The WAWG Blog

General Electric and Exxon Mobil Paid No Income Taxes in 2009 – Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:

Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.

Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”

(So when your right-wing friends tell you how tough taxes are on business, you will know better. And do you think the executives of these companies pay much in taxes? They know the same tax attorneys. – JLV)

Massey Energy Mine Disaster Site Had 57 Safety Violations in March – The West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 25 workers and left another four unaccounted for in the worst mining disaster since 1984 had amassed scores of citations from mining safety officials, including 57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow a ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch mine, operated by the Performance Coal Company. They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them. Performance is a subsidiary of Massey Energy. Another Massey subsidiary agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal and civil fines last year and admitted to willfully violating mandatory safety standards that led to the deaths of two miners.

Massey Energy & Don Blankenship Are Million-Dollar Tea Party Sponsors – Don Blankenship is CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. He denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as “greeniacs”, and calls them all crazy. In his mind, “the greeniacs are taking over the world.”

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship’s highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees’ and neighbors’ health and safety.

Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber of Commerce buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year’s Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the “Friends of America Rally.” Here’s Massey’s pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn’t one of the corporate enemies of America.
The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and anyone who doesn’t salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we’re also going to ‘steal their jobs,’ if Hannity is to be believed.

Senator Tom Coburn Messes With My Mind by Saying Something Nice and Something That Makes Sense – We have to give credit when due, and Senator Coburn earned some here.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) told a crowd in Norman, Oklahoma, that Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking Democrat in the House, is a “nice lady” and the public should keep itself from “being biased by Fox News.”

Coburn also took the unusual step of correcting a mistaken belief about the Democrats’ recently passed health care overhaul.

When a member of the audience asserted that the government would have the power to jail people for not buying health insurance, Coburn said, “The intention is not to put any one in jail. That makes for good TV news on Fox but that isn’t the intention.”

Coburn took another shot at Fox News later in the discussion, when he said: “What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what’s going on and make a determination yourself. So don’t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don’t know what they don’t know.”

Good News: New York Commercial Property Leasing is Up 84 Percent – First-quarter commercial property leasing in Manhattan rose 84 percent over last year, a major real estate group said Tuesday in the latest signal of recovery in the sector.

Cushman & Wakefield said increased leasing and investment in the first three months of 2010 showed movement to “capitalize on opportunities ahead of a recovery.”

New leasing totaled 5.7 million square feet (529,547 square meters), up 84 percent from the first quarter of 2009.

Regards,

Jim

Doctor Against Treating Obama Supporters Admits Not Knowing What’s In Health Reform Bill – Dr. Jack Cassell, the Orlando urologist who put a sign on his door letting patients know he doesn’t want to have to treat them if they are Obama/health care reform supporters, was on the Alan Combs radio show Friday night, but didn’t seem to know much about the health care bill he’s criticizing. Here’s an excerpt:

Cassell: Hospice cuts in 2012…Does the government want people to die slowly?
Colmes: Do you really think the government wants people dead?
Cassell: Well I think that they’re cutting all supportive care, like nursing homes, ambulance services…
Colmes: What to you mean they’re cutting nursing homes?
Cassell: They’re cutting nursing home reimbursements
Colmes: Isn’t what they’re cutting under the Medicare plan what was really double dipping; they were getting credits and they were getting to deduct them at the same time.
Cassell: Well you know, I can’t tell you exactly what the deal is.
Colmes: If you can’t tell us exactly what the deal is, why are you opposing it and fighting against it?

In fact, the National Association of Home Care and Hospice praises much of the bill.

Republican Threatens Filibuster if Next Supreme Court Nominee Stands Up ‘for the little Guy’ – There is not yet a vacancy on the Supreme Court but the second-ranking Republican in the Senate is already planning a strategy of opposing President Barack Obama’s potential nominee.

Jon Kyl (R-Az) told Fox News’ Chris Wallace that Republicans are prepared to fight a nominee who might stick up for the little guy, a position he called “overly ideological.”

Fox Business Channel Doesn’t Disclose That Elaine Chao is Married to Mitch McConnel – Elaine Chao appears on Fox News to put a negative spin on the recent good new o obs growth. I guess it’s asking too much of Fox Business Channel to let us know that their guest and former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao also happens to be married to the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as she repeats his talking points for him on the current jobs market. As Think Progress noted, she did at least get some push-back from Stuart Varney but at no time during the interview is she asked if her opinion might be biased because of who she is married to.

Although given her background and after being as Jim Hightower put it, the (anti-) Labor Secretary, she’d likely be in lock-step with him even if they weren’t married. As a former Bushie who’s administration ran the economy off of the cliff and as the current Minority Leader’s wife, she’s certainly no impartial observer of what’s going on now.

And here is what Ms Chao was trying to make look bad:

Looks encouraging to me. (Red = Bush months, green = Obama months)

Regards,

Jim

At the end of today’s GPS on CNN, Fareed Zakaria, posed the following question, “Who do you trust more these days? Government or big business?”

