O'Reilly uses rape victim as shield

O’Reilly smears ThinkProgress once again, claims we attacked a rape victim and her family.

Yesterday on The Factor, Bill O’Reilly addressed ThinkProgress in his “Reality Check” portion of the show, “a segment set up to defeat deceit.” And of course, O’Reilly proceeded to peddle deceit, claiming that “far left zealots…attacked a rape victim and her family because they asked me to speak at their fundraiser.” Wrong. We never attacked the Alexa Foundation; we simply highlighted quotes from O’Reilly that were unsympathetic towards a rape victim. O’Reilly has never explained why he implied that women who dress in a certain way or consume too much alcohol should perhaps expect to be raped and murdered. Watch last night’s segment.

O’Reilly also fumed at UPS’s recent decision to stop advertising on The Factor. “Disappointingly, the UPS corporation helped” ThinkProgress “in their evil deed,” O’Reilly whined. “Check is quite surprised. UPS needs to wise up fast.” Or what Bill? Will they be stalked, ambushed, and harassed by your henchmen as well? Please join our campaign.

Bottom Up Economics - If We Had Only Democratic Presidents

Bulls, Bears, Donkeys and Elephants

Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. So which party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Well, here’s an experiment: imagine that during these years you had to invest exclusively under either Democratic or Republican administrations. How would you have fared?

As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.

Jobless claims set new record GDP down more in 4Q

Jobless claims set new record GDP down more in 4Q
A line of job applicants snakes through a ropeline to attend the CUNY Big Apple Job Fair Friday, March 20, 2009 in New York. The government said Thursday March 26, initial jobless benefit claims rose slightly last week while the number of people continuing to claim benefits set a record for the ninth straight week. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

WASHINGTON — For a 10th straight week, the number of people who are continuing to claim jobless benefits increased, fresh evidence that the labor market remains weak despite other hopeful signs that the recession may have bottomed out.

New claims for unemployment benefits last week rose to a seasonally adjusted 652,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 644,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The total number of people claiming benefits jumped to 5.56 million, worse than economists' projections of 5.48 million, a ninth straight record and the highest total on records dating back to 1967.

The dismal job news is one indicator of the overall economic pain Americans have endured early in the new year. The Commerce Department said Thursday that the economy shrank at a 6.3 percent annual pace at the end of 2008, the worst showing in a quarter-century, and a bit faster than the 6.2 percent drop estimated a month ago.

But many economists project the economy is contracting in the current quarter at a 5 to 6 percent pace, still very weak by historical standards, but slightly better than the end of last year.

The stock market shook off the news. The Dow Jones industrial average added about 70 points in morning trading, and broader indices also rose.

Consumers are cutting back under the weight of rising unemployment, falling home values and shrinking investment portfolios. Those factors have forced companies to slash production and jobs. All the negative forces are feeding on each other in a vicious cycle that has deepened the recession, now in its second year.

The number of people claiming unemployment insurance for more than a week has increased by more than 100,000 four times in the past five weeks, an indication that workers are remaining on the rolls longer as they struggle to land a new job after being laid off.

As a proportion of the work force, the number of people receiving benefits is at its highest level since May 1983, when the economy was recovering from a steep recession. The total of nearly 5.6 million is almost double that of a year ago, when about 2.8 million people were continuing to receive unemployment checks.
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And that number doesn't include an additional 1.47 million people receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program approved by Congress last year. That tally was as of March 7, the latest data available.

Jobless benefits typically last 26 weeks, but Congress approved federal extensions twice last year than added an extra 20 to 33 weeks, depending on each state's unemployment rate.

Looking back to the end of last year, economists were bracing for an even sharper 6.5 percent annualized decline in the government's third and final estimate of gross domestic product for the fourth quarter.

Still, the results were dismal. The economy started off 2008 on feeble footing, picked up a bit of speed in the spring and then contracted at an annualized rate of 0.5 percent in the third quarter.

