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On Veterans Day, State Rep. Rick Womick (R-TN) Calls For Purging Muslims From The Military

By Eli Clifton and Lee Fang on Nov 11, 2011 at 6:48 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the “Preserving Freedom Conference” in Nashville, TN.

State Rep. Rick Womick (R-TN) speaks to ThinkProgress at an anti-Muslim conference in Tennessee

State representative Rick Womick (R-TN) has made no secret of his anti-Muslim views. A New York Times article from July described Womick on the statehouse floor, warning his constuents that Islamic law was the most urgent threat to their way of life. But in an interview on the sidelines of the “Preserving Freedom Conference” at the Cornerstone Church in Madison, TN, Womick went to new extremes to paint Muslim Americans as dangerous and seditious.

In the interview, which took place on Veterans Day, Womick told ThinkProgress that “I don’t trust one Muslim in our military” and “if they truly are a devout Muslims, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me.” When asked if Muslims should be forced out of the military, Womick responded “Absolutely, yeah.” Read the exchange:

FANG: What about the thousands of Muslims that are still in the military that are veterans, that are translators, that are active personnel. Is there some sort of policy solution that you’re advocating? […]

WOMICK: Personally, I don’t trust one Muslim in our military because they’re commanded to lie to us through the term called Taqiyya. And if they truly are a devout Muslim, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me.

CLIFTON: You believe they should be forced out?

WOMICK: Absolutely, yeah.

Watch it:

To see an extended version of our interview with Womick about Muslims in the military, click here.

Yglesias

Against Fatalism

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 11, 2011 at 5:10 pm

I think it’s a real mistake for writers to go soft on bad policy ideas on the grounds that we’ll “never” get rid of them. The practice of witch-burning had, in its heyday, a much longer history in western politics than the home mortgage interest tax deduction and yet over time people’s minds changed. It’s true that it’s “inevitable” that businesses will lobby for tax loopholes and deductions and “inevitable” that members of congress will give in to them. But it used to be inevitable that the king would tax the peasants and use the money to build fancy palaces. People need to become more upset, not less upset, about routinized abuse of the policy process and casual corruption on the Hill.

For example, I like to think Atrios and I will eventually prevail in our struggle for granny flats!

Yglesias

Capital Income Stagnation

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 11, 2011 at 3:30 pm

I wish more progressives would write about this chart which, note, is not adjusted for inflation:

Capital stagnation does not contradict progressive points about inequality or median wage stagnation. Indeed, viewed properly it reenforces the reality of wage stagnation. But a correct account of what’s going on with the economy ought to incorporate this.

Climate Progress

Despite Industry Ties, DOE Fracking Panel Warns of “A Real Risk of Serious Environmental Consequences” Absent Regulation

By Joe Romm on Nov 11, 2011 at 3:23 pm

It is the Subcommittee’s judgment that if action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country – perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades – there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences and a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity.

The consequences to the nation from unrestricted gas fracking could be very serious if multiple actions aren’t taken quickly by energy companies and the government.  That the somewhat surprising conclusion of The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Subcommittee (SEAB) on Shale Gas Production.

It’s a bit surprising since “six of the seven members have current financial ties to the natural gas and oil industry.”  It just shows how inescapable the dangers are when looked at by serious people.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, pumps water, sand and chemicals underneath shale formations to force out trapped gas. It allows companies to access massive reserves of gas that were formerly unreachable. But drilling operations leak large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and are associated with a host of problems including groundwater contamination and even earthquakes — see Shale Shocked: “Highly Probable” Fracking Caused U.K. Earthquakes, and It’s Linked to Oklahoma Temblors.

And fracking is poised to become commonplace around the country, as the map from the full report (PDF here) makes clear.

The Subcommittee strongly urged EPA and state regulation of fracking emissions — and that those regulations “explicitly include methane, a greenhouse gas.”  In their first report from August, they recommended:

Measures should be taken to reduce emissions of air pollutants, ozone precursors, and methane as quickly as practicable.

