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BERJAYA

11 Facts About The Big Banks

BERJAYA

CNBC Talking Heads On Protesters: ‘Freaks,’ ‘Bizarre’

BERJAYA

Perry Supporter: Voting For Romney Would ‘Give Credibility To A Cult’

Economy

Despite 14 Straight Months Of Public Job Loss, Republicans Continue To Block Obama’s Jobs Plan

By Tanya Somanader posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 7, 2011 at 9:00 pm

BERJAYAHopes were not high today for this month’s jobs report after the economy appeared to net exactly zero jobs in August. While the numbers beat expectations, the story behind them reveals a pervasive trend in public sector job loss that Republicans seem committed to ignoring.

In August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the private sector added 17,000 jobs, but the public sector lost the exact same number (those numbers have since been revised). This month, the private sector created 137,000 jobs, but the public sector continued to hemorrhage jobs, losing 34,000. As Matt Yglesias notes, “month after month we see a labor market that’s basically treading water primarily because government employment is shrinking rather than keeping pace with population growth.”

Political Correction charted the plummeting public sector growth next to the steady rise in private sector jobs over the past two years. While the private sector marked a net gain of 1.4 million jobs, budget cuts have eliminated 572,000 government jobs. If governments maintained the same employment rate since 2009, “the economy would have grown by about 2 million jobs”:

BERJAYA

This trend of public job depletion puts the Republican jobs agenda in stark contrast with the administration’s approach. President Obama’s American Jobs Act would not only add 1.9 million jobs next year, but makes targeted investments to arrest the trend in layoffs. The plan includes $35 billion in direct state aid infusion that will “prevent up to 280,000 layoffs of teachers, who are — along with cops and firefighters — particularly vulnerable to local government budget shortfalls.”

However, Republicans continue to block Obama’s much-needed plan because, in part, they see public job loss as a positive. As Yglesias points out, “this shrinkage is exactly what conservatives claim to believe will spark growth once they bring the era of Kenyan Anticolonialism to an end.” Buying into the conservative campaign against government workers, Republicans governors like Chris Christie (NJ) and Rick Scott (FL) openly tout laying off thousands of workers as a badge of honor. Scott actually bragged about getting rid of 15,000 jobs in his state. In talking up his draconian budget cuts, Scott admitted that his “biggest cut” is “always people.”

However loud Republicans sing about the shrinking public sector, plummeting public job numbers have failed to deliver on the promise of “private sector magic” — and the economy will continue to suffer for it.

Economy

Santorum Flip-Flops: Protesters Were A ‘Fringe Group’ In The Morning, But He ‘Understands’ Them In The Afternoon

By Travis Waldron, Marie Diamond, Scott Keyes and Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 7, 2011 at 7:00 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Values Voters Summit in Washington DC

BERJAYARepublicans, many of whom adopted the Tea Party mantra when that movement began in 2008, have dismissed the ongoing protests on Wall Street as an anti-capitalist, anti-American movement, even as it spreads from its origins in New York to cities across the country. At the Values Voters Summit today, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) called the protesters “mobs” and accused those supporting it of “condoning the pitting of Americans against Americans,” ignoring the legitimate complaints the protesters have made about the richest Wall Street bankers, many of whom have seen their incomes skyrocket while the average worker’s have stagnated.

In an interview this morning on CNBC, Santorum seemed to join his fellow Republicans, calling the protesters “a fringe group” of the “radical left” that has been protesting since Vietnam:

SANTORUM: Well, you’re talking about a rather fringe group of people out here sitting outside your building. I mean, these are the same old folks that have been protesting since the Vietnam War. … They don’t curry too much favor in my book and I don’t think they do with the American people. This is the radical left.

Watch it:

But at the Values Voters Summit today, Santorum seemed to change his tune. After first dismissing the protests by saying, “This is what the left does,” Santorum told ThinkProgress that while he may disagree with what the protesters wanted to accomplish, there is “legitimate concern about corruption on Wall Street” and that “I understand the motivation behind the protests”:

SANTORUM: I understand the motivation behind the protests. I don’t think what they’re trying to accomplish is what I’d like to see. But clearly, Wall Street should have paid, and in my opinion, still should pay for the consequences of what they’ve done.

