The Business Insider provides ” 15 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind”

http://www.opednews.com/Diary/The-Business-Insider-provi-by-Kevin-Anthony-Stod-110428-535.html

There is both danger and good news in Chinas future and that future in some areas is already NOW–according to Vincent Fernando and Gus Lubin. In this piece from THE BUSINESS INSIDER, The two AUTHORS have provided a wonderful list of insights on 21st Century China for us to discuss.

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Fernando & Lubin say, [Here are]15 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind!

There is both danger and good news in Chinas future and that future in some areas is already NOW–according to Vincent Fernando and Gus Lubin. In this piece from THE BUSINESS INSIDER, The two AUTHORS have provided a wonderful list of insights on 21st Century China for us to discuss.–KAS

by Vincent Fernando, CFA and Gus Lubin

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-facts-about-china-that-will-blow-your-mind-2010-2

Despite all the wild stories you have already heard about China, expect the nation to keep blowing your mind.

That’s because not only is China enormous and highly diverse, but most importantly, it’s rapidly changing.

Thus China’s future already looks far different today than even five years ago. It’s surely not your father’s ‘Red China’, or even your older brother’s ‘Made in China’…

[1] By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.

“[By 2025,] 40 billion square meters of floor space will be built — in five million buildings. 50,000 of these buildings could be skyscrapers — the equivalent of ten New York Cities.”

Source:Mckinsey, “Preparing for China’s urban billion”

[2] By 2030, China will add more new city-dwellers than the entire U.S. population.
alt=”By 2030, China will add more new city-dwellers than the entire U.S. population.” class=slide-image v:shapes=”_x0000_i1026″>

[By 2030] China’s cities will have added 350 million peopleXmore than the entire population of the United States today.

Source:Mckinsey, “Preparing for China’s urban billion”

[3] China already consumes twice as much steel as the US, Europe and Japan combined.

China is the steel market.

Even in 2010, as developed nation steel demand is expected to rebound, Chinese steel demand will still dwarf all other major economies.

This also means that China drives the seaborne iron ore and coking coal markets as well, as these commodities are key ingredients in steel.

Source: Business Insider, Posco Steel

[4] If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as Americans, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet their demand.

[5] There are already more Christians in China than Italy, and China is on track to become the largest center of Christianity in the world.

Due to the extremely rapid expansion of Christianity in China, there are now an estimated 54 million Christians in the country comprised of about 40 million Protestants and 14 million Catholics.

Meanwhile, Italy has just 60 million people in total, of which only 79% are Christian these days. Which means Italy has 47.4 million Christians, a full 12% less than China. It’s partly because 16% of Italians are now irreligious.

Moreover, China’s Christian population is set to grow far more rapidly than Italy’s, or even much of the world’s even.

“…is not going to stopChina from soon becoming home to the largest Christian population on the globe, says the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in an excellent and well-balanced article he recently wrote for the Great Britain-China Centre.”

Source: Wikipedia , Shanghaist etc.

[6] Chinese are far more likely to believe in evolution than Americans.
“Only Russia (48%), USA (42%), South Africa (41%) and Egypt (25%) remained sceptical about the scientific evidence that exists to support Darwins theory.

The results also show that a significant proportion of those people surveyed in the USA, South Africa and India (43%) believe that all life on Earth, including human life, has always existed in its current form.

In all other countries, people in China (74%), Mexico (69%), Argentina (68%), Great Britain (63%) Russia, Spain (56%), and Egypt (52%) were of the view that more people thought that life on Earth, including human life, evolved over time either by a process guided by God or as a result of natural selection in which no God played a part.”

Source: British Council

[7] Chinese internet users are five times as likely to have blogs as Americans.
Yet these prolific bloggers are under the watchful eye of an internet police army:

“Although the existence of an internet police force – estimated at more than 30,000- has been known for some time, attention has previously focused on their work as censors and monitors. Countless critical comments appear on bulletin boards of major portals such as Sohu and Sina only to be erased minutes, or sometimes just seconds, later. In the most recent case, all postings that blamed corrupt local officials or slow-moving police for the deaths of 88 children in floods last Friday were removed almost as soon as they appeared.”

Source: Business Insider, The Guardian

[8] China has 150% more soldiers than America does, plus a high tech ‘Kill Weapon’ the U.S. can’t deal with.
China has about 3.4 million active military personnel compared to America’s 1.4 million. Moreover, in some key spaces, China might even have a tech advantage:

After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a “kill weapon” developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers.

“The size of the missile enables it to carry a warhead big enough to inflict significant damage on a large vessel, providing the Chinese the capability of destroying a U.S. supercarrier in one strike. Because the missile employs a complex guidance system, low radar signature and a maneuverability that makes its flight path unpredictable, the odds that it can evade tracking systems to reach its target are increased. It is estimated that the missile can travel at mach 10 and reach its maximum range of 2000km in less than 12 minutes.”

“If operational as is believed, the system marks the first time a ballistic missile has been successfully developed to attack vessels at sea. Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack.

Source:U.S. Naval Institute

[9] China still hasn’t rid itself of Europe’s medieval plague.
“[2009:] China has ended a quarantine blockade around a remote northwestern town hit by pneumonic plague, Xinhua news agency reported late on Saturday.

“The outbreak of the highly infectious disease killed three villagers around ZiketanTown in Qinghai province, Xinhua reported. But with no new infections reported for over a week, authorities decided to lift the blockade on the remote town of 10,000 in a heavily ethnic Tibetan area, Xinhua reported. China experiences sporadic outbreaks of the plague, which is typically spread by rodents and fleas and can pass easily between people.”

Some even suspect Chinese animal markets to be breeding grounds for new killer bugs.

“We face similar threats from other viruses and such epidemics can happen because we continue to have very crowded markets in China,” said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.

Source: Xinhua Reuters

[10] 40% of Chinese small businesses went bust or almost went bust during the world financial crisis.
“According to a report issued last week by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 20 per cent of small businesses had crashed and another 20 per cent went “to the brink of bankruptcy” during the climax of the global financial crisis from October 2008 to March last year.

“According to my research, to date, most of the 20 per cent on the brink of failure have been revived thanks to the recovering economy,” said Chen Naixing, economist and director of the academy’s small business research centre.”

Source: The Australian (Jan 2010)

[11] China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world COMBINED… and uses mobile execution vans for efficiency.
“[China carries out] almost three times as many as the rest of the world put together, according to the most conservative estimate by Amnesty International. In 2008, the group confirmed 1,718 executions through news reports and public documents, but many others are not reported. Some analysts say the figure may be above 6,000. The exact number is a state secret.”

Many executions are done on the road using vehicles such as those designed by Jinguan Motors:

“Makers of the death vans say the vehicles and injections are a civilized alternative to the firing squad, ending the life of the condemned more quickly, clinically and safely.The switch from gunshots to injections is a sign that China “promotes human rights now,” says Kang Zhongwen, who designed the Jinguan Automobile death van in which “Devil” Zhang took his final ride.”

Source:The Guardian, USA Today


[12] China averages 274 protests PER DAY.
“Although there are an estimated 100,000 mass protests in China each year, the vast majority occur in the countryside among desperate and angry peasants, and are quickly suppressed and censored.”

Source: The Telegraph


[13] When you buy Chinese stocks, you are basically financing the Chinese government. Eight of Shanghai’s top ten stocks are state-controlled arms of the government.
Eight of the ten largest stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange are nothing but state-controlled companies:

PetroChina

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China

Sinopec

Bank of China

China Shenhua Energy Company

China Life Insurance Company

Bank of Communications

Source: Wikipedia etc.


[14] 50% of counterfeit goods come from China.
” China was the main source country for [intellectual property rights] infringing articles with 54% of the total amount.”

“CD/DVD was the top category of articles detained with a total amount of 79 million, which accounted for 44% of the entire amount, followed by cigarettes (23%) and clothing and accessories (10%).”

Source: European Commission Report


[15] The majority of Chinese drink polluted water.
China has 20% of the worlds population but only 7% of global water resources.

To make matters worse, 90% of cities groundwater and 75% of rivers and lakes are polluted according to the World Bank.

This means that 700 million people drink contaminated water every day.

Source: Wikipedia , World Bank

NOTE

Although the authors of this article overuse Wikipedia, there are other corroborating reports to be found online.

Author’s Website: http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/3-big-paradigms-hol

Author’s Bio:
KEVIN STODA-has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades.–He sees himself as a peace educator and have been– a promoter of good economic and social development–making-him an enemy of my homelands humongous DEFENSE SPENDING and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global issues.

“I am from Kansas so I also use the pseudonym ‘Kansas’ and ‘alone’ when I write and publish.- I-keep two blogs–one with BLOGGER and one with WORDPRESS.- My writings range from reviews to editorials or to travel observations.- I also make recommendations related to policy–having both a-strong background in teaching foreign languages and degrees in teaching in history and the social sciences.–As a Midwesterner, I also write on religion and living out ones faith whether it be as a Christian, Muslim or Buddhist perspective.”

On my own home page, I also provide information for language learners and travelers http://www.geocities.com/eslkevin/-,- http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/-& http://alone.gnn.tv/

-

These kind of clowns--hedgefund managers supporting GOP and the KKK--could reelect Obama

Previously betting on President Obama and Democrats in 2008, hedge-fund managers are now "actively supporting Republicans" because of Obama's "populist attacks on Wall Street" and "Democrat-led efforts to raise their tax bills." A majority of hedge fund contributions went to the GOP in 2009-1010 election season, "a pattern not seen since 1996, when the industry was much smaller."

According to a new Harvard study, "the share of renters who spend more than half their income on housing is at its highest level in half a century." The study "offers the latest in a series of grim statistics about the scarcity of rental housing, especially for the working poor."

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) announced Monday that he will not seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012. Though some thought Barbour could win the nod, many felt that his previous comments praising the white supremacist Citizens' Council and failure to immediately condemn a proposal to celebrate a Ku Klux Klan leader would "derail any chance he would have against the first black U.S. president."

If real authentic Kansas representatives and senators really had authentic town meetings

If real authentic Kansas representatives and senators really had authentic town meetings… they would look like the meeting that Meehan and Ryan have faced. Check out those meetings and the repercussions for Republicans in other states.

Notice that the people don’t buy trickle-on-us theories of political economy and they are for a much better redistribution of wealth.–KAS

http://dccc.org/blog/entry/town_hall_meeting_alert_house_republicans_under_fire_for_voting_to_end_medi/

At town hall meetings across the country, House Republicans are taking heat for choosing to end Medicare and raise health care costs for seniors, rather than ending taxpayer giveaways for Big Oil companies making record profits or tax breaks for the ultra rich.

