SO MUCH FOR UPHOLDING THE OATH OF OFFICE

Article HERE.

Stop the Republican effort to limit Finance Regulatory Reform

This is not a drill. This is an emergency.

Our financial system is being attacked in Congress, and if it collapses again because of reckless greed, working people will bear the brunt. CEO-backed politicians will raid our Social Security, our Medicare and our public services to bail out the fat cats. Take action now.

Tell your members of Congress: Deregulation leads to financial crises. Don't deregulate Wall Street and then rob working people to pay for the bailouts that will follow: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].

In 2008, Big Banks and Wall Street CEOs created the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. As a result, 14 million Americans still are unemployed today. 

But even though unemployment is high and our economic recovery is pathetically slow and fragile, corporations are lobbying furiously to undo the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. 

Many parts of this new Wall Street Reform Act--including a requirement that outrageous CEO pay be publicly compared with worker pay--haven't even gone into effect yet. But already, House Republicans are siding with corporate CEOs, trying to repeal the bill piece by piece. 

What's the Big Bank/CEO/House Republican plan? Deregulate. And if the economy collapses again because of reckless greed, rob working Americans to pay for bailouts while the rich get richer.


Tell Congress to leave the Wall Street Reform Act alone--and that if deregulation leads to another financial panic, we won't pay a dime for bailouts: [http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].

This is serious. This is the time to take action. As House Republicans pick at pieces and "provisions" of financial reform, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that deregulation brought our economy to the brink of collapse. That didn't happen all at once, either. It happened in pieces since the 1970s. Little by little, corporations pushed their agenda, and they got away with it.

That's why working people must push back hard when corporations and greedy CEOs lobby for even a small piece of deregulation. 

Tell Congress to leave the Wall Street Reform Act alone--if deregulation leads to another financial crisis, we'll know exactly whom to blame: [http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].

So far, this week Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed repealing several important provisions of Wall Street reform, including CEO-to-worker compensation disclosure--before they even go into effect. They also want to create new loopholes in the law for private equity fund managers, companies that use derivatives, credit rating firms and companies that issue up to $50 million in securities.

The fact is, America deserves to know what CEOs make compared with their workers, and we simply cannot afford to deregulate Wall Street. 

But more broadly, we can't give an inch and allow the deregulators to bankrupt America again. 

Efforts at repealing pieces of Wall Street reform are just the beginning of Wall Street thinking it can return to its old ways. We've got to put that notion to rest, right now.

Tell your members of Congress you oppose repealing any part of Wall Street reform, that you demand CEO-to-worker pay ratios be made public and that working people can't afford more financial disasters: [ http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1736 ].

In solidarity,

Manny Herrmann
Online Mobilization Coordinator, AFL-CIO

APPALLING IGNORANCE

The word "surreal" doesn't even begin to describe what one Congressman from Georgia said.

According to Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.), the right to engage in the pursuit of happiness is in the United States Constitution and proves the constitutionality the individual mandate to buy health insurance (hat tip to The Pagan Temple) for the video below:



The Preamble of our Constitution reads as follows:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Fourteenth Amendment is HERE. Excerpt:

...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...

Apparently, Congressman John Lewis does not comprehend the document he took an oath to uphold.

Call in for unemployment benefits extension

Hey!  In addition to calling Congress on the National Call-In Action Day there's another way to raise your voice on Tuesday, November 16 for continuing the federal unemployment insurance program.
It's a Blog-A-Thon!
We've teamed up with our friends at MomsRising.org to raise our blogging voices for unemployed workers and their families. MomsRising.org is promoting their own Blog Carnival on the unemployment issue on Tuesday, November 16.  And, in coordination, we're sponsoring a parallel Blog-A-Thon.
Here's how it works:
If you post on a blog, or have your own blog, make Tuesday, November 16 the day you post a blog on the unemployment crisis and the need for Congress to continue the federal unemployment benefits program.  When you post your blog, put the link up in a Twitter tweet -- include the hashtag #blog4ui -- and send it to @laidoffleftout or @MomsRising or better yet both.  We'll be retweeting throughout the day, helping to raise all our blogging voices for unemployed workers and their families.