The faster downhill slide in the final quarter came as the financial crisis _ the worst since the 1930s _ intensified.

The main culprit behind the GDP downgrade was that businesses' cut inventories more deeply than estimated a month ago. That shaved 0.11 percentage points off fourth-quarter GDP, rather than adding 0.16 percentage points in the previous report.

Builders also cut spending on commercial construction more deeply through previously thought.

Many analysts believe the economy will keep shrinking at least through the first six months of this year.

In the current January-March quarter, many economists believe the economy is contracting at a pace of between 5 and 6 percent. The government will release its initial estimate of first-quarter GDP in late April. GDP is the value of all goods and services produced within the U.S. and is the best barometer of the country's economic fitness.

There were glimmers of hope on Wednesday that Americans' appetites to spend might be stirring again. Orders for costly manufactured goods and new-home sales both logged unexpected gains in February. But economists said neither result likely foreshadowed a lasting rebound.

Bush missing from USA TodayGallup poll response options to question about AIG bonuses

Bush missing from USA TodayGallup poll response options to question about AIG bonuses

Summary: A USA Today/Gallup poll question about who was to blame for the AIG bonuses left out the Bush administration as a suggested response, despite the administration's decision to give AIG billions in aid without requiring that the company withhold the bonuses.

Associated Press Hides Partisan Advocacy Behind "Analysis"

Associated Press Hides Partisan Advocacy Behind "Analysis"

If Politico has emerged as the ESPN of politics, covering the game but not the content of government, the Associated Press in recent weeks has delivered another media innovation. Time and again, the AP has delivered opinion pieces to its readers using the headline, "Analysis." But if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, some of the output of the AP smells like something else altogether.

Chief among the op-ed writers masquerading as journalists is Liz Sidoti. Sidoti, who famously presented candidate John McCain with a box of donuts during an AP campaign forum last year, proclaimed Saturday that "Barack Obama's optimistic campaign rhetoric has crashed headlong into the stark reality of governing." In a 1000 word screed titled, "Analysis: Obama Rhetoric, Reality Clash," she warning that "people could perceive him as a say-one-thing-do-another politician," Sidoti took the President to task:

"In office two months, he has backpedaled on an array of issues, gingerly shifting positions as circumstances dictate while ducking for political cover to avoid undercutting his credibility and authority. That's happened on the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline, on lobbyists in his administration and on money for lawmakers' pet projects."

Two weeks earlier, Sidoti offered another of her so-called analyses. In a March 8 piece titled, "Analysis: Obama Embracing Crisis as Opportunity," Sidoti suggested President Obama was capitalizing on "the worst economic conditions in a generation as an opportunity to advance an audacious agenda that, if successful, could reshape the country for decades to come," while insisting "he could fall victim to grandiose plans and too-high expectations if he doesn't deliver." And while looking at presidents past ("rightly or wrongly, he's often compared with Democrat Franklin Roosevelt"), Sidoti offered Ronald Reagan as a role model for Obama:

"In the 1980s, Republican Ronald Reagan led a country faced with sky-high inflation and a growing Soviet threat. He used the public's anxieties about the Cold War and the economy to win support for an expanded military even as he limited the size of government, instituted across-the-board tax cuts and promoted supply-side economics."

Of course, President Reagan did not "limit the size of government." Far from it. Reagan's combination of increased spending and dangerously irresponsible tax cuts produced the massive budget deficits that are his true legacy. As it turns out, the national debt tripled under Reagan, only to double again under George W. Bush.

The Real AIG Scandal Continued

The Real AIG Scandal, Continued
The AIG scandal is getting ever-more disturbing. Goldman Sachs' public conference call explaining its trading relationship and exposure with AIG established, once again, that Goldman knows how to protect itself. According to Goldman, even if AIG had failed, Goldman's losses would have been minimal.

