Debt Slavery! Collectors Cash in on $1 Trillion in US Student Loans

http://rt.com/usa/news/us-student-loan-debt-704/

Most US college students hope to land a good job with a high salary after graduation. But for some the reality is very different. Many find themselves faced with insurmountable debt – and a loan industry that's happy to cash in on their misfortune.

As the number of people taking out government-backed student loans has soared, so has the number of borrowers who have fallen behind in making payments.

Around 5.9 million people nationwide have fallen at least 12 months behind in their payments. This number has grown by a third in the last five years, according to a State Higher Education Finance survey.

Many who can't repay their loans feel they have no choice but to default. It's a decision that can be disastrous – ruining a borrower's credit and increasing the amount they owe. It can also result in penalties of up to 25 per cent of the balance.

Despite the scary consequences, young adults across America have chosen to default on their loans. And that decision has resulted in a cat-and-mouse game with the government.

"I keep changing my phone number. In a year, this is probably my fourth phone number," former student Amanda Cordeiro told the New York Times.

Cordeiro receives up to seven calls a day from debt collectors attempting to recover her $55,000 in overdue student loans. But phone calls are just the beginning.

Since the federal government imposes no statute of limitations for collecting loan repayments, escaping the debt is nearly impossible.

"You are going to pay it, or you are going to die with it," said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com.

As America's poor economy causes companies and small businesses to close their doors, the debt collection industry is booming.

Conserve, a debt collection agency in New York, expects to double its payroll in the next three years.

"There is great opportunity," the company's president and founder Mark E. Davitt, told the New York Times.

It's easy to see where that opportunity comes from.

The nationwide student loan balance is more than $1 trillion. It's a number that makes borrowers cringe.

However, debt collectors are more than grateful for the astronomically high amount of debt among college graduates.

Debt collectors used to receive a steady and reliable income from credit card debt, but the slowing economy has made collection a challenge.

rest http://rt.com/usa/news/us-student-loan-debt-704/

Krugman: Republican base is ‘elderly white people arguing with empty chairs’ #p2 #tcot

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/09/krugman-republican-base-is-elderly-white-people-arguing-with-empty-chairs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that the Republican Party has adopted extreme anti-immigrant positions to appeal to their base, "which is, by and large, elderly white people arguing with empty chairs."

During a Sunday panel segment on ABC News, Krugman pointed out that Clint Eastwood's bizarre conversation with an empty chair at the Republican National Convention last month was illustrative of the party's base.

"Arizona is a third Hispanic," conservative columnist George Will noted. "The Republican Party spent 20 debates in the primary competing to see who could build the longest, thickest, tallest, most lethally-electrified fence. And Hispanics said, 'I detect some hostility here.' And it's going to take a long time to undo that."

Krugman agreed that the GOP's move to the extreme right during the primary had hurt their standing with minority voters.

"The Republican Party is where it is because that's where the base is," Krugman agreed. "You watch that whole primary process, Republican candidates had to appeal to their base, which is, by and large, elderly white people arguing with empty chairs."

Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also lamented that the Republican Party had completely given up on winning certain parts of the country.

rest http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/09/krugman-republican-base-is-elderly-white-people-arguing-with-empty-chairs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Wingnuts argue conservatism being failed: by the American People #p2 #tcot

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/09/1129551/-Wingnuts-Argue-Conservatism-Being-Failed-By-The-American-People?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

attribution: Wikimedia Commons

Ayn Rand is being failed by the American People. What would John Galt do?

As Mark Kleiman notes, Republicans are waking up to the fact the Romney is losing. So it's time to try and understand why. Collective answer? It's the American People's fault.

John Hinderaker of Powerline thinks it is all those welfare queens in their Cadillacs:

[T]his election should be a cakewalk for the Republicans. Why isn't it? I am afraid the answer may be that the country is closer to the point of no return than most of us believed. With over 100 million Americans receiving federal welfare benefits, millions more going on Social Security disability, and many millions on top of that living on entitlement programs–not to mention enormous numbers of public employees–we may have gotten to the point where the government economy is more important, in the short term, than the real economy. My father, the least cynical of men, used to quote a political philosopher to the effect that democracy will work until people figure out they can vote themselves money. I fear that time may have come.

