by Robert Scheer
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

CONGRESS MAY TRY TO REIN IN WALL STREET, BUT THE BANKERS WILL CONTINUE TO THREATEN OUR WAY OF LIFE.

If the healthcare-reform battle has been an unsatisfying test of the government’s ability to deal with our pressing problems, brace yourself for bigger disappointment in its attempt to bridle Wall Street. This is where the true heavies go to work, and—as opposed to the medical-industry lobby— the moneychangers fear not the wrath of their clients or, as Scripture tells, any higher power.

Certainly not that of Congress or the President, whose powers it has so confidently purchased. That is how we got into this mess. The bankers wrote the rules of the road that allowed them to exceed all reasonable limits when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House. And when the crash came, it was the Republican George W. Bush who made their problems go away.

Having survived that disaster of their own creation, they are not about to let anyone make them change their ways. It will definitely take more than the likes of Connecticut’s lame-duck Senator Christopher Dodd, a likely candidate for more lucrative employment in the financial sector that the Democrat has served so faithfully.

Dodd, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, made a big show of introducing legislation to rein in Wall Street, having failed to elicit a single Republican vote after months of caving in. He has abandoned his earlier proposal for a truly independent regulatory agency that would challenge the Fed, which got us into this jam. His bill rejects a public audit of the Fed, where he would house what remains of the President’s proposed consumer- protection agency.

There is only a nod in the direction of a return to the Glass-Steagall Act’s separation of investment and banking firms, a regulation that Dodd, along with New York Democrat Charles Schumer, helped kill a decade ago. As the New York Times reported on October 23, 1999: “Dodd, whose state is home to the nation’s largest insurance companies, and Schumer, with strong ties to Wall Street, have long sought legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act.”

That’s what legally made possible the toobig- to-fail mergers of insurance giants like Travelers and AIG with banking companies. As Peter Eavis pointed out in the Wall Street Journal in March 2010, Dodd’s proposed bill “still flunks the AIG test,” in that “if the Senate bill became law, it looks like the government could still find itself making the sort of payments it made to AIG counterparties.”

And that’s before the lobbyists go to work. The most glaring failure of Senator Dodd’s proposal is to fully come to grips with the enduring threat of unregulated derivatives. In this area the bill’s text is an unparalleled exemplar of the use of the runon sentence in the pursuit of obfuscation. But what is clear is that the out-of-control derivatives market, which Dodd helped engineer ten years ago when he supported the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, will be at best tempered somewhat.

Obviously aware that his current bill provides no serious answer to this most pressing of our financial-industry problems, Dodd holds up the wan hope that “Senator Jack Reed [D-Rhode Island] and Judd Gregg [RNew Hampshire] are working on a substitute amendment to this title that may be offered in full committee.”

Yes, we know what such bipartisan efforts bring, and it does not bode well for getting a grip on a derivatives market that threatens to do us all in.

Warren Buffett wasn’t kidding when he called them “financial weapons of mass destruction,” and by now most Americans are aware that the innocuous-sounding derivatives that he was referring to have done great damage to our way of life. It extends from foreclosed homes in Florida that are collected in collateralized debt obligations to credit default swaps on Greek airport revenue and, as the New York Times reported, massive corporate collateralized loan obligations that are “a potential financial doomsday.”

The dubious security bundles are as vast as they are obscure, and their notational value is staggering. As Dodd’s committee’s fact sheet stated, “The over-thecounter derivatives market has exploded— from $91 trillion in 1998 to $592 trillion in 2008.” The current figure is $605 trillion and still growing.

As Dodd’s press release put it, “Because the derivatives market was considered too big and too interconnected to fail, taxpayers had to foot the bill for Wall Street’s bad bets.”

Now he tells us. But let’s hope there’s more to this bill than meets my eye and that the lobbyists don’t get to gut it further. As this issue goes to press, it is still a work in progress with some good points, the House bill is better, and it is time that Congress hears much more from the suffering public.

