When it comes to the vast, corrupting influence of money in politics, historian Thomas Frank has sounded the alarm loudly and often. In “It’s a Rich Man’s World,” one of his recent essays for Harper’s Magazine, Frank writes, “Over the course of the past few decades, the power of concentrated money has subverted professions, destroyed small investors, wrecked the regulatory state, corrupted legislators en masse, and repeatedly put the economy through the wringer. Now it has come for our democracy itself.”

Bill talks with Frank about the power of concentrated money to subvert democracy.

Frank’s book, What’s the Matter with Kansas? was a best seller and his latest, Pity the Billionaire, asks how Tea Partiers and their allies can make heroes of the rich and mighty who ran us into a ditch.

BILL MOYERS: And there's more. One of Senator Johnson's former staffers is now one of JPMorgan's chief lobbyists. And the chairman's present top assistant used to be a lobbyist for a law firm that worked for JPMorgan. I mean, this wasn't a hearing. This was a reunion of the Gambino family.

THOMAS FRANK: Well, look, this is what we call in Washington the revolving door, okay. And this, if your viewers haven't heard of this they need to learn about it right away because this is how Washington D.C. works is that people go back and forth from, typically from Capitol Hill staffs to working for lobby firms or directly for these, you know, the clients of the lobby firms that have to do with the interests that they used to work on when they were on Capitol Hill.

And then they go back and lobby to their former boss, right, and convince him or her to vote one way or the other. And that's how you get ahead in lobbying is you start out working for someone on Capitol Hill, a powerful senator on a given committee. And then you go and essentially sell that expertise, sell that, you know, the fact that your friends with that guy to, you know, to a lobbying firm or to a bank or to whoever. That's totally how it works.

BILL MOYERS: It's an interlocking cartel and it's serious business. How can we claim to have a representative government when they really are representing the people who bought the campaigns and not the voters who voted for them? It's a serious question.

THOMAS FRANK: Well, there are people who, I'm going to get cynical on you here, Bill. There are people who believe that the more money we have in politics the closer we become to a democracy. They think it's better for there to be more money in politics.

Why do they think that? Because they think that the market is a democracy, that markets are democracy and that government is, when government interferes in the economy it's illegitimate by definition. And so the more money we get in there the more it allows entities like JPMorgan to defend themselves against the sort of, you know, the heavy-handed meddling of some, you know, Washington bureaucrat.

Full transcript available here.

Good morning, today is Monday, June 18th, 2012. What's on your mind today?

Via Occupy Homes Minnesota:

Despite acknowledging that the Cruzes foreclosure was due to a bank error and repeated claims that they are working “behind the scenes” to get the Cruz family back in their home, PNC Bank has refused to accept the documents necessary for the loan to be modified. So Alejandra and David Cruz, along with several supporters, are going to make a hand-delivery to PNC’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA!

TUESDAY: Minneapolis

Send-off: We will be having a send-off rally in front of the Cruz home, 4044 Cedar Ave S, at 5PM this Tuesday to support the Cruzes battle for justice. Bring signs, messages of support, and your wonderful self!

Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/310205149071280/

WEDNESDAY: Chicago

Action on Freddie Mac: the Cruz family will make a stop at Freddie Mac’s regional headquarters in Chicago on Wednesday to demand they stop tearing up our neighborhoods with their eviction profiteering.

THURSDAY: EVERYWHERE!

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION: Across the country, while Alejandra and David arrive at PNC headquarters, people will be demanding that PNC live up to their word and work with the Cruz family!

Actions being planned in:

Atlanta
Chicago
Cincinnati
Milwaukee
Minneapolis
New York
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
St. Louis
Washington, DC

And many more to come! Please, organize an event in your city! Email occupyHomesMN@gmail.com and let us know if you want to help!

Stop and Frisk from Nina Berman on Vimeo.

