My all-in-one printer needed new ink cartridges. It’s served me fine over a number of years but had also developed a minor problem of creating a thin scratch of a line on the scans it produced. So, out of curiosity, before taking out a loan to pay the substantial cost for new ink cartridges (I have tried paying for refills but more than once have ended up with unusable cartridges), I looked to see how much a new all-in-one ink jet printer would cost instead.

I found one on sale at an office supply store, from a major manufacturer that was at a very low price. A very, very low price. It hardly made sense not to buy it when it cost less than three sets of ink cartridges…and came with a set ink cartridges as well…so make that, it cost less than two sets of ink cartridges.

There was however a sense of guilt that came with doing this, the idea that a piece of technology that was so sophisticated could be so easily tossed away and replaced (I’m actually donating that printer to my daughter’s public school…guilt level reduced by 10%).

Consider cell phones and smart phones. Just ten years ago, the technology in the devices we use today would have been seen as incredible. Today, we can upgrade to a new high tech phone (with a 2 year commitment and assignment of our eternal soul) for little or even for free and flick the technological genius in our last phone into the garbage.

We have become sociologically conditioned to expect that electronics should be cheap despite their complexity and this, combined with the much more expensive cost of repairs, often makes it common sense economically for one to just buy a new item instead of repairing the old one.

This sensibility isn’t confined to electronics though, at the supermarket and stores like Walmart, Target, Kmart, etc, we expect to be able to buy clothes, food and all nature of things at remarkably low prices despite what we may think deep inside is much less than they should be.

Paying little for what should be more expensive products has become a self-sustaining machine where most people only look at what the machine provides without considering what it consumes to do so. And the sneaky truth is, what it consumes is the wealth, employment and standard of living of most people in America and in many places throughout the world.

Why is something cheap to buy? Of course, the simple answer is that it’s cheap to make…but the next step is often overlooked. It’s cheap to make because the people who are paid to make it are paid cheaply. So when you buy that cheap pair of pants or bargain smartphone, you are giving the corporation that is selling it, a profit and economic support for paying so little for the labor of the workers it employs. So in effect, those people who shopped at Walmart to buy inexpensive Chinese-manufactured products and later lost their jobs, were unknowingly incentivizing the corporation they worked for to take away their jobs.

It can be interesting to sometimes step back, zoom out and look at the big picture, how things are interconnected and the unintended consequences of one’s actions. Where one shops and what one buys is indeed directly and necessarily interconnected with what jobs are available and how much they pay. For example, if 10% of current Walmart shoppers chose to buy only from American based companies that provided good wages, there would be billions in revenues for such companies to create more and more well paying jobs. It’s simple economics and math.

Corporations may have designed this mousetrap but as long as consumers keep going for the cheese they set out, they continue to be the victim of this trap.

The vicious circle is well known, people are unemployed, underemployed or underpaid and so they need to be able to buy things cheaply to get by. However, by buying things cheaply, they are affirmatively financing the outsourcing of their own and millions of other jobs to China and elsewhere, the only places where products can be made so cheaply because of brutally low wages and conditions. By supporting outsourcing in this way, Americans in fact create a greater supply of unemployed and available workers in America who are willing to work for whatever wage they are offered. This dynamic of supply and demand in a flooded workforce allows companies to depress wages and increase “productivity” (that means doing more work for the same money) because as they often say, “If you won’t do it, there are plenty of people out there standing outside who would be happy to work more for even less than you!”

Publicly, corporations exclaim, “People want things at super low prices so we’re just giving people what they want. That’s why we outsource our jobs to other countries! I mean, paying people in America a living wage or God forbid, union wages, would mean we’d have to charge a higher, more sensible price for things and then Americans wouldn’t be able to ‘have it all’…and that would be an unthinkable hardship on all Americans.”

As for actual hardships, especially when you factor in inflation as well, the wages of most Americans continue on a slow decline.

It is the Henry Ford model of business in reverse. Though a famous pro-Nazi/anti-Semite, Ford did have a good idea about paying workers enough so they could buy the very cars they built. Today’s corporate thinking is just the opposite, it is to find ways of making things cheaper so that the people who used to make them but are unemployed or have low or declining wages now, can still afford to buy those products.  It’s a race to the bottom where the only winners are the corporations sponsoring the race. They reduce the wages they pay Americans and their solution to their reducing their employees’ buying power is to make products cheaper.

Just as with the economic crash of 2008, this is a path to eventual destruction. It can’t be sustained indefinitely. If people’s income keeps declining in real terms, it will eventually reach a point where it will be literally impossible to cheapen the price of products sufficiently for them to be able to afford buying as much as they’ve been buying and consuming will also be on a steady decline. Then, as we saw on what would be a smaller scale in comparison, with the crash of 2008, there is a domino effect on businesses closing and jobs and pay declining even more and rapidly when consuming declines.

70% of economic activity in America comes from consumers. The American economy and in turn, the world’s economy would collapse and have no conceivable path to recovery if Americans reach a point where they can afford to buy less and less. No matter how cheaply a corporation can pay for plastic, steel, foodstuffs, chemicals, etc., there is a bottom line cost to everything that can’t ultimately be reduced. So there is a cliff out there somewhere in the distance that our economy will eventually drive off of if wages of consumers keep declining (again, even stagnant wages decline each year due to the standard of inflation).

Of course, corporations live only for the next quarter’s profits so they naturally love this circular dynamic that they’ve trapped our society in since it is currently stuffing their pockets with incredible amounts of money. They are certainly not seeking to change it and in fact are seeking to make it worse by outsourcing more, destroying unions and promoting “right to work” in more states and even loosening restrictions on the hiring of teens so they can increase the competition for jobs and drive down wages even farther.  Add to that their avoiding paying taxes and campaigning to cut what taxes they can’t escape, which slashes public sector jobs, funding for social programs, maintaining our infrastructure, etc.

So…if the corporations will never change this destructive cycle on their own, it is their customers that have to seek change. It’s time we recognize that things being disposable because they are so cheap is a two way street,  as our value as employees simultaneously becomes cheaper and cheaper, we too become as disposable as what we buy.

So, I’m throwing out a simple concept and name for this proposition.

Pay More.

That is, pay more for American made goods from companies that pay more to Americans for their work.

It would entail some financial sacrifices in the near term, paying more for things but the more it finances companies where Americans have good paying jobs, the more tax revenues there would be to pay more for many good-job-creating situations such as rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure…which could pay more for building materials from American businesses and create more jobs from them that pay more, as well as pay more to construction workers who are underemployed or unemployed…which would provide more tax revenues to states and the nation that could be invested in schools…which could pay more salaries for more teachers and shrink class sizes which would better educate our children to get better jobs…which could mean companies that hire them when they graduate could pay more to them for being well educated…and on and on.

The cycle of economic decline has to be broken in a deliberate and organized way.

One way that could be accomplished might be by combining President Obama’s tax credits and incentives for manufacturing and small businesses that start up, grow and hire in this country, with an organized, active and growing community of Americans who are committed to supporting American jobs, good wages and businesses that provide them.

If there was for example, a group and website consumers could join (like Groupon for example) which presented an array or e-mall of products and services only from American companies that were certified to pay good wages and benefits to their employees,  Americans could express their support for good wages and their opposition against the corporate depression of wages whenever they need to buy something or use a service. Such a growing coalition of consumers pooling buying power to benefit a growing coalition of businesses that pay workers well could become a very powerful dynamic.

Also, as Choicelady and KQuark have championed along the way, it would create a great environment for employee-owned businesses which is another great path to reversing the economic plundering by the wealthy and giant corporations. It could also put economic pressure on corporations to either compete with businesses manufacturing and operating in the US or lose a growing segment of consumers.

Admittedly, it’s unrealistic and impractical to suggest to people across the country who are already dealing with severe financial pressures to pay more for everything right now. This is not a transition that could or should be made overnight, it would need to be gradual and incrementally by each American, as they can find ways here and there to buy things that support good paying American jobs, building up to buying more and more from good-citizen American businesses as their wages hopefully improve. The key is that people realize that paying more for something to a company that pays good wages, can help make the society they live in better and could help them indirectly, if not directly by eventually providing more opportunities for good paying jobs.

I am far from a nationalist or conservative, in fact, I burn flags on a daily basis (I get them by the gross cheaply at Walmart who buys them from an American flag manufacturer in China). I am also not vowing to stop buying products made in China and other countries, there are many things that simply don’t have American-made counterparts or even if they do, may not be of comparable quality or the company may not pay their employees decently. What I am saying is that in the meantime, until or unless there is a broader movement, it can be a great start simply to keep in mind shopping local and at small businesses, eating at local non-chain restaurants, etc. Purism is not required, doing it at least some of the time, when you can afford to, can make a difference.

And this is not at all intended to express anything negative towards the countries that have been the recipients of outsourced American jobs (they’re being exploited and oppressed by these same corporations), it’s only meant to present an affirmative proposition on improving the standard of living in our society which, if it spread around to other nations like Occupy Wall Street, could help improve their standards of living too.

It would take the pulling together of a lot of threads to make this happen on a big scale but at this point in time, a difference could still be made by each person who has a choice to pay more for something American-made that will help pay more to fellow Americans for their work…and by deciding to do so, that person is so simply and easily supporting the idea that we will pay more if employers pay more.

You can access all the past editions of The Daily Planet on the green Category bar on the top of each page under the heading PlanetPOV.

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BUDGET

EPA: US needs $300B in sewer, water work, NY needs $29.7B in water; fed funding sought

WaPo:

A federal study shows municipalities nationwide need more than $300 billion worth of essential upgrades to long overlooked water and sewer systems over the next 20 years.

The need is acute in Northeastern states with older systems like New York, which needs $29.7 billion worth of improvements, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer said Wednesday. But he said that price is a “just a drop in the bucket” compared to the higher cost of continuing to upgrade parts of sewer and water systems when emergencies strike. He is pushing a bill that would counter planned funding cuts in the federal transportation bill now being negotiated in Washington.

“EPA found that the nation’s 53,000 community water systems and 21,400 not-for-profit, non-community water systems will need to invest an estimated $334.8 billion between 2007 and 2027,” stated the federal Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment, which is updated every four years.

The National Association of Counties’ 2008 report estimated the need for water and sewer upgrades at $300 billion to $450 billion nationwide and the federal stimulus project provided just a fraction of that as the recession reduced local governments’ revenues.

“This is a very serious concern,” said Carolyn Berndt of the National League of Cities. “Many communities have a long-term plan to replace all their underground water infrastructure, but even if they do a couple percentages of pipes a year, it’s still going to take over 100 years for some of them to replace it all.”

She said local governments have been paying more than 95 percent of the cost of water and sewer upgrades since the 1990s as federal aid has declined. Schumer said federal aid covered 75 percent of local costs in the 1980s and 1970s.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Berndt said. “Some of these pipes are 100 years old. That’s why they continue to see water main breaks.”

The group supports Schumer’s effort, which comes as Congress works to cut spending.

BUSINESS

Nokia cutting 4,000 jobs, moving phone production to Asia

Slate:

Is following in Apple’s footsteps always a good business model? Nokia has announced they’re moving all assembly of cellphones from Europe to Asia by year’s end in order to be closer to their suppliers. The hope is that the move will enable Nokia to introduce innovations into the marketplace more quickly and “ultimately be more competitive.”
The Finnish company, which cut nearly 10,000 jobs last year, will pare down an additional 4,000 jobs in order to stay aggressive in the smartphone sector. Nokia has seen its dominance of 40 percent global market share in 2008 slip to 30 percent last year as Android and iPhone sales continue to rise. To compete with those smart phones, the Espoo-based Nokia, which employs 130,000 people, recently partnered with Microsoft and launched its new Windows Phone 7 this past October.

It’s another story of manufacturing moving from West to East, but whether it has a happy ending remains uncertain. Apple has been under scrutiny recently for the treatment of workers at its giant manufacturing plants in China.

Outback Steakhouse Is Pushing Florida To Lower Its Minimum Wage For Servers To $2.13 

HEALTH CARE

Largest Catholic University in US covers birth control prescriptions

ThinkProgress:

The largest Catholic university in the nation has admitted to providing contraception coverage as part of its health care benefit package, further undermining the GOP’s claims that Obama’s regulation requiring insurers and employers to offer reproductive health benefits represents and “unprecedented” war against religion. The rule — which exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith from providing contraception coverage — mirrors existing requirements in six states.

“The employee health insurance plans include a prescription contraceptive benefit, in compliance with state and federal law,” DePaul University spokesperson Robin Florzak confirmed to ThinkProgress. “An optional insurance plan that covers such benefits is available to students, also due to previously established state and federal requirements.” The University notes, however, that it is disappointed with the Obama regulation and hopes to engage in an “effective national conversation on the appropriate conscience protections in our pluralistic country.” Other Catholic colleges and hospitals, including Georgetown and the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, have also admitted to offering birth control benefits.

DePaul’s home state of Illinois is one of 28 to have adopted a contraception coverage requirement. Eight of those states provide no opt-out clause for religious institutions and the administration’s new rule would expand conscience protections to those parts of the country.

A recent poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute also found that a majority of Americans, including a majority of Catholics, support a contraception coverage requirement.

Over 600 Physicians, including 70 Catholics, Speak Out in Favor of HHS Contraception Ruling 

Doctors for America:

JUSTICE

Gov. Scott Walker aide pleads guilty in secret criminal investigation. Details here

Darlene Wink, formerly an aide to Scott Walker in the Milwaukee County executive’s office, pled guilty to two misdemeanors resulting from work she did organizing fundraisers for Walker’s gubernatorial campaign while on the county clock. Wink will cooperate with investigators in the ongoing John Doe probe under her plea deal. Her sentencing will take place on May 15, with a maximum of six months in jail and $2,000 in fines.

MEDIA

The ABC News-Univision game change

Politico:

The talks between Disney and Univision have set media tongues wagging in anticipation of a new 24-hour news network that would compete with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, and would likely have major ramifications for the cable news industry and for the national political discourse.

At the political level, an ABC News-Univision venture would mark the first 24-hour news network marketed toward English-speaking Hispanics, giving that rapidly growing demographic greater influence in the national discussion.

At the industry level, the new channel would upset the current cable news order, threatening to steal ratings and revenue from CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News.

No channel is likely to feel the pinch so much as Time Warner’s CNN, which has struggled to keep abreast of MSNBC in the ratings race.

“This would go head-to-head with CNN,” a person with knowledge of the talks told the New York Times yesterday.

Should the two companies reach a deal, it may even force CNN to renew its own talks with CBS on a deal to combine news resources. Those talks, which had been going on sporadically for over a decade, resurfaced in May 2010.

“While such conversations have occurred over the last decade, the current news-business climate, plummeting CNN ratings, ever-shrinking evening-news audiences, and major layoffs at ABC make a deal more logical than ever before,” New York magazine’s Gabe Sherman reported at the time.

But the talks stalled (once again) and later that year CBS president and CEO Les Moonves acknowledged that the deal “doesn’t look good.”

“We tried ten years ago and we tried last year, it’s just been a difficult thing,” Moonves said. “It’s hard to make a joint venture with a division of the company.”

The Disney-Univision talks could stall as well, but there is reason to believe that this deal is far more promising.

Whereas both CNN and CBS were looking to stop losses, ABC and Univision are looking to capitalize on growth. CBS was eager to get out of the news business and CNN was “desperate to do something that [would] keep supporting its ever-diminishing business prospects,” Michael Wolff observed at the time, arguing that both organizations were “ruined artifacts of a former age.”

Univision, by contrast, belongs to the future, serving a U.S. Hispanic population that is set to double within the next forty years. And in addition to owning ABC News, Disney owns ESPN, a cash cow that generates roughly half the value of Disney’s media holdings, according to industry estimates.

Why CNN Suspended Liberal Roland Martin For Offensive Comments But Not Conservative Dana Loesch

ThinkProgress:

Roland Martin has been suspended from CNN after tweeting that, “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl.” He then insisted that, rather than making a joke about violence against men who are attracted to men, he really just hates soccer: “@DrMChatelain @notjustsexuality well that shows how ignorant you are. I rip on soccer all of the time. Learn to pay attention!”

It’s the second time in a month that CNN commentators have come under fire for controversial comments: Dana Loesch recently cheered reports of members of the United States Marine Corps urinating on the bodies of dead Afghans and suggested that had she been present, she would have joined in. But while Martin apologized and will experience an indefinite suspension, CNN and Loesch refused to apologize for her remarks, and she’s remained on the air.

The clear difference between the two cases? A sense that CNN’s audience was offended. GLAAD, which keeps a careful eye on defamation against gays and lesbians in the media,moved quickly to call for Martin’s dismissal and to track the network’s response to the incident. CNN got the message that its own constituents were upset, and that it would suffer consequences — or at least a lot of annoyance — if it failed to act.

Loesch’s comments on the other hand, offended human rights advocates and decent people everywhere. But that’s not the same as running afoul of an organization with a well-established plan to respond to these kinds of events and a well-worn path to media outlets who would cover and amplify their response. While Loesch’s comments were reprehensible, there was also no organized group who was likely or able to hold CNN accountable for her words, and for continuing to let her appear on-air without penalty.

Taken together, the way CNN handled Martin’s and Loesch’s comments makes it look like CNN has no consistent internal values, and no internal standard for how to respond when it commenters express sentiments that are an anathema to those values. I’m glad to know, per CNN’s statement, that “Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated.” But why should it take several days of consideration for CNN to arrive at that conclusion? If the network’s truly committed to the proposition that violence against gay people is no joking matter, that’s something it should know in advance, and CNN should have a personnel policy in place to determine what the appropriate penalty is when someone violates their standards. Similarly, whether Loesch’s comments violate CNN’s internal values shouldn’t be something that’s determined by the level of outrage outside the network’s headquarters.

MILITARY

Why Do Liberals Support Drone Strikes?

Oliver Willis:

There is a little bit of garment-rending in progress about a new Washington Post poll that shows liberals strongly supporting the government’s program of using drones to take out terrorist targets. I don’t quite understand the confusion.

When it comes to taking out terrorists not on U.S. soil we have three options:

1. Let them go free
2. Use drones, incurring collateral damage
3. Put troops on the ground, putting soldiers at risk along with incurring collateral damage

The option of using international cooperation to round up these guys — the preferable option — is simply not viable in Pakistan, where much of this activity is taking place. As the Bin Laden operation showed us, terrorists are able to operate within a stone’s throw of Pakistan’s government without them lifting a finger to stop it. Their government is an impediment.

So, faced with those three options, we’ve opted for the drones. They are not perfect by a long stretch, but after over a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the least bloody option that kills terrorists.

I’m not surprised that even among liberals, this is a strategy that meets with approval.

The numbers go down slightly if the target is a U.S. citizen, but again most of us view an American working with Al Qaeda on foreign soil as just another agent of that organization.

(It’s worth pointing out that the usually deceptive Glenn Greenwald writes about drone strikes saying, “Obama has used drones to kill Muslim children and innocent adults by the hundreds.” I don’t deny that innocent people have been killed by drone strikes, but Greenwald writes it like these people are intentional targets. They aren’t. Those of us who support the drone strikes shouldn’t pretend as if they are clean weapons, but those opposed should be honest as well.)

I totally understand the dangers in giving the president the sole power to designate terrorist targets. I’m not comfortable with that much power residing in the executive office. I would trust Barack Obama with that power, but not George Bush, so I don’t trust any president with it.

But I think the view of many who have these positions opposed to drone strikes and the like take a dispassionate view of this conflict that most don’t have. While we shouldn’t let emotion cloud things, we also can’t discount the unique toll of Al Qaeda-based terrorism on America’s psyche.

People want to get these guys, and it appears as if these drones are one of the best ways to get the job done, regardless of who the president is.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I still support closing the prisons in Guantanamo Bay and have found the sniveling opposition from Republican and Democratic lawmakers to closure to be disgusting. My guess is the death of Bin Laden and kill/capture of other Al Qaeda have made people less anxious about the war on terror and that’s why Gitmo closure isn’t the sticking point it once was. Still, we should close it.

POLITICS

ABC News: Obama’s first 2012 TV blitz: 5,000 ads in 6 days 

President Obama’s re-election campaign ran more than 5,000 TV ads in six days last month, its first major advertizing blitz of the 2012 cycle, according to a new report by the Wesleyan Media Project.

The on-air offensive, which touted Obama’s “unprecedented” record on ethics reform and investments in the green energy economy, targeted 25 media markets in six swing states: Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The buy cost an estimated $1.4 million through Jan. 25, Wesleyan found.

“Advertising market placement is like a tell, and it is clear that the Obama campaign views these battleground states as most important at this stage of the game,” said Michael Franz, associate professor of government at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.

The Obama campaign explained the placement last month as an attempt to rebut attacks on the president by pro-Republican super PACs over the same airwaves.

Americans for Prosperity, mentioned specifically in the Obama ad, said last month it planned to spend an estimated $6 million on TV ads attacking Obama in the same states.

The Wesleyan Media Project says the Karl Rove-backed group Crossroads GPS and the American Petroleum Institute were also active in those markets, running hundreds of ads combined in several months.

Americans for Prosperity aired 2292 total spots in 26 markets during those same dates, while the American Petroleum Institute aired 78 of their 1495 in 15 markets during the same dates, Wesleyan reported.

“I can’t remember a time when so many groups were so involved in general election advertising so early,” noted Erika Franklin Fowler, assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.

“Outside groups are spending more money per ad than candidates, which makes examining the balance of actual ads voters are seeing very crucial when attempting to tease out their influence,” she added.

The top three cities that saw the Obama ad most were Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C., and Green Bay, Wis., where it aired a combined 933 times.

The 30-second spot also ran more than 200 times in Madison, Wis., Detroit, Cleveland, and Roanoke, Va.

No, it is NOT hypocritical for Obama to take SuperPAC money

Mother Jones:

President Obama has publicly condemned the Citizens United decision and has publicly opposed the role of Super PACs in campaign finance. Recently, though, he signed off on a plan to actively support Priorities USA Action, a leading Democratic Super PAC that’s had trouble raising as much money as its Republican counterparts. “We’re not going to fight  this fight with one hand tied behind our back,” explained Obama’s  campaign manager. ”With so much at stake, we can’t allow for two sets of rules. Democrats can’t be unilaterally disarmed.”

Is this hypocritical of Obama? For the thousandth time, no, no, no. The playing field is the playing field, and once a public policy has been legally put in place you’d be a sap not to play by the same rules as everyone else. If you oppose the mortgage interest deducation as a matter of policy, you still have every right to take the deduction as long as the rest of the country keeps it in place. If you’re a Republican governor who objects to the stimulus bill, you’d be actively irresponsible not to take your share of the money once it’s there. If you oppose earmarks, you still have an obligation to your district to take them as long as they exist.

This trope needs to go away. Seriously. Just deep six it. We should never hear this nonsense again.

White House gives Mitt Romney a social issues death hug

Greg Sargent:

It’s interesting that the White House rolled this one out just after Mitt Romney’s drubbing in three contests yesterday — one that was largely driven by Romney’s inability to connect with social conservatives.

At the press briefing just now, White House press secretary Jay Carney twice highlighted the fact that as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported a contraception policy that was very similar to the one Obama has now adpoted, to much criticism.

Romney has been attacking Obama over the issue, and Carney was asked to respond.

“The former governor of Massachusetts is an odd messenger on this, given that the services that this rule would provide for women around the country are the same as those that are provided in Massachusetts, and were provided when he was governor, including contraception,” Carney said.

“It’s ironic that Mitt Romney is criticizing the president for pursuing a policy that’s virtually identical to the one that was in place when he was governor of Massachusetts,” Carney added.

A reporter asked Carney whether this meant the White House agrees with Rick Santorum on the issue. This was intended as a joke, but it’s actually pretty meaningful, and goes to the heart of what the White House is accomplishing here.

By pointing out the similarities between Obama and Romney on contraception, the White House is in effect giving Romney a social issues death hug. Carney, inentionally or not, is encouraging a dynamic that could further damage Romney in the GOP nomination process: The better Santorum does, the more social issues will come to dominate. And the more Romney has to move to the right on them, in a campaign he had bet would be all about the economy, and at a time when Romney had hoped to be moderating his image in preparation for the general election.

This social issues death hug is similar to the health care death hug that the White House gave Romney some time ago by pointing out the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare. But in some ways social issues could be more problematic.

As Ronald Brownstein noted today, the three contests Romney lost to Santorum last night contain ominous signs for him, because social conservatives dominate in all of them. And in all three of them, the number who came out to vote for Romney dropped sharply from four years ago. So Romney’s struggles to make headway with social conservatives will continue.

Even if Romney is still the favorite for the nomination, the more the debate shifts towards social issues, the worse it could get for his overall chances. With the economy improving, and with the controversies over contraception and Proposition 8 flaring up, that may be what’s happening, to Romney’s detriment.

It’s a dynamic the White House seems happy to encourage in whatever way it can.

HOW TO FAKE A FIRESTORM
The New York Times:

Facing vocal opposition from religious leaders and an escalating political fight, the White House sought on Tuesday to ease mounting objections to a new administration rule that would require health insurance plans — including those offered by Catholic universities and charities — to offer birth control to women free of charge….
Please note that this is an “escalating political fight” even though polls show that clear majorities of Americans — and Catholics – support birth control coverage. The leadership of the Catholic Church is peeved, but rank-and-file Catholics aren’t. So why is this a firestorm?
It’s a firestorm, I think, because the American political elite teems with high-profile right-wing Catholics — among them converts such as Newt Gingrich, Robert Bork, Sam Brownback, Laura Ingraham, Lawrence Kudlow, and Ramesh Ponnuru. There’s been a concerted effort in recent years to win influential wingers over to the Catholic Church (Father John McCloskey, a prime mover in this effort, was described in a 2002 Slate article as “The Catholic Church’s K Street lobbyist”); the effort seems to be the political equivalent of Scientology’s focus on converting famous entertainers.
When you combine all these wingnut Catholic converts with birth Catholics who are prominent right-wingers (William Bennett, Scalia/Thomas/Roberts), you get a Catholic-winger noise machine that can convey the sense within the Beltway that Catholics believe a certain thing when, in fact, only prominent right-wing Catholic pols and pundits believe it in great numbers.

This is a great mechanism for fooling easily spooked non-right-wing Catholics such as Cokie Roberts and E.J. Dionne – both of whom have engaged in fretful hand-wringing about the terrible political misjudgment President Obama has allegedly made. Well, it really does looks like a terrible decision — if the only Catholics you encounter regularly are your Georgetown cocktail party pals.

Birth Control and the ‘Obama Independents’

Ta-Nahisi Coates:

Sarah Kliff parses the numbers on birth control, insurance, religion and the illusive independents:

And a lot of this likely isn’t about Catholic voters at all. Rather, it may well be about the demographics that are most supportive of this particular health reform provision: young voters and women. In the PRRI poll, both groups register support above 60 percent for the provision.

Those two demographics are important here for a key reason: they were crucial to Obama’s victory in 2008. Third Way crunched the numbers earlier this month and found that the “Obama Independents” — the swing group that proved crucial to his 2008 victory — are, as Ryan Lizza put it, “disproportionately young, female and secular…”

These voters have tended to be difficult for abortion rights supporters to engage on reproductive health issues like abortion. Research from NARAL Pro-Choice America, which I wrote about last weekend, found a significant “intensity gap” there, with abortion rights supporters much less likely to see it as a crucial voting issue than their anti-abortion counterparts.

But when the conversation moves away from abortion to contraceptives – as it has this week – the intensity gap flips: A much larger segment of voters are willing to penalize a legislator who votes to defund family planning. That became apparent in polling that Democratic firm Lake Research Partners did earlier this year, which found that 40 percent of voters would be less likely to support a member of Congress who votes to defund family-planning programs. Just 22 percent would be more likely to support such a lawmaker.

Two things:

1.) I think it really helps to separate Obama independents–disproportionately “young, female and secular”–from the broad nebulous “Independent voters” that we are all so fond of invoking. Everyone claims to appealing to “independents.” I think that has more to do with connotations and branding (independent=”thinks for self”) than the actual make-up of a candidates support.

2. The difference numbers for Catholics and White evangelicals are really interesting. It’s almost as if the issue for Republicans, isn’t so much a hard pitch to Catholics, as it is a hard pitch to white Evangelicals, with the hope of clipping off some conservative Catholics along the way.

Keep Going John Boehner!

Bob Cesca:

Here’s Speaker of the House John Boehner speaking out against the Obama Administration’s requirement that all health insurance plans cover birth control without co-pays.

“If the president does not reverse the Department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend, must,” Boehner said. “This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country cannot stand, and will not stand.”

The Speaker said the House would take matters into its own hands with committee hearings and legislative action to push back if the administration declines to act.

“In the days ahead, the House will approach this matter fairly and deliberately, through regular order and the appropriate legislative channels,” Boehner said. He called on the Energy & Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the issue, to take steps against the rule and “consider all possible options.”

Yes! Do it!

Please, take time out of congress’s busy schedule to legislate reproductive healthcare. Please, display to the nation that the culture war is more important to you than jobs or the economy. Demonstrate to America that nothing will get you moving like the tyranny of contraception.

Whatever action the House of Boehner takes, it will never become law. They’re just flailing. And I encourage them to keep going! Show America your ass.

Barack Obama’s brilliant play on birth control

The People’s View:

[…] Barack Obama is a transformative president who has far-reaching policy triumphs and who has never been afraid to take the political risk to do the right thing. But he is also the man whose political acumen has Republicans scared. Even post the GOP electoral gains of 2010, President Obama wrapped the Republicans in their own petard, so to speak, and won policy as well as political victories over the GOP on the debt ceiling fight, on instituting and extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, and even on some parts of his jobs agenda.
Here comes another one: birth control. The beltway media thinks that it’s a public relations disaster for the Administration for applying the law as it has been over more than a decade (only difference being under the Affordable Care Act, it is now freeand trying to protect the religious freedom of employees of religion-affiliated civil institutions from the religious dicta of their employers. Catholic bishops (who are at odds with the majority of American Catholics) are demanding for their Church-run (but non-church) public civil institutions the ability to shirk laws every other employer has to abide by. But as Rachel Maddow said last night, there is another way to look at this: {VIDEO}

Contraceptives are, as Rachel points out, far more a women’s issue than a Catholic/religious issue. 99% of sexually experienced women have used contraceptives, and 98% of Catholic sexually experienced women have, too. Thanks to this universal use of birth control, we just found out today that teen pregnancy and abortion rates are at a record low. The Republican position would raise the barrier to women for obtaining birth control, and women are not likely to stand by and let that happen. Women’s health care defenders are not limited to the Democratic party, either.

“I think this week’s outrage over the Komen decision should be a warning to the Republican party about how quickly there was a mass outrage over further and further attacks on general women’s health,” Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for Choice, told me Wednesday.“You could see the same backlash on attacks on contraception.”
Ferguson calls the Republican rhetoric on contraception “crossing the line” — taking the discussion away from choice issues (where Republicans can find some broader, if still national minority constituency) and into the realm of the fringy extreme.
“For the last number of years, we in the pro-choice community in general — and we specifically as Republicans — have been saying as this pandering to a sort of social conservative faction of voters continues, you’re going to see the line pushed further and further and further,” she said. “And we’re now crossing the line from discussion of when we should regulate abortion to when we should now regulate legal doctor-prescribed medications like birth control, which is woven in the fabric of society as an acceptable medication.”

These are Republican, pro-choice women finally standing up to their own party’s destructive agenda to sacrifice women’s health priorities at the alter of a sick notion that, as my friend rootless_e pointed out on Twitter, women employed by religiously-affiliated civil institutions are chattel for their employers. Just as nearly every woman in America, these women are drawing a line against the GOP attack on a basic health care need for women: birth control.

Americans are rightly protective of our freedom of (and from) religion. But we keenly understand that such freedom applies to individuals, and not to the claimed ability of Churches to ignore the law in the public, civil institutions they run that take money just as well from non-Catholics and people who have no interest in the religion. Media Matters reports on a new poll out today showing exactly that: strong majorities of Americans supporting the requirement that employer provided insurance plans include birth control as preventive care. In fact, American Catholics, in sound rejection of the position of the Church, agree even more strongly.

