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Health

Rep. Gohmert: Government Controls Vending Machines, Restaurants, Health Records Through Health Law

By Igor Volsky on Mar 21, 2011 at 8:10 pm

The ever-bombastic Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told 1250 WTMA in South Carolina this afternoon that the Affordable Care Act “take[s] control” of “vending machines” and “restaurants” and even sends personal medical information to the federal government. “And of course big brother will have every one of your personal medical records,” Gohmert said:

GOHMERT: We take control of vending machines, of restaurants and of course big brother, your federal government will have every one of your personal medical records. Oh yea, we’re farming that out to a good loyal corporation, General Electric, that’s been very loyal to our President. And so, General Electric and the federal government will have access to everyone’s personal records and will be able to keep watch on people and make sure they’re doing what we think they should and will be able to tell who’s being a bully or who’s getting bullied. All of those federal issues that we’re hearing from the Democrats need to be ruled from Washington these days.

Listen:

Conservatives began circulating this myth via chain-emails during the reform debate and Gohmert is still repeating it. In reality, the law did not change the existing protections that prevent anyone from sharing personal medical information with third parties without consent of the patient.

During the segment, Gohmert also suggested that Republicans may not be completely united in going after the mandatory funding (what Republicans are now referring to as “secret funding”) in the law. Echoing the concerns of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — who recently expressed frustration at the GOP’s reluctance to defund the mandatory spending — Gohmert said that Republicans must have “total commitment from our party that that is truly what we’re going to do.”

Media

CNN Foreign Correspondent Calls Out Fox News: ‘Outrageous’ ‘Lies And Deceit’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Mar 21, 2011 at 8:00 pm

This afternoon, Fox News reported that the Qaddafi regime used foreign journalists, including teams from CNN and Reuters, as a “human shield” to thwart an attack on Qaddafi’s compound last night. The compound had already been hit by allied missiles, but in its exclusive report — which is FoxNews.com’s most read and commented story — Fox alleges that “British sources” told them that allied forces were planning a second attack, which was called off due to the journalists’ presence.

But on the Situation Room tonight, a visibly frustrated CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson, who was on the CNN team that visited the compound, called the report untruthful and “outrageous.” Moreover, Robertson acccused Fox of “lies and deceit” for claiming none of their staffers went on the same trip when one in fact did:

WOLF BLITZER: I want you to explain what you know about this suggestion Fox news reporting that you, a Reuters crew, some other journalists were effectively used by Qaddafi as a human shield to prevent allied fighter planes from coming in and attacking a certain position. Explain what you know about this.

ROBERTSON: Wolf, this allegation is outrageous and it’s absolutely hypocritical. When you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from a dictatorship here. You don’t expect it from the other journalists. [...]

They sent a member of their team. He was not editorial. He was nontechnical, not normally a cameraman. [...]

I see [Fox's corespondent] more times at breakfast than out on trips with government officials here. So for them to say and call this — to say they didn’t go and for them to call this and say this was government propaganda to hold us there as human shields when they didn’t even leave the hotel, it’s ridiculous.

Watch it:

Robertson also essentially called Fox’s team in Libya lazy and uninformed, saying they rarely leave the hotel to do reporting. He said his colleagues from other networks have the same regard for Fox.

LGBT

Increasing Number Of Religious Americans Support Marriage Equality

By Igor Volsky on Mar 21, 2011 at 7:10 pm

Republican presidential candidates who are positioning themselves as social conservatives opposed to same-sex marriage will be speaking to an ever diminishing portion of the religious base, last week’s ABC News/Washington Post poll found. That’s because a majority of Americans — 53 percent — now support marriage equality (up from only 32 percent support in 2004), including 53 percent of white Catholics and 57 percent of nonevangelical Protestants. As CAP’s Sally Steenland observes, the public has finally “moved ahead of the religious institutions they belong to and the politicians who represent them”:

It’s true that white evangelicals remain widely opposed—only 25 percent support marriage equality. But even that number is an 11 percent increase from 2004, when only 14 percent showed support. [...]

Those in the pews are expressing a lived reality that is dynamic and complex. More and more, people have openly gay and lesbian friends, co-workers, and family members. They have neighbors who live in committed same-sex unions. When real people bump up against religious ideology, most often it’s the ideology that breaks and gets swept away.

