News of the Day - 01/10/11

How AT&T, Verizon and the Telecom Giants Have Captured the Regulator Supposed to Control Them

Our telecom industry's overseer doesn't seem to have any control to stop the greed. That's because it's a puppet of the industry giants.

In a recent AlterNet article, we detailed how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) helped increase the “FCC Line Charge” (SLC), now capped at $6.50 per line, that is imposed on every residential and business phone line. It is a charge that is usually hidden among the “taxes and surcharges” section of the phone bill. It does not go to fund the FCC, but is a direct subsidy to phone companies.

However, the full story of the role AT&T, Verizon and others played in the FCC’s deliberations establishing the SLC has yet to be told. It is a model of what is known as “regulatory capture,” the process by which a federal or state regulatory or other government agency becomes too cozy with those it is charged to oversee.

Tom DeLay, former U.S. House leader, sentenced to 3 years in prison

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 10, 2011; 5:15 PM

AUSTIN - Former House majority leader Tom DeLay, the brash Texan who helped build and tightly control a Republican majority in his chamber for three years, was sentenced by a state judge on Monday to three years in prison for illegally plotting to funnel corporate contributions to Texas legislative candidates in 2002.

CBO: Repealing Health Care Would Increase Deficit by $230 Billion

Sunday 09 January 2011

The new Republican-controlled House has laid out its first major target - the federal law aimed at overhauling the health-care system. But an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warns that the repealing health care legislation could increase the federal deficit by $230 billion in the next decade and leave 32 million more Americans uninsured.

Introduced by House Republicans on January 5, the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," also known as H.R. 2, targets the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as well as the provisions of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 that are related to health care. Deliberations on the bill are expected to start immediately.

The Bill Daley Problem

By Simon Johnson

Bill Daley, President Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff, is an experienced business executive. By all accounts, he is decisive, well-organized, and a skilled negotiator. His appointment, combined with other elements of the White House reshuffle, provides insight into how the president understands our economy – and what is likely to happen over the next couple of years. This is a serious problem.

This is not a critique from the left or from the right. The Bill Daley Problem is completely bipartisan – it shows us the White House fails to understand that, at the heart of our economy, we have a huge time bomb.

How Can Republicans Hate the Individual Mandate?

The individual health care mandate is a conservative concept that conservatives now say they despise. What gives?

By Eliot Spitzer
Posted Monday, Jan. 10, 2011, at 12:26 PM ET

When Congress returns to work after pausing to reflect on the horror of the Arizona shootings, health care repeal will top the agenda for Speaker John Boehner and the Republican Party. "Obamacare" galvanized opposition to the Obama presidency within Republican and independent ranks. And few issues within health care generate such a visceral and often hysterical response as the "individual mandate"—the obligation that all people participate either by purchasing insurance or paying a tax whose proceeds would be used to defray the costs of uninsured health care and reduce premiums.

Zero Hour for Social Security

As I have previously warned--and I hope I'm wrong--President Obama seems on the verge of needlessly cutting America's most valued social program and the one that best differentiates Republicans from Democrats. This is part of a vain effort to appease deficit hawks in his own party and on Wall Street, as well as Republicans who are utter hypocrites when it comes to deficits--increasing them as long as the purpose is tax cuts but then turning around and demanding program cuts in order to reduce the deficits they created.

All the choreography is in place for the president to embrace Social Security cuts in his upcoming State of the Union address.

Being poor can suppress children's genetic potentials

AUSTIN, Texas — Growing up poor can suppress a child's genetic potential to excel cognitively even before the age of 2, according to research from psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.

Half of the gains that wealthier children show on tests of mental ability between 10 months and 2 years of age can be attributed to their genes, the study finds. But children from poorer families, who already lag behind their peers by that age, show almost no improvements that are driven by their genetic makeup.