Support among women is more than likely even higher. I suspect the politically astute Obama was well aware of these statistics before his administration took the right decision. The President and his team also know:

• Not only does he have a majority support from Americans and American Catholics in general on this issue, even Republicans don’t speak with one voice on this, as we have seen above. In fact, the GOP kerfuffle will only reflect on the extremism of the current GOP, as opposed to the Republican party of even a decade ago, when a bunch of Republican senators cosponsored a bill to establish parity for contraceptives in health plans and provided no exemptions for religiously affiliated civil institutions.
• Mitt Romney’s protestations on this only exposes his flip-flopping history. As late as 2005, Romney required health plans in Massachusetts to do the same thing.
• Even in the reddest of the red states, attacks on women’s health and body parts and attempts by a collusion of states and churches to practice medicine on women have failed, and failed spectacularly. And wouldn’t you know it, a big part of that spectacular failure was… the fact that these “personhood” amendments would likely outlaw birth control.
• The Catholic Church can cause a media frenzy, and the Republican candidates can exploit this nontroversy for their internal “who’s more into a 12th century Europe” contest, but (a) this is not the issue that will decide the election and (b) it will only bring more women to vote for Obama.

Plainly put, you don’t screw with birth control, even if you are the Catholic Church.

Yet, what are the headlines you see today in the beltway media? It’s all about how the GOP is smelling blood and has found an issue they can pick a fight with the Obama administration on in an election year. Do you really think that the President was unaware that the GOP would try to exploit this? I don’t think so. In fact, one could intelligently deduce that the strategy of announcing this rule and once the Republicans started screaming, of letting them ratchet it up is precisely in order to expose the modern day Republican party as the instigators of “personhood” for fertilized eggs and opponents of birth control.

Remember how the President won the other battles I mentioned at the beginning of this article. The first step was always – to the impatient whining of many – to expose the extremism of the GOP. The first step was always to lay their extreme philosophies bare in front of the American people while being open to reasonable compromise that in no way sacrifices the most important principles for the president (in this case, protecting women’s access to health care). The President has followed the same method on every one of these fights: let the GOP scream, take up the mantle of reasonable-ness, and expose the GOP for who they are: reactionary social radicals who cannot be trusted. He hands them enough rope and then puts them in a corner.

And what do you think the President is doing now? You see Obama surrogates talking about being open about ‘resolving’ this with a reasonable compromise, but not once backing off their commitment to protecting women’s access to birth control. In the mean time, the Republican field of candidates and the extremist members of Congress are openly going after women’s health care. This is textbook Obama:the GOP is now being handed rope while the President takes up the role of the only adult in the room. The Republicans are too busy boxing themselves into a corner against women’s health to notice what is going on underneath the media headlines in the real American mainstream.
From the inception of the Obama presidency – no, the Obama candidacy – the Republican party has continuously made the same mistake. In their hatred of President Obama – driven in equal parts by his policies and his skin color – and in their zeal to pander to the extremists in their own midst, they have forgotten that there is a real America outside of the bubble that they call the modern GOP. That there are real people in that real America who want their government to do its job so they can get and do their jobs. That those people care about health care for themselves, their parents, their husbands, their wives, their brothers, their sisters, their sons, their daughters.
President Obama has not forgotten that fact. President Obama knows who he’s fighting for. And President Obama is brilliant once again on showing the American people the ugly truth about extremist Republican party.

Pro-Choice GOP Warns Party That Contraception Fight Will Be A Disaster 

TPM:

Pro-choice Republicans are begging their party to drop this fight over contraception before it’s too late. Turning to a discussion about access to birth control will be nothing short of a disaster, they say.

The new and unexpected war over contraception may not end up as only a battle between the White House and the Republican party. It could end up as a fight between the GOP and itself. As we saw during the 2011’s push to defund Planned Parenthood — when some Republican Senators rebuked their colleagues in the House for attacking the organization — Republicans on Capitol Hill do not speakwith one voice on matters of women’s health. Now, as Speaker John Boehner seemingly prepares to turn the House GOP’s attention to contraception, pro-choice Republicans are warning that the GOP may become the next Komen For The Cure.

“I think this week’s outrage over the Komen decision should be a warning to the Republican party about how quickly there was a mass outrage over further and further attacks on general women’s health,” Kellie Ferguson, executive director of Republican Majority for choice, told me Wednesday. “You could see the same backlash on attacks on contraception.”

Ferguson calls the Republican rhetoric on contraception “crossing the line” — taking the discussion away from choice issues (where Republicans can find some broader, if still national minority constituency) and into the realm of the fringy extreme.

“For the last number of years, we in the pro-choice community in general — and we specifically as Republicans — have been saying as this pandering to a sort of social conservative faction of voters continues, you’re going to see the line pushed further and further and further,” she said. “And we’re now crossing the line from discussion of when we should regulate abortion to when we should now regulate legal doctor-prescribed medications like birth control, which is woven in the fabric of society as an acceptable medication.”

She pointed to widely-reported polling showing that a majority of Americans — and a majority of Catholics — support the White House policy and urged her party to take a step back before it’s too late.

A high-profile debate over contraception will only serve to alienate voters and deny Republicans the White House in the fall, Ferguson suggested.

“There’s a big leap between people who vote at a Republican caucus and the majority that will vote in a general election,” she said. “I think pigeon-holing the party as against women’s health in general not only hurts the party, but it hurts our key candidates.”

Wonkette: Democratic Senator Mocks Crazies With ‘Every Sperm Is Sacred’ Amendment 

CPAC Won’t Renounce White Nationalist

Buzzfeed:

The American Conservative Union is standing by its decision to permit a panel at CPAC that includes a leading white nationalist figure, Peter Brimelow.

“CPAC is proud to have more than 150 sponsors and exhibitors this year,” said spokeswoman Kristy Campbell in an email. “This panel was not organized by the ACU, and specific questions on the event, content or speakers should be directed to the sponsoring organization. Cosponsors and affiliated events do not necessarily represent the opinions of the American Conservative Union.”

The group’s Conservative Political Action Conference kicks off tomorrow with a host of important figures on the right, including presidential candidates and current legislators — and with a lineup that tends to define the limits of the conservative movement. In the past, skirmishes over the inclusion of gay conservatives have been central, but this year’s hottest debate appears to be over race.

Brimelow is the founder of VDARE.com, named after Virginia Dare, the first child born to English settlers in America. He’s set to speak at a CPAC event called “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Brimelow as a “White Nationalist” and his website as a hate site. Brimelow advocates against immigration and multiculturalism, which he has written “risks making America an alien nation.”

His website publishes the work of white supremacist authors like Kevin MacDonald and Jared Taylor, a proponent of so-called “racial realism.”

Frank Rich on the National Circus: Mr. ‘Inevitable’ Pummeled Again

Where are we now?
We are just where we have been. The Republican party does not have a candidate for president. The deck keeps being reshuffled, and different jokers keep popping up to the top. But the 75 percent of the party that does not want Mitt can’t and won’t coalesce over any of the alternatives. Nor will it warm up to the guy it keeps being told is the “inevitable” front-runner. The lack of GOP enthusiasm for its own field can be seen in its turnout — down again last night, as it was in Romney’s Florida victory.

Romney was on a roll. He got crushed. Where does Romney stand now? Were we all overrating the importance of political momentum?

Momentum hasn’t worked for Romney or Gingrich, and probably won’t work for Santorum, either. But the bigger story here is how devastating this loss was for Romney. Yes, these pseudo-primaries were “meaningless.” Yes, Romney still has more money, more organization, and more delegates (of the few awarded thus far). But a Washington Post/ABC News poll released just before these contests found that by a margin of more than two to one, Americans say that the more they learn about Mitt, the less they like him, and last night added further proof. The standard interpretation of Mitt’s triple defeat on cable news (regardless of network) is that “conservatives rejected Romney.” But who exactly isn’t rejecting Romney? He couldn’t even fill up his headquarters when speaking last night in Denver. And then he gave a talk that reminded anyone who was watching how hollow and fake a candidate he is. He mixed stilted punch lines from his tired anti-Obama script with a bit of hilariously tone-deaf populist posturing — claiming that his father, a fabulously successful auto executive, began his career as some sort of nail-spitting blue-collar carpenter. Hard to know whether to laugh or to cry at these performances. Americans of all stripes seem to abhor Mitt the way nature abhors a vacuum.
But doesn’t the GOP Establishment still like Mitt? And won’t it keep propping him up?
They are certainly trying to. It was a revealing moment that on CNN last night — at the late hour of 11:20 ET — one of its “expert” talking heads, the former Bush administration flack Ari Fleischer, flatly reassured his credulous fellow panelists that his sources “on the ground” authoritatively told him that Romney would win Colorado. That was the desperate, out-of-touch voice of the GOP Establishment speaking — and again engaging both in denial and wishful thinking. Not long after Fleischer’s pronouncement, Mitt lost to Santorum by 5 percent — despite a serious Romney campaign effort in the state and despite having won Colorado in a landslide over McCain four years ago. Fleischer’s Dewey-Beats-Truman prediction was another example of the GOP Establishment being clueless about what’s happening “on the ground” in its own party or in America. Similarly, another pillar of that Establishment, Peggy Noonan, dismissed Mitt last week as merely an inept stand-in for Jeb Bush — who isn’t running — and yet still predicted, illogically, that Obama would lose in the fall. What you see with the GOP Establishment is a bunch of chickens that sense the sky is falling and are running around with their heads cut off.
Does this new Santorum surge mean the religious right isn’t dead, after all?
Time for America to start Googling “Santorum” again! If his surge marks a last stand of the much-diminished religious right, the timing could not be more in conflict with American culture right now, from the new victories for same-sex marriage in California and Washington state to the Super Bowl, which was watched by nearly as many Americans as voted in the last presidential election, few or none of whom protested Madonna’s homoerotic halftime spectacle. If the GOP wants to run in 2012 by vilifying gay families — or opposing heterosexual contraception — the Democrats are even luckier than it seems.
And finally, whither Newt?
Newt’s ego and hatred for Romney will be the gifts that will keep on giving (to Obama) — at least as long as Sheldon Adelson keeps giving him (and/or his unofficial PAC) big checks. Newt has nothing to gain by dropping out. Given his Georgia roots and uninhibited playing of the race card, he may actually fare better in some quarters of the GOP primary electorate in the South than Romney. This race is so askew from its predicted narrative that anything can happen — another Gingrich comeback, or, we can always pray, maybe an independent run by Donald Trump, who could turn on Mitt as quickly as he turns on any celebrity apprentice.

Ezra Klein — The GOP’s new push to defang the CFPB

Even before the Cordray appointment, Republicans objected to the basic structure of the CFPB, which Sen. Richard Shelby described as having “unfettered power over the American people” under the authority of an “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat.” Under the new bills from Reps. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) and Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.), Cordray would be removed from his new seat on the board of the FDIC, and the bureau would be subject to the regular appropriations process under the Treasury Department — handing the purse strings over to Congress. Under Dodd-Frank, which created the bureau, the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, which isn’t subject to congressional appropriations. There’s also a bill to ensure that information collected by the bureau is subject to attorney-client privilege.

At a Wednesday hearing in the House Financial Services Committee, the American Bankers Association — which criticized the recess appointment of Cordray — had ample praise for the GOP legislation. “There needs to be an effective check and balance on the Bureau’s authority,” said Michael Hunter, the ABA’s chief operating officer, according to his prepared remarks. “On funding of the Bureau, we believe that the Bureau should be accountable to Congress to show how it is using its resources.” Hunter also argued that consumer protection was not integral to the FDIC’s mission to support a safe, sound the banking industry. “There is no question that consumer protection policies could be created that act in conflict with safety and soundness,” Hunter said.

Supporters of the CFPB believe the bills are an attempt by Republicans to weaken and defund the CFPB under the guise of reform and good governance. In the last budget, for example, Republicans pushed for big cuts to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — two other agencies that are critical to Dodd-Frank — and they’d likely to do the same with the CFPB if Congress were given funding oversight, says Michael Greenberger, a former CFTC official and law professor at the University of Maryland.

Congressional Democrats share similar concerns. “Chairman Johnson has said repeatedly that he is not interested in making structural changes to the Consumer Bureau that would weaken critical new protections that American consumers deserve,” says Sean Oblack, a spokesman for Sen. Tim Johnson, chair of the Senate Banking Committee. (He added, however, that Johnson planned to work with Republicans to make sure information shared with the CFPB “is subject to same privilege-waiver protections” as with other bank regulators.)

In fact, House Republicans passed a bill last summer to restructure the agency, changing the directorship from a single official to a five-member board and creating a new Congressional review process to oversee the CFPB’s newly issued regulations. The bill never went anywhere with the Senate, and the new legislation isn’t likely to either. But having been rolled on Cordray, Republicans are taking up new ways to continue pushing back and lay down a marker should the 2012 elections go in their direction.

Ron Paul plays this music video at all his appearances. Really.

Note the lyrics about “the Bilderberg Group.”

Today’s Dilemma for Conservatives

Kevin Drum:

This cracks me up:

Florida’s poor can use food stamps to buy staples like milk, vegetables, fruits and meat. But they can also use them to buy sweets like cakes, cookies and Jell-O and snack foods like chips, something a state senator [Ronda Storms] wants stopped.

….[Her] bill would also require the state to launch a culturally sensitive campaign to educate people about the benefits of a nutritious diet. Supporters say it would help recipients follow healthy eating habits and prevent taxpayer funds from being used to purchase luxury foods like bakery cakes when they can whip up a cheaper box mix.

What a dilemma. On the one hand, this bill promotes the exact same nanny-state behavior that Republicans howl about when Michelle Obama or Michael Bloomberg starts nattering on about salt consumption or fatty foods. On the other hand, it punishes welfare recipients, something that’s always good for a round of applause from right-wing audiences. What’s a conscientious conservative to do?

A Staggering Drop in Support for Mitt Romney 

JM Ashby:

There were early signs that Mitt Romney would lose the Minnesota and Missouri primaries last night, but I don’t think anyone would have predicted he wouldn’t win a single county in either state.

You can view the Minnesota results here.

You can view the Missouri results here.

As ThinkProgress points out, the reason for this epic fail by Team Romney is an abysmal drop in voter support for Mitt Romney between 2008 and 2012.

Abysmal may not even be a strong enough word. The drop in support is simply staggering.

Romney won Colorado with 60 percent of the vote four years ago, and its demographics favored the candidate, but this year, Romney won just 34.9 percent of the vote, coming 6 points shy of Santorum. In Minnesota, which Romney won with 41 percent of the vote in 2008, he won just 16.9 percent last night — coming in third behind Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). And in Missouri, Romney was down slightly, from 29 percent in 2008 to 25.3 percent last night. [...]

In some places, Romney’s collapse was even more stunning. As the New York Times’ Nate Silver noted, “Romney’s stronger areas in [Colorado] were associated with turnout declines of about 20 percent. But turnout was steady or slightly up in places where Rick Santorum did well.” For instance, in Pueblo County, where turnout was actually up, Romney took just 27 percent of the vote — a huge drop from the 62 percent he won in 2008. And in the Denver suburbs, which Romney won, he was still way down from 2008. In Douglas County, Romney went from 72 percent in 2008 to 46 percent; in Arapaho County, he went from 66 percent to 45 percent; and in Jeffferson County, he went from 65 percent to 39 percent.

Like Bob, I still believe Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for president regardless, but I’m also beginning to think he’s going to be a weaker nominee than any of us had anticipated.

It’s probable that conservative voter enthusiasm and general support for Romney will harden after he becomes the nominee and President Obama is the one and only target, however the drop in support for Romney has been so staggering even a modest increase in solidarity won’t be enough to fill the chasm.

This should not be taken for granted or be seen as a justification for complacency. The 2012 election may be between Barack Obama and “Meh Romney,” but the stakes are far too high to sit comfortably.

Another Bain exec revealed as man behind corporate donor to pro-Romney super PAC 

Center for Public Integrity:

A mysterious corporate donor to an outside spending group supporting Mitt Romney’s campaign for president isn’t a corporation at all, but a former executive of Romney’s old employer, Bain & Co., and his wife, according to records.

Super PAC “Restore Our Future” reported a $250,000 donation from a firm called Glenbrook LLC on its disclosure report released Jan. 31. On Tuesday, the group amended its filing, dropping Glenbrook and replacing it with the names Jesse and Melinda Rogers.

Both are listed as having made $125,000 contributions. Jesse Rogers works in “investment management” at Altamont Capital Management. Melinda Rogers’ occupation is listed as “homemaker.”

Rogers is a former executive of Bain & Co., the management consulting firm that Romney helmed during the early 1990s. Rogers worked for 16 years at Bain where he founded and led the firm’s private equity group until 2000.
Between 2004 and 2011, Rogers and his wife donated $88,000 to Romney’s presidential campaigns and state and federal level political action committees, according to records. During the past year, Rogers also gave $28,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and $2,500 to failed GOP presidential candidate former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Rogers also contributed the legal maximum of $2,500 to Romney’s presidential campaign last year, as did Melinda and their daughter Jennifer.

Neither Rogers nor a representative of Restore Our Future could immediately be reached for comment.

If this story has a familiar ring to it, that’s because it’s happened before.

In August, Ed Conard, a former managing director at Bain Capital, which Romney co-founded in 1984 along with two other Bain & Co. executives, ‘fessed up to being the face behind a $1 million corporate donation from a group called W. Spann LLC — which incorporated in Delaware and disbanded before the contribution came to light.

Restore Our Future later adjusted their reports to include Conard’s name.

Super PACs were made possible by federal court decisions in 2010 that allowed independent groups to accept unlimited corporate and union contributions and spend the money on advertising that supports or opposes a candidate.

Restore Our Future was created last year to help boost Romney’s electoral prospects. It is run by several of Romney’s former aides, including Carl Forti, Romney’s 2008 political director; Larry McCarthy, a member of Romney’s 2008 media team; and Charles Spies, Romney’s chief financial officer and counsel in 2008.

Through the end of 2011, the super PAC reported raising more than $30 million — more than any other super PAC or Republican candidate committee. To date, it’s also reported spending more than $18 million, mostly on negative ads targeting Newt Gingrich.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R TEX), Top Border Security Hawk, Invested In Border Monitoring Tech Company Before Gov. Grant 

Republic Report:

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) is among the few members of Congress who have not embraced or cosponsored the STOCK Act, a measure to curb insider trading by lawmakers and some federal officials. Smith’s hesitance to back the legislation may relate to his own history of investment. According to records reviewed by Republic Report, Smith, who oversees border security issues as a member of an influential subcommittee, purchased stock in a company that deals with U.S.-Mexico border security shortly before the same corporation won a lucrative government contract.

In July of 2010, Smith, along with his colleagues on the Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee, held a hearing about increased use of drones along the Mexico border. Michael Kostelnik, the Assistant Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, explained that Predator drones equipped with Flir Systems sensors have helped catch some drug smuggling immigrants. Soon after the hearing, President Obama approved $600 million in new funding for border security equipment, with large portions of the money earmarked for increased monitoring systems, like drones.

Three months after the hearing, Smith began purchasing stock in Flir Systems Inc, the company that specializes in sensor equipment used at the border:

In January, only a month after Smith’s last disclosed purchase of Flir Systems stock, the company won a $101 million grant from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency for mobile surveillance devices. Smith’s colleagues on the border subcommittee subsequently called for an intensified border plan that includes heavy spending on drones and other sensor equipment.

Congressman Smith, however, contends that his investments are made solely by a third party. A representative from his office e-mailed Republic Report: “Congressman Smith’s securities are held in an account managed by Bank of America MerrillLynch Wealth Management. Congressman Smith and his wife have no control over stock transactions.”

It’s not the first time Smith’s financial transactions have gained notice. In 1999, the Dallas Morning News reported that Smith was among a handful of legislators who invested in stock using campaign funds. According to an analysis of his disclosures at the time, Smith’s returns ranged from at least 6 to 7 percent.

A Washington Post investigation posted yesterday, part of a broader look at how lawmakers use their position in office to enrich themselves, reveals that Smith earmarked $950,000 worth of road improvements near his own home in suburban San Antonio.

Politicians constantly face accusations that their blind trusts aren’t really blind. In the Presidential race, Mitt Romney claimed that his investments are in a blind, third party trust. ABC News later reported that Romney may have a hand in his own investments.

While the STOCK Act makes it way through Congress, it is difficult to predict if reforms will truly curb politicians from benefitting financially from public office. Senators last week blocked a proposal from Senator Sherrod Brown that would have mandated either divestment from companies that stand to benefit from policymaking or for lawmakers to place their wealth under the management of independent, third party investment funds.

Rep. Eric Cantor Blocked Mortgage Crisis Fix While Owning A Financial Stake In Foreclosure Businesses 

Republic Report:

Will the House of Representatives strengthen the Stock Act, legislation to curb lawmakers and government officials from profitting from their position in government? In the Senate, a strong amendment offered by Senator Sherrod Brown to force members of Congress to either divest from companies that stand to benefit from policymaking or dump their investments into a blind trust was defeated.

Congressman Eric Cantor (R-VA) is managing the House version of the Stock Act. Since it appears unlikely that Cantor will attach Brown’s meaningful amendment, Cantor’s own history of legislating on issues that affect his bank account deserves a renewed look.

Throughout 2009, Cantor helped lead opposition to mortgage cramdown — a no-cost measure to help borrowers negotiate lower interest rates and avoid foreclosure. While Cantor marshaled opposition to these policies, he did not disclose that both his own wealth and his wife’s were connected to the mortgage industry:

–- Cantor invested in several mortgage banks, and owned a portion of a Cantor-family run mortgage company. According to Cantor’s 2009 personal financedisclosure, Cantor owned up to a $500,000 share of a mortgage company called TrustMor run by his brother.

–- While Cantor blocked a fix to the foreclosure crisis, his wife Diane Cantor served as the managing director of a bank with a high foreclosure rate. Diane Cantor at the time worked as a managing director to New York Private Bank & Trust, a major mortgage bank and TARP recipient. SNL Financial later reported that Cantor’s bank was among the top three banks in the mortgage business “with the the greatest percentage of family loans in the foreclosure process.”

In 2009, Eric Cantor also owned a portion of a family debt collection law firm. According to his personal finance disclosure, Cantor owned up to a $100,000 stake in Cantor & Cantor, the debt collection law firm run by his family.

Diana Cantor now works at an investment firm called Alternative Investment Management.

Koch Brothers buy $700K in ads in desperate effort to save Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker 

Enjoy the payroll tax break now – congressional Republicans are poised to kill it in 3 weeks 

Steve Benen:

Senators were warned yesterday that if they let the payroll tax break expire at the end of the month, the burgeoning economic recovery will take a “very sharp” hit.

Congressional Republicans may very well let it happen anyway.

After a bitter fight in December, GOP leaders accepted a two-month extension of the payroll cut, giving policymakers a new deadline — Feb. 29, three weeks from today — to agree to a year-long deal. As of mid-January, the prospects for an agreement looked pretty good, in large part because Republicans didn’t want to be on the hook for a middle-class tax increase in an election year.

Striking an acceptable deal, however, is proving to be far more difficult than even some of the key officials expected.

Members of the payroll conference committee fought to a draw in their fourth public meeting Tuesday, making no progress toward finding a way to pay for a payroll tax holiday and dimming the prospects that a deal can be struck by the month’s end.

A Senate Democratic offer on unemployment insurance issues is in the works, and Members said they want to pick up the pace of the talks. But — barring a major breakthrough in the next few days, Members acknowledged — the latest high-stakes negotiation in a year of botched cross-party talks will go the way of the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction: abject failure.

“I was very discouraged after today’s session,” conferee Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. “We may be facing what Congress has faced every step of the way — in the super committee, on the debt ceiling.”

In each of the previous fights, a bipartisan agreement proved to be impossible because Republican lawmakers were unwilling to make concessions as part of a larger compromise.

At issue is a package with a price tag of nearly $200 billion, which would include a payroll tax cut for the rest of the year, an extension of emergency unemployment benefits, and the Medicare “doc fix” on physician reimbursements. As is always the case, the fight between Democrats and Republicans is over how best to pay for the bill.

In private, House Republican conferees want to limit the negotiations over how to pay for the extenders to measures that have already passed at least one of the two Houses of Congress. This wipes measures like higher taxes on wealthy Americans, and war savings off the table, while preserving partisan GOP-backed payfors, including freezing federal worker pay, and increasing Medicare costs for some beneficiaries.

“The ‘outside of scope of conference’ argument they’re trying to make is silly,” says one Dem aide briefed on the discussions. “They can’t say out of one side of their mouths that Dems don’t have any proposals and then consider any we provide outside scope of conference. [Sen. Bob] Casey offered a 1% surcharge on millionaires and Dems offered to pay for [the Medicare doc fix] using [savings from winding down overseas military operations].”

There’s also, of course, a political element to all of this. A New York Times editorial argued that “extending the tax break would represent a victory for President Obama, who has been championing it. That remains intolerable to many Republicans.” Senate Democratic leaders argued along similar lines yesterday, accusing the GOP of trying to derail the recovery on purpose.

One angle to keep an eye on is the leverage Democrats believe they have in this fight. Republicans generally concede they’re playing a losing hand — Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said yesterday his party “can’t win the argument” — which makes it much tougher for the GOP to execute their traditional negotiating strategy (“give us everything we want or else”).

Dems, in other words, are less likely to accept a bad deal and more likely to wait until the last minute, precisely because they saw Republicans cave under similar circumstances in December.

Ron Paul Set to Speak to ‘Sovereign Citizens’—Just As FBI Issues Warning About Them 

Crooks and Liars:

We’ve been writing here at C&L about the danger to law-enforcement officers (not to mention civil society) posed by the far-right “sovereign citizens” movement for some time. So naturally we were pleased to see the FBI weighed in on the subject this week:

Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday.

These extremists, sometimes known as “sovereign citizens,” believe they can live outside any type of government authority, FBI agents said at a news conference.

The extremists may refuse to pay taxes, defy government environmental regulations and believe the United States went bankrupt by going off the gold standard.

Routine encounters with police can turn violent “at the drop of a hat,” said Stuart McArthur, deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.

“We thought it was important to increase the visibility of the threat with state and local law enforcement,” he said.

And as it so happens, there’s going to be a big gathering of “sovereign citizens” coming up soon in Irvine, California, calling itself the Freedom Law Conference, and devoted to teaching you how to free yourself from the tyranny of the federal government:

This 4-day event includes an in-depth class on Avoiding and Defeating IRS Criminal Charges, two keynote banquet speakers, 14 of the most exciting Freedom speakers in the country, and a seminar on Stopping Mortgage Fraud.

Oh, and look who they have lined up to be their keynote speaker:

Yep, the same guy who’s out there collecting all those votes for the Republican nomination—not to mention also being the new darling of a clutch of extremely confused (or are they just pseudo-?) progressives.

And in case there was any confusion about the political orientation of the gathering, they announce up front that this is a Patriot Movement event:

Here at Freedom Law School we want to connect Patriots. If you want to attend, but are worried about the cost of a room, no worries! Freedom Law School will get you in contact with other Patriots attending so you can work out splitting the cost of a room.

And yes — as you can see from pieces like this, Freedom Law School and its scam-artist founder, Peymon Mottahedeh, are very much “sovereign citizenship” promoters.

Among the people Paul will be sharing the stage with is Floyd Banister, an ex-FBI agent who now makes a very profitable living on the Patriot chicken-dinner circuit.

Banister says that he investigated radical tax protesters’ claims about the IRS for two years. He concluded they were right, and told his IRS supervisors so. He was placed on leave, then resigned in 1999 to “comply with my oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.”

The following year, he and Bob Schulz, founder of a leading anti-government Patriot tax-protest group known as the We the People, hand delivered grievances signed by supporters to federal officials in Washington stating that the 16th Amendment that allowed a federal income tax was illegally ratified, and that no law or regulation requires most citizens to pay income taxes or have taxes withheld.

Banister was indicted in 2004 in California for preparing false income tax returns and conspiring to defraud the federal government stemming from his work on behalf of a businessman client. The client went to prison, but Banister was acquitted.

Yep, that’s pretty much par for the course for the suckers who sign on to this crap and then try to make it happen.

I also love this quote from Bannister:

“There’s definitely a propaganda campaign out there to make us look like a problem to law enforcement,” he told his audience at a Patriot conference last year.

Yeah, who knows where people in law enforcement would get that idea? I’m sure it couldn’t come from the trail of slain cops and threats to cops and plots to kill cops popping up all over the countryside.

Analysis: President Obama is outpacing his 2008 record of pulling in small donations

POLLS

Fired up, ready to go — Democrats gain the enthusiasm edge

Obama surges past general election rivals in swing state of Virginia

The approval rate for Congress hits an all time low of 10%

Mitt Romney is struggling with his base and independents alike

Polls: Republican voters not thrilled about voting next November

Politico: Poll: Most back Obama’s drone use 

Kasich would lose a do-over in Ohio by twenty 

SCOTUS

Proposition 8 might not be headed to the Supreme Court. Here’s why 

TPM:
Now that a Ninth Circuit panel has ruled that California’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, it seems inevitable that the ruling on Proposition 8 will eventually be appealed to the Supreme Court. But whether the Supreme Court agrees to hear it is another story.

At this point, proponents of Prop 8 have fourteen days to decide whether to petition for a rehearing. If granted, an eleven-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit will hear the case, which could take another six months to a year. If the initiative’s supporters choose to go straight to the Supreme Court, four of the nine justices would have to vote in favor of hearing the case for it to be taken up.

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who wrote the majority opinion for the 2-1 ruling, determined that the initiative violated the EqualProtection clause of the 14th Amendment because it “serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

The panel also declined to rule on the broader question of whether any ban on gay marriage would be unconstitutional, which could have had implications in other states, “because California had already extended to committed same-sex couples both the incidents of marriage and the official designation of ‘marriage,’ and Proposition 8’s only effect was to take away that important and legally significant designation, while leaving in place all of its incidents.”

“This unique and strictly limited effect of Proposition 8 allows us to address the amendment’s constitutionality on narrow grounds,” Reinhardt wrote.

Several California law professors speculated to TPM that this “narrow” focus of the ruling could mean that the Supreme Court willdecline to hear the case, since the ruling is so limited to California.

Professor Jane Schacter at Stanford Law School told TPM that “the big question” is whether or not the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case, and though at this point it’s “guesswork,” the narrowness of the opinion makes it less likely that they will. “It’s much more grounded in the specifics of the California ruling,” she said. For one thing, Schacter said, the Ninth Circuit’s opinion emphasizes that the right of same-sex couples to marry had been first granted, then eliminated. For another, unlike most other states, California already essentially granted all of the rights of marriage to same-sex couples, just under a different name than “marriage.” This means that Prop 8 was simply about the designation of same-sex unions as “marriages.”

“Those two things are somewhat peculiar to California,” Schacter said, meaning that the opinion doesn’t necessarily provide the basis for a nationally recognized right for same-sex couples to marry. “Because of that, the Supreme Court may feel the stakes are limited, and it’s not as necessary for them to get involved,” she said.

On the other hand, because this case is very high-profile and California is an influential state that “tends to set trends,” the Supreme Court “may decide to take it,” Schacter added.

And should the Court decide to take it, there is reason to believe that the language of the opinion will hold particular appeal to one specific Justice. “This decision was written by Judge Reinhardt more or less for Justice Kennedy,” Schacter said.

Kennedy wrote the majority opinions for Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark 2003 case that recognized an individual’s right to privacy by overturning a ban on sodomy in Texas, and Romer v. Evans, a 1996 case that found it was unconstitutional for Colorado to have a constitutional amendment, passed by voter referendum, that prevents the government from passing laws to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination.

The Prop 8 decision is “saying to Justice Kennedy, ‘we’ve written the kind of incremental, limited decision, moving the ball forward” on gay rights “that you’ve written in the past, without writing an opinion that nationalizes same-sex marriage.” The “narrow character of it may have special appeal to Justice Kennedy,” who is often the swing vote on the court, Schacter said.

