Before casting your vote on Tuesday, November 6, for the individuals who will be tasked with representing you in the House or the Senate, consider this shocking fact. The U.S. Constitution is nearly silent on the expected duties of members of Congress. The only formal rule requires that members be present to vote on the questions before their respective chambers.

What this means is that the way in which our representatives conduct the duties of their offices has simply evolved over time. In other words, our representatives have no printed road map for the major responsibilities of their jobs, such as the vital responsibility to interact with constituents. It’s difficult to imagine, but there’s no rulebook for the degree to which representatives must take into account the viewpoints and desires of constituents when voting on legislation. Think about it. Our representatives – those people who write and vote on the legislation that determines our taxes, our healthcare options, the rules of the workplace, the guarantees of our civil rights, the safety of our food and water, and much more — govern by adhering (or not) to what is often referred to these days as nothing more than norms and traditions.

It’s hardly shocking, then, that lacking clear guidelines those norms and traditions can be summarily tossed out the window and with them the assumptions about how our democracy works. In the past, those norms and traditions were respected. But times are changing. And the brazenness of some members of Congress to disregard those traditions and depart radically from what is called “regular order” should shock us to our very core. Of course, the most egregious example was the denial by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of a confirmation hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. This is where we are on the eve of the most consequential election of our lifetimes—deeply uncertain and justifiably distrustful about even the rules of the game, thanks to Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party.

With no set rules, it’s not surprising that the manner in which our elected officials approach representing our interests becomes a personal choice, depending on personality, outlook, or commitment or courage for the time, energy, and fortitude it takes to interact in person with individuals and interest groups and weigh their sometimes conflicting opinions. It’s generally accepted, however, that two main styles of representation have emerged over time. Some representatives see their job as responding directly to the viewpoints and instructions of their constituents. This is called the delegate style. Members of Congress who follow the delegate style are more apt to hold public town halls and to solicit directly the viewpoints of their constituents before casting their votes. Other representatives follow what’s called the trustee style, in which they rely primarily upon their own judgment and initiative.

The trustee style, which seems to predominate among the current Republican members of Congress, has most certainly led to a lack of accountability and to the perception by many Americans that their elected officials do not reflect nor represent their interests. Combine the trustee style with the influence of donors, lobbyists, and special interest groups and it’s easy to understand why the fundamentals of truly representational government are threatened and why, unfortunately, so many Americans question the relevance of voting and believe that politics has no place in their lives.

The post Why voters don’t trust Congress anymore appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Kelli Dunaway introduced herself to a small, informal group of progressive-minded Democrats last week and, as she told her jaw-dropping origin story, made a strong first impression.

Dunaway has decided to challenge entrenched, right-wing Republican Congresswoman Ann Wagner in Missouri’s 2^nd Congressional District in the 2018 election. It’s going to be an uphill climb: Wagner is a carefully scripted conservative with lots of money behind her and a district drawn for Republican dominance. She has easily beaten back every Democratic challenger in the past three election cycles.

But Dunaway [she’s running as “Kelli for Congress”] may have the best chance so far, among several other Democrats [all male] who will be on the primary ballot with her. If the man currently in the White House continues to alienate Republican party leaders—and even, perhaps, a portion of his base—and if 2^nd District voters wake up to Wagner’s unwillingness to talk to her constituents, and to her lock-step support of the increasingly unpopular Trump—Dunaway could find a path to victory.

But it will take more than a D behind her name to secure the win. She will need to be seen as a clear alternative. She’ll have to be well-funded. And she’ll have to be perceived not as the typical Democratic long-shot, but as someone who can win.

After meeting with her for nearly two hours, I can say that she has the potential to be all those things. She is fired up. She is determined. She strongly supports the pillars of the progressive agenda. And she comes across—in contrast to the cardboard and reclusive Wagner—as an authentic and open person who has lived a real life loaded with tough challenges.

I knew nothing about Dunaway when she first walked in the door of the coffee shop where our group met her. She seemed like a regular, relatable human being [already an advantage over Wagner], who we learned is a lawyer with a large St. Louis-area firm and lives in suburban St. Louis with her two young children.

Then, we heard her astonishing life story, and we began to realize the spunk and determination that have gotten her to this point and that could propel her to a seat in the U.S. Congress.

Dunaway’s challenges started early in life, when her parents divorced—her father moved out without leaving a forwarding address. To support the family, her mother took a job as a coal miner in Southern Illinois. When she was in high school, Dunaway was in a car accident that left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair [in a high school that did not accommodate wheelchairs.] Told that she would never walk again, Dunaway fought her way out, and two years later, was able to walk using a cane, on which she still relies.

In college, she traveled to Egypt. “That changed my life,” she says. “I saw women who were treated as property. I realized that, as an American woman, I could do anything.”

