MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's back to the Simpson-Bowles cat food for the elderly and poor budget as far as the White House is concerned, according to The New York Times (NYT) on Friday:

President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.

Once again, a Democratic president is conceding to the GOP "frame" of austerity being vital to the future of America, when it was the Republicans who ran up the deficit – after Clinton left Bush a balanced budget – with a profligate tax cut for the super rich, two wars, and things like a multi-billion gift to the pharmaceutical industry by prohibiting government negotiations on drug prices in Medicare Part D.  

This amidst a historical moment when income redistribution and asset ownership disparities have reached record levels in the US. But Obama appears to have an aversion to discussing or rectifying a morally unacceptable imbalance in wealth in America.

In return, Obama will get some crumbs of revenue enhancement, but take at a look at some of his leaked proposed reductions:

Deficits would be reduced another $930 billion through 2023 as a result of spending cuts and other cost-saving changes to domestic programs, and $200 billion more due to reduced interest payments on the federal debt.

Mr. Obama’s proposed spending reductions include about $400 billion from health programs and $200 billion from other areas, including farm subsidies, federal employee retirement programs, the Postal Service and the unemployment compensation system.

Cutting domestic programs such as pensions and unemployment? 

(Photo: DonkeyHotey)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Daily, the politicians and think tanks promote improving our nation's large city public education by turning them over to profiteering operators of charter schools.  There's a lot of money to be paid in modern plantation educational contracts.

And that's what vast stretches of urban America have become: plantations for harvesting poor blacks and Latinos for educational corporations and for a vast prison-industrial complex whose tentacles reach out throughout the desolation of neighborhoods whose most common denominator is the lack of economic hope or opportunity.  The impoverishment has been that way for decades.

Well there is one source of private funds in these vast areas of destitution: the drug industry.  It is capitalism distilled to its essence, with the corner teenager who sells crack as a modern day Fuller Brush Man.  

Of course, no one is talking even remotely about providing jobs to these financially blighted areas.

But the status quo government/corporate alliance has figured out how to exploit the residents of these areas to make a profit by creating non-union schools that often perform below the comparable public school level in similar locations. 

(Photo: funkandjazz)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

                                                                                                                                     Gun Cult Leader Wayne LaPierre

If I had a bulletproof vest, I would have put it on this morning based on many of the 300 plus comments (thus far) in response to yesterday's BuzzFlash at Truthout commentary: "Many American White Men Worship Guns Because of Sexual Insecurity, Entitlement, and Profit."

But the intense, paranoid, threatened, gun worship comments only prove the commentary's point: guns are not merely an "inanimate object" -- as the NRA likes to claim – to rabid gun owners; they are a symbol that satisfies intense psychological needs for many white males.

Otherwise, why did these same emotionally over-the-top gun owners -- and again there is a faction of firearms users who are not into needing the gun as a security blanket for their manhood and reassurance of white male power in a changing world -- buy out gun store and gun show inventories of assault weapons after Obama was first elected and after the Sandy Hook massacre?  Is there anything but a lizard brain knee-jerk emotional sucking sound of loss of manhood here, or maybe that a black literally now in the "White House" will emasculate the white guys.

That is a long-term racial fear of a great many southern and rural white guys after all.  There's no contesting that.

Moreover, to those febrile gun guys who took the time to attack the BuzzFlash at Truthout commentary we ask this: Why do you support gun lobby positions that are so bizarrely dangerous and pro-criminal that they appear to come out of a Monty Python skit.  Instead of laughs though, they pose real dangers to individuals and the nation?

The examples of such harmful laws from the insane clown gun posse are legion, but here are just three:

1) The Right to Carry a Concealed Handgun Even if Blind

 Take the first paragraph of a 2012 article from the Lawrence Journal-World of Kansas:

 A little-known provision in Kansas law that allows the blind and other people with serious physical infirmities to carry concealed weapons in public places likely will not get reviewed by state lawmakers this session.

 Kansas legislators are expected to debate a proposal that would allow concealed carry permit holders to bring their guns onto college campuses and into many public buildings.

 But the chief proponent of that bill said Wednesday he has no plans to introduce legislation that would clarify a 2010 law change that removed the ability of the Kansas Attorney General to deny a concealed carry license based on a person “suffering a physical infirmity which prevents the safe handling of a weapon.”

This support for blind persons carrying concealed weapons in public places is widespread among many of the more rabid gun owners as discussion boards prove.

 Even Glenn Beck got in the action on this one as he oddly pondered should Stevie Wonder be able to pack heat? As Beck argued:

 “Inalienable rights” mean that they’re rights that come from God and cannot be taken from you. The right to bear arms is about protecting yourself and self‑defense as long as you are a law‑abiding citizen. It’s not about shooting sports but self‑defense. Is there any reason to believe that Stevie Wonder is not a law‑abiding citizen or insane? Who are you to take the right that was given by God away from somebody who is law‑abiding and a responsible citizen?

