Bad Deeds for 12-8-2011

 

New Bill Allows Military To Detain You Indefinitely – It’s a bad sign when George W. Bush’s defense team thinks that a military bill goes too far in violating your rights. But we’ve got just that with the passing of the National Defense Authorization Act. This bill authorizes the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without giving them their Constitutional rights. Basically, if the military suspects that an American citizen has terrorist ties it can just throw them in military jail without the rights to habeas corpus, an attorney or just about anything.

It’s being called the “America the Battlefield” bill, because it treats your front yard like a battlefield — and every citizen like a potential enemy. It basically puts a giant asterisk next to the Bill of Rights saying, “unless we don’t feel like it.”

It’s no wonder that former a Bush State Department adviser said that this bill “would likely have been as strongly opposed by the Bush administration as by the Obama administration.” The same people who brought us waterboarding and the PATRIOT Act think that this is a step too far.

The Obama administration has signaled that it might veto this egregious attack on Americans’ rights, but his decision is still up in the air. To let him know how important constitutional liberties are to them, thousands of people are petitioning the President to veto the bill. If he fails to veto, it will likely go to the Supreme Court.

Maybe it’s not so bad — since corporations are people, the government could just indefinitely detain Goldman Sachs.

 

Norquist Tells GOP That Raising Taxes On The Middle Class Doesn’t Count As A Tax Increase – Anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist, the president of Americans For Tax Reform and author of the radical anti-tax pledge that has played a significant role in hamstringing budget and deficit-reduction negotiations, has said that it is unacceptable for those who have signed his pledge to vote in favor of any tax increase. But now that President Obama and congressional Democrats are backing a tax cut aimed at stimulating economic growth, Norquist has changed his tune.

Norquist met with Republican members Wednesday to let them know that opposing the extension of the payroll tax cut — which would provide many families an extra $1,000 a year — would not amount to supporting a tax increase.

That stands in contrast, however, to Norquist’s position on tax cuts for the wealthy. Norquist has repeatedly warned GOP members about voting in favor of repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich or tax hikes on millionaires, even verbally sparring with a member of a group of millionaires advocating for higher taxes on themselves last month in Washington, D.C. And yet, when it comes to tax cuts for the middle class meant to drive economic recovery, Norquist clearly takes a different stance.

 

Senate Republicans Block Confirmation of Richard Cordray to Head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – After a long-awaited vote, Senate Republicans blocked the confirmation of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

The mission of the CFPB is to make markets for consumer financial products and services works for Americans! It is there to protect us, but Republicans would rather make a political statement than to help working America!

 

Rick Perry Launches Homophobic, Divisive Campaign Ad – The Dislike to Like ratio of this hateful Rick Perry ad is 47 to 1. 187,422 people have disliked this ad.

 

Republicans Want to be Able to Endlessly Call Your Cell Phone and Charge It to You – Republicans are pushing new legislation that would end the 20-year ban on telemarketers calling cell phones. This would be an extremely annoying invasion of privacy. It would also be another congressional giveaway to big corporations, since robocalls from telemarketers would count against your monthly minutes.

Our best chance to stop the bill is in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. If we can prevent the bill from coming to a full House vote, we can effectively kill it and preserve the traditional protections consumers enjoy from intrusive and unwanted robocalls to their cell phone.

Click on the link above to tell the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee: Oppose any bill that would give corporations virtually free rein to call cell phones.

 

The Man Who Wants to Loot Social Security – Pete Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, who has pledged to spend $1 billion to privatize Social Security and cut Medicare and Medicaid.

To vote for Mr. Peterson, click on the the link above.

Regards,

Jim