I have more trust for our government, as represented by our elected representatives, to do what’s best for citizens. I have both access to my representatives and can hold them accountable for their actions. (For this to work, though, citizens must vote and not be denied the right to vote.)

Trust requires access between citizens and those who run the institutions. Voters have many ways to access their elected representatives. This is not true for other man-made institutions like big business. Limit personal access, as has happened between the members of the two parties in our Congress, and trust is hard to attain.

Trust also requires accountability from those responsible for operating the institution to those impacted by the actions of the institution. Our elected representatives are directly accountable to their constituents. On the other hand, trust is out of reach when those responsible are primarily accountable to profit and shareholders, where affected citizen’s rights are seldom protected by the business operating plan. Profit can, has, and will, in those cases, subjugate citizens rights. When it does, we must trust our accessible and accountable elected officials to correct the violations of citizen’s rights.

Access and accountability are two sides of the trust coin.

Doctor Refuses To Treat Obama Supporters – Florida urologist Jack Cassell posted a sign on his office door reading, “If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your health care begin right now, not in four years.” [Isn’t that the kind of sign you would expect in the late 1930’s in Germany – just replace “voted for Obama” with “are a Jew?” How about signs like “Whites Only” in the Southern United States in the 1950’s?]

Cassell, a registered Republican, quickly backpedaled in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, but said he’s perfectly happy to lose business over the sign. “I’m not turning anybody away, that would be unethical,” he said. “But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it.”

Patients who continue past the sign on Cassell’s door find a waiting room stacked with Republican pamphlets opposing health care reform, underneath a sign reading, “This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it.”

Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To Republican Obstruction as Northeast is Hit With Devastating Floods – Last week, Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), blocked an extension of unemployment benefits, claiming that they objected to granting the extension without offsetting it with a spending cut elsewhere. Last month, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) and a handful of his Republican allies did the same thing, with Bunning telling Democrats who wanted to pass an extension by unanimous consent “tough sh*t.”

But it wasn’t only unemployment benefits that expired: the same package that the Republicans blocked also included extenders for the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). And the critical nature of NFIP was brought into the spotlight this week, as many northeastern states have been battered with record amounts of rainfall, which has led to widespread flooding.

According to the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, there are 5.5 million flood insurance policy holders in flood plains, and as of this week, homeowners were rendered unable to renew their policies. If any of those homeowners were victims of the current flooding, they will “face complications” filing claims. As Blain Rethmeier, spokesman for the American Insurance Association, put it, “it’s unfortunate that the NFIP has fallen victim to the political process …”

Conservative Pat Toomey Thinks That the Economic Meltdown Should Have Continued to the Bitter End – Pat Toomey is Club for Growth’s conservative candidate running for Arlen Specter’s Senate seat in PA along with Joe Sestak.

On Morning Joe, the topic was the economic problems we are facing and luckily a new USA/Gallop poll says that 42% of America believes George Bush is responsible for this mess whil eonly 24% put it on Obama. The numbers still aren’t great for Obama, but that’s no shock.

Toomey said that when the financial crisis hit us during the end of Bush’s term, it should have been left alone to cleanse society. Oviously no stimulus either. Sure, he said, it would have been much worse all around—the stock market tanking more than it had, but out of the ashes of a destroyed global economy, in his mind the tremendous amount of suffering that would have been caused and all the millions of people that would have been devastated really mean nothing to him. That’s the breaks. It’s free markets baby.

See, only the rich would have survived. Isn’t that a lovely scenario?

Conservative Erick Erickson: I’ll “[p]ull out my wife’s shotgun” if they try to arrest me for not filling out the American Community Survey – CNN just recently hired this guy. From the April 1 edition of WMAC’s In the Morning with Erick Erickson:

“This is crazy. What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door.”

Video From the Right-Wing Tea Parties – Video highlights of the Tea Party Express rallies in Nevada and Florida. Looks like another night on the Fox propaganda channel… live. Viewer Caution: Nasty people.

Regards,

Jim

First, some Good News:

Raising the Bar: Barney Frank Permanently Bans Staff From Communicating With Aide-Turned-Lobbyist – House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has instituted a permanent ban on committee staff communication with Peter Roberson, an aide who left the panel for K Street after playing a lead role in crafting derivatives legislation.

By law, Roberson is banned from communicating with staff for one year, but Frank said in a statement that period of time is insufficient. “I am therefore instructing the staff of the Financial Services Committee to have no contact whatsoever with Mr. Roberson on any matters involving financial regulation for as long as I am in charge of that Committee staff,” said Frank.

Raising the Bar: President Obama Announces New Fuel Efficiency Standards – The Obama administration set tougher gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks Thursday, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.
The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency signed final rules setting fuel efficiency standards for model years 2012-2016, with a goal of achieving by 2016 the equivalent of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The EPA set a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, equal to what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard.
Dave McCurdy, who leads the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, said the program “makes sense for consumers, for government policymakers and for automakers.”

