United corporations of America

As part of the biggest Fourth of July celebration in St. Louis, Missouri, one could see corporate flags waving on the same staffs as American flags, which is apparently exactly where they belong. To me, this arrangement symbolizes the almost complete corporate take-over of the United States. Photo by Erich Vieth We’re in an ominous environment right now. We have a thoroughly corrupt Congress (Dick Durbin: “The banks frankly own the place”) and a Supreme Court filled with corporation-idolizing free market fundamentalists. If you think it’s already bad, here’s what’s about to happen. This upcoming ruling by the United States Supreme Court will make clean money legislation unworkable. Citizens United was apparently just the beginning of a terrible trend. There are relatively few politicians speaking up with passion. Sheldon Whitehouse is one of the few. We need massive marches across America. We need millions of people to turn off their damned TVs and iPods and get up and march, but I don't see it happening. Most of the people I talk with don't care that money buys elections, even while they go to Fourth of July celebrations and give lip service to "America is the world's greatest country."

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How much has the Wall Street bailout cost American taxpayers?

How much have U.S. taxpayers paid to bail out Wall Street? Here are many of the details, but note that $2.02 trillion remains outstanding. Also keep in mind that the TARP payments were only 10% of the total U.S. aid given to Wall Street. Be wary, then, when you hear Wall Street crowing that it has paid back much of the TARP money. Dylan Ratigan puts the topic in perspective.

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Fair Elections Act gets a push

This push to fair elections should be the only issue, until it is passed. We can't even have political conversations anymore, certainly not in Congress, and the dysfunction is largely driven by huge sums of private money from large organizations that are corrupting our law-makers. Thus, it was good news to hear of a new push to campaign finance reform:

In a push to implement a publicly-financed election system and curb moneyed interests in politics, a pair of good-government groups is launching a television ad campaign with a noteworthy price tag. Common Cause and Public Campaign, two organizations known for exposing the murkier influences on legislative and electoral processes, are staking $8 million to try and burnish Congress with the willpower to pass the Fair Elections Now Act. And they're willing to spend as much as $15 million on their campaign-season gambit.
What is the essence of meaningful campaign finance reform? Bill Moyers explains: Dick Durbin gives the insider's point of view.

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BP now controls federal, state and local law enforcement

This headline sounds absurd. It MUST be hyperbole, right? Wrong. Glenn Greenwald has the details. There is a war against the press and BP is operating a police state, thanks to BP largess and government acquiescence.

Obviously, the U.S. Government and BP share the same interest -- preventing the public from knowing the magnitude of the spill and the inadequacy of the clean-up efforts -- but this creepy police state behavior is intolerable.
Greenwald links to Raw Story for more details and a video featuring Anderson Cooper.

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When does Afghanistan officially qualify as a “quagmire”?

We've now been in Afghanistan longer than we were in Vietnam, with a similar amount of progress. American casualties are again on the rise, along with the power of the Taliban. The new general in charge, General Petraeus, assures us that he will continue to try to minimize civilian casualties, so long as that doesn't interfere too much with his plans to bomb the hell out of the country. Our rules to protect civilians were a bit too "bureaucratic" for his liking--not that they actually worked, in any case. The now-infamous Rolling Stone profile of General McChrystal has this to say:

In the first four months of this year, NATO forces killed some 90 civilians, up 76 percent[!] from the same period in 2009 – a record that has created tremendous resentment among the very population that COIN theory is intent on winning over. In February, a Special Forces night raid ended in the deaths of two pregnant Afghan women and allegations of a cover-up, and in April, protests erupted in Kandahar after U.S. forces accidentally shot up a bus, killing five Afghans. "We've shot an amazing number of people," McChrystal recently conceded.
The Rolling Stone piece mysteriously left out the next part of McChrystal's statement. Here's the full quotation (emphasis mine):
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.

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