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BERJAYA

1 Million Signatures To Recall Scott Walker

BERJAYA

Romney Admits His Tax Rate Is About 15%, Lower Than Many In Middle Class

BERJAYA

Santorum Staffer: Women Shouldn't Be President Because It’s Against God’s Will

NEWS FLASH

Perry Stands By Claim That Turkey Is Run By ‘Islamic Terrorists’ | During last night’s GOP presidential debate, Rick Perry suggested that Turkey is run by “Islamic terrorists” and said the American NATO ally should be kicked out of the Atlantic Alliance. The Turkish Foreign Ministry chastised Perry today, saying that candidates for president “should be more knowledgeable about the world.” Today on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer asked Perry if he’d like to take back his comment. “No, not at all,” Perry said. The Texas governor then suggested that the Turkish government is sanctioning “honor killings.” “If they are treating their citizens that way, than they approach that terminology,” he said. Watch the clip:

NEWS FLASH

Perry, Gingrich Say They Would Do Away With NLRB If Elected | COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Two Republican presidential candidates would do away with the National Labor Relations Board if elected, they said Tuesday at a forum sponsored by the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce. The NLRB has come under fire from the GOP since it blocked Boeing from moving a plant to South Carolina to punish striking workers in Washington state. When asked what the NLRB would look like in his administration, Texas Gov. Rick Perry replied succinctly, “There wouldn’t be one.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, asked the same question, offered a similar response. “If I were Speaker of the House right now, I would have defunded the NLRB,” Gingrich said, before adding that he was exploring whether he’d have the authority to sign an executive order ending the agency.

Health

GOP Senator: We Need ‘Child Labor’ To Fight Obesity Epidemic

By Marie Diamond posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jan 17, 2012 at 5:35 pm

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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

At a recent town hall in Osage, Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) responded to a question about the Labor Department’s stricter limits on child labor by claiming that they could exacerbate the child obesity epidemic by making kids less “active”:

Concern was raised about the proposed Department of Labor’s intent to greatly limit child labor on family farms.

“This farm bill will greatly affect our FFA and 4-H programs,” said Grassley. “Kids won’t be able to help on farms not owned by their parents.

“It’s interesting that this child labor bill goes against Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative,” said Grassley. “How can kids be active if they are limited by this law?“

Grassley represents a farm state that both relies on child labor and contributes to the national obesity epidemic through its production of corn products like high-fructose corn syrup. Iowa farmers benefit from billions of dollars in corn subsidies that allow them to put a glut of cheap, unhealthy foods on the market.

As for his Dickensian defense of child labor, that’s sadly par for the course for Republicans these days. Several GOP-led states have rolled back child labor laws. In December, seventy rural state lawmakers led by Rep. Danny Rehberg (R-MT) denounced the Labor Department’s new protections for the country’s most vulnerable workers. They argued that hard manual labor teaches children important “life lessons.”

Under current law, 400,000 children working on farms are not protected from exploitation and dangerous labor. The proposed rules would forbid children younger than 16 from working with pesticides, timber operations, handling “power-driven equipment, or contributing to the “cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.”

Contrary to Grassley’s suggestion, the physical activity children endure during farm labor is no picnic. The fatality rate for child farm workers is four times higher than that of nonagricultural child workers.

Many Republicans have mocked First Lady Michelle Obama’s anti-childhood obesity initiative, but Grassley in particular has powerful financial motivations for supporting some of epidemic’s worst culprits. As a member of the Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry committee, he’s raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Food & Beverage, Food Processing & Sales, and Agricultural Services and Products industries.

Justice

Pennsylvania Bars Man From Elected Office Because He Served Time In Jail

By Tanya Somanader posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jan 17, 2012 at 4:45 pm

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Gary Mitchell

Gary Mitchell of New Castle, Pennsylvania is a rare example of a public servant. In 2002, Mitchell was found guilty of two drug-related felonies. But after serving a reduced sentence and turning his life around, Mitchell decided to run for city council. After being open with New Castle voters about his record, Mitchell and two others were elected to serve. But because the Pennsylvania Constitution bars any person convicted of an “infamous crime” from holding office, the state wants to prevent Mitchell from taking his seat:

The state Constitution says, “No person hereafter convicted of [an] infamous crime, shall be eligible or capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this Commonwealth.”