Andy McCarthy at National Review argues that conservatism and Randism have been failed:

The people coming of age in our country today have been reared very differently from those who were just beginning to take the wheel in the early 1980s. They have marinated in an unapologetically progressive system that prizes group discipline and narrative over free will and critical thought.

Richard Fernandez argues at the Belmont Club that the American People are "smart women" making "foolish choices":

A radio talk show host characterized President Obama's DNC convention address as the "boyfriend speech". She compared his pleading with the screed those deadbeat suitors give they realize they are about to dumped and who promise to bring back the magic. [...] Any reasonable girl would show him the door. But as readers probably know and much to the surprise of John Hinderaker of Powerline, the "boyfriend" speech very often works. There's a better than average chance in real life that the girl will not only forget about the IOUs, broken promises and BS — she'll come busting out the gate after him. [...]

Unfortunately [...] this sort of charm — the kind that keeps ladies coming back to their boyfriends after they've been bamboozled, betrayed and generally given short shrift, is either something you are born with or not. President Obama, whatever his faults, has got lots of this charm. As Charles Krauthammer put it anyone who thinks everyone eventually sees through this smarminess should remember that the public's idea of a caring person is still Bill Clinton. Well, there's always 2016.

rest at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/09/1129551/-Wingnuts-Argue-Conservatism-Being-Failed-By-The-American-People?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Ryan Claims Cutting $800B From Medicaid Will Be Just Fine #p2 #tcot

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ryan-claims-cutting-800b-medicaid-wil 

Click here to view this media

This week on This Week, George Stephanopoulos did a slightly less awful job this week. Not good - but not as bad as usually, pointing out the effect of Medicaid block grants (still using the fig leaf of "President Clinton said," which is why I won't say it was good) upon the poor and needy:

STEPHANOPOULOS: President Clinton also took aim at the savings you do propose in Medicaid -- $800 billion -- the largest specific savings in your plan. That's about a 35 percent reduction over the next decade.

And the president argued that it's going to be devastating for seniors who rely on Medicaid for nursing home care, middle class families challenged by disabilities, children with autism. How can you squeeze that much money of a program, $800 billion without cutting benefits or restricting eligibility?

RYAN: Here's the secret on this one. Medicaid spending still goes up under what we're proposing. What we're saying is we want to repeal ObamaCare because we think it's a terrible law. And so we're taking away the massive increases in ObamaCare that are attributable to Medicaid. About a third of the people that ObamaCare is supposed to serve, they're just pushing people on Medicaid.

Here's the problem, George. Medicaid's not working. More and more doctors are less likely to even take people with Medicaid. It's a system that needs reforming.

So we don't want to put more money and force more people on a program that's failing, that's not working. We want to reform Medicaid. And so what we're saying is, don't expand this program as dramatically as ObamaCare does. Keep it like it is, increase its funding and send it to the states to the states can fix this problem. I think government closest to the people, especially in providing health care for the poor, works the best.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But The Urban Institute has estimated that between 14 million and 27 million people will -- fewer people will be covered under that plan and won't [that be] block granting this program, sending it to the states mean that low-income and disabled people will lose their guaranteed right to coverage?

rest at 

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ryan-claims-cutting-800b-medicaid-wil

Poll-Based System Predicts U.S. Election Results For President, Senate: odds favor another four years for Obama #P2 #TCOT

FROM http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/09/07/239239/poll-based-system-predicts-us-election-results-for-president-senate

An anonymous reader writes"Election Analytics is a website developed by Dr. Sheldon Jacobson at the University of Illinois designed to predict the outcomes of the U.S. presidential and senatorial elections, based on reported polling data. From the site: 'The mathematical model employs Bayesian estimators that use available state poll results (at present, this is being taken from Rasmussen, Survey USA, and Quinnipiac, among others) to determine the probability that each presidential candidate will win each of the states (or the probability that each political party will win the Senate race in each state). These state-by-state probabilities are then used in a dynamic programming algorithm to determine a probability distribution for the number of Electoral College votes that each candidate will win in the 2012 presidential election. In the case of the Senate races, the individual state probabilities are used to determine the number of seats that each party will control.'"You can tweak the site by selecting a skew toward the Republican or Democratic tickets, and whether it's mild or strong. Right now, this tool shows the odds favor another four years for Obama, even with a strong swing for the Republicans.

