TRUMP'S 2018 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH - 9pm EST (LIVE VIDEO); MILESTONES FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

TRUMP'S 2018 STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH - 9pm EST:

EXPECTED TOPICS -

MILESTONES FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

HOW TO UNIFY OUR NATION

MORE TRAINING FOR U.S. TROOPS

UPDATES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM

GOP TAX PLAN

MORE FUNDING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

WALL STREET & THE STOCK MARKET

AFFORDABLE EDUCATION & HEALTH CARE

SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA & RUSSIA

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE

ETC.,


Sources: NY Times, Youtube


******* State of the Union: Trump to Declare a ‘New American Moment’


• President Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, and The New York Times will be streaming it live on our website and on our app. Follow our coverage for the latest updates and analysis.

• The White House has released excerpts from the speech.

• The president will arrive at the Capitol amid remarkable tumult: Anger that he has declined to impose sanctions on Russia and worry over a Republican memo on the origins of the Russia investigation.

White House releases excerpts — “the New American Moment.”
The White House released excerpts from the State of the Union address, a tradition that gives the president a few hours’ head start to highlight what he wants the audience to focus on.

Here are a few, as prepared for delivery:

“We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day’s work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.”

“Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker.”

“This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.”

“For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.”

“In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.”

“America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nation’s wealth.”

“America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year — isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?”

“I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.”

“Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.”

“As we rebuild America’s strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.”

“Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.”

Sonny Perdue, agriculture secretary, designated survivor.
Yeah, there’s the first lady’s clothes or which big wig will fall asleep this year. But the State of the Union proceedings also have this bit of intrigue: Which cabinet official will earn the distinction of designated survivor?

The mystery this time was solved two hours before Mr. Trump was due to give his address on Tuesday, when the White House said that the honor would go to Mr. Perdue, the former governor of Georgia and the president’s agriculture secretary.

Glamorous in title but, thankfully, not so far in practice, the designated survivor does not attend the president’s address, and is poised to take over the commander-in-chief’s responsibilities in the event that catastrophe strikes the Capitol and wipes out most of the government. If tradition holds, Mr. Perdue will be watching from a distant and secure location while Mr. Trump speaks.

The short tenure of the designated survivor has an oversize presence in the public imagination: There is a TV series by the same title, about a low-profile cabinet member who suddenly assumes the presidency after a terror attack.

How might he measure up in the Oval Office? Mr. Perdue, a conservative Republican, shares something in common with Mr. Trump: As governor of Georgia, he faced ethical criticisms for not appearing to fully separate himself from his business interests. He once ran a grain and fertilizer business.

— Katie Rogers

“You’ve gotta have heart.”
Hours before his first State of the Union address, President Trump told a group of news anchors at a lunch in the White House that his first year in office has taught him that the biggest difference between excelling in business and performing his current job is that governing takes compassion.

“I’ve really learned a lot,” Mr. Trump told the reporters, according to a partial transcript of an off-the-record lunch released publicly by the White House. “In doing what I’m doing now, a lot of it is heart, a lot of it is compassion, a lot of it is far beyond money — such as immigration.”

Mr. Trump, who is expected to use Tuesday night’s speech to call for a bipartisan compromise that pairs legal status for a group of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children with funding for a border wall, tougher enforcement and new restrictions on legal immigration, recently said he was hoping to sign a “bill of love.”

That tone is sharply at odds with the president’s approach on immigration thus far, which has included a travel ban against visitors from six countries, slashing refugee resettlement and revoking temporary protected status for people from El Salvador and Haiti. He has been more publicly conflicted about his decision last fall to rescind DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that has given legal status to certain people brought illegally to the United States as children.

“I’m telling you, the immigration is so easy to solve if it was purely a business matter, but it’s not,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think that’s something that I’ve learned maybe more than anything else: You have to — you govern with all of the instincts of a businessperson, but you have to add much more heart and soul into your decisions than you would ever have even thought of before.”

Dreamers head to the Capitol — despite the risk.
Democratic lawmakers have decided to put a face on the difficult negotiations happening in Congress over the fate of young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children. They are bringing scores of such “Dreamers” to the Capitol for Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Representative Nancy Pelosi’s guest, Melody Klingenfuss, is just one of them. Born in Guatemala, she was brought to Los Angeles when she was 9, earned a degree in communications and political science from California State University, Los Angeles, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, then won protection under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2015.

“Tonight, when President Trump looks into the gallery during his State of the Union, he will see the dignity, courage and patriotism of dozens of Dreamers,” said Ms. Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

But there is a flip side. Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, has called the cops.

So much for the warm welcome.

Mr. Gosar’s fellow Arizona Republican, Senator Jeff Flake, didn’t take kindly to his colleague’s citizen’s arrest.

Are we facing a “Constitutional crisis”?
The Trump administration’s announcement on Monday that it would not impose sanctions on countries that buy Russian military equipment sparked an angry response in Congress, where the Senate and House overwhelmingly approved the sanctions to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri who faces a difficult re-election campaign this year, set the tone with a blast on Twitter.

