senate Finance Committee, went into a long list of reasons why the multi-payer system is so expensive – inefficiencies built into the system, insurance companies making massive profits while people died from lack of health care access, hospitals needing massive billing departments creating bigger administrative staff than nursing staff, doctors spending 20% of their overhead on dealing with the insurance industry, fee for service payments that lead to unecessary treatments and expensive, often unneeded tests, malpractice litigation because patients do not have access to health care to bad health care outcomes. . .

Flowers was still going strong, the list was incomplete, when Sanders cut her off, saying I only have a few minutes for questioning.

Sitting next to Flowers was the CEO of Aetna Insurance, Ronald Williams. The senators fawned over him, except for Sanders who pointed out Medicare was more popular that Aetna. Williams makes anywhere from $13 million annually in salary and stock according to Insurance Industry News to $30.86 million annually according to Forbes. Insurance Industry News reports that if Aetna grows by 15% by 2010 Williams gets an addition $4.3 million. Is he not the perfect example of what is wrong with health care in America? Profits are the top priority of corporate interests, and usually short term profits. Should the insurance industry be striving to grow so rapidly when they already gobble up too many health care dollars?

The senate also struggled with how to make sure everyone is covered with health insurance. Again the divisions were obvious. Business groups said there should not be an employer mandate, but rather an individual mandate. Unions said there should be an employer mandate not an individual mandate. Big businesses said there should be no subsidy for small businesses that would be unfair to big businesses. Republicans scoffed at the idea of expanding Medicaid to more of the working poor – too expensive, unaffordable, they pointed out. The public insurance option was described as unfair to the insurance industry and too expensive to implement. The Democrats squirmed uncomfortably at choices that they know will upset some powerful interest group.

What a mess! The effort to protect the insurance industry at all costs is making real health care reform impossible. Maybe, because the Democrats want to do something, anything, so badly they will find a way to pass something, but if they do it will not work, it will be very costly and the group that will benefit most clearly will be the health insurance industry which will reap hundreds of billions in corporate welfare every year from the deform of health care in America. Of course, incumbents who support it will benefit with campaign donations from the industry. Pay to play politics on display in America.

Margaret Flowers, MD was the first witness to testify at the senate hearing on June 12. Her comments focused on health care as a human right. She pointed out how FDR was the first to try and put in place a social security system that included a single payer health care system. And, how years of trying the “uniquely American approach” of the market solution – for-profit health care – had failed the country and put health care on a path to government deficit with health care costs already a cause in two-thirds of bankruptcies. She urged the senate to not tinker with a broken system but instead to take a new path and adopt a national health plan with single payer as the financing system.

Sadly, there were four doctors on the panel and only one, Flowers, who spoke of health care as a human right. Perhaps the AMA was the most despicable. Not only did they oppose single payer – something supported by 60% of doctors according to a survey of the AMA data base – but they even opposed the weak public insurance option. The AMA spokesperson said they would only support market approaches. No wonder the AMA is shrinking rapidly. While not long ago it represented 70% of American doctors, they are now down to only 30%. At this hearing, their callous disregard of the needs of patients and their disregard of the opinions of doctors showed why they are a shell of an organization.

Sen. Sanders pointed out the historic breakthrough of having the first witness for single payer being allowed to testify as part of the health care reform discussion. The audience began to applaud, Sanders warned “be careful, you might get arrested.”

The day before this hearing a House subcommittee held a session on single payer health care. One witness Dr. Walter Tsou, a University of Pennsylvania professor, former health commissioner and an adviser to Physicians for a National Health Program responded to the claim that single payer was too radical saying “Our most famous radical document begins with the words, ‘We the People.’ Not ‘We the Insurers,’” he said. “It is time for our own generation’s revolution.”

And, it will take the people speaking out and getting active to make real health care reform possible. If you don’t want to see another massive transfer of wealth to the insurance industry while Americans continue to lack health care, you need to take action. Tell your representatives that you want a national health plan funded by a single payer system. The insurers are working hard, the American people have to work harder. The time is now.

You can take action by clicking here.

When we stood up and demanded that single payer be part of the debate, we were arrested.

Today, single payer is breaking through, while the multi-payer pro-health insurance reform is faltering.

Here’s the news: single payer national health insurance will be at the table in the Senate with a witness participating in a hearing this Thursday. And today, a hearing is being held on single payer in the House of Representatives.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education and Pensions has invited Margaret Flowers, MD of Physicians for National Health Policy to testify this Thursday at 3:00 PM in a hearing on health care reform. Flowers was one of the Baucus 13 I was arrested with three weeks ago protesting the exclusion of single payer from Senate Finance Committee hearings.

And today, the Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee of the House Education & Labor Committee will hold a hearing titled “Examining the Single Payer Health Care Option,” at 10:30 am in 2175 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Single payer is making advances while the multi-payer pro-insurance industry reform bill is faltering.

* There are deep divisions over how to pay for the reform with the very unpopular taxing of health benefits now being considered. This was something President Obama opposed during the 2008 campaign. Paying for single payer is much easier as the waste, fraud, abuse and bureaucracy of the health insurance industry — totaling $400 billion annually — would be applied to providing health care. Single payer pays for itself while multi-payer will add to the deficit.

* Mandating that people buy insurance or face fines, another provision President Obama opposed during the campaign, is gaining popularity among pro-insurance company legislators. And, the mandates would provide subsidies to the poor so they can purchase insurance — of course this is also a subsidy to the health insurance industry. The working class which cannot afford to purchase insurance will feel the burden of this requirement. Under single payer people are provided health care without these costs, which is one reason it is the most popular reform among voters.

* The Public Insurance Option is opposed by Republicans and the insurance industry. While several schemes have been reported to make the public choice option ineffective, it is causing deep divisions. Single payer is the most popular health care reform among voters, doctors, nurses and economists because it provides all Americans with choice of doctors and providers.

* The business community is questioning the pro-insurance reforms because they will include mandates on business requiring them to pay for health insurance. At this critical time business needs relief not burdens. Single payer will provide businesses with economic relief by reducing the costs of health care and leveling the playing field among all businesses and allowing them to compete internationally with other countries with single payer systems.

In an effort to save the faltering pro-insurance reforms, President Obama announced his administration would be getting directly involved in health care negotiations with Congress. And, he announced town hall meetings throughout the U.S.

President Obama will find that at all of these town hall meetings single payer will be the most popular reform among Americans. He needs to listen to voters. When Obama was in the Illinois Senate he said he supported single payer, but that before Americans got it they needed to win back the House, Senate and Presidency. Well, all three are now in Democratic Party control. It is time for President Obama to advocate for the people and push for single payer, and recognize the multi-payer system as the insurance industry is the root cause of the problems in health care.

For those who support single payer, now is the time to escalate your activity. Contact your member of the House and Senate today (202-224-3131). Let Congress know you want real health care reform not a subsidy for the insurance industry.

More Information

Health care reform falling apart as details become known:

www.prosperityagenda.us/node/362
www.prosperityagenda.us/node/318
www.prosperityagenda.us/node/286

Congress considering taxing health benefits:

www.prosperityagenda.us/node/352
www.prosperityagenda.us/node/287

* Robert Reich on how health care profiteers plan to kill public option.

Insurance companies push to force people to buy insurance:

www.prosperityagenda.us/node/338
www.prosperityagenda.us/node/364

Complaints have been filed against: John Yoo, Judge Jay Bybee, and Stephen Bradbury who authored the torture memoranda. As well as attorneys who advised, counseled, consulted and supported those memoranda including Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Michael Chertoff, Alice Fisher, William Haynes II, Douglas Feith, Michael Mukasey, Timothy Flanigan, and David Addington. These detailed complaints, with over 500 pages of supporting exhibits, have been filed with the state bars in the District of Columbia, New York, California, Texas and Pennsylvania, and they seek disciplinary action and disbarment. Copies of the complaints and exhibits are available on-line at DisbarTortureLawyers.com and VotersForPeace.us.

This cadre of torture lawyers colluded to facilitate the abuse and torture of prisoners (detainee) that included, evidence suggests, deaths at overseas U.S. military facilities. Human Rights Watch reports 98 deaths of people in custody of the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Making torture even worse in this case is that it was used to try and get information to tie Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda – a relationship that did not exist – as well as information about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in order to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

We have asked the respective state bars to revoke the licenses of these attorneys for moral turpitude. They failed to show “respect for and obedience to the law, and respect for the rights of others,” and intentionally or recklessly failed to act competently, all in violation of legal Rules of Professional Conduct. Several attorneys failed to adequately supervise the work of subordinate attorneys and forwarded shoddy legal memoranda regarding the definition of torture to the White House and Department of Defense. These lawyers further acted incompetently by advising superiors to approve interrogation techniques that were in violation of U.S. and international law. They failed to support or uphold the U.S. Constitution, and the laws of the United States, and to maintain the respect due to the courts of justice and judicial officers, all in violation state bar rules.

Torture is illegal under United States and international law. It is illegal under the U.S. Constitution, domestic law and international treaties to which the United States is a party.

This includes:

1. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), Articles 1, 2, 3 and 16 (ratified in October 1994). Article 2(2) of the Convention states that:

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

2. The Geneva Conventions, Article 3, (ratified in August 1955). Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), held that the Geneva Conventions are applicable to accused members of al-Qaeda. Thus, due process protections apply to all detainees in U.S. custody, including those in military prisons.

3. The Eighth Amendment against “cruel and unusual punishment.”
4. The United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Prohibitions Against Torture (18 USC 2340A) and War Crimes (18 USC 2441).

Torture is a clearly defined term under international and U.S. law. The Convention Against Torture defines torture as any act by which: “severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental; is intentionally inflicted on a person …”

The torture memoranda did not provide objective legal advice to government decision-makers, but instead twisted the state of the law so that it was unrecognizable. They were so inaccurate that these memoranda are more justifications about what the authors and the intended recipients wanted the law to be, rather than assessments of what the law actually is.

These laws provide no exception for torture under any circumstances. Moreover, the United States Criminal Code prohibits both torture and war crimes, the latter which includes torture. The Army Field Manual prohibits the use of degrading treatment of detainees. The individually tailored complaints allege that the named attorneys violated the rules of professional responsibility by advocating torture.

We decided to take action today because the federal government seems unable and unwilling to act. The Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility has taken nearly five years to complete its report, as some of the memoranda at issue became public in June 2004. Further, this OPR investigation is focused only on two lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee rather than all those involved. This inexcusable delay is unfair to the public because the consequences of any wrongdoing are diminished. The delay has already benefited the two men under investigation, John Yoo now has tenure at Berkeley law school and Jay Bybee now has a lifetime appointment as a federal court of appeals judge. If OPR had completed its duties in a timely manner it is unlikely that either appointment would have been made.

