The Montana Court vigorously upheld the state’s right to regulate how corporations can raise and spend money after a secretive Colorado corporation, Western Tradition Partnership, and a Montana sportsman’s group and local businessman sued to overturn a 1912 state law banning direct corporate spending on electoral campaigns. “Organizations like WTP that act as a conduit…
Author: TRP
POLL: ‘Progressive’ Is The Most Positively Viewed Political Label in America
A new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press out yesterday shows that “progressive” is the most positively viewed political label in America, with 67 percent holding a positive view compared to just 22 percent who view the term negatively: via POLL: ‘Progressive’ Is The Most Positively Viewed Political Label…
Team Obama Sketches Out Path To 270
In a video to supporters Thursday, Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina made public the many paths to 270 electoral votes he sketched out for reporters last month. The major highlights: Messina says the campaign is working with more than 40 pathways to victory next year, including strategies that run through Florida and the Midwest…
The GOP’s health-care problem
On Saturday, David Fahrenthold wrote that “more than a year after Republicans first pledged to ‘repeal and replace’ President Obama’s new health-care law, the GOP is still struggling to answer a basic question. Replace it . . . with what?”This shouldn’t be such a problem. Health care is a big issue. It’s been around a long time….
93-Year-Old Tennessee Woman Who Cleaned State Capitol For 30 Years Denied Voter ID
A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor’s office, says she won’t be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations. Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented…
ID errors put hundreds in L.A. County jails
Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a Times investigation has found. The wrongful incarcerations occurred more than 1,480 times in the last five years. They were the…
Michigan Tea Party Mayor Says No To Fed Funds, Sends Business Packing
In what could be a new high water mark of anti-Washington sentiment, the city of Troy, Mich., is rejecting a long-planned transportation center whose construction would have been fully financed with federal stimulus money. The terminal, which would help Troy become a transportation node on an upgraded Detroit-to-Chicago Amtrak line, was hailed by supporters as…
14,000 U.S. DEATHS TIED TO FUKUSHIMA REACTOR DISASTER FALLOUT
An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting…
Boehner announces deal with Reid on end to payroll tax impasse
House Speaker John Boehner announced Thursday that he had agreed with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a two-month extension of a package including a payroll tax cut and an extension of unemployment benefits. Boehner said in statement he and Reid “reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on January…
Obama renews call for end to payroll tax impasse [video]
President Obama renewed his call Thursday for the House of Representatives to pass a two-month extension of the cut in Social Security payroll taxes and unemployment insurance benefits which Congress enacted a year ago. The only reason the impasse continues is because “a faction of House Republicans have refused to support this (two-month) compromise,” Obama…
McConnell on Payroll Tax: “We can and should do both.”
Here’s his statement: “The House and Senate have both passed bipartisan bills to require the President to quickly make a decision on whether to support thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs through the Keystone XL pipeline, and to extend unemployment insurance, the temporary payroll tax cut and seniors’ access to medical care. There is no reason…
Congress Cuts Winter Heating Aid For The Poor While Boosting The Defense Budget
Poverty in America is only getting worse, with data showing rising income inequality and the startling fact that half of all Americans are now either in poverty or considered low-income. Were it not for the government programs that comprise the social safety net, those numbers would be even worse. More than a quarter would live…
Immigration dragnet snares Americans
A growing number of United States citizens have been detained under Obama administration programs intended to detect illegal immigrants who are arrested by local police. In a spate of recent cases across the country, American citizens have been confined in local jails after federal immigration agents, acting on flawed information from Department of Homeland Security…
New Data: Obamacare Extended Health Coverage To At Least 2.5 Million Young Adults
At least 2.5 million younger Americans now have health insurance as a result of a provision in the Affordable Care Act that allows adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans until 26 years of age, the Associated Press reports. The Obama administration is expected to release additional data later this afternoon: Using unpublished…
The Return Of Debtor’s Prisons: Thousands Of Americans Jailed For Not Paying Their Bills
More than a third of all states now allow borrowers who don’t pay their bills to be jailed, even when debtor’s prisons have been explicitly banned by state constitutions. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that people were imprisoned even when the cost of doing so exceeded the amount of debt they…
New Poll Suggests Latino Voters See ‘Hostile’ GOP
The survey of 500 Latino registered voters found that Hispanics continue to lean toward President Obama and other Democratic candidates, and that they feel alienated by Republicans because of their general support for tougher immigration enforcement instead of a path to legal status. Forty-six percent of Latino voters said Republicans “don’t care too much” about…
Romney Confronted By Gay Vietnam Vet On Same-Sex Marriage Stance
Politicians and journalists always run a risk when they judge a voter strictly on on appearances. There was a reminder of that Monday when Mitt Romney was forced to defend his opposition to gay marriage during a restaurant encounter with a grizzled Vietnam veteran who happened to be gay. As it turned out the vet,…
Study: Health reform will not overwhelm Colorado’s medical system
Though Colorado will add 510,000 to insurance rolls under health care reform, the state will need far fewer new doctors than previously thought, in part because those patients will be shifting from emergency rooms and other existing care, a report says. Even with that many newly insured, Colorado will need only about 141 new doctors,…
Berwick: Don’t Blame Medicare, Medicaid. It’s The Delivery System
Berwick said the 2010 federal health law is changing how doctors and hospitals are paid and deliver care though such new arrangements as accountable care organizations, which are designed to improve coordination and lower costs. But he said it is unclear whether such efforts would produce results quickly enough to hold off critics, including most…
DeMint Blocks Confirmation Of El Salvador’s Ambassador Because She Condemned Homophobia
On June 28, Aponte penned an op-ed praising the Funes’ directive, writing, “No one should be subjected to aggression because of who he is or who he loves. Homophobia and brutal hostility are often based on lack of understanding about what it truly means to be gay or transgender. To avoid negative perceptions, we must…