Pledge of Allegiance, 2010 by Ed Ciaccio

by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
January 21, 2010

I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the Corporate State of America,
and to the plutocracy for which it stands,
one nation, under greed,
with penury and injustice for all
but the ruling class.

***

Action Alert:

Save Democracy

see

Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections by Greg Palast

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Supreme Court Sanctioned Murder Of Democracy!

Corporate Personhood – The Floodgates were Opened Today

Rep. Alan Grayson: If this Decision Stands, You Can Kiss this Country Goodbye

Statement of Ralph Nader on Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

Supreme Court ends limits on corporate campaign spending By Michael Doyle

Manchurian Candidates: Supreme Court allows China and others unlimited spending in US elections by Greg Palast

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
21 January, 2010

Updated from the original report for AlterNet

In today’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Court ruled that corporations should be treated the same as “natural persons”, i.e. humans. Well, in that case, expect the Supreme Court to next rule that Wal-Mart can run for President.

Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Supreme Court Sanctioned Murder Of Democracy!

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Fred Ferkleheimer
January 21, 2010

Corporate Personhood – The Floodgates were Opened Today

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thomhartmann
January 21, 2010

Rep. Alan Grayson: If this Decision Stands, You Can Kiss this Country Goodbye

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RepAlanGrayson
January 21, 2010

This is Rep. Alan Grayson on MSNBC discussing the Supreme Court’s legalization of the use of corporate money in elections.

Andy Worthington Discusses Murders at Guantánamo and Bagram’s “Ghost Prisoners” on Antiwar Radio

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
21 January 2010

Over the last few years, Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio and I have had some hard-hitting interviews, covering many of the most unpalatable aspects of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” and, in the last year, the inadequacy of Barack Obama’s response to this toxic and corrosive legacy.

On Tuesday evening, however, we hit a new pitch of outrage (the show is available here, when we discussed two aspects of this legacy that have just surfaced: the revelation, in a compelling article for Harper’s Magazine by Scott Horton (the law professor), that the three men who died at Guantánamo in June 2006 were killed, and that the suicide story was manufactured as a cover-up (which I also wrote about here); and my preliminary analysis of the first ever publicly available list of prisoners held in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, in which I investigated the stories of the “ghost prisoners” — previously held in a number of secret prisons run by the CIA — who have been held in Bagram for up to six years, and asked what happened to others who are not included in the list.

Rep. Ron Paul on the CIA Coup: Time to Take Out the CIA? by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
21 January 2010

‘The CIA has taken over the US in a coup!’

Here is a clip from a recent speech by Congressman Ron Paul on the CIA:

There’s been a coup – have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything! They run the military .. and they’re every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. And yet, think of the harm they have done since they were established at the end of World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators… We need to take out the CIA!

A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake by Michel Chossudovsky

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by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca, January 21, 2010

A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the earthquake.

The holding of pre-disaster simulations pertained to the impacts of a hurricane in Haiti. They were held on January 11. (Bob Brewin,  Defense launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts (1/15/10) — GovExec.com, complete text of article is contained in Annex)

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense (DoD), was involved in organizing these scenarios on behalf of US Southern Command.(SOUTHCOM).

Disasters are Big Business by William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
21 January, 2010

I am staggered. There are 10,000 ‘NGOs’ (Non-Governmental Organizations) in Haiti, one for every 900 inhabitants and each one of them has no doubt at least one Westerner working within, yet aside from the Cuban health workers, it seems they could do nothing until the gringos arrived with their Blackhawks and nuclear-tipped aircraft carrier and of course, the 82nd Airborne, paying yet another ‘visit’ to this benighted and super-exploited land to ‘secure’ the place for the locust storm of aid to come (too late for too many).

Now I’ve never been a fan of ‘NGOs’ not only because my own experience with them has been less than edifying but because they are the direct result of ‘benign neglect’ on the part of the state. In other words they initially appeared to fill a void left when states washed their hands of the mess they’d left behind or they just ditched their responsibilities.

Massachusetts Calling: Harnessing Independents’ Anger And Disillusionment To Form A 2nd (I.E., Non-Corporate) Party

By Gary Corseri
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 21, 2010

I just called the Jack Rice radio show on Air America.  Rice’s show is new to the D.C. area, so I got through the phone vetting process fairly easily.  I waited a minute or two and then Rice took my call on air.

I was pretty clear about what I wanted to say.  Rice had actually set things up the day before when he said that their likely defeat in the Massachusetts race for the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy’s death would—hopefully!—cause Congressional Democrats to “grow a pair,” withdraw the health care reform bill as is, and then re-submit the much stronger bill that the majority of Americans were hoping for when they voted for Obama a year ago.

Statement of Ralph Nader on Supreme Court Decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Jan 21, 2010

Today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission shreds the fabric of our already weakened democracy by allowing corporations to more completely dominate our corrupted electoral process. It is outrageous that corporations already attempt to influence or bribe our political candidates through their political action committees (PACs), which solicit employees and shareholders for donations. With this decision, corporations can now also draw on their corporate treasuries and pour vast amounts of corporate money, through independent expenditures, into the electoral swamp already flooded with corporate campaign PAC contribution dollars.

Humanitarian aid or military occupation? by Ashley Smith

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by Ashley Smith
SocialistWorker.org
19 January, 2010

Ashley Smith explains why help hasn’t reached most of the victims of Haiti’s earthquake–because the priority of the U.S. government is on imposing its control.

WHEN HURRICANE Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, George W. Bush displayed a callous disregard for the Black victims of the disaster.

When his administration finally responded, it deployed the National Guard and armed Blackwater personnel to impose order, rather than putting the priority on providing food, shelter and safe water. Kanye West’s words during an NBC Concert for Hurricane Relief–“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people”–were proved right.

Dennis Kucinich: I’ll Continue To Fight For Single Payer Health Care

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

electdennis
January 21, 2010

unavailable

***

From an email:

Dear Friends,

Forty-seven million Americans are without health insurance. Why? Because they can’t afford it.

Supreme Court ends limits on corporate campaign spending By Michael Doyle

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By Michael Doyle
McClatchy Newspapers
Jan 21, 2010

WASHINGTON — A closely divided Supreme Court on Thursday swept away long-standing limits on campaign spending by unions and corporations.

In a long-awaited decision, the court’s emboldened conservative majority declared that the limits on so-called “independent expenditures” by corporations violate First Amendment free-speech rights. The much-anticipated decision means that more money can be spent on federal elections, including this year’s congressional elections.

[…]

via Supreme Court ends limits on corporate campaign spending | McClatchy

***

Don’t let corporations steal our elections

Keiser Report №9 & 10: Markets! Finance! Scandal!

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RussiaToday
January 21, 2010

Every week Max Keiser looks at all the scandal behind the financial news headlines. On today’s show Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look into the scandals of the inexplicable Timothy Geithner, the crisis levy planned by Obama, and luxury cruise liners in Haiti. Keiser also talks to Ann Minch, who started a Debtors’ Revolt in the US by refusing to pay her credit card bill unless her bank lowered their rate.