Gaffes, Not Gains, For GOP
By Helen Thomas

The Republican candidates who are challenging President Barack Obama for the highest office in the land all leave something to be desired - even for party loyals.

Among those considered front runners for the presidential nomination are former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry, but neither seems to captivate the dwindling Republican support.

Whether charisma or character is at fault, the needed party following is still lacking.

Most of the GOP candidates seem to fall into the category of Hawks regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two exceptions, who are considered moderate and more of the kind that would give peace a chance, are Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and veteran diplomat Jon Huntsman. Unfortunately, neither one seems to have a prayer of a chance for the presidency.

The problem with the Republican hopefuls is that none has tackled the country's leading problem - unemployment. At least Obama has boiled the issue down to the need for jobs. What do the Republican candidates have to offer in terms of putting 14 million Americans back to work?

It's hard to believe businessman Herman Cain's rise in the polls. Is he a stalking horse for another candidate or is he for real?

Cain is in the embarrassing position of being accused of sexual harassment, by multiple women, when he headed the Restaurant Association.

He is evidently proud of his conservative credentials, but not appealing to most Republicans because he lacks passion and likability. Bottom line - Herman Cain is no real challenge for Obama.

Regarding Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Cain, it is hard to believe either one is still in the race.

The flubs by some of the Republicans are being highlighted in the campaign, and maybe unfairly, but that's the way it is in the high stakes game for the White House.

Perry suffered a senior moment in a recent debate, which may be from now on a "Perry moment," when he said he wanted to eliminate three federal departments and could only name two. He was able to recall Education and Commerce, but couldn't seem to remember the Department of Energy, which oddly would significantly affect his oil-producing state of Texas.

Perry was put on the defensive for helping undocumented immigrant children to pursue their education - and why not?

Perry, who came on strong at first, seems to be all hat and no cattle. He is hanging in there - Perry is not the type to run from a fight.

Romney is the GOP's best qualified candidate and currently leads the polls, but the party is reluctant to anoint him with the nomination. Romney is being questioned because of his flip flops as he tries to move toward the Tea Party.

The question is, are these candidates ready for primetime?

Of course, the GOP candidates could blame the media who are focused on the flubs or lack of substance in the debates, but they are in the spotlight and are being judged mostly by their peers and fans, who want them to measure up.

Nancy Reagan once complained that husband and former President Ronald Reagan's campaign handlers had over prepared him for the campaign debates, thus confusing the President. Reagan usually deflected tough moments with humor. Reagan got away with a quip or two instead of digging into the debate. Politico noted Reagan once hit a lighter moment in a debate, when he said, "I paid for this microphone."

The question of over exposure of the candidates has not come up, although it usually does in long-running campaigns.

It seems lightning will have to strike before the Republicans get their act together. At this point, the election is Obama's to lose. His opponents are not galvanized. Clearly they are not satisfied with the Republican roster of presidential candidates. So far, it's the best they have to offer, and Obama has a heads up.
(c) 2011 Helen Thomas is a columnist for the Falls Church News-Press. Among other books she is the author of Front Row At The White House: My Life and Times.

Fixing Washington Corruption - Lets Have Fair Elections
By James Donahue

I remember when John F. Kennedy was being considered as a serious Democratic Party candidate for the Presidential nomination. It was a controversial time because Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic to be a serious contender for that high office and a lot of folks worried that if he was elected, the Vatican would have its hands on the political pulse of the United States.

In the days preceding the Democratic Convention, I recall listening to a Chicago radio broadcast and hearing a strange call-in by a woman who identified herself only as "Madam X." It seems she was a psychic, well known around Chicago and the radio station, who made amazingly accurate predictions. What Madam X said that day made my hair crawl. She said John Kennedy would be nominated and would become the next President of the United States. But she said he would be the last president we would ever elect. After Kennedy, she warned, we would have "something else."

Of course we all know the tragic events that followed . . . Kennedy's untimely assassination under such mysterious circumstances most Americans still believe it was a conspiracy that remains unresolved to this day. The reign of presidents that followed Kennedy, from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have been slowly leading the nation down a slippery slope of unprecedented and senseless warfare, extreme graft and corruption, deficit spending and an obvious allegiance to big money and big business interests that have become international in scope.

The problems brought on by international trade agreements, subsequent union busting activities and unprecedented "gambling" of public money by banks and lending institutions has led to a flood of home foreclosures and the layoffs of millions of American workers. The rash of new homeless and jobless people, and families now living without food, housing, good schools and health insurance has taken to the streets in public protest in a disorganized movement that has swept the breadth of the nation.

