The National Federation of Independent Businesses loves to wrap itself in the flag of neighborhood Mom and Pop shops when it lobbies on Capitol Hill, but many small business owners maintain the NFIB’s agenda doesn’t address their priorities, and say the lobbying group even fights against policies that small businesses need. As Reuters recently reported, “the NFIB uses the politically valuable mantle of small business to pursue an agenda that may take its cues from elsewhere.”

Listen to Frank Knapp, president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, who identifies the NFIB as a “‘small-business pretender’ and ‘lapdog’ of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce” in the Reuters article.

Or take it from Freddy Castiblanco, owner of Terraza 7 Live Music, a café and music venue in Elhurst, NY. “They disguise themselves as mom and pop shops,” says Castiblanco. “But they don’t speak for me.”

Reuters details the NFIB’s record of lobbying for issues that benefit big businesses, not necessarily small ones: “Consider a widespread state tax loophole that lets big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot transfer income to out-of-state subsidiaries. This loophole often allows the chain retailers to pay no state income tax, while small businesses do. Yet the NFIB has fought against closing such loopholes.”

Reuters also referred to New Jersey cabinetmaker J. Kelly Conklin, who in April wrote this in the Hill: “Whether we’re talking about health care or taxes (or both at the same time), NFIB always seems to side with the big fellas – big insurance, big banking, big business – not little guys like me. Why? I don’t know.”

For more information, see the piece Family Values @ Work published together with Democracy Strategies, titled: “The National Federation of Independent Business? Driving a far-right political agenda far from the needs of small business.”

As that document points out, the NFIB in 2010 received a gift of $3.7 million from Karl Rove’s group Crossroads GPS – a contribution which a Wall Street Journal opinion piece described as part of a “trial run” at what Crossroads called “funding the right,” adding that Crossroads CEO Steven Law considered the initiative “money well spent.”

The appreciation was mutual. In that same year, the NFIB reported paying more than $3 million for “advertising services” to Crossroads Media LLC, a Virginia-based firm that does media placement for American Crossroads and shares office space with a number of other Super PACs.

Figures for 2011 and 2012 are not yet public.

The NFIB has also been far from independent in its allocation of PAC money. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly 94% of NFIB’s PAC contributions went to Republicans in 2010. This election cycle, the figure is closer to 98%.

NFIB leadership is deeply rooted in conservative Republican politics. The organization’s president, Dan Danner, served as deputy director in the White House Office of Public Liaison under Reagan. Chief lobbyist Susan Eckerly worked in George W. Bush’s Labor Department. And the group recently retained Mark Warren, former chief counsel of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, as a lobbyist.

Yet small business owners are much more diverse in their political views. According to a New York Times blog, in a poll of small-business owners commissioned by American Express OPEN, respondents were nearly evenly divided among those identifying as Republicans (33 percent,) Democrats (32 percent) and independent or unaffiliated (29 percent).

Who speaks for small business? Many voices – but not the NFIB.

Written by Editor-in-Chief Jodi Jacobson for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.

This article was updated at 12:41 pm, Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012.

Yesterday I attended a meeting of pro-choice colleagues working to ensure women throughout this country get safe, compassionate abortion care. Today, I received an email from one of those colleagues, detailing the ordeal through which she was put by American Airlines on her flights home. They actually forced her to miss her connecting flight and demanded she change her top. The reason? Her politically salient pro-choice t-shirt was offensive to the flight crew.

That sign said: “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.”The t-shirt is the now-popularized version of a sign held by Oklahoma state senator Judy McIntyre (D) at a pro-choice rally in early March to protest Oklahoma’s so-called personhood law, which in conferring the rights of a living, breathing person on a fertilized egg denies all rights of personhood of women, full stop.

At the time of the rally, and asked about the sign, State Senator McIntyre “acknowledged that some in Oklahoma, which is overwhelmingly Christian, may find her sign’s language offensive, but she wasn’t much concerned about them.”