“I can run, I can win, and citizens can elect me, but the state will not allow me to take oath. Who runs the law? I thought the Constitution was for the people and by the people, and the people have spoken,” Mitchell said.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that any felony is an “infamous crime.”

Mitchell appealed to Lawrence County Judge John W. Hodge last Friday, noting that he had applied for clemency with the state Board of Pardons. He asked the judge to dismiss or stay the state’s attempt at his removal until the board rules on his request. Hodge rejected his request within less than an hour of hearing his argument.

Voters who elected Mitchell are incensed by the decision. “They took his money and then when he wins, which I don’t think they expected him to, they won’t let him serve. That’s not right,” said the Rev. Linda Martinez. Indeed, such an denial of office flies in the face of rehabilitation and pushes an overly targeted group of people further away from participation in the democratic process. After all, 13 percent of adult African-American men like Mitchell are currently prevented from voting — let alone from holding office — because of a previous conviction.

Mitchell promised to pursue his right to serve: “It doesn’t make me bitter, but it does rile me up for a fight.”

Economy

Have Banks Been Robo-Signing Credit Card Documents Too?

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jan 17, 2012 at 3:55 pm

BERJAYASeveral months ago, the nation’s biggest banks became embroiled in the “robo-signing” scandal, when it became clear that they had been approving thousands of foreclosures without verifying the proper documents or guaranteeing borrowers due process. The banks submitted fraudulent documents to courts and were forced to halt their foreclosures processes entirely as they sorted out what happened. “I had no idea what I was signing,” said one Bank of America employee. “We had no knowledge of whether the foreclosure could proceed or couldn’t, but regardless, we signed the documents to get these foreclosures out of the way.”

Robo-signing people into foreclosure is bad enough. But as it turns out, the practice may not have been limited to residential mortgages. American Banker, in fact, notes that JP Morgan Chase may also have been robo-signing credit card deals:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has quietly ceased filing lawsuits to collect consumer debts around the nation, dismissing in-house attorneys and virtually shutting down a collections machine that as recently as nine months ago was racking up hundreds of millions of dollars in monthly judgments…It is unclear whether Chase has stopped pursuing collection on many claims nationwide, or if intends to pursue the debts in some other fashion. The bank has not explained its apparent moratorium and declined comment.

Chase’s halt does, however, follow scattered defeats in state courts and a whistle-blower’s allegation that it falsely overstated the balances of thousands of delinquent accounts it sold to a third party. Former Chase employees and debt collection experts insist that the bank would not have abruptly retreated from its collections efforts in the absence of trouble. [...]

Robo-signing, or the high-volume production of signed legal documents, has been a key element of the governmental and media foreclosure reviews. Chase’s current pullback raises at least the possibility that at least some banks may have documentation problems in other business lines…”If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it’s 100 times bigger in credit card accounts,” says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.

As one finance blogger put it, “When a bank leaves money on the table for no obvious reason, you know that something’s not quite right.” It seems that JP Morgan, and who knows how many other banks, were attempting to collect on debts without being certain that the amount they were asking for was accurate. One whistle blower looked at $200 million in JP Morgan customer accounts and claims to have found that “half the accounts lacked adequate documentation of judgment and one-sixth listed the wrong amounts owed.”

Banks have been robo-signing documents since as least 1998, as an Associated Press investigation found, and its not all that surprising that a practice that worked so well for so long (at least in the eyes of the banks) would have migrated to other areas.

NEWS FLASH

Poll: Most Think System Favoring Wealthy Is A Bigger Problem Than Over-Regulation | Asking an incisive question that gets to the heart of today’s political and economic debates, the new Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that a majority of Americans think that inherent “unfairness in the economic system that favors the wealthy” is a bigger problem than “over-regulation of the free market.” The question boils down the key difference between the world views and policy prescriptions of the progressive and conservative movements, and finds that most Americans agree with progressives here, 55 percent to 35 percent. As Greg Sargent notes, “moderates see economic unfairness on behalf of the wealthy as a bigger problem than market overregulation by 59-29.”

NEWS FLASH

BREAKING: Walker Recall Effort Delivers More Than 1 Million Signatures | Activists working to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) filed petitions today with more than 1 million signatures to the state, close to double the almost they needed to begin the recall process and force Walker to stand for reelection in November. If successful, it would be the first gubernatorial recall in Wisconsin history, and only the third in U.S. history. The number of signatures comes close to the 1,128,941 votes Walker received, and was far more than the 540,000 needed.

