Cross-posted at Blue Jersey.

Josh Zeitz is the Democratic nominee in New Jersey's Fourth Congressional district. He is running against Republican Chris Smith, who has backed George Bush's economic and foreign policies and who serves as the chair of the anti-choice caucus in the House.

Chris Smith says that he wants to run on his record in Congress. Unfortunately, there are parts of his record that voters may find less than appealing. We are going to tell voters about some things Chris Smith doesn’t want you to know about his record, like his vote against giving consumers all the information they need to make the right choices when buying food.

More after the jump.

Hunter writes about how McLellan is discouraging investigations into the Bush administration’s doings, and also mentions that he feels challenging government is becoming a "useless exercise":

Nothing like repeatedly being told by the press, the pundits, the government, the political opposition and your supposed political allies that any talk of good government, or rational decision making, or even, fuck it, consequences for illegal acts is just cruel partisanship and/or pie-in-the-sky dreaming.

The thing to remember is that’s exactly the feeling they want to create, and moreover, that everyone in the above list is doing the jobs they’ve been paid to.

Cross-posted at Blue Jersey.

Josh Zeitz is the Democratic nominee in New Jersey's Fourth Congressional district. He is running against Republican Chris Smith, who has backed George Bush's economic and foreign policies and who serves as the chair of the anti-choice caucus in the House.

Chris Smith says that he wants to run on his record in Congress. Unfortunately, there are parts of his record that voters may find less than appealing. We are going to tell voters about some things Chris Smith doesn’t want you to know about his record, like his opposition to ethics reform.

More after the jump.

The AP has a story about a report the Government Accountability Office is expected to release today. It will say that two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. During  the same time, 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes.

The GAO report is based samples of corporate returns obtained from the Internal Revenue Service for the years 1998 through 2005. According to the report, more than 38,000 foreign corporations had no tax liability in 2005 and 1.2 million U.S. companies paid no income tax. The companies had combined revenues of $2.5 trillion. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts.

This is my first diary ever on DailyKos. I was inspired to write about the book/cultural zeitgeist "The Secret" because I realized it has unsettling parallels to the Republican style of control of the collective unconscious. I realize I jump from topic to topic quite a bit, but these are just some musings I'm having this Thursday evening with a quantity of red wine, and I'd love to hear some other Kossack opinions.

It's a rare day when I think the Federal Trade Commission has actually performed a valuable public service and lived up to its motto, "For the Consumer." But last week, the agency charged with protecting us from unscrupulous marketers (among other corporate aggression) released a landmark report on food marketing to children. At the request of Congress, FTC subpoenaed 44 food and beverage companies to find out just how much money is spent targeting youth with food marketing. While the recommendations are worthless (more on that later), the data is priceless.

Many of you no doubt saw earlier diaries (example) quoting Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, trying to immaturely insult Barack Obama as some la-di-da weirdo fancy pants elitist freak:

...Only a celebrity of Barack Obama's magnitude could attract 200,000 fans in Berlin who gathered for the mere opportunity to be in his presence. These are not supporters or even voters, but fans fawning over The One. Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand "MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew -- Black Forest Berry Honest Tea" and worry about the price of arugula...

But look at that quote, and notice how the McCain Republicans are targeting the very entrepreneurs and successful businesses that you'd think they'd want to praise, and instead they mock them as elitist weirdos:

"This is a war on the middle class", an American Axle worker said, "People are losing their homes, while the banks and the rich are getting more profits. They preach they are creating more jobs—but what kind of pay are these jobs?"

The jobs that the striking American Axle worker referred to pay $14 an hour, down from the $28 an hour that the American Axle parts workers had been formerly paid. As peoples' mortgages, car payments, kids' college tuition and health care went down the drain when the strike was lost, American Axle CEO Richard Dauch was rewarded with an 8.5 million dollar bonus for his brave service in the battle against the American middle class.

If the American Axle Board of Directors had been authorized to give out medals, I'm sure he would have received the Medal of Honor, The Victoria Cross, Ordre National de la Légion d'Honneur and many more. American Axle has gone international you see and as another American Axle worker said,"It is part of a global conspiracy to cut wages worldwide that seeks to use workers all over the world as cheap labor."

And Generals, movies and Moons.
(or all hat and no cattle)
I was reading "How to Overthrow the US Government in Three Easy Steps"
by TocqueDeville which seems to have disappeared and this link now goes nowhere. Anyway my comment got way too long and diverged a bit from his theme so I have posted the extended section of my would be comment as this diary

I believe that the understanding that most people have of who has control of what and the means and methods they employ resembles those of a 2 dimensional Hollywood plot with the usual cartoon villains.