But that’s not the only reason religious people are increasingly supportive of marriage equality. Many faith communities are working hard to welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people into their congregations and stand up for LGBT moral equality. From study groups that wrestle with sacred texts to prophetic witnessing for nondiscrimination policies, religious institutions are increasingly including LGBT issues as part of their justice mission and seeing LGBT people as reflecting the image of God just as they are.

A 2010 study by Brian Powell of Indiana University found that the GOP fixation on anti-LGBT initiatives may actually have expanded support for same-sex marriage by increasing the visibility of LGBT issues and making “a topic that seemed taboo a little bit less taboo.” “One of the fascinating things is that with all this discussion out there whether positive or negative, being able to say the words, just made people more comfortable,” he told me during an interview in September. “With all this discussion about same sex marriage…I think it made people more attuned to who there friends and relatives [are].”

So if Republicans focus on gay marriage during this election cycle, they won’t just be talking to a smaller group of voters. They’ll also be helping a growing number of Americans come out in favor of marriage equality.

Politics

AZ Senate President Russell Pearce Takes Tentherism To New Level: ‘You Are Not A Citizen Of The United States’

By Zaid Jilani on Mar 21, 2011 at 7:00 pm

One of the most radical offshoots of modern conservatism in the United States is called “tentherism,” which invokes the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment to claim that a whole host of federal government powers are illegitimate, from the operations of the Social Security program to the national highway system, and that states are supreme.

During a speech at the Oceanside Tea Party rally in recent months, Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce (R) took this philosophy to a new extreme. In the speech, where he denounced the federal government’s efforts to stop the implementation of the state’s radical anti-immigrant law, Pearce claimed that Americans aren’t even citizens of the United States, that they are rather citizens of “sovereign states,” meaning that we should be loyal to the laws of individual states rather than the federal government:

PEARCE: U.S. history, most of us weren’t around when the Constitution was written. But you remember we kind of existed before Congress, the states. We created the Congress, we created the federal government, by compact. Do you know what existed before the Congress, the states? Do you know, you’re not a citizen of the United States. You’re a citizen of a sovereign state. The fifty sovereign states makes up United States of America, we’re citizens of those sovereign states. It is not a delegated authority. It’s an inherent authority that states have over the federal government. [applause] It’s about time somebody gets it right!

Watch it:

It’s ironic that Pearce says that it’s “time somebody gets its right” with respect to the Constitution — because he doesn’t. While it may not need to be said that Americans are, of course, citizens of the United States, if the Arizona state senator is confused about this issue he could always reference the very document he cites. The 14th Amendment of the constitution lays out very plainly that all people born in the United States are citizens of the United States:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

And if Pearce actually read the Constitution, he would also see that it clearly trumps state law and “shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby.” This isn’t the first time Pearce has flirted with secessionist tendencies. Earlier this year, he sponsored a measure that would essentially nullify federal laws that Arizona state lawmakers disagreed with, amounting to a radical assault on our rule of law.

Climate Progress

Crude Profiteering: An Overview Of The Price Of Unregulated Oil Speculators

By Brad Johnson on Mar 21, 2011 at 6:10 pm

This post was edited and condensed from today’s Progress Report, the daily ThinkProgress newsletter. Subscribe here.

While there are several causes that contribute to rise in oil prices, many experts point to Wall Street speculation: hedge funds, investors, and big banks trying making money by betting on the price fluctuation of oil and other commodities, often with exotic financial instruments. Unregulated speculation can artificially inflate the price of oil beyond the price that natural supply and demand forces would set, as the market is swamped by traders who don’t care about the financial well-being of oil producers and consumers. If matters get out of hand, speculatory excess can even destroy the entire market, as happened when mortgage derivatives overwhelmed the long-term stability of the housing market. Lesser amounts of this kind of vulture capitalism can precipitate economic decline and suffering when too many people can no longer afford food and energy.

Experts concluded in 2008 that that year’s spike in oil and other commodity prices couldn’t possibly be explained by supply and demand forces, and that speculation must have played a role. “[T]here is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices,” a House Homeland Security Committee report on oil prices from 2008 concluded.

The same appears to be true today. Speculation on energy futures, including oil, is at an all-time high, jumping 64 percent even since 2008. Speculation was blamed by both Republicans and Democrats three years ago for oil prices, and even with conservatives’ tea party embrace of Wall Street today, several Republican congressmen, and conservative leaders have acknowledged that speculation is a driver of oil prices.

