Filibusted!
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 15 January 2013
Let‘s send a message to the Democrats in the Senate. Let‘s tell ‘em this: A lot of us out here in the real America (aka the electorate) have totally given up on the Republicans, but that doesn't mean you can count on getting our votes. You think we have nowhere else to go, but you're wrong.

 

At the end of 2012 we were hearing a lot of noises about filibuster reform, remember?  Noise from liberal pundits, noise in the liberal press, noise from our newly elected insurgent liberal senators.  What happened to all the noise?  The war cry is sounding more like a whimper lately.

 

Is the silence a signal?  Is the issue dead – again?  If so, expect another season of partisan gridlock, political dysfunction, and rising public discontent.

 

According to the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892), changes to Senate rules can be made by a simple majority, but only on the first day of each session.  Like most everything that happens in Washington, D.C., what you see (or think you see) is not necessarily what you get.   To wit:  Harry Reid, the sad-sack Senate majority leader is using a parliamentary tactic that shelves rule changes indefinitely but suspends a sword of Damocles over the Republicans.  Under Reid's rule, each new day is still being considered as the “first day” of the new Congress so the rules can be changed at any time by a simple majority vote. Leave it to the highest rule-making body in America to f*@% with the rules!    

 

Here's writer, George Packer ("Senatus Decadens", The New Yorker, 1/4/13) on the very day when what might have been – namely, the long-overdue death and joyful burial of the filibuster – wasn't:  "Several proposals are circulating. The most intriguing is the one introduced by Senator Jeff ...

The Case Against Kerry
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 8 January 2013
Kerry has repeatedly demonstrated an incredible level of hubris and arrogance regarding American military power.

 

President Obama's selection of John Kerry as the next secretary of state sends the wrong signal to America's allies and adversaries alike. Though one of the more progressive members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier in his career, Kerry later became a prominent supporter of various neoconservative initiatives, including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, undermining the authority of the United Nations, and supporting Israeli militarism and expansionism.

Kerry was an outspoken supporter of the Bush Doctrine, which declares that the United States has the right to unilaterally invade foreign countries, topple their governments, and occupy them indefinitely if they are deemed to pose even a hypothetical threat against the United States. In 2002, he voted against an unsuccessful resolution authorizing the president to use force against Iraq only if the United Nations Security Council permitted such force under the UN Charter and instead voted for an alternative Republican resolution, which authorized President Bush to invade that oil-rich country unilaterally in violation of the UN Charter.

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Everything You Need to Know About the Emerging ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Tax Compromise
Elizabeth
Published: Monday 31 December 2012
The reported McConnell-Biden compromise does not deal with the spending cuts side of the fiscal cliff, though CNN’s Dana Bash reported that the sequester may simply be delayed for two months.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Vice President Joe Biden have reportedly reached an agreement that would solve the tax side of the debate over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the package of tax increases and spending cuts that will begin automatically at midnight tonight.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and the Democratic caucus have not yet indicated support for the compromise, which extends most of the Bush tax cuts and other tax provisions, and while the Senate may vote tonight, no vote is expected in the House before tonight’s deadline. Here is a breakdown of the different provisions of the reported compromise:

Bush tax cuts: The deal would extend all of the Bush tax cuts for incomes below $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for families, while reinstating the Clinton-era 39.6 percent tax rate for income above those thresholds. It will also push the capital gains rate ...

Lousy Deal on the Edge of the Cliff
Elizabeth
Published: Monday 31 December 2012
If we go over it, he and the Democrats in the next Congress that starts later this week can quickly offer legislation that grants a middle-class tax cut and restores most military spending.

The deal emerging from the Senate is a lousy one. Let me count the ways:

1. Republicans haven’t conceded anything on the debt ceiling, so over the next two months – as the Treasury runs out of tricks to avoid a default – Republicans are likely to do exactly what they did before, which is to hold their votes on raising the ceiling hostage to major cuts in programs for the poor and in Medicare and Social Security.

2. The deal makes tax cuts for the rich permanent (extending the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $400,000 if filing singly and $450,000 if jointly) while extending refundable tax credits for the poor (child tax credit, enlarged EITC, and tuition tax credit) for only five years. There’s absolutely no justification for this asymmetry.

3. It doesn’t get nearly enough revenue from the wealthiest 2 percent — only $600 billion over the next decade, which is half of what the President called for, and a small fraction of the White House’s goal of more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction. That means more of the burden of tax hikes and spending cuts in future years will fall on the middle class and the poor.

4. It continues to exempt the first $5 million of inherited wealth from the estate tax (the exemption used to be $1 million). This is a huge gift to the heirs of the wealthy, perpetuating family dynasties of the idle rich.

Yes, the deal finally gets Republicans to accept a tax increase on the wealthy, but this is an inside-the-Beltway symbolic victory. If anyone believes this will make the GOP more amenable to future tax increases, they don’t know how rabidly extremist the GOP has become.

The deal also extends unemployment insurance for more than 2 million long-term unemployed. That’s important.

But I can’t help believe the President could have done better than this. After all, public opinion is overwhelmingly on his side. Republicans would have been ...

NDAA Under Attack
Taylor
Published: Sunday 30 December 2012
Without defining terms such as “support” of al-Qaeda or “associated forces,” the law could be used to indefinitely imprison journalist and activists who have had contact with people that the U.S. deems a “terrorist” or a “part of a terrorist organization.”

With backing from civil liberties groups and journalists alike, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in the Senate about a year ago, has come under attack in federal courts. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and NationofChange contributor, Chris Hedges, and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging the terms of the law stating it “anti-constitutional” and against basic human rights.

 

The NDAA, which was passed in the wake of 9/11, allows the government to arrest and indefinitely detain any person, including U.S. citizens, considered to be a “terrorist” or a “threat” without trial or legal representation eliminating a person’s right of due process. The law also states in Section 1021(b)(2) that “affirmation of authority of the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force.” It goes on to define a “covered person” as “a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”

 

Without defining terms such as “support” of al-Qaeda or “associated forces,” the law could be used to indefinitely imprison journalist and activists who have had contact with people that the U.S. deems a “terrorist” or a “part of a terrorist organization.” Hedges, who initially filed the lawsuit, and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg are concerned with the terms of the provision.

 

“The ...

The Final Battle
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 25 December 2012
If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place.

 

Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This egregious section, which permits the government to use the military to detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers, could have been easily fixed by Congress. The Senate and House had the opportunity this month to include in the 2013 version of the NDAA an unequivocal statement that all U.S. citizens would be exempt from 1021(b)(2), leaving the section to apply only to foreigners. But restoring due process for citizens was something the Republicans and the Democrats, along with the White House, refused to do. The fate of some of our most basic and important rights—ones enshrined in the Bill of Rights as well as the Fourth and Fifth amendments of the Constitution—will be decided in the next few months in the courts. If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place. 

Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, pushed through the Senate an amendment to the 2013 version of the NDAA. The amendment, although deeply flawed, at least made a symbolic attempt to restore the right to due process and trial by jury. A House-Senate conference committee led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., however, removed the amendment from the bill last week.

“I was saddened and disappointed that we could not take a step forward to ensure at the very least American citizens and legal residents could not be held in detention ...

Defense Bill Includes Broadened Version of Todd Akin’s Anti-Gay Provision
Taylor
Published: Thursday 20 December 2012
Senator Harry Reid and Guns: Time to Take a Stand
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 20 December 2012
“With 20 children dead, President Obama insisting that preventing gun violence will be a second-term policy priority, and Harry Reid not facing re-election until 2016, perhaps the Senator will now be willing to stand up to the NRA?”

When CODEPINK, MoveOn and representatives of other organizations marched into Senator Harry Reid’s DC office on Tuesday, December 18, they wanted a simple answer to a simple question: Does the Senator support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips, such as the legislation proposed by Senator Dianne Feinstein and supported by President Obama and Vice President Biden? It would seem like a no-brainer for the Senate Majority Leader to fall in line with the leadership of his party in backing a modest bill that would ban the sale of weapons that are only good for mass murder. Unfortunately, Reid’s senior policy advisor Kasey Gillette was unable to give an answer.


While there is a lot of talk in Democratic circles about Republicans standing in the way of sensible gun laws, a hidden secret is that the Democratic Senator leader from Nevada, who is key to getting gun control legislation passed in this country, has been as pro-gun as most Republicans.


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The Botox Solution
Taylor
Published: Thursday 13 December 2012
Why the Formerly Grand Old Party Needs to Change and Won’t

 

Mitt Romney had hardly conceded before Republicans started fighting over where to head next.  Some Republicans -- and many Democrats -- now claim that the writing is on the wall: demography is destiny, which means the GOP is going the way of the Whigs and the Dodo.  Across the country, they see an aging white majority shrinking as the U.S. heads for the future as a majority-minority country and the Grand Old Party becomes the Gray Old Party.  Others say: not so fast.

In the month since 51% of the electorate chose to keep Barack Obama in the White House, I’ve spent my time listening to GOP pundits, operators, and voters.  While the Party busily analyzes the results, its leaders and factions are already out front, pushing their own long-held opinions and calling for calm in the face of onrushing problems.

Do any of their proposals exhibit a willingness to make the kind of changes the GOP will need to attract members of the growing groups that the GOP has spent years antagonizing like Hispanics, Asian Americans, unmarried women, secular whites, and others?  In a word: no.

Instead, from my informal survey, it looks to this observer (and former Republican) as if the party is betting all its money on cosmetic change.  Think of it as the Botox ...

Super PAC Shell Games Highlight Need for New Disclosure Rules
Taylor
Published: Thursday 13 December 2012
Last minute Super PAC spending keeps voters in the dark

 

Over a month has passed since the polls closed on Election Day 2012. Since then, the final totals have been tallied, the results certified and new members of Congress have even made their first trip to Washington D.C. to begin freshman orientation.

Yet voters had to wait until Dec. 6 to see the donors behind a slew of campaign ads carefully crafted by several major SuperPACs. In order to exploit a loophole in the law, these groups waited until the last minute to bombard the airwaves with commercials and stuff mailboxes with flyers, according to the New York Times.

“A last-minute burst of below-the-radar cash has begun flooding into the national elections…,” reported the Times on Nov. 3. “But unlike the well-known outside groups that have dominated the airwaves until now, many of the new spenders did not formally exist a few weeks ago. They have generic-sounding names, rarely have Web sites and are exploiting a loophole that will keep their donors anonymous until long after the last votes are counted.”

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As Washington Fiddles over the Fiscal Cliff, the Real Battle Over Inequality is Happening in the Heartland
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 11 December 2012
As Washington fiddles over the fiscal cliff, a larger battle over inequality is being waged all over America.

 

Washington has a way of focusing the nation’s attention on tactical games over partisan maneuvers that are symptoms of a few really big problems. But we almost never get to debate or even discuss the big problems because the tactical games overwhelm everything else.

The debate over the fiscal cliff, for example, is really about tactical maneuvers preceding a negotiation about how best to reduce the federal budget deficit. This, in turn, is a fragment of a bigger debate over whether we should be embracing austerity economics and reducing the budget deficit in the next few years or, alternatively, using public spending and investing to grow the economy and increase the number of jobs.

Even this larger debate is just one part of what should be the central debate of our time — why median wages continue to drop and poverty to increase at the same time income and wealth are becoming ever more concentrated at the top, and what should be done to counter the trend.

With a shrinking share of total income and wealth, the middle class and poor simply don’t have the purchasing power to get the economy back on solid footing. (The wealthy don’t spend enough of their income or assets to make up for this shortfall, and they invest their savings wherever around the world they can get the highest return).

As a result, consumer spending — fully 70 percent of economic activity — isn’t up to the task of keeping the economy going. This puts greater pressure on government to be purchaser of last resort.

The dilemma isn’t just economic. It’s also political. As money concentrates at the top, so does power. That concentrated power generates even more entrenched wealth at the top, and less for the middle class and the poor.

A case in point is what’s now happening in Michigan. In the state where the American labor movement was born – and where, because of labor unions, the ...

Globophobia: America Against the World
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 11 December 2012
One can easily get the impression that the US Senate lets no good deed (or idea) go unpunished.

 

December 4, 2012.  Mark this date on your calendar.  The somber day the U.S. Senate voted down the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty designed to extend the same rights disabled Americans already have to the rest of the world.  The treaty fell five votes short of the two-thirds majority required for ratification because the extremists who now control the House Republican caucus hate the United Nations.

The headline in the Yakima Herald said it all: “Senate vote a profile in cowardice”.   If that's how it looks to folks in Yakima, imagine how it looks to people in Yakutsk (that's right, Putin's Russia ratified the treaty in September).  Or to the 114 nations that have ratified this treaty, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the European Union.

Who cares how it looks to the outside world?  That's frequently the first question the anti-UN  globophobics ask of "bleeding-heart liberals" dumb enough to believe it matters what the rest of the world think of us.  The fact that the UN is made in America (rare these days), that it's located in New York City (within spitting distance of Wall Street), and that the US has a veto in the Security Council (one of 5 Permanent Members thusly privileged) is irrelevant.

With an original roster of 51 member-states, the UN today is a place where ambassadors representing 192 nations of the world meet and talk.  Irrelevant.

It's specialized agencies do all kinds of good in the world in quiet ways (think ...

GOP Congressman Won’t Extend Middle Class Tax Cuts To Avoid Giving ‘Control’ To Democrats
Taylor
Published: Sunday 9 December 2012
Republican leadership continues to insist on extending tax cuts for all Americans, while President Obama said he would only sign legislation that would maintain reductions for individuals who earn $200,000 or less and couples who make $250,000 or less.

Earlier this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sought to overcome the GOP’s resistance to voting on a Senate-passed measure that would extend Bush-era tax cuts to middle class Americans by introducing a discharge petition that, if signed by 218 members, could force the House to take-up the measure. Some Republicans, weary of the overwhelming public support for raising rates on the richest two percent of Americans, have urged the GOP leadership to allow the vote, but have yet to formally sign Pelosi’s discharge. Republican leadership continues to insist on extending tax cuts for all Americans, while President Obama said he would only sign legislation that would maintain reductions for individuals who earn $200,000 or less and couples who make $250,000 or less.

But in a recent photo-op with constituents, Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) explained why Republicans are refusing to give in. The Tennessee Republican admitted that he won’t vote to extend tax cuts to 98 percent of Americans because doing so would cede control to Democrats:

CONSTITUENT 1: Are you going to sign the discharge petition?

DUNCAN: Ummm…Oh no, I’m not. No Ma’am. I’m ...

America’s Hope Against Hope
Taylor
Published: Sunday 9 December 2012
The Republicans should not have been caught off-guard by Americans’ interest in issues like disenfranchisement and gender equality

 

After a hard-fought election campaign, costing well in excess of $2 billion, it seems to many observers that not much has changed in American politics: Barack Obama is still President, the Republicans still control the House of Representatives, and the Democrats still have a majority in the Senate. With America facing a “fiscal cliff” – automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the start of 2013 that will most likely drive the economy into recession unless bipartisan agreement on an alternative fiscal path is reached – could there be anything worse than continued political gridlock?
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In fact, the election had several salutary effects – beyond showing that unbridled corporate spending could not buy an election, and that demographic changes in the United States may doom Republican extremism. The Republicans’ explicit campaign of disenfranchisement in some states – like Pennsylvania, where they tried to make it more difficult for African-Americans and Latinos to register to vote – backfired: those whose rights were threatened were motivated to turn out and exercise them. In Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and tireless warrior for reforms to protect ordinary citizens from banks’ abusive practices, won a seat in the Senate.

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After Spending $9 Million to Defeat Her, Wall Street Watches Sen-Elect Warren Join Banking Committee
Ashley Curtin
Published: Wednesday 5 December 2012
Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren, a dogged consumer advocate whose critique of Wall Street excess was a centerpiece of her campaign, will join the Senate Banking Committee.

The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reported Tuesday that Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren, a dogged consumer advocate whose critique of Wall Street excess was a centerpiece of her campaign, will join the Senate Banking Committee. Wall Street spent boatloads of money to prevent Warren’s election, but now, as the Center for Responsive Politics noted, she will have oversight of the rules and regulations under which banks operate: The securities and investments industry contributed just $245,000 to Warren and spent $3 million supporting her opponent Scott Brown, according to OpenSecrets data from mid-October. The industry was Brown’s top supporter. The Financial/Insurance/Real Estate sector followed suit and contributed $6 million to Brown and a puny half-a-million to Warren. Businesses also favored Brown heavily, and his top contributors came straight from Wall Street. And though there wasn’t much outside spending in the race because of a pledge made by the two candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose members include business and financial interests, spent $400,000 on the race in support of Brown and against Warren. Several Senate candidates supported by Wall Street wound up losing. As a member of the Banking Committee, Warren will have the opportunity to stand against both the watering down of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and new misguided efforts to reduce limits on Wall Street.

House and Senate Sit on Tax Bills
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 1 December 2012
Senator Mistakenly Says Marriage Quickly Legalizes Young Immigrants
Taylor
Published: Thursday 29 November 2012
New GOP idea doesn’t let youth earn green cards, but marriage to Americans can result in exile.

 

While unveiling an alternative to the DREAM ACT — but with no route to citizenship — Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona suggested that illegal immigrants brought here as children can easily get on a path to citizenship if they marry U.S. citizens. 

However, Kyl’s assumption, expressed at a Capitol press conference Tuesday, is wrong in practical terms.  A recent Center for Public Integrity and KQED public radio report detailed how penalties adopted by Congress in 1996 are ousting undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens for at least a decade, sometimes longer, when they try to obtain legal status based on marriages. 

Thousands of undocumented spouses have already found out the hard way that they may actually be forbidden from living in the United States as the result of their American partners’ efforts to sponsor them for legal permanent residency.

To finish the residency visa process, ...

Warrantless Snooping, Will Congress Protect Your Privacy and Inbox?
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 28 November 2012
Democrats Mute Facing Down the War Against Government
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 28 November 2012
“What if they gave a war – and only one army showed up?”

Here’s my pro-government, Thanksgiving hurrah: federalism dodged another Florida 2000 election fiasco, a looming prospect were Gallup’s blunderbuss polls taken seriously. That calamity would have crowned an especially grinding, deception-laden campaign. Yet out of this alleged neck-and-neck tangle radiated a decisive victory and two noteworthy blessings: no violent insurrections erupted (just secession babble) and we affirmed majority rule, with a 50%+ winner. Voters old and young, light and dark, bright and dull, generated by the end of election eve nothing less than what would be a Christmas miracle for our Senate: a clear-cut decision about something important. 

  

Certainly, racist hostility of an extremist type bared its teeth across the multiple-state voter suppression attacks on democracy. Add in torrential reactionary payola and over-the-top House gerrymandering to complete a trifecta of abuse. Gerrymandering alone concocted the current 33-vote GOP House majority, though Democratic winners polled many more votes. What blatant suppression failed to do – neuter Obama Democrats – was nonetheless achieved by state-entrenched, district discrimination, awarding excess power to GOP voters based solely on residence. Echoing The Animal Farm, “all voters are equal, but some are more equal than others.” 

  

Despite the definitive election message – Feh! to Romney’s nightmarish vision for America – we search in vain to unearth any lessening of the core propaganda engine driving obstructionism – the war against government. Note Thomas Frank in a Salon interview: “To talk about government failure should not lead automatically to this Republican dogma that government fails because it ...

New Congress: Less of Moderates Make Deals Harder
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 25 November 2012
“Present and Voting” Helps the Filibuster?
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 21 November 2012
19 Percent of Congress is Women, Why Not More?
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 20 November 2012
The Trojan Horse in the Debt Debate
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 18 November 2012
“Behind their moderate slogans is an extreme agenda focused on further reducing corporate taxes and shifting the burden onto the poor and elderly.”

It's budget showdown time in Washington. With various tax increases and spending cuts set to kick in at the end of the year, the pressure is on for Republicans and Democrats to make a deal.

A major player in this hot debate is a new corporate coalition called "Fix the Debt." They've recruited more than 80 CEOs of America's most powerful corporations and raised $60 million for a big media and lobbying blitz.

Their ads call for what appears to be a moderate agenda of balancing spending cuts with some tax increases in order to bring down the deficit and ensure a bright future for the United States. But a closer look suggests the Fix the Debt campaign is a Trojan Horse.

Behind their moderate slogans is an extreme agenda focused on further reducing corporate taxes and shifting the burden onto the poor and elderly.

Take a look, for example, at a slideshow presentation the campaign has prepared as a "CEO tool" for wooing supporters. You can check it out right on their web site. It says flat out that the so-called "fiscal cliff" is an opportunity to push for "considerably less" spending on Medicare and Medicaid. It also calls for a shift to a "territorial tax system," which would permanently exempt U.S. corporations' foreign income from U.S. taxes.

At the Institute for Policy Studies, we analyzed how much the Fix the Debt member corporations would have to gain from this particular corporate tax break. The results are staggering.

We focused on the 63 Fix the Debt member companies that are publicly held and therefore must report how much they've amassed in overseas profits. Combined, these firms stand to gain as much as $134 billion in tax windfalls if the territorial system is adopted. That's $134 billion that won't go towards fixing the debt. To put ...

Billionaires Crap Out in 2012 Elections
Amanda Rae
Published: Wednesday 14 November 2012
“Unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United edict allowing unlimited sums of cash in our elections, they spewed an ocean of money into efforts to enthrone Mitt Romney in the White House and turn the Senate into a GOP rubber stamp for totally corporatizing government.”

They came. They spent! Then, they limped home, tails between their legs. (OK, they didn't limp; they were flown home on their private Gulfstream jets. But still, their tails were tucked down in the defeat mode.)

"They" are the far-right corporate billionaire extremists who tried to become America's presidential kingmakers this year. Unleashed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United edict allowing unlimited sums of cash in our elections, they spewed an ocean of money into efforts to enthrone Mitt Romney in the White House and turn the Senate into a GOP rubber stamp for totally corporatizing government.

On election night, they gathered ...

Go Back to Sleep America
Amanda Rae
Published: Wednesday 14 November 2012
“Our Constitution still reads ‘we the people’ not ‘we the corporations.’ It’s up to us to rise up and stand up for our rights and our planet.”

Go back to sleep America.  The election is over.  The “lesser of two evils” or as Glen Ford so aptly labeled him the “more effective evil” has won and all is well with the world.

You cast your faux fear vote for your faux president who was actually selected and installed by the corporate powers to serve the corporate police state that’s been put into place over the past 30 years and is now accelerating at an alarming rate.  The irony is many actually believe their vote matters and global warming doesn’t exist and we’re fighting the good wars and fracking will save us from peak oil and taking our rights away will keep us safe and we’re number one.

Sure we’re number 1.  Number 1 in income inequality, #1 in incarceration rates, #1 in building and exporting weapons, #1 in military spending.  In fact, we’re the #1 terrorist organization on the planet.  Our main exports are: murder, torture, death and destruction.  We’ve managed to create terrorists where there were none.  Terrorism is like a cancer and when it’s attacked it metastases and spreads around the globe.  Our child poverty rate is 23.1% second only to Romania.  We rank in the low 20’s in science and math scores so go back to sleep America.

The sociopaths have taken over the asylum and are hollowing or harvesting our country out from the inside.  Our manufacturing sector has plummeted from 70% in the 1960’s to a meager 17% today.  Corporate power, aided and abetted by our bought and paid for legislators, are exploiting us and destroying the environment in the process. 

I believe these white male supremacist hate the feminine and therefore degrade, defeat, demean, abuse, rape and pillage Mother Earth every chance they get and when she fights back with a Katrina or a Sandy they deny climate change.  These male white supremacists ...

Republicans Need to Take Their Party Back
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 10 November 2012
“It’s not true that Republicans needed better candidates.”

Americans wanted to keep the country they know, and said so Tuesday. Now it's time for responsible Republicans to take their party back from the fringe that loses them elections.

It's not true that Republicans needed better candidates. They had excellent contenders. The problem was that the electable ones couldn't leap the lunacy barrier erected by the right wing. They couldn't clinch nominations. Or they withdrew from races in the face of the party base's social nastiness, scientific ignorance and fiscal irresponsibility.

In Indiana, Republicans had the superb Sen. Richard Lugar — a sure shot for re-election. Lugar was a statesman who refused to transform himself into a right-wing gargoyle during the primary. The party replaced him with a tea-party favorite, who like the Republican loser in the Missouri Senate race, made weird comments about rape during the campaign.

In Connecticut, the totally unacceptable Linda McMahon lost her second quest for a U.S. Senate seat after spending $91 million of her own money — but not before having managed to defeat two plausible Republican moderates this year and in 2010. In this round's Republican primary, the wrestling magnate with a yacht named "Sexy Bitch" swept away the much-respected former Rep. Chris Shays on a tide of cash.

Another admired Republican, Jon Huntsman, withdrew from the race for the presidential nomination rather than debase himself with arguments that the Earth was formed 5,000 years ago. The former conservative governor of Utah provided the most noble tweet of the campaign: "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

You knew he couldn't survive the sort of primary race that included threats against Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. ("We would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas," Texas Gov. Rick Perry actually said.) By ...

Despite Concerns, Young Voters Tuned In and Turned Out in 2012
Taylor
Published: Thursday 8 November 2012
“Twenty-two to 23 million Americans under 30 voted yesterday, with a turnout rate of at least 49 percent among eligible voters.”

Add this to the list of bad bets the GOP placed this year: that young Americans’ support for Barack Obama, and their interest in politics in general, was tenuous enough to break—and that it could be broken through discouragement and voter suppression, rather than by specific appeals to their concerns.

Twenty-two to 23 million Americans under 30 voted yesterday, with a turnout rate of at least 49 percent among eligible voters. That figure is comparable with the estimate at this time in 2008, which later rose to 52 percent as final results trickled in. Nearly a fifth of all voters were under 30 (19 percent, up from 18 percent in 2008), and they voted for Obama by a twenty-three-point margin, 60 to 37 percent.

The president could not have won without them. An analysis from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) suggests that eighty of Obama’s electoral votes  READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

Year of the Woman Senators
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 7 November 2012
Election Takeaway for Fossil Fuel Industry: Money Can’t Buy You Love
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 7 November 2012
“The fossil fuel industry went all in on this election. By mid-September, oil, gas, and coal companies had spent more than $150 million on campaign ads.”

Americans have returned a clean energy champion to the White House, but they didn’t stop there. All the way down the ticket, voters overwhelmingly favored candidates who support clean energy, clean air, and strong public health safeguards.

This is victory for everyone who likes to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and it is a resounding defeat for polluters and the dirty agenda they tried to sell to voters.

The fossil fuel industry went all in on this election. By mid-September, oil, gas, and coal companies had spent more than $150 million on campaign ads. Texas oil barons handed over $10 million to Governor Romney in one week alone—the week before he released his energy plan. By the time all the checks are tallied, the amount spent by dirty energy companies will be well over $200 million.

And yet the fossil fuel industry has little to show for it. Oil, gas, and coal companies spent $20 million to defeat Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), but he won anyway. He ran on his record of supporting renewable power and environmental protections and voters rewarded him for it.

They did the same thing in the New Mexico Senate race. Fossil fuel companies opened their checkbooks for Former Representative Heather Wilson, a pro-drilling, anti-climate action candidate. But voters preferred Representative Martin Heinrich and the fact that he made clean energy and climate action a central part of his campaign.

In Virginia, fossil fuel companies and other outside interests spent heavily to take a senate seat away from the Democratic Party. Voters weren’t buying it. They elected Former Governor Tim Kaine who has a long history of standing up for clean air and public health safeguards.

It turns out my mother was right: money can’t buy you love. If you can’t buy it for $200 million, then it’s not for sale.

That means these ...

Bad Day for Super Donors
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 7 November 2012
“Adelson was top backer of the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, with $20 million in donations.”

Money can't buy happiness, nor can it buy an election, apparently.

The top donors to super PACs in 2012 did not fare well — casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the No. 1 super PAC contributor with more than $53 million in giving, backed eight losers at this writing.

Adelson was top backer of the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, with $20 million in donations. Romney lost to President Barack Obama. In addition, Adelson's contributions to super PACs backing U.S. Senate candidates in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey were also for naught.

He was not the only conservative billionaire who had a bad night.

Contran Corp. CEO Harold Simmons, (No. 2), homebuilder Bob Perry (No. 3) and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, (No.4), also bet on Romney. Collectively, the trio gave $13.4 million to Restore Our Future, and Ricketts’ super PAC, Ending Spending Action Fund, spent an additional $9.9 million helping Romney’s failed bid.

The super donor winner of the night was Newsweb Corp. CEO Fred Eychaner (No. 5). Eychaner gave $3.5 million to pro-Obama super PAC Priorities ...

Americans Face A One Sided Congress
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 6 November 2012
The Economics of Social Security in the Presidential Race
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 28 October 2012
“The Social Security system is perhaps the greatest success story of any program in U.S. history.”

It is remarkable that Social Security hasn’t been a more prominent issue in the presidential race. After all, Governor Romney has proposed a plan that would imply cuts of more than 40 percent for middle-class workers just entering the labor force. Since Social Security is hugely popular across the political spectrum, it would seem that President Obama could gain an enormous advantage by clearly proclaiming his support for the program. 

But President Obama has consistently refused to rise to the defense of Social Security. In fact, in the first debate he explicitly took the issue off the table telling the American people that there is not much difference between his stand on Social Security and Romney’s.

On its face, this is difficult understand. In addition to being good politics, there are also solid policy grounds for defending Social Security. The Social Security system is perhaps the greatest success story of any program in U.S. history. By providing a core retirement income, it has lifted tens of millions of retirees and their families out of poverty.

It also provides disability insurance to almost the entire workforce. The amount of fraud in the system is minimal and the administrative costs are less than one-twentieth as large as the costs of private sector insurers. 

In addition, the program is more necessary now than ever. The economic mismanagement of the last two decades has left the baby boomers ill-prepared for retirement. Few have traditional pensions. The stock market crashes of the last 15 years have left 401(k)s depleted and the collapse of the housing bubble destroyed much of their housing equity, which has always been the main ...

FBI Data Mining Strikes Concerns
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 28 October 2012
Mourdock Argues Insurance Companies Shouldn’t Cover Birth Control at All
Amanda Rae
Published: Wednesday 24 October 2012
Indiana Senate nominee Richard Mourdock (R) said last night that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift” that “God intended.”

 

Indiana Senate nominee Richard Mourdock (R) doesn’t just want to prevent women who have been raped from obtaining an abortion; he also doesn’t think they should be able to access affordable birth control through their health insurance that could prevent such a pregnancy.

Months before Mourdock commented last night that pregnancies resulting from rape are a “gift” that “God intended,” ThinkProgress spoke with him at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference about Rick Santorum’s belief that insurance plans shouldn’t cover birth control at all. When asked whether he agreed with Santorum on the matter, Mourdock replied: “I do, I do.”

KEYES: I know Rick Santorum in his speech was talking a lot about this. He even went so far as to say, “I don’t think insurance plans should be covering birth control in the first place.” Do you think he’s right about that?

