GOP Cuts Food Stamps, Loves Corp Welfare

Food Stamps Are Affordable; Corporate Welfare Is Not

Tuesday, 05 November 2013 15:07 By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: SqueakyMarmot, teresia )

Republicans are outraged for all the wrong reasons.
This past Friday, $5 billion was automatically slashed from the federal food stamps program, affecting the lives of 47 million Americans.

The USDA estimates that because of these cuts, a family of four who receives food stamps benefits will lose about 20 meals per month.

But these enormous cuts to food stamps aren't enough for Republicans.
They still want to slash an additional $40 billion from the program in the name of reducing spending and federal debt.

Republicans love to argue that programs like SNAP - the federal food stamps program – and other social safety net programs put an unfair burden on American taxpayers, but if they just took a minute to crunch the numbers, they'd realize that's flat out wrong.

In 2012, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 per year paid just $36 towards the food stamps program.

That's just ten cents a day!
That's less than the cost of a gumball.
But Republicans think that's still too high a price to pay to help the neediest and most vulnerable Americans.
 And when it comes to funding the rest of America's social safety net programs, the average American taxpayer making $50,000 a year pays just over six dollars a year.
Simply put, the American taxpayer isn't paying much for social safety net programs like food stamps and Medicare.

But we are paying a lot for the billions of dollars the U.S. government gives to corporate America each year.

The average American family pays a staggering $6,000 a year in subsidies to Republican-friendly big business.

And that's just the average family. A family making more than $50,000 a year - say $70,000 a year - pays even more to pad the wallets of corporate America.
So where does some of that $6,000 that you and I are paying every year actually go?
For starters, $870 of it goes to direct subsidies and grants for corporations.
This includes money for subsidies to Big Oil companies that are polluting our skies and fueling climate change and global warming. Compare that to the $36 you and I pay for food stamps a year.

An additional $870 goes to corporate tax subsidies.
The Tax Foundation has found that the "special tax provisions" of corporations cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or roughly $870 per family.
But in reality, that number is much higher.

Citizens for Tax Justice found that the U.S. Treasury lost $181 billion in corporate tax subsidies, which means the average American family could be out as much as $1,600 per year.
 
Finally, of the $6,000 in corporate subsidies that the average American family pays each year,
$1,231 of it goes to making up for revenue losses from corporate tax havens.

This money goes to recouping losses from giant transnational corporations like Apple and GE that hide their money overseas to boost profits and avoid paying taxes to help the American economy.

The bottom-line here is that American families are paying $6,000 or more per year to subsidize giant transnational corporations that are already making billions and billions of dollars in profit each year. In the past decade alone, corporations have doubled their profits.

Republicans on Capitol Hill keep suggesting that we can't afford to help the poor in this country, and they're wrong.

What we really can't afford is doling out $100 billion each year to corporations that don't need it.   That's where the real outrage and the real news coverage should be.

It's time to bring an end to corporate welfare, and to use those dollars to help those Americans who need it the most.

   
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication. 

Progressives & Tea Party Rein in NSA Spying

Congressmen Write Landmark Surveillance Reform

Amash, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Comprehensive Bill to Rein in NSA Snooping

Oct 29, 2013 Issues: Defense and National Security

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                       

October 29, 2013                                                                               

 

Congressmen Write Landmark Surveillance Reform

Amash, Bipartisan Coalition Introduce Comprehensive Bill to Rein in NSA Snooping

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) and a bipartisan coalition of congressmen this morning introduced comprehensive legislation to rein in the federal government’s unconstitutional surveillance of Americans.

The USA FREEDOM Act, H.R. 3361, reforms parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that have been used to surveil Americans’ telephone records and Internet activity, according to recent leaks.  Amash joined Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and more than 70 cosponsors in the House. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced the companion bill in the Senate.

“The days of unfettered spying on the American people are numbered. This is the bill the public has been waiting for. We now have legislation that ceases the government’s unconstitutional surveillance. I am confident that Americans and their representatives will rally behind it,” said Amash.  Amash continued, “I am thrilled to join senior colleagues on the Judiciary Committee such as Subcommittee Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Member Conyers in introducing the bill.  Leading members on the committee of jurisdiction and a diverse group of more than 70 congressmen have signed on as original cosponsors. We have strong momentum.”

