 Your new post is loading...
by Suzanne Harvey (Guest Blogger at An Incrediby Minor Public Figure) It’s hard to know which was more surprising: that I would run for political office at all—and then win—or that I would become a Buddhist. Politics happened first… or maybe not. A recent return visit to the New Hampshire State House served to remind me that I’ve put dharma teachings to work in my interactions with individuals whom I find difficult. Putting your practice to work in a political setting should be no different from doing it at any office, but a legislature of 400 members wins hands down as a place to find plenty of challenging personalities.... MORE
(CBS News) Depending on whom you ask, Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., represents either the best or the worst of the Republican Party. He's everything that's wrong with the GOP - a living, breathing impediment to the rebranding effort Republicans are undergoing in in the wake of the 2012 election. That, or he's a profile in courage, and exactly the kind of passionately conservative lawmaker the GOP needs to stir up enthusiasm among a base that has become deeply skeptical of the party's leadership.... MORE
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Rising home prices helped 850,000 borrowers regain equity in their homes during the first quarter of 2013, according to the latest report from real estate analytics provider CoreLogic. According to the report, 9.7 million properties or 19.8% of all properties with a mortgage still had "negative equity" at the end of the first quarter. That is down from 10.5 million or 21.7% of all residential properties with a mortgage at the end of the fourth quarter. Rising home prices have helped pull 1.7 million back to shore during the past year. A borrower is said to have negative equity if he owes more on his mortgage than what his house is currently worth. These borrowers are also referred to as "underwater" borrowers or "upside down" borrowers. Nationally borrowers owe $580 billion more than their properties are worth. About 6 million borrowers hold first-liens without home equity loans. The average mortgage balance for this group of borrowers is $211,000. The average underwater amount is $48,000. Another 3.7 million hold first and second liens. The average mortgage balance for this group of borrowers is $294,000.The average underwater amount is $79,000, according to the report. The decline in underwater borrowers is good news for at least two reasons. First, underwater borrowers have shown a higher propensity to default on their mortgages. The fact that underwater borrowers typically find it very difficult to refinance their loans into lower interest rates is one reason why they are likely to default. The government's Home Affordable Refinance Program, which was recently extended till end of 2015, will increase refinancing opportunities for some underwater borrowers. But for those with private mortgages, refinancing is more challenging and regaining equity in their homes gives borrowers an opportunity to capitalize on interest rates while they are still low. The decline in underwater borrowers might also release pent-up supply and moderate price gains in fast-appreciating markets, according to CoreLogic economist Mark Fleming. This is of course good news for homebuyers who have been struggling to find homes amid unusually tight supply conditions.
|
Suggested by
Greg Russak
|
What makes one whistleblower a hero and another a traitor? Let's start by asking Obama's detractors, especially those who ceaselessly characterize the size and overreach of "big government" as a th...
By RICHARD A. VIGUERIE (NY Times) CONSERVATIVES should recognize that the entire criminal justice system is another government spending program fraught with the issues that plague all government programs. Criminal justice should be subject to the same level of skepticism and scrutiny that we apply to any other government program. But it’s not just the excessive and unwise spending that offends conservative values. Prisons, for example, are harmful to prisoners and their families. Reform is therefore also an issue of compassion. The current system often turns out prisoners who are more harmful to society than when they went in, so prison and re-entry reform are issues of public safety as well. These three principles — public safety, compassion and controlled government spending — lie at the core of conservative philosophy. Politically speaking, conservatives will have more credibility than liberals in addressing prison reform... MORE
(Editorial from the Christian Science Monitor) Yet the pressure persists, especially in government, for better tools for surveillance of people’s bodies, behavior, and – increasingly – their mental and emotional states. Two examples this month show just how eager the government is. The Supreme Court ruled June 3 that police can swab a person’s mouth for DNA upon arrest. The justices likened this to fingerprinting, saying it can help solve or prevent crime. And on June 6, the Obama administration admitted it was secretly collecting the phone records (although not the conversations) of all Verizon customers – yes, all ... MORE
|
|
Suggested by
Greg Russak
|
Aaron Carroll says its opposition isn't as united as some claim; it isn't a radical reform; its premiums could be lower than predicted and it could well succeed in states that embrace it.
BY GERRY MULLANY (NY Times)
Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who made an ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress next year.
Representative Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican who made an ill-fated run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, announced Wednesday that she would not seek a fifth term in Congress next year.
