Even Limping Tea Party Caucus Outshines Congressional Progressives on Drones in the USA

May 2nd, 2013 | Posted by Jim Cook in Democrats | Homeland Insecurity | Legislation | Liberty | Politics | Republicans - (1 Comments)

Over a month ago, I noted with eyebrows cocked that only one of the nearly 80 listed members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus had bothered to sign one of four bills dedicated to the task of reigning in surveillance of Americans’ private activities by unmanned flying drones. That congressman, Edward Markey, had to his credit introduced new legislation of his own — H.R. 1262. But none of his fellow Progressive Caucus members had joined him to support the bill, or any of the other three drone-reform bills: H.R. 972, H.R. 1083 and H.R. 1242.

Since then, nothing has changed for the Progressive Caucus. Not one additional Progressive Caucus member (all Democrats) has signed up to support any of these bills limiting drone activity, and nobody’s introduced any new legislation.

In the meantime, the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives is trying to re-institute itself after falling into disrepair. The Tea Party Caucus webpage is still trying to convince members of Congress to join its ranks and so it doesn’t list its full membership yet. Still, Rachel Maddow notes that Representatives Trent Franks and Louie Gohmert were among the attendees of the first Tea Party Caucus meeting. Both Trent Franks and Louie Gohmert have signed up in support of H.R. 1242, which would prohibit the U.S. government from using drones to target and assassinate people on U.S. soil. Both are Republicans

That’s at least two members of the Tea Party Caucus who have signed on to legislation to restrict drones — and there could be more. Only one Progressive Caucus member has bothered to take that step.

The next time the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee calls you up and asks for your money to stop those nefarious Republicans and their Tea Party fellow travelers, ask them why the Tea Party Caucus has a record on drones twice as good as the supposedly “progressive” Democrats.

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Tea Party? Freedomworks Implodes Over Secret Corporate Millions

December 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Election 2012 | Ethics | Politics - (1 Comments)

Looking for a little light holiday reading?  Try David Corn’s article in Mother Jones.  Corn exposes FreedomWorks — which describes itself as “Tea Party HQ” — for getting half of its 2012 money from just one multimillionaire.  That multimillionaire set up two shell corporations that funneled $12 million to FreedomWorks, which in turn funneled the $12 million into efforts to prop up deeply unpopular conservative candidates.  Now the two leaders of FreedomWorks — Matt Kibbe and Dick Armey — are insisting they’ve never heard of this money and had no idea where they’d received half their budget from. 

Dick Armey has abruptly resigned from FreedomWorks and taken a $8 million payment with him.  This kind of FreedomWorked pretty well for him.

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Richard Mourdock, Tea Party Populist? Make that Credit Card Industry Pawn

September 25th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Economy | Election 2012 | Politics | Republicans - (0 Comments)

The corporation “FreedomWorks,” which calls itself “Tea Party HQ,” endorses Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock for Senate in 2012. “Tea Party Express,” another corporation which like “Freedomworks” is run by Republican political consultants, also endorses Richard Mourdock for Senate, declaring that “Mourdock has shown a dedication to Tea Party principles.”

Gee whiz. Richard Mourdock has been endorsed by the “Tea Party.” He must be one heck of a populist, right?

Wrong. The top occupations of people funding Richard Mourdock’s campaign:

1. Oil and gas executives
2. Health care corporation administrators
3. Finance executives
4. Commercial bankers
5. Securities & Investment
6. Real Estate Interests
7. Law firms

PACs supporting Richard Mourdock:

ALLIANCE COAL PAC
AMERICAN BANKERS ASSOCIATION
AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER
AMERICAN FUEL & PETROCHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS PAC
AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ASSOCIATION
ARCH COAL INC. PAC
CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORPORATION ASSOCIATES PAC
CHEVRON EMPLOYEES PAC
CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC
COALPAC
CONOCOPHILLIPS SPIRIT PAC
CONSOL ENERGY INC. PAC
EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION PAC
FIFTH THIRD BANCORP PAC
FLAGSTAR BANK FEDERAL PAC
KEYCORP ADVOCATES FUND
KOCH INDUSTRIES INC. PAC
LOUIS DREYFUS COMMODITIES PAC
MARATHON OIL COMPANY EMPLOYEES PAC
MARATHON PETROLEUM CORPORATION EMPLOYEES PAC
MURRAY ENERGY PAC
NATIONAL ASSOC. OF HEALTH UNDERWRITERS PAC
NFIB SAFE TRUST
OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION PAC
OHIO NATIONAL FINANCIAL SERVICES INC. PAC
OLBANK PAC
PNC BANK PAC-FEDERAL
REGIONS FINANCIAL CORPORATION PAC
SIMPSONBRANCH BANKING & TRUST COMPANY PAC
TESORO PETROLEUM CORPORATION PAC
THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF CAPITALISM PAC
THE FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE PAC
THE HUNTINGTON BANCSHARES INC. PAC
US BANCORP PAC

