Bernie Sanders | This Is Not Democracy. This Is Oligarchy.
Bernie Sanders, Reader Supported News
Sanders writes: "The Koch brothers are the second-wealthiest family in America worth $82 billion. For the Koch brothers, $82 billion in wealth apparently is not good enough. Owning the second-largest private company in America is apparently not good enough. It doesn't appear that they will be satisfied until they are able to control the entire political process."
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“I like to give on a scale where I can see impact...” - David Koch
arlier this year, a number of Republicans flew to California to make fundraising pitches to more than four hundred wealthy conservative donors attending a private conference hosted by the Koch brothers.
It’s worth taking a moment to ask the question, who are the Koch brothers, and what do they want?
The Koch brothers are the second-wealthiest family in America worth $82 billion. For the Koch brothers, $82 billion in wealth apparently is not good enough. Owning the second-largest private company in America is apparently not good enough. It doesn’t appear that they will be satisfied until they are able to control the entire political process.
This issue isn't personal for me. I don't know the Koch brothers, but I do know this. They have advocated for destroying the federal programs that are critical to the financial and personal health of middle class Americans.
Now, most Americans know that the Koch brothers are the primary source of funding for the Tea Party, and that’s fine. They know that they favor the outright repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and that’s their opinion. It’s wrong, but that’s fine as well.
But it is not widely known that David Koch once ran for Vice President of the United States of America on the Libertarian Party ticket because he believed Ronald Reagan was much too liberal. And he ran on a platform that included the following:
- “We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt and increasingly oppressive Social Security system.”
- “We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
- “We support repeal of all laws which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws…”
- “We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
In 1980, David Koch’s presidential ticket received one percent of the vote from the American people. And rightly so. His views were so extreme they were rejected completely out of hand by the American people.
But fast forward almost thirty-six years, and one of the most significant realities of modern politics is just how successful David Koch and the like-minded billionaires attending his retreat have been at moving the Republican Party to the extreme right. The ideas above that were dismissed as downright crazy in 1980 are now part of today’s mainstream Republican thinking.
The Koch brothers, and billionaires like them, have bought up the private sector and now they’re buying up the government. It’s up to us to put a stop to them, but it will require all of us standing together with one voice on this issue.
Your donation to our campaign today is a contribution towards the dismantling of a corrupt system of campaign finance held in place by the Koch brothers and their billionaire friends:
Here’s the truth: The economic and political systems of this country are stacked against ordinary Americans. The rich get richer and use their wealth to buy elections, and I believe that we cannot change this corrupt system by taking its money. If we’re serious about creating jobs, health care for all, climate change, and the needs of our children and the elderly, we must be serious about campaign finance reform.
So far in this election, less than four hundred families have contributed the majority of all the money raised by all the candidates and super PACs combined. According to media reports, one family will spend more money in this election than either the Democratic or Republican Parties.
This is not democracy. This is oligarchy.
Our job is not to think small in this moment. The current system of campaign finance in this country is utterly corrupt. That is one of the reasons I am so proud of how we have funded our campaign — over 2.5 million contributions from working Americans giving less than $30 at a time. But our campaign is unique.
We must pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, and I will not nominate any justice to the Supreme Court who does not make it abundantly clear that she or he will overturn that decision. We need legislation that requires wealthy individuals and corporations who make large campaign contributions to disclose where their money is going. And more importantly, I believe we need to move towards the public funding of elections.
Our vision for American democracy should be a nation in which all people, regardless of their income, can participate in the political process, can run for office without begging for contributions from the wealthy and the powerful.
Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be in New York City to deliver a major speech about our need to create a financial system that works for all Americans, not just the few. I’ll be in touch shortly after. I hope that you’ll keep an eye on your inbox for my message.
Judge: Emanuel Administration Lawyer Withheld Evidence About a Fatal Police Shooting in Chicago
Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post
Kaplan writes: "For four years, Officer Raoul Mosqueda offered the same account of the January night when he shot and killed a man during a traffic stop on Chicago's South Side."
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. (photo: Joshua Lott/WP)
or four years, Officer Raoul Mosqueda offered the same account of the January night when he shot and killed a man during a traffic stop on Chicago’s South Side.
Mosqueda and his partner, Gildardo Sierra, heard over their police car radio that officers were looking for an Oldsmobile Aurora involved in a shooting. A gun could be inside the car, the dispatcher warned. They saw a similar vehicle and instructed it to pull over; then the officers approached the two men inside, guns drawn. There was a confrontation, the car backed up and began to drive away, and Mosqueda opened fire, killing driver Darius Pinex.
For four years, the evidence that could have verified or refuted that account — a recording of the dispatch from that night — was nowhere to be found. Attorneys for the city said the recording didn’t exist, even as a wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Pinex’s family went to trial.
Then, in late February, too late for attorneys for the Pinex family to adjust their case, it emerged that an attorney for the city had the recording after all but waited more than a week before telling the Pinex family. A federal jury ultimately found that Mosqueda and Sierra were justified in the shooting.
But on Monday, a federal judge
ruled that the lawyer, senior attorney for the city Jordan Marsh, intentionally hid evidence that could have changed the outcome of the case. The Oldsmobile described by the dispatcher had a different temporary license plate number than the one driven by Pinex. And the dispatcher in the recording made no mention of a shooting or a gun in the vehicle — the reason Mosqueda gave for approaching the car with his gun drawn.
“After hiding that information, despite there being numerous times when the circumstances dictated he say something about it, Marsh said nothing and even made misleading statements to the Court when the issue arose,” U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang wrote, reversing the federal jury’s decision and calling for a new trial in the case brought by Pinex’s family.
