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Politics

Rosario Dawson Hits GOP Plan, Says ‘Immigrants Pay More Taxes Than Exxon!’

By Lee Fang on Apr 29, 2011 at 10:50 pm

This morning, Politico hosted a star-studded Playbook Breakfast event with the Creative Coalition, an political advocacy organization for the entertainment industry. During the question and answer period, we asked actress Rosario Dawson about the Republican budget plan, which cuts the corporate tax rate and taxes for millionaires. Dawson, who clarified that she is not a formal member of the Creative Coalition, curtly responded that “no,” celebrities do not need another tax cut. Dawson then followed up and noted that immigrants pay more in taxes than ExxonMobil:

FANG: Hi this is Lee Fang from ThinkProgress. Here in DC after Republicans made large gains in the election last year, the debate started shifting towards giving more tax breaks to large corporations, more tax cuts to the rich. Bank of America for example paid nothing in corporate income taxes last year and now we’re debating the Paul Ryan budget plan that gives large tax cuts to upper income earners. Do you think celebrities or people in the Creative Coalition need another tax cut?

DAWSON: Ok I’m not part of the Creative Coalition but, no.

ALLEN: That’s a lightning round, how’s that!

DAWSON: I will just say immigrants pay more taxes than Exxon!

Watch it:

As we have reported here at ThinkProgress, undocumented immigrants alone paid over $11 billion in taxes into the economy. Tax dodging companies like GE, Bank of America, Boeing, and ExxonMobil routinely pay little to no income taxes at all.

Politics

GOP Rep. Blake Farenthold Compares Unemployed Americans To Alcoholics And Drug Users

By Zaid Jilani on Apr 29, 2011 at 7:15 pm

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) held a “listening session” at Burns Elementary School on Tuesday where he discussed a variety of issues with a crowd of nearly two dozen constituents. One of the attendees uploaded video of the session on YouTube.

At one point during the session, a man asked about drug testing for “welfare recipients.” Farenthold said that this is an idea worth considering, and then went on to complain that unemployment insurance is too generous. He then compared Americans on unemployment insurance to alcoholics and drug addicts:

FARENTHOLD: Drug testing for recipients of various welfare programs, I really think that’s something that needs to be considered. We’ve gotta, you know, nobody wants to starve anybody. Everybody wants to help folks out. But we’ve got a system where you can stay on unemployment for an awfully long time. And I think we need to create a system of decreasing benefits over time to encourage you to get a job. I think anybody who’s had an alcoholic in their life or somebody with a drug problem, realizes that until things get bad enough there’s no incentive to change. I think that we’re so generous in some of our social problems that people are unwilling to get a job outside in the heat. Rather than get 15 dollars to go get roofing they’d rather get 9 or 10 dollars in benefits. I think drug testing is not an unreasonable requirement to get benefits.

Watch it:

Farenthold’s insults towards unemployed Americans are as devoid of factual backing as they are offensive. The reason there are so many unemployed people in his state right now is because the jobs simply do not exist, not that unemployment benefits are too “generous.” The following chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a gigantic jump in unemployment from 2008 to 2011. Unless the congressman is arguing that Texans simply became more lazy during this time or that there was a massive expansion of the welfare state during this time, it appears that the recession is the primary reason to explain unemployment, not meager benefits:

Additionally, it should be noted that U.S. social spending is far from “generous” when compared to other developed countries. Among OECD countries, the United States ranks second to last in social spending, ahead of only Turkey. Goldman Sachs actually studied this issue earlier this year and concluded that “only ½ percentage point of the current 9.4% jobless rate can be explained by the extension of UI benefits. Moreover, our calculations suggest that this effect will fade when the extended benefits eventually expire. These estimates—broadly in line with a recent study by the San Francisco Fed—reinforce our view that the overwhelming share of unemployment is cyclical rather than structural.” (h/t: rgvtpweb YouTube account)

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2011 at 6:25 pm

It’s a cruel world:

— Economics in crisis.

— Narwhal horns and health insurance jokes.

— Amanda Hess and Pema Levy on royal weddings and “girl culture.”

— There needs to be more to alternative transportation advocacy than bike lanes.

—

— David Frum says Keynes wins the argument with Hayek.

— Witold Rybczynski on density.

— Funny hats.

Pre-election Canadian music continues with Broken Social Scene’s “7/4 Shoreline”.

Politics

Florida Senate Approves Redundant Constitutional Amendment To Ban Public Funding For Abortion

By Tanya Somanader on Apr 29, 2011 at 6:15 pm

Yesterday, the Florida Senate passed a package of six of the 916 anti-abortion bills working their way through state houses nationwide. The GOP package includes bills to force women to hear a description of their fetus, require ethics training for abortion doctors, strengthen parental consent requirements, and allow money from “Choose Life” license plates to go to an anti-abortion organization.

