VRWC news: gonna be a long thread

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The Global Economy's Corporate Crime Wave

The world is drowning in corporate fraud, and the problems are probably greatest in rich countries – those with supposedly “good governance.” Poor-country governments probably accept more bribes and commit more offenses, but it is rich countries that host the global companies that carry out the largest offenses. Money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.

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.

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.

Corruption pays in American politics as well. The current governor of Florida, Rick Scott, was CEO of a major health-care company known as Columbia/HCA. The company was charged with defrauding the United States government by overbilling for reimbursement, and eventually pled guilty to 14 felonies, paying a fine of $1.7 billion.

The FBI’s investigation forced Scott out of his job. But, a decade after the company’s guilty pleas, Scott is back, this time as a “free-market” Republican politician.

When Barack Obama wanted somebody to help with the bailout of the US automobile industry, he turned to a Wall Street “fixer,” Steven Rattner, even though Obama knew that Rattner was under investigation for giving kickbacks to government officials. After Rattner finished his work at the White House, he settled the case with a fine of a few million dollars.

http://www.truthout.org/print/1858

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Citizens United Decision Profoundly Affects Political Landscape

An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics reveals that the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling of January 2010 has profoundly affected the nation's political landscape.

Corporations and unions both benefited from the ruling, being able to use their general treasuries to pay for independent expenditures for the first time.

Unions spent more than $17.3 million from their general treasuries on independent expenditures opposing Republican candidates such as Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and James Renacci (R-Ohio). The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees spent more than $7 million out of their general treasury, the most of any other union.

The National Education Association had a different strategy. It set up a so called "super PAC" and financed it with $3.3 million from its general treasury. Pre-Citizens United unions could only spend money on independent expenditures using funds that were voluntarily donated to their political action committee by union members. Now unions can tap into funds that come directly from union member's dues. Unions are still banned from using their treasuries to donate to congressional campaigns and party committees.

Corporations generally did not directly get involved in political spending but rather donated more than $15 million to a new type of political group known as a "super PAC". These groups may raise unlimited amounts of money from any source as long as the donors are disclosed and the groups only spend money on independent expenditures. The top two corporate donors in 2010 were TRT Holdings and Alliance Resource Partners, which each donated about $2.5 million to the 'super PAC' American Crossroads. Corporate donations are likely higher than reported as conservative non-profit groups spent $121 million without disclosing where the money came from.

The ruling allowed corporations and unions to use their general treasuries to pay for political advertisements that expressly call for the election or defeat of a candidate, also known as independent expenditures. This ruling subsequently allowed non-profit corporations under the tax code 501c to spend unlimited amounts of money running these political advertisements while not revealing their donors.

Influencing elections cannot, by law, be the primary purpose of the non-profits.

These nonprofits certainly took advantage of their new power, however, spending $61.3 million on independent expenditures in 2010.

Top findings of the Center's study include:

The percentage of spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 midterm elections

501c non-profit spending increased from zero percent of total spending by outside groups in 2006 to 42 percent in 2010.

Outside interest groups spent more on election season political advertising than party committees for the first time in at least two decades, besting party committees by about $105 million.

The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006.

Seventy-two percent of political advertising spending by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money in 2006


http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011...andscape.html#

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Repugs slam court house door in the faces of Human-Americans:

UM doctors get protection from lawsuits

A proposal to give UM doctors working at Jackson Memorial Hospital state lawsuit protection was approved.
By Patricia Mazzei
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- In a long-sought move, the University of Miami won a legislative victory on Wednesday when Florida lawmakers agreed to extend state lawsuit protection to university doctors working in public hospitals.

Gov. Rick Scott will likely sign the bill into law. Scott is also expected to sign another lawsuit-limitation bill that passed Wednesday that changes the way people can sue automobile makers.

The vote to give “sovereign immunity” to UM has been years in the making.

The state protects government hospital employees, residents and interns — including those at Miami’s Jackson Health System — from major medical malpractice judgments. But UM medical school doctors who teach at Jackson are not covered by the protected status.

For two decades, UM officials have pushed to receive the same benefit, saying patients often sue the university instead of Jackson because of UM’s deep pockets.

The university spends $40 million a year on malpractice cases, said Ron Book, one of UM’s lobbyists in the Capitol. State protection, he added, could cut that expense in half.