The trouble didn't occur overnight. If we look back through time we see that it has been a combination of events, bad decisions and careful manipulation of events that seem to have started at about the time of Kennedy's assassination.

We must ask the obvious question. Was Madam X the mystery Chicago psychic correct? Have we been ruled by "something else" since the death of Kennedy? Have we even had a fair election since 1960? Have all the "leaders" that followed been puppets of a shadow government that has secretly taken over the United States if not the world?

Think of how we have slowly shifted from the old faithful paper ballots to machine voting and more recently to computerized voting machines. We thought we were doing this to speed up our election process and make elections more efficient for everybody concerned. But in the process, the election results have become more and more suspiciously twisted.

The horse race finish of the Bush-Gore election of 2000, with final vote tallies relying on a few final vote counts in the State of Florida, where George W. Bush's brother's election machine was carefully manipulating the election rules was incredibly suspicious. But then to have the U. S. Supreme Court intervene and declare Mr. Bush the winner before a contested recount was completed, made us all convinced that something was amiss.

There was all the confusion about the rules of the Electoral College, of course, which sometimes overrules the popular vote and gives the presidency to "the other guy." This appeared to be what happened in the Bush-Gore campaign.

Various big newspaper publishers were so suspicious of events in Florida following that court decision they financed a completion of the Florida election recount, just to find out who really won that election. The work of recounting those challenged ballots was still going on when the attack of 9-11 happened. In the blink of an eye, everybody forgot that the nation questioned if Bush really won the election. We became a nation at war and people rallied behind the only leader we had. Unfortunately he was George W. Bush.

Talk about mass manipulation. What happened in September, 2001 was a classic example of the kind of public control that can be accomplished. Americans succumbed to fear of further terrorist attack and then our young men marched off to the nearest recruiting office and signed up to go to war. But it would be a war against what specific enemy? What nation were we about to attack? They told us the attack was carried out by a rogue and extremist Islamic terrorist group hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. So Mr. Bush sent our forces into Afghanistan and declared war against the whole country. What was he thinking? And a year later he sent troops into Iraq and launched an unprovoked war there that had nothing to do with the 9-11 attack. And blindly, we let him do it. Neither war was necessary. Our military involvement in the Middle East cost the nation over a trillion dollars and we accomplished absolutely nothing, except to provoke a people who did not deserve what we did to them.

Bush won a second term in 2004, again under questionable circumstances. Most people in the country did not think he would get another term, but it happened. Then in 2008 we shifted parties and gave the job to Mr. Obama, who promised hope and change. But a Republican contingent in the Senate managed to stonewall nearly everything Mr. Obama tried to do. And during Mr. Bush's last days in office the country's financial markets crumbled, Congress panicked, and the big multi-billion dollar bailout happened. The government has remained deadlocked ever since. Events have continued to grow worse.

Now, with another presidential election looming in 2012, Americans are obviously thinking it is time to clean house. But how are we going to accomplish this if (a.) there are no viable candidates from which to choose, and (b.) our elections appear to be so rigged that it won't matter how we vote.

Let's face it. If the Republicans would stop acting like fools, show some empathy for the pain the people of America are suffering, and put a viable candidate up to run against Mr. Obama, they could probably take back the White House in 2012. But other than Mr. Romney, the line-up of questionable and illiterate clowns being offered by the G. O. P. is so ridiculous, we doubt if many people are taking them seriously. It is obvious that Romney and Obama will be the candidates from which to choose. And right now, neither man is getting anybody very excited.

In order to even be considered for the presidency these days, a candidate has to be very wealthy, or have a powerful backer with the multi-millions of dollars it takes to successfully win a two-year-long nation-wide campaign. Because of television and other advanced media technology, the candidate also has to have charisma that appeals to the general public, and look presidential. That means he must appear attractive and make no blunders while appearing in front of the television cameras.

Abraham Lincoln would never have been considered if he was in the lineup of Republicans this year. In spite of his great mind and wit, Mr. Lincoln would probably have been too ugly to appeal to television viewers.

The Occupy Wall Street and Occupy America crowds now in the street are demanding real change in 2012. But this cannot be accomplished unless some drastic changes are made in the way we conduct our elections.

We suggest the following:

--Create a new third Independent party and raise a complete slate of candidates for political offices from county and state to national levels that represent the people in their districts and reject the big cash donations of big corporations and lobbyists. Then elect them all, thus cleaning out the corruption from the grass roots to Washington.