Update

Ed Schultz tweets this photo of activists submitting the signatures:

BERJAYA

NEWS FLASH

Pennsylvania Slashes 88,000 Children From Medicaid Rolls | The Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare reveals that 88,071 children were cut from the Medicaid rolls since August as a result of the department Secretary Gary Alexander’s (R) efforts to “reduce waste, fraud, and abuse.” Alexander ordered an increase in eligibility reviews of beneficiaries in July and, now 80 percent complete, the reviews have resulted in the slew of cuts. The numbers don’t count an additional 23,000 children that DPW cut but eventually restored after the families secured legal help. Advocates note, however, that “poorer people may be less likely to call a lawyer, and child advocates believe thousands have no idea they are now uninsured.” DPW is also enforcing a stricter food stamp eligibility requirement that disqualifies any low-income Pennsylvanian with $2,000 or more in assets, as they are “too rich” for aid.

Justice

Gingrich: I ‘Don’t See’ Why Calling ‘Food Stamps’ An African-American Issue Is Insulting

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jan 17, 2012 at 1:30 pm

BERJAYAEarlier this month, former Speaker Newt Gingrich made the offensive claim that his policies should appeal to African-Americans because he will “talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps” — as if receiving federal food assistance was a universal component of the black experience in the United States. When confronted with these remarks at last night’s GOP debate, however, Gingrich was utterly dismissive of the mere suggestion that they might be insulting:

JUAN WILLIAMS: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic, and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?

GINGRICH: No, I don’t see that.

Watch it:

It’s deeply disturbing that a man who claims he should be president of the United States cannot understand why his remarks are offensive. The overwhelming majority of African-Americans are not on food stamps. Indeed, the majority of people who receive food stamps are white. Most recipients are also either children or seniors who are of retirement age. In 2010, working women represented only 28 percent of recipients, and working-age men represented only 17 percent.

Gingrich’s suggestion that food stamps are somehow a preeminent black issue flies in the face of reality. Worse, it lumps all African-Americans together as federal aid recipients when the overwhelming majority of working-age black men and women are self-supporting taxpayers. Thousands of them are professionals such as doctors or lawyers. One of them is the President of the United States.

Sadly, Gingrich’s snide answer earned an enthusiastic response from the largely white, Republican audience at the debate. The only thing more disturbing than the fact that Gingrich cannot understand why his comments are so deeply offensive is the fact that his ignorance is shared by others.

NEWS FLASH

Anti-Labor Koch Brothers Launch $6 Million Solyndra ‘Workers’ Attack Ad | The Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity has rolled out its latest attack against the clean energy economy in its election-year campaign against President Obama. The petrochemical Tea Party group released a $6 million ad on Monday in battleground states Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, and Iowa, distorting the facts on the Solyndra solar company. The Kochs, who have hosted fundraisers for Mitt Romney and are notorious for their anti-worker actions, accuse Obama of “cronyism” and using workers as “pawns” in the ad.

Politics

The 10 Most Outrageous Facts About Virginia’s New Senate Candidate Bob Marshall

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Jan 17, 2012 at 12:20 pm

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Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R)

Infamous Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) threw his hat into a crowed GOP field to fill Virginia’s open Senate seat today. Marshall has made a name for himself by pursuing anti-gay and anti-women’s choice legislation with more zeal than hardly any other politician in the country, but has dabbled in far-right legislation across the policy spectrum.

Some of Bob Marshall’s greatest hits:

1. Suggested that children born with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who have previously had abortions. “When you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” he said.

2. Warned homosexual behavior “undermines the American economy” in an angry letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond after it flew a rainbow flag. The flag “celebrated” homosexual acts, which Marshall said are Class 6 felony in the state. He has also called homosexuality a “disordered behavior.”

3. Warned repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) will “jeopardize our alliances,” especially with Muslim countries, because foreign troops will refuse to fight alongside gay Americans.

4. After DADT was repealed, introduced legislation banning “active homosexuals” from joining the Virginia National Guard.

5. Called the Affordable Care Act “criminal” and an attempt to steal “your soul.”

6. Thinks the best answer to school shootings is to arm professors, sponsoring a bill to “allow faculty members to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.”