She earned a law degree at UCLA. She took the Foreign Service Exam and considered a career as a diplomat. She got fired up when Barack Obama declared his candidacy for president and took a leadership job in his California campaign organization. She was a field trainer for the Courage Campaign for marriage equality. She got married, moved to St. Louis, had two kids and then divorced.

Then, on November 8, 2016, when Donald Trump was elected, she thought, “Now what do we do? I have to get back into politics. I was at a meeting of the Truman National Security Project, and I asked them to help me find an awesome woman to run against Ann Wagner. ‘I’ll knock on every door for that person,’ I said. And then I went home and looked in the mirror and realized that, as the saying goes, I should be the change that I want to see.”

“I loved Obama, but he brought out the worst in some people, and now we have Trump,” she says. But Trump, she adds, “is actually necessary to our evolution as a people. Trump had to happen to make us really see how much racism there is in this country. He emboldened people among us who had been hiding. And now, everytime Trump opens his mouth, I win two votes.”

And here we are. Dunaway probably won’t say this publicly, but I surmise that she is running because she is pissed off and fed up—with Trump, of course, but also with the unresponsive representation that 2^nd District voters get from Wagner, and with the right-wing policies she supports that are dismantling the beneficial progress that has been made during the past 75 years.

I hope she runs on that anger. Women candidates need to stop being good girls and start using their justifiable pissed-offitude for the greater good. I hope she doesn’t let pollsters and pundits talk her out of expressing her outrage or dumb-down her ideas. Remember: Trump ran and won on rage. I am not suggesting that Dunaway turn into a maniacal, hate-spewing Trump wannabe. I am merely noting that overly nice girls usually don’t make history. Relying on polls can be soul-killing: Dunaway has a spark worth preserving—you see it in its full glory when she tells her story and expresses her fears for her children in the dystopian, rich white-man’s world that Trump and his Republican enablers seem intent on creating.

As a woman, though, Kelli will have to walk a fine line. She’ll be judged on her looks, her tone of voice, and her wardrobe choices as much as on her policies. She speaks animatedly about the role of women in social change and politics:

“There is something extraordinary happening in America today, and in Missouri as well,” she says, noting the outpouring of political activism represented by the Women’s March on the day after the Trump inauguration. “We are sitting in, we are marching, we are demonstrating, and we are running for office. Women have come off the sidelines. But having a voice in the room or even a seat at the table is not enough: We need equal representation.”

At the same time, Dunaway does not want to be seen as a candidate only for women. “What we learned from Hillary Clinton’s defeat is that women won’t vote for you solely because you are a woman,” she says. “You have to be more.”

I hope, too, that she can resist being co-opted by donors. Her advisers have told her that she needs to raise $300,000 per quarter to be competitive. That’s a lot of cash, and while she says she’d rather raise it through small donations, that will not be easy, unless she catches fire in a Bernie-Sanders-like way. Money people have agendas and are keeping score. Dunaway is going to have to find a way to resist the pressure from donors to shape her agenda to their needs.

And finally, I hope that Dunaway can resist the ever-present temptation of Missouri Democrats to run to the center as a way of appealing to the right. We have plenty of conservatives here in Missouri, and you won’t win over Republican voters by being Republican-lite. As a Democrat, you simply can’t out-conservative these Missouri conservatives, and you shouldn’t try. We need clear alternatives. I know that some Democratic leaders are uncomfortable with full-throated progressivism, but in a candidate like Kelli Dunaway, we have an opportunity to go left, where we belong—at a time when right-wing policies are poised to hurt Republican voters. I hope she sticks to her progressive principles—and then proves conventional Missouri wisdom wrong [I’m talking to you, Claire McCaskill] by beating Ann Wagner. This is a candidate worth watching.

The post Kelli Dunaway challenging Ann Wagner: First impressions appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] earned the ire of Republicans when it estimated that the GOP’s bill to repeal and/or replace Obamacare would take health insurance away from 25 million people. So, GOP Congressmen tried to retaliate. Taking a meat cleaver to CBO’s budget, they attempted to eliminate all 89 employees at CBO’s Budget Analysis Office, using the Holman Rule.

“The [Holman Rule] is a little-known relic from the 1870s [that] lets any member of the House make significant changes to agency functions or personnel through an amendment during the appropriations process,” says Federal News Radio in a July 25, 2017 report. “It was the first time lawmakers attempted to use the rule since the House reinstated it earlier this year.”

The Holman Rule essentially lets House lawmakers make changes to a federal employee’s salary or position without input from the appropriations committee. Members can debate these amendments on the House floor for a limited time…Congress hasn’t invoked the Holman Rule since 1983.

