Tag Archives: republicans

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

9.5% Unemployment


Congress just went on vacation without extending unemployment—leaving 2 million Americans without a desperately-needed source of support. Can you send a free fax to Sens. Murray and Cantwell demanding that the Senate act?

Send a fax

The new unemployment figures came out on Friday and they’re bad. We lost 125,000 jobs and the unemployment rate is 9.5%.

But instead of helping those who are out of work, Congress just went on vacation without extending unemployment benefits. That means 2 million Americans are losing a desperately-needed source of support because of Congress’ continued failure to act.

Congress seems to think they’re doing the popular thing by pulling back support for the economy, but in fact, a recent poll shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans want benefits extended, even if it means temporarily increasing the deficit.

Thankfully, your senators, Sens. Murray and Cantwell did the right thing and voted to extend benefits. But there weren’t enough senators willing to stand with them. We need to keep up the pressure so every senator knows this urgent issue has to be dealt with right away. Click here to send a free fax to Sens. Murray and Cantwell with the results of the poll along with a demand that the Senate act.

http://pol.moveon.org/fax?tg=FSWA_1.FSWA_2&cp_id=1395&id=21582-9640874-tSp8G8x&t=3

Friday’s unemployment numbers drive home the point that Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman made last week about the perils of government inaction. He goes so far as to say we may be heading for a depression.

Here are some key excerpts from Krugman’s op-ed:

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost—to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs—will nonetheless be immense. And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world…governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

Unemployment—especially long-term unemployment—remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

While long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times.

You can read the whole thing and pass it on to your friends here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html

And click here to send Sens. Murray and Cantwell a fax to demand that the Senate does their part to get the economy growing again:

http://pol.moveon.org/fax?tg=FSWA_1.FSWA_2&cp_id=1395&id=21582-9640874-tSp8G8x&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Laura, Nita, Duncan, and the rest of the team

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

UNDER THE RADAR … thinkprogress.org


BUSINESS — BP USED OIL INDUSTRY TAX BREAK TO WRITE-OFF ITS RENT FOR FAILED DEEPWATER RIG: Reports continue to demonstrate how deeply unprepared BP was to deal with its disaster in the Gulf of Mexico with tar balls reaching Texas’ shores and entering Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain. But the New York Times now explains how the oil behemoth took advantage of U.S. tax policies to significantly benefit from the failed Deepwater Horizon rig. Transocean, the company that owns that rig, used well-known tax havens in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland to reduce its U.S. corporate tax rate by almost 15 points. And due to a break in the U.S. tax code, BP was also allowed to write off 70 percent of the rent it paid to Transocean on its own tax bill. “According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee,” the benefit amounted to “a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.” As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo writes, “[E]ssentially, the U.S. taxpayer paid BP to lease a rig that was incorporated in a foreign country for the purpose of avoiding the U.S. corporate tax.” This benefit to BP is a symptom of a larger issue. Garofalo explains that “the U.S. tax code is actually riddled with breaks for the oil industry, despite that industry’s record profits in recent years.” Sima Gandhi, a senior policy analyst for the Center for American Progress, has counted nine different subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the oil industry, including refunds for drilling costs and refunds to cover the cost of searching for oil. Last month, only 35 senators voted for eliminating $35 billion of the industry’s subsidies. Fully cutting this corporate welfare would save $45 billion per year and, according to the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury, “affect domestic production by less than one-half of 1 percent.” “The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in response to BP’s Deepwater write-off. “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Fracking -natural gas &Halliburton


Gasland … a terrifying reminder of the word fracking and though we all want to believe in natural gas as another alternative ….the HBO special opens a person eyes way beyond what anyone has told us in the government and what we all should know …the name Dick Cheney comes up quite often.

below is the trailer for the Josh Fox documentary …everyone needs to watch this then go to Youtube and watch all 10 parts for yourselves. We all need to call our President to stop fracking unless done with extreme caution and backup plans. If done wrong causes the water to bubble and turn flammable …obviously gets into our ground water and could be very dangerous.

below is the Josh Fox Premier of Gasland PT 1,2 and 3 there are 10 parts…go to Youtube and watch them all

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

BREAKING: BP to stop burning endangered sea turtles


CREDOAction.com

This victory started with you. You made a difference.

Over 140,000 CREDO Action members — including you — told BP and the U.S. Coast Guard to stop burning sea turtles alive during oil cleanup efforts. With your help, CREDO Action was the first progressive group to organize widespread grassroots pressure to end this practice. You brought national attention to the issue, forcing BP and the Coast Guard to take action.

Faced with mounting pressure from a number of organizations and the press, BP and the U.S. Coast Guard have finally agreed to new measures to protect endangered sea turtles in the oil slick burning zones.

Read the news here: BusinessWeek: BP, Coast Guard Will Save Turtles From Oil Burns.

Though the details are still being worked out (and we’ll need to ensure that BP and the U.S. Coast Guard follow through on their agreement) we are confident that measures and procedures are being put in place to prevent endangered sea turtles and other wildlife from being burned during oil spill clean-up activities.

Clearly, there is still much work to be done to stop the oil spill, clean up the environmental devastation, address the economic disaster and ensure that BP is held accountable. But it’s important to recognize and celebrate this victory as we face the challenges ahead.

Your pressure works.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action