Watch: Behind the NRA's Phony UN Conspiracy Theory

Watch: Behind the NRA's Phony UN Conspiracy Theory

The National Rifle Association went on the attack this week over a landmark international arms treaty signed by the United States, claiming it will jeopardize Americans' right to bear arms and even lead to mass confiscation of their guns. Mother Jones senior editor Mark Follman spoke with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell about how the influential gun lobby hypes misinformation to protect the $12 billion a year gun industry. Watch:
 

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Your False-Equivalence Guide to the Days Ahead

 A kind of politics we have not seen for more than 150 years 

 James Fallows

possible partial shutdown of the federal government, following the long-running hamstringing of public functions via "the sequester"; and a possible vote not to raise the federal debt ceiling, which would create the prospect of a default on U.S. Treasury debt. Two big examples of problematic self-government are upon us. They are of course the

The details are complicated, but please don't lose sight of these three essential points:

• As a matter of substance, constant-shutdown, permanent-emergency governance is so destructive that no other serious country engages in or could tolerate it. The United States can afford it only because we are -- still -- so rich, with so much margin for waste and error. Details on this and other items below.*
    
• As a matter of politics, this is different from anything we learned about in classrooms or expected until the past few years. We're used to thinking that the most important disagreements are between the major parties, not within one party; and that disagreements over policies, goals, tactics can be addressed by negotiation or compromise.
  
  This time, the fight that matters is within the Republican party, and that fight is over whether compromise itself is legitimate.** Outsiders to this struggle -- the president and his administration, Democratic legislators as a group, voters or "opinion leaders" outside the generally safe districts that elected the new House majority -- have essentially no leverage over the outcome. I can't recall any situation like this in my own experience, and the only even-approximate historic parallel (with obvious differences) is the inability of Northern/free-state opinion to affect the debate within the slave-state South from the 1840s onward. Nor is there a conceivable "compromise" the Democrats could offer that would placate the other side.
   
• As a matter of journalism, any story that presents the disagreements as a "standoff," a "showdown," a "failure of leadership," a sign of "partisan gridlock," or any of the other usual terms for political disagreement, represents a failure of journalism*** and an inability to see or describe what is going on. For instance: the "dig in their heels" headline you see below, which is from a proprietary newsletter I read this morning, and about which I am leaving off the identifying details.
  
  This isn't "gridlock." It is a ferocious struggle within one party, between its traditionalists and its radical factions, with results that unfortunately can harm all the rest of us -- and, should there be a debt default, could harm the rest of the world too. 

"Jon Stewart warns the pope about angering Republicans

"Jon Stewart warns the pope about angering Republicans http://t.co/79j7t54fbw"#tcot pic.twitter.com/XgqD1GHyvo
— Suzanne (@_pascuzzo) September 27, 2013

FACT: @PolitiFact - Staff is working overtime debunking @SenTedCruz LIES

FACT: @PolitiFact - Staff is working overtime debunking @SenTedCruz LIES http://t.co/gya1PO4xEg #MHPShow @cspanwj pic.twitter.com/RXuVcIE4uc
— Maverick™ (@spooney35) September 28, 2013

FYI: One study found over 20,000 Americans die prematurely every year due to lack of health insurance.

FYI: One study found over 20,000 Americans die prematurely every year due to lack of health insurance. #thanksboehner http://t.co/vOG8tsR7Li
— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) September 28, 2013

'Congressional First Responders'

'Congressional First Responders' #Obamacare pic.twitter.com/iFtB9NtePC
— TheObamaDiary.com (@TheObamaDiary) September 28, 2013