http://electionanalytics.cs.illinois.edu/

http://cs.illinois.edu/people/faculty/sheldon-jacobson

Half of the polar ice cap is missing: Arctic sea ice hits a new record low #P2 #TCOT

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2222

Extraordinary melting of sea ice in the Arctic this summer has shattered the all-time low sea ice extent record set in September 2007, and sea ice continues to decline far below what has ever been observed. The new sea ice record was set on August 26, a full three weeks before the usual end of the melting season, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Every major scientific institution that tracks Arctic sea ice agrees that new records for low ice area, extent, and volume have been set. These organizations include the University of Washington Polar Science Center (a new record for low ice volume), the Nansen Environmental & Remote Sensing Center in Norway, and the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today. A comprehensive collection of sea ice graphs shows the full story. Satellite records of sea ice extent date back to 1979, though a 2011 study by Kinnard et al. shows that the Arctic hasn't seen a melt like this for at least 1,450 years (see a more detailed article on this over at skepticalscience.com.) The latest September 5, 2012 extent of 3.5 million square kilometers is approximately a 50% reduction in the area of Arctic covered by sea ice, compared to the average from 1979 - 2000. The ice continues to melt, and has not reached the low for this year yet.

REST http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2222

if everyone who is registered to vote actually votes, President Obama has an astronomical 91% chance of winning re-election #P2 #TCOT

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/obama-would-be-big-favorite-with-fired-up-base/

Obama Would Be Big Favorite With 'Fired Up' Base

By NATE SILVER

There's one advantage that President Obama has that Mitt Romney probably doesn't. If he can get a good turnout from his base, he'll be the heavy favorite to win in November — even if Mr. Romney gets a strong turnout as well.

On average over the last five public surveys, 35 percent of registered voters identify themselves as Democrats and 30 percent as Republicans. That advantage is down somewhat for Democrats since 2008, but it is an advantage nevertheless.

In essentially every recent presidential election, however, the Democratic candidate has performed worse among actual Election Day voters than among the broader pool of registered voters. There is no reason to think that this year will be an exception. Recent surveys that compare likely-voter with registered-voter results suggest that there could be a turnout gap of around three percentage points favoring Mr. Romney. That's larger than the historical average, when it's been in the range of one or two points.

Our election forecasts build in a likely voter adjustment for this reason. If a pollster publishes both registered-voter and likely-voter results, we use the likely-voter version of their numbers. And if only a registered-voter version is available, we shift the numbers by two or three points toward Mr. Romney in order to make it equivalent to a likely-voter poll.

But what would happen if all those registered voters really did turn out?

I decided to run a version of our "now-cast" — our estimate of what would happen if the election were held today — on a registered-voter rather than likely-voter basis. (The "now-cast" is a little simpler than our Nov. 6 forecast, which also incorporates a convention bounce adjustment and measures of economic performance, and so the now-cast is a little simpler to interpret for purposes of measuring the effects of the likely-voter adjustment.)

This special, registered-voter version of the "now-cast" applies just the opposite of our usual process. If both registered-voter and likely-voter versions of a poll are available, I instruct the model to use the registered-voter numbers. And if there's only a likely-voter survey, the model shifts the numbers toward Mr. Obama by a couple of points as a proxy for a registered voter poll.

In the regular, likely-voter version of our "now-cast," Mr. Obama is estimated to have a 68 percent chance of winning the Electoral College in an election held today. But on the basis of registered voters, he would be a 91 percent favorite. Instead of being ahead in the popular vote by a hair over one point, he'd be expected to win by around four. And he'd be projected to win 322 electoral votes, rather than 291.

It's very unlikely, of course, that Democrats will turn out as high a percentage of their voters as Republicans do. The demographic groups that favor Democrats are just harder to get to the polls.