“I would hope they would have that same passion about how offensive it is for the Republican Party of Oklahoma to ramrod, because they have the votes to do so, bills that are offensive to women and take away the rights of women,” she reportedly said.

My colleague, O., of the same mind of many of us in believing that sign says it all, wore a t-shirt with the same message under her shawl and boarded an American Airlines flight home from our meeting.

So what happened? O. writes:

[O]n the plane of the first leg of my flight home, I spent the majority of [time] sleeping, using my shawl as a blanket. Right before we were set to land the flight attendant from first class approaches me and asks if I had a connecting flight? We were running a bit behind schedule, so I figured I was being asked this to be sure I would make my connecting flight.  She then proceeded to tell me that I needed to speak with the captain before disembarking the plane and that the shirt I was wearing was offensive.

The shirt was gray with the wording, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d fuck a senator.” I must also mention that when I boarded the plane, I was one of the first groups to board (did not pass by many folks).  I was wearing my shawl just loosely around my neck and upon sitting down in my seat the lady next to me, who was already seated, praised me for wearing the shirt.

When I was leaving the plane the captain stepped off with me and told me I should not have been allowed to board the plane in DC and needed to change before boarding my next flight. This conversation led to me missing my connecting flight.  I assumed that because I was held up by the captain, they would have called ahead to let the connecting flight know I was in route.  Well, upon my hastened arrival at the gate of the connecting flight, it was discovered that they did indeed call ahead but not to hold the flight, only to tell them I needed to change my shirt. I was given a seat on the next flight and told to change shirts.

Due to the fact that my luggage was checked, changing shirts without spending money wasn’t an option. I consulted a friend with a law background who told me covering with my shawl would suffice. Upon boarding the now rescheduled flight with shawl covering my shirt, my ticket dinged invalid. I was pulled to the side while the gentleman entered some codes into the computer and then told, “it was all good.”  I did finally arrive home to pick up my daughter an hour and a half later than scheduled.

So let’s review some facts. O. went through security and was stopped for additional screening, but not deemed a “security risk,” and no one at TSA made the slightest mention of her t-shirt. She boarded her first flight, and none of the airline personnel at the gate mentioned her t-shirt. She quietly took her seat, wrapped her shawl around herself, and went to sleep.

This is a follow-up to last week’s post on ETA’s latest statement. In the communique ETA asks the European Union “to encourage and push forward an open process to find a definitive solution to the conflict.” But would this entail?

Cross posted from Frederick Leatherman Law Blog.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting today that three more witnesses have changed their stories in the Zimmerman case.

Photo by Werth Media

Witness 2

She originally told the police she saw one person chasing another person, who was about 10-12 feet ahead, up the sidewalk between townhomes in the direction of the T-intersection with another sidewalk that connects Twin Trees Street with Retreat View Circle (this is very close to the location where Zimmerman shot Martin). She now says that she only saw one person running. She originally said she could not identify either individual because it was dark and she had taken her contacts out before it happened. That part of her story remains the same.

She changed her story when John Batchelor of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement interviewed her on March 20th.

Witness 12

Witness 12 is a young mother who did not give a recorded statement to the Sanford Police. The Orlando Sentinel reports,

During that session [with an investigator of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on 3/20/2012 when she gave her first recorded statement], she said she saw two people on the ground immediately after the shooting and was not sure who was on top, Zimmerman or Trayvon.

“I don’t know which one. … All I saw when they were on the ground was dark colors,” she said.

Six days later, however, she was sure: It was Zimmerman on top, she told trial prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda during a 2 1/2-minute recorded session.

Since she saw the two individuals after the shot was fired, and we know that Trayvon Martin was shot, we can infer that she must be right. Zimmerman was on top.

She explained that the person on top was definitely bigger than the person on the bottom and when she saw pictures of them on TV after the shooting, she realized Zimmerman was the guy on top because he is much bigger than Martin (he’s 2 inches shorter but 42 lbs heavier).

Witness 13

Outgoing NRC Chmn. Jaczko testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last year.

The Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, submitted his resignation Monday morning. Chairman Jaczko, a former aid to Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) and Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) who holds a PhD in particle physics, was originally appointed to the NRC in 2005, and elevated to chairman in 2009. Jaczko said he will relinquish his post upon confirmation of a replacement.

Jaczko’s announcement is hard to separate from pressing questions about the safety of commercial nuclear power in the United States–especially in the context of the ongoing crisis in Japan–the debate over the future of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, signs of shifting power dynamics in Washington, and, perhaps most importantly, the influence of wealthy and well-connected private industry on public policy.

As has been discussed here before, Greg Jaczko has been at the center of an orchestrated controversy for much of the last year, with nuclear industry lobbyists, Republican members of Congress, and other NRC commissioners pressing for the chairman’s ouster. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has been an especially dogged critic of Jaczko, holding hours of hearings and serving as the driving force behind two inspector general reports on the allegedly hostile workplace environment at the NRC.

Issa, it must be noted, represents a district that includes the extremely troubled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). The plant is currently offline as regulators try to determine the root causes of radiation leaks and rapid degradation of copper tubing used to move radioactive steam in and out of the reactors. The Orange County Republican has received copious campaign contributions from the companies that operate and maintain San Onofre.

Issa called hearings (while calling for Jaczko’s head) last year after the four other commissioners made public their letter to the White House complaining about Jaczko’s managerial style. The complaint revolved around a handful of issues that help explain the apparent urgency behind the anti-Jaczko putsch.

First, critics were upset about the way that Jaczko helped end work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage site. Yucca had proven problematic for a number of reasons–environmental, economic, security, and social–and had long been the target of Nevada politicians (most notably, Senate Majority Leader Reid), who felt their state had been dealt with unfairly in the original selection process.

The Obama administration had seemed to agree, and had the Department of Energy withdraw a request for the licensing of Yucca Mountain. In addition, very little money remained in Yucca’s budget, and no more has been approved.

But the nuclear industry desperately needs an answer to the problem (crisis, really) of long-term nuclear waste storage, and Yucca Mountain is the only site that has even been started. (It is nowhere near finished.) Without a place to move “spent” fuel and the other dangerous detritus of the process, nuclear power cannot realistically expand the number of rectors in the US, nor can it long continue to maintain and refuel those already in operation.

The nuclear industry, through its proxies in Congress and on the NRC, has complained that Jaczko didn’t allow advocates for Yucca to perpetuate the process. Most recently, a fight went public when President Obama nominated NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki for another term over the vocal objections of Senator Reid and his colleague Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Of special contention, the role Svinicki played in drafting the documents that called for the construction of the Yucca repository.

Second, the dissenting NRC commissioners complained that Jaczko used his emergency powers as chairman to guide US policy in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that caused a triple-meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. Complainants seem especially upset that Jaczko recommended evacuation of American citizens from a 50-mile radius around the crippled nuclear plant–a call he made with the support of NRC experts and in coordination with the State Department. Radioactive contamination from Fukushima has, of course, been found across Japan, even beyond the 50-mile limit. (In the US, 65 percent of the population lives within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, and late in December, federal regulators moved to scale back requirements for evacuations and emergency drills around commercial reactors.)

As in most presidential election years, noisy battles have been raging as the nation’s political armies gear up for what promises to be an even noisier fall. This means we’ll continue to hear the familiar clatter about the many “wars” America is currently engaged in—from “the war on terror” to “the war on Wall Street” to the new and nasty “war on women.”

Even President Obama acknowledged this quadrennial tradition in his shtick at last month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, taking a light-hearted swipe at that most dependable of political wars, the “war on Christmas.” And he got his yuletide laugh—in April, no less.

What’s not so funny to me, however, is a real and credible war that’s been brewing just below the radar this election season, and it is as subtle as it is dangerous: the war on children.

Ever since becoming a father 17 years ago, I have felt increased parental responsibility with each election, knowing that the older I get, the more my vote weighs upon my kids’ future rather than on my own. And though Mitt Romney is now the last man standing in the GOP sweepstakes, the cumulatively strident voices that have risen throughout the primaries have set my protective dad-meter on red alert.

