After publicly sparring in the fall, the White House and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are trying to make up.
In an extraordinary exchange of letters written after last week’s State of the Union address, Chamber President Tom Donohue and President Barack Obama agreed to disagree on some issues and work together where they can.
Collusion between big corporations and the White House? Isn’t that what helped bring on the Great Recession? We’re thinking we need more coziness between Wall Street and Washington like we need another dive in our economy – or more policies that line the pockets of big oil and big pharma at our expense. Even before the Supreme Court’s outrageous decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the Chamber was lobbying heavily and buying ads to defeat efforts to address the very health care, climate change and financial crises they helped to create. Continue Reading »
If you ever have to go to a hospital for treatment, the last thing you likely are thinking about is how your doctor feels.
It’s more important than you think. If you are tended to by a doctor in training (called medical residents, also known as resident physicians), chances are high that you will be treated by someone who is dangerously fatigued. Medical residents often work 30-hour shifts, sometimes 100 hours a week. Not only do they injure patients because they are so bleary-eyed, but they can harm themselves by sticking themselves with contaminated needles or crashing their cars on the way home.
Public Citizen, Mothers Against Medical Errors and other patient safety groups today launched a campaign to lower the number of hours medical residents are on duty. They sent a letter to the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, which oversees doctor training, and launched a Web site, www.WakeUpDoctor.org, to provide a forum for the public to tell stories and learn more about the problem.
“Considerable scientific evidence backs up what common sense tells me: that life and death decisions should not be made by someone who is sleep-deprived,” said Dr. John Ingle, a fourth-year ear, nose and throat resident at the University of New Mexico and regional vice president of the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare. “My patients are consistently horrified when they learn that I haven’t gone to sleep since they saw me the previous day.”
They’re back at the trough. The folks at AIG don’t get it. Do they expect to be congratulated for taking $100 million in bonus payments instead of $110 million or $120 million? Payment of the bonuses is justified as contractually required but the government-owned AIG can honor such contractual terms only because the firm was rescued with $180 billion in taxpayer supports.
The refrain that bonus payments must be made to retain “talent” doesn’t even qualify as a cruel joke. This is the so-called talent that presided over the collapse of AIG and cost taxpayers countless billions.
Congress is not helpless on this issue, and has no excuse for failing to take action. When the AIG bonus scandal broke, there was serious talk of imposing a 90 percent tax on the bonus payments. Once fooled, it is time for Congress to return to this remedy.
AIG, of course, is only the most egregious example of bonus abuse. It is time for Congress to adopt an across-the-board windfall bonus tax on Wall Street and the financial sector. The place to start is by taking up the Responsible Banking Act, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio).
The folks at Facebook would like you to know that they’re concerned about your privacy. So much that they’re willing to create a nonprofit foundation dedicated to online privacy, while at the same time profiting hugely from their business of allowing you to make your most private thoughts and moments available to anyone you’ve ever met. Facebook’s offer to create the foundation is part of its proposal to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against it for violating the privacy of its users.
If you recall, the case involves Facebook’s Beacon marketing program, which back in 2007 and 2008 let all of your Facebook friends know about stuff you bought online. Well, on Monday, Public Citizen filed an objection to the proposed settlement, saying that it did a lot for Facebook and the lawyers in the case but very little for Facebook users.
From the Public Citizen news release:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Facebook’s solution to complaints that it violated the privacy rights of potentially millions of its users is no solution at all, Public Citizen said today in opposing the settlement of a class-action lawsuit that was filed against the social networking giant.
The central piece of the proposed settlement is the creation of a nonprofit foundation that would largely be controlled by Facebook. The foundation would be charged with funding projects and initiatives that “promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security,” which Public Citizen attorney Greg Beck likens to putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Under the proposed settlement, Facebook would pay $9.5 million into a settlement fund, with as much as a third of that money going to pay the class-action attorneys. The remaining money would go toward the creation of the new privacy foundation. Facebook would choose Continue Reading »
Progressive leaders agree — SCOTUS went too far, granting corporations the same rights as people, in the justices’ controversial decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In fact, Public Citizen’s call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision has been picking up steam.
Earlier this week, Public Citizen, along with the Center for Economic Policy Research and WallStreetWatch.org, hosted a panel debate on the pros and cons of a speculation tax on financial services. We’ve called for such a tax as an important reform needed to rein in Wall Street’s reckless behavior. Now, bills before Congress would create the tax as a way to raise as much as $100 billion a year in revenue, while also deterring the harmful churning of stocks and financial instruments.
In the video above, economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Research, discusses why we need a speculation tax. To view the entire debate, which also included Public Citizen President Robert Weissman, University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin, Gerogetown University Professor Jim Angel and George Sauter, Vanguard Group’s managing director and chief investment officer, visit our Vimeo page.
A stunning blow of a court ruling deserves a strong response. We have that in a measure introduced late Wednesday by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) to counter last week’s U.S. Supreme Court campaign finance ruling. In a powerful rejoinder to a court decision that allows corporations to spend unlimited money on pet political causes and candidates, Capuano has introduced legislation that requires CEOs to receive shareholder approval for each and every corporate political expenditure. Public Citizen enthusiastically supports Capuano’s “Shareholder Protection Act” and applauds his initiative in working to rein in the damage the court is causing by unleashing unlimited corporate spending in politics.
Last week, the court reversed 100 years of political tradition and ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations are “persons” under the First Amendment, entitled to spend unlimited amounts of corporate treasury funds to support or attack candidates. Never mind that corporations are not people, do not vote and were never envisioned by the Founding Fathers as “persons” under the Constitution. Five justices have taken it upon themselves to give corporations Continue Reading »
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is no Joe Wilson, the excitable South Carolina congressman whose uncivil outburst last fall put him right up there with Terence Trent Darby and the 1970 Kansas City Chiefs on the list of one-hit wonders. Yet, Alito snagged his viral moment at last night’s State of the Union address when he shook his head and mouthed the words, “Not true,” in response to President Obama’s rebuke of the Court’s ruling in last week’s Citizens United case. You can tell Alito and the four justices who voted with him to overturn a century of campaign finance protections what you think at www.DontGetRolled.org.
Public Citizen President Robert Weissman explained the ramifications of the recent Citizens United ruling during a webinar this past Tuesday. He also answered viewer questions and laid out Public Citizen’s strategy to get a constitutional amendment passed that would undo the ruling. The video above is an excerpt. The full webinar can be found on our Vimeo page.
