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House members return to vote on jobs bill for teachers and government workers House members are giving up a couple of days reconnecting with folks in their districts this week to pass a jobs bill that Democrats say is crucial to the nation’s well-being. The unusual in-and-out session was called because the Senate waited until last Thursday, after the House had already recessed for its summer break, to pass a $26 billion bill to prevent tens of thousands of teachers and an equal number of other state and local government workers from being laid off before the November election. With the new school year just weeks away, election season fast approaching and the overall job picture still bleak, Democrats had no choice but to act quickly. Many of those whose jobs are being saved belong to teacher unions or the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, two key components of the Democrats’ political base whose get-out-the-vote efforts in November could determine whether they hold or lose control of Congress. “This legislation is about creating and saving American jobs, and preventing a double-dip recession,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in announcing the special session just hours after the Senate passed the bill that the administration says could save the jobs of nearly 300,000 teachers and other public workers. Story continues below… Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., shrugged off suggestions that Democrats were taking a gamble by ordering members back to Washington and diverting colleagues facing tough re-elections from their campaign activities. “It’s not a gamble,” he said, but “it would be gambling our children’s’ education to have them go back to school and find no teacher in the classroom or a larger class size.” Republicans forced back to the Capitol to vote against a bill see it differently. Democrats should be staying home and listening to their constituents “instead of scampering back to Washington to push through more special interest bailouts and job-killing tax hikes,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. Republicans portrayed the special session as the Democrats’ pre-election gift to their labor union allies and objected to provisions to raise taxes on some U.S.-based multinational companies as a way to partially cover the $26 billion cost of the bill. Defining teachers and police officers as special interests while opposing closing a tax loophole for big corporations “defines the difference between our two parties,” retorted Van Hollen. The House will convene in a pro forma session Monday, meaning there will be no votes and few people around. Debate on the bill and a vote Tuesday morning should go quickly because Democrats who control the rules are not likely to permit any amendments. The House also could take up another measure the Senate passed last week — a $600 million border security bill with money for more agents and unmanned surveillance drones. “We would obviously support the House concurring in the Senate package and doing so as quickly as possible,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters in a telephone news conference the day after the Senate passed the bill. Lawmakers weren’t the only ones caught off guard by the sudden decision to reconvene the House. The House chamber is currently under construction as workers replace the 30-year-old voting boards with new displays that will be more energy-efficient and easier to read. Temporary voting boards will be set up on the House floor so members can confirm their votes. While unusual, it’s hardly unprecedented for the House to break from vacations to take care of business the party in charge considers pressing. In December 2008 the House returned to approve the auto industry rescue plan. In August 2005 lawmakers were called back to provide emergency relief for Katrina victims. Earlier that year, lawmakers gave up the last day of their spring break to vote on restoring a feeding tube to brain-damaged Terri Schiavo. ___ The jobs bill is H.R. 1586. The border security bill is S. 3721. (This version CORRECTS In last paragraf, corrects spelling of Terri Schiavo. This story is part of AP’s general news and financial services.) Source: AP News Mochila insert follows… Powered by Mochila