The Koch Brothers and the Right-Wing Funding Network

The Koch Brothers and the Right-Wing Funding Network 

Lily Tomlin said it best: “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” Despite two solid years of progressive media tracking the billionaire Koch brothers’ funding of right wing front groups, new details have emerged which show a more sophisticated and ominous network than previously understood.
One of the key organizations funded by Koch money is Americans for Prosperity (AFP). While it has been widely documented and publicized that the group is orchestrating the Tea Party, AFP is also a veritable smorgasbord of other “grassroots” personalities. The AFP or the AFP Foundation have spawned the following identities:
DefendingtheDream.org (August 27-28 D.C. summit for right wing strategizing and rally);
SayNoCapandTrade.org (kill tax on production of greenhouse gases);
NoInternetTakeover.com (attacks on the Federal Communications Commission);
SickofSpending.com (“…how to recruit, educate, organize, and mobilize fed up Americans to stop the radical left-wing agenda…”);
RegulationReality.com (“…educate citizens about the EPA’s attempt to implement radical global warming regulations…”);
NovemberIsComing.com (phone bank; go door to door to beat back those liberals);
TaxCutsForAll.com (don’t raise taxes on the rich);
SpendingCrisis.org (shrink the Federal government);
CaliforniaSoS.com (cut spending in California);
United4NoOn4.com (kill Amendment 4 in Florida that would give voters more say in local legislative decisions; an ironic position for people who say they want to promote more liberty).
Americans for Prosperity also created PatientsUnitedNow.com and orchestrated hundreds of rallies to help kill the public option in health care reform.
Americans for Prosperity now has chapters in 30 states, including those with the largest number of voters. As part of the focus on state level efforts, key right wing foundations are funding another nonprofit, the State Policy Network, which says it has free market think tanks in every state. The work of most of the groups is to push for privatization of public services and public schools. The State Policy Network is fueling a new, rapidly growing movement: right wing funded groups posing as independent investigative media outlets. So far, there is West Virginia Watchdog, Old Dominion Watchdog in Virginia, Texas Watchdog, Illinois Statehouse News, Missouri News Horizon, Capital Report New Mexico, Idaho Reporter, the Commonwealth Foundation’s Pennsylvania Independent, TNReport of Tennessee, the Pelican Institute’s Capital Reporter in Louisiana, Pacific Research Institute’s Cal Watch Dog in California, Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Idaho Reporter, the Cowboy State Free Press in Wyoming, and others in various stages of getting up and running.
Doing the recruiting for investigative reporters for a number of these right wing news sites is Claire Kittle, the former Program Officer for Leadership and Talent Development at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The State Policy Network publishes strategic planning articles on how these newly anointed investigative reporters can network with each other and get stories they pen to dominate the internet and be picked up by mainstream media.
Tactically using its state chapters and YouTube, Americans for Prosperity was able to blanket the internet with a McCarthyesque video depicting the progressive One Nation Working Together rally in Washington D.C. on October 2 as a communist-inspired, Socialist Party march. Despite a coalition of 400 organizations involved in the March, including the AFL-CIO, American Federation of Teachers, UAW, NAACP, Rainbow Push Coalition, the video exclusively highlights the contingent of Socialists, making it appear that they dominated the march. The clip runs with the headline: “Proud Socialists March at Left-Wing Protest in DC.” The video clip plays the Russian Anthem in the background (while calling it the Soviet Anthem) and, at one point on the video, shows a young woman portrayed as if she is singing the lyrics. People commenting on-line clearly believe this music was playing at the progressive march. At TeaPartyPatriots.org, a poster commented: “Any comments on the One Nation rally? … hard to believe people in this country would disgrace their own country by playing the Soviet Anthem.” At JoeTote1.blogspot.com, a person using the moniker Joe Tote said: “For God’s Sake! They were marching to and singing the old Soviet anthem!” I contacted people in the know who were at the march in the vicinity of the Socialist contingent. I was told that no such music was played.
The use of the music by Alexander Alexandrov suggests evil genius at work. The music, although it now has new lyrics, is associated with the murderous Stalinist regime and evoked a firestorm of criticism in Russia when it was reintroduced as the National Anthem in 2000. At the time, Russian historian Leonid A. Sedov was quoted in the Los Angeles Times in opposition to the reintroduction, stating: “A national anthem must not disgust even some part of the population. We know too well that there are a lot of people in this country who can’t hear this anthem without shuddering.”
If you put the title of the video in the Google search engine inside double quotes (“Proud Socialists March at Left-Wing Protest”) it brings up 232,000 links, as of this writing. This is McCarthyism on steroids.
Charles and David Koch, who tied for 5th place in the 2010 Forbes list of the richest Americans with $21.5 billion each, are the controlling shareholders of Koch Industries Inc., a private global conglomerate with a presence in over 60 countries, including interests in oil, refining, pipelines, paper products, chemicals, and fertilizer. Its commodities trading operation stretches from New York to London, Geneva, Singapore, Mumbai, and Rotterdam. Koch Industries has revenues of $100 billion, according to the Koch Industries, Inc. web site. Despite the full throttle push for “free markets,” the Koch brothers have never allowed their company’s stock to trade in those “free markets.” Georgia-Pacific was immediately delisted from the New York Stock Exchange following its purchase by Koch Industries, Inc.
In 2000, 60 Minutes did a story on Koch Industries, revealing the details of what one of the dissident brothers, Bill Koch, was alleging in Court documents. “Bill Koch filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that much of the oil collected by Koch Industries was stolen from federal lands. At the trial, 50 former Koch gaugers testified against the company, some in video depositions. They said Koch employees had a name for cheating on the measurements.” It was called the Koch Method. “The company used the Koch method with virtually all its customers. In the 1980′s alone, Koch records show those so-called adjustments brought the company 300 million gallons of oil it never paid for. And it was pure profit. Bill Koch says that profits from that oil were a minimum of $230 million…In December 1999, the jury found that Koch Industries did steal oil from the public and lied about its purchases – 24 thousand times.”
The brothers refer to their philanthropic work as the “Koch Family Foundations.” Listed on the Koch Industries Inc. web site are the Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundations (the deceased parents of Charles and David); the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation and the Kansas Cultural Trust, renamed the Kansas Cultural Trust, in 2008. The web site does not list the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation which is controlled by Charles Koch.
Claude Lambe was a real estate developer and insurance broker in Kansas. He invested in a company formed by Fred Koch in 1934, the Buffalo Oil Corporation. Lambe’s wife, Pauline, died in 1976; Lambe died in 1981. According to a Koch Industries publication, Charles Koch was left in charge of Lambe’s estate. Charles Koch and his wife, Elizabeth, serve as Directors on the Foundation’s board. Hopefully, Lambe wanted to fund all of these right wing causes because that’s what his foundation has been doing since his death.
A click to the foundation section of the Koch Industries web sites brings up clean, wholesome images: beautiful, migrating white pelicans in various stages of flight at a Koch funded wetlands; an ethereal cluster of snow-dotted ballerinas in fluffy white tutus performing at Lincoln Center. But beyond white-feathered pelicans and tulle-feathered ballerinas, there is the deep sense that Koch is out to feather its own nest.
The Free State Project
We have a right wing “grassroots” group of our own here in New Hampshire with ties to Koch money. Called the Free State Project, it was the creation of Jason Sorens. (While the group advocates for the elimination of tax-funded public education, Dr. Sorens teaches political science at the taxpayer funded State University of New York at Buffalo.)
Dr. Sorens is an example of a core strategy of the right wing funding network. Taking a cue from corporate research that teaches if you want to create brand loyalty for life, you must reach your target market at an early age, many of the right wing nonprofits offer internships and associate programs for promising undergraduates and grad students. They look for two things in particular: writing skills and computer/internet savvy. These individuals are called the “talent” and are viewed in the same light as Merck views its “thought leaders” in the launch of a new drug. In many cases, they are funded and nurtured for life. The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation has at least six staff members with the word “Talent” in their title, for example, Manager of Talent, Director of Talent, Coordinator of Talent. It explains on its web site that over 700 individuals have gone through its paid Summer Fellow program and have gone on to work at places like Cato, the Wall Street Journal, Department of Justice, World Bank, and Council of Economic Advisors.
Dr. Sorens was funded by two Koch funded organizations: the Mercatus Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. When he was ready to launch his audacious plan to convert New Hampshire into a free markets stronghold, he was assisted on the morning of February 27, 2004 with a big-wig press conference at the Washington D.C. headquarters of the wealthy and well connected American Enterprise Institute, also funded with Koch money as well as the rest of the A-list of conservative foundations. According to its most recent 990 tax filing, available to the public at www.guidestar.org, the American Enterprise Institute had assets of $104 million in 2008 and received grants and contributions of $59 million that year.
The concept was a bit far fetched even for the conservative reporters at the event. Dr. Sorens proposal was, via coaxing on the internet, to get 20,000 Libertarians to move to New Hampshire and take over state and local politics by being hyper activists. To potential recruits, Dr. Sorens pitched the gambit as creating a migration and sanctuary for freedom-loving people. To the American Enterprise Institute, he pitched it as a means of leveraging an anti-regulatory agenda to benefit business, not just in New Hampshire but in other states as well. “Once New Hampshire moves dramatically in a free market direction, we are going to continue to attract individuals and businesses from other states. And other states are going to have to reform their own laws in order to avoid losing their tax base to our state,” Dr. Sorens told the audience.
Dr. Sorens and Mercatus had a plan to move that theory along. Dr. Sorens and William P. Ruger, an Assistant Professor at the Texas State University, San Marcos co-authored a study with the Koch-funded Mercatus Center on “Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom.” The study ranks the 50 states in terms of personal and economic freedoms. Exactly 13 days after the study on Freedom in the 50 States was released, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio, another free markets nonprofit, used the document in testimony on a House Bill in Ohio threatening to “initiate legal action” if the bill was signed into law. The testimony noted, from the report, that “Ohio recently ranked 38th in an index of economic freedom amongst the 50 states.” The bill the Center was against would have eased mortgage loan modifications to prevent foreclosures. Koch foundation money provides support to the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions.
Dr. Sorens’ belief in the individual’s pursuit of freedom and democracy has been called into question with this post he made at the Cato Institute: “The ‘collective action problem’ helps to explain why only narrow interests will successfully organize and achieve policy victories, and why these will come at the expense of the citizenry. Interest groups can achieve these victories only because voters are deeply, irremediably ignorant of philosophy, politics, economics, and public policy. Trying to educate voters is hopeless because they lack the proper incentives to learn and employ political knowledge.”
One hard-learned lesson for the big money funders is that frequently when you get some real grass in your grassroots movement, the corporate script is not followed as neatly as in pure astroturfing. (Astroturfing refers to campaigns or movements that are orchestrated by special interests but masquerade as spontaneous grassroots uprisings.) The first offshoot of the Free State Project effort was in Grafton, New Hampshire and was as subtle as a Wall Street hostile takeover. Locals say about $1 million was spent buying up properties and recording the names in limited liability corporations so the real money behind the purchase could not be discovered. But the Free Staters living in the homes were quite visible and vocal. One man set up a web site to harass local officials, declaring: “This is a list of New Hampsters who have oppressed libertarians…Don’t vote for them, don’t hire them, don’t buy from them, don’t sell to them.” The list, titled “Blood Bath and Beyond” named a Judge, the Selectmen, the Selectmen’s Clerk, an attorney, a police chief, and various police officers. The web site has not been taken down.
The brazenness of the takeover talk rankled the local residents; a heated town meeting ensued, with unfavorable national press for the Free State Project. The Boston Globe called it “Grafton’s Messy Liberation.”
Things have since quieted down in Grafton while heating up in the tolerant town of Keene. A handful of Free Staters, most of whom advocate a totally voluntary society and no government regulation on any business, have engaged in the following stunts: standing topless in the quaint town square; holding a bag of marijuana in front of the police with the intent of getting arrested, to challenge drug laws; pretending to drink alcohol in city council meetings to press for drinking in public places; holding “School Sucks” signs at the public middle school to challenge taxation for “government” education; chanting outside of the private homes of a police officer and sitting judge who are not popular with the Free Staters. Public opinion in Keene has now turned decidedly against the Free Staters.
Another individual who has spent time in Keene, New Hampshire and helped the Free State Project movement along is Peter Eyre. Eyre interned at the right wing Cato Institute (which received funding from Koch); then became a Fellow at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Next Eyre spent two and one half years at the Institute for Humane Studies (also supported by Koch money and the same Institute that supported the work of Dr. Sorens). In early 2009, Eyre moved on to Bureaucrash, a project affiliated with another right wing think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). (CEI ran TV ads in a dozen cities on “global warming alarmism” one week before Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth” premiered.) The Institute for Humane Studies links Bureaucrash as a previous internship partner with the Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program. Exxon and Koch charitable funds have supported the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Eyre’s more recent pursuit was to travel around the country promoting libertarian ideas in a motor home named Marv with colleagues Jason Talley and Adam Mueller.
What could possibly explain all this right wing and deregulatory attention on a state of 1.3 million people? For one, New Hampshire hosts the first Presidential primary. For another, Koch Industries, Inc. purchased Georgia-Pacific Corp. for $21 billion in 2005, paying a 39 percent premium over its share price on the New York Stock Exchange at the time. Georgia-Pacific is one of the world’s largest paper companies. Its household consumer brands include Angel Soft, Brawny, Quilted Northern, Sparkle, Vanity Fair, and Dixie. Georgia- Pacific owns no timberland. Its Wood and Fiber Supply division must seek out sources of wood from industrial, institutional or individual landowners. New Hampshire is 84 per cent forest land according to the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development. But there is a growing environmental and land conservation movement in New Hampshire. That could pose a problem for lumber interests.
Are the Koch brothers alone in outsized funding of right wing groups? No; but they are among the most proactive and sophisticated in exerting rightward political pressure on universities, media, state legislatures, Congress, and the town halls of America.
A check of tax filings at GuideStar.org shows there is currently over $6 billion in assets in foundations that promote the free market mantra. Where did the money come from? Some of the largest pro-corporate agenda foundations include old wealth from big consumer brands like Coors, Vicks, Borden, Gulf Oil, F.W. Woolworth, Amway; and new money from John Templeton and Walmart. The tycoons of yesteryear handed down an axe to grind against government interference in big business and that has been carefully nurtured by a labyrinth of modern tycoons and front groups. These are masterful tacticians who understand image is everything; who understand that if you plow enough money into marketing and public relations and advertising, you can build an invincible brand. You can even turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse by rehabilitating the deregulatory/free markets brand that fleeced the public, took their homes, left the financial system of the country in ruins and then used taxpayer money to attempt to bail itself out. But don’t think about that; think about the new and improved “freedom” brand.
FYI, the “Muckety Chart” shown as the featured image for this post is reprinted here, as large as it can be.  This is by no means complete, but you get the idea…This is essentially the core of the ALEC/Koch/AFP Cabal.