Watch it:

Aside from Santorum’s obvious flip-flop, it’s unclear how he wants to hold Wall Street bankers accountable now, considering he opposes the implementation of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act that was meant to rein in big banks and ensure that the type of financial crisis that sparked the recession can’t repeat itself. In a recent interview, Santorum explained that the financial collapse was somehow caused by government regulation, not the massive banking deregulation efforts that preceded the collapse.

Politics

Congressman From Koch Uninterested In Investigating Koch Industries’ Business Deals With Iran

By Scott Keyes, Travis Waldron and Marie Diamond on Oct 7, 2011 at 5:55 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC.

BERJAYALast week, Bloomberg released a bombshell report on Koch Industries, the oil conglomerate owned by the secretive conservative billionaires David and Charles Koch. The report revealed that Koch Industries subsidiaries were doing business in Iran and using bribes to win contracts elsewhere. The Koch Brothers were apparently alarmed enough about the report’s release that a blogger with extensive ties to the Kochs attempted to pre-but the allegations well before Bloomberg’s release.

Given these damning allegations – Koch Industries admitted the bribes were criminal and the United States has banned trade with Iran since 1995 – ThinkProgress asked the congressman whose district includes Koch Industries, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), whether he planned to open an investigation into the matter. Pompeo blew off the notion, walking away from reporters rather than answer the question. Despite being asked three times if he planned to open an investigation into Koch Industries’ dealings with Iran, Pompeo was silent, allowing his communications director to block ThinkProgress instead.

KEYES: Are you going to be leading an investigation into Koch Industries’ dealings with Iran?

POMPEO: [Silence.]

Watch it:

It’s not particularly surprising that Pompeo would resist opening an investigation into Koch Industries. His extensive ties to the Koch Brothers have earned him the title, “the congressman from Koch.” When Pompeo was confronted about undue influence that the Kochs have on his office, he responded, “Koch Industries is an amazing business.”

ABC News attempted to ask David Koch this week about the oil tycoon’s business deals in Iran and bribes used by Koch Industries. Like Pompeo, Koch was silent on the matter.

Politics

VIDEO: Prominent Perry Endorser Robert Jeffress Says Voting For Romney Would ‘Give Credibility To A Cult’

By Marie Diamond, Travis Waldron and Scott Keyes on Oct 7, 2011 at 4:48 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC.

BERJAYA

Southern Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress

Today at the Values Voters Summit, presidential contender and Texas Gov. Rick Perry was introduced to the crowd by one of his most prominent supporters, Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas. Jeffress is well-known for his bigoted views about gays, Muslims, and Mormons. During his introduction for Perry, he called Planned Parenthood “that slaughterhouse for the unborn.”

Speaking to reporters after Perry’s speech, Jeffress reiterated his well-known view that “Mormonism is a cult” which should essentially disqualify Mitt Romney from consideration among true Christian voters. “As evangelical Christians, we understand that Mormonism is not Christianity,” he said. “The decision for evangelical Christians right now is going to be do we prefer someone who is truly a believer in Jesus Christ or someone…who is a part of a cult.” He admitted “it’s not a politically correct thing to say.”

In response to questions from ThinkProgress about the booing of a gay soldier at the last GOP debate, Jeffress said “there’s good reason for keeping the tradition of not having homosexuals serve in the military.” He made the patently false claim that “70 percent of the gay population” has AIDS. “It’s a fact that it’s a gay disease so there’s a reasonable reason to exclude gays from the military,” he explained, suggesting that gay service members are more likely to spread disease. Watch it:

It’s pretty ludicrous to suggest that there’s a tradition of not having gays in the military — gay service members have simply not been allowed to serve openly and been forced to conceal their identities for fear of being dishonorably discharged.

In the past, Jeffress has claimed that Islam “promotes pedophilia” and that violence by Muslims is “in accordance with what the Quran teaches” because it’s a “violent religion.”