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Senate Democrats on Wednesday overcame Republican opposition and cleared the way for a $26 billion measure to help states ease their severe budget problems and save the jobs of tens of thousands of teachers and other public employees. The bill advanced by a 61-38 tally that ensures the measure will pass the Senate on Wednesday or Thursday. The House may return early during from its August recess for a final vote that would deliver the bill to President Barack Obama, his larger jobs agenda curtailed by Republicans who argue against the spending it would entail. Moderate Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine cast the key votes to break the GOP filibuster. The bill would extend programs enacted in last year’s stimulus law to help preserve the jobs of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public employees. The legislation is scaled back from versions that stalled earlier this summer as part of a larger tax-and-spend measure extending jobless benefits and a variety of expired tax breaks. The first piece is $16 billion to help states with their Medicaid budgets in the first six months of next year. Story continues below… It’s less generous than the help provided under the stimulus law but is still desperately sought by governors, who have already made big budget cuts as tax revenues have plummeted in the recession and warn of even worse cuts if the federal help is not continued. The measure also contains $10 billion to help school boards hit with similar budget woes avoid teacher layoffs this fall. “This legislation makes a difference,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “Real people in real jobs. Real paychecks.” But most Republicans opposed the measure, calling it a payoff to public employee unions and warning that it would make the states ever-dependent on federal funds. The spending is accompanied by tax increases and spending cuts to avoid increasing the budget deficit. The bill eliminates in March 2014 an expanded food stamp benefit enacted last year and limits the ability of some U.S.-based multinational companies to use foreign tax credits to reduce their U.S. taxes. “That would have the effect of driving jobs overseas,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. Democrats, who control the chamber with 59 votes, needed to pick up at least one Republican to muster the 60 votes required to defeat the GOP filibuster. Wednesday’s vote to break a GOP filibuster came after Democratic leaders made final tweaks to the measure in hopes of winning over Snowe and Collins. The duo also provided the key votes last month to pass a six-month extension of jobless assistance for the long-term unemployed. A vote scheduled for Monday was postponed after an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office showed the measure would add to the deficit. Snowe and Collins also had been concerned about cuts to Navy shipbuilding accounts since the Bath Iron Works in Maine is so essential to the state’s economy. Majority Leader Harry Reid got rid of the proposed cuts Monday night. Reid orchestrated other changes to close an almost $5 billion deficit gap, including new reforms to a tax credit claimed by the working poor. Collins has been a past supporter of giving states help with their budgets and was the driving force behind an aid package enacted in 2003 that added $20 billion to the deficit. Both provisions are heavily backed by unions for teachers and public employees, key allies of the Democratic Party. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ran ads Wednesday in four Maine newspapers urging Collins and Snowe to vote to break the filibuster. “It’s important to be able to provide this support to the states at a very critical time,” Snowe said afterward. “I think it also should be done with the understanding that the states are going to have to begin to make some tough decisions.” Obama requested an extension of additional aid for the Medicaid program in his budget and has belatedly rallied behind the money for teachers as well. Source: AP News Mochila insert follows… Powered by Mochila

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Mortgage rates fell to a new record low for the fourth time in five weeks. But low rates haven’t been enough to lift a struggling housing market. The average rate for 30-year fixed loans this week was 4.56 percent, down from 4.57 last week, mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday. That’s the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971. The last time home loan rates were lower was during the 1950s, when most mortgages lasted just 20 or 25 years. The rate on the 15-year fixed loan dropped to 4.03 percent, down from 4.06 percent last week and the lowest on records dating back to 1991. Rates have fallen since the spring. Investors worried about the European debt crisis have shifted money into the safety of Treasury bonds. That has forced those yields down. Mortgage rates tend to track yields on Treasury debt. Story continues below… However, low rates have yet to spark home sales and refinancing activity remains moderate. Sales of previously occupied homes fell in June and are expected to keep sinking. The National Association of Realtors said Thursday that last month’s sales fell 5.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.37 million. The housing market stalled after federal tax credits for homebuyers expired at the end of April. Home sales have dropped off, homebuilder confidence has waned and consumer sentiment is in the dumps. It’s unlikely low mortgage rates will bolster housing. Rates have hovered near historic lows for more than a year, so many people have already taken advantage of them to buy or refinance a home. And many of those who haven’t wouldn’t qualify for a loan. They either owe more than their homes are worth, have shaky credit or have lost their jobs. To calculate the national average, Freddie Mac collects mortgage rates on Monday through Wednesday of each week from lenders around the country. Rates often fluctuate significantly, even within a given day. Rates on five-year adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 3.79 percent, down from 3.85 percent a week earlier. Rates on one-year adjustable-rate mortgages fell to an average of 3.70 percent from 3.74 percent. The rates do not include add-on fees known as points. One point is equal to 1 percent of the total loan amount. The nationwide fee for loans in Freddie Mac’s survey averaged 0.7 a point for 30-year, 15-year and 1-year loans. The average fee for 5-year loans was 0.6 of a point. Source: AP News

