Tag Archives: United States Chamber of Commerce

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Conservati​ves Urge GOP to Raise Debt Ceiling


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 By ThinkProgress War Room on Jul 22, 2011 at 4:55 pm

Default Denialists Called Out By Conservatives

We are now 11 days away from a default on our obligations, and House Republicans appear no closer to agreeing to increase the debt ceiling than they were weeks ago. The business community and other conservatives appear to be reacting to this default denialism with increasing alarm. Here’s a rundown of some of the right-wing calls to raise the debt ceiling.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

We have been telling you for weeks and months that defaulting on our debt is not an option – it has real, immediate, and potentially catastrophic consequences. […]

The result from political inaction could be devastating.

Financial Services Forum

Failure to raise the debt ceiling and the ensuing default and inability of our country to pay its bills as they come due would have harsh implications for the dollar, the international and domestic financial system, economic growth and job creation. It is critically important that our leaders arrive at a deal to avoid both the negative consequences of a default and address our federal debt and large annual budget deficits in a responsible way.

More than 450 Corporate CEOs

Now is the time for our political leaders to put aside partisan differences and act in the nation’s best interests. It is time to pull together rather than pull apart.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R)

But they’ve got to get this done immediately or the uncertainty for the business community is going to be just devastating to our country.

Mesa Arizona Mayor Scott Smith (R), Vice President, U.S. Conference of Mayors

Anything that upsets the potential for any kind of recovery creates huge problems for the city… We’re sort of at the bottom of the food chin. When you have someone out of work, when you have someone who’s homeless, when you have someone with mental health issues, any interruption, anything that disrupts the economy, hurts our ability to help them.

Many of the social ills that we experience, you can’t just ignore. We have people who are homeless, we have people who are unemployed. They don’t just go away when governments cut their budgets…These are human beings, they still have needs, they still have problems…Our biggest concern is when there’s an across the board cut in spending without thinking about these different needs, you end up paying more.

President Ronald Reagan


Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed

Although GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has recently remarked that he doesn’t “see carbon as a pollutant,” he certainly regulated carbon dioxide like one while he was governor of Massachusetts.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) defended the Gang of Six’s deficit-reduction proposal with the promise that only “the people sucking off the program are going to be the ones that lose.”

The real sticking point for conservatives opposed to the IOM’s recent recommendations on health care plans isn’t abortion — it’s contraception.

Pulitzer-prize winning undocumented immigrant Jose Antonio Vargas had his driver’s license revoked by the state of Washington.

A top Iowa Republican and former Bob Vander Plaats ally tells the pro-discrimination crusader that he and his organization’s “credibility is waning to the point of no impact.”

David Leonhardt is the new New York Times DC Bureau Chief.

Blue Bunny Ice Cream, whose CEO Mike Wells has close ties to Bob Vander Plaats, is feeling the heat over his support for the Iowa FAMiLY LEADER.

Ohio’s unemployment rate rises for the first time in 15 months as Republican Gov. John Kasich’s budget cuts go into effect.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) criticizes President Obama for cutting NASA’s shuttle missions. In reality, it was a former president from Texas who ended the program.

NewsCorrupt: New MoveOn Ad Calls For Congressional Investigation of News Corp

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Ethics:The ChamberLea​ks Scandal


An investigation by ThinkProgress has revealed that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce explored employing three “private security” firms to surreptitiously investigate the Chamber’s political foes (and even their families and children), and to wage an underhanded cyber-campaign against them. According to emails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton & Williams, which in turn solicited work from three computer security firms — HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively dubbed Team Themis, after the Roman goddess of law and order). Hunton asked Team Themis to develop tactics for damaging or discrediting progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com. The Chamber’s efforts to target opponents began after a ThinkProgress investigation last year raised questions about whether the business lobby was using money from foreign corporations to fund its political attack ads. According to one document prepared by Team Themis, the campaign included an entrapment project. The proposal called for first creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then to subsequently expose the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win in an attempt to mislead and undermine them. Even more disturbingly, emails reveal that HBGary, which spearheaded the work for the Chamber, apparently thought families and children were fair game, as an executive with the firm circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives, such as where they attended religious services.