Lecturer in Residence Joan Heifetz Hollinger at Berkeley Law School similarly demurred that “no one knows for sure” what the proponents of Prop 8 will do after Tuesday’s loss, and that she herself has been a “total agnostic” in terms of predicting how this case will go.

“I think it will depend on their guess and their estimate of what will happen if they appeal to the Supreme Court,” Hollinger said, and “if they do that, the U.S. Supreme Court does not have to agree to hear this case, because the way in which the panel crafted it is narrowly focused on California, and on the consequences of Proposition 8 for California.”

Specifically, Hollinger said, gays and lesbians already enjoyed the right to marry and the “rights and attributes” of marriage, and by passing Prop 8 the people of California simply said “sorry, you cannot use the ‘M’ word.”

“[The Ninth Circuit] did not issue a much broader decision, which might have said something like, there’s a fundamental right to marry under the federal Constitution, which no state can take away,” she added.

“Because of the California focus, it’s not at all clear that the U.S. Supreme Court would agree to hear an appeal. There’s no competing opinion from another federal court of appeals” that the Supreme Court would have to reconcile with the Ninth Circuit’s, and “the likelihood of having a competing opinion is low, at least for the short term,” because there is currently no other federal litigation on the same-sex marriage question.
In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, who represented the American Foundation for Equal Rights and the two same-sex couples challenging Prop 8, agreed that the narrow focus of the opinion might convince the Supreme Court to pass on this case. “The grounds for the opinion, I think, do make it somewhat less likely that the Supreme Court willtake it,” said Boies, because it “just applies to California,” which has a number of characteristics that are different from other states, “including that citizens of California were clearly entitled to marriage equality and then that right was taken away.”

“The Court might not want to try to take this issue on on those facts, and might want to wait for a case on a more general issue that the court here did not have to face,” Boies said. But, he later added, “the reasoning of the case is reasoning that would clearly support a national right to marriage equality.”

Olson agreed that the Court might not be able to resist, especially since parts of the opinion can be more broadly applied. He cited page 77 of the opinion, in which Reinhardt writes that “Proposition 8 operates with no apparent purpose but to impost on gays and lesbians, through the public law, a majority’s private disapproval of them and their relationships, by taking away from them the official designation of ‘marriage,’ with its societally recognized status.”

“That language resoundingly reflect the arguments that we were making that this is discrimination that takes away a fundamental right and takes away equal protection,” Olson said. “In that sense, it’s a very broad and significant and resounding opinion.”

UNIONS

NYT: SUCCESS! Biggest NYC hotels agree to long-term contract w/ hotel workers

Scott Walker supporters won’t be able to stop recall by challenging petitions 

WEDGE ISSUES

The GOP’s war on religion (or ‘two can play that game’)

Kos:

So to hear Republicans speak, President Barack Obama is waging a “war on religion” because of regulations requiring religious-affiliated hospitals to cover contraception for their employees. While the vast majority of denominations are cool with that, the Catholic bishops are throwing a hissy fit. You see, they are opposed to birth control because it encourages sex, and sex is only for procreation.

Now most Catholics laugh at that nonsense, considering that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control. Yet that hasn’t stopped the out-of-touch bishops from pressing ahead, and it certainly hasn’t stopped opportunistic Republicans from rallying to their defense, because, you see, opposing the bishops on this issue means a war on religion!

Wow. Got it. Problem is, under those standards, Republicans are waging quite the jihad of their own!

Unemployment benefits:

On Monday, Bishop Stephen E. Blaire sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives urging them to focus on the economic security of workers at year’s end.

“When the economy fails to generate sufficient jobs, there is a moral obligation to help protect the life and dignity of unemployed workers and their families,” Blaire wrote. “Therefore, I strongly urge you and your colleagues to find effective ways to assure continuing Unemployment Insurance and Emergency Unemployment Compensation to protect jobless workers and their families.”

Republicans refused, shots fired!

Immigration reform:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opposes “enforcement only” immigration policies and supports comprehensive immigration reform.

Republicans oppose comprehensive immigration reform and push “enforcement only” policies, shots fired!

Drivers licenses for immigrants:

The Catholic Church has been a staunch opponent of the movement to repeal the law that allows undocumented immigrants to earn New Mexico drivers licenses.

Allen Sanchez, the Executive Director of the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, echoed his speech from a similar rally in September.

“I have a message,” Sanchez told the crowd. “Governor, Jesus was an immigrant!”

Republicans demagogue on the issue, shots fired!

Iraq War:

The capture of Saddam Hussein may help bring peace to Iraq, but it does not change the fact that “the war was useless, and served no purpose,” a top Vatican official said [...]

The cardinal said he hopes Saddam’s capture “contributes to peace and the reconstruction of Iraq. But it would be illusory to think that it will repair the damage caused by that great defeat for humanity which war always represents.”

Republicans CAUSED this war, shots fired!

Death penalty:

The Catholic bishops in the United States have been calling for an end to the use of the death penalty for more than twenty-five years.

Surely, Republicans will fight to prevent their taxpayer dollars from paying for executions, right? No? Shots fired!

Fact is, on all these issues, as well as poverty relief, the DREAM Act, and many others, Republicans are severely at odds with the Catholic Church. Yet there is no talk about a Republican war on religion. Why? Because that notion is idiotic.

Oh, and because Fox News and a bunch of Republican presidential pretenders aren’t opportunistically fanning the flames.

Catholic cardinal withdraws apology for covering up sex abuse | The Raw Story

St. John Chrysostom, once said ”The road to hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”

Here’s proof that he was right.

In an interview this week with Connecticut Magazine, Cardinal Edward Egan, withdrew his 2002 apology for the Church’shandling of the sex-abuse scandal, which was once read in all New York parishes.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.”

“I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.” He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities.

These are lies, strutting around with pride.

The Church is required to report abuse, according to laws on the books since the 1970s.

Bishop Egan ran a diocese that was notoriously dangerous for children. Contrary to his claim, during his twelve-year enthronement at Bridgeport, Egan repeatedly failed to investigate priests where there were obvious signs of abuse, according to The Hartford Courant. His diocese had to settle the cases and awarded victims some $12-15 million in damages.

Here is just one incredible case of negligence. According to the Hartford Courant, in 1990, Egan received a memo about ”adeveloping pattern of accusations” that Rev. Charles Carr of Norwalk had fondled young boys. Egan kept Carr working for another five years, only suspending him after a lawsuit was filed, and then in 1999 making him a chaplain at Danbury’s hospital.

How about another? The Connecticut post also reported that early in his reign, dozens of people came forward to accuse Rev.Raymond Pcolka of Greenwich of sexual abuse and violence against children. Egan claimed that the accusers were never “proved” to be telling the truth. Well, Egan never even bothered to interview them and kept Pcolka in ministry.

And, speaking as a Catholic, who lived in the New York Archdiocese under Cardinal Egan’s reign, I can say Egan did punish some priests. But not child-abusers. He swiftly punished and evicted those Catholic priests that said the Traditional Latin Mass (later liberalized by Pope Benedict XVI), if he thought they didn’t pay him sufficient deference.

In short: Egan coddled child-abusers, and persecuted decent priests during his ignominious reign as a Prince of the Church. His entire interview reeks of a narcissism and self-regard that is so palpable it makes your eyes water.

Again, speaking as a Catholic, God is merciful with those who repent and do penance.

It is time for Egan to repent before his victims and before God.

Otherwise, he’ll end up as pavement.

 AttackWatch: Mitt Romney has a new stance on religious liberty. We debunk it

[Please see original for links.]

Yesterday morning, Mitt Romney’s campaign unveiled a new petition asking supporters to “stand for religious liberty.” Here’s the opening line: “The Obama administration is at it again. They are now using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away.”

Their “proof”? The administration’s recent decision, as part of the Affordable Care Act, to require that insurers provide contraception coverage for women who choose it without a co-pay or deductible.

The “attack on liberty” claim comes from the provision that requires most employers that employ and serve people of many faiths to be included in the new law, including religiously affiliated organizations like hospitals and universities. But the petition doesn’t take the time to explain that the reasoning behind this is that women of all faiths are employed by these organizations and should have equal access to contraception. Or that churches who primarily employ and serve members of their own faith will be exempt, which you can read more about on our Contraception and Faith page.

Even more interesting is that as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney supported a contraception law just like it.

At the time, he didn’t think it infringed on religious liberty one bit. Yes, Mitt Romney’s flip-flopped and now has a new stance. Shocking, we know. The thing is, this time it could have a big impact on women’s health. We need to make sure everyone hears about Mitt’s change of opinion, and we’re counting on you to spread the word.

Here are the facts on Mitt’s record as governor and the new national law:

1. Before Mitt was governor, Massachusetts passed a mandate just like the new national contraception lawIn 2002, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a law required insurers to cover contraception, excluding church or church-owned organizations, but including non-profit religious institutions that served the public, like schools and hospitals. From the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, ”Gov. Jane M. Swift has signed into law legislation that requires insurers to cover the cost of contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy. Pro-choice advocates had pushed the bill for years. The law exempts health insurance contracts purchased by churches or church-controlled organizations.”
2. As governor, Mitt upheld it in his historic health care reformWhen Mitt Romney passed health care reform in Massachusetts, coverage was mandated to include “reproductive and sexual health care” and prescription drugs, which included contraceptives.”
3. Both laws covered all FDA-approved contraception, including Plan BPlan B, one of the biggest issues in Mitt’s current petition, was actually covered in the Massachusetts health care law he upheld.
4. As governor, Mitt spoke out in support of Plan B in certain casesBack in 2005, Romney reversed a ruling that would HAve allowed hospitals to opt out of providing Plan B to rape victims if “they objected on moral or religious grounds.”He even weighed in himself, saying “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.”
5. Today, Massachusetts is one of 28 states that already passed laws to require insurers to cover contraception“28 states require insurers that cover prescription drugs to provide coverage of the full range of FDA-approved contraceptive drugs and devices; These states include: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.”
6. 98% of Catholic women have used birth control, and 77% support covering itA recent study from the Guttmacher institute found that 98% of Catholic women have used contraception, virtually the same as the rest of the population, of which 99% have. And when asked, 78% of Catholic women are behind providing it without a co-pay or deductible.

Take Mitt’s newfound stance on the contraception law, and add to it his reversal to take a hardline stand against stem cell research. Then add his switch from being proudly pro-choice to so anti-choice that he said he would have supported a Personhood amendment for Massachusetts, just like the failed attempt to pass an amendment in Mississippi that would have classified zygotes as people and rendered common forms of birth control like the pill—and abortion even in cases of rape and incest—illegal.

What you get is Mitt’s real stance on women and religious liberty: He’ll say pretty much anything to get elected. And this petition is just the latest case.

AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal ‘slaves’ | The Raw Story

A California federal court is to decide for the first time in US history whether amusement park animals are protected by the same constitutional rights as humans.

The issue arises from a lawsuit filed by rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in a San Diego court on behalf of five orcas named Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka and Ulises.

The whales perform water acrobatics at the SeaWorld amusement parks in San Diego and in Orlando, Florida.

PETA argues that continuing the whales’ “employment” at SeaWorld violates the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits slavery.

District Judge Jeffrey Miller heard arguments in the complaint Monday and reviewed the response from SeaWorld, which asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. His ruling is expected to come later.

The suit, filed in October 2011, asked that the court declare that the orcas are “held in slavery and/or involuntary servitude by defendants in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

“It’s a new frontier in civil rights,” said Jeff Kerr, PETA general counsel, who described the hearing as a “historic day.”

“Slavery does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on race, gender or ethnicity,” he argued. “Coercion, degradation and subjugation characterize slavery and these orcas have endured all three.”

The complaint says the five killer whales are represented by their “friends” at PETA, which include three former killer whale trainers, a marine biologist and the founder of an organization that seeks to protect orcas.

MORE>>>

Studies: Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From Venus

The Atlantic:

[…] The contest for power between Democrats and Republicans pits two antithetical value systems against each other; two conflicting concepts of freedom, liberty, fairness, right, and wrong; two mutually exclusive notions of the state, the individual, and the collective good.

A wide range of academic scholarship exploring political belief-formation reveals that those who identify themselves as politically conservative,for example, exhibit distinctive values underpinning their world view and their orientation towards political competition.

Conservatives, argues researcher Philip Tetlock of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, are less tolerant of compromise; see the world in “us” versus “them” terms; are more willing to use force to gain an advantage; are “more prone to rely on simple (good vs. bad) evaluative rules in interpreting policy issues;” 1 are “motivated to punish violators of social norms (e.g., deviations from traditional norms of sexuality or responsible behavior) and to deter free riders.” 2

Some of these conservative values can be discerned in public opinion data.

In one September 2010 survey question, The Pew Research Center asked voters, “If you had to choose, would you rather have a smaller government providing fewer services, or a bigger government providing more services?” White Republican men chose a smaller government by a 92-7 margin and white Republican women made the same choice by an 82-12 margin. Conversely, white Democratic men chose bigger government by a 53-35 margin and white Democratic women by 56-33. This is an ideological gap between Republicans and Democrats of 57 points among white men and 49 points among white women. 3 […]

Carney’s team describes conservatism “as an ideological belief system that is significantly (but not completely) related to motivational concerns having to do with the psychological management of uncertainty and fear. . . Similarly, concerns with fear and threat may be linked to the second core dimension of conservatism, endorsement of inequality.” 21 (emphasis added)

Working along parallel lines, Harvard professor of psychology James Sidanius and colleagues have developed a measure of what they describe “social dominance orientation,” or, in academic shorthand, SDO. Sidanius and his associates use a 16 question survey to place respondents on a scale of high to low SDO. Those high in SDO gave favorable responses to the first eight statements and negative responses to questions nine through sixteen: 22

1. Some groups of people are just more worthy than others

2. In getting what your group wants, it is sometimes necessary to use force against other groups

3. It’s OK if some groups have more of a chance in life than others

4. To get ahead in life, it is sometimes necessary to step on other groups

5. If certain groups of people stayed in their place, we would have fewer problems

6. It’s probably a good thing that certain groups are at the top and other groups are at the bottom.

7. Inferior groups should stay in their place

8. Sometimes other groups must be kept in their place

9. It would be good if all groups could be equal

10. Group equality should be our ideal

11. All groups should be given an equal chance in life

12. We should do what we can to equalize conditions for different groups

13. We should increase social equality

14. We would have fewer problems if we treated different groups more equally.

15. We should strive to make incomes more equal

16. No one group should dominate in society

Sidanius et al. found that SDO is higher among whites than among African Americans; is negatively related to empathy, openness, and agreeableness; and is positively linked to aggressivity, vindictiveness, coldness, tough-mindedness, and to a belief that “the world is a zero-sum game.” In addition, those ranking high on a SDO scale “will use others to get ahead . . . they believe that harming people is legitimate, are observably disagreeable, cold, and vindictive, are low in benevolence, and do not hesitate to humiliate others. Their dog-eat-dog mentality leads them to support economic competition and war over social welfare programs . . . people high in SDO tend to be callous, confident, and cruel.” 23

In a separate set of studies, published in the paper “Social Dominance Orientation: A Personality Variable Predicting Social and Political Attitudes,” Sidanius and colleagues found that “Republican political party preference correlated positively and significantly with SDO in six out of six samples.”24

While Carney, Jost, Sidanius, et al. describe conservatives in pejorative terms, the University of Virginia’s Jon Haidt and Jesse Graham of the University of Southern California, contend that liberal scholars may be restricting their definition of morality by failing to acknowledge values and principles important to conservatives.

Haidt and Graham submit that conservatives are concerned not only with the welfare and rights of the individual, but also with the institutions of family, patriotism, loyalty to one’s group, and recognition of the legitimacy of hierarchy and order as beneficial to the larger society. As a result, according to Haidt and Graham, conservatives will sometimes take what they see as moral stands — attacking abortion and divorce as undermining the family — that liberals may well see as immoral impositions on the autonomy of individuals, especially women.

Haidt and his colleagues, in their paper “Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Different Sets of Moral Foundations,” graphed five “moralities” — (a) harm/care (strong empathy for those that are suffering and care for the most vulnerable); (b) fairness/reciprocity (life liberty and justice for all); (c) ingroup/loyalty (tribalism, patriotism, nationalism); (d) authority/respect (mechanisms for managing social rank, tempered by the obligation of superiors to protect and provide for subordinates); and (e) purity/sanctity (related to the evolution of disgust, that makes us see carnality as degrading and renunciation as noble) — to show how liberals give priority to only to the first two, harm/care and fairness/reciprocity, while conservatives give roughly equal weight to all five. 25

MUCH MORE>>>

TAKE ACTION

Take action: we need YOUR voice on contraceptive coverage!

If you want the media to hear your demand to stop the HATE language aimed at this President, speak out NOW. ENOUGH!

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car.” ~~Garrison Keillor

Yesterday’s Daily Planet was ruined by a formatting error. But here it is anyway. News and opinion from around US-opolis for Tuesday, February 6 2012

ECONOMY

Christina Romer and the liberal economists ignorance about manufacturing (via Matt Yglesias)

Krebcycle:

In the his state of the union speech, President Obama stressed the importance of rebuilding a manufacturing economy – something that both the Republican right and “liberal” economists oppose. The GOP opposes government aid to manufacturing because the GOP represents companies and wealthy people who are already being subsidized by the government (private equity investors like Mitt Romney, oil companies, banks etc. )  and they don’t want anyone redirecting tax money to anything else. The liberal economists, on the other hand, just seem confused. During the worst of the panic in 2009, Robert Reich  piped up agree with Republicans that the President’s plan to rescue the auto industry was a stupid idea because we should all work in the service economy  ( exporting power point slide decks, I guess). Christina Romer who used to work for the President outlined her objections  to manufacturing policy in the New York Times recently – and her article really exposes the weaknesses in orthodox economics.

Romer  begins with an assertion that building “clusters” of related industries to produce a positive environment for new industry does not make sense. Advocates of industrial policy argue that “clusters” of related industries like Silicon Valley or Shenzen or Stuttgart produce a manufacturing ecosystem in which it is more likely for manufacturing enterprises to prosper. So if we want an advanced electric car industry, we need a cluster of companies that make things like advanced lithium batteries. Most people, especially people who have worked in industry find this to be plain obvious, but orthodox economics theory discounts clustering. Romer writes:

But large clustering effects have been hard to find. A study by Professors Glenn Ellison of M.I.T. and Edward Glaeser of Harvard showed that in many industries, businesses were only modestly more clustered than if they were allocated randomly — suggesting that the benefits, while real, may often be small.

Romer is incorrect. Ellison and Glaeser actually wrote that they were “reaffirming that geographic concentration is ubiquitous and there are many highly concentrated industries.”  What they said was that in some industries there don’t seem to be clusters. One of the examples they cited is television manufacturing which in the 20 years since the publication of their study has disappeared from the USA entirely. It turned out that the dispersed nature of the industry in 1992 was not proof that industrial clustering is unimportant, it was a symptom of of the reduction of the industry to a few isolated factories that lacked the ecosystem needed to survive. If you want to run a TV factory, being near similar companies means that you’ll be able to find someone to repair and maintain your manufacturing equipment, that there is someone around to sell you the parts you need – several someones who compete (this is called a “supply chain”), that there are companies around that know how to distribute your products to markets, that bankers in the area understand your business and its capital requirements, that you can find civil engineers who understand how to build your plant, that there may even be used equipment nearby which can reduce your startup costs and so on. All this is well known, well studied, and simply incompatible with orthodox doctrine.

Here’s Romer with another counter-factual defense of theory:

A related argument for subsidizing manufacturing involves learning by doing. It takes time for a production process to become efficient. But whether learning creates a role for government depends on whether the eventual returns are captured by the company taking the risk. If the company that jumps in first and eventually succeeds reaps all the rewards, there’s not a market failure. The company needs to count the learning period as part of the investment cost. And with well-functioning capital markets, it should be able to find investors without government help.[bold added]

Consider the last sentence of this paragraph, written 4 years after world “capital markets” imploded and while Europe is still teetering on the edge of collapse because European “capital markets” allocated funds to speculation on obviously unsustainable debt instead of investing in long-term research and development. Despite orthodox economic theory, our capital markets do a very poor job of allocating investment – especially for projects that involve long-term research and development and/or markets that have not yet been proven. Capital markets in the United States in the first decade of this century allocated a lot of money to building shopping malls, to real-estate speculation, and to Bain Capital type private equity looting of profitable, functioning companies. And then the first part of the paragraph is written as if DARPA/NSF did not fund the development of the internet on which I read Dr. Romer’s words, or as if the DOD was not the driving purchaser of integrated circuits for decades until the larger market could stand on its own feet, or as if railways did not require massive government investment or as if there was no real economy at all, just a theoretical model in which the simplistic ideological imaginings of orthodox economics worked.

New on Labor’s Edge: 23,400 Good Construction Jobs Coming to LA’s Metro

L.A. Labor:

[…] In November of 2008 business, labor and environmental organizations of Los Angeles County worked together to sponsor Measure R, a half-cent sales tax increase to fund transportation projects throughout the county. When voters overwhelmingly approved Measure R, they may have been looking primarily for solutions to traffic congestion and air pollution, but they succeeded in approving nearly $40 billion over 30 years to create hundreds of thousands of jobs as well as an economic stimulus for Los Angeles.

In addition, Mayor Villaraigosa is working hard to convince the federal government to create a program of low-interest financing for Measure R’s transit program to accelerate the implementation of those projects over 10 years, rather than 30 years. This proposal is part of a larger plan to create a national infrastructure bank, supported by the Obama administration. Imagine what it could do for Los Angeles!

Joseph Benjamin, a 42-year-old electrician journeyman and father, is out-of-work and struggling to pay his mortgage while he waits for a project to break ground. Jason Lopez, a student at WINTER Charter High School, will soon graduate and wants to become an apprentice iron worker to begin his career in the construction trades. These are just two people among thousands of unemployed construction workers and youth in Los Angeles who are ready to put on their hard hats tomorrow to build a better transportation system.

And for the rest of us, we’ll be getting out of our cars to ride more rail and bus lines. Our region’s prosperity will be enhanced by improved mobility, economic efficiency and a healthier environment.

But will this prosperity be fair? Will the workforce building this expanded system have the opportunity to attain middle class jobs and security for their families that has for decades characterized the American dream? Also, will the jobs created by Measure R benefit our high unemployment communities?

Last week, the Los Angeles Metro Board of Directors took steps towards answering these questions. They unanimously passed a Construction Careers Policy that will cover 17 transit projects worth over $6.2 billion and create more than 23,400 good middle-class career jobs over the next five years in Los Angeles County. Over the next 30 years, the policy could cover up to $72 billion in projects, including Measure R projects, and create 270,000 good construction careers.

This policy is the most significant policy of its kind nationwide to create thousands of good jobs while investing in much needed transportation infrastructure. Put simply, the policy sets out the terms of workforce employment that must be agreed to by all Metro contractors before they receive a contract to build Measure R projects and before they hire anyone. This policy has been proven by the LAUSD, the City of Los Angeles and the Port of LA to ensure on time and on budget projects that also create good construction jobs.

The Construction Career Policy will also ensure that 40% of the work hours on Metro construction projects will be performed by workers from areas affected by high poverty and unemployment.

In Los Angeles County our unemployment rate is 11.8%, down from a high of13.4% in July 2010. Among construction workers the unemployment problem is much more severe, with unemployment rates up to 40%!

All economists agree, we will not see the end of this recession — the worst since the Great Depression — until we invest in our infrastructure. This will allow our construction workers to get back to work. In Los Angeles, we have figured a way to get out of the recession, get Americans working again and fight income inequality. Los Angeles can become a model for what is possible across the rest of the country.

Measure R coupled with a Construction Career Policy is the single best thing we can do to get these workers back to work and their families once again provided with the income and security they need.

We will be a stronger, more competitive, more prosperous Los Angeles County because of the investments the public has voted to make with Measure R. We will have reduced our congestion, cleaned our air, improved public health, and ensured our workforce is treated with respect and dignity.

What more could we ask for? We are already in the prime location at the crossroads of a new world economy. And, we already have the best weather.

New and Improved! Obama’s Jobs Record (Interactive)

This familiar graph not only shows improving jobs record, but shows each Obama policy that led to them.)

Obama administration keeps equal pay on the agenda with app challenge

Daily Kos:

The Obama administration is taking another “if Congress won’t do the big stuff that needs doing, we’ll do what we can” step, this time on equal pay. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a nice first step, but it didn’t come close to finishing the job, and this Congress won’t pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which the president supports.

HEALTH

NPR: The ‘morning after’ pill: How it works and who uses it.

HEALTH CARE

Kathleen Sebelius: Contraception rule respects religion

USA Today:

One of the key benefits of the 2010 health care law is that many preventive services are now free for most Americans with insurance. Vaccinations for children, cancer screenings for adults and wellness visits for seniors are all now covered in most plans with no expensive co-pays or deductibles. So is the full range of preventive health services recommended for women by the highly respected Institute of Medicine, including contraception.

Today, virtually all American women use contraception at some point in their lives. And we have a large body of medical evidence showing it has significant benefits for their health, as well as the health of their children. But birth control can also be quite expensive, costing an average of $600 a year, which puts it out of reach for many women whose health plans don’t cover it.

The public health case for making sure insurance covers contraception is clear. But we also recognize that many religious organizations have deeply held beliefs opposing the use of birth control.

That’s why in the rule we put forward, we specifically carved out from the policy religious organizations that primarily employ people of their own faith. This exemption includes churches and other houses of worship, and could also include other church-affiliated organizations.

In choosing this exemption, we looked first at state laws already in place across the country. Of the 28 states that currently require contraception to be covered by insurance, eight have no religious exemption at all.

The religious exemption in the administration’s rule is the same as the exemption in Oregon, New York and California.

It’s important to note that our rule has no effect on the longstanding conscience clause protections for providers, which allow a Catholic doctor, for example, to refuse to write a prescription for contraception. Nor does it affect an individual woman’s freedom to decide not to use birth control. And the president and this administration continue to support existing conscience protections.

This is not an easy issue. But by carving out an exemption for religious organizations based on policies already in place, we are working to strike the right balance between respecting religious beliefs and increasing women’s access to critical preventive health services.

Confused about the health-care law, contraception, and the Catholic church? Here’s what you need to know

WaPo:

The health reform law’s requirement that health insurance companies cover birth control without co-pay has seen increased media attention last week. The White House has mounted a more aggressive defense of the provision as it sees more blowback to the provision. Here’s some background on how the debate started, where it stands now and where it’s headed:

How did this all start?

The health reform law requires that insurance companies cover preventive services for women without any co-pay beginning this summer. It did not, however, specify what services to cover — that was left to the Obama administration. With guidance from the Institute of Medicine on the issue, Health and Human Services published a regulation on Aug. 1, 2011 that included birth control as part of the preventive package. That regulation also had a conscience clause, which allows religious employers who object to birth control — and also primarily employ those of their own religion — to be exempt from the requirement. That would allow churches to opt out of the new requirement.

What’s the fight about now?

Some religious leaders say that the exemption wasn’t wide enough: That the Obama administration should allow all faith-based employers regardless of who they employ, to opt out of the new requirement if they object to contraceptives. This wider definition would exempt, among others, Catholic hospitals. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has lobbied aggressively for this wider conscience clause, as have a number of prominent Catholics who supported the health reform law. But in final regulations last month, the Obama administration did not expand the exemption.

Let’s say the Obama administration had expanded the conscience clause. Would that allow Catholic hospitals not to provide birth control to their patients?

No, it would not. This regulation only applies to the health insurance that a hospital, charity or other employer provides for its employees. It does not regulate the care that a Catholic charity provides to its patients. As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebeliuswrote recently in a USA Today op-ed, “our rule has no effect on the long-standing conscience clause protections for providers, which allow a Catholic doctor, for example, to refuse to write a prescription for contraception.”

What happens next?

Two Catholic universities have already filed lawsuits challenging the mandated coverage of contraceptives as a violation of religious freedoms protected under the First Amendment. The Catholic bishops are also looking to file a similar challenge, and some observers expect these challenges could wind their way up to the Supreme Court.

The new rule is starting to play a political role, too, in the 2012 election. Republican candidates have come out against the contraceptive requirement. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasted it as “a direct assault of freedom of religion.” The Obama campaign and itsallies have repeatedly defended the new requirement, attacking the Republican field as anti-contraceptives.

How have contraceptive mandates been handled previously?

Twenty-eight states currently require insurance plans to cover contraceptives, although two exclude emergency contraceptives from that mandate.

Nine states do not have conscience clause. Four states have what the Guttmacher Institute describes as “narrow” exemptions, similar to the federal one, which allows churches and other institutions that primarily employ those of their own religion to opt out. Seven states have “broader” exemptions that cover other religious institutions, but not hospitals. Then eight states have “expansive” conscience clauses that allow at least some hospitals not to provide contraceptive coverage.

What about if you get health care through your employer?

Approximately 90 percent of employer-based insurance plans cover contraceptives, according to the Guttmacher Institute, although many may charge co-pays for birth control, which the health reform law will eliminate.

How a GOP Win Could Spell the End of Reproductive Health for Global Women

Daily Beast:

Gertrude Gorma Cole, a midwife in Liberia’s Bong County, is almost universally known as “Mother Dear.” A warm, grandmotherly presence in a traditional lappadress, she has been practicing at least since the 1970s. In some ways, she is conservative. Speaking of Liberia’s disastrous teenage pregnancy rate—which is high even by West African standards—she blames both the social breakdown caused by the country’s savage civil war and the lax ideas of the international NGOs that swept into the country in its wake. “After the war, the NGO people came in and they brought ‘child rights,’ so the children became so loose, and even to discipline them, they will take you to the police,” she says. Western aid workers dispute this, insisting that the idea of Liberian kids informing on their parents is an urban legend. Still, her views speak to a level of distrust toward the humanitarian agencies that play an outsized role in governing the decimated nation.

Yet there is one thing Mother Dear does not distrust: the programs to provide birth control, which are largely supplied by USAID. In addition to being a midwife, Mother Dear is the county’s reproductive-health supervisor. When I tell her that support for international family planning is controversial in the U.S., and that some candidates for president would like to end it, she is shocked. “If they cut off funding for family planning, more mothers are going to die,” she says.

She’s worth listening to, because whatever effect the upcoming election has on the reproductive health of American women, the effect on women worldwide is likely to be even greater. I was in Liberia recently as part of a World Health Organization-sponsored trip to look at the future of funding for AIDS, TB, and malaria in an age of global austerity. But the country is also an object lesson in the potential global impact of our interminable culture wars.

Those culture wars have turned birth control into a significant issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. All of the Republican candidates have slammed the administration’s refusal to give religious institutions a broad exemption from the mandate that insurance cover family planning. One of them, Rick Santorum, has promised to use the presidency to speak out about “the dangers of contraception in this country,” and has said he believes states should have the right to ban it. Mitt Romney, the likely nominee, has laughed off threats to birth control as an absurd nonissue, but even he has pledged to eliminate Title X, the federal family-planning program founded under Richard Nixon.

To understand how radical that is, consider that Mike Pence, one of Congress’s leading crusaders against Planned Parenthood, has never gone that far. “I’ve never advocated reducing funding for Title X,” he told an Indiana radio station last year. “Title X clinics do important work in our inner cities. They provide health services for women and children that might not otherwise have access to them.”

If Romney is willing to scrap the only federal program to provide birth control to low-income women in the United States, programs to do the same thing abroad certainly aren’t safe. We already know that, like every Republican since Ronald Reagan, he’ll impose the global gag rule, preventing any American money from going to organizations that perform or even counsel about abortions. He will likely follow George W. Bush in withholding money from the United Nations Population Fund, or UNFPA, an agency that promotes reproductive health worldwide, on the demonstrably false grounds that it supports coerced abortion in China. (Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney Super PAC, has tried to tie Newt Gingrich to China’s one-child policy because he co-sponsored a 1989 bill that included a UNFPA appropriation.)