In addition to inaction by OPR, the Congress where select Members were briefed 40 times by the CIA, seems unable to take action because of fear of its own complicity being exposed. And, Attorney General Eric Holder, has now testified that he approved renditions – which results in prisoners being tortured by other countries at the behest of the United States – during the Clinton administration. And, sadly, the President of the United States has now decided to hide evidence of war crimes by refusing to release photographic and video evidence despite a court order to do so. Finally, the administration is appointing General McChrystal to be the head of operations in Afghanistan despite being responsible for commanding Fort Nama in Iraq as well as special forces involved in torture:

An interrogator at Camp Nama described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time in extreme heat; exposing them to extreme cold with periodic soaking in cold water; bombardment with bright lights and loud music; sleep deprivation; and severe beatings. When he and other interrogators went to the colonel in charge and expressed concern that this kind of treatment was not legal, and that they might be investigated by the military’s Criminal Investigation Division or the International Committee of the Red Cross, the colonel told them he had ‘this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there’s no way that the Red Cross could get in.’¹

The unit’s slogan, which set the tone for its practices, was “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.” Reportedly prisoners died in the custody of troops in General McChrystal’s command and five officers were convicted of prisoner abuse.

Therefore, the people must act to face up to this issue and restore morality and Rule of Law to the United States. In addition to filing these complaints we are starting a campaign for disbarment, public torture hearings and for the appointment of an Independent Prosecutor. People who want to get involved are urged to go to DisbarTortureLawyers.com and VotersForPeace.us.

Only by taking torture out of politics and allowing an independent prosecutor to pursue the facts and apply the law will the United States recover from these war crimes. Application of the rule of law, beginning with disbarment, is a necessary part of the process of healing the nation.

1. Nicolas J S Davies, “Suspected War Criminal, General McChrystal, to Lead U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.”

Health care is 15% of the U.S. gross domestic product. Health care costs have been rising rapidly for several years. U.S. health care expenditures surpassed $2.4 trillion in 2007, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990. The cost of health care is projected to reach $4.4 trillion by 2018. There is a lot of room for corporate profiteering in the increasing cost of health care. So, the millions the health care industry has invested in Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee could turn out to be a very profitable one.

It is evident that any bill that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee will be a pro-industry bill that will ensure trillions in profits for the health insurance industry, HMO’s and pharmaceutical industry.

Baucus has held two hearings so far and has refused to allow advocates for the most popular reform – a single payer national health policy – to even testify. Single payer, improved Medicare for all, is favored by more than 60% of Americans as well as majorities of doctors, nurses and economists. It is the most cost-effective and efficient way to provide health care to all Americans from cradle to grave.

Why aren’t single payer advocates allowed to testify before Baucus’ committee? Follow the money. Campaign donations explain why and demonstrate that the Senate Finance Committee should not be in charge of health care. Senator Reid should remove the health care reform bill from Baucus and start all over before the Health Committee in the senate.

Here’s why Baucus is not doing the peoples business:

According to OpenSecrets.org over his career he has taken donations from:

The Insurance Industry: $1,170,313
Health Professionals: $1,016,276
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products Industry: $734,605
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $541,891
Health Services/HMOs: $439,700

That is a grand total of $3,902,785. Can we trust Baucus to put aside the profits of the industries that have kept him in the senate? Will he put the people’s necessities ahead of the profits of his contributors? Baucus has shown his bias and should be removed from leading the health care reform effort by the Democratic Party leadership.

In 2008 Baucus had virtually no challenger in Montana. A little-known Republican was on the ballot, Baucus won with 73% of the vote. But, Baucus sought big donations from big business anyway. He used his connections to corporations with business before his committee to raise an immense campaign fund of more than $11 million. In 2008, 91% of his donations come from individuals living outside of Montana, which is why he is more the “Senator for K Street” then the Senator for Montana. Corporate health profiteers who invested in Baucus will now benefit from his stewardship over health care reform. His 2008 donations from health care profiteers included:

Insurance: $592,185
Health Professionals: $537,141
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $524,813
Health Services/HMOs: $364,500
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $332,826

That is $1,826,652 Baucus took from industries who he can now make wealthier by deforming health care reform.

The health care profiteers knew that Baucus would determine their fate and ponied up. Now the only thing standing between them and their payback is a single payer national health care plan. Single payer, which would end private insurance and control the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, is not being considered – not even allowed to participate in the conversation before Baucus.

And, it is not just the chairman of the committee who has received massive donations, the full Finance Committee is a gluttonous embarrassment of campaign pay-offs. In 2008 the full committee received a total of $13,263,986 from industries affected by health care reform. Can we trust this committee to put the interests of the people before their donors? The donations to the Finance Committee in 2008 included:

Insurance: $5,103,900
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $3,308,831
Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $2,809,353
Health Services/HMO: $2,041,902

These industries expect to be rewarded with billions, even trillions, in profits and hundreds of millions in corporate welfare. Senator Baucus’s behavior shows they have made a good investment and bought a senator who should be called Chairman Blagojevich. He is doing his best to make sure the single payer message is not heard because he knows it is the fairest, most efficient and cost-effective way to ensure health care access for all Americans but it would put some of his donors out of business and control the profits of others.

It is time to remove Baucus from the leadership of health care reform. It is time to move the critically important priority of reforming America’s health care system from the Finance Committee and put it before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. At least their mission is health care not money.

While drug policy reformers were advocating for a public health professional as drug czar, President Obama went with a police chief. He made a potentially ground-breaking pick as the former police chief of Seattle has been good on needle exchange, medical marijuana, treatment and health services for addicts and he ushered in a new law to make marijuana the lowest prosecution priority in Seattle. He is a pragmatist who could shift the United States away from continuing to make the same mistakes over and over when it comes to drug policy.

The drug war is the issue I’ve worked most on over the last thirty years and one I follow very closely as president of Common Sense for Drug Policy. Drugs are an issue that seem unsolvable in the U.S. because every administration does the same thing — emphasizes enforcement at the expense of effectiveness. It is not surprising that doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result over and over makes a problem look unsolvable.

In fact, there are lots of changes that can be made — even within the confines of drug prohibition — that can improve the situation. When I served on Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke’s Working Group on Drug Policy in the late 1980s he asked us to come up with policies — within the framework of keeping drugs illegal (since he could not change that as a mayor) — that would improve how drugs were handled in Baltimore. There was a lot Schmoke did that made a positive difference, e.g. needle exchange, drug courts, treatment on request and social services for addicts.

Obama’s police chief drug czar comes from a city that has been at the forefront of reform. It was one of the early cities to emphasize public health approaches to addiction by making treatment more available and supporting needle exchange, methadone vans and harm reduction programs. It has developed a strong public health infrastructure with programs treat addicts as humans rather than as criminals. And, these programs make a tremendous positive difference for the person using drugs as well as the community he or she lives in. They reduce the spread of HIV and reduce crime.

Seattle reform activist Dominic Holden writes about how Kerlikowske has handled needle exchange and harm reduction in Seattle:

‘There has been long-standing support in the community as a whole and from SPD for our continued operation of the needle exchange,’ says James Apa, a spokesman for Seattle King County Public Health, which runs one of first and the nation’s largest needle-exchange programs. Seattle IV drug users have some of the lowest HIV-infection rates in the country, he says. But acceptance of the controversial program hasn’t been that long standing.

’What we would find is that police would hang around the exchange site and watch who came and went,’ says Kris Nyrop, former director of Street Outreach Services, a pioneering needle exchange group that operated a table in downtown Seattle in the late 1980s. ‘Their presence itself would be somewhat intimidating … people would see four police officers halfway down the block and they would turn around and go home,’ he says. ‘Harassment like that happened routinely up until the mid ’90s.’

But under Kerlikowske, ‘It has been a laissez-faire thing and the police basically leave needle exchanges alone,’ says Nyrop.

Needle exchange is a public health program to prevent the spread of HIV that research has shown reduces transmission without increasing drug use. It is part of what Europeans call “harm reduction,” i.e. reducing the harm caused by drugs to the individual and community. It is something that has been opposed by the U.S. drug enforcement bureaucracy. In addition, Kerlikowske replaced enforcement with public services and alternatives to arrest. One program his department implemented was the Get Off The Streets (GOTS) program. A police officer set up a table as an “arrest-free area” for people who had outstanding warrants. They could come to the table and get health and human services rather than be arrested. City Council Member Nick Lacata says that Kerlikowske could have stopped the program from getting funding by the city, “but he allowed it to go forward.” Licata says that while Kerlikowske is not going to end the drug war but “he recognizes that it has not been a success and I think he is open to other strategies.”

During Chief Kerlikowske’s tenure as police chief Seattle voted in favor of Initiative 75 in 2003 which made marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority. The public sent a message with their vote that they did not want limited law enforcement resources spent on marijuana offenses.

Chief Kerlikowske did not support I75 but when this law passed his administration implemented the law. The Seattle Police told a City Council Marijuana Policy Review Panel that “officers [had] been verbally advised during their roll calls that investigation and arrest of adults for possession of cannabis intended for personal use is to be their lowest priority.” The result, the city reduced marijuana possession arrests by more than half in six years and redirected law enforcement resources to real crime. Seattle’s crime rate is now at a historical 40-year low.

Kerlikowske worked closely with the organizers of the Seattle Hempfest – the largest marijuana reform gathering in the nation. More than 200,000 people attend the annual event. The Seattle Police essentially allowed the organizers to police themselves. They kept a very low key presence at the event and did not seek out marijuana consumers at the festival for arrest.

One common denominator of previous drug czar’s is they all made marijuana the top priority of their attention. The current drug czar, John Walters, wrote U.S. attorneys “[N]o drug matches the threat posed by marijuana” reflecting the views of Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, looking at the history of drug czar’s — really a rogue’s gallery including right wing social conservatives like Bill Bennett (who hid his gambling addiction while punishing other addicts) and extreme militarist Barry McCaffery (accused of war crimes in the first Gulf War) — Kerlikowske could be the superstar of drug czars. If he personally holds views consistent with his experience in Seattle the U.S. may actually begin to solve the seemingly unsolvable drug issue. It would be a welcome change to have a pragmatist rather than an ideologue in charge of drug policy.

