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Burr: ‘Founders’ Wrote 14th Amendment, Repealing DADT Could Require Changes In ‘Accommodations’

By Igor Volsky on Oct 21, 2010 at 9:25 pm

During tonight’s North Carolina senate debate, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said he was against changing the 14th amendment to eliminate birthright citizenship, but said “it is important for the courts to determine” if the “founders” intended to allow for the practice:

BURR ON THE 14th: But I think when you have a debate in the country and that issue is raised, then it’s important for us to have that arbitrator, the courts to come in and tell us did our founders, when they wrote the 14th, did they have something else envisioned?

But the opposite should happen to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Burr insisted. That policy should be taken out of the courts and left to Congress. He didn’t know if being gay was a choice but worried that repealing the policy would require the military to change “the accommodations for troops”:

BURR ON DADT: Now personally I don’t see a reason to reverse it. But that’s a personal opinion. I think the country should have a debate. And what we should do is we should wait until the Department of Defense has gotten back the survey of those individuals who serve…. But I’m confident of this—that this is the wrong time to change this policy. We’ve got hundreds of thousands of troops deployed. We don’t yet know what we might have to do, from a standpoint of changing the accommodations for troops if the policy changed.

Watch a compilation:

As Pam Spaulding points out, Burr’s concern about “soap dropping in the shower,” so to speak, is unfounded. American soldiers are already showering alongside gay troops and so are the foreign troops who serve alongside openly gay servicemembers. None of our 25 allies that allow open service segregate troops on the basis of sexual orientation. As Larry Korb argues in this report, “the militaries of Great Britain, Canada, and Israel amply demonstrate that lifting the ban on openly gay service will not require the U.S. military to provide separate housing, shower, or other common-use facilities for gay and lesbian service members.” In fact, even General Carl Mundy, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1991 to 1995 and an opponent of a repeal, has predicted that segregating the forces “would be absolutely disastrous in the armed forces. … It would destroy any sense of cohesion or teamwork or good order and discipline.”

On the topic of health care, Burr said that he supported provisions that ban insurance companies from denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing conditions and close the Medicare Part D doughnut hole, but insisted that the Affordable Care Act must still be repealed.

“Actually, Judy, those provisions are acceptable to me and most Republicans and most Americans,” he said. “I think it’s important to realize we could have the elimination of pre-existing conditions tomorrow. We could have the elimination of lifetime caps tomorrow. We could begin to close the doughnut hole tomorrow. But you can’t fix the current health care bill that the president passed. And the truth is it doesn’t close the doughnut hole.”

Economy

As It Was Outsourcing Jobs And Making Billions, Fiorina’s Corporation Claimed Tax Credit For ‘Small Start-Ups’

By Pat Garofalo on Oct 21, 2010 at 8:10 pm

On the campaign trail, California’s Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina has repeatedly defended the decision to outsource thousands of jobs that tech giant Hewlett-Packard made while she was its CEO. “During my time at Hewlett Packard, yes, I had to make some tough choices like families and businesses all across California are making tough choices. China is fighting for our jobs,” she said.

But at the same time that she was shipping positions overseas — and HP was raking in billions in profits — Fiorina also claimed California tax credits meant to encourage start-up companies to invest in manufacturing equipment (and presumably create jobs here in the U.S.):

While Fiorina was chief executive of the computer giant, the state was hospitable enough to grant the company a controversial $13-million tax refund even though, state officials said, it had already used credits to offset some income tax bills…HP was awarded $13 million in 2005, when the company posted net earnings of $2.5 billion. That year, California faced a $6-billion budget gap and slashed funding for public health programs, education and law enforcement. In asking for the rebates, the companies cited provisions of a law that state officials said were designed to encourage small start-ups to invest in manufacturing equipment.

Considering that it was founded in 1939, HP calling itself a start-up is obviously a bit of a stretch. According to the Los Angeles Times, “in years before the vote, Hewlett-Packard made $20,000 in political donations to the four members of the five-member Board of Equalization who approved the tax relief,” which may have greased the skids a bit.

This credit is California’s version of a problem plaguing the tax code at the federal level: the proliferation of credits and handouts to mature, profitable companies. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with trying to incentivize actual start-up industries, but there’s no reason to be giving companies that can clearly stand on their own two feet taxpayer money, particularly when states and the federal government are facing their own severe fiscal constraints.

