January 4, 2012
What Republicans Understand About Voting
-- by Dave Johnson
Republicans demand hand-counting, onsite registration and no voter ID for their own internal elections. What do you think they know that so many of the rest of us don't?
Daniel Becker, at Angry Bear realizes this, in So much for GOP Siren of voter fraud,
Maybe the appropriate title for this is: Do as I say and not as I do....Just listening to Thom Hartman and he noted something that struck a cord (chord?) with me: voter ID, electronic ballots. In the caucuses last night, the Republican party did not require and ID, they allowed onsite registration and hand counted the ballots. This is completely and totally counter to the Republican national position.
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:10 PM PST on January 04, 2012.
January 3, 2012
Remember When?
-- by Dave Johnson
Something I got in the mail:
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:37 PM PST on January 03, 2012.
Republicans Have Shut Down The NLRB. The President Must Act!
-- by Dave Johnson
As of now an agency of our government, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), is effectively shut down, unable to do its job. This is a "nullification" by Republicans, of laws that protect workers and companies, in exchange for campaign help from the 1%. They are simply obstructing, blocking appointments in order to keep the agency from functioning. The President has a responsibility to keep the government operating and must use his power to make recess appointments to get the NLRB up and running.
The NLRB
The mission of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), by law, is "to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy."
Once again, the reason we have the NLRB is:
"...to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy."
For readers who missed that, here it is in bold:
"to protect the rights of employees and employers, to encourage collective bargaining, and to curtail certain private sector labor and management practices, which can harm the general welfare of workers, businesses and the U.S. economy."
It's The Law
That's right, it is the policy of the U.S. government, and the law, to "encourage" unionization because higher wages and benefits helps Americans and our economy overall. By law.
It's the law.
Influence Of The 1%
Yes, it's the law. But so what? Paying good wages and providing benefits means that the 1% and their corporations might have to wait a bit longer to stash away a few billion more, so they are furious at such government "interference." Yes, it is better for everyone in the long run when working people do better, but it isn't better for the 1% right now, this quarter, so they fight every effort to help the middle class.
The 1% and their big corporations have a lot of influence. They dole out generous campaign contributions to those politicians who do their bidding. And they set up "outside groups" that are allowed to spend unlimited amounts to help those they favor and fight those they do not. And they hire lobbyists -- and let current members of Congress and their staff know they can hire them, too, later, for extremely generous salaries, if they just play ball now.
Agency Shut Down
In 2010 the Republican majority on the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the NLRB must have a quorum of board members or it cannot decide cases. Ongoing Republican efforts to keep the Board from operating succeeded. Over 600 decided cases were thrown out. Big companies could continue to get away with firing people for trying to exercise their legal rights to organize unions so they could get better pay and benefits, regardless of what the laws said.
So Republicans are doing the bidding of the 1%. Today the NLRB is effectively shut down because it does not have enough Board members to function. Republicans in the Senate have blocked appointments to the Board, to keep it from operating, to prevent it from deciding cases, so that big companies can operate with impunity and continue to shovel all the gains from our economy up to the top 1%.
Nullification
"Nullification" was the pre-Civil War "states rights" practice of Southern states simply ignoring federal laws. The Republicans are again engaging in nullification, on behalf of the 1%.
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, in Nullification Makes a Comeback, explains,
Republicans are refusing to allow votes on President Obama's nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and on his nominees to fill vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board. In both cases, the Republican refusal is explicity aimed at shutting down these agencies.... Republicans make no bones about why they're doing this. They opposed the CFPB from the start, and they're now using the filibuster as a way of unilaterally preventing it from operating even though it was lawfully created by a vote of Congress and signed into law by the president. Likewise, they're afraid the NLRB is about to make some rulings they dislike, so they're using the filibuster as a way of shutting it down by denying it a quorum.
The 1% are only 1%, and we are technically still supposed to be operating as a country where the majority rules. So when they can't get their way the 1% engage in various schemes to get their way. We have seen an unprecedented use of filibusters to block the ability of the Congress to function. We have seen hostage-taking and shutdown attempts. In the case of the NLRB (and the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency) we are seeing another "nullification" effort -- preventing the agency from operating by preventing appointments.