And now, the Bad Deeds:

Senator Lincoln Hypocrisy on Health Care Reform Support In an attempt to court the Obama voters she’s repelled throughout the past year, Lincoln is running ads on African-American radio in Arkansas claiming she “stood with our president to pass healthcare reform.” The ad continues: “Even though the Tea Party and insurance companies attacked Blanche Lincoln, she never abandoned our president, nor you.”

Seriously, this is the person who stood on the floor of the Senate and promised a filibuster with Republicans if the public option wasn’t stripped out. This is the same person who voted against the reconciliation health care reform package. And she’s going to talk about “never abandoning” Obama?

Republican IRS Expansion Claims ‘Wildly Inaccurate’ – With April 15 approaching, conservative hysteria about an alleged hidden cost of health care reform — a small army of new IRS agents — is gaining traction.

This wildly inaccurate claim started as an inflated, partisan assertion that 16,500 new IRS employees might be required to administer the new law. That devolved quickly into a claim, made by some Republican lawmakers, that 16,500 IRS “agents” would be required. Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas even claimed in a televised interview that all 16,500 would be carrying guns. None of those claims is true.

The IRS’ main job under the new law isn’t to enforce penalties. Its first task is to inform many small-business owners of a new tax credit that the new law grants them — starting this year — which will pay up to 35 percent of the employer’s contribution toward their workers’ health insurance. And in 2014 the IRS will also be administering additional subsidies — in the form of refundable tax credits — to help millions of low- and middle-income individuals buy health insurance.

That claim appears to have originated with a report released by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, stretching the rough estimates of Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf as far as possible and then basing the final number on a series of false assumptions.

Republican Leadership’s Favorite Kind of Business – Club Thunderbolt is the strangest place in Detroit to get a lap dance. It’s located in the back room of an old house in an east side neighborhood of working class bungalows. There’s no cover charge. Customers can order different strippers out of the company catalog — a photo album full of seedy-looking Polaroids.

Everything about Club Thunderbolt is surreal. The front room has several tall mirrors lined up against the walls, behind the easy chairs. The curtains are drawn tight. Ashtrays overflow with stubbed-out cigarettes. The walls are yellowed from years of smoking. It’s dark, dank and creepy.
Weirdest of all are the framed certificates on the wall from the Republican Congressional Committee’s Business Advisory Council, naming Thunderbolt as an honorary co-chair and lauding his business acumen. One is signed by Newt Gingrich, the other by Tom DeLay.

Conservative ‘C Street House’ Residents Face Ethics Complaints For Below-Market Rent – The bevy of conservative members of Congress who’ve resided at the notorious “C Street House” may have violated Congressional gift rules by accepting steeply-discounted lodging, new ethics complaints allege.

The watchdog organization CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) filed complaints Thursday charging Republican Sens. Sam Brownback (Kan.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Jim DeMint (S.C.) and John Ensign (Nev.), as well as Reps. Mike Doyle (D-Penn.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), with accepting “improper gifts” from C Street in the form of way-below-market rent.

Other residents past and present did not make the list — most notably trail-hiking Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who lived in the C Street House while in Congress and helped make the place famous by seeking counseling there in the wake of his affair.

According to reports cited in the CREW complaints, the members of Congress residing at C Street pay $950 per month for rent and housekeeping, versus a minimum of $1,700 per month for nearby one-bedroom apartments, $2,400 per month for adjacent hotels or $4,000 for corporate housing. The CREW data piggybacks in part on similar charges filed earlier this week against the house itself by a clergy group, which complained to the IRS that C Street was improperly using its privileged tax status.

Dispelling the Lies: What Health Reform Actually Means for Seniors – A lot of seniors are worried about what will happen to their Medicare coverage now that health reform has passed. The rumors and lies are abundant. Here’s what health reform means for you if you are over 65 years of age.

1.) The Medicare program will be stronger not weaker – Health reform will put a lot more resources into making the Medicare program more efficient. The new head of Medicare (to be appointed shortly) is a physician who is a national leader in quality improvement. He is expected to help Medicare providers focus on doing better not just doing more.

2.) You can keep your same doctor and your same health plan – Health reform doesn’t change the basic structure of Medicare. The same physicians and hospitals who treat Medicare patients now will likely treat them in the future. And if Medicare can pay doctors faster and better, it is more likely they will continue to treat Medicare patients.

3.) You will actually have improved benefits – Preventive services without a co-pay and help with the cost of your prescription drugs.

The Medicare prescription drug program (or Part D as it is called) will also be improved. If you take several prescription drugs, you probably already know about the “donut hole” — that’s the popular term for a gap in coverage between what Medicare pays for your drugs and what you have to pay yourself. This very complicated program often hits seniors unexpectedly when they go into the pharmacy to get a drug and find out they have to pay 100% of the cost themselves.

A third of all Medicare beneficiaries fall into the donut hole each year (where they have to pay 100% of their drug costs), and don’t climb out gain until they have spent $3,610 of their own money.
Not only do seniors in the donut hole have to pay all the costs of their drugs themselves, but 15% stop taking their drugs because they can’t afford them, and over half of those don’t resume those drugs even when Medicare starts paying again. So, while the donut hole was designed to save Medicare money, it has had the unintended consequence of causing seniors a lot of anxiety, loss of substantial income, and potentially making their diseases worse by forcing them to choose among food, rent and the drugs they need to stay healthy.