Check it out for yourself:

Paul Ryan’s budget draws boos, highlights risk to GOP [Los Angeles Times]
“Rep. Paul Ryan, the face of the GOP’s efforts to scale back the size of the federal government and trim the federal deficit, was booed by some Wisconsin constituents this week, but not for the reason you might think. Ryan’s budget plan, as overwhelmingly approved by the House, would convert Medicare into a program which would provide seniors with subsidies to purchase private health insurance. But as Ryan returned home along with the other 240 Republican members to explain the budget blueprint to voters, he received heat not for the Medicare proposal, but for his call to cut taxes for wealthy Americans.” [LA Times, 4/21/11]

Freshman Congressman faces tough crowd back home, after budget vote [CNN]
“In the suburbs of Philadelphia, freshman Congressman Patrick Meehan is spending his day running around his district, answering questions from his constituents. […] Meehan was asked about entitlement reform and Medicare at nearly every town hall he went to. Some of his constituents say they’re worried about proposed Republican reforms to the Medicare system. “Reform usually means cutting benefits, if it’s cutting benefits, no, I do not want that,” says constituent Bette Popiel.” [CNN, 4/21/11]

And More
Reminiscent of the August 2009 town halls when members of Congress faced angry constituents over health care reforms, a public forum in Carbon County with Rep. Lou Barletta Wednesday night provided a glimpse of the strong emotions stirred by a Republican plan to alter Medicare benefits.

At the start of his town hall meeting — in a county that is predominately Republican-leaning and 17 percent over 65 years old — Barletta welcomed people to use the conversation to get things off their chests. While he was going through a slide projector presentation about the Medicare changes proposed by House Republican Paul Ryan, a woman raised her hand. (Updated: Carbon County actually has more Democrats registered, but has leaned Republican in the last few election cycles.)

“Excuse me, I’d like to get something off my chest,” she said, standing. “You seem to think that because I’m not effected I won’t care if my niece, my grandson, my child is affected. I do care. What you’re doing with this Ryan budget is you’re taking Medicare and changing it from a guaranteed health care system to one that is a voucher system where you throw seniors on the mercy of for-profit insurance companies…”

“You said nothing in the campaign about I’m going to change Medicare, now you voted for a plan that will destroy Medicare,” Linda Christman, 64, said. Christman is president of the Carbon County Democrats for Change, according to Barletta’s office.

“I won’t destroy Medicare, Medicare is going to be destroyed by itself,” Barletta said.

Then it got ugly.

Christman talked over Barletta saying, “I have a great way for you…take the tax cuts given to the wealthy two percent…and put it into Medicare”

Two men in the back began yelling at her, “Sit down, let him talk, sit down.” This prompted another man in a blue Hawaiian shirt to bolt to his feet, turn to the men in the back and yell, “Why don’t’ you make me sit down? Maybe you don’t believe in free speech? Why don’t you show some respect?”

“Sit down.”

“Make me, make me.”

This went on intermittently with a lot of angry name calling and yelling until the man in the Hawaiian shirt was escorted out by police.

You can listen to part of the exchange. Christman begins talking around 5:55.
http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2011/04/a-slice-of-the-medicare-debate-in-barlettas-district.html

If real authentic Kansas representatives and senators really had authentic town meetings…

If real authentic Kansas representatives and senators really had authentic town meetings… they would look like the meeting that Meehan and Ryan have faced. Check out those meetings and the repercussions for Republicans in other states.

Notice that the people don’t buy trickle-on-us theories of political economy and they are for a much better redistribution of wealth.–KAS

http://dccc.org/blog/entry/town_hall_meeting_alert_house_republicans_under_fire_for_voting_to_end_medi/

At town hall meetings across the country, House Republicans are taking heat for choosing to end Medicare and raise health care costs for seniors, rather than ending taxpayer giveaways for Big Oil companies making record profits or tax breaks for the ultra rich.

Check it out for yourself:

Paul Ryan’s budget draws boos, highlights risk to GOP [Los Angeles Times]
“Rep. Paul Ryan, the face of the GOP’s efforts to scale back the size of the federal government and trim the federal deficit, was booed by some Wisconsin constituents this week, but not for the reason you might think. Ryan’s budget plan, as overwhelmingly approved by the House, would convert Medicare into a program which would provide seniors with subsidies to purchase private health insurance. But as Ryan returned home along with the other 240 Republican members to explain the budget blueprint to voters, he received heat not for the Medicare proposal, but for his call to cut taxes for wealthy Americans.” [LA Times, 4/21/11]

Freshman Congressman faces tough crowd back home, after budget vote [CNN]
“In the suburbs of Philadelphia, freshman Congressman Patrick Meehan is spending his day running around his district, answering questions from his constituents. […] Meehan was asked about entitlement reform and Medicare at nearly every town hall he went to. Some of his constituents say they’re worried about proposed Republican reforms to the Medicare system. “Reform usually means cutting benefits, if it’s cutting benefits, no, I do not want that,” says constituent Bette Popiel.” [CNN, 4/21/11]

And More
Reminiscent of the August 2009 town halls when members of Congress faced angry constituents over health care reforms, a public forum in Carbon County with Rep. Lou Barletta Wednesday night provided a glimpse of the strong emotions stirred by a Republican plan to alter Medicare benefits.

At the start of his town hall meeting — in a county that is predominately Republican-leaning and 17 percent over 65 years old — Barletta welcomed people to use the conversation to get things off their chests. While he was going through a slide projector presentation about the Medicare changes proposed by House Republican Paul Ryan, a woman raised her hand. (Updated: Carbon County actually has more Democrats registered, but has leaned Republican in the last few election cycles.)

“Excuse me, I’d like to get something off my chest,” she said, standing. “You seem to think that because I’m not effected I won’t care if my niece, my grandson, my child is affected. I do care. What you’re doing with this Ryan budget is you’re taking Medicare and changing it from a guaranteed health care system to one that is a voucher system where you throw seniors on the mercy of for-profit insurance companies…”

“You said nothing in the campaign about I’m going to change Medicare, now you voted for a plan that will destroy Medicare,” Linda Christman, 64, said. Christman is president of the Carbon County Democrats for Change, according to Barletta’s office.

“I won’t destroy Medicare, Medicare is going to be destroyed by itself,” Barletta said.

Then it got ugly.

Christman talked over Barletta saying, “I have a great way for you…take the tax cuts given to the wealthy two percent…and put it into Medicare”

Two men in the back began yelling at her, “Sit down, let him talk, sit down.” This prompted another man in a blue Hawaiian shirt to bolt to his feet, turn to the men in the back and yell, “Why don’t’ you make me sit down? Maybe you don’t believe in free speech? Why don’t you show some respect?”

“Sit down.”

“Make me, make me.”

This went on intermittently with a lot of angry name calling and yelling until the man in the Hawaiian shirt was escorted out by police.

You can listen to part of the exchange. Christman begins talking around 5:55.
http://blogs.mcall.com/penn_ave/2011/04/a-slice-of-the-medicare-debate-in-barlettas-district.html

Paul Krugman says that the Progressive Caucus’ People’s Budget is the only Real Viable Budget in the USA today

Paul Krugman says that the People’s (Progressive) Budget is the only game in town, i.e. Washington D.C.

This quote below is from the PROGRESS REPORT. The short statement concerning what Paul Krugman has made should be listened to by any thinking American as of now. But, please see Krugman’s actual statement at the NY Times–KAS

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) budget proposal is the ” only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget.” Krugman writes that serious deficit reduction must include raising revenues and that the CPC budget does exactly that.
A new International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis concludes that “China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.” The IMF estimates that under purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy will expand to $19 trillion in 2016 while the U.S. economy will expand to $18.8 trillion.
The Senate is moving a bill to cut the number of administration posts that are subject to Senate approval , a “rare voluntary surrender of Congressional clout” that is backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “We are losing very good people because the process has become so onerous, so lengthy and so duplicative,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Note: Go to this link for the people’s budget.

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5,70

Jerry Moran, Go Read and Support the Peoples Budget!!

My reply to Jerry Moran’s letter and messed up view of the world.

Dear Jerry,

Go back to school and take math, economy, and accounting. vote for the Peoples Progressive Budget. This is what Paul Krugman said about that budget being the Only game in town–the game you are TOTALLY ignoring due to poor schooling somewhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) budget proposal is the ” only major budget proposal out there offering a plausible path to balancing the budget.” Krugman writes that serious deficit reduction must include raising revenues and that the CPC budget does exactly that.
A new International Monetary Fund (IMF) analysis concludes that “China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.” The IMF estimates that under purchasing power parity, the Chinese economy will expand to $19 trillion in 2016 while the U.S. economy will expand to $18.8 trillion.
The Senate is moving a bill to cut the number of administration posts that are subject to Senate approval , a “rare voluntary surrender of Congressional clout” that is backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “We are losing very good people because the process has become so onerous, so lengthy and so duplicative,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

Note: Go to this link for the people’s budget.

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70§iontree=5,70

Finally, until you get your facts in order, please stop sending me these emails about the need to tax the poor or take away the poor and save the richest Americans–like the Koch Brothers.

With love,

Kevin A. Stoda, a candidate for your job in the near future!

Dear Kevin:

Our country is facing enormous fiscal challenges, which left unchecked will have a disastrous impact on the future of our nation. Tackling this fiscal crisis means Washington cannot continue business as usual and must confront out-of-control borrowing and spending. I appreciate you writing me to share your concerns about America’s spending on national defense.

I am committed to supporting our military and believe our troops must have the resources needed to perform their vital missions of defending our country. However, like all government spending, Congress has an obligation to make certain the Department of Defense is spending money wisely. I believe the U.S. military can eliminate wasteful, expensive programs and become more efficient without sacrificing its strength.

As the Senate considers defense spending, I will continue to advocate for fiscally responsible decisions while making sure our military has what it needs to protect our country.

Thank you for contacting me and please let me know if I can be of assistance in the future. To stay informed of my activities on your behalf, I encourage you to sign up to receive my weekly email newsletter, Kansas Common Sense, by visiting my website at www.moran.senate.gov.

Very truly yours,

Jerry Moran

‘Nuff said, America!! Here is a rational budget for the Pentagon

I learned of this NY Times article today and want you to read it, too.–KAS

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/20/opinion/20wed1.html

A Rational Budget for the Pentagon

In their budget-cutting zeal, Republicans are demanding harsh sacrifices from the country’s most vulnerable citizens. At the same, they are determined to leave one of the biggest areas of wasteful government spending untouched: the Pentagon budget.

The budget plan they pushed through the House this month would spend $7.5 trillion on the military over the next dozen years. And that does not include the cost of actual war-fighting. The country cannot afford to spend that much, and it doesn’t need to.

The $7.5 trillion was President Obama’s projection, which he has since lowered to $7.1 trillion. Saving $400 billion is better but still not enough, especially since it can be achieved merely by holding annual nonwar-related spending at its current swollen level, adjusted for inflation.

National security is a fundamental responsibility of government. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon has spent without limits and in some cases without sense. Annual budgets, adjusted for inflation, have grown by 50 percent in the past decade. And that is apart from the more than $1 trillion spent on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The White House and Congress must impose some rationality on this process. Here is a path that could save hundreds of billions of dollars more through 2024:

PERSONNEL Pay and benefits account for nearly half of the basic Pentagon budget. The size of the uniformed services should not be reduced, at least for now. The Pentagon’s civilian work force, currently 650,000, should be cut by up to 10 percent, saving more than $7 billion a year.

We in no way minimize the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform. But after years of lagging far behind, military pay is now more than $5,000 a year higher than comparable civilian employment, more than $10,000 a year higher when special allowances and benefits are counted. Freezing noncombat pay for three years would save $3 billion per year. The formula for future increases should be adjusted to incorporate allowances and benefits, saving an additional $5 billion a year.