This is not politics, this is not bipartisanship, this is intentional obstruction to keep the government from operating.
Where Is Our President?
The President of the United States has a lot of power -- if he chooses to exercise that power. One of his powers is to make appointments himself at times when the Senate is unable to make appointments. This is in the Constitution because the Founders understood how important it is to keep the government operating.
The Constitution is clear about the President's power, and his implied responsibility to use that power to keep the government operating:
Article II Section 2: The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Article II Section 3: ...he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;
If the House and Senate disagree on adjournment, the President can adjourn them. And when they are adjourned he can make recess appointments. The Congress is engaging in a charade of "pro-forma" sessions to give the technical appearance of being in session when they are not in session as part of this obstruction/nullification strategy by the agents of the 1% to keep our government from functioning for the 99%.
The 15-Second Option
The President had the power to make recess appointments at noon today, when the Senate was officially in recess between the first and second sessions of the 58th Senate. This would have kept this important agency in operation, doing its legally mandated job of protecting workers and companies. The president didn't.
President Teddy Roosevelt used this power in 1903 to appoint 160 officials. The country survived.
Adjourn And Appoint
We can't wait. We have an extraordinary situation here, where one of the parties, as a political strategy, in exchange for campaign assistance from the 1%, is obstructing for the purpose of preventing the government from operating. It is the duty of the President to keep the government operating.
Mr. President, this is outrageous. Working people need you to use your power to get the NLRB up and functioning. Please, adjourn and appoint -- WE CAN'T WAIT!
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
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-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:35 PM PST on January 03, 2012.
January 2, 2012
Shorter Republican Strategy
-- by Dave Johnson
Shorter version of The GOP’s game plan to end Obama’s presidency - The Plum Line - The Washington Post:
"Obama didn't clean up the mess we made fast enough, therefore you should put us back in office."
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:55 PM PST on January 02, 2012.
December 31, 2011
Financial Sector Growth
-- by Dave Johnson
Brad DeLong: America’s Financial Leviathan: Project Syndicate discusses ways the financial sector can help the economy, and mentions the sector's justification for its growth:
"not, by and large, been a bad thing....Deploying capital to the places where it can be best used helps the economy grow..."
But if the financial sector was helping the economy grow, then the sector's share of the economy would not be increasing so much, because the economy would be increasing.
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:58 AM PST on December 31, 2011.
Mass Unemployment As Conservative Policy - To Keep Wages Down
-- by Dave Johnson
In England under Margaret Thatcher:
The policy was to create mass unemployment IN ORDER to reduce the strength of the working class IN ORDER to bring wages down and profits up -- so that the few at the top benefit.
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:32 AM PST on December 31, 2011.
December 30, 2011
Verizon's Fee And Attacks On Workers Are Cut From Same Cloth Of Corporate Greed
-- by Dave Johnson
You may have heard that Verizon is going to charge customers a $2 "convenience fee" to pay their bills online. You may not have heard that Verizon is asking its workers to take cuts in their pensions, sick pay, health insurance, even disability for employees injured on the job. These examples of corporate greed are cut from the same cloth. This is about big corporations using their power to drain and ultimately destroy the middle class so the 1% can have even more.
NY Times, An Uproar on the Web Over $2 Fee by Verizon,
The $2 monthly fee, which takes effect Jan. 15, will apply to people who make one-time credit or debit card payments on the phone or online. ...The outsize reaction in many ways reflects the year that is now concluding. The economy has not improved much, consumers are fresh off their victory in getting Bank of America to rescind its own move to levy a small new monthly fee and airlines and other companies continue to ask customers to pay à la carte for goods and services that were once part of the standard price.
Then there was Verizon, making the announcement in the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s and calling its new charge a “convenience” fee.
Not Just Squeezing Customers -- Squeezing Workers, Too!
In August I posted, Verizon's Workers Strike Back At Corporate Greed -- You Can Join Them!
The giant telecom company Verizon, currently raking in the billions ($6 billion in profits and a $10 billion dividend on $108 billion in revenue last year), while paying no taxes, is putting the squeeze on its workers, and they are fighting back. With all those profits, the company has been consumed by greed: Now Verizon is asking for $1 billion in concessions from its workers.
