According to a Gallup Poll, Obama’s disapproval rate matches his approval rate. Obama’s slipping approval rate has tied him with his main competitor, Romney.
Study: Current Members Of Congress Speak At A 10th Grade Level
A new study by the Sunlight Foundation found that Congress speaks at an average grade level of 10.6, equivalent to a sophomore in high school. That number is down from 2005, when Congress’ 11.5 speaking level was in line with a high school junior.
Lee Drutman and his colleagues at Sunlight took every word members of Congress said on the House and Senate floors between January 1996 and April 2012 and put them through the Flesch-Kincaid test, a tool that equates higher grade levels with longer words and sentences. Drutman found that while Democrats used to speak at a lower level then Republicans, in the last seven years, that trend has flipped.
The bottom ten on the list was dominated by freshman Republicans. Of the ten, all were Republicans and eight were freshman. Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Republican freshman from South Carolina, found himself at the bottom of all 535 members of congress with a 7.9 grade level.
Debka: Obama Secretly Approved Shipment of Anti-Tank Missile To Syria
This week’s NATO and G-8 Summits came and went without participating nations agreeing on a way to handle the uprising in Syria, but it is now being reported that the US may already be taking the matter into their own hands.
Military sources speaking with Israel’s Debka news agency report that the administration of US President Barack Obama has cut a deal with foreign intelligence that involves equipping Syrian rebels with modern anti-tank missiles. After 14 months of ongoing battles between the country’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, and opposition to his regime, suddenly the rebel forces are responding with weaponry reportedly sent with the blessing of President Obama.
Sources close to the matter speaking on condition of anonymity tell Debka that a recent rash of explosions decimating Assad’s fleet of heavy T-72 tanks can be credited to “third generation” anti-tank weapons, specifically 9K115-2 Metis-M and Kornet E, supplied by US forces. According to the source, the firepower is being extended by way of Saudi and Qatari intelligence agencies under the urging of America’s commander-in-chief sent through a secret message.
Poll: Obama And Romney Are Neck And Neck Six Months Ahead Of Election
With six months until Election Day, the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney has tightened into a statistical dead heat.
Two new polls find that while the candidates are tied for overall support, Obama remains the more well-liked candidate and Romney is considered the more apt at handling the economy.
Romney edged Obama, 48% to 47%, in the Politico-George Washington University Battleground Poll, a nationwide survey of 1,000 voters conducted last week by the Republican firm the Tarrance Group and the Democratic firm Lake Research Partners. Obama bested Romney, 47% to 45%, in a USA Today/Gallup Swing States Poll, which surveyed 951 registered voters in 12 swing states during the same time period.
In each case, the results were within the margin of error, meaning the candidates are statistically tied. Politico’s February poll had Obama leading Romney by 9 percentage points. The Swing State survey had Obama with a 9-percentage-point lead in late March.
Meanwhile, Gallup’s five-day average, which showed Obama with a slight 46% to 45% lead last week, has flipped in favor of Romney.
Yet while 70% said they approve of Obama as a person – 56% said the same of Romney – just 48% said they approve of the job he’s doing as president. Twenty-four percent said they like Obama personally but disapprove of the job he’s doing, and 68% of them said they would vote to replace him.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is facing another struggle to stay intact, this time in the House of Representatives. The House GOP looks likely to rewrite the domestic violence prevention bill, which passed the Senate last week, with the aim of stripping provisions for Native Americans, undocumented people, and the LGBT community — the same provisions that Senate Republicans tried to remove from the bill.
But despite the Senate’s ultimate passage of the bill — which included the support of 14 Republican senators, including all of the female Republicans — the House is ready to fight these provisions again. Their version of VAWA also removes the protections for marginalized communities. According to Congressional Quarterly, a watered-down bill, of which Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) is the lead sponsor, is likely to pass in the House:
The House bill also would eliminate Senate language that supporters say would do more to help victims of domestic violence including gays and lesbians, immigrants and American Indians. Adams considers those provisions unnecessary, a spokeswoman said. “The grants are available to all victims, and there is no evidence to conclude that victims are being turned away,” said spokeswoman Lisa Boothe in an email.
The backing of Smith, of Texas, and California’s McCarthy signals the House measure is on a fast track to passage — and a showdown with the Senate.
While Adams may think the provisions are unnecessary, there is ample proof that she is mistaken. Cases of LGBT domestic violence increased 38 percent from last year. Seven people died from domestic abuse. And of those who sought it, 44 percent of LGBT victims were turned away from traditional shelters. As for Tribal victims, Native American women face the highest rate of domestic violence in the US — three and a half times higher than the national average — and can currently not seek any protection if the perpetrator is non-Tribal.
And undocumented victims? Maybe they aren’t “turned away” in Adams’s definition, but that’s because they fear that if they call the police, they will be deported.