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer based in New York City with a particular interest in the American political and social landscape. She is the author of two monographs, "Purple Hearts - Back from Iraq" and "Homeland", both examining war, militarism and its effect on the collective American psyche. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries world wide including the Whitney Museum 2010 Biennial. Nina is a member of the NOOR photo collective. Her work on the Occupy Movement was featured in 2011 on the New York Times lens blog.

Via:

At a rate of every minute every day, the New York Police Department stops a person, questions them, asks for identification, and frisks them, sometimes at gunpoint, sometimes slapped against a wall. The number one reason for the stop, according to NYPD statistics, is that the person made a “furtive” look. The number two reason is “other.” Most of the time that person is black or Latino and most of the time they are living in the city’s poorest communities.

A very small percentage of these “stop and frisks” result in arrest or the seizure of any kind of contraband. Since 2002, the number of stop and frisks has increased from 149, 000 to approaching 700,000 in 2011. The NYPD claims that “stop and frisk” is an effective policing strategy but its own statistics paint a different picture.

A union election at American Airlines has been blocked by a federal judge in Texas based on the idea that holding the election would damage the company's reputation. The logic of the ruling is ridiculous, at best, and it seems that this direct violation of the rights of the workers at the airline is unlikely to stand additional judicial scrutiny.

Buying a specious argument by American Airlines, a judge in the U.S. District Court in Texas on June 13 granted American Airlines a temporary restraining order that will delay our representation election.

American Airlines management continues to do everything they can to keep passenger service, reservations, and cargo employees from having a voice at this critical time – even as it negotiates with unionized employees under mediation from bankruptcy court judges.

Attorneys for American Airlines convinced the Texas judge that the company would be “irreparably injured by damage to its reputation among its employees and loss of market place good will” if the election proceeded, even though those arguments seem hardly plausible on their face.

It’s not the scheduled election that has damaged American Airlines’ reputation among their employees. It is the total disrespect they have shown you by the cuts they have imposed, ignoring your input, denying you your right to vote.

At issue is the fact that American Airlines is fighting very hard to prevent its workers from unionizing:

But there's a pretty significant private sector unionization effort ongoing right now at American Airlines where the Communications Workers of America have been trying to organize the passenger service workers. Airlines and railroads operate under a somewhat separate set of labor laws from most private employers, and until recently those laws had said that if 35 percent of workers sign a union card that will trigger an up-or-down vote on the workers formally forming a collective bargaining unit. As it became clear that the CWA was likely to reach the 35 percent threshold, American started furiously lobbying to get the law changed and Republicans insisted on including a provision raising the threshold to 50 percent in last year's FAA funding bill. But the CWA got its 35 percent before the law changed.

So now we have a dispute. The CWA's position is that since the legislation didn't specifically change the rules retroactively, that nothing has changed for their situation. American, naturally, takes the opposite view and says they're now under no obligation to hold the vote.

American is also directly defying the National Mediation Board in preventing the election.

CWA responded to the judge's ruling via press release:

The decision by a U.S. District Court Judge granting a temporary restraining order to block the vote by nearly 10,000 passenger service agents means workers, not American Airlines, will suffer irreparable harm – the standard for such an order.
Clearly the airline is afraid of workers having their democratic vote and has been fighting hard to stop it.

Agents who are being forced to make life-changing decisions right now about their jobs will be harmed by this vote not going forward, not American Airlines that filed for bankruptcy with $4 billion in the bank, in large part to throw out its collective bargaining agreements with union workers and gut the jobs, benefits and working conditions for the passenger service group.

Agents who want a union have been battling a vicious attack campaign for 15 years at American Airlines. This election, after repeated delays by American Airlines, finally was set by the National Mediation Board. But American Airlines doesn’t want to follow the law, it’s trying to rewrite the law.

There is no retroactivity for legislation, and clearly none for the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization. That’s been made clear to the airline by Senate leaders, who wrote to CEO Thomas Horton on May 15. “Beyond the clearly established precedent that limits the retroactivity of changes in the law, in this case, Congress included specific language in the amendments addressing this issue,” they said.

