Auntie Turkey

Let's try a thought experiment.

Since teabaggers like Ann Marie Buerkle always like to talk about how they oppose government regulation, we decided to investigate what happens when a particular area is left to its own devices.

Take a look at the history of the Eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo sylvestris), which became virtually extinct in New York State by the mid-1840s.

Except in the western end of the Southern Tier, where wild turkeys had returned in small but stable numbers a hundred years later, there was no wild population anywhere in the state through the late 1950s.

In 1959 the State Conservation Department (now the DEC) began a modest program of capturing healthy birds in the Allegheny forest and creating sustainable flocks which were released throughout the state south of the Adirondacks. After a time these flocks caught hold and have flourished since. NY now cooperates with other states to help them restore their flocks of wild turkeys. Today our wild turkey population is robust.

This success is sustained by strongly regulating the harvest of wild turkeys during spring and fall seasons. The population of wild turkeys is closely monitored by state biologists.

Are you wondering what would happen if market forces were unbridled and wild turkey hunting were unregulated? 

As it happens, we already know the answer to that question. By 1840 turkeys were in such a precarious position in part because much of their natural range had been cleared for farming and, more importantly, they were hunted throughout the year until they were gone (similarly the bison and the passenger pigeon).

We fear that if Ann Marie Buerkle were a NY state conservation official she would deregulate and destroy our hard-won protections of land and natural resources. Alas, the natural world, including wild turkeys, would not be able to fend for itself.

Ann Marie Buerkle: This Leopard isn't Changing

That Was Then:

Thursday, July 6, 1989

FYI, those of you for whom Buerkle is a relatively new phenom, it was on this same day, July 6, 1989, that she and her cohorts demonstrated their respect for life, and their compassion for women and health care providers, by bringing to Planned Parenthood an illegally procured, blackened foetus in a jar. During this time she was the local spokesperson for Operation Rescue and associated with extremist Randall Terry; a decade earlier she had started the local chapter of Friends for Life.

Then, this in March 2010: 

Buerkle minimizes her anti-abortion history. [Syracuse.com printed the following summary on January 23, 2011: 

       When she launched her run for Congress in [March of] 2010, Buerkle said abortion was not the issue that would define her, nor would it be a priority of her campaign....

        “I want to be really careful not to make this a referendum on abortion,” Buerkle said as she began her campaign in March 2010. “People here are concerned about jobs and the economy. I have six kids, and five of them live outside of the state because of a lack of opportunities.”

       At the time, Buerkle said her days as an anti-abortion activist were from a different part of her life, when she was a young mother and working as a nurse. “Life is an evolution,” she said in March. “You never stay in the same place."]

But then, this on July 17:

Susan B. Anthony List endorses Buerkle

This Is Now:

January 19 delivers a "passionate" speech in Congress advocating restricting and criminalizing abortion (organized by the Pro-Life Caucus)

January 20 co-sponsors "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act", H.R. 3, which extends its reach to insurance providers and another bill that would ban abortion coverage in future Federal health care provisions

January 22 walks with and addresses a March for Life gathering in Syracuse

January 24 addresses March for Life in Washington DC

February 18 votes for Pense Amendment to defund Planned Parenthood and to all stop most federal funds for women's reproductive health

February 28 Buerkle is a subject of Susan B. Anthony List's expensive ad campaign, thanking her for her vote to defund Planned Parenthood

March 2 she distances herself from the Susan B. Anthony List ad campaign, citing rules about consorting with special interest groups [Ann Marie, Really?]

March 9 she is publicly thanked for her vote to defund Planned Parenthood by Lila Rose, head of Live Action, who shows up in her big bus at the Federal Building in Syracuse [Rose is the "pro-life" advocate who deceptively and dishonestly uses altered and spliced tapes to damage Planned Parenthood]  Susan B. Anthony List helped produce this tragic piece of theatre.

Tea Party: Collateral Damage, or Do You Need a Border Collie to Keep Your Sheep in the Fold?

The New York Times

March 27, 2011

Hardly Settled in House, but Already in Hot Seat

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

MOLINE, Ill. — In the 11 weeks since Representative Bobby Schilling left his family pizza business to join Congress, he has learned that sleeping on an office couch is extremely uncomfortable, that appearing on “Meet the Press” can be daunting, and that voting against federal money for a local rail project will cause some of your constituents to become very cranky.

