Read: Not-so-Secret ‘Secrets’ the Pentagon Paid Thousands to Destroy

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

The Defense Department paid $47,000 to destroy 9,500 unredacted copies of a former Army intelligence officer’s new memoir, The Associated Press reported this week. The Pentagon contended that the book, “Operation Dark Heart,” by Anthony Shaffer, contained intelligence secrets and has therefore sought to destroy copies that were published before the book was redacted.

But unredacted copies still exist. The book had originally been cleared by the Army and advance copies had been sent out before the Pentagon decided the book contained classified material. The New York Times bought one of these copies online a few weeks ago, compared it to the redacted version, and noted that some of the secrets were, well, not so secret:

The National Security Agency, headquarters for the government’s eavesdroppers and code breakers, has been located at Fort Meade, Md., for half a century.

Its nickname, the Fort, has been familiar for decades to neighbors and government workers alike. Yet that nickname is one of hundreds of supposed secrets Pentagon reviewers blacked out in the new, censored edition of an intelligence officer’s Afghan war memoir ….

Another supposed secret removed from the second printing: the location of the Central Intelligence Agency’s training facility — Camp Peary, Va., a fact discoverable from Wikipedia. And the name and abbreviation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, routinely mentioned in news articles. And the fact that Sigint means “signals intelligence.”

Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News pulled together a side-by-side of redacted and unredacted versions of the book. It’s just a few pages, but it gives you a taste. Aftergood writes:

Perhaps 10% of the redacted passages do have some conceivable security sensitivity, including the identity of the CIA chief of station in Kabul, who has been renamed “Jacob Walker” in the new version, and a physical description of the location and appearance of the CIA station itself, which has been censored. Many other redactions are extremely tenuous.

… In short, the book embodies the practice of national security classification as it exists in the United States today. It does not exactly command respect.

A recent secrecy report card, as we noted, found that government agencies spent nearly $9 billion in 2009 to maintain secrets on the books, while spending $45 million on declassifying documents. That works out to almost $200 spent on keeping secrets for every $1 spent declassifying them.

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China Currency Bill Brings House Together For Rare Pre-Election Bipartisanship

Normally a partisan maelstrom even on the best of days, House Democrats and Republicans joined together to approve legislation designed to curb China's manipulation of its currency. Such manipulation puts American-made products at a unfair disadvantage, and costs U.S. jobs, supporters of the bill say.

Even as they fiercely jockey for position in the coming midterm elections, lawmakers came together Wednesday evening to approve the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act (H.R. 2378) on a bipartisan 348-79 vote.

"We understand the U.S.-China relationship is an important one in every way—culturally, politically, diplomatically, economically—but we both need to play by the rules. When China came into the WTO, it was projected that they would play by the rules," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says in a floor statement just prior to the vote.

"But here we are today, and remember I said the trade deficit was $5 billion a year 20 years ago when we were having this debate then. It is now $5 billion a week. A week! One way that we can address that is to address the issue of China's manipulation of their currency, which, as I mentioned, is a subsidy for their exports," Pelosi adds. "We believe that passing this legislation here today will give the President leverage in his conversations with the Chinese about how seriously and closely the American people are watching this situation."

As many as 1 million American jobs would be created if China ended its currency manipulation, the speaker adds.

Pelosi touted the currency bill as part of the House Democrats manufacturing agenda, called "Making in America," which is a portfolio of legislation designed to encourage companies to produce goods in the United States.

"So this is about America's workers. It's about 'Making It in America' so that our people can make it in America—for the families, for their communities, for our country, for our economy," she says. "Especially now when we are talking about all the new green technologies and the rest, which are part of the green, clean energy jobs for the future, and we see what is happening in the trade relationship with China on that score. It is absolutely essential as we prepare for, well we are into that future, as we go farther into that future that we do not have unfair subsidies of Chinese exports into the United States in the important competitive arena of innovation and new green technology."

The head of the United Steelworkers (USW) labor union gave an enthusiastic endorsement to the legislation, which now heads to the Senate for consideration.

"Our USW members and working families across America will be gratified with news of today's strong vote by the U.S. House that approved the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act as the way forward to stop the egregious behavior of China and other nations that put our manufactured goods at an unfair disadvantage with deliberate currency undervaluation," says Leo Gerard, international president of the USW. Gerard testified before Congress earlier this month on the need to approve the bill

"This bill will give us the tools we need to address the shuttered factories and shattered dreams that currency manipulation has caused," Gerard adds. "House Congressional members stood up for American workers and demonstrated a commitment to reverse years of damage to our economy by passing this important trade bill. Now it's up to the Senate to do the same."


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Climate Accord Loopholes Could Spell 4.2-Degree Rise in Temperature, End of Coral Reefs by 2100

A global temperature increase of up to 4.2 degrees Celsius and the end of coral reefs could become reality by 2100 if national targets are not revised in the Copenhagen Accord, the international pledge which was agreed at last year's COP15 climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Just ahead of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, which starts October 4 in China, a new report published Wednesday in Environmental Research Letters describes how, due to lack of global action to date, only a small chance remains for keeping the global temperature increase down to 2 degrees Celsius, as set as a target in the accord.

Looking at individual countries' agreed targets for emission levels, the report shows that many developed countries such as the United States and the European Union have set their aims very low, aiming at reaching emission levels just a few percent lower than 1990 levels by 2020. Only Japan and Norway are aiming to drastically reduce their emission to 25 percent and 30 to 40 percent below 1990 levels, respectively.

The U.S. Congress has yet to approve any national system to limit carbon emissions. A debate also is ongoing this week as to whether Congress should block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases nationally under its authority to do so provided by the Clean Air Act.

Presenting their results in Environmental Research Letters, a group of international researchers from seven European research centers, has also found that even if nations would agree to a 50-percent reduction of emission levels by 2050 –- a target that strong international agreements would greatly facilitate –- there would still only be a less than 50 percent chance to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

Rising global temperature levels would not be the only consequence of failing to raise the ambition level of future global emission reductions. Increasing ocean acidification, a direct result of growing atmospheric carbon levels, could lead to a rapid decline of coral reefs and the marine ecosystem in the 21st century.

As the researchers write, urgent action is necessary, "It is clear from this analysis that higher ambitions for 2020 are necessary to keep the options for 2 º C and 1.5 º C open without relying on potentially infeasible reduction rates after 2020.

"In addition, the absence of a mid-century emission goal -– towards which Parties as a whole can work and which serve as a yardstick of whether interim reductions by 2020 and 2030 are on the right track -– is a critical deficit in the overall ambition level of the Copenhagen Accord."

Dan Kammen, editor-in-chief of Environmental Research Letters says, "The researchers provide an important lens on the ecological impacts and both social and ecological costs of inaction on climate protection."


