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Health

VIDEO OF THE WEEK: The GOP’s ‘Utterly Surreal’ Contraception Hearing

By Jeff Spross on Feb 18, 2012 at 5:00 pm

The House Committee On Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing yesterday on the Obama administration’s now-revised ruling that all employers must cover contraception in their employee health insurance policies, including some religiously-affiliated ones.

The hearing succeeding in becoming one of the more bizarre and obtuse displays in recent political theater. Highlights included:

– Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) use of self-aggrandizing posters of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Mahatma Gandhi.

– The committee’s failure to include even one woman as a witness in their first panel.

– The ominous insistence that an honest disagreement over a health policy that’s already followed without complaint in multiple states and enjoys wide-spread support is a threat to fundamental American principles and liberties.

– A long and rambling speech comparing a fictional “national pork mandate” to important women’s health drugs.

ThinkProgress has the video round-up:

Politics

Trying To Move Past Xenophobic Ad, Hoekstra Decides To Campaign With Herman Cain

By Guest Blogger on Feb 18, 2012 at 3:00 pm

Former Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra, now campaigning for Senate against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D), announced a state-wide bus tour yesterday dubbed Patriots For Pete, featuring former presidential candidate Herman Cain, who suspended his campaign after facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment. While Cain’s support is likely intended to rally the Republican base, it could backfire.

Hoekstra, of course, has been in the news recently thanks to a xenophobic campaign ad attacking Stabenow. That ad has been criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike, and the actress who appeared in it has apologized for her role. (The ad and its accompanying website have since been taken down.)

If Hoekstra is trying to move the discussion away from his controversial statements, he probably should have stayed away from a man who had these things to say about minorities during his campaign:

– On whether being gay is a choice: “Well, you show me the science that it’s not and I’ll be persuaded. Right now it’s my opinion against the opinions of others who feel differently.”

– On Americans banning mosques: “Yes. They have a right to do that. That’s not discriminating based upon religion.”

– On an (unconstitutional) loyalty oath for Muslims: “When you interview a person for a job, you look at their work record, you look at their resume, and then you have a one-on-one personal interview. During that personal interview, like in the business world and anywhere else, you are able to get a feeling for how committed that person is to the Constitution.”

– On sharia law and religious freedom: “We have a First Amendment. And I get upset when the Muslims in this country, some of them, try to force their Sharia law onto the rest of us.”

– On his border fence: “It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you — Warning.’”

Hoekstra has his own record to be concerned about, having courted controversy well before the now-infamous ad was released. Seeking support from others who make outlandish statements might not be helpful to his campaign.

– Zachary Bernstein

LGBT

Catching Up On The Current State Marriage Equality Efforts

By Zack Ford on Feb 18, 2012 at 1:29 pm

This three-day weekend seems like an apropos time to reflect on all the many recent advances in legal recognition for same-sex couples. Here is a break-down of where things stand in each of the states we’ve been following this year:

Legislation

WASHINGTON: With Gov. Chris Gregoire’s (D) signature on Monday, marriage equality became the law of the land in Washington state, though that law does not take effect until June 7. Unfortunately, conservatives had already raised over $1 million to start collecting signatures for a referendum — a “people’s veto” — which will likely delay the law from taking effect until after the November election. To maintain the newly passed law, voters will have to approve Referendum 74.

NEW JERSEY: Both chambers of New Jersey’s legislature approved a marriage equality bill this week, but Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed it late Friday afternoon. Aside from a proposal by one Republican senator, there is currently no effort to take the matter to a ballot initiative. The legislature has until January 2014 to override Christie’s veto, but it does not currently have the votes to do so.

MARYLAND: After contentious debate and numerous amendments Friday, the Maryland House narrowly passed a marriage equality bill. Though the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee has held hearings on the measure, it has not yet advanced it to the full chamber, but advocates are optimistic about its passage there. As currently written, the law will not take effect until January 2013, but as in Washington, the law will likely be challenged by a referendum in November.

ILLINOIS: A marriage equality bill was recently introduced in the Illinois House, but it’s unclear that it will have much success. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said he would support the measure, and Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has stopped short of openly supporting it himself, but has said he’ll help build a majority.

RHODE ISLAND: Advocates are calling for marriage equality to be reintroduced in Rhode Island after last year’s effort led only to the creation of civil unions.  Given residents can marry in all neighboring states, it is unsurprising that in the first four months they were available, only 39 couples obtained civil unions.

COLORADO: Colorado is again reconsidering legalizing same-sex civil unions. Just this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced the legislation, but like last year, it is in the Republican-controlled House where the bill’s fate will be decided.

WEST VIRGINIA: A lawmaker in West Virginia introduced a bill this week that would create same-sex civil unions. It’s unclear if it has any chance of advancing.

Ballot Initiatives

NORTH CAROLINA: On May 8, North Carolinians will vote on a discriminatory constitutional amendment banning all legal recognition of same-sex couples, including marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. Pam Spaulding, an LGBT blogger who resides in the state, has a thoughtful take on how detrimental this amendment would be to the state.

MINNESOTA: Minnesota’s marriage inequality amendment isn’t on the ballot until November, but over $2 million have already been raised between both sides of the fight. This week, the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee defeated a legislative effort to rescind the ballot question, allowing the plebiscite to proceed.

