re: Iran, Caddyshack, Jon Stewart/Daily Show last night-- wake up, folks...

[Jon Stewart at beginning of last night's "Daily Show" justifiably mocked Obama's continued sabre-rattling re: Iran-- asking when a new war in a Middle Eastern country become the equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield's exuberant exhortation from the end of "Caddyshack"...lol...more background-- recall my blog post: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/12/stop-next-us-war-with-iran-call-obama.html ]

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From http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=637261858&ref=ts#!/events/333764903321430/

Albany says, "No War with Iran"
Public Event · By Joe Lombardo

When: Saturday, February 4, 2012

Time: 12:00 pm until 2:00 pm

Where: Wolf Rd and Central Ave, Colonie

Description: Join Occupy Albany and the Capital District antiwar movement to protest the threat of war with Iran. NO WAR, NO Sanctions, No Assassinations. This is part of a national day of action.

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[new must-read just posted online yesterday from Ray McGovern-- "US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes"
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-5 ]

[also see-- Rabbi Lerner: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/mj-rosenberg-on-israels-possible-strike-at-iran ]

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From http://www.Progressive.org ...(note fifth paragraph below in particular!):

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by The Progressive
In Obama's State of the Union, Troublesome Passages for Progressives

by Matthew Rothschild

Excuse me for not yelling myself hoarse for Obama's warmed over State of the Union address.
While I agree with his call for economic fairness, there was not much in his speech that was new or all that promising. And there were several troublesome passages for progressives.

First, mentioning John Boehner, Obama said he was still open to a grand compromise on Social Security and Medicare, which would make Americans have to work longer and get less benefits from Medicare and Medicaid. We don't need a Democrat to hack away at these crucial social programs.

Second, he took a gratuitous swipe at universal single-payer health care. Sounding like Ronald Reagan, he said, "I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more." As an illustration, he said, "That's why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program." Huh?

He used to say he was for single-payer universal health care. Then, when he was running for President the first time, he said, "If I were starting from scratch," I'd be for single-payer universal health care. Now he disparages it to score cheap political points.

Third, he was belligerent on Iran, saying (to raucous applause) that he would take "no options off the table," which is easily decipherable code for saying he'd threaten to blow Iran off the map if it got one nuclear weapon, even though the United States has thousands and Israel has hundreds.
Fourth, he said that America is a "Pacific power," reiterating the theme of his new strategic doctrine, which is aimed recklessly at China.

And finally, sounding like a mix of Madeleine Albright and George W. Bush, he boasted that the United States is the "one indispensable nation in world affairs-and as long as I'm President, I intend to keep it that way."

This was cheap jingoism that the American people, already suffering from a superiority complex, really could have lived without.

© 2012 The Progessive
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine.

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From http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/25/he_says_one_thing_and_does ...

January 25, 2012

"He Says One Thing and Does Another":

Ralph Nader Responds to Obama's State of the Union Address

AMY GOODMAN: We are joined right now by Ralph Nader to talk more about President Obama's State of the Union address, longtime consumer advocate, former presidential candidate. His latest book is Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win."
Ralph Nader, your response to the State of the Union address? It could be President Obama's last. It could be the beginning of a new President Obama for a second term. What do you think?

RALPH NADER: Well, I think his lawless militarism, that started the speech and ended the speech, was truly astonishing. I mean, he was very committed to projecting the American empire, in Obama terms, force projection in the Pacific, and distorting the whole process of how he explains Iraq and Afghanistan. He talks about Libya and Syria, and then went into the military alliance with Israel and didn't talk about the peace process or the plight of the Palestinians, who are being so repressed. Leaving Iraq as if it was a victory? Iraq has been destroyed: massive refugees, over a million Iraqis dead, contaminated environment, collapsing infrastructure, sectarian warfare. He should be ashamed of himself that he tries to drape our soldiers, who were sent on lawless military missions to kill and die in those countries, unconstitutional wars that violate Geneva conventions and international law and federal statutes, and drape them as if they've come back from Iwo Jima or Normandy. So I think it was very, very poor taste to start and end with this kind of massive militarism and the Obama empire....

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Recall-- from http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/12/herding-americans-to-war-with-iran/ ...

Herding Americans to War with Iran
January 12, 2012
By Robert Parry
In spring 2010, a promising effort - led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - got Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to agree to relinquish Iranian control of nearly half the country's supply of low-enriched uranium in exchange for isotopes for medical research. The Turkish-Brazilian initiative revived a plan first advanced by Obama in 2009 - and the effort had the President's private encouragement. But after Ahmadinejad accepted the deal, Secretary Clinton and other U.S. hardliners switched into overdrive to kill the swap and insist instead on imposing harsher sanctions against Iran.
At the time, Clinton's position was endorsed by editors at the Washington Post and the New York Times, who mocked Erdogan and Lula da Silva as inept understudies on the international stage. If anything, the Post and Times argued, the United States should take an even more belligerent approach toward Iran, i.e. seeking "regime change." [See Consortiumnews.com's "WPost, NYT Show Tough-Guy Swagger."] As Clinton undercut the uranium swap and pushed instead for a new round of United Nations' sanctions, Lula da Silva released a private letter from Obama who had urged the Brazilians to press forward with the swap arrangement. However, with Washington's political momentum favoring another confrontation with a Muslim adversary, Obama retreated and lined up behind the sanctions.
Over the next nearly two years, the sanctions have failed to stop Iran's work on enriched uranium which it claims is needed for medical research. Israel, the neocons and other American hardliners have responded by demanding still more draconian sanctions, while promoting anti-Iran propaganda inside the United States and winking at the murder of Iranian scientists inside Iran.
In this U.S. election year, Israel and the neocons may understand that their political leverage on Obama is at its apex.

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From http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-5 ...

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Common Dreams
US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes

by Ray McGovern

Has Iran decided to build a nuclear bomb? That would seem to be the central question in the current bellicose debate over whether the world should simply cripple Iran's economy and inflict severe pain on its civilian population or launch a preemptive war to destroy its nuclear capability while possibly achieving "regime change."
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak meeting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2007

And if you've been reading the New York Times or following the rest of the Fawning Corporate Media, you'd likely assume that everyone who matters agrees that the answer to the question is yes, although the FCM adds the caveat that Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. The line is included with an almost perceptible wink and an "oh, yeah."

However, a consensus seems to be emerging among the intelligence and military agencies of the United States - and Israel - that Iran has NOT made a decision to build a nuclear weapon. In recent days, that judgment has been expressed by high-profile figures in the defense establishments of the two countries - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

You might think that you would have heard more about that, wouldn't you? U.S. and Israel agree that Iran is NOT building a nuclear bomb. However, this joint assessment that Iran has NOT decided to build a nuclear bomb apparently represented too big a change in the accepted narrative.

Yet, on Jan. 18, the day before U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey arrived for talks in Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Barak gave an interview to Israeli Army radio in which he addressed with striking candor how he assesses Iran's nuclear program. It was not the normal pabulum.

Question: Is it Israel's judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: Š confusion stems from the fact that people ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now Š in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case. Š

Question: How long will it take from the moment Iran decides to turn it into effective weapons until it has nuclear warheads?

Barak: I don't know; one has to estimate. Š Some say a year, others say 18 months. It doesn't really matter. To do that, Iran would have to announce it is leaving the [UN International Atomic Energy Agency] inspection regime and stop responding to IAEA's criticism, etc.

Why haven't they [the Iranians] done that? Because they realize that Š when it became clear to everyone that Iran was trying to acquire nuclear weapons, this would constitute definite proof that time is actually running out. This could generate either harsher sanctions or other action against them. They do not want that.

Question: Has the United States asked or demanded that the government inform the Americans in advance, should it decide on military action?

Barak: I don't want to get into that. We have not made a decision to opt for that, we have not decided on a decision-making date. The whole thing is very far off. Š

Question: You said the whole thing is "very far off." Do you mean weeks, months, years?

Barak: I wouldn't want to provide any estimates. It's certainly not urgent. I don't want to relate to it as though tomorrow it will happen.

As noted in my Jan. 19 article, "Israel Tamps Down Iran War Threats," which was based mostly on reports from the Israeli press before I had access to the complete transcript of the interview, I noted that Barak appeared to be identifying himself with the consistent assessment of U.S. intelligence community since late 2007 that Iran has not made a decision to go forward with a nuclear bomb.

A Momentous NIE

A formal National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007 - a consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies - contradicted the encrusted conventional wisdom that "of course" Iran's nuclear development program must be aimed at producing nuclear weapons. The NIE stated:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; Š Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005."

The Key Judgments of that Estimate elicited a vituperative reaction from some Israeli officials and in neoconservative circles in the United States. It also angered then-President George W. Bush, who joined the Israelis in expressing disagreement with the judgments. In January 2008, Bush flew to Israel to commiserate with Israeli officials who he said should have been "furious with the United States over the NIE."

While Bush's memoir, Decision Points, is replete with bizarre candor, nothing beats his admission that "the NIE tied my hands on the military side," preventing him from ordering a preemptive war against Iran, an action favored by hawkish Vice President Dick Cheney.

For me personally it was heartening to discover that my former colleagues in the CIA's analytical division had restored the old ethos of telling difficult truths to power, after the disgraceful years under CIA leaders like George Tenet and John McLaughlin when the CIA followed the politically safer route of telling the powerful what they wanted to hear.

It had been three decades since I chaired a couple of National Intelligence Estimates, but fate never gave me the chance to manage one that played such a key role in preventing an unnecessary and disastrous war - as the November 2007 NIE did.

In such pressure-cooker situations, the Estimates job is not for the malleable or the faint-hearted. The ethos was to speak with courage, and without fear or favor, but that is often easier said than done. In my days, however, we analysts enjoyed career protection for telling it like we saw it. It was an incredible boost to morale to see that happening again in 2007.

Ever since the NIE was published, however, powerful politicians and media pundits have sought to chip away at its conclusions, suggesting that the analysts were hopelessly naïve or politically motivated or vengeful, out to punish Bush and Cheney for the heavy-handed tactics used to push false and dubious claims about Iraq's WMD in 2002 and 2003.

A New Conventional Wisdom

There emerged in Official Washington a new conventional wisdom that the NIE was erroneous and wasn't worth mentioning anymore. Though the Obama administration has stood by it, the New York Times and other FCM outlets routinely would state that the United States and Israel agreed that Iran was developing a nuclear bomb and then add the wink-wink denial by Iran.