Squeezed for time?  Then you can just post your 'micro-blog' message on Twitter.  Send us tweets supporting continued unemployment benefits to @laidoffleftout or @MomsRising (or both) and include the hashtag #blog4ui so others can follow along as well.

So, on Tuesday, November16, in addition to calling Congress on the National Call-In Action Day you can also raise your blog voice as part of the coordinated Blog Carnival and Blog-A-Thon for unemployed workers and their families.  You'll find all the information and background you might need in this post from our blog, and in the National Employment Law Project's report "Out in the Cold for the Holidays."

Many thanks.  See you on the Blog-A-Thon.
The Unemployedworkers.org Team
Mitchell, Chris, Andy, Maurice, Judy, Christine, Rebecca, Mike, Rick, George, Norman, Claire and Blase
www.Unemployedworkers.org

Ami Bera for Congress

Dr. Ami Bera is one of the few Democrats who might win a seat away from a sitting Republican Congressman.  Photo is of Ami Bera  and Professor Jim Shoch at a  Progressive Alliance  Election Forum on Thursday, October 28, in Sacramento.

The Democratic Congress as a whole is  assault from the Republicans. There are  several liberal and progressive Democratic elected officials who are likely to lose. 

(photo: Dr. Jim Shoch and Dr. Ami Bera) 

 There is an energized, right-wing assault from the Tea Party Republicans.

Big Oil joined with Wall Street to rescue one of their staunchest allies: Dan Lungren. Under the direction of Karl Rove's shadowy organization American Crossroads, these two corporate special interests began pouring thousands of hidden dollars into the Sacramento media market.

"Karl Rove, Big Oil and Wall Street lining up behind Dan Lungren confirms what voters already know -- Lungren is looking out for himself and his corporate campaign contributors, not middle class families," said Lucinda Guinn, Bera for Congress campaign manager.

American Crossroads is funded and operated almost exclusively by Wall Street special interests, corporate lobbyists, and Big Oil executives -- including a former Enron lobbyist, the owner of the financial investment giant AIG, and the manager of one of the world's largest hedge funds. As of June, 97% of the money American Crossroads raised came from four billionaires, including two oil and gas billionaires.

 Bera noted that his opponent  Dan Lungren has taken over $84,000 from the oil and gas industry, over $248,000 from the financial industry, and in return is doing their bidding in Congress -- voting in favor of a $2.6 billion tax break for Big Oil and against limits on executive compensation for bailed out banks. 

Recommend: read the  Mother Jones view of the race and the issues.

Volunteer for Bera

The Progressive Election Forum was a success.

Bera For Congress Get Out The Vote! from BeraForCongress on Vimeo.

RE-authorization of ESEA, NCLB

Dear Supporter of a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA):

We don't expect the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now known as "No Child Left Behind") to take place this year.  

But Congress and the Administration are working on developing a proposal, and many BBA leaders and signatories have been meeting with Senators, Congresspeople, their staffs, and Administration officials to urge more sensible approaches than those we believe are being considered seriously. 

Although each BBA leader and signatory speaks only for him or herself in this advocacy, and may emphasize different aspects of our common program, we thought it would be helpful if we developed suggested "talking points" to which you can refer when you urge the adoption of a Broader, Bolder Approach. 

These are the points (also attached to this e-mail, and available on our website at:http://www.boldapproach.org/20100512_bba_key_points_esea_reauthorization.pdf )

 1. Neither schools nor teachers should be held accountable based primarily on test scores of students. Such accountability can lead to gross misidentification of failing schools and creates incentives to teach to the test, narrow the curriculum, and substitute drill for education.

2. So-called "growth models" that are based on student growth from one year to the next would be an improvement over accountability models based on the comparison of score levels of successive cohorts, but are still flawed. A September to June measure would be an improvement (although could still misidentify schools), but would require federal mandates for twice-annual testing and would create incentives for different kinds of gaming (to depress September scores, for example) if used for accountability purposes.