“I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth Congressional term,” she said in a video on her campaign Web site. “This decision was not impacted in any way by the recent inquiries into the activities of my former presidential campaign or my former presidential staff,” she added. Mrs. Bachmann is known for her strong anti-abortion stance and adherence to Tea Party values but her presidential campaign was marked by frequent stumbles and her candidacy failed to catch fire in a crowded field of candidates that included Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Herman Cain, who all eventually lost to Mitt Romney. .... Read more at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/us/politics/michele-bachmann-wont-seek-re-election-next-year.html?_r=0
(Reuters) - U.S. single-family home prices rose in March, racking up their best annual gain in nearly seven years in a further sign that the strengthening housing recovery is providing a source of support for the economy, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday. The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 1.1 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, topping economists' forecasts for a 1 percent rise. Prices in the 20 cities jumped 10.9 percent year over year, beating expectations for 10.2 percent. This was the biggest increase since April 2006, just before prices peaked in the summer of that year. All 20 cities covered by the index saw yearly gains for the third month in a row. Average prices in March were back at their late-2003 levels. Prices in Phoenix continued their sharp ascent, rising 22.5 percent from a year earlier. Other standouts included San Francisco, up 22.2 percent, and hard-hit Las Vegas, up 20.6 percent. The housing market turned a corner in 2012, several years after its far-reaching collapse. The recovery has picked up since as inventory tightened, foreclosures eased and historically low mortgage rates have attracted buyers. For the first quarter of this year, the seasonally adjusted national index rose 3.9 percent, stronger than the 2.4 percent gain of the final quarter of last year. The data provoked little reaction in financial markets. Wall Street was poised to open higher as comments from central banks around the world reassured investors that supportive monetary policies would remain in place.
By Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch Harvard academics Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff have accused fellow economist Paul Krugman of Princeton of ‘uncivil behavior’ in his criticisms of their work related to the debate over debt and austerity. Reinhart and Rogoff are known for scholarly work that sought to highlight the negative effects of too much debt. Krugman, who is also a columnist for the New York Times, has been critical of their positions which are seen as endorsing controversial pro-austerity policies. But Reinhart and Rogoff argue that some Krugman’s counterarguments have been unfair. “We admire your past scholarly work, which influences us to this day,” a Saturday letter posted on Reinhart’s website said. “So it has been with deep disappointment that we have experienced your spectacularly uncivil behavior the past few weeks.” The Harvard economists also wrote, “Your characterization of our work and of our policy impact is selective and shallow. It is deeply misleading about where we stand on the issues.” Krugman responded in a New York Times blog post on Sunday, saying Reinhart and Rogoff have not offered a clear position on the impact of debt on economic growth. Krugman argued that there is “an enormous difference between the statement “countries with debt over 90% of GDP [gross domestic product] tend to have slower growth than countries with debt below 90% of GDP” and the statement “growth drops off sharply when debt exceeds 90% of GDP”. The former statement is true; the latter isn’t.”
By Michael Sauter, Samuel Weigley and Alexander E.M. Hess (24/7 Wall St.)
The number of Americans receiving disability benefits has soared, especially in areas plagued by health problems, poverty and unemployment. The number of Americans receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) more than doubled over the past two decades, from 5.2 million to 11.7 million by the end of 2011. But the numbers vary widely from state to state: In West Virginia, close to one in every 10 people aged 18 to 64 received SSDI benefits from the federal government -- more than three times the rate in Utah and Alaska. Two main factors are to blame, according to the National Association of Social Security Claimants' Representatives: Aging baby boomers are more prone to health problems, and women who began working in greater numbers in the 1970s and 1980s are now eligible for disability through Social Security for the first time. But changing demographics only partially explain the increase, says Tad DeHaven, budget analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. He argues that the recession played a major role as well. "When you see unemployment rates rising, you see disability moving with it," DeHaven notes. In fact, the states with the most disability claims tend to have the highest poverty rates, the least-educated workforces and the fewest jobs offering competitive wages. There's another common factor, too: health issues. In principle, Americans apply for disability when their health prevents them from working. A recent Gallup-Healthways survey shows that nearly all of these states rank in the top 10 for serious health conditions like heart attacks, diabetes, hypertension and recurring knee, leg and back pain. To determine the states where the most residents receive disability benefits, the website 24/7 Wall St. used 2011 figures (the latest available) published by the SSA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Click through this slide show for the five states with the most people on disability, and visit 24/7 Wall St. to see the next five states and a full report
|
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that required people registering to vote in federal elections to show proof of citizenship, a victory for activists who said it had discouraged Native Americans and Latinos from voting. In a 7-2 vote, the court, in an opinion written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, ruled the voter registration provision of the 2004 state law was trumped by a federal law, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.