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Mod Program Falling Short of Govt’s Vague Goals

by Paul Kiel, ProPublica

The number of homeowners dropped from the government's mortgage modification program continued to mount last month, according to new numbers released last week. The results also demonstrate the increasingly limited reach of the program.

Take a look at our graphical rundown of the numbers, broken down by each bank or mortgage servicer participating in the program.

Have you worked for a servicer in a loan modification call center? We want to hear from you.

Are you a homeowner who's struggling to pay your mortgage? Are you seeking a loan modification through the government program? We want to hear from you.

The administration has never clearly stated exactly how many modifications it aimed to enable through the program. Its only goal has been for mortgage servicers to make three to four million trial modification offers to homeowners by the end of 2012, a target the TARP's inspector general derided as "essentially meaningless" because only a portion of those offers result in permanent modifications.

But the Treasury Department, which runs the program, is unlikely to meet even that modest goal, as things start to slow. If the pace of trial offers made in the last three months continues (approximately 25,000 each month), the program would fall short of three million offers by several hundred thousand.

Meanwhile, less than half of the trials granted have resulted in a permanent modification. So far, about 1.3 million homeowners have begun a trial, a temporary reduction in payments that's supposed to last three or four months. For most, it has lasted longer than that.

About 1.1 million have received a final answer from their servicer. For nearly 60 percent of them, the answer was that they did not qualify for the program. Only 468,000 homeowners have received a modification through the program.

Below is a chart showing the most common reasons that homeowners have been disqualified from the program by their servicer, according to data the Treasury Department turned over to the Congressional Oversight Panel last month. It's based on the servicers' reports to Treasury.

The data raise "important questions" about why so many homeowners have been disqualified, the congressional panel writes. The most common reason was "request incomplete," which means the servicer reported that the homeowner did not submit all the necessary documents.

As we've reported here numerous times, the servicers often lose documents homeowners send in. Of the 373 homeowners who responded to a questionnaire we did, 232 said the servicer had lost their documents. Nearly as many, 214, said the servicer had accused them of failing to supply documents for which they'd never asked.

The panel also noted that in about 12 percent of cases, the servicer didn't even offer a reason for a denial when reporting it to the Treasury. (See the line "Denial Code Missing" in the graphic above.)

Treasury officials have repeatedly stressed that many homeowners who've been disqualified for modifications through the program have ultimately received other modifications from their servicer. That's been the case for about 45 percent of the cancelled modifications, according to Treasury. While such modifications typically do cut the homeowner's monthly payments, they tend to be less generous, resulting in a greater likelihood of re-default.

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120 Top Health Groups Want EPA To Regulate Carbon; Industry Wants Congress To Delay Agency's Actions

Some 120 of the nation's top health organizations want the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to move forward with its regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, but more than a dozen big industry lobbying shops want Congress to put the brakes on those plans.

The health organizations, which include the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Lung Association, all signed a letter to President Obama, and members of the House and Senate.

That letter urges Congress not to stand in the way of EPA's intentions to regulate the emissions blamed for global climate change.

The letter notes that preserving the authority of the EPA to regulate global warming emissions is of paramount concern to the health of "children, older adults, those with serious health conditions and the most economically disadvantaged."

The joint letter states: "As public health professionals, we are writing to urge you to recognize the threat to public health posed by climate change and to support measures that will reduce these risks and strengthen the ability of our local, state and federal public health agencies to prepare for and respond to the impacts of climate change. In order to prepare for changes already under way, it is essential to strengthen our public health system so it is able to protect our communities from the health effects of heat waves, wildfires, floods, droughts, infectious diseases, and other events. But we must also address the root of the problem, which means reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for protecting the public's health from climate change, and we urge you to fully support the EPA in fulfilling its responsibilities. We also urge opposition to any efforts to weaken, delay or block the EPA from protecting the public's health from these risks."

On the other side, a number of influential business groups -- including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- all want the Senate Appropriations Committee to insert language into a planned continuing resolution that would order EPA to delay its regulations. Their letters to lawmakers repeat the oft-stated refrain that such regulations would hurt the floundering U.S. economy.

The main goal of the continuing resolution would be to continue funding federal operations at current spending levels in order to prevent a government shutdown, until Congress can act on all of the pending appropriations bills.

The EPA is moving forward with plans that would, for the first time on a national scale, limit the carbon emissions that cause climate change. The agency is doing so under the Clean Air Act, authority given the agency by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling.

Dealing with climate change has been one of Obama's top priorities, although his efforts to pass legislation has been stymied.

The House approved cap-and-trade legislation last year which would regulate those emissions legislatively. But a similar bill has been bottled up in the Senate, and it doesn't appear the Senate will pass its legislation any time soon. Although Senate Republicans oppose climate legislation, several key Democrats also are against it, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller, whose home state is a major coal producer. The burning of coal is a significant contributor to carbon emissions.

The Senate, however, also narrowly defeated a resolution in June by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that also would have prevented the EPA's carbon emissions plans.

"If EPA is allowed to impose these new rules, it could slam the brakes on our economic recovery," says Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, one of the business groups seeking to block EPA regulations. "This will force the postponement of planned investments in new industrial facilities, meaning fewer jobs will be created and existing jobs will be lost. We simply can't afford this right now."

Other business leaders, however, agree with Obama and other proponents of climate regulation, who believe the reverse is true. A business coalition known as We Can Lead earlier this year pointed to a University of California study which found putting a price on carbon could generate nearly 2 million U.S. jobs.

A group of companies in Sen. Scott Brown's home state of Massachusetts put pressure on the freshman Republican to support a climate bill specifically for its ability to create jobs.


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Some Dems Join GOP Outsourcing Filibuster

A handful of Senate Democrats joined all Republicans to block a vote on a bill that would have ended tax policies that provides companies incentives to ship jobs overseas.

Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) stood with a united Senate GOP on Tuesday to filibuster the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act (S. 3816). An independent, Lieberman caucuses with Democrats, and as such holds a committee chairmanship.

In all, the bill failed on a 53-45 vote, with two senators not voting. A supermajority of 60 votes were necessary to overcome the filibuster and move the legislation to final passage.

The legislation would provide 24 months of payroll tax relief to employers for each job brought from overseas to the United States. The legislation would also close loopholes that provide companies with tax breaks for outsourcing manufacturing jobs.

“The bill we tried to pass today is based on simple common sense: to keep American jobs here in America, we should stop forcing taxpayers in Nevada and across the nation to pay for giveaways that reward companies for sending American jobs overseas. But Republicans continued their job-killing agenda today by protecting these tax breaks for CEOs who offshore American jobs, and preserving the same failed Republican policies that cost 8 million Americans their jobs,” says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“Every time Republicans are given a choice between supporting middle-class families in Nevada and across America or protecting CEOs and special interests, they choose to stand with the wealthy and the powerful. That is their choice,” Reid adds. “And while they do not have to answer to me for their choices, they will have to answer to the millions of American workers who lost their jobs because of companies sending jobs overseas.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was a key backer of the bill that failed, and as noted the steep decline in the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

"One of the major reasons the middle class of this country is in decline and why the working class is being decimated and why real wages are going down for millions of American workers who are working longer hours for lower wages is that for a number of years now we have been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs," Sanders says in a Senate floor speech.

