TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect

TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect

The Comprehensively Broken Senate.

The latest breakdown in the operations of the world's most farcical legislative body thatPaul mentions below should serve as a reminder that the Senate's crazy anti-democratic rules go well beyond the filibuster. As Mark Tushnet recently noted, getting rid of the filibuster in itself probably wouldn't accomplish very much:

Changing the rule over the objections of a cohesive minority that's big enough -- as the Republican minority is -- would immobilize the Senate because an enormous amount of the Senate's work gets done by unanimous consent to the waiver of otherwise applicable rules. (Remember the contretemps over reading Senator Sanders's substitute amendment for the health care reform bill? The rules require reading such amendments, which almost never happens because the proposer seeks and obtains unanimous consent to waive that rule.) By denying unanimous consent to such waivers, a minority can stall legislation almost as effectively as it can through the modern form of the filibuster.

The problems posed by non-filibuster obstructions can also be seen in Republican threatsto derail a Senate reconciliation vote on health care. But this brings us the other issue Paul discusses, the asymmetry in how the two parties approach minority obstruction. (As an example of how shameless the GOP has become, take Jim DeMint's assertionthat using the majority voting rules that prevail in pretty much every other legislative body in the world would be "tyrannical"; tyranny of minorities of one, apparently, doesn't count.)

I think Paul identifies the critical fact here: Until Senate Democrats realize that the Republican minority is simply no longer willing to adhere to norms that allowed the institution to function despite its stupid rules, basic governance will be enormously difficult. Dems need to realize that the party in power will be held responsible by the electorate for these failures either way, so they need to do what they can to move the Senate toward majority rule.

--Scott Lemieux

McCamy Taylor's Journal - Democracy in America (1787-2010) RIP

McCamy Taylor's Journal - Democracy in America (1787-2010) RIP

...

Under the Bush Jr. administration, there was no enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, a linchpin of our democracy. Instead, the DOJ rubber stamped illegal minority vote suppressing redistricting in Texas and a Poll Tax in Georgia. Companies like Diebold boldly stole elections in Georgia, 2002 and later across the country. Suddenly Democrats had to be leading by more than the margin of error in the polls, otherwise the machines would cook the results and Republicans would stage upset victories.

But even that was not enough for the supporters of corporate fascism who call themselves names like the New Federalists. This year, their operatives in the Supreme Court placed the last nail in the coffin of our democracy.

The US Supreme Court has struck down a major portion of a 2002 campaign-finance reform law, saying it violates the free-speech right of corporations to engage in public debate of political issues.

In a landmark 5-to-4 decision announced Thursday, the high court overturned a 1990 legal precedent and reversed a position it took in 2003, when a different lineup of justices upheld government restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations during elections.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/...

Note that the corporate media, when it bothered to cover this story, always talked about how corporations and unions would now be allowed to contribute as much as they wanted to federal campaigns. As if the and unions made it alright.

Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections were conducted. Though the decision does not directly address them, its logic also applies to the labor unions that are often at political odds with big business.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/polit...

In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.
By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34822247/ns/po... /

To compare corporations and unions is not simply a case of apples and oranges. Try whales and minnows. According to one source

Since 1990, labor unions have contributed over $667 million in election campaigns in the United States, of which $614 million or 92 percent went to support Democratic candidates. In 2008, unions spent $74.5 million in campaign contributions, with $68.3 million going to the Democratic Party. Already, unions have contributed $6.5 million to the 2010 elections, and $6 million has gone to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C.
http://www.aier.org/research/briefs/1550-o...

Let’s do some math. Nine elections since 1990. $667 million spent. That averages out to be about $70 million an election. Now, compare that to (mostly) corporate spending in 2008 alone…

In the 2008 election cycle, nearly $6 billion was spent on all federal campaigns, including more than $1 billion from corporate political action committees, trade associations, executives and lobbyists.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5880...

More math. $1 billion minus $70 million equals…

Corporate “citizens” are more equal than union “citizens.” No wonder Congress failed to vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, even when they had a clear 60 vote majority in the Senate. Now, they will blame that woman from Massachusetts for their failure to follow through on their promises to labor, the same way they will blame her for their failure to do fuck about health care.

