President’s Address To Congress
| Wikisource has original text related to this article:Barack Obama speech to joint session of Congress, September 2011 |
Obama’s speech aired in the United States on 11 television networks during primetime, including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, MSNBC, and CNBC. Nielsen Media Research estimate that 31.4 million viewers watched the speech, 10 million less than the 2011 State of the Union Address, but six million more than his March speech on Libya. The President’s address was rescheduled to September 8 after his original request to deliver the speech on September 7 was rebuffed by Speaker of the House John Boehner, who cited a clash with a Republican Presidential debate already scheduled for the same time and stated that more time was required to secure the House for the President’s visit. The President made his speech at 7:00pm Eastern, instead of the usual 9:00pm start for presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress, so he would be finished before the first game of the National Football League season between the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers at 8:30pm.
Bad Strategy How The Republican Attack On Voting Rights Could Backfire
Republicans are pushing hundreds of bills to limit voting access. Some measures may get in the way of their own voters
As the coronavirus wreaked havoc around the world, lawmakers in the US were faced with a monumental task: carrying out a presidential election in the middle of a once-in-century pandemic.
Concerned about the possibility of virus spread at polling places, Democrats pushed the federal government to approve more funding for states to expand absentee and early-voting options.
But Donald Trump was against the idea for a single reason: he thought it would make it harder for Republicans to win. Trump said in a Fox News interview in March of last year that, if early and absentee voting options were expanded as Democrats wanted, youd never have a Republican elected in this country again. Other Republicans haveechoed Trumps argument in recent months, as the party has pushed hundreds of bills to restrict voting access in dozens of states.
But voting experts now say the restrictions being approved in Republican-led states may not help the partys chances in future elections, and in some cases, the laws may even prevent their own supporters from going to the polls. Put simply, in seeking to suppress the vote, Republicans may be shooting themselves in the foot.
Gop Real Estate Owners Make Out Big
Besides the laws benefits to real estate pass-throughs, real estate in general was hugely favored by the tax law, allowing property exchanges to avoid taxation, the deduction of new capital expenses in just one year versus longer depreciation schedules, and an exemption from limits on interest deductions.;
If you are a real estate developer, you never pay tax, said Ed Kleinbard, a former head of Congresss Joint Committee on Taxation.;
Members of Congress own a lot of real estate. Public Integritys review of financial disclosures found that 29 of the 47 GOP members of the committees responsible for the tax bill hold interests in real estate, including small rental businesses, LLCs, and massive real estate investment trusts , which pay dividends to investors. The tax bill allows REIT investors to deduct 20 percent from their dividends for tax purposes.;
Who We Are
The Center for Public Integrity is an independent, investigative newsroom that exposes betrayals of the public trust by powerful interests.
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Republicans Are Defunding The Police: Fox News Anchor Stumps Congressman
- Chris Wallace quizzes Jim Banks of Indiana on Fox News Sunday
- Biden: $350bn in bill opposed by GOP is for law enforcement
- US politics live coverage
The Fox News anchor Chris Wallace made headlines of his own on Sunday, by pointing out to a senior Republican that he and the rest of his party recently voted against $350bn in funding for law enforcement.
Cant you make the argument that its you and the Republicans who are defunding the police? Wallace asked Jim Banks, the head of the House Republican study committee.
The congressman was the author of a Fox News column in which he said Democrats were responsible for spikes in violent crime.
There is overwhelming evidence, Banks wrote, connecting the rise in murders to the violent riots last summer a reference to protests over the murder of George Floyd which sometimes produced looting and violence and the defund the police movement. Both of which were supported, financially and rhetorically, by the Democratic party and the Biden administration.
Joe Biden does not support any attempt to defund the police, a slogan adopted by some on the left but which remains controversial and which the president has said Republicans have used to beat the living hell out of Democrats.
On Fox News Sunday, Banks repeatedly attacked the so-called Squad of young progressive women in the House and said Democrats stigmatised law enforcement and helped criminals.
An Affinity For Small Business
Passing a law that helped fuel increases in stock prices wasnt the only way Republicans enriched themselves. The new law also contained a 20 percent deduction for income from so-called pass-through businesses, a provision called the crown jewel of the act by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a lobbying group.