--Create a fair and equitable system of financing campaigns and make it illegal for any candidate to take money from outside sources for promotion. Shorten the campaign season to a few months and make it mandatory for all media to devote equal time reviewing and interviewing all candidates for every office. Publishers may only support the candidates of their choice on their editorial pages and aired time slots. Promotional and especially mud-slinging style advertising should be prohibited by law.

--Impeach the Supreme Court members who ruled that corporations have the same right as individuals to finance campaigns by candidates of their choice. While at it, change the rules that give Supreme Court members their jobs for life.

--Revise portions of the Constitution so that we have eliminated the Electoral College. Candidates should all be elected by popular vote.

--Return to the use of paper ballots In all elections. Make all ballots clear and easy to understand, and relax the rules concerning the marks placed in the squares for the named candidates. An X that goes over the line should not be excluded.

The New Age Of Consumer Activism
Our understandable rage at corporations is behind customer-driven like Bank Transfer Day
By David Sirota

As we all know, America is angry. Really angry. To put it in pop culture terms, we've moved from the vaguely inspiring agita of Peter Finch in "Network" to the wild-eyed, primal-scream rage of Sam Kinison in "Back to School."

When we pay attention to politics, we get peeved at Congress and the presidential candidates. When we tune into sports, we're annoyed with squabbling players and owners. When we turn on the news, we fume at the smug pundits. And when it comes to the economy, we're in a tizzy at big corporations.

Most of this indignation is nothing new; it is atavistic fury expressed in the modern vernacular. Yet, one strand of our anger - the kind directed at big business - may be truly novel, as our chagrin is no longer just that ancient animosity toward excessive corporate power. Instead, it has also become a personal disdain toward firms we deal with on a daily basis.

This is the key finding of the latest report from the Center for Services Leadership at Arizona State University. Its findings show that after years of rising anger, consumer rage has reached an all-time high.

Back in 2004, ASU's researchers theorized that such apoplexy was an outgrowth of affluence. "Households simply have more products and services today, and thus more points of contact, increasing our chances that we will have a problem," they wrote.

But, of course, 2004 was a comparatively prosperous time. Today, by contrast, recession-battered consumers have access to fewer products and services and yet are angrier at companies, meaning the sentiment likely reflects a response to deeper trends.

One of those is a decline in craftsmanship in the era of free trade and offshore production. With America now awash in foreign wares, we've imported the developing world's lax regulatory standards and, thus, its lower product quality. That means poorly constructed furniture, malfunctioning electronics and all the other shoddiness that drives customers nuts.

Another maddening trend is the corporate sector's shift from long-term customer care to short-term predation. Though firms have always tried to make quick money off clients, the intensity of this recession, coupled with investors' insatiable demand for quarterly profit growth, has prompted unprecedented bill-padding, corner-cutting and inflexibility. Today's typical air travel experience epitomizes the dynamic: You get hit with a baggage charge, shoved into an ever-smaller seat and then stranded in airport purgatory because you missed your connection. With this kind of experience being replicated in everything from debit card fees to interminable customer-service wait times, it's no wonder we're ticked off.

Finally, there's what Mother Jones magazine calls "The Great Speedup," whereby downsized companies are forcing their remaining employees to do more work at a faster pace than ever. While this means our workforce is generating more output, it also means that output often becomes less satisfying to the end user. So, sure, your energy company's electrician may be servicing more homes, but he's also more error-prone and no longer maintains a customer-friendly demeanor - because he's being run ragged.

All of this is no doubt responsible for a spike in self-destructive temper tantrums. However, there is an upside: The angst is resurrecting the notion of consumer activism. And that's a big deal.

Recent headlines tell this story. From moving deposits out of big banks to a mass abandonment of Netflix, customers are suddenly channeling the old Ralph Nader zeitgeist. We're remembering that being a patron comes with power - and we're finally getting mad enough to use it.

If that ends up bringing back a lasting consumer movement in America, then all the heartburn and stress of being a mistreated customer will have been worth it.
(c) 2011 David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and "The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com. David Sirota is a former spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee.

Painted Torture

Outside the gallery, people go on with their lives, some of them worried about their mortgage, some about their lack of one, some about the celebrity divorce du jour, and others especially concerned about Dick Cheney's right to speak in public but free of any unpleasant questioning from those who have not yet internalized a culture of obedience and demonization of designated objects of fear.
(c) 2011 David Swanson is the author of "War Is A Lie."

Occupy With A Vengeance!