But there is good news. Health reform will help seniors with these drug costs. This year, 2010, seniors falling into the donut hole will receive a $250 rebate from the government, and starting next year there will be a 50% discount on brand name drugs, which will ramp up to a 75% discount on brand and generic drugs by 2020, eventually closing the donut hole gap completely.

Another benefit to seniors is that the popular Medicare Advantage plans (Part C), which are HMOs or PPOs offered by private insurance companies, will be required to spend at least 85% of their revenue on actual medical services, not profits or overhead. And while some worry that the cuts in payment to Medicare Advantage will result in cuts to their benefits, seniors have an advantage over the under 65 population. The Medicare program guarantees a certain level of benefits and the program oversees and regulates premium increases and rigorously reviews marketing materials to be sure that plans explain in plain English what they are covering and what they are not.

In addition, the cuts in payment to Medicare Advantage are cuts in the “overpayments” that these programs have been enjoying for the past several years. These requirements for Medicare Advantage to play on a more fair playing field will raise $132 billion over 10 years. MA plans MUST provide all the basic services that Medicare covers. That’s what you should keep your eye on.
The new health reform law promises the following:

Sec. 3202. Benefit protection and simplification. Prohibits Medicare Advantage plans from charging beneficiaries cost sharing for covered services that is greater than what is charged under the traditional fee-for-service program. Requires plans that provide extra benefits to give priority to cost sharing reductions, wellness and preventive care, and then benefits not covered under Medicare.

All of this is not to say that seniors can sit back and rest on the fact that they have Medicare and will be able to keep it. While health reform is helping to save Medicare, seniors need to keep active and vigilant to be sure that these reforms play out the way they are advertised. Every senior knows about AARP but there are other senior organizations that keep track of these issues as well — this website contains links to many organizations that track changes and offer ways to get politically involved. And here’s a good website with answers to the many questions about the impact of health reform on Medicare.

The one source of information that seniors should not depend on is the random mass email being distributed from some “supposed” expert — the retired constitutional lawyer or the occasional physician spokesman — these folks may sound like they know what they are talking about, but too often they have an axe to grind and are misinformed about the real facts of health reform.

Regards,

Jim

Bush-Appointed Federal Election Commissioner Helped Republican Party Conceal Role in 2004 Vote Suppression – Caroline Hunter, a Bush-appointed Federal Election Commissioner who remains in office, provided misleading statements under oath in an effort to conceal Republican National Committee involvement in vote suppression activities during the 2004 presidential election, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Legal experts say Hunter’s submission of such statements under oath is a serious ethical and professional breach which could warrant a bar review and potential disbarment. At the time, Hunter was serving as deputy counsel to the Republican National Committee.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison: I Didn’t Mean What I Said About My Pledge of Retiring – Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, will announce Wednesday that she will not retire and will stay in the Senate until her term ends in 2012, a Republican familiar with the announcement tells CNN.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison: I Didn’t Mean What I Said in 1994 About Retiring – Hutchison is one of the Republican class of 1994 who is in breach of their Contract with America. In the summer of 2005, Hutchison announced she would run for a third Senate term rather than challenge Republican incumbent Rick Perry in the race for Governor. But on election night in 1994, Hutchison made a commitment to term limits:

“I’ve always said that I would serve no more than two full terms. This may be my last term, or I could run for one more. But no more after that. I firmly believe in term limitations and I plan to adhere to that.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison: I Didn’t Mean What I Said About the Space Shuttle Retiring – Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison sponsored a bill in 2005 bill that became public law, with four other co-sponsors in the same year, that called for the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010. Hutchison, knew that the Constellation program would not have a space vehicle ready for at least four more years, after the retirement of the shuttle.

Now Hutchison’s new bill – with no co-sponsors, not even our other Texas Sen. John Cornyn – to fund the shuttle for at least five more years, seems highly suspicious.

Sarah Palin Left Alaska With the Largest Debt Burden in US – Sarah Palin has long sold herself as a fiscal conservative, arguing against the Democrats’ health overhaul on the grounds that the nation simply can’t afford it.

But when the former vice presidential candidate resigned as governor of Alaska in the summer of 2009, she left the state with a 70 percent debt-to-GDP ratio — the highest state debt burden in the United States.

By comparison, crisis-stricken California has a debt ratio of less than 40 percent. All the more confounding about Alaska’s debt is the fact that it is an oil-producing region with a small population to share in that wealth.

Fox News Misrepresents Interviews for Upcoming Palin Show – After the network announced that Sarah Palin would host a special Thursday called “Real American Stories” — featuring interviews with LL Cool J, Toby Keith and other celebrities — the rapper and country singer both hit back claiming Fox was lying.

“Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW,” he tweeted.

Likewise, Toby Keith never sat down with Sarah Palin, Keith’s spokesman told HifFix. “We were never contacted by Fox,” Keith’s spokesman said. “I have no idea what interview it’s taken from. They’re promoting this like it’s a brand new interview.”