The comprehensive bill reforms several provisions in the Patriot Act that reportedly have been used to commit privacy abuses. First, the bill ends the government’s blanket collection of Americans’ records. Second, it increases the transparency of government surveillance. It ends the era of secret law by requiring FISA court opinions to be made available to all congressmen and summaries of the opinions to be made publicly available. Gag orders on telecommunications companies are modified so that the companies can make more information about government surveillance available to customers. Third, the bill increases privacy protections. It installs a Special Advocate to argue on behalf of Americans’ privacy before the FISA court, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board receives subpoena power to perform its duties.

Introduction of the Freedom Act marks a major acceleration in the movement to reform government surveillance. The Amash-Conyers amendment, which was substantively incorporated into the Freedom Act, failed narrowly on a 205-217 vote in July. Eight of the Freedom Act’s original cosponsors voted against Amash-Conyers. Sensenbrenner and Leahy are the primary authors of the Patriot Act, which the Freedom Act reforms.

 

CONTACT

Will Adams

(202) 225-3849

will.adams@mail.house.gov

Sliding by NSA's Illegal Spies

New Google technology ‘uProxy’ to provide uncensored Internet for global activists

Published time: October 22, 2013 00:45
Edited time: October 22, 2013 13:33

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Reuters / Cathal McNaughton

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Hacking, Human rights, Information Technology, Intelligence, Internet, USA

Internet privacy advocates and activists suffering under repressive government regimes may now have a new avenue for free expression with uProxy, a tool developed by Google that is expected to bypass censorship and invasive government monitoring.
Developed by Google’s New York City-based think tank Google Ideas, uProxy is a peer-to-peer service that allows one to establish an encrypted internet connection with someone they trust. Google, which provided the funding to developers Brave New Software and the University of Washington, hopes the new technology will outwit government officials around the world who have cracked down on the internet in recent years.
“If you look at existing proxy tools today, as soon as they’re effective for dissidents, the government finds out about them and either blocks them or infiltrates them,” Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, told Time magazine. “Every dissident we know in every repressive society has friends outside the country whom they know and trust. What if those trusted friends could unblock the access in those repressive societies by sharing their own access? That was the problem we tried to solve.”
Like Tor, uProxy consists of a simple browser extension that is capable of finding a user’s friends on Facebook. The service, currently in “restricted beta” mode, is not an anonymizing network like Tor but will render an individual connection indistinguishable from all other encrypted conversations online. That anonymity might itself be valuable, considering the lengths that agencies such as the NSA have gone to in order to crack Tor’s security.
“There’s no uProxy-specific mark on traffic that identifies the traffic as being sent by uProxy,” the service’s website notes.
A user in the US would essentially be able to provide an American connection to a friend in Iran, for example, without fear that the link would be revealed.
“The user in Iran can get unfiltered access to the internet that’s completely uncensored and will look just like it does in the US,” Cohen went on. “Every dissident we know in every repressive society has friend outside the country whom they know and trust. What if those trusted friends could unblock the access in those repressive societies by sharing their own access? That was the problem we tried to solve.”
“This is a company of activists and white-hat hackers,” he said. “When you work at Google and tell these engineers that their skill-set is relevant to somebody in Iran who doesn’t have access to information in their country or the rest of the world, it really inspires them to want to do something about it. There is a genuine altruism that exists at this company, and that’s why I’m here and not anywhere else.”
Google Ideas will introduce uProxy in a New York City conference titled “Conflict in a Connected World.” The event will also be the debut of Project Shield, a measure that will help human rights groups, major media organizations, and others fend off the distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks which incapacitate a website by overwhelming it with traffic.
“We believe in human rights, we believe in free expression,” Cohen said. “We believe in election monitoring, and we believe in independent media.”

Murder of Labor Leaders Under CAFTA

AFL-CIO, Guatemalan Trade Unions Call for Reinstitution of Arbitral Panel After Flawed “Enforcement Plan” Failed to Protect Basic Workers’ Rights

October 22, 2013

Over 50 Guatemalan trade unionists killed, five years after the U.S. and Guatemalan trade unions filed a CAFTA petition 

(Washington, DC, October 22) – Recognizing the failure of the “Enforcement Plan” to protect the fundamental workers’ rights of Guatemalan workers under the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the AFL-CIO and the largest Guatemalan trade unions sent a letter today to the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Trade Representative, and to the Guatemalan Ministers of Labor and Economy calling for reinstitution of the arbitral panel. The “Enforcement Plan” was signed by both governments on April 26, 2013.

More than five years after the U.S. and Guatemalan trade unions filed the CAFTA petition, 50 Guatemalan trade unionists have been killed, and thousands of workers continue to be harassed, abused, and denied basic workplace protections.  Using the Enforcement Plan, the Government of Guatemala has further delayed arbitration and the possibility of justice for workers.  This plan has not given workers reason to hope that their rights will be protected and respected, or that the violations will be remedied.