Pass-throughs are single-owner businesses, partnerships, limited liability companies and special corporations called S-corps. Most real estate companies are organized as LLCs. Trump owns hundreds of them, and Public Integritys analysis found that 22 of the 47 members of the House and Senate tax-writing committees in 2017 were invested in them.
Pass-throughs can be found in any industry. They pay no corporate taxes and steer their profits as income to business owners or investors, who are taxed only once at their individual rates. Despite their favored treatment as a business vehicle, the 2017 tax act did them another favor: It allowed 20 percent to be deducted off the top of the pass-through income for tax purposes.
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No doubt. Johnson, with his wife, held interests that year in four real estate or manufacturing LLCs worth between $6.2 million and $30.5 million, from which they received income that year between $250,000 and $2.1 million, according to his financial disclosure form.
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Replies To Republicans Have Passed 0 Jobs Bills During Their First 138 Days Running Congress
What a dismal outlook for our country.
What do people expect when they continue to vote GOP, or donât vote at all?
The GOP was not working for America years before 2012, yet ignorant people are still voting against their best interests.
Boehner has no intention of calling a vote on a jobs bill. Hes already pledged allegiance to the Koch agenda. That means no new jobs to be formed because Obama would get credit for it. Same reason gop governors tried halting hiring in 2011 to screw Obama in 2012. They soon found out that they had to hire more people, the holdout was too long.
Obama accomplished unemployment down to 5.4% despite the gopâs best efforts to screw him over. Good wins over evil.
they havenât reached 100 days yet⦠they use âdynamic calendarâ daysâ¦
its a concept similar to âdynamic accountingâ they want the CBO to adoptâ¦
The government has no jobs! Only private business can create new jobs through growth. A jobs bill is just making more government workers. The money comes from the taxpayers. Since the upper 50% of wage earners pay almost all the taxes, itâs the perfect redistribution of wealth plan. Want to get more workers hired in real jobs? Reduce/eliminate the corporate income tax.
The only jobs Congressional Republicans are interesting in creating- their own, after they get removed from office.
Hr 785: National Right
Many states have enacted so-called;right-to-work;laws, which;prohibit labor unions and employers from requiring workers to join unions to get or keep jobs. The National Conference of State Legislatures explains:
Currently, 28;states and Guam have given workers a choice when it comes to union membership. Labor unions still operate in those states, but workers cannot be compelled to become members as a requirement of their job. Kentucky became the 27th right-to-work state when it enacted HB 1 on Jan. 9, 2017. Missouri became the 28th by enacting SB 19 on Feb. 2, 2017.
Unlike many other items on their agenda, the Republican sponsors of H.R. 785;are keen on handing over;the power to decide this matter to the federal government instead of the states. Opponents say passage of the bill would lead to lower wages and greater unemployment nationwide, not to mention create an unfair situation in which non-dues-paying employees reap the benefits of union activities.
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Hr 147: To Criminalize Abortion In Certain Cases By Making It A Felony Punishable By Up To Five Years In Prison
The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act of 2017, H.R. 147, was introduced on 3 January 2017 by Rep. Trent Franks , with 59 cosponsors, all Republicans. The bill, similar to ones introduced in previous sessions of Congress, would not criminalize abortion per se , but it would make it a crime;under certain conditions:
This bill imposes criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly or knowingly attempts to: perform an abortion knowing that the abortion is sought based on the sex, gender, color or race of the child, or the race of a parent; use force or the threat of force to intentionally injure or intimidate any person for the purpose of coercing a sex-selection or race-selection abortion; solicit or accept funds for the performance of such an abortion; or transport a woman into the United States or across a state line for the purpose of obtaining such an abortion.
Violations or attempted violations shall result in fines and/or imprisonment for up to five years.
How Many Jobs Bills Have The Republican
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Circling Closer To A Federal Privacy Law Congress Has Introduced 7 Privacy Bills This Year
Congress has stated its intention to pass a federal privacy law. For more than a year following , various committees within the House of Representatives and the Senate have held hearings to figure out the composition of a comprehensive federal privacy law.
