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Remembering James Gandolfini For More Than Just ‘The Sopranos’

Congressman Wants Public Schools To Teach Gender Stereotypes

Teen HPV Rates Were Cut In Half After The Vaccine Went Public

Election

Meet The Republican Who Wants To Be The Next Michele Bachmann

By Kumar Ramanathan, Guest Blogger posted from ThinkProgress Election on Jun 19, 2013 at 6:30 pm

Tom Emmer (Credit: Shutterstock)

The leading Republican candidate in retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann’s congressional district denies climate science, is virulently anti-gay, and sponsored everything from voter ID legislation to a minimum wage law repeal. No wonder he’s already being labeled “Michele Bachmann 2.0.”

Former Minnesota State Rep. Tom Emmer (R) was the first candidate to step up when Bachmann announced last month that she would be retiring from representing the state’s 6th congressional district at the end of her term. He is best known for unsuccessfully running for Governor in 2010, coming close enough to Democratic candidate and now-Governor Mark Dayton (D) to trigger a recount.

Here are a few things voters should know about Tom Emmer:

1. He opposed anti-bullying legislation because he doesn’t “want the government doing that for us.” Emmer voted against the Safe Schools for All bill, which included sexual orientation among fourteen different characteristics, and would have introduced consistent anti-bullying policies and mandated training for teachers and staff. During his 2010 campaign, he promised to veto it if it were to come across his desk as Governor, saying, “it’s up to the parents, Jacquie and I, to educate our children, how they handle that situation. We’re the ones who have to be the front line of defense for our children. I don’t want the government doing that for us.” The bill was proposed after a rash of gay teens in Minnesota committing suicide. Emmer has adopted virulently anti-gay positions throughout his political career.

2. He thinks waiters make too much, proposed cutting their minimum wage. At a campaign stop in 2010, Emmer said he had heard from local restaurant owners that “there are some people earning over $100,000 a year, more than the very people providing the jobs and investing not only their life savings but their families’ future.” He suggested that bartenders, servers, and other hospitality workers should get a “tip credit,” which would functionally lower their minimum wage. Although Minnesota is one of the only states that does not follow the federal minimum wage for tip-earners of $2.13 (it instead requires tip-earners be paid at least $5.25 hourly), the average food or beverage service worker earned an average of only $10.45 an hour in 2010. Emmer introduced an amendment that would have eliminated the state’s minimum wage laws altogether in 2005.

3. He was one of the first conservatives pushing unconstitutional nullification bills to undermine Obamacare. Even before healthcare legislation passed in Congress, Emmer was making the rounds on Fox News, pushing the idea that any form of federal healthcare program would be unconstitutional. In October 2009, he proposed a “Health Care Freedom Act” that would define Minnesotans as “sovereign individuals” in an attempt to prevent federal law or state law from affecting the health insurance of any individual. Soon after the Affordable Care Act passed, Emmer began advocating nullification of federal laws, an unconstitutional theory used by advocates of slavery before the Civil War, in his state.

4. He denies climate science is real. In addition to calling green jobs a “fancy marketing campaign“, pledging to withdraw Minnesota from a regional climate pact, and telling supporters of the EPA to vote against him, Emmer has publicly denied climate science, saying, “the empirical evidence does not support this and the other reps that have talked. There is another side. Just because we make these chambers available to Will Steger and the crowd that wants to rely on Al Gore’s climate porn doesn’t mean that that’s the way it is. … Folks, there is another side.”

Watch it:

Emmer’s views keep him in good company in the 6th district – Michelle Bachmann is also a climate denier.

5. He wanted to make English the official state language because of the supposed high cost of translating. In 2008, Emmer co-sponsored a bill that would have made English the official state language of Minnesota, in addition to imposing strict immigration status checks for renters and buyers of homes. The Star Tribune asked him about his support of the language component of the bill two years later, reporting, “Emmer said he co-sponsored the 2008 measure because his home county said the cost of producing signs in multiple languages ‘was killing them.’”

Emmer has also sponsored legislation that would have, if passed, imposed sweeping and restrictive voter ID laws in Minnesota, asserted that there is “no constitutional right to abortion“, and allowed for forced castration of sex offenders.