Sanders also noted during a Capitol Hill press conference before Tuesday's vote that, the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States went from 17 million to about 12 million during the eight years of the Bush administration. As a result, the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record.

Based on newly-released data from the Census Bureau, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that the top 20 percent of Americans with income of more than $100,000 each year received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the United States, compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line. At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, who earn more than $180,000, added slightly to their annual incomes last year, census data show. Families at the $50,000 median level fell further behind. Overall, U.S. income inequality was at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The United States also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

"Income inequality is rising, and if we took into account tax data, it would be even more," Timothy Smeeding, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who specializes in poverty, told AP. "More than other countries, we have a very unequal income distribution where compensation goes to the top in a winner-takes-all economy."

Tester, a Senate freshman and one of those Democrats who joined in the filibuster, says he did so because, he says, because the tax provisions are not offset and would add to the federal budget deficit.


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Poll: Not Great News For Dems, But Not Necessarily All Good News For GOP, Either

An analysis of a new Harris poll doesn't necessarily contain a lot of great news for beleaguered Democrats. But neither is it coming up all rosy for the GOP in the coming election, either.

If the election for the House of Representatives were held today, two in five registered voters (40 percent) would vote for the Democratic candidate and 36 percent would vote for the Republican candidate with one in five (19 percent) not at all sure.

Among those registered voters who say they are absolutely certain to vote this November, 43 percent would vote for the Republican candidate, 41 percent for the Democratic candidate and 12 percent are not at all sure. The Republicans have a larger advantage when it comes to interest in the election. Almost half (48 percent) of those registered voters who are extremely or very interested in the election say they would vote for the Republican candidate while 38 percent would vote for the Democratic candidate.

These are among the results reported by Harris based on 2,620 adults surveyed online between September 14 and 20.

The parties are mostly holding their bases with voters, as 84 percent of Republicans are voting for their party's candidate and 81 percent of Democrats say they are voting for their candidate. However, independents are favoring Republicans, as 35 percent would vote for that party's candidate for Congress and 23 percent would vote for the Democratic candidate, while one-quarter of independents (27 percent) are still not at all sure for whom they would vote.

There are some rays of sunshine for Democrats, however, particularly in three-way races in which a tea-party-backed is running who is separate from a Republican candidate. (Such is the case in Alaska, where tea party-supported Joe Miller took the GOP nomination way from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who remains in contention via a write-in effort. Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams is the Democrat in the race.)

In such three-way contests, among registered voters, 41 percent would vote for the Democratic candidate, 23 percent would vote for the Republican, 13 percent would vote for the Tea Party candidate and 23 percent are still not at all sure. Among those voters who say they are absolutely certain to vote, 42 percent would vote Democrat, 26 percent would vote Republican, 17 percent would vote for the Tea Party candidate and 15 percent are not at all sure.

Harris' own analysis of its poll also makes clear that the anti-incumbent wave that the GOP is counting on to bring down the Democrats may well claim some Republican victims as well in November.

"Seeing so many incumbents defeated in primaries, as well as seeing establishment candidates lose, as well, makes it seem as if these midterm elections are a complete game-changer," the pollster's analysis says. "Of course, since Democrats are in power, they may suffer more losses, but it would not be a surprise to see unexpected Republicans lose, too. The morning of November 3rd should provide a very interesting post-mortem to this campaign season."


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Watch: U.S. Soldier Describes Shooting Afghan Civilians on Tapes That his Lawyer Contests

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

One of five soldiers accused by the Army of involvement in the premeditated killings of Afghan civilians is scheduled to appear before a military judge today — on the same day ABC News aired tapes that show his confession to investigators about his own involvement and the involvement of several other soldiers in the slayings.

In the tape, Spc. Jeremy Morlock, 22, described his role in a plan to kill three Afghan civilians — a plan that he said was organized by his unit’s sergeant, Calvin Gibbs.

Here’s what he said of Sergeant Gibbs:

“He pulled out one of his grenades. American grenade. You know, popped it, throws the grenade, and then tells me and Winfield, all right dude, you know, whack this guy. You know, kill this guy, kill this guy,” Morlock describes on the tape.

As we’ve noted, the charge sheets describe how American soldiers orchestrated the shooting of Afghan civilians by first throwing a grenade — making it seem as if the civilian had thrown it — and using it as a pretext for opening fire on the civilian. Gibbs, like Morlock, is charged with involvement in all three deaths.

“He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people,” Morlock told investigators.

He also described a fear of reprisal from Gibbs, saying, “If Gibbs knew that I was sitting here in front of this camera right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would f---, he’d take me out if he had to.”

Watch some of those clips:

The soldiers have denied wrongdoing through attorneys and family members, a recent story by The Washington Post noted. Lawyers and family members told ABC News that they intend to fight the charges.

Of the five soldiers accused of direct involvement in the killings, Morlock is the first to appear before a military judge to help determine whether he’ll stand trial, according to The Tacoma News Tribune.

CBS News has reported that today’s hearing began with “more than a dozen witnesses asserting their right to remain silent,” including the lieutenant in charge of the platoon.

Morlock’s testimony to investigators was central to the Army’s case against him and his fellow soldiers. His attorney, Michael Waddington, has contested the taped statements, arguing that his client was under the influence of several prescription drugs at the time of his interviews with investigators, The Seattle Times reported.

Seven other soldiers in the brigade were charged with other violations, including efforts to impede the Army’s investigation of the killings.

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Dean Group Raises $425K For Senate Dems; $100K For Feingold

A progressive political action committee associated with former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says its members have raised $425,000 to help Democrats running for Senate this year. It also says it raised $100,000 in 24 hours to help Sen. Russ Feingold's troubled re-election bid.

Democracy for America (DFA) has endorsed a number of Democratic incumbents, and challengers, in the run-up to the November midterm elections, in which Democrats must defend their majorities in both the House and Senate against a determined conservative "tea party"-driven movement.

Republicans need to win 10 seats in November to take the Senate away from Democrats. In its own separate fundraising appeals, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee acknowledges 15 races are close, within 5 points in current polling.

DFA was built from Dean's campaign operation when he unsuccessfully sought his party's nomination for president in 2004.

“It’s time to get some new blood in the Senate and shake things up. That’s why we are supporting fighters,” says Dean's brother, Jim Dean, chair of DFA. “DFA endorsed candidates will take back the Senate for the American people.”

Incumbents endorsed by DFA are Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Feingold, of Wisconsin.

