Less. Popular. Than. Nickelback.
Last night, the Senate unanimously passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) and sent it to the President for his signature. The Project On Government Oversight has been working on this for years, and we thank everyone who helped us with this fight. The WPEA will help protect workers who risk their careers to report fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government. That means fewer of the good guys will get punished for speaking up, and taxpayers will save as more people are empowered to step up and fix what is wrong with government. Read more about the WPEA at POGO.org.
Republicans for vote to give themselves the old golden healthcare system, while trying to remove yours. Republicans want their own preexisting conditions covered, but not yours.
WASHINGTON — Democrats are mocking Republicans in the House of Representatives for voting to repeal the health care reform law and keep their own enhanced medical care.
When Congress passed the health care law, it required members of Congress to get their insurance on exchanges with the rest of the public. But in voting to repeal that law, Republicans and a handful of Democrats were also voting to go back to the old system where the lawmakers get a sweeter deal than most of the rest of the country.
They also voted against a Democratic motion that said members of Congress who support repealing the health care law must also repeal the good stuff they get, such as lifetime care and insurance regardless of pre-existing conditions.
Democrats tried to demonstrate how Republicans distanced themselves from voting to protect their own deal by capturing a slew of GOP members on video saying they didn’t vote to protect their own care, as seen below [at the link]. The clip features a number of Republicans in tight races this year, as well as GOP budget guru, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
“House Republicans refuse to admit they voted to give themselves taxpayer funded lifetime guaranteed health care instead of having the same health care as their constituents,” said Jesse Ferguson, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, referring to the fact that members of Congress are eligible for retirement benefits after just five years.
“House Republicans didn’t just vote to protect insurance company campaign donor profits this time, they’re even helping themselves to lifetime taxpayer-funded government health care and now they need to be honest with their constituents and admit it,” Ferguson said.
So… “Fuck you I’ve got mine”?
Major problem with the American political system:
- Congress is the governmental body that writes/ratifies laws
- We need a law that prevents corporations and the hyper-rich from essentially buying congressional representatives through enormous campaign donations
- It is not in the best interest of congresspeople to make those laws, because they want money so they can continue to campaign to continue being congresspeople
- Vicious cycle, anyone?
I fucking hate this system.
JPMorgan is under investigation for possibly manipulating the US energy market - refusing to hand over energy manipulation emails to Feds
The supposedly best run bank in the financial industry is in the thick of yet another investigation once again. Besides suggestions that JPMorgan may also be involved in the Libor criminal manipulation that has taken down three top executives at Barclays, JPMorgan is under investigation in the US for possibly manipulating the US energy market.
How many more free rides and bogus settlements that involve agreement that nobody was guilty are we going to have to see before Washington gets serious about white collar crime? The right wing and much of Washington is always in favor of throwing people into jail unless they’re rich white people with high paying jobs. Until this changes we can’t expect to clean up the overflowing sewage dump called Wall Street.
More on the latest Wall Street investigation via Bloomberg:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) (JPM)’s refusal to turn over e-mails in a federal probe of potential energy-market manipulation is the latest challenge for Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon as the bank faces multiple investigations.
The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sued JPMorgan July 2 to release 25 e-mails in an investigation of possible manipulation of power markets in California and the Midwest by J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., according to court filings by the Washington-based agency. FERC opened the probe in August after complaints from California and Midwest grid operators that JPMorgan’s bidding practices were abusive, the documents show.
Go down towards the bottom of the article to read more about the allegations of extracting above market prices, which would then be passed on to consumers. The banks just keep hammering away at the 99% from every angle and they won’t stop until someone in the political class finds enough backbone to stop them. Will anyone step up?
You’d think Darrell Issa and company would be all over this, I mean, wasn’t not handing over documents a really big deal in the fast and furious case?
Oh wait I forgot! Congress wouldn’t dare bite the hand that feeds it.