Kumar Ramanathan is an intern at ThinkProgress.

Justice

New York Muslims Mount Legal Challenge To Ubiquitous NYPD Surveillance

By Nicole Flatow posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jun 19, 2013 at 5:47 pm

A sign in the Muslim Student Association room at Hunter College. The sign points to a news report on NYPD spying.

Just as the trial is wrapping up in one major challenge to New York Police Department practices, another is ramping up. In the wake of Associated Press reports that NYPD engages in aggressive spying of Muslims, the New York Civil Liberties Union is filing a lawsuit on behalf of Muslim New Yorkers to challenge the surveillance they say amounts to racial profiling and violates their religious liberties.

Under the aggressive program, undercover informants infiltrate Mosques, restaurants, bookstores, and Muslim student associations without any particular suspicion of the places being monitored or the people being surveilled. Officers also monitor Muslims’ social media activity, websites, and blogs. The “Demographics Unit,” established after 9/11, developed databases based on this information. But NYPD leaders have acknowledged that this mapping of the Muslim community has not generated a single lead, according to the lawsuit.

A recent study by civil rights groups found that this systematic surveillance has had a severe chilling effect on Muslims’ speech, religious activity, and community life. Muslims fear speaking out even about the New York Police Department surveillance itself, and even youths described the fear of being arrested as “very real,” deterring them from activity that ranges from community involvement and speaking in class, to posting expressive messages on Facebook.

In interviews with 57 students, business owners, community leaders and educators, many recount having been asked to spy on their peers. One student recalled having been called into the principal’s office at age 16 and asked by the NYPD about her online activity. Several individuals described being questioned as suspects, and then later offered bribes to serve as informants when police realized they were not suspicious – told in moments of financial weakness that the police could “give them their freedom” by paying them for spying or providing them with a place to live. “These incidents – not infrequent in certain communities – have led many to realize that others, possibly their own peers, may not be as able to resist the pressures of working as informants,” the report said. This has bred mistrust both within the Muslim community and of law enforcement officers, prompting individuals and even businesses to accuse one another of being informants.

One of the most widespread and alarming elements of this NYPD surveillance was the recruitment of young people to infiltrate college groups. AP reports revealed that informants even accompanied students on a whitewater rafting trip, leading to fear that informants could be anyone and infiltrate anywhere.
Read more

Alyssa

Russell Brand Schools A Morning Joe Panel. So Why Are We Surprised When He Does Smart Things?

By Alyssa Rosenberg posted from ThinkProgress Alyssa on Jun 19, 2013 at 4:51 pm


(Credit: Josie’s Juice)

Russell Brand’s late-night news show on FX, Brand X never quite came together and has been cancelled by the network. But his appearance on Morning Joe this week to promote his new stand-up tour illustrated why, while Brand may not have been adept at hosting a full half-hour or hour of news and interviews, he’s strikingly gifted as a guest, correspondent, or columnist:

That the Morning Joe segment was both a disaster and an opportunity was due to host Mika Brzezinski, who utterly lost control of the program, and Brand’s fellow guests, who created the conditions for Brand to launch a scathing critique of cable news. When Brand was asked what unified the world-historical figures who inspired his tour, Brand gave a terrific answer that should have lead to some follow-up questions: “They’re all people who died for a cause, they’re all people whose icons are used to designate meaning perhaps not in the manner in which they intended.” Brzezinski’s response? “I kind of like that, that sounded dead serious.” The other panelists mocked his accent. When one of them tried to ask Brand a “serious question”–actually a bit of fluff about which medium Brand prefers, which Brand answered with insight and introspection–Brzezinski told him he could “Try. It’s never going to work,” as if being a comedian disqualifies one from introspection. They referred to him in the third person, declared his clothes distracting, and in general behaved like children rather than news professionals.

