THINK PROGRESS– Yesterday, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) released a report chronicling the political strategies of private prison companies “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” The report’s authors note that while the total number of people in prison increased less than 16 percent, the number of people held in private federal and state facilities increased by 120 and 33 percent, correspondingly. Government spending on corrections has soared since 1997 by 72 percent, up to $74 billion in 2007. And the private prison industry has raked in tremendous profits. Last year the two largest private prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group — made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

JPI claims the private industry hasn’t merely responded to the nation’s incarceration woes, it has actively sought to create the market conditions (ie. more prisoners) necessary to expand its business.

According to JPI, the private prison industry uses three strategies to influence public policy: lobbying, direct campaign contributions, and networking. The three main companies have contributed $835,514 to federal candidates and over $6 million to state politicians. They have also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on direct lobbying efforts. CCA has spent over $900,000 on federal lobbying and GEO spent anywhere from $120,000 to $199,992 in Florida alone during a short three-month span this year. Meanwhile, “the relationship between government officials and private prison companies has been part of the fabric of the industry from the start,” notes the report. The cofounder of CCA himself used to be the chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Read the full article about Private Prisons Spend Millions On Lobbying To Put More People In Jail.

© 2011 Think Progress

Photo by Flickr user maistora

THE NATION– A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.

According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.

Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”

Read the full article about US Orders News Blackout Over Crippled Nebraska Nuclear Plant.

© 2011 The Nation

Photo by Flickr user x-ray_delta_one

MEDIA ROOTS– For decades, propaganda has been increasingly used by government’s worldwide as a tool for manipulating the masses. Mussolini’s fascism and Hitler’s Nazism made extensive use of propaganda to retain control over their societies. However, it’s easy to overlook how major democracies routinely and habitually use propaganda for the same purposes as the aforementioned systems of governance.

Here in the United States, while the “War On Terror” and its accompanying “War On Truth” continues unabated, it is worth examining the US government’s extensive and shameless use of propaganda to rationalize its criminal acts and to control its citizenry.

Presently, the US government kidnaps people off streets worldwide and sends them to third world dictatorships to be tortured. This practice of kidnapping and exporting torture is ambiguously called “extraordinary rendition,” and all references to torture are downplayed as mere “harsh interrogations” or alternatively, “enhanced interrogations,” as if the person on the receiving end of torture were obtaining some sort of premium service.  

The US press has helped the indoctrination process by regurgitating these propaganda terms without question. The NY Times referred to waterboarding as “enhanced interrogation” as soon as the US government started torturing, while previously having called it “torture” when done by other regimes. Moreover, when President Obama entered office, his administration re-branded the “War on Terror” to a much more vague and open ended term: “overseas contingency operations.” The obsequious press then diligently followed suit, as they always do.

What sort of ludicrous terminology can we look forward to next in the US propaganda effort?

Maybe I can speed things along by suggesting some equally as absurd euphemisms. First, it’s time for some RE-re-branding. “Harsh interrogation technique,” which has become a bit stale, should now be referred to as “coercive physical contact”.  Also, the almost poetic term of “extraordinary rendition,” should be changed to a more explanatory term: “exceptional global removal.”

Even the name for the US government’s Department of Defense is Orwellian. The Department of Defense should really be called The Department of War and Imperialism, but the latter sounds so much more gentle.  After all, who would object to our brave soldiers defending our country against enemies of foreign lands?

Our leaders in Washington don’t lie to us about these wars, they merely present us with an “alternate version of historical events.”  President Obama has taken his assault on reality even further with his latest explanation of our Libyan engagement as–get this–“kinetic military actions.” Rather than describe the reality of the US military raining bombs on Libyan military positions, we are apparently using a “missile-based approach” to Libya instead.

One musn’t forget murder, which is something the US government does well and plenty of. Government propagandists could make the act so much more palatable by referring to murder as a “non-temporary incapacitation.” Just imagine:

“Your Honor, I did not MURDER those innocent men, women and children; in fact, I’m outraged by the accusation. I merely incapacitated them in a non-temporary manner!”

