Obama And Big Business

    In case you hadn’t noticed it yet, President Obama has been very busy doing his best as of late giving big business the front row in his policy making decisions. Business is making more profits than ever, so he has to give them even more help in order for them to amass even more cash.  A South Korean journalist has noticed how much Obama has been bending over for the business community.  Anything to get re-elected, I guess.

Watching America

Hankyung, South Korea
Obama’s Business-Friendly
Transformation

By Hankyung Editorial
Translated By Jiyoung Han
23 January 2011

Edited by Michelle Harris

South Korea - Hankyung - Original Article (Korean)
U.S. President Barack Obama’s latest string of business-friendly acts is garnering a lot of attention. Since taking office, Obama has been known to fiercely criticize Wall Street and emphasize the need to strengthen regulations. However, the president now seems to be pushing for the relaxation of regulations and other measures characteristic of a more business-friendly environment.
In a Wall Street Journal editorial printed on Jan. 18, President Obama announced that the federal government would undertake a "review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules." The president has also proceeded to draw prominent members of the private sector into the ranks of his administration, most notably naming Midwest Chairman of JPMorgan Chase William Daley as his White House Chief of Staff and CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt as the Chairman of his outside panel of economic advisers. Obama’s business-friendly actions do not stop here. The president is even set to deliver a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an institution with which he has previously had fraught relations.
The reason for President Obama’s transformation comes from his very acute realization that, for the sake of economic recovery and job creation, he cannot neglect to lend the private sector a helping hand. This is evident in the following passage of his Wall Street Journal piece: "Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business — burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs."
President Obama’s actions hold many implications. In contrast with the increasingly enterprise-supportive America, Korea is tightening the reins on the building pressures at home. The Korea Fair Trade Commission alone is interfering with extensive business studies in areas like oil refining, sugar manufacturing, and home shopping, subsequently eliminating basic things like production cost studies. Key big businesses are facing the pressures of rising subcontract prices in all directions.
Although price stabilization is an urgent issue, artificially regulating prices and further increasing subcontract prices will distort the market order and weaken the vitality of business. For the sake of economic vitality and job creation, businesses must be provided an environment in which they are free to do as they wish. Governments must bear in mind how important it is not to burden businesses with constant interference. As such, today’s meeting between President Lee and the 30 group leaders must be a forum in which the difficulties of the business community are heard and solutions are sought together. It cannot become an occasion to strengthen government regulations.

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Technorati Tags: Barack Obama,Big Business,Tax Cuts,Current Events,Wall Street,Banking,Regulation

Luntz Trying to Freep CNN's Real-Time SOTU Poll

by antonrobb       Tue Jan 25, 2011

For some reason, my leftie mom wound up on an email list for Luntz Research. (I know, ewwww, gross.)  Anyway, she forwarded the below email to me.  It is clearly being sent to Luntz's list of lunkheads so they can flood CNN's dial testing of the SOTU with anti-Obama static.  Let's all forward this to our friends and relatives so we can counteract this effect.  These guys (as usual) have nothing to show in terms of constructive policy, just more delay, distraction, destruction and victimhood.  Such losers. 

From: Maslansky, Luntz & Partners
Sent: Mon, January 24, 2011 8:22:44 PM
Subject: State of the Union Online Panel Invitation

We would like to invite you to participate in a first-of-its-kind live CNN event that will provide the unique opportunity to register your personal, real-time reactions to tomorrow night’s State of the Union address.

Your reactions, along with those of others around the country, will be part of CNN’s state of the union coverage.

The system works just like the dial testing you may have seen on CNN and Fox – except YOU will be one of the participants, reacting to the president’s speech on your computer, in real-time, from your home or office.

Your participation will help balance the post-speech coverage by providing pundits with real-time feedback from thousands of people around the country.

To participate, please go to the link below by 8:55 pm EST/5:55pm PST on Tuesday, January 25th and follow the instructions on the screen.  Thanks in advance for your help and we look forward to seeing what you think of the speech.

Link: http://app.bronto.com/...

Username: square
Password: off

If you have any issues with the website, a browser refresh will usually fix them.

Please take a minute to let us know if you plan on joining our online panel: RSVP

Thank you,

Michelle Corbett
Research Manager

You have been contacted because you have sent us information or expressed interest in the past. If this is incorrect or you wish to stop receiving these emails, there is now a link at the bottom of your email invitation to unsubscribe from our emails and focus group offers.

To unsubscribe please click herehttp://app.bronto.com/...http://app.bronto.com/.

Technorati Tags: Frank Luntz,freeping,SOTU,state of the union,CNN

Barack’s “State Of The Union”

    Another year and another “State of the Union “ address from our President, Barack Obama. I am still doing coin flips in order to decide if I am going to sit through this hour long spectacle just to hear a lot of nothing about job creation,improving the economy,and even more crap about “bipartisanship.”  Our President and his cabal still do not get the fact that their attempts to be nice to the Republicans (working with them) has not worked. It is never going to work! Barack has had many “compromises” with the Republican side of the equation and it seems thus far that those did nothing for the average American. When Obama “compromises,” the hard working average American gets fucked.