MOURDOCK: I do, I do. I don’t think that’s the role of government. We have to start rolling back government. There are many issues out there beyond Obamacare, but really the issue overlying everything is, is this nation going to survive? And that ultimately becomes an issue of economics.

Watch it:

The National Debt and Our Children: How Dumb Does Washington Think We Are?
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 17 October 2012
“The corporate honchos are not expecting to convince the public that we should support cuts to Social Security and Medicare.”

 

While much of the country is focused on the presidential race, the Wall Street gang is waging a different battle; they are preparing an assault on Social Security and Medicare. This attack is not exactly secret. There have been a number of pieces on this corporate-backed campaign in the media over the last few months, but the drive is nonetheless taking place behind closed doors.

The corporate honchos are not expecting to convince the public that we should support cuts to Social Security and Medicare. They know this is a hopeless task. Huge majorities of people across the political spectrum strongly support these programs.

Instead they hope that they can use their power of persuasion, coupled with the power of campaign contributions and the power of high-paying jobs for defeated members of Congress, to get Congress to approve large cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other key programs. This is the plan for a grand bargain that the corporate chieftains hope can be struck in the lame duck Congress.   

Most of the media have been happy to cooperate with the corporate chieftains in this plan. There are two main ways in which they have abandoned objectivity to support the plan for cutting Social Security and Medicare.

First they continually run stories about how the deficit and debt are the biggest problems facing the country. They routinely use phrases like “crisis” and other hyperboles to scare their audience about the risks that the debt poses to the country.

The whole notion of a “fiscal cliff” is an invention that implies an urgency that does not exist. There is almost no consequence to not having a deal in place by the end of 2012. The dire projections of ...

Fracking Law in Pennsylvania Allows Drilling on College Campuses
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 12 October 2012
Obama Picks New Afghan Commander
Taylor
Published: Thursday 11 October 2012
Romney Benefits From Post-Citizens United Spending
Taylor
Published: Thursday 11 October 2012
American Crossroads top spender since Labor Day.

 

Since Labor Day, the once-unofficial start of the election season, 70 percent of outside spending on the presidential race made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision has benefited Mitt Romney, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

More than $106 million of the $117 million spent on the Obama-Romney matchup since Sept. 3 has been on negative ads, with President Barack Obama absorbing more than $80 million in attacks, according to the analysis of Federal Election Commission data.

By way of comparison, the Obama campaign has spent $346 million over the entire election and Romney has spent $288 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove, is the top anti-Obama spender as well as the top overall spender among outside groups in the presidential election. Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama super PAC, is the second-biggest outside spender in the race and the primary source of anti-Romney ads.

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Lawmakers Get Graded on Equality Record
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 10 October 2012
“Who are the voting champions for people who work for wages, dream of health insurance, and aspire to education their children without decades of debt?”

Do you wonder which members of Congress routinely side with the richest 1 percent and Wall Street?  Which lawmakers consistently vote to cut taxes for the rich, protect off-shore tax havens for transnational tax dodgers, and ensure that wealth is taxed more favorably than income from work?  Who tirelessly side with global corporations at the expense of domestic small businesses?

On the other hand, are you curious which members of Congress are committed to an economy that works for everyone, not just the 1 percent? What lawmakers back a level playing field between small business and transnational corporate conglomerates? Who are the voting champions for people who work for wages, dream of health insurance, and aspire to education their children without decades of debt?

In the new “Congressional Report Card for the 99 Percent" (full disclosure—I'm a co-author), the Institute for Policy Studies examined 40 different legislation actions in the House and Senate—votes and legislation introduced—to ascertain the real allegiances of sitting members of Congress. These include votes to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, levy a Wall Street speculation tax, invest in infrastructure, and protect workers and student financial aid.

Not surprisingly, the most promiscuous protectors of the privileged were Republicans. But 17 lawmakers in the Democratic party also got low marks. For example, in the U.S. Senate, Montana Senator Jon Tester and Virginia Senator Jim Webb—sometimes considered progressive—showed up on the list of “1 Percent Friendly Democrats.” Senators Mark Pryor (D-AR), Joseph Leiberman (I

Senate Report Says National Intelligence Fusion Centers Have Been Useless
Taylor
Published: Thursday 4 October 2012
Cash spent to watch televisions and report on suspicious bass fishing in Mexico.

 

An alarming report published by the Department of Homeland Security in March 2010 called attention to the theft of dozens of pounds of dangerous explosives from an airport storage bunker in Washington state.

Like many such warnings, it drew on information gathered by one of the department’s “fusion centers” created to exchange data among state, local and federal officials, all at a cost to the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars.

There was just one problem with that report, and many others like it: the theft had occurred seven months earlier, and it had been highlighted within five days in a press release by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was seeking citizen assistance in tracking down the culprits.

The DHS report’s tardiness and its duplication of work by others has been a commonplace failing of work performed by fusion centers nationwide, according to a new investigation of the DHS-funded centers by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

READ FULL POST 2 COMMENTS

Fire Congress, Vote Out Incumbents
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 1 October 2012
“Yet this year as in past years, unless Americans take back control of their country, voters will again reelect nearly all incumbents.”

 

For politicians to do what is right, first citizens must do what is right.

 

Of all the many, many stupid things that most Americans do, nothing is more insane than the ritual every two years of reelecting incumbent members of Congress.  Countless opinion polls find that the public has incredibly low levels of positive regard for Congress.  Just one in 10 Americans approves of the job Congress is doing, according to a Gallup poll released a few weeks ago, tying the branch's lowest approval rating in 38 years.

 

Yet this year as in past years, unless Americans take back control of their country, voters will again reelect nearly all incumbents.  Often, some incumbents do not even have any significant opposition.  For example, in the 2000 election cycle, out of 435 House seats, 64 members had no major-party opponent, and in 2008 every House race in Arkansas was uncontested by a major party according to the Center for Voting and Democracy.  Political redesign of congressional districts, gerrymandering, is widely done to ensure reelection of incumbents or one party.

 

The main way that incumbents get removed from office these days is when they lose in a party primary election, or die, or get themselves into a sex or corruption scandal.  Primaries often replace the incumbent with someone else from the same party who will, in time, become an incumbent.  That replacement is often a more extreme partisan than the previous incumbent.

 

The usual rationale for this survival of incumbents given by ...

Dark Money Poured into New Mexico Senate Contest
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 28 September 2012
“That fact, gleaned through a review of TV station political ad records now available in our Free the Files news application, highlights the role that unlimited anonymous money is playing in this year’s election.”

 

Dark money groups flooded Albuquerque’s airwaves in August, aiming to sway a hotly contested U.S. Senate race by making more than half the political ad buys on top TV stations.

That fact, gleaned through a review of TV station political ad records now available in our Free the Files news application, highlights the role that unlimited anonymous money is playing in this year’s election.

Our analysis of a month of ad orders in the Senate race between Republican Heather Wilson and Democrat Rep. Martin Heinrich is possible because of a new Federal Communications Commission rule requiring major-market affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to upload political ad files to a government website.

In statements to ProPublica, the campaigns of Heinrich and Wilson blamed each other for relying on dark money.

Wilson campaign spokesman Chris Sanchez accused “environmental extremists” of pouring money “into New Mexico to falsely attack Heather Wilson because they know her opponent, Congressman Heinrich, supports their radical agenda.”

Heinrich campaign spokeswoman Whitney Potter accused “corporate special interest groups” of spending millions in secret money to support Wilson “because they know she will support their misplaced priorities that put the wealthy special interests ahead of middle-class families in New Mexico.”

The Senate race has attracted national attention because, with incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman retiring, it is a rare open seat. The race was considered tight earlier this year. After a summer of heavy spending by outside groups on both sides, Heinrich is now the favorite.

In August, while Wilson’s campaign contracted to spend about $512,000 on ads in Albuquerque, four prominent conservative groups booked almost $658,000 of ads attacking Heinrich, station records show.

That means about 56 percent ...

EPA’s ‘Brownfields’ Program Coming Up Short
Taylor
Published: Thursday 27 September 2012
Thousands of polluted properties remain despite $1.5 billion in federal help.

 

In Oak Creek, Wis., a fence slashed with holes surrounds a barren 300-acre complex of buckling former factories where the soil and groundwater are polluted with arsenic and other chemicals.

Asbestos sprayed for almost six miles from a shuttered textile mill in Sprague, Connecticut when children trying to free a canoe set it on fire.

A toxic cocktail of volatile organic compounds, petroleum, hydrocarbons and metals lies along the banks of Massachusetts’s Malden River.

Despite about $1.5 billion in federal grants and loans doled out by theEnvironmental Protection Agency over 19 years, hundreds of thousands of abandoned and polluted properties known as “brownfields” continue to mar ...

Senate Passes Funding Bill to Avoid Government Shutdown Before the Holidays and Election.
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 23 September 2012
Scott Brown Gets Nasty in Debate
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 22 September 2012
Democratic Senators Will Call for Stronger Rule Against Risky Bank Trades after Investigation of JP Morgan Chase
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 21 September 2012
“The rule is a piece of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that bans taxpayer-backed banks from certain types of risky trades.”

 

The Senate panel responsible for probing the $9 billion “London Whale” trading loss that shook JP Morgan Chase earlier this year will release its findings before the end of the year and will call for a stronger Volcker Rule, sources told Bloomberg. The rule is a piece of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law that bans taxpayer-backed banks from certain types of risky trades.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin (D), who chairs the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said at the time of the loss that the draft version of the Volcker Rule had a loophole so large “a Mack truck could drive right through it.” Now, according to Bloomberg, he and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) will push regulators to close loopholes in the rule and strengthen it to prevent trades like the London Whale loss, which could have caused larger market problems at smaller or more vulnerable banks.

At the same time, some Republican senators are still pushing to further weaken the rule, which was watered down so much by bank lobbyists and Republicans that its namesake, former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, said he didn’t like it.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) cast the deciding vote for the Dodd-Frank law, but not before he successfully weakened the Volcker Rule by inserting certain exemptions for big banks. Since then, Brown has continued to lobby regulators to take even

House Republicans Plan Two Month Vacation, Leaving Key Bills Awaiting Action
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 15 September 2012
“The House passed a watered down version on a mostly-party lines vote, leaving victims to wait for House action.”

 

House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced Friday that after next week, the House will stand in recess until November 13. His plan for a nearly two month vacation will undoubtedly allow more time for campaigning, but will leave several vital bills awaiting action.

Among the important legislation the House will likely not address before the November elections:

1. Violence Against Women Act re-authorization. Though a bipartisan Senate majority passed the a strong re-authorization bill in April, the Republican House leadership refused to allow a vote on the Senate version of the bill. The House passed a watered down version on a mostly-party lines vote, leaving victims to wait for House action.

2. The American Jobs Act. Republicans have been blocking President Obama’s jobs legislation for more than a year. Though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) promised in 2010 that a GOP Congress would focus on job creation, he has blocked this bill’s immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers, and aid to state and local governments to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials.

3. Tax cuts for working families. In July, ...

GOP Farm Bill Obstruction Could Defund 90 Percent of Department of Agriculture
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 14 September 2012
“The Farm Bill serves as a mass funding mechanism for the USDA — it provides funding for roughly 90 percent of the Department’s operations, meaning those operations may have to shut down if the Farm Bill isn’t renewed.”

 

The 2012 Farm Bill is still languishing in the House, with GOP leadership in the chamber intentionally preventing action on the legislation for political reasons. According to the New York Times, “House leaders declined to take up either [the Senate or the House] version of the legislation. They are not eager to force their members to take a vote that would be difficult for some of them, nor would they wish to pass a measure largely with Democrats’ votes right before an election.”

But without a new five-year Farm Bill or at least a temporary extension of current legislation, the Department of Agriculture may be forced to shutter almost all of its operations.

The Farm Bill serves as a mass funding mechanism for the USDA — it provides funding for roughly 90 percent of the Department’s operations, meaning those operations may have to shut down if the Farm Bill isn’t renewed. According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Commission, the effect of even a temporary shutdown could be long-lasting:

USDA would be forced to occupy a multiple-month holding pattern, temporarily stopping many services and programs. Program administration involves a certain amount of planning and preparation, stakeholder input, rule making, and outreach. Even if program opportunities aren’t announced until later in the year, the preparation work that leads up to announcements takes time and certainty. Programs can’t simply be “turned off” and then ...

The Wrong Way to Save Money on Health Care
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 14 September 2012
“Republicans agree it’s good news but blame Obamacare for the fact that employer health-care costs continue to rise faster than inflation.”

 

 

Employer outlays for workers’ health insurance slowed from a 9 percent jump last year to less than half that — 4 percent — this year, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Foundation. Good news?

Our political class believes it is. The Obama administration attributes the drop to the new Affordable Care Act, which, among other things, gives states funding to review insurance rate increases.

Republicans agree it’s good news but blame Obamacare for the fact that employer health-care costs continue to rise faster than inflation. “The new mandates contained in the health care law are significantly increasing the cost of insurance” says Wyoming senator Mike Enzi, top Republican on the Senate health committee.

But both sides ignore one big reason for the drop: Employers are shifting healthcare costs to their workers. (The survey shows workers contributing an average of $4,316 toward the cost of family health plans this year, up from $4,129 last year. Many are receiving little or no employer-provided coverage at all.)

Score another win for American corporations — whose profits continue to be robust despite the anemic recovery — and another loss for American workers.

Those profits aren’t due to a surge in sales. Exports are down (Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese are all pulling in their belts) and American consumers don’t have the dough to buy more.

The profits are largely due to lower corporate costs, especially when it comes to their payrolls. Employer-provided health and pension contributions are shrinking, and the real median wage continues to drop.

High unemployment has given companies more bargaining leverage over their workers, who have to accept lower real pay and benefits or risk losing their jobs.

Sandra Fluke Takes Fight for Women’s Health to DNC After Insulted for Contraception Advocacy
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 8 September 2012
Right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted Fluke on his program, calling her a “slut” and saying she should be required to post sex videos online.

Sandra Fluke became famous after Republicans barred her from testifying at a congressional hearing in favor of insurance coverage for contraception. Right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted Fluke on his program, calling her a "slut" and saying she should be required to post sex videos online. The episode prompted President Obama to personally call Fluke to offer words of encouragement. Six months later, Fluke took center stage Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention with a prime-time address. Fluke joins us to discuss the fight for reproductive rights, her support for Obama’s re-election, and her future plans as a women’s health activist.

 

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, "Breaking With Convention: War, Peace and the Presidency," Democracy Now!'s special daily two hours of coverage from the Democratic and Republican National Convention, inside and out. I'm Amy Goodman.

Speakers on the second night of the Democratic National Convention Wednesday included Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren and former President Bill Clinton, who gave the keynote. But the speaker who took center stage at the top of the 10:00 prime-time hour ...

Obama’s Constitution
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 5 September 2012
Since most of the examination of our President comes from either the daily hypocrasies of Mitt and friends or the coddling progressive left, I thought I would examine “our guy” on a few issues with a bit more scrutiny and fairness.

 

I wrote this a while back after Romney got the nom, and, in light of the blizzard of bullshit that will be coming at us in the next few months, I thought I would put it out now.

Now that the Republican primary circus is over, I began to think about what a vote for Obama would mean.

Since most of the examination of our President comes from either the daily hypocrasies of Mitt and friends or the coddling progressive left, I thought I would examine “our guy” on a few issues with a bit more scrutiny and fairness.

The typical arguments in favor of another Obama presidency are centered around avoiding a fantical rightwing take over of the Oval Office. Obama is perceived as the last line of defense from the corporate barbarians--and, of course, the Supreme Court. There is a cynical logic behind this view, and I tend to agree with Garry Wills' description of the Republican primaries as  “a revolting combination of con men & fanatics, and agree proundly that “the current primary race has become a demonstration that the Republican party does not deserve serious consideration for public office.”

However, there are certain Rubicon lines, as constituational law professor Jon Turley calls them, that Obama has crossed that should not be ignored.

All political questions are not equal no matter how much you pivot. When people die or lose their physical freedom to feed certain economic sectors or ideologies, it becomes a zero sum game for me.

This is not an exercise in bemoaning regrettable policy choices or cheering favorable ones, but rather to ask a couple fundimental questions: Who are we? What are we voting for? And what does it mean?

Three markers — the Nobel prize acceptance speech, the escalation speech at West Point, and the recent speech by Eric Holder — crossed that Rubicon line for me.


During his 2008 campaign, ...

Republicans Hope Bad Jobs Report Will Overshadow Obama’s DNC Speech
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 3 September 2012
In July, the Senate refused to allow a vote on the president’s American Jobs Act, which would have given incentives for companies to “insource” jobs rather than ship them overseas and by most reports would have stimulated GDP growth.

 

Responding to the heavy media coverage of Clint Eastwood’s bizarre rantings at the RNC — a moment that largely eclipsed Mitt Romney’s address — adviser Eric Fehrnstrom and Newt Gingrich both said that Friday’s jobs report could similarly undermine Obama.

“I think the biggest news next week will not be the three nights of the DNC but it will be on Friday…We’re all hoping for good news but the odds are high that the unemployment rate will remain above 8 percent,” Fehrnstorn said on CNN’s State of the Union.

Meanwhile, on Meet the Press, Gingrich was more blunt:

I think the biggest event won’t be his speech Thursday. It’ll be the Friday morning jobs report. If that Friday morning jobs report is bad, it’ll drown his speech. You want to talk about Eastwood? Friday morning jobs report is a lot bigger event next week than Eastwood was this week.

Watch it:

Republicans have repeatedly blocked Obama’s jobs legislation. In July, the Senate refused to allow a vote on the president’s American Jobs Act, which would have given incentives for companies to “insource” jobs rather than ship them overseas and by most reports would have stimulated GDP growth. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reaffirmed in 2010, “Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term.”

GOP Platform Says ‘Impeachment’ Is a Solution to Judicial Decisions the GOP Opposes
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 27 August 2012
“The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. Judicial activism which includes reliance on foreign law or unratified treaties undermines American law.”

 

Last year, former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich delivered an authoritarian speech where he promised that if elected president he would ignore court decisions he disagrees with, wage a campaign of intimidation against judges, and even potentially impeach judges who interpret the Constitution in way he disapproves of. Gingrich lost the GOP primary, but his spirit lives on in the Republican Party’s draft platform:

Despite improvements as a result of Republican nominations to the judiciary, some judges in the federal courts remain far afield from their constitutional limitations. The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. Judicial activism which includes reliance on foreign law or unratified treaties undermines American law. The sole solution, apart from impeachment, is the appointment of constitutionalist jurists, who will interpret the law as it was originally intended rather than make it. That is both a presidential responsibility, in selected judicial candidates, and a senatorial responsibility, in confirming them. We urge Republican Senators to do all in their power to prevent the elevation of additional leftist ideologues to the courts, particularly in the waning days of the current Administration.

There’s something quaint about Republicans expecting the nation to still believe they care about judicial activism after they spent the last two years pushing an attack on the Affordable Care Act ...

Mad Women Descend on the Republican Convention
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 25 August 2012
While it may seem quaint that ladies fussed about lipstick and putting steak on the table by 5:30pm while the boys did the “real work,” there’s nothing cute about the full picture.

 

“When one door closes, another dress opens,” says an ad exec on HBO’s hit show Mad Men.  I admit it: lately I’ve been mad about Mad Men, scrambling through episodes with a strange intrigue of looking through a portal to a time when lady secretaries were totally subordinate to their suited bosses.  Gawking and groping women was par for the corporate course, and brandy and cigarettes were meeting staples—just another day at the office.  It’s a fascinating look into a foregone era, one most of my twenty-something colleagues never experienced and possibly can’t even imagine.

 

While it may seem quaint that ladies fussed about lipstick and putting steak on the table by 5:30pm while the boys did the “real work,” there’s nothing cute about the full picture: sexual harassment in the workplace, back-alley abortions, limited access to birth control for the privileged few, rampant homophobia and racism, glass ceilings that must have seemed shatter-proof. 

 

Now some fifty years later we can look back with an incredulous (and satirical) eye – yet some of the key things that set us apart from those bygone days seem to be reemerging.  This past year women’s reproductive rights have come under threat in an alarming way.  Heck, Michigan State Rep. Lisa Brown couldn’t even say the word “vagina” without being censured by her conservative male colleagues.

 

The latest assault came last week when Republican Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin said that victims of “legitimate rape" don't get pregnant because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."  Someone quickly posted a Facebook meme that said “‘Good news – your body shut down ...

Outside Spending Helps Make Wisconsin Senate Primary a Tossup
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 14 August 2012
Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson is in a dead heat with two other candidates in the state's GOP U.S. Senate primary.

For months, Republican Tommy Thompson, a former four-term Wisconsin governor, was the favorite to become the next U.S. senator from the state, filling the seat occupied by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl, and boosting GOP hopes of gaining control of Congress’ upper chamber.

But thanks to $3.4 million in spending by outside groups and an ongoing ideological divide within the Republican Party, Thompson may not even make it through Tuesday’s primary, much less win the general election.

Thompson’s main primary rivals are former Rep. Mark Neumann, the favored candidate of the increasingly influential super PAC Club for Growth Action, and businessman Eric Hovde, who has invested millions of dollars of his own money in his candidacy.

Club for Growth Action has spent $1.7 million on ads, more than any other non-candidate organization, with about $1.2 million going toward criticizing Neumann’s opponents.

As a super PAC, the organization can accept unlimited funds from corporations and individual donors and spend that money on advertising as long as it is not coordinated with candidates’ own ...

Dark Money Group of Crossroads GPS Busted
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 10 August 2012
Justice Dept. Ends Investigation into Goldman Sachs Mortgage Abuses Without Pressing Charges
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 10 August 2012
In a statement Thursday, Goldman said: “We are pleased that this matter is behind us.”

After a year-long investigation into Goldman Sachs, the bank singled out by a Senate investigative committee for its abusive mortgage practices in the run-up to the financial crisis, the Justice Department announced Friday that it would not press charges against the bank. Goldman Sachs became of the face of widespread mortgage fraud and abuse that led to the subprime mortgage crisis when evidence that it had made trades described by its own bankers as “shitty deals” came to light during a Senate investigation in 2011.

The Department of Justice, however, concluded that it did to meet the “burden of proof” required for charges, the Wall Street Journal reports:

“Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report,” the statement read. [...]

In a statement Thursday, Goldman said: “We are pleased that this matter is behind us.”

DOJ’s investigation began after an April 2011 report from the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations revealed that Goldman Sachs had pushed its clients to make trades on risky mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps even as the bank was betting the same securities would lose value. Though Goldman Sachs was “doing God’s work,” according to chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, other bankers described pushing “shitty deals” on customers. In March of this year, a ...

The ‘Missing Evidence’ in Romney’s Tax Records
Taylor
Published: Thursday 9 August 2012
“The missing evidence is in Romney's grasp, yet he insists that he will never produce it.”

Harry Reid has provoked outrage among liberals as well as conservatives, who seem to believe he has violated propriety by repeating gossip about Mitt Romney's taxes. The Senate leader says someone connected with Romney told him that the Republican candidate paid no income taxes for a period of 10 years. Offended by Reid's audacity, commentators on the right have indicted him for "McCarthyism," while others on the left have accused him of inventing the whole story.

Evidently the chief complaint against Reid — aside from aggressiveness unbecoming a Democrat — is that he cited "an extremely credible source" who he has so far declined to name. Some journalists have gone so far as to suggest that Reid must be lying because he won't identify the source.

Despite all this righteous tut-tutting among the great and the good, in newspapers and magazines as well as on television, Reid's critics simply have no way ...

Farmers Left Out to Dry by Congress
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 4 August 2012
Washington’s War on Leaks, Explained
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 4 August 2012
“On Monday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence filed new anti-leak legislation.”

Accusations continue to fly from lawmakers and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney that the Obama administration has leaked national security information for political gain. Leaks, of course, are nothing new in Washington, but now the Senate has jumped into the fray, with a new proposal to tighten control over the flow of information between intelligence agencies and the press.

This summer the Justice Department opened two investigations into leaks about a foiled terror plot and U.S. cyber-attacks against Iran. But leak prosecutions haven’t always proved easy. As we’ve explained before, there’s no single law criminalizing the disclosure of classified information. National security leaks are sometimes prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which has been used a record six times under Obama, but there is perennial debate over whether to introduce more stringent laws against leaks.

On Monday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence filed new anti-leak legislation. The bill wouldn’t amend the Espionage Act, or make any blanket criminal penalty for leaks. But it does include several provisions that could stymie reporting on national security.

One ...

Now We Know, Republicans Want to Raise Our Taxes
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 4 August 2012
“Nearly every Republican in the Senate, nearly every Republican in the House and the Republican nominee for President Mitt Romney, all support tax plans which would cut taxes for the 2% of households that earn more than $250,000, but also raise taxes on millions of Americans among the poor and middle class.”

It is often stated as fact that Democrats always want to raise taxes and Republicans always want to lower taxes.

We now know this to be false.

Nearly every Republican in the Senate, nearly every Republican in the House and the Republican nominee for President Mitt Romney, all support tax plans which would cut taxes for the 2% of households that earn more than $250,000, but also raise taxes on millions of Americans among the poor and middle class.

Meanwhile, Democrats recently passed tax cuts designed for the poor and middle class only, in President's Obama recession-stopping Recovery Act.

And Congress could have easily extended both the Bush and Obama tax cuts for those in the 98% ... if the House Republicans didn't just reject the Senate Democratic bill.

Republicans have been alluding to their belief that rich people pay too much and poor people pay too little for some time, without being blunt enough to get into trouble. "47% of Americans don't pay income taxes" they cry, "broaden the base."

Instead of ...

In Face of Emergency, We’re Still Asking, “Where’s the Beef?”
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 3 August 2012
“America is suffering through the worst drought since 1950.”

 

To understand how utterly broken our society is, how hostile to sacrifice we are and how willfully ignorant we have become, you need only look at the historic drought hammering the heartland — and how our elected officials are responding to that cataclysm.

As you likely know from this arid summer, America is suffering through the worst drought since 1950. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, half of all counties in the nation are officially disaster areas — a situation that has devastated the country's supply of agriculture commodities. Consequently, food prices are expected to skyrocket, and eventually, water-dependent power plants may be forced to shut down.

This is a full-on emergency, and USDA, a key agency involved in the national security issues surrounding our food and water supply, last week responded with a minor non-binding recommendation. In its inter-office newsletter to agency employees, it suggested that those who want to conserve water could simply refrain from eating meat on Mondays.

The idea is part of the worldwide "Meatless Monday" campaign, which The New York Times notes is backed by "thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools." In the face of a drought, it's a pragmatic notion. Cornell University researchers estimate that "producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein." According to the U.S. Geological Survey, that means a typical hamburger requires a whopping 4,000 to 18,000 gallons of water to make.

Considering these numbers in juxtaposition to the drought, taking one day a week off from meat-eating seems like the absolute least we should be willing to do in a nation whose average citizen annually consumes an unfathomable 194 pounds of meat. And yet, in Washington, the USDA ...

Does Cybercrime Really Cost $1 Trillion?
Taylor
Published: Thursday 2 August 2012
“Crediting Symantec, he said the theft of intellectual property costs American companies $250 billion a year.”

 

Gen. Keith Alexander is the director of the National Security Agency and oversees U.S. Cyber Command, which means he leads the government’s effort to protect America from cyberattacks. Due to the secretive nature of his job, he maintains a relatively low profile, so when he does speak, people listen closely. On July 9, Alexander addressed a crowded room at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and though he started with a few jokes — his mother said he had a face for radio, behind every general is a stunned father-in-law — he soon got down to business.

Alexander warned that cyberattacks are causing “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,” and he cited statistics from, among other sources, Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc., which both sell software to protect computers from hackers. Crediting Symantec, he said the theft of intellectual property costs American companies $250 billion a year. He also mentioned a McAfee estimate that the global cost of cybercrime is $1 trillion. "That’s our future disappearing in front of us," he said, urging Congress to enact legislation to improve America’s cyberdefenses.

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Top Defense Oversight Staffer Received $1.6 Million Payout From Lockheed Martin
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 30 July 2012
“The appointment is the second by a Republican member of either the House or Senate Armed Services committee to provoke criticism from independent groups that consider it a conflict of interest.”

 

A former executive for the Pentagon’s top defense contractor collected $1.66 million in salary, consulting fees and retirement pay from two top defense contractors last year before becoming the Republican chief of staff for the Senate Armed Services Committee in February.

The appointment is the second by a Republican member of either the House or Senate Armed Services committee to provoke criticism from independent groups that consider it a conflict of interest.

Ann Elise Sauer, who was appointed to her present job by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., worked for more than a decade as a vice president and lobbyist for Lockheed Martin before leaving in Jan. 2011, according to a financial disclosure she made to the Secretary of the Senate in April.

In 2011, she was paid a salary and bonus totaling $660,390, deferred compensation of $769,574, and $232,872 labeled as “retired pay” on the financial disclosure form. Lockheed is the Defense Department’s largest corporate contractor, earning $28.3 billion, or 61 percent, of its sales from the department in 2011, according to the company’s annual report.

Sauer then worked as a consultant and analyst for BAE Systems, earning $55,000 from the firm, according to her financial disclosure form. BAE is the Pentagon’s ninth largest contractor.

The Project on Government Oversight’s Ben Freeman said Thursday that Sauer’s appointment to the principal Senate committee tasked with overseeing all military spending and contracting creates a huge conflict of interest.

“$1.6 million — that gives a lot of reasons to remember your former employer,” said ...

The “Let’s Cut Taxes for Mitt Romney and His Heirs” Bill
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 30 July 2012
“Who is going to make out like bandits if the Republican bill becomes law? Mitt Romney and his five sons, of course.”

 

This week the House, like the Senate last week, is expected to vote on competing tax bills: a Democratic proposal that would allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire as scheduled while extending them for the middle-class, and a Republican proposal that will keep the Bush tax cut party going for America's millionaires.

The Republican bill is expected to not only extend the low income tax rates for the wealthy, but also the absurdly low estate tax rate where multi-millionaire heirs get their first $5 million tax-free.

Who is going to make out like bandits if the Republican bill becomes law? Mitt Romney and his five sons, of course.

Romney's wealthy is an estimated $230 million, not counting the $100 million trust he has set aside for his brood.

Of course, no one is going to pass the bill just to shovel more millions into Romney's Swiss bank account (cheap shot!).

But Romney is the personification of who the Republican Party believes should be blessed with low taxes.

He is one of the "job creators" whom we must provide the "incentive" to succeed, even if it makes it harder to cut our long-term budget deficits or pay for public infrastructure, teachers and clean energy.

If Romney had to pay higher income taxes, then he wouldn't bother investing in the innovative new ideas that grow the economy. If he can't give his children all of his ...

Senate GOP Provides $1.1 Million Tax Cut to Wealthy Estates While Raising Taxes on 20 Million Working Families
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 29 July 2012
“Analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that all of the $119 billion would flow to the heirs of the estates of the wealthiest three of every 1,000 people who die, since those are the only estates that would owe any estate tax under the 2009 rules.”

