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Collateral Damage Justice in Mississippi

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice

Oliver E. Diaz

Republican Judge Says Bush DOJ Targeted Him

Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz was indicted in 2003 on charges relating to his receipt of a loan guarantee from trial lawyer Paul Minor — a personal friend and the largest Democratic donor in Mississippi — to help defray campaign debts. A Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney, Dunnica Lampton, brought charges of bribery against Diaz, Minor and two other Mississippi judges. Diaz was acquitted of all those charges. Within days of his acquittal, Diaz was indicted for a second time, and again acquitted.

“After I was indicted and before my trial, my home was also broken into,” recalls Diaz. “Our door was kicked in and our documents were rummaged. Televisions, computers and other valuables were not taken, despite the fact that we were out of town for several days and the home was left open by the burglars. We could not figure out a motive for the burglary and reported it to the Biloxi Police Department. The crime was never solved.”

There is now substantial evidence that Judge Diaz’s prosecutions will shortly be exposed as being politically motivated and directed. In any event it is clear that they were designed to, and did, have a key role in influencing elections in Mississippi for the benefit of the Republican Party.

.Justice Diaz was charged and acquitted twice in federal court. After reviewing the Diaz case in some detail, it is clear that no independent prosecutor would ever have brought these charges, that the prosecution was inspired and driven by political appointees in the Bush Administration working together with Diaz’s political opponents in Mississippi, and that the prosecutions served a manifestly partisan, and inherently corrupt, political agenda.

But to understand the Diaz prosecution, it’s essential to start in Washington, with the man widely viewed as the most powerful Mississippian in the nation’s capital. In 2002 Haley Barbour, one of the key figures in recent Republican party history, told friends and supporters that he had decided to return to Mississippi and seek to capture the Jackson statehouse for the G.O.P. in 2003. Under Barbour’s leadership, the G.O.P. captured both houses of Congress—a red-letter event since the G.O.P. had not controlled the House of Representatives for forty years. Along with Newt Gingrich, Barbour was one of the architects of the new Republican majority that wielded great influence in Congress even during the Clinton years, and emerged as a real powerhouse after Bush brought the G.O.P. back into the White House in 2001.

Barbour ran the G.O.P. as its chair from 1993-97. But on the side, lobbying work was his passion and he quickly became a fixture of the K Street community. In 1991 he founded Barbour Griffith & Rogers LLC, (BGR) which Fortune magazine labeled the most powerful lobbying firm in the United States in an article run in 2001. While recently profiled here in connection with the firm’s representation of wannabe Iraqi strongman Ayad Allawi, BGR is best known as the lobbyist of choice for the tobacco industry—in 1997 alone, it took in $1.7 million from tobacco sources.

If the tobacco industry had a principal adversary in the eighties and nineties, it might have been Michael Moore—not the documentary film producer, but the attorney general of Mississippi. While serving from 1988-2004, he brought the state into litigation against big tobacco in a major way. The state was represented by Dickie Scruggs and a group of trial lawyers based in the Gulf Coast area. In 1997, Moore settled Mississippi’s claims in the tobacco litigation, leading to a plan for tobacco companies to pay Mississippi about $4 billion over the next quarter century. Scruggs and dozens of other trial lawyers who funded the case, split $1.4 billion in attorney fees from the companies.

The settlement made a number of lawyers in south Mississippi profoundly wealthy. Paul Minor was one of these men. They were, for reasons that should be obvious, by and large supporters of the Mississippi Democratic Party, its attorney general, Michael Moore, and governor Ronnie Musgrove. The trial lawyers were a core constituency of the Democratic Party of Mississippi before 1997. But with the settlement money that came their way during that year, they emerged as the party’s treasury. Moreover, the south Mississippi trial bar was closely tied to the Democratic administration in Jackson, providing the key pool for the recruitment of judges and appointed and elected officials. If the Republicans had wanted to deliver an incapacitating blow to their political opposition, there is no question how it could be delivered: by going after the south Mississippi trial bar that funded Democratic campaigns and supplied key Democratic candidates.

As the fall of 2002 approached, and thoughts began to turn to the looming election, something curious emerged. It was learned that FBI agents were busy all over the southern part of the state looking at the dealings of prominent Mississippi trial lawyers. Investigators were examining money given by trial lawyers to judges as loans and campaign contributions. They were also reviewing the judicial appointments of Governor Musgrove, with a focus on anything that involved south Mississippi trial lawyers. In the coming election it appeared that large sums of money from the business community gushed through the Law Enforcement Alliance of America and on to the coffers of Republican candidates for office and G.O.P.-favored judicial candidates. Another key source of campaign money had ties to the casino gambling interests represented by Jack Abramoff. Yet no investigative or prosecutorial resources were being channeled into an examination of these very shadowy campaign funding processes.