Another $4 billion to $6 billion annually could be saved by reasonable increases in annual health insurance premiums for military retirees of working age. Those premiums — currently $460 per family — have been frozen for the past 15 years while health care costs soared.

All told, these changes would save about $20 billion annually or more than $200 billion over the next 12 years.

FORCE STRUCTURE The Pentagon took too long to recognize that today’s wars make more intensive demands on the Army and Marines and less on the Navy and Air Force. Ground forces have been increased, but that needs to be paid for by corresponding reductions at sea and in the air. That shift has already begun but needs to go further. Another $1 billion to $2 billion a year could be saved by reducing the number of aircraft carrier groups from 11 to 10 and associated air wings from 10 to 9.

PROCUREMENT Twenty years after the cold war’s end, the Pentagon is addicted to hugely expensive weapons systems that are poorly suited to current and future military needs. Defense Secretary Robert Gates successfully pressed Congress to end production of the costly Air Force F-22. He now needs to cut way back on the far overbudget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Far fewer of these are needed to assure American dominance of the skies. Terminating the deeply troubled Marine Corps version of the F-35 and cutting back the Navy and Air Force versions by 50 percent would save $130 billion over the life of the program, with most of those savings achieved in the 2020s. Eliminating the Marine Corps’ costly and accident-prone V-22 Osprey vertical take off and landing aircraft would save another $10 billion to $12 billion. Further savings may be possible by scaling down future orders for the Virginia class nuclear attack submarine and reconsidering the newly vulnerable littoral combat ship.

For too long America’s military spending decisions have been insulated from serious scrutiny or discipline. The result is that more than 50 cents of every dollar of discretionary federal spending now goes to the Pentagon. There is no way to bring the deficit under control without making substantial and rational cuts in that budget.

Readers’ Comments
“As my 17-year-old daughter said, … ‘Haven’t we learned anything from the fall of the Soviet Union?’ “
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Wikileaks reveals that hundreds of innocent men were knowingly imprisoned over the years in Guantanamo

I’ve been saying for years that Guantanamo Prison should be closed and needs to be relocated either to Ft. Benning,Georgia (replacing SOA with a courtroom with real judges) or to George W. Bush’s Crawford ranch.-KAS

WikiLeaks reveals US blunders at Guantanamo
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110425/ts_alt_afp/usattacksguantanamowikileaks

by Dan De Luce – Mon Apr 25, 5:57 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States has botched the handling of inmates at Guantanamo, holding men for years without reliable evidence while releasing others who posed a grave threat, according to leaked secret documents.
The trove of classified files released by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks showed US officials struggling with often flawed evidence and confused about the guilt or innocence of detainees held at the prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Hundreds of inmates who turned out to have no serious terror links were held without trial, based on vague or inaccurate information, including accounts from unreliable fellow detainees or statements from men who had been abused or tortured, the New York Times quoted the documents as saying.
One impoverished Afghan farmer with no ties to militants was held for two years without trial in a case of mistaken identity, the documents showed.
But US authorities in 2004 decided to release Abdullah Mehsud, a Taliban extremist who duped his interrogators into believing he had been conscripted by the insurgents as a driver.
“Detainee does not pose a future threat to the US or US interests,” said a 2003 document, quoted by the Times.
Mehsud, who gave a false name to his American interrogators, was sent back to Afghanistan where he organized a Taliban unit to assault US troops, planned an attack on Pakistan’s interior ministry that claimed 31 lives, oversaw the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers and set off a suicide bomb in 2007 in Pakistan — winning praise from Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
President Barack Obama’s administration, which has tried to close the controversial Guantanamo prison, denounced the “unfortunate” release of the classified documents, part of a massive cache of secret memos passed to WikiLeaks last year.
The government said in a statement the Obama and Bush administrations had “made every effort to act with the utmost care and diligence in transferring detainees from Guantanamo.”
Human rights groups, who have portrayed Guantanamo prison as a legal black hole, said the documents showed the need for courts to review the evidence against each detainee.
“These documents are remarkable because they show just how questionable the government’s basis has been for detaining hundreds of people, in some cases indefinitely, at Guantanamo,” said Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The one-sided assessments are rife with uncorroborated evidence, information obtained through torture, speculation, errors and allegations that have been proven false,” Shamsi said in a statement.
The New York Times was among a group of US and European media outlets that obtained the more than 700 secret documents, including The Washington Post, National Public Radio, The Daily Telegraph, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica.
In another revelation, one document reportedly showed that a top detainee, senior Al-Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, told interrogators a nuclear bomb had been hidden somewhere in Europe to be detonated if bin Laden is ever caught or killed.
Out of the 779 people who have passed through the Guantanamo prison, at least 150 detainees were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including drivers, farmers and chefs, according to The Daily Telegraph.
They were rounded up as part of frantic intelligence-gathering in war zones and then detained at Guantanamo for years due to incorrect information or simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, the British daily said.
Overall, US military officers considered only 220 of all the suspects detained at Guantanamo to be dangerous extremists.
Another 380 were deemed to be low-ranking foot soldiers who traveled to Afghanistan or were part of the Taliban, the Telegraph wrote.
In dozens of cases, senior US commanders reportedly concluded that there was “no reason recorded for transfer” to Guantanamo Bay.
Of the 172 prisoners who remain at Guantanamo, 130 have been rated as posing a “high-risk” threat.
The New York Times said the files revealed little about the harsh interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo that sparked condemnation around the world.

Is LVNV Funding LLC an abusive and cruel collection agency? Naturally, but can anyone help?

Is LVNV Funding LLC an abusive and cruel collection agency? Naturally, but can anyone help?

I wrote on the topic of bottom feeders yesterday at this site.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/high-time-to-repeal-the-%E2%80%9Cbankruptcy-abuse-prevention-and-consumer-protection-act-of-2005/

LVNV Funding LLC: What to do if you find them on your credit report

Check out this site and see if they can help you with the ever abusive bottom feeder LVNV Funding LLC .

Tell me if they really help or are a scam, too.
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/forums/lvnvfunding.html

By Good Nelly
Good Nelly
Ask Nelly

LVNV Funding LLC is a collection agency that works for creditors to collect on charged-off debt accounts. However, most of the time LVNV appears to forward their accounts to various other collection agencies and attorneys for collection instead of managing the accounts themselves. If you want to know what to do if you find LVNV listing on your credit report or how they treat consumers, check out the topics given below:

What to do when LVNV Funding shows up on your credit report

How LVNV Funding treats consumers and reports credit information

How to contact LVNV Funding LLC

How LVNV Funding treats consumers and reports credit information

Check out these LVNV Funding complaints made by community members and guests in the DebtCC forum.

Filing lawsuit for wrong debt: One consumer reports that LVNV Funding LLC has filed a lawsuit against his old mother for a bill which she didn’t owe. The lady had no idea as to which company has transferred credit information on her name to LVNV. Learn more…
No response to validation letters: Debtors complain that they receive repeated phone calls from the attorneys associated with the CA but when they send validation letters, the CA or the attorneys do not respond. One consumer sent a validation letter to one of the attorneys and after 2 months, he received a letter of response from a different attorney. However, the amount mentioned in the letter of response was similar to the amount demanded by the attorney to whom the validation letter was sent. Check out these further details…
Account re-entry on credit report after 7 years: LVNV Funding LLC may purchase a default account from a creditor and then report it on your credit report as a new charge with a new date. This may happen even though the negative listing has stayed on the credit report for 7 years and is about to be erased from the report. Learn more…
Reporting debts which are not owed: Many believe LVNV Funding LLC harasses people for money and reports outstanding balances to the credit bureaus even though consumers may not owe the money. Find out more…

One consumer is said to have received a summons even though the CA promised to look into the matter when they were sent the validation letter. However, the papers were not stamped or signed by a court clerk. A few days later, the consumer learned that his wages would be garnished. But he couldn’t just verify whether he actually owed any money. Learn the details…
Issue with disputed account: A consumer received a call from LVNV Funding LLC for the money he owed on an MCI account. The CA couldn’t give him the account number, phone number, and other account details. The consumer had received a bill earlier from MCI, but he had refused to pay it and had disputed the amount.

However, LVNV made sure that the account showed up on his credit report even though it had been more than 7 years. The consumer asked the CA to co-ordinate with the credit bureau so that his credit report showed “Account disputed”. But LVNV didn’t agree and insisted that they would only clear his credit up if he would settle the bill. Find out more…

How to contact LVNV Funding LLC

If you need to contact LVNV Funding collection agency regarding payment issues or to dispute the account held by them, use the contact information given below:

LVNV FUNDING LLC
P.O.Box 3038
Evansville, IN 47730

Telephone: (886) 861-8182, (866) 464-1183
Fax: (812) 428-3523

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Htgt123
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Sub: #1 LVNV Funding LLC: What to do if you find them on your credit report
Replied on 01-05-2006, 09:53 AM
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I noticed on my credit report that there is a company called LVNV Funding LLC for $3195. The address and phone number are PO Box 10584, Greenville SC 29603-0584 and the LVNV Funding LLC phone number listed is 866-464-1183.

When I enter the lvnv funding phone number, (866) 464-1183 on the BBB website, it comes up with a Houston, TX address.

Has anyone dealt with this company? Have you heard of lvnv funding complaints?

Thanks

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Sub: #2
Replied on 01-05-2006, 12:46 PM
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Htgt123, lvnv funding, llc is located in Indiana as well as in Texas.

From where did you get the address you posted?

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Sub: #3
Replied on 01-05-2006, 01:13 PM
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I got lvnv funding address from my credit report.

david
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Sub: #4 Confirm LVNV funding LLC address from bureau
Replied on 01-05-2006, 01:17 PM
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Call the bureau and confirm address of LVNV funding if you are in a fix. Do you owe anything to this company? If so, write a letter about settling this account. The stay of this account in your CR is hurting your credit rating.

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Sub: #5 lvnv funding scam?
Replied on 01-06-2006, 06:43 AM
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I know lvnv funding account is hurting my credit report. That is why I am asking anyone if they know about this company, because I have not heard of them. I just wanted some insite about the company. They only show up on one credit report.

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Sub: #6 Dispute lvnv account with credit bureau
Replied on 01-06-2006, 11:29 AM
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If there is no legitimate reason for LVNV Funding LLC to stay in your credit report, then you should place a dispute with them and get the account removed from your file. Here is a letter that you can use to clarify the matter:

Quote:
YOUR NAME
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE

CREDITOR NAME
ADDRESS
CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE

Date:

To Whom It May Concern:

My credit rating was negatively affected by your entry to the that showed a past due status of my account with you. Therefore, I request that you submit a statement to that reflects the actual status of my credit report.

Thank you for your attention to this request.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Be sure that you have sent this letter certified with return receipt requested.

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Sub: #7
Replied on 01-10-2006, 10:34 AM
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Thank you so much for having lvnv funding llc phone number. I have never heard of this company until I pulled my credit and the company was on there.