Kerlikowske, a 36 year police veteran, is a tough police chief who is widely respected and widely criticized. When appointed by Obama he was serving as president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an organization composed of 56 largest law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and has been a chief in three previous cities in New York and Florida. He has been extremely aggressive with environmental and anti-corporate trade demonstrators some say violating their free speech rights. He has also used the forfeiture power of police aggressively and has been proud of para-military units in his police force. And, his force – like too many in the United States – has been criticized for abuse of African Americans.

The marijuana issue and drug war more generally have gotten a lot of attention lately, particularly the battlefronts of Mexico and Afghanistan. There is debate in the media about legalization and decriminalization, especially of marijuana. So, Kerlikowske takes the helm at a time of potential change to more sensible policies. We’ll see whether pragmatism, ideology or the long-term habit of “drug war” politics wins out.

I was one of the eight.

We stood up to the private health insurance industry, to the corporate power in Congress and demanded a single payer national health care plan where everybody is in and nobody is out. We want a plan that ensures the peoples right to choose their own doctor, hospital and health care treatment. We want a plan that will control costs – something that cannot be done unless the insurance industry, HMO’s and pharmaceutical companies are challenged.

The Senate Finance Committee which has taken millions from the insurance industry, HMO’s, pharmaceutical industry – those that profit from health care in America only scheduled their donors to speak. It was pay to play on display in Washington, DC before the corrupt Senate Finance Committee.

We stood up and told the truth. The Emperor Has No Clothes we said. We were arrested and charged with “disruption of Congress” a euphemism for telling the truth in Congress.

You can see the C-SPAN and other videos on our new website ProsperityAgenda.US. You can see the news reports from The Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Politico, Democracy Now and National Public Radio which all carried stories about the protest. Prosperity Agenda is an economic justice project of the Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics. You can help us develop an economy for all, including a health care system for all, by participating – share your comments, ideas and strategies. Join our effort.

Chairman Baucus, invited his major donors to the table: the health insurance industry was there, so were the Chamber of Commerce, the right wing Heritage Foundation, the Business Roundtable, Blue Cross Blue Shield and corporate liberals who have sold out the people like Andy Stern, Ron Pollack and AARP.

But the most popular and efficient health care reform was not at the table. It was not mentioned even though it is the one favored by a majority of doctors, nurses, economists and the American people. Only those who paid to play were included.

For the last few weeks people have been calling and emailing Senator Baucus and other Finance Committee members urging them to include single payer advocates. We were told – no, no one for single payer would be allowed to speak.

So, yesterday, at 10 a.m., the Baucus Eight, led by Prosperity Agenda and other single payer advocates, took to the Senate Finance Committee. We confronted the committee in front of a room filled with their campaign donors, in front of the American people watching live on C-SPAN and we told the truth. Three doctors joined us, spoke up and got arrested. The effort was endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Program – doctors are standing up for their patients saying “single payer now.”

I focused on corporate corruption of the senate and told the senators we need them to put the necessities of the people before the profits of their donors. We do not need a pay to play Blogojevich committee with a Blogojevich Chairman putting on phony hearings to fool the public.

Last week Senator Richard Durbin said the banks “own” the Congress. This week it is evident, that when it comes to health care the health care profiteers own Congress, especially the Senate Finance Committee. If we do not put forward organized, aggressive, grass roots action we will see a swindle of the American people. In the name of false health care reform billions in tax payer dollars will go to campaign donors and the health care problem will continue to worsen.

It is time for concerted action.

We have the power to ensure health care for all in a national single payer health care program that ends the corruption of the health insurance industry, the HMO’s and the pharmaceutical industry.

We can do it … together.

Let’s make it happen.

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia looks at these numbers and in a speech on the Senate floor wondered out loud: “Either we have the most evil people on Earth living in the United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong.” He has introduced a bill, which already has 19 co-sponsors including Republicans and Democrats (including the top three Republicans on the Judiciary Committee), that will answer that question. It sets up a national commission, the National Criminal Justice Commission, which will look at ways to reduce the prison population including rethinking drug policy. The chairman will be appointed by President Barack Obama who reportedly has called Webb twice to commend this effort.

When Webb ran for the U.S. senate he raised the need for criminal justice reform during the campaign. Many told him it was a third rail of politics that would make his already improbable election impossible. But, Webb surprised the country and turned red state Virginia blue. At a meeting this week in Washington, DC attended by 70 advocates for criminal justice and drug policy reform his staff told us that this issue is a “passion for Senator Webb” that is of “deep importance” and that he has been concerned about “for decades.” Webb’s goal, they told us, was to see this bill “enacted this year.”

Webb sees the hypocrisy of U.S. drug laws. He notes that more than half of Americans aged 12 and over have used an illegal drug and wonders “In talking of legality and illegality, what does that do to the fiber of our society?” He goes on to note that “I saw more drug use at Georgetown Law School than anywhere else I’ve been. A lot of those people went on to be judges.”

Indeed, the last three U.S. presidents have a history of drug use – Clinton admitted putting a marijuana joint to his lips, but to the nation’s snickering claimed he did not inhale; Bush reportedly was a cocaine user during his alcohol abuse days but refused to discuss it; and now Barack Obama has acknowledged his past use of marijuana and cocaine. Three presidents who join most of America in having used an illegal drug but who all escaped the clutches of the drug war. Would America have wanted each imprisoned? Their lives ruined?

And, Senator Webb is well aware of the racially disproportionate impact of the drug laws. This March 26th, in a Senate speech when he introduced his bill he emphasized: “African-Americans are about 12% of our population; contrary to a lot of thought and rhetoric, their drug use rate in terms of frequent drug use rate is about the same as all elements in our society about 14%. But they end up being 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison.” What does that do to the African American family? What does it do to employment, income and wealth creation? Is it possible to become a post-racial society without facing the issue of racial unfairness in the justice system?

Webb’s commission would not tinker at the edges of the drug war, a quagmire America has been trapped in since President Nixon declared it, he is seeking fundamental paradigm shifting change, not incremental change. As Webb says “America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace” and “we are locking up too many people who do not belong in jail.”

And, Webb is not shy about discussing what happens in America’s prisons. Webb said in his Senate speech: “We have a situation in this country with respect to prison violence and sexual victimization that is off the charts and we must get our arms around this problem. We also have many people in our prisons who are among what are called the criminally ill, many suffering from hepatitis and HIV who are not getting the sorts of treatment they deserve.” Indeed, 60,500 prison inmates reported sexual assaults and that are estimated to under-reported by approximately ten fold.

He talks about “warehousing” the mentally ill, 350,000 people incarcerated with mental illness with no professional treatment, and notes there are four times as many mentally ill people in prison than in mental hospitals. The Marion Correctional Treatment Center reports the cost of housing each mentally ill inmate at $77,561.

Many Americans might remember that some of the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal had worked in the U.S. prison system before joining the military. At the meeting with Webb staffers some families of prisoners described how they are charged $20 for a $15 telephone call with their loved one because the prison makes a commission on the calls. Another woman from Louisiana described how her son was sexually assaulted in prison by a guard and then put in solitary confinement until he agreed to withdraw the charges. Every day in America prisoners are being abused and with 2.4 million behind bars there are millions of family members hearing the stories and telling their friends. The American prison scandal is more widely understood than politicians and prison guards realize.

For too long Americans have thought nothing can be done about ending the drug war – even though most see its obvious failure. We are trained to believe that things can’t change. But this has always been the case: Slavery can’t end, women can’t vote, child labor is essential, the forty hour work week is unrealistic, gays can’t marry, Jim Crow will always be the law, alcohol prohibition can’t end. History is proof that even the most seemingly unchangeable can in fact change radically. The drug war’s failure is hard to dispute with a straight face it is so evident, and finally there seems to be a senator who takes drugs seriously.

But, Senator Webb has a long way to go and he will not get there without a lot of people speaking up and demanding change. Senator Webb needs individuals and organizations to write his office and express support. He needs people to write their elected officials and tell them to support Webb’s commission. We need to bring in mainstream American organizations like churches, temples and mosques, civic clubs, fraternities and sororities, business clubs … the fact is all of us are adversely affected by the expensive horror of mass incarceration. Indeed, the basic American ideal of being the “land of the free” is undermined by over-incarceration in America’s abusive prisons.

Now is the time. The economic collapse is forcing city, state and federal governments to look at their expenditures. The prison budget deserves special focus. States spend $44 billion annually on prisons. In almost all states after education and health care, prisons are the biggest budget line item. Forty states have cut vital services during this economic collapse.

If the U.S. put in place a sensible prison policy – where those who we fear are the only ones locked up, not the addicted, the drug users, the mentally ill or non-violent – the prison population would be closer to 500,000 people rather than 2.4 million. Immediately states would see a significant fiscal savings at a time when they are desperate for reducing expenditures. Across the country reforms are being seen at the state level, a boost from a national commission could create the momentum needed for the paradigm shift that is needed.

Senator Webb may have a president in the White House who will take reform of prison and drug policy seriously. During the presidential campaign President Obama told Rolling Stone:

Anybody who sees the devastating impact of the drug trade in the inner cities, or the methamphetamine trade in rural communities, knows that this is a huge problem. I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public-health approach. I can say this as an ex-smoker: We’ve made enormous progress in making smoking socially unacceptable. You think about auto safety and the huge success we’ve had in getting people to fasten their seat belts.

The point is that if we’re putting more money into education, into treatment, into prevention and reducing the demand side, then the ways that we operate on the criminal side can shift. I would start with nonviolent, first-time drug offenders. The notion that we are imposing felonies on them or sending them to prison, where they are getting advanced degrees in criminality, instead of thinking about ways like drug courts that can get them back on track in their lives — it’s expensive, it’s counterproductive, and it doesn’t make sense.

Obama was right – it just doesn’t make sense. Now is the time for all who see these realities to get educated, organized and active.

For more information: Drug War Facts

And, to take action.

Solving the auto industry problems is an opportunity to begin to shape a more effective new economy that changes the relationship between corporations and government as well as share’s the wealth more equitably.

The Causes of the Auto Crisis

Corporate-government created the three major causes of the auto industry crisis: health care, the credit crunch and low efficiency cars.

Health care is an out of control cost where double digit annual price increases are more common than rare. While other industrialized nations have controlled the cost of health care, the United States has not. President Truman called for a single payer national health insurance plan many decades ago, but the Congress has been unable to show the will to face-up to the issue because of the power of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. While health insurance is on the Obama-Kennedy agenda, they are still not challenging those industries as they should and not confronting the real problems.