Bought and sold, that describes our Congress, our president, our Supreme Court. Welcome to the New Federalist United States. If it seems strangely familiar, that might be because it resembles Mussolini’s Italy, a land where corporations ruled and everyone else paid.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini ...

Total Sensory Deprivation, Confined Spaces, And The Inquisition - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Total Sensory Deprivation, Confined Spaces, And The Inquisition -

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Another detail we discovered about then torture techniques adopted by Bush and Cheney was confinement in tiny boxes and total sensory deprivation. This was done to Jose Padilla, an American citizen, for years. with permanent shackles, ear-muffs and goggles to blind him.

We also know that the Cheney regime put individuals in upright coffins, as well as using the stress positions photographed below. Since the CIA destroyed all the evidence of many of its torture sessions - with impunity - and since the Obama administration seeking to "move on" from what it itself called "torture" (itself making the Obama administration more baldly in violation of the Geneva conventions than even the Bush administration which publicly claimed it was not torturing anyone) - we have no photos of this. But here again is a still from a Youtube of the Peruvian Inquisition Museum in Lima, Peru, which shows a torture victim both forced into a stress position and into sensory deprivation. It's not clear what horrors apart from total dark and soundlessness were in that box - maybe the insect the CIA used to terrify one victim or the caged rat made famous in Nineteen-Eight-Four - but the concept is clearly identical:

Here's Padilla's total sensory deprivation:

Here's a victim of the Peruvian Inquisition:

There is simply no dispute that the US, under Bush and Cheney, authorized classic torture techniques from the Inquisition to the Gestapo and to the Khmer Rouge. I'm sorry, Mr president, but I refuse to move on until these war criminals are held accountable and brought to justice.

Time to Tax Financial Speculation | CommonDreams.org

Time to Tax Financial Speculation | CommonDreams.org

For those of us who want the financial industry to serve people and the planet rather than dominate them, this is the most exciting reform under serious consideration on the world stage.

by Sarah Anderson

For decades, international activists have been pushing the idea of a tax on financial transactions. Such a tax would give us a twofer: a drop in short-term speculation that serves no productive purpose and leads to dangerous bubbles, and 2) loads of money that could be used for good things, like health, climate, and jobs programs.

Today, we’re closer to achieving this two-for-one deal than we’ll probably ever be in our lifetimes. Reeling from the worst financial crisis in 80 years, policymakers are not only desperate for new sources of revenue, they’re more open to rethinking the role of Wall Street and making sure it serves real economic needs.

To take advantage of these new opportunities, a wide range of activists, including trade unionists, international health advocates, and climate justice groups, have come together to move this decades-old proposition into practice. Their efforts are gaining traction—and even some celebrity support.

The specific proposal is to tax trades of all types of financial assets, including stock, derivatives, and currencies. The tax rate would be so low that ordinary investors wouldn’t even notice it. Some U.S. legislative proposals would even exempt retirement funds and mutual funds, the primary middle class investment vehicles. The real target would be the hedge fund investors and other high fliers in the global casino, who make most of their money through high-frequency betting on short-term market movements that often have nothing to do with what’s going on in the real economy. Since the tax would apply to each of these transactions, it would make this type of speculative gambling much less profitable and encourage more long-term, patient investment.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has analyzed the likely impact of a set of taxes, ranging from 0.01 percent on currency transactions to 0.25 percent on stock trades. Assuming that trading volumes dropped by 50 percent, these taxes could raise more than $175 billion per year in the United States alone.

The call for such taxes has been particularly loud in Europe, where activists have managed to win promises of support from leaders of the three largest economies—the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. But more pressure is needed to make speculation taxes a reality. ...

Is Our Democracy Becoming a Joke? | CommonDreams.org

Is Our Democracy Becoming a Joke? | CommonDreams.org

...

America’s most profitable corporations tend to be oil companies. Even after a steep decline in profits from the year before, Exxon Mobil earned profits totaling nearly $20 billion in 2009. Not coincidentally, the Chamber has increasingly urged skepticism on action on climate change. The Chamber’s leaders have gone so far as to equate climate legislation with “suicide bombing the American economy for the promise of green jobs in heaven.”