“This good bill will even the playing field,”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/0...tion-from.html

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no, You Repug Liar, it tilts the sick-care end of the playing field way up, so dead/maimed Human-Americans have to fight uphill for justice, or even to get a foot in the court house door.

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Senate Republicans Plan to Block Consumer Bureau Nominee

U.S. Senate Republicans told President Barack Obama they will block any nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless Democrats agree to change the agency’s structure and funding.

The warning, delivered in a letter to the White House, adds to the uncertainty surrounding the agency, created by the Dodd- Frank Act last year over the objections of Republican lawmakers and financial-industry lobbyists.

Forty-four Republican senators, led by Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, signed the May 2 letter made public yesterday. They wrote that they want the agency’s director to be replaced by a board of directors, its funding brought under congressional control and its operations subject to more oversight from other bank regulators.

“No person should have the unfettered authority presently granted to the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” the senators said in the letter signed by Republicans including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We believe that the Senate should not consider any nominee to be CFPB director until the CFPB is properly reformed.”

Democrats control 53 of the 100 votes in the Senate, so the 44 Republican signatures ensure they wouldn’t be able to garner the 60 needed to overcome objections to a nominee.

“Republicans fought the creation of a strong consumer watchdog from the start and now they are at it again,”

“For far too long, American consumers have fallen victim to fraud, misleading claims, and powerful special interests and the President believes that American families who were the hardest hit by this financial crisis deserve an independent watchdog to protect consumers and prevent predatory lending and other abuses in the future,”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/...hanges-1-.html

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Repug s turning tricks for the Financial Sector Corporate-Americans to screw over Human-Americans.

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After Citizens United, Conservative Undisclosed Donors Spent 10 Times As Much As Liberal Ones In 2010 Election



http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/06/...vatives-spent/

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And STILL the eliminationist Repugs/VRWC want to bust all unions because they support the Dems.

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Thanks to Decades of Conservative Spin, Americans Are Hopelessly Confused About Taxes, Spending and the Deficit
By Joshua Holland,

http://www.alternet.org/story/150826...nd_the_deficit

A few weeks back, Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, felt compelled to take time out of what is presumably a busy schedule to explain that “taxes are, first and foremost, about paying for what the government buys.” That he felt compelled to do so is a sad reflection of the state of our economic discourse.

A good number of Americans are hopelessly confused about taxes, deficits and the debt. And it's no mystery why – conservatives have spent 30 years divorcing the taxes we pay from the services they finance. They've bent themselves into intellectual pretzels arguing that cutting taxes – on the wealthy – leads to more revenues in the coffers. They've invented narratives about taxes driving “producers” to sunnier climes, killing jobs by the bushel, and relentlessly spun the wholly false notion that we're facing “runaway spending” and are “taxed to death.”

And they've had great success. But they haven't done it alone – credit the media with an assist for muddying the waters around our fiscal situation. Consider a poll released this week by the highly respected Gallup organization. Their headline reads, “Americans Blame Wasteful Government Spending for Deficit.” Is that true? Well, here were the options – the only options – that respondents were offered:

Which do you think is more to blame for the federal budget deficit: Spending too much on government programs that are either not needed or wasteful, or not raising enough taxes to pay for needed programs? (Emphasis added.)

“Accordingly,” says Gallup, “Americans generally favor spending cuts rather than tax increases as the way for Congress to reduce the deficit going forward.” According to that distorted narrative – that false choice -- of course they do. I'm sure the results of a poll asking if people would prefer an ice cream sundae or a sharp stick in the eye would prove equally conclusive (not to mention bipartisan).

The problem is that after decades of anti-government rhetoric, there's very little in the way of “wasteful spending” left unless you look hard at the military budget, which neither party seems willing to do in any serious way.

We are, simply, under-taxed relative to the things we want the government to do. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the biggest driver of the projected deficits over the next ten years are not the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or social safety net programs; it's the Bush tax cuts.

Last year, the revenues collected by the federal government were the lowest since 1950 (as a share of our overall economic activity). But it's important to understand that back then, we had no medicare program. The population was younger, and health care costs were a fraction of what they are today – in 1960, just before Medicare was established, we spent 5 percent of GDP on health-care; today, we spend about 17 percent.

As economist Dean Baker noted, if we spent the same per person on health-care as any one of the 35 countries with longer average life expectancies, our deficits would turn into surpluses in a few short years.

Offering health-care to children, seniors and the poor is anything but “not needed.” Is it wasteful? Health-care costs have skyrocketed for years in this country, but more slowly in the public sector than in the private.