GOP Hopes to Shutdown Government Flu Program As New Deadly Flu Spreads in Asia

GOP Hopes to Shutdown Government Flu Program As New Deadly Flu Spreads in Asia

 The Daily Edge

Republicans are ramping up their efforts to kill you and your loved ones by shutting down the government’s seasonal flu program as part of the overall government shutdown that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
“This is a very exciting opportunity,” said Paul Ryan. “Flu season is a great time to cull the US grandma population. Last year’s deadly flu season killed a record number of grandmas, and now we have a real opportunity to speed up that effort by completely halting America’s seasonal flu program just as a new deadly bird flu has started killing people in China. It could be here by Christmas! I’m so excited, I think I just peed myself a little.”

According to the Huffington Post, the flu program Ryan and the GOP would shut down ‘is part of a series of initiatives that the CDC undertakes to spot and ultimately limit the spread of disease. Vaccine manufacturers have produced 135 million to 139 million doses of flu vaccine for this season. And while vaccine planning is a critical CDC function at risk of being stalled by a shutdown, it is far from the only one… The CDC also would be unable to provide “technical assistance, analysis, and support to state and local partners for infectious disease and surveillance,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services memo about the effects of a possible government shutdown. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration would be “unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition, and cosmetics activities,” including some basic compliance and enforcement functions.’
“Democrats have resisted my plan to kill Medicare for way too long,” added Ryan. “But I’m constantly coming up with new ways to threaten the lives of seniors. Taking Food Stamps away was a good first step. Hopefully we can make millions of grandmas even more frail before flu season hits. Then BAM! This will be fun. Give your grandma one last kiss from me. And remember, if she does snuff it this flu season, blame Obama.”
Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/government-shutdown-influenza_n_4005764.html

WATCH: I Used to Be in a Cult and Here's What It Did to My Brain

 WATCH: I Used to Be in a Cult and Here's What It Did to My Brain

Identifying the Extremist Brain

But, what is Extremism has become a sensationalized catchall phrase, often used by politicians and mass media to polarize and to label groups of people as "the bad guys."extremism? And how do we get to the root of its destructiveness?
When I was 17, I learned about extremism first-hand. Young, vulnerable and searching for what I call 'easy answers to hard questions,' I left my loving, middle-class, midwestern -- very normal and average, by all accounts -- family and fell prey to the teachings of a religious cult.
I became a devout follower of Sun Myung Moon and was the victim of highly manipulative tactics. Being a "Moonie" completely dictated my decision-making processes. It tore me away from family, friends, my planned future, and everything else I had previously known and loved.