Perry spokesman Mark Miner said in a statement that Perry does not believe Mormonism is a cult.

Economy

CNBC Talking Heads: Wall Street Protesters Are ‘Freaks,’ ‘Anti-American,’ ‘Bizarre’

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 7, 2011 at 4:00 pm

The Occupy Wall Street protest that began in New York City more than three weeks ago has sparked an entire movement, based on the principle that the economy should work for everyone, not simply the richest one percent. At a time when income inequality and corporate profits are running sky high, right alongside joblessness and foreclosures, a movement like this captures the very real pain felt by “the 99 percent.”

However, the financial prognosticators on CNBC — including Larry Kudlow, Jim Cramer, and Joe Kernan — have found nothing but scorn for the protestors, deriding them as “bizarre,” “freaks,” and “law-breaking” “anti-American” “anarchists” who are “more aligned with Lenin.” Watch a compilation:

It’s no real surprise that the same pundits who derided subprime lending victims as “suckers,” vigorously defended the righteousness of bailed-out banks paying million dollar bonuses, believe tax havens prevent tyranny, and cited Glenn Beck as a new economic indicator would find the Wall Street protests off-putting. But their comments merely highlight how out-of-touch they are with the common American, as they cater all day, every day to the Wall Street crowd.

Politics

Rep. Steve King Would Repeat Slavery Era, Says There’s Nothing He Would Change About American History

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Oct 7, 2011 at 3:20 pm

BERJAYA Tea Party Rep. Steve King (R-IA) fired up the socially conservative crowd at the Values Voters summit today, telling them that God controlled the Founding Fathers “like men on a chess board.” But the arch-conservative congressman seemed to forget his grade-school history when he told the crowd that there was not a single thing he would change in America’s history to make it better:

KING: Could you reverse engineer the United States of America and come up with a better result that what we have here? Could you go back through history and turn us in history in any way where our mortal wisdom could supersede the actual history that we’ve experienced as a country? I say not.

I believe that the Bible was written with divine inspiration. I believe that the declaration was written with divine guidance. I believe that God moved the Founding Fathers around this country and the globe like men on a chess board.

Watch it:

King’s affirmation of the entirety of U.S. history ignores, of course, the country’s dark chapter of legalized slavery. Many of the Founding Fathers, who King believes God micromanaged, were slave owners themselves and enshrined protections for slavery in the original Constitution. Would King really want to repeat this history?

In 2009, King was the only member of Congress to vote against a House resolution to acknowledge the role that slave labor had in constructing the U.S. Capitol building. The resolution would merely authorize the placement of a marker inside the new Capitol Visitor Center, but King opposed it because he said it would not present “a balanced depiction of history.”

Last year, King’s good friend Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) caught flack for erroneously claiming that the Founding Fathers “worked tirelessly” to end slavery.

NEWS FLASH

Despite Insisting State Was ‘Broke,’ Gov. Scott Walker Spent $60,000 On iPads | Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) infamously used his state’s budget gap as pretext to strip collective bargaining rights from public sector workers, insisting that “Wisconsin is broke” and thus extraordinarily measures were required. But the state is apparently not that broke, as the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. just dropped “about $60,000″ on brand new iPads for every person on their staff, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Actually, they bought more than enough, purchasing 73 tablets for only 63 employees (they say the are in the middle of hiring more people). The agency is a public-private hybrid, but a spokesperson said the iPads were purchased with state dollars.

Security

Key Romney Advisers Advocate War With Iran

By Ben Armbruster posted from ThinkProgress Security on Oct 7, 2011 at 2:00 pm

BERJAYAYesterday, GOP presidential front runner Mitt Romney announced his campaign’s foreign policy team. While ThinkProgress pointed out that many of Romney’s advisers helped push the United States into war with Iraq, it might also be interesting to know what the former Massachusetts governor will be hearing from his top aides regarding Iran. Prominent neoconservative Robert Kagan, who is among Romney’s foreign policy advisers, has actually spoken out in favor of talking to Iran. However, that view is by far an outlier among Romney’s team. While some of them have tried to push the claim that Iran is working with al Qaeda, others have said or written that the U.S. should take a more militaristic approach toward the Islamic Republic:

ELIOT COHEN: Soon after the 9/11 attacks, Cohen, now director of the strategic studies program and Johns Hopkins University, called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. And that thinking doesn’t appear to have changed. In 2009, Cohen again called for the overthrow of the Iranian regime and said either attack Iran or it gets nukes. “The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time.”

