The Worst Teacher in Chicago

by Greg Palast | For the Occupied Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
GregPalast.com

This is a true story.

CHICAGO.  In a school with some of the poorest kids in Chicago, one English teacher – I won't use her name – who'd been cemented into the school system for over a decade, wouldn't do a damn thing to lift test scores, yet had an annual salary level of close to $70,000 a year.  Under Chicago's new rules holding teachers accountable and allowing charter schools to compete, this seniority-bloated teacher was finally fired by the principal.

In a nearby neighborhood, a charter school, part of the city system, had complete freedom to hire.  No teachers' union interference. The charter school was able to bring in an innovative English teacher with advanced degrees and a national reputation in her field - for $29,000 a year less than was paid to the fired teacher.

You've guessed it by now:  It's the same teacher.

It's Back to School Time!  Time for the editorialists and the Tea Party, the GOP and Barack Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan to rip into the people who dare teach in public schools.

And in Arne's old stomping grounds, Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is stomping on the teachers, pushing them into the street.

Let's stop kidding ourselves. This is what Mitt Romney and Obama and Arne Duncan and Paul Ryan have in mind when they promote charter schools and the right to fire teachers with tenure:  slash teachers salaries and bust their unions.

They've almost stopped pretending, too.  Both the Right Wing-nuts and the Obama Administration laud the "progress" of New Orleans' schools–a deeply sick joke.  The poorest students, that struggle most with standardized tests, were drowned or washed away.

One thing Democrat Emanuel and Republican Romney both demand of Chicago teachers is that their pay, their jobs, depend on "standardized tests." Yes, but whose standard?

Here is an actual question from the standardized test that were given third graders here in NYC by the nation's biggest test-for-profit company:

"...Most young tennis stars learn the game from coaches at private clubs.  In this sentence a private club is...."   Then you have some choices in which the right answer is "Country Club - place where people meet."

Now not many of the "people [who] meet" at country clubs are from the South Side of Chicago--unless their parents are caddies.  A teacher on the South Side whose students are puzzled by the question will lose their pay or job. Students on the lakefront Gold Coast all know that mommy plays tennis at the Country Club with Raul on Wednesdays. So their teacher gets a raise and their school has high marks.

And while Mayor Rahm promises kids in "bad" schools new teachers (the same ones at lower pay) at high-score schools, in fact, they are never actually allowed in.

But Rahm, after all, is just imposing Bush education law which should be called, No Child's Behind Left.

You want to know what's wrong with our schools?  Benno Schmidt, CEO of the big Edison Schools teach-for-profit business is a creepy, greedy privateer.  But he told me straight: that before Hurricane Katrina, his company would never go into New Orleans because Louisiana spent peanuts per child on education.  He made it clear: You get what you pay for.  Not what you test for.  

So the charter carpetbaggers slither in, cherry-pick the easy students, declare success. The tough cases and special ed kids are left in the public system so they can claim the public system fails.

Here's what the teacher who was terrible at $70,000 but brilliant at $41,000 told me:
"They're not doing this in white neighborhoods.  And they want to get rid of the older, experienced teachers with seniority who cost more.  Get rid of the teachers and, ultimately get rid of the kids.  And the charter school gets to pick the kids who get in."

It's simple.  When you look at the drop-out rates in New York (41%) and Chicago (44%), the solution offered is to pay teachers less. They punish those who dare to work in poor schools where kids struggle and you can bet that "washing away" half the kids in our schools is, in fact, exactly what they've planned.

It's notable that, when he lived in Chicago, Barack Obama played basketball with city school chief Arne Duncan, but Obama sure as hell didn't send his kids to Arne's crap public schools. Those are for po' folk.

His kids went to the tony "Lab" School in Hyde Park.  Obama believes what Duncan believes and what Romney believes:  there's no need for universal education and no need to spend money on it.  Yes, they like to say that "children are our future."  But they mean the children of China are our future, the Chinese kids who will make the stuff we want and the children of India who will program it all for us.

After all, how much education does some obese kid from Texas need to stack boxes from China in a Wal-Mart warehouse?

Education is no longer about information and learning skills.  It's now about "triage."  A few selected by standardized tests or privileged birth will be anointed and permitted into better and "gifted" schools.

The chosen elite are still very much needed:  to invest in India and Vietnam, to design new derivatives to circumvent the laughable new banking laws, and to maintain order among the restless hundred-million drop-outs squeezed out of the colon of our educational system.

Democrats' Bantustans, Republicans' Value-less Vouchers.

The Obama/Duncan/Emanuel plan is to create Bantustans of un-chartered, cheaply-run dumpster schools within a government system.  But Romney and the GOP would give every child a "choice" even outside government schools with "vouchers."

Of course, the "vouchers" don't vouch for much.  Romney's old alma mater, Cranbrook Academy, runs at $34,025 a year, not counting the polo sticks and horse.  The most generous voucher program is Washington DC's, beloved of the GOP, which pays about $7,500, or if the student's "choice" is Cranbrook, about 2 months of school.  Hyde Park Day School Chicago is $35,900.  To give each kid a real choice, not just a coupon, means a massive increase in spending per pupil.  I didn't see that in the Republican platform, did you?

The experienced teacher in Chicago who took the pay cut was offered one consolation.  She was told she could make up some of the pay loss by quitting the union and saving on union dues.

So that's the program.  An educational Katrina: squeeze the teachers until they strike, demolish their unions and drown the students.

Chicago's classroom war is class war by another name.

Class dismissed.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and Vultures' Picnic.

Palast's brand new book Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, will be out on September 18. You can pre-order Billionaires & Ballot Bandits from Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Indie Bound. Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.

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Jeb Bush eyed as latest 'white knight' candidate in GOP presidential race

Former Florida governor was critical of current field in a speech this week, prompting rumours he could be a surprise contender
Paul Harris in New York
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 February 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/24/jeb-bush-latest-white-knight-republican

Speculation that a late challenger might still emerge in the increasingly bitter race for the Republican presidential nomination is set to surge after former Florida governor Jeb Bush made remarks criticising the current field.

Bush, who is the brother of President George W Bush and son of President George Bush Sr, is a beloved figure among many conservatives who see him as a strong and charismatic leader who is popular in the must-win swing state of Florida.

That contrasts with a widespread unease among many Republican leaders and grassroots activists with the remaining crop of Republican candidates and the vitriolic nature of the fight between frontrunner Mitt Romney and his main challengers Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

In answers to questions from the audience after a speech in Dallas on Thursday, Bush cautioned the remaining Republican campaigns from drifting so far to the right that they put off the key independent voters needed to beat President Barack Obama in November.

"I think it's important for the candidates to recognise though they have to appeal to primary voters, and not turn off independent voters that will be part of a winning coalition," Bush told the audience according to CBS news.

Bush also directly took on the strident tone of recent Republican debates, accusing participants of scare-mongering. "I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are," he said according to Fox News.

With Mitt Romney failing so far to secure the nomination but with no convincing challenger emerging to unseat him, many Republican pundits have speculated about the possibility that none of the current field will be able to amass enough support to secure the nomination this August in Tampa.

Though that is still unlikely, and Romney remains favourite to win the contest, it has led to a slew of names being mentioned as possible "white knights" who could still enter the race or emerge at Tampa as a compromise candidate to unite a splintered party. They include Bush, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Indiana governor Mitch Daniels and Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.

Though none of these figures have expressed any intention to run, and several have repeatedly denied it, Bush's comments are likely to set the rumour mill spinning furiously.

They also come after Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin entered the fray, raising the idea that she might see herself as her party's saviour. In recent interviews the former Alaska governor has said she would "help" out the party if a contested convention happened and told CNN earlier this month that she believed such an event would be a good thing. "I don't think it would be a negative for the party … That's part of the competition, that's part of the process and it may happen," she said.

Ron Paul's campaign has also complicated matters. Though the libertarian-leaning Texan congressman has not yet won a single state's popular ballot, he is trying to build up a large number of delegates to take to Tampa. In caucus states, where complex rules mean the number of delegates assigned to a candidate can outweigh their score in the popular vote, Ron Paul's campaign is working hard to win as much support as possible. That could see him amass a body of delegates in Tampa that far exceeds his standings in the polls and makes a contested convention, with no one having enough support to secure victory, more likely.