How did Goldman protect itself? Sensing AIG's weakening capital position through 2006 and 2007, Goldman demanded more collateral from AIG and covered outstanding risk with instruments from other firms.

But this raises two critical questions. The first is why $12.9 billion of taxpayer money went from AIG to Goldman. What risk—systemic or otherwise—was being covered? If Goldman wasn't going to suffer severe losses, why are taxpayers paying them off at 100 cents on the dollar? As I wrote earlier in the week, the real AIG scandal is that the company's trading partners are getting fully paid rather than taking a haircut.

Goldman's answer is that it was merely taking a commercial position—trying to avoid any losses at all on its AIG positions. I suppose we can hardly expect Goldman to reject government assistance in the form of pure cash that seems to have had no strings attached.

But what were the government officials possibly thinking? The only rationale for what we should call the "hidden conduit bailout" to AIG's trading partners is that the cascading effect of AIG's inability to pay would have been devastating. But Goldman has now said very clearly there would have been no cascade. Not even a ripple.

Is the same true of AIG's other counterparties, including several foreign banks? What examination of the impact of an AIG failure did federal officials undertake before deciding to spend countless billions bailing out AIG and its trading partners?

The government decision to bail out AIG was made after the private parties, supposedly at risk, had declined to structure a private series of investments that might have avoided the need for use of public money. Perhaps they knew the impact of an AIG default would be small, or perhaps they knew that the federal officials in the room would blink and ante up. In a post-Lehman moment when panic, not reason, was dominating the discussion, perhaps they figured they could walk away with extra billions—and, indeed, they did.

This issue cries out for immediate government inquiry. Maybe one or two of the more than two dozen government entities now beating their chests about bonuses can redirect their energies to this much larger issue confronting us: Who signed off on this $80 billion bailout—now approaching $200 billion—and why?

Republicans Take Credit For Stimulus They Voted Against

After Voting No, Republicans Tout Funds

Republicans railed against the Democrats' massive economic-stimulus and spending bills as fiscally irresponsible, but some GOP lawmakers are taking credit for projects in their own districts funded by the measures.

"Washington needs to stop spending money that it doesn't have," Michigan Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra said in attacking the $410 billion omnibus-spending bill, which funds the government through September. But once it passed, he touted its benefits for his district, which stretches along Lake Michigan.

"Safe and navigable harbors are economic engines that drive the communities that surround them," Mr. Hoekstra declared, announcing $3 million for harbor improvements.
Stimulus Spending by State



Facing difficult economic times and looking ahead to 2010 elections, lawmakers are under pressure to show they are helping constituents. That is leading some Republicans, and even a handful of Democrats, to highlight funds in bills they voted against.

Republicans That Ganged up on Geithner Fought Pay Limits

Flashback: It Was Bush, GOP That Opposed Executive Compensation Caps
It is a rather curious spectacle to see congressional Republicans express outrage at the exorbitant bonuses being handed out by bailed-out companies and blame the Obama administration for failing to curb the practice with AIG. Because when the first installment of the Troubled Asset Relief Program was passed it was the Bush administration and GOPers in Congress who were insisting that caps on executive compensation not be part of the legislation.

As the New York Times reported at the time that TARP was being crafted, "Congress and the administration remained at odds over the demands of some lawmakers, including limits on the pay of top executives whose firms seek help."

Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said that while he was upset with the levels of salary afforded to top executives, any cap on such would dissuade companies from participating in the TARP.

"If we design it so it's punitive and so institutions aren't going to participate, this won't work the way we need it to work," he told Fox News Sunday on September 21.

Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told CBS news that: "It should be up to the board of directors of a private corporation to set the compensation of an executive; it shouldn't be Congress's role."

Senator Mel Martinez told CNBC that: "While it is very appealing to think about executive compensation as being a part of this, one of the drawbacks to that is perhaps that we would have fewer entities participate in what is essentially a voluntary act."

