The successful Republican drive to overhaul the tax code in 2017, resulted in a bonanza of business for Washington’s law and lobby firms. Bolstered by GOP control of Washington, lobbyists saw their business explode grow last year. The prospect of tax legislation and regulatory reform was the big reason why. The 20 largest lobbying firms …
“The problem with Washington today is that there just isn’t enough bribery. In the old days, when parties lacked a few crucial votes to pass important legislation, they could win over opponents with the help of so-called earmarks. These were sentences included in spending bills that directed some of the money to specific projects – …
Continue reading ‘Politics are worse now that earmarks are banned’ »
The proportion of the world’s oceans defined as “dead” – containing such low levels of oxygen that very little marine life can survive – has increased alarmingly in the past 70 years, scientists have warned. The researchers, from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Centre, among other institutions, studied dead zones both in open waters and around …
Acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Mick Mulvaney is working diligently these days to gut the agency he now heads. But Mulvaney isn’t seeing that same diligence from the financial industry movers and shakers he’s endeavoring so hard to shield. Last week, at a financial industry conference in Washington, D.C., Mulvaney told 1,300 bankers to …
Two recent shocking reports into jails in Nottingham and Liverpool show that conditions remain Dickensian – inmates crammed into filthy, freezing cells; cockroaches; rats; extensive violence. Whether you measure it by the high levels of re-offending or the number of suicides, it’s clear the system is failing; yet we keep locking more and more people …
Continue reading ‘Prisons again: British prisons are a disgrace, too.’ »
According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2,220,300 adults were incarcerated in US federal and state prisons, and county jails in 2013 – about 1 in 110 of the U.S. resident population. Additionally, 4,751,400 adults in 2013 (1 in 51) were on probation or on parole. For-profit companies were responsible for approximately 7 percent …
Today (Tuesday), the New York state senate has two by-elections. Should the Democrats win, New York state will be under unified Democrat control; the governor’s mansion and lower house are already blue, but the senate is still mostly Republican. One of the senate races is a safe-Democrat Bronx seat. So the only election that matters …
Continue reading ‘Why Westchester County should vote Democrat.’ »
This is NOT a party political issue, but one that concerns the welfare and peace of mind of everyone: David Van Reybrouck in his book, “Against Elections”, argues that there is a more democratic alternative to elections: random selection of people to political office. Incredulous? Well, think about it. The current situation is not working. …
In every country in the world, men are paid more than women. In the developed world, women tend to earn around four-fifths of what men do. In the developing world, it is common for men earn up to six times what women make, particularly in conservative Muslim countries like Iran. With the latter, it is …
The North American Free Trade Agreement came into existence in 1994. As a result of it blue collar workers suffered. High school drop-outs in areas heavily impacted by NAFTA had 8% slower wage growth in the 1990s compared with those in less affected areas. The industries that lost the old protections saw their wages fall …
For many Americans, particularly those of a conservative disposition, theirs is the greatest country in the world. Patriotism is a far more prominent feature of American politics and culture than in Europe, with adversaries denouncing each other for insufficiently loving and caring for their country. Much of this is justified, even if European liberals find …
To The Daily Telegraph Here in the US we have a law making it illegal to hunt ducks or geese with more than three shells in one’s shotgun. We want to give them a fighting chance, as it were. A companion law also makes it illegal to hunt those migratory birds with a machine gun, …
To The Daily Telegraph How many graduates does our economy really need and how many can it afford? Fifty years ago, only 5% of school-leavers went on to university. Now the figure has soared to almost 50%, the entirely arbitrary target dreamt up by Tony Blair in his early days in office. This target seems …
Global wildlife populations are set to fall by more than two-thirds since 1970 by the end of the decade, warns the Living Planet report by WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). The assessment of more than 14,000 populations of 3706 species of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles from around the world reveals …
“America’s boom towns have disappeared. Throughout its history, the country’s cities have transformed themselves into hotbeds of growth and prosperity. San Francisco became a boom town due to the 1850s gold rush; Detroit tripled in size between 1910 and 1930 thanks to the rise of the car industry; Los Angeles exploded in the 1920s as …
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