The Senate GOP plan to preserve the Bush tax cuts on incomes above $250,000 already amounts to a budget-busting tax cut for the rich, and in addition to it, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) also added another tax cut that benefits only the super-wealthy. The Hatch-McConnell plan effectively eliminates the estate tax, costing billions in revenue and giving a huge tax cut to the very wealthiest Americans, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes:

Specifically, the new Senate Republican proposal, which Senators Mitch McConnell and Orrin Hatch unveiled earlier this month, would:

Cost $119 billion more in forgone revenues over the next ten years than the Obama Administration proposal to reinstate the already generous 2009 estate-tax rules. Analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center shows that all of the $119 billion would flow to the heirs of the estates of the wealthiest three of every 1,000 people who die, since those are the only estates that would owe any estate tax under the 2009 rules.

Give taxable estates an average of more than $1.1 million each in tax reductions, compared to the tax that would be owed under a reinstatement of the 2009 estate-tax rules. The bigger the estate, the more lavish the tax break would be. Estates worth more than $20 million would receive an average tax reduction of $4.2 million in 2013.

As CBPP notes, even President Obama’s estate tax plan is generous, allowing exemptions on millions of dollars of an estate’s value. The GOP’s plan would provide an even larger exemption, and though critics of the tax claim the estate has already been subject to taxation, in most instances it is not because the increase in value of the estate classifies as unrealized capital gains. If the ...

$5 billion subsidy House drought bill targeted by reformers
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 28 July 2012
At Senate Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing, Calls to Overturn Citizens United
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 28 July 2012
“Two panels of witnesses, including both current lawmakers and activists, testified to a friendly panel of Democratic senators (no Republicans appeared to have shown up) that our democracy is under siege.”

 

On Tuesday, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing called “Taking Back Our Democracy,” examining special interests’ increasing grip on American politics and policy, especially focusing on the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. Two panels of witnesses, including both current lawmakers and activists, testified to a friendly panel of Democratic senators (no Republicans appeared to have shown up) that our democracy is under siege.

That sentiment was no surprise to anyone in the room (over 400 people showed up for the hearing, packing the room and causing spillover to another room). Again and again, testimonies confirmed that while money has played an enormous role in politics for decades, the past few years have marked a dramatic change:

  • Sen. Bernie Sanders (I- Vt.) said that at least 23 extremely rich families have contributed at least $250,000 each in the 2012 campaigns. “My guess is that number is really much greater because many of these contributions are made in secret. In other words, not content to own our economy, the 1 percent want to own our government as well,” Sanders said.
  • Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) cited Citizens United  and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision on SpeechNow v. FEC as the two cases most directly responsible for the rise of super PACs. “But our campaign finance system was hardly a model of democracy before these opinions,” he said. “We have been on this dangerous path for a long time. The Citizens United and Speech Now decisions may have picked up the pace, but the court laid the groundwork many years ago.”
  • Gov. Buddy Roemer, former Republican presidential contender, lamented the “institutionalized corruption” gripping Congress, blaming it for the lack of trust Americans have in their ...
Exposed: Pennsylvania Act 13 Overturned by Supreme Court, Originally an ALEC Model Bill
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 28 July 2012
Act 13 — pejoratively referred to as “the Nation's Worst Corporate Giveaway”

On July 26, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled PA Act 13 unconstitutional. The bill would have stripped away local zoning laws, eliminated the legal concept of a Home Rule Charter, limited private property rights, and in the process, completely disempowered town, city, municipal and county governments, particularly when it comes to shale gas development.


The Court ruled that Act 13 "…violates substantive due process because it does not protect the interests of neighboring property owners from harm, alters the character of neighborhoods and makes irrational classifications – irrational because it requires municipalities to allow all zones, drilling operations and impoundments, gas compressor stations, storage and use of explosives in all zoning districts, and applies industrial criteria to restrictions on height of structures, screening and fencing, lighting ...

The Nakedness of Their Greed
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 28 July 2012
“The GOP bill would actually increase the average tax bill for 25 million households who earn less than $250,000.”

 

It's truly unbelievable: At no time in modern memory has the privileged class been richer, the middle class more endangered, or the number of people in poverty been so high. And yet the Republican Party, whose leaders are overwhelmingly wealthy themselves, is openly and shamelessly proposing to give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires - including heirs and heiresses who have done nothing to earn their riches - while actually raising taxes on millions of poor and middle class people.

There will be a time to engage in argument. But first let's take a moment to gaze in wonder at the nakedness of their greed.

Okay, moment's up. Now it's time for the argument.

In Plain Sight

Yesterday the Senate voted on a Democratic proposal to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for all income below $250,000 per year. Everybody would get that tax break, even billionaires. Taxes would go up for anything earned above that amount, and for some kinds of investment income. The bill would also preserve a number of tax breaks for middle class and lower-income working people.

Forty-eight Senators voted against the Democratic bill. Forty-four of them then promptly voted for the Republican proposal, which would keep the Bush tax cut for earnings above $250,000 - a cut which provides greater and greater tax breaks as you climb the earnings scale toward "millionaire" status and eventually ascend to the rarefied atmosphere of the billionaires' club.

They didn't even try to hide what they were doing. They didn't bury it in loopholes, or under pages of indecipherable legal language. They just ... put it all out there.

This is a stick-up.

The ...

Overturn Citizens United
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 27 July 2012
Sanders revealed for the first time that at least 23 billionaire families have contributed a minimum of $250,000 each so far in this year’s campaigns. “My guess is that number is really much greater because many of these contributions are made in secret. In other words, not content to own our economy, the 1 percent want to own our government as well,” he said his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.

Sen. Bernie Sanders told a Senate panel on Tuesday that a constitutional amendment is needed to undo the Supreme Court ruling that let corporations and wealthy individuals spend unlimited sums to sway American elections. Vermont and five other states have adopted resolutions asking Congress for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision. More than 200 local governments, including about 60 towns in Vermont, have passed similar measures.

Sanders revealed for the first time that at least 23 billionaire families have contributed a minimum of $250,000 each so far in this year's campaigns. "My guess is that number is really much greater because many of these contributions are made in secret.  In other words, not content to own our economy, the 1 percent want to own our government as well," he said his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.

Sanders said a handful of billionaires own a significant part of the wealth of America and have enormous control over our economy. The wealthiest 400 individuals own more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans - half the country. One family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart fame, is worth $89 billion, more than the bottom 40 percent of America. 

"What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: ‘You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we're going to give you the opportunity to own the United States government.'

"That is the essence of what Citizens United is all about - and that's why it must be overturned," said Sanders, the sponsor of the

Key Senate Staffer on Military Issues Got Big Payout From Lockheed Martin
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 27 July 2012
“The revolving door swings regularly in Washington, but the size of the compensation package Sauer received from Lockheed when she left the company is notable.”

Lockheed Martin has big business in Washington, with Defense Department contracts representing more than half of the company's $46.5 billion in net sales last year. And now, Lockheed has a former top lobbyist in a key position on Capitol Hill overseeing the company.

Former Lockheed vice president Ann Elise Sauer was hired by Sen. John McCain in February as the top Republican staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The revolving door swings regularly in Washington, but the size of the compensation package Sauer received from Lockheed when she left the company is notable. A financial disclosure form shows the defense giant gave Sauer $1.6 million in compensation around the time she took a buyout in January 2011.

At the moment, the stakes for Lockheed in Washington are even higher than usual, with the company leading the military contracting industry's charge to convince Congress to avoid a $492 billion, 9-year cut in military spending set to be triggered in January.

Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens was on the Hill this month warning that the company would have to lay off 10,000 employees if Congress does not make a deal. "Most tragically, we feel we will be unable to provide the equipment and support needed by our military forces," Stevens told the House.

As staff director for the minority on the Senate committee, Sauer has an important role in the battle over the possible military budget cuts. The committee regularly makes decisions ...

Senate Passes Middle-Class Tax Cut Bill
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 26 July 2012
U.S. Arms Control Official: Test Ban Treaty Faces ‘Uphill’ Fight in Senate
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 23 July 2012
“Like all treaties, the agreement on nuclear test bans requires a two-thirds majority approval from the Senate for U.S. ratification.”

 

The Obama administration’s top nuclear disarmament expert expressed concern Friday over partisan sentiments on Capitol Hill that could affect the passage of a key nuclear treaty.

 

In a conference call, Rose Gottemoeller, the assistant secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, told members of the American Bar Association that her office faces a complicated challenge in working with the Senate to ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The agreement would permanently ban nuclear testing and explosions worldwide for any purposes.


“We have a highly charged political atmosphere in Washington these days,” Gottemoeller said. “I know we will have a tough uphill fight, but I remain hopeful. We’re working to get these facts out to members of staff on the Hill — many of whom have never dealt with this treaty.”


Like all treaties, the agreement on nuclear test bans requires a two-thirds majority approval from the Senate for U.S. ratification. In September 1996, it was signed by two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly, including the United States. But it cannot enter into legal force until it is ratified by the United States and a handful of other remaining nations with nuclear arms or advanced nuclear programs. Gottemoeller said the Obama administration still has no specific timetable for pushing the treaty through the Senate.


“We understand that people want to get their heads around this and understand it fully, so we have no set time frames,” she said. “But we’re going to be patient and we’ll be ready to bring the treaty before the Senate for a vote when the time is right.”


Both as a candidate and as president, Obama has made the passage of the test ban treaty a keynote issue in his ...

Want A Real Recovery? Raise the Minimum Wage.
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 20 July 2012
“The report explores the connection between stagnant —and falling — wages, and it’s central finding explodes the argument that raising the minimum wage will cause employers to stop hiring, and the hurt small businesses that opponents of a minimum wage increase (and of the idea of a minimum wage itself) claim are the primary employers of low-wage workers.”

 

Scratch the surface of just about any economic debate this election year, and you'll find one issue that goes all the way to the core: the yawning gap between the 1% and the rest of us, as skyrocketing income inequality. A new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), "Big Business, Corporate Profits, and the Minimum Wage," shows the extremes of that divide, and makes the case for raising the federal minimum wage as a means of closing that gap, and putting the national economy on the road to a real recovery.

The report explores the connection between stagnant —and falling — wages, and it's central finding explodes the argument that raising the minimum wage will cause employers to stop hiring, and the hurt small businesses that opponents of a minimum wage increase (and of the idea of a minimum wage itself) claim are the primary employers of low-wage workers. 

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Let’s Consider the GOP’s Health Care Plan
Taylor
Published: Thursday 19 July 2012
The Republicans’ political slogan has been to “repeal and replace” Obama's reform, but they’ve dropped the replace part, saying they can’t offer an alternative until they complete the repeal.

 

Here's some useful advice from an old country saying: Never try to teach table manners to a pig — it doesn't work, it'll wear you out, and it just annoys the pig.

The same advice goes for anyone who thinks they can teach even a bit of common sense to the preening political ideologues who've taken over the Republican Party and the U.S. House of Representatives. As we've seen in their incessant, pigheaded attacks on the health care reform law, their minds are not merely fogged up with extremist anti-government theories, they're impervious to rational thought.

They failed to defeat Obamacare in 2010, despite trying to scare old people with mindless lies about "death panels." Now they're trying to repeal the law by getting people to swallow their hogwash that it contains "a massive tax hike on the middle class."

Really? No. One, it's not massive; two, it's a payment for direct benefit that people will receive, namely decent health care coverage; three, very few people will have to pay the so-called "tax" at all; and four, many people and small business will get tax credits and federal assistance to offset the cost of coverage.

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Presto! The DISCLOSE Act Disappears
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 18 July 2012
“The DISCLOSE Act is meant to pull back the curtain and reveal who’s donating $10,000 or more not only to super PACs but also to trade groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and these so-called ‘social welfare’ non-profits that can spend limitless cash on campaigns as long as it’s less than half the organization’s total budget.”

Ask any magician and they’ll tell you that the secret to a successful magic trick is misdirection -- distracting the crowd so they don’t realize how they’re being fooled. Get them watching your left hand while your right hand palms the silver dollar: "Now you see it, now you don't." The purloined coin now belongs to the magician.

Just like democracy. Once upon a time conservatives supported the full disclosure of campaign contributors. Now they oppose it with their might -- and magic, especially when it comes to unlimited cash from corporations. My goodness, they say, with a semantic wave of the wand, what’s the big deal?: nary a single Fortune 500 company had given a dime to the super PACs. (Even that's not entirely true, by the way.)

Meanwhile the other hand is poking around for loopholes, stuffing millions of secret corporate dollars into non-profit, tax-exempt organizations called 501(c)s that funnel the money into advertising on behalf of candidates or causes. Legally, in part because the Federal Election Commission does not consider them political committees, they can keep it all nice and anonymous, never revealing who’s really behind the donations or the political ads they buy. This is especially handy for corporations -- why risk offending customers by revealing your politics or letting them know how much you’re willing to shell out for a permanent piece of an obliging politician?

That’s why passing a piece of legislation called the DISCLOSE Act is so important and that’s why on Monday, Republicans in the Senate killed it. Again.

Why? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “Perhaps Republicans ...

Romney, Perfect Foil for a Republicrat Incumbent?
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 15 July 2012
This week’s self-inflicted wounds reinforce a veritable emblem of the unfeeling, plutocratic, opportunistic hustler, repeatedly revealing his core belief system: the end (profit, fame, election) justifies any means. It’s not pretty.

On paper, Obama fans should be ecstatic, taking on a tin-ear, gaffe-prone, flip-flopping, bromide-driven, predatory casino capitalist who fudges, lies, and distorts the destructive downsides to his great business prowess. Here's a brash politician who shrinks from his single public office – recoiling from his most celebrated success, the horror of state health reform. Throw in his massive financial spoils, flush with secret, offshore holdings and tax dodges, and recollections of a personal reign of terror against his pet dog and one fellow student pinned down and victimized for seeming gay. Does this ultimate, fabricated Republican nominee not already pale next to the post-primary John McCain?

 

This week’s self-inflicted wounds reinforce a veritable emblem of the unfeeling, plutocratic, opportunistic hustler, repeatedly revealing his core belief system: the end (profit, fame, election) justifies any means. It’s not pretty. For once, why not trust the quip last year from that Irascible-Ideologue, Anne Coulter: if Romney gets the nomination, he “will lose to Obama”? So, why the gloom, Democrats, why the virtual polling dead heat in battlegrounds like FL, which Romney has to win but Obama can lose?  Why does a still “likeable” incumbent, with bragging rights from a half dozen arguable wins, look so vulnerable. Is there some national cognitive dissonance here, or what? Has the vast rightwing hate machine truly managed to poison the well?

 

Reason itself stands mute when under-employed, or prospect-less jobless millions, however socially conservative, embrace a quarter billionaire who can’t keep his stories, positions, staff comments or past on the same page. Will more sound-and-fury-driven politics (as in 2010) drive the fear-baited, rightwing masses to betray core job interests? Will enough voters violate logic and conclude recessions end sooner without government ...

The Selling of American Democracy: The Perfect Storm
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 14 July 2012
“We can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few, but we cannot have both.”

 

Who’s buying our democracy? Wall Street financiers, the Koch brothers, and casino magnates Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn. 

And they’re doing much of it in secret.

It’s a perfect storm:

The greatest concentration of wealth in more than a century — courtesy “trickle-down” economics, Reagan and Bush tax cuts, and the demise of organized labor.

Combined with…

Unlimited political contributions — courtesy of Republican-appointed Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, in one of the dumbest decisions in Supreme Court history, “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission,” along with lower-court rulings that have expanded it.

Combined with…

Complete secrecy about who’s contributing how much to whom — courtesy of a loophole in the tax laws that allows so-called non-profit “social welfare” organizations to accept the unlimited contributions for hard-hitting political ads.

Put them all together and our democracy is being sold down the drain.

With a more equitable and traditional distribution of wealth, far more Americans would have a fair chance of influencing politics. As the great jurist Louis Brandeis once said, “we can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of a comparative few, but we cannot have both.”

Alternatively, inequality wouldn’t be as much of a problem if we had strict laws limiting political spending or, at the very least, disclosing who was contributing what. 

But we have an almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and unlimited political spending and secrecy. 

I’m not letting Democrats off the hook. Democratic candidates are still too dependent on Wall Street ...

Sabotaging Montana’s Campaign Finance Legacy
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 9 July 2012
Those corporate powers were exploiting Montana’s workforce, extracting its public resources, and routinely extending bribes to control its government.

 

As a Montana newspaper editorial succinctly put it: "The greatest living issue confronting us today is whether the corporations shall control the people or the people shall control the corporations."

That might sound like it was written in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. But it was actually in 1906, back when Montanans were rising up against out-of-state mining corporations known as the "copper kings." Those corporate powers were exploiting Montana's workforce, extracting its public resources, and routinely extending bribes to control its government.

In 1912, however, the people passed the Corrupt Practices Act, a citizens' initiative that outlawed direct corporate expenditures in elections for state office.

The law broke the copper kings' legislative chokehold, and a century later, it was still working to put people power over money politics. Even today, the average cost of state senate races in Montana stands at only $17,000. This low cost enables candidates to spend more time talking to everyday folks, and it contributes to one of America's highest voter-turnout rates.

Doesn't that sound like a model of democracy in action? Well, it was, until an out-of-state corporate front group rode in like copper kings to sue the state. With a pack of high-dollar lawyers and a bundle of corporate funding, the group wailed that Montana's anti-corruption law discriminates against poor corporations, denying them their First Amendment "right" to have the biggest voice in government that money can buy.

And now, the five corporate hacks controlling the Supreme Court have ratified the front group's ridiculous argument, imperiously shoving Montana's law into the ditch and re-imposing the rule of special interest money over the people's will.

To stop this ...

How the Student Loans Debate Got Religion
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 9 July 2012
Last week, Congress voted to extend lowered interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans to undergraduates after months of arguing over how to pay for it.

 

Reverend Stan Duncan describes the members of his Wareham, Mass. congregation as blue-collar workers in a factory town where all the factories have moved away: They’re hard-working, mission-driven Christians who clean the homes of widows, play the accordion at nursing homes, and “vote almost universally in a more conservative way.”

“I don’t usually get that political in the pulpit,” he says of his leadership at First Congregational Church of Wareham (UCC). But last month he convinced his church to join more than 40 faith groups nationwide to pray for a political issue gone surprisingly—and refreshingly—religious: debilitating student debt, and what we can do to alleviate it.

Last week, Congress voted to extend lowered interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans to undergraduates after months of arguing over how to pay for it. The current 3.4 percent rates were set to expire on July 1 if an agreement was not reached, doubling them to 6.8 percent. This would mean paying an extra $1,000 over the life of subsidized Stafford loans for 7.4 million students.

“In the faith community, there is a real acknowledgment that students are our future," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of the Christian organization Jubilee USA Network, which coordinated the national prayer session. “In a time of severe economic crisis … the types of loans they have dictate the kinds of choices they are able to make.”

The day of prayer on June 24 was the culmination of a series of actions—including press conferences, petition drives, and the delivery of around 3,000 messages from faith communities to the Senate—over the past 7–8 weeks to prevent the impending interest rate hike.

Jubilee USA, an alliance of more than ...

The ‘Monsanto Rider’: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 9 July 2012
A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed.

 

While many Americans were firing up barbecues and breaking out the sparklers to celebrate Independence Day, biotech industry executives were more likely chilling champagne to celebrate another kind of independence: immunity from federal law.

A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.

Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now.

In a statement issued last month, the Center For Food Safety had this to say about the biotech industry’s latest attempt to circumvent legal and regulatory safeguards:

Ceding broad and unprecedented powers to industry, the rider poses a direct threat to the authority of U.S. courts, jettisons the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) established oversight powers on key agriculture issues and puts the nation’s farmers and food supply at risk.

In other words, if this single line in the 90-page Agricultural Appropriations bill slips through, it’s Independence ...

Are Republicans Ready to Drop “No-Tax” Pledge?
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 9 July 2012
When ‘W’ Bush took office we had a huge budget surplus and we were on track to pay off the entire national debt in just ten years.

 

Republicans have been holding to a no-tax pledge for decades as a strategy to undermine government. But more and more people are noticing that our schools, roads, police and fire departments, bridges, courts, food-safety system -- and everything else non-military that our government does -- are starting to fall apart. At the same time, Republican-created anti-deficit hysteria is starting to backfire on Republicans themselves. So are some Republicans starting to back off?

But First

Before any deficit discussion begins people should be reminded of one very important and relevant fact: When 'W' Bush took office we had a huge budget surplus and we were on track to pay off the entire national debt in just ten years. In other words, our country's debt would be entirely paid off by now, and there would be no emergency at all. But Bush changed some things, and said the return of budget deficits was "incredibly positive news," and now we have a huge deficit and ...

Countrywide Won Influence With Discounts
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 8 July 2012
“The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also named six current and former members of Congress who received discount loans, but all of their names had surfaced previously.”

The former Countrywide Financial Corp., whose subprime loans helped start the nation's foreclosure crisis, made hundreds of discount loans to buy influence with members of Congress, congressional staff, top government officials and executives of troubled mortgage giant Fannie Mae, according to a House report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said that the discounts — from January 1996 to June 2008, were not only aimed at gaining influence for the company but to help mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Countrywide's business depended largely on Fannie, which at the time was trying to fend off more government regulation but eventually had to come under government control.

Fannie was responsible for purchasing a large volume of Countrywide's subprime mortgages. Countrywide was taken over by Bank of America in January 2008, relieving the financial services industry and regulators from the messy task of cleaning up the bankruptcy of a company that was servicing 9 million U.S. home loans worth $1.5 trillion at a time when the nation faced a widening credit crisis, massive foreclosures and an economic downturn.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee also named six current and former members of Congress who received discount loans, but all of their names had surfaced previously. Other previously mentioned names included former top executive branch officials and three chief executives of Fannie Mae.

"Documents and testimony obtained by the committee show the VIP loan program was a tool used by Countrywide to build goodwill with lawmakers and other individuals positioned to benefit the company," the report said. "In the years that led up to the 2007 housing market decline, Countrywide VIPs were positioned to affect dozens of pieces of legislation that would have reformed Fannie" and its rival Freddie Mac, the committee said.

Some ...

Gay Marriage Challenge Dismissed in New York
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 7 July 2012
House Republicans Reject Food Stamp Compromise in Favor of Reform They Admit is ‘Out Of Date’
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 5 July 2012
“House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK), in an effort to push food stamp reform that would have a fighting chance in the Senate, made sizable changes to SNAP in the House version of the farm bill.”

House Republicans have spent the years since the Great Recession clamoring for “reform” of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, cutting funding from the program in budgetafter budget. But now that a top House Republican has drafted a deal that would make the program’s basic requirements even more stringent than Texas — a state with notoriously strict eligibility standards — conservative Republicans are balking at the deal in favor of a requirement even they admit is “out of date.”

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK), in an effort to push food stamp reform that would have a fighting chance in the Senate, made sizable changes to SNAP in the House version of the farm bill. Lucas’ draft reins in state eligibility requirements by ending what is known as “categorical ...

Patriotism July 4, 2012
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 4 July 2012
Our system of government is America’s most precious and fragile possession, the means we have of joining together as a nation for the common good. It requires not only our loyalty but ongoing vigilance to keep it working well.

In the last two weeks, the Supreme Court has allowed police in Arizona to demand proof of citizenship from people they stop on other grounds (while throwing out the rest of Arizona’s immigration law), and has allowed the federal government to require everyone buy health insurance — even younger and healthier people — or pay a penalty. 

What do these decisions — and the national conversations they’ve engendered — have to do with patriotism? A great deal. Because underlying them are two different versions of American patriotism. 

The Arizona law is aimed at securing the nation from outsiders. The purpose of the heatlhcare law is to join together to provide affordable health care for all. 

The first version of patriotism is protecting America from people beyond our borders who might otherwise overrun us — whether immigrants coming here illegally or foreign powers threatening us with aggression. 

The second version of patriotism is joining together for the common good. That might mean contributing to a bake sale to raise money for a local school or volunteering in a homeless shelter. It also means paying our fair share of taxes so our community or nation has enough resources to meet all our needs, and preserving and protecting our system of government. 

This second meaning of patriotism recognizes our responsibilities to one another as citizens of the same society. It requires collaboration, teamwork, tolerance, and selflessness. 

The Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect, but in requiring younger and healthier people to buy insurance that will help pay for the healthcare needs of older and sicker people, it summons the second version of patriotism. 

Too often these days we don’t recognize and don’t practice this second version. We’re shouting at each ...

California Bucks Trend by Rejecting New Limits on ‘Solitary’
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 3 July 2012
“In California, a bid to require every-four-hour mental-health evaluations of minors who are “segregated” from other wards died a quick death this spring — even though the Golden State’s legislature is one of the nation’s most liberal and the measure was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times.”

 

At the first-ever congressional hearing on the subject of solitary confinement, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois recently observed that it’s not always “the worst of the worst” who are subjected to the practice. Mentally-ill inmates, immigrants and juvenile offenders are put in solitary as well. And perhaps, said a series of witnesses at the hearing, the time has come to rethink the issue.

Many states are now doing just that. But the debate is not devoid of its own unique politics.

In California, for instance, a bid to require every-four-hour mental-health evaluations of minors who are “segregated” from other wards died a quick death this spring — even though the Golden State’s legislature is one of the nation’s most liberal and the measure was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times. The legislation failed by one vote to move beyond the seven-member state Senate Public Safety Committee. Three of five Democrats voted for the bill, including the Senate’s top leader, Democrat Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento. But two Democrats and the committee’s only two Republicans voted against it.

READ FULL POST 2 COMMENTS

Obamacare Possibly Repealed if Republicans Win in November
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 30 June 2012
Congress Moving on, Poised to Act on Highways and Student Loans
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 29 June 2012
Cutting Red Tape in Transportation Bill Means Cutting You Out of the Environmental Review Process
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 29 June 2012
Regardless of the overall size, the public will not be given an opportunity to comment and the public will not have an opportunity to see how the highway, bridge, or other transportation project will impact their community.

 

Stories about the recent House transportation bill will likely focus on what was not in the package: the Keystone XL pipeline and coal ash regulations.

However, environmentalists, right-to-know advocates, and community organizers need to take a close look at the section that discusses “Accelerated Decision Making.”  For the first time, but likely not the last, conservative politicians in the House won a major victory in this small section of the bill by including their “streamlining” language, which simply means curtailing the public’s ability to comment on the impacts of transportation projects for communities — including on water, air, and public safety.

The legislation weakens one of our bedrock environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which guarantees public participation in reviewing government activities that affect the environment. It was signed into law by President Richard Nixon after passing the Senate by unanimous vote and the House by an overwhelming 372-15 vote.

First, the “Accelerated Decision Making” section of the transportation bill does what has never been done before — fining agencies up to 7% of their fiscal year budget if they do not meet established deadlines for environmental analyses. On the one hand, that means taking more money away from financially strapped agencies trying to accelerate their decision making process about the impacts of a project. On the other hand, it gives agencies an incentive to deny permits in order to avoid the fine.  Neither of these impacts will lead to getting more transportation projects on line faster.

Next, this section of the law expands the type of projects that do not have to go through a public comment and environmental review ...

High Court Upholds Key Part of Obama Health Law
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 28 June 2012
“The ruling hands Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in approving the plan.”

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld virtually all of President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul, including the hotly debated core requirement that nearly every American have health insurance.

The 5-4 decision meant the huge overhaul, still taking effect, could proceed and pick up momentum over the next several years, affecting the way that countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care.

The ruling hands Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in approving the plan. However, Republicans quickly indicated they will try to use the decision to rally their supporters against what they call "Obamacare," arguing that the ruling characterized the penalty against people who refuse to get insurance as a tax.

Breaking with the court's other conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Roberts explained at length the court's view of the mandate as a valid exercise of Congress' authority to "lay and collect taxes." The administration estimates that roughly 4 million people will pay the penalty rather than buy insurance.

Even though Congress called it a penalty, not a tax, Roberts said, "The payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation."

Roberts also made plain the court's rejection of the administration's claim that Congress had the power under the Constitution's commerce clause to put the mandate in place. The power to regulate interstate commerce power, he said, "does not authorize the mandate. "

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney renewed his criticism of the overhaul, calling it "bad law" and promising to work to repeal it if elected in November.

Stocks of hospital companies rose sharply, and insurance companies ...

Lawmakers Close to Making Deals on Transportation and Student Loans
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 27 June 2012
Why Your Senator Doesn’t Represent You: The Big Money in Political Campaigns
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 27 June 2012
“Candidates who raised 33 percent less money received 33 percent fewer votes, and lost.”

We know what the ballot looks like when we go to the polls. But what does a senator see?

To win elections, politicians need votes. To get those, they need to raise money – a lot of money. In the 2010 Senate elections, the average winning candidate received 1.8 million votes and raised $9.8 million. Candidates who raised 33 percent less money received 33 percent fewer votes, and lost.

If a candidate called up voters himself, he’d need to convince 144 people every hour to vote for him (on average over his six-year term). That means he could spare just 25 seconds talking to each voter. (And this assumes he never spends time governing; he’d actually have far less.)

But modern political campaigns speak to voters less directly, with TV ads and billboards. To afford their campaigns, senators need to raise $782 an hour. That sounds like a lot, but a single big donor gives $1,837 on average. Most Americans can’t afford that, but politicians ask lobbyists and the wealthy. Because each big donor gives so much, he or she is worth 2.4 hours of a candidate’s time – over 300 times more than a voter.

Would a busy senator rather talk with 300 voters or one big donor? When it comes time to do his job, and pass legislation, whose interests will he represent?

 

Food Safety Up Against Biotech Giants
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 26 June 2012
“Recent polls conducted by MSNBC and Thompson Reuters found that between 93 and 96 percent of the American public believe genetically engineered foods should be labeled as such.”

 

As the 2012 Farm Bill continues to take shape in the halls of the United States Congress, the immense influence of corporate interests is on display.

On Jun. 21 the United States’ Senate voted overwhelmingly against the Sanders Amendment that would have allowed states to pass legislation that required food and beverage products to label whether or not they contain genetically engineered ingredients.

The amendment, proposed by Independent Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, is particularly relevant as many states prepare to vote on a ballot initiatives that would require such labelling of genetically modified (GM) foods.

Lobbyists from the biotech industry have ardently opposed GMO labelling. These opponents argue that because food labelling has historically been handled by the Food and Drug Association (FDA), it is a federal issue and, therefore, individual states do not have the right to implement such legislation. Indeed, in the case of Vermont, Sander’s home state, ...

34 Lawmakers Changed Their Investments after Receiving Private Briefings About 2008 Economic Crisis
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 25 June 2012
Due to weak insider trading rules, Bachus was cleared of any legal wrong doing by the Congressional Ethics Committee, but the case still motivated Congress to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which supposedly prevents lawmakers from profiting off information they receive in private briefings with top economic officials.