According to the Washington Post:

A separate amendment filed by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) would also eliminate the same division and specify that the CBO instead evaluate legislation “by facilitating and assimilating scoring data” compiled by four private think tanks — the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Urban Institute.

Of course, those are all private, conservative think tanks. And, essentially, Meadows’ idea is to outsource and privatize the process, calling it “a pragmatic way to use the private sector and yet let Congress depend on a score that is accurate.”

The CBO is known for its objectivity and non-partisan approach to its work. Congress established the CBO in 1974. On its own web page, CBO describes its birth this way: [Note the connection to Richard Nixon.]

Conflict between the legislative and executive branches reached a high point during the summer of 1974, when Members of Congress objected to President Richard Nixon’s threats to withhold Congressional appropriations for programs that were inconsistent with his policies (a process known as impoundment). The dispute led to the enactment of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 in July of that year.

Democrats representing areas around Washington DC blasted the vindictive amendment, calling it “part of a strategic assault on objectivity and expertise in the civil service.”

This is exactly what we worried about when Republicans reinstated this arcane rule in January,” members said in a joint statement. “The Holman Rule empowers members of Congress to target individual federal employees. The rule is being used to punish an important advisory body for doing its job by providing forecasts which some members now find inconvenient.

The Partnership on Government Oversight [POGO], a good-government non-profit group, said this about the proposed amendment:

Getting rid of the CBO would send a chilling message to all other independent offices, such as the Congressional Research Service or the Government Accountability Office, to tell Congress what it wants to hear or risk being closed,” POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said in a July 25 statement. “If there are legitimate concerns over the operation of the CBO, the solution is reform not decimation.”

Even the conservative National Review opposed Meadows’ idea.

“Congress shouldn’t abandon its brain,” wrote National Review:

…Meadows wants to turn the CBO into an “aggregator” of cost-and-benefit scores performed by private think tanks. In other words, Meadows wants the CBO to serve as a middleman and collect scores from nongovernmental organizations, many of which have an admitted ideological leaning, to create a “composite score” on which lawmakers would rely… If legislative cost estimates were outsourced to think tanks, Congress would give up a rare and vital source of internal, independent information.

Fortunately, this year’s Republican-sponsored CBO-retribution amendments failed after Democratic and Republican leaders of the Ways and Means Committee came out in support of the CBO:

“We rely on CBO’s analysts to provide fair, impartial and fact-based analysis,” said the committee leaders in a letter to their House colleagues.

In the end [ July 25, 2017], the budget cuts were defeated 314-107, and the staff cuts failed 309 -106, according to the House Office of the Clerk. Neither will be included in the Orwellian-titled “Make America Secure Appropriations Act” for fiscal 2018.

But they tried, and that in itself is important. While Donald Trump distracts us with outrageous tweets,  demagogic speeches, and White House staff wars, Republican apparatchiks in Congress are busily—cynically, gleefully—going about the business of undermining democracy one small chink at a time— mostly unnoticed. Thankfully, this effort failed. But It won’t be the last time they’ll try.

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Republicans in the US Senate are going ahead with “debate” [July 25, 2017] on repealing [and possibly replacing] the Affordable Care Act—a decision that could take health insurance away from 23 million people. Do they think of those 23 million as actual people in real towns—as their mothers, their fathers, their sisters and brothers,  their children, their grandchildren, their aunts and uncles? Or are they just abstract numbers in a political game? Do they realize—or even care about—the impact of what they are hoping to do?

How do we make this real for these folks? Maybe if we put it in political terms—votes—they’ll understand. So, let’s look at 23 million [or as many as 32 million, according to the Congressional Budget Office, depending on what model is being analyzed].

23 million is the rough equivalent of taking away health insurance from everyone who lives in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, San Francisco and Austin. That is absolutely apocalyptic.

Oh, wait. Republicans don’t care about people in big cities, because they don’t vote Republican. So, after contemplating the chilling reality of those numbers, disregard them.

Instead, let’s look at the equivalent of 23 million using smaller cities and towns, mostly in “red states,” where Republicans might give a shit, because that’s where the base is.

In this scenario, 23 million is the rough equivalent of taking health insurance away from everyone who lives in the following 100 cities, plus the entire population of Oregon.  [Population figures are rounded to the nearest thousand. And I’ve not included the “coastal” states that Republican leadership loathes. If you feel compelled to check my math, go right ahead. It’s within range. After 100 cities, I decided to stop charting and just add the Oregon shortcut: All you have to do is include Oregon’s 3.9 million people to make it add up to about 23 million. That should make Republicans happy.]

When you picture it this way, it is even more scary. Just a thought experiment to make you feel even worse about what is about to happen in Washington.

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How much horse-trading is going on in the secret negotiations to kill Obamacare?

