Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
We have heard both sides of the aisle claim that they have the next big idea to bring jobs back to Main Street. Recently President Obama, according to an article from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, has claimed that he will be submitting a Jobs Bill to Congress when they return from their 5 week summer hiatus. Continue reading “The Unofficial Turley Blog Job Creation Plan”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to respond to allegations made by a whistleblower that the agency had destroyed files from preliminary investigations of financial firms—including Goldman Sachs, SAC Capital Advisors, Deutsche Bank, AIG, and Bernie Madoff
Investment Securities.
A Bloomberg article reported that Grassley’s request was prompted by a letter that he received from SEC attorney Darcy Flynn claiming that the SEC had “destroyed documents including materials related to Goldman Sachs’ trades of American International Group Inc. (AIG) credit- default swaps in 2009, insider-trading probes of Deutsche Bank AG (DBK), Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ) and SAC Capital Advisors LP, and investigations of possible financial fraud at Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) and Bank of America Corp. (BAC) in 2007 and 2008.”
Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies have filed a free speech challenge to the new packaging for cigarettes. I have previously criticized the graphic images of corpses and diseased organs. If the case goes to the Supreme Court, it could resolve the long-standing debate over the scope of free speech rights held by corporations as opposed to individuals. In that sense, it could be the extension of the Citizen United case in adding elements of personhood to corporations in the free speech area.
Continue reading “Tobacco Companies File Free Speech Challenge To New Graphic Cigarette Labels”
While some on our blog (including many regulars who I respect) disagree, I have never hidden my respect for Ron Paul. I have occasional lunches with Paul who is one of the brightest and most engaging minds in Congress. This segment by John Stewart does a great job in addressing the concerted effort to ignore Paul despite his almost winning the recent Iowa straw poll. Even “XXX” got more attention by Associated Press.
Continue reading “Is The Media Actively Erasing Ron Paul From Election Coverage?”
While Congress is rolling back on scientific and environmental programs, it is continuing to spend $200 million in subsidies to pay for people to fly in nearly empty planes from remote airfields under the Essential Air Service program. Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are planning to kill the 200-year-old page system to save $5 million, but they supported this continuing program costing almost a quarter of a billion dollars. In some cases, a coach ticket cost the taxpayers over $4000 in subsidies.
Continue reading “Air America: Federal Government Spending $200 Million in Subsidies For “Essential Air Service””
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
With the recent news of an appeals court decision that struck down the individual mandate portion of the Health Care Reform act, the problems with our Health Care system is on the front page again. While we hear politicians claim that the market place should decide all health care cost and access issues, millions are without coverage and the costs Americans pay for health insurance is staggering. Continue reading “An Example of Why We Need Health Care Reform”
In a major victory for opponents to President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta has ruled that the individual mandate provision is unconstitutional. The decision affirmed part of a January ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Florida.
Continue reading “Court of Appeals Strikes Down Individual Mandate As Unconstitutional”
Here is today’s column in the Los Angeles Times on the announcement that the House Page Program would be shutdown. After almost 200 years of loyal service, the pages deserve better and many former pages are asking the leadership to meet with us to consider alternatives.
It is one of the oldest institution in our government and stretches back to the founding of our Republic. Yet, in a decision made without consulting other members, former pages, or historians, Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) snuffed out the program to save just $5 million. As a former House leadership page in the 1970s (and here), I have written repeatedly in columns to propose page alumni taking over the program and even funding most or all of the program. The problems in the past have been entirely due to the pedophiles among the members and poor administration. Instead of allowing some discussion of alternatives, the House leadership moved to kill a program that has been a cherished and powerful symbol in our government.
Continue reading “House Leadership Moves To End Page Program After Roughly 200 Years — To Save $5 Million”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
After the news over the past few months about the global uprisings against tyrannical and non-responsive governments, I have pondered why the United States has not had more people in the street protesting the economic inequality that we are facing here at home? Continue reading “Is An Economic Revolution Possible in the United States?”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
I guess I am a little naïve, but I was shocked to read that the Obama Administration has a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act that is so large in its scope that some Senators consider it a whole new law! Continue reading “Double Secret Probation”
Submitted By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The wrath from the right has been scortching ever since VP Joe Biden commented that certain freshman tea party congressmen were acting “like terrorists” in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. There was equally no love lost when John McClain commented that the tea party freshman were acting as “deceivers” and their ideas were “bizarro.”
Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-Guest Blogger
Weren’t we told that if the Debt Ceiling was not raised that the Triple A credit rating of the United States would suffer? I guess the credit agencies don’t care if 1.8 Million jobs are lost in the process! Continue reading “The New Debt Deal May Cost Up To 1.8 Million Jobs!”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The 2010 elections which gave the Republican Party the majority in the House of Representatives was seen as the elevation of a “Grassroots Movement”, composed of the spontaneously combusted wrath of ordinary citizens fed up with a bloated government. It was indeed a seminal moment for those people who disdained taxation, government handouts in entitlements, and the seeming waste of our tax dollars. The initial angry explosion was a reaction to the proposal and passage of the Health Care Bill. Rallies were organized, town hall meetings disrupted and a “hit list” of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress circulated.
The initial mainstream media reaction to this nascent movement was one of disdain, particularly because it was seen as an “out of the Beltway movement”, thus not to be taken seriously. However, this changed in a large part led by FOX News and copied by its “wannabe” CNN. Led by these Cable outlets, thirsting for sensation to fill their 24/7 news maws, all media began to follow suit, not wanting to be left behind. I find it interesting though that as late as April 22, 2010, Politico, hardly a left wing outlet, noted that unwarranted attention and media frenzy had begun, elevating the status of this purported movement: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36185.html It is ironic that this article, while laying out the irrational amount of attention given to the Tea Party, at its end discounts the effect the movement would have on the election. Its authors certainly were not prescient.
Lost in the tumult of media exaggeration and sensationalism was the fact that this was not at all a grass roots movement of average Americans, but a crafty example of political manipulation laid out in tandem with the compliance of Rupert Murdoch’s news network’s assault upon all things they deem liberal. The prime mover in this is Richard “Dick” Armey, a former Texas Republican Congressman, House Majority Leader, and major senior lobbyist at a worldwide lobbying firm. Armey created the mythology of a grass roots movement, guided its progress, arranged, and then paid for its “spontaneous” events.
Continue reading “Tea Party and the Myth of a Grassroots Movement”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Joe Walsh’s Video: President Obama Quit Lying
(I apologize. I’ve tried to embed the video several times without success.)
It appears that Joe Walsh, the Republican Representative from the Eighth District in Illinois, isn’t so fiscally responsible when it comes to his own finances. The same man who says he refuses to place “one more dollar of debt upon the backs of his kids,” actually “owes more than $100,000 in child support to his ex-wife and three children, according to documents his ex-wife filed in their divorce case in December.” He also lost his Evanston condo to foreclosure.