AP: Santorum pushes despicable hoax that health care regulation blocks stroke treatment

New legislation jeopardizes $900 million in health insurance refunds

Consumer Reports:

A bill introduced in the Senate would jeopardize nearly $900 million in estimated health insurance refunds or lower premiums for consumers, says Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports.

According to Consumers Union, the legislation undermines a new rule that requires insurers spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical care, rather than administrative costs, including salaries and advertising. But the new bill eliminates insurance broker commissions from the calculation of administrative costs, and doesn’t ensure that insurance companies direct the savings back to brokers.

Lisa Swirsky, a senior policy analyst with Consumers Union, said the following in a press release:

In just a few short months insurers must pay back consumers for wasting their money on inefficient overhead and excessive profit. But this bill would just put that money back into the hands of insurance companies. This is a giveaway to big insurance and a significant loss for consumers struggling to afford health insurance.

The rule, included as part of the Affordable Care Act, is a component of the law’s aim to slow rising premiums. The National Association of Insurance found that altering the rule to remove broker compensation would result in a loss of more than 60 percent of forthcoming rebates for consumers, Consumers Union reports.

“The single biggest complaint we hear about health insurance is ever-increasing premiums,” Swirsky said. “This bill erodes the biggest tool we have for reigning in insurance companies and fighting rising insurance costs.”

JUSTICE

The Judicial Confirmation Crisis in One Easy Chart

People For:

We write a lot about the Senate GOP’s unprecedented obstruction of President Obama’s judicial nominees, but it can be hard to effectively convey the extent of the needless gridlock. We hope this chart helps:

http://blog.pfaw.org/sites/default/files/images/Pending%20Nominee%20Chart_V10.jpg

The dotted line marks 24 days, the average time George W. Bush’s nominees – by this point in his presidency –had to wait between being approved by the Judiciary Committee and getting an up-or-down vote from the full Senate. The blue lines represent the number of days each of the nineteen nominees currently waiting for a Senate vote has been stalled. The dark blue lines – seventeen out of the nineteen – represent nominees who were approved with overwhelming bipartisan support  by the Judiciary Committee. These nominees have no recorded Republican opposition – instead, the GOP is stalling them just for the sake of stalling.

Fourteen of the nineteen nominees are women or people of color. Nine have been nominated to fill seats officially designated as judicial emergencies. All of them deserve prompt up-or-down votes from the Senate.

MEDIA

Video- Fox & Friends Attacks Job Numbers By Suggesting Labor Dept. Is “Cooking The Books” Because It Works for Obama

Political Carnival:

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Journalism’s Model for Doing Good

Newsweek:

When Bill Gates was unveiling his dazzling, high-ceilinged visitors’ center in Seattle last week, I asked him about a framed newspaper clipping on the wall. He recalled reading the 1997 New York Times piece on how impoverished Asian children were dying from filthy water. Clad in his nebbishy uniform of sport coat, checked shirt, and tasseled loafers, Gates told me how he was stunned at “seeing what the plight of the poorest was” and that “the system of innovation was not working on behalf of the poor.” The upshot: he and his wife created what is now the $33 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “If your neighbor had a child who was dying of pneumonia, you would act,” Melinda Gates says. “Yet children are dying every day in the developing world. Getting those stories out is something the media can be hugely helpful with.”

The foundation has set up a media unit, run by formerNightline producer Dan Green, that last year funneled $25 million in grants to such outlets as ABC and PBS to cover global health problems (with pledges of editorial independence). “These are not necessarily the most popular stories that sell newspapers or attract large numbers of viewers,” Green says. Rather, they are what Ian Katz, deputy editor of London’sGuardian, calls “eat-your-peas stories.” They present a challenge to journalists, in part because tales of AIDS victims and substandard schools are inherently dark and depressing.

Since Bill Gates has his hands full as chairman of Microsoft and with his crusade to combat polio and malaria, it’s striking that the software engineer has come to embrace the importance of telling stories—like the one that led him into philanthropy.

MORE>>>

Chrysler CEO defends Eastwood Super Bowl ad as not political

The Hill:

The CEO of Chrysler is defending a controversial Super Bowl ad some Republicans have argued is an endorsement of President Obama.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a radio interview in Detroit Monday that the commercial, in which actor Clinton Eastwood says “it’s halftime America, and our second half is about to begin,” was not an endorsement of Obama, who declared in his State of the Union address last month that “the American auto industry is back.”

“It has zero political content,” Marchionne said of the Super Bowl ad in an interview with Detroit radio station 760 AM WJR.

The commercial, called “It’s Halftime America,” touted the recovery of the American auto companies after the bailouts of 2008 and 2009. The U.S. government lent millions to General Motors and Chrysler, and the companies have seen their fortunes increase along with fellow American car company Ford, which did not accept a federal bailout.

“It was not intended to be any type of political overture on our part,” Marchionne continued. “We are as apolitical as you can make us … I wasn’t expressing a view and certainly nobody inside Chrysler was attempting to influence decisions.”
Former President George W. Bush’s political adviser, Karl Rove, sharply criticized the Chrysler ad Monday morning. The auto bailouts were first initiated under Bush in the fall of 2008, but Rove said in an interview with Fox News he was “offended” by the commercial.
“I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising,” Rove said.
Current White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer offered a different take, writing onTwitter after the Chrysler commercial aired “saving the America Auto Industry: Something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on.”

Chrysler aired a popular ad in last year’s Super Bowl that featured rapper Eminem.
Obama’s campaign manager, David Alexrod agreed, tweeting ”Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?”

MILITARY/Foreign Relations

Reuters: Obama signs executive order blocking all assets of the Iranian government, including central bank held in the United States.

U.S. President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Monday imposing new, stricter sanctions on Iran and its central bank, saying a broader asset freeze was necessary because Iranian banks were concealing transactions.

“I have determined that additional sanctions are warranted, particularly in light of the deceptive practices of the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks to conceal transactions of sanctioned parties, the deficiencies in Iran’s anti-money laundering regime and the weaknesses in its implementation, and the continuing and unacceptable risk posed to the international financial system by Iran’s activities,” Obama said in a letter to Congress.

The executive order, described as a further step in the U.S. effort to isolate Iran, prevents any assets deemed to be in U.S. control – including foreign branches of American banks – from being transferred, paid, exported or withdrawn.

Bloomberg: Obama Nominates Air Force’s First Female Four-Star General

POLITICS

Rove’s hissy fit: If Clint Eastwood sounded like Obama, it’s because the GOP ceded optimism to the Democrats

Joan Walsh:

I admit it: Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad reminded me of President Obama’s best recent speeches. Actor Clint Eastwood, the face of rugged American individualism, talked about “tough eras” and “downturns” and “times when we didn’t understand each other,” but then declared:

But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that’s what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can’t find a way, then we’ll make one…

This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, it’s halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.

Karl Rove heard echoes of Obama’s rhetoric too, and implicit optimism about the direction of the country, and cried foul.

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” Rove said on Fox News Monday. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

Rove wasn’t the only Republican who tried to cast the Chrysler ad as essentially payback to the president for supporting the bailout that kept the domestic auto industry alive. Michelle Malkin tweeted her horror Sunday night: “Agh. WTH? Did I just see Clint Eastwood fronting an auto bailout ad???”

Now, Clint Eastwood is no Democrat – he voted for John McCain in 2008, has been a Republican for most of his life, and now describes himself as having “libertarian” leanings. It’s hard to imagine he’d lend his name to an openly and intentionally pro-Obama ad. Chrysler has denied any political motive behind the Eastwood ad.

The flap over the ad confirms the GOP’s serious branding problem: The problem for Rove and the rest of the GOP is that their party’s narrative has become relentlessly negative, pessimistic and uninspiring. They’ve left the language of optimism and resilience, higher ground and common ground, to the Democrats, and lately President Obama has grabbed every opportunity to employ that language.

Rove is essentially complaining that anyone using rhetoric of resilience and tenacity, or suggests “we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one” sounds like a gosh-darn … Democrat.  That’s good news for Democrats. There’s more good news in recent polls showing that Obama is winning back at least some white working-class voters with his feistier message of economic populism. The president’s approval/disapproval ratings have been dismal with whites who make less than $50,000, with his approval dropping into the low 30s and disapproval up in the mid-60s regularly over the last two years.

Now those numbers stand at 43-54, about where they were when Obama was elected. He may not carry that cohort, but holding the share he had in 2008 will make his reelection chances much better. There’s also good news with those same voters in some Rust Belt states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and, yes, Michigan, home of Chrysler.

Karl Rove is angry because he sees the numbers, too, and he’s got to explain them away with dark allusions to “Chicago politics.” But the fact is the president saved the auto industry at a time when Republicans, most notably Mitt Romney, urged him to let it die. If he gets credit for that unpopular decision, that’s because he deserves it.

And if Clint Eastwood sounds like a Democrat when he talks about American ingenuity and optimism, that’s because increasingly it’s Democrats who sound that way – and Republicans who don’t. Ronald Reagan co-opted buoyancy and hopefulness for a generation, painting Democrats from Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis through Al Gore and John Kerry (with a break for Bill Clinton) as Negative Nellies, whiners and complainers always finding fault with America.

Now it’s Republicans who bad-mouth the American people, warning that lax morals and laziness are behind the problems of the poor and working class (including whites), and who paint scary dystopic pictures of America under its Kenyan anti-colonialist socialist black president. Karl Rove’s hissy fit over the Chrysler ad underscores exactly how bleak his party’s vision has become.

Mother Jones: Meet the Pyramid-Like Company That’s Spending Big $$$ on Mitt Romney

When Restore Our Future, the super-PAC backing Mitt Romney, disclosed its latest donors last week, the roster of deep-pocketed funders seemed fairly predictable. The biggest contributors hailed from Bain Capital, Romney’s former firm, or other well-known financial companies. But there was one major donor that stood out: Melaleuca, an Idaho-based company that peddles dietary supplements, “green” cleaning products, and other items via “independent marketing executives.” Melaleuca and its subsidiaries were among the biggest donors to the super-PAC, contributing a total of $1 million.

The company, which pulled in $1 billion in revenues last year, has a history of run-ins with state and federal regulators for making false claims about its supplements. Critics and former distributors have also accused the company of being little more than a pyramid scheme that misrepresents how much members of its sales force can earn for selling its products and referring new “executives” or customers to the company.

Romney has long-standing ties to the company’s CEO, Frank VanderSloot, who’s a fellow Mormon and Brigham Young University graduate. VanderSloot is currently one of Romney’s national finance chairs, and, in the past, Romney has headlined fundraisers for his own and other candidates’ campaigns at VanderSloot’s Idaho ranch. Last June, VanderSloot hosted a fundraiser for Romney’s presidential exploratory committee. Romney, in turn, has heaped praise on VanderSloot. When Melaleuca celebrated its 25th anniversary, Romney gave a statement lauding VanderSloot and the company in its magazine and on its website:

Under the leadership of Frank VanderSloot, Melaleuca has delivered on its promise of enhancing the lives of people. Frank’s vision and sense of social responsibility is second to none and he never ceases to amaze me. Congratulations on 25 years. I can’t wait to see what Melaleuca accomplishes over the next 25 years.

Melaleuca is a prime example of how the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has upended the campaign finance landscape, allowing a single individual to wield his corporation’s wealth to gain outsized electoral influence. In the 2008 presidential primary campaign, Melaleuca employees donated a total of $30,400 to Romney’s campaign; VanderSloot also contributed the maximum contribution of $10,000 to Romney’s Free and Strong America PAC. Post-Citizens United, the company’s contributions to Romney’s election effort rose exponentially. Company employee donations to Romney’s campaign committee for the 2012 campaign total only about $13,000, compared with the $1 million the company has steered to the Restore Our Future super-PAC.

VanderSloot has long been a controversial figure in Idaho politics, particularly when it comes to issues involving gays and lesbians. In 1999, he spent big on advertising in an ultimately unsuccessful effort to force Idaho Public Television to cancel a program that showed gays and lesbians in a favorable light to school children.

MORE>>>

NYT: Obama to Return Major Donations Tied to Fugitive

OBAMA’S SWING VOTERS

Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker:

After Mitt Romney’s victory in Nevada, we seem closer to the general-election contest widely predicted from the outset: Romney vs. Obama. There are a few recent articles and reports out from Gallup and from center-left thinkers and think tanks that are worth reading if you want to begin to understand the challenges Obama will face this year in winning over swing voters, the shrinking but still vital lump of the electorate that decides Presidential elections.

To understand the overall political landscape, this January Gallup survey is a good place to start. The headline says “Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents in ’11,” but the most important fact in the report is that most self-identified independents actually vote consistently for one party or another. When this fact is taken into account, the Republicans and Democrats each have about forty-five per cent of voters on their side. That leaves just ten per cent of voters as genuine independents, those who are realistically open to voting for either party.

GOP turnout troubles continue

Steve Benen:

Counting the votes in Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses turned out to be more difficult than expected, but this morning, the final results were announced. The tally largely reflects what we already knew: Mitt Romney won easily, finishing with 50% (16,486 votes).

What was far more interesting wasthe turnout.

Total turnout was 32,930, far less than the 44,000 Republicans who voted in the GOP caucuses in 2008.

Going into Saturday’s contest, Nevada GOP leaders told reporters they expected 70,000 Republicans to participate. The final tally shows the party failed to even reach half that total.

What’s more, if Nevada were the only state that struggled, it’d be easier to overlook. Unfortunately for the GOP, though, the poor showing in the Silver State fits into a larger pattern.

The Republicans’ primary in Florida last week, for example, showed a sharp decline in turnout (about 14%) as compared to 2008. In the Iowa caucuses, GOP turnout fell short of expectations, and in the New Hampshire primary, it happened again. Turnout in South Carolina was strong, but given the party’s difficulties in the other four contests, it’s proving to be the exception.

To reiterate a point from last week, this is not at all what Republican leaders anticipated. On the contrary, GOP officials in the states and at the national level assumed the exact opposite would happen.

Remember, Republican turnout was supposed to soar in these early contests because of the larger circumstances.

GOP voters are reportedly eager, if not foaming-at-the-mouth desperate, to fight a crusade against President Obama, and they had plenty of high-profile candidates trying to stoke their enthusiasm.

This, coupled with the boost from the so-called Tea Party “movement,” suggested energized Republicans would turn out in numbers that far exceeded the totals we saw in 2008, when GOP voters were depressed and it was Democrats who enjoyed the bulk of the excitement.

But in four of the five contests thus far, that hasn’t happened.

At this point in 2008, after Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada picked their preferred nominee, 2,793,538 GOP voters had participated. As of this morning, after those same five states have held their nominating contests, the total of Republicans voting is 2,679,841. Despite the strong showing in South Carolina, that’s still a drop off of 4% when party leaders assumed the opposite.

The last thing party leaders wanted to see was evidence of a listless, uninspired party, underwhelmed by their field of candidates. Republicans probably won’t fret publicly, but the turnout numbers should give party leaders pause.

The Hill: Sununu: Low turnout means GOP satisfied

Former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R), one of Mitt Romney’s top campaign surrogates, offered a strange argument for why turnout is down among GOP primary voters: Republicans are so satisfied with their front-running candidate, they need not bother showing up.

“In an odd sense, when turnout is down, it means contrary to what you’re hearing from people, people are satisfied with the candidate that’s winning,” Sununu said Monday on MSNBC.

Sununu’s line of reasoning was an attempt to quell criticism by Democrats, who say low GOP turnout means voters are unenthused by their candidates, and Newt Gingrich, who says the numbers reflect a rejection of Romney.

“This is wishful thinking on the part of the Gingrich campaign,” Sununu said. “He is absolutely down. His news conference [on Saturday] was an unbelievable rambling of a candidate who expresses the rationale of being unable to be president.”

MORE>>>

Is Obama’s Coalition Re-Emerging?

Ronald Brownstein:

One striking aspect of the new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Monday is how closely the internal results of its head-to-head match-up between President Obama and Mitt Romney track Obama’s performance against John McCain in 2008. Overall, the poll found Obama leading Romney in a 2012 match up by 51 percent to 45 percent among registered voters. It was the first time the survey had shown Obama (or Romney) crossing the 50 percent threshold against the other in a series of ballot tests since last spring.

Looking below the top-line numbers, the survey found the electorate dividing along lines almost identical to the actual results in 2008, according to figures provided by ABC pollster Gary Langer, the President of Langer Research Associates.

In 2008, Obama carried a combined 80 percent of minority voters; the ABC/Washington Post survey shows him drawing 81 percent of non-white voters against Romney (who attracts just 14 percent).

In 2008, Obama carried 43 percent of whites, while McCain won 55 percent of them. The new survey shows Romney leading Obama among whites 53 percent to 42 percent. The ABC/Post poll shows Obama holding his ground both among whites with and without a college education. In 2008, Obama won 40 percent of non-college whites, while 58 percent of them voted for McCain. In the new survey, those working-class whites-the toughest audience for Obama throughout his national career-break in virtually identical proportions: 56 percent for Romney, 39 percent for the president.

That showing reflects a modest, but important, rebound for Obama’s job approval rating among those non-college whites in the survey. As Greg Sargent noted today, “Obama’s approval rating among these [blue-collar] voters is 43-54. While those numbers don’t appear too good at first glance…This is his best level among non-college whites since early last year (excluding the post-Bin Laden bump), and they are far better than they were at their lowest point in 2010, when Democrats suffered massive desertions among this constituency.” In fact, just 30 percent of non-college whites who voted in 2010 approved of Obama’s job performance, according to calculations performed for National Journal by Edison Research.

In the new poll, Obama exactly matches the 47 percent of the vote he won last time among whites with at least a four-year degree. Those college-plus whites split almost evenly in the new survey, with 48 percent backing Romney and 47 percent Obama; four years ago, McCain narrowly carried them 51 percent to 47 percent.

Viewed through a partisan lens, the ABC/Post survey shows Obama winning 85 percent of Democrats (compared to 89 percent in 2008), 8 percent of Republicans (compared to 9 percent) and 48 percent of independents (up from 44 percent). One other convergence is worth noting. In the ABC/Post poll, Obama has essentially restored the advantage among moderates that he enjoyed against McCain. In 2008, Obama carried 60 percent of moderates; the new survey puts him at 59 percent against Romney. (In the new poll, Obama runs slightly ahead of his 2008 number among conservatives and slightly behind it among liberals, two trends that might not last in the heat of an ideologically-polarized campaign.)

On all these fronts, the survey shows Obama regaining ground that he had largely surrendered in ballot tests (and his job approval numbers) since late 2009. The gains might be temporary, driven by the confluence of good economic news and a highly bruising period in the Republican presidential primary that has sent Romney’s unfavorable ratings soaring in recent weeks. But on the other side of the ledger, it’s worth remembering that if the minority share of the total vote increases in 2012 at the same pace it has grown since 1992, and Obama holds just-three-fourths of those voters, he could win a national majority with as little as 40 percent of the white vote. In other words, he can give back some of the terrain he’s recaptured in this latest survey – and still hold the high ground in November.

Tea Party ‘Is Dead’: How the Movement Fizzled in 2012’s GOP Primaries

Daily Beast:

A giant killer in 2010, it never came off the sidelines in the 2012 primaries—and may end up with the nominee it loves least. Now a Tea Party leader tells Patricia Murphy the movement is “dead” and “gone.”

It was the great wildcard going into the 2012 election cycle. Republican Party insiders openly worried the Tea Party might knock off the establishment presidential candidate, just as it knocked out establishment picks in the chaotic 2010 congressional races. Party heavyweights wondered whom the upstart movement would get behind and whether Mitt Romney could even get through the early states, given the once-raging Tea Party elements in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

But after months of wondering how the Tea Party would change the primary game, leaders inside the movement admit they never came in off the sidelines. For the Tea Party movement, the 2012 presidential primaries have been a bust.

“The Tea Party movement is dead. It’s gone,” says Chris Littleton, the cofounder of the Ohio Liberty Council, a statewide coalition of Tea Party groups in Ohio. “I think largely the Tea Party is irrelevant in the primaries. They aren’t passionate about any of the candidates, and if they are passionate, they’re for Ron Paul.”

Littleton is one of the many who have endorsed the Texas congressman; he blames the other GOP candidates for the lackluster energy they have generated in the grassroots that hosted a revolution two years ago.

“Not Romney” is the most popular candidate among his fellow activists, Littleton says, though no one can agree who “Not Romney” is. Without an agreement on that score, the real Romney has coasted to easy victories in New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada, even winning a clean 50 percent of the Tea Party vote in Nevada on Saturday night while the other 50 percent split themselves among Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum.

Mark Meckler, founder of the Tea Party Patriots, the nation’s largest Tea Party coalition, also says the Tea Party isn’t playing a role in picking the nominee. But that is by choice, not by accident, he says.

“The real Tea Party movement is not a political party, it’s a movement,” he says. “How can a movement endorse anybody? It really can’t.”

One possible reason for the lack of consensus: Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum have each committed what most in the movement consider original sins against constitutional freedom or fiscal sanity. Gingrich and Romney both supported the TARP bank bailout in 2008, as well as individual mandates in health insurance years earlier. Santorum, the most socially conservative of the three, voted for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” among other massive earmarks, during his time in the Senate.

“No candidate is perfect,” Meckler says. “Candidates will make mistakes. I don’t want to see the movement associated with those kinds of mistakes. I support ideas, not people.”

If the Tea Party could get behind one person and call it a day, leaders in the movement say someone like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, or Sen. Rand Paul, son of you-know-who, could capture the imagination of activists and breathe some life into their languishing presidential hopes. Even Gov. Bobby Jindal’s name comes up as someone the Tea Parties could get behind at a brokered convention, a once-fanciful idea that comes up in more and more conversations with still-pining members of the GOP base.

But Meckler and Littleton both rightly make the point that while the Tea Parties may not be dictating who the candidate is this year, they certainly have dictated the issues the candidates are talking about and what they are saying, particularly in the area of fiscal restraint, free-market capitalism, and the virtues of the Tea Party’s favorite historical document, the U.S. Constitution.

In the ultimate compliment in presidential politics, the GOP field seems to be in a daily contest to impress Tea Party voters. You’re cutting spending? I’ll cut it more. You’re stopping earmarks? I’ve never even voted for one!

At the state and local levels, Tea Parties remain highly engaged in ballot initiatives and Senate races and congressional contests. The Ohio movement won a victory in a “health-care freedom” bill in the 2011 elections. Other Tea Parties around the country say they’re focused on statewide efforts against public employee unions or health-care mandates.

But without a consensus around one candidate and no leader at the top of a unified Tea Party to call on the troops to get behind one candidate, the person the GOP is likely to nominate may be the one least able to make the Tea Party happy: Mitt Romney.

Littleton says Nominee Romney would be greeted by Tea Partiers with something between skepticism and disgust. A stronger disgust with President Obama would likely send Tea Partiers to the polls to vote for whoever the GOP nominee is, Littleton adds, but would not translate to the kind of shape-shifting energy the Tea Party delivered in 2010.

And what if Romney is elected but does not deliver on his promises, as so many Tea Partiers fear?

That’s simple to predict, says Littleton. “All hell will break loose.”

WaPo: It’s not just super PACs: ‘Secret money’ is funding more election ads

More than a third of the advertising tied to the presidential race has been funded by nonprofit groups that will never have to reveal their donors, suggesting that a significant portion of the 2012 elections will be wrapped in a vast cloak of secrecy.

The bulk of the secret money spent so far has come from conservative groups seeking to propel a Republican into the White House, advertising data show. Millions of dollars in additional spending from both sides has poured into legislative races, such as the Senate contest in Massachusetts, that could help determine which party controls Congress in 2013.

The flow of funds is part of a wave of spending by outside groups — particularly super PACs, which have few limits on their activities — that has quickly come to dominate the 2012 presidential contest.

But unlike super PACs, politically minded nonprofit groups are under no obligation to disclose the corporations, unions or wealthy tycoons bankrolling their advertising, much of which is almost indistinguishable from regular political ads run by campaigns.

The result is a race heavily influenced by such organizations and their funders, who will remain largely in the shadows.

“I don’t think we’ve seen these kind of groups acting so aggressively in election-related activity as we see now,” said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine. “This is pure secret money. . . . The goal is to avoid disclosure.”

Nonprofit “social welfare” organizations and other tax-exempt groups with confidential donors have spent more than $24 million in the 2012 cycle on political ads naming President Obama or, less frequently, his Republican rivals, according to a Washington Post analysis of data supplied by Kantar Media-CMAG, which tracks ad spending. That accounts for about 40 percent of the money estimated to have been spent on advertising related to the presidential candidates.

Crossroads GPS, a nonprofit group backed by GOP political guru Karl Rove, has spent more than $10 million on ads targeting Obama over the federal deficit, energy policies and other issues in the 2012 cycle. American Crossroads, a sister group registered as a super PAC, has spent just $133,000 on such ads, the data show.

The disparity means that nearly all of the broadcast messages that voters have encountered from the Crossroads groups were paid for by persons unknown. The super PAC side of the operation reported taking in $18.2 million in 2011, including $7 million from Texas billionaire Harold Simmons and his company; the nonprofit side raised almost twice as much from unidentified donors.

For donors, ‘a choice’

Spokesman Jonathan Collegio said Crossroads GPS is no different than tens of thousands of other nonprofits, from ideological groups to charities, that are entitled to keep their contributors confidential.

“Private organizations don’t have to disclose their donor lists to the government at their beck and call,” Collegio said. “Those who want to support the Crossroads groups have a choice of whether they want to give to a more political- or issue-oriented effort, and they make their decisions according to their tastes and preferences.”

Another top spender is Americans for Prosperity, a Washington-based group that has ties to two conservative brothers who run the Koch Industries oil-and-gas conglomerate; David Koch is chairman of the group’s foundation.

Americans for Prosperity has spent nearly $7 million on ads targeting Obama, including a spot criticizing his administration’s handling of a government loan guarantee to failed solar firm Solyndra; the spot prompted a response ad from the Obama campaign. Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity’s president, said he expects that the organization will exceed $50 million in total spending, including ads and grass-roots organizing, in 2012.

Phillips defended the ability to keep donors under wraps, saying that the group “works in the public policy arena more than the political arena.” He also cited concerns that donors could be targeted for harassment by the Obama administration and liberal groups.

“This administration, and politicians in general, want to seek retribution with people who disagree with them,” Phillips said.

Obama has complained loudly about the influence of “secret billionaires” on the political system, and Senate Democrats are reviving efforts to force disclosure by nonprofit groups that run political ads.

But Democrats also enjoy support from many groups that rely on undisclosed contributors, including unions and environmental groups. Two super PACs helping Democrats in 2012, American Bridge 21st Century and Priorities USA Action, have each accepted transfers of more than $200,000 from their nonprofit arms — meaning that a portion of their budgets were effectively paid for by secret donors.

Officials with both super PACs said the transfers were made to cover administrative expenses as part of cost-sharing agreements with their affiliated nonprofit groups.

Unlimited dollars

A general surge in spending by outside groups, first seen during the 2010 elections, is due in part to a series of court rulings, includingCitizens United v. Federal Election Commission , that have made it easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.

That environment led to the rise of super PACs — more than 300 are now registered with the FEC — that can raise and spend unlimited amounts as long as they do not coordinate directly with candidates. The catch is that such PACs must disclose their donors — leading an increasing number of publicity-shy contributors to use nonprofits to cloak their political spending, experts say.

Under U.S. tax laws, certain types of nonprofit groups can keep contributors confidential as long as their “primary purpose” is not politics, a definition that is the focus of fierce dispute in legal circles. The Internal Revenue Service has been cautious about treading too heavily, leaving many groups to, in effect, police themselves, many experts say.

The rule of thumb for social-welfare groups, business groups and other nonprofits is that they must spend less than half their budget on election activities to avoid disclosure of donors. Many nonprofits contend that that leaves them free to spend the rest of their budget on “issue ads,” which often include scathing and pointed attacks on individual politicians but don’t explicitly tell viewers how to vote.

Crossroads GPS — which is awaiting IRS approval of its nonprofit status — is currently on the air with an ad attacking Obama for the administration’s loan guarantee to Solyndra, calling it a “big-government fiasco” that left “laid-off workers forgotten.” But the ad never urges viewers to vote a certain way.

“Tell President Obama we need jobs, not more insider deals,” the spot concludes.

Donald Tobin, a tax-law professor at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, said political advocacy groups are taking advantage of a murky legal landscape between tax and election laws.

He argues that many of the social-welfare groups now spending big on campaigns are flouting the intent of tax laws, which did not envision groups formed solely to dance on the line between issue advocacy and direct participation in elections.

“There’s no way that Congress expected groups like Crossroads GPS to be social-welfare organizations,” Tobin said. “They used to be groups that were focused on social welfare and did a little politics on the side. This has turned that idea on its head.”

The Koch Brothers Conspire to Buy the White House

NPR: “Nationally, both major parties are losing voters, while the number of independents continues to grow.”

At the upscale Cherry Creek Mall in Denver, Scott Kardos, 24, said he’s not interested in being either a Democrat or a Republican.

“I don’t really identify with either party,” said Kardos, a recent college graduate with an electrical engineering degree, who was shopping with his girlfriend and her parents. “A lot of the things I agree with the Republican side, and a lot of things I agree on the Democrat side. So, can’t really decide on either one, and I flip-flop pretty much every other election on who I’d rather vote for.”

Kardos is part of a growing national trend, especially in battleground states like Colorado.

The centrist think tank Third Way studied eight key states and found that nationally, both major parties are losing voters, while the number of independents continues to grow. In Colorado, the percentage of registered Republicans and Democrats rose slightly since 2008, but at a much slower pace than the rate of newly declared independents, Third Way found.

Third Way analyst Lanae Erickson said in Colorado, it’s now practically a three-way tie in registration.

“Independents actually rose by nearly 10 percent in Colorado just since 2008,” Erickson said. “So there’s been a huge surge in independent voters. And, so, as a proportion of the electorate, independents have really gained on both parties.”

That’s not good news for Ryan Call, the state GOP chief running Tuesday’s caucuses.

Officials do not expect more than 10 percent of registered Republicans to show up. But Call said the caucuses are still good for energizing the base and recruiting the volunteers who will help voter outreach, including to independents.

“So [independents are] not getting a lot of calls right now, but it is a very important priority for us as a party to make sure we’re reaching out,” said Call.

Brady Maughan, a registered independent, said he is turned off by politics and by both major parties.

“Especially right now, we want to blame [George W.] Bush for the last eight years for the reasons why Obama hasn’t succeeded. We want to blame Obama for not fixing everything that needed to be fixed. And nobody wants to take responsibility for themselves,” said Maughan.

Maughan, 36, works in advertising and has had to take pay cuts and take in a roommate because of the economic downturn. He said he opposed the bank bailouts and wants less government regulation. But he also has no health insurance, so he likes President Obama’s health care policy.

Colorado pollster Floyd Ciruli said independent voters are hard to pin down. They usually wait until the last minute to make up their minds.

“It just sort of makes our polling and our elections volatile,” said Ciruli.

Obama won Colorado by 9 percentage points in 2008. Nationwide, he captured 52 percent of the independent votes.

But a recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that more than half of independents now disapprove of the job the president is doing.

Maughan, who said he voted for Republican George W. Bush twice and Democrat Barack Obama four years ago, said he’s not sure how he’ll vote this year.

“I’m going to vote for the person that I want to vote for, and hopefully that person puts the least amount of barriers in my way,” said Maughan. “But regardless of what happens, I got to take care of me. That’s why I’m independent.”

Convicted of Voter Fraud, Republican Indiana Secretary of State Accuses Gov. Daniels of Same Crime

ThinkProgress:

On Friday, then-Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R) was convicted on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury and removed from his office. Yesterday, he took to Fox News Channel to defend himself. Calling Indiana a “land of men and not laws,” White vowed to appeal what he called a “total miscarriage of justice” and a “perversion.” Then, White accused Gov. Mitch Daniels of similar crimes, claiming his fellow Indiana Republican voted incorrectly in “the last ten straight elections.” Both White and Daniels have made fighting the nearly nonexistentproblem of voter fraud a key part of their political agendas.

