The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You, Keystone XL
Taylor
Published: Thursday 22 November 2012
While the rest of the national climate movement may have written off the South, the 100 or so locals and visitors who took a stand in East Texas this past weekend - including the 11 who were arrested - plan to continue.

 

“CLOSED. Happy Thanksgiving,” read a handwritten plywood sign propped against a makeshift tire barrier outside a work site for the Keystone XL pipeline in rural East Texas. For those who had come to protest and engage in civil disobedience against the pipeline’s construction, the message made clear that their visit was expected. It was still just the Monday before Thanksgiving, making for a surprisingly early break for a project that has been fast-tracked at practically every level of government. Such enthusiasm for a U.S. holiday hardly seemed right for TransCanada, the Calgary-based energy corporation building the pipeline.

Not that the activists’ presence was any kind of secret. Tar Sands Blockade, the campaign seeking to stop the pipeline connecting Alberta’s tar sands to Texas’s oil refineries and shipping ports, had announced the day’s mass action a week earlier. The only real surprises were the two locations that the campaign would be targeting, which the organizers kept hidden — even to fellow participants — right up until the last minute.

Their goal was to shut down construction for a day. The real imperative, however, was directing media attention to a pipeline that poses a significant danger to the health of the local community, as well as to the global climate.

Four activists came prepared to lock themselves to construction equipment, and despite the closure of the site by TransCanada, they went ahead as planned. Another ...

Four Ways Ohio and Others Have Toughened Voting Rules
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 9 October 2012
Ohio officials have argued the law is justified by the state's interest in “running elections fairly and efficiently.”

 

Voter ID laws have received plenty of attention recently, but they're not the only controversial changes to election rules this year. Some states have made changes that critics say could impact individuals' ability to vote. Here are four.

Ohio won't count provisional ballots mistakenly cast in the wrong precinct.

Four years ago in Ohio, there were 200,000 provisional ballots cast among a total 5.7 million votes. This was the most among any state other than California. (Federal law requires states to use provisional ballots when a voter's eligibility is in question or if their ...

Whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld Gets Record $104M for Exposing How UBS Helped Rich Evade Taxes
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 16 September 2012
Following Birkenfeld’s release last month, on Tuesday the IRS vindicated his actions with the largest amount ever awarded under its whistleblower program.

The IRS has announced a record $104 million reward to a whistleblower who exposed the largest tax evasion scheme in U.S. history. Former UBS AG banker Brad Birkenfeld first reported in 2007 that he and his colleagues had encouraged rich Americans to store more than $20 billion in offshore Swiss bank accounts and cheat the IRS. But after coming forward, Birkenfeld was prosecuted and convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to prison. Following Birkenfeld’s release last month, on Tuesday the IRS vindicated his actions with the largest amount ever awarded under its whistleblower program. We’re joined by Stephen Kohn, an attorney for Birkenfeld and executive director of the National Whistleblowers ...

As Wind Tax Credit Dominates Presidential Campaign, a Look At What’s at Stake
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 15 August 2012
“Each year, the industry attracts $20 billion in private capital to the U.S., and most importantly, nearly 70 percent of all equipment used for wind farms comes from domestic manufacturers, according to the Department of Energy.”

 

How important is the wind industry to the U.S. economy? Since 2009, the wind industry has doubled its capacity, installing enough projects nationwide to power 12 million homes and supporting 75,000 jobs. Each year, the industry attracts $20 billion in private capital to the U.S. And most importantly, nearly 70 percent of all equipment used for wind farms comes from domestic manufacturers, according to the Department of Energy.

Mitt Romney has made his position clear on the campaign trail: He wants to increase taxes on the wind industry by eliminating a key federal credit — potentially threatening 37,000 jobs — and maintain nearly $40 billion dollars in tax credits for the mature oil and gas industry. Romney’s campaign admits this. And this stance has made a lot of Midwestern Republicans upset.

“The whole issue here is about fairness and equity. The older, carbon-based forms of generation have enjoyed benefits and tax subsidies within the tax code for 90 years,” says Harold Prior, Director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association. “While wind and solar and a lot of other renewables depend on highly visible, short-term tax subsidies that face expiration…and it really does not create a very predictable situation for the industry’s growth.”

So what’s at stake in the Midwest? Business leaders in Iowa — a swing state that gets 20 percent of its electricity from wind — explain why the tax credit is so important to ...

Midwest Streams Overheat, Killing Thousands of Fish
Satra Kit
Published: Monday 6 August 2012
ALEC Feels the Heat From Anti-Corporate Campaigns
Satra Kit
Published: Saturday 4 August 2012
More than a hundred activists welcomed ALEC for the opening of its five-day meeting with a “Parade of Empty Plates.”

 

“ALEC is where our struggles merge,” proclaimed the ALEC Welcoming Committee, a broad coalition of environmental, student, labor, women’s and radical groups organizing a week’s worth of protest against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as it gathered for its annual summit at the Grand American Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, last week.

More than a hundred activists welcomed ALEC for the opening of its five-day meeting with a “Parade of Empty Plates.” They surrounded the hotel, banging pots and pans, to highlight the devastating consequences ALEC’s corporatist lobbying has for the poor and middle class. The action and subsequent temporary occupation of Washington Square Park, across the street from the ALEC meetings, received good local media coverage and highlighted some Utahns’ concerns that Governor Gary Herbert is in ALEC’s pocket.

Organizer and spokesperson Raphael Cordray said that the ALEC Welcoming Committees’ goals are to continue exposing what they see as ALEC’s corporate cronyism and the arrogance of state legislators who have used it to become overly cozy with corporate interests.

“Corporations are so entrenched in government that many legislators ...

Are Some Republicans Ready to Deal on Taxes?
Taylor
Published: Tuesday 17 July 2012
“If wrongly accusing Democrats of refusing to compromise on taxes and spending is the price Coburn charges for an otherwise intelligent conversation, let's pay it. Anything for progress.”

 

Nowadays, few politicians will stray from party orthodoxy without also taking unfair whacks at the opposition. Sen. Tom Coburn, Republican from Oklahoma, is braver and more principled than most. But even he felt obliged to take partisan cover in his most recent blast at activist Grover Norquist, enforcer of the absurd pledge never to let anyone's taxes rise ever.

If wrongly accusing Democrats of refusing to compromise on taxes and spending is the price Coburn charges for an otherwise intelligent conversation, let's pay it. Anything for progress.

Coburn correctly notes that Democrats ...

U.S. Crops Withering Away Despite Midwest Rains
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 15 July 2012
IMPACT: Citizens Sue Iowa Plant Over Air Pollution
Satra Kit
Published: Wednesday 25 April 2012
“A state inspector has repeatedly noted a ‘blue haze’ coming from some of the plant’s smokestacks that could indicate the presence of acetaldehyde.”

In the Mississippi River town of Muscatine, Iowa, concerns about a corn processing plant that belches smoke and ash over the South End neighborhood have festered for years.