Alan Grayson Blasts Tea Party Debate

Alan Grayson Blasts Tea Party Debate Audience's Reaction To Health Care Question: 'It's Sadism'
9/12/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/alan-grayson-tea-party-debate-health-care_n_959383.html

The jubilant shouts of members of the GOP audience encouraging the death of a hypothetical uninsured man bring to mind the 2009 House floor speech delivered by former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson, in which he famously charged: "The Republicans want you to die quickly if you get sick." Members of the crowd at the Tampa debate agree with Grayson.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer, the event's moderator, posed the hypothetical question to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas): What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn't have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? "Are you saying society should just let him die?" Wolf Blitzer asked.

"Yeah!" several members of the crowd yelled out.

HuffPost asked Grayson what he thought of the crowd cheering for the death of the uninsured man. He writes:

My speech was about the fact I had been listening to the Republicans for months, and they literally had no plan to help all those millions of people who can’t see a doctor when they’re sick. So I said, in sort of a wry manner, that their plan was "don’t get sick." All I really wanted to do was just call attention to the stark absence of a Republican plan. But Fox, trying to take the heat off Joe Wilson and Sarah Palin I guess, transmogrified that into a charge that Republicans want to kill people.

What you saw tonight is something much more sinister than not having a healthcare plan. It's sadism, pure and simple. It's the same impulse that led people in the Coliseum to cheer when the lions ate the Christians. And that seems to be where we are heading -- bread and circuses, without the bread. The world that Hobbes wrote about -- "the war of all against all."

Not Another Ransom Note from Congressman Boehner

Greg Palast
August 2, 2011

It was quite upsetting to find our President blindfolded and tied to a chair at the GOP Tea Party headquarters, but I'm sure the $2.2 trillion ransom we paid to the hostage-takers is worth it.

Well, now that the Obama presidency is over, we can move on to more serious matters.

Look out your window. What you'll see is that, while the debt-ceiling hostage crisis played out on cable TV, the planet has been burning down.

You haven't heard a lot from me this year—because the normally-noisy Palast investigations team has chosen to spend these months quietly digging into unreported cases of economic and environmental arson. It will all hit the presses and TV when we launch a new book and films later this year.

But the investigations continue at full tilt:

#1. Too Far Beyond Petroleum. Long, long ago (April 2010), BP's Deepwater Horizon exploded, taking 11 lives and a million livelihoods. We haven't forgotten: Our crew has gone from the Arctic Circle to the byzantine streets of Baku to the Amazon rainforest and, finally, to the Gulf of Mexico to get the story on BP you won't get on CNN.

In the course of hunting down clues to a massive BP bribery scheme, we found a CIA bagman who paid $105 million to petro-dictators for BP's Big Oil US brethren. That's just one episode from our film of the investigation to be released by BBC Worldwide.

#2. We are in the midst of a full-blown investigation of the nuclear industry which, despite Fukushima, is rising from the crypt, resurrected by billions of dollars in government guarantees. You think the Fukushima disaster was just a Japanese affair? We have the stone-cold evidence that earthquake testing at US plants has been faked. There's more. We have four nervous whistleblowers ready to tell their horror stories.

#3. Finance Vultures. Last year, our exposure of a creepy outfit called 'FH International' led to the British Parliament banning debt vultures from using their courts and the FBI to stick G-men on the case. Our reports saved the nation of Liberia from bankruptcy—but other predators are flying in through loopholes in the laws, attacking the poorest of the poor.

So we're back on the Vulture hunt... this time we'll head to the Congo, then to deepest, darkest New York. Vulture Number One is also, not coincidentally, the Number One donor to the Republican Party.

#4. Fried Greece. The Palast team has uncovered hundreds of confidential documents from inside the World Bank and IMF. We know the arsonists who have lit the fires burning Greece. My years of training as a forensic economist are getting a good test in working out the inside story. Remember: Greece today, Los Angeles tomorrow.

#5. The Theft of 2012. For twelve years, the Palast team (with BBC Newsnight and our partners at The Guardian and Rolling Stone) have led in investigating and exposing vote suppression, vote manipulation and downright elections theft. Our team uncovered voter "caging" (and gave it its name) only days after Karl Rove's team began implementing this sick ballot-bending game. But new games are afoot.

Katherine Harris calls me "twisted and maniacal." Well, Kate, I'm ready to twist again to uncover the latest twisted tricks which will be used to attempt another heist of the White House.

That's an awful lot on our plate for this mighty little team of ours.

If you have information, suggestions or documents marked confidential on these topics, we want it all. Contact@GregPalast.com.

And please spread the word: Ask five of your friends to subscribe to our website and join us on Facebook and Twitter. That's where we'll be releasing the news of our investigations and reports.

Yours,
Greg Palast

P.S. This is not a pitch for donations but, to be honest, the bills are past due. Think of it this way: the planet's on fire and only the truth will put out the flames. We're holding the hose, so please turn on the water. (My Lord, that's a second-rate metaphor, but you get the idea. Your donation to our foundation is tax deductible.)

P.P.S. If you want to hear the latest on Jo Rowling, read my daughter's note about JK Rowling at Who killed "Stieg" Larsson?
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Forensic economist and journalist Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.

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The US Constitution Makes Default Illegal

The US Constitution Makes Default Illegal
What a Real President Would Do
August 1, 2011
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
http://tarpley.net/2011/07/27/a-real-president-would-call-default-unconstitutional

My fellow Americans:

I speak to you tonight in an hour of grave danger to our nation. As you know, within the next few hours our government is in danger of failing to make payments of interest and principal which the United States Treasury has contracted to make. In technical terms, we are not far away from beginning to default on payments associated with those US Treasury securities which represent the public debt of the United States. As part of the same crisis, there is now a threat to over 70 million checks which your government issues every month — payments which go to recipients of Social Security, to providers of health services under the Medicare program, to Medicaid beneficiaries, to our active-duty and retired military personnel, to our defense contractors, to our government employees — in short, to everyone who receives a benefit from the federal government, who works for the federal government, or who does business with the federal government.

Default Means National Bankruptcy and World Chaos

A default of this kind means nothing less than national bankruptcy. Default is the essence of chaos and anarchy. It is a peril which we have successfully avoided during our entire existence as a nation, through a terrible civil war and the two world wars of the past century.

The United States dollar continues to play the role of the world reserve currency. This means that the central banks on every continent have chosen to maintain large portions of their reserves in the form of US Treasury securities. This role has been slightly diminished in recent years, but it is substantially intact. For the US government to default on payments through the US Treasury would therefore provoke a radical devaluation of the central bank reserves of the entire globe, wiping out some central banks and leaving others critically weakened. This might lead to massive dumping of US Treasury securities, leading to a general world panic to which no asset class would remain immune. We might see a dramatic decline of the dollar. This would represent the disintegration of the current world financial system, and a breakdown crisis of economic activity of unthinkable proportions. This might happen immediately, or it might require months or even years to explode in its full fury. In any case, it would put the United States on the road to national decline.

If you recall how financial markets seized up and ceased to function in the terrible days of September and October 2008, you have some inkling of the kind of catastrophic market climate that would be unleashed by the national bankruptcy of the United States. Borrowing, credit, mortgages, car financing, credit cards, and the like would not just require astronomical interest rates; many kinds of lending would disappear altogether. Millions more jobs would be lost.

The Public Credit is an Asset for All Americans and for the World

The United States Treasury securities market, with its $1 trillion per day of turnover, represents a unique national asset for our country. It is a signal achievement of the American System of Political Economy founded by Alexander Hamilton. It is the broadest, deepest, and most liquid market in the world. It is capable of absorbing trillions of dollars of securities and turning them into cash within a few hours – a capability unique on this planet. Despite how indignant we all are about the abuses of Wall Street, it would be extremely unwise to permit the Treasury securities market to be wrecked by ideological fanatics. All the more so since the Treasury market is unique in the world, and its extinction would leave no currency whatsoever in a position to function as the reserve medium of the world. This would have terrible implications for world trade and investment.

In short, our Treasury securities are the bedrock of all economic activity in this planet, and the common interest of humanity is well served by avoiding their chaotic insolvency.

