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In an unusual Saturday vote, the Senate approved a $30 billion package to extend unemployment benefits, a payroll tax holiday for millions of American workers and to avoid cuts in payments to doctors who accept Medicare through February, when Congress will once again be locked in battle over whether and how to further extend those provisions.

The agreement — should it get through the House — mirrors a series of 11th-hour deals devised by the the 112th Congress that appear to solve an impending crisis, but simply push forward, most notably the agreement last summer to raise the debt ceiling. That created a 12-member Congressional committee whose job was to complete the deficit reduction goals that Congress failed to achieve on their own. That group achieved nothing, necessitating the legislation that Congress is wrangling with now.

A failure to even extend a modest tax break for 160 million Americans for a single year — something both sides would love as political feather’s in their election-year caps — is particularly remarkable in a Congress charged with far more significant items.

“Today is an important day for our country,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, as he explained from the Senate floor Saturday why his chamber would be voting on a bill, conceived Friday in private between Senate leaders to extend the tax for only two months. “We are doing today exactly what the Founding Fathers thought we would do,” and passage of the bills is “an accomplishment important for the American people.”

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Via: www.866ourvote.org

Proposed legislation that would require voters to produce photo identification at the polls is popping up in roughly half of the states across the country. These bills create new hurdles to the ballot box that are especially high for low income and minority voters who may not have the resources to get a qualifying photo ID. In Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964) the Supreme Court held that “[n]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.” State lawmakers drafting voter ID legislation run the risk of infringing upon this inestimable right for the alleged purpose of preventing voter fraud. These voter ID bills are a solution in search of a problem and will only serve to disenfranchise eligible voters.

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House Republicans zeroed out all three parts of the president’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives: the school-centered Promise Neighborhoods, the housing-focused Choice Neighborhoods and the law enforcement-oriented Byrne Criminal Justice Initiative.

City Limits Reports:

All three programs reflect the administration’s belief in place-based strategies that coordinate multiple agencies and programs to improve a particular neighborhood, city or region. This approach undergirds not only anti-poverty funding but also Obama’s urban-planning strategy, where the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is pooling funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation to address interlinked housing, transit and environmental challenges that particular places face. In 2009, the White House ordered all federal agencies to conduct a place-based review of their policies to see where arbitrary borders between departments might be adjusted to make programs work better and cheaper.

Read More At CityLimits.org

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Yesterday, a coalition of 5,000 pastors, led by the Washington-based social-justice group Sojourners, is releasing an open letter to Congress saying they’d like to form a “Circle of Protection around programs that meet the essential needs of hungry and poor people at home and abroad.”

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According to a report in The Washington Post, in 1979 the U.S. reached a last-minute approval that resulted in technical malfunctions in processing the backlog of paperwork, and subsequently thousands of late payments to holders of Treasury bills that were maturing that April and May.

While brief and inadvertent, the U.S. did technically default on loans.

The Treasury had missed payments on about $120 million worth of bills that led to a class suit against the Government. The bills were eventually payed with back interest.

The Washington Post Reports:

“It’s not as if God appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai and said, ‘The U.S. will always be a AAA credit.’ Our reputation is something that we have earned,” Angel said, adding that history is filled “with countries that were once great and blew it. The simple lesson is, you’ve got to pay your bills on time. If you don’t pay your bills on time, bad things happen.”

Read More At WashingtonPost.com

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Barbara Jordan, lawyer, educator, Congresswoman, and the first Black person to give the keynote address at a national political convention, was born in Houston, TX, February 21,1936.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PERSON VISIT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.

Time Magazine is reporting that the government has a new right to track citizens every move through GPS devices on cars.

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.

READ THE WHOLE STORY

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ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Ghana president John Atta Mills said the country’s World Cup players will be given national honors and $20,000 each after making Africa proud with their performance in South Africa.

“You deserved to be honored because you have made Ghana and indeed Africa proud by your performance,” Mills said Tuesday at a lunch held in honor of the team, which was greeted by cheering fans on its return to Accra on Monday night.

“You did not win the World Cup but, through your performance, you carried high the flags of not only Ghana but Africa,” he added.

As well as the cash bonus for the players, a government official said members of the coaching team would receive a reward of $10,000 each.

Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan, who is from Ghana, wrote in a letter to the team that he was one of millions left “heartbroken” after the quarterfinal loss to Uruguay in a penalty shootout.

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Ghana was denied victory when a blatant hand ball prevented a goal in the final seconds of extra time. Asamoah Gyan missed the resulting penalty and Ghana’s dream of becoming the first African team to make the World Cup semifinals ended when it lost the shootout.

“For a moment, my reaction to those last minutes of drama was ‘how unfair’,” Annan wrote in the open letter which was addressed “Dear Black Stars.”

“But in fact, while you lost the game, you came out winners,” the letter said.