But if Mr. Obama can narrow Republicans' advantage in this area — reducing the gap between registered-voter and likely-voter polls to one or two points rather than three, he can get halfway there, and make Mr. Romney's task much harder.

REST http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/obama-would-be-big-favorite-with-fired-up-base/

Oil on Gulf Coast after Hurricane Isaac reveals risks of offshore drilling

http://grist.org/climate-energy/photos-oil-on-the-gulf-coast-after-hurricane-isaac-shows-the-risks-of-offshore-oil-drilling/

Oil is washing up along the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, churned up by Hurricane Isaac. After discovering hundreds of tar balls at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama, a Greenpeace research team joined our allies at the Gulf Restoration Network to investigate the impacts on East and West Ship Island, off the coast of Mississippi. We found tar balls on East Ship Island and several heavily oiled areas on West Ship Island, which are both part of the Gulf National Seashore.

rest http://grist.org/climate-energy/photos-oil-on-the-gulf-coast-after-hurricane-isaac-shows-the-risks-of-offshore-oil-drilling/

Christine O'Donnell Proves She's Even Dumber Than We Thought She Was During Real Time O.T. Segment

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/christine-odonnell-proves-shes-even-dumber 

Click here to view this media

Christine O'Donnell appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher this Friday evening during the segment immediately following his opening monologue and blamed her witch ad debacle on her advisers and wanted to get into it with Maher over whether it's fair or not to continue to blame Bush for the troubles with the economy we're still having today. Thankfully, her time was cut short since she was not a member of the panel on the show - or at least she wasn't until the Internet only Overtime segment.

As with all of his shows, Bill Maher always brings all of the guests back in for the on-line version only end of his show and listening to the stupidity that came out of Christine O'Donnell's mouth during this segment was just truly astounding. She was asked how she rectified her supposed "small government conservatism" with the intrusion into people's lives with her social beliefs, and she pretty much spent the entire rest of the segment tying herself in knots, not being able to explain the differences between or need for states' rights and when the federal government needs to step in, revising history, and just making crap up when it suited her.

The other guests who were uselessly trying to reason with her, which was pretty much impossible since you can't reason with someone who's head is thick as a brick, mainly looked like they were all just ready to bang their own heads on the desk by the time this thing was over.

I can honestly say I pity David Simon, Steve Schmidt, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jim VandeHei, well, maybe not VandeHei, but the rest of them for having to sit through this debacle and try to argue with this know nothing teabagger.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/christine-odonnell-proves-shes-even-dumber

Coming Food Crisis Plays into Global Elite’s Demand for Population Stabilization

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/coming-food-crisis-plays-into-global.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActivistPost+%28Activist+Post%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Since 2010, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization has stated that the rise in food prices is directly correlated to the 80 million people being added to the world's population annually. This fact, according to the globalists at the UN, is beginning to "tax both the skills of farmers and the limits of the earth's land and water resources."

Added to this problem are the 3 million people who are "moving up the food chain" eating more than their share in gluttonous nations like the United States and China.

While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is announcing that the city plans to ban sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces to curb the waistlines of the average New Yorker, the rest of the world is wondering where their next meal may be coming from.

In the UK, the average person's weight continues to dramatically increase with the use of high fructose corn syrup, increased consumption of processed foods and a lethargic lifestyle. Their societal issues with food and weight are mirrored in America. And if compared to other nations, the problem remains the same. While some die of starvation, others are dying from over consumption. Both the degenerative quality of the food being sold in the developed world, and the lack of food in the under-developed nations are causational to the same end – population reduction.

To keep up appearances, the mainstream media will dole out ludicrous studies such as one published last month that reported men who are stressed find heavier women more attractive. Instead of facing the health problems brought on by an industry that is designed to deplete the human body of nutrition, thereby causing disease and early death, the MSM would have the American public considering their burgeoning waistlines as trendy. Meanwhile, the quest to become anorexic-esque thin is still en vogue and sought after – leaving the average American confused about their self-image.