Now they write:

Read more

Climate Progress

Veterans Day, 2030

By Joe Romm on Nov 11, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Climate Wars by Gwynne DyerThe worst direct impacts to humans from our unsustainable use of energy — over the next few decades — will, I think, be Dust-Bowlification and extreme weather and food insecurity:  Hell and High Water.

But all of the impacts occurring simultaneously will have an even more devastating synergy (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts“).  It means the rich countries will be far less likely to be offering much assistance to the poorer ones, since there will be ever worsening catastrophes everywhere simultaneously so we’ll be suffering at the same time.  Heck, this deep economic downturn and record-smashing disaster season has already exacerbated media myopia and compassion fatigue to help those around the world staggered by floods and droughts.

And that suggests another deadly climate impact — far more difficult to project quantitatively because there is no paleoclimate analog — may well affect far more people both directly and indirectly: war, conflict, competition for arable and/or habitable land.

We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don’t leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding decades if not centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source — if not the source — of two of our biggest recent wars.

Just yesterday, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan “said rising temperatures and rainwater shortages are having a devastating effect on food production. Failing to address the problem will have repercussions on health, security and stability.”

The NYT reported in 2009:

Read more

Security

EXCLUSIVE: Funders Behind NYPD’s Mysterious Private ‘Counter-Terrorism’ Foundation

By Eli Clifton and Ali Gharib on Nov 11, 2011 at 2:10 pm

When the New York City police department (NYPD) wanted to bring a terrorism expert on board in 2008 to teach about homegrown terror, it turned to Marc Sageman, a well-regarded terrorism expert who works at a right-leaning think tank. The gig, as reported that year by the Associated Press, paid Sageman well. The AP article aslo mentioned, in passing, a strange twist to Sageman’s work:

Dr. Sageman’s residency at the nation’s largest police department began in May and will last a year, with a private foundation paying his $180,000 salary.

This week, at the website NYPD Confidential, Leonard Levitt reported that it appears that the NYPD themselves set up a private foundation which then paid Sageman. Levitt reported that two of the three officers at the non-profit foundation, the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation, are civilian city police officials. But, as a registered tax-exempt non-profit, the foundation raises money from private sources. Levitt tracked the contributions, though not their origins, and found that the foundation had raised nearly $300,000 in total. He wrote that “this seems to be the first time that the NYPD, a municipal agency, has, albeit under the cover of two civilian officials, formed its own private foundation to fund one of its programs”:

This raises troubling questions about the unnamed donor or donors. Do they get special treatment from the NYPD? Do they get special access to Commissioner Ray Kelly for having funded what appears to be one of his pet projects?

Through an investigation of publicly-available tax filings, ThinkProgress was able to ascertain where some –though not all — of the funding comes from. Five foundations gave a total of $112,000 to the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation. They are large foundations with huge bankrolls, including one so-called “donor-advised fund,” where donors give to the charity and direct their money to certain grants. Many of the donors come from the ranks of New York’s financial industry. Among other things, some of the philanthropic giants have funded right-wing pro-Israel projects.

Here’s a quick run-down of the foundations, how much they gave, and little background on them:

THE GOTTESMAN FUND: David Gottesman, a manager of his family foundation, was an early Berkshire Hathaway investor, founded First Manhattan, and is reportedly worth $1.5 billion. The foundation gave $50,000 to the NYPD Conter-Terrorism Foundation. It also gave to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the Israel Project.

THE JEWISH COMMUNAL FUND: This foundation is a behemoth, a so-called “donor-advised” fund with more than a billion dollars in assets in 2007. “The grants that we make are on the recommendation of our donors,” foundation vice president Susan Dickman told ThinkProgress. “So one of our donors directed that donation and I couldn’t tell you the first thing about why.” She declined to name the donor that set aside $27,000 for the NYPD Counter-Terror Foundation in 2007. The Communal Fund gives to a host of hawkish Middle East causes.

THE HAMMERMAN AND FISCH FOUNDATION: Foundation trustee Stephen Hammerman, a former NYPD commissioner of legal affairs, also serves as the director and president of the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation. The latter received $25,000 from the Hammerman and Fisch Foundation in 2009.