A handful of major companies, including Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. and Apple Inc., have left the Chamber to protest its climate change positions. The Yes Men’s stunt drew attention to the outrageous propositions the Chamber of Commerce was putting forward while bankrolling a campaign so out of step with climate science.

...

With a 5–4 vote, the Court ruled last month in Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission that corporations like Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and others can now spend as much money as they wish promoting political candidates.

This virtually ensures that politicians will be increasingly beholden to oil interests. We’ll soon have in place a situation where “Citizen” Exxon will be lobbying “Politician” Chevron, with no evidence of their corporate sponsorship. ...

Moving On Up and Hitting a Wall: Social Mobility in the U.S. and Europe | CommonDreams.org

Moving On Up and Hitting a Wall: Social Mobility in the U.S. and Europe | CommonDreams.org

by Michelle Chen

America: land of opportunity... if you're lucky enough to be born into one. The crumbling of the American Dream is in plain view across the country, especially in the urban centers and desolate ghost towns that have long been hollowed of their economic promise. A new comparative study shows just how far America's mythology has slipped on a global scale.

According a report on social mobility published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], the United States ranks pretty poorly among industrialized nations on intergenerational advancement--that is, the ability to transcend the socioeconomic class, income level, and educational attainment of your family. So that whole bootstraps thing? It looks like that quintessential self-made man is more at home in Norway than Our Town.

In patterns of socioeconomic gains across generations, the United States ranked on par with France, Italy and the United Kingdom on some measures. Some trends were generally constant throughout the countries studied, such as the correlation between educational attainment and fathers' and sons' wages. And some socioeconomic barriers that are uniquely, and shamefully, American:

Mobility in earnings across pairs of fathers and sons is particularly low in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, while mobility is higher in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada....

The influence of parental socio-economic status on students' achievement in secondary education is particularly strong in Belgium, France and the United States, while it is weaker in some Nordic countries, as well as in Canada and Korea. Moreover, in many OECD countries, including all the large continental European ones, students' achievement is strongly influenced by their school environment....

in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and France... at least 40% of the economic advantage that high-earnings fathers have over low-earnings fathers is transmitted to their sons.

The findings expose the entrenchment of a class hierarchy even in supposedly modern, diverse democracies. It seems inheritance is still a major driver of opportunity, even in the land of the free. America does stand out among our more regressive European brethren, however, in that we utterly lack the social safety nets that have served as a buffer against structural inequality. While class divisions in France or England may be frustrating in terms of individual opportunity, lower-class status for the French and British is far less likely to result in a family death sentence due to lack of health care.

Perhaps because of the countries studied vary widely in their demographic mix, the study does not explore in detail how race and ethnicity track socioeconomic status and by extension, intergenerational mobility. As a singularly American institution, institutional racism intersects with and sometimes trumps class divides. A 2009 Pew study on economic mobility found links between racial and economic segregation that dictate the fate of whole generations of Black children. Over time, their individual prospects were directly tied to the advancement, or regression, of their communities:

• Four in five black children who started in the top three quintiles experienced downward mobility, compared with just two in five white children. Three in five white children who started in the bottom two quintiles experienced upward mobility, versus just one in four black children.

• If black and white children had grown up in neighborhoods with similar poverty rates (i.e., if whites had grown up where blacks did or blacks had grown up where whites did), the gap in downward mobility between them would be smaller by one-fourth to one-third.

• Neighborhood poverty alone accounts for a greater portion of the black-white downward mobility gap than the effects of parental education, occupation, labor force participation, and a range of other family characteristics combined.

But the OECD study parses the impact of social policy in shaping, or reversing, some of the legacy of inequality. Mobility can be promoted through investing quality schools and early childhood education, encouraging socioeconomic integration, progressive welfare policies that even out wealth inequality, and financial aid to broaden higher education opportunities for students of disadvantaged backgrounds. But redistribution of material resources can only go so far in a society where opportunity often hangs on the color line--as race can't be erased through education or tax policy. And in a democratic society, racial identity and community ties should be allowed to continue across generations, even as poverty and hardship are overcome. ...

Moving On Up and Hitting a Wall: Social Mobility in the U.S. and Europe | CommonDreams.org

Moving On Up and Hitting a Wall: Social Mobility in the U.S. and Europe | CommonDreams.org

by Michelle Chen

America: land of opportunity... if you're lucky enough to be born into one. The crumbling of the American Dream is in plain view across the country, especially in the urban centers and desolate ghost towns that have long been hollowed of their economic promise. A new comparative study shows just how far America's mythology has slipped on a global scale.