3. A good accountability system should include scores on high-quality tests as indicators, but must also be based on qualitative observation and evaluation. Such a system is necessarily too complex to be designed and regulated by the federal government. ESEA should require states to develop such accountability systems to replace heavily test-based systems, and states should be given latitude to experiment with the design of such systems.

4. Even if standards and tests are improved (as in the common core standards), their exclusive focus on math and English maintains incentives to narrow the curriculum. No school should be judged successful if it improves math and reading performance at the expense of the arts, science, history, health and physical education, character development, and other elements of a full curriculum. The qualitative evaluation that should be the core of accountability systems can ensure that schools, even those with high math and reading scores, are pursuing a balanced curriculum.

5. Although schools should be improved, the most powerful impediment to higher achievement of disadvantaged children is the lack of social, economic and community conditions that permit them to come to school ready to learn. The Obama Administration's support for Promise Neighborhoods, the Nurse-Family Partnership, high-quality Early Childhood programs, high-quality after-school and summer programs, and family and community engagement programs, recognizes this importance. Yet if these programmatic supports are important, and necessary to student success, then it makes no sense to hold schools accountable for producing success irrespective of whether those schools have access to these supporting services. If good schools and teachers were truly capable of getting all children college-ready without such services, then there would be no reason to promote these additional supports. The Administration should integrate the many programs in different federal agencies that attempt to support the successful development of children from low-income families, and its school accountability policies should be consistent with this integration.

6. Although some competitive grants may have a constructive role to play in federal funding for education in some situations, in this time of fiscal crisis in the states and school districts, most federal funding should be by formula. In the present fiscal environment, real (inflation-adjusted) cuts to Title I funding should be rejected. Rather, a real increase in the Title I formula program is urgently needed.

---

For further information about A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education,
contact boldapproach@epi.org or visit www.boldapproach.org.

What Has ‘Brown’ Done for You Lately?

“What has ‘Brown’ done for you lately?” If UPS officials get their way with Congress, your answer might soon be: “They left me feeling as if I’ve been robbed.” All of the ugly details, plus a video, are available here.

Nevada brothel offers free passes to Senators

The Keith Olberman video below is powerful. Please view it.
If Republicans and Blue Dogs are going to sell their souls; they might as well enjoy it.
A famous Nevada brothel is offering free passes to the legislators. This is far less corrupting than taking millions for campaign finance efforts as the Republicans are doing; and several Blue Dogs.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/nevada-brothel-offers-free-passes-to-lawmakers.php

Pigs at the trough

Whole Hog
Early Sunday morning after a marathon session, Congress put a blue ribbon on the immense hog known as the defense budget and declared it a winner. Just before going on their August vacation, the House approved the 2008 defense appropriations bill of $459 billion. The vote was 395 to 13. With the nearly full support of the Democrats, the Bush administration is on the verge of pushing through a $40 billion increase in military spending for next year.

Much was made of the battle between Congress and the administration over this bill. After all, the administration's request was actually a few billion dollars more, and the White House has opposed many of the congressional changes. In reality, the House sliced off only the smallest amount of pork -- less than 1 percent of the total -- and redirected it to social programs. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) went after some of the more blatant earmarks and has even challenged pet projects of his Republican colleagues. His amendments were overwhelmingly rejected. (One of those earmarks, inserted by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, provides $4 million to a California company to develop a "novel viral biowarfare agent" -- one of those projects of "biodefense" that the United States deceptively argues is permitted under the Biological Weapons Convention).

Over $450 billion: that's some big pig. But wait, as the old TV ads liked to say, that's not all! The appropriations bill doesn't include another nearly $50 billion in defense spending on the Department of Energy's nuclear programs and a few other items. And, of course, there's the almost $150 billion in supplemental spending on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which will generate considerable debate when Congress returns in September.