Members of Congress have already seen heated debate around VAWA, with one member even recounting her own experience of being raped as a girl. With the attempt to strip out provisions for particularly vulnerable communities, the fight is likely to get even more difficult.
Jerusalem’s ‘center of life’ policy imprisons Palestinians
“Amir Salima, 21, from the Old City of Jerusalem, has no legal status - not in Israel, not in the Palestinian Authority and not anywhere else,” writes Nir Hasson in today’s Haaretz. “He has no identity card, no passport, he cannot register for university studies, apply for a job, sign up for an HMO or open a bank account. He cannot visit the West Bank or anywhere else outside of Jerusalem. In fact, he can barely leave his house, for fear of being caught by the police.”
Due to Jerusalem’s residency revoking “center of life” policy, Salima who lives in the old city is not a legal resident of Jerusalem. Hasson writes:
Salima is a man with no identity. The absurdity of his situation is amplified by the fact that his parents and five siblings all hold Israeli identity cards. The reason is simple: unfortunately for him, he was born in a hospital in Ramallah, and not in Jerusalem.
While their Jewish-Israeli counterparts are exempt, Palestinians who live in Jerusalem are required to submit documentation verifying that city is at the “center of their life.” Though inside of Israel’s 1967 border, Palestinians living in Jerusalem are not Israeli citizens, they are “Jerusalem residents.” If a court finds that Jerusalem is not their existential or material “center of life,” the local authorities can strip him or her of Jerusalem residency. For Palestinians, “center of life” becomes a constant process: proving where one works, attends school, and seeks medical services. For Salima, being born in Ramallah is enough that under the current policy, he could never prove Jerusalem is the “center” of his life. His attorney argued, “His whole life is centered here. There is no other place where he can go.” Yet the Israeli authorities ruled against him, stating, “The family’s request was rejected due to various reasons, among them center of life.”
But for most Palestinian Jerusalemites, they lose their residency status because of the city’s artificial housing crisis, which is derived from discriminatory planning regulations. Under Israeli building codes, in order for a house to be considered “legal” one regulation requires electricity. And in the 1965 when this housing law was passed, approximately 50% of Palestinian homes did not have electricity, effectively rendering 50% of Palestinian homes pre-approved for demolition. Once a house is illegal, adding electricity cannot legalize it; the law will not allow for changes to illegal structures. If changes are made, the new construction is considered an additional penalty, and the homeowner could be strapped with fines and jail time.
Jeff Halper in “Obstacles to Peace: a critical re-framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” explains the process:
Take Jerusalem as an example, where Israel endeavors to maintain a 72% majority of Jews over Arabs. The municipality uses zoning and expropriation to severely restrict Palestinian construction, enforcing its policies with an aggressive policy of house demolitions. The result is an artificial housing shortage – 25,000 housing units lacking in the Palestinian sector – thereby raising the cost of scarce housing. Since 70% of Palestinians residing in Jerusalem live below the poverty line, they are forced to find affordable housing outside the city borders. Once they have shifted their “center of life” from Jerusalem, the Ministry of Interior revokes their Jerusalem residency, turning them into West Bank residents, thus bolstering the Jewish majority.
Another way Palestinians are losing their Jerusalem residency is through the expanding wall, and checkpoints. Earlier this year a mammoth multi-lane checkpoint was added near Shuafat refugee camp. As a result, some 70,000 Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are cut off from the remainder of the city through this physical barrier, thus disqualifying their “center of life.”
The only option for Palestinians Jerusalemites is a precarious existence. If their home is demolished, or they lose their residency status they must live elsewhere. And without adequate options inside of Jerusalem, typically they move to the West Bank where they are not guaranteed a West Bank ID. Overall, since 1967 this technique of home demolitions and proof of “center of life” has pushed some 25,000 Palestinians into the exile of illegal residency within Jerusalem.
This past month, there was much outrage over the fact that General Electric, despite making $14.2 billion in profits, paid zero U.S. taxes in 2010. General Electric actually received tax credits of $3.2 billion from American taxpayers.
At the same time that General Electric was not paying taxes, many undocumented immigrants, who are typically accused of taking advantage of the system while not contributing to it by many on the right, paid $11.2 billion in taxes. A new study by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy shows that undocumented immigrants paid $8.4 billion in sales taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.2 billion in personal income taxes last year. The study also estimates that nearly half of all undocumented immigrants pay income taxes.
SEND GENERAL ELECTRIC BACK TO MEXICO!
Half of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ Task Force Are Alec Members, All Support The Law
Yesterday, Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) unveiled the members of his task force assigned to investigate the effects of the state’s “Stand Your Ground” laws that have come under intense scrutiny and criticism in recent weeks after the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.
But critics were quick to notice some of the curious appointments made by Gov. Scott’s selection committee.
Take State Representative Dennis Baxley for instance. He was chosen as a member of the task force despite the fact that he authored H.B 249, Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. His version of the bill was used by corporate front-group ALEC as a template for similar pieces of legislation that are now in the books in half the country. And in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Baxley has repeatedly defended the law.
Two other lawmakers, State Senators David Simmons (R) and Gary Siplin (D), were part of the state senate that unanimously passed the senate’s version of the bill. Rep. Jason Brodeur, another co-sponsor of the House bill, is also a member of ALEC. Of the four lawmakers appointed to the 17-person task force, all of them voted for or co-sponsored the Stand Your Ground law.
The task force’s bias towards supporters of the Stand Your Ground law is easily explained by the makeup of the selection committee responsible for choosing who would have a seat on the task force. Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll, who is also heading the task force, was a co-sponsor of the House bill and voted for it in 2005. As did fellow selection committee members Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon. Incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford was not in the legislature in 2005 when the law was passed, but is currently listed as a member of ALEC.
The federal reserve simplified:
A bunch of rich white bankers and ex-CEOs of big corporations who try to stop the big banks and corporations from exploiting the common man by printing loads of money and giving it to big banks and corporations.
You should already be suspicious.
It doesn’t help that Quantitative and Qualitative Easing are debunked ideas.
Printing money and giving it to the richest motherfuckers on the planet does nothing for the working class. It just causes inflation and essentially ‘steals’ from us.
Look at this Audit of the Federal reserve and you’ll see why it’s a complete waste:
What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest.
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all placesIt’s an excuse for the cronies in washington to give a bunch of money to all their banker friends.
To quote one part of this extremely revealing report:
EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION AND
ECONOMIC INSECURITY
- Double the rate of unemployment: Survey respondents experienced unemployment at twice the rate of the general population at the time of the survey, with rates for people of color up to four times the national unemployment rate.
- Widespread mistreatment at work: Ninety percent (90%) of those surveyed reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job or took actions like hiding who they are to avoid it.
- Forty-seven percent (47%) said they had experienced an adverse job outcome, such as being fi red, not hired or denied a promotion because of being transgender or gender non-conforming.
- Over one-quarter (26%) reported that they had lost a job due to being transgender or gender non-conforming and 50% were harassed.
- Large majorities attempted to avoid discrimination by hiding their gender or gender transition (71%) or delaying their gender transition (57%).
- The vast majority (78%) of those who transitioned from one gender to the other reported that they felt more comfortable at work and their job performance improved, despite high levels of mistreatment.
- Overall, 16% said they had been compelled to work in the underground economy for income (such as doing sex work or selling drugs).
- Respondents who were currently unemployed experienced debilitating negative outcomes, including nearly double the rate of working in the underground economy (such as doing sex work or selling drugs), twice the homelessness, 85% more incarceration, and more negative health outcomes, such as more than double the HIV infection rate and nearly double the rate of current drinking or drug misuse to cope with mistreatment, compared to those who were employed.
- Respondents who had lost a job due to bias also experienced ruinous consequences such as four times the rate of homelessness, 70% more current drinking or misuse of drugs to cope with mistreatment, 85% more incarceration, more than double the rate working in the underground economy, and more than double the HIV infection rate, compared to those who did not lose a job due to bias
German Pirate Party Becomes Third Most Popular Political Grouping
Germany’s maverick Pirate Party has gone from electoral fluke to the third most popular party, according to a new poll for Stern magazine.
In just four years the new arrival has overtaken the Green Party to become Germany’s third most popular political grouping, with 13 per cent support.
“For many young people, the Greens have become a stale, old-fashioned party,” said Manfred Güllner, poll analyst with Forsa polling agency.
Related News: Pirate Party Refuses to Shutdown Pirate Bay Proxy, Faces Lawsuit
Derek Thompson: Is the U.S. Economy Sexist?
At The Atlantic, we have a saying: “The recession was sexist. So was the recovery.”
Here’s why. After the downturn crushed male-heavy manufacturing and construction, women made up 50% of the work force for the first time in American history, prompting many to wonder whether the recession augured the “end of men.” But since the unemployment rate began to come down at the end of the 2010, 70% of new jobs have gone to men. Even as women are out-graduating the guys and stand to benefit from growing female-dominated industries, they are still under-earning men in just about every degree, at every level of education.
The great triumph of the female worker is upon us, and yet women seem to lag men in that not-so-quaint category known as “money.” So, tell us: Is the economy a level playing field for men and women, or are the cards stacked against one sex — as the result of workplace sexism or the natural evolution of the service economy? This is your turn to write for The Atlantic. If you publish a smart comment, we’ll publish it with credit in our round-ups to be published on the site throughout the week.
Fame! Riches! A byline on theatlantic.com! Leave a comment.