Change is a messy affair, but it has be done regardless of the opposition we face. Amen. Take pride in knowing the silver-spoon devils will soon reap the full effect of our public discourse. The great American Occupation has only started and Revolution is now eminent.
(c) 2011 Vincent L. Guarisco is a freelance writer from Arizona, a contributing writer for many web sites, and a lifetime founding member of the Alliance of Atomic Veterans. The 21st century, once so full of shining promise, now threatens to force countless millions of us at home and abroad into a dark abyss of languishing poverty and silent servitude; a lowly prodigy of painful struggle and suffering that could stream for generations to come. I'm wishing for a miracle, before it is too late, the masses will figure it out and will stand as one and roar. So, pass the word - its past time to take back what is ours -- the American Dream where the pursuit of happiness, the ability to live in a free and peaceful nation is a reality. We bought it, and we paid for it. It's time to take it back. For replies, contact: vincespainting1@hotmail.com

Boring Cruel Romantics

But our discourse is being badly distorted by ideologues and wishful thinkers -boring, cruel romantics -pretending to be technocrats. And it's time to puncture their pretensions.
(c) 2011 Paul Krugman --- The New York Times

The People's Surveillance State

You may be watching us, but by God and sonny Jesus, we are watching you.
(c) 2011 William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is available from PoliPointPress.

Occupy Revolution

Every American should use critical thinking to not only follow the Occupy movement but explicitly decide whether it is the seed capable of producing a Second American Revolution that truly reforms what is now a delusional democracy with delusional prosperity. For sure, voting for or against Democrats or Republicans will not suffice.
(c) 2011 Joel S. Hirschhorn observed our corrupt federal government firsthand as a senior official with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association and is the author of Delusional Democracy - Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. To discuss issues write the author. The author has a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and was formerly a full professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

The Dead Letter Office...

Judge Wingate in happier days

40,000 Rally, More Than 100,000 Sign Petitions, To Say 'Recall Walker'
By John Nichols

As tens of thousands of Wisconsinites rallied in Madison for a mass signing of petitions to recall anti-labor Governor Scott Walker Saturday, it was announced that the drive had collected 105,000 signatures in its first four days.

By the end of the weekend, that number will go substantially higher, say organizers of Saturday's rally, which marshalls estimated drew 40,000. (Early in the day, as the crowd was building, Capitol Police confirmed that roughly 30,000 were present and the numbers grew as units of firefighters, teachers and state, county and municipal employees poured into the Capitol Square from the edges of Madison's downtown.)

When the rally was done, activists with United Wisconsin, the group that is coordinating the recall drive, displayed tall piles of newly signed petitions. "After they've counted all the new petitions that have been gathered in Madison and across the state," said former Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, "they'll be well on their way to 200,000."

The labor, farm and community activists who organized the effort have sixty days to collect 540,000 signatures-25 percent of the electorate in the last gubernatorial election-to force the governor and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch to face the voters in a recall election. Organizers hope to turn in more than 700,000 signatures, in order to thwart challenges that will be posed by a multimillion-dollar effort paid for by the billionaire Koch brothers and other anti-labor zealots from across the country who have financed Walker's campaigns.

The governor and his allies have not missed any openings to try to block the recall. The Koch brothers are already paying for pro-Walker television ads put together by their Americans for Prosperity group, and the governor's campaign is spending heavily on its own ads-$300,000 since last Monday. (There are estimates that spending on Walker's behalf will exceed $50 million.) Republican legislators have moved to give the governor veto power over election rules. And the Republican Party of Wisconsin has organized a campaign to intimidate recall petitioners with a website that urges party minions to "monitor" and challenge nurses, teachers and small-business owners who seek signatures. In some cases, Walker backers have grabbed petitions and ripped them up.

But there was no evidence Saturday or Sunday that any of the governor's attempt's to protect his political career were working.

It was not just that thousands were signing recall petitions on the Capitol Square in Madison.

They were doing it in all seventy-two Wisconsin counties.

The movement to recall Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch is just that: a movement. It extends across the state, to every county, to every city, village and town.

As the November 15 starting date when the movement would begin gathering petitions to recall Walker and Kleefisch approached, training sessions for petition circulators were being held in the most Republican counties of the state. More than thirty offices opened and were staffed by volunteers in communities such as Elkhorn in traditionally conservative Walworth County, where a "midnight madness" party was held last Tuesday so that petitions could be signed the minute it was possible to do so.

In the rural Lafayette County community of Darlington, local recall coordinator Kate Bausch said folks had been gearing up to recall Walker since last February, when Walker proposed to strip state, county and municipal employees and teachers of their collective bargaining rights.