Reasons why the Dems could take back the House

WaPo:

Democrats have been saying for a long time that the House could be in play in 2012, and now some Republicans are starting to join them.

“For Democrats to take 25 seats, they will need a wave,” former congressman Tom Davis wrote in an op-ed in The Hill recently. “Continued polarization and obstruction could create such a wave.”

Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele agreed that keeping the majority isn’t a done deal: “It could be very, very hard.”

And last week, a member of the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board opined that the GOP majority could be in jeopardy if Republicans don’t make it a priority.

“The House is no sure thing,” wrote Kimberly A. Strassel.

In fact, there is a growing behind-the-scenes sense among House Republican leaders that the more the presidential race has enveloped the daily news, the importance of keeping the House has been lost – exactly the point Strassel sought to make.

[…]

Why it’s possible:

1. The generic ballot: Democrats have been hyping this measure for a long time. It basically shows that, given a choice between a nameless, faceless Republican and a nameless, faceless Democrat, voters right now prefer the Democrat – and by several points in some polls.

Republicans, though, note that Democrats generally have a small advantage on this measure. “They’ve done a heckuva spin” on the generic ballot, Reynolds said. “I think the generic ballot’s something to watch, but when I was chair, if Democrats had a four-point advantage, I looked at that as even.”

2. Obama’s momentum: Don’t look now, but the country just had two good jobs reports in a row, and President Obama’s personal approval rating rose to 50 percent in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

On some level, the House election is really an extension of the presidential race, and for Democrats to retake the House, they probably have to keep the White House. That looks like more of a possibility today than it did Jan. 1.

3. Fundraising: While the GOP has a House majority, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee actually outraised the NRCC by about $7 million dollars in 2011. On top of that, Democratic challengers outraised more than a dozen GOP incumbents in the fourth quarter of 2011 – a strong sign of the quality of Democratic candidates.

You need candidates and money to win a majority, and Democrats appear to be checking both of those boxes.

4. History: Republicans have held this many seats five times since 1900, and each time they sustained huge losses in the next election – an average loss of 48 seats.

Of course, this all happened more than 60 years ago, when bigger swings were much more commonplace. Republicans haven’t had a majority this big since the 1940s, so there’s no recent apples-to-apples comparison.

Why it’s unlikely:

1. Democratic retirements: House Democrats have been bitten more by the retirement bug than Republicans. The minority party, as it often does after losing its majority, has lost more members overall — 20 Democrats are either retiring or running for higher office, compared to 14 Republicans — and their retirees come from tougher districts, too.

According to the Cook Political Report, Republicans are favored to win five districts held by retiring Democrats, and Democrats aren’t favored to win any seats held by retiring Republicans. In other words, if the GOP can win these seats, Democrats will actually have to win 30 seats to retake the majority.

2. Super PACs: Whatever advantage the DCCC has over the NRCC is likely to be wiped out — and then some — by Republican-leaning super PACs who should plug tens of millions of dollars into keeping the House.

Even if GOP leaders may not be as focused on the House as some would like, American Crossroads is essentially a second NRCC ready to put its money on the table to save the majority, and there’s really no comparable Democratic equivalent. This matters big time.

3. Redistricting: While maybe not as big a windfall for the GOP as it had hoped, redistricting has helped Republicans shore up some of their most vulnerable members. In most cases, these members got a few points better and will still have to defend themselves, but overall it’s a boon to the GOP.

4. History: For every historical justification, there’s an inverse. History shows it’s exceedingly rare for the president’s party to win control of the House when that president is up for reelection. More often than not, the president’s party makes modest gains, if at all.

Even when Ronald Reagan won a resounding reelection victory in 1984, his party gained just 16 seats. In fact, the last time a president’s party has won more than 25 seats while the president was being reelected was 1964.

President Obama Will Be Vindicated

Frank Schaeffer:

As Ryan Lizza writes in the New Yorker: “Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street.”

So when are President Obama’s critics, people like Paul Krugman and Mitt Romney, going to offer President Obama an apology? Both have often loudly predicted that he made the economy worse and was putting America on the wrong economic path. Both are being proved wrong by the economic comeback we are in. I mention them not to pick on Krugman, who I respect or even on Romney (who I regard as a vapid twit bought and paid for by corporate interests) but to make a point: President Obama is going to have the last laugh on his critics, no matter what ideological spectrum they hail from.

President Obama is succeeding in spite of the fact that he’s been up against a Republican Party willing to destroy the economy in order to destroy him.

As the New Yorker notes:

“Two well-known Washington political analysts, Thomas Mann, of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agree. In a forthcoming book about Washington dysfunction, ‘It’s Even Worse Than It Looks,’ they write, ‘One of our two major parties, the Republicans, has become an insurgent outlier—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.’”

We all know the Right’s critique of the President has failed. Rush Limbaugh did not get his wish! But what of the Left? The tone of the criticism of the President on lefty blogs has been persistently negative and none too prescient. According to his critics on the Left President Obama “sold out to Wall Street.” He didn’t “bring the change he promised,” he “is just like the Republicans,” etc., etc.

And I’m not even counting the shrillest voices on the Left and Right who have accused President Obama of either/or undermining national security — by being a “secret terror-codling Muslim” — or using drones to “murder civilians,” because “he is just like the Republicans and part of the corporatist elite.”

I happen to be a white 59-year-old former Republican. I happen to be a former religious right leader who came to my senses in the mid 1980s and quit the hate and fear religious right machine. (I explain about why I left the religious right in my book Crazy For God.) I also happen to have been one of the most vocal (and one of the first) Huffington Post bloggers. I was blogging there when we emailed in blogs then were called by the person who posted them. I supported then Senator Obama, just about every week during the Democratic primary season in 08. Back then I had lots of company at HP from the top down. It seemed we were all rooting for Obama.

Not anymore. I still blog at HP and other sites like Alternet but have actually been kicked off several progressive sites for continuing to support the president. (No kidding.)

About 6 months into his presidency lots of bloggers at HP and elsewhere seemed to run out of patience not just with President Obama but with reality itself. President Obama “disappointed” them. I stuck with the President because I believed then, and believe now, that he is smarter, kinder, more reliable and morally superior to his critics let alone to the political alternatives. I also know that the presidency is not as powerful as many people seem to think it is including many liberal commentators who claim to live in a fact-based world. I’m grateful if any president can get anything good done at all.

The Left and Right have united in predicting President Obama’s failure and even seeming to root for it, if nothing else to prove they were right. So will the “sky is falling” prophets of doom on the Left and Right — who have made it a national pastime to predict the “failure” of the Obama presidency — start to climb down now that all their dire predictions are falling flat re the economy (that Obama did not ruin!) and wars ending (that Obama did not start!)?

The wars are ending and the economy is coming back. Good for the country. Bad for the doom pundits of the Left and Right.

Anyone who thinks Obama didn’t “bring change” fast enough is living in a fact-free dreamland. First, they have no to little idea about how limited the president’s powers are. Second, they have no idea what this president in particular faced. We’ll get the change promised but it will take 2 full terms and it will never live up to the expectations of the utopian groupies of the Left who thought they’d voted for a messiah not a mere president.

So why has change taken “so long”?

Because:

• President Obama inherited a far bigger economic and foreign policy mess than anyone predicted….
• The Republicans obstructed our first black president far more ruthlessly (and with racist overtones) than any (sane) person would have predicted…
• President Obama’s “friends” on the Left were as shortsighted and mean-spirited as his enemies on the Right…
• And until the Occupy Wall Street Movement came along the President wasn’t getting the help he needed from the street to make the unfairness of American life that he’s trying to fix into an issue.
• The President – thanks to Occupy Wall Street – now controls the debate with the handy phrase of “the 1% v the 99%.” Occupy Wall Street did more for moving the country foreword and did more to help President Obama, than all the President’s lefty critics combined.

Occupy Wall Street is doing what MLK and the civil rights movement did for Johnson: it provided the heat Johnson could then use to move his agenda forward. Obama too now has the wind of change at his back.

Sure, I like anyone else wish for more action from the President on many fronts. For instance I wish the President had not been so in love with the idea that we could be moving into a post-partisan world of cooperation.

As the New Yorker put it,

“Predictions that Obama would usher in a new era of post-partisan consensus politics now seem not just naïve but delusional. At this political juncture, there appears to be only one real model of effective governance in Washington: partisan dominance, in which a President with large majorities in Congress can push through an ambitious agenda… Many of Obama’s liberal allies have been disillusioned, too. When Steve Jobs last met the President, in February, 2011, he was most annoyed by Obama’s pessimism—he seemed to dismiss every idea Jobs proffered. ‘The president is very smart,’ Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. ‘But he kept explaining to us reasons why things can’t get done. It infuriates me.’ “Yet our political system was designed to be infuriating. As George Edwards notes in his study of Presidents as facilitators, the American system “is too complicated, power too decentralized, and interests too diverse for one person, no matter how extraordinary, to dominate.” Obama, like many Presidents, came to office talking like a director. But he ended up governing like a facilitator, which is what the most successful Presidents have always done. Even Lincoln famously admitted, ‘I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events controlled me.’”

Given my religious right background I’m one of the President’s most unlikely fans. Maybe that’s because I really know the alternative– from the inside. I fear the alternative to the President – far right loons of the Tea Party/evangelical religious right ilk — and have never felt I had the luxury of being an armchair lefty critic demoralizing Obama’s supporters because he’s the only person who stands between the village idiots and us.

Try Romney and the Mormons on for size if you think Obama has been “slow” to embrace gay marriage! Try Gingrich and the “Christian Zionists” if you think we tilted too far to the far right West Bank settlers and Israeli hardliners! Try the Koch brothers’ cronies if you think our president is “owned by Wall Street!”

I know what the stakes are. I know from the inside just how deranged, corrupt and awful the marriage between Wall Street and the unwashed Tea Party/Religious Right anti-abortion, racist, homophobic and misogynist mob really is. I know that these people will buy elections then try and turn America into a theocracy — on matters of personal morality — and into an Ayn Rand libertarian and heartless swamp where the 1% eat the rest of us– when it comes to the economy.

So I’ve been grateful that a man of integrity, brains and kindness and reasonable moderation (not to mention moderate progressive religious faith) is leading America. I didn’t just read about the alternative and “other” side. I was the other side and know what they are capable of.

When we hear that jobless numbers are going down faster than expected, that shoppers spent money over the holidays, that economic forecasts are being revised upward, that we are out of Iraq, that bin Laden is dead, that gays can serve in the military, that Wall Street and the banks are now under investigation, that a woman’s right to choose is being protected… it’s time for a reassessment of the President’s critic’s.

And NO I’m NOT saying that any president is above rebuke when you think he’s wrong. But fair rebuke is one thing. The endless drip, drip of mindless “disappointed” negativity that has been the hallmark not just of Fox News but has been found on progressive blogs too, is another thing altogether. Enough already! Or at least have the integrity to admit when you’re wrong.

The President keeps proving himself smarter than his detractors. More power to him.

President Obama will win in 2012. And 4 years later all that will be remembered about his critics is that they were impatient, deluded and wrong.

Given what was on his plate when he took office and the fact that we’re successfully struggling out of both recession and 2 war — and succeeding — President Obama is one of the best of the American presidents already. His second term will consolidate that verdict and bodes greatness as his legacy.

Perfecting Our Union

By Barack Obama, The Atlantic:

The president of the United States reflects on what Abraham Lincoln means to him, and to America.

LINCOLN IS A PRESIDENT I TURN TO OFTEN. From time to time, I’ll walk over to the Lincoln Bedroom and reread the handwritten Gettysburg Address encased in glass, or reflect on the Emancipation Proclamation, which hangs in the Oval Office, or pull a volume of his writings from the library in search of lessons to draw.

Always thoughtful, always eloquent, Lincoln’s writings speak to me as they speak to so many Americans, reminding us what is best about ourselves and the Union he saved: that though we may have our differences, we are one people, and we are one nation, united by a common creed.

That, I believe, is why, a century and a half after he took office, Lincoln is revered by the American people. Such reverence is richly deserved, but it comes at a cost. The Lincoln who holds a place in our national memory is less a man than an icon—a face carved in black hills, a marble giant towering over us on a mall.

What makes Alexander Gardner’s print so resonant, then, is its humanity. Here is Lincoln as he was, his eyes weary, his forehead wrinkled, wearing an expression, wrote a poet, of “deep latent sadness.” But Gardner also captures something else. An eyebrow, arched. An upturned lip. The faintest hint of a smile. There is, in the photographer’s print, something of his subject’s spirit.

Three years before he entered Gardner’s studio, Lincoln termed the United States, in one of his early messages to Congress, “the last best hope of earth.” Considering that our fragile Union was not 100 years old and stood a good chance of dissolving, it was an improbable thing to say. But Lincoln saw beyond the bloodshed and division. He saw us not only as we were, but as we might be. And he calls on us through the ages to commit ourselves to the unfinished work he so nobly advanced—the work of perfecting our Union.

POLLS

ABC News: Today’s Poll: A Word on the Buzz

Our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll is getting some buzz today, including some criticisms of the questionnaire design. On one hand it’s hardly the newest game in town for aggrieved parties to try to dismiss survey results they don’t like. On the other, fair-minded discussion always is welcome.

We pride ourselves on best-practice survey methodology based on trained interviewers calling randomly dialed cell and landline phone users. We strive for neutral, balanced questions and independent analysis. We try to answer all inquiries about our data, and we release our questionnaires and ultimately our raw datasets for all comers to review.

The poll we’ve released today included balanced questions on recent issues involving Mitt Romney’s wealth, taxpaying and business background. Each was neutrally presented – asking, for instance whether he “is or is not paying his fair share of taxes,” whether he “‘achieved the American dream” or “benefitted from opportunities that are not available to other people,” and whether he did more to “create jobs” or to “cut jobs” at Bain Capital. The parallel phrases in the last two were asked in rotated order.

Critics today have suggested that asking these questions before the general election horse race may have biased its results. There are reasons to think otherwise.

First, a different question immediately preceded the vote question, one testing issues involving three candidates – Romney, Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama. One of those turned out to be strongly positive for Romney, measuring views of his business experience. We have trend for this question among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents; their views of Romney’s business experience were no less positive in this poll than they were in December, with different preceding questions.

Second, the logic that Romney’s wealth, tax history and record of job creation are negatives and suppress his support, could work just as well in reverse. Asked neutrally, they are neither negatives nor positives, but simply salient attributes on which public attitudes matter.

Third, key questions in an incumbent election come far earlier in the questionnaire. Our very first question found Barack Obama with a 50 percent job approval rating, his highest since last spring. A subsequent question found 50 percent saying he deserved re-election. It seems unsurprising that later we found 51 percent preferring Obama over Romney in a head-to-head-matchup.

Indeed these are of a piece. Among people who approve of Obama’s job performance, 91 percent prefer him over Romney; among those who disapprove of Obama, 88 percent prefer Romney for president. In our previous three polls, in January, December and November, Romney won 88, 84 and 77 percent support, respectively, from Obama disapprovers; Obama won 88, 87 and 90 percent support from his approvers. Those results make suggestions of order-effect in this survey look like a tough sell.

It’s also perhaps worth noting the long line of surveys we’ve put out that had much worse numbers for Obama – down to 42 percent approval last October, for instance – and his Democratic Party, whose hammering in the 2010 midterm elections was correctly anticipated in our pre-election polling. His side may have resented those results. Not our problem.

Romney, for his part, may not love that 66 percent of Americans don’t think he’s paying his fair share of taxes. On the other hand, he may brighten up at the fact that many more see his business experience as a major reason to support him rather than as a major reason to oppose him – with this item asked as part of the question that directly preceded vote preferences. Again, pleasing any candidate is not our concern.

Lastly, we’ve no need to hide behind the work of others, but Obama led Romney by 6 points in an NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll a few weeks ago, the same margin as in our survey (two others recently had them tied) and by 10 points in a UNH poll out of swing-state New Hampshire just last week.

There’s plenty of time in the election year ahead, and plenty of measurements to make. We tend to focus less on the horse race and more on underlying public attitudes about the issues and candidate attributes. From that perspective we think today’s survey tells a useful, independent, unbiased story about the political landscape. We’ll keep at it, while welcoming continued open discussion along the way.

Americans agree with Obama on taxes, economic fairness

Greg Sargent:

As you’ve heard a thousand times by now, Obama will have a better shot at reelection if voters come to see the contest as a choice between him and likely nominee Mitt Romney — a choice between two sets of priorities, values, and visions — rather than a referendum on the economy.

Today’s Washington Post-ABC News poll suggests in the clearest terms yet that as Americans get to know Romney, they are seeing the election as a choice.

The poll finds that Obama beats Romney among overall Americans by nine points, 52-43.

The interesting thing, though, is that this is in spite of continuing high disapproval of Obama on the economy and on job creation (53 percent and 51 percent) and in spite of soaring public pessimism about the economy (89 percent view it negatively).

Obama’s edge over Romney despite disapproval on the economy seems to be driven by a growing awareness of Romney’s image and by the GOP nomination process. Fifty-two percent say the more they hear about Romney, the less they like. And Americans disapprove of the things the GOP candidates have been saying, 54-36.

* Public agrees with Obama on taxes, economic fairness: Two other key findings that may help explain Obama’edge: Sixty eight percent say the U.S. tax system favors the wealthy; and 72 percent favor raising taxes on Americans with incomes of over $1 million. Both those findings include majorities of Republicans.

The Obama team has insisted that Americans will ultimately choose between two overarching visions for the country, rather than make a choice based only on the state of the economy on Election Day 2012. Numbers like these — particularly when taken with Obama’s nine point lead over Romney — will only encourage the Obama campaign to continue making tax fairness and inequality central to his case. Especially since Obama’s overall approval in the Post poll has now hit 50 percent.

Romney has insisted that Obama’s focus on these topics is all about class warfare, division, and “envy.” It’s still unclear who Romney thinks he’s talking to when he makes that claim, and these findings make it seem even more absurd and out of touch.

* Is Romney’s wealth a liability? The poll is mixed on this question. In a big plus for Romney, 48 percent see his business background as a “major reason” to support him. Voters don’t see that background as a reason not to support him.

However, a slight plurality say Romney’s wealth is a negative, 44-43, because he benefitted from opportunities not available to most people. More think his corporate work cut jobs than created them, 36-32. And a surprising 66 percent say Romney is not paying his fair share in taxes.

Whatever the public’s view of Romney’s Bain years, on balance, all this will lead Dems to continue painting Romney as the walking embodiment of everything that’s unfair about the economy and the tax system.

NEW POLL: “More than 7 in 10 support increasing the taxes of those earning more than $1 million a year”

71 Percent of Florida Voters Oppose Medicaid Reimbursement Cuts to Hospitals, New Poll Shows

Sacramento Bee:

Seventy-one percent of Florida voters say Medicaid is an important program that should be maintained and oppose the deep reimbursement cuts to Florida’s hospitals that Governor Rick Scott and legislative leaders are proposing this session, a new poll shows.

Voters say they are most concerned that additional reimbursement cuts will force hospitals to eliminate specialized healthcare services such as trauma care, advanced care for newborn babies, burn units and outpatient clinics.

The poll also found that 72 percent of voters oppose Governor Scott’s proposal to reduce the number of days that Medicaid patients can be hospitalized annually from 45 to 23 days. After 23 days, hospitals would no longer receive Medicaid reimbursement for these patients.

MORE>>>

Romney Unfavorables soar! The process takes its toll on Romney

Steve Benen:

As the race for the Republican presidential nomination continues, Mitt Romney is confronted with some good news and some bad news. The good news is, he’s the clear frontrunner who just racked up two more wins in Florida and Nevada by large margins.

The bad news is, the more voters see Romney, the less popular he becomes. Consider this tidbit from the new Washington Post/ABC News poll:

Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question.

Given the circumstances, it would appear the ongoing GOP race isn’t doing the frontrunner any favors. Evidence of Romney’s “likability problem” has been building in recent weeks, but these new results are just brutal — the former governor and his campaign are gearing up for the general election phase, but find the public already souring on Romney’s persona.

TPM recently published this chart showing Romney’s favorable/unfavorable ratings. It’s a little out of date — it does not, for example, reflect the data from the new Post/ABC poll — but it’s hard to miss that spike in the red line, which points to Romney’s unfavorable numbers.

http://m.static.newsvine.com/servista/imagesizer?file=steve-benen8FA1845A-25DC-6098-B1B2-5E1CB5C8E5E2.jpg&width=600

Steve Kornacki recently noted, “[I]t’s possible that Romney is simply experiencing the low point that practically every nominee goes through at some point in the primary process.”

That may well be the case. It’s also possible, though, that a national audience is getting its first good look at Mitt Romney — his flip-flops, his layoff-driven riches, his out-of-touch gaffes — and just doesn’t find him appealing as a presidential candidate.

More Republicans are Birthers today than before Obama released his long-form birth certificate.

A majority of small business owners favor letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire

Latino job gains, independents give Pres Obama a boost

Daily Kos/PPP survey: Majority of conservatives oppose cancer screening at Planned Parenthood

SCOTUS

The Citizens United catastrophe

E.J. Dionne:

We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court’s Citizens Uniteddecision, and it doesn’t work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn’t happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy.

Two years ago, Citizens United tore down a century’s worth of law aimed at reducing the amount of corruption in our electoral system. It will go down as one of the most naive decisions ever rendered by the court.

The strongest case against judicial activism — against “legislating from the bench,” as former President George W. Bush liked to say — is that judges are not accountable for the new systems they put in place, whether by accident or design.

The Citizens United justices were not required to think through the practical consequences of sweeping aside decades of work by legislators, going back to the passage of the landmark Tillman Act in 1907, who sought to prevent untoward influence-peddling and indirect bribery.

If ever a court majority legislated from the bench (with Bush’s own appointees leading the way), it was the bunch that voted for Citizens United. Did a single justice in the majority even imagine a world of super PACs and phony corporations set up for the sole purpose of disguising a donor’s identity? Did they think that a presidential candidacy might be kept alive largely through the generosity of a Las Vegas gambling magnate with important financial interests in China? Did they consider that the democratizing gains made in the last presidential campaign through the rise of small online contributors might be wiped out by the brute force of millionaires and billionaires determined to have their way?

“The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.” Those were Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words in his majority opinion. How did he know that? Did he consult the electorate? Did he think this would be true just because he said it?

Justice John Paul Stevens’ observation in his dissent reads far better than Kennedy’s in light of subsequent events. “A democracy cannot function effectively,” he wrote, “when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

But ascribing an outrageous decision to naivetéis actually the most sympathetic way of looking at what the court did in Citizens United. A more troubling interpretation is that a conservative majority knew exactly what it was doing: that it set out to remake our political system by fiat in order to strengthen the hand of corporations and the wealthy. Seen this way, Citizens United was an attempt by five justices to push future electoral outcomes in a direction that would entrench their approach to governance.

In fact, this decision should be seen as part of a larger initiative by moneyed conservatives to rig the electoral system against their opponents. How else to explain conservative legislation in state after state to obstruct access to the ballot by lower-income voters — particularly members of minority groups — through voter identification laws, shortened voting periods and restrictions on voter registration campaigns?

Conservatives are strengthening the hand of the rich at one end of the system and weakening the voting power of the poor at the other. As veteran journalist Elizabeth Drew noted in an important New York Review of Books article, “little attention is being paid to the fact that our system of electing a president is under siege.”

Those who doubt that Citizens United (combined with a comatose Federal Election Commission) has created a new political world with broader openings for corruption should consult reports last week by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo in the New York Times and byT.W. Farnam in The Washington Post. Both accounts show how American politics has become a bazaar for the very wealthy and for increasingly aggressive corporations. We might consider having candidates wear corporate logos. This would be more honest than pretending that tens of millions in cash will have no impact on how we will be governed.

In the short run, Congress should do all it can within the limits of Citizens United to contain the damage it is causing. In the long run, we have to hope that a future Supreme Court will overturn this monstrosity, remembering that the first words of our Constitution are “We the People,” not “We the Rich.”

UNIONS

Unions blast both Senate Ds and White House for leaving them behind on FAA reauthorization

Are Senate Dems and the White House about to create another minor headache for themselves on the left?

I’m told that unions are “frustrated” with both over the big compromise Senate Dems reached with House Republicans on the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill — which unions believe will make organizing harder for hundreds of thousands of railway and airline workers.

But unions are resigned: They expect that Senate Dems will pass the bill tonight, I’m told.

“We’re frustrated that the White House was not more engaged in this,” says Shane Larson, the legislative director of the Communications Workers of America, which along with the International Association of Machinists is leading the battle against the deal.

“The Senate leadership and the White House have left us behind,” adds Rich Michalski, vice president of the Internional Association of Machinists, which is also fighting the deal. “This will negatively impact over 260,000 railroad and rail transportation workers.”

This was one of labor’s top priorities for 2012, though it’s unclear how much of labor is currently united against the emerging deal.

House Republicans had previously tried last fall to insert a union busting provision into the FAA reauthorization bill. But Senate Dems stood firm against it, and the White House threatened to veto it, getting the House GOP to back down and negotiate a temporary extension. This raised labor’s hopes that the White House and Dems would again stand firm when the longer-term deal was negotiated.

It’s not to be. Late last year, Harry Reid unveiled a compromise he’d reached with House Republicans that would do away with the union-busting provision. In exchange the deal would raise the threshold required for triggering a union election from 35 percent worker interest in a union to 50 percent. After examining the deal, unions concluded it could be disastrous for labor, and pilloried Senate Dems for selling out on the deal.

Union officials tried frantically to get Senate Dems to reconsider, I’m told, but couldn’t get traction. They also tried to get the White House to engage, Larson tells me, but that didn’t work, either.

“They’ve responded, they’ve said they understand our concerns and realize why we are upset about it.,” Larson said of the White House, adding that White House officials didn’t push Senate Dems for changes.

Larson says unions are angry in part because the compromise didn’t codify something into law making it impossible for the union-busting piece sought by the House GOP — which would count no-shows as No votes against unionization — to be revived later.

It’s unclear how much the White House is to blame for the current mess. The piece the White House originally threatened to veto is gone from the legislation; and it’s unclear whether unions pressed for another veto threat. Still, if and when this passes, it will cause some disappointment in at least some quarters of the labor movement at a time when Dems had hoped to renew union enthusiasm heading into 2012.

NPR: Unions create TV ad to appeal to young people.  (This ad approaches the Eastwood ad, IMO)

At a time when young activists from Zucotti Park to Tahrir Square have shown what the Internet and social media can do to help organize people, some American unions have been taking notes.

The AFL-CIO is embarking on a new advertising campaign that combines new and old technologies.

“Work doesn’t separate. It’s what binds us together,” a commercial voice-over says in the recently test-launched ad campaign with a disarmingly simple message.

The campaign is called “Work Connects Us All,” and it’s TV ad features a multiracial cast of firefighters, teachers, autoworkers and even baristas gathered in a stark industrial interior.

“I teach your kid. You fix my car. He builds my city. She keeps it safe. Work is what connects us,” the ad says.

It never mentions unions, and only a quick credit at the end tells the viewer that it is sponsored by the AFL-CIO.

Test Markets

The ad is airing in three test markets: Pittsburgh, Austin and Portland.

Elizabeth Shuler, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said it’s part of a long-term effort to “reintroduce” the labor movement to young people.

“I think really we are looking to reach out and start a conversation with people that we normally don’t talk to,” Shuler said. “Whether you’re in a union or not, we’re trying to show we have shared values around the notion of hard work that really drives America forward.”

This ad campaign is the AFL-CIO’s first in 15 years that isn’t linked to an election or specific legislation. It comes as union membership has declined to about 12 percent of the American workforce and less than 7 percent of the private sector.

But Shuler said the unions hope to capitalize on the opening created by the Occupy Wall Street movement, which she said has changed the national conversation.

“It’s a conversation now around water coolers and at dinner parties that we never thought would be happening, this idea that people would be talking about inequality the way that they have been, and it’s that spark we really want to connect to,” Shuler said.

Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley, called the ad campaign “innovative” and “interactive.”

“A lot of the campaigns unions have done in the past have been sleepers, you know. There’s no getting around it.” But the new ad is “not just a commercial,” Shaiken said. “It’s a new approach.”

“I don’t think the ad stands alone. There’s a website. There’s a lot of interactive dimensions to it, and I think the labor movement is experimenting,” he said.

A New Approach

The AFL-CIO is flying into some stiff headwinds.

Last year a Gallup poll found that a slim majority of Americans — only 52 percent — approve of unions. That’s near a record low.

NPR went to a coffee house in Portland, one of the TV ad’s test markets, to gauge reactions. No one there had seen the ad, but people were receptive, if somewhat skeptical.

“I guess it’s a valuable message to get out there,” said Ben Lichenstein, a 28-year-old engineering student. He wondered whether the unions can tap into the energy of the Occupy movement.

“Large unions tend to be very insistent that the best way to approach these things is incrementally, and I think there has to be a second step and perhaps a third or a fourth in getting that message through successfully,” he said.

But Jeremy Broche said he doesn’t think it will change people’s opinions.

“I’ve always had a favorable view of unions but I know plenty of people that don’t, and I don’t think a single ad would change that,” the 29-year-old bartender said. “I think that boots on the ground, actually talking with people, talking about what unions are doing, changes that view.”

Union officials say that’s exactly the kind of feedback they need if they hope to convince younger people that the union movement can speak for them.

Corporate front group airs misleading anti-union ad during Super Bowl

[…] The ad’s claim that just 10 percent of current union members voted to form the union may be true, but it is incredibly misleading. Federal law mandates that more than 50 percent of a company’s workforce must vote in favor of the formation of a union. Most current union members, however, join unions that were formed years before and know that the union exists when they take the job.

The ad’s implication that the Employee Rights Act would put money in workers’ pockets is also misleading. According to the Economic Policy Institute, right-to-work laws cost workers up to $1,500 a year and also lead to reduced pensions and health care coverage.

Super Bowl broadcasters have traditionally banned ads that advocate for political causes. Year after year, though, it seems that ban doesn’t extend to misleading anti-union ads paid for by corporate front-groups that don’t disclose their donors.

WEDGE ISSUES

The People’s View: The Bounds of Religious Freedom

Newt Gingrich, a newly minted Catholic (guess he decided that he can do without the publicly cheating on his wives and divorcing one to marry the next for at least a while now), has an attack line against the Obama administration: that it is “secular government” eroding the freedoms of religious institutions. Why? Because the Obama Administration, under the Affordable Care Act, issued regulation that requires employer-sponsored health plans to include FDA-approved contraceptives. Churches and other houses of worship are exempted from it, but other religion-affiliated institutions, like religion-affiliated hospitals, schools and colleges are covered in cases where a majority of their employees are not of the given religion. This is not to force “Catholic” hospitals to offer contraceptives, mind you, but to simply cover it in their insurance policy so that if one of their employees needed and wanted to, they could go get it somewhere else.

The American Roman Catholic Church is pretty miffed by it, but one might remind the pontiff pontificating about “intrinsic evil” that to this day, there continue to be priests who go unpunished for abusing children.

Be that as it may, since Gingrich and the Catholic Church are waxing poetic about this regulation being an encroachment of religious liberty, let’s look at it for what it really is: it is a check on religion-affiliated civil institutions’ ability to force their beliefs on everyone who works for them, regardless of whether that employee subscribes to the given religion or not. According to the beliefs of the Church leadership and of Newt Gingrich, religious freedom is the freedom of churches to encroach on any civil institutions without having to abide by the same laws that apply to everyone one else.

In fact, freedom of (and from) religion is the freedom of an individual to believe whatever he or she pleases without being discriminated against. It is in order to protect that individual freedom that our laws give houses of worship many conscience exemptions from many of our laws. It is not, however, a Constitutional right of churches to enter any facet of civil life without abiding by our civil laws. You would think that people waxing poetic about individual freedom and against “collectivism” would understand this simple concept.