MICHAEL HAYDEN: On CNN last year, former CIA director (and prominent torture advocate) Michael Hayden said attacking Iran over its nuclear program might not be a bad idea. “In my personal thinking — I need to emphasize that — I have begun to consider that that may not be the worst of all possible outcomes,” he said.

ERIC EDELMAN: Edelman was a career diplomat and former aid to Vice President Dick Cheney. Earlier this year in an article in Foreign Affairs, Edelman, along with two other co-authors, said that the U.S. will either have to attack Iran or contain its nuclear weapons capability. “The military option should not be dismissed because of the appealing but flawed notion that containment is a relatively easy or low-risk solution to a very difficult problem,” they wrote.

NORM COLEMAN: Coleman, the former Republican senator from Minnesota, said in 2007 that if Israel ever attacks Iran, the United States should join in. “If something is taken,” Coleman said, “the United States is going to be part of that. We have to understand that. There is no saying, ‘Israel did it.’”

KIM HOLMES: In 2005, the Heritage Foundation’s Kim Holmes worried that the Europeans, by negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, might be preventing the U.S. from using military force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Holmes called it a “serious mistake” to allow Iran to obtain the bomb because “Iran itself is simply too untrustworthy to be trusted with nuclear weapons.”

Holmes is referring to the hackneyed right-wing fearmongering talking point which CAP’s Matt Duss has labeled, “The martyr state myth.” The myth is that Iran is hell bent on using nuclear weapons, against Israel, the U.S., etc, should it acquire them and that Iran’s leaders are “uniquely immune to the cost-benefit calculations that underpin a conventional theory of deterrence.”

Today in his foreign policy speech at the Citadel military college in South Carolina, which happened to also be “full of ridiculous fear mongering,” Romney echoed this sentiment. “In the hands of the ayatollahs, a nuclear Iran is nothing less than an existential threat to Israel,” he said. “Iran’s suicidal fanatics could blackmail the world.”

Romney also said in his speech today that “Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.” Now that we know how he will be advised on how to prevent that, it looks like Romney’s new American Century that he called for today, should he become president, is likely to turn out just like the last new American Century the neocons tried to create under the previous Republican president.

Economy

11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Oct 7, 2011 at 1:05 pm

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The Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York City more than three weeks ago have now spread across the country. The choice of Wall Street as the focal point for the protests — as even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said — makes sense due to the big bank malfeasance that led to the Great Recession.

While the Dodd-Frank financial reform law did a lot to ensure that a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis won’t occur — through regulation of derivatives, a new consumer protection agency, and new powers for the government to dismantle failing banks — the biggest banks still have a firm grip on the financial system, even more so than before the 2008 financial crisis. Here are eleven facts that you need to know about the nation’s biggest banks:

– Bank profits are highest since before the recession…: According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., bank profits in the first quarter of this year were “the best for the industry since the $36.8 billion earned in the second quarter of 2007.” JP Morgan Chase is currently pulling in record profits.

– …even as the banks plan thousands of layoffs: Banks, including Bank of America, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse, are planning to lay off tens of thousands of workers.

– Banks make nearly one-third of total corporate profits: The financial sector accounts for about 30 percent of total corporate profits, which is actually down from before the financial crisis, when they made closer to 40 percent.

– Since 2008, the biggest banks have gotten bigger: Due to the failure of small competitors and mergers facilitated during the 2008 crisis, the nation’s biggest banks — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — are now bigger than they were pre-recession. Pre-crisis, the four biggest banks held 32 percent of total deposits; now they hold nearly 40 percent.

