Politics What is happening????

redux · Jan 16, 2013

But it makes it harder to protect the Sasquatch as an indigenous species.

Joniemack · Jan 16, 2013

redux said: ↑

The White House just upped the threshold from 25,000 to 100,000 signatures in 30 days for petitions to receive an official response.

The paranoid patriots are not happy! It is a plot to silence their opposition!
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I can only imagine the barrage of nonsense the petition site has been receiving since Obama's reelection. The so-called patriots would like nothing more than to see the Obama administration so bogged down with responding to their outrageous demands, there'd be no time for anything else.

I can't blame the Obama administration for raising the threshold.

Here's the top ten most bizarre petitions submitted on the site.

1. Actually Take These Petitions Seriously Instead of Just Using Them as an Excuse to Pretend You Are Listening

Signatures: 37,167

As the White House's project grew in popularity, many petitioners felt that their voices were simply not being heard — whether the threshold of 25,000 signatures was met or not. In what could be possibly be the site's most meta moment so far, there was a petition for petitions to be taken more seriously.

"You are not above us. You ARE us. Govern accordingly," the petition concluded.

Response: In an essay titled "We're Listening. Seriously," the White House explored the process behind the site's operation, making sure to clarify any gray areas.

"We may not agree with the policy views expressed in every petition (for example, we believe we do take these petitions seriously!), and gathering enough signatures to meet the signature threshold does not guarantee that the Administration will change our policy on a specific topic," read a part of the response.

2. Deport British Citizen Piers Morgan for Attacking Second Amendment

Signatures: 109,334

In response to Morgan's "hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment," angry citizens called for the deportation of the British journalist. A counter petition was created in response to this petition by users of social news site Reddit, entitled "Keep Piers Morgan in the USA.," which stated that the UK didn't want him back.

Response: The White House refused to send Morgan packing, citing the protection of free speech, which is also guaranteed in the First Amendment.

3. Assign NASA to Do a Feasibility Study and Conceptual Design of the Gen1 USS Enterprise Interplanetary Spaceship

Signatures: 6,292

Not long after 4chan's Death Star petition was released, the website BuildTheEnterprise.org petitioned to make part of Star Trek a reality. The creator explained the various benefits that construction of the first USS Enterprise would provide, such as serving as "a spaceship, space station and space port all in one." How economical!

4. Release the Recipe for the Honey Ale Home Brewed at the White House

Signatures: 12,240

When major media outlets reported Obama's enjoyment of a home-brewed beer named "Honey Ale," it piqued the curiosity of Americans, resulting in Freedom of Information Act requests for the recipe for the beer. Despite not reaching the critical mass necessary to force a response, the Obama administration released the recipe in September 2012 to appease the all-important homebrewer voting bloc in an election year.

5. Mandate States to Have State Pokemon

Signatures: N/A

The 50 United States have state flags, birds and flowers. Why not official State Pokemon?

The document that could have paved the way to see Pikachu represent the State of New York reached close to 1,000 signatures in one day. Unfortunately, site moderators removed it, citing an undisclosed terms-of-service violation.

6. Direct the United States Mint to Make a Single platinum Trillion Dollar Coin

Signatures: 10,188

The petition that could have solved the United States' money troubles "in two quick and simple steps" came just days after the country avoided plunging off the so-called fiscal cliff at the end of 2012. The petition acknowledges its absurdity, but backs it up with the fact that a platinum trillion-dollar coin is "no more absurd than playing political football with the U.S. — and global — economy at stake."

7. RESIGN!

Signatures: 2,913

This single-word petition was also created just after the country's near drop off of the fiscal cliff. The petition claims that the administration has failed to understand the real causes of the country's major problems, such as gun control and global warming. "By any reasonable definition of the American people, this administration is a failure," it concludes.

8. Ban Hammers and Baseball Bats

Signatures: 1,171

An example of protest by parody, this mock petition was drafted as a response to a proposed ban on assault weapons by Senators Dianne Feinstein and Joe Lieberman. It aimed to highlight the dangers of baseball bats and hammers, stating that the two items caused more deaths in the U.S. than guns.

9. Authorize Production of a Recurring Television Program Featuring Vice President Joe Biden

Signatures: 2,191

Vice President Joe Biden's series of poorly worded quips and accidental utterances would make for quality reality TV. This petition wants to see a "recurring C-SPAN television program featuring the daily activities and interactions of the Vice President with elected officials, foreign dignitaries and everyday American families." It claims that not only will viewers see "a glimpse of the lighthearted side of politics even in the midst of contentious and divisive national debates," but it will also be educated on the duties and responsibilities of the vice president.

10. Save the Lewpty-Lew!

Signatures: 486

Why should being named to the position of Treasury Secretary come at the cost of one's unique signature? This petition shows that a loop-filled John Hancock and high-ranking government positions can indeed go hand-in-hand. It demands to see newly appointed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's "doodle on every dollar in circulation."

The 10 Most Bizarre White House Petitions

Baraka_Guru · Jan 16, 2013

redux said: ↑

But it makes it harder to protect the Sasquatch as an indigenous species.
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Why are you worried about protecting the Sasquatch? Who's going to protect the whites?

Show the video "STOP WHITE GENOCIDE" in all Federally funded Diversity Training! | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

STOP WHITE GENOCIDE: Halt MASSIVE third world immigration and FORCED assimilation in White countries! | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government

redux · Jan 16, 2013

The White House should have granted the right for states to secede from the union (petitions from 8-10 states surpassed the threshold) and we all would have been happy!

Baraka_Guru · Jan 16, 2013

redux said: ↑

The White House should have granted the right for states to secede from the union (petitions from 8-10 states surpassed the threshold) and we all would have been happy!
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They shall band together to form a country. They shall call it...Alabamastan.