While we're clearly under-taxed, the right's anti-tax crusaders have largely had their way shaping the discourse. About 7 in 10 Americans want the deficit to be addressed. Many believe that running a large, short-term deficit is hurting the economy when the opposite is true. We lost $14 trillion in wealth in the financial crash, and that – along with high unemployment and an ongoing foreclosure nightmare – has led to a huge drop in consumer demand. Public spending has, to a painfully inadequate degree, filled some of the gap.

Give the conservative message machine its due credit. While Americans really like the specific things government does – they want low-cost student loans, having fire-fighters and cops on the beat and a whole slew of other services – the abstract idea of “limited government” is quite appealing.

The right's victory in separating taxes from the services they pay for is apparent when citizens are asked what they'd like to see cut in order to cut that deficit. In January, Gallup released a poll on those specifics. They asked which of nine areas of government services they'd like to see cut. Only cutting foreign aid – which represents about two percent of the federal budget – met with the approval of a majority of those surveyed. Even majorities of Republicans opposed cuts to everything but foreign aid and arts funding.

Taken together, this shows how difficult it is for law-makers to arrive at good public policies. Their cons uents wants their cake, they want to eat it, but they don't think they need to pay the tab for it. Politicos offer tax cuts to get themselves elected, but then face outraged cons uents when they try to cut services. Small wonder that we've only managed to balance the budget in one brief period during the boom years of the 1990s.

We do face serious issues in this country. We need a serious debate about how best to solve them. But we're having that debate in a democracy populated by citizens who have little or no clue where their tax dollars go. And you can credit the anti-tax crusaders and their habitual mendacity for that sorry state of affairs.

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy (and Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America). Drop him an email or follow him on Twitter.
© 2011 Independent Media Ins ute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/150826/
[w2]

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This WI guy is the Poster Child for the nastiest, undemocratic, pro-wealthy smash-mouth, elmininationest Repuglicanism

Curbing Voting Rights in Wisconsin


the law would end same-day registration, eliminate the straight-ticket voting option on ballots, and require voters to present a state-issued photo ID at the polls.

This last provision -- which includes strict guidelines as to what cons utes acceptable identification -- puts Wisconsin in league with more than two dozen other states where Republican lawmakers are pushing voter-ID bills that they claim address the phantom menace of "voter fraud." It has also fueled allegations that Gov. Scott Walker is less concerned with sound policy than with weakening the political power of key Democratic cons uencies.

http://prospect.org/cs/articles?arti...s_in_wisconsin

Voter fraud, just another VRWC/Repug LIE to intimidate and disenfranchise Human-Americans, as if disenfranchisement by UCA lobbyists wasn't sufficient.

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The DeVos Family: Meet the Super-Wealthy Right-Wingers Working With the Religious Right to Kill Public Education

Like previous efforts, this most recent push for vouchers is led by a network of conservative think tanks, PACs, Religious Right groups and wealthy conservative donors. But "school choice," as they euphemistically paint vouchers, is merely a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is the total elimination of our public education system.

The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.

Cato Ins ute founder Ed Crane and other conservative think tank leaders have signed the Public Proclamation to Separate School and State, which reads in part that signing on, "Announces to the world your commitment to end involvement by local, state, and federal government from education."

Milton Friedman, who also made the real goal of the voucher movement clear: “Vouchers are not an end in themselves; they are a means to make a transition from a government to a free-market system." The quote is in a 1995 Cato Ins ute briefing paper led “Public Schools: Make Them Private.”

Joseph Bast, president of Heartland Ins ute, stated in 1997, “Like most other conservatives and libertarians, we see vouchers as a major step toward the complete privatization of schooling. In fact, after careful study, we have come to the conclusion that they are the only way to dismantle the current socialist regime.”

DeVos gave a speech on school choice at the Heritage Foundation. After an introduction by former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett, DeVos described a system of “rewards and consequences” to pressure state politicians to support vouchers. “That has got to be the battle. It will not be as visible,”

DeVos also explained to his Heritage Foundation audience that they should no longer use the term public schools, but instead start calling them “government schools.” He noted that the role of wealthy conservatives would have to be obscured. “We need to be cautious about talking too much about these activities,” said DeVos,

Walker wants to expand vouchers in Milwaukee despite the program's failure, made clear by disappointing standardized test results. Walker’s response? To halt the testing. Pennsylvania voucher supporters have already taken care of the pesky issue of accountability by defeating an amendment that would require the students using vouchers to take standardized tests.