On Monday, those living in the plant’s shadow took a step that, until recently, would have seemed unlikely at best: They sued the plant’s owner, Grain Processing Corp. — a vital piece of the town’s economy and a political force in Iowa.

For years, the lawsuit alleges, residents have put up with constant pollution that has damaged their property and affected their health.  The Center for Public Integrity detailed the persistent haze hanging over the community and the company’s long history of run-ins with regulators as part of its “Poisoned Places” series with NPR last year.

“We’ve reached a tipping point in Muscatine,” said Tony Buzbee, a Houston lawyer with a history of winning high-profile environmental cases who has agreed to represent the residents. “I think that you’re going to see hundreds and hundreds of people who have the courage to stand up and say, ‘We’re in the right, and we’re not going to take it anymore.’ ”

Buzbee joins Jim Larew, who was general counsel to former Gov. Chet Culver, and Des Moines lawyer Andrew Hope in representing the residents, who are seeking to make the case a class action that anyone living within three miles of the plant could join.

The petition filed Monday, Buzbee said, is “just the tip of the iceberg.”  He plans to file hundreds more cases. “It’s going to cost a lot of ...

Tornadoes Rip Through U.S. Midwest
Satra Kit
Published: Sunday 15 April 2012
After Years of Complaints, EPA Steps In at Iowa Plant
Amir Gholi
Published: Thursday 29 March 2012
“Federal agency says company skirted air pollution rules for years.”

For years, people living in the Mississippi River town of Muscatine, Iowa, have complained about the ash and smoke blowing into their neighborhood from a corn processing plant. State regulators have brought enforcement cases against the company, but the town’s South End neighborhood remains under a haze.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stepped in, alleging years of violations of air pollution rules at the plant owned by Grain Processing Corp. The letter issued to the company, known as GPC, doesn’t impose penalties, but puts it on notice that the EPA is considering an enforcement case.

GPC spokesman Janet Sichterman said company officials are reviewing the notice and “aren’t in a position to make a comment on it now.”

The action comes as the company is battling the Iowa attorney general, who has alleged separate violations of air and water pollution rules in a lawsuit. A group of citizens, calling themselves Clean Air Muscatine, has filed a petition to intervene in that case, saying the state’s previous actions against GPC have failed to protect people living near the facility.

The plant, which processes corn into ethanol, beverage alcohol and corn syrups and starches, was highlighted last year in the Center for Public Integrity series “Poisoned Places.” In 2010, the facility released more lead — a toxic metal that can damage the nervous system — ...

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.

READ FULL POST 1 COMMENTS

A Movement Evolves to Occupy the Future
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 10 January 2012
“The Occupy Movement exploded after the Wisconsin state Capitol occupation and Arab Spring, as if tens of thousands of people suddenly discovered allies and a voice to confront what they perceive as a corrupt power structure.”

With its encampments mostly destroyed, the nascent Occupy Movement in thousands of communities across the U.S. and dozens more around the world has not faded away.
 

Instead, it has rebounded in multiple forms, reclaiming foreclosed homes, occupying banks, shutting down ports, interrupting university trustee meetings and political speeches at the Iowa Caucuses, and forcing people on the streets, in Congressional corridors and at city halls to address how the one percent's wealth and power has created a stranglehold on the 99 percent. 
 

The Occupy Movement exploded after the Wisconsin state Capitol occupation and Arab Spring, as if tens of thousands of people suddenly discovered allies and a voice to confront what they perceive as a corrupt power structure. 
 

As the movement matures, however, it will be challenged to sustain its momentum, while continuing to embrace a diversity that includes anarchists and progressive Democrats, those without homes or jobs or hope and those in the middle class, and people who suffer from racism, sexism and homophobia as well as those who do not. 
 

The future of the consciously leaderless movement is being determined both within the confines of its formal decision-making structures and, increasingly, through allied and autonomous groupings. 
 

General assemblies, the decision-making body of most Occupies, were designed to give voice to multiple views. Eschewing majority rule, the Occupy GAs generally require 80-to-90 percent approval of proposals. 
 

Nonetheless, some participants say the system remains biased. Frequent attendance at GAs is difficult for many. Others say that concerns of people with minority positions are ignored. 
 

The 90 percent required in Oakland "is really a supermajority", said former Oakland City Councilmember Wilson Riles, active with 

Mitt, Son of “Citizen’s United”
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 8 January 2012
“Romney, in other words, is the candidate Citizens United created, the creature given life by Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito all playing Dr. Frankenstein.”

First, a confession. If Mitt Romney becomes president I’m partly to blame.

Ten years ago I ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of Massachusetts — which would have given me the opportunity to whip Mitt Romney’s ass in the general election, 

I blew it. In the final week of the primary I was neck and neck with the state treasurer, but then my money ran out, which meant my TV ads stopped. Declining the suggestion of my campaign manager to take out a second mortgage on my home, I frantically phoned anyone I could find who hadn’t yet contributed $500, the maximum state ...

Santorum Secret: A Jobs & Manufacturing Focus Wins Votes
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 6 January 2012
“Santorum recognized early on that not just first-caucus state of Iowa but the first-primary state of New Hampshire were ripe for his manufacturing message.”

Rick Santorum surged from (way) behind to secure a top-position finish in the Iowa caucuses for a lot of reasons: his ability to unite evangelical voters who through most of the campaign had divided their support among multiple candidates; a long-term strategy that saw him visit every Iowa county and personally interact with tens of thousands of likely caucus-goers; his status as a largely unexamined and unbattered “last man standing” alternative to Mitt Romney.

But there was something else that Santorum had going for him.

To a far greater extent than Romney, the venture capitalist who made his money dismantling American factories and offshoring jobs, and to a significantly greater extent than the wonkish Newt Gingrich and the ideologically rigid Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, Santorum appealed to blue-collar workers and to Iowans who would like to be blue-collar workers. And he’ll do more of that in New Hampshire.

Eschewing predictable “let-the-market-decide” rhetoric about free markets and free trade, 

As GOP Race’s Pace Quickens, Romney’s on Top - and the Target
Elizabeth
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
How the Iowa results impact New Hampshire and the rest of the campaign started shaking out on several fronts, including sharp attacks on Romney and developments that could help consolidate conservative voters against him, or keep them divided as they were in Iowa.

The Republican presidential campaign shifted to New Hampshire on Wednesday with one key question hanging over it: Can Mitt Romney deliver the landslide win his polls and organization suggest is within reach, or will he fall to sharp new attacks and the state's history of turning on the winner of Iowa's caucuses?

The former governor of neighboring Massachusetts rolled into Manchester on Wednesday, looking for a big win next Tuesday in his New England backyard to make him the first non-incumbent Republican ever to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, which could propel him toward the presidential nomination.

"My goodness what a squeaker," he joked about his ever-so-narrow win in Iowa over former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, an eight-vote margin out of about 60,000 cast for the two men.

"Do you think we can have more than an eight-vote margin here in New Hampshire?" he added. "I'm gonna try."