THE KOMANSKY FOUNDATION: Foundation president David Komansky, now with BlackRock, was a longtime executive and chairman of the board at Merrill Lynch. John Dadakis, the treasurer of the Komansky Foundation, also serves as a director and secretary of the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation, which received $5,000 from the Komansky Foundation in 2009.

THE MARK AND ANLA CHENG KINGDON FUND: A foundation named for married hedge-funders — Mark Kingdon, the founder and president of Kingdon Capital, and Anla Cheng of Centenium Capital — gave $5,000 to the NYPD Counter-Terrorism Foundation in 2007. They also give to Daniel Pipes‘ Middle East Forum and the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

These large foundations give to a variety of philanthropic causes. But, given the NYPD’s recent history of invasive practices against Muslim communities, that a few of them give to hawkish right-wing Middle East groups does raise some questions.

Yglesias

Informative Contagion

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 11, 2011 at 1:25 pm

Kash Mansouri writes about the Italian debt crisis as a pure case of contagion—insolvency in Greece made people start to worry about Italy, which is creating a self-fulfilling downward spiral.

I don’t disagree with any of that, but it’s worth distinguishing between two kinds of contagion. One is pure association contagion. There are a whole bunch of Spanish-speaking countries located in the Western Hemisphere that are collectively known as “Latin America.” The fact that both Mexico and Peru are part of “Latin America” doesn’t actually tell us anything about their budget outlook or economic policy, but most of us mentally associate Mexico and Peru are two component parts of “Latin America” in a way that we don’t associate Peru and Thailand. So you can imagine a situation where funnybusiness in Mexico leads to a crisis there, which then creates a self-fulfilling downward cycle of investor confidence in Peru simply through unfair association of the two countries as part of “Latin America.” So maybe Italy is like that, just victimized by a loose “Southern Europe” association.

But another view is that the Greece episode actually taught us things and provides new information that investors in Italian debt ought to consider. I would argue that this is the case, and the Greek debt crisis actually provides relevant information about Italy. In particular, I learned the following things:

— One: The German government has proven to be stingier than I thought. Pre-Greece, I thought that the German political class would on some level welcome an opportunity to open the German pocketbook in exchange for political domination of the entire continent. This turns out not to be the case. Germans would really like to mind their own business and export capital goods and luxury cars to China.

— Two: The informal “everyone must agree, but in reality France + Germany = ‘everyone’” rule of EU decision-making is in somewhat rocky shape. First Finland and later Slovakia held things up over domestic political controversies that were only loosely related to the core issues. This makes it extremely difficult for the EU to make credible commitments. Olli Rehn can’t make promises about the stability of the coalition government in the Netherlands.

— Three (and perhaps most important): We learned from Greece that EU member states have greater capacity for secret budget shenanigans than I would have thought possible. We always knew that governance in Greece and is weaker than governance in Denmark, but it turns out that the quality of the supervisory governance from Brussels is also rather poor. Given that Italy, especially under Berlusconi, is not exactly above suspicion in terms of governance quality Greece gives us reason to wonder whether the easily accessible public data about Italy is accurate.

Maybe some people were smarter than me and saw all of this all along. But I think I’m not alone in being somewhat surprised by these revelations, and thus genuinely more skeptical of Italy than I was a year ago.

Climate Progress

Obama Administration Considers Dangerous Expansion Of Strip Coal Mine Just Steps From Bryce Canyon National Park

By Public Lands Team on Nov 11, 2011 at 1:12 pm

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Last week the Bureau of Land Management took an initial action towards approving the dramatic expansion of Utah’s only strip coal mine located in the Alton Coal Tract in southwest Utah by releasing a draft environmental impact statement for the project. The Coal Hollow Mine is currently located on 635 acres of private land, but the Alton Coal Development company has applied to expand it onto 2,280 surface acres of public lands and 1,296 acres of private lands for a total of 3,576 acres—a more than 500% increase.

The enlarged mine would be located merely 10 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park. The draft environmental analysis of the coal mine released by BLM last week found that there would be major impacts on both the environment and the community surrounding it. In addition to the release of criteria air pollutants, the increased risk of solid waste spills, and impacts to Bryce Canyon’s famous night skies, the BLM’s draft environmental analysis found that:

There would be an adverse impact to recreation, and adverse impacts to sense of community, social well-being, and tourism-related businesses.