Bush Illegally Wiretapped Americans According to Court Ruling – A federal judge ruled Wednesday that government investigators illegally wiretapped the phone conversations of an Islamic charity and two American lawyers without a search warrant.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker said the plaintiffs have provided enough evidence to show “they were subjected to warrantless electronic surveillance.”

U.S. Internet is Slow, Expensive, and Not Available in Many Homes – The United States basically invented the Internet. So U.S. connections must be the fastest and cheapest in the world, right? Not so much.

Broadband Internet speeds in the United States are only about one-fourth as fast as those in South Korea, the world leader, according to the Internet monitoring firm Akamai. Here are some average speeds:

• U.S. 3.88 Mbps
• Canada 4.25 Mbps
• Romania 6.18 Mbps
• Sweden 5.74 Mbps
• Ireland 5.32 Mbps
• South Korea 14.58 Mbps

And, as if to add insult to injury, U.S. Internet connections are more expensive than those in South Korea, too.

The slower connection here in the U.S. costs about $45.50 per month on average, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In South Korea, the much-faster hook-up costs $17 per month less. An average broadband bill there runs about $28.50.

The Obama Administration is now pushing forward with a “broadband plan” that aims to speed up connections, reduce costs and increase access to the Internet, especially in rural areas.

Regards,

Jim

Here’s What Some Government Investment in Infrastructure Can Do

Problem is, it’s in China.
Wuhan Station, March 23, 2010

And For Contrast: Detroit Michigan Central Station, August 11, 2009

Koch Industries and Other Oil Companies Funding Climate Change Deniers – Koch Industries, a huge privately-owned US company dominated by oil and chemical interests, is plowing millions of dollars into campaigns to discredit climate science and clean energy policies, a report alleged Tuesday.

Between 2005 and 2008, the Kansas-based conglomerate that “most Americans have never heard of” spent nearly 25 million dollars to fund “organizations of the ‘climate denial machine,'” environmental protection group Greenpeace said in the report.

Between 2006 and 2009, Koch Industries and the family that founded and still controls the conglomerate spent 37.9 million dollars on direct lobbying on oil and energy issues — eclipsed only by oil majors Exxon and Chevron, who spent 87.8 million dollars and 50 million dollars, the report said.

Conservatives Embarrass Themselves by Jumping to Conclusions – After Federal authorities have arrested a Philadelphia man and charged him with threatening to kill House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his family, Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham and columnist Michelle Malkin wasted no time labeling the suspect as a left-wing loon. But, it turns out that the suspect appears to have leveled plenty of threats against Democrats, as well.

In one video, which was flagged by TalkingPointsMemo, the suspect makes threats against President Obama, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), saying: “Your punishment is coming, the swine, it will be severe, and you will beg for mercy to your god. It will be severe, you will know god’s swine, god has warned you.”

Court Orders Dead Soldiers Father to Pay Church’s Legal Fees – The Westboro Baptist Church, headed by Fred Phelps, is known for picketing at public events and funerals, often those related or peripherally related to gay people or soldiers in the military.

Al Snyder’s son died in Iraq in May of 2006. Members of the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church picketed his son Matthew’s funeral, causing immense personal, emotional pain for him, his family and their friends.

Mr. Snyder won a $5 million civil lawsuit against the church and the Phelps family, but it was recently tossed out of a federal court. To add insult to injury, the court has now ordered Snyder to pay all of the church’s legal fees. There is a legal fund set up for Mr. Snyder, if you’d like to show him some love.

Followup on Yesterday’s Story: Insurers Agree to Fix Loophole That Would Allow Them to Reject Sick Kids – In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the insurance industry’s top lobbyist said Monday that insurers will accept new regulations to dispel uncertainty over a much-publicized guarantee that children with medical problems can get coverage starting this year.

Followup on Yesterday’s Story: Republican National Committee Also Spent Lavishly at Reagan Museum Shop, Liquor Store – The RNC was revealed by The Daily Caller on Monday to have incurred thousands of dollars in expenses at a bondage-themed nightclub that features topless lesbian dancers, as well as other lavish escapades in its trip southern California last month.

And that’s not the end of the Republican Party’s troubles.

Records show that last month, the organization also spent thousands at the Ronald Reagan Museum Store in southern California’s Simi Valley, as well as hundreds at a liquor store in Capitol Hill. The items were listed as marked ‘office supplies’.

OK, Here’s Some Good News:

Another Victory: Student Loan Reform – The reforms that President Obama signed into law include historic investments to make education more affordable, and deliver on another key campaign promise. The legislation:

• Ends subsidies to special-interest private lending companies
• Doubles funding for Pell Grants to help more students afford a college education
• Will cap a graduate’s annual student loan repayments at 10 percent of his or her income
• Helps an additional 5 million Americans earn degrees and certificates over the next decade, by revitalizing programming at our nation’s community colleges

Regards,

Jim

Republican National Committee Chairman Refuses to Sign Joint Civility Statement with Democratic Counterpart – The Republican National Committee has rejected a proposal from its Democratic counterpart to sign a joint “civility” statement. Various members of the Democratic National Committee — including Chairman Tim Kaine, Executive Director Jen O’Malley Dillon and Communications Director Brad Woodhouse — contacted their respective RNC counterparts this week in hopes of getting RNC Chairman Michael Steele to co-sign a document with Kaine that, in part, called for “elected officials of both parties to set an example of the civility we want to see in our citizenry.”