That concern is bipartisan, at least in some quarters of the Republican Party. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, was flummoxed by the administration’s decision:

“That bill passed with only two dissenting votes in the Senate. It was not partisan in the least,” she said on CNN. “The one thing we know for sure already is the Russians did attempt to meddle in our elections, and not only should there be a price to pay in terms of sanctions, but also we need to put safeguards in place right now for the elections for this year, because we know that the Russians have not given up on their disinformation campaign and their attempt to sow discord in this country and also to undermine faith in democratic institutions.”

Testifying before a Senate panel on Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said his department had followed instructions under the sanctions law and drawn up a list of Russian targets for sanctions. An imposition of sanctions could still follow.

Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and one of the authors of the sanctions legislation, declined to criticize the administration’s actions. He did say, “I look forward” to the implementation of the sanctions.

Speaker Ryan weighs in on Russia memo.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin spent part of the morning before Mr. Trump’s speech tamping down expectations about a secretive Republican memo that some House members have claimed contains evidence that could undercut the Russia investigation.

In a closed-door meeting of House Republicans this morning, Mr. Ryan “implored” his fellow lawmakers not to overstate the facts of the memo, which the House Intelligence Committee voted to release Monday night. And he urged them not to tie the contentious document — which Democrats call dangerously misleading — to the work of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to a person in the room.

Mr. Ryan reiterated some of those points during a public news conference an hour later, saying that he had faith in the F.B.I. and Justice Department’s broadly and that he thought Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, the man overseeing the Russia investigation, was “doing a fine job.” Still, Mr. Ryan defended the Republicans’ overall approach, saying that they were following proper processes and that only transparency would lead to accountability at the agencies.

That was not enough to quiet the most ardent proponents of the notion that federal law enforcement agents have conspired to bring down the Trump White House. Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, called on the president to release the memo during the State of the Union.

SANDERS GRABS KANSAS & NEBRASKA; HILLARY TAKES LOUISIANA

SANDERS GRABS KANSAS & NEBRASKA; HILLARY TAKES LOUISIANA:

A VOTE FOR SANDERS IS A VOTE FOR HILLARY.

SANDERS IS HILLARY'S 2016 DEBATE COACH.

Sources:  AP, ABC News, BBC, CNN, YouTube

**** Sanders Wins Kansas, Nebraska; Clinton Takes Louisiana

Democratic voters in three states went to the polls on Saturday in the Democratic nominating contest, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won Kansas and Nebraska while frontrunner Hillary Clinton took Louisiana.

Here are the results:

Kansas (caucuses)

Bernie Sanders has won the Kansas Democratic caucuses.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders won 68 percent of the vote compared to 32 percent for Clinton. Delegates are allocated proportionally and there is a 15% threshold so both candidates will get delegates.

"The biggest states are yet to come. New York State, California, Oregon, Washington State. States that we think we can do very well in. Every state is important," Sanders said at a campaign event in Michigan on Saturday night. "Michigan is important. We’re going to win some, we’re going to lose some. But, I think basically that we have a path towards victory. I’m very proud, not only that we seem to be winning these states, but winning them with pretty big numbers.”

Nebraska (caucuses)

ABC News projects Bernie Sanders will win the Nebraska Democratic caucuses, based on analysis of the vote.

Louisiana (primary)

With 100 percent of the precincts reporting in, Hillary Clinton has won Louisiana Democratic primary.

Speaking Saturday night in Detroit, Michigan, Clinton congratulated Sanders for “running a strong campaign.”

“I am thrilled we are adding to our pledged delegate count. I am grateful to everyone who turned out to support us,” she said. “But now all eyes turn to Michigan. And I can tell you this we’re going to work for every vote.”

Clinton also criticized Republicans and said our politics has been “hijacked” by “extreme ideologues all across the country.”

Hillary Clinton: 71%

Bernie Sanders: 23%

BERNIE SANDERS WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE: (SORRY HILLARY)

BERNIE SANDERS WINS NEW HAMPSHIRE DEBATE: (SORRY HILLARY)

HILLARY WENT AFTER DONALD TRUMP.

MARTIN O'MALLEY DID MUCH BETTER THAN I EXPECTED.

~ The Best Lines From the Democratic Debate

There may only have been three candidates, but there was no shortage of unforgettable exchanges in Saturday night's debate. Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley took to the stage in the Democratic debate tonight, hosted by ABC News.

These are some of the most memorable moments from the showdown in New Hampshire:

*** "Yes, I apologize."

In response to his campaign's breach of Clinton's voter data, Sanders apologized to Clinton. "Not only do I apologize to Secretary Clinton, and I hope we can work together on an independent investigation from day one, I want to apologize to my supporters. This is not the type of campaign that we run."

"That is an egregious act," he added. "We should move on because I don't think the American people are all that interested in this."

*** "I think they're more interested in what we have to say about all the big issues facing us."

Just as Sanders believed people were "sick and tired" of hearing about Clinton's emails, Clinton herself called for an end to discussing the Sanders data breach.

*** "Guns in and of themselves in my opinion will not make Americans safer. We lose 33,000 people a year already to gun violence. Arming more people to do what I think is not the appropriate response to terrorism."