Polls suggest he's in good shape here, holding a huge lead over his nearest competitors. A new Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire released Wednesday showed him with 43 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas with 14 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 9 percent, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman with 7 percent and Santorum with 6 percent. It was conducted Monday and Tuesday, before the Iowa results were known.

 

But in one sign that opinion could shift, Romney received only a tepid response at his rally in Manchester.

 

How the Iowa results impact New Hampshire and the rest of the campaign started shaking out on several fronts, including sharp attacks on Romney and developments that could help consolidate conservative voters against him, or keep them divided as they were in Iowa.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota dropped out of the race after a dismal sixth-place Iowa finish. She did not endorse another candidate.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped back ...

Republicans Divided, Citizens United
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
“The 2012 presidential election promises to be long, contentious, extremely expensive and perhaps more negative than any in history.”

The Republican caucuses in Iowa, with their cliffhanger ending, confirmed two key political points and left a third virtually ignored. First, the Republicans are not enthusiastic about any of their candidates. Second, we have entered a new era in political campaigning in the United States post-Citizens United, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that unleashed a torrent of unreported corporate money into our electoral process. And third, because President Barack Obama is running in this primary season unchallenged, scant attention has been paid to the growing discontent among the very people who put him in office in 2008. As a result, the 2012 presidential election promises to be long, contentious, extremely expensive and perhaps more negative than any in history.

Mitt Romney technically prevailed in the Iowa caucuses, squeaking out an eight-vote margin over late-surging Rick Santorum. Libertarian Ron Paul garnered an impressive 21 percent of the vote in the crowded field. Note that the Republican Party does not allow a recount of the handwritten, hand-counted ballots, and that the final Romney edge was first reported on right-wing Fox News Channel by none other than its paid commentator Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush’s two controversial presidential election wins.

So, the prevailing wisdom is that while Willard Mitt Romney retains the veneer of “electability,” he cannot persuade more than 25 percent of Republicans to vote for him. Santorum’s surge was a late-breaking coalescence of ...

Mediocre Candidates and Corporate Cash Storm Iowa
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 5 January 2012
“In Iowa’s presidential scramble, the biggest players were not the candidates, but an insidious and ever growing force that voters couldn’t even see: corporate cash.”

 

And away we go!

Not just into a new year, but —zap! — suddenly we find ourselves catapulted en masse into the turbulent Twilight Zone of the 2012 presidential election. On day three of the year, while most of us were still woozy from our New Year's Eve celebration, Iowa voted. Well ... sort of.

The media's breathless coverage of Tuesday night's 1,774 local Republican caucuses in the Hawkeye State offered a mind-boggling blizzard of statistics, but made practically no mention of two telling stats.

First: 5.5 percent. That's the percentage of Iowa's eligible voters who ventured out in the cold to pick from the GOP's rather unappetizing menu of Mitt, Rick, Ron, Newt, The Other Rick and Michele. So the top vote-getters (Romney and Santorum) each got only 25 percent of the paltry turnout of 122,000 Iowans who bothered to show up — fewer people than who live in one block of some big cities.

Second: zero. That's the number of delegates allocated to the contenders in Tuesday's Hawkeye hullabaloo. You see, the 25 actual voting delegates Iowa will send to the Republican presidential nominating convention this summer will be chosen in a ...

10 Questions for Mitt Romney
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 4 January 2012
“Before Romney takes the GOP mantle, here are 10 questions he should answer about his often nonsensical and contradictory policy proposals.”

Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucuses Tuesday night. Technically he tied for victory with Rick Santorum. But Romney is the one who comes out of Iowa in the lead for the nomination. He entered with a massive lead over Santorum in fundraising, organization and polling numbers in New Hampshire, which votes next. The most recent poll in New Hampshire, released Monday, shows Romney in first with 41 percent and Santorum in fifth with 3 percent. While Santorum held over 300 town halls in Iowa Romney largely avoided the state, skipping out of the state as recently as Friday to campaign in New Hampshire. Romney roughly equaled his last performance in Iowa without investing nearly as much campaign resources into it.

By devoting far more time to New Hampshire than Iowa, Romney managed the expectations game perfectly. It was also assumed in this cycle that Iowa would go to a socially conservative anti-Romney. After going through every other option Iowans settled on Santorum. The real test will come in South Carolina, which much more reliably picks the Republican nominee than Iowa. If Romney can build his momentum to win there after picking up New Hampshire, he is poised to turn the nomination battle into a swift coronation.

But before Romney takes the GOP mantle, here are 10 questions he should answer about his often nonsensical and contradictory policy proposals.

• In a Friday op-ed in The State, you declared your intention to “Rebuild our military with more ships, a modern air force, more troops and better care for our veterans.” Why exactly do you think we need more naval ships? What attack has there been on US soil or the US military that would have been prevented by more naval ships? Given that more ships and more troops will cost more money, and we already

Three Very Different GOPs in Iowa
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 4 January 2012
“It is rare in politics to have constituencies as clearly defined — and different — as the Iowa Republican caucus-goers who rallied tonight behind Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.”

It is rare in politics to have constituencies as clearly defined — and different — as the Iowa Republican caucus-goers who rallied tonight behind Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

First, the split in the Republican Party is no longer between conservatives and moderates, but between members of the party who are very conservative and those who are only somewhat conservative. The days of Rockefeller Republicans are long gone. Close to half of Iowa caucus-goers thought of themselves as very conservative; a third said they were somewhat conservative. Fewer than a fifth were moderates, including a very tiny (and brave) group of self-described liberals.

Romney’s constituency is Republican Classic. He was the candidate of the “somewhat conservatives” and did well with the moderates, particularly moderate Republicans. (Moderate independents went strongly for Ron Paul — and thanks to Mike Dimock of the Pew Research center for sharing his insightful analysis for NPR of the difference between moderate independents and moderate Republicans.) Romney trailed badly with very conservative voters, running well behind Santorum in that group. Romneyites are much older: He was strongest among caucus-goers over 65 — which is presumably hopeful news for him in the Florida primary at the end of the month — and he also did well among voters between 45 and 64. But he did very poorly among voters under 45.

Rick Santorum, as he hoped to, won a lot of the same vote that Mike Huckabee carried four years ago. Santorum is clearly the right-to-life candidate: He carried voters who listed abortion as their deciding issue by a landslide. He was definitely the surge candidate: He handily won voters who said they decided in the last few days, though Romney did relatively well in this group, too, ...

2012 Iowa Caucuses by the Numbers
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 3 January 2012
“The 2012 Iowa Caucuses by the numbers.”

We bring you the 2012 Iowa Caucuses by the numbers:

20/19/18: The percentages for the top three GOP contenders (Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum) in an Iowa survey released Sunday by Public Policy Polling.

49: The percentage of likely caucus-goers who said last week in a Des Moines Register poll that their mind was still not made up.

1: The percent of the American electorate that lives in Iowa, site of the nation's earliest presidential contest.

5: The percentage of Iowa voters who participated in the 2008 GOP caucuses.

24: The percentage of New Hampshire voters who participated in that state's 2008 GOP primary (New Hampshire is the next contest after Iowa).