The “Tea Party Caucus”: Right-wing Anarchists Funded by Malefactors of Great Wealth

Why, many Americans may wonder, should this crisis exist today? Here it is useless to talk in euphemisms in order to appear conciliatory; it is now necessary to call things by their names. As a result of the current world economic and financial depression which began in 2007-2008, the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, now calling itself the Tea Party, has been energized and revitalized. They have also begun to receive large amounts of political funding, including from a sinister individual who is reported to be the richest man in New York City. These are the malefactors of great wealth about whom presidents of both parties have been warning you for over a century. The goal of these opulent backers of the so-called Tea Party is to eliminate taxation and regulation upon themselves and their private business interests, many of which are in direct conflict with the public good. The impact of this Tea Party on public opinion has been magnified out of all proportion by the collusion of corrupt media cartels; in reality, the supporters of the so-called Tea Party do not exceed about 15% of our population.

Neo-Feudalism

Thanks to the economic royalists who support them, a Tea Party contingent numbering almost 90 members has entered the House of Representatives. Many are political novices. Many of them sincerely believe in the strange and un-American foreign doctrines of the Austrian school, according to which government is an unnecessary evil which needs to be abolished. It is entirely proper to see them as a species of right wing anarchist. The market, by contrast, they fetishize as infallible, and deserving of unbridled free reign over all the human affairs. They want a market without a government, something which has not existed in human affairs since the transition from the Old Stone Age to the Neolithic age, when the state emerged. The free market with no role whatsoever for government went out with Alley Oop the cave man, and it is not likely to return.

And all too often, the market of which they speak turns out not to be free, but rather dominated by predatory cartels, monopolies, and oligopolies. They are devoted to the causes of deregulation, privatization, the abolition of trade unions, more privileges for the wealthy, and a race to the bottom among the states. The world for which they are striving resembles perhaps nothing so much as feudalism as seen in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire – and, like that anarchic chaos, it can only be described as A New Dark Age.

Most especially, these right wing anarchists of the Tea Party hate the social safety net which incorporates the precious economic rights for which the struggles of the American people won recognition during the New Deal and the Great Society. I am referring of course to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, the Head Start Program, the WIC program of high-protein meals for expectant mothers and infants, and many more. I am also referring to the right to collective bargaining for wage earners in the public and private sectors alike, and other features of a humane modern society.

Their reasons for this view read like a catalogue of the seven deadly sins, with pride, greed, rage, and envy in the lead. To these we must add class hatred, and also racism, since many of them are obsessed with the idea that their taxes are being spent to help minority groups.

New Deal America Repudiates the Tea Party

The problem faced by the Tea Party Republicans is that two thirds to three quarters of the American people warmly support the social safety net created by the New Deal and the Great Society. A recent poll has also shown that fully 80% of Americans want tax rates on the super-rich to be increased. Despite so many years of radio ranting, venal professors, and merciless sloganeering by politicians, the American people continue to repudiate the ideological platform of the so-called Tea Party. There is no hope their program could ever get passed.

Out of their despair that their ideological goals could ever be met through the democratic process, these wealthy individuals and their anarchist following have evolved a diabolical strategy. Their strategy is extortion. It is an attempt to place the United States government under duress. It is an attempt to mutilate, alter, and denature our Constitution through unconstitutional means.

It is nothing short of an illegal coup d’etat.

The Tea Party cloaks themselves in public as the greatest admirers of the U.S. Constitution. But in one concrete instance after another, we find that the Tea Party is at war with the Constitution.

The Tea Party Hates the Constitution in Practice

Our Constitution speaks not once but twice about the general welfare. To the Tea Party, this is anathema, since they believe that government should serve the wealthy few.

In terms of the issue at hand, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies that the Congress shall have the power “To borrow money on the credit of the United States.”

This is once again anathema to the Tea Party. In such a fundamental provision as this, enacted in response to the bitter lessons of ungovernability taught by the Articles of Confederation interlude, the Tea Party faction sets itself above the wisdom of the founders. The Tea Party would rewrite this provision to read that the Congress shall NOT have the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States, and the framers be damned.

This is what they admit when they demand their so-called balanced budget amendment. Such an amendment would destroy the finely wrought mechanism of the separation of powers and its accompanying checks and balances, which have served us so well over the centuries. But it is also a subterfuge, since the Tea Party knows very well that this amendment has no chance of being approved by the Congress, nor by the states. Rather, it has included in their litany of cut, cap, and balance purely as a deal-breaker, to make absolutely sure that no possible settlement can be forthcoming in the time available. They are determined to make all negotiations fail.

The Tea Party Goal is to Bankrupt the United States

The goal of the Tea Party faction of Congress is nothing less than the national bankruptcy of the United States, procured by forcing our default on the contractual and legal obligations of this government. They regard default and bankruptcy as positive goods, and indeed as indispensable steps on the path to the free market utopia they fondly imagine. Their reasoning is that, once the United States has gone bankrupt, it will henceforth be either prohibitively expensive or totally impossible for the Treasury to sell its bonds on the world financial markets. Therefore, payments on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs will have to be cut – not by law, but by the brute force of having no money.

This they do in wartime, with some 160,000 troops in the field, many of them fighting determined enemies on the other side of the world.

They claim they want predictabilty to allow businesses to create jobs, yet they court the greatest chaos and instability our nation has ever faced in our financial affairs – insolvency.

These same Tea Party ideologues, still feigning a concern about the American people, have already sponsored legislation which would give foreign creditors — the Chinese, the Japanese, the Saudis, and others — top priority in payments made by the federal government, ahead of our military personnel. According to these bills, we can be sure that Americans whose lives depend on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will be dead last when disbursements are made. We can perhaps now see the real dimensions of the sinister plan with which we are confronted. By driving this government into bankruptcy, the Tea Party hopes to roll back the Constitution by wrecking the Congressional ability to borrow money as a practical matter, while at the same time destroying the entitlement programs which the most extreme Republicans have hated since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

And not just Tea Party fanatics endorse this strategy. Indeed, it has the sympathy of rich elitists of all political stripes, including the academic and foundation left, who welcome the effort to strip away the economic rights of the American people.

Default Spells Genocide Against the American People

This is a policy which threatens the very lives of millions of Americans. It raises the specter of genocide against our own people. And I have not become President of the United States to preside over genocide against Americans.

I am not motivated by any ambition for the aggrandizement of the powers of the presidency. I have negotiated in good faith for months. The other side has not. I have offered reasonable concessions. Indeed, I have waited until now, when the clock reads five minutes to twelve, constantly hoping that the legislative process in Congress would yield an acceptable result. But now, with the specter of national bankruptcy in full view, and no reasonable outcome forthcoming, it is my responsibility to act. Since I sit in the seat that belonged to Washington and Lincoln and Roosevelt, it is my hope that my actions may be worthy of their heritage.

In a Conflict Among Statutes, the Constitution Decides

I am faced first of all with a conflict among statutes passed by Congress. On the one hand there is the debt ceiling law, which states that the Total Public Debt Outstanding of the United States of America shall not exceed $14.294 trillion. Since our public debt reached that level on May 16, this statute could be interpreted as barring any further auctions of United States treasury bills, notes, and bonds. And if we cannot borrow money in this way, since our current income is inadequate to meet all our obligations, we are headed for default, bankruptcy, and, worst of all, social chaos.

But this is not the only statute in the US Code. There are also other statutes to which I must pay attention. All public expenditure of the United States government, as you know, is carried out by law — by a law called the federal budget, which specifies what amounts are to be spent and on what. Every expenditure has to go through the Congress not once but twice — it must be authorized, and then it must be appropriated, and each of these requires the consent of the two houses of Congress and the signature of the president. I am now confronted with a series of expenditures which the current Fiscal Year 2011 budget, passed by Congress and signed into law by me, requires me to make. This includes the entire vast array of social safety net, defense, transportation, health, regulation, inspection, government employment, and other activities which I outlined above. I am under legal compulsion to make these expenditures.

Concerning Treasury securities outstanding, each one of these is an explicit contract that the United States government will pay specific sums of interest and principal at specified dates. Respect from the sanctity of contracts also requires me to make every one of these payments, without exception.

This is therefore my situation: on the one hand, the debt ceiling forbids me to borrow. On the other hand, the federal budget and the implied contracts represented by entitlements and Treasury securities require me to pay. Since tax revenue, partly because of recent and misguided legislation, is not adequate to make all of these payments, something has to give.

