June 7, 2014

Senate Debates Constitutional Amendment to Rein In Outside Cash

Though Democrats and Republicans are split down party lines on whether to add a constitutional amendment to limit campaign spending, both parties ignore 50 percent of Americans in favor of public financing

June 6, 14

Transcript: JESSICA DESVARIEUX, TRNN PRODUCER: The Senate Judiciary Committee met Tuesday to discuss a proposed constitutional amendment which would grant Congress the authority to regulate the campaign financing system.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid said the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, which ruled that corporate campaign contributions are a form of free speech, opened up the floodgates for unlimited and untraceable campaign cash.

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): The decisions of the Supreme Court have the American people with a status quo in which one side's billionaires are pitted against the other side's billionaires. So we sit here today with a simple choice. We can keep the status quo and argue all day and all night, weekends, forever, about whose billionaires are right and whose billionaires are wrong. Or we can work together to change the system to get this shady money out of our democracy and restore the basic principles of one American, one vote.

DESVARIEUX: In April, the Supreme Court loosened campaign finance regulations even further in its ruling on the FEC v. McCutcheon case. It did away with aggregate limits on contributions to candidates, political parties, and political action committees. The previous limit was $123,000 during a two-year period. As with the Citizens United case, the Supreme Court ruled that campaign contributions are a form of free speech. Republican senator from iowa Chuck Grassley agrees.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11959

June 1, 2014

Thousands of Area C Residents Face Expulsion ( B'Tselem )

Civil Administration demolishes nearly half the homes in community of Id’eis, the Jordan Valley

On 21 May 2014, Civil Administration and army forces demolished approximately half of the homes and livestock pens in the community of Id’eis in the Jordan Valley, leaving 53 persons homeless. This joins other extensive efforts by Israeli authorities to expel thousands of Palestinians from their homes throughout Area C, despite the prohibition on forced transfer in international law. B’Tselem calls on authorities to allow the Id’eis community continue its agricultural lifestyle undisturbed, as it has done for the last thirty years.



Ne’meh Id’eis, 56, a resident of the community and mother of four, described the demolition in her testimony to B’Tselem field researcher ‘Atef Abu a-Rub:

Many soldiers, big tractors, police and cars blocked off the lands around us. They ordered us to get our belongings out of our homes, and in less than half an hour they demolished everything. They left nothing. The little children and the lambs stood in the sun or under trees. All our personal belongings were outside, and the tractors scraped through and destroyed all our structures. They left no stone unturned. They left us no roof to shelter under. We were left outside with nothing. They even destroyed the stone oven I use to bake bread for the children. I asked them to leave it for us so we could eat, but it was like talking to a wall.

In just a few hours, the place was in ruins, I swear, like a war zone. The army and tractors left, and then the journalists came and everyone wanted to get pictures of the place.


http://www.btselem.org/planning_and_building/20140529_demolition_in_ideis_community

June 1, 2014

WSJ Suggests Hollande May Redefine Chutzpah by Complaining to Obama about BNP Paribas on 70th D Day

Posted on June 1, 2014

By William K. Black

I am not a French hater – and there is no “but” to that clause. The Wall Street Journal, however, frequently engages in French bashing. The WSJ has also, unintentionally and unknowingly, suggested that the French may act in a manner that would provide a new humorous answer to the old joke that begins: “What is chutzpah?” The context is that the U.S. and New York state authorities are negotiating with BNP Paribas (a very large French bank) to settle a series of felonies involving primarily sanction-busting – and covering up those crimes.

A political movement has arisen in France opposing any U.S. criminal actions against Paribas. Americans will have no difficulty understanding this political dynamic, particularly because our Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to give a total pass to the U.S. officers who led the accounting control frauds that drove the crisis and prosecutes only foreign financial operations. What is remarkable is the WSJ’s suggestion of how the French Prime Minister Hollande might bring French objections personally to the attention of President Obama.

“[A]ny hefty penalty imposed on BNP Paribas could revive trans-Atlantic tensions….”

“Mr. Hollande will meet with President Barack Obama next week during ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of D-Day….”

So, let me see whether I have this right. The French goal is to avoid “reviv[ing] trans-Atlantic tensions” and the means of doing so would be for Hollande to complain to Obama about Paribas – on “the 70th anniversary of D-Day.” I’m a strong critic of Hollande, but I don’t think he would display the chutzpah of using the anniversary of the death and grievous wounding of thousands of Americans who stormed the beaches of France to liberate that Nation from Nazi occupation as the time to complain about holding Paribas (mildly) accountable for the crimes of its officers.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/wsj-suggests-hollande-may-redefine-chutzpah-complaining-obama-bnp-paribas-70th-anniversary-d-day.html