The U.S. Senate is racing toward an artificial deadline for a vote on the magical, mystery thing known as Trumpcare. The whole sordid, secret affair is designed more as an opportunity to give Trump a win than to actually improve the American healthcare system. It’s another ploy to erase everything Obama—no matter the cost to the country’s overall well-being. And it’s also a way to deliver billions of dollars of “savings” that will form the economic justification for a huge tax cut for the top one percent.

While virtually no one has seen evidence of an actual bill yet, no hearings have been scheduled or held, and no proposed provisions have been made public, every Republican Senator is under intense pressure to just say yes, sight unseen. Some—having seen what passed for a healthcare bill in the House of Representatives—are not totally on board.

So, how are the Knights of the Secret Healthcare Society convincing reluctant Senators?

We can only guess. Members of the gang of 14 all-male Senators hashing out the provisions of this so-called bill aren’t talking publicly. [That closed-door mentality is, in itself, a problem, of course.] But political horse-trading is a time-honored tradition in US politics. and we can look to recent history to get some examples of how it works in the sausage-making world of US politics.

Some of the wrangling can be legitimately related to the proposed workings of the law, making it either better or worse. But some horse-trades are about issues unrelated to the purpose of the bill.

We know, for example, that when Trumpcare came up for a vote in the House of Representatives in March 2017, many Republicans balked. That’s when the arm-twisting and horse trading began. Talking Points Memo reported on several Congressmen who held out for inclusion of issues important to them:

Congressman Paul Gosar [R-AZ] is reported to have demanded a vote on his pet project—an anti-trust provision for health care companies—in exchange for his support of the House bill.

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), who previously opposed the American Health Care Act out of fear undocumented immigrants could somehow receive tax credits to purchase health care, said that his vote has been won over by promises from President Trump and GOP leaders that they will advance a separate bill this month that “will require that a person’s Social Security number is verified before we give them a tax credit.”

[Barletta says he was won over by a promise given to him by Donald Trump, who said a separate bill addressing his concern would be brought up in the near future. Haven’t we heard promises like that before?]

The Springfield News-Leader reported in May that Missouri Republican Billy Long reversed his position on the House GOP bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, saying he was now on board with the measure after Republican leaders promised to plump it up with $8 billion to help those with pre-existing conditions. “The issue hits close to home for the congressman,” said the News-Leaer,  “because his daughter is a cancer survivor.”

On the demands-unrelated-to-the-bill spectrum, the Miami Herald reported that, when Trumpcare was up for a vote in the House, Florida Republican Mario Diaz-Balart—a hard-liner on Cuba—may have traded his Trumpcare vote for a Trump administration commitment to rescinding Obama-era easing of restrictions on travel and commerce with Cuba.

All the while, Diaz-Balart — enjoying the courtship of the White House and GOP leaders on account of his “lean no”[on Trumpcare] stance — was circulating a memo of his vision for a Trump policy toward Cuba that would eliminate the Obama guidance to federal agencies on normalizing relations with Cuba and set up terms for Cuba to comply with — or else…Diaz-Balart cast the tie-breaking vote…in the Budget Committee to approve the AHCA and bring it to a full House vote.

Diaz denies the quid pro quo. But then again, this happened. “Trump Reverses Pieces of Obama Era Engagement With Cuba [New York Times, June 17, 2017]. Just a coincidence, of course.

The Atlantic also reminds us about the “Buffalo Bribe” (or, if you prefer, the “Tammany Haul”)—a provision the House leadership added to the AHCA at the urging of five members of the New York delegation that would shift the Medicaid tax burden away from upstate counties.

Now,don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that pork-barreling and horse-trading are unique to Trumpcare. In all fairness, we should remember the Cornhusker Kickback proposed during negotiations to pass Obamacare eight years ago. [It was a deal created for Nebraska Republican Senator Ben Nelson, which included $100 million in the Obamacare bill that only Nebraska would get in added federal Medicaid assistance. The special provision was ultimately deleted from the bill.]

And now, just for a final note of perspective, there’s this, according to the Los Angeles Times:

To most political analysts, the late President Lyndon B. Johnson remains the modern standard by which presidential horse-trading is measured. When the Texan was in power, lawmakers were plied with everything from military bases and dam projects to first say in choosing judges and federal appointees in exchange for their cooperation on Johnson’s programs.

Indeed, Johnson was so adept at political deal-making that his machinations became known irreverently as “the Johnson treatment.”

Donald Trump is no Lyndon Johnson: He knows nothing about healthcare policy or legislative tactics, and he reportedly cares very little about Trumpcare itself –except as a potential political win to assuage his ego. So, in trying to convince Senators to vote for Trumpcare, he’s incapable of jaw-boning about meaningful policy changes — for the good or for the bad.  That means, unfortunately for America, that he’ll have to resort to deals unrelated to the bill — things like, say, ambassadorships, favorable government contracts and special privileges. A terrible healthcare law bought with the lowest form of horse-trading is one of the worst-case scenarios one can imagine.