And finally, Brand had enough. “Is this what you all do for a living? Let me help you. I’m here to promote a tour called Messiah Complex,” he told them exasperated, before shuffling up a stack of paper and posing a series of entirely reasonable questions about the roles of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden in our national security environment before continuing his lecture. “You forget about what’s important and allow the agenda to be decided by superficial information.” Turning to Brzezinski, Brand asked, “What do you think that gesture means, the way you’re touching that bottle. You need to lose that ring because it don’t mean nothing to you.”
Read more

Health

Teen HPV Rates Were Cut In Half After The Vaccine Went Public

By Annie-Rose Strasser posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 19, 2013 at 3:50 pm

(Credit: Shutterstock)

Following the 2006 introduction of a vaccine against cancer-causing human papillomavirus, rates of HPV in teen girls have plummeted to nearly half, a new study found on Wednesday.

The Journal of Infectious Diseases reports that HPV infection in girls ages 14 to 19 dropped from 11.5 percent for the years 2003-2006 to 5.1 percent for 2007-2010. Since HPV can lead to cervical cancer, the results also could herald a drop in cancer rates for girls in this age range, too.

The study illustrates a great advancement in public health, but it also underlines the consequences for those huge numbers of women and girls who are still not getting their vaccinations; in 2011, only 35 percent of girls ages 13-17 received all three shots in the vaccination series, and only 30 percent of women ages 19-26 had received the vaccine.

Fear-mongering and conspiracy theories over the side effects of the HPV vaccine are a major reason that inoculation rates are so low. While the Centers for Disease control have deemed the shots safe, and especially effective for young girls, 16 percent of parents report not letting their children get the shots for fear of side effects. In fact, incidents of cancer from HPV are rising in the U.S., and the CDC says rates of inoculation are “unacceptably low.”

These dangerous theories are fueled by conservatives like Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who campaigned on her insistence that HPV vaccines cause “mental retardation.” Bachmann also got her fellow presidential contender Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) to backpeddal his support for his state’s legislation that required Texan girls to get the vaccine. Another Republican Governor, South Carolina’s Gov. Nikki Haley, vetoed a bill that would have made HPV vaccines free of cost to girls in her state.

Economy

Archbishop Says Corporations That Avoid Paying Taxes Are ‘Robbing God’

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 19, 2013 at 2:59 pm

Archbishop John Sentamu (Credit: BBC)

On Monday, the Archbishop Bishop of York charged that individuals and corporations that avoid paying taxes are robbing God, just days before the G8 nations announced a plan to crackdown on global tax evasion. Companies “should have a conscience which says that a child is dying tonight because of some of their actions,” John Sentamu said: “It is sinful, simply because Jesus was very clear; pay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Sentamu’s comments are a veiled reference to companies like Apple, Starbucks, and Google, which use complicated webs of foreign tax shelters and other gimmicks to lower their tax bills at home and abroad.

A recent report found that 30 of the largest American multinationals with more than $160 billion in profits paid zero in U.S. income taxes over a three-year period, while revelations of low rates overseas paid overseas sparked outrage in Great Britain and raised concerns across Europe.

Leaders of the G8 nations agreed on Tuesday to institute changes that will require shell companies to be more transparent about the “beneficial ownership” of businesses and share information about “who benefits from the operations of shell companies, special purpose companies and trust arrangements often employed by tax evaders.” Countries are also encouraged to close loopholes that allow for tax avoidance.

Experts see “Ireland, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg as the worst actors on corporate tax avoidance, but larger European players including the U.K. have reduced various rates in ways that encourage tax avoidance.” The policies perpetuate a race to the bottom “in taxing many of the world’s richest companies, chased by regressive sales tax hikes and public service cuts to maintain some fiscal balance.”

Apple, which uses a system of subsidiaries to avoid taxes, claims that it “has conducted all of its business with the highest of ethical standards.” But Sentamu warned that companies avoiding taxes are “not only robbing the poor of what they could be getting, they are actually robbing God, because God says ‘bring into my store house all the tithes.’”

“So if God has told us to be just, to walk humbly and to be merciful and then we behave in a very strange way – God is being robbed, the world is being robbed, your neighbour is being robbed,” he said.

LGBT

Congressman Wants Public Schools To Teach Gender Stereotypes ‘At A Very Early Age’

By Josh Israel posted from ThinkProgress LGBT on Jun 19, 2013 at 1:54 pm

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA)

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) wants American youths to be taught gender stereotypes in grade school classes, so they understand the roles of mothers and fathers — and the importance of allowing only opposite-sex couples to marry.

