Tag Archives: democratic

Medicaid Enrollment Has Soared Under Obamacare

by Bart Jameson Posted on January 21, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The New York Times reports that Medicaid expansion has been a huge success in West Virginia:

Enrollment in private insurance plans has been sluggish, but sign-ups for Medicaid, the federal insurance program for the poor, have surged in many states. Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid….In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.

It’s not just West Virginia, either. Probably not, anyway. Charles Gaba, who is basically the Nate Silver of Obamacare numbers, writes today that he’s now pretty sure the total number of enrollments in Medicaid since October 1st isn’t the 4 million or so that we previously thought, but more likely 6.2 million. We still don’t know for sure how many of these represent new enrollments vs. re-enrollments, but the higher number makes it pretty likely that a very large chunk of this 6.2 million are new enrollees. Anecdotal evidence backs this up, and preliminary figures from the states that break out new enrollees separately suggest that roughly two-thirds of total signups are new enrollees.

If that’s true, it means that about 4 million new people have signed up for Medicaid since October 1st. That’s 4 million people who feel like this:

Waitresses, fast food workers, security guards and cleaners described feeling intense relief that they are now protected from the punishing medical bills that have punched holes in their family budgets. They spoke in interviews of reclaiming the dignity they had lost over years of being turned away from doctors’ offices because they did not have insurance.

“You see it in their faces,” said Janie Hovatter, a patient advocate at Cabin Creek Health Systems, a health clinic in southern West Virginia. “They just kind of relax.”

We’re the richest country in the world. We can afford this.

Original link:

Medicaid Enrollment Has Soared Under Obamacare

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Medicaid Enrollment Has Soared Under Obamacare

The Obama Administration Wants to End Racial Discrimination by Car Dealers. Why Are 35 Dems Getting in the Way?

by Jana9324cuf Posted on January 21, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Dozens of Democrats are pushing back against an Obama administration effort to curb racial discrimination by car dealerships.

In late March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—the consumer watchdog agency dreamt up by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—issued new, voluntary guidelines aimed at ensuring car dealerships are not illegally ripping off minorities. Since then, 13 Senate Democrats, including Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Mary Landrieu (D-La.); and 22 House Dems, including Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) and Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), have joined 19 House and Senate Republicans in signing letters to the agency objecting to the anti-discrimination measure. Consumer advocates and congressional aides say the lawmakers’ backlash against the anti-discrimination rules is unjustified, and that Dems have backtracked on civil rights in this instance because of the colossal power of the car dealership lobby, which has spent millions lobbying Congress in the months since the CFPB issued these new guidelines.

Auto dealers “wield enormous amounts of power,” one Democratic aide explains. “There’s one in every district. They give a lot of money to charity. They’re on a bunch of boards. They sponsor Little Leagues.”

When a dealership makes a car loan, it often sells the loan to a bank or credit union, which, in return, allows the dealership to mark up the interest rate. Here’s the problem: Some dealerships have been accused of charging higher rates to black and Hispanic customers, potentially costing consumers millions of dollars in overcharges. The CFPB’s anti-discrimination guidance reminds lenders that they are liable under federal law if car dealerships they work with charge higher interest rates to minority borrowers. The guidance suggests that lenders help prevent discrimination by educating dealers, increasing oversight, and either capping dealership interest rates or requiring dealers to charge a flat fee.

Auto dealers are up in arms. If lenders follow the CFPB’s advice, dealership profits could fall by hundreds of dollars per car sold, according to the Department of Justice. Car dealer trade groups claim that the CFPB has not adequately proved that discrimination is a problem in the industry. Dealerships have spent millions lobbying Congress over the past year, including on this very issue. Many Democrats have the auto dealers’ back. In their letters to the CFPB, Dems claim that they appreciate the CFPB’s goal of curbing discrimination by car dealerships. But they echo the dealers’ arguments, and demand that the CFPB provide the detailed methodology it uses to determine that some dealers may be discriminating.

The CFPB maintains that the way it detects discrimination in the auto industry should be no mystery to Congress. These methods, which are similar to those used by the DOJ and other federal banking regulators, have been used in voting rights cases, discrimination cases, and jury selection cases for decades, a CFPB spokeswoman notes. Here’s how it works: Because customer race and ethnicity data is not available for auto loans, the CFPB uses proxies, including geography and surname, to see if lenders are allowing dealerships to charge higher interest rates to minorities. The CFPB has responded to lawmakers’ requests for this methodology in letters, at a public forum on the issue, and on its website.

