Meet Your debate Sponsors; YUCK!

That's right -- from the people who wiretap your phones and are praying for a government bailout comes the TOTALLY fair and nonpartisan vice presidential debate!

Of course, this isn't your League of Women Voters, tired, outdated debate! This baby is organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the group run by Paul Kirk (D), who has lobbied on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, and Frank Fahrenkopf (R), the nation's leading gambling lobbyist.

But since Kirk is a Democrat and Fahrenkopf is a Republican, the Commission HAS to be nonpartisan, right? Well, it is, unless of course you're a candidate representing Independents, or the Green party, or you're poor, or anti-corporation. Then you can't get into the debates to save your life.

A lot of fuss has been raised over the impartiality of tonight's moderator, Gwen Ifill. Yet, no one is examining the larger bias of tonight's debates toward the interest of corporations. Ifill may have reflected certain biases toward the Obama camp in the past, but the ENTIRE debates are being run by an organization funded by corporations like Anheuser-Busch.

Where is the outrage over this bias toward corporations? Where is the outrage that the previously unbiased League of Women Voters was ousted in favor of the Commission on Presidential Debates that effectively hijacked the democratic process in favor of cronyism and corporate cash?

Joe and Sarah have agreed to answer questions with responses no longer than two minutes to prevent embarrassing gaffes. Many similar agreements are hashed out between the parties pre-debate, behind closed doors. No one really knows what the Democratic-Republican debate contract looks like because the contract is not available to the public.

While these arrangements surely benefit the parties, they harm the American people, who aren't likely to receive much information during the short two-minute window. Two minutes is enough time to repeat a stump speech, or deliver a sample audience-tested zinger, but it's hardly adequate time to explain economic or foreign relations platforms.

Since AT&T is one of the sponsors, what is the likelihood that topics like FISA and telecom immunity will be breached? Because Wachovia is other other sponsor, will Gwen ask about the failure of the Free Market and Deregulation? Surely, no moderator in their right mind will bring up the corporate sponsorship of our elections during a debate SPONSORED by the very corporations that are taking over America.

Sounds like some good, old-fashioned aggressive moderating to me!

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Inside The Data Mine

These bastards ought to be sued 'til hell won't have it.

If Bush is successful at making it off limits to sue them, leaving Americans have no legal recourse, it might be worse for the CEOs and other corporate officers of the spying corporations than a law suit.

by Onnesha Roychoudhuri

On April 20, 2007, former Qwest telecommunications CEO Joseph Nacchio was found guilty on 19 of 42 counts of insider trading. “For anyone who has ever made a call in Qwest territory, the term ‘convicted felon Joe Nacchio’ has a nice ring to it,” U.S. prosecutor Troy Eid told the press. The mood was fairly universal. One securities lawyer pitched in: “The government has another notch in their belt. They’ve had a tremendous winning streak in these corporate crime cases.”

But it would have been more accurate to qualify the statement by saying that the government has had a tremendous winning streak in the corporate crime cases it chooses to pursue. We now know that the Securities and Exchange Commission has chosen not to pursue charges of insider trading in the case of a Wall Street executive named John J. Mack because of his “political clout.” And while former U.S. Attorney William Leone led the case against Qwest, he was one of the unfortunate attorneys on the Department of Justice’s “purge list,” replaced by none other than Bush-nominated Troy Eid, a former co-worker of Jack Abramoff at the firm Greenberg Traurig.

In the wake of the Enron scandal, Nacchio’s verdict could be seen as the continuing triumph of an efficient and unbiased judicial system—one working to protect the people’s interests against unbridled business tycoons. But the insidious environment of purges and selective prosecution based on cronyism necessitates a more critical view. To celebrate Nacchio’s verdict in such a simplistic light would miss a far more interesting story about what telecommunications success and failure signify in a post-September 11th world.

Delving into Joseph Nacchio and Qwest’s story reveals a company with close ties to the White House—ties that appear to have been temporarily severed when, according to Nacchio and his legal team at Qwest, the company refused to participate in the government’s data-mining program—making it the only big telecommunications company that didn’t take part. Nacchio claims that secret government contracts he was expecting were never delivered after his refusal to participate in the National Security Agency program, resulting in skewed profit claims.

While currently under new leadership, wooing back government contracts, and finally turning a profit, Qwest will have to struggle to maintain a competitive edge in an industry of telecommunications giants. These giants have received favorable treatment from the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. Parallel to this success have come news reports that these ever-merging entities—notably AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon—are participating in domestic data-mining programs.

In an amoebic dance, SBC, AT&T, Bell South, Cingular, MCI and Verizon have all coupled and re-coupled, forming a terrain redolent of the days of Ma Bell. Comedian Stephen Colbert, with deadpan delivery, traced the acrobatics in his January 2007 TV primer explaining why Cingular changed its name to AT&T:

As you no doubt remember, Cingular was co-owned by BellSouth and SBC, which had been Southwestern Bell and Ameritech, which before that had been Illinois Bell, Wisconsin Bell, Michigan Bell, Ohio Bell, and Indiana Bell. ... A couple of years ago Cingular bought AT&T Wireless and renamed it Cingular, but then SBC bought AT&T and changed its own name to AT&T. Then that new AT&T bought BellSouth, changing its name to AT&T, making it only logical to change Cingular into AT&T.

These mergers are even more conspicuous due to the number that have been approved in just the past three years. 2005 alone saw enough mergers to leave Americans with only two major telecommunications companies: Verizon and AT&T. Colbert cites the most recent and highly contested AT&T/BellSouth merger that combined the country’s two largest telecommunications companies. Despite the massive scope of the merger, when the Department of Justice conducted its regulatory analysis it concluded that there were no major antitrust issues.

In contrast to companies such as AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon, Qwest has encountered significant roadblocks in its expansion efforts, causing telecommunications experts to ask pointed questions about differing treatment from the Department of Justice, the FCC and the SEC. Specifically: Is there government retribution? The question gains clout in light of the recent U.S. attorney scandal and the selective prosecution that the Bush administration has been practicing.

The ties between the telecommunications industry and the White House have grown even deeper since the Sept. 11 attacks, making it impossible to understand data mining or the telecommunications industry without exploring this relationship.

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(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.