Fighting for a fourth term, Boxer is in a neck-and-neck race against Republican Carly Fiorina, the self-funding former head of computer giant HP.

Also running for a fourth term, Feingold faces another wealthy opponent in Republican nominee Ron Johnson. Rob Taylor also is running as the Constitution Party candidate.

Polls reportedly give Johnson the lead over Feingold, who is best known for the bipartisan campaign finance reform legislation he authored with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Feingold also opposed the controversial anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act on its first vote, and opposes President Obama's policy for involvement in Afghanistan.

However, Feingold is more hawkish on federal budget deficit issues, having authored his Control Spending Now Act, legislation he says is made up of more than 40 proposals to reduce the deficit by more than one half trillion dollars.

DFA laments slow, or no, action by the Senate on such key progressive priorities as tax cuts for the middle class, campaign spending rules, the public option in healthcare reform, climate change legislation, and a lifting of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy which bans gay Americans serving openly in the military.

“It’s time to get the Senate working for the people again,” said Charles Chamberlain, political director for DFA. “DFA members were motivated in the primaries to get the best candidates possible and they have already donated $425,000 to get fighters in the Senate in 2010.”

Democratic Senate challengers that DFA supports are: Jack Conway in Kentucky, Roxanne Conlin in Iowa, Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire, Elaine Marshall in North Carolina, Scott McAdams in Alaska, and Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania. DFA supported Sestak earlier this year in his successful challenge of party-switching Republican-turned-Democrat, Sen. Arlen Specter.


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Bill Would Cut Taxes For Firms That Bring Jobs Back To United States

The Senate is set to consider legislation to offer tax breaks to companies that bring jobs into the United States.

The measure scheduled for a Senate vote this week also would end tax breaks for firms that move jobs overseas. The bill likely will have to overcome a potential GOP filibuster in order to reach a final vote for passage, however.

Under the legislation, payroll taxes paid by employers would be waived for two years at companies that can certify that an employee hired to work in the United States replaced a worker performing similar duties overseas. The bill also would prohibit U.S. firms from deferring payments on overseas income, and companies no longer could take a tax deduction for the cost of closing factories in the United States.

“We have got to stop providing tax breaks to large companies that are throwing American workers out on the street and moving to China and other low-wage countries,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a lead sponsor of the tax measure. “If corporate America wants the American people to purchase their products they have got to begin reinvesting in America and start putting our people to work building those products.”

The American economy is struggling with high joblessness, with the national unemployment rate dangerously close to double digits. Deep economic anxiety on the part of American voters is fueling a highly anti-incumbent mood that threatens to erase Democratic majorities in the coming 2010 midterm elections.

During a news conference call last week with Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sanders noted that nearly 30 percent of American manufacturing jobs disappeared during the eight years of the Bush administration. There are now fewer than 12 million manufacturing jobs in the United States –- fewer factory jobs than at any time since the beginning of World War II.

Sanders says that he heard from constituents at town meetings throughout Vermont this summer that they cannot find American-made products to buy. In fact, goods made by low-wage workers in China dominate the consumer products sold in the United States. Some 80 percent of toys sold in this country are made in China, as are 85 percent of bicycles sold in the United States. In fact, since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, more than 100 million American flags sold in this country were made in China.

“This country and the middle class are not going to survive unless we produce the products we consume,” Sanders says.


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Capitol Idea: Conservatives, Fancy A Splash Of E. Coli In Your Tea?

By Scott Nance

Food safety isn't some abstract concept up for debate, particularly after we all weathered the recent egg recall that left millions fearing if their breakfasts would make them sick.

Foodborne pathogens cause 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and kill 5,000 annually in this country — and may contribute to long-term disease in more than 1 million Americans, according to estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Furthermore, the total economic impact of foodborne illness across the nation is estimated to be $152 billion annually, according to the Pew Charitable Trust, which maintains a program advocating for improved food safety.

Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates 80 percent of our food supply, it does so with inadequate resources and under the terms of an obsolete law that dates to 1938.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would start to improve the situation, and would for the first time, give the FDA a mandate to inspect facilities and prevent contamination.

Republicans like to wail over "excessive regulation," but if we need more regulation to keep roaches out of our food, and to prevent rats from dry-roasting in the peanuts from which my kids' peanut butter is made, so be it.

The bill in question isn't some extreme, partisan plan, either. It was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee by a unanimous vote of Democrats and Republicans.

If Republicans want to run away from such common-sense protections for us, and our children, it is a shame on them. But let them walk.

A recent poll found that even many self-styled "tea party" activists support tighter business controls in several areas, including food safety. Nearly three-quarters of poll respondents support stricter regulation relating to food safety.

Every Democrat running for the Senate this year, no matter from which state, ought to put up a TV ad right away full of photos of young kids who have been sickened, and died, from foodborne illnesses.

With Democrats just one vote shy to get this important bill over the finish line, all of these candidates should pledge to be the deciding vote to pass better food safety.

Crafted with the right messages, and advertising, there is no reason why food safety couldn't be — shouldn't be — the defining issue for the 2010 elections.

Politicians always like to talk about standing up for families, and helping children. Well, this would be one concrete way to do it.

Scott Nance has covered Congress and the federal government for more than a decade. Capitol Idea is his regular column from Washington. This article was first published as Conservatives, Fancy A Splash Of E. Coli In Your Tea? on Blogcritics.


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For-Profit Schools Donate to Lawmakers Opposing New Financial Aid Rules

by Sharona Coutts, ProPublica

Between 2005 and the beginning of this year, Rep. Donald M. Payne, D-N.J., received $6,000 in campaign contributions from sources related to for-profit colleges. This year, he received more than $20,000 from the schools and their lobby groups, according to campaign finance records. What changed?

For one, the colleges have upped their lobbying efforts considerably in the face of proposed regulations that the industry says could shutter many of its schools.

For another, Payne co-signed three letters to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in which as many as 18 members of Congress pleaded with the secretary to put the brakes on that proposed regulation.

Collectively, members who signed the letters received nearly $94,000 from the for-profit college sector between the beginning of 2010 and late July, according to the most recent available campaign finance data reviewed by ProPublica. Most of the donations flowed after March 22 -- the date the first letter was written to Duncan.

(Take a look at the campaign contributions here.)

Other co-signers who received campaign cash from the industry include Reps. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.; and Jason Altmire, D-Pa. Payne and Altmire sit on the House committee that oversees education, as do several other members who signed the letters and received donations.

Payne did not reply to our requests for comment, but longtime campaign finance watchdog Fred Wertheimer, president of the group Democracy 21, which seeks to "eliminate the undue influence of big money in American politics," said the money given to Payne created a troubling impression.

"Whenever a member of Congress gets a large amount of contributions relatively close to the period where they take a specific action for an interest group, it raises appearance problems that undermine public confidence in the action that was taken, and also undermines the argument for the position on the merits," Wertheimer said.