Perhaps a portion of the problem facing Americans and their eating habits stems from the use of chemically enhanced food such as chocolate that is prescribed as a mood-stabilizing drug. The brain manipulation by way of chemical inhibitors comes from the use of valproic acid that acts as an anti-depressant; calming moods and other related psychiatric conditions.

It is further pointed out that the US investment in ethanol is a drain on the world's food stores, which allocates massive amounts of food to the production of this plant-based fuel for cars.

The World Bank issued a statement of concern last month for the coming food shortage due to the drought devastating the US and Europe. According to Jim Yong Kim, World Bank group president: Food prices rose again sharply threatening the health and well-being of millions of people. Africa and the Middle East are particularly vulnerable, but so are people in other countries where the prices of grains have gone up abruptly.

Because of the drought, Obama offered, through the USDA, to purchase $170 million in pork, chicken, lamb and catfish to stave off some of the financial burden of American farmers. The White House announced the use of this food in food-aid programs.

Water resources are directly tied to global food supplies. As more of the planet's water is securitized by private corporations and governments, some globalists suggest that the world's population may have to become vegetarian in order to survive.

Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) are responsible for a report that explains "there will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations."

The UN and Oxfam are warning nations that the scarcity of water will limit food production dramatically and cause another food crisis. Oxfam is predicting food prices to rise incredibly in developed nations.

The globalist answer to the problem: by adopting a global vegetarian diet, the world's water supplies will be saved and the erratic weather evidenced by the man-made climate change myth will simply disappear. Miraculously, third world nations would have the arable land to feed their populations which would increase trade and food surplus.

In April, S. Matthew Laio, bioethics professor at New York University proposed that the masses take a pill that would cause nausea when a person ate meat. This would eventually create a lasting aversion to meat eating.

Laio had other ideas, like using genetic engineering or hormone therapy to birth smaller babies that would be less resource-intensive throughout their lifetime. Larger people consume more food and energy over their life. Smaller people consume less. Liao believes that human engineering would liberate a family to choose from two medium-sized children or three small-sized children. Or they could choose one large child. The choice is theirs.

This bioethics professor also thinks very highly of China's one child policy (that was first instituted by Mao, modeled after Henry Kissinger's work) and Britain's advocates of a two-child maximum.

Competition for water will be the next Great War. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) claims that food security in Southeast Asia and the sub-Saharan Africa will be protected by investing in small pumps because the world depends on their success.

The World Bank and the UN Population Fund have issued ultimatums (referred to as guidelines) to under-developed nations to either implement their plans for population reduction, or be withdrawn from the international community.

 rest at http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/coming-food-crisis-plays-into-global.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ActivistPost+%28Activist+Post%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Joe Biden's Territorial Tax Claim Based On Controversial Study

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/joe-biden-territorial-tax_n_1865287.html?ir=Business

Joe Biden made a lot of claims about Mitt Romney and the Republican presidential nominee's policies during his fiery speech at the Democratic National Convention Thursday night, but one of them may have been a bit overblown.

Biden slammed Romney's proposal to overhaul the system for taxing corporations' overseas profits. Under current U.S. tax laws, companies are responsible for paying taxes on the profits they earn abroad; they get credits for paying foreign taxes on their profits and don't have to pay U.S. taxes until they bring the money home. But under Romney's proposal, according to Bloomberg, companies wouldn't owe much to the U.S. government in taxes on what they make overseas.

Biden said of Romney's proposal Thursday night:

Governor Romney believes in this global economy it doesn't matter much where American companies invest and put their money or where they create jobs. As a matter of fact, in his budget proposal, in his tax proposal, he calls for a new tax. It's called a territorial tax, which the experts have looked at, and they acknowledge it will create 800,000 new jobs -- all of them overseas, all of them.

The only problem: Biden's 800,000 jobs claim makes a lot of assumptions based on just one study. According to Bloomberg, the findings come from a July study by Reed professor Kimberly Clausing, who offered an analysis of a pure territorial tax system, or one in which companies would pay no U.S. taxes on the profits they make overseas. It's unclear if Romney's plan would entirely eliminate U.S. taxes on overseas profits.

