Events and Meetings

ALEC: a corporate front group for millionaires and billionaires.

Vast Corporate Conspiracy to Mold State Legislation Unveiled

 http://tinyurl.com/CorpConspiracy 

 

The Center for Media and Democracy (a Move to Amend founding partner) has obtained copies of more than 800 model bills approved by corporations through ALEC meetings (American Legislative Exchange Council), after one of the thousands of people with access shared them, and a whistleblower provided a copy to the Center. They have analyzed and marked-up those bills and made them available at ALEC Exposed. 

 

[Compiler note: Lisa Graves, Move to Amend SC member, and Center for Media and Democracy Director, put together this extensive, well researched website on ALEC Exposed, divulging and rebutting ALEC agenda on education, environment, tort reform, civil rights, prisons, and other vital social / political issues. The expose also presents a who's who of ALEC patrons, political beneficiaries, and propagandists. Please use this incredible resource liberally. - MDM]

 

Save Democracy: Tell Corporations to Dump ALEC

The Center for Media and Democracy discovered ALEC is behind corporate political control, and now is the time to fight against the sale of our democracy.

http://tinyurl.com/DumpAlec 

Banks, Banksters, and Banking

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule.

How is it that our nation is awash in money, but too broke to provide jobs and services? ...by David Korten   

The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can't afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places.

 http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/liberate-america 

The Supreme Court, the Law, and the Constitution

The Corporate Supreme Court ... by Ralph Nader

Five Supreme Court Justices--Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy are entrenching, in a whirlwind of judicial dictates, judicial legislating and sheer ideological judgments, a mega-corporate supremacy over the rights and remedies of individuals. The artificial entity called "the corporation" has no mention in our Constitution whose preamble starts with "We the People," not "We the Corporation."

 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/18-12 

How a Corporatist Supreme Court Cabal Joined Forces With Right-Wing and Kochs to Quietly Sell Out Our Democracy ... by Jim Hightower

Corrupt, right-wing Supreme Court justices are abusing their power, fraternizing with the Koch brothers and fixing elections (among other horrors).

Fighting Corporate Rule

http://tinyurl.com/TakingLawBackFromCorp 

 

 

David Cobb video series "The Populist Dialogues" 

When David Cobb, Move to Amend spokesperson, was in Portland earlier this year, he recorded (3) 1/2 hour public access programs for the Alliance for Democracy - The Populist Dialogues. 

The first of those three are now on You-Tube.  The other will be put up and the most recent one recorded just a month ago will also be put up;

so this one is available at

David Cobb - On Amending the US Constitution to eliminate corporate personhood

 

Note also that the shows can be accessed from the Alliance for Democracy - Portland website at www.afd-pdx.org  or from the Populist Dialogues website at  www.populistdialogues.org 

 

 

The Federal Reserve opens its books...and Congress is shocked at what it finds - Article by Matt Taibbi

"America has two national budgets, one official, one unofficial. ... Most Americans know about [the public] budget. What they don't know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds. And thanks to a whole galaxy of obscure, acronym-laden bailout programs, it eventually rivaled the "official" budget in size - a huge roaring river of cash flowing out of the Federal Reserve to destinations neither chosen by the president nor reviewed by Congress, but instead handed out by fiat by unelected Fed officials using a seemingly nonsensical and apparently unknowable methodology."

The Fed Audit       July 21, 2011 (Senator Bernie Sanders)

The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world," said Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

 http://tinyurl.com/FedAudit-BernieSanders 

Congrats to the Gang of Six, the Powerful, the Wealthy, and Multinational Corporations ...by [Senator] Bernie Sanders  

If there was ever a time in the modern history of America that the American people should become engaged in what's going on here in Washington, now is that time. Decisions are being made that will impact not only our generation but the lives of our children and our grandchildren for decades to come, and I fear very much that the decisions being contemplated are not good decisions, are not fair decisions.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/21 

 

 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479 

 

 

$50 Million to End the Coal Era

Last week, the Sierra Club announced a partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies http://tinyurl.com/PartnershipWithBloomberg that will effectively retire one-third of the nation's aging coal fleet by 2020 and replace it with clean energy. 

The partnership includes a $50 million commitment over four years to the Beyond Coal Campaign that will fuel the Sierra Club's effort to clean the air, end the coal era, and accelerate the transition to cleaner, cost-effective energy sources.

A Year After BP Caps Well, Fishermen Still Fight for Survival

VICTORY: Italy says "our water is not for sale"

 http://tinyurl.com/Italy-WaterNotForSale 

GOP Clean Water Act Cut Preys on Ailing State Economies Desperate for Corporate Income: interview Melissa Harris-Perry by Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry discussed the GOP's vote to gut the Clean Water Act-which, as Maddow details, keeps our rivers from lighting on fire with pollution as in the '60s, among other things. But they argue that the move wasn't simply a vote against both the people and the environment-it was a vote for big corporations who stand to benefit from states who are "hemorrhaging" money, "willingly allowing polluters to come in," as MHP puts it. Watch:

 http://tinyurl.com/CleanWaterAct-CorpMoney 

A Polluters Bill of Rights?

By the end of this week, industry hopes to ride out of the U.S. House of Representatives with a polluters' bill of rights. Read two perspectives, from VP of Policy & Legislation Marty Hayden and President Trip Van Noppen, on what may be this nation's biggest-ever fight over environmental protections.

Labor and Unions

 http://tinyurl.com/WealthyKillJobs 

A Song for our times: "Call it Democracy" by Bruce Cockburn