In a speech Monday on the House floor, Gingrey stressed his continued support for the Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as only union between a man and a woman — and suggested that children need to be carefully taught about the traditional roles of their genders:

GINGREY: You know, maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what’s important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage.”

Watch the video:

While Gingrey is right that each parent brings different strengths to a family, his suggestion that only opposite-sex couples can bring complementary skills is nearly as archaic as his view that children should be taught to conform to his outdated view of gender roles. And despite his assertions, the gender of parents has never been proven to be a relevant factor in the quality of parenting.

Though Gingrey ranks among the most anti-LGBT Members of Congress, he has previously argued that it is wrong to “try to create divisiveness” among races or “one gender against the other, male versus female,” saying, “I’m sick of all that and I think the American people are too.”

Climate Progress

Maine Governor Blacklists Newspapers After They Expose Administration’s Anti-Environment Commissioner

By Rebecca Leber posted from Climate Progress on Jun 19, 2013 at 1:01 pm

(Credit: AP)

Following a critical series of articles in three Maine newspapers this week, Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) office has cut off those papers’ access to administration officials.

The same week the Portland Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal, and the Morning Sentinel published an in-depth analysis of the administration’s work to undermine environmental protections, a spokeswoman told them they would no longer respond to requests, even for public documents, because the newspaper’s parent company “made it clear that it opposed this administration.”

The papers conducted an extensive investigation into a former corporate lobbyist appointed by LePage to be commissioner of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). What they found was that Patricia Aho has fought environmental laws and enforcement since her appointment in 2011. The positions she has taken include blocking implementation of a 2008 law to protect youth from dangerous chemicals, reducing enforcement on land developers, rolling back recycling programs, and purging information from the Department’s website. Each of these efforts benefit her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate industries.

In one article, the Press Herald describes a DEP with significant limitations placed on staff. Colin Woodard quotes a former director saying, “There was an immediate gag order put on staff and on staff’s ability to freely interact with the public and talk about environmental concerns or to make requirements of people.” The DEP has eliminated tens of thousands of pages from its website, including the official state climate change report.

Certain tactics carry over into other areas of LePage’s administration, considering its new policy to limit staff interaction with journalists doing their jobs. LePage himself has fought against increased wind energy targets, while touting conspiracies like the wind industry faking it with electric motors to pretend “wind power works.”

LePage has also threatened to veto an energy bill that increases energy efficiency and renewable energy targets.

Health

Now That Plan B Is Available To All Women, Conservatives Want To Restrict It On The State Level

By Tara Culp-Ressler posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 19, 2013 at 12:03 pm

(Credit: Shutterstock)

Earlier this month, the Obama Administration dropped its fight to restrict over-the-counter emergency contraception for young women. Now, Plan B will be available without a prescription for women of all ages — but that move hasn’t exactly made social conservatives happy. Anti-choice groups are already trying to figure out how they can lobby for state laws that will restrict access to emergency contraception despite the Obama Administration’s position.

In Arkansas, abortion opponents are already pushing the legislature to consider imposing either an age limit or a total ban on Plan B sales next year. Jerry Cox, the director of the state’s conservative Christian Family Council, told Arkansas News that the new federal policy on emergency contraception means that “essentially, kids can get contraception now as easy as they can buy candy out of the store,” and that “bothers” him enough to consider lobbying for legislative action.

“Do I have legislation in my hip pocket? No, I don’t have anything,” Cox said. “We really need to research this issue… to find out exactly what is being mandated and how much leeway a state has in saying, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ ”

And that preliminary effort has begun. Cox explained that he recently met with several conservative lawmakers — including some of the sponsors of the harsh abortion bans that Arkansas enacted this session — to discuss the possibility of developing a bill to limit access to Plan B on the state level. And the conservative leaders said the issue will surely come up again at a meeting at the Focus on the Family headquarters in Colorado Springs, Co., at the end of the month, when right-wing organizations will gather to discuss “social issues affecting states.”

There may be another option available to right-wing groups who want to prevent emergency contraception sales. According to Mark Riley, the executive vice president of the Arkansas Pharmacists Association, state law already allows Arkansas’ pharmacies to refuse to sell a drug if they have a “moral objection” to it. That conscience clause is rarely used, but pharmacies in the state could fall back on it to justify their decision to not carry Plan B.