It would be a Christian republic. You know, like an Iran or a Pakistan but without the Islam.

rogue49 · Jan 29, 2013

And another "conflict of interest" story.
Drug companies wanting to maximize profit lobbying against generic meds...

Nope, we want you healthy...we just want you to pay through the nose forever for it.
Such CARING people...

Biotech Firms, Billions at Risk, Lobby States to Limit Generics
By ANDREW POLLACK - January 28, 2013

In statehouses around the country, some of the nation’s biggest biotechnology companies are lobbying intensively to limit generic competition to their blockbuster drugs, potentially cutting into the billions of dollars in savings on drug costs contemplated in the federal health care overhaul law.

The complex drugs, made in living cells instead of chemical factories, account for roughly one-quarter of the nation’s $320 billion in spending on drugs, according to IMS Health. And that percentage is growing. They include some of the world’s best-selling drugs, like the rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis drugs Humira and Enbrel and the cancer treatments Herceptin, Avastin and Rituxan. The drugs now cost patients — or their insurers — tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Two companies, Amgen and Genentech, are proposing bills that would restrict the ability of pharmacists to substitute generic versions of biological drugs for brand name products.

Bills have been introduced in at least eight states since the new legislative sessions began this month. Others are pending.

The Virginia House of Delegates already passed one such bill last week, by a 91-to-6 vote.

The companies and other proponents say such measures are needed to protect patient safety because the generic versions of biological drugs are not identical to the originals. For that reason, they are usually called biosimilars rather than generics.

Generic drug companies and insurers are taking their own steps to oppose or amend the state bills, which they characterize as pre-emptive moves to deter the use of biosimilars, even before any get to market.

“All of these things are put in there for a chilling effect on these biosimilars,” said Brynna M. Clark, director of state affairs for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association. The limits, she said, “don’t sound too onerous but undermine confidence in these drugs and are burdensome.”

Genentech, which is owned by Roche, makes Rituxan, Herceptin and Avastin, the best-selling cancer drugs in the world Amgen makes Enbrel, the anemia drugs Epogen and Aranesp, and the drugs Neupogen and Neulasta for protecting chemotherapy patients from infections. All have billions of dollars in annual sales and, with the possible exception of Enbrel, are expected to lose patent protection in the next several years.

The trench fighting at the state level is the latest phase in a battle over the rules for adding competition to the biotechnology drug market as called for in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

A related battle on the federal level is whether biosimilars will have the same generic name as the brand name product. If they did not, pharmacists could not substitute the biosimilar for the original, even if states allowed it.

Biosimilars are unlikely to be available in the United States for at least two more years, though they have been on the market in Europe for several years. And the regulatory uncertainty appears to be diminishing enthusiasm among some companies for developing such drugs.

“We’re still dealing with chaos,” said Craig A. Wheeler, the chief executive of Momenta Pharmaceuticals, which is developing biosimilars. “This is a pathway that neither industry nor the F.D.A. knows how to use.”

Biotech drugs, known in the industry as biologics, are much more complex than pills like Lipitor or Prozac.

That makes it extremely difficult to tell if a copy of a biological drug is identical to the original. Even slight changes in the cells that make the proteins can change the drug’s properties.

The 1984 law governing generics does not cover biologicals, which barely existed then. That is why it was addressed in the 2010 law.

One reason generic pills are so inexpensive is that state laws generally allow pharmacists to substitute a generic for a brand-name drug unless the doctor explicitly asks them not to. That means generic drug manufacturers need not spend money on sales and marketing.

The bills being proposed in state legislatures would expand state substitution laws to include biosimilars. So Amgen and Genentech say the bills support the development of biosimilars.

But the bills would impose restrictions that do not apply to chemically produced pills. For a substitution, they say, the Food and Drug Administration must find a biosimilar “interchangeable” with the branded product. The F.D.A. has said interchangeability will be a higher standard than merely being similar to the branded product.

Some of the bills would also require patient consent for the substitution, for the pharmacist to notify the doctor if a switch is made and for the pharmacist and doctor to maintain records of the switch for years.

Backers say these safeguards are necessary to enable the tracing of any safety problems that might arise with a biosimilar.

“These are really complex, highly sensitive molecules,” said State Senator Patricia Vance of Pennsylvania, who plans to introduce a bill. “We want to make sure we are not hurting people.”

The generic drug association and insurers do not object to limiting substitution to drugs declared interchangeable by the F.D.A.

But they say that once the F.D.A. makes that determination, the other restrictions are unnecessary and are there merely to deter substitution.

Gillian Woollett, who tracks biosimilars for Avalere Health, a Washington advisory firm, said extra restrictions on substitution could put the state bills into conflict with the federal law, which defines interchangeability as meaning that a biosimilar can be substituted without the involvement of the prescribing doctor.

Ms. Woollett said the lobbying efforts by the biotech companies, which she characterized as “putting a few more tree trunks on the road,” might not make much difference as long as insurers have policies encouraging use of the biosimilars. She noted that only a small percentage of biologicals are dispensed through retail pharmacies. Most are infused or injected in a hospital or doctor’s office. That has not reduced the intensity of the skirmishes in state houses.

Dr. John O’Bannon III, a Republican delegate who introduced the bill that was passed last week in the Virginia House, said he did so because as a practicing neurologist, he was familiar with biologicals. Then he added, “The Amgen folks actually did come and talk to me.”

Amgen gave $22,000 to Virginia state legislators in both 2011 and 2012, more than double the $11,000 it gave in 2010, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Dr. O’Bannon received $1,500 over the last two years.

In North Dakota, a bill has cleared a committee in the State Senate, though it was amended to remove some restrictions.

“Genentech was the one that brought the bill to me,” said State Senator Dick Dever, a Republican, who introduced the bill.