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“I wanted to congratulate you not only on a fantastic performance in which you can take great pride, but also for accepting your defeat with dignity. You won because you were such great ambassadors for the game — and for Africa.”

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Ghana was adopted as Africa’s team during its journey to the last eight of the tournament. The other five countries from the continent all failed to qualify for the second round.

“You won because you brought us all together,” Annan’s letter said. “The lasting trophy to take away from the tournament is this incredible moment of unity.”

PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she’s angry over comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the Obama administration will sue the state over its new immigration law.

In a June 8 media interview in Ecuador that began circulating Thursday in the U.S., Clinton said President Barack Obama thinks the federal government should determine immigration policy and that the Justice Department “will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”

Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler on Thursday declined to say whether the department would sue and that “the department continues to review the law.”

The department has been looking at the law for weeks for possible civil rights violations, with an eye toward a possible court challenge.

It’s unclear why Clinton made the comment since it’s not her area. She couldn’t be reached Thursday for comment.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Obama and Clinton have both made it clear that the administration opposes the law.

“I will defer to the Justice Department on the legal steps that are available and where they stand on the review of the law,” Crowley said. “The secretary believes that comprehensive immigration reform is a better course of action.”

Brewer, a Republican, said in a statement that “this is no way to treat the people of Arizona.”

“To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous,” she said. “If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.”

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said the governor was “outraged” and that Clinton’s comments make it appear that the Justice Department has decided to file suit.

“But she’s confident that in the end, the state of Arizona, the citizens, will prevail,” he said.

On April 23, Brewer signed what is considered the toughest legislation in the nation targeting illegal immigrants. It is set to go into effect July 29 pending multiple legal challenges and the Justice Department’s review.

The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” they’re in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state’s streets.

The law’s stated intention is to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from coming in the first place. It has outraged civil rights groups, drawn criticism from Obama and led to marches and protests organized by people on both sides of the issue.

The law’s backers say Congress isn’t doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it’s the state’s duty to address the issue. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics, and damage ties between police and minority communities.

Brewer met with Obama in the Oval Office about the law on June 3, telling him: “We want our border secured.” Obama reiterated his objections to the law. Neither side appeared to give ground although both talked about seeking a bipartisan solution.

Other Arizona politicians, political candidates and activist groups were quick to weigh in on Clinton’s remarks. U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth, who is challenging Sen. John McCain, called them appalling; attorney general candidates Tom Horne and Andrew Thomas also denounced them.

Joanne Lin, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, urged the administration to take swift action against the law.

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WASHINGTON – America’s “Great Compromiser” Henry Clay called government “the great trust,” but most Americans today have little faith in Washington’s ability to deal with the nation’s problems.

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don’t trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America’s ills, the survey found.

The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obamaand the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall’s elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

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The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively effects their daily lives, a sentiment that’s grown over the past dozen years.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.

“The government’s been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to get elected, and when they get elected, they don’t follow through,” says Cindy Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Nemacolin, Pa., who joined several thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 — the tax filing deadline. “There’s too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but he’s certainly not helping fix it.”

Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it’s interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal responsibility.

About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the economy during the recession.

“Trust in government rarely gets this low,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. “Some of it’s backlash against Obama. But there are a lot of other things going on.”

And, he added: “Politics has poisoned the well.”

The survey found that Obama’s policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

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But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate’s hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.

“I want an honest government. This isn’t an honest government. It hasn’t been for some time,” said self-described independent David Willms, 54, of Sarasota, Fla. He faulted the White House and Congress under both parties.

The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.

In the short term, the deepening distrust is politically troubling for Obama and Democrats. Analysts say out-of-power Republicans could well benefit from the bitterness toward Washington come November, even though voters blame them, too, for partisan gridlock that hinders progress.

In a democracy built on the notion that citizens have a voice and a right to exercise it, the long-term consequences could prove to be simply unhealthy — or truly debilitating. Distrust could lead people to refuse to vote or get involved in their own communities. Apathy could set in, or worse — violence.

Democrats and Republicans both accept responsibility and fault the other party for the electorate’s lack of confidence.

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“This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to “nonsense” that goes on during campaigns that leads to “promises made but not promises kept.” Still, she added: “Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It’s something we do as Americans and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won a long-held Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts in January by seizing on public antagonism toward Washington, said: “It’s clear Washington is broken. There’s too much partisan bickering to be able to solve the problems people want us to solve.”

And, he added: “It’s going to be reflected in the elections this fall.”

But Matthew Dowd, a top strategist on Bush’s re-election campaign who now shuns the GOP label, says both Republicans and Democrats are missing the mark.

“What the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not necessarily a federal government solution,” Dowd said. Democrats are emphasizing the federal government, while Republicans are saying it’s about the individual; neither is emphasizing the right combination to satisfy Americans, he said.