CEOs Make Politicians Look Like Angels -- So Why Vote for Them?

Meg Whitman

In my adventures in journalism, I once met a brother who told me that the most important lesson he had learned in business school was the number one goal of a corporation is to maximize profits. And corporations are supposed to do this, even it means discarding employees, engaging in immoral practice or selling deadly products

Now, understanding that philosophy is it surprising how Corporate America treats employees? Wake up American workers, your corporate bosses don’t care about you. Actually they really despise you, because unfortunately American workers demand half-decent salaries. They need them to pay back those huge college loans and keep buying those products that drive America’s consumer economy.

But over the last decade or so, Corporate America has made a concerted effort to drive down wages or limit worker benefits. First it was retirement, which morphed into the Ponzi scheme called 401ks, then it was health care benefits, which are sinking faster than Lindsey Lohan’s reputation. Now it’s actual salaries, which have been either stagnant or going down for years.

The recent trend is to fire employees and use those savings to reward share holders. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert writes, “In many cases, bosses told panicked workers who were still on the job that they had to take pay cuts or cuts in hours, or both. And raises were out of the question. The staggering job losses and stagnant wages are central reasons why any real recovery has been so difficult.”

Some companies have even taken this one step further by turning former paying jobs in to internships, where they don’t have to pay employees anything. What could be better than having an employee who works for free?

Considering the many sins of Corporate America -- outsourcing, cutting benefits, age and racial discrimination and dishonest accounting, as done by Goldman Sachs, Enron and Tyco -- how can we be expected to trust these people to run the government?

However, there seems to be a move, led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, towards electing former corporate titans to office. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is running neck and neck with former California Gov. Jerry Brown for the job of CEO of California. And Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, is challenging Sen. Barbara Boxer for her seat.

Those on the right argue that CEOs will bring a business-like attitude to government and help get the state running more efficiently. But having seen Corporate America’s practices why would we want to let this people near the halls of power? Consider budding California politicians Fiorina and Whitman.

Whitman has poured $90 million of her personal funds into the race for California governor and she says she is prepared to spend $150 million. All this for a job that pays $200,000? If Whitman is the smart business woman she claims to be, I can guarantee that she intends to recoup that money. She has also said she plans to help get California out of the red by laying off up to 40,000 state employees. (Whitman also settled a physical abuse case for $100,000 while she was at eBay.)

Corporate America’s solution to a problem is to privatize it and outsource it. This also turns out to be a great new side business for those close to the politicians. If Whitman plans to outsource California’s government services, you can bet that some of her pals are lining up to get those contracts, much like Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who passed a tough, new immigration law, that would result in hundreds of new prisoners. She also has ties to the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that operates private prisons, which would get millions of new federal dollars from housing detainees. This is crony capitalism at it’s worst!

As bad as Whitman is, she is streets ahead of Fiorina, who was fired from her job as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, where she slashed 30,000 jobs. CNBC listed Fiorina as one of the worst CEOs of all time. According to MarketWatch, Hewlett-Packard stocks plunged 50 percent under Fiorina and increased after she was fired. Fiorina walked away from Heweltt-Packard with a $20 million severance package.

Unfortunately Fiorina and Whitman are not the only two CEOs who have thrown their hats into the political arena. Former Columbia/HCA CEO Rick Scott is running for governor in Florida. Scott’s former company made it’s money denying patients’ health care, stiffing doctors and ripping off the government. According to Politifact, Scott was forced to resign after Columbia/HCA was hit with 14 felonies and charged a $1.7 billion fine for over billing the government for Medicare and Medicaid. Scott’s reputation is so bad that even the local GOP is trying to encourage him to stay out of the race.

So compared to this motley crew of conmen and abusers, isn’t your average slick-talking politician looking good right about now?

Arizona Is Now a Fascist State

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is an evil, amoral fascist -- those are strong words, but after reviewing the political climate in Arizona, that is the only way I can describe her.

How else would you describe someone who knowingly implements a law that will inflame white fears against the growing brown (Latino) population. Yes, I know Arizona has a problem with illegal immigration, but that problem has been around for decades, long before Brewer got there. And it probably won't go away soon.

As long as Arizona borders Mexico, a poor, crime-ridden country, people will cross the border to seek work. And as long as American employers continue to employ migrant labor, the flood of workers is not going to stop.

Brewer's new anti-immigrant laws have more to do with bolstering her political support by tapping into white rage. White people are still currently a majority, but with the growing Latino population, that is going to end soon. Brewer knows her laws appeal to white voters who are angry with some of the current problems in Arizona, unemployment, crime and overcrowding, which they blame on illegal immigrants.