Recognizing the problem of oil speculation, Congress gave the government new powers to protect consumers and help ensure market stability with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law passed last year. The law gives the CFTC the ability to limit “excessive speculation” by limiting the bets speculators can make. The law expanded the CFTC’s authority to regulate the entire market for the first time. While futures — bets on the future prices of commodities like oil and wheat — were regulated before the law passed, traders could choose to instead purchase “look-alike” futures that were not subject to regulation. Dodd-Frank changes this by allowing the CFTC to “impose a uniform set of rules across exchanges and the over-the-counter market, replacing a patchwork of inconsistent restrictions for different venues and commodities.” Curbing regulation could help make these markets more stable and transparent, and help bring down the cost of oil.

But the CFTC has so far failed to take up this responsibility and write the rules that would rein in oil speculators. The agency missed a January deadline to file new rules because of opposition from the commission’s Republican members and one of its Democrats, CFTC commissioner Michael Dunn. The agency’s chairman, Gary Gensler — a Democrat and former Goldman Sachs banker — has taken a lead in advocating strong new rules on speculation, but the Republican commissioners have been foot dragging to defend Wall Street’s profits, making Dunn the swing vote. Dunn has said he does not have enough information to sign off on new rules, despite the fact that the agency has received hundreds of public comments and held at least 75 meetings with experts, stakeholders, and the public on the matter.

Dunn’s term is ending this summer, giving President Obama an opportunity to appoint someone who is willing to follow the law and rein in speculation.

The CFTC faces another threat from Republicans on a different front. H.R.1, the House Republican approved spending plan for the remainder of 2011, includes a nearly one-third cut in the CFTC’s budget. Such a draconian cut would require the CFTC to lay off more than 30 percent of its staff. Moreover, House “Republicans are threatening repercussions for regulators that ignore their concerns.”

“We’d have to have significant curtailment of our staff and resources,” CFTC Chairman Gensler said. “We would not be able to police…or ensure transparent markets in futures or swaps.”

The Republican effort to take cops off the oil trade beat would allow speculators to continue to drive up prices, ensuring even bigger profits for oil companies and Wall Street bankers.

Politics

Tea Party At Its Dregs? Major Convention Attracts Few

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Mar 21, 2011 at 6:00 pm

With Fox News host Glenn Beck’s ratings down and the biggest tea party rally eclipsed by a recent pro-labor rally in Wisconsin, could the tea party be losing steam? One new sign: a big tea party convention in Tampa, FL this weekend — headlined by such conservative favorites as Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Fox News Judge Andrew Napolitano, and former GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo — attracted only about 300 people. The Save America Convention’s website lists 25 guest speakers, meaning there was one speaker for every 12 attendees. If one includes the 13 musicians and other performers listed as entertainment, that ratio drops to one for every 7 and a half.

Joseph Farah, the founder of the birther news website World Net Daily, who spoke at the event, promised “lots of opportunities for interactivity between participants and presenters.” Indeed, this photo from the convention posted by Saint Petersblog suggests attendees would have little competition to meet Farah and the other speakers:

Aimed at the farthest right of the far right, the three-day event touted a sponsorship from the John Birch Society and an appearance by Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia. But this kind of uber-conservative fare has had no trouble attracting bigger crowds not long ago. There’s no video of the event — which didn’t include a single female speaker — since “video recorders and audio rendering devices are prohibited and would be grounds for removal without refund.”

Security

Will AZ’s Business Leaders Continue Donating Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars To The Enforcement-Only GOP?

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Mar 21, 2011 at 5:15 pm

Last week, sixty employers and businesses urged Arizona state lawmakers to vote against a series of anti-immigrant bills because they would damage the economy and tourism industry. This effort by business leaders was largely credited for convincing nine Republican state senators to go out on a limb and side with Democrats in rejecting legislation that would have redefined citizenship under the 14th Amendment and required public schools to verify immigration status, among other things. While it certainly was a “risky” move that was ultimately successful, it brings up the larger question of whether business leaders are going to continue to financially support Arizona’s Republican Party in spite of its overwhelmingly enforcement-only platform and nativist leadership.

So far, several of the same executives who signed on to the letter urging the Arizona legislature to “redirect its energy” by shifting its focus away from state and local immigration measures and towards a federal solution have been some of the state’s biggest GOP donors. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has led the charge against immigrants in their state and has also pulled every stunt to block immigration reform on the federal level.