.

The post Healthcare horse-trading: Who’s getting what for a Trumpcare vote? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I’ve just called my U.S. Congressional Representative, Republican Ann Wagner. I called to register my protest against the Holman Rule, which was unanimously passed by the House of Representatives as part of a new rules package. The Holman rule allows Congress to individually target and slash the pay of government workers and programs.

According to Think Progress:

The Holman rule, named after the congressman who first proposed it in 1876, was nixed by Congress in 1983. The rule, now reinstated for 2017, gives any lawmaker the power to offer amendments to appropriations bills that could, legislatively, fire any federal employee or cut their pay down to $1, if the lawmaker so chooses.

In effect, the Holman Rule enables politically motivated purges of federal employees. Its passage explains why the Trump transition team was circulating questionnaires to the Department of Energy to gather the names of employees who had participated in conferences, training programs and workshops dealing with anything objectionable to the radical-right agenda waiting to be implemented.

According to an NPR report:

… Among the queries included in a questionnaire sent by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to workers at the Department of Energy is a request for an inventory of all agency employees or contractors who attended meetings or conferences on climate change. Another question asks for a current list of professional society memberships of any lab staff.

The 74-point questionnaire has raised fears among civil rights lawyers specializing in federal worker whistleblower protections, who say the incoming administration is at a minimum trying to influence or limit the research at the Department of Energy. And at worst, attempting to target employees with views that run counter to the president-elect.

The questionnaire also asks employees for a listing of when the climate change meetings took place, and to provide any materials distributed to them “or materials created by Department employees or contractors in anticipation of or as a result of those meetings.”

“This is a very scary indication of what might happen under a Trump administration,” says Jason Zuckerman, a former legal adviser to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an agency which protects federal workers, particularly on matters of retaliation.

Once the questionnaire became public, the transition team claimed to “disavow” it and withdrew it. But the intent remains, and passage of the Holman rule confirms that.

My experience with Wagner’s office was positive. I spoke with a polite young man at her Washington DC office, who was not interested in my name, only my zip code.  I followed with a call to Wagner’s local office here in St. Louis, and was greeted by a friendly young woman who looked me up in her database to be sure that I was receiving Wagner’s propaganda regularly, and, when asked,

said that I was just the second person to call on this issue. I hope I am not the last.

To call Congresswoman Wagner:

Washington DC office               202-225-1621                M-F 9-5:00pm

Missouri 2^nd District Office     (636) 779-5449               M-F 9-5:00pm

For everyone else, you can find your Congressional representative’s contact information here.

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A new CNN / ORC poll just revealed that the majority of Americans want Congress to reject the nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama Administration negotiated. This is a shift from April, 2015 when the majority favored approval of the deal.

It might be farcical that the American people are asked their views on the deal; it’s very complicated and hardly anyone has read it. On the other hand, we’re all entitled to engage in “gut politics” in which we intuitively make judgments about whether or not we can trust an individual or a policy.

The problem with the second approach, the “gut approach,” is that we are more susceptible to emotional appeals, particularly when they are blasted upon us by the electronic media. No sooner had Secretary of State John Kerry concluded the arduous negotiations with the Iranians and five allies than right-wing organizations began saturating the American airwaves with fear-mongering ads that as always, present only partial information and a lot of disinformation.

We have previously written about how the nuclear deal is somewhat similar to the fast-track consideration of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that President Obama narrowly shepherded through Congress. It’s complicated and does not lend itself to easy consideration. However, a fundamental difference between the two is who the opponents of each is.

In the case of the TPP, those who opposed the President’s stance were primarily his traditional supporters, workers, labor unions, environmental groups, consumer groups, and progressives in general. In the case of the Iran nuclear deal, those opposed are mostly Republicans, most vehemently those who have sworn to do whatever they can to undermine virtually anything that he supports. These people are bankrolled to the hilt and can roll out one ad after another to scare Americans about the Iran deal. Those who opposed the TPP were of limited means and also somewhat reluctant to dumb down the conversation with 30-second fear pieces.

While I am not a nuclear scientist and cannot personally vouch for the scientific veracity of the agreement, I am pleased that one of the top American negotiators was Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, former professor of Physics and Engineering Systems at MIT. He and most other scientists who understand nuclear physics support the deal. This is somewhat like climate change; those with the knowledge support reform; those who are largely ill-informed resist taking reasonable action to address a true threat.