It is obvious that, when two or more statutes conflict, we need to look to the Constitution itself for guidance as to which one will apply. Given the extraordinary attention which the Constitution gives the concept of the general welfare, this guiding principle needs always to be kept in mind. Beyond this, our founding document contains two especially relevant provisions. On the one hand, we find that it is Congress which has the power to borrow money. But on the other hand we also have the 14th amendment, section 4 which states:

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

In other words, this country is not allowed to default. Default is unconstitutional. Default is illegal. Default is a federal crime.

This is not an option which I can choose to exercise or ignore. It is not something I can invoke or not invoke. This is the Constitution talking. This provision binds me, and ought to bind the opposition in Congress, since they too have sworn to uphold the Constitution.

The Debt Ceiling is Unconstitutional and Must Be Disregarded

This provision places upon the President the responsibility to guarantee the timely payment of all United States debt obligations, regardless of attempts to the contrary that might come from other organs of government, including Congress or, for that matter, the courts. These words make me the ultimate guarantor of the solvency of the United States, especially under emergency conditions in which other branches of government have failed to do this. I am the last backstop. The buck stops here.

By contrast, the Constitution nowhere makes any reference to a debt limit. In fact, the first debt limit was instituted in 1917, less than a hundred years ago. Somehow we got through our first century and a quarter of national life, conquered the frontier, won the Civil War, and created the world’s greatest industrial power without any need for a debt ceiling.

In my considered judgment, and in the light of Amendment 14, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution, a statutory debt ceiling is therefore unconstitutional. And all competent constitutional jurisprudence agrees that the president must not be bound by legislation which the courts are likely to find unconstitutional. This is all the more true in the present acute crisis.

Accordingly, I have issued an executive order directing the Secretary of the Treasury to resume Treasury auctions today, August 1, 2011, with a view to maintaining the uninterrupted ability of the United States to meet all of its financial obligations, budget and debt, foreign and domestic, without exception. The full faith and credit of our country will be maintained.

I cordially invite the Congress to approve and validate this decision ex post facto.

If your child is in Head Start, it will remain open. If you rely on Social Security, this means you will get your check. If your life depends on Medicare, you can rest assured that your doctors and hospitals will be paid on time so that they can continue their useful activity. If you are living in a nursing home and require Medicaid, those payments will also be available. If you are a member of the military, or a government employee of any kind, you will receive your salary on time. If you are a private firm doing business as a contractor with the government of the United States, you will be able to meet your payroll. If you are carrying out medical research or other scientific research funded by a US government grant, you can be assured that this support will not be interrupted. If you are a person or institution or government anywhere in the world who has purchased United States Treasury securities, you will be paid every penny, on time. If you want to buy a United States Savings Bond or cash one in, you can go ahead and do it.

Those intent on bankrupting the government of the United States and pitching our country into chaos may attempt to reverse this decision in the courts. I have directed the Solicitor General of the United States to prepare to refute their arguments. Since our constitutional position is strong, I have no doubt that we will prevail.

Some will say that the debt ceiling has been around for almost a century, and that so many precedents should not be overturned. That kind of thinking would leave us in bondage to judicial monstrosities like Plessy v. Ferguson, which validated racial segregation, or the infamous Dred Scott decision, which said that skin color was the basis for denying people rights given by God and natural law, and recognized by the Constitution. It will not be the first time we have fixed what turned out to be a terrible mistake.

Others in the House of Representatives bent on driving our nation into default have already announced their intention of impeaching me over this issue. I welcome their attack and the opportunity it will give to further clarify these great issues of the American public.

They will try to impeach me for what I am doing to save the public credit of the United States. In my view, I would truly deserve impeachment were I to refrain from taking this timely action. The President must take care that the laws be faithfully enforced, and this includes the federal budget and the commitments embodied in our entitlements programs and in the solvency of our Treasury securities.

I look forward to next year’s elections, which I expect will be largely fought over this issue and the larger questions which it raises.

Some have raised the question of the debt ratings agencies, and of their future evaluation of the United States public debt in the light of these events. I take this opportunity to announce that the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, and the FBI, acting under my direction, have initiated a comprehensive investigation of corruption and malfeasance which has been alleged against these ratings agencies in connection with their failure to provide timely warning to investors who had purchased certain toxic derivative securities in 2007-2008. We are also studying the legal means of depriving these ratings agencies of the extraordinary and quasi-governmental authority they exercise because of laws and regulations which limit certain forms of public and private investment to securities which have received favorable ratings from these agencies. To this end, we are cooperating with the authorities in Italy and other countries who have also undertaken aggressive investigations of the corruption of these ratings agencies.

The Department of Justice is also investigating reports that members of Congress have entered into criminal conspiracies with bankers and hedge fund operators for the purpose of selling Treasury securities short in the context of the current crisis, and linked this to the votes they cast. The Attorney General has promised to report on this issue at the earliest possible date.

For my part, I do not intend to sell America short. Historically, those who have bet against the United States have not prevailed, nor will they prevail today.

My great predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, delivered his first inaugural address on a morning in March 1933 when every bank in our country had been forced to close its doors because of panic runs, and the economic heart of the nation had stopped beating. In the face of that emergency, the defiant rallying figure of FDR promised action with these words:

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure. I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require.

Roosevelt spoke these words at a time when a new Congress had failed for almost three months to do anything meaningful to fight the Great Depression and the banking panic which were ravaging the land in those years. Some at that time had concluded that our form of government was unworkable in a modern crisis, and they were looking abroad for new models of totalitarianism. We must always realize that any system of government which cannot solve the most urgent, life and death problems of the everyday life of the people is not long for this world. It risks being swept aside. If democracy brings chaos, that may be the end of democracy. In this sense, the future our democratic representative government depends on our solvency.

It is in this spirit that I am dealing with the current crisis. I remind you all that, while avoiding national bankruptcy and default in the short-term is absolutely indispensable, this will not by itself solve the majority of our economic problems. The world will remain gripped by an economic and financial depression of incalculable proportions. We will still have some 30 million unemployed in our country. We will still witness American families thrown on the street by fraudulent foreclosures. We will require a comprehensive economic recovery program, supplemented by significant domestic reforms, and capped by a new world monetary system, to put the current world depression behind us.

It is, however, my hope that, by rebuffing those political forces seeking to drive our country into bankruptcy and chaos, we have gained the time necessary to address these issues of economic recovery and financial reform free from the climate of blackmail, extortion, and shakedown.

In the meantime, America will be open for business, today, tomorrow, and every day. Equally important, we can be confident in the ability of our constitutional system to protect the general welfare and the public interest from the machinations of small cliques of fanatics, wealthy though they may be.

I ask for your support. Thank you.

Roger Ailes’ Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News

John Cook
Jun 30, 2011
http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news

Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.
The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included in a 318-page cache of documents detailing Ailes' work for both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations that we obtained from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries. Through his firms REA Productions and Ailes Communications, Inc., Ailes served as paid consultant to both presidents in the 1970s and 1990s, offering detailed and shrewd advice ranging from what ties to wear to how to keep the pressure up on Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Gulf War.

The documents—drawn mostly from the papers of Nixon chief of staff and felon H.R. Haldeman and Bush chief of staff John Sununu—reveal Ailes to be a tireless television producer and joyful propagandist. He was a forceful advocate for the power of television to shape the political narrative, and he reveled in the minutiae constructing political spectacles—stage-managing, for instance, the lighting of the White House Christmas tree with painstaking care. He frequently floated ideas for creating staged events and strategies for manipulating the mainstream media into favorable coverage, and used his contacts at the networks to sniff out the emergence of threatening narratives and offer advice on how to snuff them out—warning Bush, for example, to lay off the golf as war in the Middle East approached because journalists were starting to talk. There are also occasional references to dirty political tricks, as well as some positions that seem at odds with the Tea Party politics of present-day Fox News: Ailes supported government regulation of political campaign ads on television, including strict limits on spending. He also advised Nixon to address high school students, a move that caused his network to shriek about "indoctrination" when Obama did it more than 30 years later.

All 318 pages are available here:

http://gawkernet.com/ailesfiles/ailesfiles.html

May 1933: Hitler Abolishes Unions

Ole Ole Olson
NEWS JUNKIE POST
Feb 20, 2011
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/02/20/may-1933-hitler-abolishes-unions

On May 2nd, 1933, the day after Labor day, Nazi groups occupied union halls and labor leaders were arrested. Trade Unions were outlawed by Adolf Hitler, while collective bargaining and the right to strike was abolished. This was the beginning of a consolidation of power by the fascist regime which systematically wiped out all opposition groups, starting with unions, liberals, socialists, and communists using Himmler’s state police.