If lawmakers don’t trust the feds’ definition of discrimination, they can also look to the courts. In December, the DOJ and the CFPB reached a $98 million settlement with Ally Financial and Ally Bank over claims that Ally’s markup policies resulted in illegal discrimination against over 235,000 minority borrowers. At least seven class-action lawsuits have been filed over the past 14 years that allege auto-dealers unfairly overcharged minorities. And “nothing has really changed in the marketplace” to force auto lenders and dealerships to change their practices, says Chris Kukla, the senior counsel for government affairs at the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumer rights group.

Car dealers have also complained that regulating the interest rates dealerships can charge will increase costs for consumers. Consumer advocates disagree: “I don’t believe…dealers’ ability to mark up prices…in any way benefits consumers,” says Stuart Rossman, director of litigation the National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group. Jeff Sovern, a law professor and expert in consumer law at St. John’s University in New York, adds that the low prices some customers have been paying may have been subsidized by the higher prices paid by minorities. “It’s not usually considered a defense that the beneficiaries of racism should keep the lower prices that other groups pay for,” he says.

So why the outcry amongst Democrats? Congressional aides and consumer advocates say that the auto dealer industry’s lobbying efforts are intense. “Dealers are a powerful lobby,” Kukla says. “These people sell things for a living. They’re good at advocating.”

“I’m not surprised that any politician” would cave to the dealerships, Rossman adds. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), an industry trade group, has spent $3.1 million on lobbying in 2013, according to lobbying disclosure forms. “The dealerships made a very concerted push to get members of Congress to sign those letters” criticizing the guidance, Kukla says.

None of the 35 Democrats responded to requests for comment for this story, nor did the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers, another industry trade group. NADA declined to comment.

The oddest aspect of Democrats’ push back on the CFPB anti-discrimination measures, advocates say, is that in issuing the guidance, the CFPB didn’t actually create any new regulation or law. “The funny thing is that… the CFPB is getting hit…because someone is actually enforcing rules already on the books,” says the Dem aide.

“It’s not that controversial,” Rossman adds.

See the original post:

The Obama Administration Wants to End Racial Discrimination by Car Dealers. Why Are 35 Dems Getting in the Way?

Posted in Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Obama Administration Wants to End Racial Discrimination by Car Dealers. Why Are 35 Dems Getting in the Way?

Quote of the Day: The War Party Is Working Hard to Make Iran Look Like a Victim

by Gabrielle Hartzog Posted on January 15, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Jeffrey Goldberg:

It would be quite an achievement to allow Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, to play the role of injured party in this drama. But the Senate is poised to do just that.

Goldberg is talking about the possibility that the Senate will pass a sanctions bill against Iran just as the Iranians have finally agreed to come to the table and negotiate an agreement to dismantle their nuclear program. As Goldberg says, this makes sense only if you’re hellbent on a military strike against Iran and flatly eager to sabotage anything that might lead to a peaceful settlement. It’s hard to believe that this is the position of the entire Republican Party as well as a pretty good chunk of the Democratic Party, but apparently it is. It’s especially hard to believe given the realities of what it would accomplish:

While it could set back (though not destroy) Iran’s nuclear program, it could also lead to the complete collapse of whatever sanctions remained in place. In addition, it could unify the Iranian people behind their country’s unelected leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — a particularly perverse outcome. And in some ways, an attack would justify Iran’s paranoia and pursuit of nuclear weapons: After all, the regime could somewhat plausibly argue, post-attack, that it needs to defend itself against further aggression. A military campaign should be considered only when everything else has failed, and Iran is at the very cusp of gaining a deliverable nuclear weapon.

….So why support negotiations? First: They just might work. I haven’t met many experts who put the chance of success at zero. Second: If the U.S. decides one day that it must destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, it must do so with broad international support. The only way to build that support is to absolutely exhaust all other options. Which means pursuing, in a time-limited, sober-minded, but earnest and assiduous way, a peaceful settlement.

This is exactly right. As it happens, I doubt that we’ll be able to reach a final deal with the Iranians. In the end, I think Iran’s hawks have too much influence and just won’t be willing to give up their nuclear ambitions. What we’ll do then is anyone’s guess. But as Goldberg says, even if you’re a hawk who favors a military strike, surely you’re also in favor of demonstrating to the world that we did everything humanly possible to avoid it. What possible reason could you have for feeling differently?

