Pending Patent Legislation Stifles The Next Steve Jobs

By Rep. Dana Rhorabacher (R-CA)
Steve Jobs started Apple in his garage in Silicon Valley. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in an apartment garage outside Seattle. Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page got Google off the ground in a garage they rented south of San Francisco. ✧ But a Senate bill supported by these companies and a handful of other deep-pocketed multinational corporations threatens to close the garage doors of small inventors forever. If enacted, it will stifle American innovation and destroy untold numbers of future jobs. ✧ I am speaking of S.1720, the so-called "Patent Transparency and Improvements Act of 2013." Its backers claim it will reduce frivolous patent lawsuits. In reality, it was designed to rid big high-tech companies of what they fear the most: little guys with great ideas. Read More at Investor's Business Daily

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Obama’s Shallow Inequality Speech And The Presidency That Might Have Been

By Ben Domenech
If income inequality is the defining challenge of our time, why did President Obama spend so much time on policies unrelated to it? Why did he go down a policy path which led in the opposite direction? And why, even today, is he bypassing any possibility of brokering a bipartisan effort to combat “the defining challenge” and instead prioritizing a clumsy, tired, politically dead-end solution – minimum wage hikes – which without question has a negative effect on low-skill job creation while aiding his powerful union allies? Read more at the Federalist... Read More......

Companies lay off thousands, then demand immigration reform for new labor

On Tuesday, the chief human resources officers of more than 100 large corporations sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi urging quick passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill.  The officials represent companies with a vast array of business interests: General Electric, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, McDonald's Corporation, The Wendy's Company, Coca-Cola, The Cheesecake Factory, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Communications, Hewlett-Packard, General Mills, and many more. All want to see increases in immigration levels for low-skill as well as high-skill workers, in addition to a path to citizenship for the millions of immigrants currently in the U.S. illegally.  A new immigration law, the corporate officers say, "would be a long overdue step toward aligning our nation's immigration policies with its workforce needs at all skill levels to ensure U.S. global competitiveness." The officials cite a publication of their trade group, the HR Policy Association, which calls for immigration reform to "address the reality that there is a global war for talent." The way for the United States to win that war for talent, they say, is more immigration.

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Obama makes deal with Big Pharma

THE HUFFINGTON POST, 8/13/2009 by Ryan Grim - Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma -- A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week. ∴ The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return. ∴ It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements. ∴ In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: "Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion." Read more at Huffington Post... Read More......