On July 25, 2003—ninety days before the gubernatorial election between Musgrove and Barbour—the U.S. Attorney in Jackson, Dunn Lampton, secured indictments of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, his ex-wife Jennifer, Chancery Judge Wes Teel, former Circuit Judge Whitfield, and attorney Paul Minor. The accusations revolved around loans made to the judges and claims that they were corruptly influenced in their decisions. The indictments were trumpeted very loudly in the Mississippi media by U.S. Attorney Lampton, and played a focal role in the election campaign of Haley Barbour. The G.O.P. campaign used reports about the indictments and criminal investigations very prominently in print and broadcast media.

Noel Hillman, the head of the Public Integrity Section, whose focal role in the Siegelman prosecution was portrayed here, also occupied the central role in these cases. His presence helped develop media coverage for the cases. Hillman, a political protégé of Michael Chertoff, was touted as a “professional prosecutor,” and his involvement was used to show that the cases were not politically motivated. And as the case developed it became apparent that Hillman had taken control of it. Indeed, during the trial, U.S. Attorney Lampton suggested that he had “recused” himself and that the case was being managed by lawyers from Washington. It appears that this “recusal” was at least as illusory as Leura Canary’s in Montgomery, however. When the point was pushed, Lampton clarified that he had not recused himself, but Peter Ainsworth, the Public Integrity trial attorney who sat as first chair in the trial, told the court that the case was being carried by Washington rather than the Jackson U.S. Attorney’s office.

Most lawyers I spoke with said they were mystified by the Government’s decision to go after Diaz. “I don’t get it,” said one, “the bottom line is that Diaz never participated in any cases in which the loan would have made a difference. He recused himself from all the cases.” Diaz was represented up to the indictment by former U.S. Attorney Brad Pigott, and afterwards by Rob McDuff. Pigott expressed his amazement that the case was being pressed even after investigators had established that Diaz did not participate in Minor’s cases. He couldn’t understand why his client was being charged. Pigott met with Noel Hillman on one of his visits to Jackson in 2004, before the indictment was announced, trying to dissuade him from proceeding. Pigott describes Hillman as being resolute and indifferent to the points which ultimately controlled the case in the mind of the jury. But it could be that Hillman had something else on his mind. These events line up with Hillman’s pursuit of a judicial appointment and frequent interaction with the White House in connection with his application.

The First Target: Oliver E. Diaz, Jr.

A graduate of both the University of South Alabama and the University of Mississippi School of Law, Oliver E. Diaz was elected as a Republican to the Mississippi House of Representatives, serving from 1988 to 1994. During this period he also served as City Attorney for D’Iberville, Mississippi. Later Diaz was elected in a non-partisan contest to Mississippi’s intermediate appellate court. While a Republican, Diaz states that he entered the Mississippi legislature in the same class with Senator Ronnie Musgrove. The two soon became good friends, and their philosophies about life and the law showed they had more in common than the party labels reflected. Diaz was appointed to fill an unexpired term on the Mississippi Supreme Court by Musgrove in March 2000.

Mississippi lawyers describe Diaz as a respected judge who was, despite his Republican Party affiliation, viewed as more pro-plaintiff than most. He hails from the Gulf Coast region of Mississippi and has close connections with the successful plaintiff’s bar centered there. After being appointed to the Supreme Court by a Democratic governor, he had to mount an expensive campaign for election to the court in his own right. He sought financial support for the campaign. This led to Diaz’s financial dealings with the Democratic Party’s principal contributor and fundraiser in Mississippi, Paul Minor. With financial support from Minor and other sources—largely from the trial lawyers of Mississippi—Justice Diaz was elected to an 8-year Supreme Court term in 2002.

The charges eventually brought by U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton accused Diaz, along with Minor and two other Mississippi judges, of bribery and mail fraud crimes. Specifically, Diaz was accused of accepting loans from Minor with the understanding that Diaz would influence a libel case pending against Minor’s father, the celebrated Louisiana and Mississippi journalist Bill Minor. Diaz was also accused of giving Minor an unfair advantage in cases in which he was involved.

From the start, however, local federal prosecutors raised questions about the legitimacy of the case. Diaz never actually participated in the deliberation or resolution of any case involving Paul Minor either directly or in which Minor was counsel. Diaz did participate in the decision of the case involving Minor’s father, which was resolved in a unanimous ruling by the Court. And at no point were any of Diaz’s fellow judges interviewed about their knowledge of impropriety on his or Minor’s part. Had they been, the interviewer would have learned that Diaz did nothing to attempt to influence the court or his fellow judges about the case.

