A bill that would establish some of the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation is heading for the desk of Gov. Rick Scott.UPDATE: For Jobless, Florida Set To Become Stingiest State In America, a HuffPo article by Arthur Delaney, 10 May 2011
As the National Employment Law Project pointed out, with this bill, Florida will “go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system.” The Republican sponsor of the bill, state Sen. Nancy Detert (R), said that cutting benefits “encourages people to get back into the job market.”
Even before this legislation, Florida’s benefits were amongst the stingiest in the nation.
Adding insult to injury, the money saved from cutting unemployment benefits will be used to reduce business taxes in a state where the corporate tax rate is already exceedingly low. Scott had been looking to cut corporate taxes even further, but was rebuffed by the legislature.
* From a ThinkProgress article by Zaid Jilani, GOP Rep. Burgess Claims Oil Prices Fell Because ‘The House Passed A Bill’:
Thursday, in a little-noticed move, the House of Representatives “passed legislation Thursday that would require the U.S. government to offer up offshore areas for oil and gas leasing,” with all but two Republicans and 33 Democrats voting for the bill.Actually, a bill that was hardly noticed because it will not pass in the Senate, that would open up a tiny amount of land for drilling for oil that may reach the market many years in the future, was not responsible for the drop in prices.
During a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee hearing yesterday, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) claimed that the vote was responsible for Thursday’s sharp drop in oil prices. “What happened yesterday?” the congressman asked rhetorically. “Oh, the House passed a bill."
* At a Fort Lauderdale town hall, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) warned of "serious threats to our country,” including Iran and Hezbollah. He also declared -– twice -– that “China is in control of the Panama Canal."
Who knew? Thanks, Allen.
* From an article at HuffPo, Primary Election 2012: Conservative Fears Of Permanent Welfare State May Create Wild Ride, about the South Carolina GOP convention:
Sen. Jim DeMint has said for months that the upcoming presidential election “is our last chance to get it right.” He told a few thousand delegates, “2012 is when we have to lay it all on the line. We have to go to the mat.”In an interview, SC Republican Rep. Tim Scott said: “There's no question that we are moving, step by step, closer to socialism. So that puts democracy at risk..."
Dan Harvelle, a GOP county chairman, said: “A lot of us think America is slipping backwards. Under the welfare state, more and more working people are supporting more and more non-working people.” He also claimed that local building codes have begun to incorporate provisions that have their origins in United Nations law.
* A 35-year-old man in Covington, Louisiana, was sentenced to life in prison for possession of less than 2 pounds of marijuana. Hooray! Another drug kingpin behind bars for the next 40 years.
He had previously been convicted on two occasions: in 2005, for possessing and intending to distribute marijuana; and in 2009, on two separate charges of distribution of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute marijuana. For each of these three offenses, he had been given the same penalty: five years' probation and five years' suspended sentence.
* White-collar crime, on the other hand:
Hardly a day passes without a new story of malfeasance. Every Wall Street firm has paid significant fines during the past decade for phony accounting, insider trading, securities fraud, Ponzi schemes, or outright embezzlement by CEOs. A massive insider-trading ring is currently on trial in New York, and has implicated some leading financial-industry figures. And it follows a series of fines paid by America's biggest investment banks to settle charges of various securities violations.That's from an article by Jeffrey Sachs at HuffPo entitled The Global Economy's Corporate Crime Wave.
There is, however, scant accountability. Two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, which was fueled by unscrupulous behavior by the biggest banks on Wall Street, not a single financial leader has faced jail. When companies are fined for malfeasance, their shareholders, not their CEOs and managers, pay the price. The fines are always a tiny fraction of the ill-gotten gains, implying to Wall Street that corrupt practices have a solid rate of return. Even today, the banking lobby runs roughshod over regulators and politicians.
* An L.A. Times article by entitled Antiabortion measures flooding state legislatures shows how the GOP agenda is not jobs, jobs, jobs; rather, it's abortion, abortion, abortion:
In the first three months of 2011, legislators in 49 states introduced 916 measures related to reproductive issues, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York nonprofit research organization that supports abortion rights but is viewed by both sides of the debate as providing reliable statistics on the issue. More than half of the measures — 56% — seek to restrict abortion access.Overturning Roe v. Wade is the Holy Grail for the antiabortionists. "When Roe vs. Wade was decided, we didn't have such a clear window into the womb," said John Seago, legislative director of Texas Right to Life. "That's been absolutely crucial." Major antiabortion measures are currently under consideration in Texas, Ohio, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Indiana.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, a focus of ire for abortion foes, faces newly invigorated efforts to block its federal funding. Though the organization's clinics perform about 330,000 abortions per year, federal money cannot be used for the procedures. Critics say that any federal money that goes to support Planned Parenthood indirectly supports its abortion services.
* "By any traditional standard, Trump has absolutely no qualifications to hold the highest office, save one: his own overweening, bulldozing self-confidence," says Neal Gabler in The Boston Globe.
