WASHINGTON – A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled yesterday that labor unions and corporations can spend unlimited amounts to influence federal elections, throwing out a ban that had been in effect for 63 years and adding an explosive new element to this year’s midterm elections. The 5-to-4 ruling dismayed lawmakers and public interest groups that fought for decades to limit the influence of wealthy special interests in politics. But it cheered those who have railed against what they see as government control of free speech in election campaigns. The decision also could provoke changes in Massachusetts law, which bans corporate spending to influence an election. Campaign finance specialists said that while the high court opinion specifically applies to federal races, the First Amendment issue cited in the ruling could end up preempting state laws or enabling new lawsuits to challenge them. The court said that corporate and labor union spending amounted to free speech and should be constitutionally protected. ‘The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the majority opinion. The justices left in place the dollar limits for contributions to candidates by individuals and political action committees. In […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday stepped into the middle of a fierce lobbying battle by reinforcing his support for an independent agency to protect consumers against lending abuses that contributed to the financial crisis. The president’s move also signaled a tougher line and a more direct role as Congress weighs an overhaul of banking regulation. The financial industry and Congressional Republicans have singled out the administration’s proposed consumer agency in particular, hoping to greatly weaken if not kill it. With liberal Democrats and Web commentators fighting just as hard for a strong independent office, the issue is becoming the central flashpoint in the debate over regulation. Mr. Obama personally weighed in on Tuesday in a one-on-one meeting at the White House with Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Reports last week suggested that Mr. Dodd might drop the consumer agency from the emerging Senate bill in order to attract support from Republicans and some centrist Democrats on his committee, but Democratic aides disputed that. Some Democrats in Congress and the administration describe a possible fallback position that would give enhanced consumer protection powers to existing federal regulators, perhaps […]
WASHINGTON — The road for another stimulus bill just got tougher following Tuesday’s election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate in Democratic stronghold Massachusetts. After health care, Congress’ next big priority is to pass something that shows voters in an election year that they’re on top of the nation’s unemployment scourge. But the Democrats’ loss of a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate throws hurdles onto an already rocky path toward a new stimulus bill aimed at saving jobs. Given how controversial the first stimulus package remains, passing a new jobs bill, or ‘second stimulus,’ was never going to be easy. Republicans have especially targeted the first stimulus package as a prime example of the kind of big government spending they aim to end. ‘There is a reason the nation was focused on this race,’ said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. ‘The American people have made it abundantly clear that they are more interested in shrinking unemployment than expanding government. They are tired of bailouts.’ Experts and policy analysts say the Republican win in Massachusetts will shore up Republican opposition to anything that looks like big spending. ‘I think it’ll be very hard,’ […]
WASHINGTON — President Obama and congressional Democrats are rethinking their healthcare strategy in the wake of a Republican victory in the Massachusetts Senate race, giving serious consideration to abandoning the comprehensive approach in favor of incremental steps that might salvage key elements of the package. Now without a filibuster-proof Senate majority, which was lost in the GOP victory, some Democrats believe they could win Republican support for limited changes to the healthcare system, including restrictions on insurance companies and new initiatives to restrain costs. Obama appeared to endorse such an approach Wednesday. ‘I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements in the package that people agree on,’ the president said in an interview with ABC News. ‘We know that we need insurance reform. The health insurance companies are taking advantage of people,’ Obama said. ‘We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up. And we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance for their families. Those are the core — some of the core — elements of […]
The small makeup room off the main floor of KUSI’s studios, in a suburban canyon on the north end of San Diego, has seen better days. The carpet is stained; the couch sags. John Coleman, KUSI’s weatherman, pulls off the brown sweatshirt he has been wearing over his shirt and tie all day and appraises himself in the mirror, smoothing back his white hair and opening a makeup kit. ‘I kid that I have to use a trowel, to fill the crevasses of age,’ he says, swiping powder under one eye and then the other. ‘People have tried to convince me to use more advanced makeup, but I don’t. I don’t try to fool anyone.’ Coleman is seventy-five years old, and looks it, which is refreshing in the Dorian Gray-like environs of television news. He refers to his position at KUSI, a modestly eccentric independent station in San Diego whose evening newscast usually runs fifth out of five in the local market, as his retirement job. When he steps in front of the green screen, it’s clear why he has chosen it over actual retirement; in front of the camera he moves, if not quite like a man half […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