Republican National Committee Spent Big Money on Hotels and Bondage-Themed Club – FEC filings suggest that Republican National Committee Chairman Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

‘Patriot’ Anti-Government Groups Grew by 244% in 2009 – An “astonishing” 363 anti-government or “Patriot” groups appeared in 2009, with the totals going from 149 groups to 512, according to a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That’s a 244 percent increase in one year. Many of the “Patriot” groups are militias. Before 2009, there were 42. Now, there are 127. Hate groups overall stayed at a record high of nearly 1,000 despite the disintegration of one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country.

Individuals associated with the Patriot movement during its 1990s heyday produced an enormous amount of violence, most dramatically the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead.

Christian Warrior Militia Planned to Kill Policeman, Then Others at His Funeral According to Indictment – Nine people federal prosecutors say belong to a “Christian warrior” militia were accused Monday of plotting to kill a Michigan law enforcement officer and then attack other police at the funeral.

A federal grand jury in Detroit, Michigan, indicted six Michigan residents, two Ohioans and an Indianan on charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction, teaching the use of explosive materials and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence, U.S. Attorney Barbara L. McQuade and Andrew Arena, FBI special agent in charge, announced.

The five-count indictment unsealed Monday charges that since August 2008, the defendants, acting as a Lenawee County, Michigan, militia group called the Hutaree, conspired to oppose by force the authority of the U.S. government.

The group says on its Web site that Hutaree means “Christian warrior” and proclaims on its home page, “Preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive.”

Mountain Top Removal Mine Would Fill Over Seven Miles of Streams with Debris – The EPA said Friday the Arch Coal Inc. Spruce No. 1 surface mine in southern West Virginia would pollute surrounding water, fill over seven miles of stream, would cause “unacceptable” harm to wildlife and “directly impact” some 2,278 acres of forest. “Landscape and site-specific assessments reveal that past and current mountaintop mining has caused substantial, irreplaceable loss of resources and an irreversible effect on these resources within the Coal River basin,” the EPA said in a statement.

In its summary of its proposal on the Spruce No. 1 mine, the agency said that “applying the lessons of the past, we now know that failure to control mining practices has resulted in persistent environmental degradation in the form of acid mine drainage and other impacts that cost billions to remedy.”

Insurance Compaies Looking for Loopholes to Deny Coverage – Just days after President Obama signed the new health care law, insurance companies are already arguing that, at least for now, they do not have to provide one of the benefits that the president calls a centerpiece of the law: coverage for certain children with pre-existing conditions.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

“The concept that insurance companies would even seek to deny children coverage exemplifies why we fought for this reform,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the Senate commerce committee, said: “The ink has not yet dried on the health care reform bill, and already some deplorable health insurance companies are trying to duck away from covering children with pre-existing conditions. This is outrageous.”

Big Banks Indentified in Bid-Rigging Conspiracy – JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and UBS AG were among more than a dozen Wall Street firms involved in a conspiracy to pay below-market interest rates to U.S. state and local governments on investments, according to documents filed in a U.S. Justice Department criminal antitrust case.

A government list of previously unidentified “co-conspirators” contains more than two dozen bankers at firms also including Bank of America Corp., Bear Stearns Cos., Societe Generale, two of General Electric Co.’s financial businesses and Salomon Smith Barney, the former unit of Citigroup Inc., according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on March 24.

None of the firms or individuals named on the list has been charged with wrongdoing. The court records mark the first time these companies have been identified as co-conspirators. They provide the broadest look yet at alleged collusion in the $2.8 trillion municipal securities market that the government says delivered profits to Wall Street at taxpayers’ expense.

Regards,
Jim

But, first a thought on the future:

Voting is like driving a car …
Choose (D) to move forward,
Or (R) to go backward.

The above is from a bumper sticker I saw.

And now, the Bad Deeds:

Lousy School Lunch Bill is One Step Closer to Passage – Blanche Lincoln is the author of the Senate child nutrition bill that just passed out of the Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday. Barack Obama called for $10 billion in new money over 10 years for child nutrition, a number Lincoln reduced by more than half.

To put that in easier to understand terms, Obama’s proposal would have given up to 18 cents in additional funds to each child’s school lunch. Lincoln’s bill gives each lunch 6 cents. Compare that to the School Nutrition Association’s request to raise the current $2.68 “reimbursement rate” (the amount the federal government reimburses schools for each free lunch served to a low income child) by 35 cents just to keep the quality of the lunches the same and make up for schools’ current budgetary shortfall. School lunch reformer Ann Cooper calls for an extra $1 per lunch to actually make lunches healthy. So any amount under 35cents is no reform at all, and Lincoln gave us 6 cents.

