Nov
2011 9
2011 9
ELECTION NIGHT BUZZKILL: Mississippi Passed a Voter ID Measure Last Night
On a night of electoral victories for progressives from state to state, Mississippi gave Democrats one of their few defeats. After rejecting a fairly radical anti-abortion initiative, voters in the Magnolia state voted in favor of a voter ID law that forces potential voters to show a photo ID in order to cast their ballot. ...
Nov
2011 8
2011 8
Walker Donor Files GOP Recall Effort Against the Governor to Trigger Unlimited Fundraising
Dirty tricks by Republicans in Wisconsin? I mean, why stop now? As momentum builds for the recall of Governor Scott Walker (560,000 signatures are needed in the 60 days following November 15th) his friends are getting in on the act. According to the Journal Sentinel Online, Republican-slash-Walker donor, David Brandt, filed a recall effort this ...
Nov
2011 8
2011 8
Iowa Could Turn Slightly Less Red With a Mathis Win In Today’s SD-18 Special Election
Off-year, non-Presidential Election Days bring more than just highly publicized repeal votes, they also offer a close look at smaller races that have huge meaning for the future of legislation in states with fewer national media implications. This year, one of those races is in Iowa Senate District 18 where a special election is being ...
Oct
2011 9
2011 9
San Diego, Emblematic of the Nation, Sees Nearly 3% Poverty Spike
That is one in six in poverty, that means most of us see people in poverty in our neighborhoods and interact with them, which is really a new phenomenon for San Diego. Poverty is up 2% since 2006 in almost every age group and demographic nationwide according to numbers from the American Community Survey (above) ...
Oct
2011 5
2011 5
Flip-Flop Tax: MI Gov Rick Snyder Revokes Tax Incentive For Low-Income Earners
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has made some new enemies in Muskegon among those who moved in to the area based on tax incentives created by former Gov. Jennifer Granholm. The breaks allowed certain developing areas of the city to be virtually tax free until 2014. Now, Snyder’s overhaul of the Michigan tax system will force ...
Sep
2011 16
2011 16
Bank of America Ordered to Pay $930,000 and Reinstate Employee Who Exposed Corruption
The Department of Labor ruled on Wednesday that a high-level executive who reported corrupt lending practices at Countrywide Financial Corporation was improperly fired for leading internal investigations that “revealed widespread and pervasive wire, mail and bank fraud” at the lender. The employee, Eileen Foster, was the executive vice...
Sep
2011 14
2011 14
ELECTORAL DEFORM: PA Seeking to Change How Votes are Counted to Favor GOP
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett is at it again, corruptly using his new found power to try to swing the coming Presidential election in Republican favor by rewriting the laws of how Electoral College votes are distributed in the commonwealth. Corbett, former attorney general of PA elected with tea party funds, has done nothing positive to ...
Aug
2011 8
2011 8
Maine Group May Have Enough Signatures to Bring Back Same-Day Voter Registration
The Bangor Daily News reports that a broad effort to push back against voter disenfranchisement in Maine may announce success tomorrow, if enough signatures are presented in support of same-day voter registration: Campaign spokesman David Farmer said the coalition members are confident they’ve received enough signatures to force the November...
Jul
2011 23
2011 23
MAIDEN VOTAGE: Name Changes From Marriage and Divorce Make Voter ID Laws Worse for Women
This week, Pulitzer Prize winner Nick Kristof, tweeted an article about Voter ID laws disproportionately disenfranchising women. The crux of that article appears below: Requiring voters to register with proof of citizenship is more problematic for women than for men. A survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU law school shows that only ...
Jul
2011 19
2011 19
Former City Councilman Fleeced Texans After Hurricane Ike, Now Paying $105,000 In Back Wages
The United States Department of Labor has recovered $105,000 in back wages for 57 workers in Anahuac, TX who had been denied overtime compensation. The discovery of violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) followed an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division. The workers were employed by Cecil Parker Jr., the owner ...
Jul
2011 12
2011 12
Joblessness Among Veterans Leaps to 13.3%
One of the few negatives related to pending troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, the Los Angeles Times points out, is that it will likely exacerbate an already abysmal unemployment situation among Gulf War II veterans — those who have “served at any time since September 2001″: The jobless rate for veterans who served at ...
Jul
2011 2
2011 2
Reagan’s Tax Increases Larger Than What Obama Is Asking For?
So says the always-insightful Political Animal upon reading a POLITICO piece: Rogers’ analysis found that the tax increases Reagan agreed to, as part of negotiations with a Democratic Congress — increases that included raising the gasoline tax and payroll taxes — are actually bigger than anything the Obama White House is proposing now....