EMAILS LEAKED: ThinkProgress acquired the emails after they were leaked by the pro-WikiLeaks hacktivist community “Anonymous,” which was responsible for taking down websites of oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and those of American corporations that have censored WikiLeaks. Anonymous leaked the emails after HBGary executive Aaron Barr bragged to the Financial Times that he had identified the members of Anonymous, and planned to sell the information about them to Bank of America, which has supposedly been targeted by WikiLeaks, and to federal law enforcement officials investigating the “hacktivists” for their cyber attacks. Barr claimed that he had penetrated Anonymous; in response, Anonymous hacked into Barr’s email and published more than 40,000 company e-mails last week. Another 27,000 emails were published this weekend. Last week, it was revealed that Team Themis, on behalf of Bank of America, had planned to target proponents of WikiLeaks, such as Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has been an outspoken defender of WikiLeaks. Themis planned “actions to sabotage or discredit” Greenwald, a PowerPoint presentation contained in the emails showed.

UNDERHANDED TACTICS: The emails, from late 2010 and early 2011, illuminate the espionage project as it developed. Members of Team Themis bragged to each other about exploiting vulnerabilities in social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook — likely in violation of terms of use policies — to collect information about their targets. In one November 24 email, after a conference call with Hunton & Williams, one team member wrote, “We need to blow these guys away with descriptions of our capabilities, IP, and talent. Make them think that we are [James] Bond, Q, and money penny all packaged up with a bow.” Disturbingly, this spying included target’s families. One target was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the purported “Jewish church” he attended in Washington and a link to pictures of his wife and two children. Barr’s profile of Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog, included information about his life partner and his home address. This tactic of targeting opponents’ personal lives and family, it seems, was not simply a random event. Rather, it was a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber’s political opponents. Ironically, Barr had complained about the invasion of his own privacy after the emails were leaked, and Hunton & Williams was just named the “top firm for privacy” this week by Computerworld.

A ‘CAREFULLY WORDED NONDENIAL DENIAL’: On Friday, the Chamber released its second denial of involvement in the controversy, calling our investigation “baseless” and claiming that HBGary’s proposal “was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber” and that “the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary’s e-mails leaked.” However, as FireDogLake‘s Marcy Wheeler wrote, their response is a “carefully worded nondenial denial.” Using Hunton & Williams — the same law firm/lobby shop which the Chamber hired last year to sue the Yes Men — as a middleman allows the Chamber to hide behind the firm, but that doesn’t mean they were not involved. First, the emails clearly indicate that the “client” whom Team Themis was assisting was indeed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The reason why the Chamber can claim not to have “hired” HBGary is because until as recently as a week ago, the security firm was working on spec. As Wheeler pointed out, a February 3 email shows that Hunton & Williams simply got “HBGary to do a month of work for free to decide whether they want to hire them.” They were expected to be paid $250-300 thousand per month, and the deal was very close to being complete when the emails were leaked. The emails also reveal that lawyers from Hunton & Williams met with the Chamber numerous times in order to brief them on the status and progress of Team Themis. A January 13 email shows that the private security firms assumed the project was “a go.” An email from February 3 showed that Hunton & Williams wanted the firms to work on spec “and then present jointly with H&W to the Chamber” on or around February 14. It’s unclear whether that meeting will be still be taking place today.

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Economy: Obama Goes To The Chamber


Yesterday, President Obama addressed the leaders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the influential, ideological right-wing trade association that represents mostly large multi-national corporations. Obama told the assembled executives and corporate lobbyists to “ask yourselves what you can do for America,” not just for company bottom lines. “I want to be clear: Even as we make America the best place on earth to do business, businesses also have a responsibility to America.” Citing a long history of corporate fearmongering about government regulations, Obama made a “robust argument in favor of an active regulatory role for the federal government.” Obama urged the audience of business executives to “get in the game” and spend some of the trillions of dollars corporations have banked in the past year on job creation. “We need to make America the best place on Earth to do business,” the president promised. The Chamber’s top lobbyist, R. Bruce Josten, quickly rejected the President’s promotion of the “social compact” with America’s working families. “Bottom line, the most patriotic thing a company can do is ensure it is in business and take steps to stay in business; otherwise everyone loses and more people lose their jobs.”

