Month: December 2014

U.S. Supreme Court declines review of Arizona abortion case

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uterus-stateThe “forced birth” religious zealots of the Arizona legislature and Cathi Herrod’s Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), the author of the RU-486 abortion bill, lost another round in the U.S. Supreme Court today after having lost in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports, Court passes up RU-486 abortion issue, again:

The Supreme Court chose again today to bypass a dispute over state authority to strictly limit the access of pregnant women to abortion procedures that use drugs instead of surgery.  This time, the Court declined to review a case from Arizona — a state where nearly half of all abortions have been performed without surgery (Humble v. Planned Parenthood Arizona).  Last Term the Court dismissed a similar case that was an appeal from Oklahoma.

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The wild and crazy ride to the craptacular ‘CRomnibus’ bill

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Screenshot-6On Friday, the hapless TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, had to delay a vote on the craptacular “CRomnibus” bill because he did not have the votes within his own caucus, i.e., the “majority of the majority” or the now defunct Hastert Rule within the GOP.

Boehner really ought to be more polite to President Obama because, once again, strong-arm lobbying of Democrats by the White House and House Democratic leadership produced the necessary Democratic votes to bail out the TanMan’s sorry ass and send the “CRomnibus” bill to the Senate. I’ve lost count of how many times “No Drama” Obama has bailed out Boehner with Democratic votes.

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post writes, Obama’s Boehner bailout:

How often will President Obama come to House Speaker John Boehner’s rescue even when Republican leaders aren’t willing to give much in return? And does the president want to preside over a split in his party?

These are among the questions raised by the dramatic budget battle that came close to breaching the deadline for a government shutdown.

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Nonpartisan League

Sanders Echos Warren with Call to ‘Bust Up the Big Banks’

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Teddy Roosevelt
President Teddy Roosevelt was America’s original “trust-buster,” taking on monopolies and big banks in the early 20th century.

One day after Senator Elizabeth Warren rekindled the spirit of President Teddy Roosevelt and called for breaking up the Wall Street banks because they have too much political power, Senator Bernie Sanders has seconded that proposal.

From Sanders’ press release:

“Over the last several days, it has become abundantly clear that Congress does not regulate Wall Street but Wall Street regulates Congress.  If Wall Street lobbyists can literally write a provision into law that will allow too-big-to-fail banks to make the same risky bets that nearly destroyed our economy just a few years ago, it should be obvious to all that their incredible economic and political power is a huge danger to our economy and our way of life,” Sanders said.

Lobbyists for Citigroup drafted the measure and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon reportedly called congressmen to lobby for the provision that would gut a key provision of Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street reform law passed in 2010.

“Enough is enough,” Sanders said. “Today, almost all of the too-big-to-fail banks are bigger and even more powerful than they were before we bailed them out. The six largest financial institutions have over $9.8 trillion in assets — the equivalent of more than 60 percent of GDP.  They issue over half of the mortgages and more than two-thirds of the credit cards in America.

“If Congress cannot regulate Wall Street, there is just one alternative.  It is time to break these too-big-to-fail banks up so that they can never again destroy the jobs, homes, and life savings of the American people.

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Book Review: The End of Normal

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Remember the blockbuster economic theory books from a generation ago, The New Industrial State and The Affluent Society, by John Kenneth Galbraith? Well, Galbraith’s son, James, is quite the thinker in his own right, at about the same level as his father. I’ve actually had a telephone conversation or two with him about tax policy, and he’s a really nice guy to boot.

So, his is the latest in the “The End of” books I’ve read, following The End of Oil, The End of Food, The End of Poverty, The End of Faith and The End of Growth. I’m not sure what compels me to read every book that begins with those three words.

But I digress. The End of Normal is a great read. Galbraith takes on a subject near to my heart. In my year-long dialogue with the Thuckmeister, I tried on many occasions to explain to our friend Thucky that the rankings of economists were bullshit. Galbraith explains how economists across the spectrum are focused on their rankings, which are a function of how they are perceived by other economists, and conduct their research and writing accordingly. As a result, they produce papers that are long on mathematical formulas, but short on practicality. The most glaring example of this, Galbraith explains, was how an entire generation of economists ignored constraints on the availability of resources in their analysis. Reflect on that for a moment. It’s pretty astonishing.

But there’s much more to The End of Normal than that.

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Businessman Bill Beard elected new Pima County Republican Party Chair

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Former candidate Bill Beard who ran unsuccessfully against Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez in 2012, was elected yesterday as new Chair of the Pima County Republican Party at the party’s statutory meeting.  He is a member of the Pima County Election Integrity Committee, having been appointed to this seat by District 1 Supervisor Ally … Read more