In my TEDTalk I define what happened to me as having been infected by a "memetic virus." Once infected, I would have done anything for my "messiah." My mind was closed, fixed, intolerant and impervious to change. I was an extremist.
If we hope to prevent extremist terrorism we have to begin with understanding the mental condition of extremist leaders. We also need to understand the mental condition of those most vulnerable to extremist tactics. Finally, we need to understand manipulation, the vehicle that connects the extremist leader and it's victims.
Extremist Leaders
What causes someone to become a cult leader like Sun Myung Moon or Jim Jones, or a terrorist leader like Osama Bin Laden?
I agree with Neuroscientist Kathleen Taylor's assessment that religious fundamentalism could be treated as a form of mental illness.

My mind was closed, fixed, intolerant and impervious to change. I was an extremist. -- Diane Benscoter

Extremist leaders are addicts. Addiction is a powerful force. The addiction to power and/or money can affect the brain much like other types of addiction. The overwhelming desire to feed any form of addiction can eventually lead to a type of psychopathy. In the most dangerous circumstances charismatic leaders, under the influence of their addiction, can make a powerful and potentially deadly discovery. They can discover, and put into action, a set of manipulative tactics that prey on vulnerable segments of society.


Extremist Victims/ Followers
It's hard to think of a terrorist as a victim, but we have to ask what's going on in the brain of someone who straps a bomb to his or her body and detonates? As I express in my talk, with great repulsion, I understand how it could happen. I was a victim of extremist mental manipulation. So are they.
In these cases the victims are often young adults who feel lost in their world and desire the comradery and easy answers to complex questions offered by extremism. When I read the background of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing, I see a bit of 17-year-old me.



In my memoir, Shoes of a Servant -- My Unconditional Devotion to a Lie, you can see how vulnerable I was to the specific type of manipulative tactics used by Sun Myung Moon and his followers and how I became an extremist. While Moonies are certainly not terrorists, it is the mental condition we need to understand.

What can we do?
There are many examples of how educational campaigns have greatly slowed down the spread of infectious diseases and brought awareness to important social topics. I propose that we create similar campaigns to combat extremism.
The complexity of preventing extremism should not be underestimated, especially in war-torn parts of the world where the use of religious fundamentalism is woven into the culture and vulnerability is high.
Fortunately there are organizations like SAVE (Sisters Against Violent Extremism) and Quilliam a London based Anti-Extremism think tank that's working diligently toward solutions to extremism.

The complexity of preventing extremism should not be underestimated, especially in war-torn parts of the world where the use of religious fundamentalism is woven into the culture and vulnerability is high. -- Diane Benscoter

I'm also working on a new book and other projects that will help expose prevailing social tactics most commonly used by extremist leaders to manipulate. I look forward to the results of ongoing research by neuroscientists and psychologists working toward a greater understanding of cognitive processes associated with addiction and mental manipulation. When information about mental manipulation becomes common knowledge power-addicted extremists will have less success, because vulnerability will be lowered.

The War for Peace
We need a dual approach in ongoing discussions and to solve this problem. We need high-level strategic research of the brain to better understand addiction and vulnerability to manipulation. On the ground level, we need social understanding and education. Once we arm individuals with knowledge about vulnerability to manipulation they can better protect themselves and others. We can help the most vulnerable diminish their feelings of isolation, so that they can make informed, powerful decisions based on critical thinking vs. circular logic. Working together, we can ensure a less destructive world.
Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TEDWeekends will highlight some of today's most intriguing ideas and allow them to develop in real time through your voice! Tweet #TEDWeekends to share your perspective or email tedweekends@huffingtonpost.com to learn about future weekend's ideas to contribute as a writer.

Becoming Prey to Cults  

Carol Smaldino 

 

Before last year, I was one of those people who assumed, "Never could that win me over, never." The "that" was a cult, any cult at all. My favorite subject in the arena of emotions had become what is known as the "shadow", what Carl Jung named as the parts of us too scary, too dangerous, too angry or too tender for our conscious minds to handle -- all the stuff that jumps up and explodes all of a sudden -- or blame other people for the feelings inside we just can't take.
I had actually begun to be convinced that the courage and the supports to get to know our own shadows, could help us in hating less, in scapegoating less. If we could embrace being imperfect, well, we might let in information that could be inconvenient -- hard to take at least at first. Then about a year ago, the "shadows" expanded for me: I was reading about cults, and oh-oh, I have had to work on one more spot inside of me, that felt not all that sweet to say the least.
The "what, me, never" has changed. If we are all capable of violence and submission -- especially when we are out of touch with our own shadows (and how could we tame them if we don't even know what they are?) -- then I too could be vulnerable to a cult. I didn't like realizing this, but it has made me more humble, more generous even to those who sink, more aware too that people in cults sometimes have parts of their authentic being involved -- and this needs to be understood, not violently rejected.
Last year I read The Good Little Girl by Annette Stephens; it is about her years in the Kenja cult in Melbourne. She had left her children and husband and nearly drowned, emotionally speaking. I read the book because she was my friend and yes, I was fascinated. I read the first 50 pages detached, sorry for Annette. The next 50 had me involved and wanting to scream out to her not to let the mad invader invade her whole self. I read the next parts of the book in tears, in tears of identification, of connection, of sadness -- both for all the losses but also for the quiet compassion she found from her mother whose tenderness was so very touching.
Annette's story added to my motivation to write more on codependency and cults, as the yearnings for belonging and even completion can also seem crucial ingredients in cult immersion. My interest and concern didn't stop there. I came to feel how not only are we all susceptible but how dangerously we may already be in the sometimes subtle ingredients of what cults actually are.