It’s not just the United States that entered the deal with Iran, it’s also countries as disparate as Russia and China, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. All but Germany are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. On July 20, 2015, the ten non-permanent members of the Council joined the permanent members to give unanimous endorsement of the agreement. Those countries are Angola, Chad, Chile, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Spain and Venezuela.

The fact that the agreement is supported by so many scientists and so many countries is reason, though not assurance, that it is a good deal. One of the problems that President Obama has had in trying to sell the deal is that neither he nor anyone else can guarantee or assure that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons sometime in the future. What’s unfortunate is that opponents of the deal cannot accept the simple truth that there is no way to prove a negative; that something won’t happen. That leaves you with relying on the best information available. This is certainly a far shot better than Congress disapproving the deal and overriding his veto. Then whatever guarantee exists now will be destroyed and the likely outcome will be war with Iran and further isolation of the United States from other countries in the world.

Maybe supporters of the deal will have to take to the air waves, but as we all know, it’s difficult to overcome Republicans pandering to fear.

The post Iran Nuclear Deal too complicated for TV commercials appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I am frightened, saddened and angered by the war propaganda published in the US media, particularly the New York Times, the so-called “paper of record,” concerning the war in Ukraine. Day after day, the White House, the State Department, and the CIA issue false narratives about Putin, Russia and Ukraine, and the Times and other corporate news outlets deliver these lies, unchallenged, to the American people. The Obama administration generates false narratives because the real story is too bloody and unpalatable for a public who lives under the illusion that the United States is a force for good in the world.

Independent investigative reporter, Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for the AP and Newsweek, weighs in on Washington’s conspiracy theory that Putin instigated the crisis in Ukraine. He provides a complete chronology of events in Ukraine over the past year, which leads to his conclusion that the Obama administration and his neocon appointees at the State Department not only backed the coup in Kiev, Ukraine, but also continue to escalate the conflict. Parry turns to an unlikely source, arch warmonger Henry Kissinger, to make his case.

[T]he key point is that Putin was reacting to the Ukraine crisis, not instigating it. As even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained to Der Spiegel, “The annexation of Crimea was not a move toward global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.”

Kissinger added, “Putin spent tens of billions of dollars on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The theme of the Olympics was that Russia is a progressive state tied to the West through its culture and, therefore, it presumably wants to be part of it. So it doesn’t make any sense that a week after the close of the Olympics, Putin would take Crimea and start a war over Ukraine.”

In this case, Kissinger is clearly right. It never made any sense for Putin to provoke the Ukraine crisis. Yet, that became the lie upon which the United States has built its increasingly aggressive policies over the past year, with politicians of all stripes now shouting that America must stand up to the madman Putin and “Russian aggression.”

 Why is the Obama administration escalating the conflict in Ukraine?

With great clarity, independent foreign policy writer Mike Whitney lays bare the reasons for the Obama administration’s policy of aggression toward Putin, Russia and Ukraine. He tells the story of a failing empire wanting to cling to its role as the world’s only superpower. Obama’s “pivot to Asia” is an attempt to rein in China and Russia who want out from under the unipolar world of U.S. economic and military hegemony. (My emphasis in boldface.)

Washington needs a war in Ukraine to achieve its strategic objectives. This point cannot be overstated.

The US wants to push NATO to Russia’s western border. It wants a land bridge to Asia to spread US military bases across the continent. It wants to control the pipeline corridors from Russia to Europe to monitor Moscow’s revenues and to ensure that gas continues to be denominated in dollars. And it wants a weaker, unstable Russia that is more prone to regime change, fragmentation and, ultimately, foreign control. These objectives cannot be achieved peacefully, indeed, if the fighting stopped tomorrow, the sanctions would be lifted shortly after, and the Russian economy would begin to recover. How would that benefit Washington?

It wouldn’t. It would undermine Washington’s broader plan to integrate China and Russia into the prevailing economic system, the dollar system. Powerbrokers in the US realize that the present system must either expand or collapse. Either China and Russia are brought to heel and persuaded to accept a subordinate role in the US-led global order, or Washington’s tenure as global hegemon will come to an end.

This is why hostilities in East Ukraine have escalated and will continue to escalate. This is why the U.S. Congress approved a bill for tougher sanctions on Russia’s energy sector and lethal aid for Ukraine’s military. This is why Washington has sent military trainers to Ukraine and is preparing to provide $3 billion in  “anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees, and radars that can determine the location of enemy rocket and artillery fire.” All of Washington’s actions are designed with one purpose in mind, to intensify the fighting and escalate the conflict. The heavy losses sustained by Ukraine’s inexperienced army and the terrible suffering of the civilians in Lugansk and Donetsk are of no interest to US war-planners. Their job is to make sure that peace is avoided at all cost because peace would derail US plans to pivot to Asia and remain the world’s only superpower. . . .