The political process is sick with spin and deception. But the biggest lie of the past year has been the suggestion, peddled primarily by Walker but also by the most disingenuous of his supporters, that anger with the governor has been confined to the liberal precincts of Madison or the Democratic neighborhoods of Milwaukee.

The truth is that with his assault on collective bargaining rights, the civil service system, local democracy, school funding and public services, Walker battered every town, village, city and county in Wisconsin. And with ethical scandals that are now swirling around him-following the September FBI raid on the home of his top political appointee and the revelation that his press secretary and one of his top fund raisers had requested immunity in a "John Doe" probe of political corruption-Walker has earned the scorn even of those Wisconsinites who will never think of themselves as liberals or Democrats.

The movement to displace Walker and Kleefisch, who had served as a willing rubber-stamp for the governor, is big. The grassroots energy across the state, the size of the crowd at Saturday's rally, the number of signatures already collected: all of these confirm the historic scope and reach of the recall drive.

The movement to displace Walker and Kleefisch is broad-based. Trainings have taken place in every corner of the state. There are local committees, groups and activist circles in all of Wisconsin's seventy-two counties. The recall movement takes in Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, independents and, yes, Republicans. That's because Wisconsin's instinct for fairness is stronger than the penchant for partisanship, as state Senator Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, confirmed when he refused to go along with efforts by Walker's legislative stooges to rig the recall process.

The response of Walker and Kleefisch partisans to Schultz's show of independence was bitter and destructive. Schultz's office in the Capitol was egged in an act of vandalism that-had it been directed at a Walker ally-would have brought cries of complaint from conservative talk-radio hosts and the Koch brothers–funded Tea Party project. But the recall movement in not prone toward that sort of whining.

Rooted as it is in the values and ideals of Wisconsin, the recall movement is genuine and determined. It has put pettiness aside and focused on the work at hand: removing a governor who has harmed the state economically, ethically and morally-and a lieutenant governor who has rejected her oath to defend the constitution and the best interests of Wisconsin.

From Kenosha in the southeast to Superior in the northwest, from the inner-city wards of Milwaukee to the crossroads towns of Marathon County, Wisconsinites are rising to the call of democracy and honest governance. They are signing petitions, circulating petitions, filing petitions and defending petitions against bogus challenges from lawyers who are paid for by the out-of-state billionaires who are funding the Walker-Kleefisch campaign. And when the petitioning is done, when the recall election is scheduled, they will mount the greatest grassroots campaign Wisconsin has seen in a century-not just to remove Walker and Kleefisch but to renew the democratic ideals of a great state that has been temporarily misled.
(c) 2011 John Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.

Occupy The Hamptons Update
By Ted Rall

When I was at Stop the Machine/Occupy DC in October, I began asking myself: what am I doing here? (Call it my Admiral Stockdale moment.) The Occupy movement is local. I rushed back to New York to start something closer to home.

Turns out others had already had the same idea. Occupy the Hamptons began the week I got back. It has a nascent website (though it does not yet officially speak for the movement since it is not consensus based). It has a regular meeting: Sundays at 3 by the windmill in Sag Harbor. Indoor space is in the works so we can transition out of the wind, rain (and soon snow).

The last few weeks have been productive. Working groups have been tasked with coming up with Direct Actions in the Hamptons—a resort area that, despite its reputation as a playground for the 1%, has one of the highest poverty rates in the country.

I'm on the Working Group tasked with developing a draft proposal for a Declaration of the Occupation of the Hamptons. It was a process but we're ready to present it to the General Assembly this Sunday.

The discussion over the Declaration brought out some divisions about tactics and ideology among Occupiers that the movement as a whole is going to need to address in the coming weeks and months before 2012.

2012 will likely be the Year of Revolution.

Or, as my friend Cole Smithey likes to say, it'll be on like donkey-kong.

It's 1968 all over again. Now, as then, the absurdity and uselessness of the electoral system will be in sharp relief as the Democrats and Republicans debate every issue except those that matter.

Divisions in the movement reflect those in society:

Between reformists and revolutionaries
Between nationalists and revolutionaries
Between those who worry about alienating the right and liberals, vs. revolutionaries
Between those drawn to the national struggle and those who understand that this time, the revolution has been radically localized

It's on.
(c) 2011 Ted Rall is the author of the new books "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?" and "The Anti-American Manifesto."

The Cartoon Corner...

This edition we're proud to showcase the cartoons of
~~~ John Deering ~~~