At $650 billion, U.S. military spending is the highest since World War II, outstrips what the rest of the world combined spends on defense, and outpaces our putative adversaries by at least 5 to 1. Flake's attempts to torpedo some of the earmarks were commendable. But hey, the earmarks total about $3 billion. That's chump change, Jeff! If you really want to save us from trichinosis, here are some of the larger pieces of pork to cut out and throw away:

Missile Defense -- this is the most expensive weapons system, and it has yet to be proven to work. The Dems cut the tiniest amount from the White House request. Knock out this technofolly and save over $8 billion a year.

Nukes -- we're telling North Korea to get rid of its pathetic arsenal and threatening countries like Iran for even considering a nuclear deterrent, yet we're pouring billions into upgrading our own system. If we sit down with the Russians and cut strategic forces to 1,000 warheads apiece, we can save nearly $15 billion a year.

Cold War weapons systems -- we're spending more than $20 billion a year to build weapons like the V-22 Osprey that a) doesn't work and b) was developed to fight the Soviet Union.

In FPIF's Unified Security Budget, we find $55.9 billion in military spending cuts that should attract bipartisan support. In our more ambitious Just Security framework, we call for a dramatic restructuring of the U.S. approach to the world, which would reduce our overseas military posture. Savings: over $200 billion a year.

So, how exactly did the Bush administration convince the Democratic majority in the House to go along with this nonsense -- and even to feel good about itself for paring off less than 1 percent?

If there were only one factory producing U.S. military armaments located in Rhode Island, there would be a dramatic reduction of congressional support for a rising defense budget. The problem is: virtually all weapons systems have been broken down into a supply chain that turns the 50 states into an assembly line for the military-industrial complex. Almost every member of Congress therefore supports the whole hog in order to bring home some of the bacon to their home district.

So, all you pay-as-you-go Democrats, where exactly are you going to find the funds for a national healthcare plan, a strategy to save our public schools, or a program to rebuild our failing infrastructure? Right now, the Dems are not thinking of the hog. Come 2008, however, there will be no other place to turn. Sharpen those knives!

Throwing the Military at the Problem

If I were a military contractor, the Middle East would look mighty dandy these days. The war in Iraq is a giant advertisement for U.S. weapons systems, even if the war itself is disastrous. The threats of Iran and Syria, trumpeted so frequently by the administration and Congress, are music to the defense industry's ears.

But really, the true gravy train is the arms sales racket. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently unveiled the administration's plan for the Middle East. There was some stirring rhetoric. More importantly, there were plenty of weapons to go around. The United States has a sweet deal -- funding both sides of the conflict. The latest plan is to add $65 billion more to the pot, with most of it going to Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

As FPIF contributor Matt Duss writes in Gasoline for the Fire, the arms package "is an admission of failure on several fronts." There's the failure of the Iraq War to produce a more stable Middle East. There's the failure of the "democracy promotion" agenda for the region. "Having upset the balance of power in the region by removing Saddam Hussein, empowering Iran by removing the most significant check on their regional hegemony, and having transformed Iraq into a terrorist training ground, the United States now proposes to supply new weapons to its allies in the region to help them deal with the new security environment which it created," Duss writes.

Aside from lucrative contracts for U.S. arms manufacturers, what will the United States get out these deals? "The United States has had little success in the past using arms sales to buy leverage in the region," writes FPIF contributor Rachel Stohl in The Saudi Arms Deal: Congressional Opposition Building. "And, with no strings attached to the assistance -- no democratic reforms, human rights conditions, or peace-making obligations -- the arms sales do nothing to change the behavior of the authoritarian regimes in the region. Sending more arms to the Middle East may provoke Iran into accelerating its own arms purchases. Russia and China have been all too eager to step in and provide Iran with high technology weapon to offset the balance of power in the region. Although the United States can express its displeasure after the fact, the reality is that once the weapons leave U.S. possession, we have little to no influence on how those weapons are used and by whom."

Foreign Policy in Focus