Non-lethal military aid will inevitably lead to lethal military aid, sophisticated weaponry, no-fly zones, covert assistance, foreign contractors, Special ops, and boots on the ground. We’ve seen it all before. There is no popular opposition to the war in the US, no thriving antiwar movement that can shut down cities, order a general strike or disrupt the status quo. So there’s no way to stop the persistent drive to war. The media and the political class have given Obama, carte blanche, the authority to prosecute the conflict as he sees fit. That increases the probability of a broader war by this summer following the spring thaw.

While the possibility of a nuclear conflagration cannot be excluded, it won’t affect US plans for the near future. No one thinks that Putin will launch a nuclear war to protect the Donbass, so the deterrent value of the weapons is lost.

And Washington isn’t worried about the costs either. Despite botched military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and half a dozen other countries around the world; US stocks are still soaring, foreign investment in US Treasuries is at record levels, the US economy is growing at a faster pace than any of its global competitors, and the dollar has risen an eye-watering 13 percent against a basket of foreign currencies since last June. America has paid nothing for decimating vast swathes of the planet and killing more than a million people. Why would they stop now?

They won’t, which is why the fighting in Ukraine is going to escalate. . . .

There will be a war with Russia because that’s what the political establishment wants. It’s that simple. And while previous provocations failed to lure Putin into the Ukrainian cauldron, this new surge of violence–a spring offensive–is bound to do the trick. Putin is not going to sit on his hands while proxies armed with US weapons and US logistical support pound the Donbass to Fallujah-type rubble. He’ll do what any responsible leader would do. He’ll protect his people. That means war.

Financial warfare, asymmetrical warfare, Forth Generation warfare, space warfare, information warfare, nuclear warfare, laser, chemical, and biological warfare—the US has expanded its arsenal well beyond the traditional range of conventional weaponry. The goal, of course, is to preserve the post-1991 world order (The dissolution up of the Soviet Union) and maintain full spectrum dominance. The emergence of a multi-polar world order spearheaded by Moscow poses the greatest single threat to Washington’s plans for continued domination.  The first significant clash between these two competing worldviews will likely take place sometime this summer in East Ukraine. God help us.

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If I hadn’t been watching Jon Stewart to catch up on some outlier news, I would not have known that Republican John McCain and Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be BFFs. Stewart was “reporting” on the recent funeral of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In a “break in the action,” McCain and Pelosi were walking together and having a jolly good time. They were laughing and looking warmly at one another. They probably did not know that at least one camera was tracking their stroll down Memory Lane.

It got me thinking that international funerals could be a great way to break gridlock King Abdullah’s was a special one because he was so popular with American Republicans and Democrats. It may have been his winning personality; it may have been that he was “just ordinary folks” when everyone went casual, or it possibly could have been that American politicians of both major parties just seemed partial to the leader of a country with 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves.

America’s “who’s who of oil” scurried to Riyadh.They came from Capitol Hill, from ‘K’ Street, from downtown Houston, and just about any place where Oil is King. Their roles in the funeral were passive; it was not for them to pontificate or even officiate. About the only thing left to do was to stand around and look uncomfortable. It would have made a great setting for the cast of the political satire, Alpha House.

Awkward moments are the times when guards are let down as individuals look for allies who can assure them than they’re not doing anything wrong. When possible, it’s good to be in conversation so that you don’t stand out as misfit for the occasion. So if you happen to be next to someone of a different political party, it doesn’t matter. You just want someone with whom to talk and to pretend as if there is no one else with whom you would rather be.

President Obama was at King Abdullah’s funeral, but the identity of Republicans with whom he chatted apparently is not for public consumption. Another mystery is what Republicans, if any, flew on Air Force One with him. Remember the funeral of Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995? Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was delighted to be a passenger on President Bill Clinton’s plane, but then he was miffed because the President did not invite him to join the First Family in the front cabin. Maybe Clinton should have done some “bargain shopping” with the Speaker on the plane ride.

Most members of Congress are comfortable when they are inside their bubbles. That bubble usually includes their favorite places on Capitol Hill, the fanciest restaurants on or around ‘K’ Street, the nook where they incessantly make the annoying phone calls asking for money, and wherever friendly crowds assemble in their district. But if you put them in a place where they have to interact with people outside of their bubble, they are disarmed. This is particularly so if the occasion is characterized by the “fish out of water” feeling they inevitably get at a foreign dignitary’s funeral.

So, in an effort to promote bi-partisanship and possibly even actual governance, I propose that foreign leaders die on an intermittent schedule, no less than four weeks apart and no more than six weeks apart. No matter who the leader is or what country he or she ruled, the United States should spare no dignitaries to attend the funeral. If possible, they should all fly on Air Force One. The seating should be “Southwest-style,” take a number, please. No media allowed; cordial socializing required, and for those who cannot handle the rigors of bi-partisan conversation, one of the Air Force One restrooms will serve as a “time-out” room.