From: 

Quote of the Day: The War Party Is Working Hard to Make Iran Look Like a Victim

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Quote of the Day: The War Party Is Working Hard to Make Iran Look Like a Victim

Chris Christie Will Not Be the 45th President of the United States

by SherlynHa Posted on January 14, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Earlier today I argued that the messaging wars over Bridgegate don’t matter very much. What matters are the facts. If it turns out that Chris Christie really played no role in the lane closures, he’ll probably survive. But if evidence surfaces that he knew more than he’s letting on, he’s doomed.

Via Twitter, Jonathan Bernstein disagreed: “Facts matter, but so do interpretations.” I sort of lamely responded by saying that I never really thought Christie had a serious chance at the presidency anyway. So really, neither facts nor interpretation will make much difference. He’s not going to be the 45th president of the United States.

But why? Jonathan Chait provides part of the argument:

There are now two ongoing investigations into alleged abuses of power, each of which is potentially fatal. Even if neither produces further damaging allegations, they both have already yielded enough public information to be used against him. Beyond that, there is a long list of potential scandals dating back to before his governorship. The odds that any one of them develops into something indictable are high.

And they’re not just high in the mathematical sense that a person who gets shot at a bunch of times is more likely to be hit by a bullet. They’re high because the high number of scandals surrounding Christie, and the pattern of gleefully using his power to punish his foes, suggests that at least some of the allegations against him are true. The odds of any scandal striking pay dirt are not mathematically independent. The deeper problem is simply that Christie appears to be genuinely corrupt on a scale that is rare for a modern top-tier presidential candidate.

The scandals don’t kill Christie’s chance in the sense that Republican voters will read the news stories and decide irrevocably they can never vote for the man. The way it works is to create a series of liabilities that his opponents can easily exploit: regional (an untrustworthy Northeastern political boss), personal (the traitor who hugged President Obama and thereby handed him the election), and ideological (gun-controlling, Obamacare-surrendering moderate.)

Yep. Here’s my nickel list of why I’ve never thought Christie can win either the Republican nomination or—in the unlikely event he does—the presidency:

He’s very, very attackable. The ads practically write themselves. Neither his fellow Republicans nor his eventual Democratic opponent will be shy about exploiting this.
He’s fat. I know that’s not fair, but it’s not fair that Obama is black or Hillary is a woman, either. It’s a liability regardless of whether it’s fair.
His bullying of random citizens can seem vaguely like a breath of fresh air when you see it occasionally and from a distance. But if you see it up close, all the time—as you will during a presidential campaign—it won’t wear well.
He has too many non-conservative positions. Mitt Romney did too, and even though he spent years disowning his earlier self and prostrating himself to the tea party, conservatives still never really trusted him. Christie isn’t the kind of guy who’s even willing to do that much, and that means the Republican base will be even less inclined to trust him.

I could see Christie winning if the country were undergoing some kind of horrific disaster, like the Great Depression. In a case like that, it’s possible that Americans would just want someone who’d kick all the right asses and wouldn’t much care about the other stuff. But 2016 seems likely to be a fairly ordinary year, with a decent economy and no huge foreign crises. If that’s how it turns out, I have a hard time seeing how Christie manages to win.

Link to original:  

Chris Christie Will Not Be the 45th President of the United States

Posted in Casio, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Northeastern, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chris Christie Will Not Be the 45th President of the United States

5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal

by GemmaHornung Posted on January 9, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Wednesday, emails and text messages surrendered by a friend and former political appointee of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie revealed that Christie’s inner circle masterminded a massive September traffic jam in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as political retribution against the city’s Democratic mayor. The messages show gleeful Christie aides gloating that their plan had wreaked so much havoc. One text message read, “Is it wrong that I’m smiling?”

The messages came from David Wildstein, who was Christie’s high school buddy and, until he resigned due to suspicions about his involvement with the bridge scandal, the director of interstate capital projects for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Wildstein divulged the messages in response to a subpoena from a panel of New Jersey lawmakers investigating the scandal.

Wildstein is testifying under oath this afternoon about the documents before the New Jersey Assembly’s Committee on Public Works, Infrastructure, and Independent Authorities. Here are five questions lawmakers should put to him:

Is there any evidence that the “traffic study” ever existed?
As suspicions about the Fort Lee traffic jam grew, Christie and his staff said repeatedly that the governor believed a Port Authority traffic study had caused the whole mess.

