Democrats’ campaign-finance plan: Put the donors on camera
By Kim Geiger and Clement Tan
Senators led by Charles Schumer offer a proposal in which the chief executive of a corporation or group that is the primary financial sponsor of a political ad would have to claim responsibility for it by appearing on camera. GOP leader Mitch McConnell calls the idea ‘beyond suspicious.’
Reporting from Washington — If corporate and union officials want to pour money into election campaigns, they would have to disclose who they are — and perhaps appear in an ad — under legislation introduced in Congress on Thursday.
The bill is a response to a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate and interest group spending on elections. In Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission, the court in January struck down most federal limits on corporate spending as a violation of free speech.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in an announcement at the steps of the Supreme Court, said the measure would “shine a light on the flood of spending unleashed by the Citizens United decision.”
He hopes to win passage of the bill by July 4, in time for any flow of corporate money into the 2010 midterm congressional elections.
WaMu failed because of run on bank, former regulatory chief says
By Jim Puzzanghera and Clement Tan
John Reich, who was director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, tells a Senate panel that Washington Mutual’s 2008 collapse resulted from a drop in public confidence, not a failure by his agency.
Reporting from Washington — The former head of the chief banking regulatory agency that oversaw failed Washington Mutual told lawmakers Friday that the giant savings and loan collapsed because of a run on the bank, not failures by him or other regulators.
The testimony of John Reich, who served as head of the Office of Thrift Supervision from 2005 to 2009, came as a Senate subcommittee released the results of an 18-month investigation that blasted regulatory supervisors for doing little to halt risky practices at WaMu that bank examiners had identified as early as 2003.
The criticism was echoed by a report this week on WaMu’s collapse, the largest bank failure in U.S. history, by the inspectors general of the thrift agency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Reich said WaMu was seized by regulators on Sept. 25, 2008, because of a $16.4-billion run on deposits after the sharp decline in the economy throughout the year and the failure of Lehman Bros. and the bailout of American International Group Inc. just days earlier.
Battle brews over Obama nominee for 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Senate Democrats reject a Republican bid to postpone a hearing on Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu.
Reporting from Washington — Senate Democrats rejected on Tuesday a Republican demand that next week’s scheduled confirmation hearing on Goodwin Liu’s nomination to a federal appeals court be postponed, setting up an all-out partisan battle over the Berkeley law professor.
Senate Republicans, who complain that Liu had originally failed to respond adequately to numerous questions on a Judiciary Committee questionnaire, pledged to continue pressing for a new hearing date.
Liu, President Obama’s choice for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, had been expected to testify March 24.
But in the aftermath of the March 21 healthcare vote, Senate Republicans forced a postponement by invoking a little-used procedural rule disallowing any committee hearings more than two hours after the start of a Senate session.
Big Immigration March in Washington
By Clement Tan and Don Lee
Reporting from Washington — Determined to push a major overhaul of the immigration system to the top of the nation’s political agenda, tens of thousands of people rallied Sunday on the National Mall, challenging Congress to fix laws that they say separate families and hurt the country’s economic and social vitality.
Organizers and supporters of the “March for America” campaign — who demonstrated as House members cast a historic vote on healthcare — want to make an immigration overhaul the next big undertaking in Washington.
“The reality is that immigrants keep jobs in America, they help businesses move forward,” said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, one of hundreds of community, labor and faith-based groups nationwide that joined the march.
The organizing group, Reform Immigration for America, said Sunday’s rally was larger than the massive Washington demonstration in April 2006, when thousands protested around the country over immigrant rights and enforcement practices. On Sunday, the crowd stretched nearly five blocks on the mall.
Although the event had a festive, almost carnival-like feel to it — young and old in T-shirts walking amid white tents and balloons while drummers and musicians played — many participants came bottled up with frustration or sorrow.
Campaign Finance Legislation Faces Tricky Issue of Foreign Corporations
Reporting from Washington – Proposed legislation to block foreign companies from contributing money to U.S. elections could end up affecting well-known companies such as Chrysler, Anheuser-Busch and Citgo, according to legal experts and company representatives.
The legislation is a reaction from key House and Senate Democrats to a Supreme Court decision in January that struck down a portion of the nation’s campaign funding laws, allowing corporations to freely contribute to political campaigns.
The high court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission seemed to open the way for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations to also contribute to campaigns.
The legislators say they are now considering a broad definition of foreign corporations — companies that are more than 20% owned by non-American entities. That could end up banning thousands of corporations from contributing to political activities.
Chrysler would be affected because the Italian automaker Fiat has a 35% stake. The oil company Citgo Petroleum Corp. was started by an American oilman but has been wholly owned by the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company since 1990. St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, the company that brews Budweiser, was bought by Belgian brewing giant InBev for $54.8 billion in 2008.