 

 

Last November, 60 Minutes aired a report showing that House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) made tens of thousands of dollars trading stock as he was receiving private economic briefings during the height of the 2008 financial crisis. Due to weak insider trading rules, Bachus was cleared of any legal wrong doing by the Congressional Ethics Committee, but the case still motivated Congress to pass the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which supposedly prevents lawmakers from profiting off information they receive in private briefings with top economic officials.

However, the problem may go far beyond just Bachus. As the Washington Post reported on Monday, 34 lawmakers — including Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) — shuffled their investment portfolios during the financial crisis, after speaking to high-ranking economic officials:

Boehner is one of 34 members of Congress who took steps to recast ...

The Myth of the Free Market
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 25 June 2012
“The Big Lie that is destroying the American economy, the middle class, and the good character of a once-great country.”

 

As numbing news of multibillion dollar boondoggles, scandals and swindles becomes a daily occurrence, now is the time to take a close look at the right-wing propaganda machine’s favorite canards about capitalism and the free market. In the wake of the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression and in the throes of a prolonged recession brought on by rogue financial institutions operating outside a regulatory system supposedly designed to prevent the very kind of reckless behavior and profiteering that led to the current doldrums, here is a short list of myths perpetrated by the corporate greed-is-good culture – myths that taken together add up to The Big Lie that is destroying the American economy, the middle class, and the good character of a once-great country.

 

Let’s begin with an axiom the US Chamber of Commerce, Koch Industries, Inc., Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Company, and Bain Capital, to name but a few, would all wholeheartedly endorse:  state interference (“regulation”) is inimical to economic growth, job creation, and prosperity.  And this corollary:  a free Market is the best and only way to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.

 

Myth #1: There is no such thing as a free market, never has been, never will be. All markets are regulated, but some markets are regulated in the interest of the many and others in the interest of the few. The American economy is now clearly and indisputably regulated by the few and for the few who now control the wealth of the nation.

 

Proof: The top 20% own all but about 15% of the privately held money and assets in this country. The top 10% of taxpayers owns roughly 72% of the wealth and over 90% of the stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Between 1981 and 2005, federal taxes on ...

The Unstoppable DREAMers
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 22 June 2012
“The change is nevertheless a tremendous advance that will affect some 800,000 young people who have been living in fear and uncertainty about their ability to stay in the country.”

You can say that Obama was pandering for election-year purposes with his announcement that the government will no longer deport undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. You can say that the new policy does not go far enough in securing thoroughgoing immigration reform. So be it. The change is nevertheless a tremendous advance that will affect some 800,000 young people who have been living in fear and uncertainty about their ability to stay in the country. And it is worth spending a moment to pay homage to the DREAM Act students whose extraordinary activism made it possible.

In case you haven’t followed this issue, the DREAM Act is a piece of legislation that would give legal status and create a path to citizenship for young immigrants, some of whom have spent almost their entire lives in the United States, who are going to college or serving in the military. The bill was passed by the House in 2010, and even got fifty-one votes in the Senate, but it could not overcome a Republican filibuster.

Undaunted, student activists supporting the bill—young people known as DREAMers—continued to push for the legislation with a series of gutsy actions. It is their dedication that has compelled Obama’s executive order, which represents an end-run around Congress. The order implements many of the practical mandates of the DREAM Act, giving legal status to young immigrants who have been in the country for more than five years and who have graduated high school, earned a GED, or enlisted in the military.

When I say the students took gutsy actions, I mean gutsy. I quote here a story from last December:

A pair of college students from Southern California recently walked into a ...

53 U.S. Senators Stand Up to Protect Public Health
Taylor
Published: Thursday 21 June 2012
“Forty-eight Democratic Senators and 5 Republican colleagues voted against Senator Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) Congressional Review Act resolution, S.J. Res 37, which would have blocked the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard. Forty-one Republicans and 5 Democrats voted for it to stop the mercury protections.”

Today the Senate rejected another attempt to block vitally important public health safeguards. Forty-eight Democratic Senators and 5 Republican colleagues voted against Senator Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) Congressional Review Act resolution, S.J. Res 37, which would have blocked the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard. Forty-one Republicans and 5 Democrats voted for it to stop the mercury protections.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standard, or MATS, was finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in December 2011. It would require steep reductions of mercury, lead, arsenic, and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants, the largest domestic source of mercury emissions in the United States. These plants spew 53,510 pounds of mercury into the air each year. Mercury and other airborne toxics are linked to birth defects, brain damage, learning disabilities, cancer, and other serious ailments.

The 46 Senators who voted in favor of blocking these important health protections received over $14 million in direct campaign donations from the coal and utility industries throughout their congressional careers. The senators who voted against the resolution received just $4 million, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

Senators who opposed mercury safeguards received an average of $313,000 in contributions, while supporters of protections received ...

U.S. Chamber, GOP Block Election Ad Transparency Bill
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 20 June 2012
“In short, it functions just like the better-known super PACs but with a major distinction — it is not required to disclose its donors, despite the high court’s consistent support for disclosure rules.”

Alexi Giannoulias “can’t be trusted,” the 2010 election ad said. His family’s bank loaned money to mobsters, he accepted an illegal tax break and he even squandered money that families were saving for college.

If the charges were true, the U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois must have been a real creep. But they were bogus. Giannoulias, the Democratic candidate, lost anyway.

His accuser was not his opponent. It was an anonymously funded, pro-Republican nonprofit called Crossroads GPS, a “social welfare” organization that, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, can accept unlimited donations from corporations, wealthy individuals and unions, and run attack ads.

In short, it functions just like the better-known super PACs but with a major distinction — it is not required to disclose its donors, despite the high court’s consistent support for disclosure rules

In 2010, legislation introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., would require nonprofits that buy political ads to disclose their donors. The bill — fought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's most powerful business lobby — failed. A stripped-down version introduced this year has been blocked by Republicans in both the House and Senate.

The Chamber claims disclosure would “silence free speech.” Critics say its opposition is more about shielding the business association’s corporate donors from a potential public backlash.

Transparency means ‘informed decisions’

“Disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy ...

20 Questions: Why You Should Join Today’s March Against Money in Politics
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 20 June 2012
If you’ve got doubts about whether or not to join us, here are twenty questions (and answers) that should help you make up your mind.

There's a march and demonstration taking place tomorrow (Wednesday, June 20) to protest money's corrupting influence in our political process. We'll be marching on the headquarters of Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS organization in Washington DC to protest the corrupting, debasing, and anti-democratic influence of money in politics.

I'll be there, and you should be too. Why?

I'm glad you asked.

Hey, I marched when I was in junior high school. Like many other people, I thought those days were over. Maybe you did did too. News flash: They're not. Maybe you're like me and rediscovered the power of protest by joining the Occupy movement. Or maybe you're still sitting on the fence.

If you've got doubts about whether or not to join us, here are twenty questions (and answers) that should help you make up your mind.

1. March? Really? On foot? That's so retro, so sixties! Weren't demonstrations just something that was fashionable when guys wore Nehru jackets and women wore granny skirts?

Actually, no. Public demonstrations for "redress of grievances" are as old as the Republic itself - older, in fact. Nonviolent demonstrations defeated the British Empire in India. They triggered the American Revolution. They gave working people their rights, created the middle class, and led to the greatest prosperity in our history during the 20th Century.

More recently, public demonstrations helped bring down the Iron Curtain and sparked the Arab Spring, a fight that's still underway but which has already changed the political landscape of the Middle East.

Protest marches are a pure form of democracy in action. That's something that never goes out of fashion.

2. But don't we do all ...

JPMorgan’s Connections to the House Finance Committee
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 20 June 2012
The House committee where Dimon is appearing today has its own ties to the bank.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is on Capitol Hill again today, this time to talk to the House Financial Services committee about the bank's recent multibillion-dollar trading loss. According to his prepared testimony, Dimon plans to deliver basically the same remarks he gave the Senate banking committee last week, apologizing but giving few details.

His Senate hearing was hardly a grilling; senators mostly praised him for his "emphasis on continuous quality improvement," in the words of Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

As we charted last week, JPMorgan happens to have plenty of connections to the Senate committee. The House committee where Dimon is appearing today has its own ties to the bank. Congressmen and staff from the committee have gone to JPMorgan and its lobbying firms. Members have also gotten hefty campaign contributions from the bank's PACs and employees.

The House Connections

JPMorgan has two in-house lobbyists with connections to the House Financial Services committee.

GOP Senate Candidate Wants the Media to Stop Covering ‘Sob Stories’ About Low-Income Americans
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 19 June 2012
Evidently tired of reading about low-income or homeless individuals unable to access basic needs, Hovde expressed his disdain for such “sob stories.”

At a recent , Republican Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde said that he is exasperated with media coverage of “sad personal stories” about Americans who have been affected by the Great Recession. Evidently tired of reading about low-income or homeless individuals unable to access basic needs, Hovde expressed his disdain for such “sob stories,” while pointing to a reporter:

I see a reporter here. I just pray that you start writing about these issues. I just pray.Stop always writing about, ‘Oh, the person couldn’t get, you know, their food stamps or this or that.’ You know, I saw something the other day — it’s like, another sob story, and I’m like, ‘But what about what’s happening to the country and the country as a whole?’ That’s going to devastate everybody.

Watch it (relevant clip begins at 13:47):

According to Hovde, more important issues include lowering the corporate tax rate and the national deficit. Hovde’s comments come after a May 2011 study conducted by the National Journal, which reviewed how often the words “unemployment” or “deficit” appeared in the nation’s five largest newspapers. The findings clearly show that the deficit was covered significantly more than the unemployment in major American news outlets.

A Wisconsin hedge fund manager and businessman, ...

Corporate Feelings
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 19 June 2012
“In the upside-down world of regressive Republicanism, McConnell thinks proposed legislation requiring companies to disclose their campaign spending would stifle their free speech.”

Perhaps you’d expect no more from the Republican leader of the Senate who proclaimed three years ago that the GOP’s first priority was to get Obama out of the White House.

But Senator Mitch McConnell’s speech Friday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington is simply bonkers.

The only reason I bring it up is because it offers an inside look at how the  Republican goal of getting rid of Obama is inextricably linked to the Republican Supreme Court’s decision equating corporations with people under the First Amendment, and to the Republican’s current determination to keep Americans in the dark about which corporations contribute what. 

In the upside-down world of regressive Republicanism, McConnell thinks proposed legislation requiring companies to disclose their campaign spending would stifle their free speech.

He describes the current push to disclose the sources behind campaign contributions as a “political weapon,” used by the Democrats, “to expose its critics to harassment and intimidation.” 

Harassment and intimidation? It used to be called accountability to shareholders and consumers.

Five members of the Supreme Court think corporations are people. Mitt Romney agrees. And now the minority leader of the Senate – the highest-ranking Republican official in America – takes this logic to its absurd conclusion: If corporations are people, they must be capable of feeling harassed and intimidated if their shareholders or consumers don’t approve of their political expenditures.

Hell, they might even throw a tantrum. Or cry.

But what exactly are corporations anyway, separate and apart from their shareholders and consumers? Legal fictions, pieces of paper.

And whom do corporations exist for if not the people who legally own them and those who purchase the products and services they sell? 

Clearly, ...

Sanders Calls for GMO Labeling Amendment to Farm Bill
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 17 June 2012
The Vermont Legislature considered a labeling bill this past session but Democratic leaders decided not to bring it up because of concerns that the major chemical companies would sue the state.

Senator Bernie Sanders is urging his colleagues to allow individual states to require the labeling of all genetically engineered foods. Sanders' proposal is one of more than 80 amendments to the new Farm Bill.

The Vermont Legislature considered a labeling bill this past session but Democratic leaders decided not to bring it up because of concerns that the major chemical companies would sue the state.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sanders said his amendment makes it clear that states do have the authority to address this issue if they choose to:

"Amendment number 2310 is about allowing states to honor the wishes of their residents and allowing consumers to know what they are eating," said Sanders. "If this is not a conservative amendment I don't know what is. Americans deserve the right to know what they and their children are eating and that is what this amendment is all about."

And Sanders notes that dozens of ...

A Campaign Finance Free-For-All in South Carolina
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 16 June 2012
In the past, an independent entity attempting to influence an election — like Citizens for a Better Charleston — would have had to file disclosure paperwork as a “committee” with the state’s ethics agency, allowing a bit of sunlight to shine on its work.

 

Longtime Charleston Mayor Joe Riley had run a lot of high-minded races in this coastal city known for charm and manners, so nothing really prepared him for the bare-knuckle politics he faced in a re-election bid last fall. A shadowy group popped up seemingly out of nowhere and spent an untold amount of secret money to pummel Riley’s record in support of one of his rivals.

None of the mayor’s opponents declared allegiance to the anonymous group that funded TV ads, flyers and a slick website called “The Riley Files” that read like a private investigator's report. The website came complete with images of manila folders titled “Crony Capitalism” and “Misplaced Priorities” along with photos of the mayor paper-clipped to them.

No one ever found out who was behind the group calling itself Citizens for a Better Charleston. That's because new rules in South Carolina meant the group did not have to file paperwork with the state or disclose what it was doing, how much it was spending, where its money was coming from and who was bankrolling it.

The mayor won his re-election campaign, but the victory came with a few bruises — and a lesson: in the realm of money and politics, things had changed dramatically in the Palmetto State.

In the past, an independent entity attempting to influence an election — like Citizens for a Better Charleston — would have had to file disclosure paperwork as a “committee” with the state’s ethics agency, allowing a bit of sunlight to shine on its work. 

But not anymore.

In 2010, a little-noticed ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry Wooten in Florence, S.C., kicked the regulatory teeth out of a key statute in the state’s campaign finance laws and opened the ...

Getting Rolled in Wisconsin
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 11 June 2012
“Walker is the first governor in American history to win a recall election.”

 

The revelers watched in stunned disbelief, cocktails in hand, dressed for a night to remember. On the big-screen TV a headline screamed in crimson red: "Projected Winner: Scott Walker." It was 8:49 p.m. In parts of Milwaukee, people learned that news networks had declared Wisconsin’s governor the winner while still in line to cast their votes. At the election night party for Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supporters talked and cried and ordered more drinks. Barrett soon took the stage to concede, then waded into the crowd where a distraught woman slapped him in the face.

Walker is the first governor in American history to win a recall election. His lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, dispatched her recall challenger no less decisively. So, too, did three Republican state senators in their recall elections. Democrats avoided a GOP sweep with a win in the sixth and final senate recall vote of the season, in Wisconsin's southeastern 21st district, but that was small consolation. Put simply, Democrats and labor unions got rolled.

The results of Tuesday's elections are being heralded as the death of public-employee unions, if not the death of organized labor itself. Tuesday's results are also seen as the final chapter in the story of the populist uprising that burst into life last year in the state capital of Madison. The Cheddar Revolution, so the argument goes, was buried in a mountain of ballots.

But that burial ceremony may prove premature. Most of the conclusions of the last few days, left and right, are likely wrong.

The energy of the Wisconsin uprising was never electoral. The movement’s mistake: letting itself be channeled solely into traditional politics, into the usual box of uninspired candidates and the usual line-up of debates, ...

Election Year Sees Increasingly Polarized U.S. Congress
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 10 June 2012
Now, “the parties are more consistent in their programmatic and ideological views.”

These include some of the recent Congressional primary elections in states throughout the U.S.; the retirement of longtime senator Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine; and the decline of the Blue Dog Coalition of centrist Democrats. 

 


A recent book, "The Last Great Senate" by Ira Shapiro, reminisces about decades past such as the 1970s and 1980s where Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate seemed better able to work together for the good of the country. 


"The pattern that has been present since the 1930s where you had a big conservative element in the Democratic Party and a big moderate element in the Republican Party, those days are pretty well gone," Randall Strahan, a professor of political science at Emory University, told IPS. 


Now, "the parties are more consistent in their programmatic and ideological views. It's unrealistic to think any time in the near future partisan conflict will go away," he said. 


But Strahan argues that it is not entirely a bad thing. 


"Some people say partisan conflict turns off voters. The evidence is just the opposite; hotly contested politics turns out voters. It (polarization) clarifies choices for voters. When you have a Democratic Party all over the map, conservative segregationists in the South and liberals in the North, it's very ambiguous when you vote for a Democrat what that means," he said. 


In fact, a highly polarized U.S. Congress has been typical throughout U.S. history, with the last several decades of moderation as the anomaly, Strahan said. 


The conservative Tea Party celebrated last month when Thomas Massie, a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate for U.S. House in Kentucky, won the Republican primary there. He is expected to win in November's general election. 


Massie was backed by U.S. Sen. ...

Following the Money on Financial Reform
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 9 June 2012
“Anyone who can use Google can figure out that Wall Street is the only force in our country right now that is above the fray of party politics.”

 

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., former CFTC chair Brooksley Born and others are none too happy about the 2013 financial services appropriations bill. President Obama had requested $308 million for the Commodities and Futures Trade Commission, an amount that House Republicans had severely undercut to $180.4 million. Frank, Born, and industry leaders made their displeasure known during a Capitol Hill press conference this morning.

The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) now regulates derivatives trading and speculation, thanks to the 2010 Dodd-Frank Reform Act. Those financial instruments played significant roles in bringing the financial system to its knees in 2008.

Frank, Born, and other House Democrats used a multitude of sports and animal analogies to insist that Wall Street donations to Republicans were undermining the potential for financial regulation.

“What we have is the confluence of money on steroids,” said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Larson, D-Conn. “Now we are throwing the American people to the wolves.”

“The fact that the Republican Party is lavishing money on weapons systems that the Pentagon does not want while reducing the necessary funds for the regulation of derivatives, is a textbook example of terrible priorities,” said Frank in a Tuesday statement.

Anyone who can use Google can figure out that Wall Street is the only force in our country right now that is above the fray of party politics. In fact, it may be their only saving grace.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the top industry contributor to Frank’s campaign committee came from securities and investment. CFTC commissioner Gary Gensler, who was sworn in by a Democratic Senate, ...

Walker Survives Wisconsin Recall After GOP, Corporate Backers Rally and Dems Stay on Sidelines
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 6 June 2012
Walker outspent his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seven to one after raising millions of dollars from right-wing donors outside the state.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has survived a historic recall election more than a year after launching a controversial effort to roll back the bargaining rights of the state’s public workers. Walker outspent his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, seven to one after raising millions of dollars from right-wing donors outside the state. We’re joined by John Nichols, a correspondent for The Nation. "We always like to tell ourselves that if the people get organized enough, they can offset any amount of money," Nichols says. "But in Wisconsin, we got a pretty powerful lesson about this new era we’re entering into with unlimited cash ... It’s something we should be taking a good look at — not merely for Wisconsin, but for the whole country." Nichols also criticizes the Democratic National Committee and President Obama for mostly staying on the sidelines as Republicans nationwide rallied around Walker. "The comparison between tens of millions of dollars and an all-in effort by the RNC and by national Republicans [versus] a tweet from President Obama, I think, sums it up a little bit painfully," he says.

 

Transcript

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Law of the Sea Treaty Ratification Faces Unsettled Waters
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 6 June 2012
“Since the launch last month of a major campaign by big business, the Pentagon and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry to gain LOST’s ratification, some two dozen Republican senators have signaled their opposition.”

The fact that it isn't testifies to the degree to which forces of the U.S. far right have maintained or strengthened their hold on the Republican Party and to the abiding strength of the kind of aggressive and unilateral nationalism that dominated the first terms of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. 

 

Since the launch last month of a major campaign by big business, the Pentagon and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry to gain LOST's ratification, some two dozen Republican senators have signaled their opposition. 

 

Only 34 are needed to kill it. The U.S. constitution requires that two-thirds of the 100-member chamber must vote "aye" to ratify a treaty. 

 

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, has so far been silent. But in his 2008 campaign, the former Massachusetts governor, who was then running as a "moderate", said he had "concerns" about the treaty's "giving unaccountable international institutions more power". 

 

If pressed to take a position before the election, treaty supporters are worried he'll oppose it. 

 

That is one reason why Kerry intends to delay a vote on the treaty in his committee until after the November election when partisan passions - currently on the boil and rising fast - may cool. 

 

The product of some 15 years of negotiations, LOST, which has been ratified by 161 countries and the European Union, sets rules governing most areas of ocean policy, including navigation and over- flight rights, exploitation of the seabed, conservation and research. 

 

Successive administrations – both Democratic and Republican – led negotiations for the treaty from the late 1960s onward. But when completed in 1982, then-President Ronald Reagan, under pressure from big U.S. ...

OSHA Rules on Workplace Toxics Stalled
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 5 June 2012
The federal standard in place to protect workers like Revers from beryllium is based on an Atomic Energy Commission calculation crafted by an industrial hygienist and a physician in the back of a taxi in 1949. For the last 12 years, an effort to update that standard has been mired in delay.

 

At 58, retired machinist Bruce Revers is tethered to his oxygen machines — a wall unit when he’s at home, a portable tank when he’s out. The simple act of walking to the curb to pick up his newspaper is a grind.

“This is a hell of a thing to live with,” Revers, of Orange, Calif., said of his worsening lung disease. “There’s nothing I can do without my air.”

His undoing was beryllium, a light and versatile metal to which he was exposed in a Southern California factory that makes high-tech ceramics for the space, defense and automotive industries. His bosses tried to keep the place clean and well-ventilated, Revers says, and he wore a respirator to shield his lungs from the fine metallic dust. Nonetheless, he was diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease in 2009.

He will not recover.

The federal standard in place to protect workers like Revers from beryllium is based on an Atomic Energy Commission calculation crafted by an industrial hygienist and a physician in the back of a taxi in 1949. For the last 12 years, an effort to update that standard has been mired in delay. A plan to ...

Democratic “Super PAC” Raised $1.9 Million Since March
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 1 June 2012
Tea Party Spends Big in Texas Senate Primary Showdown
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 30 May 2012
“Anti-tax super PAC Club for Growth Action has spent $2.5 million on ads, mostly opposing Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas.”

Outside groups have spent more than $6.4 million in the Texas GOP primary for the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, more than any other House or Senate race thus far in the primary season, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The race pits establishment favorite David Dewhurst, a wealthy self-financing candidate, against the tea party-backed Ted Cruz.

Cruz himself has raised $6.4 million — a fraction of the $21.6 million raised by Dewhurst. Dewhurst’s sum, though, includes more than $15 million that he has contributed or loaned to his own campaign. (Cruz has given his campaign $470,000, according to FEC filings.)

Delayed since March due to redistricting issues, the Texas Republican primary is a chance for the tea party to build on its momentum after its candidate, Richard Mourdock, defeated long-time Sen. Richard Lugar in Indiana’s hotly contested Republican primary in early May.

Anti-tax super PAC Club for Growth Action has spent $2.5 million on ads, mostly opposing Dewhurst, the lieutenant governor of Texas. A pro-Dewhurst super PAC, Texas Conservatives Fund, fought back with $2.3 million in ads against Cruz, Texas’s former solicitor general.

“Moderate, tax-raising David Dewhurst,” is how one Club for Growth Action attack ad described him. This and other ads focused on his support of a state income tax and other “moderate” positions he has taken.

Club for Growth’s single biggest donor, Virginia James, is New Jersey-based investor who has been recognized for her contributions to right-wing organizations, many of which have ties to tea party funders Charles and David Koch.

Another major Club ...

Ohio Passes One of the Worst Fracking Laws in the U.S.
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 29 May 2012
“The bill heading to Gov. Kasich’s desk fails to reinvest in Ohio communities, adequately protect Ohioans from the toxic impacts of the fracking industry and address the growing climate crisis.”

Don't Frack Ohio

On May 24, the Ohio’s State Assembly passed Senate Bill 315—one of the worst fracking laws in the nation—by a 21-8 vote in the Senate and a 73-19 vote in the Ohio House that approves new regulations governing hydraulic fracturing in the Utica and Marcellus shale formations running under nearly half of the state. The shale gas provisions are part of a larger energy bill that also addresses Ohio’s renewable energy portfolio standard.

The bill heading to Gov. Kasich’s desk fails to reinvest in Ohio communities, adequately protect Ohioans from the toxic impacts of the fracking industry and address the growing climate crisis.

SB 315 will allow health and safety loopholes. It requires the gas industry to pay less than almost any other state in the country, exposing our communities to the worst excesses of the fracking industry. Doctors will be prevented from talking openly about the sickness they see in their patients, and the gas industry will keep profits flowing out of our communities.

The rumblings you hear when this bill is signed is not the sound of another injection well caused earthquake—it’s the rumblings of a backlash against the politicians who have been bought by the gas industry and have chosen to sacrifice Ohio in return.

Those rumblings will become an uproar next month when we take over the streets and statehouse in Columbus to tell Gov. Kasich: Don’t Frack Ohio! at a rally on Sunday, June 17.

The industry has told Ohioans to prepare for thousands of new wells. Here are some of the worst things about SB 315 that you need to know:

  • Fracking companies can hide which chemicals they use in the fracking process by calling them “trade secrets.” What little they do disclose is 60 days after ...
Today, Fight for a Fair Transportation Bill
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 23 May 2012
“The Leadership Conference is specifically concerned about protecting language in the Senate version of the bill that would require the federal government to continue technical assistance programs and studies related to public transportation and its accessibility to low-income people and people of color.”

It's about time for us to break into the closed-door negotiations in Congress over a surface transportation bill.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is asking people today to call their members of Congress to support "transportation equity" in the transportation bill, which will fund highway and public transportation projects for the next two years. The Leadership Conference has in mind some specific concerns affecting urban and low-income populations, but everyone concerned about making the economy work again for working-class and middle-class people has a reason to make their voice heard. This bill is too important to be left to the lobbyists who have access to the members and staffers huddled in a House-Senate conference committee.

The Leadership Conference is specifically concerned about protecting language in the Senate version of the bill that would require the federal government to continue technical assistance programs and studies related to public transportation and its accessibility to low-income people and people of color. The importance of public transportation, of course, transcends race and class—the more people use public transportation, the less clogged and the less polluted our roads are, and the less fuel we're consuming.

And just this week, the American Public Transportation Association released a report that estimated that riders would be making an additional 200 million new trips on buses and rail systems this year as gas prices fluctuate. That reports cites evidence that many riders who start taking buses or rail when gas prices spike keep on doing so when gas prices fall, as they are now.

House Republicans, however, almost got away with ditching dedicated federal funding for public transportation altogether. (Federal assistance is used for capital expenses; operating expenses are ...

Senate Plans to Toughen Iran Penalties For Nuke Program
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 22 May 2012
No Country for Young Men as Old Men Play for Time: The End in Afghanistan is Totally Predictable
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 22 May 2012
Once again American troops are being asked to keep fighting for a mistake -- this time the 2001 fantasy of the Bush/Cheney administration that it could make a client state out of Afghanistan.

John Kerry, back before he was a pompous windsurfing Senate apologist for American empire, back when he wore his hair long and was part of a movement of returned US military veterans speaking out against the continuation of the Vietnam War, famously asked the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at a hearing, “How do you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?”

That was 1971, and the Vietnam War continued to drag on for two more years, with more Americans dying, and with many more Vietnamese being killed, until finally the last US combat troops were gone. But even then the fighting continued, with the Army of South Vietnam armed and financed by the United States, until April 30, 1975, when the last resistance ended and Vietnam was liberated and reunified and finally at peace.

During those two terrible years between Kerry’s statement and the end of US combat operations, American soldiers stationed in Vietnam knew that the war was lost, and knew they were there for no reason other than keeping President Nixon from looking like he had lost a war, particularly as he faced re-election during the campaign year of 1972. There was, understandably, massive resort to drugs, including marijuana, opium, heroin, LSD and others, as well as alcohol. There was the fragging of commanding officers who were too aggressive about sending their troops into danger. There was insubordination and insurrection and there was ...

This is Why You’re Fat
Elizabeth
Published: Wednesday 16 May 2012
As Reuters reports, the food and beverage industry has been relentless in Washington lately, more than doubling their spending in Washington during the past three years, completely outpacing public interest groups looking out for children’s health.

Nearly half of all Americans will be obese by 2030, researchers reported at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation conference in Washington earlier this month. 42 percent of us are projected to be obese, placing a huge strain on our already compromised health care system. Brian Fung at The Atlantic points out that the healthcare costs of obesity — $550 billion over the next two decades — is more than the U.S. Department of Defense asked for in its fiscal year 2013 budget.

There are a lot of reasons — chemical, psychological, environmental — for why people are obese. But explaining societal obesity means looking at what the food system is providing for us to eat — and how government policies might promote certain foods over others.

“In the political arena, one side is winning the war on child obesity,” a new Reuters report on the food lobby begins. “The side with the fattest wallets.”

That’s entirely true. As Reuters reports, the food and beverage industry has been relentless in Washington lately, more than doubling their spending in Washington during the past three years, completely outpacing public interest groups looking out for children’s health:

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, widely regarded as the lead lobbying force for healthier food, spent about $70,000 lobbying last year — roughly what those opposing the stricter guidelines spent every 13 hours, ...

Fiscal Summit: Boehner, Ryan Show Peterson Summit’s True Colors
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 16 May 2012
“As Greg Kaufmann reported in The Nation, these cuts in 2013 include $36 billion less in spending on food assistance to the poor (the SNAP, or food-stamp, program), eliminating 5.5 million children from eligibility for the Child Tax Credit and eliminating programs under the Social Services Block Grant that serve millions of low-income children and seniors. ”

Multibillionaire Peter G. Peterson's Fiscal Summit may have started with conciliatory nods toward bipartisanship, but it did not climax that way. And that had to have been by design.

Peterson and the people who planned the Fiscal Summit had to have known when they planned to have House Speaker John Boehner as the day's closing speaker that he would deliver the right-wing, red-meat, no-compromise speech that even Peterson himself was too polite to give. If that was the case, Boehner did not disappoint, declaring that he would once again risk having the federal government default in order to ram his conservative austerity agenda down the throat of the nation.

The middle finger pointed at the American Majority could not have been more plain. He said in his speech:

Yes, allowing America to default would be irresponsible. But it would be more irresponsible to raise the debt ceiling without taking dramatic steps to reduce spending and reform the budget process.

We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it. It’s an action-forcing event in a town that has become infamous for inaction.

... When the time comes, I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase. This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance.

We already know what this looks like because the House last week passed its budget, based on the budget plan written by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the House Budget Committee chairman. (Ryan was at the summit as well, as its lunchtime speaker, followed by his ...

Grim Future of the Supreme Court
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 9 May 2012
A Vision of America the Possible
Amir Gholi
Published: Wednesday 9 May 2012
“Gus Speth imagines a compelling vision of a better, happier country—and how to make it possible.”

We need a compelling vision for a new future, a vision of a better country—America the Possible—that is still within our power to reach. The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.

This article addresses both the envisioning of an attractive future for America and the politics needed to realize it. A future worth having awaits us, if we are willing to struggle and sacrifice for it. It won’t come easy, but little that is worth having ever does.