Back home, his son Aaron, 21, left in charge of the pizzeria, recently fired his younger brother Joe, a situation that slightly unnerves Mr. Schilling, who has 10 children. Another son, Terry, who manages his campaigns, has been needling him to raise more money.

“It’s been kind of difficult,” Mr. Schilling said as he bit into a slice of pizza between a meeting with local officials about federal flood management reimbursement and a fund-raiser for the local Republican Party.

Mr. Schilling may still be getting accustomed to life in Washington, but here in his district near the Iowa border he is already battling to keep his seat in 2012. The Democratic Party is taking aim at 14 freshmen Republicans in the House, of 87 elected, whom it deems the most vulnerable.

One of them is Mr. Schilling, who defeated a two-term Democrat, Phil Hare, with 53 percent of the vote, becoming the first Republican to represent this district in the House in nearly three decades. Already, just a few months into Mr. Schilling’s term, Democrats have run radio ads and made automated calls accusing him of supporting a “partisan plan” to raid public education funds.

Republicans elected in traditionally blue districts like this one are feeling the tug between their need to attract Democrats again and the omnipresent threat of someone more to the right waiting in the primary wings.

“We supported him,” said John Blair, a Tea Party activist from Moline. “We watch these guys, we monitor them, and if they don’t fulfill what they said they’re going to do, well ... .”

The pressure is only going to build as Congress returns this week facing polarizing spending battles and the possibility of a government shutdown. Every vote by the new crop of lawmakers is watched by both ends of the political spectrum.

“You’re getting hit from both sides,” Mr. Schilling said. “If you vote for this bill, you’re voting for Obamacare. I’m like, ‘Come on!’ You have people on your side shooting at you and people on the other side shooting at you, and you have to proceed with caution without disenfranchising your base.”

Mr. Schilling knows he is on the hit list of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — “I’m at the top,” he said, somewhat proudly — but is unperturbed. “They’re going to be shocked,” he said. “I’m a hard worker. I’m a people person.”

As he sat chatting in his pizza place after the flood meeting with local officials — most of them Democrats angry about a lack of federal reimbursement for a flood response (“See how they came in here? They were mad. They thought ‘Oh, this Republican,’ but they left smiling.”) — Mr. Schilling spoke with pride about joining the Center Aisle Caucus, a bipartisan House group.

He also said he found it increasingly tiresome to see social policy amendments attached to spending bills that the Democratic-controlled Senate would never accept. “We’ve got to put together stuff that can actually pass,” he said.

But an hour later, at the Republican fund-raiser, Mr. Schilling took a different tack, criticizing President Obama and the Democrats and leaving some provocative questions hanging.

“You’ve got a president on vacation again, and we’re going to war,” he said when an attendee asked about the events in Libya.

Another asked: “I heard our troops are going to be operating under the French. Is that true?” Mr. Schilling said he would look into that on Tuesday.

Some of his votes have caused him grief back home and will no doubt be fodder for campaign ads against him. He voted with his Republican colleagues to eliminate a $230 million federal grant to build an Amtrak line from Chicago to Iowa City, long coveted in the district.

After the vote, Mr. Schilling told local reporters that he actually supported the rail line and believed that the Senate would not allow the cut anyway. Mr. Schilling now says the rail project is good, just not now. “Right now it’s all about prioritizing,” he said.

These are the sorts of things that have Democrats, desperate to dig out after their defeat last year, looking at Mr. Schilling like a sirloin steak after a fast.

“Schilling is illustrative of the problem that all the 14 have,” said Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is focusing on districts where Mr. Obama and Senator John Kerry both won as presidential nominees and where Democrats have a registration advantage.

“He is taking positions that are out of the mainstream,” she said, adding, “The types of votes he has taken definitely make him vulnerable.”

Ms. Crider’s counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee, Paul Lindsay, dismissed such talk. “The larger challenge is how Democrats plan to defend their own members who barely survived re-election in 2010,” Mr. Lindsay said, “and still have their party’s unpopular and fiscally irresponsible record hanging over their heads.”

Mr. Schilling said time would prove that he was serving his district well. “The first 60 days I was really overwhelmed,” he said. “There was so much information coming at me at once.” But now things are settling down, and he is finding his legislative sea legs, he said.

