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BREAKING: Military Coup Ousts Maldives Climate Hawk Mohamed Nasheed | The first democratically elected leader of a 100-percent Muslim country, President Mohamed Nasheed has been ousted in a military coup by supporters of the 30-year dictator Maumoon Gayoom. President Nasheed, who has led democratic reforms and mobilized his island nation about the existential threat of climate change, is now under house arrest by security forces loyal to Gayoom.

Update

Global climate grassroots organization 350.org has established an urgent petition to ask the international community to help ensure Nasheed’s safety.

Related Posts

By Brad Johnson on Feb 7, 2012 at 8:25 pm

Politics

Florida Public School Teacher Referred To Haitian Students As Trash And ‘Chocolate That Nobody Wanted’

By Adam Peck on Feb 7, 2012 at 6:40 pm

Most teachers across the country are dedicated civil servants, committed to the success of their students. Broward County (Florida) public school teacher Leslie Rainer is not one of them.

Rainer is a teacher at Blanche Ely High School who is being investigated for the third time by the Broward County School Board in South Florida. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel is reporting that Rainer is accused of referring to one of her Haitian students as “little chocolate boy,” and a “chocolate that nobody wanted.”

Rather than deny the allegations, Rainer is defending herself with an unusual—and probably ineffective—argument:

[She] said her use of “chocolate” was taken out of context. She said “chocolate” is an endearment in the black community. She said her husband, the Rev. Willie Rainer of Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Pompano Beach, calls her “Sweet Chocolate.”

Rainer has an alarmingly long history of insensitive and flat-out offensive remarks. In March 2010, as students discussed the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Rainier allegedly explained to her class that Haiti was suffering because the country made a pact with the devil, echoing an incredibly offensive remark that made national headlines when Pat Robertson first said it on his weekly television program. To emphasize the point, Rainer reportedly instructed another Haitian student to stand by classroom trash cans because, she said, “that’s where they belong,” according to the formal complaint filed against Rainer last month.

And it gets worse. Another teacher, who is an avowed atheist at the same Broward County public school, alleges that Rainer and another teacher proceeded to sprinkle what they described as holy water on her when she discussed her disbelief in God.

That incident was reported to the Broward School District’s Professional Standards & Special Investigative Unit, but charges were ultimately dropped after local churches—including the one where her husband is a reverend—pressured the district.

Amazingly, even after this latest incident, Rainer will still have a job teaching in Broward County’s public school system. The district superintendent is recommending a three day suspension without pay and attendance at a diversity training course, after which she will presumably resume her teaching duties.

Alyssa

Why ‘The Voice’ Is Getting Better With Time

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 7, 2012 at 6:38 pm

The numbers for The Voice have been big over the past couple of days, even without the boost from the Super Bowl: 17.7 million viewers tuned in last night, and a 6.6 rating among the coveted adults between the ages of 18 to 49. It makes sense that the show is doing well. Two episodes into its second season, The Voice is improving on its strengths, providing a real debate about American popular music.

Because the judges actually have to compete against each other, the candidates are doing something smart: in cases where more than one judge turns their chair around, they’re actually asking questions. They want to know why the judges were compelled by their singing. They’re curious as to whether the judges think they should stick within a genre and build a strong identity there or try to transcend it. Blake Shelton’s been winning candidates over by appealing to the ones who truly want to be country stars, while Adam Levine and Cee Lo Green have been pitching themselves as coaches who don’t want to see their artists get limited. The judges’ answers aren’t as good as the candidates’ questions yet, but I hope that’s something that they’ll improve on over time. And the fact that those conversations are happening at all are an encouraging thing for people like yours truly who have everything from OutKast to Toby Keith in their playlists and who want to see these genres in conversation. Because they already are, whether American Idol acknowledges it or not.

Do we still need more of that stylistic diversity represented on the stage? Of course. But I like that there’s a singer with opera training on Christina’s team, and I’m holding out hope, as Cee Lo promised me at TCA press tour, that we’re going to get an MC, too. If The Voice can walk the line between increasing the stylistic diversity of its singers without tipping over into novelty act territory, it’ll just become a more interesting show. And now that we’re over the initial novelty of seeing superstars woo contestants, the show will only get better as those competitions get more fierce and specific.