But in reality, crime is down in Arizona. Although you wouldn't know it if you listened to Brewer, who has warned of headless corpses (proven to be false) and accused all illegal immigrants of being drug mules. According to a story by CBS 5 reporter Morgan Lowe, FBI figures show that Arizona has seen a 50 percent drop in crime since 2003. The Border Patrol also says that migrant traffic is down.

It's bad enough that Brewer and other white-leaning politicians have appealed to the worse part of the American psyche. Arizona has now become a destination for white supremacists, some who have taken to patrolling the border.

But Brewer also has a financial stake in this issue, news reports says that several people in the Brewer administration have ties to the private prison industry. So if Brewer passes a law that will lead to mass arrests, guess who is going to benefit from this? The state run prisons will probably turn this problem over to private prisons, and this is where Brewer's cronies clean up.

According to Lowe's story, Paul Senseman, Brewer's deputy chief of staff, is a former lobblist for the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a company that bills the government $11 million per month to hold detainees. Chuck Coughlin, a Brewer policy adviser and campaign chair, currently lobbies for CCA.

In the 1990s, under Gov. Frank Keating, Oklahoma passed several get-tough-on crime laws and outsourced prisons to CCA, who had made large donations to Keating's campaign fund, according to an article by the Journal Record.

According to a letter from the Oklahoma Senate, Keating approved a contract worth $6-15 million for the government to buy additonal beds from the private prison industry. He also signed the Truth in Sentencing law, which made offenders serve longer sentences.

I believe the idea of a corporate-run prison is evil. The main goal of a corporation is to generate profit. When corporations get involved in the corrections industry, they are generating profit off bondage and misery. In addition, politicians like Brewer and Keating, have a vested interest in keeping inmates locked up for long periods of time. The longer inmates are incarcerated, the more money the corporation makes. Making profit off bonded labor sounds dangerously like slavery to me.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini once said that the correct definition of fascism was the melding of state and corporate interests, which sounds like a perfect definition of what is going on in Arizona.

Geithner: Allow Bush Tax Cuts to Expire

Tim Geithner has taken a lot of flak for his time on Wall Street, but maybe he is coming to his senses. Or maybe he is just looking at a ballooning deficit that shows no signs of slowing.

The Bush tax cuts and military adventures ruined the economy. No sane economist is going to recommend increasing expenditure and reducing income. If the Obama administration is serious about cutting the deficit and balancing the budget it needs to look at all measures, raising taxes and slashing spending, both on military and some social programs. Also ending that trillion-dollar war in Afghanistan would also be a big help.

Juan Williams Debunks FOX's Black Panther Obsession

I guess you can never tell where people are coming from, but I would have never expected Juan Williams, one of FOX's resident black apologists, to have actually gone against the network.

But Williams, who has often come across as FOX's lukewarm "liberal," gave a pretty good account of why the much-hyped New Black Panthers story is not a story. He shredded the credibility of J. Christian Adams, the former Justice Department official, who is making the rounds talking about the case -- even though all of his evidence is hearsay and he never actually participated in the case.

Williams also points out that Adams is trying to deflect attention from the fact that under George W. Bush, the Justice Department did a lousy job of prosecuting Civil Rights cases. Bush seemed to stock the Civil Rights division with people who were hostile to minorities and did not even believe in the cases they were supposed to prosecute.

This story is BS and FOX knows it. But this is not journalism, but then again neither is FOX News. This is a cable-mounted smear campaign. And like any good smear campaign, it doesn't need to true, all it needs to do is make your opponent look bad. Unfortunately FOX's audience believes everything that runs on the network is the gospel truth!

Angle Distances Herself from Her Own Comments

I hope Nevada voters come to their senses and reelect Sen. Harry Reid, because the other option is downright frightening. State Sen. Sharron Angle is challenging Reid for the U.S. senate seat, but her views are so extreme, that even she is trying to distance herself for her own views.

Her latest stunt is trying to sue the Reid campaign for publishing comments from her old web site. Angle has a new web site, which has been scrubbed of her old controversial views such as privatizing Medicare and opposing abortion under any circumstance.

Angle's new web site is part of her rebranding campaign, which has meant largely avoiding the media. However the Reid campaign has published her old comments at a web site called Sharronsundergroundbunker.com.