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Sub: #8 LVNV llc repoted in my husband’s credit report
Replied on 01-24-2006, 03:24 PM
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My Husband had LVNV funding collections item on his report as well and we called them awhile ago.. Come to find out it was a credit card he had through Sears back in 1998

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Sub: #9
Replied on 01-24-2006, 03:34 PM
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kchriste, be sure to check the statutes before you make any payment towards the account or sign a promissory note. Check the date of last activity and see if it is within the statutes.

Under no circumstances, you will be forced to pay the debt to LVNV funding if it is past the statutes. However, if the stay of this account is too far from the 7 years mark as per the FCRA, paying it off will be improving your scores.

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Sub: #10 lvnv funding collections wrong info
Replied on 01-24-2006, 04:32 PM
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Really? oh you know what I just looked at it and I gave wrong info, it was only from 2003. LVNV funding LLC recently sent us a letter stating we can pay $20 a month after we called an inquired about it and they said we are to pay it in full and there are no settlments.

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Sub: #11 what to do if lvnv funding llc debt is real
Replied on 01-24-2006, 04:36 PM
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If it’s a legitimate debt, don’t roll it further. Consider paying it off at one single time. It will only improve your credit worthiness. You are already trying hard to improve your ratings. Any constructive steps taken will be helpful to your credit worthiness.

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Sub: #12
Replied on 01-24-2006, 04:41 PM
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Unfortunately we cannot pay it off at one time. I know that would be better for us to do but we just don’t have that money laying around or else I would. That’s why I try and do as much as we can to take care of these things.

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Sub: #13 lvnv funding llc address
Replied on 01-27-2006, 05:10 AM
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Does anyone have lvnv funding address so I can send the letter to them

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Sub: #14 lvnv funding mailing address
Replied on 01-27-2006, 06:41 AM
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The address I have for them is listed at the top of this thread. However, here are more details on LVNV FUNDING LLC contact info:

LVNV Funding LLC
P.O.Box 3038
Evansville, IN 47730
Telephone: (886) 861-8182, (866) 464-1183
Fax: (812) 428-3523

LVNV Funding LLC / Resergent
Yahoo Map
9700 Bissonnet, Suite 200
Houston, TX 77036

Resurgent Capital Services LP
LVNV FUNDING )
15 South Main Street Suite 600
Greenville, SC 29601

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Sub: #15 lvnv funding collection agency
Replied on 01-28-2006, 03:22 PM
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Jan 28th 06
I JUST got a letter from these people from Henderson NV They do not say what accounts it is in regards to..but it is $5,167.34 Judgement.

I was injured in 02 and could not and still can not pay a couple of bills from prior years..not by choice.
I am on welfare and disability..have no assets..or money to pay..let alone hardly for food!

Living below the poverty level a real nightmare in my life.

I am not well..and can not work etc.

Advise Please

Send message to david

Sub: #16 LVNV Funding summon
Replied on 01-28-2006, 03:29 PM
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Elaina, you must visit the office of the local County Clerk and see if there is any legal judgment in your name. Check whether the plaintiff is LVNV Funding LLC Collections.

Normally, in case of a legal judgment, court papers are served 20 days in advance to attend the hearing. Were you served any such court papers? Also, please check the latest copy of your credit report and see if it’s shown on there.

Without the legal papers, the judgment won’t be considered legal. The company might have framed a letter putting some legal affect in it.

I am very sorry to hear about your situation. You can take some restitution program and see if you can qualify for it.

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Call for debt help

800-DEBT-913

More News on How Obama Liberals have been failing most of us in America–from Danny Schechter

I provided a hint as to why the Obama Democrats are not helping repeal key Republican disaster making legislation from the past years in my article, High Time to Repeal the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005″.

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/high-time-to-repeal-the-%E2%80%9Cbankruptcy-abuse-prevention-and-consumer-protection-act-of-2005

Here is a more complete description of our do-to-little for poorer American Obama–KAS

http://www.opednews.com/articles/WHY-WALL-STREET-IS-WINNING-by-Danny-Schechter-110426-866.html

WHY WALL STREET IS WINNING

By Danny Schechter

WHY WALL STREET IS WINNING

A Hated Financial Center Is Bouncing Back. How did they Do It?

By Danny Schechter, Author of The Crime of Our Time

Two years ago as financial reform was put on the U.S. Congressional agenda, a skeptical Senator, Dick Durbin of Illinois, spoke of the power of the banks over the country’s legislative process.

“They run the place,” he said matter of factly.

The comment was then treated as a sidebar in the few newspapers that carried it, perhaps because it hinted at how interests, not ideology, dictate what happens on Capital Hill.

The remark about a shadowy power structure far more important than all the partisan in-fighting that dominates the news is worth recalling as a way of explaining how little has been done to rain in Wall Street in the years since its crash virtually wrecked the global economy.

It is also worth realizing that the people who “run the place” usually do so in ways that rarely get high profile media scrutiny or even public attention.

During the deliberations on re-regulating banks, they mounted a formidable army of lobbyists. It was reported that there was a many as 25 industry lobbyists were assigned to each member of Congress.

Even as new laws passed to satisfy an angry public, the industry dominated the process of what the laws would cover and how.

They also spread money around to help politicians that helped them For years, those donations were made on a non-partisan base with Democrats as well as Republicans a beneficiary of carefully targeted help. Today, they are cutting off the Democrats who pushed financial reform.

The corporate sector is following suit. Nominally “liberal” companies like BP, criticized by the White House sharply for the Gulf Oil spill is pouring money not oil, into GOP coffers.

As bi-partisanship fades, and certain ideological lines are drawn more sharply, the bankers are now favoring the Republicans financially, perhaps to thank them for erecting a unified wall against tighter rules for banks.

The GOP, led by the pro-free market slogans of the Tea Party are busy defunding financial regulators as well.

Right-wingers in turn are being funded by wealthy billionaire backers including the shadowy Koch Brothers responsible for backing the anti union programs of Governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin. These campaigns are designed to neuter all opposition to a conservatve agenda.

Meanwhile, President Obama reaches into the corporate sector for “help” on his economic “recovery” agenda. In recent months, he named Jeffrey R. Immelt, President of General Electric, a company known for outsourcing jobs as his jobs advisor.

He plucked William Daley from the American Chamber of Commerce to become his Chief of Staff.

Daley recently scolded politicians for calling for the prosecution of Wall Street criminals. He said that job belongs to producers in Hollywood, not lawmakers.

These efforts have emboldened other arms of Wall Street to intervene in politics. The most visible last week was the statement by the ratings agency Standard and Poors that it was revising the country’s credit rating as “negative,” warning that will consider lowering the long term rating of the United States “within two years”

Many stocks fell, but bond markets ignored it. Former International Monetary Fund economist Simon Johnson raised questions about their decision of a kind absent in most media outlets.

Writing on his website Baseline Scenario, he noted that few outlets pointed out how inaccurate the ratiings agencies had been at the height of the crisis, and how irresponsibly they hyped worthless bonds packed with sub prime junk. Yet once again they were treated as credible despite sloppy analysis.

The main problem is that S&P did not lay out even the most basic numbers or even point readers towards the nonpartisan and definitive Congressional Budget Office analysis of medium- and longer-term budget issues. This matters, because the CBO numbers definitely do not show debt exploding upwards immediately from today …”

Bloggers like Cannonfire go further arguing that “The revised credit rating is meant to push the administration and lawmakers into going after Social Security and Medicare. The right-wing now has an additional propaganda tool to push for draconian cuts in areas that will most hurt working and middle class Americans.

Here’s the kicker: Standard and Poors and Moody’s are private firms. They don’t work for the United States; they serve the interest of Wall Street banks. 2008 taught us that they are completely unaccountable.”

Doug Smith adds on the influential Naked Capitalism blog that Wall Streed should know that joining the Tea Party Jihad on government spending will be counterproductive for economic recovery.

“We know the banksters control both parties and are immune from any threats to their bonuses or their liberty. Still, even on the banksters’ own terms of extend-and-pretend, these cuts are idiotic”

Despite all of its frauds and deceptions, Wall Street has bought its way out of the many pressures that it change its ways. In a special issue. New York Magazine concludes that in this economic war, “Wall Street Won.”

Their editors write, “In the political realm, Wall Street faced the prospect of root-and-branch reregulation, up to and including the potential nationalization of the industry’s largest players, and in the cultural realm its transfiguration into a kind of pariah state. Once upon a time, the Street’s leading lights had been glamorized and admired to the point of worship; now the likes of Robert Rubin, Lloyd Blankfein, and Richard Fuld were relentlessly pilloried and demonized….

Yet today on Wall Street, all of that seems a very long time ago. Not only are the banks rolling in dough again, but their denizens’ customs and sense of self-esteem have largely reverted to the status quo ante.”

A retired, well-known journalist, James Clay Miller, notes that media coverage of these issues adds to the confusion because it is often superficial and misleading.

“Corporate media refuse to tell many of the stories of bank fraud, as they decline to tell many of the stories that would show the public the corporate takeover of government, but the facts are available to those who recognize that they won’t learn much of importance from CNN.”

The public is not just uninformed; it is unorganized on these issues and not fighting back. The power of the bank lobby can be compared to the pro-Israel lobby in the sense it dominates the discourse on this issue.

With a besieged Democratic administration siding with the banks, unions and activists may not be willing or able to challenge Wall Street. They are so desperate to hold on to the White House, they seem willing to pull any potential punches to make Wall Street a target.

Only a national high profile and populist campaign will be able to stop the financial industry from consolidating its clout. The banks are banking on their ability to stop such a campaign before it starts or gains any traction.

News Dissector Danny Schechter made the film PlundertheCrimeofOur Time about the financial crisis as a crime story. (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com)

NOTE

IT IS TIME TO PRAY AND STAND UP, AMERICA

1 Timothy 6:17-19 – Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

An audio message that shows how things actually work very differently from what we expect, and you can lead people to God one at a time…not in groups, and not by words, but by action.

http://mp3.hutchcraft.com/web/awwy/A_Word_With_You_04-21-2011.mp3

IT’S NOT THEIR COUNTRY TO BREAK!!!

I wish the wreckers of America–from financiers, Blackwater, Bush/Obama/Clinton, Cheney, Wall Street, the White House, the Federal Reserve, Citibank, Bank of America, et.al–would take this message to heart.: IT’S NOT THEIR COUNTRY TO BREAK!!!–kas

http://www.hutchcraft.com/a-word-with-you/your-personal-power/it-s-not-yours-to-break-6337?utm_campaign=f180ab42f5-AWWY+6337&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Ron+Hutchcraft+Ministries,+Inc.

Now, I haven’t seen my son angry very often, but I remember one time. And I think it’s safe to say that he was “fit to be tied.” See, he had this elaborate race car set that his grandparents had given him, and it was all set up in the basement. Then the cars raced with each other and they did these loops, and went around these curves. He loved that! I mean, he loved this thing. And there were dump trucks that could be loaded and unloaded with gravel, and he had all kinds of lights and sounds, and bells and whistles.
Well, one day we had some company over to our house and they had two sons. And they were getting a little bored just listening to adult conversation, so they went downstairs to play with my son’s race car set. It was never the same; and I didn’t think he would be. See, after they left, my son went down to the basement and he found that one of the race cars wouldn’t work – which means there’s not much of a race when you’ve only one car. The gravel loader didn’t work any more. Basically, the set was generally wrecked! And he could never really use it quite the same after that. Well, he wasn’t angry, of course. No, he was righteously indignant. He said, “Dad, if they want to break their own toys, that’s okay. But they have no business breaking what belongs to me.” I agree with that. Wouldn’t you? Well then, why do we do it so often?
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “It’s Not Yours to Break.”