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Journalists covering the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, last weekend have accused the local police of threatening them with rape, using male officers to strip-search young women, and even inappropriately touching an underage girl. Four reporters have filed complaints with the province of Ontario’s police oversight agency. According to the Canwest News Service , those four include Jesse Rosenfeld, a freelancer for the UK’s Guardian whose alleged beating at the hands of Toronto police was chronicled on Twitter , as well Amy Miller of the Alternative Media Center. Miller told a press conference earlier this week that she had her press pass ripped away from her and was “throttled by the neck and held down” while trying to record a confrontation between police and protesters. She was detained for 13 hours in a cage in a converted film studio on the city’s east side, along with about 25 other women. “I was told I was going to be raped, I was told I was going to be gang-banged, I was told that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again by making sure that I would be repeatedly raped while I was in jail,” Miller said. Miller described the police’s alleged behavior as “repulsive and completely inappropriate.” Story continues below… She also said she saw women being strip-searched by male officers, and that many of the women who emerged from detention were “definitely traumatized.” Reporters also allege that “one under-aged girl was improperly touched by a male officer while held at an Eastern Ave. detention center,” the QMI news agency reports . In a rare criticism of Canada, Amnesty International called on the country’s political leadership to hold a public inquiry into the policing of the G20 summit, which ran from June 26 to 27 and attracted between 10,000 and 25,000 protesters. All told, more than 900 people were arrested during the summit — reportedly a record high for this kind of summit meeting. Faced with growing criticism, political leaders and Toronto police chief Bill Blair have been fighting back against accusations that the police response to a gang of black-clad anarchists setting police cars on fire and breaking windows was excessive. Chief Blair held a conference Tuesday where he described the vandals as “terrorists” and put on display a cache of weapons evidently seized from protesters at the summit. But the public-relations triumph turned to embarrassment when it emerged that some of the weapons on display were not related to the G20 protests. The Toronto Sun reports that some of the weapons there, including arrows seized by police near the G20 site, were toys that belonged to a man who was on his way to a fantasy role-playing game when he was stopped by police, a day before the G20 summit. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association said that police conduct during the meeting of the leaders of the world’s top economies, was “at times, disproportionate, arbitrary and excessive.” The response to pockets of criminal activity was also “unprecedented, disproportionate and, at times, unconstitutional,” the rights group said in a report. The abuses “exceeded the threshold of a few isolated incidents” and “they demand accountability,” it said in calling for an inquiry into police conduct. Toronto’s mayor and police chief Blair said the city’s Police Services Board, a civilian oversight panel, would review the squad’s actions, which they also defended. “The fact that there were no serious injuries arising from all of the actions of the police over the course of the weekend is quite frankly extraordinary under the circumstances,” said police chief Bill Blair. Officers “showed remarkable restraint in the face of enormous provocation,” he added. “They did their jobs.” — With reporting from AFP The following video was posted to YouTube by G20Injustice on June 29, 2010.

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Chief executives of several major corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Boeing, Disney and News Corp., are joining Mayor Michael Bloomberg to form a coalition advocating for immigration reform — including a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants now in the United States. The group includes several other big-city mayors and calls itself the Partnership for a New American Economy. It seeks to reframe immigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the economy. Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., appeared together Thursday on Fox News to discuss the effort. “We’re just going to keep the pressure on the congressmen,” Murdoch said. “I think we can show to the public the benefits of having migrants and the jobs that go with them.” Bloomberg added, “Somebody has to lead and explain to the country why this is in our interest.” Story continues below… The CEOs said Thursday in statements that their companies — and the nation — depend on immigrants. “It’s our great strength as a nation, and it’s also critical for continued economic growth,” Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Robert Iger said in a statement. “To remain competitive in the 21st century, we need effective immigration reform that invites people to contribute to our shared success by building their own American dream.” The group says it intends to make its point to policymakers by “publishing studies, conducting polls, convening forums and paying for public education campaigns.” The tactics are similar to those used by Bloomberg’s coalition of mayors who support gun control. Bloomberg has for years criticized the federal government for its immigration laws, proposing in 2006 a plan that would have established a DNA or fingerprint database to track and verify all legal U.S. workers. The billionaire mayor, a former CEO of the financial information company Bloomberg LP, also said at the time that all 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States should be given the opportunity for citizenship, saying that deporting them is impossible and would devastate the economy. Lawmakers who wanted to deport all illegal immigrants were “living in a fantasy world,” he said. He has recently taken up the fight again, declaring this week that U.S. immigration policy “is national suicide.” “I can’t think of any ways to destroy this country quite as direct and impactful as our immigration policy,” he said Wednesday. “We educate the best and the brightest, and then we don’t give them a green card.” The group’s main immigration goals are to secure the borders, develop an easy system for employers to verify work eligibility, hold companies accountable for breaking the laws and improve the use of technology to prevent illegal immigration. The group also wants more opportunities for immigrants to join the U.S. work force and a path to legal status for all undocumented immigrants. Bloomberg spokesman Jason Post said no money has been spent on the effort yet, and he could not say whether the group will be a standard nonprofit, a political action committee or a group known as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which can operate outside the more strict limits governing political action committees. The business leaders in the coalition employ more than 650,000 people and make more than $220 billion in annual sales, combined. The effort marks Bloomberg’s return to national issues after he spent 2009 campaigning for a third term, focusing mostly on New York City’s municipal concerns. The Republican-turned-independent spent about two years testing the waters for an independent 2008 presidential run, but ultimately he gave up the idea. By recruiting business leaders and mayors into a national-issue coalition, he is highlighting both of his backgrounds in running a city and running a business, which could be seen as an early move to dust off his presidential aspirations. Powered by Mochila