* In 2005, Bush shut down the CIA unit that was hunting for bin Laden. But on the first round of Sunday political talk shows after bin Laden's death, who do we see? Condoleeza Rice and Liz Cheney on This Week; Condoleeza again on Fareed Zakaria GPS; Rudy Guiliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and former CIA Director Michael Hayden on Meet the Press; Donald Rumsfeld on Face the Nation; and Dick Cheney himself on Fox News Sunday.
And what do they have to tell us? That we owe this great success to George W. Bush, and torture works.
UPDATE: Maddow Rips Sunday Shows For GOP Guest Slant
* Here's a link to an article from the Ultra Orthodox Hasidic newspaper Der Tzitung with the now-iconic photograph of the bin Laden raid Situation Room. But in accordance with the paper's religious principles forbidding images of women, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's image has been photoshopped out. As Digby says at Hullabaloo: Oy vey.
* There's been a big WikiLeaks release today: 7,000 cables from Tokyo reflecting U.S. government concern about the state of the Japanese nuclear industry and flaws in government oversight that "allowed corrupt bureaucrats and greedy, short-sighted human beings who run capitalistic enterprises" to bypass safety regulations in the pursuit of profit. (Digby, Hullabaloo.)
* How Town Hall Protests Against Paul Ryan's Plan Changed the Medicare Debate, by John Nichols at CommonDreams.org. Paul Ryan, chairman of the budget committee, has been hailed by the right as a courageous economic genius. His budget plan was passed unanimously in the House only a month ago, and it was praised to the skies by the media and the Republican leadership. But its proposed savaging of Medicare met with such public disapproval that things have changed:
House Speaker John Boehner now describes the Ryan plan ... as just “one idea” among many.* According to Ralph Nader, the CEO of Wal-Mart makes $11,000 an hour.
The No. 2 Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, says he's looking for alternatives to Ryan's proposal.
House Ways and Means Chair Dave Camp, D-Michigan, says he does not plan to hold hearings regarding Ryan's plan.
The operative term among Republicans now is that the budget committee chair's proposal is a “starting point" -- not a destination.
CEO Pay in 2010 Jumped 11% in 2010 (Wall Street Journal):
The median value of compensation for CEOs of 350 major companies rose 11 percent to $9.3 million, according to a study conducted for The Wall Street Journal by management consultancy firm Hay Group. At the top of the list is Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, who pocketed $84.3 million in compensation—more than double his 2009 total. Next was Oracle honcho Larry Ellison, who received compensation valued at $68.6 million, followed by CBS CEO Les Moonves, who can drown all his Charlie Sheen-related sorrows with compensation valued at $53.9 million. Four of the top ten most highly compensated CEOs were heads of media companies, including those at Viacom, CBS, Walt Disney, and Time Warner. Meanwhile, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch ranked 52nd on the list, receiving $16.5 million in compensation.* Probe Demanded After Worst Alberta Oil Spill in Four Decades
The break in the 770-kilometre Rainbow Pipeline, in forest northeast of Peace River, has leaked nearly 4.5 million litres (28,000 barrels) of crude oil since Friday. ERCB spokesman Davis Sheremata said the crack in the buried line was not caused by vandalism or sabotage.
* With taxes at their lowest level since 1958, and with Obama having significantly lowered taxes on almost all individuals -- yes, even the very wealthy -- Red State's Ben Howe says:
There seems to be no shortage of ways that this administration and the Democrat (sic) party can think of to tax away every bit of our nation’s prosperity.* A blogger named streiff, in an article on Red State entitled Obama Winds Down The War On Terror, says the following:
My colleagues have detailed the debt owed the Bush Administration which the current administration juvenilely and churlishly refuses to acknowledge.Bush terminated the CIA unit that was hunting for bin Laden in 2005; Obama made it a priority soon after he took office. But the right are insisting vigorously that it was "enhanced interrogation methods" that are the foundation of any success Obama may have.
And streiff considers Obama winding down the war on terror to be a bad thing. He/she predicts:
We will leave a war not won and forsake a victory that would make the world a safer place simply because Barack Obama doesn’t have the guts to prevail.* Red State again. This time Erick Erickson says:
Last night in the Luntz panel after the Fox debate, Luntz seemed taken aback that his panel of voters largely viewed the Obama Administration as socialist.I think a great majority of socialists would disagree.
Only effete intellectuals keen on nuancing socialism could disagree at this point. As socialism is commonly understood, i.e. spreading the wealth around through government intervention, Barack Obama is a socialist and his administration is a socialist administration.
Make no mistake about it — the Obama Administration is a socialist administration and it is pushing to be an authoritarian administration as it passes executive order after executive order designed to punish its enemies and reward its friends with government contracts.
Erickson is the honcho at Red State. Click here for a TalkingPointsMemo comment on Erickson's appointment as a political contributor for John King's CNN show. (Warning: Not family friendly.)
* More fun reading from the right. This is from Breitbart's Big Government, an article entitled Is California Dreaming? by Laura Rambeau Lee. She says:
The Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32) was signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006. It was passed as a result of the now pretty much debunked (or at least highly questioned) theory that fossil‐based energy produces greenhouse gases that are the primary contributors to climate change.The theory that fossil-based energy produces greenhouse gases is "pretty much debunked"? Wow. I didn't know.
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