Fast forward to America today, particularly Wisconsin. Governor Walker and the Republican/Tea Party members of the state legislature are attempting to pass a bill that would not only severely punish public unions (with exception for the police, fire, and state trooper unions that supported his campaign), but it would effectively end 50 years to the right of these workers to collectively bargain.
*
Collective bargaining is a process of voluntary negotiations between employers and trade unions aimed at reaching agreements which regulate working conditions. Collective agreements usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.
-wiki

First of all, assaulting the rights of workers to collectively bargain has absolutely nothing to do with any immediate budgetary issues. It does however have everything to do with ending one of the basic rights of labor to organize.

Second, and more importantly, the budget “crisis” in Wisconsin is both exaggerated and created in part by the new Republican power base as a tool to attack political opponents. Walker decreased state revenue when he enacted tax cuts for the rich and big corporations, who are not surprisingly large campaign donors for his political campaign.
*
To the extent that there is an imbalance — Walker claims there is a $137 million deficit — it is not because of a drop in revenues or increases in the cost of state employee contracts, benefits or pensions. It is because Walker and his allies pushed through $140 million in new spending for special-interest groups in January. If the Legislature were simply to rescind Walker’s new spending schemes — or delay their implementation until they are offset by fresh revenues — the “crisis” would not exist.
-The Cap Times

Decimating unions has long been an objective of the rich and powerful. Growing out of trade guilds in Medieval Europe, they were banned starting with the Ordinance of Labourers 1349 and Statute of Labourers in England. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that labor began to organize again.

Every little gain for the rights of workers was hard fought and bitterly resisted by the rich and powerful. The photo above shows the Lawrence Textile Strike (also known as the Bread and Roses strike) where mostly immigrant workers rebelled against increasingly harsh work conditions and lowered pay caused by mechanization. Specifically, state law mandated a reduction in working hours for women and children from 56 to 54 hours, and factory owners responded by cutting salaries, something the poor workers could not afford.

Over time, organized labor managed to abolish child labor all together, as well as institute an 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week, mandatory breaks, safety guidelines, grievance procedures, a minimum wage, the concept of a work free weekend, workers comp, pensions, health safeguards, and paid sick days, vacation days, and holidays. If you enjoy any of these things, thank a union member and support the passage of a strong Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

Collective Bargaining in the US was finally legalized for the private sector on a countrywide scale in 1935 with the National Labor Relations Act signed by FDR. JFK signed an executive order extending this right to the public sector in 1962.

Governor Walker’s bill being sped through the Wisconsin legislature would mandate health insurance contributions by public employees, force them to pay more for their promised pensions, and remove bargaining rights. When public employees started protesting, Walker instructed the state National Guard to be “prepared” if any “problems” should arise, in what could be described as a thinly veiled intimidation tactic.

Although this draconian bill will not outlaw unions, it will effectively neuter them, as their CPI adjusted wages will be frozen and all other means cannot be improved as a whole. Public sector unions will lose their freedom to negotiate against the state together. This is a deliberate tactic to punish political opponents and to effectively lessen the rights of working Americans everywhere for the benefit of the rich and multinational corporations.
*
Walker’s plan to eviscerate collective bargaining rights for public employees is right out of the Koch brothers’ playbook. Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions. Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. In Wisconsin, this conservative, anti-union view is being placed into action by lawmakers in sync with the deep-pocketed donors who helped them obtain power. (Walker also opposes the state’s Clean Energy Job Act, which would compel the state to increase its use of alternative energy.) At this moment—even with the Wisconsin uprising unresolved—the Koch brothers’ investment in Walker appears to be paying off.
-Mother Jones

In response to this open revolt on at the Wisconsin state capitol, which saw crowds initially in the hundreds quickly swell to tens of thousands, a Tea Party group hastily organized a counter rally on Sunday. Dozens of free buses were mysteriously available from both inside and outside the state for Tea Partiers, with no mention of who paid for them, leading to speculation that this is blatant corporate astroturfing. At publishing time no camels were being charged into the estimated 70,000 pro-worker/anti-Walker demonstrators [creative humor license].
*
The Americans for Prosperity group, a Tea Party group that is a Koch Brothers front, has put up a website [for the Tea Party Rally that] attacks all collective bargaining – not just for public employees’ unions.
-Forbes

Wisconsin is ground zero in the fight for worker’s rights in America. Following the ultra-conservative sweep of many state legislatures and governorships in the 2010 midterms, most Republicans are salivating at the opportunity to destroy the last stronghold of organized labor in America: the public sector.
*
Last year, more working people belonged to a union in the public sector (7.9 million) than in the private (7.4 million), despite the fact that corporate America employs five times the number of wage-earners. 37 percent of government workers belong to a union, compared with just 7 percent of private-sector employees.
-Alternet

The percentage of the work force that have been organized has been declining (along with many other things) since Reagan and the conservatives took power, ending the Great Compression and starting an epoch in American history known as the Great Divergence (which culminated in the Great Recession, which we are in today). Pro-corporate, fiscally conservative policies (such as deregulation and underfunding) have severely damaged private sector unions, unions that set the bar for standards and pay for all workers (thus, contributing towards the huge wealth concentration that is taking place).

The one point where this anti-union trend has not taken place is in the public sector.

This is precisely why the conservatives (mostly in the Republican Party) and their corporate masters are now planning the next phase in their strategy: to destroy public sector unions across the country. Right now, their assault has triggered a massive and growing revolt by not only public sector unions, but students, progressives, and working men and women across the Upper Midwest region of the US.

The corporate front groups are desperately trying to play catchup and unleash their Tea Party legions, who need little convincing as apparent from the We Stand With Walker Facebook page. The fear and hate caused by disinformation and Fox Propaganda is palpable, and they are only too eager to “fight back” against supposed union transgressions both in the workplace and in demonstrations.

Which brings us back full circle. Union busting measures by Republicans in Wisconsin this week have brought up some disturbing historical parallels to another sad chapter from human history. This writer is not trying to say that Republicans are Nazis and the Tea Party are their Brownshirts, only that the union busting, corporate control over the government is part of the definition of fascism (along with authoritarian nationalism).

The attacks on unions that are taking place in American society today echoes a very sad chapter in Western history where unions were smashed for the benefit of a far right authoritarian corporate regime. When Hitler abolished unions in 1933, it was followed by a 25% drop in real wages, and ended the ability of workers to protect living standards, and this is one of those times where history should not be allowed to repeat itself.

Our Founding Fathers Were Liberal, NOT Conservative

http://www.politicususa.com/en/founding-fathers-liberal

Our Founding Fathers Were Liberal, NOT Conservative
December 18, 2010
Ray Medeiros

A lot has been said about our founding fathers in recent years. The Tea Party has all of the sudden become historical scholars. They have become the defenders of our Country and our Constitution. Glenn Beck is their proverbial historical professor. Unfortunately their knowledge is fairly limited to specifically what their Fox News comrade regurgitates.

In 1797, Paine wrote a pamphlet called “Agrarian Justice“. It was his last great pamphlet and it was addressed to the French legislature, itself in the throes of revolution. While he addressed the pamphlet to the French legislature, he meant the plan in it to be universal, as he said in his accompanying letter:

The plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular country alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the rights of man are a new study in this world, and one needing protection from priestly imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long established, I have thought it right to place this little work under your safeguard.

Paine starts his proposal by discussing poverty. First of all, he says poverty is not natural:

“Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.”

Paine decries the disparity of income just I have and many other liberals have today:

“Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.”

He accepts as a basic principle that:

“the condition of every person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born before that period.”

This thought is the same type of thought that we have today as Americans, We want the next generation to have a better standard of living than we had.

When Thomas Paine wrote this, unfortunately, this was not the case in 18th century Europe.

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.

Thomas Paine in the next paragraph plans how to solve this problem:

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
The property owners owe rent to those who do not own property for the privilege of cultivating the land, and taking away the natural ownership that all people have.

In my view, Thomas Paine is calling for Property taxes, and the the use of property tax to help the community as a whole.

In fact, Paine directly challenges the justification for pure private property with no community responsibilities:

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue.

Paine proceeds to justify private property on the common grounds that cultivation is important, but not without community responsibilities in exchange for permission to cultivate:

Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before

And just as today’s liberals continue do argue against the idea that they are simply trying to institutionalize charity or welfare, Paine rejected the idea that he was advocating for charity at all. Instead, he was advocating for a positive right.