By 2050, America the Possible will have marshaled the economic and political resources to successfully address the long list of challenges, including basic social justice, real global security, environmental sustainability, true popular sovereignty, and economic democracy. As a result, family incomes in America will be far more equal, similar to the situation in the Nordic countries and Japan today. Large-scale poverty and income insecurity will be things of the past. Good jobs will be guaranteed to all those who want to work. Our health-care and educational systems will be among the best in the world, as will our standing in child welfare and equality of women. Racial and ethnic disparities will be largely eliminated. Social bonds will be strong. The overlapping webs of encounter and participation that were once hallmarks of America, “a nation of joiners,” will have been rebuilt, community life will be vibrant, and community development efforts plentiful. Trust in each other, and even in government, will be high.

Today’s big social problems—guns and homicides, drugs and ...

Student Loan Rates to Double
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 8 May 2012
The 50/50 Senate: A Call for Full Gender Equity in Governance
Satra Kit
Published: Friday 4 May 2012
Only 39 women have served in the Senate in its entire history.

Quoting from the first sentence of Article I of the 17th Amendment of the Constitution (which gave the election of the Senate to the people of each state rather than the states' legislatures): 


“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, one male and one female, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.” 


Even those not familiar with the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution might have noticed five words that don’t belong there “…one male and one female”. Yet those five words immediately popped into my vision when I read it. I saw an Amendment with inherent logic, consistency and justice. And I could see the great good (and, perhaps, less evil) that the inclusion of this slight phrase to the Amendment might have meant for our nation and the world going forward from its ratification in 1913. Of course, now we know why the framers of the Amendment had not thought to include these words: it required yet another seven years for the 19th Amendment to be ratified, which finally gave women the right to vote(!). 


From this perspective today, 99 years later, only 14 states are fully represented in our country’s highest legislative body, those with female representation (three states have two female senators each, for a current total of 17 women senators). Only 39 women have served in the Senate in its entire history (of which many were appointments to fill seats vacated by the death of a spouse). Twenty-seven states have never elected or appointed a woman to the Senate. 


We persist as a nation with a shameful record of bringing female voices to the highest levels of government. Yet we admire the insight of the Constitution’s framers, our Founders, when they wanted the country’s highest legislative body to be represented equally by states with very large and ...

Lindsey Graham Helps Win Permits for $10B Nuclear Plant, Gets Rewarded With Cash
Satra Kit
Published: Tuesday 1 May 2012
The $13-billion Cayce, SC-based energy company has long wanted a permit to build two new nuclear reactors at its Jenkinsville, SC, facilities. Graham, one of the Senate’s strongest supporters of nuclear power, actively backed their efforts.

For years, the SCANA Corporation and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have enjoyed a mutually beneficial alliance. Graham backs the company’s nuclear power interests and the company provides him with campaign cash.

The level of symbiosis between the two became especially evident in recent weeks.

The $13-billion Cayce, SC-based energy company has long wanted a permit to build two new nuclear reactors at its Jenkinsville, SC, facilities. Graham, one of the Senate’s strongest supporters of nuclear power, actively backed their efforts.

In February, the U.S. Nuclear Research Commission voted to approve the country’s first nuclear reactor construction permits in more than 30 years. Graham celebrated it as “a major step on the road to a nuclear renaissance,” adding, “I am hopeful SCANA and [its state-owned partner] Santee Cooper will be the next in line to receive permits for Jenkinsville.” He reiterated the message on Twitter the next day.

On March 31, much to Graham’s delight, SCANA received its Jenkinsville permits. The South Carolina Republican boasted:

We worked for years to see these reactors approved and I’m very pleased this long-sought goal has finally been achieved. The ...

AZ Lawmakers Lash Out at Imaginary United Nations Conspiracy With Assault on All Poverty & Environmental Laws
Amir Gholi
Published: Monday 30 April 2012
“Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy.”

Earlier this year, Texas U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz touted a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that George Soros secretly partnered with the United Nations to eliminate the game of golf. Seriously, we aren’t making this up.

Unfortunately, this fantasy isn’t limited to just one unusually radical candidate for elected office. Rather, the Arizona House is expected to vote today on a bill motivated entirely by the same imaginary conspiracy, and the same bill already passed the state senate:

Arizona lawmakers appear close to sending to Gov. Jan Brewer a tea party-backed bill that proponents say would stop a United Nations takeover conspiracy but that critics claim could end state and cities’ pollution-fighting efforts and even dismantle the state unemployment office.

A final legislative vote is expected Monday on a bill that would outlaw government support of any of the 27 principles contained in the 1992 United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, also sometimes referred to as Agenda 21.

Senate Bill 1507 was passed by the state Senate last month and received an initial House affirmation Wednesday. It is sponsored by state Sen. ...

Is There Room for Accountability in a Society Plagued by Everyday Corruption?
Amir Gholi
Published: Friday 27 April 2012
“We have a duty and responsibility to change the structural flaws in our political system and restore justice to our society.”

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
~ Saint Augustine, circa 410 AD

For a free society to function in any capacity there has to be a set of rules that are applied equally to everyone. Our society has chosen not to hold those responsible for the financial meltdown accountable. CBS aired a spectacular interview with Anton Valukas, the investigator appointed by the federal bankruptcy court to determine what caused the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Two years ago, he submitted a 2,200 page report stating that there was enough evidence for a prosecutor to bring a case against top Lehman officials and the Ernst & Young accounting firm for misleading investors. So, with this evidence why haven’t there been any prosecutions? It might be prudent to review a few anecdotal observations:

  • 2004 election cycle, Lehman Brothers invested $2,338,036 in campaign contributions and in 2008, $2,188,126
  • Lobbying investment by Lehman Brothers peaked at $920,000 in the year 2006
  • Revolving door of personnel from SEC and Federal Reserve to Lehman Brothers and vice versa. As an example, we can follow the career of Kim Wallace, who worked as a senior analyst on the Senate Budget Committee from 1986 to 1989, an aide to Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell from 1989 to 1994, and then as chief political analyst at Lehman Brothers from 1994 to 2008.
  • 2008 election cycle, Ernst & Young invested $2,272,781 in campaign contributions
  • Lobbying investments by Ernst & Young consistently between $2 million and $2.5 million a year
  • Number of documented revolving door ...
Senate Passes Postal Service Reform: Sanders Provisions Strengthen Bill
Amir Gholi
Published: Thursday 26 April 2012
“At stake were more than 200,000 jobs that were in jeopardy as part of a cost-cutting plan designed by the Postal Service.”

The Senate today voted 62-37 for a bill that Sen. Bernie Sanders helped craft to modernize the U.S. Postal Service, save tens of thousands of jobs and spare rural post offices and scores of mail sorting plants threatened with closure.

Sanders (I-Vt.) said a processing center at White River Junction, Vt., would remain open and 15 rural Vermont post offices are likely to win reprieves under the Senate-passed measure that now goes to the House.

"This comprehensive postal reform legislation will preserve vitally important rural post offices and mail processing plants," Sanders said. "It also would give the Postal Service the flexibility that it needs to raise additional revenue in the years to come by offering innovative new products and services in the digital age.

"There is no question that the Postal Service needs to become more entrepreneurial to meet the changing needs of the digital revolution, but the answer is not to make mail delivery slower. The answer is not to radically downsize the Postal Service. The answer is not to eliminate over 200,000 jobs in the midst of a terrible recession. The answer is not to devastate rural communities by closing their post offices,' Sanders added.

The bill includes provisions to keep overnight delivery standards for regional areas for at least three years. It would also prevent the Postal Service from eliminating Saturday mail delivery for two years and make it much more difficult for Saturday mail delivery to end after the two-year ban. It creates a commission Sanders suggested to come up with ways for the Postal Service to become more entrepreneurial as it adjusts to mail volume changes caused by e-mail and the Internet. Financial pressure on the Postal Service would be relieved by reducing obligations to pay for future and current retiree health benefits by some $5.5 billion a year.

The bill also includes a Sanders-backed provision that would prevent rural post ...

The NSA is Watching You
Amir Gholi
Published: Thursday 26 April 2012
“Proponents of Internet freedom are fighting the bill, which they say will legalize what the NSA is secretly doing already.”

Three targeted Americans: A career government intelligence official, a filmmaker and a hacker. None of these U.S. citizens was charged with a crime, but they have been tracked, surveilled, detained—sometimes at gunpoint—and interrogated, with no access to a lawyer. Each remains resolute in standing up to the increasing government crackdown on dissent.

The intelligence official: William Binney worked for almost 40 years at the secretive National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. spy agency that dwarfs the CIA. As technical director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, Binney told me, he was tasked to “see how we could solve collection, analysis and reporting on military and geopolitical issues all around the world, every country in the world.” Throughout the 1990s, the NSA developed a massive eavesdropping system code-named ThinThread, which, Binney says, maintained crucial protections on the privacy of U.S. citizens demanded by the U.S. Constitution. He recalled, “After 9/11, all the wraps came off for NSA,” as massive domestic spying became the norm. He resigned on Oct. 31, 2001.

Along with several other NSA officials, Binney reported his concerns to Congress and to the Department of Defense. Then, in 2007, as then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was being questioned on Capitol Hill about the very domestic spying to which Binney objected, a dozen FBI agents charged into his house, guns drawn. They forced aside his son and found Binney, a diabetic amputee, in the shower. They pointed their guns at his head, then led him to his back porch and interrogated him.

Three others were raided that morning. Binney called the FBI raid “retribution and intimidation so we didn’t go to the Judiciary Committee in the Senate and tell them, ‘Well, ...

Obama Banks on Warren Buffett
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 24 April 2012
House Transportation Bill: Huge Republican FAIL
Amir Gholi
Published: Thursday 19 April 2012
“The legislation is not a serious effort to address the nation’s transportation needs and get the nation’s jobs machine moving faster in the process.”

House Republicans today once again showed that they are not only ideologically wrong-headed but legislatively inept.

The House finally passed a transportation reauthorization bill, but not the fatally flawed five-year plan that House Speaker John Boehner had originally tried to move but failed, nor the perfectly reasonable two-year bill that received true bipartisan support in the Senate. Instead, it would be a just-over-five-month bill, lasting through the end of September.

The legislation is not a serious effort to address the nation's transportation needs and get the nation's jobs machine moving faster in the process. It is actually a middle finger in the face of the Obama administration, designed to score political points. It also has the effect of allowing a conference discussion to proceed with the Senate, which could yield a bill that would allow transportation projects to continue beyond September.

The Associated Press's Joan Lowy summarizes the path to this pathetic end:

"House Republican leaders decided on the strategy after repeatedly trying and failing to garner enough votes to pass their own, long-term transportation plan. That effort ran into opposition from tea-party conservatives, who say transportation programs should be paid for entirely by ...

Post Office Overhaul in the Senate
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 18 April 2012
Vermont Senate Passes Resolution to Overturn Citizens United
Amir Gholi
Published: Tuesday 17 April 2012
“Vermont joins cities and states across the country in passing the resolution.”

Good news from our friends in the north: the Vermont Senate has approved a resolution which would amend the U.S. Constitution and reverse the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. That decision helped pave the way for Big Money to have an even larger impact on U.S. elections, essentially by ruling that corporations have a constitutional right to free speech in spending unlimited amounts on campaigns.

Vermont joins cities and states across the country in passing the resolution. Earlier this year, in fact, 64 Vermont towns passed similar declarations in town halls calling on Congress to pass the constitutional amendment.

According to the Burlington Free Press, the resolution passed by the Senate (which heads next to the state House) asks Congress to consider an amendment “that provides that money is not speech and corporations are not persons under the U.S. Constitution and that also affirms the constitutional rights of natural persons.”

The resolution is a result of the hard work of good government groups including Public Citizen, Move to Amend, and local organizations. Public Citizen, in a press release last week, hailed the efforts of legislators including state Sen. Ginny Lyons (D-Williston) who shepherded the resolution to the Senate.

Public Citizen:

“The passage of the resolution is just one step toward a U.S. constitutional amendment declaring that the rights of natural persons ...
Behind Closed Doors, Broadcasters Battle Online Disclosure of Political Ad Buys
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 14 April 2012
Some form of the rule seems likely to pass, but the industry and others are lobbying the FCC to alter the nature of the final rule.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote April 27 on whether to require TV stations to post online public information about political ad buys. Some form of the rule seems likely to pass, but the industry and others are lobbying the FCC to alter the nature of the final rule.

(With the help of readers around the country, ProPublica is collecting stations’ public paper files containing data on political ads and posting them online because the information is generally unavailable elsewhere. See “Free the Files.”)

Right now we only know the broad thrust the proposed FCC rule: That broadcasters would have to electronically send the commission updates to its political file — in other words, information about what political ads are being purchased, by whom, and for how much money — instead of merely maintaining paper files at the stations, the current practice. The information would be made public on an FCC website.

The rule would apply initially to affiliates of the four major networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX — in the top 50 markets. All other stations would have another two years before they'd have to begin filing electronically.

But the FCC won’t release the exact text of the rule until after the panel votes to finalize it later this month. Meanwhile, the wording is subject to change based on input from interested parties.

That’s why the National Association of Broadcasters has been paying visits to key FCC ...

4 Ways to Flex Our Electoral Muscles
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 7 April 2012
“There are lots of other problems that need fixing—and that can be fixed now, at the state and local level, without waiting for a constitutional amendment.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United revealed just how thoroughly the American people (people, I should clarify, in the traditional sense) have lost control over our own democracy.

But it’s far from the only way that corporations now circumvent true democratic decision-making. There are lots of other problems that need fixing—and that can be fixed now, at the state and local level, without waiting for a constitutional amendment. 

1. Disclosure

Citizens United effectively removed the limits that state and federal laws had placed on how much money corporations and other groups can spend to influence elections—but it didn’t dispute the constitutionality of laws that mandate disclosing how that money is spent. In the six months immediately after Citizens United was handed down, 10 states responded by passing laws requiring more transparency—disclosure of how much money outside groups are spending, what they’re spending it on, and so forth. The California Legislature is currently debating the strongest disclosure law to date: It would require that all political ads show the logos of their three largest funders (not PACs, but the originating corporations) on the ads themselves.

2. Clean Elections

In Maine, only 20 percent of candidates accept private campaign contributions. Instead, qualifying candidates (candidates who receive a certain number of $5 contributions from voters) finance their campaigns through the state’s Clean Elections Fund. The results? ...

Tea Party Aligned Sen. Jim DeMint Donates $500,000 to Club for Growth Super PAC
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 21 March 2012
“In his quest to remake the Senate Republican caucus in his own image, Tea Party kingmaker Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has thrown some serious cash at a conservative super PAC that has attacked a Republican House member and other GOP candidates for office.”

In his quest to remake the Senate Republican caucus in his own image, Tea Party kingmaker Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has thrown some serious cash at a conservative super PAC that has attacked a Republican House member and other GOP candidates for office.

 

Last month, DeMint’s campaign committee donated $500,000 to “Club for Growth Action,” a super PAC committed to electing pro-free market Republicans.  DeMint’s donation accounted for 28 percent of the $1.8 million that the super PAC collected in February, according to Federal Election Commission documents released Monday.


To date, Club for Growth Action has reported spending more than $560,000 on political advertisements, all of them negative.  The group has attacked House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), as well as U.S. Senate candidates Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, the state’s former GOP governor, and Republican David Dewhurst in Texas, the Lone Star State’s current lieutenant governor.


DeMint’s leadership PAC has already endorsed Thompson’s opponent in Wisconsin, Mark Neumann of Wisconsin, and Dewhurst’s opponent in Texas, Ted Cruz.  It has also endorsed Don Stenberg of Nebraska and Josh Mandel of Ohio — both of whom have also been endorsed by the Club for Growth.


“  Senator DeMint strongly supports several of the candidates the Club for Growth is backing this year, and this contribution will help the Club push them on to victory,” DeMint spokesman Matt Hoskins told iWatch News.


Both DeMint and the Club for Growth favor Republican candidates who favor limited government, lower taxes and pro-growth economic policies.  Their staunch support for “the right kind of Republicans,” as Hoskins calls it, has frequently led to infighting with GOP party leaders.


During the 2010 midterm ...

The Power of Recalls in Wisconsin
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 17 March 2012
“Democrats could end up with full control of the Senate, potentially by a margin of up to 19-14 -- or, if Fitzgerald is defeated by upstart challenger Lori Compas, 20-13.”

With Wisconsin recall elections looming against four Republican state Senators -- as well as Governor Scott Walker and Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch -- the state's politics was thrown for another loop Friday when a targeted senator up and quit.

State Senator Pam Galloway, a Tea Party favorite and one of Walker's steadiest backers in the legislature, announced her immediate resignation from the legislature and her decision not to contest the recall election.

The move had dramatic repercussions:

1. Republicans have lost the complete control of state government that allowed the governor to advance an austerity agenda that was defined by attacks on unions and deep cuts in public education and public services funding -- along with the harshest Voter ID law in the nation, a rigidly partisan redistricting of legislative districts and what critics complain has been a battering of the state's open-government tradition.

2. State Senate Majority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald, a Walker ally who is targeted for recall, has lost his position as the dominant player in the legislature.  He now must enter into a power-sharing agreement with Minority Leader Mark Miller, a progressive Democrats who led a historic walkout by his caucus during last year's struggle over Walker's labor law changes.  Committee assignments will be redone to reflect what is now a 16-16 split in the Senate.

3. Governor Walker, who has ...

Senate Bill Could Roll Back Consumers’ Health Insurance Savings
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 17 March 2012
“This summer, health insurance companies may have to pay more than a billion dollars back to their own customers.”

This summer, health insurance companies may have to pay more than a billion dollars back to their own customers.  The rebate requirements were introduced as part of the 2010 health-care reform law and are meant to benefit consumers.  But now an insurer-supported Senate bill aims to roll back the rebate requirements.

Known as the medical loss ratio rule, it’s actually pretty simple.  Under the health-care law provision, 80 to 85 cents of every dollar insurers collect in premiums must be spent on medical care or activities that improve the quality of that care.  If not, they must send their customers a rebate for the difference.  The goal, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, is to limit the money insurers spend on administrative costs and profit.

“It essentially ensures that consumers receive value for every dollar they spend on health care,” HHS spokesman Brian Chiglinsky told ProPublica.

Last month, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., introduced a bill that would change what costs companies can include in the 15 to 20 percent they are allotted for overhead, salaries and marketing.  The bill, similar to a House bill introduced in March 2011 that has yet to come up for a vote, focuses on payments to insurance agents and brokers.  Traditionally, these commissions are bundled into the administrative costs when making the final calculation.  But insurance regulators have argued that fees paid to insurance agents and brokers shouldn’t count.

Such a change could mean big savings for insurance companies — and much smaller rebates for ...

Senate Women Lead Fight to Renew Domestic Violence Law
Amir Gholi
Published: Friday 16 March 2012
“The National Congress of American Indians has launched a push to get senators to support the measure, saying Indian women are assaulted at twice the rate of the country as a whole.”

After winning a fight just last week to preserve contraceptive health-insurance coverage for women, Senate Democrats on Thursday battled conservative Republicans who say they don't want to expand an 18-year-old federal law that created a national strategy to prevent domestic violence against women.

While Democrats say they're shocked at any opposition to renewing the Violence Against Women Act, which passed in 1994 with bipartisan support, opponents are trying to block the legislation because they fear it would broaden American Indian tribal rights and has too many protections for gay and illegal immigrant victims of violence.

On Thursday, many of the chamber's female members pushed back, lining up to speak on the Senate floor in favor of the reauthorization and to confront its Republican opponents.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, who led the effort to preserve contraceptive coverage, expressed disappointment that, she said, women again are trying to defend gains won over the last 50 years.

"Every single minute, 24 people across America are victims of violence by an intimate partner — more than 12 million every year. Forty-five percent of the women killed in this country die at the hands of their partner. .... This one shouldn't be about politics," Murray said.

A bill to renew the law, introduced by Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and co-sponsored by Idaho Republican Sen. Mike Crapo, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last month on a 10-8 vote, without a single Republican voting in favor.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said she was "stunned" by the panel's vote.

"Never before had there been any controversy in all of more than a decade and a half, in all of this time, about this bill," she said.

"It is disheartening that in the last several months, petty partisan ...

Senate Approves Plan to Send BP Fines to Gulf Restoration
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 15 March 2012
“Under the Senate bill, the five states would divide 35 percent of the money equally, 60 percent would be directed to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council and 5 percent would go to a new Gulf science and fisheries program.”

The Senate approved a highway bill Wednesday that includes a long-sought provision for the Gulf Coast: A guarantee that 80 percent of the fines collected from the April 2010 BP oil spill — an amount that could reach $20 billion — would be distributed for coastal restoration to the five states along the Gulf of Mexico: Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Alabama.

While the bill faces an uncertain outlook in the House of Representatives, Gulf state lawmakers are anxious for Congress to adopt the amendment on the so-called RESTORE Act before a settlement is reached with the Department of Justice and BP.

"I am hopeful that the Senate's overwhelming support for helping Gulf Coast states address long-term environmental and economic damages will be fairly considered by the House of Representatives," said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. "The nation needs an extended highway bill, and Gulf Coast states need assurance that Congress will allow them to have resources to recover from the oil spill."

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said, "As we approach the two-year anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, I am glad to have helped pass a bill to direct funds to coastal communities that were impacted."

Under the Senate bill, the five states would divide 35 percent of the money equally, 60 percent would be directed to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council and 5 percent would go to a new Gulf science and fisheries program. The House-passed version of the amendment doesn't specify how the money would be distributed. If Congress doesn't act, the fines collected would go to the Treasury.

"I join with our senators in celebrating the fact that a majority on both sides of the Capitol have now committed to bringing most of the Clean Water Act fines back to the states affected by this tragedy," Rep. Steven Palazzo, R-Miss., said in a statement.

"These BP fine monies are vital in ...

Senate Rejects Plan to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling
Amir Gholi
Published: Wednesday 14 March 2012
“It would require the Interior Department to lease huge areas in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to drilling as well as approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project.”

The Senate on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a sweeping measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected areas to oil drilling, as well as to approve construction of the Keystone pipeline project.

Tuesday's vote was the first time in four years that the Senate has voted on a measure including ANWR drilling, and it failed miserably. The proposal needed 60 votes to pass; it only received 41 votes in favor, with 57 senators against.

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts pushed the measure as an amendment to the bill that funds transportation projects across the nation. His amendment, in part a Republican jab at President Barack Obama during a time of high gasoline prices, was packed with so many controversial items that it was bound to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Still, Alaska Democratic Sen. Mark Begich broke with others in his party and voted for the amendment, saying he did it to back ANWR drilling.

But Begich complained the measure was "junked" full of other provisions and was put forward to score political points.

"If we want to get serious about an energy plan that includes ANWR and other Alaska oil and gas resources, let's get to it," Begich said. "But an amendment to an important transportation bill that is put forward simply to divide the body is not a good way to conduct public policy."

Two other Democrats, Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, also voted yes. All but seven Republicans — Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Mike Lee of Utah and Scott Brown of Massachusetts — voted in favor of the amendment.

The 78-page amendment was similar to legislation passed by the Republican-controlled House last month. It would require the Interior Department to lease huge areas in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to ...

HR 347 & S 1794 aka The ‘Trespass Bill’ of 2011 Criminalizes Protest...
Amanda Rae
Published: Wednesday 7 March 2012
‘Trespass Bill’ potentially makes peaceable protest anywhere in the U.S.--a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

As I write this op-ed, I primp for the mirror--looking for the most flattering pose--for my mug shot.  Now, don't get the wrong impression; I haven't been arrested and charged with a federal felony--yet.  Nor is the preparation done in anticipation of a guest stint on "America's Next Top Model"--but as a common sense reaction to Obama's predictable signing of the latest assault on the Bill of Rights--namely--H.R. 347 (and it's companion senate bill S. 1794); aka the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011."  Sounding more like an appropriations bill authorizing monies for federal grounds LANDSCAPING--this bill, better known to those in the DC beltway as the 'Trespass Bill'--potentially makes peaceable protest anywhere in the U.S.--a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The legislators responsible for bringing this legislative excrement to life are Representative Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) in the House of Representatives and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT.) leading the Senate version.

Rep. Thomas Rooney--HR 347 Sponsor...

Rep. Rooney, the proud sponsor of HR 347 has served in the Army as a JAG Corps attorney.  Since 2002 he has taught law at West Point with his specialty being Criminal Law and--Constitutional Law.  Ironically, this 'constitutional law' professor has no qualms criminalizing protest and free speech.  

H.R. 347 & Senate Companion Bill S. 1794--Criminalizing protest and free speech...

This bill makes protest of any type potentially a federal offense with anywhere from a year to 10 years in federal prison, providing it occurs in the presence of elites brandishing Secret Service protection, or during an ...

Work Sharing: A Creative Way to Avoid Unemployment
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 28 February 2012
“Work sharing allows workers to be compensated for part of their lost pay when their employer reduces their work hours.”

One of the little-noticed items attached to the extension of the payroll tax cut was a provision that would promote work sharing as part of state unemployment insurance systems. The provision, which is based on a bill introduced in the Senate by Jack Reed and in the House by Rosa DeLauro, would reimburse states for money spent on work-sharing programs that are part of their unemployment insurance system. It would also provide funds for the states that do not currently have work-sharing systems to establish them.

This provision is a rare victory of bipartisanship and commonsense. The basic logic of work sharing is straightforward. Under the current system of unemployment insurance, workers who lose their job can get roughly half of their pay in benefits. However, if a worker has their hours cut back because of inadequate demand, they don’t get in any way compensated for the lost pay. This effectively encourages employers to go the route of layoffs rather than shortening work hours, since that is the only way that workers can benefit from unemployment insurance.

Work sharing gets around this asymmetry. It allows workers to be compensated for part of their lost pay when their employer reduces their work hours. This means that if an employer decides to reduce the work hours of 50 workers by 20 percent, as opposed to laying off 10 workers, the 50 workers can get half of their lost pay (10 percent of their total pay) covered by unemployment insurance. This means that workers will end up working 20 percent fewer hours for roughly 10 percent less pay.

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A Politics That Says: The People Shall Rule
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 18 February 2012
“Had the process moved forward on Walker’s agenda, the legislation would have been passed within a week. Instead, it took almost a month.”

After she organized Eugene McCarthy’s 1968 Democratic primary challenge to Lyndon Johnson, around the time she joined Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm in forming the National Women’s Political Caucus, Midge Miller got herself elected to the Wisconsin Assembly.

In that latter role, she taught Wisconsin progressives that they ought never be cogs in a political machine. Midge Miller,  arguably the most activist member of the state Assembly during the years of her service from 1971 to 1985, never hesitated to call out Republican or Democratic governors. She never deferred to legislative leaders if she thought they were wrong. She believed in the great progressive tradition of the state that governing involved moral choices and that, while there was always a place for negotiation, and sometimes a place for compromise, there was never an excuse for going along to get along.

The point of progressive public service, argued Midge Miller, was not to be a cog in the machine run by corporate and political elites. It was to make the machine work for the people.

So when Midge Miller’s stepson, Wisconsin ...

Congress’ Payroll-Tax Deal a Rare Bipartisan Effort
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 18 February 2012
Lawmakers congratulated themselves on finally reaching a quick compromise.

Congress on Friday overwhelmingly approved extending a payroll tax cut for 160 million workers through the end of the year, probably the biggest accomplishment lawmakers will be able to savor in 2012.

The rare bipartisan agreement, which also provides jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed and preserves Medicare payment rates to physicians, came without the hostility that's scarred economic debates since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

The House of Representatives voted 293-132 to approve the plan. Minutes later, the Senate agreed 60-36.

Under the bill, Social Security taxes for workers will remain at their current 4.2 percent level this year on wages up to $110,100. The rate was scheduled to go up by 2 percentage points next month. Friday's fix assures that the average worker earning $50,000 a year would continue to get a weekly break of $20.

Medicare payments to doctors, which had been scheduled to drop by 27.4 percent, will stay at current levels. Extended unemployment benefits for people who've been out of work for long stretches will continue, though for shorter periods.

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On 1-Year Anniversary of Wisconsin Uprising, Gov. Walker Fights Recall by Energized Movement
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 16 February 2012
“Gov. Scott Walker is in the midst of a recall effort and faces an investigation for campaign corruption.”

Today marks the first anniversary of the Wisconsin uprising that erupted after Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced plans to eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers, as well as slash their pay and benefits. Now, one year later, Walker is in the midst of a recall effort and faces an investigation for campaign corruption. "People have begun to recognize that they shouldn’t just wait for elections," says John Nichols, who covered the protests for The Nation magazine. "They should go to the street and challenge political power at the point where that power is taking away their rights or threatening them in some fundamental way." Nichols is the author of the new book, "Uprising: How Wisconsin Renewed the Politics of Protest, from Madison to Wall Street."

Transcript:

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Today marks the first anniversary of the Wisconsin uprising that erupted after Republican Governor Scott Walker announced his plans to eliminate almost all collective bargaining rights for most public workers, as well as slash their pay and benefits. Now, one year later, Walker is in the midst of a recall and faces an investigation for campaign corruption. It was February 14th last year when Walker first unveiled the curbs on state workers after refusing to negotiate a new ...

Congress Nears Deal to Extend Wage-Tax Cut, Jobless Benefits, ‘Doc Fix’
Anna Gilliam
Published: Thursday 16 February 2012
“This fresh outburst of comity was sparked by today’s unpredictable politics and economics in an election year.”

Congress is calmly inching toward approving a payroll tax cut and other help for the struggling economy without the bitter rancor that's colored economic debates since President Barack Obama took office three years ago.

Lawmakers are widely expected to give bipartisan approval this week to extending the Social Security payroll tax cut, now scheduled to end Feb. 29, through the end of the year.

They're also likely to extend benefits for the long-term unemployed and to stave off a huge planned cut in Medicare payments to physicians.

All this is being done without the down-to-the-wire brinksmanship that characterized other Obama-era budget battles. This fresh outburst of comity was sparked by today's unpredictable politics and economics in an election year.

"The public wants action, and the economy needs help," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a center-left research group.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as 33 in the Senate, are up for election this fall. Congress' approval ratings are dismal, and polling shows voters blame both parties for inertia in Washington. Few incumbents ...

Conservatives on Transportation: Throw America Into Reverse
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 15 February 2012
“The conservative approach of starving the nation’s transportation system is bound to prevent it from being an effective engine for economic growth and could potentially lead to the loss of more than a half-million jobs.”

Back in 2010, one of President Obama's stump-speech lines has him trying to put the economy in "D" to drive it out of the ditch it had fallen into, while Republican obstructionists keep trying to pull the stick shift back into "R."

It was a baldly partisan pitch then, but in the debate now unfolding in Congress over a transportation bill, the analogy is especially apt. Republicans are literally trying to move the transmission of the nation's transportation policy into "reverse," with terrible consequences for the national economy, for the environment, and for the well-being of working people.