I have come to see most of us as emotionally congested, to one degree or another frightened and/or ashamed of facing our shadows. -- Carol Smaldino

Cults involve a terrible fear of leaving them, sometimes physical restriction or even abuse, and sometimes the dread and guilt of betraying cult members and causing harm to oneself or even to the world. In a cult there is no critical thinking allowed, merely the "circular rationalizing" Diane Benscoter refers to in her TEDTalk "How Cults Rewire the Brain." She, herself an ex Moonie, expresses hope for science helping us in our capacity to think critically, which she sees as more probably since the key dangers of cults have to do with our internal processes more than outside dangers.
I have come to see most of us as emotionally congested, to one degree or another frightened and/or ashamed of facing our shadows. As such -- if we are emotionally blocked -- it is difficult to think straight. If this is so, we may not even be able to tell if we are congested, both because (to my mind) internal pressures and the outside pressures to conform, to be normal, to succeed within the norms surrounding us.
If this is so, and not "circular rationalizing", we also need to lead to external pressures to conform as extremely powerful, both for young people and those older. Scientists are people too (right?) and they also have to be motivated to look for answers to questions they have to see. Yes,we need help from them, but we also need to be ready for the information they may bring us.
We can afford to think critically only when and if we can afford to examine our assumptions, our belief systems and our ways of defining the world. So, I am hoping that we can see and work towards greater emotional safety, on finding ways to become safer on the inside, without completely collapsing or hating another group or even the messenger of difficult news.
In the end and in the beginning, we are all vulnerable to needing to feel known, to feel understood, to feel special and to belong. If we miss this, any of us can go along with what was out of habit. Or we can become prey to cults that often come in sheep's clothing.
We could also start to practice thinking critically without crawling into the fake safety of making believe that anything is simple -- anything at all.
Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TEDWeekends will highlight some of today's most intriguing ideas and allow them to develop in real time through your voice! Tweet #TEDWeekends to share your perspective or email tedweekends@huffingtonpost.com to learn about future weekend's ideas to contribute as a writer.
 

Weekly Edition 9/28/2013

HUGE rally outside the Senate for Ted Cruz right n... http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/09/huge-rally-outside-senate-for-ted-cruz.html?spref=tw

Fox News Humiliates Itself Trying to Respond To Obama Calling Out Their ACA Lies http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/09/fox-news-humiliates-itself-trying-to.html?spref=tw

 

Fox’s Own Poll Proves Its Viewers are Practically Brain-Dead 

http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/09/foxs-own-poll-proves-its-viewers-are.html?spref=tw 

 

Senators: Limit NSA snooping into US phone records 

Senators want to limit NSA snooping into US phone records, create new privacy protections

By Kimberly Dozier, AP Intelligence Writer | Associated Press 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Leading senators unveiled proposed changes to the way the National Security Agency gathers U.S. records in its hunt for overseas terrorists or spying targets, and top intelligence officials said they would cooperate to try to win back the public trust, following disclosures about the extensive NSA collection of telephone and email records of millions of Americans.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan leadership used a hearing Thursday to promote legislation to change the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The lawmakers seek to trim NSA's authority to access and analyze U.S. phone records and provide new protections to Americans' privacy. They also want to broaden the government's spying powers to allow monitoring of terror suspects who travel to the U.S. after being tracked overseas by the NSA.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the committee, said the legislation would "strictly limit access to the ... phone metadata records, expressly prohibit the collection of the content of phone calls" and limit the amount of time such U.S. phone call data could be kept.
She said the bill, which could be passed by her committee as early as next week, would "change but preserve" bulk record collection.
Such records show the date and length of calls and the numbers dialed.
Feinstein's proposed legislation would not stop the bulk collection of telephone and email records. A separate bipartisan group of four senators unveiled legislation earlier this week to end those bulk collections.
One of those senators, Mark Udall, D-Colo., challenged the head of the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander, on just how far his agency could go when gathering those records.
"Is it the goal of the NSA to collect the phone records of all Americans?" Udall asked at Thursday's hearing.
"Yes, I believe it is in the nation's best interest to put all the phone records into a lockbox that we could search when the nation needs to do it. Yes," Alexander replied.
Udall's counterpart on the committee in proposing more stringent limits, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Alexander whether the NSA had ever collected or made plans to collect Americans' cellphone signals to track the movements of individual callers.
Alexander answered both times that the NSA was not collecting such data and would have to ask for court approval if it wanted to.
Questioned further, he cited a classified version of the letter that was sent to senators and said, "What I don't want to do ... is put out in an unclassified forum anything that's classified."
Wyden promised to keep asking.
The testy exchange at the hearing illustrated the wider tension that has grown between the public and the U.S. intelligence community since the disclosures of widespread NSA collection of Americans' telephone and email records by a former NSA systems analyst, Edward Snowden.
Feinstein and the committee's top Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, defended U.S. intelligence efforts, as did Alexander and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who insisted that while bulk U.S. records are collected, analysts don't listen in on individual Americans' phone calls or read their emails without a court order.
Clapper told the committee he was willing to consider limiting both how U.S. telephone and email data collected by NSA is used and the amount of time it is stored.

He said he's also open to other changes, such as appointing an independent official to oppose the government in hearings before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret federal panel that considers all government surveillance requests. 

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More on Dysfunctionology: Minority Rules

 By JARED BERNSTEIN

Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington and a former chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

I continue to believe that dysfunctionology — the study of why our national politics are so deeply screwed up — is an essential discipline for those of us who long for politicians who actually try to solve, not create, problems.
As I noted earlier this week:

… gerrymandering is clearly implicated. The fact of “safe,” noncompetitive districts…robs the political process of a disciplinary force, where members could conceivably be held to task for shutdowns and defaults.

Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker has raised interesting points about this in an article that maps the districts of Republican representatives who signed a letter urging Speaker Boehner to use the threat of a government shutdown to defund Obamacare.  Representative Mark Meadows, who drafted the letter, represents North Carolina’s 11th District — one that Mr. Lizza notes was gerrymandered after the 2010 census to become the most Republican district in the state.
There are 80 of these members, and Mr. Lizza points out that “[t]he ability of eighty members of the House of Representatives to push the Republican Party into a strategic course that is condemned by the party’s top strategists is a historical oddity.”

“These eighty members represent just eighteen per cent of the House and just a third of the two hundred and thirty-three House Republicans. They were elected with fourteen and a half million of the hundred and eighteen million votes cast in House elections last November, or twelve per cent of the total. In all, they represent fifty-eight million constituents. That may sound like a lot, but it’s just eighteen per cent of the population…
“Obama defeated Romney by four points nationally. But in [these] districts, Obama lost to Romney by an average of twenty-three points. The Republican members themselves did even better. In these eighty districts, the average margin of victory for the Republican candidate was thirty-four points.
“…these eighty members represent an America where the population is getting whiter, where there are few major cities, where Obama lost the last election in a landslide, and where the Republican Party is becoming more dominant and more popular. Meanwhile, in national politics, each of these trends is actually reversed.”