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwords till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings

In other words, Paine considers a primary purpose of government to be remedying the problems of the marginalized poor as a fundamental right not as a form of institutionalized charity or welfare state.

In case you think this was all just an hypothesis, Paine finishes off with a detailed plan of how to move forward. His proposal:

To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:

And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.

This proposal sounds like a national pension plan, similar to Social Security. Later on, Paine also argues for the same 10 pound payment to be made to the disabled. By comparison, a housewife could make between 6 and 8 pounds for a year.

But how is a country expected to raise enough money to give every citizen that much money upon turning 21, and pay living expenses for the elderly and disabled? The answer is an estate tax, inheritance tax or as the conservatives like to call it the DEATH TAX.

Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be the best is at the moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is that the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.

Paine covers what kind of “revolution” he would like to see.”

It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good.

This quote by Thomas Paine is very similar to what I believe. Unfortunately through trickle down economics of the past
30 years we have seen people lose their jobs through outsourcing in order to increase the affluence of a few.

“I care not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, while so much misery is mingled in the scene.”
Many on the right call for charity to help the poor rather than society. While it has it’s good intentions, it is simply not enough.

Here Thomas Paine explains:

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pulleys, that the whole weight of misery can be removed.


In other words, government, through taxation, and proposals such as the one he’s outlining here, are the only solution to the problem. In fact, he argues that a prime purpose of government is to resolve vast income inequality.

Again arguing for this plan as part of the French Revolution, Paine points out that by helping the poor, France will be better off in the end:

A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens.

In other words, we can resolve the burden on society by vast poverty by simply making it easier for the impoverished to start life with something, instead of being trapped in the cycle of poverty. Almost sounds like a modern-day liberal, doesn’t he?

Further, he argues that it’s not enough to help the poor once they become poor–we must fundamentally alter the conditions that unjustly produce poverty.

It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with.

It is cheaper to fix the larger problem of poverty than it is to apply failing band-aids on top of the problems of the impoverished.

This particular quote, Thomas Paine responds in advance of the wealthy who will most likely attack him for advocating for a social safety net. He did this by telling them that they were in favor of war, which costs more in taxes than the Social Security, disability payments, and inheritance that he is proposing.

It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself; and I know that the possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually be benefitted by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But without entering any inquiry how they came by that property, let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in this plan.

So, you see or forefathers like Thomas Paine were not conservative in a sense of advocating for Economic Darwinism and individualism. There are many more quotes from various founding fathers all the way to today’s leaders and advocates.

Today we are still fighting the fight that led to Thomas Paine writing this pamphlet and we must continue, no matter what the cost.

Tea Party President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/30/tea-party-voting-property
Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners
November 30th, 2010
Zaid Jilani

Every week, the Tea Party Nation hosts a weekly radio program, calling itself a “home for conservatives.” Two weeks ago, Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips hosted the program and discussed changes that he felt should be made to voting rights in the United States. He explained that the founders of the country originally put “certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote.” He continued, “One of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.”

Phillips is advocating a policy of voter disenfranchisement that has its roots in the 18th century. When the United States was first founded, ownership of property was one of the requirements to vote in most elections. Many of these restrictions were phased out by the 1820s and replaced with requirements that the voter pays taxes. By 1850, these requirements, too, were phased out. Nashville Scene blogger Betsy Phillips calls the Tea Party Nation president’s idea a “frivolous proposal designed to stoke intergenerational antagonism — as if the people who are older and can afford a home are somehow better citizens than the 18-year-olds who are going off to war to die for our country.”

Unfortunately, numerous major conservatives have advocated for rolling back the voting rights of Americans. Supreme Court justice Anthony Scalia, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX), Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), and Sen.-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) have all advocated for repealing the 17th Amendment, which would end direct election of U.S. Senators and return Senate elections to the purview of state legislatures.

Take a leaf from the Tea Party

Alan Hinnrichs
william_wallace_no1@yahoo.co.uk

It is heartening to see so many working class people taking to the streets across the country to oppose the Con-Dem cuts.

But marches alone will not be enough if we want to win, rather than just boost sales of the Socialist Worker.

We need to build a mass campaign of civil disobedience, occupying banks and bosses' front organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry or the Taxpayers' Alliance, not to mention the local headquarters of the crooked Tories and Lib Dems.

We also need a series of targeted national strikes.

We should not aim to go back to the way things were before the crisis of 2008.

We should be holding public meetings around Britain and Europe to raise a new series of demands modelled on the Black Panthers' 10 Point Programme or the ANC Freedom Charter.

We need to reverse many new Labour policies, such as fee-paying education, restrictions on the right to strike, and police harassment of demonstrators.

Ending our warmongering foreign policy and commitment to nuclear power stations is also necessary.

These demands can be presented at the London anti-cuts rally being planned for next March.

Local groups should be writing to the Morning Star to tell people where and when meetings are being held so we can co-ordinate on a national basis.

What we need is a Tea Party movement of the left.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/97021

Activist assaulted by Rand Paul supporters in Kentucky

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/paul-o27.shtml
Activist assaulted by Rand Paul supporters in Kentucky
Hiram Lee
27 October 2010

A video widely distributed on the Internet documents supporters of Rand Paul, the Republican and Tea Party-backed senate candidate in Kentucky, physically assaulting a liberal activist prior to a debate held on Monday in Lexington.

The victim, Lauren Valle, 23, a member of the pro-Democratic Party group MoveOn.org, was among a crowd of Paul supporters who had gathered at the site of the final debate of the election. As the candidate made his way into the debate hall, Valle attempted to present him with a satirical “employee-of-the-month award” from a fictional company called “RepubliCorp,” used by MoveOn.org to draw attention to Republican candidates’ ties to major corporations.

Video captured a number of Paul’s supporters reacting to Valle’s presence with evident rage. They violently forced Valle, a small woman who clearly posed no threat, to the ground. At least one man in the crowd then held her on the ground against her will, while another man holding a Rand Paul campaign sign stomped on her head, shoving her face into the concrete sidewalk. The assailant was later revealed to be Tim Profitt, a Paul campaign worker.

It is clear that the force of the kick could have severely injured Valle. While Valle was able to speak with the local media following the incident, her face was left swollen and her neck and shoulders were hurt. She spent the night in a Lexington hospital with a concussion and a sprained shoulder.

The attack is another indication of the type of deranged and fascistic elements being mobilized by the Tea Party movement and its candidates as they seek to form a popular base for extreme right-wing politics in the US. The Tea Party appeals to the most backward sentiments—anti-immigrant chauvinism, militarism, racism, religious intolerance, anti-gay bigotry—with the full support of its corporate backers and the Republican Party establishment.

The viscious rhetoric espoused by leading figures in the Tea Party movement, including Rand Paul, has created a political climate that, in effect, sanctions and encourages attacks like the one carried out on Lauren Valle.

The emergence of the far-right, and the growing threat of violence it portends, cannot be fought through the Democratic Party. This is made clear by the immediate context in which the attack on Valle occurred, the Senate race in Kentucky, which has been a thoroughly reactionary affair in which the objective interests of the state’s working class, devastated by the economic crisis, are completely blocked out.

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, Paul’s Democratic opponent in the election, has run a right-wing, anti-working class campaign in which he has attacked Paul from the right.

Conway is a millionaire, a supporter of the Iraq War, an advocate of the indefinite extension of the Bush tax cuts, an outspoken advocate of the death penalty, an opponent of gay marriage, and a steadfast ally of the state’s coal companies.

Most recently, Conway has attempted to smear Paul by questioning his devotion to Christianity in a series of television attack ads.

It was revealed late Tuesday afternoon that the assailant filmed in the video is Profitt, who serves as Paul’s campaign coordinator in Bourbon County. The Paul campaign said in a statement that is has “disassociated itself” from Profitt.

On Tuesday, Profitt was served with a summons to appear in court. Police have lodged fourth-degree assault charges against him.

Profitt insisted the incident was not as bad as it looked and attempted to justify his actions. “I’m sorry that it came to that, and I apologize if it appeared overly forceful, but I was concerned about Rand’s safety,” he told the Associated Press.