A bill being put forward by House Republicans this week grossly underfunds the nation's transportation needs. It would authorize $228 billion for highways and public transportation over five years, from 2012 to 2017. That compares to the $285 billion authorized in the last long-term transportation bill, signed by President Bush in August 2005 for spending through September 2009. Compare that as well to the minimum of $285 billion 

Obama’s Budget Frames Election Choices, Doesn’t Solve Long-Term Problems
Anna Gilliam
Published: Tuesday 14 February 2012
“It maintains a decade of red ink while putting off until after the election — at the earliest — any detailed proposals to fix long-term problems in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

President Barack Obama's proposed federal budget is more campaign commercial than governing document.

His $3.8 trillion budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 — and blueprint for the coming decade — is filled with promises sure to appeal to voters that he wants to win for his re-election in November, such as new spending to hire teachers and tax increases on the wealthy.

Yet it has no chance of passing Congress, where Republicans already have vetoed his calls for more spending and taxes. It offers little prospect of breaking the Washington cycle of lurching from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis with temporary agreements and no consensus on permanent solutions. And it maintains a decade of red ink while putting off until after the election — at the earliest — any detailed proposals to fix long-term problems in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

"It's not going to be enacted," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group that advocates fiscal responsibility. "It's designed to shape the campaign. There's a lot of spending for new investments and there's spending caps in the future so he can claim two things at once."

"The president's budget fails to lay out a substantive path to restore fiscal sanity," said David M. Walker, former director of the Government Accountability Office. "It does not include enough specifics regarding comprehensive tax reform and neglects any reforms to Social Security. It is not bold enough or specific enough regarding proposed changes to Medicare, Medicaid and other health reforms."

Obama unveiled his budget proposal at a community college in Annandale, Va., — a swing state he won in 2008 and is courting heavily this year — where he used the same broad themes he's used since Labor Day to frame the coming election.

"We've got a choice," he ...

Sen. Jeff Bingaman: Keystone XL ‘Sounds Meritorious’
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 13 February 2012
If built, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would put six states at risk of toxic oil spills along its 1700-mile route.

This week, the U.S. Senate is considering whether to add language forcing approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to major transportation legislation. In a C-SPAN interview on Friday, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the chair of the Senate energy committee, indicated his support for the construction of the risky project after sufficient environmental review. After agreeing with the Obama administration’s decision to require a full environmental review of the pipeline, Bingaman claimed that “the American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails,” calling it “meritorious”:

They shouldn’t be forced to issue a permit until they are satisfied on the environmental effects involved. So I think that point is valid. Whether that requires another six or eight months, that’s open to question. It is a good issue to try to get resolved some way or another. The American public would like to see us go ahead with the project to the extent they know what the project entails. It sounds meritorious. We’ve got pipelines all over the country. That is true with most members of Congress, too. I think most members of Congress probably would like to go ahead to get the issue resolved.

Watch it:

Bingaman’s claim about the American public’s support for the foreign tar sands project is incorrect. A ...

After ‘Citizens United’: The Attack of the Super PACs
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 22 January 2012
“The total number of TV ads for House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates in 2010 was 2,870,000.”

We have seen the future of electoral politics flashing across the screens of local TV stations from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina. Despite all the excitement about Facebook and Twitter, the critical election battles of 2012 and for some time to come will be fought in the commercial breaks on local network affiliates. This year, according to a fresh report to investors from Needham and Company’s industry analysts, television stations will reap as much as $5 billion—up from $2.8 billion in 2008—from a money-and-media election complex that plays a definitional role in our political discourse. As Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod says, the cacophony of broadcast commercials remains “the nuclear weapon” of American politics.

We’ve known for some time that the pattern, extent and impact of political advertising would be transformed and supercharged by the Supreme Court’s January 2010 Citizens United ruling. But the changes, even at this early stage of the 2012 campaign, have proven to be more dramatic and unsettling than all but the most fretful analysts had imagined.

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Bernie Sanders: We Must Stop This Corporate Takeover of American Democracy
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 21 January 2012
“The US Constitution has served us very well, but when the supreme court says, for purposes of the first amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger.”

The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all.

Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution and those who fought to ensure that its protections are enjoyed equally by all persons regardless of religion, race or gender by engaging in an unabashed power-grab on behalf of corporate America. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook - in any amount and at any time - to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates.

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Could SOPA and PIPA Interfere with State Dept.’s Global Internet Freedom Agenda?
Anna Gilliam
Published: Friday 20 January 2012
“Anti-piracy bills pose a challenge for diplomats who’ve promoted the uncensored web to foreign governments.”

 

Two Internet anti-piracy bills working their way through Congress that are heavily backed by the movie industry could have significant impacts on technology companies, a threat highlighted Wednesday by Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing and other sites that went offline for the day in protest. As a result, some reporters have characterized the standoff over the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act – SOPA and PIPA for short – as a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

But at an event put on by The New RepublicWednesday, Alec Ross, the State Department’s senior advisor for innovation, pointed out that that this issue is bigger than California. If done wrong, anti-piracy legislation could restrict the rights of Internet users across the country – and put U.S. diplomats in a very awkward position.

“Any attempt to combat online piracy cannot have the unintended consequence of censoring legal online content,” Ross said, referring to SOPA. He suggested that some measures in ...

The Day the Internet Roared
Anna Gilliam
Published: Thursday 19 January 2012
“As the Internet blackout protest progressed Jan. 18, and despite Dodd’s lobbying, legislators began retreating from support for the bills.”

Wednesday, Jan. 18, marked the largest online protest in the history of the Internet. Websites from large to small “went dark” in protest of proposed legislation before the U.S. House and Senate that could profoundly change the Internet. The two bills, SOPA in the House and PIPA in the Senate, ostensibly aim to stop the piracy of copyrighted material over the Internet on websites based outside the U.S. Critics, among them the founders of Google, Wikipedia, the Internet Archive, Tumblr and Twitter, counter that the laws will stifle innovation and investment, hallmarks of the free, open Internet. The Obama administration has offered muted criticism of the legislation, but, as many of his supporters have painfully learned, what President Barack Obama questions one day he signs into law the next.

First, the basics. SOPA stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act, while PIPA is the Protect IP Act. The two bills are very similar. SOPA would allow copyright holders to complain to the U.S. attorney general about a foreign website they allege is “committing or facilitating the commission of criminal violations” of copyright law. This relates mostly to pirated movies and music. SOPA would allow the movie industry, through the courts and the U.S. attorney general, to send a slew of demands that Internet service providers (ISPs) and search-engine companies shut down access to those alleged violators, and even to prevent linking to those sites, thus making them “unfindable.” It would also bar Internet advertising providers from making payments to websites accused of copyright violations.

SOPA could, then, shut down a community-based site like YouTube if just one of its millions of users was accused of violating one U.S. copyright. As David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and an opponent of the legislation, blogged, “Last year alone we acted on copyright takedown notices for more than 5 million webpages.” ...

‘Outsider’ Candidate Santorum Collected Millions in Corporate PAC Money
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 16 January 2012
Who bankrolled Rick Santorum?

Rick Santorum the presidential candidate casts himself as a Washington outsider, “one of the most successful government reformers in our history,” according to his campaign bio, “taking on Washington's powerful special interests from the moment he arrived in our nation’s capital.”

But Rick Santorum the House and Senate member received more than $11 million in contributions from corporate and other special interest political action committees (PACs) over his career, according to a Center for Public Integrity investigation.

Among the largest donors are giants from the telecommunications, tobacco, and banking industries, the analysis found. The Center examined contributions to the Pennsylvanian’s congressional, senatorial and 2012 presidential campaigns — as well as his “America’s Foundation” and “Fight PAC” leadership PACs, entities set up by Santorum to aid others in their political campaigns.

Corporate PACs connected to telecommunications firms that became today’s AT&T Inc. poured more than $98,000 into Santorum’s campaign coffers, making the behemoth his top career patron.

Those donations may have been rewarded with support for the ...

Senate GOP Calls Fed Proposal to Reduce Mortgage Payments ‘Completely Egregious’
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 12 January 2012
“Reducing principal is one of the most effective ways to keep troubled borrowers — many of whom are underwater or behind on their mortgage payments through no fault of their own — out of foreclosure, and it would also boost the economy.”

The Federal Reserve last week released a set of proposals for aiding the battered American housing market, including a series of ways to help homeowners who are buried under the weight of unsustainable mortgage payments or who now find themselves significantly underwater on their home (meaning they owe more on their mortgage than their house is worth). New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley added to the list a proposal for reducing mortgage principal (the outstanding amount on the loan) for underwater homeowners.

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Conservative Media Back GOP Obstructionism, Attack Obama’s Appointment of Cordray as CFPB Chief
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
“Neither the Constitution nor the courts have specified how long the Senate must be in recess for a president to make a recess appointment.”

Right-wing media have called President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) during a Senate recess of fewer than three days an "open declaration of war on constitutional principles" and an "unprecedented power grab." However, neither the Constitution nor the courts have specified how long the Senate must be in recess for a president to make a recess appointment; past presidents have made recess appointments during recesses of three days or fewer; and congressional Republicans are engaged in unprecedented obstructionism that is preventing hundreds of Obama nominees from being confirmed.

"Unprecedented Power Grab": Conservative Media Attack Cordray Appointment

Big Government: Cordray Appointment "Would Be An Open Declaration Of War On Constitutional Principles And Completely Undermine Our System Of Checks And Balances."From a January 3 post on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website, headlined "Red Alert: New Unconstitutional Presidential Power Grab May Be Imminent":

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Obama Bucks GOP, Nominates CFPB Chief
Elizabeth
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
Recess appointments are common ways for presidents to install nominees the Senate won’t confirm.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that President Obama’s 2012 election strategy would feature a White House battle against an unpopular and intransigent Congress.

Today, the administration fired the first shot. Obama announced this morning his intention to use a recess appointment to nominate Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new regulatory agency that was created by the Dodd-Frank legislation but has been leaderless since the summer because of Republican obstruction in the Senate. “Today, I am appointing Richard as America’s consumer watchdog,” Obama said at a raucous event in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with Cordray at his side.

Recess appointments are common ways for presidents to install nominees the Senate won’t confirm. So common, in fact, that Republicans took pre-emptive measures and wouldn’t allow Congress to actually go on recess during this break—they held meaningless “pro forma” sessions at least every three days, where the session would be gaveled in and then gaveled out just as quickly.

But Obama went ahead and nominated Cordray anyhow. While the Justice Department under Bill Clinton said that Congress must be out of session for three days in order for a recess appointment to be valid, the White House rationale is that the entire pro-forma maneuvering is a “gimmick,” in the words of White House communications director Dan Pfieffer, and no such three-day timeframe exists.

As Ian ...

Speak Out: The Rising Threat of Indefinite Detention
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
“The uproar regarding the NDAA’s potential treatment of U.S. citizens as ‘enemy combatants,’ without rights to counsel or trial, in the war on terror is simply the realization of a misguided, immoral, and ineffective domestic and foreign response to terrorism.”

The irony of it all is way more telling than the State of the Union address that we will hear in a few weeks. A constitutional lawyer who was freely elected president signs into law an act that betrays the very principles that the nation he represents was founded on. While the more cautious of us might shy away from the word fascism to describe a nation’s military having the right to detain citizens without trial, it is certainly not hyperbole. There has already been an onslaught of criticism regarding the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that Congress legislated and President Obama signed into law on January 1, 2012.

Historically, the NDAA was a spending bill that set the annual budget for the US military. Recently, the guaranteed passage of the NDAA has been used by legislators—in spite of vehement rhetorical opposition by progressive and GOP legislators, the bill still passed, unsurprisingly, with overwhelming support (86-13 with one abstaining in the Senate; 322-96 with eleven abstaining in the House)—to craft the policies and politics of the war on terror.

The same day President Obama signed the NDAA, activists with Witness Against Torture (WAT) began preparing for a January 3, 2012 trial to defend themselves against charges stemming from a June 2011 protest when they 

House GOP Leaders Capitulate, Agree to 2-Month Tax-Cut Extension
Anna Gilliam
Published: Friday 23 December 2011
“The House GOP surrender came after a week of White House pressure and mounting criticism of House Republicans from GOP-friendly allies.”

House Republican leaders reversed themselves Thursday and agreed to a temporary two-month extension of a payroll tax break — after a week of pummeling from President Barack Obama and even some of their conservative allies.

 

The retreat, which should spare 160 million Americans from suffering an $80 per month payroll tax hike starting Jan. 1, is a major win for Obama, who postponed a Christmas holiday in Hawaii to stay in Washington and pressure the House into taking the compromise.

 

The House GOP surrender came after a week of White House pressure and mounting criticism of House Republicans from GOP-friendly allies, including the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which likened the House leadership's opposition to extending a popular tax break to a "circular firing squad."

 

Obama, in a statement called it "good news, just in time for the holidays. ... I've stated consistently that it was critical that Congress not go home without preventing a tax increase on 160 million working Americans. Today, I congratulate members of Congress for ending the partisan stalemate by reaching an agreement that meets that test."

 

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who stunned Washington on Sunday by rejecting a compromise that had cleared the Senate Saturday by a vote of 89-10 — with 39 Republicans voting for approval — said Thursday evening that his members had wanted a full-year tax cut to give businesses some certainty in a turbulent economy, but he finally agreed to the two-month compromise, along with a minor accounting fix.

 

"We were here fighting for the right things," Boehner said. "It may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world, but ... we have fought the good fight."

 

Boehner plans to bring the Senate bill — with the fix — to the House floor Friday for a voice vote ...

How the 1 Percent Thinks: To Boehner, $166 Payroll Tax Break is “Measly”
Anna Gilliam
Published: Friday 23 December 2011
“It’s about time someone told the House speaker that if he thinks $166 is “measly,” he should resign from the House, surrender his wealth and get back in touch with the American economy wrecked by the policies that he has advocated.”

For "renaldomacias" on Twitter, $40 extra a paycheck means "buying a full bag of groceries OR filling the car with gas to get to work. Without that $40, we'll be doing neither." BaldEmotions writes, "#40dollars a paycheck through the entire year is what it costs us to send our daughter to public preschool." Fink820 sent this Twitter message: "#40Dollars means gas 4 a wk so that I can get to work to earn #40Dollars for the next week. #40Dollars means ALOT to ALOT of us middle class."

But to House Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans who appear to be leading him rather than the other way around, $40 extra a paycheck for two months isn't worth the trouble. Rather than taking the simple step of accepting a bipartisan Senate-approved two-month continuation of a payroll tax break, Boehner and his Tea Party brethren chose to be obstinate and arrogant.

After all, the tan one said, all that's involved is "a measly $166." Making sure that workers aren't hit with the loss of that "measly" amount of money is too much to expect of the "job creators" out there, he went on to say.

"“The Senate only goes for two months, but businesses send their taxes in, write the check – I used to write the check to the IRS, but it’s done on a quarterly basis. And so you’re gonna have a couple of months of this and another month of this … trying to figure out what your obligation is, is going to be difficult,” he said.

Waaa!

This afternoon, there are reports that Boehner may finally be trying to find a way to gracefully back down and accept some sort of short-term tax extension, after a 24-hour period in which Boehner was rebuked by even ...

Why the Republican Crackup is Bad For America
Anna Gilliam
Published: Thursday 22 December 2011
“This stop-at-nothing radicalism is dangerous for the GOP because most Americans recoil from it.”

Two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican crackup threatens the future of the Grand Old Party more profoundly than at any time since the GOP’s eclipse in 1932. That’s bad for America.

The crackup isn’t just Romney the smooth versus Gingrich the bomb-thrower.

Not just House Republicans who just scotched the deal to continue payroll tax relief and extended unemployment insurance benefits beyond the end of the year, versus Senate Republicans who voted overwhelmingly for it.

Not just Speaker John Boehner, who keeps making agreements he can’t keep, versus Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who keeps making trouble he can’t control.

And not just venerable Republican senators like Indiana’s Richard Lugar, a giant of foreign policy for more than three decades, versus primary challenger state treasurer Richard Mourdock, who apparently misplaced and then rediscovered $320 million in state tax revenues.

Some describe the underlying conflict as Tea Partiers versus the Republican establishment. But this just begs the question of who the Tea Partiers really are and where they came from.

The underlying conflict lies deep into the nature and structure of the Republican Party. And its roots are very old.

As Michael Lind has noted, today’s Tea Party is less an ideological movement than the latest incarnation of an angry white minority – predominantly Southern, and mainly rural – that has repeatedly attacked American democracy in order to get its way.

It’s no mere coincidence that the states responsible for putting the most Tea Party representatives in the House are all former members of the Confederacy. Of the Tea Party caucus, twelve hail from Texas, seven from Florida, five from Louisiana, and five from Georgia, and three each from South Carolina, Tennessee, and border-state Missouri.

Others are from border states with significant Southern ...

House Rejects Tax-Cut Plan, Making Hike More Likely Jan. 1
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 21 December 2011
The standoff is about partisan positioning for next November’s elections.

 

The bitter showdown of Republicans versus the White House and congressional Democrats over a Social Security tax break grew uglier and more tense Tuesday, and the result is that 160 million people face the increasingly likely prospect of a tax increase Jan. 1.

 

The GOP-led House of Representatives, by a 229-193 vote, formally disagreed Tuesday with a bipartisan Senate plan to extend the current tax rate for two months. Employees have paid a 4.2 percent tax this year; it's scheduled to go up to 6.2 percent next year unless the current rate is extended. The House vote makes an increase likely.

 

House Republicans want a yearlong tax break, and they say terms for one can be negotiated over the next two weeks if the Democratic-led Senate will try. Most congressional Democrats are willing to go along with the Senate approach and negotiate toward the yearlong break after the holidays and before the two-month deadline. The Senate adjourned last week until mid-January.

 

In no small part, the standoff is about partisan positioning for next November’s elections. Each party thinks it can persuade voters that the other is being irresponsible.

 

After the House vote, an angry President Barack Obama warned, "The issue right now is this: The clock is ticking; time is running out." And, he said, the Senate bill is "the only viable way to prevent a tax hike January 1. It's the only one.”

 

He urged House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and other House Republicans to "put politics aside, put aside issues where there are fundamental disagreements and come together on something we agree on. And let’s not play brinksmanship. The American people are weary of it; they’re tired of it."

 

Boehner was defiant: "We've done our work for the American people," he told a news conference. "Now it's ...

If It Ain’t Broke, Break It
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 21 December 2011
Apparently no amount of evidence can convince Republicans that our government can be part of the solution.

Last week, Speaker Boehner described the Senate deal for extending middle-class tax cuts and unemployment benefits as acceptable. This past Saturday, eighty-nine senators—including the vast majority of Republican Senators—voted for the bipartisan compromise to extend unemployment benefits and a middle-class payroll tax cut for two months.

No sooner did the Tea Party House Republicans begin to fear that this good faith compromise just might succeed than they stepped forward and smashed the deal. Within a few hours, Speaker Boehner went from saying the Senate compromise was “a good deal” and “a victory” to saying, “It’s become clear that what the Senate did pass is going to cause job creators all kinds of problems.”

What happened? The anti-government ideologues happened.

The Tea Partiers rejected the deal their leader blessed—knowing full well the Senate would not capitulate to their demand—and thereby risking the livelihood of 160 million Americans who depend on the extension of unemployment benefits and payroll tax cuts.

These are the Grover Norquist disciples who want to “drown government in the bathtub,” as Norquist, whose pledge they’ve all signed, famously said. Why? Because if they actually let government work, then people could have faith that government can work.

In short, when your entire philosophy is that government is the problem, you make government the problem. Even conservative economists agree that unemployment benefits create jobs by allowing consumers to spend more money. Yet this conflicts with the Republicans’ predetermined ideology that no government action can help. Broad majorities agree that having millionaires pay their fair share in taxes would reduce our deficit and allow us to invest in jobs. But apparently no amount of evidence can convince Republicans that our government can be part of ...

Tar Sands Action Called Back into Action After Congress Passes Pipeline-Friendly Bill
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 21 December 2011
[The Organizers have] been on a week-long retreat to figure out the next moves for this campaign, but were no doubt caught by surprise with the quick emergence and passage of this bill.

Methane is bubbling up from the bottom of Alaskan lakes–the result of ancient organic matter thawing and decomposing from its once icy chamber in an ever warming climate. This is just one of several ways the melting of Arctic permafrost could create a precipitous increase in greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere and speed up global warming. As the New York Times noted in a recent feature on this foreboding phenomenon, “researchers are worried that the changes in the region may already be outrunning their ability to understand them, or to predict what will happen.”

As complex as this unraveling chain of events may seem, it’s not nature, but politicians–particularly those in Washington–who have made it so. Although they exhale the same amount of carbon dioxide as the average human being, theirs is just as potent and polluting as the gas bubbling out of that lake. The latest example of this can be seen in the Senate’s passage of a bill that requires the president to make a decision within 60 days on the Keystone XL pipeline–which would link Canada’s tar sands to Texas’s oil refineries or, more accurately, the dangerous melting of Arctic permafrost.

The bill is a rather duplicitous effort by Republicans to link an issue the president would prefer not to deal with (Keystone XL) to one that’s close to his heart: payroll tax breaks. As Grist explained, “They have nothing to do with tar sands. But the president wants them, so the House [and now the Senate] is taking them hostage and using them to bargain for the pipeline.”

What does this mean for Tar Sands Action, the campaign that raised the pipeline issue ...

House Republicans Expected to Reject Senate Payroll Tax-Cut Bill
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 20 December 2011
“The Senate on Saturday overwhelmingly approved the two-month extension. But Boehner and other House Republicans want the lower rate in effect throughout 2012.”

Rebellious House of Representatives Republicans fought hard Monday to scuttle a two-month extension of the Social Security payroll tax break, seriously jeopardizing chances that 160 million taxpayers will see the lower rate after Jan. 1.

Speaker John Boehner flatly predicted the bid to keep the rate at its 2011 level of 4.2 percent for two months would fail in the House. A vote is expected Tuesday.  

"I expect that the House will disagree with the Senate," Boehner said.

The Senate on Saturday overwhelmingly approved the two-month extension. But Boehner and other House Republicans want the lower rate in effect throughout 2012.

Employees have been paying the tax at that rate this year. If no change is approved, they would pay 6.2 percent after Jan. 1.

The Senate bill was a bipartisan compromise, reached after negotiators were unable to agree on how to pay for a full-year plan. Democrats wanted a surtax on millionaires; the GOP proposal included a federal pay freeze.

A House defeat of the Senate package would set up a tense last-minute confrontation. Leaders of the two chambers would have to negotiate a compromise. But Senate Democrats, who control that chamber, balked at such talks.

"I will not reopen negotiations until the House follows through and passes this agreement that was negotiated by Republican leaders and supported by 90 percent of the Senate," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The $33 billion Senate package also would extend for two months the current Medicare payment rates to physicians and up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits for long-term jobless workers. It would be funded by higher fees charged by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The plan got substantial Republican support, and Monday, some GOP senators were angry that the House was balking.

"The House Republicans’ plan to scuttle the deal to help middle-class families ...

GOP Rejects Senate Deal on Payroll Tax
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 19 December 2011
Boehner, as well as other Republicans, made it clear they didn’t like a two-month fix.

The fate of the two-month Social Security tax break extension suddenly became uncertain Sunday as House Speaker John Boehner said he and most Republicans were opposed to the plan.

 

"It's pretty clear that I and our members oppose the Senate bill," Boehner, R-Ohio, told NBC's "Meet the Press." Republicans, he said, want a longer-term fix.

 

Boehner was reflecting the view of many House Republicans, who complained loudly in a conference call about the deal hours after the Senate overwhelmingly approved the measure on Saturday.

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, reacted angrily.

 

"Instead of threatening middle-class families with a thousand-dollar tax hike, Speaker Boehner should bring up the bipartisan compromise that (Republican Senate Leader Mitch) McConnell and I negotiated, and which passed the Senate with an overwhelming majority of Democratic and Republican votes," Reid said.

 

"I would hate to think that Speaker Boehner is refusing to act on this bipartisan compromise because he is afraid it will actually pass, but I cannot imagine any other reason why he would not bring it up for a vote."

 

Other Democrats joined the chorus.

 

"It's time House Republicans stop playing politics and get the job done for the American people," said White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. Added Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee: "This is the latest example of the tea party Republicans sacrificing the good of the country on the altar of extreme ideology."

 

The $33 billion package approved Saturday would extend the current Social Security tax rate paid by employees through the end of February. The 2011 rate is 4.2 percent; it would revert to 6.2 percent if the package doesn't take ...

Banana Republicans’ Assault on Democracy
Elizabeth
Published: Saturday 17 December 2011
Prompted by frustration with swing states’ disproportionate power, the national popular vote idea is elegant in its simplicity.

When the Senate minority leader of the United States calls something "a genuine threat to our country," everyone — regardless of party — should listen. Even in the post-9/11 era of overheated language and hyper-partisanship, that kind of declaration from such a powerful public official is not to be taken lightly.

So, what horrible menace to our way of life was Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) talking about when he recently uttered those words? Communism? Al-Qaida? Hostile extra-terrestrials?

None of the above. He was referring to democracy.

That sounds hard to believe, but it's absolutely true. In a speech last week to the Heritage Foundation, McConnell used that War on Terror-flavored jeremiad about an existential "threat" to describe a grassroots effort aimed at electing presidents via a national popular vote.

Prompted by frustration with swing states' disproportionate power, the national popular vote idea is elegant in its simplicity. States commit their Electoral College votes to the national popular vote-winner, regardless of the outcome of the presidential contest within their boundaries. The plan does not go into effect until a majority of Electoral College votes are signed on, but if and when that happens, America finally gets what should be a fundamental democratic guarantee: that our president is the candidate who received the majority of votes.

To most readers, that seems like a non-ideological no-brainer — it means every vote is equally important, regardless of geography. And why shouldn't it be that way? After all, there's no moral or substantive reason that a vote in liberal Denver should be more valued by a presidential election system than a vote in rural Idaho just because the Denver vote was cast in the swing state of Colorado. Similarly, there's no democratic justification for candidates reaching the Oval Office when they didn't win the most ...

Myth That Keystone XL Creates Jobs Perpetuated by Oil Lobby, Parroted by Congress’s Oil Recipients
Amanda Rae
Published: Saturday 17 December 2011
Project advocates throw out claims that Keystone XL creates “tens of thousands of jobs,” but studies conducted independently of TransCanada find much smaller jobs numbers.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) insists that the GOP-led House will fight for the cash-rich oil industry at the expense of the middle-class payroll tax cut. “If that bill comes over to us,” he told reporters, “I will guarantee you that the Keystone pipeline will be in there when it goes back to the United States Senate.” Project advocates, who include Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, misrepresent its economic benefits to favor the oil industry, throwing out claims that Keystone XL creates “tens of thousands of jobs.”

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Undaunted, Senator Still Trying to Close Decrepit Schools on Military Bases
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 10 December 2011
Coburn envisions $1 billion saved – and shifting thousands of students to public school districts

The Senate has decided not to take up a proposal that would close rather than repair decrepit Defense Department-run schools on military bases, creating a flood of thousands of students to nearby public school systems.

But the plan’s chief architect, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), is vowing to try again. He estimates potential savings to the Pentagon from closing “unnecessary” schools at more than $1 billion over four years.

Coburn spokeswoman Becky Bernhardt said the senator was “disappointed and frustrated that the Senate, yet again, chose to ignore the chance to achieve real savings in refusing to vote on a common-sense amendment.”

The Defense Department runs about 60 schools on military bases in the U.S., many of which are run-down, too small, and pose health and safety risks to children, as the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News reported in a series, “The Military Children Left Behind.”

Three out of four Pentagon-run schools are beyond repair or require major renovation, the news organization found.

Coburn proposed that instead of spending more than $1 billion on planned ...

5 Things to Know About Detention in the Defense Bill
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 8 December 2011
That is the Jewish Grandmotheriest Argument I Have Ever Heard for Indefinite Detention
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 8 December 2011
“The National Defense Authorization Act no longer authorizes indefinite detention without trial of American citizens apprehended in the US, due to the compromise amendment adopted by the Senate. ”

 

 Jon Stewart takes on the detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act. My personal favorite line is "you can take away our lives, but only we can take away our freedom!" 

Still, as I explained yesterday, the bill no longer authorizes indefinite detention without trial of American citizens apprehended in the US, due to the compromise amendment adopted by the Senate. Nonetheless, proponents of indefinite detention of Americans say the legislation doesn't need to explicitly grant that power because the president already has that authority (we'll see what the Supreme Court says about that if and when the time comes). The bill still mandates indefinite detention of non-citizens under the same circumstances, a provision that pretty much every top national security official in the Obama administration—and a some former Bush officials as well—say will harm national security.  

We Need a ‘Rout’ of Wolves to Evict the ‘Stench’ of Skunks Occupying Washington
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 4 December 2011
“Clearly, on the evidence of these two measures working their way through Congress now, we have a federal government that has run amok, that is responding not to the people but to narrow corporate interests that seek to both impoverish the citizens and to prepare for greater levels of public unrest and rebellion by putting into place the tools of a police state.”

The US Congress is such a craven bunch that you really have to turn to Olde English to aptly describe them.

Consider that on Thursday, by a vote of 93-7, the Senate approved a National Defense Authorization Bill that effectively defines the US “homeland” as a war zone, and that allows for the indefinite incarceration without trial of anyone, including US citizens and Green Card holders, without trial, in blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution and of fundamental international judicial standards.

These elected representatives, so ready to sell out the fundamental rights of the people and the nation’s heritage, can be best described, using Olde English usage, as a “congress” of baboons, or a “cowardice” of curs, a “sneak” of weasels” or perhaps just a “stench” of skunks.

And it’s not over. Both houses of Congress are also considering a proposal by President Obama of a measure that will seriously undermine Social Security -- a further cut in the Social Security 12.4% payroll tax by 3.1% for workers and a matching 3.1% cut in the 40% share of that tax paid by employers--measures which taken together would gut the Social Security Trust Fund by more than $350 billion in one year.

This theft from the public is being deceitfully ...

Tax Hike Awaits If Congress Doesn’t Act
Moderator
Published: Friday 2 December 2011
Like most Senate Democrats, Murray wants to impose a new 3.25 percent surtax on millionaires to keep the payroll tax cut in place, preventing it from reverting back to 6.2 percent.

If Congress doesn't vote to extend a payroll tax cut by Dec. 31, Democrat Patty Murray warned Thursday, a Washington state family with a yearly median income of $56,000 will pay an additional $1,130 in taxes next year.

Last year, Congress temporarily cut the employee's share of payroll taxes on Social Security by 2 percentage points, to 4.2 percent.

Like most Senate Democrats, Murray wants to impose a new 3.25 percent surtax on millionaires to keep the payroll tax cut in place, preventing it from reverting back to 6.2 percent.

"This vote sets up a simple choice," Murray said in a speech on the Senate floor. "Do you vote to extend tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses, or do you vote to protect the wealthiest Americans from paying one penny more toward their fair share?"

After its so-called supercommittee — which Murray helped lead — failed to cut the national debt last week, Congress has returned to familiar terrain, arguing over tax cuts.