0.06: The percentage of American voters who will be caucusing on Tuesday in Iowa if turnout is the same as it was in 2008.

0.015: The percentage of American voters who will be voting Tuesday for the winner of the Iowa Caucuses, if recent opinion polls are accurate.

Super PACs, Occupy Iowa Protests, and a Surging Rick Santorum
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 3 January 2012
“The latest public opinion polls show Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney holding a narrow lead of 24 percent over Rep. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.”

Iowa is awash in millions of dollars of negative campaign ads funded by so-called Super PACs as voters head to their caucuses in the first real test of the 2012 election. “If you want to see the future of politics in America, turn on the television in Iowa,” says John Nichols, correspondent for The Nation magazine. “If it is this kind of overwhelming flood of negative ads, literally flipping on a dime to take down any candidate who rises in opposition to the mainstream, or kind of core Republican contender with the most money — it’s a pretty scary picture. And it is one that suggests that if we don’t get serious about addressing Citizens United [v. Federal Election Commission], we’re going to end up with a much uglier, more destructive politics." Nichols estimates the candidates and their PACs spent “$200 per vote” in Iowa. The latest public opinion polls show Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney holding a narrow lead of 24 percent over Rep. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Nichols says Santorum’s comments over the weekend about not wanting to "make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money,” highlight how Republican candidates have failed to reach out to Iowa’s many minority communities. Meanwhile, the Occupy movement has tried to inject the voices of the 99 percent into the race by holding protests at events and both Republican and Democratic campaign headquarters throughout the state.

Occupy Protesters ‘Mic Check’ Romney Event in Iowa
Amanda Rae
Published: Tuesday 3 January 2012
“Mitt Romney got a visit from Occupy Wall Street protesters at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday.”

For the first time since beginning his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney got a visit from Occupy Wall Street protesters at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa yesterday. Protesters shouted various messages, including condemnations of Romney’s ties to corporate America and the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, and slogans supporting the end of wars. They were quickly drowned out by the pro-Romney audience — one attendee countered “go to work!” — and Romney responded by saying, “Isn’t it great to live in a country where people can express their views?”

‘Super PACs’ Spend $13 Million on Early Primaries, Romney Top Beneficiary
Anna Gilliam
Published: Tuesday 3 January 2012
“Voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, all of whose contests will be held this month, won’t know who is paying for much of the advertising they see until after their votes are cast.”

New outside spending groups, dubbed super PACs, that can accept unlimited donations from corporations and wealthy individuals, spent $12.9 million in Iowa and other early GOP battleground states through New Year’s Day, according to an analysis of federal data.

The top beneficiary was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. A total of $4.6 million was spent to help the nominal front-runner, the vast majority for ads torpedoing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Second was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who benefited from $3.7 million in outside spending.

According to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission data,12 outside super PACs spent money, mostly on advertising, with the intention of electing or defeating a GOP presidential candidate. Ten have not yet reported their donors. The two that have did so last summer.

The upshot is that voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, all of whose contests will be held this month, won’t know who is paying for much of the advertising they see until after their votes are cast.

The next reports on donors aren’t due until January 31, the day of the Florida primary.

Federal court decisions in 2010 made it possible for individuals, corporations and labor unions to give unlimited contributions to political organizations (super PACs) and certain types of nonprofits, which can then spend the money to elect or defeat candidates. The groups are prohibited from coordinating their activities with candidates.

The top super PAC spender was "Restore Our Future" — the ambiguously named group set up to help Romney. The group spent $4.1 million, all of it in opposition to Gingrich, who enjoyed a brief lead in Iowa polls last month before the shellacking.

Restore Our Future has moved on from Iowa and spent $622,000 in Florida, a likely harbinger of more to come in that high stakes contest. Almost $100,000 has been spent by ...

Campaign Shows Power of Super PACs
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“If present trends continue, the 2012 election will reverse more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.”

Political committees unfettered by donation limits are dominating the last weeks of the presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, funding aggressive attack campaigns that are swamping the efforts of the candidates themselves.

 

In Ohio, $3 million in ads funded by secret donors have already been aired against the state's incumbent Democratic senator, Sherrod Brown - a year before the election.

 

In California, three of the committees financed by unlimited donations have formed in recent weeks to back Congressman Howard L. Berman, who has been forced by redistricting into a primary battle against fellow Democratic incumbent Brad Sherman.


The early activity at all levels heralds a transformation across the country in the first presidential cycle since a 2010 Supreme Court decision lifted the limits on individual and corporate donations to independent political organizations, known as super PACs.

Super PACs are now outspending the GOP presidential candidates on ads in what could be a $6 billion or $7-billion election year for federal races, rendering obsolete the old system under which donations were strictly limited to candidates and party committees.

"This is a radical change," said Trevor Potter, the Republican election lawyer who advised Arizona Sen. John McCain in his 2008 presidential bid.

If present trends continue, the 2012 election will reverse more than a century of efforts to curb the influence of big money on politics.

 

During his second term, President Theodore Roosevelt spoke with alarm about the ability of corporate and financial elite - "malefactors of great wealth" - to steer government decisions. In 1907, he signed legislation banning corporate contributions to federal candidates.

 

In future decades - including during Richard Nixon's presidency - Congress expanded campaign regulation, requiring ...

The Handful of White People Who Choose Your Presidential Candidates
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“Ultimately the entities that have to put a stop to this madness are the national Democratic and Republican parties.”

On a two-day trip to New Hampshire last week I attended three campaign events with a total of roughly 600 people. I tried to find an African-American in the audience at all three events, but I couldn’t. To be fair, I did spot two Latinos and five or six Asian-Americans. The U.S., according to the 2010 census is 72.4 percent white. The first two states vote in the presidential primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire, are 91.3 percent white and 93.9 percent white, respectively. 

The Iowa caucuses, which will be dramatically covered by the news media on Tuesday, are especially pernicious. In a caucus instead of a primary the Iowans who get to participate are even smaller in number and less diverse than the state’s already unrepresentative electorate.

Worse still, the Iowa caucuses aren’t subject to the same spending disclosure deadlines as primaries. An obscure 1979  READ FULL POST 24 COMMENTS

Election Day Registration, No Photo ID Requirement Will Help Boost Turnout in Tomorrow’s Iowa Caucuses
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“Had the Iowa GOP followed the lead of their brethren in Maine and elsewhere, thousands of Iowans who will cast their vote tomorrow with the help of election day registration could have been turned away from the polls.”

Tomorrow, when Iowa Republicans gather across the state to vote on their party’s presidential nominee, one important tool will be available to boost turnout: election day voter registration.

Though Iowa, unlike most states, permits those who haven’t registered (or just need to update their file after a move, for instance) before election day to do so when they show up at their precinct during regular elections, the Huffington Post notes that the Iowa GOP is in charge of setting the rules for its own caucuses.

