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President Obama Names Al Pacino, Six Others, National Arts Medalists | The National Endowment for the Arts just announced that on Monday, President Obama will award actor Al Pacino, artist Will Barnet, poet Rita Dove, arts philanthropist Emily Rauh Pulitzer, sculptor Martin Puryear, singer-songwriter Mel Tillis, and pianist Andre Watts National Medals of Arts. I have to say, given the current political environment, I’d kind of love to hear Obama and Pacino talk about Pacino’s turn as Roy Cohn, Sen. Joe McCarthy’s henchman, in Angels in America.

Climate Progress

Rep. Steve King At CPAC: ‘Nancy’s Stasi’ Made Me Use Energy-Efficient Light Bulbs

By Guest Blogger on Feb 10, 2012 at 6:00 pm

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) yesterday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) asked the crowd, “What is happening to our liberty?,” before launching into a long-winded story about how he took back his freedom by replacing the energy-efficient “curlicue bulbs” at the Capitol with “good Edison light bulbs.” At some point during his anecdote, King even went so far as to compare the Capitol Hill janitors who replaced his incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient ones to “East German communist secret police, describing them as “Nancy [Pelosi]‘s Stasi troops.”

So I got this green bag right here. And I filled it up with the black market light bulbs. And I brought them back to my office here in the Capitol. Whenever I need to put a bulb in the lamp, I reach in this green bag and I screw it in there and smile. A little bit of my liberty back. A little bit of our freedom back. And I want to challenge you to do the same thing. Bring back some of that liberty, some of that freedom.

Following his attack on energy-efficient light bulbs, Rep. King took on the water-saving showerhead in his shower, before bringing his tirade to a close with the declaration, “I want my liberty back!”

Watch it:

The new light bulb efficiency standards have faced strong opposition from members of the GOP, who consider the rules not only a ban on light bulbs, but as another example of unneccessary federal regulation. Environmentalists and energy-efficiency business groups disagree and are quick to point out that the standards do not ban incandescent light bulbs, but requires them to be more efficient. Despite the GOP’s best efforts to pass measures that would block funding for the standards’ enforcement, The Energy Department rules went into effect at the beginning of the year.

– Fatima Najiy

Health

GOP Ups The Ante, Introduces Legislation To Allow Any Employer To Deny Any Preventive Health Service

By Igor Volsky on Feb 10, 2012 at 5:27 pm

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)

Earlier today, in response to criticism from Catholic groups, the White House altered its regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide no-cost contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. Churches and religious nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith are still exempt from the requirement, but now religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals that wish to avoid providing birth control can do so. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is pushing an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it:

(6) RESPECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE WITH REGARD TO SPECIFIC ITEMS OR SERVICES —

“(A) FOR HEALTH PLANS. — A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Services Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title on the basis that it declines to provide coverage of specific items or services because —

“(i) providing coverage (or, in the case of a sponsor of a group health plan, paying for coverage) of such specific items or services is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or

“(ii) such coverage (in the case of individual coverage) is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.

Under the measure, an insurer or an employer would be able to claim a moral or religious objection to covering HIV/AIDS screenings, Type 2 Diabetes treatments, cancer tests or anything else they deem inappropriate or the result of an “unhealthy” or “immoral” lifestyle. Similarly, a health plan could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.

Individuals too can opt out of coverage if it is contrary to their religious or moral beliefs, radically undermining “the basic principle of insurance, which involves pooling the risks for all possible medical needs of all enrollees.” As the National Women’s Law Center explains, Blunt’s language is vague enough that “insurers may be able to sell plans that do not cover services required by the new health care law to an entire market because one individual objects, so all consumers in a market lose their right to coverage of the full range of critical health services.” As a result, a man “purchasing an insurance plan offered to women and men could object to maternity coverage, so the plan would not have to cover it, even though such coverage is required as part of the essential health benefits.”

Read the full amendment here.

NEWS FLASH

Idaho Senate Committee Kills LGBT Protections Without Comment | This morning the Idaho Senate State Affairs Committee voted 7-2 to reject a bill that would have added non-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity to the Idaho Human Rights Act. Activists had called on legislators to “Add The Words,” but they voted to not even print the bill, which meant there was no opportunity to hear testimony. Because there was not even any debate, the bill died without any spoken support except from its sponsor.