Before serving 30 years as a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Robert Scheer spent the late 1960s as Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. Now editor of TruthDig.com, Scheer has written such hard-hitting books as The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America and his latest, The Great American Stick-Up: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.

by Alex Bennet
from HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

DID SARAH PALIN GO ON THE WARPATH WITHOUT FIRST CHECKING TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY ARROWS IN HER QUIVER?

Hell froze over a while back: Rush Limbaugh said something I agreed with. Can the apocalypse be far off?

Limbaugh was talking about Sarah Palin’s snit over a comment made privately by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The ever-mouthy Emanuel had said Dems who disagreed with him were “fucking retarded.” Palin, who will use anything to get publicity—including the Down’s syndrome issue from her already-overworked womb—demanded Emanuel be fired and that the word retarded be banned from usage.

Limbaugh, presumed to be in the Palin camp, took her to task with a rant about political correctness. During his tirade he used the word retard over and over again. I was astonished. Was the most hated enemy of liberals correct? Were Palin’s remarks just another instance of political correctness out of control? Of course they were! So which is worse: Emanuel’s evisceration of some Democrats or the way Palin uses that poor kid of hers? Armed with information the child would be born with Down’s syndrome, she chose to have it anyway, citing her religious beliefs. Palin did this after already giving birth to a litter of four. And despite breaking water in Texas, the “mother of the year” still got on a plane to Alaska, thereby putting the fetus in danger. (Some believe she actually wanted it to die.)

I believe the real reason Palin didn’t get an abortion was because it would look bad to her base. This outweighed the reality that the kid, who’d never have a normal life, would become the responsibility of her other children after she was gone.

As for Palin’s motherhood credentials, they’re not great. Her daughter Bristol got knocked up. Where was the birth-control discussion that should have taken place when it was apparent she was coming into sexual maturity? There was none.

Any other unwed girl her age (17) might very well have gotten an abortion, but not poor Bristol. Mommy was running for Vice President, and it just wouldn’t look good. So Bristol had the baby to keep Mom’s career intact. Then there are the rumors surrounding her son Track’s enlistment into the armed forces. Some say it was a courtordered choice in an alleged case of school vandalism. The record is muddied because, it’s believed, Palin used her position as governor to cover things up.

Meanwhile, Trig—the Down’s syndrome baby—was schlepped around the country so his mom could hold him up at every campaign stop like Simba in The Lion King. She used the kid’s handicap as a prop. This is the woman who finds Rahm Emanuel in bad taste? Somebody should call Child Protective Services.

A few weeks after her tirade against the White House staffer, Palin targeted Seth MacFarlane and his blissful creation, Family Guy. She was reacting to the episode in which the Griffins’ son Chris becomes enamored of a girl at school with Down’s syndrome.The fact that Chris loved the girl in spite of her condition was lost on Palin. She was livid because, when asked by Chris what her family did, the girl replied, “My dad is an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.”

Surprisingly, voice actress Andrea Fay Friedman—who like the character she portrayed on Family Guy was born with Down’s syndrome— came forward to blast Palin for exploiting people with the condition. Friedman scoffed, “My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”

Even more perplexing was how Palin excused Limbaugh’s statements. She claimed they were satire. I’ve got news for you, Sarah: Rush wasn’t using satire; he was using commentary. Family Guy was using satire. I guess Palin just didn’t want to piss off the right-wing’s number-one megaphone.

So why all this political correctness over a perfectly legitimate word? Even medical dictionaries describe Down’s syndrome as “mental retardation.” Yet we’re no longer able to use the word? Now we’re supposed to say “developmentally challenged.” People are no longer “handicapped,” they’re “handicapable.” I ask you: How much of this is politically correct, and how much is pure condescension and mock sympathy?

Rahm Emanuel’s only sin was that he didn’t get the memo, and Sarah Palin’s biggest problem is that she epitomizes the C word: CRAZY!

Alex Bennett is a longtime HUSTLER contributor. The twotime Emmy winner, who broke into broadcasting as a teenager, currently calls Sirius Left 146 his radio home.