Despite nationwide efforts to make voting more difficult, the Republican Party of Iowa decided to buck the trend and allow for on-site registration. In doing so, however, they necessarily undercut the argument being made by GOPers in many other states that election day registration (EDR) invites fraud. (Of course, voters are 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than commit fraud at the polls, and EDR actually helps prevent already-miniscule levels of fraud.)

Residents of just nine states currently enjoy EDR: Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. However, in a number of these states, the GOP-led war on voting has targeted EDR for repeal, most notably in Maine. Republicans in the Maine legislature passed a bill ridding the state of EDR, only to see the popular program

As Iowa Heads to Caucuses, Undecideds Will Make Their Mark
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
Just since Thanksgiving, polls have shown momentum for Gingrich, former House Speaker; Paul, a Texas congressman; Romney, former Massachusetts governor, and Santorum, former Pennsylvania senator.

Shifts happen in the 48 hours before Iowa caucuses, and on Sunday it was clear that the outcome of the nation's first presidential voting Tuesday depends on a huge army of undecided, wavering Iowa caucusgoers.

Forty-one percent said they could still be persuaded to support another candidate, while 51 percent say their minds are made up, according to a Des Moines Register Iowa poll taken Tuesday through Friday.

McClatchy interviews with voters statewide found that they tend to like something about all six major GOP candidates but there's also usually something that makes them uneasy.

It could be Mitt Romney's changes in positions, Ron Paul's foreign policy, Rick Perry's gaffes, Newt Gingrich's history of controversy or a sense that Rick Santorum can't beat President Barack Obama.

Many voters were deciding by spending the holiday ...

Iowa’s $200-Per-Vote Caucuses Reward Negatives, Nastiness, Narrow Thinking
Brian Walker
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“I don’t begrudge Iowa a place at the start of the calendar. In fact, I prefer that Midwesterners start things.”

The Republicans who would be president, the super PACs and the surrogates had already spent more than $12 million on television ads—almost half of them negative—before the final weekend leading up to Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses.

That doesn’t count the thousands of radio ads, mailings, lighted billboards in Des Moines and costs for staff.

Add it all up and there is a good chance that, when all is said and done Tuesday night, the candidates will have spent $200 a vote to influence the roughly 110,000 Iowans who are expected to participate in the GOP caucuses.

And the really unsettling thing is that the caucuses are just for show.

While the results may so damage some candidates that their runs for the presidency will be finished, they will not actually produce any delegates to the Republican National Convention.

That’s because, as ...

Can a Messiah Win Twice?
Anna Gilliam
Published: Monday 2 January 2012
“The threat that should most concern Obama may not be any of the particulars that usually decide elections but the inevitable clash between the extravagant hopes of 2008 and the messy reality of 2012.”

Four years ago this week, a young and inspirational senator who promised to turn history’s page swept the Iowa caucuses and began his irresistible rise to the White House.

Barack Obama was unlike any candidate the country had seen before. More than a mere politician, he became a cultural icon, “the biggest celebrity in the world,” as a John McCain ad accurately, if mischievously, described him. He was the object of near adoration among the young, launching what often felt like a religious revival. Artists poured out musical compositions devoted to his victory in a rich variety of forms, from reggae and hip-hop to the Celtic folk song. (My personal favorite: “There’s no one as Irish as Barack O’Bama.”) Electoral contests rarely hold out the possibility of making all things new, but Obama’s supporters in large numbers fervently believed that 2008 was exactly such a campaign.

As the attention of the politically minded has focused on the rather more down-to-earth contests in Iowa and New Hampshire that will help determine which Republican will face Obama in November, let us ponder what the coming year will bring for someone who must now seek reelection as a mere mortal.

Obama’s largest problem is not the daunting list of difficulties that have left the country understandably dispirited: the continuing sluggishness of the economy, the broken political culture of Washington, the anxiety over America’s future power and prosperity.

On each of these matters, Obama has plausible answers and, judging by improvements in his poll ratings since September, he has made headway in getting ...

GOP’s Iowa Race Tightens, Poll Finds, as Contenders Urge Support
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 1 January 2012
Romney began his day in New Hampshire, which holds the nation’s first presidential primary Jan. 10.

Mitt Romney has a slim lead in the latest Des Moines Register Iowa poll, released Saturday evening, but Ron Paul is close and Rick Santorum is surging.

The results came as Republican presidential candidates spent the last day of 2011 Saturday making their closing arguments to curious, often uncertain voters as the race remained fluid.

In the Iowa poll, taken Tuesday through Friday, Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, led with 24 percent of likely caucus-goers. Next was Paul, a Texas congressman, at 22 percent followed by Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, at 15 percent.

Trailing were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 12 percent; Texas Gov. Rick Perry, 11 percent, and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, 7 percent.

But results Thursday and Friday only told a different story. While Romney still had 24 percent, Santorum was up to 21 percent, while Paul sank to 18 percent.

The poll capped a frenetic day of campaigning.

Gingrich blasted the Obama ...

New Hampshire Looks like Romney’s Granite Fortress
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 1 January 2012
“The key to wrapping up a nomination quickly has always been an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch, and the Granite State, which votes Jan. 10, seems to be a Romney fortress.”

No matter what happens in Iowa, Mitt Romney has a safety net in New Hampshire.

And that could rank as the year’s most perilous sentence. Why shouldn’t Romney be surprised in the state that temporarily derailed Barack Obama’s supposedly rapid march toward nomination four years ago? Hillary Clinton humbled many a pundit here in 2008, reason enough to challenge the rapidly jelling conventional wisdom about the Republican presidential campaign.

In just a few weeks, Romney has been transformed from an embattled and weak front-runner into the real thing. He has a chance of winning the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday as his dazed opponents scratch at each other trying to emerge as the leading non-Romney.

Libertarian Ron Paul, who will never be nominated, now looks to be Romney’s main competition in Iowa. Paul is doing a fine job as Romney’s blocking back, preventing anyone else from emerging early enough to give Romney a stiff race.

The key to wrapping up a nomination quickly has always been an Iowa-New Hampshire one-two punch, and the Granite State, which votes Jan. 10, seems to be a Romney fortress. Romney’s headquarters here on ...

Iowa Republicans Closing in on Presidential Choice as Caucuses Near
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 31 December 2011
The poll found 21 percent of likely caucus attendees list Romney as their second choice; 20 percent list Perry; 15 percent say Santorum; 13 percent list Gingrich; 11 percent name Bachmann; and 9 percent cite Paul.

With Iowa Republicans starting to make up their minds — and shuffling the deck of candidates — the 2012 presidential contest turned emotional Friday, just days before the state's caucuses kick off the voting for a GOP nominee.

Mitt Romney dropped his steel-eyed focus on potential general-election opponent Barack Obama to turn his fire on Texas Rep. Ron Paul, calling his chief rival here a fringe candidate.

Mitt Romney dropped his steel-eyed focus on potential general-election opponent Barack Obama to turn his fire on Texas Rep. Ron Paul, calling his chief rival here a fringe candidate.

Newt Gingrich, watching his support plunge under a withering assault of negative TV ads, choked up at one campaign stop while talking about his late mother, wiping away tears.