NEWS FLASH

50,000+ Sign Petition For Undocumented Immigrant To Receive Kidney Transplant | In less than a week, more than 54,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to push the UC San Francisco Medical Center to allow an undocumented immigrant to have a kidney transplant. ThinkProgress wrote last week about how administrators at the medical center denied Jesus Navarro’s procedure, even though his wife offered her own kidney and he will die without the procedure. “UCSF hospital has told Jesus that the only reason he would not be able to get a transplant is becuase of his immigration status,” writes Donald Kagan, who started the petition on February 2. “As I see it, this is a matter of life and death.” The petition calls on hospital officials to allow the transplant and “do the right thing.” Sign the petition here.

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 7, 2012 at 6:30 pm

Security

Islamophobic Filmmakers Promote Comment Seeking To Legitimate Norway Terrorist’s Views

By Eli Clifton and Ali Gharib on Feb 7, 2012 at 5:35 pm

The Clarion Fund, an organization which produces Islamophobic documentaries, came under renewed scrutiny last month when news broke that their film “The Third Jihad” was screened at an NYPD conference. Facing calls for his resignation, NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly, after some dissembling, admitted he was interviewed for the project and apologized for his role, calling the film “inflammatory.” Clarion, however, bragged about the attention.

Now, Clarion appears to be throwing caution to the wind — along with any plausible defense that the group is not Islamophobic — by promoting a comment from a reader seeking to redeem the views of the anti-Muslim right-wing extremist who terrorized Norway this summer, killing 77, including 69 people at a youth camp. In an e-mail newsletter to supporters, Clarion Fund quoted the reader suggesting that a recent report that militant Islamic extremism posed the top threat to Norway redeemed the unheralded warnings of Anders Breivik, the anti-Muslim killer.

The newsletter, published by the organization’s radicalislam.org website, promoted the comment from a “reader in Norway.” It read:

What a hot current topic this is! Just today the news came out in Norway, “officially” and in spite of all the PC-ness of this government, that according to the national security forces, the threat of Islamist terrorism is the foremost threat against Norway. You probably remember the July 22 shootings. One of Breivik’s arguments was that the authorities were not taking this threat seriously because you musn’t offend a Muslim. Interesting development.

Clarion’s willingness to promote and publish an e-mail sympathetic to Breivik seems a bizarre move for an organization under fire for Islamophobia, especially when the comment obfuscates the bigoted point Breivik was making about Islam at-large — the very same conflation between extremism and the whole faith the Clarion Fund has repeatedly been accused of making.

Read more

Climate Progress

What Obama Would Say If He Were the Teddy Roosevelt of Climate Change

By Joe Romm on Feb 7, 2012 at 5:35 pm

Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us, and training them into a better race to inhabit the land and pass it on. Conservation is a great moral issue for it involves the patriotic duty of insuring the safety and continuance of the nation. Let me add that the health and vitality of our people are at least as well worth conserving as their forests, waters, lands, and minerals, and in this great work the national government must bear a most important part….

President Obama is no Teddy Roosevelt, even though he’d like people to think he is.  Needless to say, the GOP front-runner is no Roosevelt either (see Romney: I Don’t Know ‘What The Purpose is’ of Public Lands — a line that would set the Lion spinning.)

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/gty_teddy_roosevelt_barack_obama_thg_111205_wblog.jpg

Roosevelt was a true progressive.  In his famous, “New Nationalism” speech of 1910, he uttered the remarks that open this post along with these timeless statements:

I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the games, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service….

Now, this means that our government, national and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests….

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done….

The prime problem of our nation is to get the right type of good citizenship, and, to get it, we must have progress, and our public men must be genuinely progressive.

