The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday on one of Rick Scott’s first and most substantial acts as governor, which drew a legal challenge earlier this year. Rosalie Whiley, a blind woman seeking to reapply for food stamps, challenged Scott’s authority to suspend rulemaking by executive agencies, an effort intended to reign in out-of-control regulations, but that also ensared agencies’ efforts to do things like create a streamlined application for food stamps. (That specific rulemaking effort, Scott’s lawyers were quick to point out, has since been approved, and is again moving through the process.) American Independent
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

Gov. Rick Perry went five-for-six on the emergency issues he declared for this session. A ban on sanctuary cities, an idea borne of his 2010 reelection campaign, died in the Senate during the regular session and in the House during the special session. Everything else got through the Legislature: Voter ID, pre-abortion sonograms, limits on eminent domain, an appeal to Congress for a balanced federal budget, and making losers pay the costs of the lawsuits they start. Texas Tribune
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

ghing a bid for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, designated six pieces of legislation as "emergency" items for the 2011 session of the Texas legislature. The designation put those measures, many of which were priorities of conservative activists, on a fast track for the biennial legislative session in Texas that began in January and ended on May 30. But lawmakers returned for a special session to work on a stalled school finance measure tied to the state budget, and Perry asked them to revisit some proposals that died during the regular session. The special session ended on Wednesday. Reuters
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

Amid fears the United States risks default if lawmakers don't raise the debt ceiling on time, some are suggesting President Obama could save the day by big-footing Congress. How? By invoking the Constitution and directing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to keep borrowing even if it means going past the statutory borrowing limit. Really? They say default -- and by extension, the debt limit -- violates the 14th Amendment. CNN
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

WASHINGTON -- Republicans may be slowing the recovery on purpose to hurt President Obama's reelection chances in 2012, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer said in a speech on Thursday. The speech made explicit a message Democrats have been hinting at for weeks: Republicans are hurting the recovery with their focus on spending cuts, and it may be an attempt to slow "down the recovery on purpose for political gain in 2012." "Now it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan -- and it has a double-benefit for Republicans," Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. "It is ideologically tidy and it undermines the economic recovery, which they think only helps them in 2012." As proof, Schumer referenced remarks by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said last year his main aim was to make Obama a one-term president. Huffington Post
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

Bank of America has agreed to settle with a group of high-profile investors for $8.5 billion for losses on mortgage-backed securities. A settlement of this size would seem to point to considerable wrongdoing by the bank. And yet, no criminal charges have been brought against Bank of America. How could this be? Charles R. Morris, a former banker and the author of "The Trillion Dollar Meltdown," told Salon on Wednesday that while it is clear that BofA behaved with "no shame," there are numerous reasons why the feds left the bank alone. Salon
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

As a long-time student of the meat industry, I read Ted Genoways' extraordinary article on conditions at the "head table" of a factory-scale pig-processing plant with delight. As a human being, my reaction was revulsion. In a single long piece, Genoways lays out the crude history of US meat over the past 80 years. We get the unionization of the kill floor in the wake of Sinclair's The Jungle, the post-war emergence of meat packing as a proper middle-class job, the fierce anti-union backlash of the '70s, followed by corporatization, scaling up, plunging wages, and then, well, all manner of hell breaking loose, graphically documented by Genoways. All I can add to the story is to emphasize how forces in the broader economy turned the meat industry into one that profits not by putting out an excellent product, but rather by relentlessly slashing costs. Mother Jones
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

The recession spared few U.S. cities, wiping out 9.4 million jobs between November 2007 and August 2009. Many will never return, and those that do you probably won’t find on the East or West Coast. For the most active areas of job creation (and lower costs of doing business) you have to go to the heartland, home to 80% of the top 25 regions on our list of Best Places for Business. Forbes
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

Proposed Medicaid spending cuts could cause Alabama to lose more than $337 million in business activity and 3,220 jobs, according to a new report from Families USA. The national organization released projections of how a proposal adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives would impact the economies of each state. Birmingham Business Journal
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago

American Campus Communities Inc.broke ground on a $25 million student housing project at The University of Texas campus in Arlington. The residential developer and manager (NYSE:ACC) — which last month secured $650 million in two credit facilities — said the 488-bed project will be called University Centre on UTA. Austin Business Journal
Submitted 1 years 324 days ago