By far, the biggest GOP donor on the list is James, or “Jim” Click Jr. — president of the Jim Click Automotive Team and Director of Compass Bancshares Inc. In 2008, he donated over $125,000 almost exclusively to Republican candidates (with the exception of a couple thousand dollars that went to an organization called “Compass Bancshares Inc. PAC”). Then, during the 2010 election cycle, Click donated another $123,900 to GOP politicians running for office. Beneficiaries included such anti-immigrant candidates such as Jesse Kelly (R-AZ), Carly Fiorina (R-CA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and the Pima County Republican Party. Meanwhile, Jim Click’s wife — Vicki Click — is listed as donating over $120,000 to GOP candidates herself.

The Clicks aren’t the only big Republican donors who opposed the immigration laws that were considered last week. Lee Hanley, CEO of Vestar Development Co. donated well over $130,000 to Republican candidates and conservative causes, including Nevada tea party candidate Sharron Angle. Earl Petznick Jr., president and CEO of Northside Hay Co. has donated over $35,000 to Republican candidates.

Many of these donations were made after the Arizona Republican Party rammed the state’s controversial immigration law — SB-1070 — through the state legislature. All of the donations were made well after the GOP killed comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level in 2007. Although a small handful of the individuals who signed off on last week’s letter did contribute to Democrats who oppose the bills that have been moving through the state legislature, it’s no secret that a large segment of the business community has failed to prioritize its own immigration platform and instead rallied around enforcement-only Republican candidates.

Coming out publicly against the terrible immigration measures last week was a great first step. Yet, in politics, money always seems to speak louder than words and these business leaders are going to have to start putting that money where their mouths are if they really intend on slowing down Arizona’s self-proclaimed Tea Party Senate and the conservative House of Representatives for good. Meanwhile, it will take a lot more than a letter to convince those lawmakers that they are betting off “pressing the federal government for meaningful immigration reform.”

Yglesias

The Intervention Cycle

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 21, 2011 at 5:14 pm

Leon Wieseltier, plumping for war per usual, asks: “Did our inaction in Rwanda reduce the frequency of malaria in Africa?”

That seems like a terrible way of looking at things. The United States of America traditionally didn’t maintain a large standing military force. But in order to fight the Cold War, we created one. This national security establishment is a significant burden on the public purse and it does, in the aggregate, crowd out other possible public sector initiatives including international public health. It’s true that once the military capability actually exists, the short-term cost of deploying it often looks low. This is Madeleine Albright’s challenge to Colin Powell: What’s the point of having this magnificent military if you’re never going to use it. But if you do use it, then non-use as a rationale for reduced expenditures goes away. And that, again, crowds out other possible public sector initiatives including international public health.

Yet at the end of the day, promiscuous use of lethal violence seems like a very strange long-term strategy for promoting humanitarian outcomes. It’s neither true that promiscuous use of lethal violence is a cost-effective means of humanitarianism nor is it true that America’s capacity for lethal violence is primarily deployed for humanitarian purposes.

Politics

GOP Rep. Duffy Voted Against Defunding NPR Because He Refused To ‘Pull The Rug Out’ Under Local Radio

By Tanya Somanader on Mar 21, 2011 at 4:54 pm

Conspiring against Click and Clack, House Republicans successfully voted to prevent federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) last Thursday. While many Republicans celebrated their coup against the “Planned Parenthood” of the airwaves, six Republicans joined the Democrats in voting against the measure — one of whom was freshman Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), of MTV’s “Real World” fame. Noting that local public radio plays a vital role in serving rural areas in his district, Duffy called the bill an unfair move against local radio that will “pull the rug out from under them immediately“:

Duffy says a majority of rural public radio stations get most of their funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. While many stations are turning towards more traditional sources of income like local sponsors and advertising, he says many don’t have the resources in place to make the switch right now.

While Duffy says he’s against cutting off funding, that isn’t to mean he’s against budget cuts. “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is no sacred cow, but for rural communities – such as those in Wisconsin, and my district in particular – public broadcasting plays a critical role.”

As Duffy’s Wisconsin colleague Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D) noted, 27 million Americans listen to NPR each week and nearly 450,000 Wisconsinites listen to Wisconsin Public Radio weekly. “Because Wisconsin is largely a rural state, our citizens rely on over-the-air broadcasting more than almost any other state,” she said. Assuring that he would “work to help make cuts in the over all budget,” Duffy insisted that “there must be a balance between cutting spending and maintaining funding that accomplishes valuable priorities.”

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