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/more-news-on-how-obama-liberals-have-been-failing-most-of-us-in-america-from-danny-schechter/

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 6, and I’m going to be reading verses 19 and 20. “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you; whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” In this passage before Paul writes these words, he’s been discussing sex outside of God’s fence of marriage. And basically what he’s saying is, “What right do you have to use God’s property for something He hates…for something that breaks His heart?” He says, “You’re not your own; you’ve been bought and paid for.”
I saw my son’s distress over someone else misusing what he owned. And I know a little bit of how God must feel when He sees what you and I do with these bodies of ours. It’s a startling realization when you look in the mirror and say, “That’s not your body. It has been bought and paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Years ago I remember when we closed on our house. And from that moment, the former owner had no say about where the furniture went, or how the rooms would be used, or what color the walls would be. It was mine by right of purchase.
You are Jesus’ property by right of purchase; a high price, an expensive price, an unthinkable price – His life on the cross for your body so that it could be restored to what it was made for – to glorify God. How are you taking care of God’s blood-bought body? Have you been cheapening it by what you’ve been doing sexually? Has His body been over-eating and damaging itself that way, or overworking and not getting the rest that God asks us to get? How about the garbage you’ve been putting into His body; or the times, maybe, when you’ve turned it over to the control of a chemical or to alcohol? Hey, that’s His body!
Augustine was tempted to plunge into his old life and he said, “Thou fool, doest thou not know that thou art carrying God around with thee?” This is His body. It’s made by Him; paid for by Him. Care for it, like a temple where God himself lives, because it is. And it’s just not yours to break.

Roy Blunt will continue supporting Obama's policy's and spending habits, America

Roy Blunt, United States Senator, Supports Obama’s Policies and will Continue Endless Wars–saying he will spend spend spend apparently on unlimited warmaking




It looks like Bush’s old House lapdog, Roy Blunt, is now jumping on the bandwagon to support prosecution of Wikileaks personnel and endless spending on a war that is Endless–the Endless War on Terror.

In short, Roy Blunt will not cut a dime from the DOD or NSA budget, Missourians. He is a spend spend half-way Pro-Obama Republican this 2011.–KAS

Dear Mr. Stoda,

Thank you for your thoughts on whistleblowers in intelligence agencies.

In a post-September 11th era, the United States faces an enemy unlike any other. The U.S. has a renewed focus on policies that protect Americans from threats to our national security while guarding fundamental civil liberties. Every day the brave men and women of our law enforcement agencies, along with our intelligence community and Armed Forces, work to protect us from the various threats posed by modern day terrorism.

One of Congress’ most important jobs will be to ensure that both civilian and government information networks are secure from our enemies, both foreign and domestic. Although transparency is critical to a representative and responsible government, unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information give an advantage to our enemies. This ultimately benefits those who wish to harm the U.S. and our allies.

Laws protecting whistleblowers are an important way to ensure that government officials cannot intimidate subordinates into covering up corrupt or illegal acts. But I have no sympathy for anyone in the national security community who puts American troops or law enforcement officials at risk by revealing classified information or sources. These activities are themselves illegal and damage our national security. As this and other issues affecting our national security and safety arise, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I look forward to continuing our conversation on Facebook (www.facebook.com/SenatorBlunt) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/RoyBlunt) about the important issues facing Missouri and the country. I also encourage you to visit my website (blunt.senate.gov) to learn more about where I stand on the issues and sign-up for my e-newsletter.

Sincere regards,

Roy Blunt
United States Senator

It appears the Taiwanese military is still biased towards Chiang Kai-Shek’s old cronies and parties

Even 40 years after the former president of Taiwan died, it still appears that the Taiwanese military is still biased towards Chiang Kai-Shek’s old cronies and parties. “The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday slammed the Ministry of National Defense (MND) for publishing a comic book of the nation’s military history that failed to include the contributions of former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).”

In a Army booklet obviously aimed at the nation’s younger generation, it should be more than embarrassing that the mention of DPP leaders have been intentionally or unintentionally been censored by the nation’s military–one of the country’s major budgetary items and historically in control of the country through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and most of the 1980s. “The DPP caucus told a press conference that the book, Eternal Glory, which was published to celebrate the Republic of China (ROC) military’s centennial, distorted history.
The caucus demanded that the ministry withdraw and re-edit the book, adding that it would ask the Control Yuan to investigate.“

With election of a Taiwanese president set for next year, it is particularly careless or intentionally biased for the military to ignore decades of development of government under the DPP. “DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said the book was mainly published to ‘flatter’ [the current] President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) by portraying him as kind and loving to the military and the public.However, the book does not mention Lee’s and Chen’s contributions to the military, although Lee led the country for nearly 12 years and Chen for eight, Gao said. The bulk of Taiwan’s -modern air force, including its F-16s, was acquired during Lee’s presidency.”

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/04/27/2003501786

The Kuomintang army of Chiang Kai Chek have been established on Mainland China but moved over to Taiwan in 1946 in large numbers. A large number of living Taiwanese are ancestors of the Kuomintang army troops who came to Taiwan in the late 1940s. The Kuomintang group or combine also took over local politics and the economy of Taiwan in 1946–essentially running Taiwan’s political, social, and economic structures into the ground through major corruption activities by the end of the decade as Kuomintang dependents and military personnel took over many of the country’s corporations and natural resources–i.e. thourgh mis-implementing Fascist takeover techniques developed in Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and in military Japan during the first half of the 20th Century.

http://www.eadn.org/EADN%20WP_12.pdf

It would take decades for the economy and social system to recover.

Now, in 2011, the Army–still run apparently by Kuomintang lovers–has insulted the opposition party and historians alike with the new comic book. “DPP Legislator Tsai Huang–liang (蔡煌瑯) said that during its eight years in office, the Chen administration transformed the military and amended laws to make it answerable to the nation rather than to a political party.”

“Taiwan’s military should have already been nationalized, but it seems the military has now returned to the period when it answered to the party,” Gao said.

In addition, Lee directed the military during rescue and relief efforts after the 921 Earthquake, Tsai said.
However, none of those developments are mentioned in the comic book.

High Time to Repeal the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005

(Due to its having helped caused the Bubble in the Housing Market, etc.), it is High Time to Repeal the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005”

By Kevin Stoda, a representative of thousands of harrassed victim of that Act

I have been dumbfounded at the lack of discussion in the USA and in Congress specifically on repealing one of the most devastating personal finance disasters of recent years. I am talking about the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005”—which has made it difficult for Americans of all types to properly negotiate or threaten bad- and usurous lenders (like Citibank, Bank of America, Freddy Mac, and various bottom-feeding credit-buyer or credit-swap firms around the USA) with bankrupcy.

The 2005 Act was pased to protect the likes of Citibank and friends from their onw usurous tendencies and free-wheeling charging of unfair penalties on loans to unsuspecting credit card users and home buyers in the USA.

Why should these banks and ill-run financiers–and the firms they trade our debt with-around-the-clock—be allowed to continue to harrass Americans with penalties while they were bailed out in the trillions of dollars by the USA government with our tax money over the past 4 years?

It is insanely unfair not to grant reprieves to the Americans suffering under the thumbs of these goliaths.

Listen up, America!!!

NOTE: “The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA) (Pub.L. 109-8, 119 Stat. 23, enacted April 20, 2005), was a law enacting several significant changes to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. It was passed by the109th United States Congress on April 14, 2005 and signed into law by President George W. Bush on April 20, 2005. Most provisions of the act apply to cases filed on or after October 17, 2005.”

As of October 2005, those people who filed for bankurpcy were required to pay “much higher fees to bankruptcy attorneys, who …. raise[d] their rates by as much as 100 percent. That [was] to account for the increased liability the new law impose[d] on them, which … mean[t] more time verifying and filing client documents.”
Moreover, “[c]onsumers who . . . [sought] to file bankruptcy in the . . .months [thereafter] also [were expected to ] experience delays at the bankruptcy courts, which ha[d] been overrun . . . as debtors scrambled to file under the less stringent requirements of the old law” as 2005 was coming to a close.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/17/pf/debt/bankruptcy_law/

CITIBANK & U.S. CREDIT MANAGEMENT DOUBLE TEAM ME

In late 2005, my own credit management firm, U.S.Credit Management of Texas, went belly-up within two months of the 2005 Act going into effect. (Because that scandalous Texas firm declared bankrupcy and pocketed my money before the end of 2005, I was out of 8500 dollars that should have been used in that year to pay down my credit card debt with various creditors.]

By the way, I had HAD to contract with U.S.Credit Management of Texas in 2004 after Citibank had unilaterally lowered my credit limit arbitrarily—i.e. without contacting me at all— in winter/spring of the year before (2003) and then began to charge me penalties for their fraud.

NOTE: YES, I TOOK my claim against Citibank to the ATTORNEY GENERALS of TEXAS, Florida, New York, South Dakota, Kansas, and the USA. All of them agreed that what Citibank had done was unfair but they did not even slap them with a fine. Such was the pro-business, pro-banker and pro-fraud Washington climate during the 108th and 109th Congress.

Citibank did worse than this to me, though.

Apparently in 2006, Citibank decided it wasn’t going to get the fraudulent money back from me under the eyes of various attorney generals, so it sold my debt to a bottom feeder credit collection agency. I will collect Bottom Feeder No. 1. However, before undertaking this sale (involving probably pennies on the dollar), Citibank (1) added more fraudulent penalties to my total and (2) created still other fictitious debt for me on credit cards which I had closed out in the late 1990s.

Next, Bottom-feeder No. 1 contacts me and wants to make a deal. I give them 500 dollars and then they refuse to make a deal.

NO MORE DEALING WITH BOTTOM FEEDING CREDIT COLLECTORS

After that, I decided not to deal with these bottom feeding credit sharks at all. Alas, THAT DEBT was sold to Bottom Feeder #2, who then contacted my mother the next year saying she “could pay off my debt at a reduced amount if she sent in 1000 dollars”. She did this without contacting me. Then that Bottom feeder Credit Collector #2 upped its demands.

I told mom never to give these irrreputable firms any money–till they immediately negotiate away all penalites and the fraudulant charges first— i.e. prior to making an offer to settle my debt.
That credit collector has now sold the debt of mine from Citibank on to another, Bottom Feeder No. 3.
Now, my debt from Citibank has been sold for a third. Again, this January 2011, these new fraudulent bottom feeding (so-called) credit collectors have been brazenly calling my mother once a week. This particular Credit Collector (Bottom Feeder #3) is still harrassing my family in the USA—even though I live and work in Taiwan.

This is all being done on the back of Citibank’s fraudulent charges dating to 2003 and earlier. It has been made possible by the “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005”, which bankrupted U.S. Credit Management and has emboldened Citibank and others to make money off debt, which they should have fairly negotiated downward years ago.

