Media

While Congress fails to make any inroads into establishing a meaningful energy policy that moves us beyond fossil fuels, advocates around the country are vocalizing their opposition to dirty energy. In just the last few weeks, coal opponents have staged protests in at least six different states. They may not be getting much national attention, but it’s clear that advocates on the state level are making their preference for clean energy known.

Critics of government say that the public sector is bigger now than it's ever been before and, in fact, swells larger in a nearly automatic fashion.

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), the longest-sitting member of Congress, introduced a bill Thursday designed to force the Supreme Court to reconsider its Citizens United decision. Along with at least ten co-sponsors, Dingell's Restoring Confidence in Our Democracy Act, would ban corporations and unions from making independent political expenditures. It would also subject Super PACs to the same contribution limits that exist with other PACs.

It looks like the push from Amazon and Walmart for a tax on Internet sales may carry enough weight to win over (or at least neutralize) our lawmakers who are, for the most part, terminally squeamish about even the smallest tax. I was admittedly skeptical, but an Internet sales tax is an increasingly real possibility.

Americans are, for the most part, completely unaware of just who -- or what -- is funding the 2012 presidential campaign.

Just 25 percent of likely voters say they have heard "a lot" about outside spending this election cycle, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center, while a huge majority said they have either heard little or "nothing at all" about outside expenditures by groups not associated with the candidates or campaigns.

The 2012 elections are on track to be the nastiest in recent memory. By the tail end of primary season, in May, 70 percent of all presidential campaign ads were negative, up from a mere 9 percent at the same point in 2008.

Prominent Jewish Republicans flew to Israel last weekend to join presidential candidate Mitt Romney on his overseas trip. Among them were casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam.

The Adelsons were in the audience Sunday when Romney gave a policy speech in Jerusaleum. And at a fundraising breakfast Monday, Sheldon Adelson sat by Romney's side.

The July jobs report this morning was better than expected, but still bad news. The unemployment rate remains unchanged and the economy is barely treading water. The U.S. would need to create 5 million jobs just to get back to 2007 levels -- yet, of course, millions of young people have since graduated school and entered the workforce (or want to, anyway). So we are talking about a need for way more than 5 million jobs.

It’s no secret that some very rich people support the super PACs and other groups that have inundated the 2012 campaign with unlimited sums of cash. But a study to be released Thursday details the extent to which this kind of donating is the sport of the One Percent.