kpete
kpete's JournalDems To Use Rare Maneuver To Save Unemployment Benefits
Source: Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives will try to restore long-term unemployment insurance to 2 million workers using a rare parliamentary maneuver on Wednesday.
The procedural move, called a discharge petition, requires a majority of House members to sign on in support of discharging a bill from committee that has otherwise stalled. Democrats were unable to hit the threshold needed -- 218 votes -- for another recent discharge petition on minimum wage legislation, so it's unlikely they'll succeed with unemployment benefits.
But Democrats hope merely raising the issue puts pressure on Republicans.
"If my colleagues want to vote against the extension, I respect their right to disagree; but failing to even allow a vote goes against the very progress that families and our constituents demand," said Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who will file the petition. "Partisan politics must not be allowed to get in the way of doing the right thing for our middle class families. That’s why I'll be filing a measure to end the gridlock and force a vote on extending unemployment insurance."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/unemployment-benefits_n_4936840.html
Michele Bachmann: ‘Thank God’ for putting the Koch brothers ‘on our side’
- Koch maintained his and his brother’s political efforts are not for their own benefit, but for the country’s greater good. “All the other large companies, or the great majority of them, are promoting some kind of special cronyism where they’re undermining economic freedom.” Although he deems low-wage workers part of a “culture of dependency” on the government, Koch Industries is on the receiving end of oil subsidies, government contracts, and bailouts.
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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) recently suggested that God had sent billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch to help the Republican Party.
“I just thank God that there’s a billionaire or two on our side,” Bachmann told conservative radio host Lars Larson during an interview at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference. “All the billionaires seem to be on the radical left, so I’m glad that we have a couple on ours.”
The Minnesota Republican asserted that Democrats were part of “an intimidation movement” to stop billionaires from supporting conservative causes.
“I’m sure that the donors on our side don’t like to have their names vilified and that’s what this is about, intimidating people from giving money to our cause, that’s it,” she opined, adding that Democrats should be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for their intimidation of billionaires.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/10/michele-bachmann-thank-god-for-putting-the-koch-brothers-on-our-side/
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6P4URHhT7e8/Ux3HseePXvI/AAAAAAAAy3c/dyqfsOZZNwQ/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-10+at+6.38.50+AM.png
Colorado raises $2M in first month of marijuana taxes
Source: KUSA
DENVER—The first tax figures for the first state in the nation to legalize retail marijuana shows the drug brought in $3.5 million in taxes and fees in January.
Of that, $2.1 million came from recreational marijuana and the remaining $1.4 million from medical marijuana.
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The report provides the first concrete proof of what pro-marijuana advocates had promised, that growing and selling the drug locally would generate economic activity here rather than sending drug money out-of-state, and that the drug could provide a windfall to the state government.
"It's like the end of alcohol prohibition. We don't go to the alley to buy a six pack anymore. We go to stores. And that is what's happening with marijuana," said Brian Vicente, who helped legalize pot in Colorado. "This is revenue directly out of the hands of cartels. These tax numbers will probably grow over time, but since it's a new market, we'll have to wait and see."
Read more: http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/03/10/first-month-of-marijuana-taxes/6257687/
I just love today's Luckovich toon!
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/hillarys_weight_20140307
Elizabeth Warren: Let’s Tax Millionaires To Allow Students To Refinance Their Debt
Elizabeth Warren: Let’s Tax Millionaires To Allow Students To Refinance Their Debt
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) laid out a new plan that would tax millionaires and use that revenue to help students refinance their student loans.
Delivering the keynote address at the Higher Ed Not Debt Campaign launch event on Thursday at the Center For American Progress, Warren argued that America faces a choice: “Do we invest in students, or millionaires?” Warren plans to introduce a bill that would create an “America that invests in those who get an education” by revising the tax code and enacting the Buffet rule
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Warren’s plan would allow students with outstanding student loans to refinance at lower rates. The cost of the change would be covered by a “dollar for dollar” effort where for “every dollar the Buffet rule brings in, we use that dollar to refinance student loan debt,” she explained. She estimated that recent graduates who borrowed the maximum in undergraduate loans could see their payments drop by $1,000 a year and total interest paid over the life of the loan could be cut nearly in half. Students with graduate loans or borrowers from private lenders would save even more, Warren projected.
