Noontime News Roundup – April 21, 2012

Noontime News is a snapshot of our RSS feeds from the noon (Eastern time) hour.

WASHINGTON — For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections after early July.

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Former Citigroup Chairman Blames Deregulation For The Financial Crisis

Richard Parsons, the former chairman of mega-bank Citigroup (who stepped down from his post just a few days ago), said yesterday that the repeal of Glass-Steagall — the Depression-era regulation separating investment and commercial banking — helped precipitate the financial crisis of 2008:

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A Woman’s Lifetime Earnings Lost To Pay Gap Could Feed A Family Of Four For 37 Years

As of today — which is Equal Pay Day 2012 — women make 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. Over the course of a woman’s career, that disparity adds up to more than $430,000 in lost wages for an individual woman. As Center for American Progress economic analyst Matt Separa noted, the pay gap means that women fall behind economically in a number of ways:

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Average Fortune 500 CEO Now Paid 380 Times As Much As The Average Worker

According to the latest edition of the AFL-CIO’s Executive Pay Watch report, the gap between CEO pay and worker pay expanded last year. In 2011, CEOs in the Fortune 500 made an average of $12 million, about 380 times what the average worker makes

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Republicans Advance Proposal To Undermine Obamacare By Penalizing People Who Get Married

Yesterday, the House Ways & Means Committee — following the instruction included in the House Budget — passed legislation that would require families who qualify for subsidies in the health care exchanges to pay higher taxes if their incomes change mid-year. The change could dissuade people from purchasing insurance, disproportionately impact women (who are more likely to experience income fluctuations), and — as a new analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains — could increase costs for the entire population.

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Catholic Bishop Who Compared Obama To Hitler ‘Clarifies’ Comment

Last Saturday, Catholic Bishop Daniel Jenky delivered a homily in which he claimed that President Obama “now seems intent on following a similar path” to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Yesterday, Jenky attempted to walk back some of this claim:

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Citing Scalia, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer Vetoes Guns In Public Buildings Bill

For the second time, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) rebuffed gun lobbyists’ efforts to enable people to bring firearms into public buildings by vetoing one of their pet bills:

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