Chang’s ruling comes as the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel is roiled by outrage over its handling of the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014. For more than a year, the administration resisted efforts to have dash-cam video of the confrontation released. Meanwhile, emails between the mayor’s office, police and the group that investigates police shootings that were released last week show close coordination between the agencies over how to deal with the public relations problem posed by the graphic footage, according to the
Associated Press.
Emanuel has apologized for the shooting and fired Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy after video of the McDonald shooting was released. Emanuel also pledged to eliminate the “cone of silence” around police conduct.
“No officer should be allowed to behave as if they are above the law just because they are responsible for upholding the law,” he told the Chicago City Council in December. “Permitting and protecting even the smallest acts of abuse by a tiny fraction of our officers leads to a culture where extreme acts of abuse are more likely, just like what happened to Laquan McDonald.”
Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton — Chicago’s top legal officer who handles civil claims against the city — told the
Chicago Tribune on Monday that the city is doubling down on its efforts to train lawyers on producing records. He also challenged the notion that there are widespread accountability or transparency problems in how the city deals with such cases.
“To say this is a practice, a systemic abuse or part of a coverup, there’s just no evidence of that,” Patton said. “There’s nothing in the ruling to support it.”
But the ruling in the Pinex case is yet another blow to public trust in the city as it copes with the fallout from a series of fatal police shootings.
Marsh had admitted in the middle of the trial, away from a jury, that he failed to turn over a recording of the dispatch that the officers heard, according to Chang’s ruling. He also gave conflicting stories to a judge about when he first learned of the recording’s existence and why he didn’t tell the plaintiffs about it sooner.
In addition to overturning the February decision in the case, Chang imposed sanctions against Marsh and the city, ordering that they pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees.
“Attorneys who might be tempted to bury late-surfacing information need to know that, if discovered, any verdict they win will be forfeit and their clients will pay the price,” Chang wrote. “They need to know it is not worth it.” Click here for more information!
Chang also found that Marsh’s co-counsel, city attorney Thomas Aumann, failed to make a reasonable effort to find the dispatch recording; he blamed the law department, which defends city employees who are accused of wrongdoing, of poor oversight and lax training that contributes to problems like the one in case about Pinex’s fatal shooting.
The law department announced that Marsh would be resigning Monday, saying that it “does not tolerate any action that would call into question the integrity of the lawyers who serve” Chicago and that it would be reviewing its training and evidence gathering procedures, according to the
Associated Press.
The city has spent $460,000 on outside lawyers since the issue first came up, according to the
Tribune.
This is the second time in the past year that Chang has sanctioned Chicago’s law department for its handling of a police-misconduct case. In May, he ordered a new trial for Jonathan Hadnott, who alleged that plainclothes police officers falsely arrested him and illegally searched his parents’ home in 2006. Officers said they had no recollection of stopping Hadnott and hadn’t filled out a “contact card” about the incident, according to Salon.com. There was evidence that police had run Hadnott’s name through a database that day, but city lawyers said it would have taken too long to do that and search his parents’ home in the time described.
“It is physically — it is impossible in a space and time continuum to do this,” city lawyers argued, accusing Hadnott of engaging in “outrageous lies,” according to
Salon.
But after Hadnott’s trial, city lawyers revealed that it takes only a few seconds to search the police database, undermining their own argument in the case. Hadnott was granted a new trial.
Speaking to the
Chicago Tribune about the Pinex case, Steve Greenberg, an attorney representing the slain man’s family, said the ruling raises questions about how Chicago police officers are held accountable by the city.
“There’s just a total disregard for the truth, and it runs to the highest levels,” Greenberg said. “There is a culture to cover up and win at all costs.”
In his ruling, Chang said that he understood that the law department was pressed for time and resources to deal with discovery requests. But that’s all the more reason to develop better policies for training lawyers on how to find and interpret records preserved by police, he said.
“Failing to do so will cost even more in the long run,” Chang wrote. “Not just in dollars.”
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/34451-judge-emanuel-administration-lawyer-withheld-evidence-about-a-fatal-police-shooting-in-chicago
Here's What Happened When Black People Tried Armed Occupation
Carimah Townes, ThinkProgress
Townes writes: "When a small group of radical militiamen linked to Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon on Saturday, they vowed to use violence in their fight against the federal government. And 30 years ago, a similar standoff between police and a black anti-government group in Philadelphia played out very differently."
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Wall Street Taking Over Nonprofit Sector
Dan Wright, Shadowproof
Wright writes: "While there has traditionally been a close relationship between Wall Street donors and nonprofit organizations like charities and universities, a new study from the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) reveals a growing Wall Street takeover of nonprofit boards of directors."
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The Silence of Ageism in Progressive Movements
Bill Fletcher Jr., teleSUR
Fletcher Jr. writes: "In much of the progressive social sector there has been what can only be called a de-commissioning of older activists. And, to be clear, by 'older' - and I don't want to scare you - I mean people over the age of 45 - 50."
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A New Year's Message From the Zapatistas: "We Chose Life"
EZLN, ROAR Magazine
Excerpt: "Good evening, good day companeras and companeros, today we are here to celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the beginning of the war against oblivion."
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Harvey Wasserman | Wind Power Guru: Nukes Fail to Gain Traction in Monumental Paris Accord
Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
Wasserman writes: "The world, for the first time, agreed there is a problem with climate change and that we should do something about it. This occurred despite two decades of a sophisticated campaign to downplay and even deny that climate change was occurring."
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