However, on Jan. 8, Defense Secretary Panetta told Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation" that "the responsible thing to do right now is to keep putting diplomatic and economic pressure on them [the Iranians] Š and to make sure that they do not make the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon."

Panetta was making the implicit point that the Iranians had not made that decision, but just in case someone might miss his meaning, Panetta posed the direct question to himself: "Are they [the Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No."

Barak's Jan. 18 statement to Israeli Army radio indicated that his views dovetail with those of Panetta - and their comments apparently are backed up by the assessments of each nation's intelligence analysts. In its report on Defense Minister Barak's remarks, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Jan. 19 summed up the change in the position of Israeli leaders as follows:

"The intelligence assessment Israeli officials will present Š to Dempsey indicates that Iran has not yet decided whether to make a nuclear bomb. The Israeli view is that while Iran continues to improve its nuclear capabilities, it has not yet decided whether to translate these capabilities into a nuclear weapon - or, more specifically, a nuclear warhead mounted atop a missile. Nor is it clear when Iran might make such a decision."

At the New York Times, the initial coverage of Barak's interview focused on another element. An article by Isabel Kershner and Rick Gladstone appeared on Jan. 19 on page A5 under the headline "Decision on Whether to Attack Iran is 'Far Off,' Israeli Defense Minister Says."

To their credit, the Times' Kershner and Gladstone did not shrink from offering an accurate translation of what Barak said on the key point of IAEA inspections: "The Iranians have not ended the oversight exercised by the International Atomic Energy Agency Š They have not done that because they know that that would constitute proof of the military nature of their nuclear program and that would provoke stronger international sanctions or other types of action against their country."

But missing from the Times' article was Barak's more direct assessment that Iran apparently had not made a decision to press ahead toward construction of a nuclear bomb. That would have undercut the boilerplate in almost every Times story saying that U.S. and Israeli officials believe Iran is working on a nuclear bomb.

But That's Not the Right Line!

So, what to do? Not surprisingly, the next day (Jan. 20), the Times ran an article by its Middle East bureau chief Ethan Bronner in which he stated categorically: "Israel and the United States both say that Iran is pursuing the building of nuclear weapons - an assertion denied by Iran - Š"

By Jan. 21, the Times had time to prepare an entire page (A8) of articles setting the record "straight," so to speak, on Iran's nuclear capabilities and intentions: Here are the most telling excerpts, by article (emphasis mine):

1- "European Union Moves Closer to Imposing Tough Sanctions on Iran," by Steven Erlanger, Paris:
"Senior French officials are concerned that these measures [sanctions] Š will not be strong enough to push the Iranian government into serious, substantive negotiations on its nuclear program which the West says is aimed at producing weapons."

"In his annual speech on French diplomacy on Friday, President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Iran of lying, and he denounced what he called its 'senseless race for a nuclear bomb.'"

"Iran says it is enriching uranium solely for peaceful uses and denies a military intent. But few in the West believe Tehran, which has not cooperated fully with inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency and has been pursuing some technologies that have only a military use."

(Pardon me, please. I'm having a bad flashback. Anyone remember the Times' peerless reporting on those infamous "aluminum tubes" that supposedly were destined for nuclear centrifuges - until some folks did a Google search and found they were for the artillery then used by Iraq?)

2- "China Leader Warns Iran Not to Make Nuclear Arms," by Michael Wines, Beijing

"Prime Minister Wen Jiabao wrapped up a six-day Middle East tour this week with stronger-than-usual criticism of Iran's defiance on its nuclear programŠ."

"Mr. Wen's comments on Iran were unusually pointed for Chinese diplomacy. In Doha, Qatar's capital, he said China 'adamantly opposes Iran developing and possessing nuclear weapons.'"
"Western nations suspect that Iran is working toward building a nuclear weapon, while Iran insists its program is peaceful."

3- "U.S. General Urges Closer Ties With Israel." by Isabel Kershner, Jerusalem

"Though Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes, Israel, the United Stated, and much of the West are convinced that Iran is working to develop a weapons program. Š"

Never (Let Up) on Sunday

Next it was time for the Times to trot out David Sanger from the Washington bullpen. Many will remember him as one of the Times' stenographers/cheerleaders for the Bush/Cheney attack on Iraq in March 2003. An effusive hawk also on Iran, Sanger was promoted to a position as chief Washington correspondent, apparently for services rendered.

In his Jan. 22 article, "Confronting Iran in a Year of Elections," Sanger pulls out all the stops, even resurrecting Condoleezza Rice's "mushroom cloud" to scare all of us - and, not least, the Iranians. He wrote:

"'From the perception of the Iranians, life may look better on the other side of the mushroom cloud,' said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He may be right: while the Obama administration has vowed that it will never tolerate Iran as a nuclear weapons state, a few officials admit that they may have to settle for a 'nuclear capable' Iran that has the technology, the nuclear fuel and the expertise to become a nuclear power in a matter of weeks or months."

Were that not enough, enter the national champion of the Times cheerleading squad that prepared the American people in 2002 and early 2003 for the attack on Iraq, former Executive Editor Bill Keller. He graced us the next day (Jan. 23) with an op-ed entitled "Bomb-Bomb-Bomb, Bomb-Bomb-Iran?" - though he wasn't favoring a military strike, at least not right now. Here's Keller:

"The actual state of the [nuclear] program is not entirely clear, but the best open-source estimates are that if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered full-speed-ahead - which there is no sign he has done - they could have an actual weapon in a year or so. Š In practice, Obama's policy promises to be tougher than Bush's. Because Obama started out with an offer of direct talks - which the Iranians foolishly spurned - world opinion has shifted in our direction."

Wow. With Iraqi egg still all over his face, the disgraced Keller gets to "spurn" history itself - to rewrite the facts. Sorry, Bill, it was not Iran, but rather Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other neocons in the U.S. Department of State and White House (with you and neocon allies in the press cheering them on), who "foolishly spurned" an offer by Iran in 2010 to trade about half its low-enriched uranium for medical isotopes. It was a deal negotiated by Turkey and Brazil, but it was viewed by the neocons as an obstacle to ratcheting up the sanctions.

In his Jan. 23 column, with more sophomoric glibness, Keller wrote this:

"We may now have sufficient global support to enact the one measure that would be genuinely crippling - a boycott of Iranian oil. The Iranians take this threat to their economic livelihood seriously enough that people who follow the subject no longer minimize the chance of a naval confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz. It's not impossible that we will get war with Iran even without bombing its nuclear facilities."
How neat! War without even trying!

The Paper of (Checkered Record)

Guidance To All NYT Hands: Are you getting the picture? After all, what does Defense Minister Barak know? Or Defense Secretary Panetta? Or the 16 agencies of the U.S. intelligence community? Or apparently even Israeli intelligence?

The marching orders from the Times' management appear to be that you should pay no heed to those sources of information. Just repeat the mantra: Everyone knows Iran is hard at work on the Bomb.
As is well known, other newspapers and media outlets take their cue from the Times. Small wonder, then, that USA Today seemed to be following the same guidance on Jan. 23, as can be seen in its major editorial on military action against Iran:

"The U.S. and Iran will keep steaming toward confrontation, Iran intent on acquiring the bomb to establish itself as a regional power, and the U.S. intent on preventing it to protect allies and avoid a nuclear arms race in the world's most volatile region.

"One day, the U.S. is likely to face a wrenching choice: bomb Iran, with the nation fully united and prepared for the consequences, or let Iran have the weapons, along with a Cold War-like doctrine ensuring Iran's nuclear annihilation if it ever uses them. In that context, sanctions remain the last best hope for a satisfactory solution."

And, of course, the U.S. press corps almost never adds the context that Israel already possesses an undeclared arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons, or that Iran is essentially surrounded by nuclear weapons states, including India, Pakistan, Russia, China and - at sea - the United States.
PBS Equally Guilty

PBS's behavior adhered to its customary

don't-offend-the-politicians-who-might-otherwise-cut-our-budget attitude on the Jan. 18 "NewsHour" - about 12 hours after Ehud Barak's interview started making the rounds. Host Margaret Warner set the stage for an interview with neocon Dennis Ross and Vali Nasr (a professor at Tufts) by using a thoroughly misleading clip from former Sen. Rick Santorum's Jan. 1 appearance on "Meet the Press."

Warner started by saying: "Back in the U.S. many Republican presidential candidates have been vowing they'd be even tougher with Tehran. Former Senator Rick Santorum spoke on NBC's Meet the Press: 'I would be saying to the Iranians, you open up those facilities, you begin to dismantle them and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through air strikes and make it very public that we are doing so.'"

Santorum seemed totally unaware that there are U.N. inspectors in Iran, and host David Gregory did nothing to correct him, leaving Santorum's remark unchallenged. The blogosphere immediately lit up with requests for NBC to tell their viewers that there are already U.N. inspectors in Iran, which unlike Israel is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allows IAEA inspections.
During the Warner interview, Dennis Ross performed true to form, projecting supreme confidence that he knows more about Iran's nuclear program than the Israeli Defense Minister and the U.S. intelligence community combined:

Margaret Warner: If you hamstring their [Iran's] Central Bank, and the U.S. persuades all these other big customers not to buy Iranian oil, that could be thought of as an act of war on the part of the Iranians. Is that a danger?

Ross: I think there's a context here. The context is that the Iranians continue to pursue a nuclear program. And unmistakably to many, that is a nuclear program whose purpose is to achieve nuclear weapons. That has a very high danger, a very high consequence. So the idea that they could continue with that and not realize that at some point they have to make a choice, and if they don't make the choice, the price they're going to pay is a very high one, that's the logic of increasing the pressure.
Never mind that the Israeli Defense Minister had told the press something quite different some 12 hours before.

Still, it is interesting that Barak's comments on how Israeli intelligence views Iran's nuclear program now mesh so closely with the NIE in 2007. This is the new and significant story here, as I believe any objective journalist would agree.

However, the FCM - led by the New York Times - cannot countenance admitting that they have been hyping the threat from Iran as they did with Iraq's non-existent WMDs just nine years ago. So they keep repeating the line that Israel and the U.S. agree that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

In this up-is-down world, America's newspaper of record won't even report accurately what Israel (or the CIA) thinks on this important issue, if that goes against the alarmist conventional wisdom that the neocons favor. Thus, we have this divergence between what the U.S. media is reporting as flat fact - i.e., that Israel and the United States believe Iran is building a bomb (though Iran denies it) - and the statements from senior Israeli and U.S. officials that Iran has NOT decided to build a bomb.