Media continue to omit Bush Treasury's role in AIG bonus controversy

Media continue to omit Bush Treasury's role in AIG bonus controversy

USA Today and the Los Angeles Times reported Republican criticism of the Obama administration over AIG's employee bonus packages but did not point out that it was the Bush Treasury Department that worked with the Federal Reserve in carrying out last year's bailouts and bought AIG stock notwithstanding the existence of these bonus contracts.

Fox's Steve Doocy - Liar and Clown

Fox's Steve Doocy - Liar and Clown

Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy falsely asserted that President Obama has proposed eliminating the ability of high-income taxpayers to take income tax deductions for their home mortgages. In fact, Obama has not proposed eliminating income tax deductions for any taxpayers; rather, a provision in Obama's budget proposal would, beginning in fiscal year 2011, reduce the tax rate at which families earning more than $250,000 per year can take itemized deductions to 28 percent.

CNN and Cheney Spread Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Housing Myth

CNN and Cheney Spread Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. Housing Myth

On CNN's State of the Union, host John King did not challenge former Vice President Dick Cheney's false claim that the Bush administration tried "to impose reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and we ran into a stone wall on Capitol Hill in the form of the chairmen and -- of the Banking Committee in the House and the Senate, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd." In fact, Frank and Dodd were not "chairmen" until 2007, after which time Congress passed oversight legislation of Fannie and Freddie.

Defict Spending Unavoidable - Part of the Bush Legacy

Obama's economics guru defends deficit spending
Lawrence Summers, President Barack Obama's closest economic adviser, broke a long public silence on Friday, asserting that today's economic problems stem from an unsustainable financial model, and he defended heavy deficit spending as a necessary evil to restore the economy to health.

Summers, a former Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, now heads the policymaking National Economic Council inside the White House. He said the current recession was sparked not by the normal business cycle but by excesses such as inflated asset prices and insufficient regulation that had built up over years and finally collapsed.

"On a global basis, $50 trillion in wealth has been erased over the last 18 months. This includes $7 trillion in the U.S. stock market and $6 trillion in housing wealth," Summers said, adding that greed has given way to fear.

"This is the paradox at the heart of the financial crisis," he continued, noting that it "was this transition from an excess of greed to an excess of fear that President (Franklin) Roosevelt had in mind when he famously observed that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. It is this transition that has happened in the United States today."

Summers also said that after plummeting during the holiday season, consumer spending appears to have stabilized, which he said was "modestly encouraging."

Here's more of what Summers had to say, edited into a question-and-answer format.

Q: Why is Obama moving on healthcare, energy, education and other areas. Shouldn't the focus be on fixing the economy?

A: I can't imagine that it would be rational not to provide assistance to students, not to work on making higher education affordable, not to increase financial confidence in the country by doing the work of getting health-care costs under control, not at a time when there are millions of people unemployed; to be thinking about a sector like energy and the environment, where new jobs can be created. It would seem to me that it would be a manifest abdication of responsibility not, as we thought about recovery, to be thinking about making that recovery as sound and as strong as possible.

Q: Why hasn't Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner spelled out his plan to get so-called toxic assets off of bank balance sheets so they can lend again?

A: I think that Secretary Geithner has handled this in a difficult and courageous way. The easy thing to do would be . . . to lay out a nine-point plan with illusion of specificity and the sense of certainty about what the future would bring. It's so easy that we saw half a dozen of them from the previous administration; it's just that they were different each month. The right approach, the approach that Secretary Geithner has taken, is an approach that lays out a framework, that, unlike so much of the commentary, actually recognizes the enormous complexities of the problem and the balances that need to be stuck.

Q: What kind of balances need to be struck?

A: The need to address on the one hand the capital markets and on the other hand the banks, and not to do what so many do . . . and fail to recognize the profound interlinkages. The whole question about the toxic assets in the banks has to do with the health of the capital markets and in what way those assets can be sold.