From HUSTLER Magazine August 2010

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. In your case that would be your husband, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (Yes, Santa is an angry black man!) And you must have been very nice indeed to get such a great Christmas present: your very own conservative lobbying group, Liberty Central Inc., which will cater to the Tea Party movement.

“I adore all the new citizen patriots who are rising up across the country,” you announced at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference. “I have felt called to the front lines with…my fellow citizens, to preserve what made America great.” Of course, the gift didn’t come directly from Clarence. You are getting donations from those big ol’ corporations that the Supreme Court ruled could spend as much as they want influencing election campaigns. The potentially limitless influx of money, which we imagine will provide you a hefty salary, is just their way of saying thank you to your husband.

It’s a pretty safe investment, Virginia. The corporations can have no doubt that both you and your husband know where your bread is buttered. And as long as they keep bankrolling Liberty Central, they can be pretty damn certain Clarence will continue his activism from the bench. Can you say conflict of interest ? Can you say recuse ? More importantly, can your husband?

The belated Christmas gift was the Supreme Court’s January 21, 2010, decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which effectively left chunks of coal in the stockings of most Americans. Thanks to that decision, there’s no way in hell—if there ever was—that the average citizen can match the fat cats’ dollars when it comes to supporting a politician or a political issue. In effect, a Republican Santa has allowed huge corporations to buy any election they want, which will pretty much be all of them. It’s as if your Santa, Virginia, has taken a shit down everyone else’s chimney. (For an overview of the High Court’s landmark ruling, see The End of Democracy, beginning on page 72.)

By attaching yourself to the Tea Party, a right-wing-financed front group, you have— with your husband’s help—shredded whatever was left of the notion that the judges of our highest court are impartial arbiters of the law. Clearly, the majority of them—like you—have an extreme right-wing agenda.

Let’s look at your politics. You worked for Republican Dick Armey when he was a congressman. (Armey now heads FreedomWorks, a major backer of the Tea Party.) And you were a consultant for the ultraconservative think tank Heritage Foundation. More recently you’ve stated that it’s time to “get the Constitution back to a place where it means something” and that it’s time to fight against “tyranny.”

How odd. Your husband and his right-wing cohorts have controlled the Supreme Court since at least 2000, if not earlier. Everything threatening our way of life today is the result of their decisions: the erosion of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and 14th Amendments; the loss of habeas corpus; and an economy on life support. This has all happened because of the stupidity you and your husband embrace.

And what’s with this “tyranny” crap? You think President Barack Obama is a tyrant? Well then, what about George W. Bush? After all, Obama is just following in W’s footsteps. Regrettably, he’s done little to undo Bush-era policies. As for Obama’s so-called lurching to the left, get real! His healthcare reform, by way of just one example, bears no resemblance to socialism; it is a windfall bonanza for the health insurance industry.

Regarding Liberty Central, you are collecting “scorecards” for candidates running this November so you’ll know whom to raise funds for and whom to oppose—all legal, naturally. Despite your claims of being nonpartisan, you’re not fooling anyone.

Back in 2000, even as your husband was conspiring with his fellow right-wing justices to steal the election from Presidential candidate Al Gore, you were vetting staff for the George W. Bush Administration. It’s almost as if you already knew what the Supreme Court’s decision was going to be. (As everyone found out a year later, Gore had won in Florida.)

Finally, you named Leonard Leo director of Liberty Central. As a top gun at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies—a notoriously conservative advocacy group—Leo helped shepherd Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito through their Senate confirmations.

So yes, Virginia, there is a Republican Santa. He exists as certainly as selfishness, greed and predatory capitalism exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas, not so much for most everyone else in this country. For them there is no poetry, no joy and, most importantly, no jobs. But you don’t have to worry about that, Virginia. Now, as a member of the ruling class, you’re well taken care of. Screw everyone else! Let them fend for themselves! You’ve got your own private Santa.