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150868

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Criminal fraudster Scott doing VRWC bidding in FL:

Florida Cuts Unemployment Benefits To Pay For Corporate Tax Cut

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…The legislation would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the jobless rate is 10.5 percent or higher. If lower, the maximum would decline on a sliding scale until bottoming at 12 weeks if the jobless rate was 5 percent or less.

Florida will “go further than any other state in dismantling its unemployment insurance system.”

“encourages people to get back into the job market.” Research by the San Francisco Federal Reserve has found that workers who qualify for unemployment benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for such benefits.

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.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/08/...its-corporate/



http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/08/...its-corporate/

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Another Repug state to block non-Repug voters.

Florida GOP Passes Radical Overhaul Of Election Law, Jeopardizing Voting Rights Of Elderly, Military, Students

– Forces Provisional Ballots: The bill eliminates a long-standing provision that allows people to change their address or name at the polls. For four decades, Florida allowed those with proper photo ID whose name or address had changed due to marriage, or divorce, or a move by a military family to update that information on Election Day. Under HB 1355, those changes would only be allowed for voters moving within the same county. Otherwise, a voter will not have to cast a provisional ballot and later provide identification to the supervisor of elections. As one Florida supervisor of elections told the Florida Independent, the provision is “disturbing” as provisional ballots are often reserved for close races and thus “go uncounted.”

– Cuts Early Voting: HB 1355 also cuts the time for early voting from 14 days to eight. The early voting reform was among former Gov. Charlie Crist’s (R-FL) election reforms to “prevent embarrassments like the 2000 election.” As the Miami Herald’s Joy-Ann Reid notes, “It was a hard-won victory for working people who sometimes can’t get to the polls if they work odd hours, or run out of time to resolve a problem at the polls.” According to Reid, in 2008, black churches and college students “took full advantage of the extra time” — two groups that overwhelmingly voted for President Obama.

– Invalidates Absentee Ballots: The bill severely undercuts the absentee ballot. Under this bill, absentee ballots are determined illegal if the voter’s signature on the certificate does not match the signature on record.” As the Herald-Tribune notes, this will affect “voters who suffer from arthritis, strokes and other ailments that affect their handwriting. Those who fail to update their signatures in time would be out of luck.” The bill states that, if elections results are contested, a court cannot “consider any evidence other than the signatures on the voter’s certificate and the signature of the elector in the registration records” in determining the ballots validity.

– Fines Third Party Voting Groups: Third-party voter registration groups, such as the non-partisan League of Women voters, the NAACP, and the Boy Scouts are also targeted by HB 1355 by requiring these groups to turn in registration cards within 48 hours of signature or face fines. Voter groups note that “the requirement would be difficult to meet if they are registering thousands of voters at a time.” Because of the “undue burden” this provision places on “thousands of volunteers,” the League of Women Voters — an organization with a “91-year history of registering and educating voters” — announced today that it will “cease [its] voter registration efforts in this state” should HB 1355 become law

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/09/florida-voter-law/

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Kock-blocked again, Repugs over USA's Human-Americans to protect UCA's Corporate-Americans.

Texas GOP Rams Koch-Backed ‘Loser Pays’ Bill Through House, Making It Harder To Sue Corporations



As ThinkProgress has reported, brothers Charles and David Koch and their corporate giant, Koch Industries, have played an extensive role in the corporate takeover of government, both at the state and federal level. This weekend, another of the Kochs’ projects surfaced in Texas, as the state’s Republican lawmakers rammed through a Koch-backed bill that would make it harder for consumers, workers, and small business owners to bring civil suits against corporations.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/09/...pays-lawsuits/

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Koch Fueling Far Right Academic Centers At Universities Across The Country

Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted reports from the St. Petersburg Times and the Tallahassee Democrat regarding a Koch-funded economics department at Florida State University (FSU). FSU had accepted a $1.5 million grant from a foundation controlled by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch on the condition that Koch’s operatives would have a free hand in selecting professors and approving publications.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/11/...sity-takeover/

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Along with busting unions as a source of Dem $$, the VRWC has been in constant war since St Ronnie's union busting gave mgmt/investors the OK to bust all employees.

10 CEOs Who Got Rich By Squeezing Workers



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As a result, household income has stagnated for 30 years, and quality/good-paying jobs have declined.