According to Politico (January 26 2012), Richard Mourdock’s Senate run was engineered by financiers who wanted to keep extra credit card charges in place:

The banking industry is making an example of Sen. Dick Lugar.

Several veteran financial services lobbyists are fundraising for the primary challenger of one of the most-senior Senate Republicans, sending a clear message to GOP lawmakers who have opposed banks on key votes: Don’t cross us.

Lugar and a dozen other Republicans voted against banks on an amendment that would have blocked caps on swipe fees last year….

Financial Services Roundtable’s Scott Talbott, Lisa Nelson of Visa, Peter Blocklin of the American Bankers Association and Vincent Randazzo of PNC hosted an inside-the-Beltway fundraiser for Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, this week. The Electronic Payments Coalition, which represents the industry, also sent out an email fundraising blast that included the event.

Today, Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock was the guest of honor at a special Financial Services Industry fundraising luncheon. Only $2,500 a ticket!

I had no idea it was the thing for “Tea Party” populists to stand up for credit card companies against evil borrower people. Then again, we must remember that corporations are people.

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Green Party and Occupy have most educated Facebook Fans (Americans Elect and No Labels the least)

August 5th, 2012 | Posted by Jim Cook in Alternative Parties | Americans Elect | Democrats | Media | Politics | Republicans - (6 Comments)

Within the Facebook corporation, there are entire divisions dedicated to the analysis of the connections and communications of users, using unrestricted access to the entire Facebook dataset. If you have a Facebook page for your cause or organization, you can use Facebook Insights to see a far more limited breakdown of information about the people who like or read the posts on your page. Individual people who use Facebook and don’t have a Page cannot access any accumulated information about the people who are their Facebook “friends” (unless they visit each of their friends’ pages in turn) or about Facebook users in general.

A back door method to data mine Facebook -- use the admin screen of your Facebook pageFor people who maintain a Facebook page, however, there is a curious back-door method for getting fairly broad information about Facebook users. When we log in to our Irregular Times Facebook page, for instance, we see this solicitation, inviting us to create an advertisement on Facebook. By clicking on the solicitation (or finding the “Create an Ad” option under the “Build Audience” tab at the top), we’re taken to a screen on which we can build an advertisement — and in so doing find out a surprising amount about trends among Facebook users.

The Common Sense Coalition and Americans Elect are two purchasers of Facebook advertisementsDon’t get me wrong — Irregular Times has never advertised on Facebook and has no intention of buying any Facebook advertisements. We don’t advertise generally speaking, and the price Facebook asks for every time someone clicks on an advertisement — around $2.00 — is far more costly than any benefit we’d reap from someone’s eyeballs. The entities that have so much money to burn that they’re willing to pay two bucks for every time someone clicks an advertisement are almost always inhuman entities — corporations like WalMart that sell things or corporations like The Common Sense Coalition and Americans Elect that are hawking ideas.

But here’s the trick: in the act of building up a price quote for a hypothetical ad, Facebook provides counts of all sorts of people who use its service.

For instance, Facebook tells me that there are 446,660 people who have liked Occupy Wall Street or one of the other Occupy pages on the Internet. Such numbers are already public. But if I’m on Facebook’s build-an-advertisement page and looking for a market to target, Facebook also tells me that 242,240 of these people — 54.2% of them — are college graduates. That information is not otherwise public.

If I act as if I’m interested in purchasing an advertisement, I can further compare that information to other movements and parties in the United States. It turns out that the Occupy movement has the highest proportion of college graduates among its fans among all the movements and parties listed below:

53.4% of those who like the Green Party Facebook page are college graduates
52.3% of those who like the Democratic Party Facebook page are college graduates
48.1% of those who like the Libertarian Party Facebook page are college graduates
41.5% of those who like the Republican Party Facebook page are college graduates
39.7% of those who like the largest Tea Party Facebook page are college graduates
38.3% of those who like the No Labels Facebook page are college graduates
34.0% of those who like the Americans Elect Facebook page are college graduates

That’s multivariate data, and that’s where data we can sneak from Facebook begins to get interesting.