I am not an expert on media law, but I don't think you can sue someone for publishing comments which are true. Also, even if you take a down a web site it still lives on on the Internet. Apparently Angle doesn't seem to realize that.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/angle-sends-cease-and-desist-to-reid-for-reposting-her-own-website.php?ref=tn

FOX Using Black Panthers Case to Stoke White Fear

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder

Just when you thought FOX News could not get any lower, they prove you wrong. FOX News' audience is 95 percent white and many of their stories play on white fears. John Gibson, a former FOX News contributor, reporting on a story about the nation's changing demographics came out point blank and said that "white people need to have more babies."

The latest story to get white people diving under the beds and reaching for their guns is a claim that the Department of Justice dropped a case involving white voter intimidation. During the 2008 election some members of the New Black Panther party were spotted patrolling election booths to guard against voter intimidation. They were armed with dangerous weapons such as "sticks."

FOX News tried to promote the story, but it disappeared quickly. Now former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams is claiming Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately dropped the case because "voter intimidation cases involving white people were not important."Adams is a self-described conservative who also writes for Pajamas Media, a right-wing web site, so he is not exactly objective. Media Matters also reports that while Adams was with the Justice Department, officials declined to pursue civil rights charges against the Minutemen for intimidating Hispanic voters.

Justice Department officials have described Adams as a "disgruntled employee who distorted the facts." And judging by the many incidents of death row inmates being released due to false testimony, this would definetly not be the first case of a prosecuting attorney embellishing the facts.

There are several things wrong with this story. First of all, any black person who has had a run in with the law knows that the authorities have no problem throwing brothers in jail. Secondly the Justice Department, under the Bush administration, was a hot bed of cronies who were selected based on their loyalty to the president, rather than on their legal ability. In addition, the Bush Justice Department was infamous for not acting on civil rights cases. The Black Panthers in question where guarding a voting booth in a largely black neighborhood, which probably did not attract many white voters. And it is sadly ironic that the Bush administration tried to pursue a voting intimidation case against black people, when there were hundreds of clear cases of voter intimidation in black neighborhoods in the 2000 election.

The Holder Justice Department looked into the case and likely dropped it because they knew there was nothing to it. One of the Black Panthers was an accredited poll watcher and he did not have a weapon in his hand.

Of course that never stops FOX. They have folded this story into their continued narrative about white people being under threat by the encroaching black and brown hordes. Evidently FOX never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. By the way Adams' story has been picked up by Stormfront, white supremacists' favorite online destination.

Senatorial Candidate Urges White People to 'Take Our Country Back'

The Tea Party loves to argue that they are not racist. They claim they are simple (literally) Americans who are unhappy with the direction the country is going. Although these same people seemed to be loudly silent when President George W. Bush was shredding the Bill of Rights, running up the deficit and pursing two questionable foreign wars.

But here is one more piece of glaring evidence that shows the true motivation of the Teabbagers. Consider Glenn Miller Jr., who is running for Senate in Missouri. Miller, a convicted felon and white supremacist, made headlines when several stations ran his racist ads, and then realized their error and pulled them.

Miller's ads are the standard racist garbage with talk about white people being outnumbered by the "coons and mud people," but what is revealing is his other choice of words. His call to action is for God-fearing white folks to "take our country back." Where have we heard that before?

You can check out the ad below and compare it to statements from Tea Partyers. You can't make this stuff up !

Tea Party message:

Comments about Unemployed Reveal GOP's Contempt for the Poor

One of the things that has always baffled me about American politics is the blue-collar/middle class Republican. These are people who are a few paychecks away from the breadline, yet the still support GOP policies that lambaste the poor.

This is a classic case of bait and switch, because while the GOP needs the votes of working class Americans (and by that I mean anyone who works for a salary,) it's policies of tax cuts to the mega rich and kissing up to corporations end up hurting Average Joes.

To get working people to support the polices of the upper class, the GOP has a powerful array of weapons in it's arsenal, homophobia, race, religion and when those doesn't work you can always throw in the red scare (communism.) In addition, the GOP now has a whole network, FOX News, and talk radio dedicated to spreading it's propaganda.

But now the country is struggling to get out of the worst Depression since World War II. Millions of Americans are suffering from long-term unemployment. Before if you were laid off it would take three t0 six months to find employment, now we are looking at a year or more. It is not unusual to find Americans who have been out of work for up to two years.

