Hissyspit
Hissyspit's JournalTom Tomorrow: Convention Coverage
Daily Kos Link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/10/1129197/-Convention-coverage
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Alternet: Three Ways GOP is Cheating in Swing States
http://www.alternet.org/3-ways-gop-has-already-disenfranchised-thousands-swing-state-voters3 Ways the GOP Has Already Disenfranchised Thousands of Swing-State Voters
Some of the GOP's tactics can be reversed. But not all of them.
September 10, 2012
The Republican Party’s war on Democratic voting blocks is like a game of three-dimensional chess in which their strategies are intended to remain dormant until Election Day, and in the following days when votes are officially counted.
But their game plan is simple. They want to discourage voters by complicating every step for new and existing voters from specific blue cohorts, such as students, poor people and minorities. They’ve adopted new laws or rules that target pathways surrounding polling place voting, while keeping voting by mail—a longtime GOP strategy—free from similar rules. And they are spreading fears that there will be vastly more policing of the process to scare away voters, when in reality that’s not likely to be the case.
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1. Criminalize Voter Registration Drives
This strategy can best be seen in—surprise—Florida. According to a new report by Project Vote, at least 23 states have new rules for groups that conduct voter registration drives. The strictest of these require volunteers to undergo state trainings, set tight timetables for turning in registration applications and ban paying field workers based on the number of registrations filed. These kinds of new rules target groups like Project Vote , which once assisted low-income advocates such as ACORN in its drives.
Florida’s voter registration restrictions, which went into effect July 2011 and stayed in effect until this June (when they were thrown out by a federal court) also had big fines for any mistakes made with registration forms. A recent New York Times report noted that groups that previously registered voters in Florida, such as the League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote and Florida Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), stopped while the law was in effect. Compared to this period a year before the 2008 election, Florida has 250,000 fewer new Democratic registrants, the Times said.
REST AT LINK
Robert Reich - The Biggest Economic Challenge of Obama's Second Term: Restore the "Basic Bargain"
http://robertreich.org/post/31257103352The Biggest Economic Challenge of Obama’s Second Term
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2012
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At the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, Romney produced the predictable set of Republican bromides: cut taxes on corporations and the already rich, cut government spending (mainly on the lower-middle class and the poor), and gut business regulations. It’s the same supply-side nonsense that got the economy into trouble in the first place.
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It’s a start but America’s middle class and poor need far more. They need to be able to refinance their mortgages at today’s low interest rates. They need a larger Earned Income Tax Credit – a wage subsidy for lower-paying jobs. And a higher minimum wage that’s automatically adjusted for inflation.
They could use a new Works Projects Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps designed to put the long-term unemployed back to work.
They need stronger unions to bargain for a larger share of the gains from economic growth. And a Social Security payroll tax that exempts the first $25,000 of income and eliminates the ceiling (now $110,100) on income subject to it.
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In accepting his party’s nomination for president, Obama said the “basic bargain” that once rewarded hard work and gave everyone a fair shot had come undone.
He’s right. And the U.S. economy won’t return to normal until that basic bargain is remade.
MORE[p]
Explosions Kill 58 in Iraq, French Consulate Hit
Source: Reuters
Explosions kill 58 in Iraq, French consulate hit
Sun Sep 9, 2012 7:52am EDT
By Suadad al-Salhy and Raheem Salman
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 58 people were killed in attacks across Iraq on Sunday, including a car bomb outside a French consulate.
Iraq's conflict has eased since its height in 2006-2007 when sectarian slaughter killed thousands. But Sunni Islamists and an al Qaeda affiliate still launch about one major attack a month in an effort to reignite tensions between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims following the U.S. military withdrawal in December.
The most serious of the bombings, blasts and shootings on Sunday happened near the city of Amara, 300 km (185 miles) south of Baghdad, when two car bombs exploded outside a Shi'ite shrine and a market place, killing at least 16 people, officials said.