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WASHINGTON — The US government would be barred from buying any Chinese goods or services under legislation unveiled Friday by US senators angry at Beijing’s policy of buying only from domestic sources. The prohibition would last until China, a World Trade Organization (WTO) member for nearly 10 years, signs on to the WTO’s “Agreement of Governmental Procurement,” enabling Washington to challenge Beijing’s procurement rules. “China continues to discriminate against American businesses, refusing to let our companies bid on Chinese government contracts,” said Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, the measure’s lead author. “We want to export our products, not our jobs. Until China agrees to play by the rules, our legislation guarantees federal taxpayer dollars are not being used to purchase Chinese goods and services,” she said in a statement. The lawmakers, three Democrats and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, complained that US firms cannot compete in China’s government procurement market, estimated at 500 billion dollars, while the US government buys Chinese tires, ammunition, office equipment, and other items. Story continues below… “I want a good, working relationship with China, but that partnership needs to be fair and equitable,” said Graham. Beijing’s “indigenous innovation” practice of buy key products from domestic producers only has drawn increasingly heavy fire in the US Congress, where lawmakers face pressure over a gloomy jobs picture ahead of November elections. “When China fails to play the rules, US tax dollars should not be used to buy Chinese-made products,” said Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. “American businesses deserve to compete on an equal footing and our government needs to take seriously China’s unfair practices,” said Democratic Senator Russell Feingold.

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In a panel discussion on HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher Friday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow forcefully confronted the GOP’s latest Senate leader over his party’s unprecedented use of the filibuster this Congress. “Republicans are filibustering everything,” Maddow told former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who retired in 2007. “It’s being used more frequently than it’s ever been used in American history before, and Republicans should answer for that, because it’s a really stupid way to run the country.” The audience erupted in applause and cheers. Frist wasn’t offended, repeatedly grinning while Maddow was criticizing the filibuster and even responded, “I agree,” at times. But he did echo the time-tested defense of the tool, that its purpose is to “empower the minority” and forbid the majority from exploiting them. Maddow wasn’t having any of it. “People just want Republicans to not … put a filibuster on every single vote of consequence,” she rejoined. “Every single one.” Story continues below… More applause. More cheers. No comeback from Frist. According to the Associated Press , Republicans have used the filibuster “at a record-setting pace” this Congress, including for uncontroversial legislation that overwhelmingly passes. In February, six Senate Republicans who unsuccessfully filibustered the jobs bill turned around and voted for it , raising questions about their motives for using the procedure. Maher argued that President Barack Obama’s call for expanding offshore oil drilling just weeks before the Gulf spill broke out was a politically-motivated attempt “to get a couple of Republican votes” on energy legislation and thus stave off a filibuster. “The whole reason Obama was coming out for more drilling was as a sop to the conservatives,” Maher said, “which would not be necessary if we didn’t have this filibuster nonsense.” When Frist said the filibuster could be bypassed, citing health care reform, Maddow noted that such a scenario could only occur when the reforms in question are “directly related to the budget.” Frist’s response raised the eyebrows of the panelists and drew laughs from the crowd. “In the Senate, you can do anything, by the way. You can do anything that can’t be done,” he said, sounding almost frivolously. The panelists also discussed the estate tax, the midterm elections and Rush Limbaugh’s fourth wedding. It was the season finale of the popular HBO series, which returns September 17.

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