Report shows Republicans voted in favor of stripping environmental laws to help the oil and gas industry.
“Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Ed Markey released a new report that provides an updated analysis of the anti-environment record of the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress. In 2011 and in the first half of 2012, the Republican-controlled House voted 247 times to dismantle environmental and public health protections.
The report, prepared by the Democratic staff of the Energy and Commerce Committee, found that the House averaged one anti-environmental vote for every day the House was in session in 2011 and in the first half of 2012. Nearly one in five of the 1,100 legislative roll call votes thus far this Congress – 19% – were votes to undermine environmental protection.
The report also found that the oil and gas industry has been the largest beneficiary of this anti-environment record in the House. The House has voted 109 times on legislation that would enrich the oil and gas industry. This includes 45 votes to weaken environmental, public health, and safety requirements applicable to the oil industry, 38 votes to prevent deployment of clean energy alternatives, and 12 votes to expedite review of the Keystone XL pipeline.
- The full report is available here.
- A comprehensive list of all anti-environment votes in the 112th Congress is available here.
- A list of all votes related to the oil and gas industry is available online here.
(via sarahlee310)
Do-Nothing GOP: Congressional Productivity DOWN Nearly 70%
An analysis by CNN shows a dramatic reductin in congressional output since the Tea Party-fueled Republican takeover of the House. From 2007-9, the Pelosi-Reid congress was able to pass 460 laws in 283 days in the House. From 2009-11, the Democratically led legislature passed 383 laws in 286 days in the House.
Under Speaker John Boehner and his acolyte Eric Cantor, progress has been halted. In 248 days of “work” in the House, a paltry 132 laws have been passed. No doubt, some of the slowdown is due to the Democratic-Republican divide between the House and Senate — but Republicans have repeatedly shown they are unwilling to work with the Democrats.
Guilty as Charged: How the GOP Killed Washington DC
It’s rare that a criminal publicly announces his intent to commit a felony. But when it came to their scorched-earth campaign of obstructionism to destroy the Obama presidency, GOP leaders weren’t shy about their plans. While 15 top Republicans schemed in private on the night of Obama’s inauguration to “challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign,” conservative mouthpieces like Bill Kristol and Rush Limbaugh promised gridlock at every turn.
Three years later, as Congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann suggest in their new book, the Republicans’ foul deed is done. From its record-setting use of the filibuster and its united front against Obama’s legislative agenda to blocking judicial nominees and its unprecedented (and repeated) threats to trigger a U.S. default, the most conservative Congress in over 100 years has stopped Washington dead in its tracks. But judging from the muted reaction from the press and a public evenly split in its Congressional preference, Republicans are getting away with their crime.
and here’s another chart of interest, from the same article.
I keep hearing over and over that “congress did the same thing when roles were reversed (democratic congress and republican president)”
The truth of the matter is, that’s an outright lie and more of the “both sides are the same” rhetoric.
Resolve To Stop Wasting Time: Congressional Republicans Promote Yet Another Pro-Prayer Statement
Americans don’t agree on much, but one thing pretty much everyone can agree on is that Congress is not a very popular institution right now. A recent poll found that only 8 percent of us think Congress is doing a good job.
Americans United’s Legislative Department works with members of Congress and knows that there are lots of good men and women serving in that body. So what accounts for this?
I suspect it’s a matter of priorities. The jobless rate remains too high, and the economy continues to look fragile. People are worried about their ability to pay the bills.
Too many in Congress - especially among the leadership - don’t seem to share these concerns. Some of its members seem determined, in fact, to score cheap political points with meaningless resolutions that further the “culture war” but don’t help anyone in need.
Consider H. Res. 622, which was recently introduced by U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.). The measure, which has 33 co-sponsors, would put the House on record as expressing support for official prayers before school board meetings.
As a practical matter, resolutions like this have little meaning. Congress can pass a resolution stating that the Earth is flat, but that doesn’t make it so. But these legislative gestures are still annoying because increasingly they are vehicles to assail our fundamental freedoms and score political points.