Every business small and large has struggled with paying the health insurance costs of their employees. It has held back hiring and holds back wages. A mega-corporation like General Motors sees those problems amplified. It would not be unfair to describe General Motors as a health insurance provider who happens to make cars. GM spends $5 billion annually on health care for 1.2 million people – only 150,000 of whom work for the company. GM, Ford and Chrysler have a combined unfunded retiree health care obligation of more than $90 billion. Health care adds $1,500 to the cost of each vehicle. This reality alone makes it virtually impossible for GM to have a successful economic model and it is not something GM can fix. Health care is a major problem not only for the auto industry, but the airline and steel industry as well as businesses of all size. The failure of Congress to face up to single payer health care is becoming a threat to the American economy.

The second major cause of the current auto industry crisis is the crash of the credit markets. This has made getting loans to purchase cars more difficult and has resulted in a massive drop in automobile purchases. The U.S. auto market fell 14.8% through the first 10 months of 2008 and sales in October plunged 31.9%. Why? The lack of available credit for potential car buyers. And, on the other end, the industry cannot get loans to cover the dramatic loss in car sales.

The credit crisis is also not the fault of the automobile industry. The cause of the credit crisis falls back on bad government that allowed the stock market to be turned into an unregulated casino. The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Congress and regulators failure to apply basic regulation to the financial markets and money supply are to blame (even free marketer Alan Greenspan now admits this mistake) – but now Congress wants to put the blame on the auto industry rather than accept responsibility for their failure and clean up the mess.

The third cause, inefficient 20th Century automobiles rather than forward looking efficient 21st Century green cars is a shared error of government and the auto industry. The Congress did not have the political will to demand energy efficiency, indeed they provided a tax credit for SUV purchases, and the auto industry lobbied to prevent such standards.

All there of these causes have the same source: corporate controlled government. The health insurance industry did not want the more efficient single payer national health insurance. The finance industry wanted to be free to treat the stock market like a casino, liked the Fed’s easy money and did not want to be regulated. And, the auto industry did not want to be told to build more efficient cars. Corporate-government is the root of the problems we face today.

While the CEO’s who flew in on private jets to beg for money will pay a price if their businesses fail, a bigger price will be paid by their workers, their families and retirees. The Congress has no problem giving $700 billion to white collar Wall Street, but when it comes to blue collar Main Street, the coffers are closed, or more difficult to pry open, even with the risk of a deepening recession and even a depression before them.

Solutions That Can Build a New Economy and Begin to End Corporate-Government

Solving the auto industry financial shortfall is an opportunity to begin to re-make the relationship between corporations and government. While the bailout of Wall Street has rightly enraged Americans, the reality is that hundreds of billions annually is given in corporate welfare to big business every year. The bailout is business as usual brought out in the open. Even wealthy, highly profitable businesses like the oil and pharmaceutical industries are doled out billions in tax payer dollars annually.

Taxpayer support – the common wealth of Americans – has not resulted in a fair sharing of the profits. As a result the wealth divide between the rich and the poor, between CEO’s and employees has grown grotesquely wide. President Obama talked about “sharing the wealth.” President Bush talked about an “ownership society.” In fact, we have neither an ownership society nor equitable sharing of wealth when we should have both.

Corporate welfare needs to be transformed into an equity investment by taxpayers. That is a first step to creating a real ownership society. And, taxpayers need to be treated like major investors. This means a role in setting the direction of the company and a return on their investment, in dividends. Indeed, Chrysler issued a statement on November 17th saying that it expected any loan package to come with conditions “including taxpayers having equity…. The Company is open to further discussions with Congress.” Some have suggested in the automobile case, “a government-appointed receiver – someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical – should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.”

The suggestion is half right, the taxpayer is already on-line to fund the transition to efficiency with $25 billion and we have been auto industry investors for years through tax payer dollars. Thus, an equity stake is appropriate and will also ensure that the auto industry gets even more on board with the new energy economy that needs to develop. And, if Americans have an equity stake in the industry, it will help U.S. automakers – will Americans be more likely to buy U.S. cars when they profit from doing so?

And, to spur the new auto market, the government could create a consumer auto loan guarantee through 2010 for the purchase of cars that the EPA estimates to get over 30 miles per gallon. This could be coupled with a tax credit that is based on fuel efficiency – the more efficient, the bigger the credit. These should not be limited to purchases from GM, Ford and Chrysler but to any auto company that makes efficient cars as this will encourage an energy efficiency competition and move the U.S. toward the new energy economy that is essential.

Further, one requirement of receiving government funds should be correcting the imbalance in pay, including bonuses, between blue collar and white collar workers. GM’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, received a 33% raise for 2008 and equity compensation of at least $1.68 million for his performance in 2007 plus stock and options, in a year for which the auto maker reported a loss of $38.7 billion. The salary increase puts Wagoner’s salary for this year at $2.2 million, compared with $1.65 million in 2007. Wagoner’s overall compensation is down from 2003 when he made $8.3 million in compensation from salary and bonuses alone. Fords’ Alan Mulally received $2 million in base salary, a $4 million bonus and more than $11 million of stock and options in 2007. His base salary was unchanged over 2006. Chrysler’s CEO pay is unknown since it is a privately held corporation. However, Chrysler plans to pay retention bonuses promised to executives which pay out in August 2009 at $30 million.

On the blue collar side, UAW members will forgo most pay raises for the next two years keeping their wages at $29.78 an hour plus health care and retirement, which bring the total to $69 per hour (dropping to $62 by 20101). New hires are getting only $14 per hour. Under a recent agreement retirees will pay some of their health care costs totaling $1 billion a year. So, the workers, already paid disproportionately less than executives, are taking cuts in pay.

The corporate-government folks in DC applaud the blue collar worker pay cuts. But, this has been a problem that underlies the failure of the U.S. economy. Even though consumer purchases are the main driver of the economy, the American worker is losing buying power. In fact, real wages in the U.S. declined by 12% between 1974 and 2004. Standard of living has been kept up by having both spouses working, increasing consumer debt (and no savings) and cheap foreign products. None of this is sustainable. In order to have a sustainable economy we need working Americans to see increases in real wages not decreases.

The failure to find a creative solution to the automobile crisis with a taxpayer equity investment risks an already deep recession becoming even deeper and potentially evolving into a depression, especially in the Midwest states that produce autos. And, it is short-sighted. The loss of the big three will be a loss of $156 billion over three years in tax revenue to the federal government. After the immediate crisis, serious consideration should be given to whether having three-too-large-to-fail companies is in the national interest, creates the kind of competition needed and the flexibility needed in a rapidly changing economy.

The auto crisis is the result of years of corporate-controlled government coming home to roost. Over and over, Congress put the interests of big business ahead of sound policy and common sense. Now it is time to turn the relationship between corporations and government on its head and ensure that both corporations and government work for the interest of the people rather than the short term profits of corporations and the re-election of politicians with big business campaign contributions.

This year about one-third the public is voting early (something Marylanders will be voting on in a referendum on Election Day), as a result we are seeing election meltdowns in slow motion. Here is a sample of what is occurring:

* Long lines. In many states people are waiting hours – some report as long as six hours to vote in early voting. A lot of the delay has been due to the move to touchscreen voting machines and electronic voter registration lists. These new technologies are slower than paper.

* Machine breakdowns. In West Virginia six counties have reported touchscreen machines switching their vote. Voters attempted to vote for Obama and they saw the screen switch to McCain. There have been similar reports in Tennessee and Texas. In Texas, where people are allowed to select a straight party vote, the switching is occurring from Democrat to Republican. A CNN poll found that 42% of Americans do not trust their votes will be counted accurately.

* More machine breakdowns. It is not just touchscreen machines showing problems, so are optical scan machines. In Florida there were reports that the optical scan could not read the ballots because they were too long.

* Failure to mail absentee ballots. Sequoia Voting Systems failed to send 11,000 absentee ballots to voters who requested them. Sequoia also did not tell the election administration of the oversight.

* Incomplete ballots. Early voters in two Arkansas counties received incomplete ballots. The election administrator is not going to do anything to correct the problem for those voters and just hopes the election is not close so the votes would not have changed the outcome.

* Voter deception. In Florida Democratic voters received calls falsely telling them they could call in their vote and avoid lines. In Philadelphia, fliers warn that people with outstanding tickets, child support payments and warrants will be arrested when they vote. In Texas , people are told if they want to vote for all the Democrats and make sure they vote for Obama, that after they select Democrat they should then select Obama – in fact, that erases the Obama vote.

* Registration fraud. ACORN has gotten a lot of attention for workers who registered the Dallas football team to vote in Utah, Mickey Mouse, telephone-book registration and one person registering dozens of times. It is hard to see how any of these false registrations will result in false votes — will Mickey Mouse actually vote? But there has been a lot of attention on this one.

* More registration fraud. A leader of a Republican registration drive, funded by the McCain campaign has been arrested on massive voter fraud.

* Challenges to registration. Republicans have mounted challenges to the tidal wave of Democratic registrations trying to force election administrators to check the identification of all new registrants. In state-after-state these challenges have been rejected by the courts.

* Voter suppression. Republican party officials in some states have openly talked about challenging voters at the polls. New registrants will be challenged and demanded to prove their identity. Registered voters who have lost their home to foreclosure or been evicted from their apartment are being threatened with voter challenges. Even if these challenges fail they will slow voting down so that some voters give up and go home.

Is any of this acceptable? The U.S. has a lot of serious problems with its democracy when the very basics — registration, voting and vote counting — is filled with flaws. While this election is looking more and more like a likely landslide, after it is over these problems need to be addressed. There are solutions to many of them:

* End registration problems. Universal voter registration for all citizens of legal age would solve many of the problems associated with registration and challenges to registration. If necessary, the Congress could require county boards of election to provide a free voter ID card with a photograph preventing the need for registration drives, challenges to registration and challenges to voters at the polls.

* No more machine voting. A majority of the House voted fro Rep. Rush Holt’s bill to fund paper ballot based voting with audits but it needed a super majority and was not voted on in the senate. The U.S. is close to ending the experiment with touchscreen voting. Elections need to have an independent paper record with the paper ballot verified by the voter. If optical scan machines are used to count the vote there must be a transparent, mandatory audit before the vote becomes official.

* End partisan election administration. Too often the election administrator is a partisan who also serves as the chair of a political campaign. Election administration needs to be divorced from partisanship, turned into a professional civil service and provide strong protection for election fraud whistle blowers. Every phase of election administration should be transparent and open to the public. This would also be an opportunity to end the administration of elections by corporations that provide election equipment.