He is often worried about how things are going back home. He is not there to take his children to the school bus in the mornings, help that his wife misses, and some of the older ones are staying out too late. “You don’t want them to get in trouble, to get their names in the paper,” he said.

His wife, Christie Schilling, concedes that it has been a hard transition. “It hasn’t been beneficial to our family,” she said. “But it’s the right thing for our country.”

At the fund-raiser, Mr. Schilling told guests about the view of the Capitol from his office window. “At night, it’s the most awesome picture,” he said. “A lot of nights when I’m on the phone there working, I’ll talk to Christie and I’m just gazing over there thinking, ‘How did this happen?’ ”

Ann Marie Buerkle: Madam, It Is Time to Define Common Ground

In the Syracuse Post-Standard article by Paul Riede on November 28, 2010, shortly after she was declared winner of the House race in the 25th Congressional District, Ann Marie Buerkle clearly spelled out her intent to be inclusive during her tenure.

In the very next line, she abruptly made it clear that there were many stances from which she would never vary.

Then, in the next paragraph, she made her pledge to seek common ground.

Central New York’s first woman elected to Congress says she can bring the residents of her sharply divided district together while standing strong on her conservative principles.

In an hour-long interview Wednesday — the day after Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei conceded the race for the 25th Congressional DIstrict — Republican Ann Marie Buerkle pledged that she would run an open, inclusive office that would renew her constituents’ faith in Washington. And she reiterated her firm stances on issues that bitterly divide the district and the country: defunding and repealing health care reform, making all the Bush-era tax cuts permanent, cutting corporate taxes and regulations, questioning the scientific validity of climate change, and eliminating of the federal Department of Education.

“We may not agree on every issue, but constituents should feel that they can come to me and we can talk and we can find common ground,” she said. “And that’s really my biggest task — to work hard so that the people in this district feel they have a voice in Washington.”

Last night at the public meeting at Bellevue middle school on Geddes St. in the city of Syracuse, Buerkle again spoke of finding common ground. This is from the Post-Standard article this morning by Teri Weaver:

“We appear to be very polarized here,” Buerkle said toward the end of the 90-minute question-and-answer period. “We need to find common ground. We are working to do that ... It doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen by yelling at each other. It happens by doing this.”

Is finding common ground speaking at a Pro-life rally in Washington and then claiming her vote against Planned Parenthood (in particular and not against any reproductive health provider that counts abortion among its services ) is just part of trimming the budget? That's just plain bad faith.

Is it publicly admitting that the provisions of the Affordable Health Care for America Act that are already in place are working well, while insisting that "Obamacare" has to go? Would common ground be to work, really work hard, to figure out how to fine-tune the Act so that almost every American will truly have health care within 5 years?

Or is it following lock-step with her bosses in Washington? 

Common ground might be admitting that there is no way to balance a budget if all the money that comes in isn't enough, and that reinstitution of a progressive tax that "taxes the rich" is the only fair way to turn the ship around. And really, Ann Marie, admit it: the people who have the level of wealth we are talking about hardly lifted a finger to make their awesome wealth. In fact, the reverse is more true: they've been punishing other people with their greed for a long time.

And admit this too: otherwise the burden is essentially double taxation of the middle class, for whom local and state taxes will necessarily rise. And double taxation and more for the poor, for whom loss of essential services like quality schools, health care, winter heating supplements, and legal services is inevitable.

At home Buerkle says one thing. In Washington she finds she is only in a very minor position to add one vote to the Republican majority in a House that demonizes the Democrats and the President at every opportunity.  Where is the middle ground in that? She cannot have it both ways.

If this pattern is to continue, then Ann Marie Buerkle might just as well admit that professing to want to find common ground is a cruel joke.

Ann Marie Buerkle Would Rather Limit Freedom...

Ann Marie Buerkle signed up on the first day, March 8, to co-sponsor anti-gay legislation to require the President to support the Defense of Marriage Act, along with 96 other House Representatives, all Republicans, many Teabaggers, all phobic and/or afraid to vote their consciences.

Various surveys indicate that something like one tenth of these folks have at least one family member and several friends or acquaintances who is gay or something else this side of totally straight, and as many as five per cent of them are gay themselves. So much intolerance, fear and loathing, self-denial ... whatever ... sad, really... and totally out of touch with what is real today in their own country. 

