Matt Taibbi and Bill Moyers on Why the Government Lets the Big Banks Get Away With All Sorts of Crime

Matt Taibbi is his usual brilliant self in the video below, but his conclusions are wrong, not in fact, but as a matter of degree. Corporations and the rich control the US government, as well as most state governments. And this is especially true for Wall Street executives and banks. That’s why and how the game is rigged against the middle class.

By the way, when a rich person, such as Grover Norquist, says he wants to shrink government so small you can drown it in your bathtub, he means government for the 99 percent. He doesn’t have a problem with government growing so long as it’s profitable for a select few.

Check out the video below.

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Why does the Republican Party need really insane candidates?

Why does the Republican Party leadership keep pushing idiots for political offices? The answer is simple. On the national and state level, it’s a party completely controlled by a slice of the super-rich, and these people are completely out of touch with the rest of the nation.

A small group of billionaires, such as the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson, run the party. These people are rabidly anti-tax, anti-middle class warriors. These billionaires are the big money behind Grover Norquist, and they’re the guys that frighten Republican candidates into submission on the issues, not Norquist.

That’s why fewer and fewer sane and intelligent people are willing to run for national or state political office as Republicans. At the bottom of the barrel, there are plenty of stupid people willing to submit to the whims of these few and further their aspirations in the process. In other words, in the Republican Party, turds rise to the top because the cream flees from the Republican Party container due to the stench of their positions. That’s why we have a speaker of the House that is a former bug killer.

As these billionaires continue to veer more and more to the right for their personal gain, like the destruction of the self-sustaining Social Security Trust (i.e. meaning the privatization of Social Security, which is a code word for profitization of Social Security on behalf of themselves), lower tax rates for the rich that destroy jobs and the economy, etc….

Perhaps a recent article in the Washington Post said it best of the Republican Party, “It’s not just on the ideas side where the center of the GOP is moving. The rise of American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS as well as Americans for Prosperity — and a slew of other conservative-minded outside groups — have made them the major financial players in campaigns. Unlike political party committees, which are limited in the sort of donations they can accept, these outside groups can take unlimited checks from individuals.”

The billionaire money behind those groups are the driving force behind the far right and getting further right political positions and battle plans of the GOP and its candidates. None of these are good for the nation and the middle class.

The Republican Party is controlled insanely greedy billionaires, and that’s why they need to have really insane candidates.

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Video: The People Who Fund Grover Norquist

Guess who don’t want to see their taxes raised? How about Big Pharma and the Koch Brothers. Guess who is on their payroll? You guessed it right. Grover Norquist. If their taxes rise, then they’ll have less profit to buy more politicians to enact legislation to redistribute income from the 99 to the 1 percent. That’s what Grover is all about.

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What’s this? Senator Lindsey Graham is latest Republican to disavow tax pledge

Has Senator Lindsey Graham gone insane? He is committing treason against the Grover Norquist Republican party by disavowing his pledge to cut taxes. In other words, he is putting his country ahead of his political party. “Graham said: “‘I will violate this pledge, long story short, for the good of the country, only if Democrats do entitlement reform.’” Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss disavowed the pledge of Grover Norquist a few days back, in favor of the pledge of allegiance to the flag and all that it stands, which has nothing to do with Norguist.

Entitlement reform is interesting if only because the Social Security Trust Fund has a $2.5 trillion surplus, which collects $118 billion a year in interest. Naturally, the senator, along with a ton of Democrats, want to reduce the standard of living of the aged by cutting their SS payment.

Check out the complete story below.

Senator Lindsey Graham is latest Republican to disavow tax pledge–Guardian-UK

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Super-Committee Meltdown-What You Can Do To Save Social Programs, like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare

By Shawn Sorenson

You’ve probably heard the news. The supercommittee negotiations have broken down. On the one hand, this is good news for progressives because we have avoided massive cuts to vital programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

On the other hand, we know that the supercommittee was unable to reach a deal for one reason and one reason only. Republicans continue to refuse to make the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share — period. They put their oath to “Mr. One Percent Grover Norquist” ahead of their oath to the Constitution, to the other 99 percent, to the good of the country.

So what happens now? Congress, by its own agreement, is required to cut federal spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade. And here’s the good news: Congress has to cut half a trillion dollars in wasteful Pentagon spending over the next decade. No law has ever required this to happen before.

You’ve worked hard over these past few months to tell Congress to do things like fund job creation, cut big oil subsidies and cut the wasteful Pentagon budget. Now it’s time to make it happen. Pentagon spending must be reined in. We’ve been fighting together to end wasteful Pentagon spending for years, and this could be our best chance to really make it happen.

This budget fight is just beginning. Some Republicans already are threatening to back out on the negotiated agreement, particularly the nearly $500 billion reduction in Pentagon spending. We have a bloated defense budget, which wastes hundreds of billions of dollars on programs that are outdated and obsolete and add nothing to our national security. We KNOW that spending on war and weapons is a lousy way to create jobs too, especially when compared to better ideas like hiring teachers, paying firefighters or investing in road and bridge repair. The President agrees with us, he says he will veto any changes to sequestration. But your Representatives need to hear from you.

Ask your Representatives to keep the Pentagon cuts and vote in favor of the 99% – not the 1% corporate defense contractors. Call your senators and representatives in the House of Representatives now.

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