I have written the 3rd Bottom Feeder from Taiwan two times already and asked that they stop harrassing my family.

They continue to harrass my mother and family with phone calls.

Please, 112th Congress, repeal that slavery-creating “Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005” before our grand children are enslaved by the foibles of the 109th congress.

DN et. al: “Bahrain Begins Secret Military Trial Against Human Rights Activist”

Another sad day of events in the Gulf, where I used to live. : ( KAS

Bahrain Begins Secret Military Trial Against Human Rights Activist

In Bahrain, a secret military trial has reportedly begun against one of the country’s leading human rights activists, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja. Earlier this month, he was seized from his home, along with his two sons-in-law, by masked men. He is the former president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. On Wednesday, his daughter, Zainab Alkhawaja, ended a 10-day hunger strike demanding his release.

Bahrain activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja ‘on trial’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13156129

Zainab al-Khawaja ended her hunger strike calling for her father’s release.
A leading Bahraini human rights activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, is standing trial in a military court, his daughter Zainab believes.

She said he told her the date, time and place of the trial, but when family members came to the court officials denied any knowledge of the case.

Mr Khawaja had called for the country’s leaders to be held to account after a brutal crackdown on recent protests.

He was seized from his home with two sons-in-law earlier this month.

Zainab al-Khawaja ended a ten-day hunger strike after international activists said they needed her to speak up for those detained in the crackdown.

The family was turned away from the court on Thursday morning, although Mr Khawaja had pleaded with them to bring him fresh clothes in time for his appearance, the 27-year-old said.

“My father is a very strong man. He used to smile after being beaten-up,” Mr Khawaja’s daughter told the BBC.

But in a recent telephone conversation his voice was very weak and he kept telling his family the oppression was great, Ms Khawaja said.

“It was something that made me and my whole family very, very scared for him,” she added.

Human rights groups and Mr Khawaja’s family say he was beaten and arrested after masked and armed police entered their home on 9 April.

Continue reading the main story

Middle East protests: Country by country
Demonstrators, mostly from the country’s Shia majority, have taken to the streets since 14 February in a series of escalating protests calling for democratic reform.

Some are also calling for an end to the rule of the al-Khalifa dynasty.

The uprising prompted the government to impose martial law and invite troops from Sunni-ruled neighbourhoods.

More than 400 activists and protesters have been arrested in recent weeks, Human Rights Watch reports.

Rob Kall: “John Perkins, Best-selling author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”

This article from Rob Kall on the various economic hitmen attacking and thwarting the American economy, i.e. as Naomi Klein might say, “these are Shock Doctrine” Doctors or specialists in overthrowing state’s and society’s by messing up a country economically.–kAS

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/John-Perkins-Best-selling-by-Rob-Kall-110420-124.html

John Perkins, Best-selling author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

By Rob Kall

The economic hit men who used to go after third world nations are in the US and they caused the economic crisis.

http://www.opednews.com/populum/podcastplayer.php?pid=106&l=y

Rough interview notes:

We truly have created history’s global empire– the first one created without the military.
Benefitting our corporations…

Our corporations
In essense we own these countries. It’s a new kind of empire.

Omar Torrijos of Panama.
When economic hitmen fail the jackals go in and either.

Who is “Our”? Who is “We?”

It’s not you and me.

Well it is Rob. It’s anyone who accepts…
It’s anyone who looks the other way to accept destroying the amazon rain forest to get cheap oil.

Some of the people like Phil Knight at Nike, and people at Enron are sociopaths.

But some are our neighbors.

used to be that CEO’s were responsible to take care of employees and communities. That all changed with Milton Friedman’s model that only maximizing profits was important.

Need to commit to doing business with companies that engage in sustainable business.

When you buy things that are made by slaves in sweat shops or by destroying the environment we are giving a terrible burden to our grandchildren.

Johnperkins.org

How do you deal with walmart? Send them emails that you want them to get better– treat their employees better, fair wages for workers in china.

If Walmart didn’t pay it’s owners so much, and spent so much on advertising… we’d all have a better world.

Henry Ford ” I want to pay workers enough so everyone can buy a ford.”

Globalization is inevitable, in terms of us all communicating with each other. That’s a wonderful thing.

Used to be that religions had power, then nations, now corporations– control politicians and mainstream media.

Lobbyists write the laws in the United states. They own the elected officials.

There are many many ways to assassinate a person today. You don’t need a bullet anymore.

The leverage point is not longer government. We’ve got to recogni

Assassination without bullets.
Eisenhour spoke about the military industrial complex on last day of his presidency.
Kennedy was only president who got presidency without corporations.

After Kennedys and King our leaders became pretty sheepish.

Brezinski?

Linda Tripp was a classic economic hitwoman.

By the time clinton

Presidents are extremely vulnerable
The intelligence community– CIA FBI

Who runs the CIA if it’s not Obama?
The real work of the CIA is supported by money that the director doesn’t even know about.

Huge military intelligence system. It’s the career people who are calling all the shots and they are deeply influenced by the corporatocracy.

WIkileaks is having incredible impact on the world

Bottom up.
Indigenous cultures– traditions are all bottom up.

We’ve gone from a time when geopolitics was controlled by religious orgs, then governments, now corporations…. the next phase is we the people must take control. It’s got to be bottom up.

if it’s in our corporations, then we can really address through our shopping habits, through persuasion through embarassing them, getting them to change. We’ve seen an amazing example of t his in Latin America— ten coutries have voted in leaders standing up to the corporations.

All ten of these countries are doing this. They are insisted that the corporations in their countries do a better job environmentally, socially, sharing more of the profits with the people.

This has been in many cases, done by indigenous people.

Rob: It sounds like the third world may save America.

dreamchange.org lists good companies that are committed to be environmentally and socially responsible.

Name names.

Three goals of corporatocracy
Maximize profits
Elminiate regulations
Privatize

Our country ” has been stolen by a few subversive robber barons.

If obama pushes too hard he’s going to be taken down.

We the people have to do it.

Obama always said yes WE can. He never said Yes I CAN.
We the people have to do it.

Authors Bio:Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com

With his experience as architect and founder of a technorati top 100 blog, he is also a new media / social media consultant and trainer for corporations, non-profits, entrepreneurs and authors.

Rob is a frequent Speaker on the bottom up revolution, politics, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero’s journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates, and optimizing tapping the power of new media. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.

To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
And there are Rob’s quotes, here.

To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn’t you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video

My radio show, The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived at www.opednews.com/podcasts Or listen to it streaming, live at www.wnjc1360.com

Rob also host a health/mind/body/heart/spirit radio show– the Rob Kall Futurehealth radio show. Check out podcasts from it at futurehealth.org/podcasts

Follow me on Twitter

A few declarations.
-While I’m registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.

-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.

Recent press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party’s Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121969145343270091.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Videos Of The SOA Watch March To The White House To Close The SOA And Resist Militarization

Mac McKinney has an important collection of photos, Youtube videos, etc. to remind us that this Earth Day is just as bad as the last one in terms of Drilling in the Gulf an potential repeats of disasters.–KAS

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Not-so-Happy-First-BP-Oil-by-Mac-McKinney-110419-369.html

OpEdNews

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Not-so-Happy-First-BP-Oil-by-Mac-McKinney-110419-369.html
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Associate Member, or higher).

April 19, 2011

Not so Happy First BP Oil Disaster Anniversary for the Gulf (Videos)

By Mac McKinney

(1) An oily marsh, compliments of BP (source)

(2) Dead dolphin washed ashore from the Gulf (source)

***

(3) Here is a account in eleven videos of the ongoing depredations and disasters in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Gulf Coast resulting from BP’s irresponsibility and criminality commencing late last April, 2010 (not to mention before) and ongoing to this day after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank and millions of gallons of oil, and then Corexit, were unleashed upon the Gulf, all this aided and abetted by local, state and federal/military officials. And some of these videos also tell us what the American people have to do to fight back and make things right.

Let’s set the tone right off the bat:

(4) Some exposition on Gulf Coast realities, not fictions.

(4) Several songs to move America’s soul toward justice for the Gulf, prosecution for BP.

(5) What do we have to do? This:

Author’s Bio: Besides contributing to OpEdNews.com, I am also an editor. I am a student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and tempered advocate for peace, justice and the unity of humankind through self-realization and mutual respect, although I am not a pacifist, nor do I believe in peace at any price, which is no peace at all but only delaying the inevitable. There are times when the world must act. Planetary consciousness is evolving, but there are many retrograde forces that would dumb us back down. I have also just come out with my first book, a combination of poetry, photography and essays entitled “Post Katrina Blues”, my reflections on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans two years after Katrina struck. Go to the store at http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ to purchase. I also have a blogspot blog called Plutonian Mac.

Videos Of The SOA Watch March To The White House To Close The SOA And Resist Militarization

http://soaw.org/take-action/lobby-days/3689-videos-of-the-soa-watch-march-to-the-white-house-to-close-the-soa-and-resist-militarization

Videos Of The SOA Watch March To The White House To Close The SOA And Resist Militarization

On Sunday, April 10, hundreds marched to the White House, where 27 human rights activists were arrested when they staged a die-in on the White House sidewalk to call attention to thousands of Latin Americans who were murdered by graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. The march to close the SOA and to resist militarization included torture survivors, union workers, educators and students from across the Americas. Marchers carried banners, flags and large puppets, including a 14-foot tall Mother of the Disappeared with them to the White House.

Check out [also] the photos of the march to the White House and the Nonviolent Direct Action by Ted Majdosz and by Linda Panetta.

Part 2: EARTH DAY 2011, HOW PETROLEUM DEPENDENCE IS DESTROYING OUR EARTH

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2011/04/pr20110421/

THINK PROGRESS has called it right, this Earth Day.–kAS

ENERGY
The Costs Of Fossil Fuel Dependence
Reminding us all how dangerous the dependence on fossil fuel can be, yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico — the “greatest man-made disaster” since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center — which resulted in the loss of eleven men, crippled the livelihood of Gulf residents, and severely deteriorated the Gulf’s fragile ecosystem. A government-backed study found last month that the blowout preventer — a cutting device that shears and seals the pipe of a leaking well — failed on the Deepwater Horizon, resulting in the release of nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf. The detrimental effects of the BP disaster — such as its grave contribution to global warming — have prompted both retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who oversaw the Obama administration’s response to the disaster, to warn that [t]here’s no such thing as risk-free drilling,” and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to question the safety of deepwater drilling in the Gulf. The month of April provides yet another grim warning of the perils of dirty energy: the one-year anniversary of the Massey coal mine disaster, which tragically claimed the lives of 29 miners. But just yesterday, on the BP disaster anniversary, Pennsylvania got a haunting reminder of the potential dangers of drilling for fossil fuels when a natural gas well blew, causing a major leak of fracking fluid — a mixture of sand, water, and undisclosed chemicals that pose significant threats to underground water supplies.