Here's the crux of the problem.  A blind person pulling out a handgun to ward off a perceived threat in a crowded subway station and shooting away is going to likely injure and kill a lot of people.  Beck's argument – an echo of the thumbs up on gun fanatic discussion pages -- is based on religious faith in the divine power of the gun to point and kill the "bad guy" with special gun eyes.  

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

You won't find anyone willing to dare say it much in the media, but a good percentage of the white men who oppose gun control of any sort – and who back measures that would even allow alleged terrorists and straw purchases for drug dealers to buy guns – are just afraid that without their guns, their phallic power will be reduced to size.   

You can feel at least temporarily reassured when a long-barreled assault weapon compensates for just another average manhood; it's an irresistable testosterone high to the beleaguered white male.

Call this Freudian psychobabble analysis, but when you add it into the mix of just angry white males who want their guns to show that they are still top dog on the political, social and marital hierarchy, you got a good percentage of the psychologically need gun owners.  A gun, particularly assault weapons and lethal militarized handguns, are at least two things: a prosthetic dick and a sign that even unemployed white guys still rule the Western World and sit at the head of the kitchen table.

We're talking about a dying patriarchy making a last stand with the ownership and brandishing of weapons that provide the semblance of ultimate power over life and death.

Sure, there is the rapidly decreasing tradition and understandable ritual of hunting in rural areas, particularly for those who actually need the meat because of near poverty.  And there are handgun target shooters who truly regard handguns as a sport -- which they are in some cases.  But these white men are a minority in a culture war that causes even elected Democrats to tremble in fear at voting on a gun control measure, even a law that might aid law enforcement in apprehending criminals, but the gun lobby opposes it for some obscure reason to rally their supporters around.

(Photo: Wikiepedia)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

This is America, right, and only weasly socialists would question checkbook justice.  After all, if you make a few billion, you're entitled to be above the law. Right?

And the people who allow you to be above the law are entitled to make their own fortune, as we noted yesterday in "Lanny Breuer Cashes in After Not Prosecuting Wall Street Execs, Will Receive Approximate Salary of 4 Million Dollars." That piece and this commentary are part of an ongoing BuzzFlash at Truthout series on how the US government gives the super rich of the financial world a get out of jail free card.

So here's the latest wrinkle. A federal judge in New York, on Thursday, had the common sense to burst the bubble of the incestuous DC/NYC axis.  In this case, it involved a hedge fund, a famous or infamous one depending upon your perspective.

The issue that perplexed the judge was how could the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reach a settlement fining a hedge fund $600 million for violating insider trading regulations, but allowing the firm to legally affirm it was not involved in wrongdoing?

Fair question, no?

Here is what the New York Times (NYT) writes of the unexpected legal development in what was thought to be a routine judicial approval of an SEC settlement:

A federal judge raised questions on Thursday about a settlement of more than $600 million between the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors and securities regulators to resolve insider-trading accusations, expressing specific concerns over a provision that allows SAC to avoid admitting that it did anything wrong.

In a hearing at Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge Victor Marrero considered whether to approve the settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the hedge fund, which is owned by the billionaire trader Steven A. Cohen.

“There is something counterintuitive and incongruous about settling for $600 million if it truly did nothing wrong,” Judge Marrero said, referring to SAC.

Imagine that.  A federal judge who smells a rotting fish and says from the bench: "What is the foul odor in this courtroom?"

(Photo: gloomy50)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

It's official, and former Department of Justice (DOJ) Criminal Division Chef Lanny Breuer is bragging about it.  He'll return for the third to time the white collar (now expanding its clients internationally) legal defense firm of Covington & Burling, but this time at a whopping salary.

According to the New York Times: "Mr. Breuer is expected to earn about $4 million in his first year at Covington. In addition to representing clients, he will serve as an ambassador of sorts for the firm as it seeks to grow overseas."

As BuzzFlash at Truthout has speculated before, one can argue (and the same holds true for Eric Holder, also a Covington & Burling alumni appointee), Breuer was building his value in the marketplace at the DOJ, while Wall Street executives who nearly destroyed the American economy went unprosecuted.  And his future value to his old white collar defense firm was dependent, in large part, on him not angering the people who would be the clients of Covington & Burling when he left the Department of Justice. The result, one can contend: no prosecutions of banks "too big to fail" execs as publicly stated as a policy by both Breuer and Holder.

This isn't just a revolving door; one can argue it's a dereliction of legal responsibility by an employee of the people of the United States.  One can proffer that it's a cash-in career move by a resume climber who was careful not to bite the hands that will write the checks that will feed him on a lavish scale.

BuzzFlash at Truthout has written more than fifteen commentaries on the failure to prosecute Wall Street execs in recent months. These include: "Consigliere Lanny Breuer, Head of the DOJ Criminal Division, Leaves Without Prosecuting One Made Man on Wall Street" ; and "The Covington & Burling Trio Overseeing the Department of Justice Criminal Division: An Injustice."

Breuer isn't the least bit sheepish about grabbing the brass ring after failing to hold those responsible for nearly sinking the economy criminally accountable. According to the website Main Justice,

(Photo: Wikipedia)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Anyone who knows anyone who has worked at a high-end law firm knows that there is a two-word key to becoming a partner: billable hours.