7. Advocated unconstitutional bills to allow Virginia to ignore laws passed by the U.S Congress.

8. Sponsored a bill to require schools to designate a 5-minute period each day for students to “read morally or ethically relevant materials.”

9. Sponsored a bill that would make the use of profane, indecent, or threatening language in a personal e-mail a misdemeanor.”

10. Sponsored the “Marshall-Newman” anti-gay marriage amendment in 2006, which was written so broadly that many warned it could “undermine the rights of all unmarried couples to enter into contracts, enforce wills and child custody agreements or receive the protection of domestic violence laws.”

Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Marshall will have stiff competition for conservative voters in the race from tea party organizer Jamie Radtke, fringe-conservative minister E.W. Jackson, and businessman David McCormick, who are all running to the right of frontrunner George Allen, the former senator best known for using the racial slur “macaca.”

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Economy

Romney Admits His Tax Rate Is About 15 Percent, Lower Than Many Middle Class Families

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jan 17, 2012 at 11:35 am

BERJAYACitizens for Tax Justice a few months ago estimated that Mitt Romney, due to most of his income coming from investments, pays a tax rate of around 14 percent, a far cry from the 35 percent top income tax rate. Romney then confirmed that the bulk of his income does, indeed, come from investments (and is thus subject to the top capital gains tax rate of 15 percent), but he has refused to release his tax returns in order to reveal the definitive tax rate that he pays.

However, during a press conference on the campaign trail today, Romney did give a glimpse into his finances, confirming that he pays “closer to the 15 percent rate”:

Q: What’s the effective rate you’ve been paying?

ROMNEY: What’s the effective rate I’ve been paying? It’s probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything, because my last ten years, I’ve, my income comes overwhelmingly from investments made in the past, rather than ordinary income, rather than earned annual income.

Watch it:

As Center for American Progress Director of Fiscal Reform Seth Hanlon has explained, the latest data shows that “many middle-class families paid much more [in taxes] than the 17.5 percent average paid by the very rich.” When President Obama suggested the “Buffett rule,” aimed at ensuring that millionaires can’t pay lower taxes than middle class families, Romney derided it as “class warfare,” and “the wrong way to go.”

One of the reasons Romney is able to drive his tax rate down so low is that he is still earning money from his private equity firm, Bain Capital, that is likely subject to a pernicious tax loophole. This loophole lets wealthy money mangers like Romney pay the capital gains tax rate on profits they make investing other people’s money, turning the justification for having a lower capital gains tax rate completely on its head.

During the same press conference, Romney said that he only makes some income from speaker’s fees, “but not very much,” which is money that would be taxed at normal income tax rates. From Feb. 2010 to Feb. 2011, Romney earned $362,000 in speaker’s fees.

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Economy

Romney Claims He’s ‘Not Worried About The Rich,’ But Wants To Cut Their Taxes By One-Third

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jan 17, 2012 at 10:50 am

BERJAYAOn the campaign trail, Mitt Romney constantly claims that he is “focused” on the middle class. “I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine,” he’s said.

However, Romney’s tax plan doesn’t back up that rhetoric, as it includes huge giveaways to the already wealthy. In fact, during a debate in South Carolina last night, Romney told Fox News’ Brett Baier that he’d like the top income tax rate of 35 percent to be cut by at least a third, down to no higher than 25 percent:

BAIER: I’d like to ask a question about keeping money for all of the candidates down the line. What is the highest federal income tax any American should have to pay? We are looking for a number. [...]

ROMNEY: I would like 25 percent, but right now it’s at 35, so people better pay what is legally required. But ultimately let’s get it down to as low as we possibly can, if it’s 20, if it’s 25, but paying more than 25 percent, I think, is taking too much out of our pockets.

BAIER: So the highest you had was 35?

ROMNEY: Well, that’s what the law is right now, but 25 is where I would like to see us go.

Watch it:

Romney’s tax plan would double the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, while increasing taxes on millions of middle class families, including half of middle class families with children. But maybe we should, as Romney suggested, only talk about this in “quiet rooms,” lest the “politics of envy” rears its ugly head.

