Category: Politics As Usual

Quote of the day

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Steny Hoyer, of all people:

While the divisions among the Republicans run deeper and are more acrimonious, several key Democrats have significant concerns about the White House’s approach to this fall’s budget strategy.

Aides say Obama is open to a short-term budget agreement that would keep sequestration in place. The position has outraged some Democratic lawmakers who say that the spending cuts are undermining key programs and that Democrats must take a hard line against them.

“I don’t agree with the White House. I think the White House is making a mistake, and I’ve told them so,” said the No. 2 House Democrat, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.). “They’re going to lock in that number.”

Hoyer said he is pushing House Democrats to demand a spending bill that scales back the automatic across-the-board cuts.

“I’m advising my members that it is time for us to take a stand,” he said. “Every time we’ve voted in a compromise with Republicans, we have made the economic picture of our country worse and we’ve undermined the growth of jobs and the economy.”

No one’s saying it out loud, but most people think the Dems are going to take back the House and Steny wants to be the Speaker.

The stranglehold on our politics

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Low turnout and state races that allow the Republican base to dominate.

The difference in the turnouts for presidential and midterm elections means that there are now almost two different electorates. Typically, the midterm electorate is skewed toward the white and elderly. In 2010 the youth vote dropped a full 60 percent from 2008. Those who are disappointed with the president they helped elect two years earlier and decide to stay home have the same effect on an election as those who vote for the opposition candidate.

Little wonder, then, that there can be such a gulf between the president and Congress, particularly the House of Representatives—but also between the president and the governments of most of the twenty-four states over which the Republicans now maintain complete control; almost half of these were elected in 2010. Democrats have complete control over fourteen states. The Republican-controlled states include almost all the most populous ones outside of New York and California. Since the midterms of 2010 the Republicans in most of these states have pursued coordinated, highly regressive economic policies and a harsh social agenda. Thus, while there’s largely been stalemate in Washington, sweeping social and economic changes that are entirely at odds with how the country voted in the last presidential election have been taking place in Republican-controlled states.

As a result of the relative lack of interest in state elections, we now have the most polarized political system in modern American history. It’s also the least functional. Many state governments’ policies are not just almost completely divorced from what is going on at the federal level—but also in some cases what is prescribed by law and the Constitution. Systemic factors based in state politics explain more about our national political condition than tired arguments in Washington over who is at fault for what does or doesn’t—mainly doesn’t—happen at the federal level. The dysfunction begins in the states.

Thanks to DUI Attorney Karin Riley Porter.

‘The only sustainable prosperity is a shared prosperity’

~ susie

http://youtu.be/n8C20ph0fAI

Joseph Stiglitz speaking at the AFL-CIO convention:

“It’s been clear to me that our economy has been sick for a long time,” he began, introducing a theme he would hammer home throughout the speech. “For too long, the hardworking and rule-abiding had seen their paychecks shrink or stay the same, while the rule-breakers raked in huge profits and wealth,” he said. “It made our economy sick, and our politics sick, too.”

He attacked those who oppose living wages in the name of the abstraction of “cutting spending,” saying that “[w]e won’t achieve [true and sustainable prosperity] through mindless cutbacks in public spending, whether in schools, hospitals, police, or firemen. These are ways to keep our economy sick. And an economy in which 95% of the growth goes to the top 1% can only be called that: sick.”

Stiglitz then called on the members of the AFL-CIO to encourage others to unionize, citing Pres. Lincoln on the consequences of dividing houses: “We have become a house divided against itself – divided between the 99% and the 1%, between the workers, and those who would exploit them. We have to reunite the house, but it won’t happen on its own.”

“It will only happen if workers come together. If they organize. If they unite to fight for what they know is right, in each and every workplace, in each and every community, and in each and every state capital and in Washington. We have to restore not only democracy to Washington, but to the workplace.”

– See more at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/09/13/nobel-laureate-stiglitz-the-only-true-and-sustainable-prosperity-is-shared-prosperity/#sthash.TWjnbo1x.dpuf

Breakthrough

~ susie

He finally cracked:

Gov. Tom Corbett intends to announce he will accept federal funds to expand medical coverage to an estimated 682,000 more Pennsylvanians in a Medicaid-like program, according to sources close to the governor.

The Republican was among a small group of governors resisting calls to expand the federal-state health entitlement for the poor under the Affordable Care Act.

A coalition of hospital executives, Democratic lawmakers, labor unions and the AARP has been pushing for expanded care in Pennsylvania.

House Republicans have argued that an expansion would be an unsustainable cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers.

Chip Rogers has the biggest cojones in Georgia…

~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

Former Georgia State Senator Chip Rogers a PLAYER. It’s a real fascinating story of a well connected Georgia politician.

This is the person that in 2007 that took out a 2.3 million dollar loan to refurbish an interstate motel in Northwest Georgia. The plan did not go well…

Five years later it appears U.S. Rep. Tom Graves and state Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers will have to pay back only about half that debt, according to public records examined by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Experts say the FDIC, the federal agency that insures bank deposits, will be on the hook for most of the loss.

For Graves and Rogers, tea party favorites and champions of fiscal responsibility, the resolution of their failed business venture opens them up to charges of hypocrisy.

“They may oppose bailouts, but it looks like they are getting one themselves,” said Tony Plath, a national banking expert and finance professor at UNC-Charlotte…

Court documents show that Graves and Rogers were struggling to make payments almost immediately after they signed the loan documents with Bartow County Bank in 2007.