It’s worth it to pause and ask whether any old person should be able to obtain such information (and more, as I’ll describe later) willy-nilly by following the path to Facebook’s advertising widget for page holders. In fact I invite your ethical musings on the subject. What’s worth noting is that this information has been available to corporations and the wealthy for quite some time; this backdoor method directs the flood of “big data” more democratically.

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Which of 3 Caucuses (Tea Party, Constitution, Progressive) Most Opposes Indefinite Detention in the USA?

December 24th, 2011 | Posted by Jim Cook in Homeland Insecurity | Legislation | Liberty | Politics - (0 Comments)

The Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution say that when people can’t be thrown into detention by the government for as long as the government wants, not without charges and a public trial by a jury of their peers.

H.R. 1540 is a piece of congressional legislation that says something entirely different. According to H.R. 1540, people can be thrown into detention by the government for as long as the government, even if they’re never charged with a crime. H.R. 1540 says that a person in America no longer has the right to a public trial by a jury of one’s peers. The House passed it, then the Senate passed it, and President Obama is about to sign it.

The Constitution is supposed to be the “supreme law of the land” (see Article VI), and all other laws must follow it, at least if lawmakers respect the Constitution. If lawmakers in Congress respected constitutional limits, they ought to have voted NO, against the passage of H.R. 1540.

It turns out that there are three House caucuses (that is, three organized groups in the House of Representatives) that declare their purpose is to ensure legislation abides by the U.S. Constitution. One of them is the Tea Party Caucus (track vote here), introduced by Representative Michele Bachmann with explicit and prominent reference to the U.S. Constitution:

“I formed the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives in July 2010 because Congress had strayed from the fundamental principles of the Constitution…. Sadly, it seems today that the Constitution is no longer at the forefront guiding Congress.”

Another is the Constitution Caucus (track vote here), describing its mission in the following manner:

““The Constitution is the guide I will never abandon.” — George Washington….

Recognizing that the Constitution can only be preserved if it lives in the hearts and minds of the American people, the Constitution Caucus will provide an effective forum for education on founding principles and the appropriate limitations of congressional action.

A third is the Progressive Caucus (track vote here), which has this commitment as one of its four policy columns:

Protecting and Preserving Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

» To sunset expiring provisions of the Patriot Act and bring remaining provisions into line with the U. S. Constitution.

» To protect the personal privacy of all Americans from unbridled police powers and unchecked government intrusion.

How do the actions of these three caucuses’ members match up with their words? The graph below reveals patterns in caucus members’ votes on H.R. 1540 this December. A NO vote is a vote to defend the rights of people under the 5th and 6th Amendments.

House Caucus Members' Vote on H.R. 1540, to Permit Indefinite Detention of People Without Charge in America

The record:

Tea Party Caucus: 56 YES, 10 NO
Constitution Caucus: 46 YES, 12 NO
Progressive Caucus: 10 YES, 60 NO

If you’re angered by the conversion of the United States government into a gulag archipelago and you’re looking for a congressional caucus that stands with you in opposition, don’t look to the Tea Party Caucus or the Constitution Caucus. Those caucuses’ actions overwhelmingly belied their lofty words. Overwhelmingly, it was the Congressional Progressive Caucus that defended your constitutional liberties in action.

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Tea Party Caucus Supports the Detain-People-Without-Charges-Forever kind of Freedom

December 21st, 2011 | Posted by Jim Cook in Homeland Insecurity | Legislation | Liberty | Politics | Republicans - (1 Comments)

“I formed the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives in July 2010 because Congress had strayed from the fundamental principles of the Constitution,” explains Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, chair of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress. “Sadly, it seems today that the Constitution is no longer at the forefront guiding Congress,” Bachmann continues. “This caucus will espouse the timeless principles of our founding, principles that all Members of Congress have sworn to uphold. The American people are doing their part and making their voices heard and this caucus will prove that there are some here in Washington willing to listen.”

It’s heartening to see a caucus that cares so dearly about the Constitution, isn’t it? Let Freedom Ring!