In Indiana on Monday, the House Public Health Committee approved a bill, but lawmakers, responding to objections from the generic association, removed the requirement that patients consent to any substitution. Ed Clere, chairman of the committee and author of the bill, said the bill “doesn’t do anything to prevent or discourage the use of biosimilars.” He said the bill had been brought to him by Genentech and supported by Eli Lilly, which is based in Indiana.

Also supporting the push for such legislation is the Alliance for Safe Biologic Medicines.

This is not the first time drug companies have turned to states to try to blunt generic competition. In the late 1990s, DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical pushed for laws that would restrict substitution for its blood-thinning drug Coumadin, known generically as warfarin, on the grounds that the drug was extremely difficult to use safely.
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redux · Jan 31, 2013

Senator Geraldo?

Television personality and radio host Geraldo Rivera announced Thursday he’s “truly contemplating” a run for Senate in New Jersey.

"I mention this only briefly, fasten your seatbelt," Rivera said on his radio show. "I mentioned this only briefly to my wife... but I am and I've been in touch with some people in the Republican Party in New Jersey. I am truly contemplating running for Senate against Frank Lautenberg or Cory Booker."

Geraldo contemplating run for Senate - The Hill's Ballot Box
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I would hold out for Snookie if I was a Republican.

loquitur · Jan 31, 2013

If Geraldo becomes a Senator he can do a road show with Al Franken.
<sigh> if only Daniel Webster and Henry Clay could see what has become of the Senate . . . . . . . . .

redux · Jan 31, 2013

loquitur said: ↑

If Geraldo becomes a Senator he can do a road show with Al Franken.
<sigh> if only Daniel Webster and Henry Clay could see what has become of the Senate . . . . . . . . .
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The buzz in Minnesota is that Republicans in the state want Michelle Bachmann to challenge Franken in 2014.

Now that would be a high profile Senate race with Bachmann, the self-proclaimed face of the House Tea Party caucus, finding Muslims, socialists, gays and other anti-American influences all around Franken.

rogue49 · Feb 6, 2013

About fucking time...
I swear just about everyone pissed in the soup...and not one cook got the boot.

Justice prepares civil suit against S&P over grading of financial products before crisis
By Jia Lynn Yang,

The Justice Department is preparing to file a civil lawsuit against the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s centered on the company’s alleged misgrading of complex financial products at the heart of the financial crisis, according to an announcement by the firm Monday.

The country’s ratings agencies have been blamed for playing a major role in causing Wall Street’s meltdown four years ago. The Justice Department’s lawsuit would mark the first enforcement action against one of the country’s biggest ratings firms — after years of concern that the government has not pursued such cases aggressively enough.

Many observers, including the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, have criticized the agencies for giving top-notch ratings to financial products that were in fact dependent on shoddy mortgages. When the housing bubble burst and homeowners began defaulting on their loans, the products became worthless, setting in motion a crisis on Wall Street and then in the broader economy.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the news, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon.

S&P, which is owned by McGraw-Hill, said in a statement that the government’s case was “without factual or legal merit.”

“It would disregard the central facts that S&P reviewed the same subprime mortgage data as the rest of the market,” the statement said. S&P’s response appeared to outline the company’s central defense: that it wasn’t the only ratings agency missing the picture and that it actually downgraded a number of securities ahead of the crisis.

For instance, the company said it downgraded 400 securities tied to residential mortgages as early as 2006, “more than in any prior year in history.”

“S&P deeply regrets that our [collateralized debt obligations] ratings failed to fully anticipate the rapidly deteriorating conditions in the U.S. mortgage market during that tumultuous time,” said the statement. “However, we did take extensive ratings actions in 2007 — ahead of other agencies.”

Critics have said ratings agencies like S&P and Moody’s had a conflict of interest because the more products they rated, the more money they made, which may have encouraged them to be lax in their evaluations. The FCIC concluded in 2011 that the financial crisis “could not have happened without the ratings agencies.”

“With 20/20 hindsight, [S&P’s ratings downgrades] proved insufficient,” S&P said in its statement, “but they demonstrate that DOJ would be wrong in contending that S&P ratings were motivated by commercial consideration and not issued in good faith.”

© The Washington Post Company
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Baraka_Guru · Feb 6, 2013

This is hilarious.

Glenn Beck has made a name for himself through ridiculous fear-mongering, pandering, and flashy punditry. Set your irony sensors to maximum because Beck delivers the least self-aware 95 seconds in television history when he simultaneously explains why 9/11 conspiracy theorists are fools and why his show is a joke. Glenn Beck Accidentally Explains His Sleazy Business Model On His Own Show

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26M0bJut-RI

Charlatan · Feb 7, 2013

Holy crap! I can't believe I just heard him say that. Is he really so completely unaware?

I guess that's what drinking your own cool-aid sounds like.

rogue49 · Feb 9, 2013

When even a stolid conservative like George Will says it's time to break up the big banks...something "might" be wrong with them.

Hell, there's been a bit too little use of the anti-monopoly and trust laws in the past 2 decades.
Perhaps, we can get some competition going again.

Time to break up the big banks
By George F. Will,

With his chronically gravelly voice and relentlessly liberal agenda, Sherrod Brown seems to have stepped out of “Les Miserables,” hoarse from singing revolutionary anthems at the barricades. Today, Ohio’s senior senator has a project worthy of Victor Hugo — and of conservatives’ support. He wants to break up the biggest banks.

He would advocate this even if he thought such banks would never have a crisis sufficient to threaten the financial system. He believes they are unhealthy for the financial system even when they are healthy. This is because there is a silent subsidy — an unfair competitive advantage relative to community banks — inherent in being deemed by the government, implicitly but clearly, too big to fail.