Clinton voiced her opposition to calls for broader gun rights in the wake of recent attacks, instead calling for greater coalition building.

*** “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's calm down a little bit, Martin."

Sanders said that in response to O'Malley, who called out his two opponents on their gun control records. His comments were met by incredulous reactions from both Clinton and Sanders.

“Senator Sanders voted against the Brady bill. Senator Sanders voted to give immunity to gun dealers," O'Malley said.

"And Senator Sanders voted against even research dollars to look into this public health issue," he said.

"Secretary Clinton changes her position on this every election year, it seems, having one position in 2000 and then campaigning against President Obama and saying we don't need federal standards.

Clinton responded by saying, “Let's tell the truth, Martin.”

*** “He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter.”

Clinton condemned Donald Trump’s inflammatory statements and policy proposals on Muslims. “They are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists,” she said.

*** "I know Secretary Clinton was gleeful when Gaddafi was torn apart."

O'Malley criticized Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.

*** "The United States is not the policeman of the world."

Responding to Clinton's call for American leadership, Sanders criticized America's intervention in the Middle East. He said the U.S. "must not be involved in perpetual warfare" in the region.

*** “Sorry.”

Clinton apologized for taking the stage mid-question after returning late from the commercial break.

*** "Everybody should!"

When asked if corporate America should love her, Clinton responded with this zinger.

*** "They ain't going to like me. And Wall Street is going to like me even less."

Sanders, unlike Clinton, said that corporate America would not like him at all.

*** "I have demonstrated the ability to have the backbone to take on Wall Street in ways that Secretary Clinton never, ever has."

O'Malley sharply criticized Clinton for her alleged "cozy relationship" with Wall Street. His critique was echoed by Sanders.

*** "I've got the scars to show from the effort back in the early '90s."

Clinton alluded to her past fight for health care in defense of the "glitches" in the Affordable Care Act.

*** "And in our party, unlike the Republican party, we actually believe that the more our people learn, the more they will earn."

O'Malley criticized Republicans for their education policies.

*** "Now this is getting to be fun."

Sanders seemed to enjoy the back and forth between Clinton and moderator David Muir.

*** "I think this is one of the most important challenges facing not just our next president but our country."When asked about the state of race in America, Clinton spoke of the need to address and fix "systemic racism and injustice and inequities."

*** "We need to do it now as a nation. This is our time and our opportunity to do that."

O'Malley called for an end to excessive lethal force by police officers.

*** "We need to understand that addiction is a disease, not a criminal activity."

Sanders advocated for a massive shift in the way addiction and drug use are dealt with in America.

"When somebody is addicted and seeking help, they should not have to wait three, four months in order to get that help," he said.

Sources: ABC News, USA Today, YouTube

JANET YELLEN Confirmed By Congress As First Female Federal Reserve Chair! Congrats!!

#JanetYELLEN

JANET YELLEN has been Confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the First FEMALE Federal Reserve Chair. CONGRATS!





ARTICLE: "Janet Yellen Will Be A Fed Chair For The Real, Every-Day Economy"


Janet Yellen, vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, was confirmed Monday by the Senate to succeed chairman Ben Bernanke as the next head of America’s central bank. Her term, which begins February 1st, will mark an important shift in the direction of the bank’s policy efforts, as it begins to “taper” back the last five years of unconventional monetary policy, which have resulted in the Fed pouring some $3.8 trillion into the U.S. economy following the financial crisis.

While Yellen’s appointment marks continuity with the Bernanke era, and with the Fed’s policy of “quantitative easing” of which she was one of the chief architects, it also heralds a number of firsts. Yellen is the first woman to head the central bank, but even more important, she’s also its first openly reform-minded, Keynesian-oriented leader. A stellar academic economist and 36-year Fed veteran with a particular focus on the human impact of unemployment, Yellen has said on many occasions that the last five years of crisis, joblessness and slower growth, “aren’t just statistics to me.”

While former Fed colleagues like Donald Kohn, Alan Blinder, and Larry Meyer cite her as among the most data-driven and analytical economists around, she’s also someone who’s more interested in clear, well articulated ideas with real world impact than creating the cleverest mathematical models. That commitment was partly inspired by her Yale mentor, the legendary liberal economist James Tobin, who argued that the first priority of economics was to improve the lives of real people.

You can bet that Yellen will be keeping that in mind as she slowly and carefully continues the paring back of quantitative easing that began in December. The challenge will be to keep both the markets and the economy steady as the central bank exits from the largest bout of unconventional monetary policy in history. While the Fed’s dual mandate of keeping inflation and unemployment low will be her first task, there’s currently no conflict there, since inflation is running far below the 2 % target that Yellen herself crafted, meaning that tapering doesn’t need to be rushed. She’ll also have her eye on banking reform. Blinder, who was the Fed vice chair back in the 1990s when Yellen was a governor, remembers speaking with her “many times about how the Fed was being too lax on regulation.” And since then he adds, “things have only gotten worse.”