In comments to the Huffington Post, Valle said she sensed the assault might have been premeditated. Several people came up behind her before the attack, and she said she heard one of them say, “We are here to do crowd control (and) we might have to take someone out.”

“One or two people twisted my arms behind my back and took me down,” Valle wrote. “It was about two-to-three seconds after that that another person stomped on my head.”

Police said that Rand supporters had earlier fingered Valle as a threat, but said that they declined to act because she had not done anything illegal. “It’s not illegal to take a picture with somebody,” Lexington police spokesperson Sherelle Roberts said.

Another Conway supporter said he was also threatened by Paul campaign workers at the event. Michael J. Grossman, described by the Lexington Herald-Leader as “a corporate official in Lexington,” said a Paul supporter tried to “take me down” moments after Valle was attacked.

“It was a relatively calm political event until the Rand Paul people simply went nuts when their candidate arrived,” Grossman said. “By and large they appeared to be a very hostile group of people who were looking for trouble, and I guess they got it.”

Tea Party ‘founder’: Palin, Gingrich a ‘joke’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/tea-party-founder-slams-tea-party/
Tea Party ‘founder’: Palin, Gingrich a ‘joke’
Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

A financial blogger and ex-CEO credited with being one of the original "founders" of the Tea Party has come out against the movement, saying it has been hijacked by the very people it was protesting and is now obsessed with "guns, gays and God."

In a "message" to the Tea Party Wednesday, Karl Denninger declared that he "ought to sue" anyone who uses the Tea Party name "for defamation."

"Yeah, that's a joke," he writes. "But so are you. All of you. Especially Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, and douchebag groups such as the 'Tea Party Patriots.'"

Denninger writes: "Tea Party my ass. This was nothing other than the Republican Party stealing the anger of a population that was fed up with the Republican Party's own theft of their tax money at gunpoint to bail out the robbers of Wall Street and fraudulently redirecting it back toward electing the very people who stole all the ****ing money!"

Denninger runs Market Ticker, a financially-focused blog that has been strongly opposed to bank bailouts and has railed against excessive government spending. He founded the group FedUpUSA in early 2008, shortly after the collapse of investment bank Bear Stearns.

In January of 2009, Market Ticker bloggers including Graham Makohoniuk and Stephanie Jasky suggested "mailing a tea bag" to Congress to protest the planned $800-billion stimulus package and $700-billion bank bailout. Denninger followed that up with a call for a "tea party" protest to coincide with President Obama's inauguration, thus helping to unofficially launch the political movement.

“I saw everybody fawning over Obama with the inauguration and yet here he was appointing people like Larry Summer[s] and Tim Geithner to his team who were all part of creating the problem,” Denninger said in a media interview.

Now Denninger says the whole movement has been steered away from its mission to demand fiscal responsibility from government and financial institutions.

The Tea Party was initiated as a political protest against the unlawful and in fact unconstitutional usurpation of power from the Congress and The People in the form of extortion-led bailouts of enterprises that had engaged in acts that I, and many others, believe were at least civilly actionable and in many cases crossed the line into criminal activity.

This indictment is not limited to the nation's large banks, although it certainly starts there. The corruption of our economic and monetary systems runs the gamut from Fannie and Freddie through their ties to Congress (including literal sexual encounters in some cases), banking interests selling trash securities to everyone from pension funds on down, judges who don't judge but rather protect monied interests on Wall Street, The Federal Reserve intentionally debasing our currency and monetizing government debt, government spending that is running 40% above revenues and much more.

In short, The Tea Party was and is about the the corruption of American Politics and the blatant and outrageous theft from all Americans that has resulted. It is about personal responsibility and enforcement of the law against those who have robbed, financially ****d and pillaged the nation.

Yet today we hear literally nothing about these issues among the so-called "Tea Party" candidates and their backers. Sarah Palin has not said one word about locking up the banksters that brought up on the housing bubble and economic collapse. Not one word about Bernanke's out-of-control Fed and the arguably unlawful monetization of Fannie and Freddie paper, not to mention the monetization of the Federal Debt.

First Amendment flap: Was Christine O'Donnell touting 'tea party' view?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2010/1019/First-Amendment-flap-Was-Christine-O-Donnell-touting-tea-party-view

First Amendment flap: Was Christine O'Donnell touting 'tea party' view?
First Amendment and church-state separation were debated Tuesday between Delaware Senate hopefuls Christine O'Donnell and Chris Coons. Her stance is akin to that of some tea party activists.
Peter Grier, Staff writer / October 19, 2010

Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell on Tuesday during a debate with opponent Chris Coons seemed to question whether the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state. So what’s her view of the First Amendment?

The First Amendment is the section of the nation’s founding document that deals with church-state issues, after all. The First Amendment reads, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...."

To Ms. O’Donnell, it may be the second clause there – “prohibiting the free exercise” – that’s most important. That means the government can’t interfere with religion, she emphasized in remarks to National Review Online after Tuesday’s debate at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Del.

To O’Donnell, that means, for instance, that public schools should have the right to teach intelligent design as a theory of how life on earth came to be, along with the theory of evolution.

The First Amendment “gives them the freedom to teach that if that’s what they want,” O’Donnell told National Review Online’s “Battle ‘10” blog.

Mr. Coons, along with many constitutional law scholars, likely would see that example the other way around. They’d say that intelligent design, which holds that the universe is best explained as the creation of some form of larger being, is a religious belief, not a scientific theory. Allowing it to be taught in public schools would be to favor one particular religion over another – something prohibited by the “respecting an establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment.

Confused? Let’s start from the top.

During Tuesday’s debate, O’Donnell and Coons were arguing over the teaching-of-Creationism thing when Coons said that one of the “indispensable principles” of the Founding Fathers was “separation of church of state.”

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” said O’Donnell in reply, drawing gasps from a crowd composed largely of law students and professors.

A few minutes later, Coons returned to the subject, saying the First Amendment establishes the separation between church and state.

“The First Amendment does?” said O’Donnell. “You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”

After the debate, O’Donnell did not respond to reporters asking her to clarify her remarks. Her campaign manager, Matt Moran, later issued a statement saying that she was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state. “She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution,” Mr. Moran said.

O’Donnell is not the only conservative Republican Senate candidate with "tea party" support who has raised the issue of what the First Amendment means. In Nevada, Sharron Angle has taken a point of view similar to that of her Delaware compatriot.

In an interview earlier this year, Ms. Angle said that Thomas Jefferson, the Founding Father credited with originating the phrase “separation of church and state,” has been misunderstood on this matter.

“Thomas Jefferson was actually addressing a church and telling them through his address that there had been a wall of separation put up between the church and the state precisely to protect the church from being taken over by a state religion,” said Angle to Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston. “That’s what they meant by that. They didn’t mean we couldn’t bring our values to the political forum.”

Christine O'Donnell Seen as 'Nutjob': Meghan McCain

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/10/christine-odonnell-seen-as-nut.html

October 17, 2010
Christine O'Donnell Seen as 'Nutjob': Meghan McCain
Michael McAuliff

The Tea Party movement may be bringing energy and voters to the Republican Party, but in Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, it’s also brought someone Republicans regard as a “nutjob,” Meghan McCain declared today.

Speaking on ABC News’ “This Week,” the daughter of Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain argued that the unrestrained anger and extremism of the Tea Party has allowed unqualified, untested candidates like O’Donnell to succeed.

“I just know, in my group of friends, it turns people off because she’s seen as a nutjob,” McCain said of O’Donnell, whose best-known remarks are probably a video clip of her admitting she dabbled in witchcraft.

“I speak as a 26-year-old woman and my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O’Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office,” McCain said. “She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business.”

“And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much of a] lack of experience you have,” she said.

Republican consultant Matthew Dowd didn’t exactly jump to O’Donnell’s defense.

Republicans “can nominate anybody they want — they nominated somebody that’s not qualified, that’s probably incompetent, that has said some crazy stuff,” Dowd said. “The great news is, the Delaware electorate is probably going to send her packing.”.

Earlier in a debate aired on the show with Delaware Democratic nominee Chris Coons, O’Donnell made a plea for GOP help — that probably will not be forthcoming.

“The state party isn’t helping us. And we’re asking the National Republican senatorial to help us,” she said. “We’ve got the Democratic Senatorial Committee coming after me. We’re hoping that the National Republican Senatorial Committee will help us. But it’s two-and-a-half weeks left, and they’re not.”