Nothing you don’t know if you follow this, but I found those numbers to be illuminating.  Why such intense minority rule?  What’s got America stuck in Cruz control?
Someone in comments suggested that the courts had been far more lax on imposing rules against gerrymandering.  Others noted that state legislatures are where the gerrymandering action is, so you’ve got to crack this case from the bottom up.  Those explanations resonate with me.
But you have to ask yourself why a relatively small fringe from a demographic bubble has such sway over all the other, more moderate members of the party.  Say what you want about John Boehner, but believe me, he knows better than to follow these guys down these paths to nowhere — or worse.  The lopsided vote Friday in the Senate — where members are less bound by a narrow district — in favor of cloture on the budget-patch bill actually provides a good counterexample: 25 Republicans supported ending the debate, against the very long-winded admonitions of Senator Cruz.
The answer seems to be fear. They’re worried about being “primaried” from the right. And if you can strike that fear into a politician, your control over them is Svengali-like.  It’s a power that Occupy Wall Street didn’t even get close to holding.  It’s not even clear to me that “big labor,” as the right calls the labor movement, holds such sway anymore.  But this fear is at the heart of how a small, extreme, demographically shrinking minority is controlling national politics and even, when you consider the ramifications of default on our sovereign debt, global economics.

Commentary: Don't Confuse Tea Party Marketing With Its Ideals

Commentary: Don't Confuse Tea Party Marketing With Its Ideals

  Suzie Potts

 
A Gallup poll released Thursday indicates that backing for the tea party has hit near-record lows, as 22 percent of Americans consider themselves supporters. That's down from 32 percent shortly after the 2010 midterm elections. To gauge how conservative and Republican voters feel, Yahoo invited them to share whether they support tea party-affiliated groups. Here's one voter's perspective.
COMMENTARY | TeaPartyPatriots.org states its mission is "to restore America's founding principles of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets."
It sounds reasonable. So, why do tea party groups make the public imagine a conspiracy theorist standing at the pulpit with sheep singing his praise? Simple: Early tea party members let the fringe take center stage.
At first glance, this week's Gallup poll proves that the tea party is fading. It shows that, in three years, support for the party has dropped from 32 percent to 22 percent. As a conservative with a libertarian bent, this concerns me, and it's disturbing that a movement created to tout small government is failing at a time of massive government overreach. The question I ask myself is this: "What is the story behind the poll?"
My first memory of the tea party is Nancy Pelosi clenching her teeth as she called it "Astroturf." Her outrage exceeded any tea party marketing campaign. Americans rallied behind the party and joined groups like the one mentioned by Forbes contributor Thomas Basile: "We founded one of the first…Tea Party organizations. We had Republicans, Independents and yes, plenty of Democrats all appreciating that Obama's brand of leadership would mean more government, higher taxes, less freedom and more debt for every American."
Fast forward and the story behind the Gallup poll takes flight. The tea party began with Americans calling for a return to small government, and now men like Jerome Corsi use it to spread words of bigotry and conspiracy. Clearly, the tea party has been hijacked.
But there's good news! The tea party is just a name, and it's fraught with the marketing attached to it. While that marketing surrounding the tea party is failing, the ideals aren't. A recent Rasmussen Poll shows that 63 percent of us believe most Americans want the government to have less power and less money. This demonstrates that Americans aren't disapproving of the tea party because of its ideals, but perhaps because of its current direction.
This week, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reminded me of the early days of the tea party when compromise was not an option. I had forgotten that. So, while I am not represented by any politicians here in Bridgewater, Conn., with tea party roots, I will be listening to their representatives elsewhere. As far as the next presidential race, I'm not sure whom I will vote for, but I'm likely to support a candidate aligned with the fiscally and constitutionally-minded tea party of 2009.

25 Republican senators reject Cruz strategy to defund Obamacare

25 Republican senators reject Cruz strategy to defund Obamacare

  Chris Moody, Yahoo! News

 

In the weeks before Friday’s Senate vote on a government-funding bill, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz called on fellow Republicans to refuse to keep the government running unless funding was stripped from the federal health care law known as Obamacare. In the end, 25 Republican senators rejected him, a move that allowed Senate Democrats to move the bill forward.
According to Cruz’s proposed strategy, which he promoted during a 21-hour marathon speech on the Senate floor earlier this week and in nationwide television ads, Republicans could block funding for Obamacare by filibustering the bill to fund the government. In the Senate, filibusters can be overruled by 60 votes. With 46 Republicans in the chamber, they could unite and block funding for the law.
But on Friday, only 18 Senate Republicans joined Cruz in voting against a procedural motion to move forward a bill to fund the government through mid-November. (While most said they were voting in protest of Obamacare, there were some who opposed the high spending levels in the bill.) Two Senate Republicans did not vote.
A majority of Republicans who did not want to be blamed for shutting down the government joined against Cruz’s strategy and moved the bill forward, and the Senate went on to pass the legislation because it only needed a simple majority vote.
Friday’s vote underscored a division in the Republican Party over the best strategy to oppose Obamacare as the law nears its fourth anniversary. While many Republicans have acknowledged that it would be virtually impossible to convince Democrats and President Barack Obama to repeal or defund the law, vocal conservative outside groups, with help from allies such as Cruz in Congress, have agitated for repeal at all costs.
Many of these conservative organizations, which include Heritage Action, the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks, told supporters that any lawmaker who allows the Senate to pass a spending bill that includes Obamacare funding is equivalent to supporting the law itself. It would not be surprising to see these groups campaign against those Republicans in future elections.
Despite Friday's defeat, this will not be Cruz’s last stand on Obamacare. Now that the Senate has passed the bill, the Republican-led House must choose to either pass the Senate bill or add Obamacare-related riders to it, which could risk a shutdown.

While the House decides how to respond, Cruz is actively urging House Republicans to resist any call from Speaker John Boehner to pass a spending bill that includes Obamacare funding — even if it results in shutting down the government.

Commentary: Tea Party Overseeing Short-Term Failure, Long-Term Libertarian Success

The Tea Party Would Be Better Off Going Libertarian Rather Than Splitting Republicans

  John A. Tures

22 percent of Americans consider themselves supporters. That's down from 32 percent shortly after the 2010 midterm elections. To gauge how conservative and Republican voters feel, Yahoo invited them to share whether they support tea party-affiliated groups. Here's one voter's perspective.A Gallup poll released Thursday indicates that backing for the tea party has hit near-record lows, as
COMMENTARY | As a college professor in a west Georgia town, I've met many tea party members and gone to their meetings. I've even moderated candidate debates for the organization. In rural areas, the tea party seems as strong as ever. But it's not the same across the country.
If recent Gallup polls are any indication, the tea party represents a failure. Its approval ratings have fallen to 22 percent in a recent survey. That's a sharp decline from April of 2009, when a Rasmussen Poll found that 51 percent "of Americans have a favorable view of the 'tea parties' held nationwide last week, including 32 percent who say their view of the events is very favorable."
It is a similar story among Republicans, according to the Washington Post. More than two-thirds saw themselves as tea party-affiliated immediately after the 2010 election. That tea party support has dwindled to 38 percent among Republicans.
Sure, the tea party was credited with winning the 2010 election. But a closer inspection revealed that many tea party candidates, or those who claimed to be affiliated with the group, blew some very winnable races, leaving the Senate in Democratic hands. Even some of the winners are unlikely to last another term. It was the same case in 2012, where conservative candidates beat moderates in red-state primaries, only to fail in November. This attempt to oust Republicans from within is only bleeding both groups.
Such tea party members should adopt Libertarian Party views, as Sen. Rand Paul has done. Tea party conservatives are learning to abandon their old pro-war, pro-social regulation positions which are ideologically inconsistent with claims of being in favor of small government. Sen. Paul, connected to the tea party, has shown his colleagues how to get things done in Washington, D.C., teaming up with Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy on drug sentences, unlike fellow tea partiers with the reputation of being the party of "no."
And I can tell you, as a college professor, that those young people who currently favor Obama would go libertarian on social issues and antiwar concerns (along with some disillusioned progressives), providing votes and a future for a new "libeTEArian" alliance. It's where the tea party should marshal its resources, rather than shutting down the government.
John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Ga

 

What Could Happen To Media Companies If The Federal Government Shuts Down?