Obama has turned out to be “the most moderate Democratic president since World War II.”  Nonetheless, back in December, Obama delivered a speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, because it was where Roosevelt gave his 1910 speech.  Obama gave a good speech, as far as it went, focused on “the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness”:

Read more

Economy

While Touting Commitment To MLK’s Values, JP Morgan Chase Moves To Foreclose On 78 Year-Old Civil Rights Activist

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 7, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Last month, JP Morgan Chase — the largest bank in the United States — launched a project to digitize the documents of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, making them available on the internet. “It’s important for JPMorgan Chase to support Dr. King’s legacy because of the important values he committed his life to promoting, such as equality, equal opportunity, and quality education for all. People like Dr. Martin Luther King are what made America what it is today. The values he espoused are the values that JPMorgan Chase also tries to stand for around the world,” said JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

But at the same time, as Change.org has noted, the bank is on the verge of foreclosing on a 78 year-old former civil rights activist:

Helen Bailey is a 78-year-old grandmother who participated in the civil rights movement, worked as a childcare provider for autistic children, and was a community volunteer. She has paid her mortgage since 1999, but now she can’t keep up the payments. All she wants is to stay in her home until she dies, in the neighborhood where she feels safe and has lived for nearly quarter of a century. She could have refinanced with a company willing to let her live in the house for free until her death, but Chase Bank would not reduce her principal by $9,000. She’s been paying 7% interest, well above most rates, so Chase could have decided they had made enough. Instead, they have started foreclosure…While Chase tries to tie itself to the incredible legacy of Martin Luther King, who really did believe in communities, Chase tries to throw a grandmother who marched for civil rights out onto the street.

“JP Morgan Chase must practice what it preaches,” said Gary Flowers, Executive Director and CEO of the Black Leadership Forum, Inc. “On one hand, the bank cannot earnestly invoke the values of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., while devaluing the very principles for which he lived and died.”

This is not the only mortgage-related issue JP Morgan has brought upon itself recently. Last year, JP Morgan found itself in hot water for overcharging members of the military on their mortgages, eventually agreeing to a $56 million settlement. The bank even sold off the home of a military member on the very day that he returned from Iraq.

One former JP Morgan banker told Reuters, “I don’t say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and exploiting that is the purpose of the banking organization.” And evidently that exploitation extends to touting the bank’s commitment to civil rights with one hand while foreclosing on a former civil rights activist with the other.

Alyssa

J.J. Abrams v. The Weather Channel: Getting Energy Politics Right

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 7, 2012 at 5:23 pm

I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that we’re seeing a crop of global-warming related pop culture projects. And now, J.J. Abrams and the Weather Channel are getting in the game as well. Abrams just sold a drama to NBC, which seems to be betting big on science fiction, about “a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist.” (Energy, of course, is not the same thing as fossil fuels: if all forms of energy cease to exist, so will life.)And the Weather Channel is getting into the unscripted space with Turbine Cowboys, a show about the workers who maintain wind power turbines in dangerous conditions.

Both of these are intriguing concepts. The Abrams show is the kind of after-the-disaster thinking that I’m always interested in, though I’ll be more compelled by the concept if the characters have some sort of alternative energy source they’re trading or manufacturing. People may get far along on an irreversible decline before trying to find solutions, but unless Abrams is pushing the reset button on society, if energy sources just vanish suddenly, I bet someone, somewhere is keeping the lights on, or at least trying really hard. Americans do love their appliances. And testing the depth of our attachment to them, and to our sense of instantaneous interconnectivity could be a really interesting project. A show that’s as much about what energy lets us do as that as the specific sources that power our desires could personalize the energy crisis beyond gas prices.

Turbine Cowboys is, of course, set in a more familiar future. But I think it’s a smart move to personalize—and glamorize—people who work in the new energy economy. I think the left does a good job of selling outcomes, but given that a lot of the work we’re talking about is hard organizing work that requires a generational timeline, we need to glamorize process, too. I’m not saying that the work of turning over to new sources of energy requires as much epic courage as sitting through being assaulted at a lunch counter. But if we’re going to valorize auto workers, we could valorize the folks at old U.S. Steel plants who are building wind turbines. And if we’re going to make heroes out of Dutch Harbor fishermen, surely we can make heroes out of the folks who are trying to make sure our energy sources are sustainable.