And Rick Santorum reveled in a last-minute surge of support after months of methodically working the back roads of Iowa, meeting voters one by one.

Their moods were buoyed — or dashed — as a new poll ...

Romney Worships 2011’s False Idol: Paul Ryan
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 31 December 2011
“Never mind that Ryan’s plan has no chance of being adopted—even by a President Mitt Romney, who distinguished himself in 2011 by pointedly rejecting Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Social Security–bashing.”

Paul Ryan’s ideas reached their sell-by date in 2011, as tens of millions of Americans recognized that his proposals would permanently damage and ultimate destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

But as the year came to a close and his rancid schemes were starting to putrefy, Ryan suddenly found a new buyer: Mitt Romney.

The Republican presidential contender is so desperate to sell himself as the “conservative leader” he never was that Romney’s “closing argument” appeal to Iowa caucus goers features quotes from columnist Ann Coulter.

Those Romney radio ads, which are more ubiquitous in Iowa than Geico gecko insurance commercials, tout the former governor of Massachusetts as a “conservative ...

Marginalizing Ron Paul
Brian Walker
Published: Thursday 29 December 2011
“It is hypocritical that Paul is now depicted as the archenemy of non-white minorities when it was his nemesis, the Federal Reserve, that enabled the banking swindle that wiped out 53 percent of the median wealth of African-Americans and 66 percent for Latinos, according to the Pew Research Center.”

It is official now. The Ron Paul campaign, despite surging in the Iowa polls, is not worthy of serious consideration, according to a New York Times editorial; “Ron Paul long ago disqualified himself for the presidency by peddling claptrap proposals like abolishing the Federal Reserve, returning to the gold standard, cutting a third of the federal budget and all foreign aid and opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

That last item, along with the decade-old racist comments in the newsletters Paul published, is certainly worthy of criticism. But not as an alternative to seriously engaging the substance of Paul’s current campaign—his devastating critique of crony capitalism and his equally trenchant challenge to imperial wars and the assault on our civil liberties that they engender.

Paul is being denigrated as a presidential contender even though on the vital issues of the economy, war and peace, and civil liberties, he has made the most sense of the Republican candidates. And by what standard of logic is it “claptrap” for Paul to attempt to hold the Fed accountable for its destructive policies? That’s the giveaway reference to the raw nerve that his favorable prospects in the Iowa caucuses have exposed. Too much anti-Wall Street populism in the heartland can be a truly scary thing to the intellectual parasites residing in the belly of the beast that controls American capitalism.

READ FULL POST 23 COMMENTS

Gingrich’s Iowa Crash has GOP Base Hunting for Next Anti-Romney
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 29 December 2011
“The real story of the last week in Iowa may be not of Gingrich’s campaigning but of where the anti-Romney sentiment that briefly rested with his candidacy will shift next.”

Newt Gingrich has chartered a bus to carry the former House Speaker and third wife Callista across Iowa in a final push for first-in-the-nation caucus votes.

But his campaign is not going anywhere. The new Public Policy Polling survey shows Congressman Ron Paul, the maverick libertarian from Texas whose disciplined campaign is the polar opposite of Gingrich’s, extending his lead, with 24 percent support. The Republican Republicans love to hate, Mitt Romney, is at 20 percent. Gingrich, formerly the leader in the race, has collapsed to 13 percent. Gingrich is just two points ahead of Congressman Michele Bachmann, who is at 11; and just three points ahead of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Texas Governor Rick Perry, both of whom are at 10. The prospects that Santorum, Bachmann or Perry will finish ahead of Gingrich are real—and rising.

Indeed, the real story of the last week in Iowa may be not of Gingrich’s campaigning but of where the anti-Romney sentiment that briefly rested with his candidacy will shift next. If it goes, for instance, toward Santorum, this race could yet see another twist. And Gingrich will be watching from the sidelines, as the structure of the caucuses favors better-organized candidates with wild-eyed cadres. While Gingrich was an explosion waiting to happen, his collapse creates a whole new set of challenges for the Republican Party faithful that ...

Obama: The Conservative in 2012
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 28 December 2011
“He is the candidate defending the modestly redistributive and regulatory government the country has relied on since the New Deal, and that neither Ronald Reagan nor George W. Bush dismantled.”

At a moment when the nation wonders whether politicians can agree on anything, here is something that unites the Republican presidential candidates — and all of them with President Obama: Everyone agrees that the 2012 election will be a turning point involving one of the most momentous choices in U.S. history.

True, candidates (and columnists) regularly cast an impending election as the most important ever. Campaigning last week in Pella, Iowa, Republican Rick Santorum acknowledged as much. But he insisted that this time, the choice really was that fundamental. “The debate,” he said, “is about who we are.”

Speaking not far away, in Mount Pleasant, Newt Gingrich went even further, and was more specific. “This is the most important election since 1860,” he said, “because there’s such a dramatic difference between the best food-stamp president in history and the best paycheck candidate.” Thus did Gingrich combine historic sweep with a cheap and inaccurate attack. Nonetheless, it says a great deal that Gingrich chose to reach all the way back to the election that helped spark the Civil War.

GOP Hopefuls Return to Iowa for Frantic Final Week
Brian Walker
Published: Wednesday 28 December 2011
Romney poked fun at Gingrich for failing to qualify for the primary ballot in Virginia and for likening the setback to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

With Christmas out of the way, the battle for the Republican presidential nomination resumed with gusto Tuesday, a still-wide-open race meaning a frantic dash in the final week before Iowa kicks off the voting Jan. 3.

Candidates poured back into Iowa, with Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich all launching statewide bus tours, joining Rick Santorum, who'd returned Monday. Ron Paul is scheduled to arrive Wednesday. The candidates, all Christians, had suspended campaigning over the Christmas weekend.

Ads also retuned to Iowa TV channels, restarting an air war that's cost an estimated $10 million, much of it spent on attacking onetime front-runner Gingrich as a flip-flopper who once backed liberal causes and a Washington insider who cashed in after leaving public office.

As they raced toward the voting, former Massachusetts Gov. Romney signaled confidence that he'll eventually win the nomination even if he doesn't win Iowa. Gingrich awoke to another challenge, with a report that he'd praised Romney's Massachusetts health care law, which is deeply unpopular with conservatives.

Before arriving in Iowa on Tuesday evening, Romney swung through his stronghold of New Hampshire, which holds its primary a week after ...

If You Can’t Beat Them, Enjoin Them (From Voting)
Anna Gilliam
Published: Wednesday 28 December 2011
“By some estimates, the overall population that may be disenfranchised by this wave of legislation is upward of 5 million voters, most of whom would be expected to vote with the Democratic Party.”