Members of Congress have introduced several privacy bills this year that aim to regulate companies collection and/or use of peoples personal information . None of these bills introduced this year have yet to be put to a vote, and if previous efforts are any indication, none are likely to pass into law. However, taken together they paint a picture of what a federal privacy law would likely cover, especially if Congress were to cherry-pick their various provisions and combine them into an omnibus bill. They also indicate Congress members differing stances on what a federal privacy law should require of companies. Those latter complications could require Congress to compromise on a federal privacy laws scope in order to ensure its passage into law, especially if Congress intends to try to pass a federal privacy law before Californias privacy law takes effect in January 2020.
Social Media Privacy Protection and Consumer Rights Act of 2019, introduced by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar on January 17, 2019While introduced early into the current legislative session, this bill appears to be a model for what a bipartisan privacy law might look like.
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Hr 899: To Terminate The Department Of Education
Like H.R. 861, which would get rid of the EPA, H.R. 899 calls simply for the termination of the Department of Education by the end of 2018. It was introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie , with six Republican cosponsors . President Trumps Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has stated she would be fine with having;herself worked out of a job.
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Hr 861: To Terminate The Environmental Protection Agency
Introduced on 3 February;2017 by Rep. Matt Gaetz and three Republican cosponsors, the body of H.R. 861;is only one sentence long: The Environmental Protection Agency shall terminate on December 31, 2018. The text of the bill does not stipulate;what would become of existing EPA regulations and their enforcement, but Gaetz has indicated that he intends;jurisdiction to;fall;to individual states.
If Rep Liz Cheney Doesnt Have A Home In The Gop Who Does
To be sure, though, Fragas own research has found that white voters, regardless of how easy or hard it is for them to vote, consistently turn out at higher rates than voters of color, so we do want to be careful of not reading too much into this. Jennifer McCoy, a political scientist at Georgia State University who studies the effects of polarization on democracy, told me that she thought the current emphasis on voter restrictions boiled down to Republicans thinking they could appeal to Trumps base by codifying his baseless claims of voter fraud. know they have to attract Donald Trump supporters who now believe there is fraud, said McCoy. So a large part of the current efforts to change voter laws was a direct response to this last election. Large majorities of Republicans continue to believe Bidens win is not legitimate, and a that only 28 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning people agreed that everything possible should be done to make voting easy, a steep drop from 48 percent in October 2018.
The GOPs restrictionist bent sends the message that Republicans dont want Black and brown Americans to vote. In September 2020, 54 percent of Black respondents and 35 percent of Hispanic respondents told FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos they believed Republicans didnt want people like me to vote.
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Republicans Submit A Flood Of Anti
Speaking to NBC News, the groups advocacy director David Topping said there has been a huge rash of anti-LGBTQ legislation since the Supreme Court ruled in favour of same-sex marriage in 2015.
He said: It feels like every state Legislature, every year, is trying to push some kind of anti-LGBTQ agenda.
Activists say that many of the bills with the greatest momentum are targeting transgender children.
Rose Saxe of the American Civil Liberties Union told NBC: The targeting of kids is really unique this year. Its really shocking, the depth of attack on trans youth.
Saxe explained that identikit bills often originate from anti-LGBT lobbying groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, who shop around their pre-drafted legislation to friendly lawmakers in a number of states.
The vast majority of the bills will likely not become law, but some concerning measures have already passed with Tennessee governor Bill Lee signing a bill into law last month that allows religious adoption agencies to deny service to queer couples.
The areas most vulnerable to anti-LGBT bills passing are those where Republicans have full control of the state legislature and Governors mansion.
How Many Jobs Have The Republicans Created Since Taking Over The House
| 2.;Repubs Have Aggressively and Successfully Launched a Negative Growth Plan |
| Edited on Fri Jul-01-11 09:57 AM by fredamaeWe WERE losing about 1 Million jobs per month under bushco by the end of his term in 2008.During the bushco years over 50,000 Mfg Plants have closed.More to the point, how many jobs were Saved since Obama took office?What did the Republican/Minority Controlled Senate– do but Block Over 300 Bills that would have created jobs and pumped Money into the economy?Since the Dems took control in 2006 more than 600 Bills have been blocked by repubs that Could have Reversed the Recession!Never forget that. If you don’t believe this look it all up in the Congressional Website! It’s all there: Bills, Votes, Floor Testimony etc |
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