However, a number of aspects of the investigation and prosecution of Diaz reflect serious irregularity. In the Supreme Court election, Diaz had faced stiff opposition from a Mississippi trial judge named Keith Starrett, who had been backed by G.O.P. interests. Starrett’s mentor and friend, who took a deep interest in his election campaign, was none other that U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton, and Starrett’s law secretary was Donna Lampton, a close relative of the prosecutor. So from a distance, the investigation and targeting of Diaz looked suspiciously like payback for an unanticipated election defeat. Moreover, the investigation had proceeded as an inquiry into just who financed the judges supported by the Democrats, and how. The Republicans appeared to be astonished at their poor showing in many of these races, into which large sums of money had flowed from the business community. There was, it seems, a strong interest in shutting off the flow of cash to the political opposition to better their electoral odds.

The most amazing disclosure to come out post-trial goes to FBI agent Kevin Rust. He had managed the inquiry into Diaz, put the case together, testified before the grand jury, and sat through the trial. Yet an examination of campaign finance records similarly links Rust to the political campaign of Diaz’s opponent, Keith Starrett. Under applicable ethics rules, neither Rust nor Lampton should have participated in any way in the case. Yet it appears that they built and propelled it. Was it payback for the election defeat of their friend Keith Starrett, now a federal judge?

The Acquittal, a Second Indictment, a Second Acquittal

The jury did not think much of the charges and evidence against Diaz. He was acquitted on all charges in 2005. But no sooner was the jury’s verdict returned, than Lampton unsealed another indictment of Diaz: on income tax charges. That case went to trial and resulted in a second acquittal.

The Diaz case reflects another astonishing example of highly partisan justice–timed, presented and calculated to boost the electoral prospects of Haley Barbour. Diaz was acquitted twice, but the major objective of the prosecution—the election of Haley Barbour—was achieved. Barbour become governor, ousting Musgrove. As November 2007 approaches, Mississippians find Barbour seeking a second term.

One of the striking aspects of the case is the extremely heavy hand of Noel Hillman, who personally monitored and managed the case. In the past the presence of Public Integrity was taken as a guarantor of “no politics,” but in this case in Mississippi, like the Siegelman case in Alabama, Hillman’s involvement amounted to “politics 24/7.”

Most clearly, the case was an example of discriminatory prosecution. An investigation occurred which was directed with laser-like precision against the major donors of the Democratic party. No comparable investigation occurred that examined Republican party funding and campaign operations. The message that the prosecutors–Hillman should be singled out–delivered is simple: those who fund Democrats will be targeted and fly-specked; those who fund Republicans have nothing to worry about.

The prosecution served a double function. Democrats were discredited and humiliated, during an election cycle, for the benefit of their political opponents. In addition to this, their campaign resources were dried up so that the Republicans secured a further unfair advantage in future elections. These tactics are a pernicious corruption of the political process by politically appointed Justice Department officials posing as its guardians.

Information supplied by Scott Horton in Harper’s

The Tea Party movement has started to come unglued over a series of internal contradictions that amount to an identity crisis. The Tea Party is caught in a “Catch 22” position that has largely been ignored by the corporate mainstream media.

Just this morning I watched a local PBS show where a Republican operative claimed that the Tea Party movement was not “Republican, Right Wing or racist.” The comment appears to be the Republican Right Wing official spin on all things “Tea Party” in nature. Unfortunately, the claim really lacks credibility because it conflicts with the facts on the ground all over the nation.

Anyone who really watched the development of the Tea Party movement, as part of the anti-healthcare reform effort, understands that it was a creation of Fox News and corporate funded Right Wing Republican operatives. Despite many claims to the contrary, it brought very few new faces into the political process.

What the Tea Party public relations campaign did was simply “re-brand” the various largely discredited, Right Wing fringe elements in the Republican Party under a new name. It did con the mainstream corporate media very effectively into calling blatant corporatist, economic elitist policies “populist.” It was a bad joke that the media completely missed or just ignored.

Like the fake ACORN pimp and voter registration scandals, the storyline falls apart completely when the details are examined in any detail. The spin relies on manufactured “facts” that are really outrageous lies being told over and over again. In time, the storyline falls apart but often the damage has been done. It appears the mainstream corporate media has learned absolutely nothing from their Iraq War-Weapons of Mass Deception experience.

The reality is that there is probably not much of a Tea Party movement outside of Republican Right Wing corporate control. When it comes to economic populism, the Tea Party has either been completely missing in action or in outright opposition to every proposal that is populist in nature.

Our middle class has been under constant attack by corporate forces for decades. The Reagan-Bush Republicans have been pushing changes in government policy that benefit only the most elite of economic elitists for 30 years. American workers are being driven out of the middle class by government policy and market power. The Republican Right has successfully placed many of the levers of power in government in the hands of the corporatist economic elite. Some Democrats assisted parts of this corporate take-over of government but it was overwhelmingly Republican effort.

