The Postal Service Is Not a GOP Target
Congressional Republicans Just Want You to Think It Is. Unlike most Americans, many members of Congress have actually read the United States Constitution. They know what it would take to abolish the postal service and they do not intend to do it.
The Tree of Liberty and The Roots of All Evil
And liberty and justice…for those who can afford it… Corruption. It’s one of the few issues that everyone, on every “side” simply detests. Regardless of the spin put on it or the arguments and justifications for its practice, most will agree there is simply no excuse for it. And while generally bandied like a partisan beach ball, with each side trying desperately to condemn the other for their influences and complicity, while bending over backwards to justify their own, so much is lost in the process. Despite this endless noise and outrage, the roots of corruption, the very mechanics of…
HSBC Settlement Case Raises Legal Hackles
In December, U.S. Federal Authorities stirred controversy for having reached a financial settlement deal with British bank HSBC, allowing the bank to avoid criminal prosecution for taking part in money laundering operations for Latin American drug cartels, suspected terrorist networks and rogue states such as Iran. As a means to avoid prosecution, the bank agreed to pay $1.9 billion in fines, after having reached the arrangement with the Department of Justice. However regardless of their agreement and written arguments by both federal prosecutors and HSBC filed in January arguing in favor of the deal , U.S. District Court Judge John…
Republicans Continue to Suppress the Vote, Even In Iowa
I am an Iowa resident. Recently, our local newspaper reported that Iowa’s Republican Secretary of State wants to purge anyone from voter registration list whose citizenship is questioned. If your name is similar to the name of someone on one of the federal immigration lists or someone whose driver’s license says they are not a citizen, then you have to prove you are a citizen. Of course Democratic legislators, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters and other groups are fighting this, but so far the law is set to go into effect shortly. If you’re wondering just how big…
Sequester On Sanity
“Perhaps no words more accurately and succinctly illustrate the confusion about economics than “Monetary Sovereignty.” It is not a theory or a hypothesis or a philosophy. In its essence, it merely is a description of the way federal financing actually works.” ~Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Back in 2011, the idea of “sequestration,” or the implementing of harsh spending cuts that would automatically go into effect on March 1st, was floated in an effort to force the two political parties to get together and make a deal to work towards decreasing government debt. A telling sign for many of the increasingly broken…
Something the NRA Doesn’t Want You to Know
Before the recent series of mass-shootings, the common wisdom in political circles was that the American people really didn’t want any new gun control laws and wouldn’t support any new efforts to enact them. The truth is, with all the other major issues our country has dealt with in recent years, gun control was certainly a low priority. While most Americans oppose an outright ban on all guns, the support for other gun control measures has been pretty steady since they started taking opinion polls in the 1930s. While not a complete list of all opinion polls conducted on the…
Committees Hold the Real Power in Congress
The most powerful people in Congress aren’t elected. News programs report on groups of Representatives and Senators examining witnesses. Those sessions are usually comfortable and polite. Sometimes, they’re not. Those are congressional committee hearings.
Here is Why Republicans Care About Benghazi
I’m beginning to understand why, for the past five months, Republicans in Congress and in the media have worked so hard to politicize the tragic deaths of our ambassador and 3 other diplomats in Benghazi, Libya. They went to great lengths to contrive conspiracy theories about the attack on the American consulate and President Obama’s supposed negligence or even complicity in the attack. Most recently, they use the tragedy to stall the nominations of Sen. Chuck Hagel and John Brennan for Secretary of Defense and CIA director posts. Contrast that behavior with how we all reacted to the worst terrorist…
The Race For Tom Harkin’s Senate Seat Begins
My senator, Tom Harkin, has announced that he is retiring from Congress and won’t run for reelection in 2014. As a five term senator, Harkin has been one of the more progressive members of the Senate in recent years. According to some polls, the top choice for Iowa Republicans to run for Harkin’s Senate seat is Congressman Steve King from western Iowa. Yes, the same man who told an Iowa reporter, he’s never heard of a child getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest, in August 2012. Same man who claimed insurance coverage of contraceptives will make us ‘a dying…
State Legislatures Question Corporate Personhood
This Valentine’s Day, some members of the New Hampshire house likely won’t be receiving much in the way of candies or cards from corporate interests. Next Thursday, members of the statehouse committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs will meet to discuss House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 2, which calls for the state congressional delegation to “encourage and expedite” a Constitutional amendment to address the highly contentious “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision. Calling for a constitutional differentiation between people and corporations, the bill goes on to encourage that the proposed amendment declare once and for all, that: “…money is not speech,…
Two Presidents: Curious Similarities
You may have seen over the years a long list of coincidences and similarities between the lives and deaths of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln. Here is a link that lists those similarities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%e2%80%93Kennedy_coincidences_urban_legend All joking aside, there truly are some intriguing similarities between Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama. Both men came from humble beginnings with little money. Both men were born in other states and moved to Illinois. Both became lawyers and practiced law in Illinois. Both Lincoln and Obama served 8 years in the Illinois state legislature. Both men failed to get elected to Congress on their first…
Call To Action: FiliBust!
If you think you’re disgusted now……just wait. Here it is, everyone: Without filibuster reform, there is quite likely no gun legislation, or new immigration policy, or meaningful debate on climate change and other crucial environmental issues, or much of anything else, really. Is anyone out there listening? Friday, January 18, 2013 – FiliBust your Senator! Tell Harry Reid to use his majority! Raise your hand if you’ve never, ever called a Senator’s office about issues important to you. Today, I’m asking those of you with your hands in the air, and those of you with your arms at your side,…
Myth: “President Obama gutted welfare reform by removing the work requirement”
“President Obama gutted welfare reform by removing the work requirement” This falsehood was frequently uttered by Mitt Romney during the 2012 election. Here is what the truth is. At the request of some state governors, Obama allowed states to relax certain regulations in order to increase the number of people who are working. The purpose of this change was to allow states to try new methods to increase employment in their states and get people off of Welfare. Under the new policy, states can now seek a federal waiver from work-participation rules that, among other things, require welfare recipients to engage…
The Origins of “So Help Me God” – Swearing in Our Leaders
We’ve all seen our President and other elected leaders take their oaths of office, most often placing their hand on a Bible, settling their oaths finally with the words “So help me God.” Many say, “Aha! So our Founders never meant for separation of church and state!” This is not so. Our Constitution does not require that Presidents or other leaders take oath upon the Bible – nor does it require the repetition of “So help me God.” In fact, the Constitution clearly spells out that oaths are to be duly secular in content. The Presidential oath of office, Article…
Here’s Why Republicans Have an Advantage Over Democrats
To many people it seems that Republicans have the upper hand on political matters even when they are clearly in the minority. During President Obama’s first 2 years in office, with a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, a lot of the bills they tried to pass were stopped by a minority of Senate Republicans using the filibuster rule. Even routine matters like the Transportation bill, the Farm bill or raising the debt ceiling, that are normally passed with majority support from both parties, were blocked or held up by Republicans in order to get concessions on other unrelated…
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