Nowadays, Fiorina spends a healthy portion of her time bashing her state’s economic policies, telling CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, “the facts are we’re destroying jobs in this state through bad government policy.” But during her tenure as CEO, Fiorina clearly had no qualms about accepting tax credits meant to create and preserve jobs and then shipping positions overseas anyway. I guess we should expect nothing less from someone who refers to outsourcing as “right-shoring.”

Health

Orszag To Democrats: You Should Have Included Malpractice Reform In Affordable Care Act

By Igor Volsky on Oct 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm

Peter Orszag laments in the New York Times today about the Democrats’ failure to include more robust malpractice reform in the Affordable Care Act, noting that “what’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines“:

The health care reform act that Congress passed earlier this year included a modest set of state pilot projects, including one in Oregon that is intended to experiment with this approach. But these pilots are small; the project in Oregon, for example, has only $300,000 in financing.

What’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines. That’s the only way that malpractice reform could broadly promote the adoption of best practices. [...]

The health care reform act that Congress passed earlier this year included a modest set of state pilot projects, including one in Oregon that is intended to experiment with this approach. But these pilots are small; the project in Oregon, for example, has only $300,000 in financing.

What’s needed is a much more aggressive national effort to protect doctors who follow evidence-based guidelines. That’s the only way that malpractice reform could broadly promote the adoption of best practices.

Indeed, when I spoke to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) several weeks ago, he too indicated that malpractice reform was probably a missed opportunity that would have been politically difficult to incorporate into this effort. “I’m actually not surprised, I’m disappointed that we’ve failed to go further on some of these issues. I think the President is a realist, he’s a pragmatist, he needed to ensure that we could bring a bill, maybe not with everything he/we wanted across the line,” Daschle told me. “I think he felt it would be hard to hold Democratic caucuses together moving a bill that went further. Ultimately, I’m confident that it’s going to happen….it was probably a bridge too far in this legislative effort.”

To be clear, malpractice costs make up only a small percentage of national health care expenditures and malpractice reform does not significantly decrease physicians’ anxiety of being sued. But it’s an issue worth tackling, since developing sensible solutions could improve quality and increase the number of physicians. The good news is, as I’ve been chronicling here, HHS is already funding some promising pilot projects that could provide a template for any future legislative efforts.

Politics

Polluter-Funded Groups Spending Almost $70 Million On Anti-Clean Energy Ads

By Josh Dorner on Oct 21, 2010 at 7:30 pm

Amid an unprecedented surge in mostly secret money into this year’s election campaign, a new report released yesterday by the Center for American Progress Action Fund details how 13 right-wing groups — including large secret money groups like American Crossroads, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and American Action Network — have spent more than $68.5 million this year on “misleading and fictitious televisions ads designed to shape midterm elections and advance their anti-clean energy reform agenda.” In addition to the anti-clean energy ads polluting our airwaves, an earlier CAPAF report outlined an astonishing $242 million in spending on lobbying by the 20 biggest oil, mining, and electric utility companies.

The New York Times reports this evening that “nearly half” of the Chamber’s $149 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. (The Chamber claims to have 300,000 members.) “Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.”

With no end in sight to such dramatic spending in order to protect polluters’ profits, a new ThinkProgress exposé published yesterday suggests that the level of coordination between secret money political groups, ultra-rich conservative donors, and polluters may be even deeper than previously thought. ThinkProgress obtained a memo detailing a secretive gathering held by the Koch brothers this past June, at which the Koch brothers plotted their 2010 election strategy with 210 attendees from the oil industry, coal companies, health insurers, banks, right-wing media (including Glenn Beck), the U.S. Chamber, and others. The June meeting was merely the latest in a series of similar gatherings held twice annually by the Kochs in order to coordinate the funding of the conservative infrastructure of front groups, political campaigns, think tanks, media outlets and other anti-government efforts.

The list of attendees obtained by ThinkProgress shows that there is considerable overlap between the groups that have been running tens of millions in anti-clean energy ads and those who attended the Koch confab, including:

  • U.S. Chamber of Commerce: The Chamber has run more than $3.8 million in energy-related ads in eight states, the bulk of which came after its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer David Chavern attended the Koch meeting.
  • American Petroleum Institute: API and a variety of Koch-funded entities teamed up for the past two summers to launch anti-clean energy tours across the country. What’s more, one of the Koch meeting’s attendees, Karen Wright of the Ariel Corporation, was a speaker at an API-Koch-backed September rally in Canton, Ohio, where she questioned the science of global warming and attacked clean energy jobs. The Koch gathering was also attended by more than a dozen figures in the oil, gas, and energy industries, including inviduals affiliated with API members Fluor Corporation, BHP Billiton (via its BHP Petroleum subsidiary), Devon Energy, True Oil, and the aforementioned Ariel Corporation.
  • Americans for Prosperity: AFP, which is of course itself a front group for the Koch brothers, has run more than $1 million worth of energy ads. In addition to its inherent ties to the Kochtopus, AFP officials Jeff Crank and Phil Kerpen attended the meeting.
  • Yes on 23: The ballot campaign to derail California’s clean energy law has spent more than $1 million on energy ads, after receiving a $1 million donation from a Koch subsidiary and considerable additional support from Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity.
  • American Action Network: The secret money group has spent a little under $175,000 on energy ads (though is flooding the airwaves with tens of millions more in other advertising) is chaired by “unethical” Nixon operative Fred Malek, who attended the Koch gathering.
  • American Crossroads GPS: The Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie-fathered secret money group rents space to American Action Network and Rove and Gillespie regularly coordinate with AAN’s Malek. Crossroads GPS has spent just over half a million dollars on energy ads, but it and its sister Super PAC, American Crossroads, are expected to spend some $65 million on this year’s election.
  • American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity: The well-known and scandal-plagued coal industry front group has spent over $16 million on energy ads this year. Executives from two of its member companies—Alpha Coal Sales Company (a subsidiary of Alpha Natural Resources) and Alliance Resource Partners were in attendance at the gathering.
  • Club for Growth Action: The anti-tax group has spent just over $1 million on energy ads. John Childs, who attended the meeting, donates to the Club for Growth and is on its Leadership Council.

Having spent almost $70 million on energy ads this year (and much, much more on other political attack ads), successfully derailed national climate legislation, and launched a war against the Clean Air Act, it’s clear that this secretive group of plutocrats, polluters, and other corporate special interests will have much to do discuss at their next gathering — to be held in January at a resort in sunny Palm Springs.

Climate Progress

UVA Fights Back Against Cuccinelli’s Climate Witch Hunt

By Guest Blogger on Oct 21, 2010 at 6:45 pm

Our guest blogger is Luke Cole, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was confronted at the University of Virginia for targeting one of its scientists in his crusade against the science of global warming. Despite the over $350,000 incurred by the University of Virginia to defend climate scientist Michael Mann and the university’s Department of Environmental Sciences from Cuccinelli’s global warming witch hunt, the UVA College Republicans invited Cuccinelli to an informal speaking engagement last week. Over 25 students protesting the AG’s actions greeted Cuccinelli with signs including “God Hates Data,” “Skeptical of Cuccinelli,” and “Science: Not Determined By Popular Vote.” Cuccinelli was also confronted by a UVA environmental policy professor during the Q&A. The following day, Cuccinelli wrote on his Twitter account:

Awesome day in central Virginia – gorgeous in the fall! Lively discussion at UVA – only rude person was a prof, students were great.

Cuccinelli spoke briefly of his civil investigative demands against the university, claiming that the university continues to support Mann despite the accepted view that his findings were falsified and have been disproved — neither of which are true.

During the question and answer section of the visit, Professor Vivian Thomson, an environmental policy expert who is on the faculty of the Department of Environmental Sciences and the Department of Politics at UVA and who regulated air quality in Virginia for eight years as a member (and Vice Chair) of the State Air Pollution Control Board, questioned Mr. Cuccinelli’s claims about the science of climate change and the actions undertaken by the US EPA to date, which I captured on my smartphone:

Thomson asked if he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s conclusions in Massachusetts v EPA (2007) that “the harms associated with climate change are serious and well-recognized?”

Cuccinelli responded that Massachusetts v EPA was all about legal standing.

Mr. Cuccinelli also implied that EPA is undertaking a costly cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases. Professor Thomson observed that the Agency is not undertaking a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. EPA’s regulations to date have included (a) clean vehicle standards that will increase fuel efficiency and enhance energy security that should save motorists thousands of dollars over the life of their vehicles, and whose economic benefits far outweigh their costs; and, (b) a regulatory relief rule that exempts many small and medium-sized businesses from regulation for their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The costs that I am talking about are analogous to cap-and-trade, not that they are cap-and-trade,” Cuccinelli admitted. Professor Thomson asked Cuccinelli if he could share the cost studies that formed the basis for his claims about the costs of EPA’s actions to date. He had no such cost studies to offer. Read more

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 21, 2010 at 6:27 pm

I know you won’t listen to me:

— It’s not possible to not have a monetary policy, the only question is which policy would be best.