Health

REPORT: Affordable Care Act Will Help Close Income Gap In Insurance, Health Care Access

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Feb 7, 2012 at 5:20 pm

Click to expand chart

A new study shows that adults in low- to moderate-income families are “more likely to be uninsured, to lack a regular source of health care, and to struggle to get the health care they need compared to those in higher-income families,” according to the Commonwealth Fund. The researchers focused on the vast income gap in health insurance and health care access and concluded that the Affordable Care Act could help close the disparity.

While 57 percent of people in families earning 133 percent of the poverty line (less than $30,000 for a family of four) were uninsured for some time in the past year, and 35 percent had been uninsured for two years or more, just 12 percent of adults in families with incomes above $89,400 for a family of four reported being uninsured during the year. Three percent said they were insured for two years or more.

While adults are often uninsured, programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) step in to insure children. But 31 percent of low-income families and 20 percent of moderate-income families still reported that all or some of their children were uninsured, compared to 12 percent of higher-income families. Fortunately, the Affordable Care Act will help close the enormous income divide in health insurance — for children and adults — by expanding coverage:

– The Affordable Care Act has already expanded health insurance to 2.5 million 19-to-25 year-olds, banned lifetime limits on health insurance coverage, created pre-existing condition insurance plans providing health insurance options to those who were often uninsurable, and required insurers to cover preventive care without requiring co-payments.

– But the major provisions of the law to be implemented in 2014 will have the biggest effect on narrowing the income divide, through expanded Medicaid coverage; new health insurance exchanges offering comprehensive coverage and premium tax credits to make coverage affordable; and new rules that will prevent insurers from denying coverage or charging people more based on pre-existing conditions or gender.

Climate Progress

Rep. Mike Doyle: ‘I Don’t Believe There’s A Lick Of US Or Canada Steel’ In Keystone XL Pipeline

By Brad Johnson on Feb 7, 2012 at 4:59 pm

In a hearing to mark up Republican legislation to expedite the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) accused the foreign company TransCanada of misleading the American public that the pipeline would be built with American steel.

Doyle submitted an amendment that challenged TransCanada to certify its claim that 75 percent of the pipe comes from North America is actually true. Discussing his amendment, Doyle expressed his frustration about his attempts to get a straight answer from the tar sands company about where the steel for the 1700-mile pipe was made. Doyle found that the Indian company Welspun Corp appears to be the pipeline supplier, using its Little Rock facilities to store India-manufactured pipe and steel. “I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline,” Doyle said:

I’m asking for a bit of truth in advertising here. It’s been my frustration throughout this debate. We hear a lot of claims about the pipeline and I just want to be honest with the American people. My amendment just says this: TransCanada has told us they have made every effort to source as much steel through North American mills as they can. I’m simply asking them to certify that claim. Through my little amateur investigation, I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline. But I would love to be proved wrong.

Watch it:

Doyle revealed that he found that 148 miles of pipe have already been constructed in India and shipped to Welspun’s subsidiary Welspun Tubular in Little Rock, AR.

The steel being used comes from the same Indian manufacturer behind the original Keystone pipeline, which has already seen 12 spills in one year, possibly because of defective steel.

The United Steelworkers oppose the pipeline, as another case of manufacturing outsourcing by multinational companies.

Update

After Doyle’s and other Democratic amendments were rejected, the Republican leadership approved Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-NE) bill to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, joined by Jim Matheson (D-UT), John Barrow (D-GA) and Mike Ross (D-AR). Charlie Bass (R-NH) was the only Republican to oppose the foreign tar sands project.

Update

“This legislation forcing approval of the Keystone XL pipeline isn’t about jobs or national security,” responds Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Instead, it’s about the corrupting influence of money in Congress and the willingness of congressional Republicans to do the bidding of Big Oil. If it’s built, Keystone XL will foul our land, air, and water and put us on a dangerous trajectory toward climate catastrophe.”

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