Bad Deeds for 6-15-2011

 

 

Republicans Voted to Decrease Our Nation’s Terrorism Countermeasures – With the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill for 2012, or HR 2017, Republicans voted to decrease our nation’s countermeasures to ensure citizens’ safety. The bill plans for the Science and Technology Directorate to receive $638 million less than President Obama requested. The research program’s reduction of resources would eliminate studies involving but not limited to bioagent, explosives, nuclear detection, cybersecurity, natural disaster detection and resiliency. In addition to eliminating these projects, the bill also cuts necessary funding for grants available to firefighters by 50 percent. This program is critical for the firefighters to maintain and purchase vital equipment. Our country will end up exposed to threats if our first responders are ill-equipped. – From newsletter from Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, Dallas, Tx

 

Romney Talk About Jobs Does Not Match His Record – Mitt Romney is making claims about jobs. Nothing new about that. When Romney was governor of Massachusetts, his record on jobs creation was not good, even though he claimed it was. After he claimed during a GOP primary debate in 2008 that while he was governor, “we kept adding jobs every single month,” Factcheck.org noted “that’s just not true.” Moreover, the political fact-vetting site reported:

Romney’s job record provides little to boast about. By the end of his four years in office, Massachusetts had squeezed out a net gain in payroll jobs of just 1 percent, compared with job growth of 5.3 percent for the nation as a whole. In fact the job gains seesawed, with seven of 36 months producing job losses.

 

Rick Perry Religious Talk Doesn’t Match His Actions – Gov. Rick Perry has never been shy about putting his faith on display, from speeches at prayer breakfasts to his 2005 signing of abortion restrictions into law at a church school’s gym to inviting the nation’s governors to a prayer meeting at Houston’s Reliant Stadium that some are calling “Prayer-a-palooza.”

But when it comes time to giving, the governor doesn’t come close to the biblical guidance of tithing.

From 2000, when Perry became governor, through 2009, he earned a total of $2.68 million according to his tax records. Of that amount, he gave half a percent to churches and religious organizations, or $14,243. In 2007 — a year in which Perry reported an income of more than $1 million — he gave $90 to his church, according to the Perry family’s tax return.

 

Justice Clarence Thomas Appears to Have “Knowingly and willfully” Filed Falsified Financial Disclosure Forms – [Supreme Court] Justice Clarence Thomas appears to have “knowingly and willfully” filed falsified Financial Disclosure Forms which withheld disclosure of nearly $700,000 his wife received from the rightwing Heritage Foundation for the better part of the last 20 years. Only once it was pointed out publicly this year did Thomas bother to file “self-initiated amendments” to the forms he had signed just above the legal warning in bold and all caps which reads: “NOTE: ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO KNOWINGLY AND WILLFULLY FALSIFIES OR FAILS TO FILE THIS REPORT MAY BE SUBJECT TO CIVIL AND CRIMINAL SANCTIONS (5 U.S.C. app. § 104)”

While there has been little indication that law enforcement is actually investigating the crimes of the U.S. Supreme Court Justice (which, as we pointed out in January, are punishable by up to $50,000 and/or 1 year in jail for each instance of falsification), last Friday when Thomas’ Financial Disclosure Form for 2010 [PDF] was released, the matter appears to have gotten shadier still, leading at least one government watchdog organization to describe what Thomas and his wife Virginia “Ginni” Thomas may be been doing as “Judicial Insider Trading.”

Connecting the dots, it would seem the couple made huge profits from Thomas’ participation and insider knowledge of last year’s Citizens United ruling at the U.S. Supreme Court, as we’ll show you below.

While Barack Obama’s DoJ seems to be looking the other way, there was one person in Congress trying to bring attention to this issue last week with his ConflictedClarence.com website: Rep. Anthony Weiner. Thomas, unlike Rep. Weiner, appears to have actually, and flagrantly, and repeatedly, broken the law. Also, Thomas had inappropriate sexual entanglements with a number of women and lied about it repeatedly to the American people.

 

Republicans and AT&T Trying to Kill Public Internet Service in Wisconsin – Community broadband is under attack in Wisconsin. The target is WiscNet, a nonprofit buying coop that provides Internet access for several hundred Wisconsin organizations. It began in the early nineties, with funding from the National Science Foundation, as a way to bring affordable connectivity to the state’s education system. Today, 75% of Wisconsin’s schools and 95% of its public libraries rely on it for their Internet access.

The University of Wisconsin, where WiscNet was first incubated, has received federal grants to expand the network to Wisconsin’s communities. A new Republican bill in the state legislature would force the university to return $39 million in broadband stimulus funding, and it would bar the school from future participation in WiscNet. The project will be permanently crippled. UW will be forced to pay over $8 million annually for Internet access — more than four times its current bill. AT&T and other telecom giants are spending millions to pass this bill to secure their dominance at the expense of schools, libraries, and public services.

 

Fox Business Host Makes Obama ‘Hizzouse’ Comment, Calls Visitors ‘Hoods’ – A host on the Fox Business network—criticized last month for suggesting President Obama was “chugging 40’s” (malt liquor) during his trip to Europe—is facing allegations of racism after referring to the White House as the “Hizzouse,” “Hizzy” and “The Big Crib,” and guests of the administration as “hoods.”

Eric Bolling, who hosts Fox Business’ “Follow the Money,” criticized Obama for inviting Gabon’s president Ali Bongo at the White House this week.

Regards,

Jim