Upon returning to Washington, the Congress should form a Joint Committee on Future Funerals. That would be somewhat of a ruse; the main purpose would be to outline items due for bi-partisan consideration at the next funeral.

You might think that this proposed solution to gridlock is an act of desperation. Well you’re right; it is. But short of any better idea, I’ll look forward to the untimely demise of foreign leaders as our best call to bi-partisanship. Sorry, Joe Biden, you’ll have company at future funerals.

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In one of the most astonishing speeches ever given from the senate floor, progressive Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren, called out the Obama administration for being a wholly owned subsidiary of Citibank. Her speech was prompted by a Wall Street bomb inserted at the last minute in the Omnibus spending package gutting a key provision from the already watered down Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. That provision regulated how banks trade in derivatives. The banks wanted to, once again, gamble with FDIC insured deposits and, if the derivative deals blow up as before, to be bailed out, once again, by taxpayers.

Obama, a master of triangulation, urged that, in the spirit of bipartisanship, members of Congress vote for the bill, which he has since signed. Senator Warren says the deregulation of derivatives was in the bill because Obama and his Citibank friends wanted it there.

 Warren’s extraordinary 10-minute speech

Transcript: Citibank given tremendous power in the Obama administration

Mr. President, in recent years, many Wall Street institutions have exerted extraordinary influence in Washington’s corridors of power, but Citigroup has risen above the others. Its grip over economic policymaking in the executive branch is unprecedented. Consider a few examples:

• Three of the last four Treasury Secretaries under Democratic presidents have had close Citigroup ties. The fourth was offered the CEO position at Citigroup, but turned it down.
• The Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve is a Citigroup alum.
• The Undersecretary for International Affairs at Treasury is a Citigroup alum.
• The U.S. Trade Representative and the person nominated to be his deputy – who is currently an assistant secretary at Treasury – are Citigroup alums.
• A recent chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House was a Citigroup alum.
• Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management and Budget went to Citigroup immediately after leaving the White House.
• Another recent Chairman of the Office of Management of Budget and Management is also a Citi alum — but I’m double counting here because now he’s the Secretary of the Treasury.

That’s a lot of powerful people, all from one bank. But they aren’t Citigroup’s only source of power. Over the years, the company has spent millions of dollars on lobbying Congress and funding the political campaigns of its friends in the House and the Senate.

Citigroup has also spent millions trying to influence the political process in ways that are far more subtle—and hidden from public view. Last year, I wrote Citigroup and other big banks a letter asking them to disclose the amount of shareholder money they have been diverting to think tanks to influence public policy.

Citigroup’s response to my letter? Stonewalling. A year has gone by, and Citigroup didn’t even acknowledge receiving the letter.

Citigroup has a lot of money, it spends a lot of money, and it uses that money to grow and consolidate a lot of power. And it pays off. Consider a couple facts.

Fact one: During the financial crisis, when all the support through TARP and from the FDIC and the Fed is added up, Citi received nearly half a trillion dollars in bailouts. That’s half a trillion with a “t.” That’s almost $140 billion more than the next biggest bank got.

Fact two: During Dodd-Frank, there was an amendment introduced by my colleague Senator Brown and Senator Kaufman that would have broken up Citigroup and the nation’s other largest banks. That amendment had bipartisan support, and it might have passed, but it ran into powerful opposition from an alliance between Wall Streeters on Wall Street and Wall Streeters who held powerful government jobs. They teamed up and blocked the move to break up the banks—and now Citi is bigger than ever.

The role that senior officials working in the Treasury department played in killing the amendment was not subtle: A senior Treasury official acknowledged it at the time in a background interview with New York Magazine. The official from Treasury said, and I’m quoting here, “If we’d been for it, it probably would have happened. But we weren’t, so it didn’t.” That’s power.

Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts. Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. And yet here we are — five years after Dodd-Frank – with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for middle class, do nothing for community banks – do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again.

There’s a lot of talk lately about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect. There’s a lot of talk coming from Citigroup about how the Dodd-Frank Act isn’t perfect.

So let me say this to anyone who is listening at Citi: I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect.

It should have broken you into pieces.

 Realities to ponder:

• It was Obama’s choice to give Citibank extraordinary power and influence in his administration.
• It was Obama’s choice to keep the Bush era architects of torture as close advisors.
• It was Obama’s choice to invite warmongering neocons into his administration.

It’s time for us to challenge bank-owned Democrats who spout progressive platitudes to the public while slavishly serving the interests of the elite. In a courageous act, Elizabeth Warren has taken the first step, and she is taking names.

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