To do all that, she’ll need to build consensus among a group of Federal Reserve governors who are increasingly independent. Fortunately, says Kohn, who worked with her as a Fed staffer in the mid 1990s, “Janet brings a CEO-type skill set to this job.” He and many others say she’s a “listener and a questioner” who likes to surround herself with the smartest people possible, hear out their arguments, challenge them on any weaknesses, then take her own decisions.

It’s a managerial strategy that seems to have worked, as Yellen has the best track record on policy predictions of any Fed leader since 2009. While she’s often characterized as the “nicest” big name economist around, no one should mistake that for a lack of spine. “She can get at the strengths and weaknesses of someone’s arguments so quickly,” says Berkeley professor and Haas School of Business colleague James Wilcox, “but so politely. She’s got that iron fist in a velvet glove quality.” It’s a quality that will likely serve her well as she steers the most important institute in America today towards a new era of monetary policy.


Sources: Bloomberg News, TIME, UCBerkley, Youtube

Corporations Legally Allowed To Purchase The 2012 Election; Citizens United

Groups Shield Political Gifts of Businesses

American Electric Power, one of the country’s largest utilities, gave $1 million last November to the Founding Fund, a new tax-exempt group that intends to raise most of its money from corporations and push for limited government.

The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill — even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.

Other corporations, including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical and the drugmaker Merck, have poured millions of dollars more into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade group that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.

The review found that corporate donations — many of them previously unreported — went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions.

“Companies want to be able to quietly push for their political agendas without being held accountable for it by their customers,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed complaints against issue groups. “I think the 501(c)(4)’s are likely to outweigh super PAC spending, because so many donors want to remain anonymous.”

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin, according to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.

“These groups are being used as a conduit to hide from voters the identity of people and corporations who are bankrolling these television ads, which are designed to influence the outcome of elections,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

But Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for Crossroads, said, “Individuals and organizations have a First Amendment right to promote their beliefs through advertising, be that advertising against the Iraq war, against climate change or, in the case of Crossroads, advocating for free markets and limited government.”

Labor unions — themselves among the beneficiaries of Citizens United — have also donated millions of dollars to national super PACs and state-level nonprofit groups involved in battles over government spending, collective bargaining and health care.

Donations from corporations and unions alike must be disclosed if they go to expressly political groups like super PACs.

In April, for example, the air traffic controllers’ union contributed $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC. But other contributions are harder to trace. Last year, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gave $100,000 to Advancing Wisconsin, a tax-exempt group that supported labor’s fight with Republicans in that state; the donation was reported nowhere in Wisconsin, but it emerged in an annual financial report that unions must file with the federal Department of Labor.

Among the largest beneficiaries of corporate donations in recent years have been trade organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which largely backs Republican candidates. As a nonprofit “business league” under the tax code, the chamber does not have to disclose its supporters, who helped finance its $33 million in political ads in the 2010 midterm elections.

But voluntary disclosures by corporations — usually at the prodding of shareholder advocacy groups — shed some light on the use of trade groups for lobbying or as pass-throughs for political spending. A search of voluntary disclosures, some collected by the Center for Political Accountability, which advocates for transparency in corporate political spending, found more than $6 million in chamber donations by 10 companies last year.

Two of the largest came from Prudential Financial and Dow Chemical, which each gave $1.6 million, while Chevron, MetLife and Merck each gave at least $500,000. Some of the donations were directed to the chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which lobbies for limits on liability suits.

Some contributions are disclosed by accident. Aetna’s check to the American Action Network, along with a $4.5 million contribution last year to the chamber, was mistakenly included in a filing with insurance regulators. The disclosure was first reported by SNL Financial, a trade publication. Even where companies pledge voluntary disclosure of political contributions, they often make an exception for donations to tax-exempt groups.

In 2007, Aetna signed an agreement with the Mercy Investment Program, a shareholders group, to disclose trade associations to which it made large contributions. On regulatory filings, the company initially described its $3 million contribution to the Chamber of Commerce as a lobbying expense, but the company now says it was intended to finance “educational activities.”

An Aetna spokesman would not say whether the chamber donation would appear on the company’s 2011 voluntary disclosure. Sister Valerie Heinonen, the director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, said that a failure to do so would violate the company’s pledge.

Beyond the contributions to large, established nonprofits like the chamber and American Action Network, corporate money is also quietly shaping the political discourse through more obscure groups, none of which are required to disclose their donors.

In Minnesota last year, Express Scripts, a major drug benefit manager, gave $10,000 to a Republican-linked group, Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting, involved in a partisan fight over redrawing legislative boundaries.

Express Scripts made the donation, previously unreported, because the “electoral maps in Minnesota were in doubt and we supported efforts to bring certainty to Minnesota voters,” said Brian Henry, a spokesman for the company, which is based in St. Louis. He added that the firm has a facility in Bloomington, Minn.

The reasons behind American Electric Power’s $1 million contribution to the little-known Founding Fund are less clear. The company characterized it as “lobbying” in a corporate governance disclosure last year, but the fund says it does no lobbying. The fund, whose address is a mail drop in Alexandria, Va., would not make any of its directors available for an interview.