“This plan has made advances on paper, such as the creation of a Rapid Response Team to rein in the worst employers, yet the team has taken no real actions to defend workers. The U.S. government must insist on concrete actions, not just new bureaucracies,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “If the U.S. government is serious about defending labor rights in its trade agreements, and the government of Guatemala continues to fail in these and other areas detailed in our joint statement, the U.S. government must call to restart the arbitration process.”

In the letter, trade union leaders from both nations write that persistent and systemic violations of fundamental labor rights continue while the Government of Guatemala has failed to provide thorough oversight, effective remedial mechanisms and appropriate sanctions. In both the public and private sectors, Guatemalan workers still face serious barriers to exercising basic labor rights, including ongoing harassment and intimidation, as well as retaliation through firing and other abuses.

“The U.S. government must also insist that Guatemala consult with workers. The government submitted labor law reforms to Congress with no prior consultation and named officials to implement an inter-agency process with no review by the labor movement. Both measures were required by the plan, yet workers were excluded from the process,” said Carlos Luch, STECSA General Secretary; affiliated to FESTRAS.

Carlos Mancilla, the general secretary of CUSG, agreed: “The U.S. government should recognize the Enforcement Plan's failure to hold Guatemala to previous commitments to empower the Ministry of Labor to impose fines and other penalties when violations are found. As conceived, the Plan forces workers to seek justice in costly and slow legal processes.”

The labor unions called for a return to the Arbitral Panel, which was first established by the United States in August 2011 as a result of the Government of Guatemala’s consistent failure to effectively enforce its labor laws under CAFTA.  The two governments suspended the Arbitral Panel when they began negotiating the “Enforcement Plan,” but the plan did not include proposals made by the Guatemalan trade unions and was fundamentally misconceived.

By delaying the Panel, the Plan has given the Government of Guatemala another opportunity to deny justice for Guatemalan workers.  To rectify the situation, the letter recommends the governments use the Panel to engage in a tri-partite dialogue and consultation to address noncompliance with the labor chapter of CAFTA and the ongoing issues of violence against trade unionists. '

Contact: Gonzalo Salvador (202) 637-5018

Chase Fined $13 Billion for Fraud

JPMorgan to Pay $13 Billion for 

Mortgage Claims

Saturday, 19 Oct 2013 05:43 PM

 

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JPMorgan Chase has reached a tentative $13 billion agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to settle a range of mortgage issues, a source familiar with the talks said on Saturday.

The tentative deal does not release the bank from criminal liability, a factor that had been a major sticking point in the discussions, the source said.

As part of the deal, the bank will continue to cooperate in criminal inquiries into certain individuals involved in the conduct at issue, the source, who declined to be identified.

Officials at JPMorgan and the Justice Department declined to comment.

A breakthrough in the weeks-long talks came Friday night, after Attorney General Eric Holder and JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon spoke on the phone and the bank agreed to leave criminal liability out of the settlement, the source said.

The bank and the Justice Department have been discussing a broad deal that would resolve not only a civil investigation into mortgage securities that the bank sold in the runup to the financial crisis, but also similar lawsuits from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the National Credit Union Administration, the state of New York and others.

BART Mangement Forces a Labor Action

Management Demands Force BART Strike

10/18/2013

Mike Hall

 

 

The 2,500 workers at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) were forced on strike early this morning after BART management “demanded new sweeping powers to endanger and exploit our workers—all of this at the last minute,” said Antonette Bryant, president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1555.

This is not a union strike. This is a management strike brought on by absolute arrogance.

ATU represents train operators and station agents; the other major group of BART workers are the more than 1,400 mechanics, maintenance workers and staff represented by SEIU Local 1021. BART trains operate in the San Francisco/Oakland areas.

The unions and BART management had been in federal mediation and union leaders said they were close to an agreement. But, said Bryant:

In the past three days, we’ve found agreement on nearly every “must-have” issue for both sides, including wages, pensions and benefits. However, the last 72 hours have seen Management demand new—and unreasonable—workplace authority that would give them license to abuse and extort our workers as we approached the finish line.   BART owes us and the Bay Area an apology for their actions.

Roxanne Sanchez, president of SEIU Local 1021, said:

Time and time again, after we made a concession, Management would move the goal posts, including now—after reaching a general agreement on economics—demanding changes in workplace rules that have historically protected workers from issues like abuse of power, unfair treatment and sexual harassment.