Please write or e-mail your senators about this.

Tea Party Hypocrisy – Tea Party activists want the federal government out of their lives, but 70% of them want a federal government that fosters job creation, fewer than 10 percent say the Veterans Administration is definitely socialist, only 12 percent identify management of national parks and museums as socialist, and only 36 percent say expanding Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor and Social Security amount to socialism

More Tea Party Hypocrisy – The Tea Party leader and former militiaman, the one who urged people to break Democratic party office windows, is calling for an armed march on Washington for April 19 – a favorite of extremists because in addition to being the date of the first shots fired at Lexington in the Revolutionary War, it’s also the anniversary of the last day of the government siege in Waco and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

And in the final irony, of COURSE he’s on government disability. [RWAs just want to defeat anyone who does not agree with them – regardless of the conflicts with their personal lives. Their brains are blinded by their fear.]

Finally- A Real Case of Election Fraud, and It Involves Republican Officials – All eight defendants in Clay County, Kentucky’s election fraud trial have been found guilty today by a federal jury. Six of those eight were high-ranking election officials, including the county clerk, a circuit judge and the school superintendent. The conspirators were charged with having manipulated federal elections in 2002, 2004 and 2006 by buying and selling votes and manipulating electronic voting machines.

In additional to federal racketeering, several of the defendants were also convicted of charges that included mail fraud, extortion and laundering money used to buy votes. The conspirators were originally arrested in March of last year, and as details of the election officials’ manipulation of ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting machines has emerged.

One of the witnesses in the case described how she was trained by the county’s chief election official, Clerk Freddy Thompson (one of those convicted today), to change votes cast by voters on the county’s ES&S touch-screen voting systems after they’d left the voting booth. The witness, Wanda White also detailed how she was instructed to change her own voter registration from Republican to Democratic so that she could serve as a Democratic precinct official.
And, just for good measure, we’ll take this opportunity to remind readers, yet again, that the community organization ACORN — who has long been used as a red-herring by the Republican Party to suggest the existence of massive Democratic “voter fraud” — has never been charged with, or found guilty of aiding in the illegal casting of a single vote. Ever. Anywhere. No actual evidence has ever been presented in support of such a charge either.

Compare the Above Case to The Wild Goose Chase by Texas Atorney general Greg Abbott – The Austin American-Statesman reported, “After a two-year investigation of voter fraud, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has only 26 minor cases of voting irregularities to show for his expenditure from a $1.4 million grant.” (Source: Austin American-Statesman, Texas AG’s wild goose chase, Thursday, May 22, 2008) Abbott used extensive resources to intimidate minority voters, including sending AG investigators to an elderly woman’s house. The investigators peeped into the woman’s bathroom window as she exited the shower. (The Houston Chronicle, September 19, 2006).

What Happens to People at Conservative Think Tanks That Actually Think? They Get Fired. – David Frum, who wrote a widely-circulated blog post Sunday suggesting passage of the health care bill amounted to “Waterloo” for the Republican Party, has apparently been forced out of his fellowship at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Frum posted a resignation letter on his blog following a conversation with AEI President Arthur Brooks announcing that his position is “terminated.” [RWAs must adhere to the conservative world view or become an enemy who must be severely punished.]

In the Waterloo post, Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, wrote that the GOP and conservatives “suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.”

“A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves,” he wrote. “At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing.” [Enemies of the RWAs must be ddefeated at all costs – shame and contradiction be damned.]

Rep. Eric Cantor Blames Democrats for the Shot Fired at His Office; Except There Was No Shot Fired at His Office – All of Fox News was atwitter yesterday morning with the big break news that someone had taken a shot at the office of Republican Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Minority whip. Cantor himself went on TV and pronounced:

CANTOR: “Just recently I have been directly threatened. A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week.”

Moreover, he blamed all of this violent behavior breaking out everywhere on the Democratic congressmen who are standing up to violence and calling it out.

But then the whole story came out:

In a news release Thursday, police said the bullet struck at about 1 a.m. on Tuesday. The preliminary investigation showed that “a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman.”

Richmond police spokesman Gene Lepley told CNN Friday that it was the result of “random gunfire.”
Gee, sounds awfully familiar. This is just like Lou Dobbs’ attempts to gain martyrdom.

Meanwhile, none of the right-wing bloggers who raced to get this story up — folks like RedState, Gateway Pundit, Schmuck of Spades, and Daily Caller — have bothered to update their posts and correct the record for their readers. [RWAs are never wrong – even when they are.]

KBR Mechanics Worked as Little as 43 Minutes a Month; KBR Sent Bill for 150 Times Greater Than Time Worked – Defense contractor KBR, a former unit of Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, had a contract worth $4.6 million to repair military vehicles at a base outside Baghdad. For the job, they employed 144 mechanics. The 144 KBR mechanics worked as little as 43 minutes per month, on average. Just 6.6 percent were being used at any given time, on average. Worker utilization rates ranged from 3.97 percent in April 2009 to 9.65 percent in September 2008. This means that, of the more than 200,000 hours they billed for, fewer than 15,000 hours were actually used.