The Senate has unanimously passed a bill offered by Brown and Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, directing the Government Accountability Office to study whether banks with more than $500 billion in assets acquire an “economic benefit” because of their dangerous scale. Is their debt priced favorably because, being TBTF, they are considered especially creditworthy? Brown believes the 20 largest banks pay less when borrowing — 50 to 80 basis points less — than community banks must pay.

In a sense, TBTF began under Ronald Reagan with the 1984 rescue of Continental Illinois, then the seventh-largest bank. In 2011, the four biggest U.S. banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) had 40 percent of all federally insured deposits. Today, the 5,500 community banks have 12 percent of the banking industry’s assets. The 12 banks with $250 billion to $2.3 trillion in assets total 69 percent. The 20 largest banks’ assets total 84.5 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Such banks have become bigger, relative to the economy, since the financial crisis began, and they are not the only economic entities to do so. Last year, the Economist reported that in the past 15 years the combined assets of the 50 largest U.S. companies had risen from around 70 percent of GDP to around 130 percent. And banks are not the only entities designated TBTF because they are “systemically important.” General Motors supposedly required a bailout because a chain of parts suppliers might have failed with it.

But this just means that the pernicious practice of socializing losses while keeping profits private is not quarantined in the financial sector.

To see why TBTF also can mean TBTM — too big to manage — read “What’s Inside America’s Banks?” in the January/February issue of the Atlantic. Frank Partnoy and Jesse Eisinger argue that banks are not only bigger but also “more opaque than ever.” And regulations partake of the opacity: The landmark Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, separating commercial banking from investment banking, was 37 pages long; the 848 pages of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law may eventually be supplemented by 30 times that many pages of rules. The “Volcker rule” banning banks from speculating with federally insured deposits is 298 pages long.

There is no convincing consensus about a correlation between a bank’s size and supposed efficiencies of scale, and any efficiencies must be weighed against management inefficiencies associated with complexity and opacity. Thirty or so years ago, Brown says, seven of the world’s 10 largest banks were Japanese, which was not an advantage sufficient to prevent Japan’s descent into prolonged stagnation. And he says that when Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, the parts of it became, cumulatively, more valuable than the unified corporation had been.

Brown is fond of the maxim that “banking should be boring.” He suspects that within the organizational sprawl of the biggest banks, there is too much excitement. Clever people with the high spirits and adrenaline addictions of fighter pilots continue to develop exotic financial instruments and transactions unknown even in other parts of the sprawl. He is undecided about whether the proper metric for identifying a bank as “too big” should be if its assets are a certain percentage of GDP — he suggests 2 percent to 4 percent — or simply the size of its assets (Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, has suggested $100 billion).

By breaking up the biggest banks, conservatives will not be putting asunder what the free market has joined together. Government nurtured these behemoths by weaving an improvident safety net and by practicing crony capitalism. Dismantling them would be a blow against government that has become too big not to fail. Aux barricades!
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Baraka_Guru · Feb 9, 2013

Canada has only a handful of really big banks. The difference here, however, is that the industry is adequately regulated.

It's all about keeping the power diffuse. Let it reside in too few stakeholders, and the system is going to be unstable.

rogue49 · Mar 9, 2013

So the great scams continue.
The large get to bend/break every rule...the small get burnt for any "supposed" violation.
It all depends on your influence and the skill of your lawyer.

See, that's the problem...the rule of law is not evenly distributed.
We need to get back for what's good for Joe, is good for Joe's bank too.
And the penalties that are applied to Joe, are applied to Joe's bank too.

I don't mind companies making money hand over fist.
I just don't want them getting breaks or getting away with what your normal Joe wouldn't.

If I can be held responsible for accidentally going through a speed toll 2 years later, then companies can be held responsible for their own neglect. (years later)
If I can be held responsible for my taxes going to the wrong state, despite my request (twice) to my company otherwise,
then companies can be held responsible for their own taxes on profits.

And I would think the significance and gain would be more profound dealing with them, than me...but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Actually, I'm of the opinion that most companies donations to representatives is to simply do nothing than do anything in particular.
If there isn't a law for it, nothing can be done about it.

Offshore Cash Hoard Expands by $183 Billion at Companies
By Richard Rubin - Mar 8, 2013

The largest U.S.-based companies expanded their untaxed offshore stockpiles by $183 billion in the past year, increasing such holdings by 14.4 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) each added to their non-U.S. holdings by more than 34 percent as they reaped the benefits of past maneuvers to earn and park profits in low- tax countries. Combined, those three companies alone plan to keep $134.5 billion outside the U.S. government’s reach, more than double the $59.3 billion they held two years earlier.

The build-up of offshore profits -- totaling $1.46 trillion for the 83 companies examined -- is increasing because of incentives in the U.S. tax code for booking profits offshore and leaving them there. The stockpiles complicate attempts to overhaul the tax system as lawmakers look for ways to bring the money home and discourage profit shifting.

“The corporate system is broken and it’s broken primarily because of international,” said Edward Kleinbard, a tax law professor at the University of Southern California.

The ability to defer U.S. taxes until profits are brought home, the ease of shifting profits to low-tax countries and the world’s highest statutory corporate rate have all contributed to the growing stockpiles outside the U.S.

A report last year by analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) estimated that all U.S.-based companies had $1.7 trillion in accumulated offshore profits. In the data compiled by Bloomberg, 83 companies had about 75 percent of last year’s total, which suggests that the total for all companies now exceeds $1.9 trillion.

$108 Billion

General Electric Co. (GE) again leads all U.S. companies with $108 billion held offshore, up from $102 billion a year earlier. Pfizer Inc. is second with $73 billion, followed by Microsoft, Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and International Business Machines Corp. The data comes from companies’ annual regulatory filings.

