More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined
Showing posts with label GOP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GOP. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Oil Backed GOP Cuts Funding for NPR, PBC
This is clearly a right wing ideological attack on the last bastion of halfway decent media that isn't influenced by mega corporations.
Clipped from thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
House Votes to Cut Off Money for NPR
The House voted on Thursday to cut off funding for National Public Radio, with Democrats and Republicans fiercely divided over both the content of the bill and the manner in which it was brought to the floor.
Under the measure, sponsored by Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado, stations could not buy programming from NPR or any other source using the $22 million the stations receive from the Treasury for that purpose. Local NPR stations would be able to use federal funds for operating expenses, but not content.
“The time has come for us to claw back this money,” said Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee.
Monday, March 14, 2011
GOP Believes Corps Shouldnt Pay Tax EVER
The immediate flashpoint is a proposed settlement between state attorneys general and the mortgage servicing industry. That settlement is a “shakedown,” says Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama. The money banks would be required to allot to mortgage modification would be “extorted,” declares The Wall Street Journal. And the bankers themselves warn that any action against them would place economic recovery at risk.
Clipped from www.nytimes.com
Another Inside Job
Count me among those who were glad to see the documentary “Inside Job” win an Oscar. The film reminded us that the financial crisis of 2008, whose aftereffects are still blighting the lives of millions of Americans, didn’t just happen — it was made possible by bad behavior on the part of bankers, regulators and, yes, economists.
What the film didn’t point out, however, is that the crisis has spawned a whole new set of abuses, many of them illegal as well as immoral. And leading political figures are, at long last, showing some outrage. Unfortunately, this outrage is directed, not at banking abuses, but at those trying to hold banks accountable for these abuses.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Reagan Got It WRONG! @chrislhayes
The TeaParty, Libertarians, and the GOP are CORRECT: the US Government is TOO big. But they dont admit WHY. Each expansion of the Federal government has been either to provide oversight of corporations and to correct the mayhem they have created.
The right is fighting the WRONG institution.
Government isn't the problem. Flagrant violation of human rights and tax laws by Corporations ARE THE PROBLEM. Corporate Welfare. Corporate Tyranny.
This drives our military to buy more for less value and expands our military budget.
It drives our government to pass more and more regulation to try and deal with sneaky companies that skirt the law to avoid paying taxes.
Large corporations seek tax exemptions at home and shuffle their profits overseas.
Meanwhile big CEOs make 100-400 times the average wage of their employees and the US middle class gets hollowed out.
Creating more institutions within the government to provide oversight of the banking industry wont do any good if campaign finance reform and lobbying are not dealt with ASAP.
Clipped from www.pbs.org
The Obama administration wants to create two regulatory agencies: one to keep tabs on potential threats to the financial system -- such as the problems Brooksley Born flagged in the derivatives market in the late 1990s -- and one to protect consumers from abusive practices by the financial services industry. In Congress, both agencies have been the subject of intense scrutiny as regulators spar over who should have which powers and Wall Street lobbyists fight to protect profits.
The Financial Services Oversight Council will "facilitate coordination of financial regulatory policy and resolution of disputes and identify emerging risks in financial markets." The council will replace the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. It will report to Congress, and its members will include representatives from the eight principal federal financial regulatory agencies.
A consolidated regulatory hub to protect consumers
The Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), as envisioned by the administration, will have wide-reaching power to regulate not only banks and mortgage companies but also financial services previously outside the purview of federal regulation, such as payday loans, personal investment services, credit reporting agencies and stored-value cards.
It would have the power to levy substantial fines -- up to $10,000 per day for some offenses -- and to prosecute financial services providers who break the rules the CFPA creates. The CFPA would be tasked with writing disclosures in standard, clear language that make financial transactions, such as mortgages, easier to understand. The creation of the CFPA will consolidate regulatory powers currently spread among several agencies.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Democrats Outnumber Republicans 72m to 55m in Registered Voters
Wow. Didnt know that.
Clipped from en.wikipedia.org
Political party strength in U.S. states
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Throughout most of the 20th century, although the Republican and Democratic parties alternated in power at a national level, some states were so overwhelmingly dominated by one party that nomination was usually tantamount to election. This was especially true in the Solid South, where the Republican Party was virtually nonexistent for the best part of a century, from the end of Reconstruction in the late 1870s to the 1960s. Conversely, the New England states of Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire were Republican bastions, as were some Midwestern states like Iowa and North Dakota.
However, in the 1970s and 1980s, the increasingly conservative Republican Party gradually overtook the Democrats, whose support had been eroded by the Civil rights movement and its perceived liberal social policies. In the 1990s, the Republicans finally overtook the Democrats in holding majorities in statehouses and governorships in the South. In New England, the opposite trend took place; the former Republican strongholds of Maine and Vermont became solidly Democratic, as did formerly Republican areas of New Jersey, New York, and other states.
Currently, the majority of the overall number of seats held in the state legislatures has been switching between the two parties every few years. As of the U.S. gubernatorial elections of 2010, the Republican party holds an outright majority of approximately 440 with 3,890 seats (53% of total) compared to the Democratic party's number of 3,450 (47% of total) seats elected on a partisan ballot.[2] Of the 7,382 seats in all of the state legislatures combined, independents and third parties account for only 15 members, not counting the 49 members of the Nebraska Legislature, which is the only legislature in the nation to hold non-partisan elections to determine its members. Due to the results of the 2010 elections, Republicans took control of an additional 19 state legislative chambers, giving them majority control of both chambers in 25 states versus the Democrats' majority control of both chambers in only 16 states, with 8 states having split or inconclusive control of both chambers (not including Nebraska); previous to the 2010 elections, it was Democrats who controlled both chambers in 27 states versus the Republican party having total control in only 14 states, with eight states divided and Nebraska being nonpartisan.[3]
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