Both parties want to keep the tax cuts, but with the nation facing a $15 trillion deficit, the fight is over how to pay for them. The cut is a big part of President Barack Obama's $447 billion jobs package.

Senate Republicans are resisting the surtax on millionaires. Instead, they want to freeze the pay of federal workers through 2015 and reduce the federal work force by 10 percent. Their plan would cost an estimated $120 billion.

The Senate was expected to vote late Thursday night or early Friday. A vote has not been scheduled in the House.

Regardless of the outcome, the debate is sure to roil Capitol Hill for the remainder of the year. Unless congressional leaders reach a compromise and get an extension signed into law by Obama, taxes will effectively rise for 160 million workers and families on Jan. 1. Obama has been lobbying hard for an extension.

Murray said the proposed tax on the wealthy is the very ...

Obama Hits the Road to Tout a Tax-Cut Plan Republicans Seem to Like
Moderator
Published: Wednesday 30 November 2011
“Republicans plan to devise an alternative way of paying for the payroll tax increase, but they have not yet announced their plans.”

President Barack Obama jets to Scranton, Pa., on Wednesday to ramp up pressure on Congress to extend and perhaps expand a payroll tax cut for another year — a move that Senate Republicans suggested Tuesday could happen, at least the extension.

Last year, Obama and Congress agreed to cut the payroll tax paid by workers for Social Security by 2 percentage points, to 4.2 percent. Obama now wants to extend that another year — and even expand it so that workers would pay only 3.1 percent tax on their wages up to $106,800. If Congress doesn't act however, the 2-point tax cut ends Dec. 31, effectively raising taxes on workers.

The tax cut extension is a major part of Obama's $447 billion job creation package, and White House officials said he plans to champion it aggressively in the few weeks that Congress has remaining until it recesses for Christmas.

"If Congress refuses to act — then middle-class families are going to get hit with a tax increase at the worst possible time," Obama said last week in Manchester, N.H. "The question they'll have to answer when they get back from Thanksgiving is this: Are they really willing to break their oath to never raise taxes, and raise taxes on the middle class just to play politics?"

The White House has put a tax calculator on its whitehouse.gov webpage, allowing visitors to run the calculations themselves and warning that ...

Congressional Perks: Lawmakers’ Most Surprising Benefits
Moderator
Published: Friday 25 November 2011
Tennis courts and airport parking — legislators have lots to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

It’s seemingly been a pretty rough autumn on Capitol Hill. Last month, the public’s approval rating for Congress dropped to 9 percent, the lowest ever, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

But there’s still plenty for the nation’s lawmakers to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. Being a member of Congress remains a surprisingly sweet gig.

In addition to the power to shape policy and public discourse, legislators get great health care and retirement benefits, hefty salaries with annual cost of living increases and the incumbency-boosting ability to blanket constituents with mail touting their achievements.

But there are many less-publicized perks that come along with the job. Here are a few to keep in mind the next time you hear politicians refer to themselves as “public servants.”

Capitol Hill Conveniences

Members ...

Senator Seeks Answers on X-Ray Body Scanners
Taylor
Published: Thursday 24 November 2011
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins questioned the TSA over its decision to back away from a promise to study the health effects of airport body scanners.

The top Republican on the Senate homeland security committee is seeking answers after the head of the Transportation Security Administration backed off a promise to study the health effects of the X-ray body scanners used at airports.

In a letter sent Wednesday to TSA administrator John Pistole, Senator Susan Collins of Maine said she was “disappointed” to hear the news, especially after the  READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

Congress May Try Blocking Cuts if Debt Panel Fails
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 22 November 2011
With Super Congress decision looking unlikely, lawmakers already fighting automatic budget cuts.

Failure by Congress' debt-cutting supercommittee to recommend $1.2 trillion in savings by Wednesday is supposed to automatically trigger spending cuts in the same amount to accomplish that job.

But the same legislators who concocted that budgetary booby trap just four months ago could end up spending the 2012 election year and beyond battling over defusing it.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say they are writing legislation to prevent what they say would be devastating cuts to the military. House Republicans are exploring a similar move. Democrats maintain they won't let domestic programs be the sole source of savings.

In the face of those efforts, President Barack Obama has told the debt panel's co-chairmen that he "will not accept any measure that attempts to turn off the automatic cut trigger," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters last week. The leaders of both parties in the House and Senate have expressed similar sentiments — seemingly making any attempt to restore the money futile.

"Yes, I would feel bound by it," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently of the automatic cuts. "It was part of the agreement."

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Half the Members of Congress are Millionaires
Moderator
Published: Wednesday 16 November 2011
To determine congressional wealth, the Center looked at the personal financial disclosure lawmakers must file annually.

Half the members of Congress enjoys “1 percent” status as millionaires, according to a new study by the Center for Responsive Politics.

While the economy at home and abroad has limped along since 2008, Congress’ estimated median net worth remains robust—up about 7.6 percent from 2009 and about 13 percent from 2008.

Although members of the Senate boast bigger bank accounts on average over their counterparts in the House of Representatives, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California bucks the trend. His average net worth of $448 million makes him the wealthiest member of the 112th Congress, according to the Center's analysis. Issa owes his fortune in part to his business Directed Electronics, an automobile security company best known for its Viper alarm system. The congressman’s own voice warned potential car thieves who got too close to his products, “Protected by Viper, stand back.”

Rep. 

A Long Wait Yields Expansive New Freedoms in Wisconsin
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 15 November 2011
New concealed weapon law in Wisconsin seen as a great victory for the NRA.

Bob Jauch has earned his “F” grade from the National Rifle Association. The Democratic Wisconsin state senator from Poplar has long fought the gun lobby’s efforts to let state residents carry concealed weapons.

In 2004 and again in 2006, Jauch voted against overriding Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s veto of a concealed carry bill. Both times, his colleagues in the Senate voted to override, in 2004 drawing this bitter reaction from Jauch: “The NRA won today.”

Both times, the Assembly fell narrowly short of mustering the requisite two-thirds vote.

This year, following the election of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and GOP majorities in both houses, concealed carry was back. Jauch voted against the bill in committee, and pushed amendments to automatically ban concealed weapons from places including the state Capitol, child care centers, churches and bars. All were defeated.

But Jauch ended up voting for the final bill anyway.

“I think the mood of the public has changed,” Jauch explained in a letter to constituents. And while he does not expect to see a reduction in crime, which is already much lower in Wisconsin than the national ...

Labor Rights, Abortion Rights, Immigrant Rights, Voting Rights Prevail
Moderator
Published: Thursday 10 November 2011
“The Republican/Tea Party moment of 2010 was just that: a moment. The new politics of 2011 is progressive.”

A year after Republican politicians and their media echo chamber claimed that Americans had—with the GOP “wave” election of November, 2010—embraced conservative economic, social and political values, the voters of November, 2011 chose to:

1. Renew Labor Rights.

Ohio voters rejected Governor John Kasich’s assault on collective bargaining protections and public employee unions by an overwhelming 61–39 vote. Said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, “Ohio’s working people successfully fought back against lies pushed by shadowy multi-national corporations and their anonymous front groups that attempted to scapegoat public service employees and everyone they serve by assaulting collective bargaining rights.” The result was not just a win for organized labor. It was a rejection of the crude politics of austerity that would balance budgets in the backs of working families in oder to reward CEO and banksters. “Ohioans from all backgrounds and political parties rejected the crazy notion that the 99 percent—nurses, bridge inspectors, firefighters and social workers—caused the economic collapse, rather than Wall Street.” said Trumka.

2. Reject ...

Occupy the Polls: Tuesday’s Critical Tests of Political Power
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 8 November 2011
Frustrated Americans now have decided to use the polls to spell out their frustration.

Americans who are frustrated with the broken politics of the moment will have plenty of opportunities to Occupy the Polls on Tuesday.

That’s what happened in Boulder, Colorado, last week, when voters shook things up by backing a referendum proposal that calls on Congress to enact a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision that corporations can spend as they choose to buy elections. The same election saw Boulder voters endorse a plan to end the city’s reliance on private power companies and replace them with a public utility.

There are big issues, big races and big tests of the political potency of organized labor, social movements and progressive politics playing out this Tuesday, on the busiest election day of 2011. In some cases, voting offers an opportunity to make an affirmative statement on behalf of a change in priorities. In other cases, there are opportunities to push back against bad politics and bad policies. In still others, there are signals to be sent about the politics of 2012.

Here are some of the big races to keep an eye on Tuesday:

1. OHIO REFERENDUM TO RENEW LABOR RIGHTS

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As Arab Spring Turns to Winter, Women Fear Pushback
Moderator
Published: Saturday 5 November 2011
“The subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women's Issues is the first of its kind for Congress, and met with the intention of recognizing and defining this moment of transition.”

For the women who participated in the political and social revolutions during the Arab Spring in 2011, there is a significant opportunity to enact real change for women's roles and relationships in the region - and also the possibility things could go the other way.
 

Such was the focus of a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations joint subcommittee hearing in Washington Wednesday, in which witnesses testified about the role of women's participation in the Arab Spring, and the outlook for the future. 
 

The subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women's Issues is the first of its kind for Congress, and met with the intention of recognizing and defining this moment of transition.
 

"It's not every day that you're negotiating a new social contract, that you're creating a new constitution," said Manal Omar of the U.S. Institute of Peace, who commented not as a member of USIP but as a witness in her testimony before the Senate subcommittee. 
 

Omar stressed that the urgency to solve the myriad of problems facing countries following the Arab Spring could actually be a detriment if ...

Obama Demands Passage of Jobs Bill but, Again, It’s Not Likely
Moderator
Published: Thursday 3 November 2011
“The partisan schism was evident, as both sides embraced long-held philosophical stands and saw political gain from their refusal to budge.”

President Barack Obama stood Wednesday before an aging Washington bridge and urged a bitterly divided Congress to approve his plan to boost infrastructure spending, but the effort is likely to be blocked Thursday in the Senate.

That would be no surprise to Obama, who since unveiling his $447 billion jobs package two months ago has seen his ideas rejected, largely along party lines. The partisan schism was evident again Wednesday, as both sides embraced long-held philosophical stands and saw political gain from their refusal to budge.

Democrats want higher taxes on millionaires to pay for the infrastructure plan. Republicans don't. Republicans in the House of Representatives have led the way in passing a series of bills to provide private-sector initiatives aimed at creating jobs. Democrats vow to keep pushing the Obama package.

There was little evidence that the two sides are taking serious steps to reach consensus on efforts to bring down the nation's 9.1 percent unemployment rate.

Obama, standing next to the Key Bridge, which spans the Potomac River to link northwest Washington with northern Virginia, tried to be both presidential and partisan.

"Infrastructure shouldn't be a partisan issue," he said.

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Captured Government’s Increasing Irrelevance Shows Occupy’s Importance
Moderator
Published: Sunday 23 October 2011
“This week the government ‘settled’ fraud charges against Citibank – with no criminal charges for the fraud.”

Our captured political institutions make themselves increasingly irrelevant by not addressing the problems of the 99%. Each day we see more examples of our government being "captured" by and serving the interests of the top 1% against the rest of us. Even as more and more people take to the streets in protest, Washington ignores We, the People, continuing to serve only the top few. Here are just a few examples, just from this week, showing what our 1%-captured government is doing even as the 99% of us protest.

Lobbyists Tell Senate To Keep Unhealthy School Lunches

This week the Senate sided with lobbyists and voted to block science-based recommendations protecting our kids’ health. The Dept. of Agriculture had proposed a rule promoting healthy food for kids in federally-subsidized school lunches, limiting starches and increasing healthy vegetables served to increasingly obese kids. But as always happens now with our goverment, lobbyists swarmed and the Senate voted to block the science-based health rules. Senate votes for unlimited potatoes in schools,

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Go, Newt, Go! Gingrich Slams Super Committee During GOP Pageant - I Mean, “Debate”
Moderator
Published: Saturday 22 October 2011
“There was little else said of substance at last night’s Presidential debate. Like most of these events nowadays, it seemed more like a beauty pageant.”

To say there's a lot that's wrong about Newt Gingrich's campaign is putting it mildly. (For one thing, its candidate is Newt Gingrich.) But he was right on the money last night when it came to the so-called "Super Committee."

There was little else said of substance at last night's Presidential debate. Like most of these events nowadays, it seemed more like a beauty pageant. Or like the red carpet at a Hollywood premiere, where self-indulgent celebrities try to act likable before an audience they both resent and loathe - all the more so because they need it.

Under these conditions we have two choices: We can either use this space to praise Newt for his burst of eloquence, or we can channel our inner Joan Rivers by making snarky comments about the candidates' fashion choices.

We'll go with praising Gingrich, even though Joan says his suit was several sizes too big. And those lapels! What were you thinking, Newt?

Super!

Here's what Gingrich said last night:

I mean, if you want to understand how totally broken Washington is, look at this entire model of the super ...

Jobs - Still The #1 National Emergency
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 18 October 2011
“This is ‘horse-race’ coverage, where they talk about the politics of who is up and who is down, and not coverage of what is important in the lives of regular Americans.”

We are in an absolute national jobs emergency and everyone outside of Washington, DC understands this. But if you read the DC-oriented press, you would think that the "issue" of jobs has come and gone. You would read that "each side" has "scored points." You would read that each side has "offered a plan." You would read that "Congress is deadlocked" and "neither side is willing to compromise. "This is "horse-race" coverage, where they talk about the politics of who is up and who is down, and not coverage of what is important in the lives of regular Americans.

In this kind of coverage the "side" that is the American People and our needs is not even part of this discussion.. This kind of coverage recognizes that much of what happens in Washington is little more than a propaganda game of scoring points and tricking people into thinking things that are not real... Anyway, out in the real world people still need jobs and it is an emergency, and there is a risk of people taking matters into their own hands.

The Horse Race

The President's jobs plan, called 

The GOP Ties Itself Up in Knots
Moderator
Published: Thursday 13 October 2011
It’s the signal Senate Republicans sent in voting as a bloc against President Obama’s jobs bill. Don’t just do something, stand there.

So let’s see: The solution to large-scale abuses of the financial system, a breakdown of the private sector, extreme economic inequality and the failure of companies and individuals to invest and create jobs is — well, to give even more money and power to very wealthy people, to disable government and to trust those who got us into the mess to get us out of it.

That’s a brief summary of the news from the Republican Party this week. It’s what Republican candidates said during the Post-Bloomberg debate Tuesday night, and it’s the signal Senate Republicans sent in voting as a bloc against President Obama’s jobs bill. Don’t just do something, stand there.

Those who have plenty of capital to invest are holding back because consumers don’t have enough cash. But let’s not give potential middle-class buyers jobs and money to spend. No, let’s heap yet more resources onto investors. And if sharp guys made fortunes writing abusive mortgages, let’s repeal all the rules we just passed to prevent them from doing the same thing again.

Better yet, don’t blame the people who got the windfalls. Blame poor people. Thus did Rep. Michele Bachmann place responsibility ...

Senate Falls Short of Votes to Take up Obama’s Big Jobs Bill
Moderator
Published: Wednesday 12 October 2011
“After the vote, the White House issued an Obama statement, which said: “Tonight’s vote is by no means the end of this fight,” and he vowed to work with Sen. Reid to move the plan’s pieces forward.”

The Democrat-led Senate effectively killed President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan Tuesday as the White House and Democratic lawmakers talked of breaking the president’s plan into pieces to try to push it through Congress.

Senators voted 50-49 on a procedural move to take up Obama’s plan, but 60 votes were required under Senate rules for lawmakers to proceed on the measure.

Democrats control the chamber with 53 votes, but two Senate Democrats facing tough re-election bids (Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana) voted with 46 Republicans to turn aside Obama’s plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also joined the opposition in a tactical move that permits him under Senate rules to call the measure back up for future votes.

The vote was a setback for Obama, who has been crisscrossing the country trumpeting the bill and predicting that its defeat would be the fault of obstructionist Republicans.

Even before the vote was taken, Obama proposed salvaging his proposals by breaking the bill into smaller pieces and trying to get Congress to pass them one by one.

“If they don’t pass the whole package we’re going to break it up into constituent parts,” Obama told during a Tuesday meeting with his Jobs Council in Pittsburgh. “And having the relevant businesses get behind an effort to ...

Sarah Palin Announces She Won’t Run for President in 2012
Moderator
Published: Thursday 6 October 2011
Palin made the announcement on the Mark Levin radio show, saying her family’s wishes were the main factor in her decision, but she also said she felt she could have the most impact by supporting other like-minded candidates.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008, said Wednesday that she won’t be running for president in 2012.

Palin made the announcement on the Mark Levin radio show, saying her family’s wishes were the main factor in her decision. But she also said she felt she could have the most impact by supporting other like-minded candidates.

"I am very thankful that included in a list of supporters in my life are my family members," Palin told the conservative talk show host. "They do support this decision. They came first, the consideration of what a candidacy does to or for a family. That weighed heavily."

Palin’s announcement came a day after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he, too, would resist the call to run for the GOP nomination. It ended months of intense speculation about whether Palin would get into the race, with her core group of diehard supporters arguing there was still time and she could win.

But time is running out for someone new to make an impact. South Carolina now plans to hold its first-in-the-South primary Jan. 21, meaning Iowa and New Hampshire are likely to hold their contests earlier in January.

That leaves about three months for campaigning. Palin, though, has a rabid following and a proven ability to raise lots of money.

Palin’s decision means that, for better or worse, the Republican presidential field for the 2012 nomination is almost certainly set. Christie had been considered the best bet of seriously challenging the two Republican front-runners, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Because of Perry’s stumbles in recent debates, Romney has vaulted back into a lead in some presidential preference polls. But the polls also show voters are still open-minded about a candidate.

Palin said she’d still play a role in national politics. She said she expected to be active in ...

To Win in 2012 ‘Democrats Are Going to Have to Distinguish Themselves from The President’
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 4 October 2011
Progressives and populists have begun to argue that Democratic congressional candidates can and should run on issues that work for them—including tougher-than-the-president positions in support of job investments, taxes on financial speculators and the defense of Medicare.

Barack Obama’s approval rating is hovering around 40 percent, falling as low as 38 percent in a recent Gallup survey and 39 percent in the latest McClatchey-Marist poll.

That's bad. But it gets worse.

The new ABC News/Washington Post poll says that 55 percent of Americans now expect that whoever wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 to take the presidency. Only 37 percent believe Obama will win.

That’s really bad. And the numbers from the battleground states are even more unsettling, A new Quinnipiac survey of Florida voters finds that only 39 percent approve of Obama’s handling of the presidency, while 57 percent disapprove. Only 41 percent of those surveyed say they think the president should be reelected.

Polls are transitory. The president’s numbers can and probably will improve, especially if he stays focused on the message he has been delivering in recent days: invest in job creation, establish fairer tax policies that make the rich pay their share, defend Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

But his decision to submit ...

As Obama Presses Passage of His Jobs Bill, Congress Shrugs
Elizabeth
Published: Sunday 2 October 2011
When Capitol Hill lawmakers return Monday from a weeklong break, the first order of business in the Democratic-run Senate won't be the president's $447 billion jobs package, but legislation dealing with Chinese currency manipulation.

Congress is highly unlikely to approve the massive jobs package that President Barack Obama has been pushing relentlessly from coast to coast, day after day, for almost a month.

Republicans don't like its proposed tax increases. Some Democrats are reluctant to endorse another cut in Social Security taxes; others are wary of oil and gas tax hikes. And Obama's low approval ratings, the most dismal of his presidency, are making it hard for him to build any momentum.

When Capitol Hill lawmakers return Monday from a weeklong break, the first order of business in the Democratic-run Senate won't be the president's $447 billion jobs package — despite his daily demands to pass it now — but legislation dealing with Chinese currency manipulation.

"We'll get to that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said of the jobs plan, which he says he supports. "But let's get some of these things done that we have to get done first."

In the House of Representatives, the Republican majority won't accept Obama's proposed tax increases.

"I can't really make sense of why the president thinks he should be doing this," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The president introduced his economic rescue plan to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 8, an unusual forum for launching such an initiative. Since then, he's traveled the country and given interviews to local news media insisting on its quick approval.

The package includes aid for cities and towns, help for school and road construction projects, Social Security payroll tax cuts and assistance for the long-term unemployed. A series of tax increases, notably limiting tax deductions for the wealthy, would offset the cost of the measure.

Press Secretary Jay Carney said this week that the White House wants the plan to pass intact, but he also said Obama was prepared to accept only ...

China Currency Fight In Congress
Elizabeth
Published: Sunday 2 October 2011
Our trade deficit worsens, more jobs are lost, more factories close, more imbalances threaten the world's economy. It is time to act.

The fight to get China to stop their currency manipulation is heating up. China keeps its currency very low, giving their goods a huge price advantage even before all their other trade manipulations come into play. This costs us jobs, factories, companies and entire industries. Now the Congress is taking steps to force them to stop. This has been going on a long time (see my own list of posts below). Our trade deficit worsens, more jobs are lost, more factories close, more imbalances threaten the world's economy. It is time to act.

Background

China has decided that it is to their advantage to capture as many jobs, factories, companies and industries as possible. Like many countries they have national industrial/economic strategies for key target industries, and we do not. In pursuit of their strategies they use every trick we let them get away with -- and we let them get away with a lot. They directly subsidize companies and industries, require companies from other countries to share intellectual property if they want to do business in China, subsidize electricity to factories, provide free land, "indigenous innovation" (Buy China) policies, and numerous other methods to gain advantage. Some of these are very smart self-interested policies (that we do not match) like the basic, normal government function of spending to provide top-notch infrastructure and education so their companies will flourish. Others are illegal trade practices that we do not challenge.

In effect, by not having our own national strategies and willingness to invest public funds, we send American companies out alone, to compete with national systems like China's. Even our largest companies do not have the resources to take this on.

Over 2 Million Jobs

The Alliance for American Manufacturing says that

Bill to Steer BP Oil Spill Fines to Gulf States Passes Committee
Elizabeth
Published: Thursday 22 September 2011
The bill will now go to the full Senate.

A bipartisan effort to secure at least 80 percent of fines from the BP Gulf oil spill for the five Gulf Coast states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas — advanced Wednesday as the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the bill by voice vote.

Committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., praised the lawmakers from both parties who had worked together to develop the RESTORE the Gulf Coast Act of 2011. "It is an important commitment to the people of the Gulf," she said.

The bill now goes to the full Senate.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., a member of the panel, said the lawmakers came together because the legislation would direct fines from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout to the hard-hit Gulf Coast. The fund could collect from $5 billion to $20 billion.

"That's where the damage happened," Vitter said. "That's where the restoration has to occur."

The legislation would establish a Gulf Coast Restoration Fund to provide Gulf Coast states with 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines related to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. The U.S. Treasury Department would receive the remaining 20 percent of the fines assessed against BP and other parties found to be responsible for the April 2010 tragedy.

Under existing law, the Treasury would collect the entire amount.

Under the bill, the states would equally divide 35 percent of the monies directed to the Gulf states. Sixty percent of the funds would be directed to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, and 5 percent would go to a new Gulf science and fisheries program.

The federal Clean Water Act allows the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a $1,100 fine for every barrel of oil spilled, which can rise to $4,300 per barrel. According to a statement issued by Republican Mississippi Sens. Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker, the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into ...

New Consumer Bureau Could Especially Protect Ethnic Communities
Moderator
Published: Monday 19 September 2011
Reforms the GOP proposed would be “necessary before we will consider any nominee to head this agency,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Three years ago, the financial giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. That stunning development accelerated the American financial crisis, which left world markets reeling--and American consumers staggered by foreclosures, shrunken retirement funds and the inability to get small business loans among other consumer shock waves.

While the economic downturn hit the United States like a “tsunami,” said Deborah Goldberg, director of National Fair Housing Alliance, “for communities of color, it started much earlier.” She spoke at a media teleconference held Sept. 15, by New America Media (NAM) on “Money, Housing and the Racial Wealth Gap -- What's at Stake for Communities of Color?”

The fair-housing alliance is concerned because many of the foreclosures still forcing people out of their homes could have been avoided if mortgage brokers had been barred from making false marketing claims.

However, said Goldberg, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) “is the bright spot in this gloomy picture. It has the ability to reform the financial system.”

The new bureau’s website states the agency will be “a cop on the beat making sure that every lender will follow the same rules, working to fix broken consumer credit market and to help prevent future economic crisis.”

Heated Congressional Debate

Congress created CFPB in July, 2010 ,as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act named ...

Can Obama Calm Democratic Panic?
Moderator
Published: Monday 19 September 2011
At a moment when Obama desperately needs Democratic solidarity, there is no reservoir of goodwill from which he can draw.

With apologies to Winston Churchill: The talk in the political class is that this is the beginning of the end of the Obama administration, while the talk in the Obama administration is that this is the end of the beginning. Which will it be?

Last week was not exactly what President Obama hoped for when he rolled out his big jobs initiative. He expected pushback from Republicans. He did not anticipate the resistance he is getting from Democrats — or, perhaps more to the point, he did not expect the questions about the bill that might inevitably arise on his side to get quite so much attention.

The administration’s strategy was clear enough, and for the first few days it was working as planned. By putting together a rather large but relatively uncontroversial package of measures to boost the economy, Obama sought to put the Republicans on the defensive and to spur Democrats, including his progressive critics, behind a push for action.

In a series of campaign-style rallies, Obama exuded new energy. The friendly crowds he gathered radiated with a spirit that has been largely absent since the 2008 campaign. Cries of “Pass this bill!” seemed comfortingly similar to the old shouts of “Yes, we can!” And the initial response from congressional Republicans — they pointedly did not reject all of his ideas — suggested that things just might be turning the president’s way. The poll ratings of congressional Republicans, after all, are awful. Their leaders sensed that rejectionism might not be good politics.

But then the Democrats lost two congressional special elections and the administration proposed to pay for its $447 billion jobs plan with a combination of tax increases that it had proposed before and that Congress had rejected.

The elections brought to the surface all of the anxiety Democrats feel about 2012. And while Obama’s broadly progressive set of tax increases on special ...

Money, Politics Still Mix for Most on Congress’ Debt Panel
Elizabeth
Published: Friday 16 September 2011
At least nine of them — five Democrats and four Republicans — have held or scheduled 21 fundraisers since getting named to the committee last month.

Hours after convening the first working meeting of Congress' "supercommittee" Tuesday, committee co-chair Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state had another engagement: She hosted a $1,000-per-ticket fundraiser at the fall reception of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, raising money for her party's 2012 Senate candidates.

Two other Republican members of the debt-reduction panel held fundraisers the same night, giving lobbyists and influence peddlers an opportunity to mingle with them: Sen. Rob Portman hosted a reception for fellow Ohioan Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, and Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona hosted one for Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, his Mississippi counterpart.

Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina had the busiest week of any supercommittee member, with five fundraisers scheduled over four days.

Despite growing calls for the 12 committee members to stop raising money until they conclude their task of cutting $1.2 trillion from the federal budget, most are adhering to the time-honored tradition of mixing their politics with plenty of cash.

At least nine of them — five Democrats and four Republicans — have held or scheduled 21 fundraisers since getting named to the committee last month, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based organization that tracks the influence of money in politics.

To be sure, no one's accusing members of any wrongdoing.

Fundraising has long been considered part of the job, and the Supreme Court in recent years has loosened limits on corporate political contributions, defending them as expressions of free speech protected by the Constitution's First Amendment. In Congress, legislative attempts to institute taxpayer financing of congressional elections have failed to gain traction, and opinion polls find that most Americans oppose the idea anyway.

But critics say that by raising money while they're doing such ...

The Republican Weapon of Mass Cynicism
Moderator
Published: Friday 16 September 2011
The GOP has pioneered new ways to circumvent campaign finance laws, blocked all attempts at reform, and appointed and confirmed Supreme Court justices who believe corporations have First Amendment rights to spend whatever they want to corrupt our politics.

According to the latest ABC New/Washington Post poll, 77 percent of Americans say they “feel things have gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track” in this country. That’s the highest percentage since January, 2009.

No surprise. The economy is almost as rotten now as it was two years ago. And, yes, this poses a huge risk to President Obama’s reelection, as it does to congressional Democrats.

But the truly remarkable thing is how little faith Americans have in government to set things right. This cynicism poses an even bigger challenge to Obama and the Democrats – and perhaps to all of us.

When I worked in Robert Kennedy’s senate office in the summer of 1967, America also seemed off track. Our inner cities were burning. The Vietnam War was escalating.

Yet most Americans still held government in high regard. A whopping 66 percent of the public told pollsters that year that they trusted government to do the right thing all or most of the time.

Now 30 percent of Americans say they trust government to do the right thing.

What’s responsible for this erosion? Not the Great Recession or the government’s response to it. Most of the decline in public trust occurred years before.

While 66 percent trusted government in 1967, by 1973 that percent had eroded to only 52 percent. By 1976, barely 32 percent of Americans said they trusted government to do the right thing. By 1992, 28 percent. Trust bounced up during the Clinton administration (I’m happy to report) but cratered again during the George W. Bush’s presidency, ending at 30 percent, and hasn’t recovered since.

Call it the Republican Weapon of Mass Cynicism.

That weapon is now reaching full-throated fury in the form of Texas Governor Rick Perry. (It’s echoed by Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, but Perry has emerged as the major spokesperson.)

Republicans didn’t accomplish ...

Disapproval, of Course, Is A Relative Thing
Moderator
Published: Thursday 15 September 2011
Riding high on the empowering results of the 2010 midterm election, Republicans apparently imagined that despair over the economy equaled love for them.

If the 2012 election were held today, Republicans could very well have their heads handed to them. I do not think this alone. Their debt-ceiling high jinks were no doubt immensely amusing to the tea party fringe, but to those of us not getting the joke, they were an appalling attack on a fragile economy.

The tea party is turning from the voice of anger to its target, and Republicans have it hanging around their neck. The first trumpet blast of wrath came in labor leader James Hoffa's intemperate call at a Democratic rally to — and I tone him down considerably — turn its candidates out of office.

We've reached the part of the Western where the townsfolk, long intimidated by a gang of bullies, suddenly find their courage and fight back. A snowballing of suppressed rage bodes ill for the Grand Old Party.

Riding high on the empowering results of the 2010 midterm election, Republicans apparently imagined that despair over the economy equaled love for them. President Obama's falling approval numbers may also give them solace, but his ratings soar next to House Republicans'. And bear in mind that the new critics include liberals incensed by the president's lack of fervor — but who would not vote for a GOP hothead if hell froze over (in the ultimate refutation of global warming).

The baddest sign of all is that the townsfolk are being joined by traditional Republicans (and we assume Republican-leaning independents) who can no longer hold their tongues. For example, former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel told the Financail Times that he was "disgusted" by the campaign against raising the debt ceiling.

"It ...

Obama Has Steered The Debate Back Toward Jobs; Now, He Must Go Out and Win It
Moderator
Published: Friday 9 September 2011
Obama has proposed, now Republicans will reject. And that’s that.

Barack Obama delivered a credible if uninspired jobs speech Thursday night.