– The four biggest banks issue 50 percent of mortgages and 66 percent of credit cards: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup issue one out of every two mortgages and nearly two out of every three credit cards in America.

– The 10 biggest banks hold 60 percent of bank assets: In the 1980s, the 10 biggest banks controlled 22 percent of total bank assets. Today, they control 60 percent.

– The six biggest banks hold assets equal to 63 percent of the country’s GDP: In 1995, the six biggest banks in the country held assets equal to about 17 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Now their assets equal 63 percent of GDP.

– The five biggest banks hold 95 percent of derivatives: Nearly the entire market in derivatives — the credit instruments that helped blow up some of the nation’s biggest banks as well as mega-insurer AIG — is dominated by just five firms: JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo.

– Banks cost households nearly $20 trillion in wealth: Almost $20 trillion in wealth was destroyed by the Great Recession, and total family wealth is still down “$12.8 trillion (in 2011 dollars) from June 2007 — its last peak.”

– Big banks don’t lend to small businesses: The New Rules Project notes that the country’s 20 biggest banks “devote only 18 percent of their commercial loan portfolios to small business.”

– Big banks paid 5,000 bonuses of at least $1 million in 2008: According to the New York Attorney General’s office, “nine of the financial firms that were among the largest recipients of federal bailout money paid about 5,000 of their traders and bankers bonuses of more than $1 million apiece for 2008.”

In the last few decades, regulations on the biggest banks have been systematically eliminated, while those banks engineered more and more ways to both rip off customers and turn ever-more complex trading instruments into ever-higher profits. It makes perfect sense, then, that a movement calling for an economy that works for everyone would center its efforts on an industry that exemplifies the opposite.

Justice

96-Year-Old African-American Woman Denied Voter ID Says Her Experience Now Is Worse Than Jim Crow

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Oct 7, 2011 at 12:20 pm

BERJAYAEarlier this week, the state of Tennessee denied Dorothy Cooper, a 96 year-old African-American, the voter ID she is now required to produce in order to vote at her polling place — citing her inability to produce her marriage certificate. Cooper voted in every election but one since she became eligible to vote, including many elections during the Jim Crow Era.

Indeed, in an interview yesterday with MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, Cooper explained that Tennessee’s new voter suppression law did more to keep her from voting than anything she experienced during Jim Crow:

SHARPTON: Even during Jim Crow days you didn’t have any problems voting in Tennessee?

COOPER: No, I haven’t had any problems at all until this time. This is the only times that I’ve had problems. [...]

SHARPTON: Do you feel that this kind of law is something that you and others that have lived through the Jim Crow Era and other eras—do you feel that this is something that you never thought at this stage in your voting life that you’d have to face? [...]

COOPER: No, I never thought it would be like this, ever.

Watch it:

Earlier this year, former President Bill Clinton described the recent round of state anti-voter laws as the most determined disenfranchisement effort since Jim Crow. For Cooper, though, they’ve turned out to be even more restrictive.

Security

On Its 10th Anniversary, Progressive Lawmakers Call For End To War In Afghanistan

By Alex Seitz-Wald posted from ThinkProgress Security on Oct 7, 2011 at 11:35 am

BERJAYA Today marks the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, and progressive lawmakers are using the date to call for its end. The U.S. has largely completed its mission in Afghanistan, they say, so we shouldn’t continue sending American troops into harms way. Moreover, the fighting has been extremely costly — a recent Brown University study found that 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost between $2.3 and $2.7 trillion — and lawmakers are calling for an end to that spending at at a time when the needy are facing cuts at home, the Hill reports:

“Bin Laden is gone, Al-Qaeda has been scattered around the globe, and yet we continue to risk the lives of brave Americans and squander billions of dollars after a decade of interminable conflict,” [Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY)] added. “It has to stop.” [...]

“The American people are weary of war, period, and want our troops to come home,” [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] said. “We appreciate that the president is winding that war down, and we won’t have many more anniversaries of the longest wars in our country’s history.” [...]