A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, who signed two of the letters and received nearly $7,400 from the for-profit industry this year, said the congresswoman signed the letters because the proposed Department of Education regulations are "overly broad and were written without Congressional hearings."

None of the other congressional offices we contacted responded to calls or e-mails.

The stakes are high for the for-profit schools because the proposed regulation tightens the conditions under which educational programs can participate in federal student aid programs. Many proprietary schools draw the majority of their revenue -- billions of dollars each year -- from those taxpayer-backed sources.

Called the "gainful employment" rule (PDF), the regulation would create a two-part test that Duncan has said is intended to stop some career schools from "saddling students with debt they cannot afford in exchange for degrees and certificates they cannot use."

The first part would measure how many former students are paying down the principal of their loans, while the second establishes ratios between the debt students take on to finance their education and their earnings after leaving the school, according to the Department of Education.

The test applies to individual programs of study rather than an entire school. Each program must satisfy at least one part of the test for its students to remain eligible for financial aid.

For example, if a school's nursing program failed to meet the lowest thresholds for principal repayment and debt ratios, future students could not pay for that program using federal financial aid. But if the same school's computer sciences program was in compliance, students in that field of study could continue accessing federal aid.

Schools could be required to warn students about high debt loads if a particular program falls into a danger zone, the Education Department says.

The regulation would apply to all schools -- including for-profit, public and private, nonprofit institutions. Based on current numbers, the department estimates that "5 percent of all programs would no longer be eligible to offer their students federal student aid and 55 percent of all programs would be required to warn their students about high debt-to-earnings ratios."

Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert who publishes Fastweb.com and FinAid.org, predicted the rule will have a greater impact on for-profit schools than other institutions. "The difference is that every type of program at for-profits is impacted, whereas at traditional colleges, it's just the vocational programs," he said.

The department's move comes after government investigations found fraud (PDF) in the recruiting practices of several major for-profit colleges, and amid worsening data on loan default rates, especially for students at for-profit schools.

Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association, which represents for-profit colleges and trade schools, said the gainful employment rule poses a "fundamental threat to a lot of very high-quality programs that could be forced to close."

The industry's effort to build congressional pressure against the new rules has been carefully planned. ProPublica obtained a "whip list" that appears to divvy up responsibilities to lobby individual Democratic members among various schools and industry groups.

The whip list is in an Excel spreadsheet (.xls) written by Chris Collins, according to the document's "properties" data. The Career College Association lists a Chris Collins as its "Grass Roots Coordinator," but Miller said he would not comment on "specific internal documents."

The for-profit industry has not been shy about using its financial weight to lobby for what it wants. The founder of one for-profit chain, Arthur Keiser, has become a major national donor, according to campaign finance records. Keiser is also the current chairman of the Career College Association.

Campaign finance records show that Keiser, his wife, Belinda, and mother, Evelyn, contributed a collective $31,600 to members of Congress who signed the letters since the beginning of this year, when the fight over the regulations had begun to heat up.

Key figures in the industry have also paid numerous personal visits to the Education Department, according to public documents. They include visits by John McKernan, chairman of Education Management Corp., a company that owns several major for-profit schools. McKernan is the former governor of Maine and the husband of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.

Records also show visits to the department by officials from DeVry Inc. and Kaplan Inc., two of the biggest players in the industry, and their lobbyists.

Schools have also elicited tens of thousands of comments about the proposed regulation from their students, resulting in what the Department of Education said is by far the largest ever response to a public comment period.

In one instance, the president of the University of Phoenix, William Pepicello, sent out what appeared to be a blast e-mail to students that the Department of Education called misleading.

The e-mail claimed the gainful employment regulation would "block hundreds of thousands of Americans from getting the college education they need and deserve to get ahead in their jobs or find even better jobs."

An Education Department official told ProPublica that the e-mail inaccurately implied that the rule would prevent students from getting loans, when in fact it would affect only particular degree programs at specific schools.

"Students do not lose loan eligibility," said James Kvaal, deputy undersecretary of education. "They can and many will choose from the tens of thousands of programs that remain eligible," he said.

The University of Phoenix would not say to whom the e-mail was sent. The school's most recent financial filings say it has 476,500 students.

Education Department officials would not comment on the industry's lobbying campaign. The agency expects the rule to be finalized by November, and schools that fail the gainful employment test could be cut from the federal aid programs beginning in 2012.

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With Greed Popping Up On TV And Film, Dems Say Timing Is Perfect For GOP 'Pledge'

It probably wasn't the product of a deal between Republicans in Washington and the heads of the studios in Hollywood, but nonetheless Democrats say the timing was perfect in the premiere of the new sitcom Outsourced, and the long-awaited return of Gordon "Greed is good" Gekko, coinciding so closely with the rollout of the GOP "Pledge to America."

Republicans unveiled their election manifesto only hours before NBC debuted its new series about a manager sent to oversee customer service representatives in India. Then, in the piece de résistance, Michael Douglas returned just a day later as Gekko, the disgraced financier, in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Democrats argue the "Pledge to America" would return the nation to the sort of Republican policies that sent millions of U.S. jobs overseas as is lampooned in Outsourced, and promote the kind of unbridled greed made famous by Douglas' Gekko character.

“Greed may be good for Republicans and their special interests, but it nearly destroyed the American middle class,” says Ryan Rudominer, national press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the arm of the Democratic Party charged with electing Democrats to the House.”

Democrats in November will have to defend their congressional majorities in the House and Senate against a fierce Republican onslaught and amidst sagging approval ratings from voters. Republicans clearly hope this year's "Pledge to America" powers them to big wins in the midterm elections, as their "Contract with America" did 16 years ago. That year, in 1994, Republicans took control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years.

However, Democrats are hoping to remind voters about those aspects about GOP economics that turn them off, and prompted the elections of a Democratic congressional majority in 2006 and Barack Obama to the White House two years later.

“There is nothing good for Americans about the Republican pledge to protect tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas, privatizing Social Security and dismantling Medicare, and unpaid tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. At the unveiling of the Republicans’ Back to Bush pledge, [House] Republican Leader John Boehner made a remarkably honest admission, “We’re not going to be any different than what we’ve been,'” he adds.


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Frustrated Oil Spill Claimants Consider Alternative Compensation Fund

by Sasha Chavkin, ProPublica

Sept. 24: This post has been corrected.

One month after independent paymaster Kenneth Feinberg took control of managing Gulf spill damage claims, many claimants at his Gulf Coast Claims Facility are still awaiting a response to their applications. As these delays cause increasing frustration and financial hardship, interest is growing in a little-known alternative fund that handles oil spill claims -- the Coast Guard's National Pollution Funds Center.

