Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

How the GOP's Kamikaze Club Hijacked John Boehner
MotherJones | David Corn | 10/09/13

How did the Republican Party become a kamikaze club guided by a small handful of hostage-taking radicals hell-bent on causing chaos to ruin the presidency of Barack Obama? It wasn't by the design of House Speaker John Boehner and the GOP congressional leadership. This came about because a small number of tea party back-benchers in the House and Senate, assisted by a well-financed network of right-wing organizations (some funded by the billionaire Koch brothers), pushed an issue that was red meat for the GOP's base -- defunding Obamacare -- and managed to hijack the party (even more than the tea party already had). ... Read more

Prescription drug abuse now more deadly than heroin, cocaine combined
Christian Science Monitor | Mark Guarino | 10/07/13

More people are dying in the US from prescription drugs than from heroin and cocaine combined, a new study says, signaling that pill abuse is not just the leading cause of drug overdose deaths, but that it also requires more oversight and training by both doctors and state health agencies.

Deaths involving prescription pills have quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, according to a report released Monday by Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit organization in Washington that studies health policy. About 6.1 million people abuse prescription pills, and overdose deaths have at least doubled in 29 states, where they now exceed vehicle-related deaths. In 10 of those states, rates tripled; in four of them, they quadrupled. ... Read more

This Supreme Court Case Could Usher In a "System of Legalized Corruption"
MotherJones | author | 10/08/13

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that's been dubbed "the next Citizens United." The plaintiff, GOP donor Shaun McCutcheon, and his conservative allies say the case is about getting rid of restrictions on political spending that stifle free speech. Campaign finance watchdogs, meanwhile, fear the case could eviscerate an important piece of what's left of the federal laws governing money in politics. McCutcheon, says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, will decide "whether we return to the system of legalized corruption we have had in the past and that has led to some of the worst Washington corruption scandals in the nation's history." ... Read more

Congressional Perks Deemed Essential During Government Shutdown While Public Sacrifices
HP | Amanda Terkel | 10/09/13

Around the country, furloughed federal workers are wondering how they're going to pay their bills while they wait for the government to reopen. Businesses that rely on tourists are taking a hit due to shuttered national parks. And scientists conducting groundbreaking research have had to put the brakes on their work.

Meanwhile, members of Congress continue to pump iron in their exclusive gym, ride on special trolleys so that they don't have to walk a few extra feet and in some cases, protect their entire staff from the furloughs faced by other federal workers. ... Read more

A Corporate Coup in Disguise
AlterNet | Jim Hightower | 10/01/13

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would create a virtually permanent corporate rule over the people.

What if our national leaders told us that communities across America had to eliminate such local programs as Buy Local, Buy American, Buy Green, etc. to allow foreign corporations to have the right to make the sale on any products purchased with our tax dollars? This nullification of our people's right to direct expenditures is just one of the horror stories in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

This is a super-sized NAFTA, the 1994 trade scam rammed through Congress by the entire corporate establishment. NAFTA promised the "glories of globalization": prosperity across our land. Unfortunately, corporations got the gold. We got the shaft -- thousands of factories closed, millions of middle-class jobs went south, and the economies of hundreds of towns and cities were shattered.

Twenty years later, the gang that gave us NAFTA is back with the TPP, a "trade deal" that mostly does not deal with trade. Of the 29 chapters in this document, only five cover traditional trade matters! The other chapters amount to a devilish "partnership" for corporate protectionism:... Read more