“We are now spending $120 billion a year in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And incredibly, President Obama – who I strongly support in general – is contemplating staying in Iraq even longer than George Bush wanted to,” [Rep. Barney] Frank [D-NY] said Tuesday to a crowd of liberal activists gathered in Washington for the Take Back the American Dream conference. “That is totally unacceptable, and we must make that very clear.”

The war in Afghanistan, which President Bush launched on Oct. 7 2001, became the longest war in American history last July.

Under Obama, the U.S. has begun to draw down its troop presence, beginning with pulling the 33,000 surge troops by the end of 2012 and the remaining 68,000 by the end of 2014. But yesterday, the defense ministers from the 49 nations that make up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan pledged their support to the country, even after 2014. “Let there be no mistake: transition is not departure. We will not take our leave when the Afghans take the lead,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters.

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NEWS FLASH

Southern Poverty Law Center Reminds GOP Of The Hate Groups Behind Values Voter Summit | As all of the major GOP presidential contenders prepare to speak at the Family Research Council’s (FRC) annual Values Voter Summit, the Southern Poverty Law Center is holding a press conference and has published an ad in the Washington Post reminding the candidates and the press that the groups behind the event “spread lies designed to demonize the LGBT community,” Muslims, Mormons, Jews, and others:

BERJAYA

Politics

Why Herman Cain Is The Koch Brothers’ Favorite Presidential Candidate

By Scott Keyes on Oct 7, 2011 at 10:20 am

BERJAYA

Herman Cain and the Koch Brothers

Former pizza executive Herman Cain’s rise to the top of the Republican presidential pack will undoubtedly put smiles on the faces of two brothers: Charles and David Koch.

The Koch Brothers are infamous for using their billions to finance the Tea Party and helping to gut business and environmental regulations. They have not been shy about influencing conservative politics, both through large direct contributions – the Kochs have pledged to raise $88 million for the 2012 election – and funding corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity.

Though the Kochs have not made a public endorsement in the Republican presidential contest, Herman Cain’s rise from niche radio host to presidential frontrunner appears to have been largely fueled by the Koch network. From Cain’s early foray into politics to his presidential campaign speeches to his top staff, the former pizza executive has had close, consistent ties with the Koch Brothers.

Given the extensive connections between Herman Cain and the Koch Brothers, ThinkProgress asked the former pizza executive about his thoughts on David Koch back in March. Cain called David Koch — as well as his brother Charles — a “patriot”:

Watch it:

Here is a rundown of the numerous ways in which Cain and the Kochs have worked hand-in-hand for years to advance corporate-friendly conservative policies:

- Cain held an official position in the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity: Dating back to 2005, Cain led Americans for Prosperity’s new “Prosperity Expansion Project.” The position allowed Cain to barnstorm the country, giving speeches, holding town halls, and sharpening his skills for an eventual presidential bid.

- Cain’s campaign manager is the former president of Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity Wisconsin chapter: Prior to becoming Cain’s campaign manager and chief of staff, Mark Block served as the president of Americans for Prosperity’s Wisconsin chapter. At the same time Block was serving in that position, he is credited with “talk[ing] Herman Cain into running for president”. As AFP-Wisconsin president in 2006, Block even tried to convince Cain to run for president in the 2008 election because of the former pizza executive’s rousing speeches at Americans for Prosperity events. Block has a history of electoral dirty tricks and once fined $15,000 for violating Wisconsin election law.

- Cain attended the Koch Brothers’ private biannual meeting in Palm Springs: In January, the Kochs hosted one of their biannual meetings of top corporate and political figures in order to coordinate strategy and raise money for the conservative movement. Cain was among the small group of conservative politicians invited to attend.

- Cain traveled to Wisconsin in support of the Koch-funded union-busting bill: During the apex of the fight in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) union-busting bill this spring, Cain traveled to the Badger State to support the conservative power-grab, speaking at a rally in February. The Koch brothers were major players in Wisconsin’s anti-union push.

- Cain headlined a Koch-funded anti-climate rally in New York: As other presidential candidates focused on glad-handing with voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, Cain took time out in June to travel to New York and headline a Koch-backed anti-climate rally. The rally, held by Americans for Prosperity, protested New York’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an important project to fight global warming that has been long-opposed by the Koch Brothers.

