Archive for December, 2010

House Republicans Stall Child Nutrition Bill

House Republicans have temporarily blocked the $4.5 billion legislation that would expand eligibility for national school lunch programs and establish baseline nutrition standards.

Arguing that the nutrition package is too expensive and an example of government overreach, the GOP sought to amend the bill using a procedural maneuver — seeking to tack on a provision that would require background checks for childcare workers — thereby delaying final passage.

“Everyone recognizes the importance of extending child nutrition programs, but extending these programs does not mean expanding them,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. “We could expand these programs and improve them with no added costs to taxpayers.”

Full Story: House Republicans Stall Child Nutrition Bill (VIDEO).

Democrats Call GOP’s Bluff With Vote To Extend Middle Class Tax Cuts

Democrats and Republicans are working to reach a deal to extend Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the year, but neither side is budging as negotiations begin in earnest.

Even as they talk, House leaders are planning to hold a politically charged vote Thursday to extend middle-class tax cuts while letting taxes for the wealthy rise, an action that some believe could threaten the still ongoing deliberations over a long-term solution.

At a briefing with reporters, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that bringing the legislation — which is set to include a pay-as-you-go requirement — to the floor would not affect the bipartisan talks.

Full Story: Democrats Call GOP’s Bluff With Vote To Extend Middle Class Tax Cuts.

Supreme Court Questions Broad Government Use Of FOIA Exemption To Withhold Documents

The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the government’s broad use of an exemption in the federal Freedom of Information Act to withhold documents from the public.

The justices heard argument in an appeal from Glen Milner, a Washington state resident who sued under FOIA for maps showing the extent of damage expected from an explosion at the Navy’s main West Coast ammunition dump on an island near Port Townsend in western Washington.

The Obama administration is defending the decision to deny Milner the maps under a provision of FOIA that exempts from disclosure documents “related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.”

Full Story: Supreme Court Questions Broad Government Use Of FOIA Exemption To Withhold Documents.

Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional In Texas

At a hearing scheduled for Monday, December 6, a district court in Texas will decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional in the state based on the disproportionately high risk of wrongful convictions in Texas. This is the first time in the state’s history that a court will examine the problem of innocent people being executed in a Texas capital trial.

John Edward Green, Jr., the defendant in Texas v. Green, is charged in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old Houston woman during a 2008 robbery. According to legal documents obtained by HuffPost, Green’s defense attorneys will be arguing on Monday that a number of factors in Texas’s legal system increase the risk of wrongful executions there, including a lack of safeguards to protect against mistaken eyewitness identification, faulty forensic evidence, incompetent lawyers at the appellate level, failures to guard against false confessions and a history of racial discrimination in jury selection.

Full Story: Death Penalty May Be Ruled Unconstitutional In Texas.

Exclusive: TSA frisks groom children to cooperate with sex predators, abuse expert says | Raw Story

An expert in the fight against child sexual abuse is raising the alarm about a technique the TSA is reportedly using to get children to co-operate with airport pat-downs: calling it a “game”.

Ken Wooden, founder of Child Lures Prevention, says the TSA’s recommendation that children be told the pat-down is a “game” is potentially putting children in danger.

Telling a child that they are engaging in a game is “one of the most common ways” that sexual predators use to convince children to engage in inappropriate contact, Wooden told Raw Story.

Full Story: Exclusive: TSA frisks groom children to cooperate with sex predators, abuse expert says | Raw Story.

New data shows foreign banks biggest recipients of Fed money

The Federal Reserved released documents Wednesday identifying the recipients of $3.3 trillion in emergency aid provided at the height of the financial crisis.

“Two European megabanks — Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse — were the largest beneficiaries of the Fed’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities,” The Huffington Post’s Shahien Nasiripour reported.

More than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities were sold to Deutsche Bank, a German lender. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, got more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.

Full Story: New data shows foreign banks biggest recipients of Fed money | Raw Story.

FCC’s ‘Net neutrality’ plan would permit super-tiers, network traffic throttling

Internet providers will not be subjected to so-called “Net neutrality” rules and may experiment with tiered, usage-based pricing and “network management” practices, according to new rules being considered by the Federal Communications Commission this month.

Advocates of Net neutrality had hoped the regulatory agency would mandate Internet service providers treat all traffic equally: one of the Web’s founding principles.

Instead, the FCC’s Internet regulations adopts many proposals by search and telecom giants Google and Verizon, with the caveat that wireless telephone providers not block competing voice applications.

Full Story: FCC’s ‘Net neutrality’ plan would permit super-tiers, network traffic throttling | Raw Story.

House Republicans target Constitution in health reform battle

In an effort to block all or part of President Obama’s health reform laws, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) today introduced a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would allow states to veto federal legislation.

As introduced to the House of Representatives, the so-called Repeal Amendment would drastically change how the US government operates by giving the states the authority to repeal any federal legislation that two-thirds of the states agreed to repeal.

“I’m proud to sponsor the Repeal Amendment in Congress because it is a simple, transparent tool that can help restore balance and reduce the concentration of power in Washington,” Rep. Bishop said. “While the Repeal Amendment will not immediately turn the tide of a power-hungry, overreaching national government, it is an arrow in the quiver of states and a solid first step that can be taken to begin restoring the balance of power our Founding Fathers intended when they drafted the Constitution.”

Full Story: House Republicans target Constitution in health reform battle | Raw Story.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland: Dems should ‘fold up’ if we lose tax cuts debate

Befuddled by his party’s struggles to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, outgoing Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio jested that the Democratic Party may as well “fold up” if it loses this battle.

“I mean, if we can’t win that argument we might as well just fold up,” Strickland told Sam Stein of the Huffington Post in an interview. “These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don’t care if they are paid for, and we don’t think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren’t paid for because they contribute to the deficit.