Regards,

Jim

Sean Hannity is Using Veterans to Scam Us – The following is from VeteransToday.com:

For the last several years, Sean Hannity and the Freedom Alliance “charity” have conducted “Freedom Concerts” across America. They’ve told you that they are raising money to pay for the college tuition of the children of fallen soldiers and to pay severely wounded war vets. And on Friday Night, Hannity will be honored with an award for this “Outstanding Community Service by a Radio Talk Show Host” at Talkers Magazine’s convention.

But it’s all a huge scam.

In fact, less than 20%–and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively–of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. And, despite Hannity’s statements to the contrary on his nationally syndicated radio show, few of the children of fallen soldiers got more than $1,000-$2,000, with apparently none getting more than $6,000, while Freedom Alliance appears to have spent tens of thousands of dollars for private planes. Moreover, despite written assurances to donors that all money raised would go directly to scholarships for kids of the fallen heroes and not to expenses, has begun charging expenses of nearly $500,000 to give out just over $800,000 in scholarships,

According to its 2006 tax returns, Freedom Alliance reported revenue of $10, 822, 785, but only $397,900–or a beyond-measly 3.68%–of that was given to the children of fallen troops as scholarships or as aid to severely injured soldiers. Freedom Alliance’s 2007 tax returns aren’t much better. Out of $12,459,317 it raised that year, only $895,347–or just 7%–went to seriously wounded troops and scholarships for fallen troops. And then, there are the 2008 Freedom Alliance tax forms, which were signed in November 2009 and filed only recently. That year, Freedom Alliance took in $8,781,431 in revenue and gave $1,060,275.57 total–or just 12%–to seriously wounded soldiers and for scholarships to kids of the fallen. Remember, this is well below the 75% required to be considered a legitimate charity.

China Trouncing U.S. in Clean Energy Investing – China overtook the United States in renewable energy investments for the first time ever in 2009, attracting nearly twice as many dollars and becoming the world’s largest market for clean energy projects.

Renewable energy investments in China – mostly wind farms – totaled $34.6 billion in 2009, according to report released Thursday by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In the United States, $18.6 billion was spent.

The report’s authors stressed it was the stable, long-term policies put forth by the Chinese government and easier access to credit that attracted the money, and said the numbers do not bode well for America.

And, there’s some good news in Congress …

Senate Passes Air Traffic Control System Modernization Bill – Passengers stuck on airplanes gain new rights and the nation’s air traffic control system gains new technology under a $34.5 billion bill the Senate passed Monday night.

The Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, passed 93-0, advances the modernization of the nation’s air traffic control system as it moves away from a radar-based infrastructure in favor of GPS technology.

The new system, known as NextGen, uses a satellite-based platform to keep track not only of aircraft, but also of vehicles on the ground at airports. The costly system should allow planes to fly closer together safely and avoid runway incursions, according to a release by the office of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, one of the main sponsors of the bill.

The GPS-based system also allows controllers to tailor each aircraft’s approach for landing, which should save fuel and cut down on late arrivals, according to an FAA fact sheet.

Embedded in the bill is a “Passengers Bill of Rights,” whose centerpiece is a rule requiring delayed commercial planes to return to the gate after three hours on the taxiway. Alternatively, the rule allows the airline to send buses to take passengers off the plane so the aircraft doesn’t lose its place in line to take off.

Senators Engage In Bipartisan Civil Disobedience, Refuse To Halt Hearing – Jim Webb and Lindsey Graham had an unorthodox answer to a Republican parliamentary maneuver that blocked committees from meeting on Wednesday: Bipartisan civil disobedience.

“We just decided that we would continue unless somebody told us to stop.” said Webb, a veteran, former Secretary of the Navy and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, which was holding a hearing on military health systems. Webb (D-Va.) consulted with the committee’s top-ranking Republican, he said, as to whether the committee members should continue to exercise their First Amendment rights. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he was willing to buck the exemption.

And, elsewhere …

Once Opponents, Insurers Now Back Effort to Make Health Reform Succeed – The health-insurance industry, which spent months campaigning against Democratic health reform, has shifted focus in the wake of its passage, pivoting from opposition to making sure the new law succeeds beyond most expectations.

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry trade group, has agreed to sign on to a new, 50-state health care reform implementation effort, provisionally called Enroll America, which is being organized by Ron Pollack of the pro-reform group Families USA. “We are participating in it,” says AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach. “The goal is to get everyone covered.”

Other parts of the health industry, including drug companies and hospitals, are also expected to join the effort, which will focus on making sure as many uninsured Americans as possible get insurance under the law President Obama signed Tuesday.

While conservative groups and Republican politicians will surely continue advertising and organizing against the health-reform law, Families USA also plans to launch its own public education campaign, funded through foundation donations, over the coming months. It will include a “health-reform road show” across the country, which will seek to drum up local press coverage of the new law’s benefits, says Pollack.

Regards,

Jim