Claimants who have applied to the Coast Guard's fund have reported swift intake of their claims and direct contact with their adjusters. But the fund is available only to applicants whose claims have been rejected or who have waited at least 90 days after applying without a decision, and has narrower eligibility guidelines and less money available than Feinberg's operation.

Have you filed a claim for Gulf Spill damages? ProPublica's reporters want to hear from you.

"If someone's not happy, they can submit a claim to us," said Tom Morrison, the chief of the Claims Adjudication Division at the Coast Guard's fund. But he cautioned that his decisions would not necessarily be any more generous than those reached by Feinberg, and that certain types of claims considered by Feinberg, such as physical injuries and health problems, will not be accepted by his office.

The Coast Guard's fund was created by a 1990 federal law passed in the wake of Exxon Valdez disaster, which established new regulations and liabilities for oil companies that cause spills. The law says that a spill victim with a damage claim first must approach the responsible party -- in this case, BP, which since Aug. 23 has been represented by Feinberg's operation. A claimant can file with the Coast Guard's fund only if the claim is denied, underpaid, or if no decision is made for at least 90 days. Here's more about how the process works (PDF).

Once the 90 days have passed, a claimant can then apply to the Coast Guard and have the application considered simultaneously by both funds. The claimant can also apply for the Coast Guard’s fund to pay the balance of partially paid requests, although claims cannot be paid double. The Coast Guard's fund pays claims from its own reserves, which are supported by a 5-cent-a-barrel tax on the U.S. oil industry, but then sends the bill for what it paid out to the company that caused the spill. In this case, BP may pay this bill from the $20 billion escrow account that it has agreed to set up to pay claims, lawsuits and cleanup costs.

The fund did not provide information on how many claims it had received or paid out for the Gulf oil spill.

Richard Reynolds, who filed a claim with BP in June for losses on real estate investments in the Florida Keys, did not get a decision from BP. He re-filed on Aug. 23 with Feinberg's fund, but has been told for weeks that his claim is "under review."

On Sept. 6, when 90 days had elapsed after his initial submission, Reynolds filed his claim with the Coast Guard's fund. Though he hasn't gotten a decision, Reynolds says he is encouraged by his interactions with the fund.

"I have a specific claims adjuster," Reynolds said. "I can call them up any time and talk to them about my claim."

Although Reynolds and another claimant who has filed with the Coast Guard's fund report better service, there are other aspects of the fund that raise concerns for potential applicants.

One is its small staff. According to the chief of its programs branch, John Baker, the fund has only 11 full-time employees handling claims. Baker said the organization was expecting more claims from the Gulf spill and was hiring contractors to help, but the number indicates an operation with a small fraction of Feinberg's capacity.

"If a significant number of people present claims they're going to be overwhelmed," said Mike Dekema, a claims management consultant with 30 years of experience in the industry.

Another concern is the cap of $1 billion that the fund will pay out for any single spill -- which again leaves it with a small proportion of the capacity of Feinberg's operation. Projections indicate the fund should currently have $1.35 billion available in reserves (PDF). Feinberg draws from BP's $20 billion escrow account, and has no cap on the amount of damage payments that he can award.

Dekema said that if the Coast Guard's fund paid certain classes of claimants differently from Feinberg, applicants in those groups should strategically decide where to apply. Tom Morrison, the fund's chief claims adjuster, said only that his office is guided strictly by the 1990 federal law; Feinberg's operation has its own protocol, which in some areas goes beyond this law. Feinberg's organization did not respond to requests for comment on this issue.

Outside any differences in judgments, Dekema said that response time would largely be determined by capacity. "What it's really going to come down to is who's got the resources to handle this huge volume of claims," he said.

Correction: This post incorrectly stated that claimants could not receive payments from both Kenneth Feinberg’s operation and the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center. While claims cannot be paid double, a claimant can seek additional payment from the Coast Guard’s fund if they feel they have been underpaid by Feinberg.

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The DREAM (Act) Also Dies In Defense Filibuster

It grabbed headlines for its failure to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on gays serving openly in the military, but the Republican filibuster this week of a massive defense bill also blocks another piece of legislation embedded in it: the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, or "DREAM Act."

The DREAM Act is a piece of immigration reform to enable the children of illegal immigrants to obtain an education, and permanent residence status.

Senate Democrats failed to overcome a Republican filibuster of defense authorization bill. The legislation, which authorizes a wide variety of activities and spending for the U.S. armed forces, included a provision that would have repealed the 17-year-old "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

It also included the DREAM Act, which would give students a chance to earn legal status if they came here as children (15 or under), are long-term U.S. residents (continuous physical presence for five years), have "good moral character," and complete two years of college or military service in good standing.

These young people were brought to the United States and should not be punished for their parents' choice to enter the country illegally, DREAM Act supporters say.

Those supporters, including Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) contend the DREAM Act would benefit the U.S. military. The Defense authorization bill was the appropriate vehicle for the DREAM Act because tens of thousands of highly-qualified, well-educated young people would enlist in the armed forces if the DREAM Act were to become law, according to a section of Durbin's Senate website devoted to the DREAM Act.

Despite falling victim to Republican obstruction, the DREAM Act is bipartisan legislation, Durbin says. It has 40 cosponsors, and in the previous Congress, the DREAM Act received 52 votes, including 11 Republicans, according to his website. Durbin also cites an Opinion Research Corp. poll that finds 70 percent of likely voters favor the DREAM Act, including 60 percent of Republicans.

The DREAM Act includes restrictions to prevent abuse, Durbin's website says. DREAM Act students would not be eligible for Pell grants, would be subject to "tough criminal penalties" for fraud, and would have limited ability to sponsor their family members for legal status, it adds.

The future of the defense authorization bill, including both the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DREAM Act provisions, remains "murky" following the filibuster, however, according to the Washington Post.


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Reid Continues Press For Food Safety Vote

For the second time in a week, the top Senate Democrat is continuing to push Republicans to allow a vote on pending legislation to reform the way the nation protects its food supply.

The Senate GOP, led by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, is blocking consideration of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510), designed to better protect consumers from falling prey to tainted food, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“America has one of the safest and most abundant food supplies in the world. But it’s not perfect: Food-borne illnesses sicken one in four people every year. As many as 5,000 Americans die from food poisoning,” Reid says in a Wednesday floor statement.

“The bill we are bringing to the floor is simple: it will make our food safer. It is a bipartisan bill that was reported out unanimously from the HELP Committee,” Reid adds, referring to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee which earlier approved the bill for a full Senate vote.

Foodborne pathogens cause 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths annually, and may contribute to long-term disease in more than 1 million Americans, according to estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Furthermore, the total economic impact of foodborne illness across the nation is estimated to be $152 billion annually, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts website.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates 80 percent of the U.S. food supply, including virtually all food imports, but the agency is underfunded, overwhelmed, and operates under an obsolete, largely reactive 1938 law, reform supporters note.