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NEWS FLASH

Santorum Says Romney ‘Deliberately Lies’ And Stands ‘Behind Those Lies’ | Rick Santorum struck a decidedly more negative tone against Mitt Romney during a press availability this morning. Santorum tore into former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for flip-flopping on social issues and “just about every issue that we’ve dealt with in public policy.” He accused Romney of standing behind inaccurate ads run by a pro-Romney Political Action Committee that accuse the former Pennsylvania senator of supporting voting rights for felons. “We don’t need someone who supports lies and promotes lies and stands behind those lies in order to get elected president,” Santorum said. The GOP shouldn’t nominate “somebody who is going to deliberately lie and stand behind those lies,” he added. Watch a compilation of his remarks:

Justice

Santorum Staffer Says Women Shouldn’t Be President Because It’s Against God’s Will

By Marie Diamond posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jan 17, 2012 at 9:35 am

BERJAYAIn an article about the reasons Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign fizzled, the Des Moines Register points to “sexism among conservatives,” singling out an offensive email written by a staffer to Rick Santorum:

Rival presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent out an email saying that children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president. [...]

“The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ” Johnson’s email said.

Johnson, who remains on Santorum’s staff, complained that the email was “blown out of proportion” and should not be held against him because it was sent from a personal email account.

But he refused to back away from the substance of the email, saying “I was sharing my personal reflections with a friend…[T]hey were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study [based in] classical Christian doctrine.”

After Bachmann left the race, several of her advisers pointed to sexism as a contributing factor. “We did believe that sexism — I use the stronger word misogyny — was at play,” said Peter Waldron, her faith outreach coordinator. Waldron said that several influential pastors called for her to drop out of the race, reasoning “that a female could not be a civil magistrate.” Johnson himself is a pastor at a central Iowa church.

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Politics

Morning Briefing: January 17, 2012

By ThinkProgress on Jan 17, 2012 at 9:00 am

BERJAYA

As Congress returns to Washington for a new session, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll finds that a new high of 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing. About two-thirds say they “disapprove strongly.”

Congress may be able to reach a deal on a one-year extension of the payroll tax holiday quicker than expected. Aides say Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were on the edge of a deal before time ran out in December. “It became an issue of the president being for tax cuts and Republicans not being for tax cuts — because of that, nobody wants to revisit that debate during a political year,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) told Politico.

Today, Occupy Wall Street protesters are planning a demonstration against Congress just as lawmakers return from recess. The gathering on the National Mall, dubbed “Occupy Congress,” is expected to be one of the largest the movement has organized. It will include marches around the Capitol in “a day of action against a corrupt political institution.”

Occupy Wall Street “is running out of money.” After raising more than $700,000 last fall, the movement reported it had $170,000 in its bank account with “very few donations” coming in. “If we keep spending at the rate at which we have been doing, we will probably go broke in a month,” a leader said.

The Tea Party is “struggling to float viable and effective candidates, unify its base and dictate the terms of national discourse on the economy” in the 2012 election cycle. The demise has been coming for some time, but the seemingly inevitable nomination of Mitt Romney, whom most Tea Partiers dislike, is hastening the decline.

Wikipedia will go dark on Wednesday to protest an anti-piracy law before Congress, known as SOPA, that many say is so broad it will dampen free speech and innovation on the web. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales tweeted yesterday that the online encyclopedia will shutdown its English version until midnight on Wednesday. Other websites, including Reddit, also plan to protest SOPA by blacking out or deleting content.

While Mitt Romney has tried to dismiss questions about his record at Bain, the attacks seem to be having an effect, even on GOP voters, who hold an increasingly negative view of Romney’s work at the firm. According to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 34 percent of Republicans have negative impressions of Romney’s private-sector work, up from 20 percent just a month ago.

Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) and her opponent Sen. Scott Brown (R) jointly called for a ban on third-party, super PAC spending in their Massachusetts race. Federal law prevents campaigns from coordinating with outside groups, but Warren said Monday that the campaigns “could agree on a common response if third-party groups become active,” noting, “That’s certainly within our control.”

Federal prosecutors are ratcheting up the investigation of Standard & Poor’s financial crisis-era ratings of troubled mortgage securities, focusing on whether the firms ignored their own standards to “cater to banking clients eager to sell securities.” The DOJ is considering that S&P allowed “ratings shopping,” a practice that allows bankers to choose the credit-rating firm that offers the highest rating.

And finally: Now no longer controlled by the comedian, Stephen Colbert’s SuperPAC has endorsed Herman Cain for president. “He’s such a Washington outsider, he’s not even running for president,” an ad for the group states.

For breaking news and updates throughout the day, follow ThinkProgress on Facebook and Twitter.

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