That’s true in other states, too. Across the country, a patchwork of “conscience clauses” allow pharmacists to refuse to fill birth control prescriptions for personal or religious reasons. The National Women’s Law Center has tracked at least 24 states that have refused to sell either birth control or emergency contraception to women who are well within their rights to purchase it. Legislation introduced by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) would standardize pharmacies’ practices to ensure that women aren’t denied reproductive care, but it hasn’t moved in Congress.

LGBT

Third Republican Senator Comes Out For Marriage Equality

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress LGBT on Jun 19, 2013 at 11:00 am

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) became the third sitting Republican senator to support marriage equality on Wednesday, just days before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on two cases that could expand marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples.

In an interview with KTUU, the Anchorage NBC affiliate, Murkowski said she experienced a change of heart after spending time with a same-sex couple raising four adopted children. “This is a hard issue,” she admitted. “And there may be some that when they hear the position that I hold, that are deeply disappointed. There may be some that embrace the decision that I have made. I recognize that it is an area that, as a Republican, I will be criticized for.”

Murkowski joins 53 senators, including Republicans Rob Portman (OH) and Mark Kirk (IL), and all but three Senate Democrats in backing marriage. Forty-six senators still oppose it.

The senator previously voted for the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, a press release from the Human Rights Campaign noted. In 2004, however, she voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have added a ban on same-sex marriage to the U.S. Constitution.

Murkowski outlined her evolution on the issue in an op-ed, arguing that allowing all Americans “to marry the person they love and choose” woud keep “politicians out of the most private and personal aspects of peoples’ lives – while also encouraging more families to form and more adults to make a lifetime commitment to one another.”

Health

Anti-Abortion Group In Ohio Is Fundraising By Selling Assault Rifles

By Tara Culp-Ressler posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 19, 2013 at 10:03 am

(Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Personhood Ohio, a far-right group attempting to outlaw all abortions by defining life as beginning at conception, is still attempting to get a “personhood” amendment on the state ballot after falling short last year. And the leader of the group, Patrick Johnston, is trying out a few creative fundraising efforts to raise money for Personhood Ohio’s outreach efforts.

In a recent email blast, Johnston asked his fellow Ohioans to help support his personhood cause by buying some assault weapons from his personal collection. “I’m selling some of my favorite things — some powerful rifles and ammo,” the Personhood Ohio director wrote.

“I’m a firm believer that the Second Amendment protects the future of freedom, but not as much as justice for the preborn,” Johnston’s email continued. “The shedding of innocent blood will bring God’s wrath on the land — and then you can wave freedom goodbye. So protecting Ohio’s children is more important than securing your right to keep and bear arms.”

Johnston put three of his own firearms, as well as 2,550 rounds of ammo, up for auction on his Facebook page. The Ohio-based blog Plunderbund reports that Johnston’s guns all use the same kind of ammunition as an AK 47. Two of them include high capacity magazines and one has a drum that holds 100 rounds. In the past, Johnston has attempted to raise money by offering to enter people into a raffle to win $5,000 if they signed onto a personhood petition.

The personhood movement is struggling in states other than Ohio, too. Personhood advocates’ push to endow zygotes with the rights of U.S. citizens hasn’t won support from other Republicans or other anti-abortion groups. The Supreme Court has confirmed that personhood is “clearly unconstitutional,” and it’s failed to take hold in conservative states like Oklahoma and Mississippi. The one notable exception is North Dakota, where the state legislature passed a personhood amendment that will be on the ballot in 2014.

Johnston construes it as “justice for the preborn,” but legal abortion services is a constitutional right just like gun ownership — although a woman’s ability to exercise that right currently varies widely depending on the state where she lives. Across the country, there are more waiting periods to get an abortion than there are to get a gun. And even outside of waiting period requirements, the other types of anti-abortion restrictions that have been enacted on the state level have ensured that it’s much harder to get an abortion than it is to purchase a firearm.