Fierce Snowstorm Shuts Down Washington
Reporting from Washington – A ferocious blizzard, dubbed the “snowpocalypse” and “snowmageddon,” descended Friday on Washington, shutting federal offices early, closing schools and sending residents scurrying to stock up on supplies to carry them through the weekend.
Forecasters predicted 30 inches or more of snow, which would easily break the area’s all-time snowfall record of 28 inches set in 1922. The area has seen more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870, according to the National Weather Service.
There were lines that went around the block to get into some grocery stores. Hardware and liquor stores were mobbed, and many shops had already run out of items for their customers.
“I tried to stock up, but the shelves were empty,” said Beth Davies, who went to the Giant supermarket in suburban Silver Spring, Md. “There was only pig feet left” in the meat department.
Pilot Errors Blamed in Deadly N.Y. Crash
Reporting from Washington — A series of pilot errors caused the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y., last year, killing 50 people, but several common aviation industry practices may have led to the mistakes, the National Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday.
NTSB Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman said the pilots’ errors showed their “complacency and confusion that resulted in catastrophe.” She said she would press the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress to change procedures.
“History is repeating itself,” Hersman told reporters during a break in an evidentiary hearing Tuesday. “There are things in this accident we’ve seen before. . . .”
“Today is Groundhog Day, and I feel like we are in that movie,” she said, referring to a 1993 film about a weatherman who repeatedly relives the same day. “We have made recommendations time after time after time. They haven’t been heeded by the FAA.”
Safety issues raised by the Buffalo accident, Hersman said, go beyond the mistakes that caused it. She noted that the crash cast a spotlight on the safety gap between major airlines and regional carriers, where lower-paid pilots are more likely to commute long distances, fly fatigued and receive inadequate training.
Misreporting the Fort Hood Mass Shootings
The New York Times couldn’t confirm it, but reported a disparaging comment written by somebody of a similar name anyway. The Associated Press ran a full, related story — based on unconfirmed quotes — on the alleged Muslim perpetrator of Thursday’s unfortunate shooting incident at Fort Hood allegedly yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he fired on his unsuspecting victims. The Daily Beast decided to run this same tidbit as a lead on their landing page too. See this visual comparison between The Times and The Daily Beast.
How is this going to help the American public form a coherent picture of reality in their heads? How is this not going to further inflame American public sentiment towards Muslims? I am not saying to conceal such elements in reporting a story, but being self-reflexive and according a person’s ethnicity and religious beliefs adequate context is also part of the reporting process. It’s about being fair and balanced, no?
The Art of Spinning an American Political Tale
Just how many historical political shifts can there be… in a space of a year? On an annual basis in America apparently, where politics is covered in the media like sports. The political spin on Election Night Tuesday began as soon as the news broke of individual victories. Spin not just by the political parties, but also by the tons of pundits in the twittersphere, network television shows and various websites who argue incessantly about the meaning of these results. Pity World Series baseball was not on the same night, otherwise it would be interesting to see if Fox News could have still held on to their top-dog status.
Grappling with the Obama Reality
For people like me — young, college-educated and politically independent “millenials” — Barack Obama was and stilll remains the college-professor-we-wished-became-president, who actually became president of the United States. His “Yes, We Can” campaign tagline and exhortation for young ones to enter public service resonated strongly, but much to the surprise of those who know my politics, I was rooting for Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. It wasn’t so much a vote against Obama than a vote for Mrs Clinton. We all know who won.
Sure, there were concerns over baggage from her husband’s presidency, but she also had the experience and the verve to negotiate the murky waters of Congressional politics, an important aspect of legislative strategy. I thought Obama could have done with some more political experience as either Hillary’s vice-president or Secretary of State, which would then prepare him for a run in 2016. After all, he’s much younger than Hillary. If there were anybody more equipped to clean up the mess created by a spoilt brat who didn’t know better and allowed two wily old foxes to hijack his presidency, it was perhaps a strong and smart motherly figure who would be able to stand up to the egos that dot politics. Simply put, America needs to be rehabilitated.
Those same friends thought I was cynical for thinking that, but politics is cynical. You have to fight cynical with cynical and then somehow rise above that. Not many political progressives are capable of that because they usually get lynched by the GOP for their politics, which are easily cast as “limp” and “gutless” and therefore “bad for America” by their more hawkish opponents. Both Obama and Hillary want to rise above that, but I wasn’t sure if Obama had what it takes to move beyond cynical hell. I was enthralled by the idea of an Obama presidency, but I wasn’t too hot about the reality of it.
A Singaporean journalist most recently based in Washington, DC, I am into all things political and economic, particularly stories on how policy affects ordinary people. I also drink tea, love food and films, watch most sports with a vengeance, dig live bands at cafes and always hope to travel more. This is my website and will remain a fairly static online repository of my work.