Q: Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao worried on Friday that America may not make good on the $1 trillion in debt it owes China. Does America's stimulus spending risk a debt default?

A: In the short run, the need is to get the economy going again and to get the private financial system working again and to reactivate those markets. And . . . it's not something that will happen automatically simply through patience. You have to be prepared to prime the pump, and if you allow the process of decay, decline and deleveraging to continue, it's much more costly to do it later. The ultimate burdens are . . . much greater and the loss of confidence and ability to attract foreign capital is that much more profound.

Q: Still, our debt is exploding. Won't this have long-term consequences?

A: Look, I think we need to do what's necessary to get us out of the crisis that we inherited. My speech was intended to persuade you of one thing if you didn't agree with anything else — that this was not a set of automatic processes that will automatically fix themselves if you didn't act. If deflation sets in, if the (gross domestic product) collapses further . . . the magnitude of the federal borrowing, as large as it is today, will be dwarfed; will be far larger. So I believe the approach the president is taking is the ultimately fiscal responsible approach, because of the risk it avoids and it contains.

Moving Beyond the Reagan Fairytale

Moving Beyond the Reagan Fairytale

His legacy as a fiscal conservative is as much of a fairytale as his philosophy was. The beacon of small government and fiscal responsibility was actually the man who unnecessarily blew a massive hole in the budget. He's been treated as the Second Coming of Christ on fiscal conservatism, but his record just doesn't live up to the dittohead adulation.

Reagan cut government programs that were helpful to many, and, as you can see below, began an era of reckless spending that was carried on by the Bushes

Obama Inherits Reagan's Socialist Legacy

Reagan's Socialist Legacy
Newt Gingrich is right: "It is European socialism transplanted to Washington." How else to describe an economy in which the government controls the entire financial center and is now supplying life support for the auto industry? That's on top of the existing socialist economy run by the military-industrial complex, which, thanks to George W. Bush, now absorbs upward of 60 percent of the non-entitlement federal budget.
Although we still have a way to go to catch up with the good parts of the European system, including universal healthcare, high-quality public education and decent working conditions, we do have a system that is now as socialist in budget size as Europe's. That part I get when I listen to the right-wingers on Fox News bemoaning the reversal of the Reagan Revolution. But what I don't understand is how in the world they can blame this startling turn of events on Barack Obama.

The vast majority of money allocated so far on President Obama's watch is an extension of Bush's banking bailout, which has committed trillions to failed Wall Street conglomerates. I certainly don't want to defend the bailout and personally think the banks and stockbrokers deserve to go belly up, but what does that mess have to do with Obama, who was in college when the Reagan Revolution launched the deregulation that allowed Wall Street to run wild?

Didn't Obama inherit the current financial meltdown less than two months ago from the Republicans, who for eight years under Bush assured us that the markets were not in any need of tighter regulation? Wasn't it GOP Congressional members led by folks like Gingrich who pushed though the deregulation legislation that enabled the growth of "too big to fail" financial institutions that now have to be saved by the taxpayers?

Nor has Obama demanded anything more in the way of accountability from those Wall Street swindlers than had the Bush administration. Under both presidents a total of $170 billion was given to insurance giant AIG, and, as the Wall Street Journal reported, at least $50 billion of that money was passed on to top foreign and domestic banks without any public accounting. Indeed, the second in command at the Fed told a Senate committee last week that he wouldn't reveal the names of the banks that grabbed our money.

Nor has there been any serious demand put on the banks to use the hundreds of billions in federal funds they received to increase liquidity. Indeed, the banks are raising interest rates and cutting limits on credit cards at a time when the government is hoping consumers will use those cards to pump some life into the retail market. As bank industry analyst Meredith Whitney wrote in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed article, consumer credit card lines "were reduced by nearly $500 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008 alone." She estimates that credit card limits for consumers will be halved over the next year, mostly on consumers who have not done anything wrong. This will take "credit away from people who have the ability to pay their bills," she notes.