But let’s not stop there. Let’s also take a moment to consult this Constitution Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party Caucus hug and kiss in public. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

No person in America is supposed to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. In America, the government can’t just throw someone into jail forever because it wants to. According to the Constitution, the government must accuse a person of something, and it has to provide evidence to back up that accusation. Finally, a jury of the accused person’s peers is supposed to decide in a public trial whether the evidence proves what the government says it does. That’s all in the next clause of the Constitution, the Sixth Amendment:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

I mention these clauses because if the Tea Party Caucus was really formed “because Congress had strayed from the fundamental principles of the Constitution,” then it had a perfect chance to spring into action a week ago. On December 14 2011, the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 1540, a bill that grants government agents the power to detain people without placing them under arrest, to imprison a person without charge, and to keep them there until they die without ever granting them their right to a trial, or even the chance to learn what their rights are. This is a power that stands in contradiction of the 5th and 6th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. If the Tea Party Caucus is all about preserving the freedoms in the Constitution, then its members should have voted NO, against the passage of H.R. 1540.

Here’s how Tea Party Caucus members actually voted on passage of H.R. 1540 last week:

Tea Party Caucus members voting NO on H.R. 1540, AGAINST Indefinite Detention of People without Charge in America
Rep. Michael Burgess (Republican-TX, District 26)
Rep. Dan Burton (Republican-IN, District 5)
Rep. Mike Coffman (Republican-CO, District 6)
Rep. Jeff Duncan (Republican-SC, District 3)
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Republican-KS, District 1)
Rep. Tom McClintock (Republican-CA, District 4)
Rep. Mick Mulvaney (Republican-SC, District 5)
Rep. Mike Pence (Republican-IN, District 6)
Rep. Phil Roe (Republican-TN, District 1)
Rep. Edward Royce (Republican-CA, District 40)
Rep. Timothy Walberg (Republican-MI, District 7)
Rep. Joe Walsh (Republican-IL, District 8 )

Tea Party Caucus members voting YES on H.R. 1540, FOR Indefinite Detention of People without Charge in America
Rep. Sandy Adams (Republican-FL, District 24)
Rep. Robert Aderholt (Republican-AL, District 4)
Rep. Todd Akin (Republican-MO, District 2)
Rep. Rodney Alexander (Republican-LA, District 5)
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Republican-MD, District 6)
Rep. Joe Barton (Republican-TX, District 6)
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (Republican-FL, District 9)
Rep. Rob Bishop (Republican-UT, District 1)
Rep. Diane Black (Republican-TN, District 6)
Rep. Paul Broun (Republican-GA, District 10)
Rep. John Carter (Republican-TX, District 31)
Rep. Bill Cassidy (Republican-LA, District 6)
Rep. Ander Crenshaw (Republican-FL, District 4)
Rep. John Culberson (Republican-TX, District 7)
Rep. Blake Farenthold (Republican-TX, District 27)
Rep. Stephen Fincher (Republican-TN, District 8 )
Rep. John Fleming (Republican-LA, District 4)
Rep. Trent Franks (Republican-AZ, District 2)
Rep. John Gingrey (Republican-GA, District 11)
Rep. Louis Gohmert (Republican-TX, District 1)
Rep. Vicky Hartzler (Republican-MO, District 4)
Rep. Walter Herger (Republican-CA, District 2)
Rep. Lynn Jenkins (Republican-KS, District 2)
Rep. Steve King (Republican-IA, District 5)
Rep. Doug Lamborn (Republican-CO, District 5)
Rep. Jeff Landry (Republican-LA, District 3)
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (Republican-MO, District 9)
Rep. Kenny Marchant (Republican-TX, District 24)
Rep. David McKinley (Republican-WV, District 1)
Rep. Gary Miller (Republican-CA, District 42)
Rep. Randy Neugebauer (Republican-TX, District 19)
Rep. Richard Nugent (Republican-FL, District 5)
Rep. Steven Palazzo (Republican-MS, District 4)
Rep. Stevan Pearce (Republican-NM, District 2)
Rep. Ted Poe (Republican-TX, District 2)
Rep. Tom Price (Republican-GA, District 6)
Rep. Dennis Rehberg (Republican-MT, At Large District)
Rep. Dennis Ross (Republican-FL, District 12)
Rep. Steve Scalise (Republican-LA, District 1)
Rep. Pete Sessions (Republican-TX, District 32)
Rep. Adrian Smith (Republican-NE, District 3)
Rep. Lamar Smith (Republican-TX, District 21)
Rep. Clifford Stearns (Republican-FL, District 6)
Rep. Allen West (Republican-FL, District 22)
Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (Republican-GA, District 3)
Rep. Joe Wilson (Republican-SC, District 2)

12 members of the Tea Party Caucus voted against H.R. 1540, and they should be commended for it. But their actions are far outweighed by the 46 Tea Party Caucus votes cast for indefinite detention without charge, for H.R. 1540.

If the Tea Party Caucus supports constitutional freedom, it must be the detain-people-forever-without-charges kind of freedom, the not-free-freedom that must be written about in somewhere else in the Constitution. I can’t find that clause, but it’s got to be in there because the Tea Party Caucus says it’s all about defending the Constitution. Maybe the Founding Fathers wrote Amendment Seven-and-a-Half in between the lines, in lemon juice. That must be it.

P.S. What about Michele Bachmann, the founder of the Tea Party Caucus, stalwart defender of freedom everywhere? You know, that Michele Bachmann? She didn’t show up for the vote.

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Democrats Misunderstand Occupy Wall Street Movement if they seek to Own it

October 10th, 2011 | Posted by Jim Cook in Activism | Barack Obama | Democrats | Election 2012 | Politics - (13 Comments)

Rick Klein writes:

Democrats Seek to Own ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement… a consensus is emerging among Democrats that the “Occupy” movement is worth tapping into, even helping along and joining with in some instances…. To Democrats eager for a liberal antidote to the Tea Party energy that lifted Republicans to power last year, the “Occupy” rallies that started in New York last month and have spread to cities nationwide are tempting to embrace…. It may be that occupiers wind up playing a role for the political left that tea partiers did for the right.

If Democratic Party operatives really think that they can sweep in and adopt this movement with a firm embrace, they haven’t been paying attention. Yesterday morning, I made a point of photographing every one of the signs made by the people occupying DC’s Freedom Plaza. It wasn’t an easy task: there were over a thousand. The vast majority of them were hand-made, not supplied by any organization that might try to claim a voice on protesters’ behalf. Not one of the more than a thousand signs suggested voting for or supporting Democrats. Not one of the more than a thousand signs suggested voting for or supporting Barack Obama. More than a few of them criticized Barack Obama by name. The only sign I saw supporting any politician or party — one sign — was a Ron Paul 2012 campaign sign brought by a Texan. As I finished taking snaps of the signs, I listened to an organizer reading Barack Obama’s reactions to the Freedom Plaza protest in DC to the crowd. The crowd jeered at Obama’s words. So did the organizer.

Some, including the reporter I quote above, compare this new movement of the 99-percenters to the Tea Party, but there’s a fundamental difference in origin between the two. While core Tea Party organizations have been funded by Republican party operatives from the very beginning, the Occupation movement has self-organized.

The occupation protests across the country are not partisan protests. They are protests against the Democratic Party and protests against Barack Obama. Trying to co-opt the movement would be a waste of time. If the Democratic Party wants to make use of this movement, it should use the movement as an excuse to start considering how it might change its ways.

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Americans Elect Leader Daniel Winslow: Our Lack of Transparency is like a Tea Party Revolution

September 8th, 2011 | Posted by Jim Cook in Alternative Parties | Americans Elect | Politics - (31 Comments)

In a tweet sent to Americans Elect chief legal representative Dan Winslow on August 6 2011, “KevinL” linked to the revelation of hedge fund money behind Americans Elect and wrote to Winslow, “Your support of AE exposes you as a hypocrite on transparency & opposing special interests.”

Daniel Winslow compares Americans Elect to the Tea Party: How so? Why do you think the Indians wore facepaint when poking the British King in the eye? AE is fully complying with law.

For Daniel Winslow, Americans Elect is like the revolutionary Tea Party, American Elect’s lack of transparency is like facepaint to hide itself when engaged in revolutionary Tea Party-like activities, and if Americans Elect is “complying with law” a lack of transparency is supposed to be acceptable.

That’s a revealing analogy for its values, and perplexing one in some aspects. For instance, who’s the “British King” in this analogy? Who’s being poked in the eye? You and I are the ones who aren’t being told about the moneyed interests behind Americans Elect. For another thing, Dan Winslow seems to be saying that important political movements in America have to be hidden movements, movements of subterfuge and disguise, in order to succeed.

I don’t think I’d agree. Indeed, I think that political movements of subterfuge and disguise — especially when operated by billionaires and hedge fund managers — are the one of the most troubling political developments of recent times. We should be grateful to Daniel Winslow for having the honesty to say he thinks they’re the solution.

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