{"id":15222,"date":"2015-05-11T12:36:58","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15222"},"modified":"2015-05-11T12:36:58","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:36:58","slug":"open-thread5112015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/11\/open-thread5112015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–5\/11\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday has arrived and with it, a busy week. Today I have a ton of volunteer writing to do.  Tomorrow I have to be here to order groceries in the morning.  I have a community meeting after lunch, and after that, I\u2019m meeting my friend with cancer for coffee.  Wednesday is grocery delivery day, and I also have an O2<\/sub> delivery coming.  Depending on my X-Ray, I hope to reschedule my MRI for Friday.  I\u2019ll know tomorrow.  For now, lets not even talk about a few back burner items.  Our Poll host has fixed the broken comment section on our poll.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 3:14 (average 5:26).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>And here are the 18 CEOs Sanders labeled job destroyers in his report. The list below only touches on each company. The Top Corporate Dodgers report,<\/a> Sanders penned, goes into further detail. <\/p>\n

1. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
<\/strong>Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund.<\/p>\n

2. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
<\/strong>Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.<\/p>\n

3. JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon
<\/strong>Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.<\/p>\n

I included three, Click through for the other 0.1% beneficiaries of welfare payments from you and me,<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>President Obama\u2019s most aggressive and sustained legislative push since the Affordable Care Act faces a crucial first test this week when a divided Senate considers a bill that would grant him accelerated power to complete a massive trade accord with 11 nations across the Pacific Rim.<\/p>\n

But after lobbying members of Congress in a campaign that has included rides on Air Force One, meetings in the West Wing, private vows of political support and public attacks on critics in his own party, Mr. Obama\u2019s top legislative priority remains at risk.<\/p>\n

A vote scheduled for Tuesday on legislation that would grant him trade promotion authority, also known as \u201cfast track,\u201d has become mired in a procedural thicket, with Democrats \u2014 many of them loyal to labor unions bent on killing the bill \u2014 vowing to oppose it.<\/p>\n

Once Congress grants a president trade promotion authority, lawmakers have the ability to vote up or down on a final trade agreement, but they forfeit the right to amend the deal or filibuster it. The bill before the Senate adds a new twist: If lawmakers decide a final trade accord falls short of their standards, Congress can vote to revoke the president\u2019s authority and then try to amend the deal.<\/p>\n

Call your Senators. Tell them to oppose this measure.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Last year the vampires of finance bought themselves a Congress. I know it\u2019s not nice to call them that, but I have my reasons, which I\u2019ll explain in a bit. For now, however, let\u2019s just note that these days Wall Street, which used to split its support between the parties, overwhelmingly favors the G.O.P.<\/a> And the Republicans who came to power this year are returning the favor by trying to kill Dodd-Frank, the financial reform enacted in 2010.<\/p>\n

And why must Dodd-Frank die? Because it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n

This statement may surprise progressives who believe that nothing significant has been done to rein in runaway bankers. And it\u2019s true both that reform fell well short of what we really should have done and that it hasn\u2019t yielded obvious, measurable triumphs like the gains<\/a> in insurance thanks to Obamacare.<\/p>\n

But Wall Street hates reform for a reason, and a closer look shows why.<\/p>\n

For one thing, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau<\/a> \u2014 the brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren \u2014 is, by all accounts, having a major chilling effect on abusive lending practices. And early indications are that enhanced regulation of financial derivatives<\/a> \u2014 which played a major role in the 2008 crisis \u2014 is having similar effects, increasing transparency and reducing the profits of middlemen.<\/p>\n

Click through so Paul Krugman can explain how Republicans want to vamp you!<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"0511Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday has arrived and with it, a busy week. Today I have a ton of volunteer writing to do.  Tomorrow I have to be here to order groceries in the morning.  I have a community meeting after lunch, and after that, I\u2019m meeting my friend with cancer for coffee.  Wednesday is grocery delivery day, and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}