So what we have here is socialism without even the pretense of a soul. Certainly that has been the case with the abject refusal of the banks that received government bailouts to be more aggressive in preventing home foreclosures. And the Obama administration has made it clear that it has no intention of taking over the operation of any of the mega-companies that are in trouble, even when, as in the case of AIG, the government already owns 80 percent of the shares. The reason? Because that would be viewed as nationalization.

So what exactly would Obama's critics do differently? Nothing on the bailout side. Instead, they have settled for carping criticism of the stimulus package, playing games by nitpicking lesser-cost programs while ignoring the big items that most governors, be they Republican or Democrat, eagerly want. The great fear of the GOP seems to be that some of the stimulus program might actually prove helpful to struggling Americans, but the Republicans can't just come out of the closet and say so.

What they have picked up on instead is that Obama's tax cuts provide some redistribution of income to favor the rapidly disappearing middle class at the expense of the super-wealthy, who have profited wildly from Bush tax cuts. Which brings us back to Gingrich's complaint that Obama is importing European socialism. If that means a system of governance in which a robust middle class is rewarded for work with a strong social safety net supported by higher taxes on the most affluent, well, let's get it on.

Lindsay Graham (R-SC) Earmark Queen

Graham criticizes Obama for earmarks, but defends his own
On Meet the Press this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged President Obama to veto the $410 billion FY09 omnibus budget because it has too many earmarks. Host David Gregory quickly pointed out that Graham’s friend and colleague, John McCain, has been highlighting Graham’s own $950,000 earmark for a convention center in Myrtle Beach, SC. Graham then pivoted from attacking earmarks to defending them:

“I voted to take all earmarks out, but I will come back in the new process and put that back in,” Graham insisted, saying that the convention center is important to stimulate the local economy. “I think I should have the ability as a United States senator to direct money back to my state as long as it’s transparent and it makes sense.”

The stimulus probably was not big enough

Behind the Curve
President Obama’s plan to stimulate the economy was “massive,” “giant,” “enormous.” So the American people were told, especially by TV news, during the run-up to the stimulus vote. Watching the news, you might have thought that the only question was whether the plan was too big, too ambitious.

Yet many economists, myself included, actually argued that the plan was too small and too cautious. The latest data confirm those worries — and suggest that the Obama administration’s economic policies are already falling behind the curve.

To see how bad the numbers are, consider this: The administration’s budget proposals, released less than two weeks ago, assumed an average unemployment rate of 8.1 percent for the whole of this year. In reality, unemployment hit that level in February — and it’s rising fast.

Employment has already fallen more in this recession than in the 1981-82 slump, considered the worst since the Great Depression. As a result, Mr. Obama’s promise that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 looks underwhelming, to say the least. It’s a credible promise — his economists used solidly mainstream estimates of the impacts of tax and spending policies. But 3.5 million jobs almost two years from now isn’t enough in the face of an economy that has already lost 4.4 million jobs, and is losing 600,000 more each month.

Dudley hits out at banks’ ‘self-interest’

Dudley hits out at banks’ ‘self-interest’
William Dudley, new president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, on Friday accused bankers of exacerbating the financial crisis, saying some failed to raise capital quickly enough because they did not want to dilute their shareholdings.

Mr Dudley, in his first speech as head of the New York Fed, said executives at banks and government-sponsored enterprises told regulators “repeatedly over the past 18 months” that “now is not a good time to raise capital”.

“This desire to postpone capital raising stems in part to the fact that bank executives often do not want to dilute existing shareholders, which of course include themselves,” said Mr Dudley. “The self-interested thing to do is avoid the dilution and hope for a good state of the world.”

Mr Dudley, an economist at Goldman Sachs before he joined the New York Fed as executive vice-president of the markets group, was also fairly downbeat about the economy in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations. “The deleveraging process is still far from complete,” he said. “It seems unlikely that all will be well soon. The economy has considerable momentum to the downside.”