Eleven companies, including Apple, Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and Citigroup Inc., have at least $40 billion in profits reinvested overseas, up from six companies that had crossed that mark last year and three the year before that.

The data compiled by Bloomberg examined 83 U.S.-based companies that each reported holding more than $4 billion in earnings outside the country indefinitely in one of the past two years.

Foreign Parents

It excluded companies such as Eaton Corp. that now have foreign parents, and it also excluded United Technologies Corp. (UTX), which disclosed a $22 billion balance this year and hadn’t reported the numbers before then.

The analysis relies on the most recent filings for the companies. Those with fiscal years that end Dec. 31 filed their 10-Ks over the past few weeks.

Apple, whose stock has fallen 38.7 percent from its Sept. 19 closing high of $702.10, has been under pressure to return cash to investors in the form a dividend or buyback. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has said the money isn’t burning a hole in the company’s pockets and that it’s considering different strategies to reward investors with a new payout.

A reason for the overseas cash growth can be linked in part to Apple’s performance. Sales in Asia, Europe and Australia rose 43.7 percent to $80.2 billion in fiscal 2012. Unlike most other U.S.-based companies, Apple has already taken accounting charges for eventual taxes on some of its unrepatriated foreign holdings and reports an associated deferred tax liability of $14.7 billion.

Cash Holdings

The company’s permanently reinvested overseas earnings were $40.4 billion while its foreign cash holdings were $82.6 billion, as of Sept. 29, 2012.

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has asked some companies, including Google, to assert that they have enough liquidity in the U.S. to justify their contention that the offshore money will stay overseas indefinitely.

Google wrote in its annual filing that $31.4 billion, or 65.3 percent, of its liquid holdings were outside the U.S.

“Our current plans do not demonstrate a need to repatriate them to fund our U.S. operations,” the filing said.

Niki Fenwick, a spokeswoman for Google, declined to comment.

Twelve of the 83 companies in the analysis reduced their offshore holdings from the previous year’s level, including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) and General Motors Co. (GM)

Vegas Sands

Las Vegas Sands in 2012, according to its filing, repatriated $1.37 billion tax-free because it had enough foreign tax credits. The company said it would consider future foreign earnings not to be indefinitely reinvested, and its total accumulated earnings declined to $4.3 billion from $5.6 billion the year before.

Exxon Mobil’s holdings declined to $43 billion from $47 billion, in part because of a restructuring of its operations in Japan.

The U.S. operates what is known as a worldwide tax system, which means the country applies its 35 percent corporate tax rate to profits that U.S.-based companies earn around the world. Most other industrialized nations impose minimal taxes, if any, on their companies’ foreign earnings.

Tax Credits

U.S. companies receive foreign tax credits for payments to other countries, meaning that they can bring home previously taxed earnings with little residual tax owed to the U.S. They also can defer the U.S. tax until they bring the profits home.

“If you lowered the corporate tax rate, some of these problems, they don’t go away, but they’re reduced,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based group that promotes policies favoring technological innovation. The group’s board includes executives from Microsoft, Apple, Cisco and Intel Corp. (INTC)

In their annual regulatory filings, companies are required to report foreign profits that haven’t been repatriated and for which they haven’t provided for U.S. taxes.

The balances aren’t necessarily held in cash and may never realistically be subject to U.S. taxes, particularly if invested in physical assets in high-taxed foreign countries, said Susan Morse, a tax law professor at the University of California, Hastings.

“In many cases, it really is permanently reinvested and it’s not an earnings management game,” she said.

A 2011 report by Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, found that 46 percent of offshore assets held by a subset of 27 companies was invested in U.S. banks or assets, suggesting that it does flow to some extent through the U.S. economy.

Intangible Assets

The incentive to accumulate overseas profits in cash is acute for technology and pharmaceutical companies that generate income from intangible assets such as patents. They can sell the patents to their foreign subsidiaries and then shift them to low-tax jurisdictions and book the profits there.

“They’re using the law to their advantage, as all companies do,” Atkinson said. “And it’s easier to do that with intangible income.”

That pattern is evident from the filings of the minority of companies that disclose how much they would have to pay if they brought their offshore profits home.

Microsoft, for example, reported that it would owe $19.4 billion if it repatriated its $60.8 billion in offshore holdings. That 31.9 percent rate indicates that Microsoft has paid as little as 3.1 percent in foreign taxes, or somewhat more if the $19.4 billion includes state taxes and foreign withholding taxes.

‘Outdated’ System

In testimony before a Senate subcommittee last year, Bill Sample, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for worldwide tax, said the U.S. tax system is “outdated,” uncompetitive and provides disincentives for U.S. investment.

“Microsoft’s tax results follow from its business, which is fundamentally a global business that requires us to operate in foreign markets in order to compete and grow,” he said. “In conducting our business at home and abroad, we abide by U.S. and foreign tax laws as written.”

Citigroup reported that it would owe $11.5 billion if it repatriated its $42.6 billion, suggesting a foreign tax rate as low as 8 percent.

‘Know How’

“More companies know how to do it,” said Kleinbard, a former chief of staff of the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation who said international tax-avoidance techniques are spreading. “They’ve learned the technologies from the innovative leaders, the tax technology leaders.”

U.S. lawmakers are examining changes to international taxation as part of a tax-code rewrite that would have to address the built-up earnings in a transition to a new system.

Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, said last month that they saw room for an international system that would lower the U.S. tax rate, let companies bring home new profits mostly tax-free and limit companies’ ability to move profits out of the U.S.

That would mirror the proposals offered by Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and Representative Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Camp’s proposal would impose a 5.25 percent tax on the accumulated earnings, whether repatriated or not, payable over eight years.

That plan, released in 2011, will eventually be part of a tax code overhaul that Camp plans to push through his committee this year. Meanwhile, the offshore stockpiles keep expanding.