Florida state senators, however, only passed two of these bills. One bans insurance policies purchased under the health care exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act from covering abortion. The other? A constitutional amendment to ban public funding and “exempt abortion from the Florida Constitution’s strong privacy right.”

The fact that both federal and state law already prohibit public funding for abortion didn’t stop 27 senators from insisting it be enshrined in the state’s constitution — three more than needed to put it on the 2012 ballot, where it must be approved by voters in order to proceed. The unfortunate redundancy of the measure was completely lost on the amendment’s sponsor, state Sen. Anitere Flores (R), who said, “Should Floridians be forced to pay for something that they don’t agree with? I think the answer is no.”

It was not lost, however, on two Republicans — state Sens. Evelyn Lynn and Dennis Jones — who joined all but one Democrats in opposition. “We know the intent of all these bills and that is to restrict the right of all women as well as to nip away and chip away at Roe versus Wade,” said state Sen. Eleanor Sobel (D).

Lynn was also the only Republican to vote against the bill banning insurance policies from covering abortion because, she said, the bill unfairly targets women:

Lynn argued the bill discriminates against women because public funds are used to buy Viagra and other impotency drugs for men.

“This is not a funny issue,” Lynn said. “All the males on the floor seem to be laughing.”

Florida now joins Montana in pushing for a constitutional amendment on abortion and at least 25 states that already ban, or are working to ban, insurance coverage for abortion under the Affordable Care Act.

LGBT

Virginia’s Anti-Gay Attorney General Punishes Law Firm For Not Defending Discrimination

By Zack Ford on Apr 29, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has a pretty consistently antagonistic record on LGBT issues. He insisted that VA’s universities could not protect gays and lesbians from discrimination, going so far as to say that homosexual acts are “a detriment to our culture.” More recently, he opposed allowing same-sex couples from being allowed to adopt, a position that influenced the State Board of Social Services to vote down the proposed provision.

This week, he’s now punishing law firm King & Spalding for backing out of its contract to defend the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act. Calling the firm weak and untrustworthy, he terminated the state’s relationship with the firm such that they are no longer on retainer to provide special counsel to the state:

King & Spalding’s willingness to drop a client, the U.S. House of Representatives, in connection with the lawsuit challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was such an obsequious act of weakness that I feel compelled to end your legal association with Virginia so that there is no chance that one of my legal clients will be put in the embarrassing and difficult situation like the client you walked away from, the House of Representatives. [...]

Virginia does not shy away from hiring outside counsel because they may have ongoing professional relationships with people or entities, or on behalf of causes that I, or my office, or Virginia as a whole may not support. But it is crucial for us to be able to trust and rely on the fact that our outside counsel will not desert Virginia due to pressure by an outside group or groups. [...]

Virginia seeks firms of committment, courage, strength and toughness, and unfortunately, what the world has learned of King & Spalding, is that your firm utterly lacks such qualities.

Cuccinelli conveniently ignores the fact that K&S’s contract with the House was not properly vetted and contained provisions that compromise the firm’s principles. Perhaps he thinks a “strong” firm is one that betrays its own employees and never revisits decisions that were made hastily and improperly, let alone correct them.

Yglesias

Climate Change Is Not Interested In Who Deserves What

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2011 at 5:44 pm

My colleague Brad Johnson has noted that the tornadoes devastating the American south recently are yet another example of the kind of havok wreaked by severe weather events—severe weather events that only become more common as we pump more and more climate pollution into the atmosphere.

An outraged Tabitha Hale accused Johnson of “adopt[ing] the Pat Robertson model and claim[ing] Divine Justice for those redneck Republican climate change deniers in the south.” But Brad did know such thing, he merely noted that climate change happens—and kills—whether or not politicians want to acknowledge it.

Indeed, precisely the crux of our problem is that climate chaos isn’t divine retribution for pollution. If severe weather specifically afflicted the individuals responsible for pollution, then polluters would need to weigh the costs and benefits of generating additional pollution. The result would be an efficient equilibrium. But in the real world, the costs of the pollution don’t fall specifically on polluters. The result is that engaging in extra polluting activity is often profitable even when the costs far exceed the benefits. That’s precisely why we need a regulatory solution, ideally featuring a system to charge polluters for polluting and bring the system into equilibrium.

Security

Contradicting Leadership, NRA Members Want Group To Meet With Obama To Discuss Gun Issues

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 29, 2011 at 5:15 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from Pittsburgh, PA at the NRA’s annual convention.

Shortly after the shooting massacre in Tucson earlier this year, President Obama called on all sides of the guns and gun control issue to come together to figure out ways to avoid future tragedies like Tucson. In March, the administration made good on the pledge and invited National Rifle Association officials to participate in closed-door meetings to hash out a way forward.

However, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre rejected that offer, despite the fact that various news reports said that in interviews, LaPierre “sounded at times like the White House” on the issue and “favored much of what Obama endorsed.” LaPierre explained his decision, “It shouldn’t be a dialogue about guns; it really should be a dialogue about dangerous people.” An Obama administration official said that it too wanted to “focus on the people, not the guns.” Nevertheless, the NRA was unwilling to talk.

Today, at the NRA’s annual convention in Pittsburgh, ThinkProgress asked a number of NRA members if they thought, in the wake of Tucson, NRA leaders and the Obama administration should, at the very least, sit down and discuss a way forward. While one person we spoke with said, “I really don’t know,” everyone else agreed, “It’s never a bad thing” to have conversation:

TP: I’m wondering if you think it’s a good idea to – or for the NRA leadership, I guess, and the Obama administration to sit down and talk about ways to prevent people like that from getting firearms – just to have a discussion about it.

NRA MEMBER 1: Yeah, a discussion is fine. … It’s never a bad thing to conversate about it. That’s how ideas are formed and things change. [...]

NRA MEMBER 2: It never hurts to talk. [...]

NRA MEMBER 3: If it’s a genuine conversation. [...]

NRA MEMBER 4: I would hope, I think a discussion is warranted. And I would hope there would be what they call some middle ground. … Yes I personally believe yes. I believe there should be discussions on a lot of things like that.

ThinkProgress also spoke with another attendee whose father is a lifetime NRA member. “I think it’s definitely worth a discussion,” she said, adding, “Everything is worth a discussion, so to just kind of get things out on the table and see each other’s point of view to see if there’s a compromise or a different way to do things.” Watch the interview clips:

So if NRA members think it’s a good idea to sit down and talk, why doesn’t the NRA leadership? As former NRA insider Richard Feldman once noted, “Safeguarding the rights of gun owners has become secondary to keeping the fundraising machinery well greased and the group’s senior staff handsomely compensated.” And how does the NRA do that? By making President Obama the enemy. After all, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, LaPierre said “gun rights are the safest they’ve been in 25 years.”

Justice

Appeals Court Reverses Decision Striking Down Stem Cell Funding

By Ian Millhiser on Apr 29, 2011 at 5:00 pm

Last August, Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed trial judge in DC, suspended all federal funding for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research — a decision which limits such research in a way that even President George W. Bush found untenable. Today, a divided D.C. Circuit panel reversed Lamberth’s decision:

Two scientists brought this suit to enjoin the National Institutes of Health from funding research using human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) pursuant to the NIH’s 2009 Guidelines. The district court granted their motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding they were likely to succeed in showing the Guidelines violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, an appropriations rider that bars federal funding for research in which a human embryo is destroyed. We conclude the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker is ambiguous and the NIH seems reasonably to have concluded that, although Dickey-Wicker bars funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC from an embryo, it does not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC will be used.

To translate this a little, Lamberth held that all federally-funded ESC funding violates the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed.” Even though no federal money goes to studies that actually destroy an embryo, Lamberth concluded that such research requires scientists to build upon previous research that involved the destruction of an embryo, and that this is not allowed.

Lamberth’s decision, however, cannot be squared with Supreme Court precedent. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron v. NRDC, judges are normally supposed to defer to an agency’s reading of a federal law unless the agency’s interpretation is entirely implausible, and the Obama administration quite plausibly read the Dickey-Wicker Amendment to only prohibit federal funding of the actual destruction of an embryo — not federal funding of subsequent ESC research. Accordingly, the court of appeals reversed.

Today’s decision is a very hopeful sign that Lamberth’s questionable understanding of this law will no longer undermine stem cell research. Both of the judges who joined today’s majority opinion are conservative Republican appointees. Judge Douglas Ginsburg is a hardcore tenther who once called for a return to an Depression-era vision of the Constitution that struck down child labor laws and other very basic legal protections. Judge Thomas Griffith was appointed by George W. Bush.

Their decision did leave open a slight possibility that Lamberth could try to suspend stem cell research once again. The appeals court expressly decided not to weigh on two alternative claims by the plaintiffs, including a claim that federal ESC funding is illegal “research in which a human embryo or embryos are . . . knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death,” because these claims were not first considered by the court below. Nevertheless, the appeals court made clear that “the plaintiffs have not identified, nor have we found, any precedent for upholding a preliminary injunction based upon a legal theory not embraced by the district court.”

So it appears very likely, if not entirely certain, that stem cell research will ultimately be upheld against all challenges.

Yglesias

China Fact Of The Day

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2011 at 4:59 pm

There’s such a thing as the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries:

Sponsored by China’s Ministry of Commerce and hosted by the government of Macao Special Administrative Region, the Forum was created in Macao in 2003, with the joint participation of seven Portuguese-speaking countries, namely Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and Timor-Leste.

Smells like hegemony.

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