Regressive // Current TV

Longing for the Bad Ol’ Days?

A sarcastic and informative commentary on 'Regressive Politics'...... more

StewSteve
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1 month ago
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In Jam-Packed Week in N.H. House, Jobs Agenda Conspicuously Absent

Proving once again that the Republican leadership’s “jobs agenda” is just talk and no action, the New Hampshire House is set to vote on dozens of bills this week that are all about tea party-fueled attacks on New Hampshire families. Bills set to be heard this week include a new, so-called right to work (RTW) for less bill, cutting Medicaid for New Hampshire’s poorest and restricting access to birth control, while bills to put Granite Staters back to work are conspicuously absent from the docket.

Attacks on workers. The House is voting on more than a dozen anti-worker bills this week, including a reincarnation of last year’s RTW bill. Below is a list of the bills that are expected to be voted on next week:

H.B. 1677, a new “right to work” bill nearly identical to the “right to work” bill that failed in the House last year.
H.B. 1645, a bill that once allowed employer-led decertification of public unions.
H.B. 1206, a bill that throws out provisions of collective bargaining agreements at the end of a contract if a new contract has not yet been reached, making it harder for workers and management to come to agreement through the bargaining process.
H.B. 1663, a bill that strips the requirement for a union to be the exclusive representative of a bargaining unit out of the collective bargaining law.
H.B. 1237, a bill that imposes oversight from the House and Senate on the collective bargaining process between the state and its employees.
Dismantling voting rights. New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien failed to override a veto of his voter ID law last year, so he and his allies have come up with a new plan. The new bill does not fix any existing problems and further complicates and confuses the process for voters.

Attacks on health care. The House leadership is pushing for a law to cut off $1.4 billion in funding to hospitals, clinics and doctors who perform elective abortions—at the expense of the thousands of poor, disadvantaged, elderly or disabled citizens who rely on Medicaid. Legislators also will vote on a bill to repeal the law guaranteeing New Hampshire families access to contraception. Is Speaker O’Brien so intent on pushing his right-wing agenda that he is willing to cut health care for women, the poor and people with disabilities to get his way?

The House leadership’s tea party-fueled social agenda comes at a time when a plurality of voters say that jobs and the economy are the most important problems facing the state. A February 2012 poll shows that 51 percent of independent and Republican voters oppose the GOP’s social agenda, while a majority (64 percent) of likely voters believe that RTW and other attacks on collective bargaining should not be a priority of the Legislature.

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/In-The-States/In-Jam-Packed-Week-in-N.H.-House-Jobs-Agenda-Conspicuously-AbsentProving once again that the Republican leadership’s “jobs agenda” is... more

kvb1
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3 months ago
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Missouri to Honor Limbaugh with Statue—Really

Missouri may be the “Show Me” state, but here’s something that... more

kvb1
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3 months ago
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The Punk Patriot Fixes the USA Economy

You're Welcome

asherp
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1 year ago
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47 comments

New Evidence Of Corporate Profiteering From Rendition

As more evidence comes to light of corporate profiteering from rendition, arguments about 'national security' look ever shabbier

In a backwards move, the ninth circuit court of appeals in San Francisco dismissed on Wednesday a lawsuit brought against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan for its facilitation of CIA torture flights – reversing an earlier decision(http://mobile.latimes.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=21214417&cid=16677&scid=1854&ith=2&title=Top+Stories). This means that the longest surviving "accountability" case in the US courts has now been blocked – like all the others – on the all-too-familiar "grounds of national security". While a review by the supreme court is still possible, the chances are beyond slim.

In his decision, Judge Raymond Fisher described the case(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-court-binyam-mohamed-torture) as "a painful conflict between human rights and national security". In the UK, we have seen some politicians conflate "national security" with "national embarrassment" – seeking to keep information secret not because its disclosure would create a risk to the nation, but rather because states do not want the details of their illegal activities revealed. Thankfully, British courts have proved relatively effective at policing this.

Sadly, US courts have proved less robust, adopting the executive position wholesale and shying away from any judicial oversight on the US-led "war on terror". Corporate complicity in US government-sponsored torture remains a largely untold chapter of the "war on terror". As well as Jeppesen Dataplan, other private companies have profited from the US government's "extraordinary rendition" programme, which has resulted in documented cases of detainees being tortured. But none of these companies has yet been brought to court to account for their lucrative part in the system.

A series of legal cases – such as the class action suit brought by Vision Air(http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jan/10/charter-airlines-suit-over-war-zone-hazard-pay-get/) employees who allege that the company withheld thousands of dollars' worth of "hazard pay" for making flights that, it has been alleged, may have included renditions(http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/question-marks-hang-over-spy-purveyor-vision-airlines/19548529); and the Kyle "Dusty" Foggo affair(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/kyle_foggo/index.html), where a CIA officer was convicted of bribery in relation to the awarding of CIA "secret prison" contracts – shines new light into the murky business of what might be called public-private partnership in the CIA secret prison and rendition system.

As the Bush administration's system of illegal detention and torture is uncovered in European courts, it seems clear that justice may take longer to be done in the US. No doubt, the imminent official UK inquiry into torture will examine the issue of private "torture profiteering", and a raft of cases will soon be filed against companies in various European jurisdictions. We have to hope that, as the evidence comes forward, US courts will take a different view of what constitutes genuine national security interests – as opposed to political expediency and government face-saving – when it comes to suits brought by actual human victims of torture.As more evidence comes to light of corporate profiteering from rendition, arguments... more

toyotabedzrock
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1 year ago
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Kev O'Kane - Past Life Regressionist

Woody Allen once said, "There's no question that there is an unseen world.... more

Revel_In_New_York
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2 years ago
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Prop 4 hearing

Proposition 4 hearing at the California capital building in Sacramento,CA.

luminouspictures
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3 years ago
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4 comments

California becomes first US state to ban trans fats

California today became the first state to prohibit restaurants from using... more

huffamoose2k
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3 years ago
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108 comments

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Longing for the Bad Ol’ Days?

In Jam-Packed Week in N.H. House, Jobs Agenda Conspicuously Absent

Missouri to Honor Limbaugh with Statue—Really

The Punk Patriot Fixes the USA Economy

New Evidence Of Corporate Profiteering From Rendition

Kev O'Kane - Past Life Regressionist

Prop 4 hearing

California becomes first US state to ban trans fats

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