In addition, Clausing's study assumes the U.S. corporate tax rate -- which at 35 percent is relatively high, compared to that of other countries -- would stay about the same under a territorial tax system, pushing companies to make their money overseas, where corporate tax rates have been on the decline since 2008.

President Obama has called for lowering that tax rate to 28 percent, while Mitt Romney wants it cut to 25 percent.

After Clausing released her study in July, conservative outlets pounced, noting that she had donated to President Obama's reelection campaign.

As it turns out, some Obama advisers think a territorial tax would be a good idea. Business leaders on Obama's Export Council and on his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness have supported the idea of a territorial tax in the past, according to ABC News' Jake Tapper. And it seems to be working for other countries; 25 out of the 34 countries in the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development use a territorial tax system.

rest http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/joe-biden-territorial-tax_n_1865287.html?ir=Business

Charlotte Convention Janitors Better Paid Than Tampa Convention Janitors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/charlotte-convention-worker-pay_n_1865383.html?ir=Business

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Party officials did not determine the pay rates for workers at either event, but janitorial staffers at the Democratic National Convention here earned slightly better money than janitors at the Republican convention in Tampa, Fla.

The Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, which manages the convention center and other public facilities in Charlotte, said it hired roughly 100 workers to help with the Democrats' event, paying them between $8 and $10 an hour.

The people pushing trash bins at the Republican National Convention earned the state's minimum wage of $7.67 an hour, and some of them also had to pay for their own uniforms.

Carolyn Walker told HuffPost she'd been cleaning the Tampa convention center for 13 years, and that her pay dropped from $8 to the minimum wage when the convention center farmed the work out to a subcontractor years ago. "It stinks, to tell you the truth," she said. "We work very hard."

Labor advocates often criticize subcontracting, saying it can lead to lower wages and that it subverts worker protections. In addition to the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority's workers, there were also several subcontractors doing janitorial work at the Charlotte Convention Center. Spokespeople for subcontractors declined to be interviewed or ignored requests; one subcontracted worker cleaning out trash bins said she earned $10 an hour.

Another subcontracted worker said she made $8 for cleaning bathrooms. She said others who had been hired by the convention center through a job fair were making more for similar work. "It's ridiculous," said the worker, who refused to give her name for fear of retribution. "I'm doing the same job as them. I said that to my boss." She said that her boss refused to talk about the pay issue further.

rest http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/charlotte-convention-worker-pay_n_1865383.html?ir=Business

.@GOP Blocks More Than 1 Million Jobs for an Entire Year @speakerboehner #p2 #tcot @barackobama

An Unhappy Anniversary Sep 7, 2012 | By ThinkProgress War Room GOP Blocks More Than 1 Million Jobs for an Entire Year Today is the day we got the monthly jobs report, which unfortunately did not meet expectations. But today is also important for a related reason — it's the one year anniversary of the introduction of the American Jobs Act, a vital jobs bill that Republicans have been blocking since day one. The plan included stimulus spending in the form of immediate infrastructure investments, tax credits for working Americans and employers to encourage consumer spending and job growth, and efforts to shore up state and local budgets to prevent further layoffs of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials. ThinkProgress' Travis Waldron explains just how much the bill would've done if Republicans hadn't repeatedly voted it down in the Senate and refused to even take it up the House: –Moody's Analytics estimated the American Jobs Act would create 1.9 million jobs and add two percent to gross domestic product. –The Economic Policy Institute estimated it would create 2.6 million jobs and protect an addition 1.6 million existing jobs. –Macroeconomic Advisers predicted it would create 2.1 million jobs and boost GDP by 1.5 percent. –Goldman Sachs estimated it would add 1.5 percent to GDP. The American economy has continued to recover since the American Jobs Act failed. It added 96,000 jobs last month, according to today's Bureau of Labor Statistics report, making August the 30th consecutive month in which the private sector has grown. But growth could have been faster: the public sector shed 7,000 jobs in August, adding to the more 700,000 it has lost since 2009. That includes hundreds of thousands of teachers and educators, firefighters, and police officers. Had the public sector spent the last three years growing at its previous rate, unemployment would be at least a full point lower than it is now. The American Jobs Act and policies like it would have unquestionably boosted job creation and economic growth, a stark contrast to the tax-cutting policies put forth by congressional Republicans, whose "job creation" bills would have actually destroyed thousands of jobs. Republicans nevertheless continue to ignore economists and basic economics, instead pushing supply-side tax policies that have repeatedly failed to boost job creation and economic growth. BOTTOM LINE: It's time for Republicans to stop sabotaging the economy for political reasons and start working with the president to put Americans back to work. Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed The Romney campaign appears to be giving up on 243 electoral votes. Romney defends not mentioning the troops in his RNC speech: "You talk about things you think are important." Even Fox News is sick of Romney hiding the details of his tax plan. Romney also defended insulting the British before the Olympics: "Nothing wrong with telling people the truth." Ohio's GOP Secretary of State backs down on early voting and is forced to apologized to the court for ignoring its ruling. Romney praised a GOP Congressman today, just a day after Steve King said that comparing immigrants to dogs was actually "a compliment." 100,000 people want CNN to fire one of its sexist contributors. Obama's approval rating is up following the DNC. Judge tells assault victim that she just shouldn't have been at a bar in the first place. THINKPROGRESS | Center for American Progress Action Fund 1333 H Street NW, 10th Floor | Washington, DC 20005