THE CHAMBER AND JOBS: Indeed, much of the Chamber’s executive leadership has spent the past few years rewarding themselves with millions of dollars in additional compensation while eliminating American jobs. Trucking manufacturer Navistar Inc., on the chamber’s board, has laid off workers at factories across the country. Meanwhile, the company has enjoyed healthy profits, and Navistar CEO Daniel Ustian increased his total compensation to $8.43 million. As agricultural manufacturer Deere and Co. recorded high profits, the company slashed hundreds of jobs in Illinois, Iowa, and North Dakota. Meanwhile, Deere CEO Samuel Allen was awarded a compensation package in 2010 of $12.29 million. Health insurance company WellPoint, also on the Chamber’s board, has reported record profits and extraordinary executive compensation. In 2009, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly was awarded a 51 percent compensation boost, from $8.7 million in 2008 to $13.1 million. As WellPoint’s trade association secretly transfered $86 million to the Chamber to fight health reform, the company shed thousands of jobs across the nation. Despite bloated rhetoric about the virtues of “free enterprise,” the Chamber demanded taxpayer bailouts for its bank members, billions in taxpayer money for its defense contract members, taxpayer money forcleaning up BP’s oil spill, and preferential tax cuts for its millionaire executives. The Chamber has a history of being singularly focused on boosting short-term profits, not creating American jobs by investing in the future. It has pushed for unfettered free trade deals, sponsored a series of conferences to teach businesses how to outsource jobs to China, and even lobbied against legislation that would have helped create over 1.7 million jobs.

THE CHAMBER AND POLLUTION: In his speech, Obama said American business needs to acknowledge that “not every regulation is bad.” At a Washington, D.C. press conference last week, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials blasted Obama’s call for a clean energy future built on modern standards. Christopher Guith, vice president for policy at the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said a national clean-energy standard is “ridiculously premature,” even though 25 states have renewable and alternative energy standards. The Institute’s president, former Bush official Karen Harbert, said that the United States should instead allow “increased access to land for oil and gas drilling both onshore and offshore,” drilling a deeper hole with fossil fuel dependence. This opposition to clean-energy job creation on behalf of big oil is nothing new for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Throughout the last decade, the Chamber led the opposition to action on climate change, promoting global warming denial. Its history of defending pollution at the expense of the health of the American public and American jobs, however, goes deeper. Just as it is doing now, the Chamber petitioned to weaken the Clean Air Act in 1982, 1990, and 1997. The Chamber has opposed hazardous waste dumping bans, trade sanctions in NAFTA for failure to enforce environmental laws, and the reinstatement of Superfund taxes on toxic polluters. The Chamber’s anti-regulatory campaign is strongly supported by House Republicans. After the President’s speech, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) lashed out: “Far from changing tack, his administration is taking steps to protect the job-crushing regulations in its health care and permanent bailout laws, while plotting a backdoor national energy tax.”

THE CHAMBER AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Following the President’s State of the Union address, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue issued a rare joint statement supporting “Obama’s call to create jobs and grow the U.S. economy through investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” “Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools,” they wrote, “these projects not only create jobs and demand for businesses, they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure the country needs to compete in a global economy.” Even with the support of business and labor, the president is going to have an uphill battle putting “more people to work rebuilding crumbling roads, rebuilding our bridges.” Many Republican leaders in Congress are strongly opposed to infrastructure investment. “I understand the goal, but right now this is going to be — anytime you talk about ‘investment’ it means new spending,” Sen. John Thune (R-SD) carped. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the House Budget Committee chairman, is planning “unimaginably steep reductions of 26 percent to transportation and housing.” The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of 175 House conservatives, “wants to completely de-fund Amtrak and high-speed rail.” Republican governors have killed billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects in Ohio, Wisconsin, and New Jersey. It remains to be seen whether the heavily right-leaning Chamber will actually fight Republican leadership to invest in America.

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Monday mashup &some News …


did you know …it’s Black History Month

Campaign 2011…

Today, President Obama will meet with the Chamber of Commerce …whom in my opinion helped the Republican Tea Party hold the middle class hostage until they gave the bush bonus giveaway to the rich.

