With police arresting 11 Occupy Cleveland protesters Friday night in downtown Cleveland, 200 participants in the youth climate summit Midwest Power Shift marched to join the Occupy Cleveland group, renewing the energy of the 99 Percent Movement. via Power Shift Renews Energy Of Occupy Cleveland | ThinkProgress.
Author: TRP
Americans who pay no income taxes, EITC edition
People are leeching off the tax system? But this turns out to be fairly misleading. A new study offers a more nuanced look at the role the Earned Income Tax Credit actually plays in the U.S. economy. The EITC, remember, is a refundable tax credit that helps supplement the income of poor employed workers with…
Goldman Sachs Withdraws From Credit Union Fundraiser After Learning Occupy Wall Street Was Being Honored Too
Earlier this month, the Lower East Side People’s Federal Credit Union in New York City held a fundraiser to celebrate its 25th anniversary. It just so happened that this the credit union many of the protesters at Occupy Wall Street OWS were using to store funds — and the protest group became an honoree at…
Police pepper spray Haka dancers at football game
Union High School and Football field. Looks like plenty of exits. The group in Roosevelt, a town of 8,000, had traveled about 125 miles east from the Salt Lake City area to watch a relative play his final game for Union, which lost to rival Uintah and finished the season without a victory. The group…
NYPD Inspector Anthony Bologna Violated Pepper Spray Guidelines, Review Finds « CBS New York
An internal NYPD review finds a deputy inspector violated department guidelines when he used pepper spray on Occupy Wall Street protesters last month. Officials say Anthony Bologna, who works in Manhattan North, will lose 10 vacation days for his actions on September 24. He used the spray on women who were penned-in by police. via…
Republicans in the House have averaged a vote every day to undermine the EPA
They have picked up the pace recently — just last week they voted to stop the EPAs efforts to limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants from cement plants, boilers and incinerators — and it appears their campaign will continue for the foreseeable future.Using the economy as cover, and repeating unfounded claims that “regulations…
US Pays 18 Percent of Israel’s Military Budget
Leave it to the Washington Post’s award-winning national security reporter, Walter Pincus, to put things in perspective. In a new column, Pincus points out a remarkable inequity: While the US faces a fiscal crisis and debates the need for defense cuts, it’s footing the bill for one-fifth of Israel’s military budget—even as that country…
South Carolina Voter ID Law: Yep, Pretty Discriminating
Under South Carolina’s new law, passed in August, prospective voters must present either a valid driver’s license or ID card, military ID, or passport. Absent of any of those, people may still cast absentee or provisional ballots. But, under the state’s new law, these ballot-casters must eventually produce a valid ID. And though…
Americans’ Student Loan Balance Now Exceeds $1 Trillion
USA Today parses through New York Federal Reserve’s latest report (pdf) on Household Debt and Credit and finds that for the first time, this year the amount of student loans will surpass the $100 billion mark and the outstanding balance will exceed $1 trillion. That means the amount of credit card debt and student debt…
ACLU Challenge To Small Piece Of Campaign Finance Law May Lead To A Slippery Slope
The ACLU case, brought on behalf of three individuals holding contracts with the government, targets a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972 (FECA) that banned individuals who have direct contracts with the federal government from contributing to candidates running for federal office. This ban excludes employees of corporations that hold contracts with…
Cenk Uygur: How To Regain Our Democracy
Now, you can never stop rich people from spending their own money on their political ideology. But that has happened throughout our history and we have survived that. What has changed in the last 30 years is the power of corporate money, which is nearly unlimited.Starting in 1978, the Supreme Court opened the spigot to…
Consumer Inflation Slows; Food, Energy Prices Up : NPR
Consumers paid more for food and gas last month, although inflation outside those volatile categories was tame. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.3 percent in September, below a 0.4 percent rise in August. Excluding food and energy, so-called core prices increased 0.1 percent, the smallest rise since March. Inflation…
GOP Contenders Hold ‘Raucous’ Debate In Vegas
The reviews are in about last night’s CNN Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas and the consensus seems to be that it was a slugfest in Sin City: — “The near-weekly ritual of Republican presidential debates took a raucous turn Tuesday night as the unsettled field of candidates ganged up on one another…
Rediscovering Civil Disobedience
“There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal,” proclaimed Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he took a risk and spoke out forcefully against the War in Vietnam. As more Americans debate whether to leave the sidelines and join the Occupy Wall Street movement, we should heed Dr. King’s words. Our individual silence is…
GOP Voters In Arizona Grade The Candidates’ Debate : NPR
Eight Republican voters — six of them undecided — gathered at NPR’s request to watch the televised GOP presidential debate Tuesday night. NPR’s Ted Robbins watched with them in Saddlebrooke, Ariz., a retirement community northwest of Tucson, and asked them to share their thoughts. I thought I might be imposing on Dick and Peg Alford…
Watch: Norquist says don’t raise taxes because Republicans spend too much
When asked why he wouldn’t accept ten dollars in cuts for every dollar in revenue, he points to Republicans who didn’t honor their agreements, spent too much, and raised taxes. He then goes on to talk about unicorns.
Cantor To Give Speech On Income Inequality And ‘How We Make Sure The People At The Top Stay There’
Cantor announced today that he will give an address on income disparity “and how Republicans believe the government could help fix it” on Friday. According to his aide, Cantor will specifically focus on how Washington can help “a single working mom…a small business owner..and how we make sure the people at the top stay there.”…
Civil Rights Activist Jesse Jackson Stops NYPD From Taking Occupy Wall Street Medical Tent
Soon after 11:25 p.m. last night, NYPD officers moved into Zuccotti Park to try to remove Occupy Wall Street’s medical tent, as the park owners are currently trying to remove tents and sleeping equipment from the area. Yet as Animal New York reports, demonstrators locked arms and refused to allow police to go near the…
How Democrats can use Occupy protests to their advantage
Republicans initially overreacted, as if Karl Marx had risen from the grave. Mitt Romney was so flustered that he almost mussed his hair. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, surveying the small protest encampments in New York and other cities, called them “growing mobs” that threatened public order. Within a week, however, Cantor was backing away…
8,000 Foot high dust storm roils through Texas South Plains
Dust kicked up by westerly breezes ahead of a strong cold front restricted visibility in Lubbock to about 5 miles all afternoon, said National Weather Service Lubbock meteorologist Matt Ziebell. That was nothing compared to the 8,000-foot-high rolling dust cloud that moved through the city just before 6 p.m., dropping visibility to between zero and…