We are paying them to do this shit. What a wonderful use of our tax dollars.
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a United States proposed law introduced on November 30, 2011 by U.S. Representative Michael Rogers (R-MI). and 111 co-sponsors.
[…]
CISPA has been criticized by advocates of Internet privacy and neutrality, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Avaaz.org, because they feel it contains too few limits on how and when the government may monitor private information, and too few safeguards with respect to how the data may be used; they fear that such new powers may be used to find and punish file sharers rather than the stated foreign spies or hackers. (Wiki)
(Source: obi-wankenblowme)
![underthemountainbunker:
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BERNIE SANDERS: Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy – “This country faces enormous problems, the middle-class is declining, poverty is increasing, we’re worried about global warming, we’re worried about health care, we’re worried about education,” he said, “and the American people are looking to Washington and saying, ‘What’s going on? We have enormous problems, and you’re not addressing those problems.’” “One of the reasons that Congress is not addressing those problems is the power of big money in terms of campaign contributions and in terms of lobbying,” Sanders continued. “Working people are trying to keep their heads above water, and here on Capitol Hill all kinds of money is flooding into this institution so that Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy and powerful, and forgetting about the middle-class and working families.” He blasted the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which held that limiting corporate campaign spending violated the First Amendment. […] Sen. Charles Schumer said at the summit that the Citizens United decision was the worst since Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld state laws enacting racial segregation. “Something like 17 people have given half the Republican super PACS half of their money,” he noted. “What is happening to America?”
Yep! Our politics are being shaped by a very small number of people who have very large amounts of cash.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2qq889d3C1qf10tro1_500.jpg)
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BERNIE SANDERS: Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy – “This country faces enormous problems, the middle-class is declining, poverty is increasing, we’re worried about global warming, we’re worried about health care, we’re worried about education,” he said, “and the American people are looking to Washington and saying, ‘What’s going on? We have enormous problems, and you’re not addressing those problems.’” “One of the reasons that Congress is not addressing those problems is the power of big money in terms of campaign contributions and in terms of lobbying,” Sanders continued. “Working people are trying to keep their heads above water, and here on Capitol Hill all kinds of money is flooding into this institution so that Congress spends day and night worrying about the wealthy and powerful, and forgetting about the middle-class and working families.” He blasted the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which held that limiting corporate campaign spending violated the First Amendment. […] Sen. Charles Schumer said at the summit that the Citizens United decision was the worst since Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld state laws enacting racial segregation. “Something like 17 people have given half the Republican super PACS half of their money,” he noted. “What is happening to America?”
Yep! Our politics are being shaped by a very small number of people who have very large amounts of cash.
Samuel Wurzelbacher, who on Thursday morning accused CNN of being like TMZ and trying to trap him with “gotcha questions,” explained to POLITICO immediately following the tense interview that he is “sick of the gossip and drama.
I’ll be honest, CNN isn’t what I’d consider the bastion of journalistic integrity, but this guy is a joke.
He got huffy because he was asked about previous statements about homosexuals and then whined that CNN’s Zoraida Sambolin was trying to paint him as a bigot.
Yes, Joe, you have the right to your opinion, and the voting public has a right to make decisions based on those decisions. If you get backlash for what you say in public, that’s just part of running for office.
Before the interview ended, Joe said, “I’m allowed to have my opinions as an American, but it seems the left becomes very intolerant when you have an opinion other than what they state.”
Of course your allowed to have opinions, and others are allowed to have opinions about you. The whole “well your intolerant about my opinion because it’s different than yours” mantra is nothing more than a childish attempt to play victim.
Of course people are going to be intolerant of your opinions if your opinions are bigoted. What’s so hard to see about that?
The who and why of the Congressional debate on the
Stop Online Piracy (SOPA) and the PROTECT-IP Acts.