Granted, Republican voices have been dominating the news cycle, but that typically occurs when one party aligns to unseat an incumbent president. What’s unusual this year, though, is the apparent hostility—and apathy—the GOP seems to be harboring for children.

Take education. Ordinarily, that’s a no-brainer for a presidential candidate. Sure, there are credible hairs to split on the issue, from school vouchers to standardized testing, but in the constellation of campaign confrontations, it’s an easy win.

Which makes it all the more unsettling to watch Mitt Romney adopt the GOP’s slash-and-burn strategies for solving our nation’s education woes. He has vowed to consolidate the Education Department (or, at least, make it “a heck of a lot smaller”); and he has backed Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal, which would reportedly eliminate 200,000 children from Head Start, reduce services for 10% of disadvantaged middle school kids, and cut Pell grants by more than $1,000 per college student. As for older kids saddled with education costs, Romney is all business: “Borrow money if you have to from your parents,” he said. Clearly the man hasn’t seen the average American’s checkbook balance.

Then there’s “Obamacare,” which has inspired unified condemnation among the president’s Republican adversaries. Fair enough—it’s a complicated plan and plenty can go wrong. Yet has any Republican—including the presumptive presidential nominee—acknowledged just how many kids will be left abandoned on the health care battlefield should the law be struck down?

Pennsylvania has one of the highest corporate net incomes in the nation but 70% don’t even pay because they use the Delaware tax loophole.  This Tax scam causes PA to lose over 400 million dollars a year in revenue.  Not only is this burden placed on average taxpayers and small businesses but  community sustaining and building programs such as   social service programs the for elderly, disabled, poor citizens as well as programs that maintain our bridges, roads, public education and protecting the health and safety of our residents also take a hit. According to the Rockefeller Institute of Government states collected only 44 billion in corporate income tax out of the 607 dollars owed to them.  Three quarters of Pa corporations pay no income tax; the loss of this revenue contributes to Pa having the highest corporate net income tax in the nation, a burden that is unfair to small businesses that do not have the financial resources to take advantage of this loophole.  Some of the Pennsylvania corporations that use the Delaware tax loophole in order to dodge taxes are Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Marcellus exploration companies, PNC, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, UPMC and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

So, what is the Delaware tax loophole?  Great Question.  Let’s say I own ABC Company a big corporation that sells t-shirts.  I don’t want to pay taxes because I want to make as much profit as possible because I worked hard for this money.  So, I create a subsidiary company  ABC Inc.  Which I also own.  I buy a mailing address at 1209 North Orange Street in Delaware(this is considered a corporation trust company that houses thousands of businesses including 2/3 of the fortune 500).   I transfer all of my original company’s assets such as trademarks, copyrights, patents to ABC Inc.   Now keep in mind that ABC Inc. has no employees and the address is merely a building that has a bunch of p.o boxes in which big corporations use as their address.  My original company makes 100 million dollars in profits for the year, in order to avoid the taxes in pa I pay my other company ABC Inc 100 million dollars for things like using the trademark, lease the building, royalties etc, because my income is now zero, so is my tax liability.  Now realize in reality these are my assets because I own both companies, but because the mailing address for ABC Inc is in delaware I typically pay myself, reduce my tax responsibility to zero and pay no taxes on the money I paid myself through ABC Inc.  I can also funnel  profit back to my original company through the form of dividends and loans.  It Is like having my own onshore Cayman Islands account.

There are 23 states that have adopted combined reporting requirements for corporate income taxes, effectively closing the Delaware loophole and recovering millions in lost revenue.  Several states have sued large corporations revealing disturbing contortions of tax law that allowed them to pay lower taxes and drive away competition from small local business…right now in Pa they don’t have to validate that these so called expenses are legitimate.  We should encourage Gov. Corbett to stop making such drastic cuts to necessary public services that the citizens of Pennsylvania rely on and close the Delaware tax loophole for corporations in Pennsylvania so all Pennsylvanians have the opportunity to thrive and grow.