According a report on social mobility published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], the United States ranks pretty poorly among industrialized nations on intergenerational advancement--that is, the ability to transcend the socioeconomic class, income level, and educational attainment of your family. So that whole bootstraps thing? It looks like that quintessential self-made man is more at home in Norway than Our Town.

In patterns of socioeconomic gains across generations, the United States ranked on par with France, Italy and the United Kingdom on some measures. Some trends were generally constant throughout the countries studied, such as the correlation between educational attainment and fathers' and sons' wages. And some socioeconomic barriers that are uniquely, and shamefully, American:

Mobility in earnings across pairs of fathers and sons is particularly low in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, while mobility is higher in the Nordic countries, Australia and Canada....

The influence of parental socio-economic status on students' achievement in secondary education is particularly strong in Belgium, France and the United States, while it is weaker in some Nordic countries, as well as in Canada and Korea. Moreover, in many OECD countries, including all the large continental European ones, students' achievement is strongly influenced by their school environment....

in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States and France... at least 40% of the economic advantage that high-earnings fathers have over low-earnings fathers is transmitted to their sons.

The findings expose the entrenchment of a class hierarchy even in supposedly modern, diverse democracies. It seems inheritance is still a major driver of opportunity, even in the land of the free. America does stand out among our more regressive European brethren, however, in that we utterly lack the social safety nets that have served as a buffer against structural inequality. While class divisions in France or England may be frustrating in terms of individual opportunity, lower-class status for the French and British is far less likely to result in a family death sentence due to lack of health care.

Perhaps because of the countries studied vary widely in their demographic mix, the study does not explore in detail how race and ethnicity track socioeconomic status and by extension, intergenerational mobility. As a singularly American institution, institutional racism intersects with and sometimes trumps class divides. A 2009 Pew study on economic mobility found links between racial and economic segregation that dictate the fate of whole generations of Black children. Over time, their individual prospects were directly tied to the advancement, or regression, of their communities:

• Four in five black children who started in the top three quintiles experienced downward mobility, compared with just two in five white children. Three in five white children who started in the bottom two quintiles experienced upward mobility, versus just one in four black children.

• If black and white children had grown up in neighborhoods with similar poverty rates (i.e., if whites had grown up where blacks did or blacks had grown up where whites did), the gap in downward mobility between them would be smaller by one-fourth to one-third.

• Neighborhood poverty alone accounts for a greater portion of the black-white downward mobility gap than the effects of parental education, occupation, labor force participation, and a range of other family characteristics combined.

But the OECD study parses the impact of social policy in shaping, or reversing, some of the legacy of inequality. Mobility can be promoted through investing quality schools and early childhood education, encouraging socioeconomic integration, progressive welfare policies that even out wealth inequality, and financial aid to broaden higher education opportunities for students of disadvantaged backgrounds. But redistribution of material resources can only go so far in a society where opportunity often hangs on the color line--as race can't be erased through education or tax policy. And in a democratic society, racial identity and community ties should be allowed to continue across generations, even as poverty and hardship are overcome. ...

Pelosi Makes Her Case: A Majority Is 51 Votes - Roll Call

Pelosi Makes Her Case: A Majority Is 51 Votes - Roll Call

By Steven T. Dennis
Roll Call Staff

Feb. 10, 2010, 2:08 p.m.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pinning the blame on Republicans for a lack of bipartisanship in Congress and plans to bypass them if they continue to oppose efforts to enact near-universal health care.

“A constitutional majority is 51 votes,” Pelosi said in an interview Tuesday with Roll Call. “If in fact the Republicans are going to say nothing can be done except by 60 percent, then maybe we all should be elected with 60 percent. It isn’t legitimate in terms of passing legislation.”

Pelosi has been wary of publicly giving advice to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or President Barack Obama, but it’s no secret that House Democrats have been increasingly frustrated at the dysfunction on the opposite side of the building.

“There is some unease when you talk about, well, what’s happening to the initiatives to help the American people?” Pelosi said. “Is there never anything that can be done without 60 votes?”