That is what happened here. No individual is required to use contraceptives, and no doctor is required to prescribe it. Churches and other houses of worship are exempt from this regulation. However, religion-affiliated civil institutions, the Administration says, must abide by the same regulations as everyone else, i.e. their employer health plans must cover contraception. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney pointed out exactly this, in other words last week:

 But the point of the decision, which was made after careful consideration and, we believe, reaches the appropriate balance between religious beliefs and the need to provide — make services available to women across the country — you know, we want to make sure that women have access to good health care no matter where they work and that all women who want access to contraceptives are able to get them without paying a copay every time they go to the pharmacy.

And let’s be clear about it, because there’s been a lot of – in the — some of the commentary about it, there’s been some mis-statements about what it actually does. No individual will be required to use or prescribe contraception. This rule does not force anyone with a religious objection, such as a Catholic doctor, to prescribe or provide contraception. It merely requires that insurance companies provide coverage for contraceptives to patients who want them, which is the recommendation of the nonpartisan Institute of Medicine.

There is an extraordinary attack on individual freedoms by religious institutions in the name of God. That attack has over the years told us that women cannot avail themselves to all of the health care services necessary to them, that they weren’t entitled to the same social recognition as men, that consenting adults in the privacy of their own home could not do as they pleased, and even that God separated the races into different continents and that therefore people of different races should not marry. Heck, even slavery came with its own Biblical justifications. “Religious” diction has been used time and again to divide people, separate them, and put and keep them down, and yes, to even cause wars.

But our country is also full of the stories of influence of religion in liberating, uniting and uplifting Americans. There is no denying the fact that the African American Civil Rights movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was influenced very much by their religious core. Many churches are at the forefront of the fight for the rights of gay Americans today. Young evangelicals are an integral part of the global environmental movement, and the Catholic church has itself spread an anti-poverty message.

Religion, in the instances it seeks to serve the least among us and uplift the downtrodden, gives us the best humanity has to offer. But when that same thing – religion – concentrates on dividing people, encroaching on personal freedoms and practicing medicine, it takes on a very ugly face.

But I digress. This article is not about the relative merits of religion in a society. It is, rather, about freedom of religion. There is no reason why a church, or another religious institution, should not be able to operate a civil institution – such as a hospital, a school, or an adoption center. In turn, there is also no reason why any civil institution – including ones operated by a religious entity – should not have to adhere to the same laws and rules as everyone else.

If the Catholic church wants to operate Catholic schools and make it available to – and take tuition money from - non-Catholics, there is no reason why their employees and students should have to sacrifice their civil and legal rights at the door of that institution. If the Catholic church wants to operate a hospital, employ non-Catholics, and take the insurance money of non-Catholic patients (or even patients who are Catholic but do not subscribe to every teaching of the Catholic church, such as most American Catholics), then there is no reason why, as an employer, they should be treated any differently from any other hospital in America under the law. There is no reason why nurses and physicians working at Catholic hospitals should not have the same protections of the law as employees of every other hospital in America.

And to top it off, Catholics for Choice points out that American Catholics are not only strongly pro-health reform (anyone remember a famous Catholic named Ted Kennedy as the driving force behind the Affordable Care Act?), but that a majority also believe that women ought to be able to access a full range of birth control through insurance provided by their employers. So in fact, it is the Catholic bishops and Newt Gingrich that is in the minority of Catholic opinion in America, not President Obama.

Something Newt Gingrich and the rest of the band of religious zealots need to realize is that in America, Catholicism is a religion, not the state. This is not the Vatican. Newt Gingrich and his ideological cohorts are rather comfortable asking American Muslims if they are Muslims first or Americans first. I don’t suppose they would welcome the same question with equal praise were I to replace the word ‘Muslim’ with the word ‘Catholic.’ And they don’t have to. In fact, no one should – neither Muslims, nor Catholics nor Evangelicals nor Jews nor Hindus, and nor atheists. In America, we celebrate our diversity of beliefs, not force a choice between the country we love and the house of worship we walk through (or choose not to walk through).

But as Americans, what we are keenly aware of is that just as the government must not interfere with the free practice of religion, so must religious institutions not interfere with the execution of our civil laws. When religious hierarchies decide to step into the civil arena, demanding exemptions from our civil laws for those affiliated institutions is, in fact, religious interference with the civil laws. Freedom of religion, just as every other freedom in the Bill of Rights, begins and ends at the nose of the individual (and their religious gathering place), and has no place encroaching on the lives of others who wish not to parttake. Every one of our rights has that same boundary, and religious freedom is no exception. Once again, freedom of religion does not pertain to the “right” of a Church to force their beliefs on anyone else. Outside of the four walls of the house of prayer, in the public civil square, no Church and no Mosque and no Temple has the right to negate the legal rights and entitlements of Americans.

Mother Jones: House GOP memo wants to make abortions illegal for black women

A House GOP memo obtained byMother Jones argues for a controversial “prenatal discrimination bill” by referring to “black abortions” as distinct from abortions in general and claiming that “abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community.” The memo (PDF) was circulated by Republicans on the House judiciary committee on Monday in advance of Tuesday’s markup of Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-Ariz.) Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.

Franks’ bill, which is also known as H.R. 3514, didn’t make it out of committee when it was introduced in the last Congress. But the fact that it’s now receiving a markup—a key step on the way to a floor vote—and that 78 cosponsors have signed on suggests that it could proceed to a vote of the full House before November’s elections. In addition to banning abortions based on the race or gender of the fetus, H.R. 3514 would give a woman’s family members the ability to sue abortion providers if they believed an abortion was obtained based on race or sex. Critics warn that it would be next to impossible to prove that an abortion was obtained on the basis of race or gender and fear the provision could lead to nuisance suits against abortion providers by family members who are opposed to abortion on principle.

Bills outlawing sex-selection abortions—a procedure most Americans oppose—have passed on the state level. But a bill outlawing abortions based on race ran into trouble in Georgia in 2010. As my colleague Stephanie Mencimer reported:

The campaign started with controversial billboards, which began popping up in the state after President Obama was elected. They featured a photo of a beautiful, sad black baby boy and the line: “Black children are an endangered species.” Anti-abortion activists claimed to be out to save the black community from genocide at the hands of Planned Parenthood.

“The most pernicious part was, they’re trying to hijack the civil rights legacy in the service of conservative causes, trying to appropriate the mantle of the civil rights movement in a really despicable way,” says Loretta Ross, the national coordinator of SisterSong, a reproductive justice organization for women of color in Atlanta. She says the effort even featured white people singing “We Shall Overcome” at black women as part of a pro-life “freedom ride” bus tour that stopped at Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. Center.

As with the Georgia bill, backers of Franks’ bill, including Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the powerful chairman of the judiciary committee, have pointed to a supposed epidemic of abortions based on the race of the fetus—an argument that dominates the memo below. As Ross told Mencimer, the whole notion of black women choosing an abortion because of the race of the fetus doesn’t make sense:

“It’s kind of hard to find evidence that a black woman is going to have an abortion because she’s surprised to find her baby is black. It just strains credulity to think that’s a problem,” [Ross] says with a hearty laugh. “I mean, she wakes up in the morning and says ‘Oh my god! My baby’s black?’”

UPDATE: My colleague Adam Serwer notes that the essay the Republican memo cites as evidence that “a thorough review of the American family planning movement reveals a history of targeting African-Americans for ‘population control’” is actually a thorough debunking of arguments like those in the memo that argues the opposite point. Here’s a choice excerpt:

Activists are exploiting and distorting the facts to serve their antiabortion agenda. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women—black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.

Also, it’s worth noting, as Jill Lepore did in her excellent New Yorker essay on Planned Parenthood in November, that prominent black Americans such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. were supportive of birth control and family planning, and the history of race and abortion in America is more complicated than the GOP memo would lead you to believe.

You can read the House GOP memo below. (The Document Cloud embed might take a second to load. If it doesn’t appear, try refreshing the page.)

With Negative Ad You Get Egg Roll

Pete Hoekstra, horrible racist

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“God damn it!!”~~ me.

BREAKING NEWS:

In a press conference today, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus announced his party’s new Contract Against America which is centered on an avowed opposition to the following items:

1. Sex
2. Winning the Lottery
3. Juicy Hamburgers
4. The Death of Osama Bin Laden
5. The Wheel
6. Jesus (but not The Old Testament God)
7. Laughter
8. Being Cozy in Bed on Rainy Nights
9. Puppies
10. Oxygen

To balance the scales, Priebus followed up by providing a list of what the GOP supports:

1. Dog Bites
2. Telemarketing Phone Calls During Dinner
3. Yeast Infections
4. Sudden and Expensive Car Repairs
5. Impotence
6. Forgetting Wedding Anniversaries
7. Hell
8. Watching Fox News (see 7.)
9. Spontaneous Combustion
10.A Giant Meteor Striking the Earth and Exterminating All Life

Priebus concluded the press conference by deeming baseball, hot dogs and apple pie offensive and UnAmerican and promised that if voters returned Republicans to majorities in Congress and the White House this year, they would finally allow Satan back in the classroom.

Though I wish I was joking about this, the GOP has indeed come out against the concept of “good things”. They oppose tax fairness for all Americans as “class warfare”, criticize immorality as “opposing Free Enterprise”, protest helping the poor and needy as “enslaving people” and object to the refusal to turn everyone over the age of 65 into a cheap and plentiful food source for the 99% (“Soylent Greed”).

During the Superbowl, Chrysler presented an ad starring Clint Eastwood that basically expressed that though we’ve suffered and are suffering hard times, as Americans, we have the strength and will to come back.

This was of course an outrageous attack on Republicans. Karl Rove responded this way to it:

ROVE: “I was, frankly, offended by it. I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

Put through the GOP Translation machine:

ROVE: “How the hell are we supposed to win in November if Americans become hopeful and they see the truth that the economy is getting better? Anyone who tries to inspire hope and confidence in Americans or points out that things are improving is an enemy of the GOP. We need a desperate and angry nation that is fearful for the future if we want a chance of winning! I mean, we sure as hell aren’t going to win on substance or Mitt Romney alone!”

When the unexpectedly positive jobs report and the sharp drop in unemployment numbers to 8.3%, the lowest level since February 2009, was announced next week, how did Republicans respond to things getting better for the nation and most Americans?

REP. JEB HENSARLING (Chairman of the House Republican Conference): “Today is an indication of another failure of this president’s policies, 36 months in a row of 8 percent-plus unemployment.

REP. BILL FLORES: “The president’s team is gonna trot out their happy faces today. But the American people are gonna say, ‘not so fast.’”

MITT ROMNEY: “We welcome the fact that jobs were created and unemployment declined. Unfortunately, these numbers cannot hide the fact that President Obama’s policies have prevented a true economic recovery. We can do better.”

Reality and things getting better in America is clearly anti-Republican. Both are deeply offensive to Republicans and inspire a push back from Republicans that despair is what America is all about.

It’s no revelation that Republicans nearly always run on hate and fear. The Rovian strategy of Bush’s re-election wove the fear and loathing of gay marriage along with the certainty of a terrorist attack on America if a Democrat was elected. The McCain/Palin run was predicated on fear of a black, socialist Kenyan pal of terrorists taking over the White House and beheading Christians in the streets while making their children convert to Islam.

So here we are again in 2012 and once again, the campaign is again instilling fear of other nations and races (including that “feriner” Obama), instilling fear of the nation’s economy and social fabric being destroyed (by that “feriner”, socialist Obama) and instilling anger about things that are getting better by insisting that they are not getting better fast enough (thanks to that “feriner”, socialist, failure Obama).

There is no positive or hopeful view about America from the GOP. Romney may blather about how he “cares” about the middle class but he can’t talk about what specifically he will do to make things better for 99% of Americans. That’s because his budget plan would raise taxes by more than 60% on the poor.

What is surprising is how unsurprising this all seems to far too many Americans. It is positive to see that as of now, when Romney should be at his highest advantage over Obama, Obama is polling well ahead of Romney. However, 45% of those polled are supporting Romney and the negative and nihilist policies he represents.

How can this be? Are 45% of American voters closet super-villains? Do they really oppose truth, justice and The American Way? Of course not, there are a variety of reasons why people are supporting, ignorantly and against their own interests, the GOP as the party of Anti-Good.

There is of course the mindless GOP Base which would support steamrollers destroying their homes and all of their possessions if it was supported by the GOP. Then there are those who are racist,  hate that a black man is in the White House and want to do everything they can to replace him with a lying, uncaring and unprincipled white man to restore integrity to the office.

The group supporting doom and gloom in the form of The Republican Party that may be the most annoying is The Short Term Thinkers. The Short Term Thinkers use the fractured logic of, “Well, we may have had the worst recession since the depression, things may be getting better but as long as everything isn’t perfect for me today, we need a new President.” Such ignorance about the need for programs and leadership to become most effective and beneficial over time is astounding.

Would these same people expect to be able to save up a retirement nest egg in one year? Would they vote against evolution because it didn’t change things quickly enough?

Preceding the economic crash, Americans have been programmed by our corporately designed greed and self-indulgence-oriented society that “You can have it all…now!” There is a harmful lack of long term planning and commitment by Americans to big goals and an almost neurotic leaping back and forth from party to party based solely on wanting things now.
There is an extraordinary amount of wishful thinking and naivete as well, frequently believing the pie-in-the-sky promises of one party’s candidates to make everything better immediately…which appears especially ignorant after these same people have seen time and again that better times can’t be brought about by any politicians or party instantaneously.

Sometimes, the hobbled reasoning of these people is, “Well, I don’t like that things aren’t how I want them now so I’m just gonna vote against the party in power!” What is glaringly absent from the reasoning of such people is that they aren’t thinking about how much worse things could be under that specific alternative they would put in power by default.

If you’re unhappy with your car because it doesn’t go fast enough for you and just jump into any other car because it isn’t your current car, you could be trading a decent car for one that breaks down and sabotaging your ultimate goal, that is, safely arriving at your desired destination.

If one doesn’t explore and compare choices and just gives power to another entity based solely on rejecting the current entity in power, you can (and we have) indeed go from the frying pan into the fire.

There are those Short Term Thinkers who vote primarily on their immediate feelings and emotions, those who either refused to vote in 2010 or voted for Republicans out of spite for Obama and the Democrats not giving them the miracle they wanted.

VWA (Voting While Angry) is dangerous. Reason and critical thinking is abandoned. Such people not only cut off their noses to spite their face, they’ll cut off their own unemployment insurance as well, along with Social Security and Medicare. What these people care about is “getting even” and hurting the politicians they’re mad at…even though they may be harming themselves far worse than they have been. It’s irrational.

A political party that is based upon hate, fear and bad things happening to 99% of good people should be a cult, a small quirky minority that is nowhere close to being a mainstream party. There are only about 28% of voters that identify themselves as Republicans. That sounds about right.

Without those voting out of ignorance, emotion or disappointment at not having it all now, the GOP would be consigned to being the minority oddity that it should indeed be.

So maybe, the answer this year is to use their opposition to “good” against them, appealing to the good in these people, something the GOP is unable to do and perhaps a long term trend against those who root against “good” could become a longtime or even permanent majority.

And that could be very, very good indeed.

You can access all the past editions of The Daily Planet on the green Category bar on the top of each page under the heading PlanetPOV.

_________________________________________

BUSINESS

Romney’s Firm Instructs American Airlines to Sack 13,000 Workers

Addiciting Info:

On Wednesday, February 1st, American Airlines announced that it will take the advice of Mitt Romney’s firm, Bain Capital, and lay off 13,000 workers -15 percent of its workforce- replacing their pension plans with 401(k) plans and ending company-paid retiree healthcare.

The lay off announcement came only seven days after American Airlines hired Bain Capital to guide it through a bankruptcy procedure for which the airline had filed last November.

American Airlines spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, the cost of hiring Bain – hourly fees of up to $1,100- as “a usual and necessary part of the Chapter 11 process. We will be reviewing these costs carefully to ensure that they are monitored and managed appropriately.”

MORE>>>

WaPo: American Airlines ’ request for $9 billion pension bailout draws fire & not just from unions 

American Airlines has saved $2.1 billion since 2006, thanks to two congressional measures that allowed it to reduce contributions to its pension plans. The company said it would make up any shortfall later.

Later has come, but there’s been a change in that plan.

American Airlines, whose parent company filed for bankruptcy in November, said this week that it wants to terminate its four pension plans for 130,000 workers and retirees and ask the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. to bail out its unfunded pension obligations to the tune of $9 billion. It would be the largest PBGC bailout ever. Without the congressional relief, the gap would have been smaller, the PBGC said.

The move, which needs approval from a New York judge, has angered the PBGC and labor unions representing American Airlines workers, in part because the airline had $4 billion incash when it filed for bankruptcy and because it hasn’t yet made any proposal for restructuring its massive debt to financial institutions.

“American and other carriers have repeatedly asked Congress to give them funding relief in the last six years. More than $2 billion was diverted from their pension funds to their bankruptcy war chest,”Josh Gotbaum, director of the PBGC, said Friday. “In effect, the Congress of the United States and the employees of American Airlines provided half of the money to sustain American in bankruptcy.”

One of those congressional measures, the Pension Protection Act of 2006, gave airlines the flexibility to cut pension fund contributions for two years and spread them out in later years. PBGC analysts estimate that American Airlines was able to cut its pension fund contributions by $1.1 billion in 2006 and 2007 thanks to that legislation.

[...]

But not everyone thinks American tried diligently enough. The PBGC’s Gotbaum, a former investment banker, spent two years as bankruptcy trustee for Hawaiian Airlines, ultimately restructuring the company, repaying creditors and preserving defined benefit pensions.

“We know that other airlines have successfully restructured, preserved their jobs and kept their pension plans. We don’t see why American can’t, too,” Gotbaum said Friday. “We hope that before American takes the drastic action of terminating the pension plans covering 130,000 American employees that it tries hard to find an alternative and shows the world that there is no other alternative.”

The PBGC is financed by premiums from private companies; American Airlines paid $260 million over 30 years. The PBGC guarantees private pensions up to $55,840 a year. That covers most airline workers, but the APA, the pilots’ union, said that about 3,800 of its members would be affected by the ceiling. PBGC would cover $9 billion of the American Airlines’ $10 billion of unfunded pensions.

The agency has filed liens on American Airlines assets, largely offices and facilities in Latin America that are not protected by the bankruptcy. American paid only $6.5 million of the $100 million in pension contributions due Jan. 15, the PBGC said.

“This is not a case of runaway labor costs. This is a case of poor management,” Jamie Horwitz, spokesman for the Transit Workers Union, said. He pointed to infighting among top executives and the bankruptcy filing’s revelation that the airline bought a $30 million London home for Tom Horton, who recently became the company’s chief executive.

“I’m a little bitter,” said TWU International President James C. Little, who had just negotiated concessions and was about to bring them to a vote of the union’s 26,000 American workers. “I’m very frustrated at American’s going to go to court and use the bankruptcy process to terminate the plan.”

ECONOMY

WaPo: Obama pushing to close Fannie, Freddie

The Obama administration plans to push forward this spring with efforts to wind down government-backed housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and attract more private funding to mortgage markets, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Thursday.

Geithner told reporters that administration officials have begun more intensively exploring legislative options for overhauling the nation’s housing finance system with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as well as with academics and outside advocacy groups.

Still, he said that concrete changes won’t come soon.

“It’s going to be a complicated process,” Geithner said. “We don’t expect to legislate this year.”

MORE>>>

The People’s View: President Obama Serves Up Big Plate of Crow to GOP As Unemployment Dips to 3-Year Low

The President is making things worse! His economic policies haven’t worked! We must stop giving consumers power!

These are the cries of the modern day GOP. Over the past months, though, as the economy has shown better signs of life, including in the job market, their chants have been harder to sustain, their disregard for facts not withstanding. Today’s jobs report - with 257,000 private sector jobs created in January and theunemployment rate falling to a three-year low of 8.3%, numbers significantly better than most predictions -- serves them up with another well-deserved, nice, big plate of crow.

The chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger provides a great summary for the current employment situation:

 The unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage point to 8.3%, from a high of 10% in October 2009. The drop in unemployment over the month was entirely due to employment growth, as the labor force participation rate remained constant, once new population weights are taken into account. Theunemployment rate has fallen by 0.8 percentage point in the last 12 months. Private sector payrolls increased by 257,000 jobs and overall payroll employment rose by 243,000 jobs in January. Despite adverse shocks that have created headwinds for economic growth, the economy has added private sector jobs for 23 straight months, for a total of 3.7 million payroll jobs over that period. In the last 12 months, 2.2 million private sector jobs were added on net. Nonetheless, we need faster growth to put more Americans back to work.

Looked at another way,

The Republicans have consistently blocked, derailed and discredited President Obama’s attempts to create jobs. When they came to power in the states last year, they made sure that as much of the private sector jobs growth as possible would be negated by the jobs they were eliminating of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other crucial public service personnel in their states while taking state helicopter rides to their own kids’ games.

Yet, the President has kept a consistent focus and worked tirelessly to return the economy to health. He has been obstructed and fought every step of the way by two-faced Republicans -- people who at once claimed that the president’s first recovery package created no jobs and wrote letters asking for stimulus money for their districts specifically citing its job creating potential, people who famously called for Detroit to go bankrupt and once the President’s rescue of the American auto industry succeeded, claimed it was their idea all along, people who ridiculed the President for protecting the safety net for laid off workers in the form of unemployment insurance and lamented about unemployment, people who in the same breath said tax cuts for the rich do not need to be paid for but a payroll tax cut for everyone who earns a paycheck needs to sunset.

Join this level of Republican obstructionism to what people supposedly on our “own” side did to him: advocating for complete inaction on things like health reform and Wall Street reform if they couldn’t get all their ponies, to outright opposing the payroll tax cuts on the fictitious ground thatit would harm the basis for the popularity of social security. The whiner’s disdain for the President they saw as inept and -- hell, they all but said it, uppity -- and their constant barrage of attacks set progress back as much as anything the Republicans did.

The good news today is that with 257,000 new private sector jobs created last month and the unemployment rate dropping to a three-year low, there’s plenty of  crow to go around for both the rabid Right and the radical Left.

When thanks to this collaboration from the ideologue radical Left, the GOP gained power last year in Congress, they were even more vicious in trying to kill the president’s jobs agenda. When the President proposed a jobs package consisting only of things that both parties have traditionally agreed on, Republicans turned their back. When the president wanted to make investments in American students, American jobs and American manufacturing, they balked at ‘spending’, yet had no trouble spending trillions on tax giveaways for the super rich and multinational corporations.

But the President didn’t give up. He broke up his jobs plan into smaller bills and tried to push those through Congress. He was relentless in making sure that into this year, the working poor and the middle class kept their payroll tax relief, and the unemployed continued to have a safety net. The battle on that front isn’t over, however, as it was only a temporary extension for two months, and Congress is going to have to extend it again.

And the president went beyond the legislative rancor, resolving to do what he can legally through administrative means. The White House launched the We Can’t Wait campaign, and has already launched new initiatives to boost travel and tourism in the United States, launched a summer jobs initiative, appointed Richard Cordray to the consumer protection agency so that consumers can spend more confidently, launched two initiatives to provide $2 billion for start-ups, made a $4 billion investment into energy efficiency, provided new resources for veterans to find jobs, and so much more.

From the day he came into office, the President has been committed to rebuilding the American economy -- not on boom and bust but on sound basis. He knew the rewards won’t come right away, and many in his party paid a tough political price in 2010 for doing the right thing. The good news is that we are now beginning to see the results of the President’s resolute focus. America is coming back -- it may even be starting to roar back!

Ezra Klein — Study: Income inequality may boost your ego

A new study finds that countries with more income inequality tend to have more people whobelieve that they are better than average — a psychological phenomenon known as “self-enhancement.” The study, published in Psychological Science, hypothesizes that societies with high levels of inequality are more likely to encourage competition over scarce rewards, and outsized perceptions of the self is simply an outgrowth of that environment.

Income inequality may foster greater self-enhancement through increased competition. Takata (2003) found that when Japanese participants were asked to compete over a limited resource under zero-sum conditions (i.e., the winner receives everything, the loser nothing), they displayed levels of self-enhancement similar to the levels displayed by Americans. That is, when people compete over concentrated rewards, they have a tendency to self-enhance …

In societies with more income equality, people may not only have more equal incomes, but they may also feel a pressure to seem more similar to others. This may manifest as a modesty norm, whereby people are discouraged from voicing both real and perceived superiority

Despite stereotypes, America is actually in the middle of pack when it comes to self-enhancement. But it’s ahead of most industrialized nations, which could still make it the land of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon — “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”

MoJo: Soaking the Poor, State by State 

You have heard, perhaps, that rich people in America are egregiously overtaxed. And the poor? They’re the lucky duckies! Why, 47 percent of Americans pay no taxes at all!

(This is not true, of course. Many poor and elderly Americans pay no federal income tax, but they pay plenty of other taxes.)

Still and all, it’s true that the federal income tax is indeed progressive. Conservatives are right about that—though it’s not as progressive as it used to be, back before top marginal rates were lowered and capital gains taxes were slashed in half. But conservatives are a little less excited to talk about other kinds of taxes. Payroll taxes aren’t progressive, for example. In fact, they’re actively regressive, with the poor and middle classes paying higher rates than the rich.

And then there are state taxes. Those include state income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and fees of various kinds. How progressive are state taxes?

Answer: They aren’t. The Corporation for Enterprise Development recently released a scorecard for all 50 states, and it has boatloads of useful information. That includes overall tax rates, where data from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that in the median state (Mississippi, as it turns out) the poorest 20 percent pay twice the tax rate of the top 1 percent. In the worst states, the poorest 20 percent pay five to six times the rate of the richest 1 percent. Lucky duckies indeed. There’s not one single state with a tax system that’s progressive. Check the table below to see how your state scores.

Quote of the Morning

“To supposedly alleviate the very poor, and Mitt was right. The very poor in America do have a lot of programs a lot of benefits. People aren’t dying in America. You know, in fact, the very poor suffer from gout. In fact, in the 1920s and 30s that was called the rich man’s disease…” Fox News contributor Charles Payne defending Mitt Romney’s “I don’t care about poor people” gaffe

You know why they have gout? Because cheap food is unhealthy and gives people gout, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Also, alcohol causes gout. We can safely assume that some poor people suffer from depression — due either to their station or a genetic mental disorder — and they can’t afford therapy and meds because the Republicans don’t want to raise taxes on Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, so they self medicate with shitty cheap food, booze and worse.

But I’m over-rationalizing this nonsense. The Republicans have always tried to make the case that poor people are somehow privileged free-loadeers milking the system and living like gazillionaires. And, to repeat one of my refrains, people still take these idiots seriously.

How the right-wing is lying about a key unemployment statistic

Krugman:

Recent facts have not been kind to the political right. A better-than-expected jobs report; a renewed focus on inequality, driven both by CBO research and by the gift of Mitt Romney’s candidacy. What to do?

The answer is to throw a bunch of bogus numbers at the issues, in the hope that something sticks, or at least that the discussion becomes confused.

First, about that jobs report: all the usual suspects have jumped on the routine BLS population adjustment to claim that the numbers were cooked. The real story here is that the BLS estimates unemployment based on a monthly survey; this tells us what fraction of workers are unemployed. To turn that into a number of unemployed, the BLS estimates total working-age population; but it updates those estimates only once a year. So there’s usually a step up or down in the totals each January, signifying nothing.

Back in the Bush years there were a lot of bogus claims of huge job growth reflecting a step up in the population numbers. Now we have Rush Limbaugh, Fox, etc., claiming that a step down somehow implies fake calculations. Still not true. And the thing that makes this so tiring is that they keep trotting out the same old bogosity, no matter how many times it has been refuted.

Next up, inequality denial. The Census Gini figure hasn’t moved much since the early 1990s — but as Jon Chait says, we know perfectly well why: it’s because Census numbers are top-coded, that is, cut off at high income levels, and the big gains have come way up the scale.

How do we know that? Partly, just look around: walk around New York’s pricier neighborhoods and tell me that inequality hasn’t increased. But also, income tax data. Here’s what the IRS tells us about income shares at the top:

Notice that the rise is almost entirely concentrated in the top 1 percent; even the bottom half of the top 10 percent went nowhere, which tells you once again that this is about the 1 versus the 99, not the top 20 versus the lower class. And yes, the data are overwhelming support for a rise in inequality.

Oh, and Chait tells us that the usual suspects are also rolling out the old “the rich in America pay more taxes than the rich in other countries” thing. Yes — because the American rich are much, much richer.

In a way it’s almost a relief to find these guys coming up with new fallacies. Brad DeLong catches the WSJ looking at estimates that federal workers get 2 percent more salary and 48 percent more benefits than private-sector workers — and concluding that this means that they are overpaid by 50 percent.

The important point to make here is that all these bogus numbers are coming from seemingly authoritative sources — Fox News, which is a big organization, the WSJ editorial page, the American Enterprise Institute. You could not imagine a similar level of statistical dishonesty from, say, The Nation, or Washington Monthly, or EPI.

This is what I mean when I say that the left and right aren’t symmetric. People of all persuasions lie; but the right has a whole institutional structure of lying that has no counterpart on the left.

Private sector jobs created, Reagan vs. G.W.Bush vs. Obama vs. Clinton 

ENERGY

NYT: In Fuel Oil Country, Cold That Cuts to the Heart

DIXFIELD, Me.

With the darkening approach of another ice-hard Saturday night in western Maine, the man on the telephone was pleading for help, again. His tank was nearly dry, and he and his disabled wife needed precious heating oil to keep warm. Could Ike help out? Again?

Ike Libby, the co-owner of a small oil company called Hometown Energy, ached for his customer, Robert Hartford. He knew what winter in Maine meant, especially for a retired couple living in a wood-frame house built in the 19th century. But he also knew that the Hartfords already owed him more than $700 for two earlier deliveries.

The oil man said he was very sorry. The customer said he understood. And each was left to grapple with a matter so mundane in Maine, and so vital: the need for heat. For the rest of the weekend, Mr. Libby agonized over his decision, while Mr. Hartford warmed his house with the heat from his electric stove’s four burners.

“You get off the phone thinking, ‘Are these people going to be found frozen?’ ” Mr. Libby said. No wonder, he said, that he is prescribed medication for stress and “happy pills” for equilibrium.

Two days later, Mr. Libby told his two office workers about his decision. Diane Carlton works the front desk while her daughter-in-law, Janis, handles accounts. But they share the job of worrying about Ike, whose heart, they say, is too big for his bantam size and, maybe, this business.

The Hartford case “ate him,” Janice Carlton recalled. “It just ate him.”

Mr. Libby drove off to make deliveries in his oil truck, a rolling receptacle of crumpled coffee cups and cigarette packs. Diane Carlton, the office’s mother hen, went home early. This meant that Janis Carlton was alone when their customer, Mr. Hartford, stepped in from the cold. He had something in his hand: the title to his 16-year-old Lincoln Town Car.

Would Hometown Energy take the title as collateral for some heating oil? Please?

Maine is in the midst of its Republican presidential caucus, the state’s wintry moment in the battle for the country’s future. But at this time of year, almost nothing matters here as much as basic heat.

While federal officials try to wean the country from messy and expensive heating oil, Maine remains addicted. The housing stock is old, most communities are rural, and many residents cannot afford to switch to a cleaner heat source. So the tankers pull into, say, the Portland port, the trucks load up, and the likes of Ike Libby sidle up to house after house to fill oil tanks.

This winter has been especially austere. As part of the drive to cut spending, the Obama administration and Congress have trimmed the energy-assistance program that helps the poor — 65,000 households in Maine alone — to pay their heating bills. Eligibility is harder now, and the average amount given here is $483, down from $804 last year, all at a time when the price of oil has risen more than 40 cents in a year, to $3.71 a gallon.

As a result, Community Concepts, a community-action program serving western Maine, receives dozens of calls a day from people seeking warmth. But Dana Stevens, its director of energy and housing, says that he has distributed so much of the money reserved for emergencies that he fears running out. This means that sometimes the agency’s hot line purposely goes unanswered.