  DAVID LIEBERMAN, Financial Editor

 Anyone who does business with the FCC had better watch out. Most of the agency’s operations will be put on hold Tuesday unless lawmakers can agree on a spending bill for the fiscal year that begins October 1. A deal looks unlikely after the Senate passed a continuing resolution today that stripped out provisions in the House version that seek to defund the Affordable Care Act (a/k/a Obamacare). House Speaker John Boehner says he won’t accept the Senate’s bill. An impasse would force the government to shut non-essential services, and that would hit the media industry hardest at the FCC. The agency said today that 98% of its 1,754 employees would be furloughed. Depending on how long things drag out, the agency might have to postpone the October 15-29 window for those who want to apply for low power FM radio licenses. Work would also stop to approve TV station deals including Gannett’s $1.5B acquisition of Belo and Tribune’s $2.7B purchase of Local TV.
 Aside from the FCC impact, media companies — like everyone else — will have to worry about how a shutdown might affect the economy. “Past shutdowns have disrupted the economy, and this shutdown would as well,” President Obama said today. “It would throw a wrench into the gears of our economy at a time when those gears have gained some traction.” The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 0.4% on Friday while media stocks were mixed with the Dow Jones U.S. Media Index up 0.5%.

Cruz-a-thon, Part II

Cruz-a-thon, Part II

We are still reviewing the 21-hour, overnight talk-a-thon by Sen. Ted Cruz, and we found some more claims about Obamacare that are false:

• Cruz said unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, want to “repeal” the health care law “because it is a nightmare.” Three unions used the word “nightmare” in a letter to Democratic leaders in Congress. But they asked that the law be fixed, not repealed.
• Sen. Rand Paul incorrectly claimed “you will go to jail” if you don’t buy health insurance and refuse to pay the tax penalty. The law specifically states that those who do not pay the penalty “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution.” Shortly after the law passed, the IRS commissioner at the time said the law precludes jail, but violators will likely face offsets against future tax refunds.

The lengthy speech by Cruz — which started Sept. 24, ended Sept. 25 and was occasionally supplemented by some of his Senate colleagues — was dominated mainly by generalities and opinions. But we found plenty of misleading claims in our first review of the record. Upon closer inspection, we’ve found a few more.

Unions Want to ‘Repeal’ Obamacare?

Cruz said unions, including the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, want to “repeal” the health care law “because it is a nightmare.” Three unions used the word “nightmare” in a letter to Democratic leaders in Congress. But they asked that the law be fixed, not repealed. James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters president, has asked Cruz to stop “misusing” the unions’ words.

Cruz, Sept. 24: There is a reason why labor unions want out. There is a reason the Teamsters, who describe that they have been knocking on doors as loyal foot soldiers for the Democratic Party, are saying: This is a nightmare. Repeal Obamacare. Repeal it because it is a nightmare.

Presidents of three labor unions criticized parts of the health care law in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The union leaders said the law had “unintended consequences” that will lead to several “nightmare scenarios.” They complained the law will “destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week” by creating incentives for employers to schedule workers for less than 30 hours a week. And they said the law taxes union workers with nonprofit health insurance plans to help pay for government subsidies those workers will not be eligible to receive.
But the letter didn’t say lawmakers should “repeal” the law. Hoffa, Joseph Hansen of the United Food and Commercial Workers, and D. Taylor of UNITE HERE said they “continue to stand behind real health care reform, but the law as it stands will hurt millions of Americans including the members of our respective unions.” In conclusion, they wrote: “We are looking to you to make sure these changes are made.”
On the same day that Cruz concluded his floor speech, Hoffa issued a statement telling the senator to stop misrepresenting what he and the other union presidents had said.

Hoffa, Sept. 25: Though we may have concerns with specific provisions of the ACA, we share the president’s goal of ensuring that every American has affordable access to top-quality health care. It is on this main point that we disagree wholeheartedly with the efforts of extreme right-wing Republicans to gut the ACA. Any suggestion otherwise is simply political posturing.
I call on Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. David Vitter and others to cease and desist from misusing our constructive comments in their destructive campaign to hobble the president and the nation.

Cruz didn’t listen. He was back to using the words of Hoffa and company in a speech on the Senate floor on Sept. 27.

Buy Insurance/ Pay Penalty/ or Jail?

For his part, Paul incorrectly claimed that people who do not buy health insurance next year and refuse to pay the tax penalty “will go to jail.” The law specifically states that those who do not pay the tax penalty “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution.” In 2010, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said the law precludes jail, and that enforcement will amount to offsets against future tax refunds.
But, according to Paul, jail is exactly what awaits those who refuse to buy insurance or pay the tax penalty.

Paul, Sept. 25: That is what I think the senator from Texas has started, hopefully a rebellion against coercion, rebellion against mandates, a rebellion against everything that says that big government wants to shove something down your throat, they say take it or we will put people in jail. People say we aren’t going to put anybody in jail. The heck they won’t. You will get fined first. If you don’t pay your fines, you will go to jail.

As we have written before, the law specifically precludes jail as a penalty for those who do not pay the fine for failing to buy insurance. It is spelled out in a section called “Waiver of Criminal Penalties.” (See page 131)

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.

The law also spells out that the IRS can’t use liens or levies as enforcement tools.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: The Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall not file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section … or levy on any such property with respect to such failure.

So what exactly can the IRS do if people refuse to pay the tax penalty for non-compliance? Nasty letters, for starters, but ultimately the IRS says it would deduct the penalty amount from a person’s future refunds, if the individual has any.
The IRS commissioner at the time was asked about enforcement options at a National Press Club event on April 5, 2010 (at the 35:50 mark).

Shulman, April 5, 2010: I think there’s a couple important points that I would make, though, about our role in health reform. One is that these are not the kinds of things — check the box whether you’re here or not [whether you have bought insurance] — that we send agents out about. These are things where you get a letter from us. Second is Congress was very careful to make sure that there was nothing too punitive in this bill. … First of all, there’s no criminal sanctions for not paying this, and there’s no ability to levy a bank account or do seizures, some of the other tools.