Ask almost any young person today whether gayness is an important issue, political or otherwise.

And anyway, don't you people have more important things to do? What about all the jobs you promised last Fall? What about three (yep count 'em) wars that we cannot afford? What about some continued concern about the suffering in Japan?

I thank AMERICAblogGAY/A Great Nation Deserves the Truth for this article: 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2011

Meet the 97 biggest homophobes in the US House

Posted by Joe Sudbay (DC) at 3/16/2011 10:17:00 AM 

This morning, there are press conferences on the House and Senate sides of the Capitol to mark the introduction of DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] repeal legislation. 

And, the haters are working on DOMA, too. The way, way too gay-obsessed freshman Congresswoman from Missouri, Vicky Hartzler, introduced a resolution demanding that the President defend DOMA. She's got all the real whackos on her side, of course, from Steve King to Michele Bachmann. As of this morning there are 94 co-sponsors. [with 2 more added to the list after the article was published.]  This list pretty much comprises the biggest homophobes in the U.S. House of Representatives. As of now, they're all Republicans. The list is also an indication that the newly elected teabaggers are not just focused on fiscal issues. A number of the cosponsors are freshmen (for example, Sean Duffy (WI), Kristi Noem (SD), Tim Scott (GA) and many more.) So, yeah, the teabaggers are hard-core right-wingers on social issues, too. We'll update the list when and if more cosponsors are added.

Now, these legislators don't care (or don't know) that the times are changing on same-sex marriage -- or that "the wedge has lost its edge." They hate the gays and nothing will stop them. It's pure bigotry. For some of them, rhetorical and legislative gay-bashing is a passion, even an obsession. Below is the list of cosponsors (The date next to their name indicates when the member signed on to the resolution). I'd bet a number of them have gay staffers and some probably have gay relatives. They all have LGBT constituents. But, homophobia rules.

Complete list of co-sponsors is found at:

http://gay.americablog.com/2011/03/meet-95-biggest-homophobes-in-us-house.html

Ann Marie Buerkle Meets Her Public on Wednesday

Ann Marie Buerkle's 

next Town Hall Meeting is on 

Wednesday, March 23 at 

6:30 pm at 

Bellevue Middle School 

1607 S. Geddes Street 

Syracuse, NY

Ann Marie Buerkle: Hitting Very Close to Home

Questions for Ann Marie Buerkle's Next Town Hall Meeting, and the One After That...

Ms. Buerkle, you promised us honesty and transparency during your campaign. You promised that you would try to find common ground. The election results indicate that you won by only a very small margin, so it is safe to assume that there are a great many people who would like to know you share their concerns about where this country is headed. 

Now that you have gotten your feet wet in Washington, would you be so kind as to answer some questions for us?

• You talked repeatedly about job creation and job recovery during your campaign. Since the election you do not talk about jobs. Why?  

• What are your plans, and your party's plans, for job recovery?

• Since you personally benefitted during your campaign from NPR public radio and PBS television, how can you now vote to defund public broadcasting? 

• Do you personally listen to or watch public broadcasting?

• What are you doing to keep several hundred jobs in NYS which are part of the 1200 jobs in the Northeast that National Grid is eliminating? Or do you support eliminating those jobs? Do you know why they are being eliminated?

• Do you subscribe to the idea that President Obama is not an American-born citizen? Do you need to see his birth certificate before you believe he was born on US soil?

• What do you think about what is happening in Wisconsin?

• Knowing what you do, from your multi-faceted career and volunteer experience, 
• about the needs of people and families without health insurance; 
• about people who need to be represented by an attorney and lack the funds to afford one; 
• about women (and men) who have experienced domestic abuse; 
• about the importance of family planning and reproductive health,                      

             then how do you justify cutting funds to or eliminating programs that help the neediest among us?

• What is your position on nuclear power?

• How do you respond to the idea of the threat that the nuclear power plants near Oswego and Rochester pose either by terrorists or by natural disaster?  We think about how relatively easy it might be for a terrorist group, domestic or foreign, to crash a plane into a plant or for employees and contractors to infiltrate a plant over time. Do you think continuing generation of electricity using nuclear power is sustainable given the enormous costs in treasure, safety and security?

• Why did you accept a large collective contribution from Paul Singer and several of his employees at Elliott Associates and Elliott Management, both powerful hedge funds? Do you know that Paul Singer is a modern-day robber baron who crushes whole countries for profit?

• Do you understand the importance of the separation of church and state in a democracy? Would you be willing to describe and discuss its importance so that we are all clear about this judicial and Constitutional concept?

Proofreader Needed: Apply to Ann Marie Buerkle, US House of Representatives

If AMB's first weekly edition of The Buerkle Bulletin is any indication, she seriously needs a proofreader. 

Blueskygirl respectfully suggests that sloppiness does not inspire confidence. She thinks Annie can continue to succeed in attracting people who do not aspire to writing well without simultaneously dumbing down the English language.

You can locate your own copy of The Buerkle Bulletin using Google. Then you can subscribe and receive it in your very own mailbox every ... [so often?].

Here is the text:

Key:

green = missing words (2)

orange = different font ... just looks unprofessional (1)

blue = extra punctuation (commas and quotation marks breeding like rabbits) (4)

red= wrong word; should be the possessive (1)

The Buerkle Bulletin

A weekly look at NY 25

[photo of AMB chairing her subcommittee accompanying]

Welcome to my weekly e-newsletter.  This publication will be sent to you at the end of  week, and  is designed to provide you with a brief overview of what took place the week in the 112^th Congress.  More detail on  any of the information provided  can be obtained by contacting my Congressional office.  Please visit us at http://www.buerkle.house.gov.

As promised, I want to be accessible and accountable to the people of New York’s 25^th Congressional District.  Keeping  you updated on the work I am doing as your representative is part of that promise.  My staff and I are here to serve you.

Voted in support of SOAR 

8th Grade Students from St. Andrews School, Washington, DC [photo accompanying]

This past week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on which the Congresswoman sits, debated the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act (“SOAR”).  SOAR, which is sponsored by House Speaker John Boehner, encourages Washington, DC families to choose the schools that are the best fit for their children through a school voucher system.  Congresswoman Buerkle, who is among the original SOAR co-sponsors, voted with the majority to advance the bill out of Committee for consideration by the full House of Representatives.

Highlights from the Week:

From attending frequent committee hearings on Oversight  and Government Reform, Foreign Affairs and Veterans' Affairs, to meeting with constituents from

NY-25,  and voting on new legislation, Congresswoman Buerkle has been busy representing her district in Washington.

On Wednesday the Congresswoman addressed a large crowd from the National Federation of Republican Women,  and then gathered with colleagues in a Joint Meeting of Congress for an address by The Honorable Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia. 

Closing the week, Ann Marie chaired the first hearing of the Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health. 

Committee Hearings:

Veterans' Affairs

Rep. Buerkle chaired her first Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Health hearing: "Implementation of Caregiver Assistance: Are We Getting It Right?"

In her opening remarks she expressed her gratitude for our veterans: "Thank you to all our veterans and there families here today. We live in the greatest nation in the history of mankind due to your service and sacrifice." Click here to hear the webcast!

Oversight and Government Reform

Assessing the Cumulative Impact of Regulation on US Manufacturers

Oversight & Government Reform Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Governement Spending Hearing (VIDEO)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

Click here to see more!

Blueskygirl's proofing doesn't begin to address the content. Another time ....

Extremist Anti-Woman Buerkle Links Up With Lila Rose and Live Action's Hoax

With great thanks to Right Wing Watch:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/individuals/ann-marie-buerkle

Republican Congressmen Embrace Lila Rose and Live Action’s Hoax Videos

Submitted by Brian on February 9, 2011 

Live Action’s ongoing smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, where actors playing a pimp and a prostitute used hidden cameras to try to dupe clinic staffers into a sex trafficking ring, has ran into numerous hurdles. The radical group’s videos have found to be heavily doctored and actually show clinic workers acting properly and lawfully. In fact, before Live Action even released the edited tapes, Planned Parenthood alerted the FBI about visitors who sought advice for “underage girls who were part of a sex trafficking ring.” Live Action is led by anti-choice radical Lila Rose, who previously collaborated with notorious trickster James O’Keefe and likes to compare herself to Martin Luther King Jr. Rose also has a long history of deceptively editing videos.

But the Religious Right and leading Republicans have increasingly embraced Rose and her hoax videos, and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) is using the discredited videos to promote his bill that would end federal funding of Planned Parenthood, imperiling women’s health services.