The shattering of the 60-vote Democratic Senate supermajority with the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has revived talk among Democrats of bypassing filibusters, and Pelosi has forcefully argued for doing just that to complete work on the party’s stalled health care package. ...

Carl Levin: Filibuster Could Fall 'After Massive Conflict On The Floor'

Carl Levin: Filibuster Could Fall 'After Massive Conflict On The Floor'

Senate Republicans made a persuasive case for abolishing or reforming the filibuster on Tuesday night when they blocked a routine nomination to the National Labor Relations Board that had been held up since April.

The GOP was joined by Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas in defeating President Obama's nominee, Craig Becker, by a vote of 52-33. The 52 votes were in favor of Becker, while the 33 were in opposition. In today's Senate, that's enough to block a nominee.

"I'm in my thirty-sixth year. I've never seen anything like it," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), noting that no previous Republican Senate leader would have allowed his party to filibuster such a routine nomination.

Leahy said that the overuse of filibusters by the GOP was leading Democrats to consider ways to modify it.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), another long-serving member, said that abuse of the filibuster is unsustainable. "I think it will either fall of its own weight -- it should fall of its own weight -- or it will fall after some massive conflict on the floor, which has happened in the past where there have been rulings from the chair that have led to reform," Levin told the Huffington Post, adding that the filibuster should be restricted to major issues. ...

In wake of ruling, Wall Street CEOs form conservative ‘action tank’ | Raw Story

In wake of ruling, Wall Street CEOs form conservative ‘action tank’ | Raw Story

Just three weeks ago, the United States Supreme Court ended a ban on corporate spending in political elections, drawing intense criticism for the ruling's potential to erode the democratic process.

This week, a group that includes some of the wealthiest Republican CEOs on Wall Street have formed a group to take advantage of new fundraising possibilities for the GOP.

The Supreme Court ruling could potentially allowthe group, called the American Action Network, to take unlimited contributions from corporations for use in political campaigns.

“This administration as well as Citizens United [the Supreme Court ruling] — when you combine the two the prospects for funding these types of efforts are greatly enhanced,” said Norm Coleman, one of the group's organizers. ...

...

Members of the groups include:

Kenneth Langone, a former director of the New York Stock Exchange who defended a $139.5 million bonus in 2004 and has been sued for “extortion, defamation, fraudulent misrepresentation."

Robert K. Steele, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, helped Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson make his former bank one of the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion bailout.

Norm Coleman, who supported President Bush's 2005 bankruptcy bill.

Ed Gillespie, whose lobbying firm represents Enron, Citibank, Bank of America, Zurich Financial, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

According to the New York Times, the group also includes:

"Republicans who are donors, board members or both include Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi; Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida; Mr. Barbour a former chairman of theRepublican Party; Fred Malek, an investor and official in the Nixon and first Bush administrations." ...

David Swanson: Top 10 Problems with America Assassinating Americans

David Swanson: Top 10 Problems with America Assassinating Americans

Dennis Blair, the director of U.S. national intelligence, told the House Intelligence Committee this week that the government has the right to kill Americans abroad.

Here are 10 problems with this:

1. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don't cease to be crimes because you cross a border.

2. Acts that are crimes under national and international law don't cease to be crimes because you engage in them frequently. Assassinating non-Americans is just as illegal as assassinating Americans. The leap here is not to victims of a different citizenship but to the legalization of murder.

3. Killing people has nothing whatsoever to do with gathering so-called intelligence.

4. Even in this age in which senators and house members petition and write public letters to the president imploring him to obey laws, rather than introducing legislation, issuing subpoenas, holding impeachment hearings, or defunding agencies, the fact remains that Congress, above all, IS the government, and it is just not the place of the director of national thuggery to come in and dictate what the law will or will not be.

5. Having made the globe a battlefield and sanctioned crimes including lawless imprisonment, torture, warrantless spying, indiscriminant bombings, and the use of white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and other sickening weapons, on the grounds that all is fair and legal in war, preventing Americans from becoming the innocent victims of the war is becoming harder and harder. If active military can be on duty here, if we can be spied on, kidnapped, and imprisoned here. If our most prominent foreign death camp can be relocated here, by what logic -- and for how long -- can government assassinations of Americans (without trial) be confined to elsewhere?