In his Thursday press conference, Christie maintained that the bridge scandal may have had its roots in a legitimate traffic study, saying, “I don’t know if this was a traffic study that morphed into a political vendetta or a political vendetta that morphed into a traffic study.”

Why does Christie still think his top Port Authority aide was in the dark about this scandal?
On Thursday, Christie also expressed his confidence that David Samson, the Port Authority chairman, played no role in causing Fort Lee’s traffic disaster, saying:

Samson put out a statement yesterday that he had no knowledge of this. I interviewed him yesterday. He was one of my interviews. I am convinced that he had absolutely no knowledge of this, that this was executed at the operational level and never brought to the attention of the Port Authority board of commissioners…And so I sat and met for two hours yesterday with Mr. Samson—General Samson—and again, I’m confident that he had no knowledge of this, based upon our conversations and his review of the information.

Yet messages released on Wednesday make it clear Samson was involved in plans to close Fort Lee’s access lanes on the day of the traffic jam. When New York officials at the Port Authority reopened the lanes, reducing the traffic jam, Wildstein wrote to Kelly, “We are appropriately going nuts. Samson helping us to retaliate.”

Did Christie learn about the bridge plot in his mystery meeting with the Port Authority chairman?
During a text message conversation in which a Christie aide and a Port Authority official planned the lane closures, the pair also tried to plan a meeting between Christie and Samson.

Naturally, some have speculated that the subject of the meeting was the Fort Lee lane closures—which would explode Christie’s claims that he wasn’t aware of plans to close Fort Lee’s access lanes.

What did the traffic jam’s planners think would happen in case of an emergency?
The architects of the Fort Lee traffic jam appear to have considered its potential public safety consequences. In one text message conversation that was sent once the lanes were closed, Port Authority appointee Wildstein waved away the Fort Lee mayor’s complaints about school buses getting stuck in traffic by noting, “Bottom line is he didn’t say safety.”

But officials in Fort Lee, including two members of the borough council and the chief of police, later reported that the traffic jam had slowed down emergency responders—including police who were searching for a missing child. So what was the plan in case of an emergency?

Are there other instances in which the Port Authority and Christie staffers wielded their power for political reasons?
At his Wednesday press conference, Christie claimed he knew nothing about the lane closures that brought Fort Lee to a standstill. So it wasn’t surprising that Christie denied knowing anything about other instances in which his appointees in his administration or at the Port Authority might’ve used their positions to enact political retribution.

The messages Wildstein surrendered illustrate a close relationship with the Christie administration. If any other Fort Lee-like incidents took place, he would know.

View article: 

5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 5 Unanswered Questions About Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal

9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge

by 0xde2zx Posted on January 9, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

UPDATE: On Thursday, Christie said, “I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge.”

On Wednesday morning, news outlets released emails that strongly imply that in September a top aide to New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie planned a dangerous traffic jam near the George Washington Bridge to punish the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee. After over seven hours of silence, Christie—a possible presidential candidate in 2016—released a statement denying he had knowledge of the aide’s actions. Up until then, Christie and his aides made numerous statements claiming his office had no involvement in the scandal. Here’s the evolution of how Christie responsed to the scandal, dating back to September:

“Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the Christie campaign, said that any notion that Mr. Sokolich faced retribution for not endorsing the governor was ‘crazy.'” –The Wall Street Journal, September 17, 2013
â&#128;&#139; “A spokesman for Christie, Michael Drewniak, said the governor had nothing to do with the lane closures: ‘The governor of the state of New Jersey does not involve himself in traffic studies,’ Drewniak said.” –The Star-Ledger (November 13, 2013)
“I was the guy out there, in overalls and a hat. I actually was the guy working the cones out there. You really are not serious with that question.”â&#128;&#139; -Christie to WYNC (December 2, 2013)
“Mr. Christie also said he believed Mr. Baroni’s his top executive appointee at the Port Authority explanation that the purpose of the closures was a traffic study. ‘I don’t think that Senator Baroni would not tell the truth,’ Mr. Christie said.” –The Wall Street Journal (December 13, 2013)
“Christie said Friday the political drama surrounding the issue was ‘created and manufactured,’ further characterizing it as ‘a whole lot of hullabaloo.'” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“I don’t have any recollection of ever having met the mayor of Fort Lee in my four years…He was not somebody that was on my radar screen in any way–politically, professionally, or in any other way” –CNN (December 13, 2013)
“When asked about that claims that the closures were ordered for political retribution, Christie said ‘absolutely, unequivocally not.'” Politico (December 13, 2013)
“I know you guys are obsessed with this, I’m not. I’m really not. It’s just not that big a deal.” -Christie to Talking Points Memo (December 19, 2013)