The state law was opposed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and Indian tribes. They said it deterred legal voters who did not have the required paperwork from registering to vote.
It was another setback for the Republican leadership of a state, bordering Mexico, that has tried to crack down on illegal immigrants at a time when Hispanics represent the largest U.S. minority at nearly 17 percent of the population.
Both major political parties in Congress, aware of the increasingly influential Latino vote nationally, are trying to overhaul immigration laws with a bill that could provide a 13-year path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.
At the same time, the high court made clear that Arizona could still have other ways to assert its argument that it should be allowed to ask for proof of citizenship. MORE
|
Suggested by
David Biddle
|
TW Opinion by David Biddle and Martha Nichols
These days, every writer and reader needs to pay careful attention to the profit-making shenanigans of the publishing world." I think Middle Ground folks, who are readers and writers, may find this interesting and see the middle ground connection. Not overtly political here, but still...this issue has been hidden from most readers by the mainstream media.
by MICHAEL CHARNEY Last spring I learned about poverty in a way that neither extreme really cares about.
My wife and I drove from Louisville, Kentucky to Asheville, North Carolina, traveling down what William Least Heat-Moon calls “blue highways.” We told our GPS to ignore major roads and she (we call the disembodied directioneer “Becky”) took us from small town to small town through rural Kentucky and Tennessee. Every town was dead....
by SALENA ZITO WASHINGTON – Everyone on the outdoor patio of a Dupont Circle restaurant could overhear the young, smartly dressed couple struggling to decide what Capitol City destination to visit next. One place they adamantly agreed on not wishing to see was the White House – an interesting decision, considering that two of the five canvas bags they carried were faded “Obama for America” totes given to donors during the president’s 2012 reelection campaign. “I’m just, you know, exhausted by Obama, by the media, by politics. Let’s just stick to museums and the war memorials,” said the woman. America is exhausted by national politics. A refrain voiced by many people after the class-warfare campaigning of the November election was, “Thank God it’s over!” Yet the partisanship and us-against-them rhetoric has only accelerated and intensified since Election Day. A mere two weeks after winning, President Obama was back on the warpath in Pennsylvania with a speech claiming that Republicans would “spoil Christmas by driving the country over the fiscal cliff.” Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/09/scandals_erode_politically_fatigued_publics_trust_118732.html#ixzz2VoU0cjvk Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, answered questions recently from BDN readers about genetically modified foods labeling, the Affordable Care Act and whether he’s adjusting to life in Washington, D.C MORE, with VIDEO
by JORDAN BLOOM For those of you just joining us, there have been two big revelations about the NSA’s data-mining efforts since Wednesday, both reported by the Guardian. The first: The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largesttelecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April. The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries. And the second: The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian. The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. A few things to keep in mind: Technically the latter only applies to foreign nationals living outside the U.S.—keeping tabs on which is the NSA’s job description—but it seems impossible to separate one from the other.... MORE
With a little less than a month remaining in the current Supreme Court term, several major cases are still outstanding that could have widespread political impact. The last scheduled session of this term is set for June 24, as justices continue to draft opinions and offer dissents and concurrences. More-divisive cases usually take longer to decide; the decision to uphold President Obama's health care legislation came in late June. Here is a look at some of the cases that are still left on the docket of the nation's high court... MORE
Via Thomas Schmeling, Politician Search
by ANDREW ZAJAC and SARA FORDEN (Bloomberg Businessweek) A U.S. national security review of Smithfield Foods Inc. (SFD)’s purchase by China’s biggest pork producer is unlikely to raise any concerns that would derail the deal, lawyers familiar with the process said. “I don’t see deal-killer objections to this transaction,” said Stewart Baker, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson LLP in Washington and a former Department of Homeland Security official. “The Obama administration doesn’t want to say ‘no’ to every Chinese deal.” The review by the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS, will include scrutiny of Smithfield Foods facilities near military bases and other sensitive locations, said Stephen Mahinka, an attorney with Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, who according to his firm profile has won clearance from CFIUS for almost 40 deals. The panel will also look at the role of the Smithfield, Virginia-based company, the world’s biggest hog and pork producer, in feeding America, said Farhad Jalinous, a lawyer at Kaye Scholer LLP in Washington who represents companies in CFIUS cases. MORE