Economy

Congressman Claims People Struggling To Survive On Food Stamps Are ‘Intentionally Buying Overpriced Food’

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 19, 2013 at 9:09 am

Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX)

Conservative firebrand Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) argued in a press release on Tuesday that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) provides cushy benefits to recipients and accused Democrats protesting proposed cuts of engaging in a “left-wing publicity stunt intended to make it appear proposed cuts to food stamps would leave families unable to feed themselves.”

On Friday, the Senate advanced a farm bill that would take $4 billion out of SNAP and the House is considering cutting the program by 2.5 percent and leaving some two million families without food assistance. In response, more than 26 members of Congress are taking the “SNAP Challenge,” living off a food stamp budget for a week to draw attention to the inadequacy of the average benefit of $4.50 per day. Forty-seven million Americans are currently enrolled in the program.

But an aide in Stockman’s office claims to have “debunked” their effort and is accusing Democrats of “intentionally buying overpriced food and shopping at high-priced chains to make it appear the cuts go too far”:

Donny Ferguson, who serves as Stockman’s communications director and agriculture policy advisor, was able to buy enough food to eat well for a week on just $27.58, almost four dollars less than the $31.50 “SNAP Challenge” figure.

“I wanted to personally experience the effects of the proposed cuts to food stamps. I didn’t plan ahead or buy strategically, I just saw the publicity stunt and made a snap decision to drive down the street and try it myself. I put my money where my mouth is, and the proposed food stamp cuts are still quite filling,” said Ferguson.

“We can cut the proposed benefits by an additional 12.4 percent and still be able to eat for a week,” said Ferguson. “Not only am I feeding myself for less than the SNAP Challenge, I will probably have food left over.” [...]

“I didn’t use coupons, I didn’t compare prices and was buying for one, instead of a family. I could have bought even more food per person if I were splitting $126 four ways, instead of budgeting $31.50 to eat for one” said Ferguson. “I could have bought cheaper vegetables instead of prepared red beans and rice, but I like red beans and rice. Folks aren’t buying fast food instead of vegetables because of benefit limits, they’re buying fast food because fast food tastes great and vegetables taste like vegetables.”

Stockman’s office appears to misunderstand the challenge. Rather than impulsively buying food, participants plan for nutritious meals, akin to actual families enrolled in the program. And with the average cost of food at home far exceeding the SNAP Challenge allotment, families often struggle to afford meals.

A study published earlier this year by the Institute of Medicine found that “low-income and minority populations are more likely than other groups to experience limited access to supermarkets and other large retail outlets” These families also lack the transportation to access quality food and don’t have “sufficient time to produce healthy meals from scratch.” Since food prices vary across the nation, “SNAP participants who live in locales with higher food prices find it difficult to meet their needs with the current benefit,” the IOM concluded.

Indeed, as Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) — one of the members participating in the challenge — pointed out, “When I was a young, single mother, I was on public assistance. It was a bridge over troubled water, and without it, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” “I spent hours debating what to buy and what to skip, all the while keeping my sons in my mind,” she wrote.

The latest poverty data show that SNAP lifted 4.7 million households out of poverty in 2011.

Update

Ferguson confirmed to ThinkProgress that he is only eating the food he bought and is “feeling great” and has even gained two pounds. “As for criticism, liberals issued a challenge and I took them up on it,” he said. “It’s not my fault it backfired on them. Reality has a way of mocking liberalism.”

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Immigration

Immigration Bill Would Lower Country’s Deficit By $197 Billion Over 10 Years

By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee posted from ThinkProgress Immigration on Jun 18, 2013 at 6:50 pm

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated on Tuesday that passage of the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill, known as S.744, would decrease federal budget deficits by $197 billion over a ten year period between 2014 to 2023. It also estimates that 8 million undocumented immigrants would be legalized.

Between 2024 and 2033, the CBO estimates that the federal budget deficits would be cut by $700 billion.

The CBO’s estimate blasts the conservative argument that immigration reform is costly out of the water. The report contradicts the $6 trillion cost estimate used by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, who as far back as 2007 have been successful in helping to derail immigration reform efforts.

But these numbers will be harder to push now that the CBO has weighed in. Many Republican senators have praised the CBO. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is adamantly opposed to the legislation, has said that the CBO is “like God.”

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