"So far 16 corpses were brought to the hospital, and more than 100 people were wounded," said Sayid Hasanain, a local health official.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88802Z20120909?irpc=932
Sunday's DOONESBURY: All Of The Blame, None Of The Credit
SLATE Link: http://doonesbury.slate.com
NASA Explains How We Caused the Hottest Decade and Are Generally Screwing Ourselves Over (VIDEO)
From Juan Cole's site:
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/nasa-explains-how-we-caused-the-hottest-decade-are-are-generally-screwing-ourselves-over-video.html
NASA Explains how We Caused the Hottest Decade and are generally screwing ourselves over (Video)
Posted on 09/08/2012 by Juan
NASA’s 5-minute video explains why the last decade has been the hottest ever (we did it) and what climate change means for our hot, thirsty future. It is entitled “Piecing together the Puzzle” and is narrated in a slow, calm voice. But it should be entitled “Run for the Hills!” and should have been narrated by Jennifer Granholm.
Suicide Bomber Kills Four Near NATO Headquarter in Kabul
Source: Reuters
Suicide bomber kills four near NATO headquarter in Kabul
Sat Sep 8, 2012 4:03am EDT
KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber detonated explosives near the heavily barricaded NATO headquarters in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday, killing four civilians, NATO and local officials said.
The bomber, who was riding an explosives-laden motorcycle, blew himself up near the entrance of Camp Eggers, a NATO spokeswoman said, referring to a sprawling base that is home to 2,500 coalition trainers.
At least four civilians were killed and two more wounded, Kabul Police Chief Ayoub Salangi told Reuters.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88703L20120908?irpc=932
Mitt Romney Congratulates The Corporate Tax Cheats (MUST-READ OP-ED)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kleinbard-tax-cheats-20120907,0,6526020.storyHat-tip: @nickshaxson
OP-ED
Tax planning? Or tax cheating?
Laws that encourage corporate tax havens are bad for America.
Mitt Romney speaks with the news media after making a stop at the "New Hampshire Veterans and Military Families for Mitt" event in Concord, N.H. Romney recently announced that big businesses "know how to find ways to get through the tax code, save money by putting various things in the places where there are low-tax havens around the world for their businesses." (Evan Vucci / Associated Press / September 6, 2012)
By Edward D. Kleinbard
September 7, 2012
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The other party inhabits a realm of fantasy akin to Erewhon, the fictional land created by the 19th century satirist Samuel Butler. In Erewhon, Butler wrote, "If a man has made a fortune … they exempt him from all taxation, considering him as a work of art, and too precious to be meddled with; they say, 'How very much he must have done for society before society could have been prevailed upon to give him so much money.'"
It is a pity that Republicans do not appreciate that Butler was writing ironically.
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The U.S. tax principle, and the principle at work in every other major economy, is that corporate income should be taxed in the country where it is earned. If that principle were scrupulously followed, very little income would be reported in tax havens, which generally have relatively small populations and in most cases modest manufacturing bases. But instead we find that U.S.-based multinationals claim that an extraordinary percentage of their income is "earned" in tax havens.
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The answer is that when we countenance a tax system that rewards such a tax strategy, we implicitly encourage U.S. firms to invest overseas — not necessarily in tax havens but in other major economies. Once a U.S.-based multinational's income is treated as earned outside the United States, the firm then can easily migrate its income from the high-tax foreign countries in which the income is earned to tax havens.
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When Romney endorses the idea that U.S. firms are doing right by reporting their profits overwhelmingly in tax havens, he shows contempt for a basic principle of tax law. This encourages still more aggressive profit shifting and stateless income tax planning. The missing tax revenue must be made up by domestic firms and individual Americans.
MORE AT LINK
Edward D. Kleinbard is a law professor at USC, a fellow at the Century Foundation and a former chief of the nonpartisan staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.
Jobs Rise 96,000 in August, Below Expectations; Unemployment Rate Falls to 8.1
Source: Reuters
Jobs growth brakes in August, seen forcing Fed's hand
By Lucia Mutikani
Fri Sep 7, 2012 8:50am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jobs growth slowed more than expected in August, setting the stage for the Federal Reserve to pump additional money into the sluggish economy next week and dealing a blow to President Obama as he seeks reelection in November.
Nonfarm payrolls increased only 96,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. While the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, it was largely due to Americans giving up the search for work.
The report's weak tenor was also underscored by revisions to June and July data to show 41,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported. The labor force participation rate, or the percentage of Americans who either have a job or are looking for one, fell to 63.5 percent -- the lowest since September 1981.
The lackluster report keeps the pressure on Obama ahead of the November vote in which the health of the economy looms large.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE88604Y20120907?irpc=932
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