Tomorrow, leading GOP congressmen plan to join Rose and Pence to demand Congress strip Planned Parenthood of its funding. Congressmen Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Virginia Foxx (R-NC) , Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) , Renee Ellmers (R-NC), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), and Andy Harris (R-MD) will speak with Rose and Pence, along with Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.

All of the Congressmen mentioned have a long history with extreme anti-choice activism:

Schmidt railed against reproductive rights in a speech to 1st graders in an elementary school; Buerkleserved as the spokesperson for the extreme group Operation Rescue; Hartzler backed bills that would compel women seeking an abortion to view their sonograms and even supported legislation that would force the state to file murder charges against women and their doctors if they performed a late-term abortion; Foxx wants to ban emergency contraception like RU-486 and Ella; Harris wanted to allow pharmacists to refuse contraception to customers and challenged a moderate pro-choice Republican incumbent in 2008, and Ellmers is an avowed opponent of legal abortion who recently justified receiving taxpayer-subsidized health care by claiming that Washington DC is too expensive to live in with a $174,000 per year salary, while pushing to defund health services for low-income women.

But having such an extreme group of anti-choice congressmen standing with Rose is no surprise, as Rose herself has called for abortions to “be done in the public square.”

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...Will Ann Marie Buerkle Take Credit for Recent Job Increases Nationally?

Jobs, jobs, jobs...that was the rallying cry by Republicans, Conservatives and Tea Partiers all over the land leading up to the November election. Jobs was a major plank in Ann Marie Buerkle's platform...get government out of the way so more jobs can "grow."

But events in Wisconsin have shown the true colors of the Evil Empire to be quite different.

Their view of "jobs, jobs, jobs" does not include health insurance, benefits, pensions or even a living wage. Or reasonable work hours.  It would break up unions. It would further limit the ability of people to organize in the workplace. (Ask any Wal-Mart worker.)  It would seek to lower the minimum age requirements. 

The Evil Empire can only thrive on low wages, poor schools, and a greater and greater gap between the rich and the rest of us.

The Evil Empire will take 1200 well paying National Grid jobs out of the Northeast without a moment of conscience.

What Buerkle and people like her mean when they talk about government being too big is that rich people want the government to get out of the way of them making more money. Ann Marie is a mouthpiece for people even she may not comprehend are in the driver's seat.

If Ann Marie Buerkle can identify with real working people, then now is the time for her to retreat from the Republicans, the Conservatives, the Tea Partiers. Now is the time for her to speak out for working people. We need her voice and her compassion. Now.

Blue Sky Girl's Wish: Angry Voters Will Read This Speech by Michael Moore in Madison on Saturday

America Is NOT Broke ...the Madison speech by Michael Moore


Delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5th, 2011. Video available here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNuSEZ8CDw


America is not broke.


Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.


Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.


Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.


And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.


I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs.  That too caused a reduction in tax revenue. Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.


The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.


The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:


1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day -- this is America, where anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes, you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.


2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"


The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).


Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The United States of America!


So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and humanity.


Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had to have more -- something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he's stopped hoping for a pay increase. All he's asking for now is enough down time so that he doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn't be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he's just another slob, isn't he?


And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in the cold?" I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed to be that!


"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you ...?"


America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America -- because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than there are of them!


Madison, do not retreat.  We are with you. We will win together.

In Case You Wondered How Big Money Gets Into the Right Mailbox to Help the Little Guys and Gals

Just to try to bring this whole campaign finance thread around Ann Marie Buerkle and Paul Singer of Elliott Associates and Elliott Management hedge funds to a logical conclusion, here are data about contributions from Elliott  to AMB's 2010 campaign, and specific contributions attributed to various employees of both Elliott companies.

I laugh as I write "logical conclusion". The project has given me a big headache. This is only one very tiny corner that may not yet be entirely swept out and lighted. There is nothing logical about it, and it is in no way conclusive. Onward.

We repost, with thanks, the following data which was collected and posted by www.OpenSecrets.org: 

Top 5 Contributors [organizations*], 2009-2010, Campaign Cmte

Contributor	Total	Indivs	PACs
Elliott Management	$22,999	$22,999	$0
Every Republican is Crucial PAC	$15,000	$0	$15,000
Freedom Project	$10,000	$0	$10,000
Susan B Anthony List	$10,000	$0	$10,000
Free & Strong America PAC	$8,620	$0	$8,620

*The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.        