NEWS FLASH

Gingrich Places Guy Who Thinks Social Security & Medicare Are Unconstitutional In Charge Of ‘Tenth Amendment Implementation’ | In a speech this afternoon at the Conservative Political Action Conference, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich announced that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is designing legislation for him on “Tenth Amendment implementation.” Perry, of course, believes that Social Security and Medicare violate the Tenth Amendment. Watch Gingrich’s announcement:

NEWS FLASH

Newt At CPAC: ‘Eliminate The Environmental Protection Agency’ | At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich repeated his call for the elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency, blaming it for killing jobs and lacking “common sense.” He later called for the elimination of the Department of Energy, which manages the nation’s nuclear power, weaponry, and waste, and is leading America’s investment in clean technology.

Related Posts

By Brad Johnson on Feb 10, 2012 at 5:08 pm

Economy

Hundreds Of Protesters March To Conservative Action Conference To ‘Occupy CPAC’

By Travis Waldron and Scott Keyes on Feb 10, 2012 at 5:02 pm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of protesters, chanting “We are the 99 percent” and waving signs decrying corporate tax dodging and other issues, marched in front of the Marriott Wardman hotel in Woodley Park, the site of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, this afternoon.

Occupy CPAC, as protesters dubbed it, featured a giant inflatable “corporate fat cat,” and four protesters were dressed in blue and white baseball uniforms (resembling those of the Los Angeles Dodgers) that read “Tax Dodgers,” a reference to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. For more than a half hour, the protesters chanted and marched outside the hotel.

View pictures of the protest:



Many of the conference’s attendees ventured out of the hotel to watch the protests, and as protesters chanted “We are the 99 percent!” one attendee screamed back, “No, you are the bottom one percent!” Others stood around laughing, while one looked to another attendee and said, “G–damn Occupiers. F–k those guys. This is America.”

As a group of protesters attempted to move up the hotel’s driveway toward the entrance, police blocked them and threatened them with arrest for violating public property rights. At that point, members of the media covering CPAC who had gone outside to cover the protest were also forced back into the hotel with threats of arrest. According to one organizer affiliated with the march, roughly 500 protesters participated in the march.

Security

Santorum: Women Are Capable Of ‘Flying Small Planes’

By Eli Clifton on Feb 10, 2012 at 4:51 pm

The Pentagon announcement easing the ban on women serving in combat led Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to express his concerns that missions could be put in jeopardy “because of other types of emotions that are involved.”

But today, Santorum attempted to clarify his seemingly sexist statement in an interview with ABC News:

RICK SANTORUM: I was talking about men’s emotional issues, not women. That’s something I’ve talked about repeatedly. [...] Men in our culture are focused on if a woman is in trouble, obviously, to react to try to help to protect and care for that person. That is something that is built in culturally. So my concern is that being in combat in that situation, instead of being focused on the mission, they might be more concerned about protecting a woman in a vulnerable position.

Watch it:

Having put to rest the allegation that he was suggesting women were emotionally unfit to serve in combat — and instead having argued that men are emotionally unfit to serve alongside women — Santorum went on to emphasize that he has no problem putting women’s lives in danger.

Blogger Jennifer Rubin describes her interview with Santorum:

He says, “It’s not a matter of putting women in dangerous roles.” He tell[s] me, for example, that women are fully capable of “flying small planes.”

So it seems that for Santorum, it’s okay for women to fly the puddle jumpers but save the heavy bombers for the men. While Rubin goes on to commend Santorum for his fearlessness in “refusing to censor his views” and possibly “provoking the ire of women,” his views on women in the military may pose a challenge for his campaign which finds itself in the media spotlight after primary victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

In the past 24 hours, Santorum: accused Obama of helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons; suggested that male soldiers are incapable of controlling their emotions around female comrades in combat; and said women are better suited to “flying small planes.”

Economy

Facebook’s Initial Stock Offering Will Help It Dodge Corporate Income Taxes For Years

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 10, 2012 at 4:15 pm

Back in 2008, Google seemed to have set the standard for tech corporation tax dodging, using complex accounting and subsidiaries in Ireland and Bermuda to drives its tax rate all the way down to 2.4 percent. But if all goes according to plan, Facebook will be able to use its initial public offering — via the stock options it gives its employees — to not only avoid paying corporate income tax for years, but to receive a $500 million refund from the federal government, as Citizens for Tax Justice explained:

Tax law says that if a corporation issues options for employees to buy the company’s stock in the future for its price when the option issued, then if the stock has gone up in value when employees exercise the options, the company gets to deduct the difference between what the employee bought it for and its market price.