A YEAR AFTER THE SPILL: Breaking a one year moratorium on political donations, a campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday details BP’s campaign contributions to climate zombies House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the leader of the climate-deniers Fred Upton (R-MI) — among others. Noticeably, all but one of BP’s political contributions were for Republicans. After writing off the losses incurred from the tragedy they created, BP received nearly a $10 billion dollar credit on their 2010 federal tax return — compare that to the EPA’s annual budget of $10.5 billion in 2010. Moreover, the president of BP’s Alaska unit asked the state to lower its oil production taxes to boost investment in the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Even worse, despite the country’s month-old civil war and confrontation with Western g overnments, BP is still planning to move forward with drilling in Libya. Kenneth Feinberg, administrator of BP’s $20 billion claims fund for victims of the spill, has faced sharp criticism for the slow pace of payments to Gulf residents, and has been found to be financially tied to BP, as documents show that BP pays Feinberg’s law firm $1.25 million a month for his services. Adding insult to injury, the Gulf coast ecosystem is still reeling from the disaster. The National Wildlife Federation reported this month that the BP disaster contaminated 3,000 miles of beach, wetlands, and that new “tar balls” are washing up on the shores every day. Sixty-five dead baby dolphins have been found in the Gulf region — five times higher than the average — and the National Audubon Society has warned that the spill continues to threaten many endangered migratory species< in the Gulf. As CAP warned last year , the impact of the spill on the health of Gulf region residents has also been quite noticeable. James Diaz, director of the environmental and occupational health sciences program at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, said that [w]e're seeing patients who will come in and say my nose is bleeding all the time, my cough gets worse." Diaz said that he knows "a lot about the acute health effects of the compounds in petroleum because it's a major industry" in the Gulf region, and that he is "seeing a lot of" coughing, watery eyes, itchy eyes, nosebleeds, and sneezing — all symptoms of exposure to crude oil.

MINING BLACK DEATH: A federal probe concluded in March that a trapped piece of drill pipe stopped a key failsafe device from sealing off the blown oil well, which lead to a methane explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and its collapse into the Gulf of Mexico. With nearly a total of five million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, the BP disaster wreaked havoc on the environment, caused overall tourism and consumer spending to drop 40 percent, and is the world’s worst accidental offshore oil spill in history. The mining of coal has also brought devastation. A Mine Safety and Health Administration inve stigation found that the mixture of accumulated, highly explosive coal dust and methane gas set the stage for a blast of astonishing power in Massey’s Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, which caused the death of 29 coal workers The Massey coal mine accident is the worst mining disaster in the US in the last 4 decades. But the accident came as no surprise, as four of Massey’s coal mines in 2009 had injury rates more than double the national average, Massey’s Freedom Mine in Kentucky was shut down by federal regulators, and even the Upper Big Branch mine — the location of the disaster — had more clos ure orders than any other mine in the nation.

SAFETY SACRIFICED FOR ENERGY: Oil and coal workers continually risk their lives for our dependence on dirty energy. “Coal mining is a dangerous profession,” CAP’s Daniel J. Weiss and Valeri Vasquez write, and results in “[e]xplosions, fires, and collapsed mine shafts [that] have killed at least 3,827 miners since 1968 — not to mention thousands of others who have suffered from pulmonary diseases and other work-related injuries.” Oil workers are not exempt from the danger, as “[t]here have been 77 fatalities and 7,550 injuries at onshore and offshore oil production facilities since 1968,” write Weiss and Vaquez. Totaling at 7.5 million barrels of oil, spills related to these accidents have wreaked havoc, causing billions of dollars of environmental and economic damage. Following the BP disaster, 101 oil-spill-related bills were introduced by the 111th Congress, but to date, zero have been enacted. And instead of hitting the brakes after the disastrous spill, House Republicans have accelerated the oil drilling permitting process in Gulf. Citing the resoundingly disproven concept that additional offshore drilling will lower domestic gas prices, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) has brought a bill to the House that ” would dramatically accelerate the permitting process in the Gulf of Mexico and require the Secretary of the Interior to open portions of the heretofore untouched outer continental shelf in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Pacific Oceans to more drilling,” writes CAP’s Michael Conathan. The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), on the other hand, advocates that oil companies use their thousands of existing, undeveloped leases in the western Gulf of Mexico first or lose them. Markey has also called for an immediate inspection of whether blowout preventers — cutting devices that seal the pipe of a leaking well and failed during the BP spill — could ever be counted on. And two bills introduced in the House and Senate would establish “legislation mandating 80 percent of BP’s Clean Water Act fines that will ultimately come due as a result of this spill—likely to total between $4.3 billion and $16.9 billion—be sent directly to the Gulf Coast to repair the damage done to both the environment and the economy,” writes Conathon. But West Virginia hasn’t fared any better, as the stat e has failed to pass any mine safety package after the Massey disaster. Finally, as Weiss and Vasquez point out, the US needs to make significant investments in “clean, noncombustible renewable energy sources” — such as solar panels and wind farms — citing that they “are much less susceptible to large, catastrophic disasters such as the Massey and BP Deepwater Horizon tragedies.”

Since the Koch Family is from Kansas, it is time for Kansans to change the Anti-Labor Laws in the State!

The following is from THINK PROGRESS and is not perverted news like FOX presents and too many Republicans are manipulated into believing in the Midwest. THE ONLY REsPONSE THAT IS LOGICAL IS TO ORGANIZE !!!!–KAS

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/20/koch-coerced-employees-during-the-2010-midterm-elections/

Koch Industries Instructed 50K Employees How They Were Supposed To Vote In 2010 Elections

Writing today in the Nation, Mark Ames and Mike Elk reveal that Koch Industries mailed a letters to 50,000 employees instructing them on who to vote for in the 2010 midterm elections. The Koch packet given to employees included candidate names, a letter from a Koch lobbyist, and a right-wing screed from the company and the Washington Examiner, an outlet owned by Phil Anschutz, a billionaire who is close to the Koch family. (View a copy of the packet here.)

Corporate coercion of employees is perhaps the most profound repercussion from the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year. The Nation spoke to several law experts who noted that “Citizens United frees Koch Industries and other corporations to propagandize their employees with their political preferences.” Before the decision, businesses were prohibited from instructing their employees to vote a certain way.

Not only was Koch active in helping push the Citizens United decision (several of the groups filing amicus briefs supporting unlimited corporate spending were funded by Koch), but Koch actively planned for exploiting the decision. When we exposed a memo outlining the 2010 secret Koch political strategy meeting with fellow right-wing donors, we noted that the summit included a presentation from Karl Crow. Crow is a Koch operative who had penned a memo calling for corporations to exploit Citizens United and aggressively use “employees, vendors, and customers” as tools for advancing business interests in the political sphere:

She predicts the Citizens United decision will correct the law’s imbalance and open the door for businesses to educate “their employees, vendors and customers about candidates and officeholders whose philosophies and voting records would destroy or permanently damage America’s free enterprise system.” For many nonprofits the Citizens United decision creates a host of new political opportunities in the 2010 elections and beyond. Under the ruling, trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, classified as a 501(c)(6) group by the IRS, and 501(c)(4) grassroots advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity can now use general treasury funds to produce communications materials opposing or supporting specific candidates and legislation. In a memorandum Mitchell outlined the new communications possibilities for 501(c)(4)s and 501(c)(6)s. They include voter guides, candidate questionnaires, voting records and public advertising.

Currently, Crow is heading up a vast new Koch-funded project called “Themis” to mobilize voters for the 2012 election cycle.

ThinkProgress has covered this disturbing trend of corporate political coercion since 2009. While researching the health insurance industry’s efforts to kill health reform, we discovered that a consulting firm called Democracy, Data and Communications (DDC) that actually specializes in helping large corporations organize their employees into mini-lobbyists. DDC currently consults for Koch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, several banks, the tobacco industry, and health insurance companies.

HERE IS THE DEMOCRACY NOW ARTICLE ASKING YOU TO GET SKEPTICAL ABOUT KOCH SPONSORED PROPAGANDA

April 21, 2011
Thought Control: Right-Wing Koch Brothers Caught Telling Thousands of Employees How to Vote

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/21/thought_control_right_wing_koch_brothers

The Nation magazine has revealed that Koch Industries sent a letter to most of its 50,000 employees on the eve of the November elections, advising them on whom to vote for and warning them of the dire consequences should they choose to vote otherwise. As a result of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling last year, Koch Industries and other corporations are now legally allowed to pressure their workers to adopt their political views. Koch Industries is run by the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, who have helped bankroll the Tea Party movement and dozens of other right-wing causes, including the recent attacks on public sector employees and unions going on in many states. [includes rush transcript]

Guests:

Mike Elk, labor journalist and co-author of the article Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch
Mark Ames, journalist and co-author of the article Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch
Related stories

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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now, though, to an exposé just published in The Nation magazine that raises alarming questions about the ability of corporations to influence their employees’ voting decisions. In an article titled “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch,” Mark Ames and Mike Elk report on an urgent letter that Koch Industries sent to most of its 50,000 employees on the eve of the November elections. The letter advised them on whom to vote for and warned them of the dire consequences to their families, their jobs and their country, should they choose to vote otherwise. Koch Industries is run by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. They have helped bankroll the Tea Party movement and dozens of other right-wing causes.

Koch Industries and other corporations are legally allowed to pressure their workers to adopt their political views at the ballot box because of last year’s Citizens United Supreme Court decision. The ruling granted free speech rights to corporations and effectively removed regulations preventing employers from politically manipulating their workers. In practice, employers can also fire workers who refuse to attend political seminars or dare to voice their dissenting opinions too loudly.

For more, we’re joined by the authors of the exposé, Mike Elk and Mark Ames. Both are contributing editors to The Nation. Mike joins us from Washington, D.C., Mark Ames from here in New York.

Mark, let’s begin with you. Start off with the documents that you got.

MARK AMES: Well, as we were investigating the story, it was Mike Elk, my partner on the story, who got a hold of this newsletter that was sent out. It was October 4th of last year, and it was sort of an election packet, dated October 4th, with a cover letter from the COO and president of Koch Industries, which is the head of this giant conglomerate, saying that “for the first time we feel that these elections”—that is, last November’s elections—”are so urgent, and we’re in such a dire situation, that we’re actually sending out this entire voting packet, including a list of candidates in federal and local elections that we believe, we urge you, or we strongly recommend that you vote for.” And, of course, most of the candidates—I mean, of the 19 candidates on the list that we obtained, which was for the Washington State elections, of 19 candidates, 16 were Republican and, you know, very Tea Party Republican, and of the three Democrats for local races, two were from a Democratic—a right-wing faction of the Democratic Party called the “Roadkill Caucus.” I guess, you know, this is like their Blue Dog, but Roadkill. I don’t know who the roadkill is in this case.

And then, along with that, there was a bunch of really pretty bizarre and disturbing sort of John Birch Society-like propaganda about, you know, just a paranoid vision of the world, in which free markets and freedom are constantly under attack from E.U. bureaucrats and the liberal media and all this other stuff, and sort of trying to warn or trying to advise their workers, you know, who to vote for, what to do. And on top of it, one of the most bizarre parts was a sort of an essay from Charles Koch—he’s the head of the company—telling workers who he thought the best president of the 20th century was. And he named Warren B. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, but he named them sort of as one president, one administration, as the best president of the 20th century. And he blamed Herbert Hoover for the Crash and for starting socialism in America. It’s the most bizarre thing you’ve ever read in your life.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike Elk, you are a labor reporter. Talk about the significance of the letters being sent out to the employees of Koch Industries around the country.