Bill Clinton back out campaigning 'for everybody that helped Hillary'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8068167/Bill-Clinton-back-out-campaigning-for-everybody-that-helped-Hillary-run-for-president-against-Obama.html

Bill Clinton back out campaigning 'for everybody that helped Hillary run for president' against Obama
Speculation about Hillary Clinton's continued presidential ambitions is rife. Husband Bill is back on the campaign trail, offering thanks to those who backed her in 2008 – and laying the foundations for another try in 2016.
Toby Harnden, American Way
16 Oct 2010

Fear and loathing in the American body politic is not confined to the anti-tax Tea Party. Across the spectrum of the Democratic party, every hue is feeling it too.

With a fortnight to go to the midterms, moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats are in big trouble. The party's left-wing "Yellow Dogs" are up in arms about being taken for granted by the White House "hippy bashers". Even black bloggers are warning President Barack Obama they won't be "pimped" for him.

In this febrile climate within the party, there is one Democratic figure whose soothing tones can help calm things down – the Big Dog himself, former President Bill Clinton. I caught up with him in Española, New Mexico, site of the first European colony in America, last week and he was on vintage form.

Gone was the red-faced, finger-wagging Bill who I saw in South Carolina in early 2008, when he exploded with anger at being accused of racism by Obama allies as the Democratic nomination slipped from his wife Hillary's grasp. Instead, Española saw Chilled Bill, a man vindicated by events and who knows he was right to warn of Obama's shortcomings.

The event, for which nearly 4,000 people crammed into the town square, was for Diane Denish, the Democratic candidate for governor. Behind in the polls, she had supported Hillary against Obama in 2008 and Bill was back to repay the debt.

Bill, hoarse-voiced but with a glint in his eye, explained that this was his 80th event. He made crystal clear just who he was representing on the campaign trail – and it wasn't Obama. "I planned to do about one stop for everybody that helped Hillary run for president because she's one of only two members of the president's cabinet who cannot participate in politics," he said.

As Secretary of State, he reminded people, is not permitted to campaign. "Then I got out here and started stirring around and realised that a lot of people were mad and even more confused and I didn't want it on my conscience so I just loaded up and started strolling around."

The Clintons are undoubtedly an unusual couple. Bill's past indiscretions are legendary and their jobs – he is now a globe-trotting philanthropist – mean that these days they see each other less often than the average American goes to the dentist.

Yet they remain together (who would have thought the Gore marriage would unravel first?) and are a remarkable political tag team.

Bill's energetic reappearance on the campaign trail comes just as rumours, some of them eagerly fuelled by the Clinton camp, swirl that Hillary might replace the hapless Joe Biden as Obama's vice-presidential running mate in 2012 or even challenge the President for the Democratic nomination if his popularity continues to slide.

Neither option makes much sense for Hillary, whose performance as Secretary of State, in which she has been supportive of the US military and sought to stiffen Obama's spine in Afghanistan, has won admirers even on the Right.

Becoming vice-president would tie her to Obama on domestic policy. Through political good fortune (not to mention calculation), she has been out of that arena for the past two years, meaning that there are no Clinton fingerprints on unpopular health care, bail-out or stimulus legislation.

Hillary has been loyal to Obama – it would have been politically foolish to appear otherwise – but her discrete job means she can remain distant from most of what he does.

It just so happens that Hillary will be out of town on November 2nd, when Democrats expect a pummeling at the polls. She'll be on the other side of the globe, in fact, on a tour including stops in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

The message is unmistakable: "Nothing to do with me!" Challenging Obama in 2012, even if he is in dire straits, would be incredibly risky. To seek to oust the first black president would split the Democrats in two and almost guarantee a Republican victory even if Hillary won the nomination. It's a non-starter.

But 2016 is different. No one takes her denials of wanting to run again at face value and aides are quietly putting it about that she still has her eyes on the White House. Her former chief strategist Mark Penn recently polled her popularity compared to Obama's.

Bill's stump speeches are helping lay the foundations of a 2016 campaign. His presence on the campaign trail, often in parts of the country where Obama is not so popular, reinforces the 2008 argument that the Clintons (in terms of power politics, it is fruitless to view them separately) can reach places Obama cannot.

It also shows that the wounds of the epic Obama-Clinton battle of 2008 have not healed. Conspicuous by his absence from Española was Bill Richardson, the current New Mexico governor, who was publicly branded a "Judas" by James Carville, the Clinton consigliere, for endorsing Obama. Richardson was never even mentioned by Denish or the former President.

After trying something new and shiny in the person of Obama and being disappointed, many Democrats are now indulging in Clinton nostalgia. "We Miss the Thrill of Bill" read one prominent sign in Española.

"He let me hug him!" exclaimed Loyda Martinez, 57, after the event. "And he hugged me back! A lot of these politicians, you can barely touch their hands. Bill has a way of connecting with the ordinary person that Obama does not." Bill's past foibles are viewed as endearing. "He like the ladies!" laughed one man as Bill posed for pictures beside a platinum blonde.

I chatted to Bill Clinton briefly as he worked the rope line. Having garnered some unwelcome headlines in 2008, he was sticking very firmly to the script this time.

"She's already answered that," he said, when I asked him if there really was any chance she might replace Biden in 2012. He turned and added: "I'll tell you what, she likes being Secretary of State and she's doing a great job."

So might she run in 2016? The Big Dog of the Democratic party paused, appeared to be about to hold forth and then seemed to hold himself in check. "She speaks for herself on these things," he said, flashing me a big grin.

Fox News Poll: Only 39 Perecent Would Vote to Re-Elect Obama in 2012

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/01/fox-news-poll-perecent-vote-elect-obama/

Fox News Poll: Only 39 Perecent Would Vote to Re-Elect Obama in 2012
Dana Blanton
October 01, 2010
FoxNews.com

The 2012 presidential race begins in earnest on Nov. 3 -- the day after the upcoming midterm elections -- and President Obama looks to be in trouble at the starting gate.

A Fox News poll released Friday shows that 54 percent of voters say they would vote for someone else rather than re-electing Obama if the presidential election were held today. That’s up from 47 percent in a January poll and 31 percent in April 2009.

Thirty-nine percent would vote to re-elect the president now, down from 43 percent in January. That's a dramatic drop from the 52 percent who felt that way in April, at his term's 100-day mark.

Among Democrats, the overall number who would re-elect the president has dropped to 75 percent, down from 87 percent at the beginning of his term. And there is an even more significant decline in the number of Democrats who say they would “definitely” vote to re-elect Obama -- from 69 percent near the start of his term to 41 percent now.

There’s a similar falloff in support among those who voted for Obama in the 2008 election. In the new poll, 40 percent of 2008 Obama voters say they would “definitely” vote to re-elect him, down from 64 percent in April 2009.

Among independents, 32 percent would vote to re-elect Obama, down from a high of 43 percent in April 2009. Meanwhile 57 percent of independents say they would vote for someone else -- twice as many as the 28 percent who felt that way near the start of his term.

The national telephone poll was conducted for Fox News by Opinion Dynamics Corp. among 900 registered voters from Sept. 28 to Sept. 29. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Voters would also like to see a change in the No. 2 slot on the Obama ticket. By more than 2-to-1 they would prefer to have Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (55 percent) as vice president over Vice President Joe Biden (25 percent). There’s an even stronger preference among Democrats: 67 percent say Clinton compared to 25 percent who prefer Biden.

Hypothetically Speaking

Even with all the negatives, in hypothetical head-to-head matchups Obama tops each of the Republican candidates tested, although in the case of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, it’s by just 1 percentage point (41-40 percent). In January, Obama led by 12 percentage points (47-35 percent).

Obama has a 43-40 percent edge over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and an even wider advantage over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (42-30 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (45-37 percent), and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin (48-35 percent).

The president tops an unnamed candidate from the Tea Party movement by 11 points (43-32 percent), which is a much narrower spread than earlier this year when Obama’s advantage was 25 points (48-23 percent).

What about if an independent candidate makes it a three-way race? Obama gets 40 percent to Palin’s 28 percent, with independent candidate New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg capturing 18 percent.

It’s a tighter race if it includes Hillary Clinton as the independent candidate. In that hypothetical matchup, Obama would receive 30 percent, Palin 29 percent and Clinton 27 percent.

Mike Huckabee is the host of “Huckabee” on Fox News Channel and Sarah Palin is a Fox News contributor.