This giant company is extremely profitable, yet manages to pay not taxes: (click through for full story)
Paying No Taxes?Verizon, with $108 billion in revenue and huge profits, is not paying taxes. Citizens for Tax Justice, in Verizon Pushes for $1 Billion in Concessions from Workers, While Receiving Nearly $1 Billion in Subsidies from Uncle Sam, explains, (emphasis added below because I got mad when I read it.)
When you hear about Verizon putting the squeeze on its customers, keep the company's workers in mind.
Click here to sign CWA's petition: Stop Verizon Greed
Click here to learn about leafleting at a Verizon Wireless store
Click here for the latest information on the Verizon workers' efforts.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
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-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:50 PM PST on December 30, 2011.
Another Washington Post Social Security Mistake
-- by Dave Johnson
See if you can spot the big mistake (giving them the benefit of the doubt) in this Washington Post story: Payroll tax cut raises worries about Social Security’s future funding:
This year, the Social Security system projects that it will pay out $46 billion more in benefits than it will collect in cash. It made up for the shortfall by redeeming Treasury bonds bought in years when there were cash surpluses.
Here is the mistake, thanks to Dean Baker: Social Security Is NOT Selling Government Bonds,
This is not true. The Social Security trust fund is projected to earn $114.9 billion in interest on the bonds it holds. It will use a portion of these earnings to pay current benefits. It will not be redeeming its bonds.
Social Security has a huge trust fund -- if you think $2.6 trillion is huge. That trust fund is invested in US Treasury Bonds, and earns interest.
When you hear that Social Security is "in trouble' or "going broke" you are hearing from people who ignore this huge, huge trust fund and the interest it earns. This trust fund, along with the money people pay in, means that Social Security has enough to pay full benefits until 2037. Even then it will still be able to pay everyone more than they receive today. (Yes, more, because of cost-of-living adjustments.)
One of the problems with Social Security is that the "cap" -- the top income that is taxed to pay into the fund -- was calculated in the 80's, and they didn't foresee that all income gains after the 80s would only go to those at the top, where the income isn't taxed to pay into the fund. So, since the 80s, as more and more of the income gains went to the top few, the Social Security fund started to not have quite enough to go on forever. So now it it projected to only last until 2037. This is, of course, easily fixed -- as are so many of our country's problems -- by asking those at the top to pay in a little more.
So ... will I be attacked with pepper spray and batons for suggesting that the rich should pay back a bit more?
See also, Jan 2010, Washington Post Joins Wall Street Sneak Attack On Social Security.
This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.
Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:49 PM PST on December 30, 2011.
December 29, 2011
My Silicon Valley Experience
-- by Dave Johnson
Dave Winer, in Scripting News: So you want to be an entrepreneur describes my own Silicon Valley experience, too,
I used to be a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.Back in the day, you made a product, put it in a box, put the box through distribution, helped retailers sell it, got back a little money, paid your employees, and hoped there would be enough to make some more product, boxes, etc.
If you weren't one of the BigCo's the distributors would play games with your money. Eventually the games got so sophisticated, they had it worked out so you owed them more money than you made, so there was no way to get ahead. Unless you were one of the Big Ones. But even they hit the wall, and the software-in-a-box business went by the wayside.
A few people got rich from that. Yes, it was a bubble. What you got paid for was not your ability to make money. But, rather the ability of the VCs to sell Wall Street on whatever it is they sold them on back then. We were part of the whole system that eventually hit the wall with Credit Default Swaps and huge bailouts and unrepentant bankers. There was a trickle-down. The closer you were to someone who actually made something, the less you got paid. You read that right, the less you got paid. I'll repeat it. If you made something you got paid less.
Please go read the rest.
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:16 PM PST on December 29, 2011.
Dave On Hartmann Talking About Wall Street Crimes
-- by Dave Johnson
This is me on Thom Hartmann's Big Picture TV show Tuesday, talking about my AlterNet article, 7 of the Nastiest Scams, Rip-Offs and Tricks From Wall Street Crooks:
-- Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:21 AM PST on December 29, 2011.
