Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
As the political action committee (PAC) "Our Country Deserves Better" prepares for its national tour of "patriotic rallies" against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, columnist Bill Berkowitz interviews the PAC's coord
By Congresspedia assistant editor Avelino Maestas
Monday was supposed to be the day the House approved a $700 billion rescue/bailout plan for the U.S. financial services sector. With Congress set to adjourn after approving the rescue and a few other bills, the week was shaping up to be a quick one.
However, with the House’s defeat of the bailout measure Monday, the legislative calendar has been thrown into upheaval. Rather than vote on tax package, it appears the House will reconvene Thursday in order to give the rescue bill another try.
Confusion seems to be running the day. Democratic leaders in the Senate, including Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have signaled they still want to work towards a vote on the measure. There is no agreement, however, as to what changes should or could be made to the bill, or whether the House or Senate should take up the revised legislation first.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The U.S. Defense Department has awarded its up to three-year, $300 million contract for "information operations" in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is poised to end "a six-year-old battle between career EPA scientists" who want to regulate a chemical linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women and children, and the White House and Pentagon, where officials oppose setting a drinking-water safety standard for the chemical, perchlorate. Guess who's likely to win?
Submitted by Anne Landman on
Over $13 billion that the U.S.
One of my favorite critiques of our ad-saturated modern world is in "Infinite Jest," the epic novel by recently-departed author and essayist David Foster Wallace. In the novel's not-too-distant future, time itself has become a corporate marketing opportunity. There's the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. That's not to mention the Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile, which is often abbreviated.
The novel's system of Subsidized Time is hilarious ... and you can almost imagine it really happening. At least corporate-sponsored years wouldn't present the disclosure problems of today's stealth ads -- marketing messages that masquerade as entertainment or news content.
The Center for Media and Democracy believes that all advertising should be as clearly announced as the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. That's why we just filed a comment with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC is debating how its sponsorship identification rules apply to product placement, product integration and other types of "embedded advertising" relayed over television or radio stations.
In 2003, Commercial Alert urged the FCC to address product placement disclosure. "Advertisers can puff and tout, and use all the many tricks of their trade," the watchdog group wrote (pdf). "But they must not pretend that their ads are something else."
Especially, we would add, when that "something else" is news programming.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Efforts by the McCain/Palin campaign to keep reporters away from Sarah Palin have prompted journalists to threaten a boycott of Palin's photo shoots at the United Nations.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Public interest groups, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, are blasting the Food and Drug Administration for relying on industry-funded studies in evaluating the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in food packaging materials.
New details have emerged about the Bush Administration’s plan to inject an estimated $700 billion into the country’s financial sector, which would be used to buy risky and possibly bad debt. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has released a counter-proposal, which includes a number of restrictions not included in the original plan. Lawmakers from both parties have pledged to take action by the end of the week while also tackling a continuing resolution to keep the government operating past the end of the fiscal year next week.
Over the weekend, a draft of the Administration’s plan was leaked and members of the public (and some lawmakers) had their first opportunity to review the proposal. The legislation would give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson broad authority to use federal funds to purchase assets that have no defined value, including loans that are unlikely to be repaid and securities backed by those loans. The government would purchase these assets from banks and other institutions through an auction or some other mechanism.
The plan precludes the courts, Congress or other federal agencies from reviewing the program and, while Paulson hopes to recover most of the funds by selling off the assets once the markets stabilize, there is no guarantee that the taxpayer money will be recovered.
Sen. Dodd’s proposal (leaked to the press Sunday night) introduces several measures that would substantially change the recovery program. Dodd’s bill creates an oversight board that would include congressionally-appointed officials. It also authorizes bankruptcy judges to modify existing mortgage loan terms for Americans facing foreclosure, and limit executive compensation for firms that take taxpayer cash.
Coming off of the August recess, most expected the 2009 fiscal year budget and energy legislation to dominate the Congressional agenda for the five weeks until the scheduled October adjournment. However, with the recent shocks in the U.S. financial markets and the resulting calls for government action, Congress and President Bush scrambled to figure out their gameplans. Plus, Massachusetts had its congressional primaries and Don Young narrowly edged out his primary challenger in Alaska when the final votes were in.
Proposals for the crisis recovery scenario generally involve the government infusing the financial sector with massive funds, either through purchases of rapidly devaluing mortgage-based securities, loans, loan guarantees or purchases of large stakes in the companies, effectively making U.S. taxpayers the largest shareholders in some of the big Wall Street players.
The action to bail out Wall Street would have far-reaching effects. Not only would it supplant other congressional priorities this session, but the amount of money required would handicap domestic spending in the 111th Congress as well. That would leave little discretionary funding heading into the next congressional cycle, and a new president would have few options to pursue on the domestic spending front.
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