He communicated that the United States cannot meet the challenges of an unemployment crisis with an austerity agenda that owes more to Herbert Hoover than Franklin Roosevelt. But he muddied the message with too much debt and deficit talk.

He signaled to organized labor and progressives that he at least understands the point of a “go big” response to the challenge—even as his instinctive caution erred against going big enough.

In fact, his rhetoric was good deal better than the specifics of his plan.

“The people of this country work hard to meet their responsibilities. The question tonight is whether we’ll meet ours,” the president explained, to considerable applause. “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy. The question is whether we can restore some of the fairness and security that has defined this nation since our beginning.”

Obama’s “it’s time to do what’s right” proposal touches at least some of the right bases—even if it is a clumsy circumnavigation. He proposes to spend $450 billion. The $253 billion in tax cuts he wants go mainly to working folks. The $194 billion in new spending is aimed at hiring incentives, infrastructure projects and other job-creating and retaining programs that the moment demands and that polls suggest Americans are more than willing to fund.

Is the Post Office Too Big to Fail? Maybe Not
Elizabeth
Published: Wednesday 7 September 2011
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told a Senate hearing Tuesday that the postal service is running out of money and could go into default as soon as next month unless Congress acts.

Talk in recent weeks of post office closings and the elimination of Saturday mail delivery has shifted to a more dire prospect: The entire U.S. Postal Service could go out of business within a year.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told a Senate hearing Tuesday that the postal service is running out of money and could go into default as soon as next month unless Congress acts.

"Without legislative change this year, the Postal Service faces default," Donahoe told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

If the Postal Service is forced to make its required $5.5 billion annual payment to the federal health care benefit plan, it will exhaust its $15 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury and trigger a default. John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, told the panel that the White House would ask Congress to grant the Postal Service a 90-day extension on the health care payment.

But that's only the first step. Donahoe said the Postal Service, which is on track to lose $10 billion this year, must take additional, drastic measures to avoid shutting down and is seeking Congress' blessing to cut back delivery, close thousands of mostly rural post offices, consolidate processing centers and eliminate at least 120,000 jobs.

"Short-term, stopgap measures will not help," Donahoe said. "These are aggressive steps, and they are necessary."

A shutdown of the Postal Service would deal a staggering blow to the economy. With more than 500,000 employees, it's the second-largest employer in the country behind Wal-Mart. It supports millions of other jobs in related industries, such as newspaper and magazine publishers, and paper and printing companies, businesses that would be crippled without it.

"That is the last thing our struggling economy needs and the last thing our country needs," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut ...

Curds, Brats, Beer, Polka, Unions! The Homegrown Revolution in Wisconsin
Moderator
Published: Monday 5 September 2011
The Wisconsin demands are, on the one hand, for a restoration of well-established rights, but the fervor here contains a revolutionary spirit that should make Wall Street Republicans—and timid Democrats—shudder at the force they have awakened

“My family comes from Oconomowoc and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my dad from the tradition of Joseph McCarthy and my mom from that of Robert La Follette, so I have been well educated in the tensions between reactionary and progressive populism, the poles of our politics down to thepresent. The Tea Party is the rising counter movement against the rights gained in the sixties and thirties, including the rights of teachers, cops, firefighters and all public sector workers to form unions and bargain collectively. In response to the attacks on these rights by Governor Scott Walker, a great social movement has arisen this year in Wisconsin on which the future of America, and the next presidential election may depend.”

 

—Tom Hayden, from a speech to the Democracy Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, August 24

 
Madison—Thousands marched to the Capitol steps and through the massive rotunda on August 25, “black Thursday,” the day when Republican Governor Scott Walker’s rollback of state worker jobs and paychecks was cutting deep—Wisconsin state employees’ pay was cut by 13 percent. Walker is the point person in a Republican strategy to destroy public sector unions, the steady source of thousands of middle-class jobs and a key institutional base of the Democratic Party. The Republican counter-revolution in Wisconsin has already terminated the dues check-off system that funds unions, such as those for teachers and state workers, wiped out same-day voter registration and made a driver’s license a requirement to vote, and redistricted the state legislature to favor the Republican right. And changing the date of primary elections from September to August disenfranchises a statewide student body that leans blue and green.

Forcing labor unions to go door-to-door to ask their membership for individual dues is expected to result in ...

Scott Brown No Shoo-in for Re-Election in Mass
Elizabeth
Published: Saturday 27 August 2011
“Brown's stars won't be as favorably aligned as they were in 2010.”

When Scott was elected U.S. senator from Massachusetts in a special election last year, Republicans rejoiced. They had wrested the Senate seat held by the late liberal icon Edward Kennedy in a Democratic stronghold.

Brown remains quite popular at home. But as he faces the voters again in 2012, will that matter?

The saga of former Sen. Lincoln Chafee in neighboring Rhode Island offers a cautionary tale. Another much-liked moderate Republican, Chafee lost his bid for re-election in 2006 for a very simple, one-letter reason — the "R" after his name. The Republican brand was much fallen back then, and the state's Democratic electorate made a strategic decision: The balance in the Senate was so close that a Chafee victory could have kept majority control in Republican hands. It instead chose Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, and yes, Democrats took the majority by one seat. Chafee turned independent and is now Rhode Island governor.

After the recent debt-ceiling chaos, the GOP leadership is looking especially toxic. And "control" of the Senate is again up for grabs. Do Massachusetts voters want to wake up on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012, knowing that they just made Kentucky's Mitch McConnell senate majority leader? Probably not.

Meanwhile, Brown's stars won't be as favorably aligned as they were in 2010. Back then, the burning national issue was the bill guaranteeing medical coverage — something that Massachusetts voters definitely wanted but already had through their state program. Thus, Brown had the luxury of running as "the 41st vote against Obamacare."

Brown also had the good fortune of facing off against state Attorney General Martha Coakley, who insulted the electorate by barely campaigning. This time, his Democratic foe may very well be Elizabeth Warren, heroine of consumer protection. Warren's style may not travel well in regulation-averse parts of the country, but ...

Top Veterans Groups to White House: Chained CPI Will Mean "Real Sacrifice" for Veterans
Elizabeth
Published: Saturday 13 August 2011
“The chained CPI would reduce Social Security and VA benefits by cutting the annual COLA, as well as increase taxes, by slowing the rate at which tax brackets rise.”

Eight leading veterans’ groups sent letters to President Obama, and members of the House and Senate this week, urging them not to adopt the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI) for determining cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security and VA benefits. The letter relied on information from a new analysis by the Strengthen Social Security Campaign showing that the chained CPI will have an especially large effect on veterans and their families.

The letters from the American GI Forum, AMVETS, Blinded Veterans Association, National Military Family Association, Paralyzed Veterans of America, VetsFirst, a program of United Spinal Association, Vietnam Veterans of America, and VoteVets.org identified significant cuts that would occur to 9 million veterans receiving Social Security retirement benefits, 3.2 million receiving VA Disability Compensation Benefits, and 310,000 receiving VA Pension Benefits if the chained CPI was used to calculate the annual COLA.

The letters from veterans groups said: “Many veterans who rely on these programs live on fixed incomes and very tight budgets. For them, every dollar of hard-earned benefits counts in meeting basic expenses, attaining quality of life, and building a better future for themselves and those who depend on them. For many of them, reducing the annual COLA would mean real sacrifice. We ask that you not do that for those who ...

Anti-Union Law Fuels Massive Voter Turnout for Historic Wisconsin Recall
Moderator
Published: Thursday 11 August 2011
"Republicans have retained control of the Wisconsin State Senate following a series of historic recall elections organized in response to their support of Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting bill this spring."

Republicans have retained control of the Wisconsin State Senate following a series of historic recall elections organized in response to their support of Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting bill this spring. Democrats needed to win three of the six Republican seats up for grabs in order to gain a majority, but four incumbents prevailed. Independent video producer Sam Mayfield spoke with voters at polling stations in the contested districts of Republican State Senators Alberta Darling and Luther Olsen in southern Wisconsin. She filed this report for Democracy Now!

Transcript: 

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the historic recall election that took place on Tuesday in Wisconsin. Six Republican state senators fought to hang onto their seats after they supported Governor Scott Walker’s union-busting bill. Democrats needed to win three of the seats. Well, the votes are in this morning: four Republicans won. The results mean Republicans will hold the State Senate majority by a slim margin of 17 to 16.

We’re going to begin our coverage with a report from southern Wisconsin, from Portage, where independent video producer Sam Mayfield visited the polling stations in the contested districts of Republican Senators Alberta Darling and Luther Olsen. Both ultimately defeated their Democratic challengers. Mayfield asked voters what this recall means to them.

LEON: They’re taking everything away we worked for for 50 years. And I don’t like it.

SAM MAYFIELD: Why do you care about coming out in August to vote?

A Historic Opportunity to Cut Military Spending
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 9 August 2011
"Cutting projected military spending by a trillion dollars over the next ten years has become politically plausible."

Under the agreement, a joint House-Senate committee is supposed to propose, by Thanksgiving, $1.5 trillion of debt reduction (expenditures less revenues) over ten years. Significant cuts in projected military spending are on the table. Indeed, if the joint committee doesn't agree on a plan or Congress doesn't enact it, $1.2 trillion in cuts in projected spending over 10 years will be triggered, of which half must come from the military.

If the military cuts in the trigger mechanism take place, when added to the projected military cuts announced by the White House as part of this week's deal, total cuts in projected military spending would amount to $884 billion. This is very close to the $886 billion in military cuts agreed by the plan of the Senate's "Gang of Six," a plan endorsed by President Obama. It's in the ballpark of - but less than - the $960 billion in proposed military cuts of the Frank-Paul Sustainable Defense Task Force, the trillion dollars in proposed military cuts of the report of President's deficit commission, the $1.1 trillion reduction in projected military spending proposed by the Domenici-Rivlin task force, and the $1.2 trillion in military cuts recommended by ...

Mr. Cool Turns Cold
Elizabeth
Published: Monday 8 August 2011
"Obama is the very soul of common sense."

In her autobiography, Helen Gahagan Douglas recalled telling President Franklin D. Roosevelt about her visits to the camps of migrant workers. She was especially poignant about the children and their lack of Christmas toys when the president tried to stop her. "Don't tell me any more, Helen," FDR told the woman who is probably best known for losing a dirty Senate race to Richard Nixon. She was stunned. Roosevelt was crying. Can anyone imagine Barack Obama doing anything similar?

The answer -- at least my answer -- is no. And this is quite amazing when you think about it. FDR was a Hudson River squire -- down to his cigarette holder and cape. Nonetheless, he could connect to the less fortunate. Obama, in contrast, was raised in the great American muddle, not rich and not poor. Yet when the stock market fell over 500 points last week and the image that night was of the president whooping it up at his birthday party, the juxtaposition -- just bad timing, of course -- seemed appropriate. He does not seem to care.

This quality of Obama's, this inability to communicate what many of us think he must be feeling, has lately cost many trees their dear lives -- reams of essays and op-ed pieces. One of the more interesting ones, by Drew Westen, a psychology professor at Emory University, ran in Sunday's New York Times. It cited Obama's frequent inability or unwillingness to explain himself or to appear empathetic. All this is true. But Westen's most salient point was contained in the title: "What Happened to Obama?" The answer: Nothing.

Obama has always been the man he is today. He is the very personification of cognitive ...

Congress Blocks Recess Appointments
Moderator
Published: Friday 5 August 2011
"In an effort to block President Obama from making recess appointments, Congressional Republicans have kept Congress technically in session."

As many have noted, members of Congress left behind some unfinished business when they headed home for their August recess. But here’s something else you should know: Even though hordes of lawmakers have left D.C., neither chamber of Congress officially adjourned.

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Obama Signs Debt Hike Into Law, With Hours to Spare
Moderator
Published: Wednesday 3 August 2011
"The president called the weeks-long standoff over raising the debt ceiling "a manufactured crisis" that didn't help a faltering economy."

With the deadline for raising the nation's debt ceiling only hours away, President Barack Obama signed a historic deficit-reduction package into law Tuesday that aims to cut trillions of dollars from federal spending while increasing the debt limit immediately.

Obama acted just hours after the Senate passed the bill on a bipartisan 74-26 vote.

The president called the weeks-long standoff over raising the debt ceiling "a manufactured crisis" that didn't help a faltering economy.

"It's pretty likely that the uncertainty surrounding the raising of the debt ceiling for both businesses and consumers has been unsettling and just one more impediment to the full recovery that we need," he said. "And it was something that we could have avoided entirely."

He also made it clear that he'll continue to press for tax increases in the months ahead to help balance the federal budget.

"Since you can't close the deficit with just spending cuts, we'll need a balanced approach where everything's on the table," he said. "Everyone's going to have to chip in. That's only fair. That's the principle I'll be fighting for during the next phase of this process."

During debate on the Senate floor, even supporters were similarly unsatisfied with the result of all the weeks of acrimonious Washington deal making.

"On this matter my conscience is conflicted," said Senate Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "If this bill should fail, we will default on our nation's debt ... terrible things will ensue." But he also worried about its trillions of dollars in spending cuts and "all of the consequences on innocent people in America."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was a bit more upbeat. "We've had to settle for less than we wanted, but what we've achieved is in no way ...

House, Grumbling, Passes Debt Deal; Senate Is Next
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 2 August 2011
The first $400 billion debt-ceiling increase would go into effect immediately.

After many weeks of high-stakes drama that put the nation's economy at risk while Americans and the rest of the world watched in dismay, a reluctant House of Representatives on Monday passed a deal by 269-161 that would raise the debt ceiling immediately and reduce federal budget deficits by trillions of dollars over the next decade.

The House vote was the one in doubt; Senate passage is all but assured, probably around noon Tuesday.

The agreement, crafted by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders after weeks of often intensely personal negotiations, aims to slash deficits by at least $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years.

It also provides for increasing, by at least that amount, the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit. It must be increased by Tuesday or the government would be at risk of default, possibly panicking financial markets and sending the economy reeling back into recession.

The first $400 billion debt-ceiling increase would go into effect immediately. Another $500 billion increase would take effect this fall, unless Congress rejected it _ considered highly unlikely, because even if Congress voted it down, Obama could veto the disapproval and Democrats would have the numbers to sustain the veto.

The final debt-limit increase of at least $1.2 trillion would take effect next year, after further deficit reduction went into effect.

Obama announced the agreement Sunday night, and the mood in Congress on Monday was feisty and frustrated. Lawmakers on the left and right were angry.

On the left, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., called the agreement "a slow walk to total disaster." Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., branded it "evil and more evil."

Waters and other liberals warned that Obama could pay a political price.

"The progressive element of this country will be so disappointed with this administration if this bill passes. It translates into people staying home. I ...

Fox Defaulted To Bad Economic Policy During Debt Ceiling Debate
Moderator
Published: Monday 1 August 2011
"Fox figures consistently dismissed or downplayed concerns over government default."

During the debt ceiling debate, Fox has relentlessly pushed economic policies and positions that experts have said would be harmful to the economy, including downplaying default concerns, openly advocating for default and a credit downgrade, and actively lobbying for a balanced budget amendment.

 

Fox Figures Consistently Dismissed Or Downplayed Concerns Over Government Default

Hannity: Democrats' "Doomsday Rhetoric Would Have You Believe" That If The Ceiling Deadline Passes, The "Economy Would Crumble." On the July 11 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity said: "As the deficit reduction talks continue in Washington, Democrats have been ramping up their efforts to scare the American people into supporting this deal. Now, the left's doomsday rhetoric would have you believe that if Congress does not vote to raise the debt limit by August the 2nd, the American economy would crumble." [Fox News, Hannity, 7/11/11, via Media Matters]

Dobbs Calls Debt Ceiling Deadline A "False Date" And "Pure Fiction." On his July 11 Fox Business show, host Lou Dobbs called the August 2 deadline for raising the debt limit a "false date" and "pure fiction." Dobbs made his comments in response to J. Dennis Hastert, former Republican speaker of the House, who said that "the federal government can decide what it's going to pay, when, and where." [Fox Business, Lou Dobbs Tonight, 7/11/11, via Media Matters]

Carlson: "Some Republicans" Are Asking Whether Debt Ceiling Deadline Is A "Democratic Ploy." On the July 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host ...

Obama, Congress Reach Debt Deal With Hours Left on Clock
Elizabeth
Published: Monday 1 August 2011
"This compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year."

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a historic agreement late Sunday to dramatically cut federal deficits by trillions of dollars over the next decade while likely ensuring that the nation's debt limit will be raised before Tuesday's deadline — averting a possible economic crisis.

"This compromise does make a serious down payment on the deficit reduction we need and gives each party a strong incentive to get a balanced plan done before the end of the year," Obama said Sunday night. "Most importantly, it will allow us to avoid default and end the crisis Washington imposed on the rest of America."

The first part of the agreement will cut nearly $1 trillion in federal spending over the next decade, Obama said, while a special legislative committee will look for more cuts. "Everything will be on the table," he said.

Obama spoke as financial markets opened in Asia — Japan's Nikkei index had climbed nearly 2 percent within an hour of his remarks — and eased fears that the United States would default on its debt and perhaps slip back into recession.

Congressional leaders said they would present details of the deal to their party members on Monday and were confident that both houses would approve the compromise before Tuesday night, when the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit must be increased.

The agreement, forged after weeks of unusually intense, often personal Washington drama, still needs congressional approval, and lawmakers signaled Sunday that they wanted to learn details of a plan that was hammered out at the 11th hour.

Senate leaders quickly had warm words for the agreement.

"I know this agreement won't make every Republican happy. It certainly won't make every Democrat happy, either," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who signed off on the deal subject to approval of his caucus.

"Both ...

Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the FDR Way
Moderator
Published: Sunday 31 July 2011
"None of the debt ceiling “deals” that House and Senate leaders advanced last week asked any of these top 400 — or any other rich Americans — to pay a penny more in taxes than they do now."

At times of national fiscal crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt ever so firmly believed, you don't give the awesomely affluent a free pass. You pound them — and then you pound them some more.

Against a Congress where zealously rich people-friendly conservatives hold the upper hand, how much can a President of the United States committed to greater equality realistically hope to accomplish?

The answer from today’s White House: not much. Advocacy for equality has to take a backseat, Obama administration insiders insist, once fanatical friends of the fortunate in Congress recklessly put at risk our nation’s full faith and credit.

But history offers another alternative. Back in 1943, halfway through World War II, a President of the United States confronted a debt ceiling crisis eerily similar to our own. That President, Franklin Roosevelt, faced a congressional opposition to inconveniencing the rich — with higher taxes — every bit as rabid as ours.

FDR's choice, in the face of this opposition? He doubled down on equality.

Roosevelt’s debt ceiling battle actually began in the months right after Pearl Harbor. The nation needed dollars — and lots of them — to wage and win the new war. FDR wanted those dollars raised as equitably as possible.

That would require, FDR and his New Dealers believed, a steeply graduated income tax, with tax rates on income in the top income brackets much higher than rates on income in the bottom brackets.

How high should the top rates go? All the way, FDR proposed, to 100 percent. At a time of “grave national danger,” the President told Congress in April 1942, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year,” an income just shy of $350,000 in today’s dollars.

The year before, gun executive Carl Swebilius had pulled ...

President Obama Tries for a Fiscal Plan
Moderator
Published: Friday 29 July 2011
Senate Democrats Consider Own Debt Plan, House Deadlocked
Elizabeth
Published: Friday 29 July 2011
"As the Republican-controlled House of Representatives struggled to pass its own plan, Obama and the capital looked to the Senate."

President Barack Obama urged Americans Friday to keep the pressure on Congress to compromise, saying Democrats and Republicans are not that far part on proposals to avert a debt crisis next week.

"Keep it up," Obama said in nationally televised remarks from the White House. " Let your members of congress know…Keep the pressure on Washington and we can get past this."

As the Republican-controlled House of Representatives struggled to pass its own plan, Obama and the capital looked to the Senate.

Obama said proposals from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and from Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., each would avert the crisis expected Tuesday when the government runs out of authority to borrow to pay bills already in the pipeline.

"This is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart," Obama said. "There are plenty of ways out of this mess. But we are almost out of time."

Senate Democrats Friday plan to begin consideration of their plan to cut federal deficits by $2.2 trillion and raised the debt limit through the end of 2012—as House of Representatives Republicans remained deadlocked over how to proceed with their own proposal.

As the fractured House GOP met behind closed doors Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said he will move ahead with his plan—even though it’s unlikely to draw many, if any, Republican votes.

“The deadline will not move,” he said of the deadline for raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling. Unless that ceiling is raised by Tuesday, the government will default, triggering an economic panic and probably throwing the nation back into recession.

“We have hours, I repeat, hours, to act,” said Reid, speaking on the Senate floor as he opened the Senate for business Friday. “That’s why, by the end of the day, I must take action on the ...

Why China Is Laughing All The Way To The Bank
Moderator
Published: Friday 29 July 2011
"The ill wind of an American default and downgrade will blow far beyond any temporary financial setback, according to Kerry."

The global impact of the American debt crisis — and the likelihood of permanent damage to American interests — are already visible to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., from his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Indeed, he is not only seeing but hearing those effects.

"The Chinese are laughing all the way to the bank," said the former Democratic presidential nominee, because a downgrading of U.S. Treasury securities will mean enormous and completely unnecessary increases in our interest payments to the nation's largest creditor — and our most important competitor in the international arena.

"If we suffer a downgrade of our (U.S. Treasury) debt simply because of the brief time before we have to go through this exercise again," said Kerry, referring to the House Republican insistence on a debt-limit increase that will expire before next Christmas, "it would mean billions of additional dollars that would have to be paid to the Chinese."

Those costs would come on top of the extra interest expense that all Americans would see on their home loans, car loans, student loans and credit cards, further weakening the slow recovery from the recession. Moreover, that loss would cut into government's capacity to pay for important functions, sending many billions of additional dollars abroad instead of rebuilding our infrastructure, bolstering Social Security and Medicare, educating our children and maintaining national security.

The ill wind of an American default ...

Congress Chases Tail As Us Heads Towards Cliff
Elizabeth
Published: Thursday 28 July 2011
"Boehner told House Republicans in a closed-door meeting to "get your ass in line" and support his bill."

With stocks tanking and next Tuesday's debt-default deadline looming for the country, no sign of compromise between Democrats and Republicans emerged Wednesday in Congress.

Both parties continued to pursue separate tracks as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, went back to their drawing boards to revise their plans to cut federal spending and increase the debt ceiling. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued studies that found that both plans fell short of their promised spending cuts.

Both men shrugged off the CBO reports as minor obstacles easily fixed. Republican officials said the House of Representatives could vote on Boehner's revised bill as early as Thursday, while the timing of Reid's retooled measure remained unclear.

Meanwhile, anxiety over the debt stalemate in Washington erupted on Wall Street as stocks on the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 198.75 points, most in the final hour of trading, to close at 12,302.55. Many authorities have warned that Washington's failure to raise its debt ceiling by Tuesday could cause financial markets to panic and kick the weak U.S. economy back into recession.

Both Reid's and Boehner's plans would slow the already sluggish U.S. economy, according to an analysis Wednesday from Macroeconomic Advisers, a prominent St. Louis-based forecaster. Reid's plan would slow U.S. growth by about one-quarter of a percentage point per year from fiscal 2012 through 2015, while Boehner's would slow growth by about 0.1 percentage point per year on average over the same period. Both plans would reduce federal spending, which stimulates the economy.

Senate Democrats united behind Reid's plan, but Boehner appeared to be still scurrying for GOP votes in the Republican-controlled House to put his measure over the top. Many conservatives oppose his deficit-cutting plan as too weak, and many also refuse to vote ...

Obama Talks to the Middle, Boehner Rallies the Right
Elizabeth
Published: Tuesday 26 July 2011
"Senate proposal to raise the debt ceiling is much more sensible than the House plan because it insists that we not go through this charade again until Americans get their say at the ballot box a year from November."

President Obama made clear tonight that the debate over the debt ceiling is not left vs. right. It’s center vs. right. There was nothing remotely “left” in this speech, unless you count higher taxes for corporate jet owners and a few other populist bits.

He summarized his approach this way: “[L]et’s live within our means by making serious, historic cuts in government spending. Let’s cut domestic spending to the lowest level it’s been since Dwight Eisenhower was president. Let’s cut defense spending at the Pentagon by hundreds of billions of dollars. Let’s cut out the waste and fraud in health care programs like Medicare — and at the same time, let’s make modest adjustments so that Medicare is still there for future generations. Finally, let’s ask the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations to give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.”

That’s four sentences on cuts and barely one sentence on taxes, and not even tax increases as such — just a request that the privileged “give up some of their tax breaks and special deductions.”

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How House Progressives Can Save The Debt Ceiling Deal ... And The Middle Class
Moderator
Published: Monday 25 July 2011
"House Progressives have leverage - lots of leverage. "

As online "Countdown Clocks" count the hours before there's a debt ceiling disaster, the spotlight is on the individuals and groups who can make or break a deal. We've heard a lot about the Senate's Gang of Six, members of the Administration, House leaders Boehner and Cantor, and the radical Tea Party Republicans who allegedly hold 'veto power' over any proposed deal.

But another group holds at least as much power as those radical Republicans, and it has the added advantage of representing views that are widely supporting by Americans in both political parties. That group is the House Progressive Caucus.

The media coverage is revealing. Tea Party Republican Joe Walsh holds no official position in Congress except that of a freshman Representative, and his economic views are far to the right of the American mainstream. Yet as we write this, a Google News search on "Joe Walsh" (excluding "guitar" and "Eagles" to eliminate "Rocky Mountain Way" Joe Walsh) gets 1,461 hits. Rep. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, co-chairs a large Congressional caucus whose support may be vital to the passage of any deal. Yet his name only gets 157 hits - a figure that falls even more when you eliminate references to his religion.

Rep. Joe Walsh: To paraphrase his namesake, life's been good to him so far. Rep. Keith Ellison, on the other hand, must sometimes feel as if he's fighting in the dark. Yet the way ...

GOP Leaders Must Free Themselves From the Tea Party’s Grip
Moderator
Published: Friday 22 July 2011
"The Tea Party’s followers have endangered the nation’s credit rating."

Media reports are touting the Senate’s Gang of Six and its new budget outline. But the news that explains why the nation is caught in this debt-ceiling fiasco is the gang warfare inside the Republican Party. We are witnessing the disintegration of Tea Party Republicanism.

The Tea Party’s followers have endangered the nation’s credit rating and the GOP by pushing both House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor away from their own best instincts.


 

Cantor worked amicably with the negotiating group organized by Vice President Joe Biden and won praise for his focus even from liberal staffers who have no use for his politics.

Yet when the Biden group seemed close to a deal, it was shot down by the Tea Party’s champions. Boehner left Cantor exposed as the frontman in the Biden talks and did little to rescue him.

Then it was Boehner’s turn on the firing line. He came near a bigger budget deal with President Obama, but the same right-wing rejectionists blew this up, too. Cantor evened the score by serving as a spokesman for Republicans opposed to any tax increase of any kind.

Think about the underlying dynamic here. The evidence suggests that both Boehner and Cantor understand the peril of the game their Republican colleagues are playing. They know we are closer than we think to having the credit rating of the ...

Why Do The House And Senate See Libya So Differently?
Moderator
Published: Tuesday 5 July 2011
House of Representatives: "We're deeply unhappy about the U.S. mission in Libya."

The House of Representatives has sent the White House a strong message: We're deeply unhappy about the U.S. mission in Libya. But the Senate has signaled that it could send a very different message this week: that it's willing to authorize the operation for a year. The two chambers of Congress are engaged in a rare national security-policy split, one largely unseen since they divided over how to wage the Vietnam War more than 40 years ago. Experts are surprised that this kind of schism doesn't occur more often, because most of the reasons behind the split have been around since the nation's founding. House members have to run every two years in small districts, so they must stay close to public opinion. Senators face voters only every six years in whole states; that lets them be more independent. Then, too, senators are more immersed in foreign policy, since they alone have to advise and consent on treaties, ambassadorships and other presidential appointments. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee long has been a destination for lawmakers with presidential ambitions, trying to establish credibility on foreign policy matters. It has more influence than its House counterpart. There's also a 2011-vintage factor: Eighty-seven House Republicans are freshmen, elected on a vow to shrink government dramatically. "Their (the freshman Republicans') view about Libya has got to do with how the government has overextended itself," said Michael Franc, who was a top aide to then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. The House voted twice June 24 on Libya. It rejected, 295-123, the one-year authorization, with 70 Democrats and 225 Republicans voting no. However, it defeated a bid to cut off funding for all operations except in very limited circumstances. Four days later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 14-5 to allow one more year. Four Republicans joined 10 Democrats in approving the measure, which the full Senate is expected to ...

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By Phillip Farruggio
I’ll tell you what really pisses me off: The absolute indifference of most Americans to who it is...

The Executive Arm of the Invisible Government: Propaganda

By Burkely Hermann
I was searching around the internet for the full video of the recent hearing on the Authorization...

Alan Hart and What It Takes to Struggle On

By Lawrence Davidson
I - Who Is Alan Hart? Alan Hart is an author and a journalist. He is the former Middle East Chief...

Personal Injury Attorneys in San Diego Obtain $260,000 Judgment in Motor Vehicle Accident Legal Suit

By Alan Starc
On May 8, 2013, Natalie Prescott, a well-known personal injury attorney based in California, was...

Will Jason Richwine’s Retrograde Harvard Ph. D Dissertation, “IQ and Immigration,” Cause Crimson Faces at Harvard University?

By Michael Matthew Bloomer
Ten Thousand Men of Harvard want victory todayFor they know that o'er old EliFair Harvard holds...

Relevant Life Policy: Its Features and Benefits

By Alan Starc
The relevant life policy can be regarded as one of the best things that has happened to the...

​In Praise of Richard Falk

By Lawrence Davidson
PART I - Richard Falk Tells the Truth Shortly after the 15 April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings...

Unemployment: Victory or Defeat in a Progressive Society

By Don C. Marler
[Note: This paper was presented to the World Future Society General Assembly in Washington D.C. in...

The Anti-Empire Report #116

By William Blum
Boston Marathon, this thing called terrorism, and the United States What is it that makes young...

How to Get Payday Loans No Credit Check

By Alan Starc
Alternative finance options like payday cash, same day cash advance, fast loans are becoming...

Syria & Chemical Weapons : Post-Bush Intelligence Vetting Category Banishes Meaning

By Michael Matthew Bloomer
Last night, from Abu Dhabi, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel revealed certain intelligence...

Julian Assange on George Bush’s Library and Bradley Manning’s Trial

By Medea Benjamin
I had an opportunity to interview WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in...

American Bhopals! It Starts with Universities

By Ian I Mitroff
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, Union Carbide’s plant in Bhopal India exploded. Approximately...

This Earth Week: Stop the Extraction Economy, Create a New World

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese
This week is Earth Week, and while many are saying “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” we think key topics...

Freedom and High Anxiety in the USA

By Lawrence Davidson
Part I - High Anxiety Americans may assume that public insecurity is a condition you find under...