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Is Scholastic Selling Elementary School Kids on Coal



Environmental groups are going after the world's largest publisher of children's books for teaming up with the American Coal Foundation to produce "The United States of Energy," a lesson plan designed for fourth-graders. The foundation, online at Teachcoal.org, is devoted to creating "coal-related educational materials and programs designed for teachers and students."

"We hope that you and your students enjoy this energizing program!" proclaims the teaching guide. The materials use coal, oil, natural gas, and renewables as a starting point for lessons on geography, science, and math, and promise to teach students "that different types of energy (e.g., solar, fossil fuels) have different advantages and disadvantages." But the materials are decidedly lacking on that latter front. The worksheets ask kids to explore the question, "What are the benefits of this kind of energy?" without ever entertaining the possibility that there might be problems to consider as well.

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Like cigarette makers and NRA hooking kids on cigs and guns and killing, here's fossil fuel extractors trying to hook kids on their products.

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Vampire squid banks now sucking in the dollars from already-skimpy unemployment funds.


Prepaid Cards Subject Jobless to Host of Fees
By ANN CARRNS

When you’re getting unemployment benefits, you by definition don’t have a lot of cash to spare. So it seems especially unfair that people who receive their jobless benefits on prepaid debit cards are subject to a variety of fees they can ill afford to pay.

A report out this week from the National Consumer Law Center lays out a host of ways in which banks nibble away at jobless benefits with fees the center called “junk.” The prepaid cards are most often used by jobless recipients who don’t have checking accounts, and so are ineligible for direct deposit. Practices vary from state to state because jobless benefits are distributed at the state level, and state governments negotiate the terms of agreements with card providers. In many states, charges apply for using A.T.M.’s, even if they’re in network; checking balances; and even for not using the card enough (inactivity fees, as high as $3).

The report is especially critical of a card issued in five states by U.S. Bank, which charges overdraft fees of $10 to $20 if recipients use more than the amount on their cards. Charging an overdraft fee to someone who doesn’t even have a bank account struck me as particularly ingenious — what are they overdrawing, exactly?

U.S. Bank is able to do this, the report explains, because jobless benefits are typically paid into pooled accounts that then have subaccounts designated for individual recipients. In most states, if a recipient uses the card to make a purchase that exceeds his or her benefits, the transaction is simply denied. But in five states — Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska, Ohio and Oregon — U.S. Bank lets the transaction go through, and then deducts the amount, plus the overdraft fee, from the recipient’s next benefits check. (The bank issues cards without overdraft fees in several other states.) Those fees can make a big dent, considering that the typical weekly unemployment check is just $294.

Teri Charest, a spokeswoman for U.S. Bank, said in an e-mail that overdraft protection is an option that states can choose to add to their prepaid card programs. But even when it is offered, cardholders must opt in to overdraft coverage. “The terms are clearly disclosed so cardholders are aware of the fee should they need to use it,” she said.

Other banks don’t charge such hefty fees, but some do charge “denial” fees, ranging from 25 cents to $1.50, when an attempted A.T.M. or retail transaction fails for lack of funds. Some even charge for live customer service calls or withdrawing funds using a human teller.

The practice occurs despite a directive from the Department of Labor stating that deducting “overdraft, overdraft fee, or denial fee” from future unemployment payments is “inconsistent” with federal law.

( "We're the banks, we the law every day before breakfast")

The “best” cards, offering free in-network A.T.M. withdrawals, at least two free out-of-network withdrawals, no balance inquiry fees and no inactivity fees, are offered in New York and New Jersey by Bank of America, the report found.

The worst for junk fees, in addition to the U.S. Bank version with overdraft fees, is the Tennessee card issued by JPMorgan Chase. It is one of only two states that fail to offer any free A.T.M. withdrawals.

The report recommends that smaller states band together for more clout when negotiating card terms with banks. And it urges the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to take up the cause of excessive fees on prepaid cards when it opens for business this summer. “We hope prepaid cards are high on the agenda,” said Lauren Saunders, managing attorney at the Consumer Law Center in Washington, and the primary author of the report.

