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Mind-Blowing Charts From the Senate's Income Inequality Hearing

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Feb. 10 (News Report) - In another sign that Democrats have embraced income inequality as a cause célèbre, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing on the subject today. The committee's ranking Republican, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, managed to look concerned during two hours of testimony about the kneecapping of the Middle Class—not that it should have been all that difficult. Here are some of the hearing's most striking charts ...

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Capitol Assets: Some legislators send millions to groups connected to their relatives - Washington Post

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Scott Higham, Kimberly Kindy, David S. Fallis - Feb. 08 (Investigative Report) - .. the practice has continued unabated, the Post found.

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Administration names official advocate for illegal immigrants

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:16:00 -0800

Washington Times - Feb. 07 - The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a new "public advocate" charged with listening to immigrants' concerns about its law enforcement policies — but Republicans said the position amounts to an official mouthpiece for illegal immigrants being dep

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Congressional earmarks sometimes used to fund projects near lawmakers' properties

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By David S. Fallis, Scott Higham, Kimberly Kindy - Feb. 07 (Investigative Report) - .. lawmakers have acknowledged the public's growing concern that they appeared to be using their positions to enrich themselves.

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"Gasland" Director Josh Fox Fires Back at Republicans After His Unfair Arrest

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Ed Schultz - Feb. 02 (Interview) - Gasland director Josh Fox, ... was arrested this week, in violation of his first amendment rights, while covering a Congressional hearing on fracking. In the interview, Fox fires back at the Republicans who have been targeting him

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Why Aren’t More Arab Americans Working in Mainstream Journalism?

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Columbia Journalism Review - Jan. 31 - There are anywhere between 3.5 and 5.1 million Americans of Arab descent, according to figures from the Arab American Institute, yet relatively few work in journalism full time. While meaningful estimates aren’t known, as journalism scholars that conduct demographic research in American newsrooms do not typically tally newsmakers of Arab descent, the National Arab American Journalists Association counts around 250...

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The State of Obama’s Facts

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley, Ben Finley, Lori Robertson - Jan. 25 (Fact Check) - The president’s State of the Union address got the facts right — mostly. Obama said “the Taliban’s momentum has been broken” in Afghanistan. But targeted assassinations continue, and at least one independent foreign policy expert says the enemy may just be waiting until the U.S. leaves. The president said a get-tough tariff on tire imports from China has saved more than 1,000 U.S. jobs. But tire industry officials say Chinese imports have simply been replaced by imports from other countries. He took credit for putting “more boots on the border than ever before.” That’s true, but the big increase was under George W. Bush. And a decrease in illegal border crossings is due mainly to the lack of jobs in the U.S., experts say. Often the president’s facts and figures were accurate — but not the whole story. It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more. The president pointed proudly to increased oil drilling, increased U.S. oil production, and declining dependence on imports. But understandably he passed over any mention of chronically high gasoline prices, which hit a record of sorts last year. And he boasted of recent increases in jobs — which still number nearly 1.7 million fewer than when he took office.

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Support for Internet Bill Wanes as Protests Spread

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Jonathan Weisman - Jan. 18 (News Report) - Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, announced he would no longer back the anti-Internet piracy legislation he had co-sponsored. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, quickly followed suit.

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Key Senator Abandons The Protect IP Ship

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Zach Carter - Jan. 18 (News) - Home to the Disney World and Universal Studios theme parks, Rubio's Florida may be the most Hollywood-centric state outside California, and Rubio had been one of the first senators to sign on in support of Protect IP when Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) introduce

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Gerry Hudson: We Must Win Back the American Dream for the 99% In 2012

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Gerry Hudson - Jan. 17 - As we honor Dr. King's legacy this year, we must remember that working families deserve economic justice, including America's 13 million unemployed, the long-term unemployed and the 24 million people looking for work.

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Keynes Was Right

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Dec. 30 (Opinion) - Once again, when politicians and policy makers decided to focus on deficits, not jobs, they proved Keynes right about a slump being the wrong time for austerity.