Soon, Bartow County Bank had joined the ranks of Georgia banks shuttered by federal regulators

Rogers was the state Senate Majority Leader that had the most informative meeting in 2012 regarding Agenda 21, a nonbinding UN agreement that commits member nations to promote sustainable development …

In the eyes of conservative activists, Agenda 21 is a nefarious plot that includes forcibly relocating non-urban-dwellers and prescribing mandatory contraception as a means of curbing population growth. The invitation to the Georgia state Senate event noted the presentation would explain: “How pleasant sounding names are fostering a Socialist plan to change the way we live, eat, learn, and communicate to ‘save the earth.'”

Comments made in this meeting included how this plan will implemented by President Obama using the Delphi Technique…

They do that by a process known as the Delphi technique. The Delphi technique was developed by the Rand Corporation during the Cold War as a mind-control technique. It’s also known as “consensive process.” But basically the goal of the Delphi technique is to lead a targeted group of people to a pre-determined outcome while keeping the illusion of being open to public input.

That’s right, MIND CONTROL. After this little afternoon of insanity, in a possible unrelated circumstance, Chip Rogers withdrew his re-election bid for the leadership position.

Well, Chip Rogers leads a charmed life, I tell you. Our state just can’t let good talent go. So, Governor Nathan Deal found Chip Rogers a perfect position: an Executive Producer at Georgia Public Broadcasting. He had a really strong resume for the position…

Rogers appeared on cable television broadcasts as Will “The Winner” Rogers and other monikers to predict the outcomes of upcoming football games to help sports bettors before he became state Senate majority leader.

On one cable TV show, Rogers allegedly urged bettors to dial a pay-per-call number for his predictions, which he claimed had an 80 percent success rate.

Did you know that the new position created for Rogers pays more than what our Governor pulls down a year?

A veteran employee of Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta has quit in protest over the hiring of former State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers at GPB, at double and triple the salary of others in similar positions there…

Employees have been furloughed and laid off, as many of their jobs are being out-sourced and eliminated.

And yet Rogers began work this week at GPB headquarters, on 14th Street NW (Atlanta), as an executive producer, for $150,000 a year.

And he used to own an interest in a little radio in Cartersville, GA in Bartow County. Except now, he has regained his interest in the radio station without filing proper notification to the FCC…

The station, tiny WYXC-AM, is at the center of an ongoing drama that’s spilled over into Bartow County courts. Current operators John and Brandi Underwood filed suit last month, alleging their partner Greg Detscher had surreptitiously bought the station and kicked them out of the premises.

FCC records show WYXC-AM in Cartersville is licensed to Clarion Communications Inc., which bought the station in 2006 from Rogers, who financed $190,000 of the deal. Ownership records from 2011, the most recent on file with the FCC, name Cartersville businessman Chuck Shiflett and former Adairsville City Councilman Tommy Young as equal partners in Clarion.

It’s unclear when Young, a former Adairsville city councilman, returned his half-interest to Rogers. In December 2012, Rogers signed the new management agreement with Detscher and the Underwoods on behalf of Beechwood Services Inc., identified as the parent company of Clarion Communications. Rogers has listed Beechwood as his wife’s business in financial disclosures filed as a legislator, most recently for 2011.

An FCC spokeswoman confirmed last week that it had received no notice of any change in WYXC’s controlling interest. The station’s public file, which licensees must make available to anyone wanting to see it, contains no such notice.

Georgia Public Broadcasting, which requires that employees get written permission for outside employment, also has no written disclosure of Rogers’ ownership or affiliation with outside media outlets.

Well, I doubt much will come from GPB. It will be interesting if he can weasel his way out of this with the FCC. I mean, after all, he is the well connected Chip Rogers with BIG COJONES…

Five years after the crash

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

fraud

And no one’s learned anything. I wonder if that’s because no one went to prison the last time?

Several big life insurers are going to have to set aside a total of at least $4 billion because New York regulators believe they have been manipulating new rules meant to make sure they have adequate reserves to pay out claims.

The development stems from contentions by insurance companies that states’ regulations are forcing them to hold too much money in reserve. Many of them have engaged in secretive transactions to artificially bolster their balance sheets, often through shell companies in other states or countries. Regulators, who want to be sure companies have enough real liquid assets to pay all claims, have struggled to find a solution that all 50 states can agree on, and decided to test a new framework of rules.

On Friday, New York State plans to drop out of that agreement, according to a letter from Benjamin M. Lawsky, the financial services superintendent, to his fellow state insurance regulators. In the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Lawsky said the test, which started in 2012, showed that the new framework did not work and was, in fact, making the “gamesmanship and abuses” in the industry even worse.

The move appears to be another attempt by Mr. Lawsky to address the much broader potential problem of the life insurance industry’s use of the secretive transactions. He has derided them as “financial alchemy” because they seem to create surplus assets out of thin air. In June, Mr. Lawsky called on other state insurance regulators to join him in blocking any more of these transactions. But other regulators said they wanted instead to keep pursuing a test of the new regulatory framework. The test covers a narrow segment of the life insurance business, but state regulators, through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, are committed to extending the framework to all parts of the life insurance industry over the next few years.

Safety is such a relative term

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

As someone mentioned in the comments, we really are back to the days of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”:

In interviews, six USDA inspectors working in the pilot plants raised health concerns. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed their jobs would be in jeopardy otherwise.

Several said company and government workers are yelled at, threatened and shunned if they try to slow down or stop the accelerated processing lines or complain too aggressively about inadequate safety checks. They also warned that the reduction in the ranks of government inspectors in the plants has compromised the safety of the meat.

“We are no longer in charge of safety,” said an inspector with more than 15 years of experience. “That’s what the public needs to know.”

Yes, from the same people who keep telling us they’re keeping us secure, a nation where the food isn’t safe to eat. Progress!

H/t Edward Tayter Attorney at Law.