So Mainers try to make do. They warm up in idling cars, then dash inside and dive under the covers. They pour a few gallons of kerosene into their oil tank and hope it lasts. And they count on others. Maybe their pastor. Maybe the delivery man. Maybe, even, a total stranger.

Hometown Energy has five trucks and seven employees, and is run out of an old house next to the Ellis variety store and diner. Oil perfumes the place, thanks to the petroleum-stained truckers and mechanics clomping through. Janis Carlton, 35, tracks accounts in the back, while Diane Carlton, 64, works in the front, where, every now and then, she finds herself comforting walk-ins who fear the cold so much that they cry.

Their boss, Mr. Libby, 53, has rough hands and oil-stained dungarees. He has been delivering oil for most of his adult life — throwing the heavy hose over his shoulder, shoving the silver nozzle into the tank and listening for the whistle that blows when oil replaces air. […]

“You know what my dream is?” Mr. Libby asked. “To be a greeter at Walmart.”

This is because he sells heat — not lumber, or paper, or pastries — and around here, more than a few come too close to not having enough. Sure, some abuse the heating-assistance program, he says, but many others live in dire need, including people he has known all his life.

So Mr. Libby does what he can. Unlike many oil companies, he makes small deliveries and waves off most service fees. He sets up elaborate payment plans, hoping that obligations don’t melt away with the spring thaw. He accepts postdated checks. And he takes his medication.

When the customer named Robert Hartford called on the after-hours line that Saturday afternoon, asking for another delivery, Mr. Libby struggled to do what was right. He cannot bear the thought of people wanting for warmth, but his tendency to cut people a break is one reason Hometown Energy isn’t making much money, as his understanding partner keeps gently pointing out.

“I do have a heart,” Mr. Libby said. But he was already “on the hook” for the two earlier deliveries he had made to the couple’s home. What’s more, he didn’t know even know the Hartfords.

Robert and Wilma Hartford settled into the porous old house, just outside of Dixfield, a few months ago, in what was the latest of many moves in their 37-year marriage. Mr. Hartford was once a stonemason who traveled from the Pacific Northwest to New England, plying his trade.

Those wandering days are gone. Mr. Hartford, 68, has a bad shoulder, Mrs. Hartford, 71, needs a wheelchair, and the two survive on $1,200 a month (“Poverty,” Mrs. Hartford says). So far this year they have received $360 in heating assistance, he said, about a quarter of last year’s allocation.

Mr. Hartford said he used what extra money they had to repair broken pipes, install a cellar door, and seal various cracks with Styrofoam spray that he bought at Walmart. That wasn’t enough to block the cold, of course, and the two oil deliveries carried them only into early January.

There was no oil to burn, so the cold took up residence, beside the dog and the four cats, under the velvet painting of Jesus. The couple had no choice but to run up their electric bill. They turned on the Whirlpool stove’s burners and circulated the heat with a small fan. They ran the dryer’s hose back into the basement to keep pipes from freezing, even when there were no clothes to dry.

And, just about every day, Mr. Hartford drove to a gas station and filled up a five-gallon plastic container with $20 of kerosene. “It was the only way we had,” he said. Finally, seeing no other option, Mr. Hartford made the hard telephone call to Hometown Energy. Panic lurked behind his every word, and every word wounded the oil man on the other end.

“I had a hard time saying no,” Mr. Libby said. “But I had to say no.”

When Mr. Hartford heard that no, he also heard regret. “You could tell in his voice,” he said.

Two days later, Mr. Hartford drove up to Hometown Energy’s small office in his weathered gray Lincoln, walked inside, and made his desperate offer: The title to his car for some oil.

His offer stunned Janis Carlton, the only employee present. But she remembered that someone had offered, quietly, to donate 50 gallons of heating oil if an emergency case walked through the door. She called that person and explained the situation.

Her mother-in-law and office mate, Diane Carlton, answered without hesitation. Deliver the oil and I’ll pay for it, she said, which is one of the ways that Mainers make do in winter.

ENVIRONMENT

Science behind the big freeze: Is climate change bringing the Arctic to Europe?

The Independent:

A loss of sea ice could be a cause of the bitter winds that have swept across the UK in the past week, weather experts say

More>>>

HEALTH CARE

Prosecutions for Medicare Fraud

JUSTICE

AP: Obama could alter stance of federal appeals courts

A second term for President Barack Obama would allow him to expand his replacement of Republican-appointed majorities with Democratic ones on the nation’s appeals courts, the final stop for almost all challenged federal court rulings.

Despite his slow start in nominating judges and Republican delays in Senate confirmations, Obama has still managed to alter the balance of power on four of the nation’s 13 circuit courts of appeals. Given a second term, Obama could have the chance to install Democratic majorities on several others.

Fourteen of the 25 appeals court judges nominated by Obama replaced Republican appointees.

The next president, whether it’s Obama or a Republican, also has a reasonable shot at transforming the majority on the Supreme Court, because three justices representing the closely divided court’s liberal and conservative wings, as well as its center, will turn 80 before the next presidential term ends.

The three justices are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the leader of the court’s liberal wing, conservative Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy, who leans conservative but on some issues provides a decisive vote for the liberals.

The next high court opening would cause a titanic confirmation fight if it would allow a Republican president to cement conservative control of the court by replacing Ginsburg or if Obama could give Democratic appointees a working majority for the first time in decades by replacing Scalia or Kennedy.

The prospect of such dramatic change on the Supreme Court, along with the justices’ strikingly high-profile election-year docket could heighten the judiciary’s importance as an election issue, said Curt Levey, who heads the conservative Committee for Justice. The justices will hear arguments on Obama’s health care overhaul in March and Arizona’s immigration crackdown in April. The court also could soon decide whether to hear a Texas affirmative action case challenging the use of race as a factor in college admissions.

Even one new justice can produce dramatic change. Justice Samuel Alito replaced the more moderate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and shifted the outcome in cases on abortion, campaign finance and other key issues, even though both were appointed by Republicans.

Openings on the circuit courts of appeals get much less attention, but those courts have the last say in most legal disputes that are appealed in the federal system. Only about 80 cases make it to the Supreme Court every year.

There are still more Republicans than Democrats on the circuit appeals courts and on the entire federal bench. But if Obama merely filled existing vacancies, Democratic appointees would be the majority on the influential court of appeals in Washington, where four current Supreme Court justices once served, and the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Republicans also maintain their edge on the 10th Circuit in Denver only because two judgeships are empty.

Two other appeals courts on which Republicans have comfortable majorities could shift over the next four years. The Chicago-based 7th Circuit has four judges in their 70s who were chosen by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, Judge Emilio Garza, a Republican appointee, will take senior status in August, a move that will open a seat while Garza takes a smaller caseload. Two Reagan picks in their 70s remain on the court.

Twelve Reagan appointees now in their 70s remain on circuit appeals courts or, in the case of Scalia and Kennedy, the Supreme Court.

Republican presidents, in recent decades, have been more aggressive than Democrats in filling those seats with younger, more like-minded lawyers.

Many nominees of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush were in their early 40s, some even in their 30s, and with reputations as bold conservatives. By contrast, Obama has frustrated some liberal interest groups mainly by favoring older nominees over younger ones who might be the Democratic equivalents of some of the Reagan and Bush picks. Obama’s two youngest appeals court nominees, Goodwin Liu and Caitlin Halligan, were stymied by Republican filibusters in the Senate.

The average age of Obama-nominated appeals court judges is more than 55 years old, higher than any president’s going back to Jimmy Carter, according to the liberal interest group Alliance for Justice. The age of these judges matters in an era when presidents regularly look to the circuit appeals courts as the pool for Supreme Court candidates. Younger judges have a chance to develop a record that presidents can examine, yet still be young enough to be considered for the high court.

[...]

Obama’s picks have yet to surprise anyone with their decisions, said Levey, head of the conservative interest group. “So Obama’s liberal critics can rest assured that if he’s re-elected, his transformation of the appeals courts will make a big difference in the law.”

Party labels do not always foretell a case’s outcome. During recent challenges to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul, Republican appeals court judges in Cincinnati and Washington cast deciding votes upholding the law, while a Democratic appointee in Atlanta voted to strike down the requirement that most people buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

Still, there is wide agreement that Obama picks have sharply altered the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had been dominated by conservative, Republican appointees.

Indiana’s Secretary of State has been convicted on multiple vote fraud related felony counts

TPM:

The long saga of Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R) isn’t over yet — but it now it includes a conviction on 6 felony charges. White, the top elections official in his state, was indicted last March on charges that he lied about where he lived to remain on the voter rolls in the Fishers, IN district where he served on the city council along with other related charges. On Friday, he was convicted on 6 out of 7 felony charges and was immediately replaced by a new interim director. 

The Indianapolis Star reports that the conviction may not be the end of this time at the top of the state’s electoral law enforcement strucuture. 

White, 42, Fishers, plans to ask a judge to reduce his convictions – all class D felonies – to misdemeanors at sentencing. It’s uncertain whether that move would allow him to reclaim his job.

“We don’t know the right answer to that,” White said. “This is all very new.”

Shortly after White’s verdict was read, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced in a news release shortly before 3 a.m. that he has appointed Jerry Bonnet, White’s chief deputy, as interim secretary of state.

“I have chosen not to make a permanent appointment today out of respect for the judge’s authority to lessen the verdict to a misdemeanor and reinstate the elected office holder,” the Republican governor said in the news release. “If the felony convictions are not altered, I anticipate making a permanent appointment quickly.”

But state Democrats say it’s time for White to go.

“It’s obvious that Mitch Daniels will try anything to take back this fraudulent election, but there’s only one thing that should happen now: Vop Osili [the Democrat White defeat in the Sec. of State race in 2010] should become Secretary of State, and we should put the embarrassment that is Charlie White behind us,” state Democratic party chair Dan Parker said in a statement.

Muslim sales manager arrested as terrorist for call to ‘blow away’ the competition

MEDIA

This Week Host Lets George Will Lie About Contraceptive Mandate And ‘Abortion-Inducing Drugs’ 

Mediatite:

The lie that emergency contraception is the sameas the “abortion pill” RU-486 has just completed the jump from the minds of Republicans like Michele Bachmann, to Fox News opinion programming, to the broader mainstream media. On Sunday morning’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos sat mute as columnist George Will repeated the lie that the Obama administration’s Preventive Services Mandate would force religious employers to “provide…abortion-inducing drugs.”

Women’s health has been a hot topic in the news this week, with heated interest in the Obama administration’s announcement that certain religious employers would have one year to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Mandate, and the intense backlash toward, andreversal of, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure charity’s decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood. There are strong opinions on every side of these issues, but on issues of medical fact, there is only one set of facts, and it is the news media’s duty to ensure that.

Conservative opponents of contraception have been trying to inject their articles of faith into the medical nomenclature around emergency contraception for a long time. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich mentioned the medically paradoxical “Morning After Abortion Pill” in an opposition memo a few months ago, and Rep. Michele Bachmann had also been dropping references to the mythical meds into her stump speeches.

In early January, Bachmann made the unchallenged claim on Fox News’ Fox and Friends, and a few weeks later, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. falsely claimed that the new Preventive Services regs require religious employers who employ people of multiple faiths to “provide drugs that induce abortions.”

Hardball host Chris Matthews made the qualified statement that Catholics believe that certain types of contraception are “abortive,” but failed to provide the correct medical information, in a recent segment on the mandate.

On Sunday morning’s This Week, columnist George Will tried to change the subject from the Komen decision, telling host George Stephanopoulos “A much more important decision politically that was taken this week was the Obama administration saying that Catholic institutions have no choice, and this was applauded by pro-choice people, have no choice but to provide contraception,abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization.”

Stephanopoulos blankly replied, “I want to get to that, as well,” meaning the subject of the contraceptive mandate, but he never corrected Will’s assertion.

As I’ve written in this space several times now, the “morning after pill” is not an “abortion pill,” it can never be an “abortion pill,” because pregnancy cannot occur within the drug’s effectiveness window. Furthermore, the actual “abortion pill,” RU-486, is not covered by the Preventive Services Mandate (nor is it approved for over-the-counter sale, like Plan B is). The information that Will, et al, are disseminating is medically inaccurate, and people like Stephanopoulos have a duty to correct it, the way news organizations eventually corrected Michele Bachmann’s ludicrous claims about the HPV vaccine.

Broadcasting false medical information is a potentially dangerous act that is, at the very least, grossly irresponsible. In this case, it has the potential of discouraging women from using a medication that they have no reason to fear, or to encourage misuse of that same medication.

If Geogre Will said that large doses of aspirin cause four-hour erections, or that Lipitor makes you go blind, Stephanopoulos would surely have corrected him, but when it comes to women’s health, the media doesn’t seem to be taking science seriously. It falls to news consumers like you (and me) to demand that they do.

Here’s the clip, from ABC News’ This Week: [Warning: There's a hideous Greek whore in the clip.]

MILITARY

Gates: GOP Claims That Obama Is Ushering U.S. Military Decline Are ‘Ridiculous’ 

ThinkProgress:

The Republican candidates for president have largely settled on two common themes throughout the campaign thus far: that President Obama is ushering in American decline, both at home and abroad, and that the United States should confront Iran militarily over its nuclear program. “Internationally, we have witnessed aweakening of our military and a decline in our standing in the world,” Mitt Romney said in December. While Romney has gone back and forth the in using harsh rhetoric on Iranthis campaign season, his competitors aren’t so shy about using bellicose rhetoric. Rick Santorum said attacking Iran is part of his plan.

Last night on CNN, host John King asked former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican who served in both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations, about the GOP charges. While Gates noted that America’s economic standing has been in flux for decades, he called the charge that the President is overseeing American military decline “ridiculous” and later said the GOP’s militaristic rhetoric on Iran is “irresponsible”:

GATES: Are we talking about relative role economically in the world? Because that’s been going down for 60 years. It was an unnatural situation to begin with. If we’re talking about military power, I think that’s ridiculous. Our military power has nothing comparable to it anywhere in the world or any combination of nations that come anywhere close to our military power. [...]

And those who say we should underestimate the consequences of going to war [with Iran]. This is, I think, one of the toughest foreign policy problems I have ever seen since entering the government 45 years ago. And I think to talk about it loosely or as though these are easy choices in some way or sort of self-proclaimed, obvious alternatives, I just think is irresponsible.

Watch the clip:

Obama to Israel: No US War on Iran (H/T KQuark)

Consortium News:

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders on Jan. 20 that the United States would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel without prior agreement from Washington, according to accounts from well-placed senior military officers.

Dempsey’s warning, conveyed to both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, represents the strongest move yet by President Barack Obama to deter an Israeli attack and ensure that the United States is not caught up in a regional conflagration with Iran.

But the Israeli government remains defiant about maintaining its freedom of action to make war on Iran, and it is counting on the influence of right-wing extremist views in U.S. politics to bring pressure to bear on Obama to fall into line with a possible Israeli attack during the election campaign this fall.

Obama still appears reluctant to break publicly and explicitly with Israel over its threat of military aggression against Iran, even in the absence of evidence Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon.

Dempsey’s trip was highly unusual, in that there was neither a press conference by the chairman nor any public statement by either side about the substance of his meetings with Israeli leaders. Even more remarkable, no leak about what he said to the Israelis has appeared in either U.S. or Israeli news media, indicating that both sides have regarded what Dempsey said as extremely sensitive.

The substance of Dempsey’s warning to the Israelis has become known, however, to active and retired senior flag officers with connections to the JCS, according to a military source who got it from those officers.

A spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Commander Patrick McNally, offered no comment Wednesday when IPS asked him about the above account of Dempsey’s warning to the Israelis.

The message carried by Dempsey was the first explicit statement to the Netanyahu government that the United States would not defend Israel if it attacked Iran unilaterally. But Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had given a clear hint in an interview on “Face the Nation” on Jan. 8 that the Obama administration would not help defend Israel in a war against Iran that Israel had initiated.

Asked how the United States would react if Israel were to launch a unilateral attack on Iran, Panetta first emphasized the need for a coordinated policy toward Iran with Israel. But when host Bob Schieffer repeated the question, Panetta said, “If the Israelis made that decision, we would have to be prepared to protect our forces in that situation. And that’s what we’d be concerned about.”

Defense Minister Barak had sought to dampen media speculation before Dempsey’s arrival that the chairman was coming to put pressure on Israel over its threat to attack Iran, but then proceeded to reiterate the Netanyahu-Barak position that they cannot give up their responsibility for the security of Israel “for anyone, including our American friends.”

There has been no evidence since the Dempsey visit of any change in the Netanyahu government’s insistence on maintaining its freedom of action to attack Iran.

Dempsey’s meetings with Netanyahu and Barak also failed to resolve the issue of the joint U.S.-Israeli military exercise geared to a missile attack, “Austere Challenge ’12″, which had been scheduled for April 2012 but had been postponed abruptly a few days before Dempsey’s arrival in Israel.

More than two weeks after Dempsey’s meeting with Barak, the spokesman for the Pentagon, John Kirby, told IPS, “All I can say is that the exercise will be held later this year.” That indicated that there has been no major change in the status of U.S.-Israeli discussions of the issue since the postponement of the exercise was leaked Jan. 15.

The postponement has been the subject of conflicting and unconvincing explanations from the Israeli side, suggesting disarray in the Netanyahu government over how to handle the issue. To add to the confusion, Israeli and U.S. statements left it unclear whether the decision had been unilateral or joint as well as the reasons for the decision.

Panetta asserted in a news conference on Jan. 18 that Barak himself had asked him to postpone the exercise. It now clear that both sides had an interest in postponing the exercise and very possibly letting it expire by failing to reach a decision on it.

The Israelis appear to have two distinct reasons for putting the exercise off, which reflect differences between the interests of Netanyahu and his defense minister. Netanyahu’s primary interest in relation to the exercise was evidently to give the Republican candidate ammunition to fire at Obama during the fall campaign by insinuating that the postponement was decided at the behest of Obama to reduce tensions with Iran.

Thus Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman, explained it as a “joint” decision with the United States, adding, “The thinking was it was not the right timing now to conduct such an exercise.” Barak, however, had an entirely different concern, which was related to the Israeli Defence Forces’ readiness to carry out an operation that would involve both attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and minimizing the Iranian retaliatory response.

A former U.S. intelligence analyst who followed the Israeli military closely told IPS he strongly suspects that the IDF has pressed Barak to insist that the Israeli force be at the peak of readiness if and when they are asked to attack Iran.

The analyst, who insisted on anonymity because of his continuing contacts with U.S. military and intelligence personnel, said the 2006 Lebanon War debacle continues to haunt the thinking of IDF leaders. In that war, it became clear that the IDF had not been ready to handle Hezbollah rocket attacks adequately, and the prestige of the Israeli military suffered a serious blow.

The insistence of IDF leaders that they never go to war before being fully prepared is a primary consideration for Barak, according to the analyst. “Austere Challenge ’12″ would inevitably involve a major consumption of military resources, he observes, which would reduce Israeli readiness for war in the short run.

The concern about a major military exercise actually reducing the IDF’s readiness for war against Iran would explain why senior Israeli military officials were reported to have suggested that the reasons for the postponement were mostly “technical and logistical.”

The Israeli military concern about expending scarce resources on the exercise would apply, of course, regardless of whether the exercise was planned for April or late 2012. That fact would help explain why the exercise has not been rescheduled, despite statements from the U.S. side that it will be.

The U.S. military, however, has its own reasons for being unenthusiastic about the exercise. IPS has learned from a knowledgeable source that, well before the Obama administration began distancing itself from Israel’s Iran policy, U.S. Central Command chief James N. Mattis had expressed concern about the implications of an exercise so obviously based on a scenario involving Iranian retaliation for an Israeli attack.

U.S. officials have been quoted as suspecting that the Israeli request for a postponement of the exercise indicated that Israel wanted to leave its options open for conducting a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the spring. But a postponement to the fall would not change that problem. For that reason, the former U.S. intelligence analyst told IPS he doubts that “Austere Challenge ’12″ will ever be carried out.

But the White House has an obvious political interest in using the military exercise to demonstrate that the Obama administration has increased military cooperation with Israel to an unprecedented level. The Defense Department wants the exercise to be held in October, according to the military source in touch with senior flag officers connected to the Joint Chiefs.

Weekly Standard Rolls Out The Iraq Argument For Iran

Oliver Willis:

Did you enjoy the Iraq War? Well, the Weekly Standard wants to do it again, with a new article arguing that sure, Obama got Bin Laden killed and has arrested or killed 20 of the most wanted Al Qaeda terrorists, but never mind because Iran is part of the Axis of Evil. No, seriously.

Let us look at Iran. Although the administration and our European allies appear to be getting much more serious about rigorous sanctions against the Islamic Republic because of its quest for nuclear weapons, the White House has shied away from the possibility that Tehran will respond with terrorism, not negotiations. Perhaps the most stubborn wish in U.S. foreign policy has been the three-decade-old bipartisan determination to engage with and moderate the Islamic Republic. Ever since Ali Khamenei put on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mantle as guardian of the revolution, Western observers have wanted to describe him as “pragmatic” and “moderate,” even though his outpouring of virulently anti-American speeches,let alone the crackdowns and killings he’s unleashed at home since 1999, might engender skepticism. Iran’s much vilified and lampooned president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is probably less hardcore—even on the villainy of world Jewry—than Khamenei is.

The Obama administration is dealing with Iran as the rogue state it is, working with the international community to try and get them in line. The Standard is arguing here for a return to the Bush era where the U.S. government used the magical terrorism wand to short circuit any and all discussion in order to do stupid things like invading sovereign nations based on cooked-up intelligence. It doesn’t work, gets Americans killed, and makes the world less safe.

Conservative foreign policy has discredited itself thanks to its adoption of this kind of useless strategy, and we’d be stupid to adopt it or even acknowledge it as a viable option.

MORE>>>

AlJazeera: US defence secretary’s blunt statements 

Obama: “Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community.”

_FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 4, 2012

Statement by the President on Syria

Thirty years after his father massacred tens of thousands of innocent Syrian men, women, and children in Hama, Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated a similar disdain for human life and dignity.  Yesterday the Syrian government murdered hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women and children, in Homs through shelling and other indiscriminate violence, and Syrian forces continue to prevent hundreds of injured civilians from seeking medical help.  These brutal killings take place at a time when so many Syrians are also marking a deeply meaningful day for their faith.  I strongly condemn the Syrian government’s unspeakable assault against the people of Homs and I offer my deepest sympathy to those who have lost loved ones.  Assad must halt his campaign of killing and crimes against his own people now.  He must step aside and allow a democratic transition to proceed immediately.

The Syrian people demonstrated in large numbers across Syria yesterday to participate in peaceful protests commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Hama massacre.  They labeled the protests, “We are Sorry, Hama – Forgive Us.”  We owe it to the victims of Hama and Homs to learn one lesson: that cruelty must be confronted for the sake of justice and human dignity.  Every government has the responsibility to protect its citizens, and any government that brutalizes and massacres its people does not deserve to govern.  The Syrian regime’s policy of maintaining power by terrorizing its people only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse.  Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community.

The international community must work to protect the Syrian people from this abhorrent brutality.  Earlier this week, our Arab partners called on UN Security Council members to take action to support a political solution to the crisis in Syria and stop Assad’s “killing machine.”  The Council now has an opportunity to stand against the Assad regime’s relentless brutality and to demonstrate that it is a credible advocate for the universal rights that are written into the UN Charter.

We must work with the Syrian people toward building a brighter future for Syria.  A Syria without Assad could be a Syria in which all Syrians are subject to the rule of law and where minorities are able to exercise their legitimate rights and uphold their identities and traditions while acting as fully enfranchised citizens in a unified republic.  The United States and our international partners support the Syrian people in achieving their aspirations and will continue to assist the Syrian people toward that goal.  We will help because we stand for principles that include universal rights for all people and just political and economic reform.  The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.

POLITICS

Romney: “I Won’t Bribe Voters With A Handout”. President Obama’s Comprehensive Accomplishments in Helping the Poor

The People’s View: (Please see original for links.)

[…] I think it is clear that Mitt Romney has a “state of believe” that perceives poor people as problems and painting President Obama as an “entitlement President” is a give away as to what he believes deep in his heart.

Well, the best way to weed out the nonsense is to ask what will Mitt Romney do for the poor because I don’t believe he will make helping the poor a priority as President Obama has made. I have compiled President Obama’s Accomplishment on reducing and assisting people that have become victims of the increased poverty made worse by the economic crisis and these are things Mitt Romney will never try to do if he becomes President:

1) A $20 billion increase for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. [It seems like the President considering the rise in the poverty level (46 million Americans) is trying to help those who are struggling in this economy but they call him a Food Stamp President.]

2) A $1 billion in funding for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) that is intended to revitalize low-income communities via “Job training and placement assistance”, “Financial literacy programs”, et al, to helping families become self-sufficient.

3) A $2 billion in new Neighborhood Stabilization Funds that will allow ailing neighborhoods be kept maintained.

4) A $1.5 billion in Homelessness Prevention Funds to keep people in their homes and prevent homelessness.

5) A $5 billion increase for the Weatherization Assistance Program to help low income families save on their residential energy expenditures by making their homes more energy efficient.

6) A $4 Billion program, The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, “authorizes funding for federal school meal and child nutrition programs and increases access to healthy food for low-income children.”

7) As part of the HCR bill, subsidies will be available to the uninsured and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level($14,404 for individuals and $29,326 for a family of four).

Estabilished Open Doors to end the 640,000 men, women and children who are homeless in America by 2020.

9) Increased the amount of federal Pell Grant awards so that funds are available to those with less access to have opportunity.

10) Provided $510 Million for the rehabilitation of Native American housing.

11) Expanded eligibility for Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,400 per year for an individual).

12) Providing assistance to low-income workers through the Earned Income Tax Credit giving millions of working families the break they need.

13) Education being the way out of Poverty, kicked off the “Race to the Top”, a $4.3 billion program, that rewards via grants to States that meet a few key benchmarks for reform, and states that outperform the rest.

14) Extended Unemployment Benefit to 7,000,000 Americans worth $56 Billion.

15) Invested $2.5 billion in HBCUs and minority-serving institutions and doubled funding for Pell Grants their students rely on.

16) Saved more than 1.4 million jobs in the auto industry.

17) Passed the Affordable Care Act, extending health coverage to 30 million Americans, 7 million more African Americans and investing $10 billion in Community Health Centers to expand medical services.

18) Passed a a 2% employee-side payroll tax cut for over 155 million workers.

19) Created the Race to the Top Fund, a $4.35 billion program to reward States that submit the best proposals for change.

20) $275 billion dollar housing plan - $75 billion dollars to prevent at-risk mortgage debtors already fallen victim to foreclosures and $200 billion to bring about confidence to offer affordable mortgages and to stability the housing market.

21) Provided $510 Million for the rehabilitation of Native American housing.

President’s Weekly Address: It’s Time for Congress to Act to Help Responsible Homeowners 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1_NtyxClu0

Forget super PACs. A modest proposal for legalizing bribery

Steve Perlstein, WaPo:

[...]

Now, with Citizens United, the Supreme Court has finally declared that “enough is enough.” The court didn’t just remove the limits to what wealthy individuals or corporations could contribute to independent (wink-wink) front groups. The five-member majority also invited constitutional challenges to limits on direct contributions to campaigns or political parties and to those silly requirements that the source of every contribution be disclosed in a timely manner.

[…]

So, I propose that we finally give up the charade that we are not “buying” elections and, in fact, do exactly that — mount an all-out political and legal challenge to laws preventing us from buying votes directly.

As you know, bribing voters is an honored tradition in this country, dating to the early days of the Republic. From the Federalist Papers it’s clear that the practice was known to the Framers; if they had found it incompatible with democracy they surely would have banned it in the constitution. Significantly, they did not — nor did they include the regulation of vote-buying in their enumeration of the powers vested in Congress. Therefore, we would be on solid constitutional grounds in trying to establish a property right of all citizens to vote in federal elections — a right that, like all other property rights, can be sold on the free market.

I’ve heard indirectly from Karl Rove that it is not necessary to buy the votes of all citizens to attain the certainty we require. His estimate is that by buying the votes of 10 million Americans every two years, focusing on the key swing states and districts, we can be assured of complete control of the White House and both houses of Congress, and through them the courts and the independent agencies.

I’ve done up a rough business plan for such an effort, based on a Bain & Co. estimate that the average price for a vote will settle in at $1,000. In an open market, of course, we have to expect competitive bidding from the unions (at least until we have succeeded in crushing them) as well as traitors to our class (Soros, Buffett et al). Even at that price, we’re talking a mere $10 billion per election cycle, or $5 billion a year, which on an after-tax basis works out to $4 billion a year. That’s a heck of a lot less than it would cost us if Democrats ever get a hold of power again.

The Chamber of Commerce, I’m sure, will be only too willing to charter the dummy Cayman Island corporation that can serve as the financial pass-through, and to set up the U.S. front group to manage the political operation. Participants can rest assured that their role will never be disclosed to investors or the public at large.

Moreover, once the market is up and running, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse dream up some clever derivative instruments that would allow us to legally (wink-wink) manipulate the market, as they have done with so many other markets.

I’m pretty sure Ted Olson would tell us that our best bet is to initiate a challenge to the outdated anti-bribery laws in Texas, Mississippi or Louisiana, so we can get the case before the Fifth Circuit. Chief Justice Edith Jones and her colleagues are as sympathetic to arguments about original intent as they are toward a rigorous “law and economics” analysis. Business groups will be quick to file amicus briefs. And you can be sure that Ken Cuccinelli and other attorneys general will weigh in with briefs arguing that if the government is allowed to prevent people from selling votes, what’s to stop it from preventing people from selling used pickups, those old issues of National Geographic sitting in the basement or even automatic weapons? Heritage can be relied on to do its usual economic analysis showing the surge in job creation that will come from an extra $5 billion in annual corporate investment.

The only worrisome pushback we are likely to get is from the National Association of Broadcasters and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association. Because of Citizens United, they are drooling over the prospect of billions of dollars in additional TV and radio advertising from the super PACs that will fatten their already fat profits and boost the value of their government licenses. Normally, we would celebrate such hard-won success, but in this case we will have to feign a more populist stance and argue that the money is better put directly in the hands of hard-working, middle-class voters struggling to pay the mortgage and put the kids through college.

We know that Fred Wertheimer and the other goo-goos will be all over NPR and the op-ed pages bellyaching about the corrupting influence of corporate money on government, as if that horse hasn’t long since fled from the barn. So we’ll need to get Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor out there making the case that what’s great about America is it offers anyone the opportunity to become rich and buy votes.

The stunning success of the super PACs in the eyes of the public and the 1% gives us hope that the Supreme Court is ready to finish the work of bringing the magic of the free market to the electoral process. As Justice Kennedy put it so presciently in Citizens United, even “the appearance of [corporate] “influence or access . . .will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.”

Can Romney Move to the Middle?

Karen Tumulty:

The playbook for Republican presidential contenders goes at least as far back as Richard Nixon: Run hard to the right in the primaries; steer back to the center for the general election.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has sold himself all along as the most electable Republican in the field. But as he moves closer to becoming the GOP standard-bearer, the candidate whose authenticity has been questioned from all sides faces a tricky challenge making a pivot for the next phase of the race.

Move toward the center, he infuriates the base; refuse to, he will alienate independent voters. And however he maneuvers, will voters be left with a clear picture of why he is running?Nothing is more central to the GOP self-identity than that this is the party that stands for big ideas.

As Romney has tried to win over his purist skeptics in the GOP’s activist base, he has shifted to the right on a number of issues. Most notable has been his hard-line stance on illegal immigration, where he outflanked Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House speaker Newt Gingrich.

Among the other issues that could put him at odds with independents: his increasingly explicit support for the House Republican plan to restructure Medicare; his declaration that the housing market should be allowed to “hit the bottom,” rather than backing government intervention to slow the rate of foreclosures; his criticism of President Obama’s possible move to end the combat mission in Afghanistan more than a year ahead of schedule.