    It will be interesting to see what kind of so called “sacrifices” will be asked of the American workers,and those who are retired. How much of the Social Security will Obama wish to cut into?  How much more pay cuts will workers have to endure in  the new economy?  Actually,I do not think that either of these issues will be brought up in this address. Not directly.

   If Obama wants to make more “sacrifices.” then point toward the 2% of Americans who are getting the majority of the money. While he is at it,he can also make the Corporate world “sacrifice” by raising their taxes. That would be those that are actually paying any taxes to begin with.

   In a different twist,it is reported that the Republican side of the group will have not just one rebuttal after the speech,but two of them. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan will give the official GOP response,and then Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann will give the Tea Party response.  That may be worth watching just for comedic value.

Technorati Tags: State of the Union,Barack Obama,Tea Party,Republicans,Paul Ryan,Michele Bachmann,Current Events

The Republicans “Deal With America”…

….is once again looking more like their last “Contract on With America” from back in the 90’s. All talk and much bullshit. No surprise there as it is a Republican habit to do a “bait and switch” with the voters once they have conned their way into office.

Original Article

The GOP's Bill to Repeal Campaign Finance

by Patience John       Mon Jan 24, 2011

If there are two things Republicans are good at, it's lying and doing their corporate masters a solid. The long list of Republican lies is long, from lying the country into a war to your basic broken campaign promises. When it comes to doing their paymasters' work, the last decade was a banner era.

Now, the Republicans are attempting to do both at the same time.

The GOP's Campaign Finance "Sneak Attack"
By Andy Kroll, Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/...

On Wednesday, House Republicans plan to rush to the floor a bill that would eliminate the federal government's presidential financing system—in the process, violating recent pledges by the GOP's leadership of increased transparency and debate in Congress. Not one hearing has been held on the legislation, nor has a single commitee debated its merits. If it passes, it will roll back more than 30 years of law born out of the Watergate scandal, eviscerating one of the few remaining protections stopping corporations from heavily influencing, if not outright buying, American elections, reform experts say.

House Republicans' much-touted "Pledge to America" bashed Democrats for "limiting openness and debate" during the legislative process and vowed to "ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square." The Pledge says the GOP "will fight to ensure transparency and accountability in Congress and throughout government." And in House Speaker John Boehner's first remarks after taking control of Congress' lower chamber, he spoke of a greater emphasis on "real transparency" and "greater accountability." He went on, "Above all else, we will welcome the battle of ideas, encourage it, and engage in it—openly, honestly, and respectfully."

Public financing of presidential campaigns provides matching tax dollars to the small donations received by candidates who agree to publicly finance their campaigns, instead of relying on private donations. The intent is to encourage small donations, and the burden on taxpayers isn't much: Americans can voluntarily contribute $3 to the fund on their federal tax filings. The public finance system was created in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s. After President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign was found to have illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from big corporations, Congress created a public financing system so that candidates wouldn't have to rely on corporations and deep-pocketed donors to finance their campaigns.

Already good government groups and campaign finance reformers are drumming up opposition to the GOP's plan. Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the public interest group Public Citizen, says his organization and others like it will urge lawmakers to oppose the GOP's bill because it violates the GOP's transparency promises, both on the 2010 campaign trail and now as the House majority. "This just came out of the blue, has had no deliberation and no discussion within the Republican and Democratic conferences," Holman says. "They have just been seated and they're already breaking the ground rules on how they'll do business."

It should come as no surprise that the Republicans are liars, and will tell any lie to get elected. It is also not surprising that Republicans would turn their backs on the "Deal with America", especially after the fiasco that was the "Contract with America."

Men like Rep. Cantor do all they can to work in the shadows of our elected house to do bidding of their corporate overlords. Such work would not stand the light of day, much less a proper public hearing.

Or even a committee meeting for that matter, because it would become instantly apparent that the goal of this bill is to make the government and our electoral process less transparent.

Public shaming does not work on the GOP, their rhetoric is proof enough of that. While it is amazing that their base takes it lying down, being lied to election cycle after election cycle, it is even more amazing that men like Rep. Cantor and Speaker Boehner have no qualms about lying to the entire nation.

If we could harness the energy of the pants on fire of the GOP, we could solve our energy crisis overnight.

But lying is not new for politicians, even on this scale. What is new is the GOP's goal of handing over our democracy to the corporations and the elite behind them. One bill after another it has become more and more obvious that the Republicans want to ensure a corporate state over our democratic republic to enshrine their hegemony.

If this covert bill passes and gets past the Senate and somehow becomes law instead of being vetoed, the corporations and paymaster elite controlling them will have more sway over our republic than the citizens themselves.

The influence that unaccountable corporate entities would shape policy and candidate choices beyond the control of even a well-organized citizen group, no matter how much they screamed or work. At the end of the day, money talks louder.

And the elite have all the money, mostly because Republican policies over the last decade looted most of the citizens of this country and placed the wealth of our republic in few and fewer hands.

And now the Republicans want to put funding of campaigns in corporations' hands, so that our choice in who represents must be one who represents the corporations first, and not our own best interests. It would become a puppet show of the moneyed elite. It is as if the goal of the GOP is usurp our citizen-based democracy with a corporate oligarchy.

This would all become transparently obvious, if the Republicans held transparent and open public debate behind this bill.

Technorati Tags: Republicans,GOP,Campaign Finance Laws,Current Events