* Prosecute vote fraud. Illegal voting as well as suppression of the vote needs to be treated as serious crimes. People who falsely vote and are not of legal age and citizenship should be prosecuted. Similarly, threats of arrest and provision of false information needs to be turned into a serious felony. Funds need to be provided to investigate and prosecute these offenses.

* Make voting easy. Continue to expand early voting so voters can vote at their convenience. Turn Election Day into a national holiday. The U.S. should celebrate democracy and make voting as easy as possible.

The basics — registering, voting and vote counting — are only the tip of the iceberg of election problems. Marylanders are the victims of the Electoral College. We already know our electoral votes are going to Obama because Maryland is a one-party state. This is true for forty states. Voters in these states are learning their presidential vote has little impact.

Partisan drawing of election districts makes removal of incumbents almost impossible. Rather than voters picking their candidates, elected officials pick their voters thereby assuring the result they want. Drawing of districts should be turned over to a non-partisan civil service and approved by the courts.

Closed debates have limited the choice of Americans to two parties even though there are six candidates on enough ballots to win the Electoral College vote. The fraudulent National Commission on Presidential Debates, run by the two parties and designed to keep other candidates out, should not be the arbiter of who participates in debates. Voters lost a major opportunity in this time of economic turmoil to hear a broader array of views on how to remake the American economy. The two parties’ present two candidates funded by Wall Street and other big business interests. Their solutions do not challenge those who profit from the status quo economy.

Nearly half of the voters voting for Obama and McCain are voting for the lesser evil. They are trapped by a voting system limited to two choices. It is time for the U.S. to implement ranked choice voting that allows voters to rank their candidates and thereby vote their hopes and dreams and not their fears.

The U.S. can have the greatest democracy in the world, but we are far from it. After the election is time for people to get organized and demand it. On so many issues the U.S. strives to be a “more perfect union,” it has now become more evident that we need to strive to achieve our goal of a real representative democracy.

You can take action now to protect the 2008 election by visiting www.TrueVote.US and visiting our take action page. Details about all of the incidents described above are included in the TrueVote.US site, which is updated throughout the each day.

What we have seen has been disconcerting. Big Finance seems is still living high on the hog, spending freely on parties and bonuses while the world’s poor go deeper into poverty and Americans worry about their jobs, retirement, health care and making ends meet.

The first post-bailout outrage was the massive insurance giant AIG. After receiving an $84 billion tax payer bailout they had a party for their executives — the cost $440,000. There was outrage on Capitol Hill including threats to ‘get the money back.’ “They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials while the American people were paying their bills,” thundered Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD). But, instead the Federal Reserve gave them $38 billion more after their party.

While there were lots of comments from the presidential candidates and congressional leadership about not letting CEO’s profit from the bailout, after the bill was signed into law the Wall Street Journal reported that Neel Kashkari, the bailout czar, told a group of Wall Street executives that the restrictions on executive compensation in the bailout bill really don’t mean anything. As Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote “Of course anyone who bothered to look at the bill already knew that the compensation restrictions were meaningless before the bill passed. So why do we only see this reported in the media after the fact?”

The Guardian (UK) reports that people at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals, in large part discretionary bonuses, totaling more than $70 billion. Bonuses appear to ignore their failed performance, bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors or plunging the global financial system into a crash with their casino-style investments. They estimate a tenth of the bailout will be spent on enormous salaries and bonuses.

It will be difficult for the media and public to find out about executive compensation and the bailout. The Treasury Department is taking the approach of blacking out the compensation section of their contracts, see e.g., the blacked out compensation section of its contract with Bank of New York Mellon. Treasury is also blacking out some of the payment schedules for those they are hiring to work on the bailout. Treasury blacked-out sections of text in the contracts it issued to Bank of New York Mellon and another advisor, the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP had its hourly rate blacked out.The Bank of New York Mellon will be running the auctions to sell the “toxic assets” and Simpson Thatcher will provide advice on the injection of capital into major banks. Transparency, rather than being enhanced, is an early victim of the bailout.

And, it seems like the bailout process is being privatized with some of the same people who got us into this mess being hired to get us out of it. Bloomberg reports that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is hiring as many as 10 asset-management firms to join the lawyers and bankers he is recruiting to implement the government’s new $700 billion bank-rescue program.

Rather than bailing out the mortgage markets, Paulsen has been providing cash to big banks — $125 billion of the first $250 billion. The EconomicPolicyJournal reports that Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase would each get $25 billion; Bank of America and Wells Fargo, $20 billion each (plus an additional $5 billion for their recent acquisitions); Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, $10 billion each, with Bank of New York Mellon and State Street each receiving $2 to 3 billion. Wells Fargo will get $5 billion for its acquisition of Wachovia, and Bank of America the same amount for its purchase of Merrill Lynch.

What do Americans get in return? The deals Paulsen is making with his former Wall Street colleagues do not ask for much. Paulsen is evidently no Warren Buffet when it comes to negotiating deals but maybe that is because Paulsen is not using his own money but the taxpayers. While Buffett received a 10% dividend on his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs, Paulsen only got 5% for his. While the UK was able to get a seat at the board table for their injection of cash into banks, Paulsen didn’t. Nor did Paulsen demand any more stringent banking regulations or greater transparency going forward.

The Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair told The Wall Street Journal she was frustrated at the failure of the bailout to provide direct help to struggling homeowners. Mortgage defaults are “what’s causing the distress at the institution level,” Bair says, “so why not tackle the borrower problem?” Maybe Paulsen is not directly focusing on the mortgage problems because bad mortgages are not the problem. Maybe it is the gigantic derivative bets that have been made? Derivatives are more than an unregulated $500 trillion market — ten times bigger than the world economy.

But, the banking class has looked to shift the blame. Perhaps most obnoxious is the effort to blame the poor and working class for the finance crisis. They point to the Community Reinvestment Act — designed to encourage banks to make efforts to loan to minority applicants, who they had not loaned to in the past. Now, they become the scapegoat for the wealthy bankers — rather than pointing to their own gambling on risky investments and unregulated derivatives.

In fact, the CRA does not require banks to make loans that are unsafe or unprofitable — the law states that CRA lending must be done consistent with safe and sound banking practices. Loans that qualify for CRA credit are often prime loans with fixed rates and consequently, have good performance records. Banks that have made mortgages to low- and moderate-income borrowers to fulfill their CRA obligations have found low default rates and have fewer foreclosures. In fact, non-CRA lenders made 84.3% of high-cost loans in the 15 largest metropolitan areas. In addition, only a few of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 were institutions with CRA obligations and the vast majority of the top 20 producers of risky interest-only and option ARM loans were not covered by CRA. In fact, the CRA was passed in 1977 and the rapid growth in subprime lending occurred more than two decades later from 2001-2006 alone. No major changes to CRA were enacted during this time.

This class warfare by the rich against the poor and working class is ugly. During the time of paper profits from derivatives, the housing bubble and the internet bubble those in the middle class and below have seen stagnate and shrinking wages. The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty has reached a 32-year high, millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. The number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. During this time the extreme wealthy have hoarded a larger and larger percentage of the nation’s wealth. Now the top 1% has wealth equal to the bottom 95% combined.

In the midst of the finance bailout, the Congress showed its lack of loyalty to the American worker when it gave up on legislation to provide health care to the September 11, 2001 recovery workers. The legislation would have provided long-term care to these workers at a cost of about $5 billion as well as provided funding for the Victim’s Compensation Fund at a cost of $6 billion. A drop in the bucket compared to the more than $1 trillion provided so far to the top of the economic pyramid.

If you are angry and ripped-off — turn it into productive action. The time is now.

Round II of the bailout of the US economy is moving forward. The congressional leadership, Sen. Obama, President Bush and Paul Bernanke all support an economic stimulus package. The Congress will come back after the election to pass it. The contours of that stimulus are not defined, so this is a good time to tell your Member of Congress what you want in the next American economy. Here are some suggestions:

1) Democratize the economy. All Americans deserve a stake in the economy because, as John McCain says, workers are the foundation of the economy. A democratized economy is a real ownership society. This includes more employees having shared ownership in the businesses they work for, shareholders having a real say in the priorities and direction of the corporations they invest in and corporate welfare being transformed into taxpayers having an equity share in the companies that receive tax benefits. It also includes allowing workers to organize so their collective voice can balance the power of capital. For an economy to be more democratized it requires greater transparency than currently exists.

2) Equity in the economy. This includes a tax system that taxes wealth more and labor less e.g. a Tobin tax on the purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives, tax on super wealth, tax on war profits and methods of sharing the wealth. One example, with green energy there will be a great deal of distributed energy production down to communities, homes and cars. Individuals and communities should profit from the production of energy. Perhaps there are ways that the Alaska model of returning a percentage of oil profits can be applied to the new economy, e.g. in Denmark communities with wind farms share the profit of those farms.

3) A sustainable economy. The world is in the midst of the end of the fossil fuel economy and the development of a clean, sustainable energy economy. The infrastructure of this new economy will require major investment e.g., in power grids that transport wind, large-scale solar and ocean energy; in community-based solar energy plants; in parking lots where cars can provide energy to the grid while parked; in mass transit within cities and regional rapid transit. A sustainable economy also requires a more locally-oriented economy that does not rely on shipping across the world to feed its inhabitants and where money re-circulates in the economy through local businesses rather than national chains which take the profit back to the home office.

The contours of the new economy are going to begin with the next round of economic recovery legislation, so the time to act is now.

If we want a more transparent, democratic, equitable and sustainable economy it is only going to happen if we advocate for it. Talk about it with your neighbors, in your community, with family and friends. Urge people to get into a dialogue with their political representatives. This is a time where dramatic change is going to happen. The question is whether that change will benefit the top of the pyramid or the rest of the pyramid? This is an opportunity to change the economy in the direction you want. Take the opportunity — get involved and become even more active.

See Below for the Action Step You Should Take Today: The Battle of the Bailout is Not Yet Over.

Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Russ Feingold used their no votes to put out good statements opposing the bailout. Sanders has a comprehensive critique he said: “If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have caused the problem, those people who have benefited from President Bush’s tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, those people who have taken advantage of deregulation who should pick up the tab, not ordinary working people.” Sanders had urged a modest tax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the bailout; a five-year, 10 percent surtax on families with incomes of more than $1 million year and individuals earning over $500,000 to raise $300 billion to help bankroll the bailout. Senators, however, set aside the amendment on a voice vote. Some highlights of Sanders speech:

“This bill does not effectively address the issue of what the taxpayers of our country will actually own after they invest hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic assets. This bill does not effectively address the issue of oversight because the oversight board members have all been hand picked by the Bush administration. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of foreclosures and addressing that very serious issue, which is impacting millions of low- and moderate-income Americans in the aggressive, effective way that we should be. This bill does not effectively deal with the issue of executive compensation and golden parachutes. Under this bill, the CEOs and the Wall Street insiders will still, with a little bit of imagination, continue to make out like bandits.”

“This bill does not deal with the absurdity of having the fox guarding the hen house. Maybe I’m the only person in America who thinks so, but I have a hard time understanding why we are giving $700 billion to the Secretary of the Treasury, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who along with other financial institutions, actually got us into this problem. Now, maybe I’m the only person in America who thinks that’s a little bit weird, but that is what I think.

“This bill does not address the major economic crisis we face: growing unemployment, low wages, the need to create decent-paying jobs, rebuilding our infrastructure and moving us to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”

“The American people are bitter. They are angry, and they are confused. Over the last seven and a half year, since George W. Bush has been President, 6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and are in poverty, and today working families are lining up at emergency food shelves in order to get the food they need to feed their families. Since President Bush has been in office, median family income for working-age families has declined by over $2,000. More than seven million Americans have lost their health insurance. Over four million have lost their pensions. Consumer debt has more than doubled. And foreclosures are the highest on record. Meanwhile, the cost of energy, food, health care, college and other basic necessities has soared.

“While the middle class has declined under President Bush’s reckless economic policies, the people on top have never had it so good. For the first seven years of Bush’s tenure, the wealthiest 400 individuals in our country saw a $670 billion increase in their wealth, and at the end of 2007 owned over $1.5 trillion in wealth. That is just 400 families, a $670 billion increase in wealth since Bush has been in office.

“In our country today, we have the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on earth, with the top 1 percent earning more income than the bottom 50 percent and the top 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. We are living at a time when we have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the very wealthiest people in this country, when, among others, CEOs of Wall Street firms received unbelievable amounts in bonuses, including $39 billion in bonuses in the year 2007 alone for just the five major investment houses.”

Senator Sanders full speech is available here.

Now action moves to the House of Representatives where the leadership is trying to figure our how to deal with the Senate bill. Progressives who oppose the bailout are also determining their response. There are two issues being urged by progressives: bankruptcy reform and economic stimulus.

Bankruptcy reform is the least costly and most sensible step that could be taken by the Congress. It will cost the taxpayer nothing and will prevent a massive redistribution of wealth from working class Americans to the wealthiest bank owners. The goal is to allow a judge to renegotiate the mortgage of the homeowner so they can afford it and keep their home. This has not been voted on in either the House or Senate because the leadership has kept it out of the bills. It is being kept out because the banks oppose it. They would prefer to take the homes from homeowners rather than take their payments on a slower basis. If the bankruptcy provision were included it would ameliorate the subprime mortgage problem and demonstrate that homeowners are not to blame and the real problems in the finance industry are much bigger.

Some are trying to include the economic stimulus package being considered by the House as part of the bailout. This effort, being led by Rep. Jim McDermott, is facing an uphill battle. Majority Leader Hoyer says it is unlikely to be included blaming Republican opposition. Once again, the Democratic leadership is not leading but using Republican opposition to stifle sensible economic policy.

It is likely the bailout will move to the House Floor without any amendments being allowed. The vote is expected tomorrow.

Today people should be making calls to Congress urging them to slow down and consider this massive expenditure carefully. Points to make:

• Do not let make the tax payers pay to clean up Wall Street’s mess.
• Make sure that CEO’s do not benefit from the bailout.
• Include a bankruptcy provision to protect homeowners.
• We need a broader economic stimulus that should be included in the bill.

The bailout has shown Americans two things: first the money is available to fix the problems faced in the United States. Here we are two weeks into a “crisis” and the Congress is finding $700 billion to save Wall Street. Second, if the people respond to an organized fashion we can make a difference. The people wrote, called and emailed their representatives and the steamroll slowed. The bill was improved. And, frankly, only a small percentage of Americans did anything – and most only did something that took a few minutes – a click and send email or a telephone call. Imagine if Americans really demanded what they wanted – a clean energy economy, revitalized cities, rebuilt infrastructure, health care for all. These are all items that Americans know are needed but we are not demanding with the ferocity they deserve. The bailout shows that even with the power of corporate dollars against the people, the people can prevail. The money is available what is lacking is political pressure from the people.

It is important to recognize our power because it can become a fever than infects Americans. We all know the country is on the wrong course in a number of ways, now we know we can make a difference. This is a powerful lesson we must share with our fellow Americans so that we have the courage to create the future we want.

Take Action NOW: Call Congress 800-473-6711. Call your representative, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer to demand that the bailout include protection for homeowners through bankruptcy reform – this will cost the taxpayers nothing; and demand that the bailout include an economic stimulus that builds the economy from the bottom up. We need a strong foundation not a trickle down economy.

Sen. McCain did not return the favor. As often as Obama expressed agreement, McCain snarled at Obama, talked down to him and called him naïve, ignorant, uninformed and mistaken. McCain would not even look at Obama. He seemed like someone who felt “I should not have to be debating this guy, this inexperienced new-comer — I’m better than him and should be given the presidency.” McCain talked over Obama whenever he tried to correct the record when McCain repeatedly misstated Obama’s positions. CNN reported that independent voters did not react well to the negative comments.

As a tactic Obama’s nice-guy strategy seemed to work. All the post-election polls showed Obama “winning” the debate by up to 14%. Voters saw Obama as better on Iraq as well as the economy. This is also being reflected in the tracking polls, the Gallup daily presidential tracking poll taken September 25-27 shows Obama leading McCain 50%-42%. The Rasmussen Report’s automated daily presidential tracking poll for September 28 shows Obama leading McCain 50%-44%. So, the approach served him well but did it serve the United States? Don’t we need a real debate on the critical issues the country is facing at this crossroads moment in U.S. history?

On what issues did they agree — Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, energy, Georgia, nuclear power, clean coal, the bailout — just some of the biggest issues we face. Even on Iraq differences were blurred as Obama made it clear his exit would be slow and cautious, a victory not a defeat.

Or, does Obama really believe that it was wrong of Russia to respond to Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia? Does he really believe that expanding the war in Afghanistan is the solution to that conflict? Or, that missile defense, that has not been shown to work, is necessary to protect the U.S. from North Korea and Iran?

If you are an American who wants to see a foreign policy based on militarism coming to an end, then you had to be disappointed with the first debate. If you don’t think the bailout of Wall Street and big banks is the right approach, you did not hear a viewpoint you could support. If you recognize that we live an interdependent world where we should be emphasizing working with other nations in a cooperative way rather than trying to be ‘independent’ on issues like energy, then you had no spokesperson in the debate.

This is a grave time for the United States: two ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, shots exchanged between US and Pakistani troops, ongoing conflict with Iran and escalating conflict with Russia. Not only is all of this draining the US military and their families but it is also draining the US treasury at a time when the treasury is empty. Iraq alone is costing $10 billion a month — money we are borrowing from other countries the US is competing with.

On the foreign policy front the US would have been better served by a broader debate. Candidates who advocate a less militaristic foreign policy, bringing troops home from the more than 700 bases the US has around the world, or shrinking the US defense budget – currently as large as the whole world combined.

On domestic policy both candidates indicated their likely support of the bailout — something many Americans oppose. When there had been differences in the past, like on offshore oil drilling, Obama has taken the tack of narrowing those differences. Both candidates advocate for “energy independence” rather than stopping the use of carbon-based fuels. Surely, the reality of global climate change is a greater threat than al Qaeda. But these candidates talked about more domestic oil and so-called “clean” coal rather than carbon independence. They also both included nuclear energy as part of the solution, despite its immense cost, problematic waste and impact on nuclear proliferation. The truth is we need a carbon-free/nuclear-free energy economy. This is within reach but it will take leadership to get there — leadership we did not see in the first debate.

This is a time when Americans rank Congress and the president at embarrassing lows. Neither party is trusted by voters. Americans want change and new ideas, but the two candidates they are presented with are more similar than different and moving toward each other, narrowing their differences, as Election Day approaches.

The debates are one time when the vast majority of Americans pay attention to politics but they did not hear the range of policy options available to the problems faced by the country. They heard policy within the narrow range of options presented by two parties who are funded by big business interests. These business interests profit from the status quo so real change is not on the agenda for discussion — it is off the table as Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to say about so many issues.

The flawed debate commission, which is controlled by the two parties, was designed to ensure that only their parties are included and the media goes along. This is a major undermining of the democratic process and undermines the intent of Freedom of Speech as candidates running for office are not heard and voters only hear narrow views. There are several third party and independent challengers in this election who are on enough ballots to theoretically win the election. The Green Party nominated Cynthia McKinney who served in Congress for ten years. The Libertarians nominated Bob Barr who served for eight. And there’s Ralph Nader, the independent candidate, who is universally recognized as a citizen activist who has had significant positive impacts on the direction of the country.

Without the attention of the media, particularly participation in the debates, these candidates have no chance for the American people to hear them. That means most Americans will not hear about single payer health care, a Tobin Tax on the purchase of stocks, bonds and derivatives, a reduction of the military budget rather than its expansion, a re-thinking toward Middle East policy, including Israel or how the U.S. can re-energize its economy, create hundreds of thousands of jobs by investing in a carbon-free/nuclear free energy economy, among other issues.

Americans need a real debate, not just a narrow “we agree” blurred distinctions “debate”. Debates with only the corporate-approved candidates will not advance the country toward the real change the people know is necessary. Government dominated by Wall Street and corporate interests will continue. Foreign policy dominated by militarism will stay the standard. The debate showed, more than anything else, that no matter who wins this election the country will stay on its current mistaken path.

One reported quote from an anonymous congressional staffer about the effect of our e-mails, phone calls, faxes, etc. indicates that support for the bailout plan in its present form is rapidly declining due to citizen pressure. The Congressional newspaper Roll Call reports:

The Bush administration’s forceful lobbying effort failed Tuesday to win support from rank-and-file Republicans or Democrats for a $700 billion Wall Street bailout package, though GOP and Democratic leaders still planned to move a bipartisan bill by the end of the week. . . .