— Forced dissaving.

— Rob Portman wants to create lots of moral hazard.

— What would Milton Friedman do?

— I want to see a Social Network remake where Sean Parker urges Mark Zuckerberg to move his company to South Dakota.

— Helvetica ad from 1966.

— Could Pelosi get the boot even if Democrats hold the House?

Sufjan Stevens, “Bad Communication” is good but also makes me nostalgic for Ill Communication.

Climate Progress

Tea Party defends climate pollution as the Lords will

By Climate Guest Blogger on Oct 21, 2010 at 6:03 pm

In a front-page NY Times article , John Broder noted that opposition to the science of global warming has become “an article of faith” among Tea Party conservative activists.  Brad Johnson has the story.

In addition to libertarians who believe “efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth,” others “” prodded by the “preaching” of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, and others “” use their Biblical faith to justify their denial of the destructive power of coal and oil pollution. Tea Party organizers in Rep. Baron Hill’s (D-IN) district told Broder their denial of pollution was consistent with the Bible’s teachings:

Read more

LGBT

In Response To Choi, Jarrett Insists Obama Must Appeal DADT Ruling, Says Frustration Should Be Directed At Congress

By Igor Volsky on Oct 21, 2010 at 5:58 pm

This morning, Lt. Dan Choi denounced White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett for suggesting that those who urge the administration not to appeal a recent federal court decision overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t “actually understand” President Obama’s duty to defend existing laws. “I’m so absolutely upset at the things she could be saying at this moment,” he began. “Valerie Jarrett said that gay people, some of us should try to understand the politics and the situation and that we are a nation of laws. Well we understand that, we don’t need a lecture from Valerie Jarrett on that.”

This afternoon, Jarrett appeared on CNN’s The Situation Room and doubled down on her argument that the Justice Department must appeal the ruling, insisted that Obama can’t change the policy through executive order and falsely suggested that Obama has already admitted that the policy is unconstitutional:

JARRETT: [Obama] can’t simply sign an executive order to revoke it or he would have. So we’re asking Congress to repeal it. And until then, the Justice Department has no choice but to defend the laws that are on the books and that’s what the Justice Department is doing. But we want it to end and end as soon as possible.

BLITZER: One legal scholar suggested today that perhaps the president could go ahead do what he needs to do, but at the same time make it clear to everyone that he thinks this law is unconstitutional.

JARRETT: He has done that. He did that as recently as last week at a town hall meeting. He said that he thinks this law should be absolutely repealed. He does not believe in this law. [...]

BLITZER: Will you push for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell during the lame duck session?

JARRETT: I know the president has said he wants it repealed as quickly as possible….we share the frustration of people who think it should be done right away. We wish it had been done sooner. But we are determined to get it done.

BLITZER: If Dan Choi were here what would you say to him?

JARRETT: I appreciate his frustration. I share his frustration and I understand that for somebody who has served proudly in the military that he thinks this is an outrage. We think this is an outrage, too. And we think that focus should be directed at Congress. Because Congress is the one that passed it in the first place. Congress is the one who should repeal it.

Watch it:

LGBT advocates have argued that Obama could also use his stop-loss authority to prevent the military from discharging individuals based on their sexual orientation and have claimed that the White House does not have to appeal the ruling if he believes that it is unconstitutional.

This morning, Ted Olson — former Solicitor General under President George W. Bush — agreed with this emerging consensus, saying “It would be appropriate for them to say ‘the law has been deemed unconstitutional, we are not going to seek further review of that.’”

Significantly, Jarrett also refused to say that Obama would lobby for repeal during the lame duck session and incorrectly suggested that he had said that the law is unconstitutional during the MTV town hall. At that event, Obama dodged the question and instead reiterated his promise that “This policy will end and it will end on my watch.”

Politics

Prominent O’Donnell Backer Has Extremist Ties, Believes Obama Isn’t An American

By George Zornick on Oct 21, 2010 at 5:35 pm

Reuters has a story today about Tea Party-backed Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell’s fundraising, noting that almost all of her support among GOP donors has dried up. The story notes that, failing that support, “the mainstays of O’Donnell’s campaign appear to be local activists associated with the Tea Party movement.” In particular, a group called the 9-12 Patriots and its leader, Russ Murphy, are generating significant support for O’Donnell’s campaign.