All eyes are on Iowa this week, as the hodgepodge field of Republican contenders gallivants across that farm state seeking a win, or at least “momentum,” in the campaign for the party’s presidential nomination. But behind the scenes, a battle is being waged by Republicans—not against each other, but against American voters. Across the country, state legislatures and governors are pushing laws that seek to restrict access to the voting booth, laws that will disproportionately harm people of color, low-income people, and young and elderly voters.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund have just released a comprehensive report on the crisis, “Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America.” In it, they write: “The heart of the modern block the vote campaign is a wave of restrictive government-issued photo identification requirements. In a coordinated effort, legislators in thirty-four states introduced bills imposing such requirements. Many of these bills were modeled on legislation drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)—a conservative advocacy group whose founder explained: ‘Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.’”

It is interesting that the right wing, long an opponent of any type of national identification card, is very keen to impose photo-identification requirements at the state level. Why? Ben Jealous, president of the NAACP, calls the voter ID laws “a solution without a problem. ... It’s not going to make the vote more secure. What it is going to do is put the first financial barrier between people and their ballot box since we got rid of the poll tax.”

You don’t have to look ...

The Lethal Fantasies of Dear Old Ron Paul
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 25 December 2011
“Most Americans still could remember when this Darwinian ideology influenced policy and knew that the nation was not better off — except for a few robber barons — back in the days before Theodore Roosevelt inaugurated the Progressive Era, beginning a century of reform.”

The latest evidence of simmering racial resentment on the American political fringe showed up Monday in a Facebook post by a California man who urged the assassination of the president and his two daughters in obscene, racist language. Aside from the Secret Service, there was little reason for most of us to pay attention to this sick boob — except that he was identified as a local political leader of the tea party and an avid supporter of Rep. Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who now seems likely to place first in the Iowa presidential caucuses.

To those who have followed Paul's long career as a failed presidential candidate — these campaigns have become a family business — the appearance of yet another racist nutjob in his orbit is scarcely news. The newsletters that earned millions of dollars for him from gullible subscribers over the decades were often soiled with vile invectives against blacks and other minorities. He is a perennial favorite of the John Birch Society and kindred extremists on the right. He once refused to return a donation from a leader of the Nazi-worshipping skinheads in the Stormfront movement.

What is it about the kindly old doctor that attracts some of the most violent and reactionary elements in society to his banner?

For many years, Paul was merely an outlying crank in the ranks of the Republican ...

The GOP’s Iowa Chaos
Brian Walker
Published: Saturday 24 December 2011
“Newt Gingrich seems to be surrendering the lead he briefly held, the target of millions of dollars in negative advertising.”

Is Rick Santorum the next non-Romney to emerge from the pack? Could he conceivably win Iowa?

That these are plausible questions tells you all you need to know about the unsettled nature of the Republican presidential contest — particularly here, the state whose caucuses on Jan. 3 have become a bookie’s nightmare. At the moment, anyone among the six major candidates has a reasonable chance of coming in first or second, and the contest is becoming less settled as the brief Christmas interlude in campaigning approaches.

For example: If libertarian Ron Paul has a chance of triumphing anywhere, it’s in Iowa, where all his competitors acknowledge the energy of his organization. Establishment pick Mitt Romney’s opposition is so badly split that he could conceivably come in first and begin locking up the nomination — or he could emerge deeply scarred by finishing in the bottom tier. The line between success and failure is that thin.

Newt Gingrich seems to be surrendering the lead he briefly held, the target of millions of dollars in negative advertising. He still hopes to use jujitsu to turn all those negative ads in his favor, and at a factory here ...

Iowa Sen. Harkin Calls for Federal Investigation of S.C. Gov. Haley
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 23 December 2011
Tony Keck said the committee met in public sessions, discussed the possibilities and voted on its recommendations. He said Harkin’s request is a political ploy.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has called for a federal investigation into "whether South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley exploited taxpayer dollars for political purposes" by allegedly dictating the findings of a nonpartisan health care panel, according to a news release.

Harkin cited a report last week from the (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier in which Haley told leaders of the South Carolina Health Planning Committee in an email that the committee was to figure out a way to opt out of a requirement in the new federal health care law requiring states to set up health insurance exchanges.

Haley established the committee with the help of a $1 million federal grant that was designed to help states figure out how to implement the new health care reforms. The state has so far spent about $109,000 of that money.

"It was certainly not the intent for those taxpayer funds to be distributed for a predetermined and meaningless outcome," Harkin said in a news release. "Spending taxpayer funds to construct an ideologically motivated facade not only violates Congress's intent, but also the public's trust in government."

Haley's office scoffed at the request.

"This is a joke," said Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey. "Governor Haley has long been on record opposing Obamacare and its exchanges, and she remains committed to keeping them out of South Carolina. ...

"I suggest the liberal senator from Iowa is better off investigating how pro-Obamacare governors are wasting tens of millions of tax dollars studying how to implement a fatally flawed and unconstitutional law that will hopefully soon be struck down by the Supreme Court."

Tony Keck, director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and an influential member of the Health Planning Committee, said the committee met in public sessions, discussed the possibilities and voted on its recommendations. He ...

Out, Damn Newt: 5 Reasons Why Gingrich is Headed for Footnote Status
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 23 December 2011
“The only question is whether the evangelicals will coalesce around a candidate—arguably Santorum or Michele Bachmann—in sufficient numbers to push Gingrich into fourth or fifth place by the time the caucus count is done.”

Dubuque: Newt Gingrich was riding high there, for a week or so. His poll numbers were great nationally, and in battleground states such as New Hampshire and Florida, he elbowed more credible contenders—and also Mitt Romney—aside.

There really was a week there when Gingrich was the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

But that’s all over now.

In the 2012 Republican race, everyone gets to be the front-runner for a week, and Gingrich has had his week.

It’s done.

Now, Gingrich is tumbling. Fast. The attacks ads paid for by Super PACS associated with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have surely played a part in the former speaker’s steep slide in the polls—he’s now running third, behind Ron Paul and Romney, in the Real Clear Politics survey of surveys from the past week. And is several polls he has fallen to 

Occupy Movement Steps Up Activism in Iowa
Amanda Rae
Published: Thursday 22 December 2011
“Demonstrators have targeted the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters and the ‘Obama for America’ office in recent days, protesting measures being considered in Washington dealing with defense spending, a planned oil pipeline and jobless benefits.”

The Occupy movement is making its presence felt in Iowa ahead of the Iowa caucus, the nation’s first nominating contest for the 2012 presidential elections. Demonstrators have targeted the Iowa Democratic Party headquarters and the "Obama for America" office in recent days, protesting measures being considered in Washington dealing with defense spending, a planned oil pipeline and jobless benefits. Next they plan to focus on Republicans who will be crisscrossing the state in the next two weeks seeking voters’ support. "We think that we have a right to—a constitutional right to state our purpose and to call for and to address grievances that we have with the government and the corporate control over the government," says Hugh Espey, the executive director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a 36-year-old grassroots organization with some 4,000 members. "These sorts of protest are going to continue, until we have a system that puts people before profits and communities before corporations."

Transcript: 

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to national politics here in the United States. Nermeen?

GOP Rivals Gang up on Newt Gingrich in Iowa Debate
Brian Walker
Published: Sunday 11 December 2011
The candidates also talked about the importance of marriage vows, a clear slap at Gingrich, who is in his third marriage.