“It is definitely symptomatic,” Morse said, “of companies’ incentive to keep offshore profits offshore.”

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rogue49 · Mar 19, 2013

"There is no honor among thieves..."

Gerrymandering - This is something I don't approve of ANY side doing.
And it's been going on since the start.

But it seems that the GOP has made an art of it at this point in time.

I personally think THIS should be a constitutional amendment, where it is locked in stone. (in relative terms).
Set the terms for allocation, where no party can change it.

A certain grid set to area

Areas need to be contiguous from the center, no twisting or turning.

Representative areas are according to populations sums vs. the overall total for the state.

I'm sure I'm missing something, but it does need to change, especially since it affects how we vote...and who gets what.

Republicans Win Congress as Democrats Get Most Votes
By Greg Giroux - Mar 18, 2013

In the 1780s, Patrick Henry tried to shape Virginia’s House district lines to block James Madison from serving in the first U.S. Congress.

The grudge between the two men: Henry opposed the U.S. Constitution freshly written primarily by Madison. The gambit failed and Madison won his seat.

More than two centuries later, the politics of redistricting still are shaping Congress.

A majority of Americans disapprove of the Republicans in Congress, yet the odds remain in the party’s favor that it will retain control of the House. One big reason the Republicans have this edge: their district boundaries are drawn so carefully that the only votes that often matter come from fellow Republicans.

Graphic: 2010 Gains Give Republicans Redistricting EdgeThe 2010 elections, in which Republicans won the House majority and gained more than 700 state legislative seats across the nation, gave the party the upper-hand in the process of redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional seats. The advantage helped them design safer partisan districts and maintain their House majority in 2012 -- even as they lost the presidential race by about 5 million votes. Also nationwide, Democratic House candidates combined to win about 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

“The Republican-created maps in most states set up a sort of seawall,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “As the decade goes on, people do shift party allegiances and move in and out of town, and so the effects erode a little bit, but it’s still a seawall and it’s still keeping some of the flood of 2010 in,” Levitt said.

Thwarting Obama

The election results mean House Republicans will have the power to block or demand amendments to President Barack Obama’s agenda.

Part 1 of Series: Republicans Foil What Majority Wants by GerrymanderingPart 1 Graphic: Fewer Votes, More Seats for Michigan Republicans

That tension will be on display during the deficit reduction talks in coming months as Obama advocates a combination of spending cuts and new revenues. That position was favored by 67 percent of Americans in a CNN/Orc International poll conducted Nov. 16, two weeks after voters re-elected Obama. Republican House members last week unveiled a budget that would eliminate the deficit in 10 years by cutting $4.6 trillion and using no new tax revenue.

It’s a predicament presidents previously have faced. Before Obama, five of the last six elected presidents --Democrats and Republicans -- had a House controlled by the opposition party at some point during their tenure. President Jimmy Carter was the one who didn’t.

Rare Outcome

Still, it’s rare for one party to win more House seats while securing fewer votes than the other party. The last time it happened before 2012 was in 1996, when Democrats won the nationwide House vote by 43.6 million to 43.4 million as Republicans held their majority and Bill Clinton was re-elected president, according to the U.S. House Clerk’s office.

Redistricting is intended to ensure House members represent roughly equal size populations. Yet from the first Congress, party leaders began exploiting the map-making exercise by weakening the voting strength of some groups to gain partisan advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering.

Democrats aren’t immune from engaging in the political bloodsport of redistricting. With control of the process in Illinois, Democratic lawmakers from Obama’s home state approved a map on Memorial Day weekend in 2011 that led to the defeat of five Republicans in the 2012 elections.

State Legislatures

In most cases, state legislatures are charged with overseeing the redistricting process, which is done to reflect demographic shifts recorded in the census. The 435 U.S. House districts boundaries are adjusted based on population migration during the past decade.

Republican-controlled statehouses dominated redistricting that occurred after 2010 through a combination of planning and good fortune.

The party began preparing two years in advance of the 2010 elections by concentrating on candidate recruitment and fundraising. The Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on state legislative races, called its effort the Redistricting Majority Project, or REDMAP.

In the 2010 campaign, the Republican Governors Association outspent the Democratic Governors Association, $132 million to $65 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group that tracks campaign giving. The Republican State Leadership Committee outspent the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, $21 million to $5 million.

Wave Election

Democrats also faced a political environment that had swung sharply Republican, partly due to a wave of public discontent over passage of Obama’s health-care law.

The same Republican surge that helped the party net more than 60 seats in the U.S. House -- the biggest gains by any party in 62 years -- swept in governors and state legislators.

“2010 was a really difficult year for there to be a Republican wave election,” said Michael Sargeant, the DLCC’s executive director.

The spending and timing paid off for the Republicans, as they won control of 57 legislative chambers, up from 36 before the 2010 elections, and increased their governorships to 29 from 23, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In the wake of the 2012 elections, Republicans control 56 state legislative chambers and 30 governorships.

Impact Election

“You can spend hundreds of millions of dollars fighting over a couple dozen congressional districts over 10 years, or you can spend significantly less and impact the shape of those congressional elections over 10 years via state legislative elections,” said Chris Jankowski, the president of the Washington-based RSLC, referring to the Republican strategy heading into the 2010 vote. “It was a cost-effective analysis that truly bore out in reality.”

Once in office, technology made it easier for line-drawers to consolidate and further their partisan goals.

Map-making software is cheaper, more powerful and widely available, compared to a decade ago. State lawmakers can build databases with detailed voter registration figures, election results and population data to project campaign outcomes and demographic trends.