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/...pagemode=print

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Bank Overdraft Fees Still Plague American Consumers

Seeing a threat to a multibillion-dollar revenue stream, the banks responded with pro-overdraft marketing campaigns that inappropriately targeted their customers

Bank of America (BAC) agreed to pay $410 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging the bank charged excessive overdraft fees. That suit was just one of several filed against banks from plaintiffs in 14 states that were consolidated in a federal court in Florida. Other banks named in related suits include Wells Fargo (WFC) and Citibank (C). Banks have been taken to task for specifically processing payments from largest to smallest, a way designed to cause more overdrafts, rather than chronologically.

found that overdraft penalty fees are disproportionate to the size of the average overdraft amount, and that the penalties cost consumers tens of billions of dollars each year. In fact, these charges are estimated to cost Americans $38.5 billion in 2011, which is an increase of $18.6 billion since 2000,

the median overdraft penalty fee is $35, up from $27 in 2007. If overdrafts were considered like a short-term loan with a repayment period of seven days, then the annual percentage rate, or APR, on the typical overdraft would be over 5,000%. Additionally, Pew found that as of October 2010, when the data was collected, all 10 large banks it examined retained the right to re-order withdrawals from the highest to lowest amount, and eight out of the 10 banks reserved the right to post withdrawals before deposits -- both practices designed to manipulate account balances to produce the maximum number of overdrafts

The Center for Responsible Lending survey showed that most people don't want high-cost overdraft coverage for their checking accounts, and that opt-ins are largely based on aggressive and misleading marketing rather than clear and accurate information from banks.

I felt a safety blanket with my checking account until I found out that the savings account that I was required to open in order to sign up for overdraft protection cost me $25 a month. After about four months, I decided that the overdraft protection was not for me.

when he tried to cancel the overdraft protection, "I found that it was so difficult to do so because of the pressure that was put on me,"

banks' marketing materials often created the false impression that emergency action was needed on the account. Some examples from the bank letters on file with CRL include: "We Need to Hear From You ... To keep your account operating smoothly ... To avoid any interruptions in how we service your account, we need to hear from you." "Your Debit Card May Not Work the Same Way Anymore Even If You Just Made a Deposit," and "Save Money by Avoiding Retailers' Returned Check Fees."

etc, etc, etc.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/...can-consumers/

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More brain-washing kids with VRWC lies and propaganda:

Huckabee’s ‘history’ cartoon teaches kids to idolize Reagan

Former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is hoping to earn a few extra bucks by teaching children his own special view of history.

The Fox News host has launched a series of cartoons that he hopes will correct the "blame America first" at ude.

"When it comes to American history, our nation is facing an epidemic," Huckabee said in his pitch on the Learn Our History website. "Schools across the country have turned their backs on our children by distorting facts, imposing political biases, and changing the messages behind the important lessons of our history."

In the first $15 episode, members of the Time Travel Academy use their time machine bicycle to go back and explore "The Reagan Revolution."

"Journey to a time when America suffered from a financial, international and moral crisis," the cartoon's trailer suggests.

To illustrate its point, the cartoon depicts a black man with a knife wearing a "disco" tank top. "Gimme yo' money!" he says.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/1...e+Raw+Story%29

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Repugs "fixing" a false problem of voter fraud by disenfranchinsing 100Ks

South Carolina Republican Named ‘Legislator of the Year’ For Writing A Bill That Disenfranchises Voters

Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) is expected to soon sign a Voter ID bill passed by both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature. When she does, South Carolina will become the second state in the country to pass such legislation this year, although Voter ID bills are being considered by GOP-led state legislatures nationwide. According to the ACLU, “nearly 180,000 voters in South Carolina – most of whom are elderly, student, minority or low-income voters – will be disenfranchised as a result of this discriminatory bill.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/14/...r-of-the-year/

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Very easy to imagine which textbooks tea baggers will sell to private/charter schools, teaching LIES as history.


Legal Advocates Slam Tea Party Cons ution Classes

Liberal lawyers were very unhappy to hear that the tea partiers wanted the public schools to teach the Cons ution based on the writings of the late author of the 5,000 Year Leap, W. Cleon Skousen [2]. Skousen's views on the Cons ution are considered well outside the mainstream, and they include ideas drawn from white supremacist dogma and other shady sources. One of his textbooks on cons utional history contained blatantly racist material suggesting that slaves were actually a happy bunch of folks. [3]

http://motherjones.com/print/113271

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Whether bull religion or bull politics or bull history, poison young, impressionable kids minds young enough with false world views, and you snared voters, and above contributor$$$, for life.