                                                                                 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Top 25 Contributions [individuals]

Election Cycle:  2010

Ann Marie Buerkle 

Results 1–25 of 25 contributions totaling $28,799 from 1/01/2010 to 11/22/2010 for election cycle 2010. Contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Date         Amount   Contributor            Interest           Occupation/                 City, State, Zip

                                                                  Group              Employer

6/30/10      $500  Ayaz, Akbar     Hedge Funds    Manager/Elliott          Stamford CT 06902

                                                                                      Management

6/30/10  $1,200  Miller, Brian P.  Hedge Funds    Portfolio Manager/     Greenwich CT 06831   

                                                                                      Elliott Management

6/30/10   $2,400  Miller, Giovanna Hedge Funds    Homemaker/Elliott     Greenwich CT 06831

                                                                                      Management

6/30/10   $2,400  Miller, Giovanna Hedge Funds    Homemaker/Elliott     Greenwich CT 06831 

                                                                                      Management              [ed. note: this appears                    

                                                                                                                    to be a duplicate post]    

3/30/10   $2,400   Levine, Mark        Hedge Funds    Investment Manager  London UK

                                                                                      /Elliott Management

11/17/10 $2,400  Klarman, Seth A.  Hedge Funds   Investor/Baupost      Chestnut Hill MA02467 

                                                                                   Group

6/30/10     $500      Stephan,          Hedge Funds    Accountant/Elliott    Morganville NJ 07751

                              Michael                                          Management

6/30/10 $1,200      Rizzi, Peter J.  Hedge Funds    Trader/Elliott             Monroe

                                                                                      Management           Township NJ 08831

6/30/10  $2,000     Horn, Keith L.         Hedge Funds    COO/ Elliott              Woodcliff Lake NJ     

                                                                                       Management             07677

6/30/10     $500     Phillips, Andrew Hedge Funds    Systems                   Livingston NJ 07039

                                                                                      Coordinator/Elliott

                                                                            Associates

6/30/10     $500     Bose, Rajat            Hedge Funds   Manager/Elliott        Princeton NJ 08540

                                                                                      Management

6/30/10   $1,200    Nadell, Joshua Hedge Funds   CFO/Elliott                 Short Hills NJ 07078 

                                                                           Management

6/30/10     $833 Joel, Edward T. Hedge Funds  Chief Compliance      Ho Ho Kus NJ 07423

                                                                           Officer/Elliott

                                                                           Management

6/30/10     $500 Pollina, Joseph Hedge Funds   Finance/Elliott           Seaford NY 11783

                                                                            Management

6/30/10 $100 Montoya-Tybicki,    Hedge Funds Finance/Elliott           New York NY 10019

Vernice                                        Management

6/30/10 $166 Feig, Jason B.         Hedge Funds Accountant/Elliott      New York NY 10021

                                                                              Management

6/30/10     $500 Driscoll, Kyle E. Hedge Funds Operations Mgr/ Forest Hills NY 11375

                                                                            Elliott Management

6/30/10 $1,000 Levine, Joshua L.    Hedge Funds Accountant/Elliott       West Hempstead

                                                                            Management              NY 11552

6/30/10 $1,000 Sica, Frank V.         Hedge Funds Finance/Soros Fund Bronxville NY 10708

                                                                            Management

6/30/10 $500 Rinat, Guy               Hedge Funds Manager/Elliott Great Neck NY 11020

                                                                            Management

6/30/10 $2,000 Greenberg, Elliot      Hedge Funds Finance/Elliott           New Rochelle NY 

                                                                             Management              10804

6/30/10 $100 Reinhardt-               Hedge Funds Middle Office/           Staten Island NY 

Gonzales, Elliott Management    10304

Kimberly A.

6/30/10  $100 Sorgle, Daniel          Hedge Funds Finance/Elliott           Plainview NY 11803

                                                                              Management

11/12/10 $2,400 Singer, Paul             Hedge Funds CEO/Elliott                New York NY 10024

                                                                              Associates

11/19/10 $2,400 Loeb, Daniel S. Hedge Funds President/Third New York NY 10023

                                                                               Point LLC

About our data from OpenSecrets.org website:

Read the details about our data sources and methodology.

Contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org)

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