MAINE: LGBT activists in Maine have succeeded in advancing a ballot initiative that would legalize same-sex marriage, the first time such a vote has been taken affirming the right instead of denying it. Though referenda on gay rights are frowned upon for the way they can polarize communities and amplify anti-gay stigma, activists point out that a legislative approach was already attempted in 2009, but it was overturned.

CALIFORNIA: Obviously, the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling against Proposition 8 is an important victory, but California marriage equality will not return until after the Supreme Court decides whether to hear the case later this year. This week, the group Love Honor Cherish announced it has abandoned its attempt to repeal Proposition 8 through a new ballot initiative.

NEW MEXICO: A proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage was defeated in committee this week. Though it has not been tested by the courts, the state’s attorney general issued an opinion last year that New Mexico law allows for the recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Justice

Supreme Court Stays Montana Decision Undermining Citizens United

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 18, 2012 at 12:56 pm

Late last year, the Montana Supreme Court handed down a decision that was widely viewed as openly defying the U.S. Supreme Court’s election-buying decision in Citizens United. Last night, the U.S. Supremes issued an entirely unsurprising order staying that decision. As a result, Montana will now face the same epidemic of corporate and other wealthy donor money that infected the other 49 states in the wake of the Citizens United decision.

There are, however, two possible silver linings in last night’s decision. The first is that the Supreme Court did not agree to the corporate parties’ request in this case to simply reverse the Montana decision without a full hearing or even necessarily an opinion. Yesterday’s order suspends the Montana decision “pending the timely filing and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari,” meaning that there is still a possibility that the Court could give the case a full hearing that would almost certainly raise the question of whether Citizens United should be overruled.

The second silver lining is a separate statement from Justices Ginsburg and Breyer attached to yesterday’s order:

Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” A petition for certiorari will give the Court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway. Because lower courts are bound to follow this Court’s decisions until they are withdrawn or modified, however, I vote to grant the stay.

This statement suggests that there are at least two votes on the Supreme Court eager to reconsider one of the modern Supreme Court’s most erroneous opinions just two years after it was decided. Such a swift reversal would very unusual, if not entirely unprecedented. In light of the massive influx of corporate and wealthy donor money flooding our democracy and threatening to elect a generation of candidates personally beholden to wealthy benefactors, however, this kind of swift admission of error by the justices is entirely necessary.

Climate Progress

Climate Scientists Slam Heartland for “Spreading Misinformation” and “Personally Attacking Climate Scientists to Further Its Goals”

By Joe Romm on Feb 18, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Scientists Who Had Emails Stolen Ask Heartland Institute to End Assault on Climate Science

Heartland Institute documents revealed plans to dupe children and ruin their future, as Climate Progress reported earlier this week.

Now, seven leading climatologists victimized by the Climategate email theft in 2009 have published this letter in the Guardian:

An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.

These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.

Here’s the rest of the letter and the signatories:

Read more

Climate Progress

House Passes Section of Transportation Bill Consisting Only of Earmarks to Big Oil

By Public Lands Team on Feb 18, 2012 at 10:57 am

In its latest transportation bill, the House of Representatives gave a big valentine gift to Big Oil

by Jessica Goad, cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green

This week, the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote.  This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline.  A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions.  However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate.  This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill.  Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production.  Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark.  The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program.  The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

NEWS FLASH

Climate Scientists To Heartland Institute: Stop Whining | Climate scientists like Michael Mann, Ben Santer, and Kevin Trenberth, whose emails were stolen by a hacker and then distorted by the Heartland Institute in the Climategate smear campaign, have written an open letter to the Heartland Institute following its own inadvertent leak of documents, saying “we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.” The scientists agree with Heartland’s newfound respect for the sanctity of private documents, but ask the organization to stop “spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.”

Related Posts

By Brad Johnson on Feb 18, 2012 at 10:00 am

Politics

Santorum Excommunicates 45 Million Christians: Mainline Protestants Are ‘Gone From The World Of Christianity’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Feb 18, 2012 at 8:00 am

In a 2008 speech at Ave Maria University, Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic, warned about the dangers of “the NBA” and “rock concerts,” but also said that while Protestants founded America, mainline Protestantism is in such “shambles” that “it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it”:

We all know that this country was founded on a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Judeo-Christian ethic was a Protestant Judeo-Christian ethic, sure the Catholics had some influence, but this was a Protestant country and the Protestant ethic, mainstream, mainline Protestantism, and of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it. [...]

Whether its sensuality of vanity of the famous in America, they are peacocks on display and they have taken their poor behavior and made it fashionable. The corruption of culture, the corruption of manners, the corruption of decency is now on display whether it’s the NBA or whether it’s a rock concert or whether it’s on a movie set.

Listen here:

Mainline Protestantism is one of the oldest and most common religious families in America. Generally considered to be non-evangelical, non-Catholic Christians, including Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists, northern Baptists, most Lutherans, Presbyterians, and other denominations, they represent about 45 million Americans. Making up about 16 percent of the electorate, they’re pretty evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.

But in his speech, first flagged by Right Wing Watch, Santorum basically says these millions of Christian-Americans are not real Christians. At a time when Santorum and his party are grasping at straws to claim the Obama administration is waging war on Christianity, it seems that it was the candidate himself who declared war on one of the biggest groups of American Christians four years ago.

Meanwhile, the rest of Santorum’s speech dwells on his now-typical hyper-puritanical warnings about “Satan,” and the dangers of “sensuality,” “rock concerts,” and “the NBA” that sound like they were plagiarized from Dana Carvey’s Church Lady skits on SNL.

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