The fund’s treasurer, Frank Sadler, is a lobbyist who previously worked for Koch Industries advising nonprofit groups that support free market causes, although he said the Kochs, major Republican donors, were not involved in the group.

In its public filings, the fund said it expected to raise about $10 million this election cycle, primarily from corporations, and use it to promote free markets and “the narrowing of the scope and reach of the federal government.”

A spokesman for American Electric Power, Pat D. Hemlepp, said the company supports organizations “with positions on issues that align with AEP’s positions” and strives to be transparent on political giving. “We also respect the positions of others, including some of the organizations that receive funding from AEP, to not publicly disclose funding or activities.

That’s their right under the law.”


Sources: Aljazeera, NY Times, TPM, Youtube

Mitt Romney & Bain's Link To ABORTION: Stericycle (Disposing Dead Fetuses) OMG!

Mitt Romney Invested in a Company that Disposed of Aborted Fetuses?
Wait a Minute!
I thought Romney was a "Man Of God"!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics.

Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.

But Bain Capital, the private equity firm Romney founded, tamped down the controversy.

The company said Romney left the firm in February 1999 to run the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and likely had nothing to with the deal. The matter never became a campaign issue.

But documents filed by Bain and Stericycle with the Securities and Exchange Commission—and obtained by Mother Jones—list Romney as an active participant in the investment.

And this deal helped Stericycle, a company with a poor safety record, grow, while yielding tens of millions of dollars in profits for Romney and his partners.

The documents—one of which was signed by Romney—also contradict the official account of Romney's exit from Bain.

The Stericycle deal—the abortion connection aside—is relevant because of questions regarding the timing of Romney's departure from the private equity firm he founded.

Responding to a recent Washington Post story reporting that Bain-acquired companies outsourced jobs, the Romney campaign insisted that Romney exited Bain in February 1999, a month or more before Bain took over two of the companies named in the Post's article.

The SEC documents undercut that defense, indicating that Romney still played a role in Bain investments until at least the end of 1999.

Here's what happened with Stericycle.

In November 1999, Bain Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, a Chicago-based private equity firm, filed with the SEC a Schedule 13D, which lists owners of publicly traded companies, noting that they had jointly purchased $75 million worth of shares in Stericycle, a fast-growing player in the medical-waste industry.

(That April, Stericycle had announced plans to buy the medical-waste businesses of Browning Ferris Industries and Allied Waste Industries.)

The SEC filing lists assorted Bain-related entities that were part of the deal, including Bain Capital (BCI), Bain Capital Partners VI (BCP VI), Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors (a Bermuda-based Bain affiliate), and Brookside Capital Investors (a Bain offshoot).

And it notes that Romney was the "sole shareholder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of BCI, BCP VI Inc., Brookside Inc. and Sankaty Ltd."

The document also states that Romney "may be deemed to share voting and dispositive power with respect to" 2,116,588 shares of common stock in Stericycle "in his capacity as sole shareholder" of the Bain entities that invested in the company.

That was about 11 percent of the outstanding shares of common stock. (The whole $75 million investment won Bain, Romney, and their partners 22.64 percent of the firm's stock—the largest bloc among the firm's owners.)

The original copy of the filing was signed by Romney.

Another SEC document filed November 30, 1999, by Stericycle also names Romney as an individual who holds "voting and dispositive power" with respect to the stock owned by Bain.

If Romney had fully retired from the private equity firm he founded, why would he be the only Bain executive named as the person in control of this large amount of Stericycle stock?


Stericycle was a lucrative investment for Romney and Bain.

The company had entered the medical-waste business a decade earlier, when it took over a food irradiation plant in Arkansas and began zapping medical waste, rather than strawberries, with radiation.

The company subsequently replaced irradiation with a technology that used low-frequency radio waves to sterilize medical waste—gowns, masks, gloves, and other medical equipment—before it was transported to an incinerator.

By mid-1997, Stericycle was the second-largest medical-waste disposal business in the nation. Two years later, it was the largest.

With 240,000 customers, its operations spanned the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Fortune ranked it No. 10 on its list of the 100 fastest growing companies in the nation.

But the company had its woes, accumulating a troubling safety record along the way. In 1991, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited its Arkansas operation for 11 workplace safety violations.

The facility had not provided employees with sufficient protective gear, and it had kept body parts, fetuses, and dead experimental animals in unmarked storage containers, placing workers at risk.

In 1995, Stericycle was fined $3.3 million—later decreased to $800,000—by Rhode Island for knowingly exposing workers to life-threatening diseases at its medical-waste treatment facility in Woonsocket.

Two years later, workers at another of its medical-waste processing plants in Morton, Washington, were exposed to tuberculosis.

In 2002 and 2003—after Bain and its partners had bought their major interest in the firm—Stericycle reached settlements with the attorneys general in Arizona and Utah after it was accused of violating antitrust laws.

It paid Arizona $320,000 in civil penalties and lawyers' fees, and paid Utah $580,000.

Despite the firm's regulatory run-ins, the deal worked out well for Bain.

In 2001, the Bain-Madison Dearborn partnership that had invested in the company sold 40 percent of its holdings in Stericycle for about $88 million—marking a hefty profit on its original investment of $75 million.