“I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?” he said.

Full Story: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland: Dems should ‘fold up’ if we lose tax cuts debate | Raw Story.

Pence Prioritizes Tax Breaks For Millionaires Over Extending Unemployment Benefits

At 12 a.m. this morning, extended unemployment benefits officially expired, meaning that 2.5 million Americans will see their benefits disappear by the end of the month. This will not only hurt the individual families — while unemployment is still above nine percent and there are five job seekers for every job opening — but will also harm the wider economy. Economists estimate that allowing benefits to expire could cause economic growth to “fall by one half to nearly 1 percentage point,” as well as throw hundreds of thousands of people into poverty.

Cutting off benefits will also negatively affect small businesses, because, as MarketPlace noted, “when unemployment checks stop, it’s felt right away by businesses like gas stations, apartment operators, and grocery stores.” But Republicans in Congress have been screaming that the country can’t afford to extend benefits unless they are offset with spending cuts elsewhere.

Of course, these same Republicans have no problem extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy without corresponding spending cuts. And today, on MSNBC, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) — who has been serving as House Republican Conference chairman and is being touted as a possible 2012 Presidential nominee — twice refused to endorse extending unemployment benefits if it meant that taxes went up on only millionaires:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Pence Prioritizes Tax Breaks For Millionaires Over Extending Unemployment Benefits.

As Climate Talks Commence, Cancun’s Beaches Are Washing Away

The annual international climate talks began this week in Cancun, Mexico, the beach resort city that has already lost most of its beaches to climate change. Negotiators for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — which the United States ratified in 1992 to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” — are working in the shadow of the collapse of American climate policy during one of the hottest years in recorded history. Increasingly violent storms and rising seas — fueled by the continued burning of fossil fuels — have “aggravated the folly of building a tourist destination atop shifting sand dunes on a narrow peninsula,” the Associated Press reports:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » As Climate Talks Commence, Cancun’s Beaches Are Washing Away.

Scott Brown Single-Handedly Blocks An Extension Of Unemployment Benefits

Yesterday, the Senate failed to extend unemployment benefits through next year, leaving over 2 million unemployed Americans without crucial aid in the midst of the holiday season. Senate Republicans refused to consider a year-long extension unless the cost is fully paid for. A particularly incensed Sen. Scott Brown delivered a “fiery speech” on the Senate floor last night, lambasting Democrats “for what he considers to be unwarranted diversions.” “We spent seven days on food safety!” Brown scoffed and reassured unemployed workers that “I have complete and total sympathy and understanding” and that “more than anybody here, I want to help.”

However, when Democrats offered him that opportunity, he single-handedly slapped away the chance. Trying to beat the clock, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) introduced a proposal Monday to extend benefits through 2011 at a cost of $56 billion without offsets. But when Democrats tried to pass the proposal yesterday, Brown blocked the effort, complaining that he’d “just found out” about it:

Hours before beefed-up benefits were set to expire at midnight, Democrats sought to extend them for another year. But they were blocked by Republican Senator Scott Brown, who said Democrats should have taken time to work out a compromise.

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Scott Brown Single-Handedly Blocks An Extension Of Unemployment Benefits.

Banks Seeking to Foreclose Face More Questions About Legal Standing

As we’ve noted, banks seeking to enforce foreclosures must demonstrate that they have proper documentation proving their right to enforce a foreclosure—meaning they have the legal standing to enforce the foreclosure either as the holder of the note or as an agent acting on behalf of the holder.

In bankruptcy court, this hasn’t always been easy for the banks. Over the weekend, a piece by Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times noted that the United States Trustee Program—a Justice Department unit tasked with overseeing bankruptcy courts—has ramped up its scrutiny of banks’ foreclosure processes and is forcing banks to prove that they have the right to enforce foreclosures.

Morgenson points out two cases in federal bankruptcy court in Atlanta in which a U.S. trustee stepped in and asked bankruptcy judges to deny requests from Wells Fargo and Chase to allow them to proceed with foreclosure. In both cases, Walton filed motions saying that the bank had “failed to allege sufficient facts from which the Court can conclude that it in fact the authorized agent” of the note holder.

Full Story: On The Hill: Banks Seeking to Foreclose Face More Questions About Legal Standing.

Gregg and Conrad Endorse Debt Panel Plan

Obama and Republican Keen on Killing Middle Class Mortgage Deduction

The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg and Kent Conrad, said on Wednesday that they endorsed the package of long-term tax increases and spending cuts put forward by the co-chairmen of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission.

But their support was offset by several other members of Congress from both parties who indicated their opposition to the plan before a final vote on Friday.

The probable opponents include Representatives Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, a Republican who will be the House Budget Committee chairman in the next Congress; Jeb Hensarling of Texas, who will be a Republican House leader; and Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a liberal Democrat who has called the chairmen’s plan too hard on the middle class and has put forward her own proposal.

Full Story: Gregg and Conrad Endorse Debt Panel Plan – NYTimes.com.

The ‘Bailouts’ were Frauds and Shakedowns

Len Hart, :

The wrong people got the bailouts. One can find daily confirmation of that. Most recently, according to the L.A. Times, the Fed predicted that higher jobless rates, may become a long-term fixture, perhaps a permanent characteristic of the U.S. economy. This bad news follows the Commerce Department’s revised estimate of third-quarter growth, up half a percentage point from 2 percent –nothing to write home about.

In fact, some Fed policymakers on Tuesday raised the specter of a permanently higher jobless rate for the U.S. economy, suggesting that many more workers will struggle to get back on their feet even as the economy continues to grow.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: The ‘Bailouts’ were Frauds and Shakedowns.