The rank and file in both parties expressed deep concerns about anything resembling the $700 billion that the White House wants, and leaders struggled to keep their Members open-minded in the face of surging outside opposition from a diverse range of voices from former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and the Club for Growth on the right to liberal bloggers on the left . . .

But both sides face heat internally, with liberals upset with what some see as a handout to Wall Street cronies and with conservatives who are appalled at the unprecedented intervention in the free market.

It is important to get more people writing (click here) and calling their legislators (202-224-3121). Please forward this article to everyone you know or send them to www.FreshAirCleanPolitics.net to take action. You can write/call again and update your representatives on your views as this drama is unfolding.

And, people are starting to ask very sensible questions that should slow down the process. One writer on economics and taxes that I have a great deal of respect for, David Kay Johnson of the NY Times is making some important points in a memo to the media:

In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don’t repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don’t assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don’t assume there is a case just because officials say there is.

The coverage of the Paulson plan focuses on the edges, on the details. The focus should be on the premise. And be skeptical of what gullible Congressional leaders, most of them up before the voters in a few weeks, say after being given a closed-door meeting on supposed horrors. . .

Ask this question — are the credit markets really about to seize up?

If they are then lots of business owners should be eager to tell how their bank is calling their 90-day revolving loans, rejecting new loans and demanding more cash on deposit. I called businessmen I know yesterday and not one of them reported such problems. Indeed, Citibank offered yesterday to lend me tens of thousands of dollars on my signature at 2.99 percent, well below the nearly 5 percent inflation rate. That offer came after I said no last week to a 4.99 percent loan.

If the problem is toxic mortgages then how come they are still being offered all over the Internet? On the main page AOL generates for me there is an ad for a 1.9% loan (which means you pay that interest rate and the rest of the interest is added to your balance due.) Why oh why or why would taxpayers be bailing out banks that are continuing to sell these toxic loans? . . .

What steps are being taken to take back bonuses, fees and other compensation from the folks who got rich selling toxic mortgages and illiquid investments that Secretary Paulsen claims are threatening the whole system?

How will adding $700 billion to the national debt ease strains on the credit markets?

As of now we are, as a group, behaving just as we did the last two times the administration sought to rush through a hastily thought out, ill-conceived plan. Why in the world are we being so gullible and naive? Whatever happened to the core value of journalism — check it out?

And, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University, is describing the plan as a raw deal for taxpayers. What’s needed most, Stiglitz argues, is to assist struggling homeowners. “We should begin with the core of the problem, the fact that millions of Americans were made loans beyond their ability to pay. We need to help them stay in their homes, including by converting the home mortgage deduction into a cashable tax credit and creating a homeowners’ Chapter 11, an expedited way to restructure their liabilities.” If these mortgages are fixed so the debts are paid, will that not make the banks solvent? It is time to build the economy from the base, rather than the top. Trickle down does not work — especially when it is debts that trickle down.

Please take action NOW. Three steps below.

1. Write Congress. We have a model letter but you can modify it to make the points you think are important. Click here.

2. Write the media. Use the information in the article above to send a letter to the editor and get the media to do their job — approach this massive, record setting bailout with skepticism. Click here.

3. Forward this article to everyone you know. It is going to take IMMEDIATE, CONCERTED citizen action to prevent this rush to judgment.

We can prevent this debacle. Elected officials from across the political spectrum are expressing doubt and even refusal to support the bailout. A push now by voters — with an election less than six weeks away can prevent this massive, mistaken expenditure.

The four candidates – Independent Ralph Nader, the Green nominee Cynthia McKinney, the Constitution Party’s Chuck Baldwin and the Libertarian Party’s Bob Barr along with Ron Paul agreed on the following four key principles:

Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.

Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.

The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.

The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.

Further, they agree that the process of U.S. presidential elections is, as Rep. Paul said, a “charade, collusion of the two parties and the media” where they “pretend great differences where there is none” and where neither party really “addresses subjects that are majority positions,” referring to the points in the statement of principles quoted above.

The press conference participants, which did not include Rep. Barr even though he was invited, repeatedly pointed out that the majority of Americans, some 60%, are unhappy with their choices. As a result half of Americans do not bother to vote, many for the intellectual decision that a false choice is provided and where half of those that do vote decide to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than on the direction they want the country to move. All the participants described American democracy as failing.

Ron Paul announced that he received a telephone call the day before the press conference from the McCain-Palin campaign seeking his endorsement. Paul reported that the campaign made the argument, not that McCain is a great leader who will move the U.S. in the right direction, but that he isn’t as bad as Obama and would do less harm to the country. Paul described the call as “a little strange” and that he declined to endorse. He said that instead he is urging voters to support the four candidates who signed the statement of principles and that he would probably not endorse any candidate.

A great deal of focus was placed on the manipulated presidential debates. Rep. Paul reported that during the Bush-Dukakis campaign they had an agreement to dictate the terms of the presidential debates to the League of Women Voters. The League refused to go along and withdrew its sponsorship saying:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates…because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

That fraud continues to this day with a complicit media working with a corporation created by the two parties, the National Commission on Presidential Debates, that prevents third party and independent candidates from participating and allows the campaigns to dictate the terms of the debates. Ron Paul concluded that keeping the competition out of the debates is undemocratic and that it is a serious problem that “a majority of the people are outside the establishment – this is not very democratic.” He described voting as more the pretense of democracy than a real democracy.

Paul argued the “majority deserves to be in the debate” and the way to determine who is allowed to participate is if they are on enough ballots to theoretically get 270 Electoral College votes. Paul described the ballot access issue as an arduous test.

Therefore, Rep. Paul said he is making a “strong suggestion today” on what people can do and that is to vote for what they believe in and not be fooled by the two party charade. He described the two parties as a manipulation quoting Carroll Quigley from Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in our Time:

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.

Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney described the four pillars of the Green Party: peace, social justice, ecological wisdom and grass roots democracy. She described the situation we face today as akin to 160 years ago when a few hundred people got together to work for the right of woman to vote. They achieved their end and so can we by “declaring our independence” and pointed out how she declared her independence one year ago in front of the Pentagon. She no longer wanted to be complicit in illegal wars, detentions without trial, torture and environmental destruction. Voters need to declare their independence from “conformity and control” by voting their values. “It would be a very different country if Americans voted their values,” McKinney concluded.

Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party described how he was a Republican who worked for President Reagan’s election and worked with Jerry Falwell becoming the executive director of the Moral Majority. But, in the 1990s he found that the Republican Party had lost its way and he concluded the Republican Party was not fixable. He argued that the “parties have a stranglehold over the political process and are choking the lifeblood out of our country.” He sees the debate as between globalists like McCain and Obama and constitutionalists.

Independent Ralph Nader described the agreement of the four candidates on the statement of principles as “the beginning of a realignment of American politics.” He sees the issues raised as pointing to a “crisis in constitutional government.” Nader described the U.S. Constitution as something that has been “degraded, violated, nullified and twisted out of any semblance of it real meaning.” Nader urged people to pledge on Constitution Day (September 17th) to support candidates who will defend the Constitution. He believes that the media needs to reassess how it covers presidential election by sponsoring its own debates and breaking with the Democrats and Republicans private corporation that manipulates debates. He also urged to “stop wallowing in trivia like the current lipstick-gate” which he describes as “demeaning to the media, the people and the United States’ standing in the world.”

During the question and answer session the weakness in U.S. democracy came up – the fraudulent debates, the unfair ballot access laws, the poor media coverage, the massive disenfranchisement of voters, the lack of transparency and manipulation of electronic voting machines. Nader described “democracy being destroyed on the installment plan in an escalated way.” Paul said the real wasted vote is voting for one of the two parties and not for what you want. Baldwin updated Wallace’s comment, citing inflation, saying “there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference between the two parties.” And, McKinney urged people to see the movie “American Blackout” and warned that unresolved problems in American democracy are being “compounded.”

One suggestion made to avoid the trap of the fear of the greater evil is Vote Pact where unenthusiastic McCain or Obama supporters agree that both will support a “third” party candidate instead of the Democrat or Republican.

The Ron Paul press conference came at a time when “third” party and independent candidates are showing strength in key battle ground states where together they are garnering more than 10% of the vote. At this point, with the race between Obama and McCain in the low single digits the votes for the alternative candidates is likely to affect the outcome of the election.

With the strong group of third party and independent candidates – including two former members of Congress, one from each party, Ralph Nader, the most successful community organizer running for president and Chuck Baldwin, the former executive director of Moral Majority – and the reality that they could impact the outcome of the election – it is impressive how the mainstream media has been steadfast in ignoring these candidates as well as the issues they stand for. As Ron Paul said, perhaps now that the four have joined together to highlight four key issues maybe the media will recognize there is something important to cover here. Who knows, maybe the media will even ask McCain and Obama their views of the four points raised in their joint statement.

Obama was able to defeat Senator Clinton in large part due to his speech against the Iraq war before he was in the US senate. This speech excited the anti-war vote because he said much of what anti-war leaders were saying in opposition to the war. Throughout his campaign he emphasized that he would “end the war” in his stump speeches, a phrase that was an applause line throughout the country — not surprisingly since opposition to the war is over 60% among US voters.

But, as the campaign developed and the details of Obama’s plan to “end” the war became clear, peace voters realized Obama was not a peace candidate. His exit plan for Iraq left a large “residual” force of tens of thousands of troops along with more than 100,000 private security troops (a.k.a. mercenaries) in Iraq. Then Obama announced he wanted to escalate the war in Afghanistan despite strong arguments that more troops will actually make things worse. Then, his selection of Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate dampened the support of anti-war advocates. Biden supported attacking Iraq before Bush and participated in the misleading of the public and his fellow senators by holding one-sided hearings in support of the war before the committee he chaired.

Now, polls show the post convention election to be either tied or favoring McCain-Palin over Obama-Biden. The most pro-McCain poll, the USA/Gallup poll released on September 8, shows McCain leads Obama by four points among registered voters (50%-46%), when he trailed Obama by seven after the Democratic convention (50%-43%) — an 11-point swing. Among likely voters the poll shows McCain leading by a land slide of 10 points (54%-44%). It is evident the race is going to be more challenging for Obama-Biden than expected.

Obama may have made a mistake in taking the peace vote for granted. Opposition to the war is a super-majority position of American voters but Obama is not getting their support. Polls show that three independent and third party peace candidates could influence the outcome of the election. An August 27th Time/CNN poll shows Ralph Nader polling 8 percent in New Mexico, 7 percent in Colorado, 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and 6 percent in Nevada. Nader’s support has been increasing throughout the summer. Similarly, Bob Barr has been polling between 1.5 percent and 4 percent in swing states. Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney, who is rarely asked about by pollsters, is polling at 2 percent in Colorado and 3 percent in Nevada .