When, as Facebook expects, the 187 million stock options are cashed in this year, Facebook will get $7.5 billion in tax deductions (which will reduce the company’s federal and state taxes by $3 billion). According to Facebook, these tax deductions should exceed the company’s U.S. taxable 2012 income and result in a net operating loss (NOL) that can then be carried back to the preceding two years to offset its past taxes, resulting in a refund of up to $500 million.

Facebook’s filing papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission confirm as much:

Option exercise activity would generate a corporate income tax deduction [that] exceeds our other U.S. taxable income [and] will result in a net operating loss (NOL) that can be carried back to the preceding two years to offset our taxable income for U.S. federal income tax purposes, as well as in some states, which would allow us to receive a refund of some of the corporate income taxes we paid in those years. Based on the assumptions above, we anticipate that this refund could be up to $500 million.

“Due to the stock option loophole, Facebook may not pay any corporate income taxes on its profits for a generation,” said Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). “It isn’t right, and we can’t afford it.” The Treasury Department estimates that it loses about $2 billion per year due to companies using this stock option loophole to avoid taxes.

Alyssa

Four Tips for Male Journalists Who Want to Discuss Women’s Health

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 10, 2012 at 4:08 pm

As the debate over contraception coverage in health insurance plans offered by religious institutions to their employees rages in Washington, one cause for complaint’s been the way the Obama administration’s decision-making process has been covered. Of the 146 guests who have come on cable news shows to discuss the decision between Monday and Thursday, 91 were men. MSNBC’s Morning Joe has come under fire from Democratic congresswomen for not inviting women, other than show co-host Mika Brzezinski, who disapproved of the Obama administration’s initial policy, to appear on the program. And at Politico, Mike Allen’s presented the White House’s decision-making process as a boys-against-girls fight pitting strategy-minded male advisors against women who were tightly focused on the actual issue at hand: making sure women can get insurance-covered access to contraceptives. And since men in media seem to have so much trouble figuring out how to cover women’s health issues, it’s time to help them out with some simple advice:

1. Ask a woman on your show: This should be elementary advice, but apparently for too many cable hosts and cable bookers, it isn’t immediately evident that when women’s issues on the table, women’s experiences and expertise might be relevant. It would be nice if men, from cable pundits to researchers, were truly as invested in women’s health issues, from contraception access to breast cancer research, as women are. But that’s just not the way things are. And if you’ve never tried to decide between oral contraceptives, had an IUD put in, or figured out how to pay for either—much less studied the medical or insurance issues around contraception—it ought to be common sense to you that there are things that you—and your audience—can learn from people who have experience that you don’t.

2. Ask women what their experiences have been with health issues that are specific to their gender: Sure, there’s a fine line between asking creepy questions about women’s sex lives and their health. But if you’re interested in why women are so invested in access to contraception, or breast cancer funding (though breast cancer is not simply a women’s disease), or other women’s health issues, find a tactful way to show genuine curiosity. I’d be willing to bet most male pundits don’t have a good sense of the difference between what brand name and generic contraceptive pills cost, or how much costs to have an IUD in, or what it feels like to use either. And while you’re learning more about the emotions that motivate women in these policy debates, you may also fulfill your mission of delivering new information to your viewers or readers. I had no idea that oral contraceptives could be part of a diabetes maintenance regimen until someone wrote about it in a piece I saw linked on Twitter. New perspectives and new data often come forward hand in hand.

3. Treat women like any other interest group: There’s something very odd about the way women get treated when they’re advocating for the issues that affect them: as parochial and unable to see the strategic damage their needs might pose to the Democratic party. No one would ever suggest that that the National Federation of Independent Business is small-minded and undermining Republicans for lobbying to change IRS reporting requirements. So stop treating women, who are a core Democratic voting bloc, as if they’re short-sighted or selfish for expecting that a party they elect will be responsive to their needs.

4. Question the frameworks you’re given: It’s remarkable how many people who profess to believe that consumer choice and a vibrant marketplace are important, particularly in health insurance, are quick to forget about those preferences when someone suggests that a policy infringes upon religious liberty. Religious organizations that don’t want to have to cover contraceptives are also deeply invested in denying their female employees any information about where they could get competing coverage. That sounds a lot less like protecting religious liberty and a lot more like constricting consumer choice. Whether you agree with either of these frameworks for the debate, it’s not impressive journalism to just accept a narrative that’s handed to you by an interest group. Ask questions. Weigh realistic assessments of the impact a policy change. Then frame your own story.

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