It may also be easier to predict voter preferences. Party- line voting is increasing: fewer than 30 districts backed the presidential candidate of one party and a House candidate of the opposite party in 2012, the lowest total in at least 90 years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Map-Makers Gold

“If you’re a map-maker drawing lines, that’s just gold for you, because you can very reliably use partisan voting patterns in one election to predict what it might be in another, or much more so than you could before,” said Rob Richie, the executive director of FairVote, a Takoma Park, Maryland-based nonprofit that wants to change the redistricting process to reduce partisanship in Washington.

The 2012 results show how Republicans gerrymandered congressional lines to produce favorable outcomes even in states that lean Democratic.

In Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the clustering of Democrats in metropolitan areas made it easy for Republican line-drawers to pack them into a few districts while giving their own party more modest -- yet consistent -- advantages in the remaining ones.

North Carolina

In Pennsylvania, where Democratic votes are concentrated in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Republicans won 13 of 18 House seats while losing the statewide congressional vote, 2.8 million to 2.7 million. In North Carolina, Republicans drew three districts to be overwhelmingly Democratic and won nine of the other ten, even as House Democratic candidates won the statewide vote, 2.2 million to 2.1 million.

While drawing federal districts to their advantage, Republicans also created favorable state House maps to make it harder for Democrats to wrest control of the redistricting process in 2020. In Michigan, Republican candidates won most of the 110 state House seats despite winning 350,000 fewer votes than Democrats, said Sargeant.

“Clearly, the Republican gerrymander had a lot to do with it,” he said.

Politics and redistricting have been intertwined since the nation’s earliest days, as shown by the Henry-Madison feud outlined in a 2010 report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

‘Gerrymandering’ Origins

The practice of drawing party-friendly districts was given its common nickname -- gerrymandering -- in 1812. That’s when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that redrew state senate districts unfavorable to his rivals, the Federalists. The shape of one district was said to resemble a salamander.

One of the most notable partisan battles over redistricting occurred in Texas in 2003, when Tom DeLay, then the U.S. House majority leader, engineered a rare mid-decade remap that so angered Democratic state legislators that most of them fled to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to prevent a quorum needed to pass the plan.

The House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his role in using the Federal Aviation Administration to obtain information on the whereabouts of absent Texas legislators. The rebuke one month before the 2004 election didn’t stop Republicans from gaining five House seats in Texas, offsetting a two-seat loss outside of the state and helping the party hold its chamber majority.

Democratic Gains

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated part of the Texas map in 2006 and a federal court redrew it before that year’s midterm elections. Democrats then won two Texas seats from Republicans - - including the one DeLay had resigned from in mid-2006 -- and 30 nationwide to take control of the House.

While redistricting usually is a once-per-decade exercise, the Texas fight shows that brawls can surface at unexpected times.

In January, Republicans in the evenly divided Virginia Senate shoved through a new map on a party-line vote when a Democrat was absent to attend Obama’s inauguration. The map was blocked by the Republican House speaker on a procedural point.

“Virginia pointed out once again that the players who are involved in the process will try to game the system however they can, be they Republicans or Democrats,” said Kim Brace, the president of Election Data Services Inc., a political consulting firm in Manassas, Virginia.

®2013 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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redux · Mar 24, 2013

Tea Party types boycotted Fox News this weekend for being "too liberal"

The boycotters want Fox to air "at least one segment on Benghazi every night on two of its prime-time shows" and devote resources to investigating Obama's birth certificate, according to the Daily Beast. They hope that all this will lead to Obama's impeachment.

Charlatan · Mar 24, 2013

redux said: ↑

Tea Party types boycotted Fox News this weekend for being "too liberal"

The boycotters want Fox to air "at least one segment on Benghazi every night on two of its prime-time shows" and devote resources to investigating Obama's birth certificate, according to the Daily Beast. They hope that all this will lead to Obama's impeachment.
Click to expand...

Now *that* is some new level of crazy.

Seriously, how did this level of crazy make it into the national discourse? This kind of marginal voice should be just that, marginal.

I blame Fox News and talking heads like Glen Beck. That said, I get the feeling that someone at Fox news is getting a wiff of the crazy they have unleashed. They don't like the smell and are trying to clean off some of the nastier pong. Getting rid of Beck was the start. Some of the musings of Rupert Murdoch of late is making me think there will be a further shift. I don't think they realize that that kind of stink doesn't wash off.

rogue49 · Mar 25, 2013

Charlatan said: ↑

Now *that* is some new level of crazy.

Seriously, how did this level of crazy make it into the national discourse? This kind of marginal voice should be just that, marginal.
Click to expand...

There's always been this level of crazy...it's just that the media didn't allow it or didn't report on it.

With the 24/7, god knows how many channels and internet to boot...to cover, those that feel "inspired" to shout the most and the loudest are getting coverage.
Of course this is true for everything...I can remember when we wouldn't know anything about what goes on in Russia, China or Africa...and so on.

While Fox News was initially an instigator as part of their business model...I think they are pulling back to more truly "fair & balanced".
There's not as much money in ultra-right anymore...there's more trending up on satisfying the facts and the majority.
The voting trends and numbers prove this.
You'll probably see Fox & Friends changing soon too. (O'Reilly can convert, he can play both sides, as long as it's about him)

Problem is, we've got to cleanup the mess after the out-of-control party...and it takes some time to do it.
1. Realize this is not you wanted
2. Kick out the idiots & assholes.
3. Turn off the music, shut down the beer.
4. Start picking up the bulk items
5. Vacuum, wipe down, clean the dishes, etc...
6. Start fixing and replacing the broken items. (a costly and time-consuming thing...)

Friggin' looks like the result after the party of Sixteen Candles and otherwise.