Perhaps the US government’s dictator allies around the world are not dictators after all.  Alternatively, they are “political authority figures who sometimes engage in exceptional global removal, coercive physical contact and non-temporary incapacitation.” It just rolls off the tongue so nicely, doesn’t it?

For their coup de grace, Washington’s propaganda machine could also change, er rather “re-describe,” the word propaganda itself to “augmented-reality statements'” made by politicians for “non-truthful purposes.”

You see, I’ve just accomplished something important here.  I’ve made heinous acts and other political crimes sound pleasant, uplifting almost– and dare I say it, downright presidential.

Written by Tom J. Wright

Photo by Flickr user Shannonyeh.photography

BLOOMBERG– The stars are aligned for Barack Obama’s re-election in November 2012. He won’t join Jimmy Carter to be the second Democrat in 120 years to lose a second term.

Five things are playing in Obama’s favor.

First, the Republicans — driven by their most conservative members in Congress — will face a primary with many candidates who will advance harsh ideological positions. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump and others might as well be on the Democratic National Committee payroll. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s reverse Robin Hood plan to cut more than $6 trillion in spending over a decade will provide the outrage, stoked by a sitting president possessed of verbal discipline.

The field of Republican weaklings is already getting smaller. This week, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour dropped out of the race for the presidency.

Second, the Republican governors’ attacks on unions are turning off the swing voters and Reagan Democrats in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Imagine the voter reaction if millions of workers lose their right to collective bargaining, and the impact that cuts in benefits and wages will have on their lives.

Democratic governors, such as Jerry Brown of California, Pat Quinn of Illinois and Andrew Cuomo of New York, are cutting — but not taking away — workers’ bargaining rights. This is a politically useful contrast for Obama. Reagan Democrats, who have won many elections for the Republicans, are a big plus for Obama in the contested states.

No Challenge

Third, no candidates are emerging to challenge Obama in the primaries. A discussion of Obama’s forgotten campaign promises and record would have public support among Democrats. Even so, the liberal base has nowhere to go to send a message about war, free-trade agreements, raising the minimum wage or union membership.

Nor does a third party or independent candidacy pose a threat, given the winner-take-all, two-party system.

Fourth, Obama has neutered much of the big corporate lobby’s zeal to defeat him. He decided from the beginning not to prosecute executives from Wall Street banking, brokerage and rating firms. Multinational companies are pleased with Obama’s position on trade, on not disturbing the many corporate subsidies, handouts and giveaways, such as the corn-ethanol subsidy.

Read the full article about Why Obama Will Get Second Term in White House: Ralph Nader.

© 2011 Bloomberg

Photo by Flickr user JHF

THE ATLANTIC WIRE– We were joking when we wrote that McDonalds was singlehandedly reviving the U.S. economy by hiring 62,000 employees in a single day in April. At the time, it didn’t feel like the recovery hinged on the creation of low-paying, temporary McJobs. Well, on the heels of today’s pessimistic report saying that just 54,000 jobs were added in May, the fast food chain’s effect on the economy is looking impressive to MarketWatch:

McDonald’s ran a big hiring day on April 19 — after the Labor Department’s April survey for the payrolls report was conducted — in which 62,000 jobs were added. That’s not a net number, of course, and seasonal adjustment will reduce the Hamburglar impact on payrolls. (In simpler terms — restaurants always staff up for the summer; the Labor Department makes allowance for this effect.) Morgan Stanley estimates McDonald’s hiring will boost the overall number by 25,000 to 30,000. The Labor Department won’t detail an exact McDonald’s figure — they won’t identify any company they survey — but there will be data in the report to give a rough estimate.

Read more about McDonald’s Could Account for Half of May’s Job Growth.

© 2011 The Atlantic Wire

Photo by Flickr user thms