The Bain-related group sold the rest of its holdings by 2004.

By that point it had earned $49.5 million.

It was not until six years later that anti-abortion activists would target Stericycle for collecting medical waste at abortion clinics.

This campaign has compared Stericycle to German firms that provided assistance to the Nazis during the Holocaust.

A Stericycle official told Huffington Post that its abortion clinics business constitutes a "small" portion of its total operations. (Stericycle declined a request for comment from Mother Jones.)

In response to questions from Mother Jones, a spokeswoman for Bain maintained that Romney was not involved in the Stericycle deal in 1999, saying that he had "resigned" months before the stock purchase was negotiated.

The spokeswoman noted that following his resignation Romney remained only "a signatory on certain documents," until his separation agreement with Bain was finalized in 2002.

And Bain issued this statement: "Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital in February 1999. He has had no involvement in the management or investment activities of Bain Capital, or with any of its portfolio companies since that time."

(The Romney presidential campaign did not respond to requests for comment.)

But the document Romney signed related to the Stericycle deal did identify him as a participant in that particular deal and the person in charge of several Bain entities.

(Did Bain and Romney file a document with the SEC that was not accurate?)

Moreover, in 1999, Bain and Romney both described his departure from Bain not as a resignation and far from absolute.

On February 12, 1999, the Boston Herald reported, "Romney said he will stay on as a part-timer with Bain, providing input on investment and key personnel decisions."

And a Bain press release issued on July 19, 1999, noted that Romney was "currently on a part-time leave of absence"—and quoted Romney speaking for Bain Capital.

In 2001 and 2002, Romney filed Massachusetts state disclosure forms noting he was the 100 percent owner of Bain Capital NY, Inc — a Bain outfit that was incorporated in Delaware on April 13, 1999—two months after Romney's supposed retirement from the firm.

A May 2001 filing with the SEC identified Romney as "a member of the Management Committee" of two Bain entities.

And in 2007, the Washington Post reported that R. Bradford Malt, a Bain lawyer, said Romney took a "leave of absence" when he assumed the Olympics post and retained sole ownership of the firm for two more years.

All of this undermines Bain's contention that Romney, though he maintained an ownership interest in the firm and its funds, had nothing to do with the firm's activities after February 1999.

The Stericycle deal may raise red flags for anti-abortion activists.

But it also raises questions about the true timing of Romney's departure from Bain and casts doubt on claims by the company and the Romney campaign that he had nothing to do with Bain business after February 1999.


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Sources: Huffington Post, Mother Jones, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Political Articles, The Young Turks, Youtube, Google Maps

Wall Street Moves Jobs To North Carolina: Right-To-Work State & Lower Wages

Financial Giants Are Moving Jobs Off Wall Street

New York’s biggest investment houses are shifting jobs out of the area and expanding in cheaper locales in the United States, threatening the vast middle tier of positions that form the backbone of employment on Wall Street.

The shift comes even as banks consider deeper staff cuts here, which could undermine the state and city tax base long term.

“Places like New York or London will remain financial centers, but most of the players are taking a much harder look and asking whether they can move large numbers of jobs,” said James Malick, a partner at the Boston Consulting Group who advises banks on relocation. In addition to higher taxes in the New York region, employers face real estate and labor costs significantly above the national average.

Consultants say they have seen a sharp pickup in this trend, known as near-shoring, as opposed to offshoring overseas. Goldman Sachs, during a presentation to investors in late May, even boasted of the cost savings that relocating jobs can bring.

“Some functions need to stay in the United States, but they don’t need to be in New York City or near the client,” Mr. Malick said. And with most investment giants facing anemic revenue and more stringent regulation that cuts into trading revenues, relocation is more tempting than it was before the financial crisis.

Low-level jobs have already migrated to call centers and back offices overseas, while top-end traders and bankers are secure in the New York area, experts say. Instead, services like accounting, trading and legal support, and human resources and compliance are being shifted to places like Salt Lake City, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Fla.

Garry Douyon enjoyed his job helping process trades and working with clients and traders at RBS in Stamford, Conn., earning nearly $100,000 a year, but when the firm decided last fall to move his team to Salt Lake City with a salary of $60,000, he said he really didn’t have much of a choice.

“I didn’t even consider moving,” said Mr. Douyon, who founded a biofuels company, All-City Clean Energy, in Brooklyn with four partners. “I liked RBS but I have my roots here, I have a home, I have kids in school.” A few members of his team decided to go, he added, but most chose to stay in the New York area.

The potential shift has profound implications for New York’s tax base and economy because of Wall Street’s outsize financial profile. Last year, the industry contributed 14 percent of New York State’s tax revenue.

After peaking at 213,000 in August 2007, securities industry jobs in the state fell more than 15 percent in the wake of the financial crisis, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since then they have risen nearly 12,000, but at 191,200, employment is well below pre-crisis levels. By contrast, over the same period, Delaware gained 1,300 securities jobs while Arizona picked up 2,600.

The federal government does not specifically track securities jobs in Utah, North Carolina or Florida, popular locations for near-shoring. But data from firms illustrates the trend.