My question truly is, how long is it going to be before SCOTUS changes.
Roberts already seems to be reasonable, Kennedy can switch back to middle of the road.
Probably going to have to cover for Ginsberg sooner or later...I'm not even worried about Scalia or Alito,
but can someone please get that pathetic Clarence Thomas out of there, his conflict of interest from his wife, and lack of participation are abysmal.

rogue49 · May 7, 2013

Congress and the federal government...bought & paid for.

I wonder if the public will finally start asking for accounting when they finally get out of the doldrums?

Intel for investors: What’s going on behind closed doors in Washington
By Jerry Markon and Jia Lynn Yang, Published: May 2

The Washington-based firm Height Securities is a small player in a burgeoning financial field where companies seek to acquire valuable information about even the most minor of federal actions and provide it to investors.

Yet a stock brokerage with only $7 million in reported annual revenue, a pittance by Wall Street standards, was apparently able to provoke a major surge in market trading. After Height Securities alerted clients to a pending government decision favoring health-care insurers, trading spiked in the shares of major health-care firms. With a federal investigation underway into these events, the activities have gained public attention.

But largely out of public view, the “political intelligence” industry has doubled in size over the past decade, by some estimates. What was once primarily a side business for law firms and lobby shops has grown so lucrative that it has spawned dozens of stand-alone firms that cater to hedge funds and other powerful corporate clients.

That has drawn escalating concern from the Obama administration and Congress. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department are probing the trading activity spawned by Height’s April 1 alert to its clients, according to people familiar with the matter, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) is investigating the political intelligence field and preparing legislation requiring greater disclosure of firms’ activities.

In a letter seeking information about the events surrounding the surge in trading of major health-care firms, Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y) said, “Congress and the public deserve to know who is conducting political intelligence activities, what those activities are and the extent to which lobbying firms . . . participate.”

Political intelligence is “extremely pervasive,” said Mike Mayhew, chairman and director of research at Integrity Research Associates, which tracks the industry. “To name all of the lobby firms and the law firms that are doing this is very difficult because, first of all, it’s not clear they’ll admit to it. . . . They don’t advertise it on their Web sites.”

As the hedge fund industry has grown, the demand for valuable information from Washington has become more intense and smaller boutique firms have sprouted up. Major legislation such as the health-care overhaul and the Dodd-Frank revamp of financial regulations have also driven demand higher.

The appetite for this information — and the willingness to pay handsomely for it — is based on the realization among traders that decisions in Washington move markets and can shape entire industries for years. Understanding how Washington works has become so important for investors that it is hard for hedge funds and banks to do their research without stumbling upon some political angle.

The definition of “political intelligence” can be so murky that people in Washington disagree over what it is, exactly. Many longtime observers view it as any activity in which information is collected from Washington insiders and then used for investing purposes.

This could be as specific as a firm learning that regulators want to approve a blockbuster drug and then telling its hedge fund clients. Or it could be something broader: a research analyst releasing a report for clients explaining the country’s health-care overhaul — and how it might affect the performance of certain stocks.

Mayhew said lobbying firms and law firms tend to pass along the information to clients in raw form and without much added analysis. Other firms, such as Height Securities and JNK Securities, are registered brokerages that offer added analysis for their clients, much as Goldman Sachs or another big bank would do.

Then there are firms that are not brokers or traders but focus on selling research to investor clients. These firms include Cypress Advisory and the Washington Research Group, which is part of Guggenheim Securities.

Height, located a block from the White House, was founded in 2009 and provides research, investment banking and other services to institutional investors and corporations, according to financial records. The company’s Web site says it believes in a “research first” approach. The company seeks to gain an intimate knowledge of what is going on in Washington.

Height’s SEC filings show that the firm, along with an affiliated company called Height Analytics, is principally owned by managing partners Andrew Parmentier and John Akridge IV, who used to work at FBR, an Arlington County-based investment bank.

Officials at Height did not return phone calls or e-mails Thursday.

Height reported 2012 revenue of $7 million, with $1.4 million in assets and $461,000 in liabilities, records show. While the majority of its several dozen employees have banking and asset management experience, the firm has employed former CIA agents and even a former professional lacrosse player, according to company information found on the Web site LinkedIn.

Although the firm, which also has a New York office, is small, it has sought to exercise political muscle. Parmentier and Akridge have made nearly $100,000 in political contributions since 2009, spread among numerous Republicans but also the Democratic National Committee, election finance records show.

The SEC investigation centers on activities on April 1. Height alerted its clients that the government would soon make a decision favoring private health insurers who participate in a Medicare program. Coming only 18 minutes before the trading day ended, the alert sparked a surge in trading in the shares of several major health-care firms, including Humana and Aetna. Height was proved right; the government decision to increase funding for the Medicare Advantage program, run by private insurers, was announced after trading ended.

The SEC has subpoenaed a Height Securities analyst, Justin Simon; Mark Hayes, a health-care lobbyist who advised the firm on legislative issues; and Hayes’s law firm, Greenberg Traurig, people familiar with the probe have said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is not public.

Greenberg Traurig also employed D.C. super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was convicted in a wide-ranging corruption scheme that ensnared lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials.

SEC investigators interviewed Hayes for four hours in a meeting attended by the FBI, the people said. Height has not received an SEC subpoena, they said. All the parties involved have denied wrongdoing.

Employees at publicly traded companies have long been subject to strict insider-trading laws. The Stock Act, passed by Congress in April 2012, makes explicit that these laws also apply to members of Congress, their staffs and other federal officials. It also adds that there is a “duty of confidentiality and trust” that all of these employees have with information that is not public and that is “material,” meaning it could affect the price of a security.

This law, in theory, should transform how valuable information is exchanged in Washington, a place practically built on people constantly trying to figure out what happened in the latest closed-door meeting.

Yet Mayhew said that not much has changed. “That’s already the law, and no one’s talking about it,” he said. “They’re acting as if the Stock Act never passed.”

© The Washington Post Company
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