The common denominator of all three of these candidates is they are clearly opposed to war and a foreign policy dominated by military intervention. When their polling numbers are added together they total a minimum of 5 percent up to more than 10 percent of the votes in key states. Right now these voters are unlikely to support Obama or McCain due to their pro-military policies. Some anti-war voters will support Obama merely because McCain is so aggressive in his use of the military and his neo-con approach to foreign policy, but others are not satisfied to vote against McCain.

Today, September 10, Ron Paul is holding a press conference with four third party and independent candidates — all of whom oppose the war — to reportedly urge support for them rather than for McCain or Obama. The peace vote is being told it has somewhere else to go.

As Bruce Peterson of the Peace and Justice Radio Network said on a discussion list for United for Peace and Justice: “If everyone who called themselves ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ voted for a third party candidate, we would actually have a chance at making real change in this country.” More and more anti-war voters are concluding that a vote against the militarism of the two major parties will do more to change US foreign policy than a vote for Obama.

Of course, some peace voters have concluded that they should support Obama. Indeed, this is probably still the majority view, but they criticize Obama’s militaristic foreign policy viewpoints and argue that he is better than John McCain. Tom Hayden, the 1960s anti-war activist who went on to become a Democratic state legislator puts forward this view on behalf of Progressive for Obama.

On the Voters for Peace discussion list there was an exchange about the question of peace voters and their role in the election.

Carl Davidson of Progressives for Obama: “Kevin, I scold the Obama team at least once a day. Sometimes they listen and sometimes they don’t. They have a lot of forces scolding them from every direction.

“But right now, I’m far more interested in ‘scolding,’ ‘nudging’, ‘haranguing’ or inspiring all the left activists down on the ground, where it counts most, to get off their butts and get to work, if they’re not already doing so, defeating McCain. Obama is what he is, and the differences between the two camps, the progressive- center alliance vs. rightwing populism, should be fairly clear to everyone, especially since the GOP’s show in St. Paul. If you still can’t see it, there’s not much more I can say to help you at this point.

“We think globally but act locally. Anyone who thinks they’re at all progressive has no business remaining passive and not mobilizing THEIR OWN PERSONAL BASE, whatever the warts with Obama’s effort.

“It’s not hard. Just register every young antiwar and antiracist new voter you can, at your local high school or community college, keep a list, and get them all to the polls on Election Day.”

Jodda Mitchell responded, putting forward the view of some peace activists: “I do a lot of local work to get McKinney elected. I talk to people everywhere I go, and let them know there is an alternative to the two wings of the war party. I let them know that there is a candidate whose voting record should stand as a shining example to all the rest, someone who represents real change, someone with the balls to go after BushCo for war crimes, someone who actually embodies what the people in this country say they want in a candidate. I made copies of McKinney’s voting record and platform, and pass those out along with the buttons and bumper stickers I got from her website. No one can accuse me of not working to elect a good candidate.

“There is no way in hell I would try and get people to vote for Obama, as I actually give a damn about all the innocent men, women, and children he is threatening to murder in the Middle East. I will not be complicit in their deaths.”

Similar arguments are made on behalf of Ralph Nader who opposed the war before it began and for the last four years worked with Democracy Rising to help end the war. Nader has spoken at anti-war rallies and written extensively in opposition to the war.

Voters for Peace is a non-partisan organization that not advocate for any candidate.

From the e-mails I receive from our members some peace voters are like Jodda — they see the Democratic Party leadership and Obama as continuing the current direction of U.S. foreign policy and will not support them deciding instead to vote for a third party of independent candidate who stands against militarism. These voters see that voting for what you want — an end to militarism — is more likely to get what you want. The history of the U.S. is replete with examples of voters whose issues were “off the table” forcing a paradigm shift by voting outside the two parties. Examples include abolition of slavery, voting rights for women, ending child labor, the forty hour work week, health care for the poor and elderly — all these issues were off the table until voters organized outside the two parties of the era.

Others are shocked to hear about Obama’s positions. They do not want to believe that his “ending” the war does not mean withdrawing all troops and mercenaries from Iraq. They do not want to know that Biden as Chairman of Foreign Relations aided Bush in misleading the country about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by holding manipulated hearings. When these voters hear these and other facts they waiver, no longer sure for whom to vote.

Others take the Hayden position that Obama is the best peace voters can hope for, despite his flaws, and once he is elected he is more likely to be a president who can be influenced by public opinion.

But, the election is close that Obama needs the peace vote — all of it. Can he get it? Does he deserve it?

At this point it is up to the peace movement to demand Obama earn their votes and get on the side of the super majority that wants the Iraq war and occupation ended — really ended. Obama has the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people and the American people all in support of this position. Certainly he is a capable enough pol to side with the majority.

If Obama is unable to capture the vote of the vast majority of voters opposed to the war he has little chance of winning this election.

“Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama” by Ryan Lizza is a lengthy and interesting sketch of Obama in his Chicago years. Lizza documents Obama’s carefully planned entry into Chicago politics — making the connections he needed to make with the wealthy, liberal establishment as well as with Chicago’s black political leadership for the political career he evidently had in mind. His willingness to move from being an agnostic to a Christian and join the church with the most political influence after checking them all out demonstrates his willingness to move for political purposes. The allies he was willing to step on to get where he wanted to go — using the traditional Chicago tactic of throwing opponents off the ballot so he was unchallenged in his state senate campaign. Nothing remarkable — typical Chicago pol activity, but perhaps that is the remarkable thing because so many see Obama as something different than the usual pol.

The New Yorker has been generally favorable toward Obama. Their defense of the cover is that they were mocking Obama’s right wing critics. So this honest history of Obama’s political rise, from a seemingly pro-Obama magazine, makes it even more interesting. It is important for progressives to know this Obama — not the stuff he put in his two autobiographies (both books, Lizza points out, timed around political campaigns) — since it will give voters clues as to what to expect of him when he is president.

Two points to highlight in the article. First, the author describes as the “most important event in Obama’s early political life” the redrawing of his state legislative district to Obama’s liking. The new district became the base of his run for the US Senate and the presidency as he redrew his district to include the wealthiest and most politically influential part of Chicago.

Obama ran against an incumbent member of Congress, Bobby Rush in 2000. Rush a former black panther had lost a race for mayor and therefore Obama thought he was vulnerable. Obama was mistaken — he lost the race in a landslide (the only real political campaign he ever had to run). In losing, Obama learned that he had greater appeal among whites than blacks, the wealthy than the poor, liberal elites rather than working class poor. As a result Obama constructed his “ideal” election district with that in mind.

The article describes Obama entering the “inner sanctum” one year after his loss to Rush and one year after Democrats took control of the state. Illinois Democrats were in the process of redrawing the political map to their own liking — much like Tom Delay in did in Texas . The author writes:

Obama began working on his “ideal map.” Corrigan remembers two things about the district that he and Obama drew. First, it retained Obama’s Hyde Park base — he had managed to beat Rush in Hyde Park — then swooped upward along the lakefront and toward downtown. By the end of the final redistricting process, his new district bore little resemblance to his old one. Rather than jutting far to the west, like a long thin dagger, into a swath of poor black neighborhoods of bungalow homes, Obama’s map now shot north, encompassing about half of the Loop, whose southern portion was beginning to be transformed by developers like Tony Rezko, and stretched far up Michigan Avenue and into the Gold Coast, covering much of the city’s economic heart, its main retail thoroughfares, and its finest museums, parks, skyscrapers, and lakefront apartment buildings. African-Americans still were a majority, and the map contained some of the poorest sections of Chicago, but Obama’s new district was wealthier, whiter, more Jewish, less blue-collar, and better educated. It also included one of the highest concentrations of Republicans in Chicago.

Obama picked his voters. They were the wealthy, lawyers, philanthropists, developers, upwardly mobile white professionals and business interests. Recent comments by Rev. Jesse Jackson that Obama talks down to blacks and Ralph Nader that Obama is “talking white” and not challenging the “white power structure” are consistent with the voters Obama decided he wanted to represent.

Lizza points out that Obama’s new district contained the seeds of his future political success: “In the end, Obama’s North Side fundraising base and his South Side political base were united in one district. He now represented Hyde Park operators like Lois Friedberg-Dobry as well as Gold Coast doyennes like Bettylu Saltzman, and his old South Side street operative Al Kindle as well as his future consultant David Axelrod.

Obama knew that redistricting was a manipulation of democracy. In an article in the Hyde Park Herald he described how ‘partisan’ and ‘undemocratic’ Illinois redistricting had become. When Obama was asked for his views he was candid, Lizza reports. Obama said, “There is a conflict of interest built into the process, incumbents drawing their own maps will inevitably try to advantage themselves.”

It is disappointing that someone who started with registering voters seemingly to strengthen democracy became a pol, selecting his voters rather than having the voters select him. Redistricting is one of the sins of US democracy. Redistricting abuse is one of the many manipulations of democracy that puts the lie to the claim that the US is the greatest democracy on Earth. Obama is part of that system — indeed his political career was born out of that system.

The second point to highlight from the article is what kind of politician Obama is. Lizza
gives a quick summary of Obama’s politics. A description that summarizes what we probably can expect when he is elected president:

Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them. When he was a community organizer, he channeled his work through Chicago’s churches, because they were the main bases of power on the South Side. He was an agnostic when he started, and the work led him to become a practicing Christian. At Harvard, he won the presidency of the Law Review by appealing to the conservatives on the selection panel. In Springfield, rather than challenge the Old Guard Democratic leaders, Obama built a mutually beneficial relationship with them. “You have the power to make a United States senator,” he told Emil Jones in 2003. In his downtime, he played poker with lobbyists and Republican lawmakers. In Washington, he has been a cautious senator and, when he arrived, made a point of not defining himself as an opponent of the Iraq war.

The Obama campaign is built on rhetoric of change. The author writes, Obama runs “on reforming a broken political process, yet he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist. He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game.” This analysis is consistent with a candidate who promised to run within the public funding system but then decided not to when he saw advantages to doing so.

What can we expect when Obama becomes president?

Probably many of his supporters who want paradigm shifting change — consistent with his campaign rhetoric — away from the corrupt politics of big money and corporate control of government and see it in Obama will be disappointed. As the article points out Obama demonstrates to his supporters — when he disappoints them — that “superheroes don’t become President; politicians do.”