- Cain was a featured speaker at the Koch-funded RightOnline conference: Cain has been a featured speaker at RightOnline, the Koch-backed conservative conference, for the past two years.

The Koch Brothers’ investment in Herman Cain appears to already be paying dividends in advancing their corporatist agenda. Cain has centered his presidential bid around the “999″ economic plan, an enormous corporate giveaway that would reduce companies’ income tax rate from 35 percent to 9 percent. Not only would Koch Industries reap massive benefits, but the Koch Brothers themselves — already tied for the fourth richest people in America — would personally see their tax rates fall from approximately 28 percent to around 11 percent.

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NEWS FLASH

Cantor Smears Occupy Wall Street As A ‘Mob’ | Speaking at the social conservative Value Voters Summit today, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) maligned the Occupy Wall Street protests and the wider 99 percent movement as a “mob” that is out to “divide Americans”:

CANTOR: I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country. And believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans.

Watch it:

Believe it or not, Cantor has — by his definiton — “condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans” when he endorsed the Tea Party movement.

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Politics

Morning Briefing: October 7, 2011

By ThinkProgress on Oct 7, 2011 at 9:00 am

BERJAYA

The economy created 103,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate stayed steady at 9.1 percent, according to the today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Continuing a trend, the private sector created 137,000 jobs, but the public sector continued hemorrhaging jobs, losing 34,000.

Customer Molly Katchpole delivered more than 153,000 petitions to Bank of America in a campaign against the new $5 debit card fee. The 22-year-old Katchpole, who closed her accounts and cut up her debit cards, said “Five dollars might not seem like a lot of money to people who made the decision, but to thousands of people right now an extra $50 a year to a company they just bailed out with their tax money is not ok.”

The 99 percent protesters registered disgust with both major parties who they say share in the blame for policies that “protect corporate America at the expense of the country’s middle class.” Georgetown University Prof. Michael Kazin said that while Obama “could have taken a much more populist, aggressive stance” against Wall Street, the “economy has not gotten much better, and that’s underscored the frustration on both the right and the left.”

Homeownership has faced its biggest drop since the Great Depression, according to new 2010 census figures released yesterday. The analysis found the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent last year due to tight credit, long-term unemployment, and “reduced government involvement.”

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain defended his controversial claim that blacks are “brainwashed” into voting Democratic, insisting to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, “I did not insult the intelligence of all black Americans.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used an extraordinary procedural motion to break an obstructionist log jam imposed by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), changing the Senate’s rules in the process. Some have inaccurately dubbed Reid’s action the “nuclear option,” invoked in the 2005 judicial nominee scandal. Reid’s move was less dramatic, but still unusual.

President Obama endorsed the idea of adding a tax surcharge on millionaires to pay for the American Jobs Act at the same time he pushed Republicans to either vote for the bill or explain their opposition. “I would want nothing more than to see a Congress act so aggressively that I can’t campaign against them as a do-nothing Congress,” he said during a press conference yesterday.

Voting along party lines, the Senate Banking committee approved former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday. The nomination will now be considered by the full Senate, though 44 Senate Republicans vowed to block any candidate unless the CFBP is revamped.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to three women’s rights activists for their “non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” The women are first female Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activists Leymah Gbowee, and Yemen pro-democracy activist Tawakul Karman.

A key regulator called on the Obama administration to immediately impose limits on oil speculation, as the Dodd-Frank financial reform law calls for. “We were supposed to have these done earlier this year but have failed to do so,” complained Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Bart Chilton. The rules may help bring down the price of oil.

And finally: Nothing solves a rat problem like military-grade explosives, or so says Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), who is calling on the Coast Guard to blow up a “pirate fishing vessel” caught off Alaska’s coast. The ship was found to be infested with rats, and thus prevented from docking under state laws. Begich sees an opportunity for the coast guard to show off it’s fire power and send the illegal ship and its stowaway rodent passengers to briny deep.

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