“Romney’s twin challenges are to unify the Republican base, where significant elements remain unconvinced of the strength of his conservative philosophy, while at the same time not genuflecting so much that he can’t appeal to the independent vote that will ultimately decide the election,” said Ken Duberstein, a former chief of staff in Ronald Reagan’s White House.

In the view of some in his party, Romney has an additional — and more serious — problem heading into the general election: He has thus far failed to brand his candidacy with an expansive vision.

“The fundamental question is whether Romney’s leadership can shape the Republican Party or will the far, far right define Romney?” Duberstein said.

A 59-point economic plan, some senior Republicans point out, is not the same thing as a big idea. Nor is Romney’s constant recitation of the lyrics of “America the Beautiful.”

Argument could lose edge

Going into the fall, Romney will no longer have the advantage of superior resources and organization. And if the economy continues to improve, his most potent argument — that Obama is simply not up to the job of fixing it — will lose its edge.

“What worked against an underfunded Mr. Gingrich won’t work against the well-funded Barack Obama,” Karl Rove, former president George W. Bush’s chief political strategist, warned in a column in the Wall Street Journal after Romney’s Florida win. “He should become bolder in his prescriptions, presenting a confident agenda for economic growth and renewed prosperity through reforms of taxes, regulatory and energy policies.”

[…]

Obama’s reelection campaign does not plan to make the adjustment to the general election campaign any easier for Romney.

At its headquarters in Chicago, Obama’s team is compiling a dossier of Romney statements made in the heat of the primary battle.

“I know he walked away with the hard drives in Massachusetts,” said Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod, referring to the fact that Romney’s gubernatorial staff took computer records with them when they left office. “But the video [from the primary campaign] is going to be hard to erase.”

About even in swing states

Romney aides declined to discuss any plans to retool their campaign for the general election, saying that talking about it amid a primary race would be presumptuous.

They note that, whatever the challenges ahead, Romney is already running just about even with Obama in the swing states — something that is true of no other GOP contender.

And some Republicans note that Romney has always seemed more comfortable when he is on a general election footing, training his fire on Obama and focusing on his own spectacularly successful record in business.

Indeed, his initial strategy for winning the nomination had been to all but ignore his GOP opponents and run as if he already had the nomination.

“Romney’s strength is as a general-election candidate,” said Rob Stutzman, a California-based Republican political consultant. “In some ways, he’ll be able to unleash the real Romney.”

“He’s a good candidate when he engages Obama,” Stutzman added. “He tried to get nominated that way, and it didn’t work.”

Stutzman and others argue that the sooner Romney can get to a two-man contest with the president, the better. But Romney himself professes not to be concerned by the fact that the primary race is likely to drag on at least until next month’s Super Tuesday contests.

“A competitive primary does not divide us,” Romney said in his Florida victory speech. “It prepares us.”

This and worse are what we might be in for: Swift Boat Veterans ad against Kerry. Wow. Just wow. 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Zk9YmED48

NO VOTE FOR YOU: A PRIMER

Angry Black Lady Chronicles:

“What’s the big deal with showing your ID when you go to vote? Won’t it keep down voter fraud?”

This is the question most people ask when they first learn of the opposition to laws requiring that people who wish to vote present photographic identification at the polls.  The big deal is disenfranchisement.  A person who has the right to vote is precluded from doing so. How does this happen? Let me explain:

Elections are won by garnering the most votes.  This is true for almost every election except that of the Presidency, there is an entire process above the popular vote called the Electoral College which I won’t explain here.  That is for another chat beside another fire.  One way to garner the most votes is by simply getting more people to cast their vote in your favor, the other way to garner the most votes is to preclude citizens who are likely to vote for your opponent from exercising their right to vote at all.  This is why voter identification (Voter ID) laws are a vital tool in elections. Minority voters are less likely to possess the state issued photographic identification. In many cases those who were previously able to exercise their right to vote will no longer be able to vote. In the 2008 election, a whopping 96 percent of African-American voters cast their vote for Barack Obama.

The argument most often used in favor of voter ID laws is that the requirement of photographic identification prevents voter fraud, particularly impersonation fraud.  If voter impersonation fraud were prevalent in the United States, this argument would be somewhat valid; however, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law states (pdf):

“It is more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls.”

Essentially, voter impersonation fraud is rare unless there is a sudden and drastic uptick in the frequency of sky to human lightening strikes.

The Voting Right Act of 1965 (VRA) was passed for the purpose of protecting minority voters, particularly in the South, from poll taxes and literacy test.  Previously such devices were used to keep minority voters from exercising their rights granted by the 15th amendment. The passage of the VRA protected those minority voters and the United States saw a wave of new voter registrations by minorities, particularly African-American voters.

Section 5 of the VRA is particularly important in the protection of minority voting rights.  Section 5 requires that a certain group of states and counties that have a history of voter disenfranchisement submit any changes to their voting procedure to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for “preclearance.” The changes must be cleared by the Department of Justice before any changes can be made.  South Carolina, a state with a history of minority voter disenfranchisement is covered under Section 5.

Recently, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ, sent a letter to the Attorney General for the state of South Carolina.  In the letter, Perez indicated that parts of South Carolina’s proposed voter ID law did not meet the burden set forth in Section 5.  According to Perez, “the voting change at issue must be measured against the benchmark practice to determine whether it would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities in their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.” This means the new law is weighed against the current law to determine if implementation would lessen the ability of racial minorities who have the ability to vote currently from exercising their rights under the new voting law.  Perez noted, according to the statistics provided by the state of South Carolina, an incredible 81,938 registered minority voters in the state of South Carolina lack a photographic ID and would be rendered ineligible to vote under the new law.  This is disenfranchisement.

The next statement is usually, “the state could give all 81,938 of those people a free identification card.” While in theory this would work, in practice it is completely ridiculous.  Here’s why:

1. People who do not have a state issued photographic identification card also do not possess a driver’s license.

2. Those who do not possess a driver’s license are less likely to own a vehicle.

3. Those who do not own a vehicle must obtain transportation to and from a state approved identification center.

4. Transportation costs money.

5. In rural areas, access to transportation for those who do not own a vehicle may not be readily available and the distance can be upwards of 20 miles to a state approved identification center.  A round trip in some instances of 40 miles.

The notion that a state approved identification requirement is arguably a poll tax becomes compelling. The money required to obtain an approved voter ID becomes the tax.  If a voter cannot afford the cost of transportation to obtain valid identification they have lost their ability to vote.  Basically, if you are poor and do not have state approved identification: NO VOTE FOR YOU!

NYT: Tea Parties decry bike lanes, public transit, conservation “as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy.”

Mitt Romney is a Serial Liar 

Bob Cesca:

Circling back on the national anthem thing, Benen composed a true or false test with some of Mitt Romney’s biggest lies.

1. Romney claimed President Obama “went before the United Nations” and “said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.”

True or false? The claim isn’t even close to being right.

2. Romney said Democrats “passed Dodd-Frank,” which “has made it almost impossible for community banks.”

True or false? He’s has said this before, and it’s still completely untrue.

3. Romney continues to insist, “Our Navy is now smaller than any time since 1917.”

True or false? It’s one of his favorite talking points, but it’s wildly misleading.

4. Romney boasted, “I did not inherit what my wife and I have, nor did she. What I was able to build, I built the old-fashioned way, by earning it, by working hard.”

True or false? In reality, he inherited quite a bit from his wealthy, powerful parents.

5. Attacking Newt Gingrich, Romney said of House Republicans, “They also took a vote, and 88 percent of Republicans voted to reprimand the speaker, and he did resign in disgrace after that.”

True or false? That’s not really what happened.

More here.

Great rant! “Grand, Old Psychos “

Will Democrats stand firm on GOP attempts to renege on debt deal? 

Daily Kos:

According to TPM, Senate Democrats think they have the upper hand over Republicanswhen it comes to the $600 billion of defense cuts Republicans agreed to in the debt deal, only to (very, very predictably) vow to renege on that same deal now:

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has not only vowed to hold the line on the cuts, but he recently suggested Dems could use it to force the Republicans’ collective hand.

“The purpose of the sequester is to force us to act to avoid the sequester,” he said. “That sword of Damocles can not be splintered,” he continued, “if it’s going to have its effect.” The effect he said he meant was to “move the rigid ideologues to deal finally with revenue.”

Hmm. Color me skeptical, though we’d all love to see it. From the outset I thought the debt deal was absolutely terrible, because of course Republicans would turn around and nullify the supposed defense cuts long before they ever took effect. That was so obvious a move that the Democratic resistance to acknowledging it was outright insulting. And the leverage Republicans would have in such a fight is the same leverage they always have: calling Democrats “weak on defense,” or saying it will “impact military readiness,” or suggesting that Democrats want the terrorists to win. Then the Democrats predictably start sweating, and then they predictably fold, and the Pentagon gets another few so-expensive-they-should-be-carved-from-platinum jet fighters as trophies of the short-lived fight.

What Sen. Levin is suggesting here is perfectly reasonable, and is in fact the obvious strategy: Use these cuts to force Republican ideologues to choose between their desired defense budget and their entrenched opposition to raising any tax, under any circumstance, since it is obvious to any rational observer that the two goals cannot possibly be reconciled. But it presumes Democrats will honestly be willing to make that fight, and to block attempts to remove the defense budget from the budget agreement even as Republicans warn that the entire future of the free world depends on giving the Pentagon more and more and more money, and that you’re a dirty communist and/or hippie and/or traitor if you think otherwise. What history exists here that would suggest Democrats would not cave in? Democrats have established a history of caving in nicely, which is exactly why the demands of the Republican leadership have gotten more and more extreme during each hostage-taking session.

Republicans willingly signed on to the defense cuts only a few short months ago. Now they’re seen as apocalyptic, and impossible, and so dangerous that only a fool would do it. They knew, even back then, that they weren’t going to honor the deal. And now, just as with every other goddamn negotiation of the past three years, we’re reliant on an aimless Democratic caucus to negotiate for whatever hostage Republicans take this time around.

I will be very happy if Levin is right, and there is stomach this time around (perhaps thanks to Republican self-immolation on the payroll tax cuts) to hold firm on this issue and finally force Republicans to recognize that “tax cuts for rich people” is not the be-all, end-all of all national policy. The only evidence of it, however, would be that clearly non-conservatives cannot continue to acquiesce to these hostage-takings indefinitely—they are causing too much damage, economically, for the country to blithely accept—and so statistically there should besome point at which more moderate voices have gotten fed up enough to say “no more.”

US House Democrats propose blocking exports from Keystone XL pipeline 

US Representative Ed Markey and other opponents of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline introduced legislation Friday requiring that all petroleum products refined from crude carried by the controversial project be sold in the US.
TransCanada wants to build the 1,700-mile pipeline to carry heavy crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast. The Obama administration last month rejected TransCanada’s application for a key license to build the pipeline, but the company said it would reapply and hopes to put it into service in late 2014.
Market observers expect refiners to export some of the Keystone XL supplies, but just how much remains in dispute. The US has exported more refined products than it imports for nine of the last 12 months, according to the Energy Information Administration, a dramatic turnaround that made fuels the top US export last year.
Markey, Democrat-Massachusetts, said his bill would “call the bluff of Keystone XL supporters” by questioning their claims that the project serves national security interests by increasing US oil imports from friendly governments. He added that exporters would unfairly dodge US taxes because Port Arthur, Texas, is a foreign-trade zone, a duty-free area for products handled and then re-exported.
“You can’t sneak a 1,700-mile pipeline past the American people, and you shouldn’t be able to sneak the oil out of the United State either,” Markey said. “Other countries shouldn’t be allowed to bisect our country with a pipeline and then bypass our citizens to send the oil abroad.”
A spokeswoman for the International Trade Administration could not immediately confirm that Keystone XL exports would be tax free.
The bill has little chance of getting a vote in the Republican-controlled House, but Markey said the exports issue deserved a higher profile in the seemingly never-ending Keystone XL debate.
‘NORTH KOREAN STYLE’ ECONOMICS
During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Representative Morgan Griffith, Republican-Virginia, said the possibility of exports did not trouble him or sway his support for the project.
“If you accept the argument that the oil’s going to come in and the oil’s going to go out to other countries… you also have to accept the argument that before it goes to the other countries it’s going to be refined in the United States, thus adding value,” Griffith said. “To do that you have to add jobs. And when you add that value, you add strength in our economy and tax dollars.”
Representative Charlie Gonzalez, Democrat-Texas, agreed that selling Keystone XL supplies overseas after refineries in his state processed it posed no problems, as long as those plants refined it safely. “Exporting is good. Balance of trade creates jobs and such,” he said.
Committee Chairman Ed Whitfield, Republican-Kentucky, said the US should aspire to increase its exports.
“Not of oil,” Markey interjected. “Not of oil. That’s our security.”
The American Petroleum Institute later Friday highlighted that crude brought to the Gulf Coast on Keystone XL would mostly be used by refineries there, adding that occasional exports would also be beneficial to the US.
“Any effort to restrict market forces on commodities like oil and natural gas is a North Korean style model of economics and has no place here in America,” said API Chief Economist John Felmy. “Having the flexibility to export more should there be an occasional surplus of supply would go a long way to help reduce our trade deficit. We don’t think that American farmers would appreciate Mr. Markey calling on them to restrict their products, and it makes no sense for an elected official to suggest this backward approach with energy.”

Senate Democrats look to revive DISCLOSE Act 

CHART: Anatomy of Obama’s rising approval rating 

TPM:

MORE>>>

One More Thing About Komen

Balloon Juice:

I’ve been having a ball this week with the Komen shit-show. Not just because it was such a hideous blunder and there was so much hourly incompetence to chronicle, but because GOD DAMNED IT FEELS GOOD TO BE ON THE OFFENSIVE.

Say what you will about all the wingnutty things I said 2001-2005ish, at least I was looking for a fight with the opposition party and going after them. Since I became a Democrat, it seems like the only time we ever get our damned dander up is with other Democrats. The rest of the time we are on defensive, linking to logical explanations from TAPPED or Kevin Drum, talking about negotiating, etc. Or spending our time dealing with dipshits in our own party, like that jackass Rosen who tried to sink Sotomayor. Or we spend all our time angry about the stupid things teahadists do and say and snark about it, but nothing ever comes of it and they never pay a price. Or, as often is the case at this website, wailing about our worthless media.

This time, though, was different. It was nice to watch everyone go for blood, and sink their teeth in and get some. That’s what we need in the Democratic party. We need a killer instinct. We need to stop putting up with this bullshit from these crazy people. We need to fight back, we need to start running for local elections and state elections and running the show, and we need to go after them every chance we can. We don’t have to stoop to lies and innuendo, we can go after them with the truth, just like we did this time. They are lying about tax and regulatory burdens. They are lying about social security. They are lying about Obamacare and Medicare and Medicaid. They are lying about the environment andglobal warming. They are lying about poor people and black people and gay people and immigrants. They are lying about Obama. They are lying about everything.

There is nothing noble or wise about trying to have rational arguments, or acting like the mature people when you are dealing with fanatics. This stuff is important. You should be pissed off and fighting mad.

God damned this feels good for a change. God damn I am fired up for November 2012. No prisoners. No backing down. Republicans don’t want to negotiate or govern with you, they want you dead. So either reach down and grab a pair and fight back, or take what they give you. Your choice. I’ve made mine. And as we have seen this week, if you fight, and you don’t put up with the bullshit, people will join you and we will win.

Mitt The Trump: Donald Endorses Romney

Senator(Coburn -R) Opposing Stock Act Says No Member Of Congress Would Use Insider Trading 

Ron Paul: “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, I would give them a shot of estrogen.”

Mother Jones: Koch Brothers Meet Again to Prep for “Mother of All Wars”

Last week, the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers held their latest get-together with wealthy conservative political donors. At these meetings, held twice a year under a veil of secrecy, Republican all-stars discuss election strategy and vet potential presidential candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Last September, Mother Jones obtained exclusive audio recordings from a Koch seminar held outside Vail, Colorado, where Charles Koch had declared that the 2012 election would be “the mother of all wars” and thanked dozens of million-dollar donors who’d pledged to the cause.

According to a Huffington Post source, 250 to 300 guests attended the most recent event, which was held in Palm Springs, California. They included Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who along with his wife has given a staggering $10 million to a pro-Newt Gingrich super-PAC. Guests reportedly pledged a total of $40 million to the effort to oust Obama, with Charles and David Koch promising an additional $60 million. But it wasn’t all fun and games, the source said, as guests complained that recent meetings had focused more on “alpha male” anti-Obama chest-pounding than the strategy sessions for which they’d been known.

Former ThinkProgress.org blogger Lee Fang also got a peek at the Palm Springs event, which was dubbed “Defending Free Enterprise.” Fang, who first reported on the Koch seminarsbefore the 2010 midterms, caught wind that someone had booked all 560 rooms at the Rennaisance Esmeralda Resort & Spa for three nights in late January and decided to investigate. “I arrived atthe hotel the night before the event,” Fang wrote, “but was followed closely by security and asked to leave the next morning before the Koch meeting guests arrived.” During the seminar, “helicopters, private security, and police officers from neighboring cities patrolled the area constantly.”

Fang wasn’t able to get inside, but he did manage to identify several additional guests by scoping out their private jets at the Palm Springs International Airport. They included billionaire investor Phil Anschutz and Kenny Troutt, a Dallas investor who’s given $700,000 to conservativesuper-PACs. Fang also noticed jets belonging to Harold Hamm, an Oklahoma oil tycoon, and Foster Friess, a Wyoming investor who’s helped keep Rick Santorum afloat by pumping $381,000 into two super-PACs supporting the candidate. At last year’s Vail seminar,Charles Koch thanked both Friess and Hamm (and Griffin) for their million-dollar contributions.

At the airport, Fang also spotted Phil Kerpen, vice president of the Koch-affiliated tea party group Americans for Prosperity, which recently spent $5 million on anti-Obama attack ads. Kerpen admitted that he hopes the 2012 election will result in “aggressive cuts to government spending and to regulation to allow robust economic growth,” but not before complaining to Fang that “I thought they had stopped all leaks” concerning the whereabouts of the Koch seminars.

On the contrary, the meetings have become increasingly visible since they began quietly in 2003. Last January, Greenpeace flew an anti-Koch blimp (above) over the brothers’ Palm Springs seminar. This That year, hundreds of anti-Koch protesters showed up outside the hotel amd were met by 60 police officers in riot gear who made 25 arrests.

Salon: Inside the new hate 

It’s easy to interpret the verbal bile of recent American politics as a new height in prejudiced and conspiracist thinking: a new hate. In the last few years, Sarah Palin has created the concept of Obama’s “death panels,” Glenn Beck has argued that George Soros was a collaborator with the Nazis during WWII — even though Soros is Jewish — and Donald Trump staked his presidential campaign on the idea that our president, black as he is and Muslim as his name seems to be, had not sufficiently proven his rights to citizenship in our country. More recently, Newt has taken to calling Obama the “food stamp president,” a title that is as racially charged as it is inaccurate.

But Arthur Goldwag, author of the new book “The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right,” argues that the racist and conspiracist approach of today’s far-right pundits is largely the same as it was 50 years ago.  Their language and theories are taken (sometimes verbatim) from right-wing populist vitriol at early times in American and European history, dealing in tropes well-worn by pre-WWII American Nazis, Joe McCarthy and fanatical anti-Catholic and anti-Masonic Protestant preachers of the 19th century.

Check out all of Mitt Romney’s 1994 ads cut them into one video. A few haven’t been seen before. 

Democrats’ campaign leader confident Medicare issue will make Pelosi speaker 

The Hill:

The Democratic representative charged with taking back the House says the election will be about one issue — Medicare — and his party “is in a much better place than anyone thought we would be” to put Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) back in the speaker’s chair.

“This is going to be razor sharp,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Chairman Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said on C-Span’s Newsmakers, airing on Sunday. “We are ahead in the generic polls … it is a good indicator and right now we are up in every single generic ballot.”

He said the election will be about “Medicare, Medicare, Medicare” because all but a few members of the Republican caucus voted for the 2012 budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). That budget would have transformed Medicare into a program where future seniors buy private insurance using capped subsidies from the government, which Democrats claim would essentially end the program.

This year, Ryan is weighing using an alternate plan with bipartisan support that keeps traditional Medicare as an option alongside premium support for future seniors.

“It is a vote that we will not allow them to escape from,” Israel said of the 2012 budget.

“We are in a much better place than anyone thought we would be,” he added. “Ads against Nancy Pelosi are irrelevant when you have to stand up in town meetings and explain why you voted to end Medicare in order to give tax breaks to big oil companies.”

Ryan’s spokesman Conor Sweeney said Ryan welcomes the debate because the Democrats’ policies will doom Medicare entirely.

“Chairman Ryan welcomes the debate between bipartisan efforts to save Medicare and the Democrats’ law that raids, rations & leaves bankrupt this critical program,” he said.

“The President and his party’s leaders have doubled-down on their health-care overhaul that inflicts great pain on seniors. The President’s disastrous health-care law raided Medicare of hundreds of billions of dollars to fund a new entitlement. Worse, it empowers a board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats to further cut Medicare in ways that will deny critical care for current seniors,” Sweeney added. ”House Republicans will continue to advance patient-centered reforms that repeal the President’s rationing board, protect those in or near retirement from any changes, and offer a personalized Medicare program for future generations.”

Israel noted that the minority Democrats have so far out-raised the GOP but said the growth of Republican super-PACs “keeps me up at night.”

The DCCC leader shrugged off the retirement of Blue Dog head Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), which was announced this week. Israel said the party had long known North Carolina was going to be a challenge. He said the GOP itself has identified 30 vulnerable seats and Democrats only need 25 to retake the majority.

Israel said that the DCCC will be focusing energy on Illinois, Texas, California and Florida and getting back 9 million independent voters whom the Democrats say they lost in 2010.

The DCCC chairman said that former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords (D) is actively involved in recruiting a candidate to run in a June 12 special election for her seat. Giffords recently retired in order to focus her energies on recovering from an assassination attempt last year.

Santorum speaks at Florida church. Children’s choir passes out in boredom. (via ThinkProgress)

Here’s something that I predict will cause another fight among Progressives:

An Update on Political Polarization (through 2011) – Part III: The Presidential Square Wave

Below we plot the estimated positions of presidents between 1945 and 2011 along the liberal-conservative scale, which produces a pattern we call the “presidential square wave”. Because we use first dimension (ideological) Common Space DW-NOMINATE scores, presidential locations are directly comparable across time. However, because presidential estimates are based on a limited number of “presidential support” votes– roll calls on which the president clearly indicates his support or opposition to a particular (often contentious) measure, presidential ideal points are somewhat biased towards the ideological extremes (however, this effect is roughly constant for all presidents, so it is unlikely than any particular estimate would be affected more than others).

Our findings here echo those discussed in a prior post that Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats to the left in the contemporary period. Indeed, as seen below, President Obama is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.

SCOTUS

Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes banal point, destroys the Republic

Dave Weigel:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has disturbed the balance of the universe by giving an interview to Egyptian television in which she does not recommend using the U.S. Constitution as a model for post-Mubarak happiness. The whole video is here, and some transcripts are at the link, but this part is the hackle-raiser.

If you want, here you go: Proof that a Supreme Court Justice believes looks to other countries for advice on an evolving Constitution! Of course, we’ve known this about Ginsburg for years, because she’s said so repeatedly. It’s proof that a SCOTUS justice wouldn’t use the American Constitution as a model for a new country — but, well, neither does anyone who advises new republics about this stuff. Mexico, disastrously, copied our Constitution in 1824; Iraq, less disastrously, went with something. Ginsburg’s “diss” of the Constitution makes reference to Constitutions written with the U.S. model already in existence, mined for the best parts. I’m with John Tabin at the link — I agree that our freedom of speech protections are the best place to start for any other country, and that Canada and South Africa have done citizens wrong with weaker basic rights. But on her main point? I don’t see how you could argue the opposite — all transitional democracies should start with the Constitution we wrote in 1787! — unless you’re writing a Toby Keith song or something. Hell, we’re among the countries that have done some constitution-writing since the end of World War II. Ask a sponsor of the Balanced Budget Amendment; more boringly, ask someone who helped institute presidential term limits.

UNIONS

This week in the War on Workers: Workers fight back at ports, warehouses, and more 

Daily Kos:

[...]The press isn’t reporting it, but the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports says that truck drivers at the Port of Seattle parked their trucks and stopped work this week to protest unsafe working conditions. Late last week, meanwhile, Los Angeles port truck drivers working for the Toll Group, an Australian company, filed for a union representation election. The Toll Group’s Australian workforce is unionized, but in the United States the company has taken advantage of lax labor laws to keep down wages and working conditions and try to stifle organizing attempts.

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against retaliatory firings of California warehouse workers who had sued Schneider Logistics for wage and hour violations.

At a Kansas City plant, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers had the first union win at GE in 10 years.

Thousands of workers waged a one-day strike at Kaiser Permanente in California over contract negotiations between Kaiser and mental health and optical workers represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers. And in New York, inspired by last week’s union victory for Cablevision technicians, 120 more technicians at a Cablevision contractor engaged in a wildcat strike that won them a raise. They hope to follow up by unionizing.

Taking another approach, a former unpaid intern at Harper’s Bazaar is suing Hearst Corporation for violating labor laws by essentially treating her as a full-time employee though she wasn’t paid. She and her lawyers are trying to make the case a class action suit.

And more:

• How to throw a worker-friendly Super Bowl party.

• Here’s a great way to keep your workers desperate and your workforce young: A new Atlantic City casino is going to hire workers for set terms of four to six years, then make them reapply for their jobs—no matter how good their performance has been.

• Project Labor Agreements (explanation of what a PLA is) that the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently signed will require that 40 percent of work hours on the projects will go to people from economically disadvantaged communities, while 10 percent of work hours will go to homeless or chronically unemployed people, among other challenges.

• Yet another reason more workers need unions:

  …government workers who were not represented by unions were about four times as likely to lose their jobs last year as unionized public sector workers were. (The trends are similar even if you strip out workers who were represented by unions but were not members themselves.)

WEDGE ISSUES

So many Komen articles, I’ve just provided the links. They are all different and all good!

UPDATE: Komen confirms continued involvement of Ari Fleischer on Planned Parenthood strategy 

Frightening Read: Behind the Pink Curtain - Komen ’s Political Agenda 

Pull their 501(c)(3) Status! Komen Can Lie, But Americans Know Why They Defunded Planned Parenthood 

“Irrevocable damage: 24 hours in the life of a Komen executive”

The Komen Kerfuffle is Nowhere Near Over

If you thought Komen ”reversed” decision, think again

Former Obama spokesman Bill Burton716 says the Komen uproar shows family planning is a winning issue for Dems

Maddow: The GOP ‘is waging a war on contraception’  

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow countered conservative criticism of the White House requiring religious organizations to provide insurance for birth control Sunday morning.

Appearing on a panel discussion on Meet The Press, Maddow defended the Obama administration’s decision from Republican strategist Alex Castellanos’ and New York Times columnist David Brooks’ criticism.

“80 percent of people say that insurance — anybody providing health insurance should be required to cover contraception,” she said. “So there is a way you can try to make this into a religious freedom issue. But all of the Republican field has gone very, very far right specifically on the issue of contraception and they get a great response for it from the Republican primary audience. But campaigning against the availability of birth control in America is going to run into a 21st century ceiling.”

Castellanos and Brooks unsurprisingly didn’t share Maddow’s sentiment, feeling that the administration was impeding on religious freedom.

However, Maddow and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA) countered Castellanos and Brooks’ argument, mentioning how the decision from the Department of Health and Human services in 2011 was not about religious freedom, but the requirements of a health insurance provider.

Maddow then pivoted back to Republican candidates’ extreme views on birth control.

“Mitt Romney is campaigning saying that he would like to end-all family support at the federal level and eliminate that,” he said. “And Rick Santorum says he would like to make contraception illegal. And the Republican party is waging a war on contraception, and that is where the discussion is at.”

WATCH: Video from MSNBC, which was broadcast on February 5, 2012.

JC Penney: We Stand Behind Ellen DeGeneres Partnership

JC Penney has announced continued support for Ellen DeGeneres after a family values group demanded that the company fire its new spokeswoman for being gay.

Earlier this week, OneMillionMoms.com, a project of the American Family Association, declared that “hiring an open homosexual” like DeGeneres was a poor business decision that would “turn away potential new, conservative shoppers.”

According to the group, DeGeneres is “not a true representation of the type of families” that go to JC Penney.

But the retail giant is not swayed by the moms’ pressure.

JC Penney has released a statement announcing that it “stands behind its partnership with Ellen DeGeneres.”

The decision was applauded by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which had jumped to DeGeneres’ defense and collected more than 26,000 signatures for an online petition to protect her job.

“This week Americans spoke out in overwhelming support of LGBT people and JC Penney’s decision not to fire Ellen simply for who she happens to love,” said the group in its own statement.

DeGeneres, who came out of the closet in 1997, married Portia de Rossi in 2008.

AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Here’s that Super Bowl Clint Eastwood ad you’ll be hearing a lot about:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PE5V4Uzobc

National Journal: Clint Eastwood Makes Obama’s Day

President Obama’s ad-makers may have to pay royalties to Clint Eastwood after a remarkable two-minute Chrysler commercial that aired on the biggest of all stages -- the Super Bowl -- and gave a pretty good preview of what the president’s reelection commercials might look like. At the very least, the ad and Eastwood’s powerful narration make it much, much more difficult for Republican front-runner Mitt Romney to keep pushing his line that Washington should have let the automakers go into bankruptcy.

And don’t think that Team Obama wasn’t watching the Super Bowl along with millions of other Americans and immediately grasped the boost they could get from the commercial. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer quickly tweeted “Saving the America auto industry: something Eminem and Clint Eastwood can agree on.” Senior strategist David Axelrod tweeted “Powerful spot. Did Clint shoot that, or just narrate it?”  Former White House aide Bill Burton tweeted, “Clinton Eastwood #winning.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Eastwood has been identified with cars — he starred in Pink Cadillacin 1989 and Gran Torino in 2008. But those weren’t in the Super Bowl with a bigger audience than probably saw both those movies combined.

With 30 second spots selling for $3.5 million, the commercial cost Chrysler an estimated $14 million and was kept under wraps by the automaker, which, with the help of the Obama administration, has come back from the dead after being counted out in 2009. And one can only guess what the automaker paid Eastwood. Whatever, it was worth it for it was a master stroke. The 81-year-old actor has told interviewers he has always voted Republican for president, though he has endorsed some Democrats in California and has praised libertarians.

The commercial itself was reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” commercials, though with the famous Clint Eastwood tough guy touch. Shown shortly after Madonna’s halftime performance, it began with the silhouette of Eastwood, walking in the dark and recognizable only for his gravelly voice. “It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game,” he says. “It’shalftime in America, too.” With scenes of an iconic front porch and a city skyline,” he continues, “People are out of work and they are hurting. They are all wondering what they are going to do to make a comeback. And we’re all scared because this isn’t a game.”

With more every day scenes flashing on the screen, Eastwood adds, “The people in Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together. Now Motor City is fighting again.” With the music punctuating his remarks, Eastwood goes on: “I’ve seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. Times when we didn’t understand each other. It seems that we’ve lost our heart at times. The fog of division, discord and blame, made it hard to see what lies ahead.” As scenes of protesters give way to black and white photos of kids and firefighters, Eastwood builds, “But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right and acted as one. Because that’s what we do. We find a way through tough times. If we can’t find a way then we’ll make one. All that matters now is what’s ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together?

At this point, viewers see Eastwood in the light. “And how do we win? Detroit is showing us it can be done,. And what’s true about them is true about all of us. This country can’t be knocked out with one punch.” To conclude, a close-up of Eastwood fills the screen. “We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, its halftime America and our second half is about to begin.”

All that was missing was him turning to Mitt Romney and challenging him to “make my day.”

Forget Steve Jobs. Maynard G. Krebs invented the iPod!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5yvMExqKNA

TAKE ACTION

Tell Congressman Stearns to end DC witch hunt and stop harassing  PlannedParenthood 

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”–Chief Seattle