These baddies are easily dispatched within 90 to 120 minutes and we all go back to our versions of reality lulled into believing that right thinking people in high places are keeping the worst of the bad stuff in the movie from getting out of control.

In truth no one, whether beggar or king, can comprehend the sum total of the worlds activities enough to be able to acquire enough of the reins of control and approximate the power and god-like omniscience of a silver screen plutocrat...

This Bud isn't for you.

I understand that the board of directors of a corporation is only responsible to it shareholders but it seems to me that there must be more.  Anheuser-Busch was recently sold to InBev, a Germany company for a gazillon dollars ($52 billion).  The stockholders, including Cindy McCain, are doing a victory dance.  Everyone is happy.  InBev gets to decrease competition.  Upper management and stockholders of Anheuser-Busch get to cash in.  Yahoo!  Everybody dance.  

It seems there are some folks that aren’t dancing, again.  American Workers.  The employees of Anheuser-Busch aren’t dancing.  InBev is going to cut costs - their specialty.  Cutting cost is business speak for firing workers and making the workers who stay work harder for less money.  This is a very common scenario.  We, Americans, should be use to this by now.  We have seen companies buyout other companies and then institute "cost" savings.  Wall Street loves this.  The stock usually will skyrocket and folks with money will make more money.  

With the sting of telecom immunity still in my mind, this was the first thing I heard on yesterday's Democracy Now broadcast.  As a progressive, I am very concerned with the continued direction of my party's leaders, including Senator Obama.  After hearing yesterday that Obama was not in support of investigating the Bush administration for illegal activities, I went to the Green Party website and signed a petition to allow it to be on this November's NC ballot.

If a Democratic president were to do what Bush has done, that Democrat and his minions would already be swinging from a rope.

When are the Democrats going to stand for something other than big interest money?

The only time we "regular" people get even a small influence is during elections.  I won't vote for a candidate that doesn't reflect my value that the Constitution and our nations laws mean something. Nobody, including the President, is above the law.

"I can’t even open a can of soda because my hand is so injured."  says former Chicago-area Cintas worker Maria Rodriguez who’s injuries caused her to leave her job."  

Today in Chicago, a coalition of injured laundry workers from around the country is taking on unsafe conditions at the Cintas Corporation.  

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Your Brother is The One Who Thinks Like You

The raging controversy over Barack Obama addressing the issue of irresponsible fathers in the Black community, clearly demonstrates that many of the old-school thinkers in the community are living in a time warp. We now have a Black man who is very likely to be the next President of the United States, yet there are those in the community who want him to keep quiet about the fact that we have soiled toilet paper hanging from our inaugural tux. Instead of saying, "Thanks, let me clean up my act", they're saying, "Why are you picking on me–I saw a White boy with do-do on him too–why didn't you say something to him?"

Hunter says in this post that s/he is looking for a speaker who cam provide some optimism. My suggestion would be Jello Biafra:

"Corporate dictatorship in my opinion is heading for a train wreck and that train wreck will happen in our lifetime...The time has come to start planning now, at least mentally, for what happens if there is a big takeover and the corporations fall."

The wonderful world of our capitalist society, small c for the few that capitalize!

With trouble brewing inside mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Armen Keteyian reports that the nation is learning more and more about the companies and their friends in high places.

Yet another reason why leasing more territory for offshore drilling is a ridiculous idea: 30 million acres of land already leased for oil and gas drilling has gone unused.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

The Preamble of The Constitution of the United States of America is:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice,insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Bush Preamble:

We the corporate powers of the United States, in order to form a more perfect bottom line, establish injustice, insure slave labor and free trade, provide our corporate friends large defense contracts, destroy the middle class, and secure the belssings of liberty to the mighty dollar and our personal prosperity, as we ignore and walk all over this
Constitution of the United States....

In the recent article Corporate Tax Cut Windfall, in the Opinion Journal section of the Wall Street Journal, it was shown how the US absolutely needs to lower its corporate tax rate.  This is, of course, why American needs to vote John McCain as its next president.  The articles gives two arguments for why this is true, but both arguments are inherently flawed.  The first claim is that the American corporate tax rate is too high compared to foreign countries.  The second claim is that we can see this from the results of the 2004 American Job Creation Act (AJCA).

Why both of the claims are wrong and why McCain's strategy to lower corporate taxes is bad below.