The government is not the enemy if it is controlled by the majority of middle class Americans. It is a check on excessive corporate power under those circumstances.

The genius behind the Tea Party campaign is that it is a corporate created public relations/political campaign designed to promote pro-corporate economic policies via government while calling the movement “anti-corporate and anti-government.” The racism angle is a just a way to hook “poor and middle class whites” into an effort designed to economically benefit the wealthiest of the wealthy at the expense of “the poor and middle class of all colors.”

Racism has long been used to divide working Americans up along color lines so they do not demand a better deal from the economic and political elite. Racism serves an economic purpose and always has served an economic purpose. Racism is a sucker bet for working Americans. It has been a key element in building the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party since Richard Nixon. Republican Right wing economic policies are a disaster for 90% of Americans and social wedge issues including race have been the key to Republican victories for more than a generation.

If the Tea Party was really a new creature, it would be fielding third party candidates everywhere under the Tea Party name. Republican and Right Wing operatives claim it is independent of the Republican Party but at the same time strongly oppose real independence. The Republican Party is the Tea Party. The Tea Party is just the most extreme elements of the Republican Party devoted to driving any remaining moderates out of the Republican Party.

You cannot support Pat Toomey-Club for Growth economic policies and still claim to be a populist movement. You have to support economic policies that increase the wages of American workers, support government measures to help the unemployed, curtail the ability of corporations to move jobs outside the United States and sell untaxed imports in our country, shift the tax burden back in the direction of corporations and the Super Wealthy instead of putting it on the middle classes and seek to regulate corporate market power to be an economic populist.

Economic populists do not make excuses for BP like Rand Paul or Sharon Angle. Economic populists do not oppose government deficits during a severe economic downturn nor support government deficits in good economic times, like the Republicans are doing. Opposing better access to affordable healthcare is not a populist position. Giving massive tax cuts to wealthy people while our government is running massive deficits and local governments are firing teachers, firefighters and police is simply stupid economics and has nothing to do with economic populism.

If the Tea Party is” populist” in nature, as they claim, then the policies they support should demonstrate that populism. If the Tea Party is independent of the Republican Party, then they should field independent candidates in the November general elections to prove their independence. If the Tea Party is not racist, then they should condemn the expression of racism from within their movement every time they occur. If the Tea Party is not an expression of extreme Right Wing sentiments, then they should stop supporting the political agenda of the Far Right.

American voters will learn in coming months just how fake and flakey the Tea Party con job is by watching the Tea Party Republicans seeking office in November. You will learn nothing about this from Fox News but the mainstream media should not drop the ball on this story in 2010. The voters deserve a real discussion about the unreality of the Tea Party reality.

Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: 698 Old Baltimore Pike, Newark, Delaware 19702. Phone: 443-907-2367. Email: demlabor@aol.com.

Feel free to publish without prior approval.

From: Brad Woodhouse, Communications Director, Democratic National Committee

To: Interested Parties

Date: July 15, 2010

RE: Putting Voter Sentiment and Recent Polls in their Proper Perspective

Voter Support for Democrats Exceeds Support for Party in Power in 1994 and 2006

While history would suggest that the 2010 elections stand to be challenging for Democrats, a variety of recent polls suggest that the barriers to success for Democratic candidates this year may not be as high as some have suggested. While pundits are now commonly comparing this year’s elections to those of 1994 and 2006, years in which the minority party took control of Congress, voters today express greater support for Democratic leaders and more trust in Democratic leadership than for the political party in power in either of those election cycles. In fact, an analysis of the relative strength of the party in power, the temperature readings of the incumbent president and the approval ratings and generic ballot tests for the party out of power for 1994, 2006 and 2010 proves that comparisons between those previous election cycles and today are at best poor.

President Obama is much more popular than President Bush was in 2006 or President Clinton was in 1994.

According to a Washington Post/ABC Poll: President Obama’s approval rating is 50%-47% [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10], while a Bloomberg poll measured President Obama’s approval at 52%-44% [Bloomberg Poll, 7/14/10].

In comparison, a November 2006 Washington Post/ABC poll measured President Bush’s approval at 40%-57% [ABC/WP Poll, 10/13/08] and, according to an October 1994 Gallup poll, President Clinton’s approval rating that fall was 41%-52% [Gallup President Approval Rating Index]. Considering the current state of the economy, a country engaged in two wars, the oil spill in the Gulf and united and politically motivated Republican obstruction in Congress, President Obama’s job approval ratings remain relatively strong and are much stronger than either those of President Clinton or President Bush when their party’s lost control of Congress.

Similarly, more voters trust the President and Congressional Democrats to lead the country than trust Republicans to do so.

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC poll, 43% of voters have confidence in the President and 32% have confidence in Congressional Democrats to make the right decisions for the country’s future. In comparison, only 26% have confidence in Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions for the country’s future. [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10] While much has been made of the result on this question for the President, politics is a comparative exercise and President Obama and Congressional Democrats remain in a stronger position with the public and are held in higher esteem than are Republicans.

In fact, on what may be the most important issue of this election – the economy – Democrats lead Republicans in voter trust, and do so by a similar margin to Democrats in 2006 and a larger margin than Republicans in 1994.

According to a Washington Post/ABC poll, registered voters trust Democrats over Republicans 42% to 34% to do a better job handling the economy, an 8 point margin [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10].

In October 2006, when the Washington Post/ABC asked the same question, registered voters picked Democrats over Republicans by 50%-41% [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10], a nine point margin. And when they asked the same question in 1994, registered voters picked Republicans over Democrats 43%-38% [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10], a five point margin. So, in the two most recent elections where control of Congress flipped from one party to the other the party out of power held the advantage on the economy while the party in power holds that advantage today.

And voters don’t just trust Democrats on the economy; they support Democrats’ legislative efforts to improve the American economy and to move our country forward in other ways. And voters are more likely to support candidates who back the Democratic agenda.

A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that 39% of voters are more likely to support a candidate who supports the Recovery Act, compared to 37% who are more likely to support a candidate who opposes the Recovery Act [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10]. Similarly, a recent Bloomberg poll found that 58% of voters are more likely to support a Congressional candidate that “supports spending government money to create jobs and stimulate employment,” while just 24% said they would be less likely to support that candidate [Bloomberg Poll, 7/14/10].

According to NBC/WSJ, 51% are more likely to vote for a Democratic candidate who says they will give health care a chance while only 44% say they would be more likely to vote for a Republican candidate who says it should be repealed. (NBC/WSJ, 6/21)

And a recent Bloomberg poll found that 45% of voters say they are more likely to support a Congressional candidate who supports “tougher regulations on Wall Street firms,” while only 15% would be less likely to support such a candidate.

Polls Indicating Republican Electoral Potential Fail to Make the Case for a Major Republican Victory

Despite voter support for Democrats on key issue tests like the economy, some polls do show narrow support for Republicans over Democrats on the generic congressional ballot. However, Republicans hold only a tenuous lead in such polls, with generic support for Republicans this year nowhere near that of Democrats in 2006.

In the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, Republicans led Democrats on a generic congressional ballot by 47%-46%, a one-point margin with little statistical significance [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10]. In contrast, in an October 2006 Washington Post/ABC poll, voters preferred Democrats over Republicans on a generic Congressional ballot by 54%-41% – a much larger 13 point gap [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10].

Similarly, Republican cheerleaders have cited polling showing support for GOP control of Congress as an electoral boon; however, such polling has proven an unreliable indicator of electoral results.

In the current Washington Post/ABC poll, voters by 51%-43% say it’s important for the GOP to control Congress as a check on President Obama’s policies. But although a September 2002 Washington Post/ABC poll found that voters supported Democratic control of Congress “as a check” on Bush’s policies by 56%-34%, more than 20 points, Democrats in that election actually lost seats [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10].

Conclusion

While many Democratic candidates this year may face tough races, polling suggests that this election is shaping up to be different in many respects than either 1994 or 2006, with Democrats in position to win close races across the country and to maintain strong majorities in both the House and Senate. In fact, Democrats today are in a greater position of strength than Democrats in 1994 or Republicans in 2006. Democrats have real accomplishments that benefit middle class families and small businesses to campaign on, an economy that is once again growing and creating jobs and a public that still remembers the disastrous consequences of failed Republican policies that cut taxes for the wealthy, cut rules for big corporations and cut the middle class loose to fend for themselves.

So after 18 months of Democrats governing while Republicans in Congress have stood on the sideline and rooted for failure, Democrats are in a strong position to begin the campaign season and present voters with a clear choice: keep America moving forward or going back to the same polices that created the worst economy since the Great Depression.

It’s the long shadow of the failed Bush economic policies that is keeping support for Republicans at a near record lows and why support for Republicans falls short of support for the minority party in either 1994 or 2006.

Thus, Republicans’ continued weaknesses and low approval ratings are helping Democrats turn this election into a choice between the two parties rather than just a referendum on the party in power. Despite the downcast assessments of Democratic political fortunes, we believe that this election stands to be different than so-called “wave” elections of the past and that Democrats have every reason to be hopeful that we can weather a treacherous political climate and maintain strong majorities in the House and Senate.

I’ve been marveling in recent months at the ways in which Republican lawmakers and candidates seem to actively dislike — on a personal level — those who’ve lost their jobs in the recession. It’s kind of odd, given that the unemployed don’t seem to have done anything to offend the GOP and earn the party’s disdain.

In the latest example, we see Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett (R), the frontrunner in this year’s gubernatorial race, arguing publicly that jobless workers in his state are choosing not to work, preferring to live on meager unemployment aid.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett on Friday accused some jobless Pennsylvanians of choosing to collect unemployment checks rather than going back to work, prompting swift criticism from his Democratic opponent and one of the state’s top labor leaders.

“The jobs are there. But if we keep extending unemployment, people are just going to sit there,” Corbett told Harrisburg radio station WITF at a campaign stop in Elizabethtown. “I’ve literally had construction companies tell me, ‘I can’t get people to come back to work until . . . they say, “I’ll come back to work when unemployment runs out.” ‘ ”

I obviously can’t speak with confidence about what some guy told some other guy who in turn told Corbett. But the general argument is getting quite tiresome.

“The jobs are there”? No, they’re really not. Nationwide, there are five applicants for every one opening, which is a terribly painful ratio. Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is currently at a 26-year high.

Corbett not only seems confused about economic conditions, but his animosity about the jobless’ attitudes is awful. Yes, I can appreciate the fact that an unemployed worker who’s exhausted his/her benefits will be more desperate to take any job than an unemployed worker who’s still receiving public aid. But this dynamic matters a whole lot more when there are plenty of job opportunities for those who want them. That’s just not the current reality.

To hear Corbett tell it, the unemployed prefer to be unemployed — turning down job opportunities that pay more, choosing to rely on aid that offers far less. Worse, Corbett doesn’t seem to realize that his approach makes the larger problem worse — cutting people off from unemployment benefits undercuts consumer spending, which in turn leads to less demand and fewer job opportunities……

Read the rest of this article at

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024674.php

House Democrats gathered on yesterday to discuss the results of a national survey on the deficit and manufacturing that House Republicans were passing around late last week. Digging into the survey, which was paid for by the Alliance for American Manufacturing and done by Dem Mark Mellman and GOPer Whit Ayers, hints at an answer to why people are so passionate about the deficit: It’s about jobs. Asking whether Congress should address the deficit or the jobless crisis, therefore, is the wrong question. Create jobs and the deficit concern goes away. Reading into the survey, you find that people relate the deficit to indebtedness to China and indebtedness to China is a proxy for American decline and the collapse of manufacturing, a huge concern among voters. About 45% of respondents said the biggest problem is that “we are too deep in debt to China,” the highest-ranking concern, 58% of folks said the U.S. is no longer the strongest economy, with China being the overwhelming alternative people identified. Three-quarters had an unfavorable view of goods made in China and 83% felt the same toward companies that set up shop there. The number one objection people had to China was the $2 trillion the country holds in U.S. debt. Asked how to improve the economy, the number one solution provided by voters was to “crack down on foreign countries who violate their trade agreements with us.” The survey: http://bit.ly/d4gv1F

The Obama administration has announced that it intends to finalize a new free trade agreement with South Korea (KORUS FTA) in time for the next G-20 summit in November. Although the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) projects this will have a small positive impact on the U.S. trade balance, and “minimal or negligible “ impact on U.S. employment, history shows that such trade deals lead to rapidly growing trade deficits and job loss in the United States.

The Charts below compare USITC’s estimates of the impact of the forthcoming free trade agreement with Korea to EPI’s own calculation. Unlike USITC’s forecast of a small positive impact, EPI’s research shows it will increase the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by about $16.7 billion, and displace about 159,000 American jobs within the first seven years after it takes effect…..

Click on this link to see charts mentioned above EPI link

by: Jim Hightower, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

If scientists were to compare the DNA of Republican congress-critters and of oil corporations, I’ll bet they’d find that they match perfectly. After all, the two species have identical political instincts and seem to have a natural affinity for each other — so I’m pretty sure they sprang from the same genetic pool.

How else can you explain the remarkable gusher of compassion that Republican lawmakers are presently directing toward Big Oil in general and BP in particular? For example, only hours after winning his party’s nomination for a Kentucky Senate seat, GOP teabag darling Rand Paul was on national TV decrying Barack Obama as “un-American” for daring to demand that BP be held accountable for its human and ecological destruction in the Gulf of Mexico.

Next came Minnesota’s Lioness of Loopiness, Michelle Bachmann, implying that the hard-hit people of the gulf are shiftless moochers who’re using the oil disaster to grab corporate cash. Brimming with tears of compassion, the kooky congresswoman wailed that, “(BP) shouldn’t have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.”

And who can ever forget the astonishing public apology to BP’s CEO by the oil-soaked Texas Republican Joe Barton? After Obama had gotten agreement from BP to set aside $20 billion to cover some of the damages it has caused, Barton called Obama’s actions a presidential “shakedown.” He asserted that it made him “ashamed” to live in America, and he obsequiously begged forgiveness from the reckless CEO whose faulty wells killed 11 American workers and continues to do inestimable economic and ecological harm……

Read the rest of this article at
http://www.truth-out.org/jim-hightower-the-gops-genetic-link-big-oil60922

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/26/clubforgrowth-radical-sucess/

Roll Call’s John McArdle reported this week that the radical Wall Street front group “Club for Growth” is “celebrating” a near perfect winning streak this election cycle so far, especially given the results in run-off elections last Tuesday. The Club is known for running hard-hitting attack ads, especially in Republican primaries, against candidates who would consider raising any form of taxes on the rich or have done anything to hold powerful corporations accountable. Noting the Club’s historic role of purging moderates from the GOP, Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH) is quoted in the article calling it the “Spanish Inquisition.”

Chaired by prominent Wall Street investors like Thomas Rhodes and Richard Gilder, as well as the wealthy and reclusive Howie Rich, the Club collects funds from employees of J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, while being buoyed by large donations like a $1.4 million contribution from investor Stephen Jacksons of Stephens Groups Inc. The hand-picked candidates of the Club claim to lead the tea party movement, even though polls show that 70% of self identified tea partiers want the government to help create jobs, and nearly half want government to rein in executive bonuses.

Despite this contradiction, the Club-endorsed primary winners are already tacking to the extreme, pro-corporate right. For example, with BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Club candidates are rushing to defend the rights of corporations over the rights of the American victims of the catastrophe:

– State Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate to win in the primary run-off for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, attacked Democrats for holding hearings to investigate BP’s crimes. In a post on his website, Scott said, “Democratic lawmakers seem to enjoy hauling CEOs before their committees so they can grandstand and condescend to them.”

– Mike Lee (R-UT), the Club-endorsed candidate who won in the primary run-off for the Utah Senate seat, said recently that he wants to keep the low $75 million dollar liability cap for companies like BP. Lee said it would be a “mistake” to raise the liability cap for companies like BP and Anadarko, even if maintaining the status quo leaves “taxpayers on the hook for part of the damage.” Lee said he wanted taxpayers, rather than BP, to pay for the oil spill because the low liability cap was part of a “set of settled expectations that you give to a business when it decides to make an investment.”

– Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate who defeated incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) in the primary run-off last Tuesday, was asked in a debate last week if he agrees with Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to BP executives. Gowdy recommended that Barton should have “stuck by his guns” and not apologize for apologizing to BP. He then said that the Obama administration should not “use the criminal justice system to extort money” from BP.

– Sharron Angle (R-NV), the Club-endorsed candidate who won in the Nevada Senate primary, told Nevada Newsmakers that in the wake of BP’s spill, the government needs to further deregulate the oil industry.

– Jeff Duncan (R-SC), the Club-endorsed candidate who won the GOP nomination in the South Carolina 3rd Congressional district run-off, closed his campaign by arguing for expanded offshore drilling last week. As one of South Carolina’s most right-wing state lawmakers, Duncan proudly refers to himself as a “states’ rights” politician.

– Mike Pompeo (R-KS), the oil executive and Club-endorsed candidate in Kansas’ 4th Congressional district, said his first reaction to BP’s oil spill was the “fervent hope that Congress doesn’t overreact” and curtail dangerous offshore drilling.

While much has been reported on the impact of the tea parties and their role in elections this year, the true driver for the hard right are corporate front groups like FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth. Using Wall Street cash, these fronts have helped to boost a cadre faux populists who are really just shills for large banks and foreign oil giants like BP. Notably, financial conglomerate J.P. Morgan, which funds the Club, is one of the largest shareholders of BP.

By Mike Elk

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6141/dems_could_win_tea_party_voters_over_with_america-first_trade_message/

A new poll contradicts the widely held belief that the the tea party movement is opposed to government action to help the economy. It shows that self-described Tea Party supporters are very much in favor of government action to revitalize America’s manufacturing base.

Seventy-four percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters would support a “national manufacturing strategy to make sure that government that economic, tax, labor, and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing in the United States,” according to the poll, put out by the Mellman Group and the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Likewise, 56 percent of self-described Tea Party Supporters “favor a tariff on products imported from other countries that are cheaper because they came from a country that does not have to comply with any climate change regulations in the country where the products were made.”

The poll also shows that President Obama’s approval rating are 11 points lower among households were a family member is employed in manufacturing than a household where no one is employed in manufacturing. That underscores a trend already noted: those most affected by the Democrats’ failure to deliver on their promises of trade reform are turning against the Democratic Party.

Why? The reason is that many feel betrayed by Democrats. Government inaction during the last thirty years has destroyed the core of the American economy: manufacturing.

Such is the case in my own hometown of Westmoreland County, Pa., where the loss of manufacturing jobs turned the county from a heavily white, heavily union, heavily Democratic county into a heavily white, heavily Fox New watching, heavily Republican County.

In 1988, card-carrying ACLU member Michael Dukakis carried my home county by an 11-point margin in a year in which he won only nine states nationally. Yet in 2008 my home county voted for Republican Sen. John McCain by a 17-point margin. It turned Republicans because Democrats sold out on NAFTA, the North American Free-Trade Agreement, and thousands of manufacturing jobs disappeared.

The Republican Party has been able to keep these voters in their ranks despite the fact that Republican party is doing nothing on the trade front either. Infact, there is absolutely no mention of trade reform in the Tea Party’s official “Contract From America.” (See Roger Bybee’s great Working ITT piece on this problem for the Tea Party Movement). The Tea Party get its momentum not from an overall hatred of government, but from a hatred of government doing things that so often hurt people like unfair trade deals.

This new poll shows that the top concerns of all Americans, including Tea Party supporters, is not the federal budget deficit but that we are too deep of debt to China in terms of our trade imbalance. No major political party is championing this issue. The surprise victory of Democrat Mark Critz in John Murtha’s old district which was expected to go Republican showed that Democrats can win over Republican voters when they campaign tough on trade issues.

If President Obama really wanted to heal the words of divided nation and away from demagogues like Glenn Beck, he could do it be taking real action on trade. He could do it by fufilling his campaign pledge to renegotiate NAFTA (a pledge now considered “laughable” within the administration). Then Obama could fulfill another campaign promise by slapping tariffs on illegal Chinese currency manipulation which make Chinese goods 25-40% cheaper than American goods.

The great thing about renegotiating NAFTA and slapping tariffs on China is that by law Obama doesn’t need congressional approval to do it. He could do it unilaterally and send a huge signal to voters that he, along with those who support this policy, on the side of American workers. The president could use these steps to lay out a bold vision for an industrial policy to rebuild America.

The choice is President Obama’s - reform trade and heal the countries’ wounds or see a divided, unemployed white working class turn to voices of hate.

Hope you’re doing well. Below is the latest work from PoliticalCorrection.org, a project of Media Matters Action Network:

- Chris Harris

http://politicalcorrection.org/

Sharron Angle Reaffirms Her Plan To Privatize — Or “Personalize” — Social Security

In a new interview with Human Events editor Jason Mattera, Angle reaffirmed her position that both Social Security and Medicare should be replaced with more “personal” alternatives in order to “keep the government out” of them.

FLASHBACK: Republican Senators Claimed Judicial Filibusters Are Unconstitutional

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said it is “possible” that Republicans will attempt to filibuster Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. However, while filibustering is within the GOP’s rights, at least eight Republican senators have publicly argued that judicial filibusters are unconstitutional.

Rep. Steve King Says Barton’s “Shakedown” Statement Was “Spot-On”

What’s more, the conservative firebrand appears to have stepped in it once again — this time by defending Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) apology to BP. Republican leaders are actively distancing themselves from Barton, but King went off-script, saying it was “spot-on” to describe the $20 billion fund secured by the White House as a “shakedown.” He also denounced the “unjust” pressure brought on Barton to retract his remarks:

Meet The Texas Republican Party

The Texas Republican Party’s new 25-page platform is chock-full of absurd policy prescriptions, many of which are based on the most absurd of conspiracy theories. While not particularly surprising for Texas, the platform does remind us just how outside the mainstream Republicans in Texas truly are. Political Correction sifted through the haphazardly written document and highlighted several sections that best symbolize the sort of conservatives who have political control in Texas

Does Sen. Murkowski Really Understand Clean Energy Policy?

But her tenuous grasp on energy policy evaporated completely on Sunday. Murkowski does not understand the difference between cap-and-trade legislation — which would harness the power of markets to steer our energy economy to greener pastures — and “command-and-control” regulations that restrict commercial behavior.

Fact Checking The Sunday Shows — June 20, 2010

On Sunday’s political talk shows, Republicans struggled to deflect attention from Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) ridiculous apology to BP. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) ludicrously suggested that President Obama has taken so much money from BP that he is more likely than the GOP to side with Big Oil — which has given Republicans $188 million since 1990. McConnell and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) each claimed that Barton’s comments are not the Republican position, but the 114-member Republican Study Committee has expressed similar concerns.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: There is much more information on each of these topics at the PoliticalCorrection.org website.