6. Typically when we assassinate people abroad, a lot of other innocent people are killed in the process. Those are all murders. That too will come home if there is not resistance soon, major resistance to this madness.

7. We are being asked to trust extrajudicial decisions on whether or not to murder, not just to allegedly wise judges who are in too big a hurry or find it logistically unfeasible to hold a trial, but to the very people who lied us into the wars that are motivating most of the international hostility toward our country and draining most of the resources Americans need at home.

8. No republic has ever survived putting this kind of power in the hands of a single ruler, with no independent legislature, no independent press, and no independent popular resistance. And we're almost there.

9. These people usually only admit to believing they have the barbaric "right" to do things that they have already done.

10. What are the chances the Director of Intelligence will never consider a president a threat to national security

Law professor: Assassinating US citizens raises ‘troubling’ issues | Raw Story

Law professor: Assassinating US citizens raises ‘troubling’ issues | Raw Story

The admission by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the United States intelligence community is authorized to assassinate Americans working with terrorists overseas has raised serious questions of constitutionality.
...

"This is something that President Bush developed," Turley explained. "We actually saw the Bush administration kill an American citizen named Kamal Derwish in 2002 with a Predator strike. ... The Obama administration, once again, seems to be morphing into the Bush administration."

According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the American officials who directed the strike that killed Derwish in 2002 were not aware that he was in the targeted car. In contrast, the attempt to take out al Qaeda operative Anwar al Awlaki last December with a cruise missile directly targeted the America-born cleric.

"The problem is that there's a term for this," Turley went on. "It's called assassination. You're taking out someone, a US citizen, who's had no chance to prove that they're innocent. ... US citizens are entitled to trials."

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

Daily Kos: State of the Nation

The backlog of Presidential appointees has reached critical mass, and the hurried-up appointment of Scott Brown today, expressly in time to "torpedo" the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, has Harry Reid calling for drastic measures--recess appointments:

...

How big is the backlog? Pretty damned big:

One year into the Bush administration, there were 70 appointees awaiting confirmation. One year into the Obama administration, there are 177. And dozens of those holds are directly affecting the agencies responsible for the United States' security and foreign policy, amid two wars and an amped-up terrorism threat. The United States has no ambassador to Ethiopia, no head of the Office of Legal Counsel, no director at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, no agricultural trade representative.

The Senate Dem caucus blogs more info:

Democrats understand their constitutional obligation with respect to the confirmation process. For proof, take a look at President Bush's first year in office:

* Only 3 nominees waited to be confirmed for at least 3 months

Compare these statistics with President Obama's first year:

* 46 nominees waited to be confirmed for at least 3 months
* 45 of Obama's nominees lingered for at least 4 months
* 9 waited for at least 6 months

Who are some of these nominees that Republicans have slow-walked?

* General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the forces in Afghanistan
* Secretary of the Army, John McHugh - a Republican - had a hold placed on him by Republican Senators
* Democrats were forced to file cloture on Chris Hill, now Ambassador to Iraq. That vote ended up 73-17.

In the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt, Republicans are still slow-walking two critical intelligence nominees:

* Philip Goldberg, nominee to lead the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
* Caryn Wagner, nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis

During his first seven years in office, Bush made 171 recess appointments, of which 105 were to full-time positions.

...

Invoking ‘literacy test,’ Tea Party opening speaker suggests blacks be kept from voting | Raw Story

Invoking ‘literacy test,’ Tea Party opening speaker suggests blacks be kept from voting | Raw Story

The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a "literacy test" to protect America from presidents like Obama -- a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws....

Martha Johnson: GSA Chief Confirmed After 9 Month Senate Hold-Up

Martha Johnson: GSA Chief Confirmed After 9 Month Senate Hold-Up

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Martha N. Johnson as head of the General Services Administration, nearly 10 months after she was first nominated to head the federal agency.

Upon assuming office, Johnson "will become the first permanent Administrator of the General Services Administration in nearly two years."

Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer. The delay was meant to pressure GSA administrators to approve a $175 million federal building project in Kansas City.