Mr Dudley was more upbeat about the prospects for the government’s Term Asset-Backed Security Loan Facility, which is designed to help boost the markets for securities backed by consumer and business loans. Mr Dudley said that by offering up to $9 of borrowed money for every dollar invested by potential buyers, “returns become very attractive”.

Limbaugh conservatives continue 75-year-old socialized medicine smear

Limbaugh conservatives continue 75-year-old socialized medicine smear
As President Obama lays the groundwork for releasing his plan to reform the country's health-care system, Rush Limbaugh responds on cue with a pre-emptive attempt to undermine reform efforts with the tired smear of "socialized medicine." Just how tired? Very -- it is at least three-quarters of a century old. Media Matters found that as far back as the 1930s -- with respect to at least 16 different proposals -- conservatives have volleyed attacks on progressive efforts at health-care reform with the clichéd -- and false -- label of "socialized medicine."

Stimulus Spurs Road Projects

Stimulus Spurs Road Projects
The work, however mundane much of it is, cannot come too soon for a construction industry buffeted by an unemployment rate that has risen to twice the national average as many states cut back on building. Mike Gibson, the executive director of Associated Contractors of New Mexico, a trade group, said his state had lost 4,500 highway construction jobs in the last year.

“We have lost the equivalent of a plant closure,” Mr. Gibson said. “When you lose 10 jobs here, 100 jobs here, it adds up very quickly.”

GOP senator Orrin Hatch Drug Kingpin

GOP senator Orrin Hatch's charity tied to massive pharmaceutical donations
A charity founded by a senior Republican lawmaker who was a key ally to the pharmaceutical industry received more than $170,000 in 2007 from drugmakers, far in excess of campaign finance rules had the money been donated to him directly, leaked documents show.

The senator, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), founded Utah Families Foundation, the recipient of the gifts, though he doesn't serve on the foundation's board. But his son is now the chief lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry's lobbying group.

Hatch has received more money from the pharmaceutical industry than any other group, raking in $1.25 million since 1998. The latest sums, however, dwarf that of previous donations from individual corporations. In 2007, the foundation received $25,000 from Eli Lilly, $30,000 from Barr Pharmaceuticals, $25,000 from AstraZeneca and $40,000 from PhRMA.

The figures were part of the foundation's tax returns and accidentally released by the Internal Revenue Service to a nonprofit group. As a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization, Utah Families Foundation isn't required to disclose a donor list.

The same year Utah Families Foundation received massive gifts, Sen. Hatch voted on a bill relating to Medicare Part D. Hatch voted against a bill requiring that the government negotiate discounted prices from drugmakers, a measure the industry vehemently opposed. In 2005, Hatch also voted against a measure that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate bulk prices for prescription drugs.

"And if that weren't enough political intrigue, the tax-exempt charitable foundation, which the senator from Utah helped start in the 1990s and still vigorously supports, has been delinquent for nearly a decade in filing its required annual reports with Utah state officials," a Washington Times review by Jim McElhatton and Jerry Seper found, the reporters who revealed the documents.

Omnibus Spending Bill Has Plenty of Republican Earmarks

AP ignored Democrats' response to earmark criticism: 40% are from Republicans
The AP reported that "Republicans assailed" the omnibus bill recently passed by the House as "too costly" and quoted Republicans criticizing the bill as, in the reporter's words, "bristl[ing] with earmarks." At no point did the reporter give any indication that many of the earmarks were included at the request of Republicans.

In a February 26 Associated Press article on the omnibus legislation passed by the "Democratic-controlled House" on Tuesday, David Espo reported that "Republicans assailed the legislation as too costly" and quoted Republicans criticizing the bill as, in the reporter's words, "bristl[ing] with earmarks." While Espo included examples of Democratic earmarks, at no point did he give any indication that many of the earmarks were included in the bill at the request of Republicans.