MIKE ELK: Well, basically, what we’ve done now is politicized the workplace. And when you politicize the workplace, you open the door for political discrimination. Citizens United—I mean, this letter is just the tip of the iceberg. But Citizens United has created a situation in which employers can send letters to their employees, threatening them. I mean, basically, in this letter, they say if you don’t vote Republican, we’re questioning whether the company will be able to continue to survive and prosper—a ridiculous statement for the Koch brothers to make, who more than doubled their profits in the last three years. But you’ve politicized the workplace, and so now you can send these letters to people.

You can also have them attend captive audience meetings. And we know the Koch brothers are starting to do this. They make their workers at this Georgia-Pacific warehouse attend seminars on libertarian free market ideology, where they tell them, you know, wages getting up too high, well, that hurts productivity, that hurts growth. And they make them attend these bizarre seminars. They stamp on the back of every time card the 10 principles of Koch Industries. So there’s a lot of heavy captive audience political meetings. The workers don’t have a choice whether they want to attend these meetings or not. They’re forced to attend these meetings, because in this country, you know, you—in 49 states, you can fire employees at will, meaning for any reason whatsoever. So, the workers are forced to attend these meetings. And this creates a very dangerous standard.

So, if the boss is constantly talking about politics in the workplace, and all of a sudden a bunch of your co-workers are wearing Republican buttons, does that mean you have to wear one, too? If all of your other co-workers are going out and volunteering with your boss on the weekend for GOP candidates, does that mean if you want to get a raise you have to go out and volunteer for a GOP candidate, as well? We’ve created a really dangerous situation of intimidation in the workplace, and this is something that we haven’t seen since going back, well, to the era of Calvin Coolidge, since the 1920s. And this is a very scary situation for most workers, who now find themselves in a situation in which they can’t voice their political views.

But it’s also scary because we’ve seen how effective, in anti-union drives, these captive audience meetings can be. In most anti-union drives, they have about 11 of these meetings. And for a lot of workers who, quite frankly, don’t have the time to listen to Democracy Now! or can’t get it, they get their news in snippets—you know, the newspaper here or there, cable news here or there. But if your boss is sitting down with you for meetings, dozens of meetings before an election, showing you fancy PowerPoints, fancy charts and, you know, cooked-up numbers about how voting for Republicans will help your company and save your job, you’re very likely to do it, if you’re a low-information voter. So this presents a real threat. And unions—unions can’t come into the workplace and do this type of thing. Unions are absolutely forbidden from doing this. But an employer can fire you if you don’t attend these types of meetings. So it’s a very dangerous situation.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read just a few of the excerpts from the letters that went out. The first, “As Koch company employees, we have a lot at stake in the upcoming election. Each of us is likely to be affected by the outcome on Nov. 2. That is why, for the first time ever, we are mailing our newest edition of Discovery and several other helpful items to the home address of every U.S. employee.”

Here is another one, another of the quotes from the letters: “The following candidates in your state are supported by Koch companies and KOCHPAC, the political action committee for Koch companies. We believe these candidates will best advance policies supporting economic freedom.”

And here’s another one, another excerpt of a letter: “For more than 40 years, Koch Industries has openly and consistently supported the principles of economic freedom and market-based policies. Unfortunately, these values and principled point of view are now being strongly opposed by many politicians (and their media allies) who favor ever-increasing government… Even worse, recent government actions are threatening to bankrupt the country… And the facts are that the overwhelming majority of the American people will be much worse off if government overspending is allowed to bankrupt the country,” they said.

And one last: “Citizens who are openly critical of the European Union bureaucracy in Brussels or the out-of-control government of the United States,” they write, “are being shouted down by politicians, government officials and their media and other allies.”

These are just some of the quotes. Mike, if you’re an employee, so your employer is giving you their point of view.

MIKE ELK: Yeah, and that’s an important point to bring up. But this is your boss. And, you know, in this kind of desperate economy, how do you say no to your boss? And who’s to say, you know, how much they’re going to do? Say somebody speaks up in the workplace, say they disagree with their boss in one of these meetings, and then the boss decides to fire them. That sends a very scary signal to the rest of the workers right before an election.

And we know that, you know, in anti-union campaigns, that when the employer gives his point of view, it kills union campaigns. We see—I’ve been involved in campaigns where—you know, when we initially file for an election, we’ll have 70 percent of the signatures, unions will have 70 percent of the signatures, saying, “Hey, we want a union.” And after three or four months of this type of meetings and mailings and propaganda, you know, the majority of workers will vote against, because they’re scared of their boss, and they’re scared of taking on their boss, and they typically don’t have the protection of a union, where they can disagree with their employer.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike, why are the Koch brothers so important?

MIKE ELK: The Koch brothers are so important, in my opinion, because the Koch brothers are really—they set the trend in the industry. I mean, they have these meetings in Aspen and the one they just had out in California, where they set the trend with the rest of the industry in terms of what they’re going to do in terms of pushing politics. Lee Fang of ThinkProgress put a memo up on ThinkProgress yesterday from an operative who’s been tied to the Koch Industries, saying that, really, after Citizens United, corporations need to start using their employees more to push their politics. So they’re going to start using the three million supervisors that work in this country to directly push politics on the job before elections. And this is something we haven’t seen in American history since we passed the National Labor Relations Act in the 1930s.

MARK AMES: Let me add what I think is so unusual and important—

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Ames.

MARK AMES: Yeah, sorry—about the Koch brothers, because people say, “Well, we have different billionaires.” I mean, it’s true, this country is turning more and more into a sort of oligarchy. What makes the Koch brothers different is how politically conscious and astute they are. There are two generations of political oligarchical activity, let’s say. Their father, Fred Koch, was one of the founders of the John Birch Society. And, you know, the Tea Party and a lot of the Libertarian stuff is basically the John Birch Society without the sort of the racism, anti-Semitism, but the same basic idea behind both, which is roll back the New Deal, roll back rights for workers, roll back rights for everybody else.

AMY GOODMAN: Their father’s organization.

MARK AMES: The father’s and the sons’. And so, these—unlike other politically active billionaires in this country, these guys understand how politics creates wealth and what a great—the opposite of a vicious circle it is for them and the vicious circle it is for the rest of us. So, you know, you’ve seen, according to Forbes, at least, the brothers, Charles and David Koch, their combined wealth was $28 billion in March of 2009, and now it’s $45 billion. So just two years after they invested in the Tea Party, their wealth has gone up 60 percent. They are, combined, the fourth-richest combined person in the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Last month, the website ThinkProgress.org published video showing Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown thanking conservative billionaire David Koch for his campaign donations and asking for more money in 2012. The video was shot at a recent dedication of MIT’s David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute.

SEN. SCOTT BROWN: It made a difference, and I can certainly use it again. And obviously, the—

DAVID KOCH: When are you running for the next term?

SEN. SCOTT BROWN: ’12.

DAVID KOCH: Oh, OK.

SEN. SCOTT BROWN: I’m in the cycle right now. We’re already banging away.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike Elk, can you talk about the role of the Koch brothers that have played overall in right-wing politics, especially in regards to Governor Walker of Wisconsin’s attacks on collective bargaining?

MIKE ELK: Well, they were big funders of Governor Walker. You know, they provided a lot of money for Governor Walker, and they’ve provided a lot of money for the anti-union think tanks that have sprung up around the country. And we saw in the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, you know, one of the groups that got involved donated $400,000 right before the last two weeks of the election, which really swung the election back in the Republican, David Prosser’s favor in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. And we’ve seen the Koch brothers as the overall biggest funders of the anti-union movement in this country, and really the leaders of it.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Ames, you’ve reported for years from the former Soviet Union. Can you talk about what you learned there and why that informs your reporting here?

MARK AMES: Yeah, when—you know, I came back here just when the economic system collapsed in September of 2008, in the financial system collapse. And what I saw was what happens when you sort of institute this perfect Austrian economics free market society, which is complete bedlam, chaos, hate, violence, you know, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and the complete subversion of democracy, the perversion of the media, and so on and so forth. And so, when I—I actually broke the first story in February of 2009 about the Kochs, Koch brothers, funding the Tea Party, with Yasha Levine, my old colleague from The Exiled. And, you know, to us, it seemed pretty obvious that these fake grassroots movements would be manipulated by rich oligarchs, because that’s what happens in Russia. Russia—in Russia, you have rich oligarchs funding these fake political movements—”virtual politics” is what they call it—and then using their minions in the media to push it forward and attack anybody who tries to expose it.

I didn’t realize—when we put out this article in 2009, you know, we were attacked pretty seriously by people from The Atlantic Monthly and so on, who later turned out to have ties to the Koch brothers. I didn’t realize how far along, how far down the road to a sort of Russian oligarchy we had already gone. And, you know, so, when you spend a lot of time in Russia, you understand how cynical oligarchs and the rich, especially when they get involved in politics, can be. And one of the huge differences, though, is that Russians themselves have become very cynical and skeptical, but Americans are still pretty trusting and gullible, and so they keep kind of getting hoodwinked. I mean, people were led to believe the Tea Party was this completely spontaneous, you know, outbreak of protests, when in fact the whole thing was guided by rich people to push their book. I think people in this country need to get a lot more skeptical than they’ve been.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Mike Elk, the piece is called “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch.” This is a letter that went out right before the previous election, instructing employees how to vote. What words of warning do you have for 2012, and what do you see down the pike?

MIKE ELK: Well, I think that we’re going to see a lot more of this kind of stuff. We’re going to see employers adopting this. We know that Wal-Mart tried to do this during the Employee Free Choice Act, and they got in a lot of trouble legally. We know McDonald’s tried to do this once in Ohio, and they got in a lot of trouble. And really, the only solution for most Americans is to organize, to organize in the workplace, because, you know, if you are forced to attend these types of meetings, if you’re in a situation where you’re being politically coerced, if you don’t have the protection of a union, you have no way of speaking up.

Yesterday I put in a call to Travis McKinney, who’s one of the Georgia-Pacific workers quoted in the story, and I said to Travis, I said, “You know, the story”—right before it went to publish, I said, “It’s going to get a lot of attention. Are you sure you want to do this? You know, you’re poking in the eyes some of the most powerful people in the world, the Koch brothers.” And he said, “You know, I’m a member of the longshoremen’s union. I think I’ll be OK. We’ll stand up, and we’ll fight this, if they come after me.”

And I think that’s what Americans really have to realize, is that we don’t have any power, except the power of solidarity and the power to strike and the power to organize in unions. Street protests are great. Online petitions are great. But only when you can threaten to shut down the factories of the boss, only when you can have that type of leverage, are Americans ever going to be able to change the situation. And I don’t see the situation changing unless there’s more organizing. I think we’re going to see more corporate oligarchs taking on workers, unless workers themselves organize and take away the power, their power to work.

AMY GOODMAN: Mike Elk and Mark Ames, thanks so much for joining us. Their piece in The Nation magazine is called “Big Brothers: Thought Control at Koch.”