The LA Times noted, "the nomination became another example for the Obama administration of how the political process in Washington has been poisoned by politics that often have nothing to do with the merits. Just this week, Obama brought up the nomination in his session with Senate Democrats when he called for both sides of the aisle to work toward pragmatic solutions to problems." ...

Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks | TPMDC

Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks | TPMDC

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

"While holds are frequent," CongressDaily's Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal." The magazine reported aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were the source of the news about Shelby's blanket hold. ...

Federal Eye - Sen. Richard Shelby blocking Obama nominees

Federal Eye - Sen. Richard Shelby blocking Obama nominees

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has placed a blanket hold on more than 70 Obama administration nominees because of home state concerns with the future of the Air Force's tanker fleet and disagreements with the White House over funding for anti-terrorism programs, Senate Democratic aides charge.

Shelby's concerns are rooted in the future of the KC-135 Air Force tanker fleet, a project that could generate thousands of jobs in Alabama. He has placed holds on "several pending nominees," Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo said. The office of Majority LeaderHarry Reid (D-Nev.) said Shelby's holds applied to more than 70 nominees; Shelby's office did not immediately specify the number.

...

Senators can place a hold on nominees at any time for any reason, creating a powerful tool for influencing the executive branch. Such moves are often made anonymously, making it difficult to track them. Obama, as a senator from Illinois, placed holds on at least three Bush administration nominees amid policy disagreements or concerns about their qualifications.

Election result maps

Election result maps

...

This map appears to have more blue than red, which is not an illusion: it reflects the fact that although there are only slightly more senators in the Democratic caucus than the Republican one (51 versus 49), the number of people in blue states significantly outnumbers the number of people in red ones, because the blue ones have higher populations on average. Using the latest figures from the US Census, for instance, we find that the total population of blue states is 167.9 million people, while the total population of red states is 125.2 million. (In this calculation, I split the populations of the purple states 50:50.) ...

The Supreme Court: Corrupt to the core - 12160.org

The Supreme Court: Corrupt to the core - 12160.org

Testifying under oath during confirmation hearings, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito offered assurances about their respect for legal precedent and the appropriate role of the judiciary.

The recent decision of the court overturning settled campaign finance law achieved through bipartisan action of the elected legislative and executive branches was contemptuous of precedent, aggressive in its political intent, extremist in its impact and radical in its usurpation of power against the elected branches of government.

The "anything goes" ethic of a politics held in wide disrepute now extends to five Supreme Court justices who rule that unlimited sums of unregulated money can be spent to buy power over our republic.

They hold in contempt the warning of Madison in Federalist 10 that special-interest factions could overwhelm the nation. They ignore the warnings of Washington about the dangers of foreign entanglements that may, under this decision, if not clarified, further corrupt the governance of the nation. They hold in contempt the time-honored truth of Lincoln that America is the land of the people, by the people and for the people, and not the property of the money, by the money and for the money at the expense of people who lack the money.

Under the Supreme Court decision, companies that received investment from Nazi financiers and armed the Nazi war machine could have spent unlimited money to destroy elected officials who opposed their agenda.

Under this decision, oil companies dependent on the good will of unfriendly nations, which receive investment from foreign sources, including some that covertly fund bin Laden and others who overtly despise Israel, could spend unlimited money to promote an agenda hostile to our own.

The sheer extremism of this decision, the contempt for legal precedent that preceded it and the confirmation testimony that promised to honor this precedent, the disregard for the widely held view that Washington is corrupted by money in the service of greed, will go down in history alongside the opinion that slaves were property of slave-owners. ....

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors - WSJ.com

Republicans Chase Wall Street Donors - WSJ.com

Data Show Fund-Raisers Begin Capitalizing on Bankers' Regret Over Backing Obama

By BRODY MULLINS And NEIL KING JR.

Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street, trying to capitalize on an increasing sense of regret among executives at big financial institutions for backing Democrats in 2008.

In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks' best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.

GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House's populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.

Democrats have dominated Wall Street's fund-raising circles in recent elections. Mr. Obama himself raised millions of dollars from employees of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc.,J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and other Wall Street firms.

Now, at least some Wall Street executives have reduced their political contributions to the Democratic Party and its candidates, according to fund-raising reports and interviews with executives at financial-services firms.