“People often think of food poisoning as an upset stomach that goes away in a few hours or a day. Sometimes that’s all it is. But sometimes it is much worse. I have met with families who have been seriously sickened by the food they’ve eaten – people who were hospitalized for weeks and months and came very close to death. In some cases, they will deal with the results of their food poisoning for the rest of their lives,” Reid says.

“One of the little girls I met is Rylee Gustafson from Henderson, Nevada. When she was 9 years old, she ate a salad that almost killed her. There was spinach in that salad, and E. coli in that spinach. Rylee got seriously ill. She was hospitalized and very luckily, she recovered. Three others who got E.coli from fresh spinach died,” he adds.

Reid went to the Senate floor just last week to urge Coburn, and other Republicans, to support food safety reform.

The bill Republicans are blocking would gives the FDA a mandate to inspect facilities and prevent contamination. The bill would:

Increase the inspections at all food facilities and requires annual inspections of high risk facilities.

Require the food industry to develop plans that identify hazards and implement the right preventive measures.

Enable the FDA to more effectively respond to an outbreak by giving the agency new authority to order recalls, shut down tainted facilities, and access records.

“It gives the FDA mandatory recall authority of contaminated foods. It sets up a system to allow FDA to keep track of food so we can find out where the contaminated food came from and quickly stop it from getting to grocery stores,” Reid says. “It strikes the right balance between assuring consumers that food is safe without over-burdening farmers with new regulations. And it makes no changes to the current Organic Program run by the US Department of Agriculture.”



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Health Insurers in Certain States Won’t Issue Child-Only Policies Anymore

by Marian Wang, ProPublica

A provision of the health care bill that bars health insurers from refusing to cover sick children with pre-existing conditions will go into effect on Thursday, and several of the nation’s largest health insurers, anticipating the change, have found a way to avoid bearing the law’s full effect.

Many have dropped child-only policies altogether, in states where they’re allowed to. Because the health care overhaul prevents insurers from turning down coverage of kids, insurers are afraid parents will wait until their children are sick to enroll them. In August, the Obama administration issued a clarification, allowing insurers to restrict enrollment of children to particular “open enrollment” periods, if allowed by state law.

Apparently, that wasn’t enough for the insurance companies. WellPoint’s Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, CoventryOne, Humana, and UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthCare have all said they will stop writing new child-only policies in one or more states, according to reports from Dow Jones Newswires and The Hill. The affected states include Colorado, California, Ohio, and Missouri.

Here’s The Hill, explaining what this decision could mean:

The announcement could lead to higher costs for some parents who are buying separate coverage for themselves and their children at lower cost than the family coverage that's available to them.

The Obama administration has criticized the insurers for turning their backs on “some of our most vulnerable Americans.” (Children covered by existing child-only policies will continue to receive coverage.)

A Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman told Politico,“Insurance companies have pledged to offer coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, and we expect them to honor that commitment.”

Insurers have said their decision to drop child-only coverage was prompted by uncertainty in the health insurance market. Dow Jones cited WellPoint’s response, for instance:

We have reviewed the rules regarding the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA) limiting the application of pre-existing condition exclusions for children under 19," WellPoint said in a statement. "Unfortunately, there remains a great deal of uncertainty as to how the rules will be implemented and what the impacts might be on participating insurers.

"While some carriers may continue to offer child-only policies, other carriers have dealt with this lack of clarity by choosing to discontinue new business sales of their child-only policies. Some have cited the lack of an effective mandate for individuals to obtain coverage, as well as ongoing market uncertainty," WellPoint said.

Cigna’s vice president of public policy, G. William Hoagland, told Politico that the company “would love to stay in the market” for child-only coverage, but “you can’t have guaranteed issue for this population and be the only one out there.”

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Think Again: Inequality and America’s Antiquated Politics

This article was published by the Center for American Progress.

By Eric Alterman

It’s ironic—though perhaps that’s too kind a term—to note that at the moment the U.S. poverty rate is reaching a 15-year high the nation is engaged in whether to offer additional tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 per year. (For a single adult in 2009, the poverty line was $10,830 in pretax cash income. For a family of four it was $22,050.)

This despite the fact that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed the short-term effects of 11 potential options for dealing with the present unemployment crisis and found that retaining the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy offered the least powerful “bang for the buck,” owing to wealthy people’s proclivity to save rather than spend additional income. And yes, it just so happens that the Forbes 400 came out during the same week, and lo and behold, “The super-rich got even wealthier this year.” (CAP's Matt Yglesias offers a few ideas about this phenomenon as well.)

Economic inequality in America is growing to proportions we have never seen before, threatening not only our social structure but also our democracy as the U.S. Supreme Court equates the right to spend money on politics with freedom of speech. A recent book by political scientists Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson called Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class insists that the answer can be found in the recent political decisions of the (pre-Obama) Congress and presidency.

The numbers tell a deeply disturbing story. During the 2000s, with a conservative Republican in the presidency and a mostly Republican Congress, the inflation-adjusted income of the median household—smack in the middle of the populace—fell 4.8 percent between 2000 and 2009. This is even worse than the 1970s when median income rose 1.9 percent despite high unemployment and inflation. Between 2007 and 2009, incomes fell 4.2 percent.

Most wage-earning family incomes have remained flat or been negative ever since the early 1970s. And yet since 1979 the top 1 percent of Americans have enjoyed 36 percent of all the gains made in household wealth (and this includes government benefits). Between 2001 and 2006, their share of income gains was an amazing 53 percent. Even more amazing, perhaps, is the fact that between 1979 and 2005 the top one-tenth of 1 percent—or 1 out of every 1,000 households—took home 20 percent of all income gains (after taxes).

Think about it. Approximately 300,000 super-rich Americans gobbled up half as much of the fruits of new wealth produced as 180 million or so American workers. This is an unprecedented situation in American history and one that undoubtedly threatens the fundamental functioning of democracy. It can hardly be a coincidence that it has come at a time when the labor movement has been fighting off a 30-year war by corporate America as the movement’s power and influence over the private economy has dwindled.

Given the power that money exercises in American politics the right to spend an unlimited amount on independent campaign expenditures and the power to gum up the system have been the wealthy’s most frequently used tactics to expand their economic power over the rest of us. Making matters worse, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission earned corporations a right by a 5-4 majority that wealthy individuals have enjoyed since 1976’s Buckley v. Valeo.

An impressive series of articles by Slate’s Timothy Noah seeks to discover the roots of the current crisis by testing out a number of hypothetical arguments. I would like to add one more that receives virtually no discussion in the media when this issue arises: our obsolete (indeed, anachronistic) system of political representation.

When the Senate was created the most populous state had just 12 times more people than the one with the smallest population. Now it's 70 times, which gives those in small and underpopulated states a massive political advantage over the rest of us. (Wyoming's two senators each represent 272,000 people; California's 18,481,000.) And it just so happens that the best-represented areas of America are also the most conservative.