Later in the same event, Shulman was asked, “If you can’t use sanctions to collect health care fees, what will keep people from getting away with not signing up for insurance coverage?” Shulman said the IRS may dock future tax refunds.

Shulman, April 5, 2010: My belief is while some people may play with the kind of question that was asked, the vast majority of American people have a healthy respect for the law and want to be compliant with their tax obligations and whatever else the law holds. People will get letters from us. We can actually do collection if need be. People can get offsets of their tax returns in future years, so there’s a variety of ways for us to focus on things like fraud, things like abuse, and we’re gonna run a balanced program.

In short, Paul’s warning about health insurance scofflaws going to jail is simply incorrect.

– Robert Farley and D’Angelo Gore

How budget showdowns could squeeze the US economy

Here we go again: What impact will Washington's budget fights have on the US economy?

 By Christopher s. Rugaber, AP Economic Writer | Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Just as the U.S. economy is struggling to expand at a healthy pace, a pair of political standoffs threatens to slow growth and spook investors.
Unless Congress acts before Tuesday to fund federal spending, some of the government would shut down. Separately, the government will run out of money to pay its bills by late October unless Congress raises the federal borrowing cap. A 2011 fight over the borrowing cap rattled consumers, businesses and investors and likely slowed growth.
Here are questions and answers about how the two standoffs, now intertwined, could affect the economy and financial markets:

•  
• View Photo FILE - This Sept. 27, 2013 file photo, President
   Barack Obama gestures while making a statement
   regarding the budget fight in Congress and foreign
   policy challenges in the James Brady Press Briefing
   Room of the White House in Washington. Unless
   Congress acts before Tuesday to fund federal spending,
   some of the government would shut down. Separately,
   the government will run out of money to pay its
   bills by late October unless Congress raises the 
  federal borrowing cap. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

RELATED QUOTES

Symbol	Price	Change
BAC	13.90	-0.18

Q. What exactly will happen within the next days and weeks?
A. The most urgent deadline is for Congress and the White House to agree to keep funding the government after the current budget year ends Monday. Otherwise, some of the government would have to shut down. The House and Senate are considering bills to fund the government past the deadline. But House Republicans want to cut off funding for President Barack Obama's health care law as a condition of passing the spending measure. Senate Democrats and the White House have balked. Unless one side essentially blinks, a partial shutdown of the government will occur.
Q. What would be the effect on the economy if the two sides miss the deadline for passing the spending measure?
A. About one-third of the government will shut down. About 800,000 of about 2.1 million federal employees will be sent home without pay. National parks will close. Passports and visas won't be issued. The Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other agencies will close.
The military and other agencies involving safety and security would continue to function. These include air traffic controllers, border patrol and law enforcement officers. Social Security, Medicare and veterans' benefits payments would continue, too. New applicants might not be approved, though.
A partial shutdown that lasts no more than a few days wouldn't likely nick the economy much. But if the shutdown were to persist for two weeks or more, the economy would likely begin to slow, economists say.
Extended closures of national parks would hurt hotels, restaurants and other tourism-related businesses. Delays in processing visas for overseas visitors could interrupt trade. And the one-third of the federal workforce that lost pay would cut back on spending, thereby slowing growth.
A three-week shutdown would slow the economy's annual growth rate in the October-December quarter by up to 0.9 percentage point, Goldman Sachs estimates. If so, the growth rate next quarter would be a scant 1.6 percent, compared with the 2.5 percent that many economists now forecast.
Q. What about the federal borrowing cap? First of all, what is it?
A. It's a legal limit on how much debt the government can pile up. The government accumulates debt two ways: It borrows money from investors by issuing Treasurys. And it borrows from itself, mostly from Social Security revenue.
Q. What if Congress can't agree to raise the cap in time?
A. It could be disastrous. No longer authorized to borrow, the government would have to pay its bills only out of the revenue it gets from taxes and fees. This would force the government to immediately slash spending by 32 percent, the Bipartisan Policy Center estimates. Most analysts think the government would delay paying each day's bills until it had accumulated enough money to pay them all.
Even worse, the government could miss interest payments on Treasurys, triggering a first-ever default by the U.S. government. U.S. Treasurys are held by banks, governments and individuals worldwide. Ultimately, a prolonged default could lead to a global financial crisis.
At the same time, Social Security and other benefit payments would be delayed. Government contractors might not be paid and would likely lay off workers. Paychecks for military personnel could be delayed.
The government actually reached its borrowing limit back in May. Since then, the Treasury has taken a variety of measures to avoid exceeding it. But the cash generated by those measures will run out sometime between Oct. 22 and Oct. 31, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates.
The date isn't exact because it isn't possible to foresee precisely how much revenue the government will receive and when.
Q. Will the economy escape harm if both deadlines are met?
A. Probably. But even brinksmanship can have consequences. The last major fight over the borrowing cap, in the summer of 2011, wasn't resolved until hours before the deadline. Even though the deadline was met, Standard & Poor's issued the first-ever downgrade of long-term U.S. credit. That, in turn, led to a 635-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average the next day.
In August that year, consumer confidence plummeted to its lowest level since April 2009, when the economy was in recession. Spending at retail stores weakened.
"The fallout nearly caused the fragile economic recovery to stall," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.
The International Monetary Fund estimated last month that U.S. budget disputes, like the 2011 showdown, can slow annual growth by up to 0.5 percentage point in other parts of the world.
The Government Accountability Office later estimated that just the threat of default escalated the government's borrowing costs that year by $1.3 billion, or about 0.5 percent.
The drawn-out fights can cause Americans to delay major purchases, such as for cars or appliances, says Ethan Harris, global economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. And they can erode confidence in the United States as a place to do business. Employers become less willing to expand and hire.
On Friday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and several other business groups urged Congress to fund the government and raise the borrowing limit.
"It is not in the best interest of the employers, employees or the American people to risk a government shutdown that will be economically disruptive and create even more uncertainties for the U.S. economy," the groups said.
Q. All this sounds pretty scary. Why aren't financial markets panicking?
A. Stock prices have fallen in six of the past seven days, partly because of the looming deadlines. But the price declines have been modest. Many investors likely feel they have seen this movie before and know how it ends: with another last-minute deal.
"After several rounds of fiscal brinksmanship ... markets may be somewhat desensitized to the headlines," Alec Phillips, an economist at Goldman Sachs, wrote in a note to clients.
And much has changed since August 2011. The economy has proved more resilient. Growth has remained modest but steady despite tax increases and government spending cuts that kicked in this year. Despite widespread fears, the downgrade of long-term U.S. credit in 2011 didn't cause investors to sell U.S. Treasurys and drive up interest rates and borrowing costs. Rates remained historically low.
The global economy is also in better shape now. Europe emerged from recession in the April-June quarter. Many investors may be poised to scoop up bargains if financial markets fall in response to Washington's budgetary standoffs.

Previously, "those investors who've kept their cool have been rewarded," says David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds.