Thursday, Dec 26th
Last update09:02:29 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
"AFA has long been a proponent of passing a comprehensive funding bill that allows the FAA to move forward on vital safety and airport improvement projects that help to enhance the world's greatest aviation system. Corporate interests and right-wing ideologues took this vital piece of legislation and used it to destroy collective bargaining affecting workers across the country.
Congress has used its spending oversight authority both to forbid the White House from financing trials of Guantánamo captives on U.S. soil and to block the acquisition of a state prison in Illinois to hold captives currently held in Cuba who would not be put on trial — a sort of Guantánamo North.
The latest defense bill adopted by Congress moved to mandate military detention for most future al Qaida cases. The White House withdrew a veto threat on the eve of passage, and then Obama signed it into law with a “signing statement” that suggested he could lawfully ignore it.
Congressmen regard "public service" as an opportunity to enrich themselves, their families and friends.
According to reports from OpenSecrets.org, in 2006, 151 members of Congress had $195.5 million invested in defense corporations. Their average net worth was $910,000 compared to $100,000 for American families in general. Over 50 range between $5 million and $190 million. John Kerry is at the top end of the scale.
Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House more than doubled, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, excluding home equity.
Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the comparable median figure sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.
Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the House has risen 2 1 / 2 times, according to the analysis of financial disclosures, rising from $280,000 to $725,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
Over the same period, the wealth of an American family has declined slightly, with the median sliding from $20,600 to $20,500, according to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan.
Environmentalists and other well-adjusted citizens of Earth, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that, thanks to illuminating documentaries like Josh Fox's Gasland and determined pressure from activists in and out of the mainstream, the toxic ravages of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, are no longer the shale gas sector's dirty secret.
The bad news is that, thanks to the United States' morally bankrupt political system and its Supreme Court's reality-defying ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the fracking lobby's power of the purse is greater than it has ever been.
Contrary to popular perception, the Obama Administration is not strongly opposed to the provisions in the bills that would authorize indefinite military detentions for U.S. citizens. Here’s what the Administration had to say in a Statement of Administrative Policy on the Senate bill:
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