So when 40 Republican senators elected to block debate on the measure recommended not only by President Barack Obama but also Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to end the U.S. military’s 17-year “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays serving in the U.S. military as they had done for so many others during the 111th Congress, they represented barely a third of the U.S. population.

This is just the beginning of the problems Americans face in terms of disproportionate representation. The average age of a U.S. senator is 69, while the median age of Americans, according to the most recent census figures, is just over 35. Women are a majority of the U.S. population but only 17 percent of the Senate. Only four senators are African-American, Hispanic, or Native-American, while these minorities represent a third of the population.

Most senators are also millionaires. Most Americans, needless to say, are not. Elderly white male millionaires therefore stand to do quite well when it comes to legislation. Underrepresented groups—not so much.

The minority party has myriad means to bottle up legislation. And owing to a breakdown in comity among senators no special interest is deemed too small or insignificant to monkey up the works. The most common tool of late has been the threat to filibuster.

Genuine filibusters of the kind Southern Democrats used to use to block civil rights legislation in the '40s and '50s are unnecessary today. Senators find them inconvenient with all the back-and-forth travel, fundraising opportunities, and media appearances it would cost them. (The average senator spends about 1 percent of his time on the floor of the Senate, which is an infinitesimal fraction of what they devote to fundraising.) The ease of this particular tactic increased exponentially as senators grew ever more shameless in shutting down votes in which they are in the minority.

The actual numbers can be difficult to discern because in most cases the mere threat is enough to win the battle at hand. But if we examine a close corollary—cloture votes—these rose from fewer than 10 per (two-year) congressional session during the 1970s to well more than 100 in the past two sessions. The political scientist Barbara Sinclair estimates that 70 percent of all Senate bills have been affected by these threats during the past decade, nearly 10 times the average in the previous century.

The same numbers suggest that while the Democratic minority under George W. Bush was hardly a paragon of virtue in this respect they are still no match for their opponents when it comes to the use and deployment of the body’s tactical weaponry of obstruction. Since the Democratic takeover of both houses in 2006 Republicans, as of this writing, more than doubled the 130 cloture motions that Democrats managed to force during the four previous years under George W. Bush.

And yet this is only one of many stratagems available to a senator determined to clog up the works of democracy. In yet another fossilized rule left over from the days of stagecoach travel any senator can freeze any bill merely by placing a personal "hold" on it. Breaking holds can be done, but it is extremely tedious, time-consuming business, and the Senate does it only when it feels forced. Meanwhile, parliamentary maneuvers can be put in place to reinstate them by just two senators who pass them back and forth—called “rolling holds”—and, what’s more, it can be done in secret.

Again, Republicans in the current Congress have been far more promiscuous in the employment of this antimajoritarian tactic than any before them. On April 20, 2010, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) took to the floor to recount the names of fully 56 federal nominees under such holds, as Jon Kyl (R-Az) objected to every one of them.

Often, the reasons for a hold have nothing whatever to do with the person or issue in question. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), for instance, placed a "blanket hold" on dozens of nominees over complaints he had involving a Northrop Grumman tanker contract and the construction of a counterterrorism center in his home state. And when Kentucky's Jim Bunning—a fine pitcher but an awful senator—decided to put a hold on legislation allowing the extension of unemployment benefits he single-handedly caused nearly 1.2 million unemployed workers to lose their benefits, a furlough of nearly 2,000 Department of Transportation employees without pay, the cutoff of $38 million in project funding for Idaho's Nez Perce National Forest and Fernan Lakes Idaho Panhandle National Forest, and the loss of $86 million for bridge replacements in the Washington, D.C., area.

And Bunning, who was retiring from office, had zero incentive to allow his colleagues’ business to proceed. (Approached by Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley to see if his genuine concerns might somehow be addressed at less cost to those without work, Sen. Bunning replied simply, “Tough shit.”)

This is a tiny but telling example of just how easy it is for money to talk in our antiquated political system. It would nice if the U.S. media listened a little more carefully.

Eric Alterman is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College. He is also a Nation columnist and a professor of journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. His most recent book is, Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Most Important Ideals. His "Altercation" blog appears sporadically here and he is a regular contributor to The Daily Beast.

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Senator: Dramatic Poverty Growth Another Argument Against Extending Tax Cuts For Rich

The swelling of the ranks of the nation's poor is another reason not to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, according to a left-leaning independent senator.

The Obama administration and most Democrats oppose extending Bush-era tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of taxpayers that otherwise are set to expire at the end of the year. Conservatives are pressing hard to see such an extension approved, however.

Obama and his Democratic allies prefer only to keep tax cuts for middle-income Americans going into the future.

The argument most often given against extending tax cuts for the most well-off Americans -- enacted as a signature accomplishment of George W. Bush's first term in office -- is that they would add nearly $700 billion to the already-mounting federal budget deficit.

Sen. Bernie Sanders points, however, to the recent release of Census data that indicates a rapid rise in U.S. poverty, as another reason to allow those tax cuts to cease.

“While poverty is increasing and the middle class is declining, it is incomprehensible to me that Senate Republicans are pushing for more tax breaks for the rich,” Sanders says. “Senate Republicans should not be allowed to hold middle class tax cuts hostage in order to give more tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires – especially when the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider.”

The Census Bureau last week reported 43.5 million Americans were living in poverty in 2009 -- a record representing over 14 percent of Americans. Since 2000, nearly 12 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty. Over 20 million more Americans were living in poverty in 2009 than in 1973.

Measuring the impact of the worst recession since the 1930s, the stark statistical snapshot by the Census Bureau showed that the median income of all families declined by $337 from 2008 to 2009, and well below the levels of the late 1990s, another sign that Americans are working for lower wages, Sanders' Senate office says in a statement. Middle-class families have seen their incomes go down by over $2,600 over the past decade going from $52,388 in 1999 to $49,777 in 2009 after adjusting for inflation. Middle-class families earned more income in 1998 than they did in 2009, the Sanders statement adds.

Sanders would end tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent while keeping in place tax cuts that expire at the end of this year for the 98 percent of Americans with household incomes under $250,000. Ending the tax breaks for the rich would yield $700 billion in federal revenue over the next decade. The senator has proposed devoting half that amount for deficit reduction. He would invest the other half in projects rebuilding roads and bridges and other infrastructure projects.

President Obama proposed such an infrastructure plan to create jobs on Labor Day.

“In my view, we should use half of the $700 billion we gain by not renewing tax breaks for the rich for deficit reduction, and half to invest in our roads, bridges, water systems and public transportation so that we can create millions of new jobs as we rebuild our infrastructure,” Sanders says. “At a time when the middle class is collapsing and we have a $13 trillion national debt, we need to create jobs and lower our deficit – not provide more tax breaks for the very wealthiest people in our society.”


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