And, finally, Wednesday:

“What I’ve seen today for the first time is unacceptable. I am outraged and deeply saddened to learn that not only was I misled by a member of my staff, but this completely inappropriate and unsanctioned conduct was made without my knowledge. One thing is clear: this type of behavior is unacceptable and I will not tolerate it because the people of New Jersey deserve better. This behavior is not representative of me or my Administration in any way, and people will be held responsible for their actions.”â&#128;&#139; –Statement, January 8, 2013

Continue reading – 

9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 9 Times Chris Christie Denied Using a Bridge for Political Revenge

Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, Explained

by MaritaMontefior Posted on January 8, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Update: Gov. Chris Christie has released a statement denying he knew of his staff’s actions before Wednesday. Click here to read his full statement.

Internal emails released Wednesday strongly suggest that a top aide to New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie orchestrated massive traffic problems in Fort Lee, New Jersey, last fall as an act of political retribution against the city’s Democratic mayor. For months, Christie and his administration have denied allegations that road closures in Fort Lee were politically motivated. The emails, released as part of an investigation by Democratic state legislators, could spiral into a major political scandal for Christie, a possible 2016 presidential candidate. Here’s what you need to know.

READ MORE: A Fort Lee official says the Christie lane closures slowed the search for a missing 4-year-old child. Tracie Van Auken/ZUMA

How’d this begin? In mid-September, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey unexpectedly closed two access lanes on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, which spans the Hudson River and serves as a major commuter route between the two states. A massive, weeklong traffic jam ensued, clogging the streets of nearby Fort Lee.

Cops and lawmakers in Fort Lee said they were given no warning about the decision to close the lanes, which delayed school buses, first responders, and commuters bound for New York City. The Port Authority justified its decision by saying it was conducting a “traffic study.”

Why is this political? Soon after the traffic jam, rumors emerged that the Port Authority closed the bridge lanes as political retribution against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat who endorsed Gov. Chris Christie’s opponent in the 2013 gubernatorial campaign. As news outlets and New Jersey Democrats dug deeper into the circumstances of the bridge incident, they eventually connected the lane closures to two Port Authority officials with close ties to Christie: Bill Baroni, the deputy executive director of the agency, and David Wildstein, its director of interstate capital projects. Baroni and Wildstein have since resigned, and both men have retained criminal defense attorneys.

All along, the Christie administration had denied any connection to the decision to close the bridge lanes. In September, a Christie spokesman called the retribution claim “crazy.” Christie told reporters at a December press conference that the Fort Lee traffic snarl was “absolutely, unequivocally not” a result of political score-settling.

Continue Reading »

More here:

Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, Explained

Posted in alo, ATTRA, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chris Christie’s Bridge Scandal, Explained

David O. Russell: Political Corruption in "American Hustle" Is Nothing Compared to Citizens United

by df4sx12 Posted on December 18, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Tuesday, the famously mercurial writer/director David O. Russell was in Washington, DC, for a special screening and Q&A session for his critically acclaimed, award-winning new film American Hustle. MSNBC host Chris Matthews moderated the Q&A, and Chris Dodd (the former Democratic senator and current chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, the de facto censorship board for cinema in the United States) introduced Russell.

American Hustle—starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, and Jennifer Lawrence—is loosely based on events surrounding Abscam, a sting operation the FBI launched in the late ’70s to target trafficking in stolen property. The bureau recruited con artist Melvin Weinberg to help craft and execute the operation, which involved setting up Abdul Enterprises, a fake company funded by fictitious Arab sheiks who offered to bribe people to pave the way for a new casino in Atlantic City. The operation morphed into an investigation of political corruption when politicians started approaching Abdul Enterprises for money. By the early ’80s, Abscam had led to the conviction of one senator and six congressmen, among other political figures and officials. (The late Democratic congressman and Vietnam War vet John Murtha was also embroiled in the scandal, but escaped indictment and prosecution.)