In the press, a BLM official did not play down the adverse impacts of the mine—district planner Keith Rigtrup said “It’s a project with significant impacts.”

Of note is the fact that the BLM did not analyze the effects of mining and burning this coal on global climate change because, it claimed, “existing climate prediction models are not at a scale sufficient to estimate potential impacts of climate change within the analysis area.” In essence, BLM officials declared that the amount of recoverable coal generated by the mine (46 million tons) is insignificant on a global scale, and therefore the agency should not be bothered to analyze its “possible” effects on the climate. The analysis also assumes that “United States demand for coal is expected to increase by approximately 0.4% per year through 2035,” a catastrophic scenario.

A report from the Department of Energy released last week found that global output of carbon dioxide increased by the biggest margin ever recorded last year. As the Associated Press explained, “levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.”

This step in the wrong direction with regard to the Alton coal project is not the Secretary’s first miscalculation with regard to coal development on public lands. In March the Interior Department announced plans to auction off more than 2 billion tons of coal. As ClimateProgress’ Joe Romm said at the time, “This decision certainly eviscerates Salazar’s green street cred.”

The Salt Lake Tribune framed the decision as one that forces Utahns to “debate which kind of economic development is best: heavy industry or tourism.” Bryce Canyon National Park is an economic generator for southwestern Utah, creating 1,628 jobs and $101 million in visitor spending in 2009. Because of the effects of this dirty coal mine on recreation and the national park, the Salt Lake Tribune called the development of the mine “unconscionable” and noted that residents are “right to worry.”

Security

Panetta’s Latest Salvo In Fear Campaign: Military Spending Cuts Trigger ‘Invites Aggression’

By Ben Armbruster on Nov 11, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Since Congress reached an agreement to extend the debt ceiling, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been on a campaign to prevent any further cuts in military spending, specifically signaling out the so-called trigger mechanism that would reduce security spending by an additional $500 billion should the super committee fail to reach a deal to cut more than $1 trillion in federal spending. Panetta called the trigger “draconian” and “devastating” and said that it will “hollow out” the military. When asked for specifics though, Panetta said the biggest risk he can think of is reducing — not eliminating — the U.S. military presence in Latin America and Africa. In other words, hardly a “devastating” scenario.

CAP’s Larry Korb wrote this week in the New York Times that Panetta has laid out some “excellent proposals for reducing the defense budget” but he “grossly exaggerates” in his fearmongering about what the trigger would do to the military. And yesterday the Defense Secretary played the “last card” in his fear campaign, the National Journal reports:

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been steadily escalating his warnings about the impact of the deep cuts facing the Pentagon if the congressional super committee fails to reach a deal. On Thursday, he played the last – and strongest — card in his deck, arguing that the hundreds of billions of dollars of mandatory cuts would directly imperil U.S. national security. [...]

“In effect, it invites aggression,” Panetta said during the new conference, just his second since taking office in July. [...]

Panetta said those cuts would leave the military “a hollow force” which “retains its shell but lacks a core.”

“It’s a ship without sailors. It’s a brigade without bullets. It’s an air wing without enough trained pilots,” Panetta said. “It’s a paper tiger.”

This just simply is not true. As Korb noted previously, cutting military spending by $1 trillion over the next decade — a figure that incorporates the trigger cuts — would “in real terms, allow the Pentagon to spend at its 2007 level for the next decade.” And by Panetta’s own standard, how would reducing the U.S. military presence in Latin America and Africa invite aggression?

On the issue of defense spending, “Panetta has really gone off the deep end,” writes Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal, “His public statements sound like those of a Democrat too insecure to talk sensibly about the future of the US military and national security policy.”

Alyssa

Day Off

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Nov 11, 2011 at 11:37 am

It’s Veteran’s Day, so we’re off today. Community and Parks and Recreation thoughts will go up sometime this weekend, but I’ll be spending the day out in the world coming up with cool new things to write about. Have a good weekend. And a special thanks to everyone who came out to last night’s screening of Into the Abyss.

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