[boutons_deux]

More voter disenfranchisement by Repugs, illegal signs intimidating voters BEFORE the photo ID is law:

Even Before NH Voter ID Bill Becomes Law, Illegal Signs Appear At Polling Stations To Disenfranchise Voters

Signs posted at the New Boston Elementary School, one of the five polling locations in the district, this morning read, “Per pending legislation you will be required to produce a photo ID in order to receive a ballot.” They were removed at the request of the New Hampshire Attorney General, but not before voters on their way into the polls turned saw them and turned around.

“Law abiding New Hampshire citizens were discouraged from voting this morning as a direct result of Speaker’s O’Brien terrible piece of legislation, SB129,” said Harrell Kirstein, press secretary for the New Hampshire Democratic Party. “Just moments before O’Brien defended this reckless bill in Concord, voters in his own district were walking away from the polls without having cast a vote.”

ThinkProgress has do ented recent efforts by legislators in as many as 22 states, including South Carolina, Florida, and Wisconsin, to disenfranchise voters through voter identification laws and other methods. Republicans often justify these proposals by spreading fear about widespread voter fraud, but voter fraud is, in fact, extremely rare. For instance, in Kentucky, which is holding statewide primary elections today, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that the state’s voting fraud hotline has not received a single call.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/17/...hire-voter-id/

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Since Repugs claim (LIE) to be America's Natural Party, why do they have to lie about voter frand and disenfranchise voters?

Because they can't win without cheating. Cheating Is The American Way.

[boutons_deux]

Delta airlines votes itself $30M tax break

Delta Gave Georgia GOP Lawmakers Platinum Upgrades, Then Received $30 Million Tax Break

The bill Deal signed into law on Wednesday will save the Georgia-based airline up to $30 million on jet fuel taxes over two years.

The station found that Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle (R) and five Republican leaders in the legislature were given free “upgrades to platinum or gold frequent flyer status,” which include access to special security lines, far more frequent flyer miles, and free upgrades to first class in some cir stances.

While the company did register the upgrades as campaign contributions, the station argues that the company undervalued them. Delta said the upgrades were worth $1,600-$2,400, but renowned consumer reporter Clark Howard said the actual value of the upgrades was closer to $10,000-$15,000 a year, and that they should be registered as gifts from lobbyists, not simple contributions.

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/20/...gop-lawmakers/

[boutons_deux]

More tax expenditures to pander to "Christian" Taliban

While Cutting Social Services, Kentucky Gives $43 Million Tax Break To Bible-Themed Amusement Park

A group of private investors and religious organizations is hoping to build a Bible-themed amusement park in Kentucky, complete with a full-size 500-foot-by-75-foot reproduction of Noah’s Ark, a Tower of Babel, and other biblical exhibits on a 800-acre campus outside of Williamstown, KY.

the state approved $43 million in tax breaks for the project. In addition to the tax incentives, approved unanimously by the state’s tourism board, taxpayers may have to pony up another $11 million to improve a highway interchange near the site.

the tax breaks for an amusement park come at a time when state leaders are asking residents to sacrifice as they cut important social programs. “The state has gone through eight rounds of budget cuts over the past three years,” including cuts to “education at all levels” and a pay freeze for all teachers and state workers. Meanwhile, the state cut funding for Medicaid by shifting enrollees to managed care plans, which often make it more difficult for enrollees to access care while increasing administrative costs by up to 20 percent by adding a new “layer of bureaucracy between the Medicaid Department and providers.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2011/05/20/...rk-tax-breaks/

Just Doing God's Work

[Wild Cobra]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this theme park is a very old plan. Any moneys it is getting are likely already authorized from the past. Are you suggesting it be yanked after prior approval?

[boutons_deux]

why not? conditions change. The criminal Banksters' Great Depression is quite a change, n'est-ce-pas?

If the for-profit "Christian" fantasy-land-for-ignorant-bubbas can't survive without several $10Ms tax expenditure, then it can't survive.

I thought you were against govt intervention to support private enterprise, . Didn't you want GM and Chrysler to fold rather than be bailed out?

[Wild Cobra]

why not? conditions change. The criminal Banksters' Great Depression is quite a change, n'est-ce-pas?

If the for-profit "Christian" fantasy-land-for-ignorant-bubbas can't survive without several $10Ms tax expenditure, then it can't survive.

I thought you were against govt intervention to support private enterprise, . Didn't you want GM and Chrysler to fold rather than be bailed out?

I a against subsidies, but isn't this a tax break? Isn't it the roll of government to make roads to places we as a society wish to go?

This is a huge expenditure, and the tax breaks ease it. My point was that I am laughing at you for attacking this old news.