Republicans threw everything they could at Newt Gingrich in a fiery debate Saturday night, increasingly desperate to stop his momentum toward the 2012 presidential nomination in the final weeks before voting starts in less than 4 weeks.

The former speaker of the House of Representatives responded with a combination of laughs and a steely determination not to let the charges go unanswered, particularly from chief rival Mitt Romney.

The spirited, two-hour debate was the first since Gingrich shot to the lead in polls in Iowa, prompting a round of challenges to his record as a Washington insider, his well-paid consulting work for the semi-federal mortgage agency Freddie Mac, his marital infidelities, and his recent statement that the Palestinians are an "invented" people.

"Speaker Gingrich has been in government for a long time... I spent my life in the private sector. I understand how the economy works," Romney said in an early criticism of the longtime politician.

"Let's be candid," Gingrich fired back. "The only reason you didn't become a career politician is because you lost to Teddy Kennedy in 1994," he said, when Romney lost a Senate bid. "You'd have been a 17-year career politician by now if you'd won."

READ FULL POST 5 COMMENTS

Government-Sponsored Sinner
Brian Walker
Published: Friday 9 December 2011
“Last week in South Carolina, Gingrich scoffed at the idea that he needed to work as a lobbyist; after all, he noted, he is paid $60,000 a speech.”

Who would have thought that Republican voters would prove so accepting of sin? At least when it’s committed by a white guy, like the serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, who betrayed not one but two wives while they were enduring serious medical difficulties.

In the latest New York Times/CBS poll of Iowa Republicans, alleged philanderer Herman Cain’s once impressive support shifts to the new front-runner, Gingrich, whose richer history of marital deceit is not a problem even for the self-described evangelical Christian voters who favor him over Mitt Romney by a ratio of 3-1.

It is the first time that I have felt sympathy for a candidate experiencing the prejudice directed at a practicing Mormon. Clearly the ultimate of “squeaky clean” doesn’t cut it for a presidential contender of that faith among Republican Christian “values voters,” even when he is compared with a sexual roué of Gingrich’s considerable magnitude.

Or perhaps it is Newt’s peerless capacity to mask moral hypocrisy with the appearance of religious propriety, first as a Protestant and now as a Roman Catholic, that endears him to other Republicans who wear their religion on their sleeves. Many of those were willing to tear the country apart over the sexual wanderings of a Democrat in the White House, but now they are quite willing to send someone of ...

Day After Story on Weak Enforcement, a State Cracks Down on Polluter
Moderator
Published: Saturday 3 December 2011
Last year, the plant released more lead – a toxic metal that can damage the nervous system – than any facility in Iowa and more acetaldehyde – a probable carcinogen – than almost any plant in the country, according to government data.

Iowa’s attorney general is suing a corn processing plant, alleging it has released more air pollution than allowed for at least the past 18 months. Filing of the lawsuit came a day after the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News highlighted the state environmental agency’s passivity in curbing emissions at the plant in the Mississippi River town of Muscatine.

“Quite frankly, this lawsuit was surprising,” said Janet Sichterman, a spokesperson for the plant’s owner, Grain Processing Corp.“Normally, we would just resolve the issues between the two of us.”

James Larew, the lawyer representing concerned Muscatine residents who formed a community group earlier this year, said he plans to file a petition asking the judge to give the plant’s neighbors a seat at the negotiating table alongside the state and the company. “We’d at least like to be heard in these negotiations,” he said.

The plant, which processes corn into beverage alcohol, ethanol, starches and syrups, sits on the edge of the town's working-class South End ...

A Movement to Make Our Leaders Listen
Moderator
Published: Thursday 20 October 2011
When old ladies in Iowa share the same concerns as kids on the street in Manhattan, it’s time those in power took note.

 

Much has been made by some news outlets and pundits about the supposed "incoherence" of the Occupy Wall Street protests. "The protesters" don't have a coherent message, we are told. They can't even agree on any solutions. What the heck are they proposing?

This angle is wrong-headed. The strongest and most successful social movements in history have always tapped into multiple concerns that are important to different swaths of society, and often articulated in different ways. It's not typically the responsibility of a broad movement to propose specific policy solutions—at least not at this stage in the process. It's on us to create pressure to move society in a direction. When we do that successfully, windows will open to fight for this or that specific change. The bigger a movement we grow, the more pressure we create, the more substantial and meaningful those windows for measurable gains become.

 

And historical perspective is not all that's wrong with the "incoherence" frame. There's a pretty damn clear coherence to Americans' anger at Wall Street right now. If it doesn't upset you that the top 1% is still making record-high profits and  READ FULL POST 7 COMMENTS

Bachmann's Iowa Blame Game
Moderator
Published: Thursday 18 August 2011
Candidate's story about business that laid off workers due to Obamacare missing only one thing: facts.

If NBC’s David Gregory had asked just a couple follow-up questions of  Michele Bachmann onMeet the Press last Sunday, he would have found that her anecdote about  how “Obamacare” will lead to economic ruin doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

In fact, he would have found that the financial problems of the Iowa employer she cites to bolster her point are far more likely the result of the economic policies of former President George W. Bush. 

In answering Gregory’s question about how she would “turn the economy around within several months” if elected president, as she recently promised to do, Bachmann pledged to repeal both the health care reform law and the Dodd-Frank Act, which Congress enacted last year to reform the way financial institutions are regulated.

“I'll tell you the biggest job killer right now, because I'm all across Iowa asking people, business people tell me it's Obamacare and it's the Dodd-Frank law,” Bachmann said. “Dodd-Frank is drying up credit for businesses. And I have the repeal bill for Dodd-Frank.”

She went on to promise to repeal health care reform, too.

“People want that gone. It is absolutely without a doubt a job killer. I was just at a business in Indianola, Iowa. They've let half of their workforce go, over 100 employees.”

The implication, of course, was that the employer had to let all those workers go because of health care reform.

Gregory didn’t challenge her, so I started ...

John Stewart: What About Ron Paul?
Moderator
Published: Wednesday 17 August 2011
Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann are being talked about as 2012 presidential candidates, but Ron Paul as a possible candidate is not being discussed

In Iowa's Ames Straw Poll this weekend, Michele Bachmann bested 2nd place Ron Paul by less than 200 votes. And yet, in the immediate spin cycle at least, pundits talked about Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Bachmann. Paul seemed to be, as his supporters always point out, invisible. Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart became the latest to weigh in on the habit of ignoring Paul. After playing a few highlight reels showing anchors going out of their way not to mention the libertarian firebrand, he incredulously asks:  "How did libertarian Ron Paul become the 13th floor in a hotel?"

Syndicate content
Make your voice heard.
Write for NationofChange

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...

Can America End Gun Violence?

By Pam Nolan
Can this country do what it takes to reduce gun violence? Let's talk about the issues involved....

The Filibuster Senators

By Peter G Cohen
This morning I watched on television, the exceptional interfaith service at the Cathedral of the...