I do not know about anyone else but debates are just a fraction of what i use to make my choice of who to vote for elections. I have been following what the Republicans have been saying and or doing over the months let alone the last few years, gone to YouTube to check out comments, questions and the behavior on the part of these candidates. What stands out for me is that they continue to backtrack, lie and or ignore legitimate questions. They often choose to be interviewed only on one station, usually with the same party line -that is troubling and should give pause to anyone who doesn’t know who they will vote for-words matter, anyone practicing exclusion, targeting minorities and willing to throw fellow Americans under the bus to take back their America-(what does that even mean)? In addition, politicians that are so extreme are not worthy to hold Public office or seat in Congress. These positions of power call for working for “We the People” not some or a select few -they say they want the Government out of our lives yet when it comes to “social issues”; they want to control All Americans by way of privatizing most if not all social programs. If you want less government, why among other things tell women what they can do with their own bodies. The stance on less government is definitely a joke when they pull out that whole family values platform. Republicans are for Profits before the People on steroids. They are into privatizing everything, which will put our democracy at risk from the bottom up -the real world understands that the government works for the people -Cops, Teachers, EMT, and Firefighters! In addition, shame on States that make people pay for such services. It makes you wonder about what these States did with the stimulus money targeted toward government programs. I wonder is there “a dirty little secret” in States that would choose to let your house burn down if you have not paid up your privatized service and let’s be honest if the Republican Tea Party gets back in control that is what will happen. If Republicans repeal replace or eliminate –Social Security and other governmental programs, which is more likely to happen because as of late -they, the Republican Tea Party have not announced an alternative plan. When will Republican Tea Party constituents ask themselves how will going back to the failed spending of 2007 be a good thing, telling people how to live or love and practice discriminatory behavior to folks considered under protected status.

Politicians say, do and offer up resolution or promises that are over the top and because the fight is on to win a seat in Congress or keep your seat, it is obvious it does not mean candidates will give great politics or ideology, but how much money you have to look good and out PR your opponent. I have to say it was nice to see that even with all the money thrown out there by Whitman, Fiorina, angle, O’Donnell and others running for midterm elections. The people were listening, watching and made a decision that these embarrassing women were unqualified to hold public office let alone be described as possible public servants of all the people not just some or a select few. In the en People with or without money can be offensive.

We live in a time when money is speaking excessively loud in the world of Politics, protected by activist judges like some in the Supreme Court. I absolutely believe it is time for all of us to complain and or call them out when one side decides to push the envelope too far right of center instead of the so-called “fair and balanced” news of old. The wonders and need to tweet, FB and or blog about how Republicans have all the cable, major newspapers, magazines and whatnot that dominate the airwaves are offensive. If you listen folks or companies like the Chamber of Commerce, who seems to not only represent right of center Corporate America but pushes business to outsourcing jobs. A guy like Murdoch gives to both sides of an issue and when one side becomes more of a commodity and gets more airtime he feeds it. The NRA supports 58 democrats as well as a whole lot of Republicans because they can make money on both sides of the issue, which is hypocritical and offensive.

Americans cannot do a thing about all the money given up by these corporate giants yet. We can object to the lies coming from Fox, fear mongering and race baiting this station engages in what seems like on a daily basis…even CNN has moved right of center and though that rhetoric has 1st amendment on its side it is still offensive. As a person of colour and as a mom hearing Glenn beck send subliminal nonsense out into the airwaves with actual people choosing to do the wrong thing instead of right -and people get hurt and now worse …that is my prob.

My sense of democracy means total cooperation from both sides of an economic collapse yet the Republican Tea Party has decided they will take all the money you’re handing out but vote no or scale down most if not all legislation as well as throw their own constituents under the bus in order to regain power -that is not democracy.