And how does the GOP choose to respond to this economic crisis? By bashing the poor of course. According to GOP propaganda Americans are unemployed, because they're lazy, too choosy or just spoiled. Republicans seem to thinking the whopping amounts of money unemployed people make (about $200 per week) is enough for people to live high on the hog and quit searching for work. The GOP has stonewalled on a bill that would have extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans. All of a sudden they are concerned about deficits, even though the Republican controlled Congress voted for Bush's wars and tax cuts, which inflated the deficit.

Now let's say an American worker made about $50,000 a year, which is an average mid-level salary, that works out to be about $4,000 per month. An unemployment check of $200 per weeks, works out to about $800 per month, less than a quarter of what that person would be making if they worked.

But GOP firebrands like Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle are convinced that Americans prefer couch surfing, instead of making real money. Angle implies that extending unemployment makes Americans comfortable, in an interview with a Nevada political show she said, "I would have voted no, because the truth about it is that they keep extending these unemployment benefits to the point where people are afraid to go out and get a job because the job doesn't pay as much as the unemployment benefit does. And what we really need to do is put people back to work."

If Angle would actually talk to people on Planet Earth she might realize that finding a job is anything but easy. Statistics show there are about five applicants for every job. And even if workers are willing to drop their pay demands, they face resistance from employers. Age discrimination and degree discrimination are rife. (Many workers over the age of 50 have opted to take early retirement because they know that few employers want to hire an employee who is close to retirement.)

As someone who was unemployed for more than a year, I saw personal evidence of this. I sent out about 5,000 resumes and also applied for entry-level jobs. The problem is department stores at the mall are not going to hire a 40-something professional worker for a minimum-wage job, where his supervisor is going to be half his age.

Plus many of those companies would rather hire wet-behind-the-ear high school or college kids who will be happy to work for next to nothing, and won't have the balls to complain about labour abuse.

For those working class people who still cling to Conservative principles, I ask what more will it take to come to your senses? The GOP despises you. They use wedge issues to garner your votes, but side with corporations who are always looking for the bottom line, even if it means exporting American jobs to China, where they can pay less than a quarter of American wages.

Working class Republicans are like an abused wife who keeps going back to a husband who keeps giving her black eyes. But as Albert Einstein, the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Democrats are not perfect, but at least they seem to be trying to do something about the situation, and they are not openly contemptuous of the poor.

Meet FOX News' latest contributor - Ted Nugent

Sometimes it seems as if FOX News does not even attempt to be a legitimate news organization -- which it isn't. At times they seem to grab anyone off the street to talk about politics. Ray Stevens, author of the of culturally sensitive "Ahab the Arab," was called on "The O'Reilly Factor" to talk about political correctness. And now America's favorite neo-fascist Sean Hannity, has called on barely sane rocker Ted Nugent to bash the Obama administration.

Nugent accuses President Barack Obama of spitting on the flag, the Bill of Rights and the 10 Commandments. Nugent has also advocated executing Obama and Hillary Clinton . By the way wasn't it the Bush adminstration who decided to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinetly without trial?

The only thing he didn't accuse Obama of is raping an apple pie. Nugent's rant is highly ironic since he has multiple marriages behind him, a kid out of wedlock, and also dodged the draft. According to an interview with the British Independent newspaper Nugent literally crapped his pants to get out of going to Vietnam, Nugent's views are so far the right, he would fit perfectly in Nazi Germany. His solution to the Iraq war? "Nagasaki" them! And this is who FOX chooses to give political opinion?

FOX must believe that it's viewers are thick-headed enough to actually believe Nugent's B.S. I am not sure if he does, or if he is following the Glenn Beck method of saying mindless crap to sell books. Sorry Ted, if you ever want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than that. Some of us actually read and check the facts, unlike most FOX News viewers.

White Towns Make Money Off Black, Brown Crime

Here is an article that will make you want to throw up. A Newsweek article illustrates the tie between rural towns and prisons. According to Newsweek writer Ben Adler, many rural New York towns, depend on the prison industrial complex to drive their economies. Many of these towns have seen their economies dry up as manufacturing plants closed and young people moved away.

Adler says that the New York Department of Corrections pays about $1 million a year in payroll to rural towns which house prisons. What is even more disturbing is the fact that many politicians are pushing for longer and harsher sentences. Of course, if a prison is the main industry in your district, you would have a vested interest in keeping people in the prison system longer.

There is also a racial element to this story, because blacks and Latinos make up about 75 percent of the New York prison population, and many of these towns are located in mainly white communities. So it's seems that white people are still making money off black and brown bondage. I though we outlawed slavery?

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/01/do-rural-prisons-benefit-locals.html?from=rss