In the past quarter-century, Congressmen have gone from super rich to super-duper rich, while their constituents have remained relatively poor. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are doing quite well for themselves, raising their median net worth from $280,000 to $725,000 from 1984 to 2009. In the same span, the average net worth of American families has dropped from $20,600 to $20,500. The inflation-adjusted figures come from Panel Study of Income Dynamics from the University of Michigan. [More]
Government Policy
Gay Couples Lose Big On Tax Breaks Because Their Marriages Aren't Recognized
By 12.27.11
Gay couples whose marriages aren’t viewed as legitimate by the federal government have to pay heavily due to the indignity. Same-sex couples reportedly pay as much as $6,000 more a year in taxes because they aren’t allowed to file jointly. [More]
Legal Online Gambling May Be On The Way, Courtesy Of Justice Department
By 12.27.11
Online poker and other forms of non-sports internet gambling could become legal, thanks in part to a recently released U.S. Department of Justice opinion on a 50-year-old law. [More]
Class-Action Lawsuit Has A Problem With Sun Chips And Tostitos Being Labeled "All Natural"
By 12.22.11
The meaning of the phrase “all natural” is in dispute in a class-action lawsuit recently filed against Frito Lay over claims that some of the company’s Tostitos and Sun Chips products may not live up to consumers’ expectations of an all-natural label. [More]
Johnson & Johnson Ends 2011 Just At It Began — By Recalling More Stuff
By 12.22.11
After more than a year of near-constant recalls, the folks at Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Labs aren’t finished yet. This time, it’s a mere 12 million bottles of Motrin that are being recalled from store shelves because the pills may not dissolve as quickly as they are supposed to. [More]
Politicians Won't Face Charges For Accepting Free Trips From Fiesta Bowl
By 12.22.11
Back in March, word spread that the Fiesta Bowl committee was allegedly rife with corruption. Bowl officials, which run the so-called nonprofit, were accused of buying favor with power brokers and politicians by taking them off on luxurious junkets, including potentially illegal trips to football games. It turns out politicians involved in the shenanigans won’t face charges, because an Arizona county attorney doesn’t feel confident he can prove the fact that elected officials knowingly violated the law. [More]
White House: Unemployment Insurance Must Be Extended To Help Spur Job Creation
By 12.21.11
As the deadline to approve the payroll tax cut extension looms 10 days away, White House officials are speaking out to urge Republicans in the House of Representatives to approve the measure that only days ago was hailed as a bipartisan compromise when it passed in the Senate. However, the White House says Republicans have now changed their tune. [More]
New Bill Would Prevent FCC Commissioners From Jumping Ship To Companies Whose Mergers They Just Approved
By 12.21.11
Remember last May when then-FCC commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker (pictured at left) ruffled a lot of feathers by taking a job at Comcast, only a few months after approving the cable company’s controversial merger with NBC? Well, Congresswoman Maxine Waters hasn’t forgotten, and she’s introduced legislation aimed at preventing these kinds of obvious shenanigans. [More]
EPA Announces New Standards To Reduce Mercury Contamination From Power Plant Emissions
By 12.21.11
This morning, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, a set of national regulations aimed at reducing power plant emissions of mercury and toxic air pollution like arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, and cyanide. [More]
RIAA On Illegal Dexter Downloads: "It Wasn't Us"
By 12.21.11
Earlier this week, we told you about how the torrent freaks at TorrentFreak claimed to have discovered that some people at anti-piracy stalwart the Recording Industry Association of America had been illegally using BitTorrent to download copyrighted material, including five full seasons of Showtime hit Dexter. RIAA has since come out with an explanation, one that sounds exactly like the defense used by the very people it has pushed to have prosecuted — “it wasn’t us.” [More]
Pampered Chef Ice Cream Scoops Recalled, Could Fly Off Their Own Handles
By 12.21.11
Consumer Product Safety Commission recall notices are hilarious in their understatement. Take this current recall of Pampered Chef ice cream scoops: the problem is described in the press release headline as an “Impact Injury Hazard.” Translation: if you put this scoop in warm water, the cap at the end may pop off and hit you. Or your kitchen appliances. [More]
Poker Site Co-Founder Pleads Guilty To Conspiracy
By 12.21.11
A federal crackdown on online poker sites continues to rake in chips. In a reported plea agreement, a man who co-founded the gambling site Absolute Poker pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. Federal regulators accused his organization of deceiving banks by masking customers’ gambling charges with names of online retailers. [More]
Report: Someone At The RIAA Downloaded $9 Million Worth Of Pirated Dexter Episodes
By 12.20.11
The hallowed halls of the Recording Industry Association of America, where all music is bought at full price and never shared, lest people face violations of up to $150,000 per pirated item, has reportedly been infiltrated by ne’er-do-wells who think they can BitTorrent copyrighted material at work and not be caught. [More]
Man Sentenced To Year In Prison For Leaking So-So Wolverine Movie
By 12.20.11
The New York man who pleaded guilty to uploading a nearly finished work print of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to the internet a month before it hit theaters, has been sentenced to a year behind bars in federal prison for letting the world see how mediocre the movie was before they had to pay $10 to see it at the theater. [More]
Federal Reserve On Verge Of Proposing New Capital Rules For Banks
By 12.20.11
The Federal Reserve is expected to roll out new rules soon that could make big banks keep more capital reserves on hand, presumably leaving them with less money to lend. The idea is to make banks act more responsible with their stacks of chips and not need the government to bail them out. [More]
Let's All Guess Which Members Of Congress Got VIP Loan Discounts From Countrywide
By 12.19.11
It’s been more than three years since it was revealed that Angelo Mozilo, the curiously orange former CEO of Countrywide Financial, provided discounted loans to U.S. Senators and other VIPs. But it wasn’t until last February that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform got around to finding out if members of Congress might have scored the special treatment. Their findings: Yes, four House members were involved; and no, we’re not yet saying who it was. [More]
Supreme Court Sets Late March Dates To Hear Health Care Reform Arguments
By 12.19.11
The countdown clock is on for health care reform. This morning, the Supreme Court announced that it has set aside three dates in late March to hear arguments surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. [More]
Chants Of "Rudy, Rudy!" Not So Inspirational In Ruettiger's SEC Stock Fraud Case
By 12.19.11
Daniel Ruettiger, aka Notre Dame football folk hero immortalized in the movie Rudy, apprently didn’t want to be the underdog any more. So he tried to make a go against Gatorade with Rudy Nutrition in the sports drink market, only to get busted by the SEC for allegedly running a stock scam. [More]