Other News …

**Packers defeat the Steelers -Superbowl

**Palestinians watch Egypt with a sense of hope

**Huff Post/ AOL deal -for $315million

**Missing Google exec released by authorities after sev days

**Thailand/Camboida still trading military fire…charges over ancient temple

**Cuomo’s budget moving through NY has hit NYC schools

**merger deals causing stocks to climb

**Groupon – epic failure –Superbowl commercial -tasteful comments on the back of what seems like Tibetans

**Justice Thomas‘s wife has decided to try her hand at being a lobbyist …

**Factories are doing well but no new hiring being done

CSPAN …

Senate Ethics Committee appoints special counsel in John Ensign case

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/feb/01/senate-ethics-committee-appoints-special-counsel-j/

House Republicans move to slash domestic programs

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110203/ap_on_re_us/us_congress_budget_3

Obama signs nuclear treaty documents Wednesday

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110202/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_russia_nuclear

Shortly after announcing an overhaul of the nation’s homeland security measures, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), joins C‑SPAN’s Newsmakers to expound on the new approach to prevent terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. http://c-span.com/Events/DHS-Secretary-Janet-Napolitano/10737419403/

**

Egypt will not back to the way it was before protests disrupted the country, President Obama said tonight in a pre-Super Bowl interview. Speaking to Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, the President would not say when Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak would step down http://c-span.com/Events/President-Obama-Egypt-Not-Going-Back/10737419356/ 

Professor Elizabeth Varon teaches a class on fugitive slave laws in the run up to the Civil War at the University of Virginia. Passed in 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act indirectly resulted in the expansion of the Underground Railroad by which slaves could escape from Southern slave-holding states. http://c-span.com/Events/Lectures-in-History-Fugitive-Slave-Laws/10737419325/

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Three Days to Stop CEOs from Stealing Shareholder Votes

The recently passed Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act gives shareholders—including workers’ pension funds—the chance to vote on CEO pay. But Big Business front groups are putting together devious loopholes, and we only have three days to stop them.

Take Action: Don’t let Big Banks and Wall Street brokers stamp out “say on CEO pay.”

Starting in 2011, shareholders will be able to vote on CEO pay packages. This is great news because:

1. Even if you don’t have any sort of pension, or own any stock, the bottom line is the new Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will help rein in CEO pay if it’s allowed to work. That’s a good thing for working people and the whole economy.

2. Pension funds hold TRILLIONS of dollars in assets belonging to people who are currently working, as well as retirees. So starting in 2011, there’s a chance to use the collective power of working peoples’ pension money to rein in out-of-control CEO pay that goes against the interests of shareholders.

But the new law is already in danger. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and other Big Business groups are lobbying hard for devious schemes to gut the new law’s “say on CEO pay” provisions, and we only have three days to stop them. They want the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give corporations more control over the proxy voting system—which is how most shareholders would cast votes on CEO pay.

You can help stop their proposals by sending a public comment to the SEC. But hurry! The deadline to submit your comment is Wednesday, Oct. 20.

Tell the SEC: Shareholders should vote on CEO pay—not Big Banks and Wall Street brokers. (If you add your own words and personalize your comment, even a little, it will make a much bigger impact.)

If Big Business wins on CEO pay, the rest of us lose. The Chamber wants to give Big Banks and Wall Street brokers power to vote on behalf of shareholders—knowing they’ll almost always vote to rubber-stamp excessive CEO pay. And the Business Roundtable wants to weaken investor privacy protections so corporations can send shareholders junk mail soliciting votes in favor of…whatever votes management wants.

Send your public comment to the SEC: Don’t let Big Banks and Wall Street brokers rubber-stamp CEO pay.

Groups representing Big Business are hoping to sneak through these seemingly “technical” changes while nobody’s paying attention. But the fact is, these proposals will undermine the voting rights of shareholders in corporate elections—and because shareholder voting rights will rein in CEO pay, that’s a big deal for everyone who cares about working people in America.

We need your help to make sure the voices of working families are heard in this debate, loud and clear. Can you help? Personalize and submit a public comment now. It only takes a moment.

Thanks for making sure working people keep their say on CEO pay.

Sincerely,

Manny Herrmann, Online Mobilization Manager
AFL-CIO

P.S. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is already trying to buy our elections with gobs of money from secret donors. Don’t let the Chamber undermine our new rights to rein in excessive CEO pay, too. Tell the SEC to put the interests of shareholders—including working families and the pension funds that hold our retirement dollars—before the interests of corporate executives who are trying to suck the rest of us dry.