Last week, House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio made a pitch to Democratic contributor James Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of J.P. Morgan, over drinks at a Capitol Hill restaurant, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Boehner told Mr. Dimon congressional Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama's efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations. The Republican leader also said he was disappointed many on Wall Street continue to donate their money to Democrats, according to the people familiar with the matter.

A spokeswoman for J.P. Morgan declined to comment.

"I sense a lot of dissatisfaction and a lot of buyer's remorse on Wall Street," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the second-ranking House Republican and a top Wall Street fund-raiser for his party.

A complete picture of Wall Street's 2009 campaign donations won't be available for a few weeks. Through the third quarter, campaign-finance reports show that some major Wall Street players began sending an increasing share of their donations to Republicans. Many of those donations came toward the end of this period, because many banks had essentially shut down their political giving at the height of the financial crisis. ...

Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads | Raw Story

Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads | Raw Story: "

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.

“One of their favorites right now is spending through trade associations,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

Trade associations are considered tax-exempt non-profit organizations under US law. While they must report contributions received from other corporations to the Internal Revenue Service, the document itself remains confidential and is not made available to the public."

Imam killed in FBI sting was shot 21 times: report | Raw Story

Imam killed in FBI sting was shot 21 times: report | Raw Story

A Detroit-area imam who died in a shootout with the FBI in October was shot 21 times -- at least once in the back -- and found by police lying down with his wrists in handcuffs behind him, says a local Detroit news report.

The FBI has described Abdullah, whose mosque served some 25 families, as "a separatist Muslim intent on overthrowing the United States government," according to the New York Times, but the bureau has not alleged any terrorist activity against him, and has charged that Abdullah was involved in fencing stolen goods. Federal authorities had been monitoring Abdullah "for years," the Times reported.

Now a medical examiner's report, obtained by Fox Channel 2 in Detroit, shows the imam had been shot 21 times, including at least once in the back, and his body was found on the ground with his wrists handcuffed behind his back.

The medical examiner's report is scheduled to be released this week, but had been delayed for months after Dearborn police, who are investigating the FBI in the matter, filed a court affidavit requesting the document be kept sealed, Fox 2 reported.

Informed of the circumstances of Abdullah's death, a visibly stunned member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the news only increased suspicions about the imam's death.

...

O'Connor: Corporate campaign funds could affect judiciary - washingtonpost.com

O'Connor: Corporate campaign funds could affect judiciary - washingtonpost.com

Tuesday, January 26, 2010; 6:50 PM

Retired justice Sandra Day O'Connor said last week's Supreme Court decision striking down restrictions on corporate spending in elections will energize an "arms race" in judicial elections and be a "problem for maintaining an independent judiciary."

Since leaving the court in 2006, O'Connor has campaigned against the election of state and local judges, and she said Tuesday that "increasingly expensive and negative campaigns for judicial office erode both the impartiality of the judiciary and the public perception of them."

O'Connor lent her voice to the reverberations from the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned two of the court's precedents and swept away decades of restrictions on how corporations and other special interest groups could spend their general treasuries on behalf of candidates.

President Obama and congressional Democrats have lambasted the decision, and tried to turn what could be a disastrous political problem for them into a rallying cry for their supporters. Activists and experts on both sides of the issue continue to debate its potential for change. And critics of the sweeping decision have used it to denounce what they say is an "activist" conservative majority on the court, with a particular emphasis on Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who they say betrayed his promise of narrow decisions that avoid constitutional confrontations.

O'Connor confined her remarks about the decision to the affect it will have on the overwhelming number of states and localities that elect judges. Federal judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

"In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending, the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon," O'Connor said at a symposium at Georgetown Law Center. She noted that each election cycle brings new spending records, especially in state supreme court races that have become special-interest battlegrounds.

O'Connor declined to directly criticize the decision, although she pointed out that one of the abandoned precedents was the court's 2003 decision in McConnell v. FEC, which upheld the constitutionality of the restrictions in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act of 2002.

"Since I was one of several authors of that opinion," she said, "if you want my legal opinion, you can go read it."

It was the replacement of O'Connor by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. that moved the court from a 5 to 4 majority approving the restrictions to a 5 to 4 majority striking them as unconstitutional.

She joked at the beginning of her speech: "Gosh, I step away for a couple of years and there's no telling what's going to happen." ...