If the Buffet rule exceeds its expected revenue, then the plan would call for lowering the interest rates even further. All college graduates still repaying federal student loans would have the option to refinance to a lower rate, saving graduates thousands of dollars per year.
MORE:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/03/06/3370141/elizabeth-warren-student-debt-buffet-rule/
Elizabeth Warren vows fight for gender equality in medical studies
Sen. Elizabeth Warren vowed yesterday to push for a new federal law to cut the gender bias from medical research if federal agencies such as the National Institutues of Health don’t take steps to address the issue.
Medical studies need to include more data about the effects that diseases and drugs have specifically on women, Warren said at a women’s health conference in Boston.
“If the NIH puts new regulations in place that demand better parity in research, that will be a big step forward and we don’t have to wait for legislation,” the Democratic senator told reporters. “If the NIH is reluctant, then it’s appropriate for Congress to step in.”
A report from Brigham and Women’s Hospital released yesterday found women are routinely bypassed as medical research subjects — starting at the selection of male lab mice over females — which means women end up with health recommendations that are really meant for men.
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/03/elizabeth_warren_vows_fight_for_gender_equality_in_medical
Putin invaded Ukraine because (wait for it) Benghazi!
Graham has been fighting a Tea Party challenge to his re-election bid, which included accusations from the Tea Party that the confirmed bachelor is gay. Thus, the thinking went, Graham needed to bolster both his conservative and manly-man bona fides in order to win his primary. And thus was born BENGHAZI!
The proverbial bodies in Benghazi were barely cold before Graham started running campaign ads about the unfortunate deaths only one month after the attack.
And now, Graham has outdone himself by suggesting that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because Benghazi somehow convinced Putin that President Obama was weak. (It’s just as likely, if not more so, that Lindsey Graham is convincing Putin that if America spends this much time freaking out over four deaths a year and a half ago, imagine how averse Republicans would be to risking more than four American casualties in a challenge to a real adversary, Russia.)
Lindsey GrahamVerified account
?@GrahamBlog
Putin basically came to the conclusion after Benghazi, Syria, Egypt - everything Obama has been engaged in - he's a weak indecisive leader.
https://twitter.com/GrahamBlog/statuses/440928234826661888
http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-senator-lindsey-graham-ukraine-benghazi-20140304,0,1570877.story#axzz2v5wiwyPo
http://americablog.com/2014/03/lindsey-graham-putin-invaded-ukraine-wait-benghazi.html
Rallying around the wrong president
GIULIANI: Putin decides what he wants to do and he does it in half a day, right? He decided he had to go to their parliament. He went to their parliament. He got permission in 15 minutes.
CAVUTO: Well, that was kind of like perfunctory.
GIULIANI: But he makes a decision and he executes it, quickly. Then everybody reacts. That’s what you call a leader. President Obama, he’s got to think about it. He’s got to go over it again. He’s got to talk to more people about it.
MORE:http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rallying-around-the-wrong-president
Once again, the right is going to have to pick a caricature and go with it. Obama can be a power-hungry dictator, ruthlessly wielding power, or he can be a weak pushover, afraid to act. He can’t be both.
That, at any rate, is Republicans’ critique of him. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Obama’s critics pivoted seamlessly from complaining about his overreach to fretting that he is being too cautious. Call it Operation Oxymoron.
Last Wednesday, I sat in a House hearing and listened to Republicans describe Obama exercising “unparalleled use of executive power” and operating an “uber-presidency.” They accused him of acting like a “king” and a “monarch,” of making the United States like a “dictatorship” or a “totalitarian government” by exercising “imperial” and “magisterial power.”
But after events in Ukraine, this very tyrant was said to be so weak that it’s “shocking.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-the-feckless-tyrant/2014/03/03/73470bdc-a320-11e3-84d4-e59b1709222c_story.html
Russia Today news anchor breaks with official line & uses her "editorial freedom" to condemn Russia
A Russia Today news anchor breaks with the official line and uses her "editorial freedom" to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
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