After their contract expired in July, the workers were on strike for four and half days and then resumed talks. In August, Gov. Jerry Brown imposed a 60-day “cooling off” period that expired earlier this week, but negotiations continued through yesterday.

TPP Trade Deals Allow Corps to Overturn US Law

Corporations Now Using Foreign Tribunals to Attack Domestic Court Rulings

Should an international tribunal of three private attorneys, sitting outside of any domestic legal system, have the power to overrule domestic courts?
That’s the question addressed in the recent analysis, “Investment Agreements versus the Rule of Law?,” published on UNCTAD’s Investment Policy Hub by Todd Tucker, Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge’s Centre of Development Studies.  The piece highlights the little-known but creeping practice of corporations asking foreign tribunals to second-guess domestic court decisions not in their favor and to order taxpayer payment as compensation. 
These tribunals are the product of the “investor-state” system, a little-known creation of “trade” and investment deals that empowers foreign corporations to skirt domestic courts and directly challenge governments before extrajudicial tribunals for policies and decisions that they claim as undermining “future expected profits.”  Under this extreme system, foreign corporations have challenged toxics bans, land-use rules, regulatory permits, water and timber policies, medicine patent policies, pollution clean ups, climate and energy laws, and other public interest polices. 
As if undermining a government’s public interest laws and regulations was not enough, foreign investors are increasingly using the investor-state system to challenge court judgments, undermining the principles of legal certainty, state sovereignty, and rule of law more generally.  While domestic courts often employ safeguards, such as the principle of judicial review, judicial independence and transparency in their decision-making, these safeguards are notably absent in investor-state arbitrations, where lawyers who represent the investors take turns as ostensibly “impartial” arbitrators, interpretations of international law are regularly inconsistent and erroneous, and decisions often cannot be appealed.
In his compelling piece, Mr. Tucker cites examples from three investor-state case decisions issued in the last several years, Mr. Franck Charles Arif v. Republic of Moldova and two iterations of Chevron v. Ecuador, in which the tribunals found Moldova’s and Ecuador’s domestic court decisions to be in violation of these countries’ obligations to foreign investors under Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs).
In the Moldovan case, Moldovan airport officials gave Franck Arif, a French national, an exclusive concession to operate tax-free shops at an airport.  When his competitors challenged this in court, Moldovan courts found that the non-competitive concession was illegal.  In response, Franck Arif launched an investor-state case against Moldova under the France-Moldova BIT, arguing that the courts’ ruling violated the “fair and equitable treatment” provision in the BIT – the vague obligation that inventive tribunals have interpreted as corporations’ “right” to a legal framework that conforms to their “expectations.” The tribunal first conceded that the Moldovan courts had “…applied Moldovan law legitimately and in good faith in the proceedings commenced by Claimant’s competitors.” Nevertheless, the tribunal still decided that the Moldovan courts’ rulings conflicted with the airport officials’ granting of the non-competitive concession, and therefore constituted a violation of the vague “fair and equitable treatment” obligation as a “breach” of Mr. Arif’s “expectations.”
In one of the Chevron v. Ecuador cases, a three-person tribunal last year ordered Ecuador’s government to interfere in the operations of its independent court system on behalf of Chevron by suspending enforcement of a historic $18 billion judgment against the oil corporation for mass contamination of the Amazonian rain forest.  The ruling against Chevron, rendered by Ecuador’s courts, was the result of 18 years of litigation in both the U.S. and Ecuadorian legal systems.  Ecuador had explained to the panel that compliance with any order to suspend enforcement of the ruling would violate the separation of powers enshrined in the country’s Constitution – as in the United States, Ecuador’s executive branch is constitutionally prohibited from interfering with the independent judiciary.  Undeterred, the tribunal proceeded to order Ecuador “to take all measures at its disposal to suspend or cause to be suspended the enforcement or recognition within and without Ecuador of any judgment [against Chevron].”
This dangerous trend of private three-person tribunals assuming the authority to contravene domestic court decisions at the behest of multinational corporations should raise the ire of those who support the independence of courts, the sovereignty of nations, the rule of law, or even the core democratic notion that a system of legal decision-making should be accountable to those who will live with the decisions.  Now the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) threaten to expand the investor-state system across two oceans, subjecting domestic court decisions to a new wave of second-guessing by unaccountable tribunals.  Now is the time to halt the advance of this extreme system – to restore the authority of our courts and the principles of our democracy.

Posted by Shannon Gough at 7:53pm in Investment | Permalink