The most prestigious big sticker law firms are now global in nature, just like the corporations and the elite whom they represent – and to keep pace with the wealth of their clients an unknown number of these firms likely pad their bills.  

“Lawyers sometimes conflate their own financial interests with the interests of the client who pays the bills,” William G. Ross, a law professor, observed in the New York Times (NYT).

Ross was speaking about revelations of "churning" client bills in a law suit against the legal giant DLA Piper that is causing a stir in what might be called the legal business, although it's hardly the first time a major law firm has been accused of charging sky-high partner billable hours for everything from junior attorney work to basic office tasks (or maybe even getting one's shoes shined before a meeting with a client).  

In essence, Ross is politely saying that at least some Gucci-shoed lawyers consider themselves of the same moneyed-elite that thrives on greed: "If it makes you more money and doesn't get you prosecuted, do it."

(Photo: limaoscarjuliet)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

National Public Radio (NPR) reports it succinctly:

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in a case worth billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies and American consumers. The issue is whether brand-name drug manufacturers may pay generic drug manufacturers to keep generics off the market. These payments — a form of settlement in patent litigation — began to blossom about a decade ago when the courts, for the first time, appeared to bless them.

The White House is siding with consumers on this one.  According to the Associated Press (AP):

The Obama administration, backed by consumer groups and the American Medical Association, says these so-called “pay for delay” deals profit the drug companies but harm consumers by adding 3.5 billion annually to their drug bills….

The Obama administration argues the agreements are illegal if they’re based solely on keeping the generic drug off the market. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, speaking at Georgetown Law School recently, noted that once a generic drug gets on the market and competes with a brand-name drug, “the price drops 85 percent.” That quickly decimates sales of the brand-name medicine.

The specific case before the Supreme Court is illustrative of how consumers get the bill for pay-offs to generic drug companies, as stated in a Washington Post editorial:

In 2006 Solvay Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the testosterone-therapy drug AndroGel, settled a dispute with a group of generic pharmaceutical companies, agreeing to allow would-be competitors into the market in 2015, five years before the AndroGel patent expires. So how is this bad for consumers in search of cheaper drugs?

In fact, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will argue Monday before the Supreme Court that this settlement and all others like it are so obviously anti-competitive that they should be presumed illegal. And the FTC has a very good case.

The reason lies in the fact that the generic pharmaceutical companies also agreed to take millions in cash from Solvay as part of the settlement. That arrangement, the FTC argues, stinks of illegal collusion — without which generic versions of the drug might have entered the market even earlier…..

If companies can effectively maintain monopoly pricing for a while longer and split up the profits by way of legal settlements, generics firms are less likely to push for competition to begin at the earliest possible date. Both sides make money in the interim, but consumers pay the price. It’s hard to think of a circumstance in which that sort of dealmaking wouldn’t indicate a violation of the spirit of the nation’s antitrust laws.

The logical question, of course, is why would Big Pharma pay off generic drug makers to drop a patent challenge in court if there wasn't a concern that the big name pharmaceutical firm might lose the case, resulting in far, far less costly generics becoming available in pharmacies?

What is the impact of the "pay for delay" scheme? As the Associated Press reports, when the Pfizer Lipitor cholesterol drug expired, "The price then plummeted from Pfizer’s $375 to $530 for a three-month supply, depending on dosage, to $20 to $40 for generic versions." 

(Photo: Erix!)

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Impatient with a virtual US ban on slaughtering horses for meat, a worker for Valley Meat Company in Roswell, New Mexico, shot a horse in the head and posted it on You Tube to express his contempt for animal advocates.  In fact, he swore at humane society members as he pulled the trigger the other day.  

(If you have the stomach for it, you can watch the unedited video here, but be prepared for barbaric graphic cruelty.)

The stunning act of defiant brutality is the entryway into a far bigger and ominous story about slaughtering horses.  According to a local television news station in New Mexico:

In the video, an employee at the Valley Meat Company out of Roswell, NM - which is working with the USDA to get a horse slaughter plant in the area - brings a horse out of its pen, swears at activists and then kills the horse with a single gunshot.

“To all you animal activists, f**k you,” Tim Sappington, a maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Company, said in the video.

He then shoots the horse point blank in the head. The horse falls to the ground and dies.

The owner of Valley Meat Company condones the execution of the horse, but told NBC News, he wouldn't have posted it on the Internet.

"De Los Santos [the owner of Valley Meat Company] said the contract worker, Tim Sappington, shot the video on his own time and at his own home.

"He shot a horse. That's what he eats. It's not against the law to slaughter your own horse," De Los Santos said. "Now, putting it on YouTube, I would not have done that."

And this is where the story breaks wide open.  According to a February 28 New York Times article, De Los Santos and his Valley Meat Company have sued the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to open a fully operational horse slaughterhouse in Roswell.  If the USDA approves Valley Meat Company's request – which has already invested in equipping the abattoir plant – it would become the first US horse slaughterhouse since 2007:

(Photo: stophorseslaughter.com)