The Senate went even further, they wrote, with floor discussion by the two leading chairmen, Senators Rockefeller and Harkin, confirming that “the showing of interest requirement set forth in this legislation should only apply prospectively.”

The Communications Workers of America will continue to stand with the thousands of agents at American Airlines who want their union voice. We will continue to spotlight how this airline is ignoring Congress and trying to impose its own interpretation of congressional intent. We will make every legal challenge and argument necessary to make sure that agents get their right to vote.

The facts are on our side. American Airlines picked the wrong fight.

Learn more about the story at American Airlines Agent.

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A elementary school principal at PS 195 in Queens, New York City has barred a fifth-grade student from delivering a speech about marriage equality to the rest of the school even though he won a class competition.

Same sex marriage is legal in New York, but principal Beryl Bailey told Kameron Slade's mother that the topic was not appropriate for a school speech. The boy was given the choice of writing another speech or sitting out of the contest.

"For him to be denied the right to voice his opinion really upsets me," the mother told NY1.

Kameron Slade explained why he was disappointed when he got the news.

"I was really looking forward to it," Kameron remarked. "I thought that this was a real good winning speech for tomorrow."

"She said that people have different opinions on it and that some parents may not want their children to learn about this type of topic."

In his speech, the student says he supports marriage equality and calls for tolerance from others.

"Like President Obama, I believe that all people should have the right to marry whoever they want," Kameron insists, speaking of his mother's gay friends. "They seem happy and best of all, they seem to love each other."

The school's website indicated that "Democracy Speeches" were being delivered by grades 1-5 on Friday.

For his part, the Kameron said he was preparing a new speech about animal cruelty.

"Public schools, like all institutions of learning, are supposed to teach facts and relevant topics," The New Civil Rights Movement's David Badash observed. "Schools need to recognize that for students to learn about equality, they have to start teaching it."

A documentary by Caroline Gray: Occupy Chicago is a film on the Occupy movement that reveals how important the movement truly is and what it means to fight against those who continue to destroy democracy in the United States. "We are collectively figuring out democracy and figuring out what it means to fight" said an Occupy Chicago organizer. Those of you who have misconceptions about the Occupy Movement will hopefully have a change of mind after viewing this documentary. "This is a movement of the people", another occupier in Chicago added, proving that this movement is reinforcing democratic ways, while resisting current conditions in our government that defy democracy and our rights in the United States. Stand up. Fight Back. Occupy.

I've been looking through videos this morning all mocking Mitt Romney's attempts to connect with regular Americans, but this one from David Letterman made me laugh out loud! This one comes by way of Chris Matthews earlier this week on Hardball. Enjoy!

B Media Collective, a community-based video art collective, presents "Occupation Nation," an hourlong montage of remixed shorts that explore the philosophical roots of Occupy Movement. As zombie banksters threaten to consume all that's left of our spectacular society, B Media's fifth video variety show showcases the mycelia network of Occupy Wall Street. Deeply rooted in historical and international precedents that have the potential to turn toxic assets and discarded derivatives into new communities, this shared vision and collective decision-making empowers us all.

The film calls on us to remember the Oaxacan teacher strikes and the Bonus Army, and it explores this new technological global revolution by riffing on the work of video ninjas everywhere. Darryl Mitchell and David Graeber's dialectics break down the bricks of Wall Street, PeeWee Herman interviews Emma Goldman about the black bloc, Mr. Bean gets peppersprayed, and Obama is mic-checked in his Disney World as the police protect the smart ALEC's running the show.

This amazing video touches on most all of the ills of the world: pollution, abuse of the environment, nuclear energy, fracking, water pollution, poverty, starvation, hunger, income disparity, politics, lack of healthcare, indifference and war. Combined with the moving music, it's possibly the most moving video you'll see at just over 3 minutes in length. Buenísimo!