While this might strike some as splitting hairs - since peaceful nuclear expertise can have potential military use - this hair is a very important one. If Iran is not working on building a nuclear bomb, then the threats of preemptive war are not only unjustified, they could be exactly the motivation for Iran to decide that it does need a nuclear bomb to protect itself and its people.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his career as a CIA analyst, he prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

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From http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-6 ...

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by The Independent
It Suits 'Nuclear Israel' That We Never Forget 'Nuclear Iran'
The Ayatollah ordered the entire nuclear project to be closed down because it was the work of the devil

by Robert Fisk

Turning round a story is one of the most difficult tasks in journalism - and rarely more so than in the case of Iran. Iran, the dark revolutionary Islamist menace. Shia Iran, protector and manipulator of World Terror, of Syria and Lebanon and Hamas and Hezbollah. Ahmadinejad, the Mad Caliph. And, of course, Nuclear Iran, preparing to destroy Israel in a mushroom cloud of anti-Semitic hatred, ready to close the Strait of Hormuz - the moment the West's (or Israel's) forces attack.

Given the nature of the theocratic regime, the repulsive suppression of its post-election opponents in 2009, not to mention its massive pools of oil, every attempt to inject common sense into the story also has to carry a medical health warning: no, of course Iran is not a nice place. But ...

Let's take the Israeli version which, despite constant proof that Israel's intelligence services are about as efficient as Syria's, goes on being trumpeted by its friends in the West, none more subservient than Western journalists. The Israeli President warns us now that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Heaven preserve us. Yet we reporters do not mention that Shimon Peres, as Israeli Prime Minister, said exactly the same thing in 1996. That was 16 years ago. And we do not recall that the current Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in 1992 that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999. That would be 13 years ago. Same old story.

In fact, we don't know that Iran really is building a nuclear weapon. And after Iraq, it's amazing that the old weapons of mass destruction details are popping with the same frequency as all the poppycock about Saddam's titanic arsenal. Not to mention the date problem. When did all this start? The Shah. The old boy wanted nuclear power. He even said he wanted a bomb because "the US and the Soviet Union had nuclear bombs" and no one objected. Europeans rushed to supply the dictator's wish. Siemens - not Russia - built the Bushehr nuclear facility.

And when Ayatollah Khomeini, Scourge of the West, Apostle of Shia Revolution, etc, took over Iran in 1979, he ordered the entire nuclear project to be closed down because it was "the work of the Devil". Only when Saddam invaded Iran - with our Western encouragement - and started using poison gas against the Iranians (chemical components arriving from the West, of course) was Khomeini persuaded to reopen it.

All this has been deleted from the historical record; it was the black-turbaned mullahs who started the nuclear project, along with the crackpot Ahmadinejad. And Israel might have to destroy this terror-weapon to secure its own survival, to ensure the West's survival, for democracy, etc, etc.

For Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel is the brutal, colonising, occupying power. But the moment Iran is mentioned, this colonial power turns into a tiny, vulnerable, peaceful state under imminent threat of extinction. Ahmadinejad - here again, I quote Netanyahu - is more dangerous than Hitler. Israel's own nuclear warheads - all too real and now numbering almost 300 - disappear from the story. Iran's Revolutionary Guards are helping the Syrian regime destroy its opponents; they might like to - but there is no proof of this.

The trouble is that Iran has won almost all its recent wars without firing a shot. George W and Tony destroyed Iran's nemesis in Iraq. They killed thousands of the Sunni army whom Iran itself always referred to as "the black Taliban". And the Gulf Arabs, our "moderate" friends, shiver in their golden mosques as we in the West outline their fate in the event of an Iranian Shia revolution.

No wonder Cameron goes on selling weapons to these preposterous people whose armies, in many cases, could scarcely operate soup kitchens, let alone the billions of dollars of sophisticated kit we flog them under the fearful shadow of Tehran.

Bring on the sanctions. Send in the clowns.

© 2012 The Independent

Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East.

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From http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/12/herding-americans-to-war-with-iran/ ...

Herding Americans to War with Iran
January 12, 2012

Exclusive: The murder of a fifth Iranian scientist on the streets of Tehran had all the earmarks of an Israeli-sponsored assassination. The killing also worsened tensions at a moment when the momentum toward war with Iran seems unstoppable, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry

For many Americans the progression toward war with Iran has the feel of cattle being herded from the stockyard into the slaughterhouse, pressed steadily forward with no turning back, until some guy shoots a bolt into your head.

Any suggestion of give-and-take negotiations with Iran is mocked, while alarmist propaganda, a ratcheting up of sanctions, and provocative actions - like Wednesday's assassination of yet another Iranian scientist - push Americans closer to what seems like an inevitable bloodletting.
Even the New York Times now acknowledges that Israel, with some help from the United States, appears to be conducting a covert war of sabotage and assassination inside Iran. "The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran's morning rush hour," Times reporter Scott Shane wrote in Thursday's editions.

Though U.S. officials emphatically denied any role in the murder, Israeli officials did little to discourage rumors of an Israeli hand in the bombing. Some even expressed approval. Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said he didn't know who killed the scientist but added: "I am definitely not shedding a tear."

The latest victim, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was the fifth scientist associated with Iran's nuclear program to be killed in the past four years, with a sixth scientist narrowly escaping death in 2010, Fereydoon Abbasi, who is now head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization.

As might be expected, Iran has denounced the murders as acts of terrorism. They have been accompanied by cyber-attacks on Iranian centrifuges and an explosion at a missile facility late last year killing a senior general and 16 others.

While this campaign has slowed Iran's nuclear progress, it also appears to have hardened its resolve to continue work on a nuclear capability, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only. Iranian authorities also have responded to tightening economic sanctions from Europe and the United States with threats of their own, such as warnings about closing the oil routes through the Strait of Hormuz and thus damaging the West's economies.

Target: USA

Another front in Israel's cold war against Iran appears to be the propaganda war being fought inside the United States, where the still-influential neoconservatives are deploying their extensive political and media resources to shut off possible routes toward a peaceful settlement, while building support for future military strikes against Iran.

Fitting with that propaganda strategy, the Washington Post's editorial page, which is essentially the neocons' media flagship, published a lead editorial on Wednesday urging harsher and harsher sanctions against Iran and ridiculing anyone who favored reduced tensions.

Noting Iran's announcement that it had opened a better-protected uranium enrichment plant near Qom, the Post wrote: "In short, the new Fordow operation crosses another important line in Iran's advance toward a nuclear weapons capability.

"Was it a red line for Israel or the United States? Apparently not, for the Obama administration at least. In a television interview Sunday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: 'Our red line to Iran is: do not develop a nuclear weapon.' He asserted that Tehran was not trying to develop a weapon now, only 'a nuclear capability.' The Revolutionary Guard, which controls the nuclear program, might well take that as a green light for the new enrichment operation."

While portraying Panetta as an Iranian tool, the Post suggested that anyone who wanted to turn back from an Iran confrontation was an Iranian useful fool. The Post wrote:

"The recent flurry of Iranian threats has had the intended effect of prompting a new chorus of demands in Washington that the United States and its allies stop tightening sanctions and instead make another attempt at 'engagement' with the regime. The Ahmadinejad government itself reportedly has proposed new negotiations, and Turkey has stepped forward as a host.

"Almost certainly, any talks will reveal that Iran is unwilling to stop its nuclear activities or even to make significant concessions. But they may serve to stop or greatly delay a European oil embargo or the implementation of sanctions on the [Iranian] central bank - and buy time for the Fordow centrifuges to do their work."

The Post's recommended instead "that every effort must be made to intensify sanctions" and to stop Iranian sale of oil anywhere in the world. In other words, continue to ratchet up the tensions and cut off hopes for genuine negotiations.

A Vulnerable Obama

The escalating neocon demands for an ever-harder U.S. line against Iran - and Israel's apparent campaign of killings and sabotage inside Iran - come at a time when President Barack Obama and some of his inner circle appear to be looking again for ways to defuse tensions. But the Post's editorial - and similar neocon propaganda - have made clear that any move toward reconciliation will come with a high political price tag.

Already, a recurring Republican talking point is that Obama's earlier efforts to open channels of negotiation with Iran and other foreign adversaries proved his naivete and amounted to "apologizing" for America. Obama also has faced resistance within his own administration, especially from neocon-lites such as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

For instance, in spring 2010, a promising effort - led by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazil's then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva - got Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to agree to relinquish Iranian control of nearly half the country's supply of low-enriched uranium in exchange for isotopes for medical research.

The Turkish-Brazilian initiative revived a plan first advanced by Obama in 2009 - and the effort had the President's private encouragement. But after Ahmadinejad accepted the deal, Secretary Clinton and other U.S. hardliners switched into overdrive to kill the swap and insist instead on imposing harsher sanctions against Iran.

At the time, Clinton's position was endorsed by editors at the Washington Post and the New York Times, who mocked Erdogan and Lula da Silva as inept understudies on the international stage. If anything, the Post and Times argued, the United States should take an even more belligerent approach toward Iran, i.e. seeking "regime change." [See Consortiumnews.com's "WPost, NYT Show Tough-Guy Swagger."]

As Clinton undercut the uranium swap and pushed instead for a new round of United Nations' sanctions, Lula da Silva released a private letter from Obama who had urged the Brazilians to press forward with the swap arrangement. However, with Washington's political momentum favoring another confrontation with a Muslim adversary, Obama retreated and lined up behind the sanctions.

Over the next nearly two years, the sanctions have failed to stop Iran's work on enriched uranium which it claims is needed for medical research. Israel, the neocons and other American hardliners have responded by demanding still more draconian sanctions, while promoting anti-Iran propaganda inside the United States and winking at the murder of Iranian scientists inside Iran.
In this U.S. election year, Israel and the neocons may understand that their political leverage on Obama is at its apex. So, if he again searches for openings to negotiate with Iran, he can expect the same kind of nasty disdain that the Washington Post heaped on Panetta on Wednesday.

The Carter-Begin Precedent

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Likud leaders appear to fear a second Obama term - when he'd be freed from the need to seek reelection - much as their predecessors feared a second term for President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Then, Prime Minister Menachem Begin thought that Carter in a second term would team up with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in forcing Israel to accept a Palestinian state.

Begin's alarm about that prospect was described by Israeli intelligence and foreign affairs official David Kimche in his 1991 book, The Last Option. Kimche wrote that Begin's government believed that Carter was overly sympathetic to the Palestinians.

"Begin was being set up for diplomatic slaughter by the master butchers in Washington," Kimche wrote. "They had, moreover, the apparent blessing of the two presidents, Carter and Sadat, for this bizarre and clumsy attempt at collusion designed to force Israel to abandon her refusal to withdraw from territories occupied in 1967, including Jerusalem, and to agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Extensive evidence now exists that Begin's preference for Ronald Reagan led Israelis to join in a covert operation with Republicans to contact Iranian leaders behind Carter's back and delay release of the 52 American hostages then being held in Iran until after Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com's "The Back Story on Iran's Clashes."]

Today, Obama's relationship with Netanyahu seems as strained as Carter's relationship with Begin was three decades ago. And already many American neocons have signed up with Obama's Republican rivals, including with GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney whose foreign policy white paper was written by prominent neocons.

So the question now is: Will the President of the United States take his place amid the herd of cattle getting steered into the slaughterhouse of another war?

[For more on related topics, see Robert Parry's Lost History, Secrecy & Privilege and Neck Deep, now available in a three-book set for the discount price of only $29. For details, click here.]

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there.

Bill/Anne McCabe house party for my Congressional campaign Feb. 12th-- help us take back 20th c.d.!...

Hi all...

Come out if you can to join former three-term Co. Leg. Bill McCabe and his wife, Dem extraordinaire Anne McCabe-- on Sunday, Feb. 12th from noon to 2 pm-- they're hosting a house party for my Congressional campaign at their home at 81 Darren Rd. in LaGrangeville (12540) that afternoon!...

Note, too-- Rhinebeck's Duncan Christy will also be performing on keyboard selections from his "Blue State Blues"(!)...
[see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov-7GAjWaIs ]

[momentum building; send $$ now to Joel for Congress, 324 Browns Pond Rd., Staatsburg, NY 12580!]

Pass it on...

Joel
845-444-0599/876-2488
joeltyner@earthlink.net
http://www.JoelforCongress.org


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Forty-eight (48-- count 'em) reasons here below why we, together, will take back the 20th c.d. in Nov.:

[...aside from fact that, as Newt sez-- "people power beats money power every time" (lol).....he's right!...]

1. In case you happened to miss WAMC/Alan Chartock interviews with me that aired Weds. & Thurs.:
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/5586/0/1894964/Congressional.Corner/Congressional.Corner.with.Joel.Tyner.-.Part.1
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/5586/0/1894968/Congressional.Corner/Congressional.Corner.with.Joel.Tyner.-.Part.2

2. Our new Students for Tyner group has launched on Facebook-- thx to the efforts of Norman Rodriguez, Spencer Resnick, Stephen Greiner (of DCC), Kyle Van Steenburgh, Brady Massey (many of these from Occupy Poughkeepsie), Nick Streva (of Arlington High School), Steve Meddaugh (of Poughkeepsie High School), and great young folks from Occupy Albany like Daniel Micah Morrissey, Colin Donnaruma, and Jackie Hayes of Save Our SUNY...(we even had seven folks show up this past Sat. for mtg.-- in middle of snowstorm!)...
[join Students for Tyner here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Students-for-Tyner/264992996887802

3. Our new Women for Tyner group has launched on Facebook (thx to my Columbia County friends)...

4. Lee Jamison, Christian Sweningsen, Shirley Ripullone, Bruce Burns, Ellen Melnick, Ernie Reis, Leslie Gabriel, and many more have stepped up to the plate to get my signs all over Columbia County...

5. Rebecca Crawford has stepped up to the plate to get my signs out all over Saratoga County...

6. Phil Markham has stepped up to the plate to get my signs out all over Rensselaer County...

7. Tracy Frisch & David Doonan have stepped up to plate to help my campaign in Washington County...

8. Tom Carpenter has stepped up to the plate to put together fundraising for me in Greene County...

9. Matt Funiciello (of Rock Hill Bake House), Enid Mastrianni, & Judith Tully covering Warren County...
[note-- thanks to Matt F. and Fred Nagel-- we'll be co-hosting a free screening of Jamie Johnson's documentary "The One Percent" next Friday, Feb. 3rd at 7 pm at the Rock Hill Bake House at 19 Exchange Street in Glens Falls (admission free; though attendees encouraged to make contributions);
see http://www.TheOnePercentDocumentary.com ; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0819791/ ]

10. Many anti-fractivists are helping me in Delaware and Otsego counties; support in Essex Co. as well.

11. Among others endorsing my campaign are the Dutchess and Columbia County Democratic Elections Commissioners Fran Knapp and Virginia Martin, Cornel West, Josh Fox, Jeff Cohen, Troy Area Labor Council President Mike Keenan, Wayne Bayer, a DEC engineer who is a shop steward for the Public Employees Federation (someone who has spoken out frequently/publicly against fracking).

12. Check out http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Joel (sign on if you agree!)...220+ other folks from across the 20th c.d. have endorsed my campaign-- many of the best labor activists, peace activists, feminists, fractivists, and Dem activists in the Hudson Valley, Capital District, North Country, and Catskills; click on "view current signatures" at to see for yourself (also-- 3300 following me now on Facebook; join us!).

13. I've also proven that I get votes from folks from all over the political spectrum; I just got elected to a fifth consecutive term to represent Rhinebeck and Clinton in the Dutchess County Legislature-- though both towns now have Republican Town Supervisors (as they have had for many, many years now).

14. I'm a nice guy (lol).

15. Fact: I refuse to accept any campaign donations whatsoever from Wall Street or the insurance industry-- and will fight in Congress to stop any cuts to Medicare or Social Security.

16. Fact: Chris Gibson has raked in over $122,000 over just the last two years alone from securities and investment firms on Wall Street and over $46,000 from the insurance industry as well over same time.
[ http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/1461-chris-gibson ]

17. Fact: The Wall Street Journal reported April 4th last year that the Gibson/Cantor/Boehner "Cut, Cap, and Kill" legislation would "essentially end Medicare", eliminating 700,000 jobs; Gibson staff lie re: this.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/08/truth-re-gibson-anti-senior-anti.html ]

18. Fact: Gibson voted Nov.: so-called "Balanced Budget Amendment": Social Security/Medicare cuts.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/11/hinchey-tonko-owens-right-gibson-wrong.html ]

[again-- am looking for senior citizen(s) out there in 20th c.d. to help us launch Seniors for Tyner on FB!]

19. Fact: "In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans said too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. In a poll by Time Magazine, 86 percent of Americans said Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington."
[from "Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable" by Sarah van Gelder (Jan. 20th):
http://www.YesMagazine.org/blogs/sarah-van-gelder/corporate-rule-is-not-inevitable ]

20. Fact: 81% of Americans support taxing millionaires/billionaires more: solve federal budget woes.
[ http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7333/what_americans_want_the_peoples_budget ]

21. Fact: 78% of Americans support protecting Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid from any cuts.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-shows-americans-oppose-entitlement-cuts-to-deal-with-debt-problem/2011/04/19/AFoiAH9D_story.html

22. Fact: 59% of Americans support expanding Medicare to cover us all-- to save $400 billion a year.
http://www.healthcare-now.org/another-poll-shows-majority-support-for-single-payer/ ; PNHP.org

23. Fact: 80% of Americans support amending Constitution to make it clear-- corporations aren't people.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2010/02/in-supreme-court-ruling-on-campaign-finance-the-public-dissents.html ; http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/node/75

24. Fact: 67% of Americans support $10/hour minimum wage to put money in pockets of working class.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/06/americans-minimum-wage-poll_n_752921.html

25. Fact: 53% of Americans support full federal funding for Planned Parenthood & reproductive justice.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/node/15708

26. Fact: More New Yorkers support protecting drinking water with statewide ban on fracking than not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/15/new-york-gas-drilling-rul_n_900011.html

27. Fact: 54% of Americans support full funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-- not cuts.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2011/02/16/harris-poll-epa-budget/ ]

28. Fact: 79% of New Yorkers support Clean Money Clean Elections-- real campaign finance reform.
http://rochesterturning.com/2008/04/28/poll-says-3-of-4-new-yorkers-support-publicly-financed-elections/

29. Fact: 59% of Americans support our troops coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq now without delay.
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/afghanistan-get-out-59-percent/

30. Fact: Gibson voted with House majority in Sept. to allocate only half the FEMA funding Senate did.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/09/hincheytonko-right-re-fema-shame-on.html ]

31. Fact: Gibson voted for Ryan budget Apr. 15th against the disAbled-- by cutting Medicaid by 35%.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/12/gibson-forcing-people-with-disabilities.html ]

32. Fact: Gibson voted last month for REINS-- jeopardizing food safety and Dodd-Frank provisions.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/12/another-bad-gibson-vote-this-week-for.html ]

33. Fact: Gibson's signing on to Grover Norquist's "no new tax" pledge means Congressman 1% will continue ignoring an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in March finding that 81% of Americans support taxing millionaires to solve federal budget problems-- not putting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security on chopping block (send me to Washington-- I'll be an even louder voice telling both GOP and Dems to save all 3 of these from cuts; see just below-- new United for a Fair Economy update on this.
[recall-- infamous Town Hall forum Gibson hosted in August in Millerton-- folks are upset(!)...I was there]
[ http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/7333/what_americans_want_the_peoples_budget ;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/invoke-the-14th--and-end-the-debt-standoff/2011/07/01/gHQAUif8yH_story.html ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ILikeIke ;
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/26/305451/citizen-slams-gop-rep-over-anti-tax-pledge-we-are-your-consituents-not-grover-norquist/ ]

34. Fact: Gibson refuses to support Obama's American Jobs Act-- and he also refuses to support Rep. Jan Schakowsky's even better "Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act", which would create 2.2 million jobs rebuilding our infrastructure and hiring in our schools, hospitals, child care centers, parks, police officers, firefighters, weatherization, and recycling-- by raising taxes for Americans who earn more than $1 million and $1 billion, by eliminating subsidies for big oil companies, and by closing loopholes for corporations that send American jobs overseas.
[see: http://www.AmericanJobsAct.com ; recall my http://www.PetitionOnline.com/JobsNow effort]

35. Fact: Gibson voted last month for only $3.65 billion in funding for FEMA for Tropical Storm Irene relief for homeowners, businesses, and our communities-- even after the Senate had just approved $6.9 billion for FEMA in strong bipartisan majority.
[ http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/shame-on-gibsonhayworth-only-26-billion.html ]

36. Fact: Gibson voted last month to kill more American jobs by extending so-called "free-trade" agreements to Korea, Panama, and Colombia-- though we've already lost 5 million jobs from NAFTA.
[ http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/83832/tonko-gibson-at-odds-on-trade-agreements/ ;
http://www.americanjobsalliance.com/content/new-free-trade-pacts-will-hurt-middle-class ]

37. Fact: Gibson voted this February to eliminate $300 million in Title X Planned Parenthood funding-- even though "Title X funding can only be used for family planning services including birth control, life saving cervical and breast cancer screenings, HIV counseling and testing, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and education. The funding cannot and is not used to provide abortion services. Under the proposal, 48 percent of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide would be cut off from their source of health care for these essential services. Ninety-seven percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are preventive, most of which are women's gynecology services."
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/representatives-gibson-hayworth-vote-block-funds-planned-parenthood-would-cut-health-care-milli-36335.htm

38. Fact: Gibson voted last month for HR 358-- legislation that "would allow a hospital to deny a woman lifesaving emergency abortion care-even if a doctor deems it necessary. It would also take comprehensive health care coverage away from women and create loopholes that states and insurance companies could exploit to undermine the new requirement that insurance companies provide birth control with no co-pays or deductibles."
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/rep-gibson-votes-deny-lifesaving-emergency-health-care-women-38215.htm

39. Fact: Gibson's allegiance to Grover Norquist jeopardizes national support for farmland protection.
As Rhinebeck resident and Scenic Hudson Senior Vice President Steve Rosenberg noted recently on WAMC, it's crucial that even the small amount of federal funding for farmland protection ($100 million) now in the the farm bill about to be re-authorized be maintained-- the fact is this becomes more and more impossible with Norquist acolytes like Gibson in office who reject progressive taxation.
[ http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/news/stop-polluters/pollution-enforcement/outlining-vision/ ]

40. Fact: Gibson refuses to push for a wide variety of common-sense progressive initiatives that have broad populist support, as evidenced repeatedly by many polls-- a statewide ban on fracking (and immediate national moratorium), a liveable minimum wage, Medicare for all, Clean Money Clean Elections campaign finance reform, amending the Constitution to make it clear corporations aren't people, taxing Wall Street, breaking up the big banks, bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act, ending the speculation driving gas/oil prices up through the roof, bringing our troops now from Afghanistan, Iraq, and all over the globe to save $125 billion a year for taxpayers (and redirect $ home to our needs)-- and he refuses to lift a finger to join Sen. Bernie Sanders in seriously challenging the $16 TRILLION the Federal Reserve recently lent out to practically every major financial institution and corporation around.
[ http://www.AMillionFrackingLetters.com ; http://www.FrackAction.com ; http://www.ToxicsTargeting.com
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/node/75 ; http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FDRagain ;
http://www.thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/afghanistan-get-out-59-percent ]

41. Fact: Rep. Chris Gibson voted Dec. 14th for the atrocious indefinite detention NDAA bill ("The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012-- (House Vote 932 - H.R.1540: On Agreeing to the Conference Report").
[see: http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/12/fact-gibson-voted-for-indefinite.html ;
http://www.politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/932 ]

42. Fact: Rep. Maurice Hinchey, Rep. Paul Tonko, and 91 other Democratic (and principled) members of the House of Representatives voted Dec. 14th against the indefinite detention NDAA legislation.
[see: http://www.votesmart.org/bill/14203/37472/ ]

43. Fact: It wasn't just 93 Democrats in the House who voted against the indefinite detention NDAA bill; the truth is also that literally 43 GOP members of the House of Representatives (but not Chris Gibson) voted Dec. 14th against indefinite detention NDAA legislation-- all the following GOP (not Chris Gibson tho):

44. Republicans Justin Amah (MI-3), Larry Buchshon (IN-8), Michael Burgess (TX-26), Dan Burton (IN-5), John Campbell (CA-48), Jason Chaffetz (VT-3), Mike Coffman (CO-6), Scott DesJarlais (TN-4), Jeffrey Duncan (SC-3), John Duncan, Jr. (TN-2), Jeff Flake (AZ-6), J. Randy Forbes (VA-4), Scott Garrett (NJ-5), Robert Goodlatte (VA-6), Paul Gosar (AZ-1), Trey Gowdy (SC-4), Tom Graves (GA-9), Morgan Griffith (VA-9), Andy Harris (MD-1), Robert Hurt (VA-5), Tim Johnson (IL-15), Walter Jones (NC-3), Paul Labrador (ID-1), Cynthia Lumnis (WY-1), Connie Mack (FL-14), Tom McClintock (CA-4), Mick Mulvaney (SC-5), Mike Pence (IN-6), Bill Posey (FL-15), Reid Ribble (WI-8), Phil Roe (TN-1), Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46), Todd Rokita (IN-4), Ed Royce (CA-40), David Schweikert (AZ-5), Mike Simpson (ID-2), Marlin Stutzman (IN-3), Scott Tipton (CO-3), Tim Walberg (MI-7), Joe Walsh (IL-8), and Rob Woodall (GA-7)!
[see: http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/show/9593 ]

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45. This-- from http://www.DCCC.org/races/district/new_yorks_20th ...

[more info here from Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]

House Republicans voted for a radical budget that ends Medicare rather than ending taxpayer giveaways for Big Oil or tax breaks for the ultra rich. Republicans' [Chris Gibson's] plan would be devastating to seniors in the district who are currently enrolled in Medicare:

* Increase prescription drug costs for 11,200 Medicare beneficiaries in the district who would be caught in the "donut hole."
* Eliminate new preventative care benefits for 117,000 Medicare beneficiaries in the district.

Republicans' [Chris Gibson's] radical plan to end Medicare would also affect those 54 or younger who are not currently enrolled in Medicare:

* Deny 480,000 individuals age 54 and younger in the district access to Medicare's guaranteed benefits.

* Increase the out-of-pocket costs of health coverage by over $6,000 per year in 2022 and by almost $12,000 per year in 2032 for the 125,000 individuals in the district who are between the ages of 44 and 54.

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46. This NYTimes editorial from Dec. 31st:

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL
The Damage of 2011
Published: December 30, 2011

After they took power in January, the hard-line Republicans who dominate the House reached for a radical overhaul of American government, hoping to unravel the social safety net, cut taxes further for the wealthy and strip away regulation of business. Fortunately, thanks to defensive tactics by Democrats, they failed to achieve most of their agenda.

But they still did significant damage in 2011 to many of the most important functions of government, and particularly to investments in education, training and transportation that the country will need for a sound economic recovery.

With a threatened government shutdown in April, the Republicans pushed through spending cuts of about $25 billion over a decade. Then, in August, the agreement to raise the debt ceiling - an unnecessary crisis created by the Republicans - cut nearly $2 trillion through 2021 with strict spending caps, a move that will hurt hundreds of programs serving millions of Americans for a full decade and longer.

Given the level of extortion they faced, the White House budget office and Congressional Democrats negotiated relatively well. They prevented Republicans from touching Medicare recipients, Medicaid, Social Security and other programs. (President Obama did offer to cut entitlement spending in exchange for higher tax revenues, but Republicans refused that deal.) They arranged for more than $500 billion in cuts to come from defense spending. And they did not agree to extend the Bush tax cuts, now scheduled to expire at the end of 2012.

But that still leaves major reductions in the vital category known as nondefense discretionary spending, which faces cuts of around $800 billion over a decade. That category includes education, housing assistance, transportation, public health, veterans benefits, law enforcement and courts, environmental protection and many other crucial programs.

This spending category has been the main focus of Republican pressure for decades. In the 1970s, nondefense discretionary spending represented about 5 percent of the gross domestic product; that is now down to about 2.5 percent. Over the next decade, once the new cuts go into effect, it will decline to less than 2 percent. This year's spending bill, signed into law a few days ago, is roughly 10 percent lower than last year's, cutting Pell grants, environmental programs and aid to desperate states. Low-income heating assistance was cut by 25 percent.

As the economist Jared Bernstein has noted, this is the category of spending that helps people move up the income ladder, providing nutritious food, improving early education and job training and putting people to work.

The precise cuts on individual programs will be determined each year by appropriators acting under the new caps. Each year's cuts will be more painful than the last because the spending limits fail to keep pace with population growth, inflation and the needs of the economy.

This situation is the result of the Republicans' success at shifting Washington's focus from job creation and revenue increases to deficit reduction, at exactly the wrong time, when the economy was too weak to handle it.

The long-term deficit needs to be reduced once economic growth has returned, but only in the context of higher taxes for the rich...Even if the Bush tax cuts expire on time, much of the $3.8 trillion that that would bring in over a decade would have to be used for deficit reduction if the caps stay in place.

All of this leaves President Obama and the Democrats with much work to do in 2012. When the 2013 budget process begins in a few weeks, they will need to protect vital investments from further cuts and start building the case for raising the spending caps.

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47. This-- from http://www.YesMagazine.org/blogs/sarah-van-gelder/corporate-rule-is-not-inevitable ...

Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable
7 signs the corporatocracy is losing its legitimacy ... and 7 populist tools to help shut it down.

by Sarah van Gelder
posted Jan 20, 2012

You may remember that there was a time when apartheid in South Africa seemed unstoppable.
Sure, there were international boycotts of South African businesses, banks, and tourist attractions. There were heroic activists in South Africa, who were going to prison and even dying for freedom. But the conventional wisdom remained that these were principled gestures with little chance of upending the entrenched system of white rule.

"Be patient," activists were told. "Don't expect too much against powerful interests with a lot of money invested in the status quo."

With hindsight, though, apartheid's fall appears inevitable: the legitimacy of the system had already crumbled. It was harming too many for the benefit of too few. South Africa's freedom fighters would not be silenced, and the global movement supporting them was likewise tenacious and principled.
In the same way, the legitimacy of rule by giant corporations and Wall Street banks is crumbling. This system of corporate rule also benefits few and harms many, affecting nearly every major issue in public life. Some examples:

* Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren't paid enough to afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top executives and others in the 1 percent.

* The financial collapse threw millions of Americans into poverty. 25 million are unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work; four million have been unemployed for more than 12 months. Poverty increased 27 percent between 2006 and 2010. And students who graduated with student loans in 2010 had borrowed 5 percent more than the previous year's graduating class-owing more than $25,000. Meanwhile, those who caused the collapse continue the same practices. And the unwillingness of the 1 percent to pay their fair share of taxes means the the public services we rely on are fraying.

* Scientists say that we are on the brink of runaway climate change; we only have a few years to make the needed investments in clean power and energy efficiency. This transition could be a huge job creator-on the order of the investments made during World War II, which got us out of the Depression. But fossil fuel industries don't want to see their investment in dirty energy undermined by the switch to clean energy and conservation. So far, by paying millions to climate deniers, lobbyists, and political campaigns, they've succeeded in stymieing change.

* Agribusiness get taxpayer subsidies for foods that make us sick; for farming practices that destroy rivers, soils, the climate, and the oceans; and for trade practices that cause hunger at home and abroad.

* Through ALEC, the private prison industry crafts state laws that boost the numbers behind bars, lengthen sentences, and privatize prisons.

* Big Pharma jacks up prices; insurance companies raise premiums and delivers fewer benefits; the burden of inflated care drags down the economy and bankrupts families. But only a very few politicians stand up to the health care industry's war chests and advocate for Canadian-style single-payer health care, which would go a long way toward solving the cost problem.

* Corporations and wealthy executives fund an army of lobbyists and election campaigns, spreading untruths and self-serving policy prescriptions.

It's not that we, the people, haven't noticed all this.

In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans said too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. In a poll by Time Magazine, 86 percent of Americans said Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington.

And 80 percent of Americans oppose Citizens United, the pro-corporate Supreme Court ruling that turns two years old today. Eighty percent-that's among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
Some say corporations have such a strong grip on politicians and big media that it is impossible to challenge them, no matter how many of us there are.

But I believe we can do it. In the past few months, YES! Magazine has been researching ways that ordinary people can challenge corporate power (look for strategies in our spring issue, out in February). And we found that there are actually a lot of tools at our disposal:

* Corporations were created by public law to provide a public benefit. If we the people no longer feel that a corporation is providing a benefit-or if we feel that it is operating in a lawless and destructive manner-we can revoke their charter. That's what Free Speech for People has asked the attorney general of Delaware to do to Massey Energy, which has been one of the worst culprits in mountaintop removal and which has operated its mines in a lawless and negligent manner, resulting in 29 deaths at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

* We can insist that, in exchange for use of our public airwaves, broadcasters provide free airtime to candidates for public office. If they don't need to raise millions for media buys, they don't need to be as beholden to the 1 percent.

* We can get our governments to quit banking with Bank of America and Chase, and start our own state banks-14 states, including California and Washington, are considering such a move. And while we're at it, we can localize food, energy, and other aspects of our economy so local, independent businesses and cooperatives can thrive.

* We can stand up to specific parts of the corporate agenda by engaging in the sort of direct action that halted the KXL Pipeline.

* We can call for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, corporate personhood, and the ridiculous notion that money is the same thing as speech. So far, Los Angeles, New York City, and about 50 other towns and cities have done so far.

* We can use mechanisms like clean elections, electoral transparency, citizen review of legislation, and recalls to keep corporate control of our democracy in check.

* Finally, the reason I am most hopeful today: We can take a cue from Occupy Wall Street and continue to name the source of political corruption-something the political establishment and mainstream media have refused to do. We can occupy homes that are slated for foreclosure, as people have been doing all over the country. We can mic check places like Walmarts that intimidate and fire workers who want to unionize. We can set up tents in public places and in other ways join with the Occupy movement to take a stand for a world that works for the 100 percent-a world where we all benefit.

None of these actions will be easy. It will take time-potentially years of work-to make big change. But just as the legitimacy of apartheid crumbled well before the institutions of apartheid went down, the legitimacy of corporate rule is crumbling. So I'm convinced that, with you and me and all the others out there creating alternatives and taking a stand, we will see change.

Sarah van Gelder will deliver these comments at Seattle's rally on the second anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. Sarah is YES! Magazine's co-founder and executive editor, and editor of the new book: "This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement."

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48. This-- from http://www.TheNation.com ...(Americans are sick to death of this corruption)...

Eleven Shocking Facts About Campaign Finance
George Zornick on January 20, 2012 - 1:57pm ET

It's been two years since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission, allowing a torrent of secret money to flow into the political process.
To be clear, the corrupting influence of big money was distorting the democratic process for years before that decision. But it unquestionably made the problem worse, exacerbating both the volume and secrecy of campaign donations.

Here's eleven disturbing facts about the extent to which money is playing an increasing role in our politics:

* The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006. [Center for Responsive Politics]

* The percentage of spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 mid-term elections. [Center for Responsive Politics]

* Campaign receipts for members of the House of Representatives totaled $1.9 billion in 2010-up from $781 million in 1998. [Committee for Economic Development]

* Outside groups spent more on political advertising in 2010 than party committees-for the first time in at least two decades. [Center for Responsive Politics]

* A shocking 72 percent of political advertising by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006. [Committee for Economic Development]

* In 2004, 97.9 percent of outside groups disclosed their donors. In 2010, 34.0 percent did. [Committee for Economic Development]

* In 2010, the US Chamber of Commerce spent $31,207,114 in electioneering communications. The contributions for which it disclosed the donors: $0. [Committee for Economic Development]

* Only 26,783 Americans donated more than $10,000 to federal campaigns in 2010-or, about one in 10,000 Americans. Their donations accounted for 24.3 percent of total campaign donations. [Sunlight Foundation]

* Average donation from that elite group was $28,913. (The median individual income in America is $26,364) [Sunlight Foundation]

* Amount the Karl Rove-led Crossroads GPS says it will spend on the 2012 elections: $240 million. [On the Media]

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As Sen. Bernie Sanders noted last June 28th in a 90-minute speech on the Senate floor...

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=aa0f5904-c400-415e-aaff-86ca62fa2b3b

"The Republican budget passed by the House this year would end Medicare as we know it within 10 years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the Ryan proposal, in 2022, a private health care plan for a 65-year-old equivalent to Medicare coverage would cost about $20,500. Yet the Republican budget would provide a voucher for only $8,000 of those premiums. Seniors would be on their own to pay the remaining $12,500, a full 61 percent of the total. Now, how many of the 20 million near elderly Americans who are now ages 50 to 54 will be able to afford that?

So let's review what we have. Let's say when a person becomes 65 in 10 years and they are earning or living on $15,000 in Social Security, they are going to be asked to pay $12,500 more for health care than is currently the case. How do they do that? What kind of health care plan are they going to buy when they are old and sick and are given an $8,000 voucher? How many days in the hospital will they be able to have? You can run up an $8,000 bill in 1 day, in 2 days. So this ending of Medicare as we know it, forcing seniors to somehow come up with all kinds of money that in many cases they don't have, will be a disaster for tens of millions of people.

The Republican budget would also force 4 million seniors in this country to pay $3,500 more on average for their prescription drugs by reopening the Medicare Part D doughnut hole. That goes into effect as soon as that bill would be passed, if it were to be passed.

Under the Republican budget, nearly 2 million children would lose their health insurance over the next 5 years by cuts to the Children's Health Insurance Program according, again, to the Congressional Budget Office. At a time when 50 million Americans have no health insurance, the Republican budget would cut Medicaid by over $770 billion, causing millions and millions of Americans to lose their health insurance, and it would cut nursing home assistance in half.

Right now, Medicaid pays the lion's share of nursing home care. If we make savage cuts in Medicaid, what happens to the elderly who are in nursing homes and what happens to their children in terms of trying to provide the help their parents desperately need?

Republicans in Washington have never believed in Medicaid or in Medicare or in Federal assistance in education or providing any direct government assistance to those in need. They have always believed tax breaks for the wealthy and the powerful would somehow miraculously trickle down to every American despite all history and all evidence to the contrary. So in that sense it is not strange at all that they would use the deficit crisis we are now in as an opportunity for an ideological attack against some of the most vulnerable people in our country.

That is exactly what the Ryan Republican budget, passed in the House of Representatives earlier this year and supported by the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate just last month, is all about."

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As a good friend of Joel's who's been a noted statewide/national heathcare activist/expert/advocate here in NYS for decades just shared this with us on this-- "Unfortunately the big New York City hospitals who spent big bucks to send out a mailing glossing over Gibson's effort to kill Medicare are playing politics with our health care and have made it clear they care only about their own narrow special interests. Sadly, they have cozied up to a Congressman who voted to destroy Medicare and Medicaid in order to protect their little piece of the pie..."

Here below-- seven must-read's Gibson's wealthy buddies are spending beaucoup bucks to gloss over:

[yes, folks-- Gibson voted for Ryan budget-- http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/277
http://www.dccc.org/races/district/new_yorks_20th ; also see: http://www.NCPSSM.org/ !]

1. Gibson Votes for ‘Cut, Cap and Balance’ [Kill]; Dems Don’t" by Jimmy Vielkind (AT-Union 7/20/11)
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/75496/gibson-votes-for-cut-cap-and-balance-dems-dont/

2. "Gibson Votes To Kill Medicare-- Again" (6/2/11)
http://rensscopolitico.blogspot.com/2011/06/gibson-votes-to-kill-medicare-again.html

3. "NY-20: Gibson Lies About Medicare Vouchers" by Devtob (4/15/11)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/15/967406/-NY-20:-Gibson-lies-about-Medicare-vouchers

4. July 16th CBPP/Greenstein Statement re: GOP/Gibson "Cut, Cap, Kill Medicare" Legislation
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3537

5. "AARP Launches Second Ad To Fight GOP [Gibson] Medicare Plan" by Michael McAuliff (6/16/11)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/aarp-second-ad-republican-medicare_n_877944.html

6. NCPSSM: Leading Seniors' Organization Reacts to Senate Defeat Of GOP/Ryan Budget Plan (5/25/11)
http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/senate_defeat_ryan/

7. NCPSSM: "Debt "Super Committee" Not Looking So Super for America's Seniors and the Middle-Class"
http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/supercommittee_selection_release/ (8/11/11)

Also-- as Paul Krugman reminded us in his column last August 24th:

"Raising the Medicare age would make America as a whole poorer...treatment of some conditions would be delayed and impose higher costs when people finally do get on Medicare), it would push people into higher-cost private coverage. Austin Frakt estimates $2 of private costs for every dollar of budget savings."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/the-strange-power-of-really-bad-ideas-medicare-edition/
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/07/paul-krugman-messing-with-medicare.html ;
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/06/paul-krugman-medicare-saves-money.html ;
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2011/05/paul-krugman-medicare-and-mediscares.html

And-- don't forget-- it's not just the folks in Kathy Hochul's 26th c.d.-- Americans SUPPORT senior care!...

[yes, you better believe the seniors here in the 20th are just like the seniors in the 26th c.d.-- ticked off]

[health care for all is an issue near and dear to Joel personally-- his own stepfather Bob Malstrom died of a heart attack at the age of 59 as Joel was giving him CPR-- Bob had known something was dreadfully wrong with his health, but didn't have health insurance at the time, even though Joel's stepfather had worked for IBM for 20 years; recall Joel's http://www.PetitionOnline.com/forpiggy ; http://www.petitiononline.com/duhealth efforts]

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http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/75496/gibson-votes-for-cut-cap-and-balance-dems-dont/

Gibson votes for ‘cut, cap and balance’; Dems don’t
Posted on July 20, 2011 at 8:32 am by Jimmy Vielkind, Capitol bureau in Bill Owens, Chris Gibson, NY-20, NY-21, NY-23

Rep. Chris Gibson, a Kinderhook Republican, voted for a House GOP “cap, cut and balance” plan intended to signal the chamber’s focus on spending cuts. Leaders are negotiating a plan that will raise the federal debt ceiling as it reduces the project deficit — House Republicans say they want to do that with pure cuts, while Democrats are pushing for taxes and other revenue items as part of a package.

This plan would impose spending caps as a percentage of GDP and would require a balanced budget amendment. Gibson signaled this vote two weeks ago. Yhe House bill passed 234-190. It’s not expected to pass the Senate.

Two local Democrats, Reps. Paul Tonko and Bill Owens, voted against the plan. Here’s a statement from Tonko, D-Amsterdam:

“The Republican Majority in the House continues to work against the will of the American people. While my constituents ask for us to create jobs, the Republicans today voted for their ‘Cut, Cap, and End Medicare Plan” that will instead destroy 700,000 jobs, slash education, and bring an end to Medicare. Creating new jobs is the best way we can drive down the deficit. Instead of looking out for the middle class and our seniors, Republicans are telling Americans that Big Oil and millionaires and billionaires do not have to sacrifice and pay their fair share. Republicans are essentially saying they’d rather ask for sacrifices from the middle class than eliminate tax breaks for their friends with deep pockets.”
And Owens, D-Plattsburgh:

“I voted against this legislation because, not only does it include the Ryan budget proposal which would cripple Medicare and Social Security, but it caps spending at a specific percentage that does not take into account the cost of war or the management of the current economic crisis. This plan is dangerous for Fort Drum, the nation’s security, and local job creators. It is does not reflect Upstate New York values.

“Most leading economists – as well as the general public – believe Congress must craft a plan that includes spending cuts and revenue increases in the ongoing debt limit debate. For months, I have called for this type of compromise that will protect programs important to Upstate New York, and I will continue to do so until it is done.”

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From http://rensscopolitico.blogspot.com/2011/06/gibson-votes-to-kill-medicare-again.html ...

RenssCoPolitico
Your blogsource for all things political in Rensselaer County.

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2011
Gibson votes to kill Medicare - AGAIN

Isn't it just like a Republican to double down on failure? Faced with the loss of NY 26 and overwhelming poll numbers showing how much the American people hate the Ryan Budget and its Medicare-killing provisions, Chris Gibson cast a second vote to kill Medicare and raise health care costs for New York seniors.

But while Gibson is doubling down on the House Republican plan to end Medicare, he is still refusing to end taxpayer giveaways to Big Oil or tax breaks for millionaires. In a procedural move, Gibson voted to accept the House Republicans’ controversial budget which includes the Republican plan to end Medicare. Gibson’s plan is for millionaires to get a $100,000 tax break and seniors to get a $6,400 medical bill.

The move Gibson used to signal his unwavering support for big oil and millionaires and "let them eat cake" attitude toward the rest of us, was his support of a “deeming resolution” in H. Res. 287 which states “the provisions of House Concurrent Resolution 34 […] shall have force and effect […] in the House as though Congress has adopted such concurrent resolution”. [H. Res. 287, Vote #382, 6/1/11]

The result: millionaires get more than a $100,000 tax cut in GOP Budget, while seniors get a $6,400 medical bill. [Tax Policy Center via Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/20/11, 4/07/11]

Gibson voted to end Medicare by supporting the Republican budget. [H Con. Res. 34, Vote #277, 4/15/11]; opposed a measure that could have cut taxpayer subsidies to big oil when he voted to bypass consideration of the Big Oil Welfare Repeal Act of 2011 (H.R. 1689) which would repeal key taxpayer funded subsidies for oil and gas companies. As reported by The Hill newspaper, “House Democrats intend to force a vote on a measure that would eliminate a key oil industry tax break when Republicans bring a bill to expand domestic oil and-gas drilling to the floor Thursday.” [H Res 245, Vote #293, 5/05/11; The Hill, 5/04/11; CBS News, 5/04/11]

But it is not just us saying Gibson wants to kill Medicare. Read what others are saying:

• Wall Street Journal: The House Republican Budget for 2012 Would “Essentially End Medicare.” “The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11

• Nonpartisan Congressional Research Service: Individuals Would Not Be Able to Enroll in Current Medicare Program. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the Republican budget ends Medicare: “Individuals who become eligible (based either on age or disability) for Medicare in 2022 and later years would not be able to enroll in the current Medicare program. Instead, they would be given the option of enrolling in a private insurance plan through a newly established Medicare exchange.” [CRS Report, 4/13/11]

• NCPSSM: GOP Budget Plan Destroys Medicare and Cuts Social Security Benefits. Max Richtman, executive vice-president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the Republican budget would destroy Medicare: “Over time, this will destroy the only health insurance program available to 47 million Americans.” [NCPSSM press release, 4/5/11]
Sadly, his supporters in NY 20 just don't get the implication, preferring to keep their heads buried in the sand, thinking Gibson is doing the right thing for his constituents.

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From http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3537 ...

CBPP Statement: Updated July 16, 2011
For Immediate Release
Greenstein Statement on the “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” That the House Will Consider on July 19

Robert Greenstein

The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” that the House of Representatives will vote on next week stands out as one of the most ideologically extreme pieces of major budget legislation to come before Congress in years, if not decades. It would go a substantial way toward enshrining Grover Norquist’s version of America into law.
• The plan would lock in cuts over the next ten years at least as severe as those in the Ryan budget plan that the House passed in April, by writing spending caps into law at the year-by-year levels of spending (as a share of GDP) the Ryan budget contains.

• It also would hold the increase in the debt limit needed by August 2 hostage to approval by two-thirds of the House and the Senate of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget every year while effectively barring any increases in revenues. The constitutional amendment would make all revenue-raising measures unconstitutional unless they secured a two-thirds supermajority in both the House and the Senate.

• The “Cut, Cap & Balance” measure cites three constitutional balanced-budget amendments (H.J. Res 1, S.J. Res 10, and H.J. Res 56) and states that Congress must approve one of them or a similar measure before the debt limit can be raised. All three of the cited proposals would require cuts deeper than those in the Ryan budget. All three measures would establish a constitutional requirement that total federal expenditures may not exceed 18 percent of GDP, and all three would essentially require that the budget be balanced within the coming decade.

The Ryan plan, by contrast, does not reach balance until the 2030s, and its federal spending level is just below or modestly above 20 percent of GDP for most of the next two decades, equaling 20? percent of GDP in 2030 for example, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The only budget that comes close to meeting the requirements of these constitutional amendments is the Republican Study Committee budget, which eliminates 70 percent of non-defense discretionary funding by 2021, contains deeper Medicare cuts than the Ryan budget, cuts Medicaid, food stamps, and Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled poor in half by the end of the decade, and raises the Social Security retirement age to 70.


Talking points that the legislation’s proponents circulated on July 15 seek to foster an impression that the measure would protect Social Security and Medicare. Such an impression would not be accurate. The legislation would inexorably subject Social Security and Medicare to deep reductions.

The measure does not cut Social Security or Medicare in 2012. And it does not subject them to automatic cuts if its global spending caps are missed. It is inconceivable, however, that policymakers would meet the bill’s severe annual spending caps through automatic across-the-board cuts year after year; if they did, key government functions would be crippled.

Policymakers would have little alternative but to institute deep cuts in specific programs. And as noted elsewhere in this statement, before the debt limit could be raised, Congress would have to approve a constitutional balanced budget amendment that essentially requires cuts even deeper than those in the Ryan budget. Reaching and maintaining a balanced budget in the decade ahead while barring any tax increases would necessitate deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. After all, by 2021, total expenditures for these three programs will be nearly 45 percent greater than expenditures for all other programs (except interest payments) combined. Big cuts in these programs would be inevitable.

Moreover, because taxes — including payroll taxes — would be virtually impossible to raise as a result of the new constitutional barrier, Social Security solvency would have to be restored entirely through benefit cuts. Balanced Social Security packages that include measures to raise Social Security’s $106,000 payroll tax cap, so that higher-income Americans do not escape the tax on much of their earnings, would effectively be ruled out.

• The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” would require cuts totaling $111 billion immediately, in the fiscal year that starts 75 days from now, despite a 9.2 percent unemployment rate. These cuts would equal 0.7 percent of the projected Gross Domestic Product in fiscal year 2012 and would thus cause the loss of roughly 700,000 jobs in the current weak economy, relative to what the number of jobs otherwise would be.

• The bill overturns a feature of various bipartisan budget laws over the past quarter century, by subjecting programs for the poorest Americans to the specter of meat-axe across-the-board cuts. It does so even as it protects tax breaks and tax subsidies for the wealthy and powerful by erecting a constitutional barrier to any measure that would raise any revenue.

The “Cut, Cap, and Balance Act” that House Republican leaders are circulating achieves these results through a multi-faceted attack on the federal government. It would require that total federal spending shrink to about 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) starting in 2015 (by writing the Ryan budget’s year-by-year expenditure levels as a share of GDP into law, as caps to be enforced through automatic across-the-board budget cuts if the caps otherwise wouldn’t be met). The Ryan budget would slash non-security discretionary programs by 33 percent by 2021 (relative to CBO’s January baseline), cut Medicaid by $1.4 trillion over the decade, and cut an array of other programs from Medicare to Pell Grants, while shielding the defense budget and further cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans.

In addition, as noted, the measure seeks to render it virtually impossible to raise new revenue by barring the necessary increase in the debt limit until both houses of Congress have approved a constitutional amendment which requires that the budget be balanced every year, that no measure raising any taxes may pass Congress unless two-thirds of the House and Senate approve it, and that budget cuts deeper than Ryan’s be instituted.

Adding to the extreme nature of the measure, the legislation also reverses a feature of every law of the past quarter-century that has contained a fiscal target or standard enforced by across-the-board cuts. Since the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law of 1985, all such laws have exempted the core basic assistance programs for the poorest Americans from such across-the-board cuts. “Cut, Cap, and Balance,” by contrast, specifically subjects all such programs to across-the-board cuts if its spending caps would be exceeded.

It does so even as it seeks to erect a constitutional firewall to safeguard tax cuts and tax breaks for the most well-off Americans. Thus, an impoverished elderly widow living on Supplemental Security Income — which provides benefits that lift people to just 75 percent of the poverty line — could have her assistance cut back under the measure’s across-the-board budget cuts even as millionaire hedge-fund managers retained their lucrative carried-interest tax breaks.

# # # #
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization and policy institute that conducts research and analysis on a range of government policies and programs. It is supported primarily by foundation grants.

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From http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/15/967406/-NY-20:-Gibson-lies-about-Medicare-vouchers

devtob
A Daily Kos Community Site

FRI APR 15, 2011 AT 06:00 PM PDT
NY-20: Gibson lies about Medicare vouchers
by
devtob


Tea Party Rep. Chris Gibson voted for the Ryan budget today, like almost every other Republican Member of Congress.

So he voted to end Medicare as we know it, and turn it into a voucher program that will impoverish senior citizens of modest means.

Like most Republican candidates last fall, Gibson ran ads decrying the fictional $500 billion cuts to Medicare in the health care reform law.

Gibson lied in scaring seniors during the campaign, and he also lied in telling them that he opposed Medicare vouchers.

For an allegedly squeaky-clean veteran, Gibson is quite the accomplished liar.

Details of his serial lies, on just this one issue, below.

During the campaign, Gibson benefitted from some six-figures worth of Medicare scare ads paid for by the 60 Plus Association, a Republican astroturf outfit that supports privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

Back in September, Maury Thompson of the Glens Falls Post-Star asked Gibson a question about 60 Plus that resonates today:

Thompson: What about Medicare vouchers?

Gibson: No — not at all. I don’t support that.

Pants on fire.

Gibson strongly supported the Ryan budget, with its Medicare voucher plan, as soon as it was announced, appearing several times on local conservative talk radio to sing Ryan's praises.

And, when called out on that, Gibson lied about it some more on his Facebook page last week:

The plan proposed by House Republicans is based on a proposal developed by the Obama Deficit Commission. It is NOT a voucher program.

Two lies in two sentences, par for the course with Gibson -- of course, it is a voucher program, and it's based on a proposal developed NOT by the Obama Deficit Commission, but by one of its wingnut members, Paul Ryan.

Later in that comment thread, Gibson says that the Ryan Medicare proposal is "premium support," not vouchers.

Yet another lie, according to Henry Aaron, a think tanker who developed a premium support model for Medicare.

Ezra Klein got Aaron on the record, under the headline "Creator of premium support says Ryan has ‘vouchers, not premium support’".

Aaron's take on the Ryan plan that Gibson mendaciously supports and voted for:

Ryan is associated with at least three different plans. There was Rivlin-Ryan, plain old Ryan, and now there’s the Path to Prosperity. They’re all different. In some ways, the Path to Prosperity plan improves on previous version, because the role of exchanges and risk adjustment is nearer to what we had in mind. But it is hands down the worst because it links premiums to consumer prices, which is the slowest growing index.

We’re looking at linking to an index that grows less rapidly than health-care costs by three to four percentage points a year. Piled up over 10 years, and that’s a huge erosion of coverage. It’s vouchers, not premium support.

There’s one provision of the Ryan bill that stands out as being hands-down the worst, and that is giving the seniors who are poor enough to also be on Medicaid a medical savings account. Does he know who these people are? They’re very sick, they’re very poor and many of them have cognitive as well as physical problems. They would be asked to cope with the inevitable headaches of dealing with private insurance and managing a personal checking account to pay periodic bills. This is not a sensible proposal.

The other five NY Republican freshmen -- Michael Grimm, NY-13; Nan Hayworth, NY-19; Richard Hanna, NY-24; Ann Marie Buerkle, NY-25; and Tom Reed, NY-29 -- also voted to end Medicare as we know it and substitute an impoverishing voucher program.

They presumably have lied about it too, but it would be hard for any of them to match Gibson's record of mendacity on this issue.

AFAIK, Gibson is in a class of his own, at least among that motley crew, as a shameless serial liar about Medicare.

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From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/16/aarp-second-ad-republican-medicare_n_877944.html :

Michael McAuliff
mike.mcauliff@huffingtonpost.com

AARP Launches Second Ad To Fight GOP Medicare Plan

First Posted: 06/16/11 08:06 AM ET Updated: 06/16/11 08:19 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- Maybe the government should cut funding for treadmills for shrimp and poetry in zoos before hacking away at Medicare or Social Security, the influential lobby for older Americans, AARP, is arguing in a new national TV ad released Thursday.

With Congress and the White House locked in intense negotiations over spending cuts and the nation's looming debt limit, the multimillion-dollar ad buy marks AARP's second major campaign aimed at derailing proposals to cut and privatize Medicare and Social Security.

AARP had been relatively quiet when House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) first released his proposal in the spring that included a spending plan that replaces Medicare with a private system the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found would nearly double costs for seniors over 10 years.

Democrats had worried that AARP was standing on the sidelines, but sources familiar with the influential lobby say it didn't think the Ryan plan could pass.

The fact that it has made its second expensive ad buy suggests it is much more worried now that some of the Ryan ideas could be adopted in the high-pressure budget negotiations being conducted on Capitol Hill. That pressure will only rise as negotiations near Aug. 2, the date by which Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has warned the country must hike its $14.3 trillion borrowing cap or face default.

"While some members of Congress are considering making changes to Medicare’s structure, what few people realize is that some proposals being discussed behind closed doors include harmful cuts to the critical Medicare and Social Security benefits that are lifelines for millions of today’s seniors," said AARP's Nancy LeaMond.

The new ad takes a more mocking tone thanAARP's first spot, pointing to several questionable programs funded by Congress over the last few years, including a cotton institute in Brazil, treadmills for shrimp and poetry in zoos.

Those efforts likely don't amount to much in the greater federal budget, but the point is clear.
"Instead of cutting waste, or closing tax loopholes, next month Congress could make a deal that cuts Medicare, even Social Security," says the ad script. "I guess it’s easier to cut the benefits we earned -- than to cut pickle technology."

AARP has also mounted a broader lobbying effort that includes a petition that it says has been signed by nearly 1.5 million people, and a campaign that has generated almost 260,000 phones calls and emails to members of Congress.

LeaMond says the new ad "will put Congress on notice that AARP will fight with the strength of our millions of members to prevent harmful cuts to Medicare and Social Security from being included in any deal to pay the nation’s bills."

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From http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/supercommittee_selection_release/ ...

THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE
~ Trusted ~ Independent ~ Effective ~
August 11, 2011
NEWS RELEASE
Debt "Super Committee" Not Looking So Super for America's Seniors and the Middle-Class

"You don't have to be a Washington insider to see that, with the selection of appointees to Congress' new 'Super Committee', our nation's vital safety net programs still remain the primary targets in this debt debate. Half of these Committee members have pledged to keep revenues out of the solution, and even more than half are on the record with statements about the need to consider cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We can only hope the political deck is not stacked in this process in which decisions impacting virtually every American family will be debated by just 12 people, could be passed by just 7 and then fast-tracked through Congress without amendment.

Even though Social Security has not contributed to our current deficit crisis, too many on this 'Super Committee' are willing to trade away its benefits while vigorously protecting the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate loopholes which contribute so much to our deficit. Let's be very clear - the American people want fiscal sanity returned to Washington . But they also know cutting more than $1 trillion from programs serving millions of average Americans while protecting Bush era tax cuts that added $1.7 trillion in added deficits is not fiscal responsibility. Even though the majority of Americans understands this - I'm not convinced a majority of this committee does." Max Richtman, NCPSSM President/CEO

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The National Committee, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization acts in the interests of its membership through advocacy, education, services, grassroots efforts and the leadership of the Board of Directors and professional staff. The work of the National Committee is directed toward developing better-informed citizens and voters.
Media Inquiries to:
Pamela Causey 202-216-8378/202-236-2123
Kim Wright 202-216-8414
http://www.ncpssm.org/

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From http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/senate_defeat_ryan/ ...

THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO PRESERVE SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE
~ Trusted ~ Independent ~ Effective ~
May 25, 2011
NEWS RELEASE
Leading Seniors' Organization Reacts to Senate Defeat Of GOP/Ryan Budget Plan

"We applaud the Senate for turning back efforts to pass a budget which is more about ideological politics than sound fiscal policy. Americans of all ages understand we don't have to destroy vital programs like Medicare and Social Security to be fiscally responsible. That message has been delivered loud and clear in town halls nationwide, in poll after poll, and again last night in New York's Congressional race, where Medicare played a key role in that outcome.

The GOP/Ryan budget would turn Medicare into a privatized voucher system meaning future beneficiaries would lose Medicare's guaranteed benefit. This budget would have also shifted the rising costs of healthcare directly to seniors, doubling their healthcare costs without adequately addressing ways to contain those costs. The trigger mechanism included in this GOP budget would force the creation of legislated benefit cuts in Social Security, while also fast-tracking those provisions through Congress.

The GOP/Ryan budget would have had devastating effects on millions of Americans still struggling in our weakened economy. Thankfully, the Senate understands this and has rejected this fiscal approach."...Max Richtman, Executive Vice President/ Acting CEO, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

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The National Committee, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization acts in the interests of its membership through advocacy, education, services, grassroots efforts and the leadership of the Board of Directors and professional staff. The work of the National Committee is directed toward developing better-informed citizens and voters.
Media Inquiries to:
Pamela Causey 202-216-8378/202-236-2123
Kim Wright 202-216-8414
http://www.ncpssm.org/