http://www.demos.org/publication/retail-politics-how-america%E2%80%99s-big-box-retailers-turn-their-economic-power-political-infl

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/858896700789594


here's the NYT article about foreign corporations buying influence in prominent think tanks

Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/world/middleeast/killings-in-jerusalem-synagogue-complex.html?_r=0


“The murderers for today’s outrageous acts represent the kind of extremism that threatens to bring all of the Middle East into the kind of spiral from which it’s very difficult to emerge,” President Obama said from the White House. “But we have to remind ourselves that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace and to be able to raise their families knowing they’re safe and secure.”

The 7 a.m. invasion of a synagogue complex that is the heart of community life in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, in West Jerusalem, was the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians in more than three years and the worst in the city since 2008, when eight students were slain at a yeshiva. It brought to 11 the number of Israelis — including a baby, a soldier and a border police officer — killed in the past month.
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Senators grill New York Fed chief over reports of lax bank oversight (i.e. Too Cozy with banks they are supposed to be regulating)


[font size="3"]“Either you need to fix it, Mr. Dudley, or we need to get someone who will.”
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

"No Republican senators attended the hearing."
[/font]




[font size="3"]Republican Members of the committee who thought this hearing wasn't worth showing up for (probably working on speeches laying curses on and demonizing the President)

Patrick J. Toomey (Ranking Member)
Richard C. Shelby
David Vitter
Mike Johanns
Jerry Moran
Dean Heller
Bob Corker

[/font]



Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection



Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs: Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection - on Senate website

... amended it to permit running the pipeline to the Twin Cities / Chicago area where there is all kinds of refining capacity AND you are close to the population center of the country.

Well, the Big Oil companies should LOVE that --- I mean, the oil IS FOR THE U.S. market ISN'T IT!


original: http://www.democraticunderground.com/112778086

... amended it to permit running the pipeline to the Twin Cities / Chicago area where there is all kinds of refining capacity AND you are close to the population center of the country.

Well, the Big Oil companies should LOVE that --- I mean, the oil IS FOR THE U.S. market ISN'T IT!

.. Tom Coburn, obviously feels being a Republican, he enjoys a wider lattitude in terms of what he can say. Coburn said that people might react with violence to the PResident's using a Presidential Executive Order to keep some people from being deported - until their situation is clarified with some Immigration legislation.

Apparently Coburn feels since he's a Republican he is allowed to speak irresponsibly. That people will just say: "Oh it's just another insane Repugnant hysterical rant." But given that he is a member of the Government, he is giving some legitimacy to the idea of committing acts of violence. This is nothing but inciting people to riot. Coburn should be censured by the Senate and since he made these statements off the floor of Congress, he should be charged with inciting to riot. Even if you are a Republican there are some minimum standards of responsible behavior to be met.

Hm-m-m-m, time for a petition? ... We the People


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/19/usa-today-capital-download-with-tom-coburn/19263969/

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/3/jim_crow_returns_interstate_crosscheck_program

(see video at Democracy Now.org)

On the eve of the midterm elections, we air a report by investigative journalist Greg Palast on how new voter ID laws risk disenfranchising millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters. Twenty-seven states are now participating in the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program. Backers say it is needed to prevent voter fraud, but critics say it is being used to stop Democratic-leaning voters from going to the polls. Tens of thousands of names have already been removed, and millions more are threatened. Based on a six-month investigation, Palast’s report originally aired on Al Jazeera America. A Puffin Foundation fellow, Palast is the author of the New York Times best-seller, "Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps."

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https://www.russellsage.org/publications/private-equity-work

Private equity firms have long been at the center of public debates on the impact of the financial sector on Main Street companies. Are these firms financial innovators that save failing businesses or financial predators that bankrupt otherwise healthy companies and destroy jobs? The first comprehensive examination of this topic, Private Equity at Work provides a detailed yet accessible guide to this controversial business model. Economist Eileen Appelbaum and Professor Rosemary Batt carefully evaluate the evidence—including original case studies and interviews, legal documents, bankruptcy proceedings, media coverage, and existing academic scholarship—to demonstrate the effects of private equity on American businesses and workers. They document that while private equity firms have had positive effects on the operations and growth of small and mid-sized companies and in turning around failing companies, the interventions of private equity more often than not lead to significant negative consequences for many businesses and workers.

Prior research on private equity has focused almost exclusively on the financial performance of private equity funds and the returns to their investors. Private Equity at Work provides a new roadmap to the largely hidden internal operations of these firms, showing how their business strategies disproportionately benefit the partners in private equity firms at the expense of other stakeholders and taxpayers. In the 1980s, leveraged buyouts by private equity firms saw high returns and were widely considered the solution to corporate wastefulness and mismanagement. And since 2000, nearly 11,500 companies—representing almost 8 million employees—have been purchased by private equity firms. As their role in the economy has increased, they have come under fire from labor unions and community advocates who argue that the proliferation of leveraged buyouts destroys jobs, causes wages to stagnate, saddles otherwise healthy companies with debt, and leads to subsidies from taxpayers.

Appelbaum and Batt show that private equity firms’ financial strategies are designed to extract maximum value from the companies they buy and sell, often to the detriment of those companies and their employees and suppliers. Their risky decisions include buying companies and extracting dividends by loading them with high levels of debt and selling assets. These actions often lead to financial distress and a disproportionate focus on cost-cutting, outsourcing, and wage and benefit losses for workers, especially if they are unionized.

Because the law views private equity firms as investors rather than employers, private equity owners are not held accountable for their actions in ways that public corporations are. And their actions are not transparent because private equity owned companies are not regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Thus, any debts or costs of bankruptcy incurred fall on businesses owned by private equity and their workers, not the private equity firms that govern them. For employees this often means loss of jobs, health and pension benefits, and retirement income. Appelbaum and Batt conclude with a set of policy recommendations intended to curb the negative effects of private equity while preserving its constructive role in the economy. These include policies to improve transparency and accountability, as well as changes that would reduce the excessive use of financial engineering strategies by firms.
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/14/3592449/solar-cloth-parking-lots/