by DANIEL McCARTHY (The American Conservative) Mark Krikorian and Stephen Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies recently said something that got me thinking about the curious phenomenon of the capitalist welfare state. They pointed out that although low-skilled immigrants receive a disproportionate amount of government benefits, the recipients are, for the most part, employed. In effect, employers are getting the taxpayer to subsidize wages: instead of Megalo-Mart paying workers enough to put a roof over their heads, it pays less and lets the public make up the difference. The company gets the labor and profit it wants while externalizing part of the cost of wages. This came to mind as I read Michael Strain’s argument for sustaining employment rates by tapping unemployment insurance (UI) to support furloughed workers: instead of a firm laying off 20 percent of its workforce—who would then claim unemployment benefits anyway—why not let the company tell all its workers they can stay home without pay on Fridays and have unemployment insurance make up (part of) their lost wages? Something like this, “an option called work-sharing,” Strain writes, “is available in many places but remains little used” because employers don’t know about it. He calls for “expanding, supporting, and publicizing work-sharing UI programs.” Strain’s proposal does have the merit of keeping workers employed... MORE
(AP) If Republicans were writing a movie script for next year's congressional elections, the working title might be "2014: Apocalypse of Obamacare." The plot: The rollout of President Barack Obama's health care law turns into such a disaster that enraged voters rebuke him by rewarding the GOP with undisputed control of Congress. But there's a risk for Republicans if they're wrong and the Affordable Care Act works reasonably well, particularly in states that have embraced it. Republicans might be seen as obstinately standing in the way of progress. The law already has been a political prop in two election seasons, but next year will be different. Voters will have a real program to judge, working or dysfunctional. Will affordable health care finally be a reality for millions of uninsured working people? Or will premiums skyrocket as the heavy hand of government upends already fragile insurance markets for small businesses and individuals? "The end of this movie has not been written," said Robert Blendon, a Harvard professor who tracks public opinion on health care. He says next year's movie actually will be a documentary: what happens in states that fully put the law in place and those that resist "a message of reality." MORE
by BILL SCHER (The Week) On the surface, Washington seems hopelessly mired in chronic partisan dysfunction. Scandal hysteria continues to fuel bitter partisan rhetoric. Senate Republicans are still obstructing humdrum presidential nominations. House Republicans are threatening (again!) to block the perfunctory but essential task of raising the debt limit. Gridlock produced the hated sequester. The broadly popular gun background-check bill remains stalled. Obama recently lamented that the partisan "fever" he hoped his re-election would cure has "not quite broken yet." And yet, amid the recent acrimony, landmark immigration reform quietly earned a solid bipartisan vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, sending the bill to the Senate floor. And the Senate minority leader pledged not to lead a filibuster that would prevent a final up-or-down vote. The bill cleared committee after a last-minute deal was struck between Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, making it easier for technology companies to hire foreign workers. While the agreement was a setback for the AFL-CIO, altering a previous compromise with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the union's president, Richard Trumka, did not seek to blow up the bill. He hailed the committee vote as "an enormous step toward healing an injustice." Don't call it a comeback. Bipartisanship has been here for years. Since Obama's re-election, we've seen bipartisan action to partially repeal the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, temporarily suspend the debt limit, enact a Violence Against Women Act expansion, approve a judicial nominee widely seen as a Supreme Court prospect, and approve a new Medicare chief who will implement key aspects of ObamaCare. MORE
|
|
Suggested by
Greg Russak
|
by MOLLY BALL (The Atlantic) The party is in desperate straits. It has lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. It consoles itself with a majority in Congress, but even there its ranks are dwindling. On nearly every issue of national significance—from social affairs to fiscal matters to foreign policy—its positions are increasingly out of step with those of the majority of Americans. Riven by factions, it sometimes seems more like a collection of squabbling interest groups than a coherent political entity. People have started muttering that it might become merely a regional concern, or even go the way of the Whigs and die out. This is the plight of the Republican Party today. “If we’re being honest,” the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, moped earlier this year, “we have not really won a decisive presidential election since 1988.” Polls show that the party’s stance on practically every issue is a loser: same-sex marriage, international affairs, immigration, even taxes and the deficit. But this dismal situation was, a quarter century ago, the plight of the Democrats. MORE
|