During her primary night victory speech, the 9-12 Patriots were the first group O’Donnell thanked, saying “I can‘t thank everyone by name because we would be here until midnight….but I specifically want to thank the 9/12 Patriots for laying the foundation and stirring things up in Delaware.” After her speech, she invited Murphy up to the podium to speak, gave him a hug, and told the crowd: “You’ve got to hear the story about how he started the 9-12 Patriots.” Watch it:

Murphy went on to talk about Karl Rove, but he did not share with the audience or the cameras his views on President Obama — that he believes Obama is not a U.S. citizen, and did not even win the popular vote in the 2008 presidential election. For his book “The Backlash,” author Will Bunch “traveled America looking for the heart of the so-called Tea Party movement” and interviewed members, and sat down with Murphy and two “lieutenants” in the 9-12 Patriots. They explained their opposition to Obama:

The trio led me through a long and mostly fact-free explanation of how Obama only won in 2008 because of the Electoral College, and they even tried to deny his 100,000-vote landslide win in Delaware, finally telling me it was only because of “the handout people” in Wilmington, with its large minority population. Murphy went further, telling me that Obama is “not American” and insisting he hasn’t presented “the documentation” to prove he’s eligible to be commander in chief. The second factor that empowered their movement was the blend of news and misinformation they receive from the popular Fox News Channel and especially from Glenn Beck, whose televised call for the creation of a 9-12 movement is what inspired Murphy to launch his band of “patriots.”

In September, the blog Political Chili outlined some of Murphy’s views that are even more disturbing. He was a “delegate” to the “Continental Congress” held in St. Charles, Illinois in November 2009. The “Articles of Freedom” the delegates produced there called for, among other things, abolition of the Department of Homeland Security, the establishment of 50 state militias, and they declared that President Obama “was not born on U.S. soil” and called for the U.S. Congress to investigate the “citizenship status of the President,” with impeachment as an eventual recourse.

As Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center reported, the “Continental Congress” documents implied violence against the government, saying that “any infringement on the people’s liberty as laid out in the Constitution is ‘an act of WAR’ that ‘the People and their Militias have the Right and Duty to repel.’”

O’Donnells open embrace of Murphy has not yet been questioned by the national or local press in Delaware, but his involvement in the “Continental Congress” and his views on President Obama are disturbing and deserve further scrutiny.

Update

The NAACP just released a report called Tea Party Nationalism, which outlines connections between some Tea Party members and racist or anti-government groups.

Security

Conservative Latino Coalition Distances Itself From Founder And His Ad Telling Latinos Not To Vote

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Oct 21, 2010 at 5:30 pm

Today, Capital Wire posted a press release issued by the conservative Latino Coalition denouncing the controversial ads released by Latinos for Reform, another right-leaning political group, which told Latinos not to vote. Latino Coalition president Hector V. Barreto stated:

The Latino Coalition believes in holding all our elected representatives accountable, by actively participating in the democratic process. At the heart of this process is our right and duty as citizens to vote. That we have not achieved Comprehensive Immigration Reform, yet, should motivate us to deepen our participation, not withdraw to the sidelines. [...] What is clear is that any message of abstention to Latinos is terribly ill-founded and contrary to our best interests.

Earlier this week, the president of Latinos for Reform, Robert de Posada, tried to tell MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that the Spanish-version of the ad was more tempered and only called on Latinos not to vote for candidates who betrayed them (the Spanish ad vaguely makes this point, but later clearly tells them not to vote at all). Also, when O’Donnell pointed out that “there are no other Latino organizations on board with this,” de Posada told him that he was simply listening to “a group of [Latino] leaders in Washington, DC who depend on access to the White House.”

Watch de Posada’s interview on MSNBC:

The Latino Coalition’s statement debunks de Posada’s first claim: “the spot’s Spanish translation deviates significantly from its English version, by widening blame to both political parties –as opposed to its English counterpart, which focuses on Democrats – and urging Latino voters not to vote in any election, as opposed to the specific instruction in the English-language spot not to vote in Congressional races only.”

Furthermore, the Latino Coalition also doesn’t have much to do with the current White House. In fact, what their press release curiously doesn’t mention is that the Latino Coalition was founded and led by Robert de Posada himself.

De Posada told Talking Points Memo earlier this week that he created the Hispanic Business Roundtable in 1994, which later became the Latino Coalition which he led until 2007. In fact, when Barreto became president, de Posada issued a statement saying “As national chairman, Hector Barreto will be a leader that helps set the
community on the right course to greater prosperity.”

Update

Now, de Posada is following National Council of La Raza’s lead and simply telling Latinos to demand respect when they vote:

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