Since the end of 2009, Deutsche Bank’s work force in the New York area has fallen to 6,900 from 7,400 even as its staff in Jacksonville rose to 1,000 from 600. Credit Suisse’s staff in the New York region has dropped by 500 in the past four years, but the firm has added 450 positions in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, in the area of Raleigh, Cary, Durham and Chapel Hill. And last year, Bank of New York Mellon cut 350 jobs in New York City while hiring 150 people in Lake Mary, Fla.

New York’s status as a financial capital is not likely to fade, and the state’s share of securities jobs in the United States has held steady at about 24 percent in recent years. “Even as the securities industry goes through a difficult time, New York remains the financial capital of the world and I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” said Thomas P. DiNapoli, the New York State comptroller.

But regional offices perform more and more of the sophisticated work usually associated with Wall Street and nearby trading hubs like Jersey City and Stamford. This parallels a shift in some technology jobs away from Silicon Valley to Portland, Ore., and cities in Texas, said Michael Shires, a professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine, who prepares an annual ranking of the best cities for employment.

“I expect to see an acceleration,” he said, noting that while these middle-tier jobs may lack the salaries and glamour usually associated with Wall Street, “these are the support people that actually make the stuff work.” What’s more, there are many more positions in the middle of the jobs pyramid at Wall Street firms than at the top.

Deutsche Bank’s office in Jacksonville started out in 2008 as a back-office service center, according to bank officials. Since then, technology workers, legal and compliance staff members, and trading support jobs have been added. More recently, some traders who deal directly with clients are being located there. Lower costs and taxes are behind the moves, the officials said.

J. Keith Crisco, the North Carolina secretary of commerce, visits New York three to five times a year, meeting with executives from firms already in North Carolina, like Credit Suisse, while reaching out to prospects. Another trip is planned this month.

North Carolina provided Credit Suisse with roughly $14 million in incentives to bring it to the state.

Delaware, which announced in April it had lured up to 1,200 JPMorgan Chase jobs to the state, is set to pay the giant bank $10.1 million in cash incentives. Alan Levin, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, estimates the typical salary for those jobs at $78,000 a year.

“These jobs will be here for a long time,” he said. “We want to create not just jobs but careers.”

The erosion of middle-tier jobs in the financial sector is not limited to New York. In a presentation to analysts in late May, the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, described what he called the firm’s “high-value location strategy.” By looking outside hubs like New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, he said, the firm could save 40 percent to 75 percent on job-related expenses.

Over a third of Goldman hires in 2011 and 2012 have been in cities like Bangalore in India, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Singapore, Mr. Cohn said. Utah, with looser regulation and lower taxes than New York, has been a particular area of growth for Goldman.

While Goldman’s work force in the New York area has been flat since the end of 2009 at just over 10,000, full-time employees in Salt Lake City have doubled to 1,400, making that office Goldman’s sixth-largest globally. In addition to its technology and operations staff, Goldman has expanded activities like research and investment management there.

These days, Mr. Douyon is building a refinery at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that aims to make biodiesel from waste products like vegetable oil and grease from restaurants. While he says it is a more flexible way of life and, he hopes, more lucrative, he still feels the tug of the trading floor.

“To be honest, I miss working on Wall Street,” he said.


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Sources: Financial News Online, Fox News, NY Times, The Young Turks, Youtube, Google Maps

Bernanke Warns Banks Of Another Pending Recession: More Middle Class Decline

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke recently warned Bank Chiefs to hold onto to their Profits. Translation: U.S. is headed for another Recession.





Fed proposal would boost bank safety cushions

The Federal Reserve on Thursday proposed tough new rules to require banks to hold even more in reserves as a capital buffer to better withstand future financial crises.

Wall Street has been watching the rulemaking on capital buffers closely. Requirements about capital cushions can directly impact banks' ability to lend, make financial bets and profit off those loans or bets.

Tougher capital cushions are also a key step toward making banks safer and avoiding future taxpayer bailouts.

"Pre-crisis capital requirements were too low in general," said Federal Board Reserve Board governor Daniel Tarullo at a meeting Thursday.

The rules would require banks to keep 7% of risk-weighted assets -- the loans banks make judged by the degree of risk involved -- aside. Banks would have until 2019 to meet the new rules.

For 20 banks with more than $250 billion in total assets, the rules would be a little tougher -- 3% of all assets, including "off-balance sheet exposures" such as derivatives, would have to be kept off limits as a leverage ratio.

The provision would affect all the major megabanks, including JP Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and Citibank (C, Fortune 500), among others.

Derivatives are the risky bets that helped lead to the financial crisis of 2008.

The new rules are drawn from a 2010 deal negotiated with foreign nations, part of the so-called Basel III accords, requiring all banks to put more capital aside for emergencies.

Capital cushions have come under scrutiny again, in light of revelations that JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion in bad bets made earlier this year and disclosed last month.

"This should improve the overall resiliency of the banking system," according to a memo on the new capital cushion rules released by the Fed.