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Powerhouse Websites Consider Internet Blackout

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Fox News - Dec. 30 (News) - Anti-SOPA pop-up banners online protest a law that many argue will dramatically alter the Internet. In the growing battle for the future of the Web, some of the biggest sites online -- Google, Facebook, and other tech stalwarts -- are considering a coord

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Fact-checking in the Echo Chamber Nation

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - At a Republican campaign rally a few years ago, I asked one of the attendees how he got his news. "I listen to Rush and read NewsMax," he said. "And to make sure I'm getting a balanced view, I watch Fox." My liberal friends get their information from distinctly different sources — Huffington Post, Daily Kos and Rachel Maddow. To make sure they get a balanced view, they click Facebook links — from their liberal friends. This is life in our echo chamber nation. We protect ourselves from opinions we don't like and seek reinforcement from like-minded allies. The paradox ...

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The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By WSJ Editorial Board - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest. The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.

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The Whoppers of 2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 21 (Fact Check) - Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan). Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners. President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying. And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

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Robert Reich: The Defining Issue: Not Government's Size, But Who It's For

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Robert Reich - Dec. 20 (Opinion) - "Big government" isn't the problem. The problem is big money is taking over government.

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The Remarkable Political Stupidity of the 'Street' - you know, Wall Street

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Reich: - Dec. 10 (News Analysis) - 'Wall Street has blanketed America in a miasma of cynicism. Most Americans assume the reason the Street got its taxpayer-funded bailout without strings in the first place was because of its political clout. That must be why the banks didn't have to renegotiate the mortgages of Americans - many of whom, because of the economic collapse brought on by the Street's excesses, are still under water. Some are drowning.' Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

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Undaunted, Senator Still Trying to Close Decrepit Schools on Military Bases

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

nationofchange.org - By Rachael Marcus - Dec. 10 (News Report) - 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.

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Gingrich On Climate Change

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - Newt Gingrich went too far when he claimed that “I’ve never favored cap-and-trade.” It’s true he’s never favored the approach taken by Democrats, but he said in 2007 that he would “strongly support” cap-and-trade if combined with “a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions”.

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Bachmann’s Bad Economics

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Dave Bloom - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - Michele Bachmann wrongly claims there is “not one shred of evidence that lowering the payroll tax rate created jobs.” Actually, the economy has gained more than 1.4 million jobs in the 11 months since the payroll tax holiday began. That’s 84 percent more jobs than were added in the same … More >>

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Fact-checking the Chamber of Commerce

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

PolitiFact - By Bill Adair - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has begun its "voter education" drive, running ads that attack Democrats and boost Republicans. The blitz is beginning in Iowa, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington, including this ad against U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio. PolitiFact Ohio checked the ad's claim that Brown "voted to block American energy production and increase energy taxes" and rated it Mostly False.

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Rupert Murdoch Lobbies Congress To Restrict Internet

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Zach Carter - Dec. 07 (News Report) - WASHINGTON -- News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch threw his weight behind Congress' attempt to restrict the Internet, personally lobbying leaders on Capitol Hill Wednesday for...

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Cracks in the GOP dam?

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Sargent - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - Buried in this big New York Times piece on the continuing war over the payroll tax cut extension is a telling detail: Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said Tuesday that she had suggested a tax increase on high earners that protected employers from that burden. “I don’t think we should be imposing additional taxes on working families at a time when the economy is so fragile,” she said. Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said his party’s plan could involve a small increase in taxes for some high-income people who meet certain criteria. In other words, senators Collins and Roberts are looking for a way to support the millionaire surtax, or something like it.

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Battlefield America: U.S. Citizens Face Indefinite Military Detention in Defense Bill Before Senate

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 29 (News Report) - The Senate is set to vote this week on a Pentagon spending bill that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government. A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — anywhere in the world — without charge or trial.

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After the Deficit Committee, A New Propaganda Push from the War Profiteers

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Robert Greenwald ,Derrick Crowe: - Nov. 29 (News Analysis) - Failure of a special congressional committee to strike a deficit-reduction deal is expected to unleash desperate lobbying by U.S. arms makers to get lawmakers to block $600 billion in automatic cuts. Unfortunately for them, War Costs' new video exposes t

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