Continue Reading »

Taken from:

David O. Russell: Political Corruption in "American Hustle" Is Nothing Compared to Citizens United

Posted in Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on David O. Russell: Political Corruption in "American Hustle" Is Nothing Compared to Citizens United

Rand Paul Doubles Down on Support for GOP Senate Candidate Who Rallied With Secessionists

by BeauDrewvd Posted on December 18, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Monday, Mother Jones profiled North Carolina Senate hopeful Greg Brannon—a Republican primary candidate who believes public education is dehumanizing and Marxist, and who recently cosponsored a rally with a secessionist group, the League of the South, which seeks “a free and independent Southern republic.” Brannon feels bipartisan compromises in Washington “enslave” Americans. He prefers the governing style of his “modern hero” Jesse Helms—a North Carolina senator of 30 years best known for refusing, even until the day he died in 2008, to renounce his support for racial segregation.

Sen. Rand Paul, among other big-name conservatives, has endorsed Brannon as the best candidate to challenge vulnerable Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan next fall. And while Paul’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment for that profile, a photo posted on Paul’s Facebook page Monday evening reiterated Paul’s support for Brannon and his campaign.

“Greg Brannon is the type of 100% fight to repeal ObamaCare conservative I need in the U.S. Senate,” read the caption, under a composite photograph that showed a smiling Paul next to Brannon. “Support his ‘Retreat is NOT an Option Money Bomb’ by clicking the link below.” The caption linked to a page on Brannon’s website where supporters could donate to Brannon’s ten-day “Money Bomb” campaign. The fundraiser, which ended Monday night, aimed “to fight back against Karl Rove and the DC Insiders who are determined to silence grassroots conservatives,” a reference to Rove’s work for one of Brannon’s primary opponents.

In a recent survey conducted by Public Policy Polling, Brannon was the only Republican who beat Hagan in a head-to-head matchup. When PPP polled Republican primary voters on the four GOP candidates, North Carolina Speaker of the House Thom Tillis ran 9 points ahead of Brannon—but nearly half of those voters said they were undecided.

See the original post: 

Rand Paul Doubles Down on Support for GOP Senate Candidate Who Rallied With Secessionists

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Rand Paul Doubles Down on Support for GOP Senate Candidate Who Rallied With Secessionists

Elizabeth Warren: Big Banks Should Reveal Their Donations to Influential Think Tanks

by q1jurse Posted on December 4, 2013

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on the biggest US banks to disclose their donations to think tanks, which influence laws that affect them.

Under current law, banks and other corporations are not required to publicly report their contributions to think tanks. That means that lawmakers who use think tank data and analysis to shape laws and regulations designed to police banks do not know how much bank money influences that research. “A lot of the power of big banks over DC comes from donations to think tanks, who then put out ‘studies’ favorable to certain ways of doing business,” says one Democratic aide. In a letter to the CEOs of the nation’s six largest financial institutions—JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley—Warren called on the companies to start voluntarily reporting their donations to these policy shops.

“To prevent future economic crises,” Warren says in the letter, “policymakers need access to objective, high-quality research, data, and analysis about our consumer and financial markets…Private think tanks are extremely well-suited to provide this research and analysis, but for it to be valuable, such research and analysis must be truly independent.”

Corporations are required to tell the public when they lobby members of Congress or government agencies, Warren says, so “the same transparency should exist for any indirect efforts banks make to influence policymaking through financial contributions to think tanks.”

Warren’s demand for think-tank money transparency is yet another approach to curbing too-big-to-fail—the problem of the biggest Wall Street banks being so large and loosely regulated that their failure would endanger the entire financial system. One of the reasons too-big-to-fail is still a problem, five years after the financial crisis, is that banks are good at weakening the laws and regulations meant to rein them in.

One way to do that is through think tanks. The Roosevelt Institute, for example, recently published a report on the successes and failures of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act. If the Institute had received loads of Wall Street cash, it might have been motivated to minimize the failures of the law, and thus further regulation.

Warren’s letter comes a few days after the president and vice-president of the centrist think tank Third Way wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed warning Democrats against following Warren over a “populist cliff.” The Nation reported this week that Third Way employs a Washington consulting firm that represents financial institutions including MasterCard and Deutsche Bank.

The letter also comes on the heels of a recent defeat for corporate contribution transparency advocates. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a Wall Street regulator, considered forcing corporations to disclose the money they spend on campaigns and elections. But just this week, the agency announced it had dropped that issue from its 2014 priority list.

Original link:  

Elizabeth Warren: Big Banks Should Reveal Their Donations to Influential Think Tanks

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Elizabeth Warren: Big Banks Should Reveal Their Donations to Influential Think Tanks