Additionally, the Fed released new details on what qualifies as capital -- guidelines that are tougher than current standards -- the central bank notes.

Federal Reserve staff said that roughly 80% of banks already meet the tougher buffer of 7% of risk-weighted assets. They calculated that $3.6 billion would need to be raised to meet the new criteria.

The proposed rule will be voted on by the Federal Reserve Board and then faces 90 days of public comment.

Then the Fed and other federal regulatory agencies would officially approve it later this year. The rules would be phased in starting in January 2013.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing Wednesday, bank regulators said that all U.S. banks were safer than they were three years ago.

JPMorgan Chase has a capital cushion of $101 billion, compared to $1.8 trillion in assets, said its regulator, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry. That's about 5.6% of all assets.
But JPMorgan will likely have to set even more capital aside under the new rules.

That's because the proposed rules do not address an additional and controversial capital cushion that the largest U.S. banks may also have to meet.

That rule could raise the required buffer at some banks from the new standard of 7% to as high as 9.5% of risk-weighted assets.

The Federal Reserve is expected to tackle that issue later.


Sources: CNBC, CNN

Wall Street "Fat Cats" Heart Romney But Warren Buffet Hearts Obama

Wall Street ditches Obama, backs Romney

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned -- but what about a Wall Street titan?

Deep-pocketed financiers have abandoned President Obama and are flocking to Mitt Romney in droves, providing more donations to his campaign than any other industry except retired workers. (And that's not really an industry.)

Individuals who work in the securities and investment industry have given the Romney campaign $8.5 million through the end of April, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Over the same time period, Obama has brought in only $3 million from securities and investment workers, and the industry is only the campaign's fifth largest source of funds.

"They have basically ditched Obama," said John Dunbar, the managing editor for politics at the Center for Public Integrity. "Romney is just a much friendlier candidate if you are a banker."

The absence of Wall Street love is a departure from the norm for the Obama campaign. In 2008, then-Senator Obama raised almost $16 million from Wall Street.

John McCain, the Republican nominee, received donations totaling only $9 million.

The shift is evident even within specific firms.

The employees of Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), who have traditionally given more money to Democratic candidates, have donated more to Romney's campaign than any other firm.

Meanwhile, individuals associated with Goldman have given far less to Obama this cycle, even after he milked the bank for $1 million in 2008 -- or four times McCain's haul.

Goldman isn't an isolated case. The top six spots on Romney's donor list are all financial firms, with Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), Credit Suisse (CS) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) following Goldman.

Of the top 20 organizations and businesses with donors who contributed to the Obama campaign, not one is a bank or investment firm, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

The dwindling donations underscore intense feelings of dissatisfaction that some on Wall Street feel toward the White House, both in terms of the rhetoric used and the policies pursued by the president.

"Wall Street has taken some of the blame for the financial crisis," said Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics. "The result of that has been increased oversight and regulation -- two things that are never popular."

Early in his presidency, Obama chastised "fat cat" bankers who took large bonuses during the financial crisis.

He then worked to pass a financial reform law that included restrictions on banks that some in the industry find onerous, especially the so-called Volcker Rule that would limit some types of trading activity.

After a period when it looked like the relationship between big business and the White House was on the mend, new fissures appeared as the president embraced the rhetoric of income inequality.

Obama discussed the growing wealth gap in a series of high-profile speeches, including his most recent State of the Union address.

With the general election campaign now fully underway, Obama has been more specific in his attacks on Romney, and much emphasis has been put on the former governor's career at Bain Capital.

The president's words and the campaign's advertisements have not cast private equity in a flattering light. Vice President Joe Biden said last week that a career in private equity "no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber."

Dunbar said the escalating rhetoric is a sign that the White House has "made a calculated decision" to "go to war" with Romney over Bain. "They've decided to burn the bridge and go after Wall Street.

They have decided to rely on populism."

The industry, by all accounts, is not enjoying its thrashing from the president.

On the same day that the Obama launched its campaign against Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the president attended a fundraiser at the Manhattan home of Tony James, the president of private equity firm Blackstone (BX).

Fortune reported that the president didn't specifically mention private equity, and the attendees, who had paid $35,800 per plate, didn't ask.

Two power players who are even closer to the White House, ex-auto czar Steven Rattner and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, have come to the industry's defense, complicating matters for the president.

Asked last week about his campaign's attacks on Bain Capital, Obama walked a fine line, saying that there "are folks who do good work in that area" but "their priority is to maximize profits."

"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits," Obama said. "Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot."

The breakdown of decorum between Wall Street and the White House sharply reduces the odds that Obama will be able to match Romney's fundraising totals from industry players.

But given the substantial investments the White House has made in its so-called ground game, dwindling funds from Wall Street won't necessarily leave the campaign cash-strapped. Many observers still expect Obama to raise a cool $1 billion by November.

Still, the attacks could push a wealthy donor to make a substantial contribution to a pro-Romney super PAC -- groups that can accept and spend unlimited money.
One pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, has already raised more than $20 million from individuals and organizations associated with the securities and investment industry.

Obama's super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has received only $218,500 from the same group.


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Sources: CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, Youtube, Google Maps