.@mittromney Meet @gop Rep. Steve King, Romney’s New ‘Partner’ In Congress: pro dog fighting, anti immigrant anti birth control #p2 #tcot

Today, Mitt Romney enthusiastically endorsed Rep. Steve King (R-IA), saying "he needs to be your Congressman again. I want him as my partner in Washington!" If Romney were elected, then, he'd be partnering on legislation with one of the most radical members of Congress:

1. King is the leading defender of dog-fighting and animal torture in the United States.King recently suggested "there was something wrong" with the priorities of people who wanted to criminalize dogfighting while boxing was legal. When challenged on that assertion, King went on abizarre diatribe about how the kidnapping, rape, and forced abortion of an underage girl wouldn't be illegal under current law. King's prodogfighting statements are consistent with a long legislative record of defending the inhumane practice as well as his recent sponsorship of legislation that would enable the torture of animals on farms while critically weakening food safety standards.

2. King compares immigrants to dogs, proposes keeping them out with electrified fence.Describing immigrants as birddogs, King said that we should only take "frisker" people, "not the one that's over there sleeping on the corner." This makes his remedy for illegal immigration, an electric fence, unsurprising, which he justified by saying "we do this with livestock all the time." He also thinks that multicultural groups are about self-pity and that immigrants who "love taxes" aren't real Americans.

3. King believes states can ban birth control and that contraception may destroy America.King, who adheres to a revisionist interpretation of the 10th Amendment, disagrees with well-established Supreme Court precedent guaranteeing a woman's right to control her own body. This may be because King thinks that access to birth control may "let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we're a dying civilization. Hypocritically, King has proposed that it is unconstitutional for states to ban foie gras. King, like Todd Akin, has "never heard of" a rape-induced pregnancy.

rest at 

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/09/07/815901/meet-rep-steve-king-romneys-new-partner-in-congress/

Todd Akin Ads Pulled in Missouri #p2 #tcot

from http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/todd-akin-ads-pulled-missouri

Click here to view this media

Depending on your point of view, this development could be either a good or bad thing as it signals that Todd Akin is running out of money in his bid to win the Senate seat from Claire McCaskill. On the flipside though, there may still be time for him to quit and Republicans replace him with a more formidable opponent.

Video and text from KOMU, Columbia Missouri.

COLUMBIA - Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin's latest round of political ads have been pulled from the airwaves of KOMU 8 and other Missouri TV stations due to a lack of payment as of Thursday.

Akin's camp placed an ad buy that was supposed to run in full through this week.

Standard procedure dictates that political ads must be paid in full before ads will run, but KOMU 8 received half of the payment for the Akin ads and ran half of the ad buy.

When KOMU 8 did not receive the rest of the money in time for the rest of the ad cycle, it pulled the ads.

The ads weren't cancelled by the Akin camp.

KOMU 8 spoke with various television stations in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia, and heard a similar story from each.