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CNN: Chinese Dissident Says U.S. Let Him Down | The twisting tale of Chinese dissident and activist Chen Guangcheng’s refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing just keeps getting more complicated. Adding to the already divergent versions of events given by Chen and U.S. officials, Chen said, in CNN correspondent Stan Grant’s words, he “feels he’s been let down by the United States.” Chen reportedly said he didn’t get the full story from U.S. officials as to the events around his family, such as his wife being bound and interrogated by Chinese authorities in their home. Chen said, according to CNN, that he was “encouraged to leave without all the information, and now he wants to get out of China.” Separately, a Chinese-language website published what English-language Twitter users said were pictures of Chen’s supporters being arrested outside the hospital where he’s been since leaving the U.S. embassy. Watch the CNN report:

By Ali Gharib on May 2, 2012 at 7:47 pm

Politics

VIDEO: The Achievements Of Newt Gingrich, As Read By Newt Gingrich

By Jeff Spross on May 2, 2012 at 6:45 pm

This afternoon, Newt Gingrich suspended his campaign for the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency. While his “suspension” speech began with the usual list of thanks — and even included a self-deprecating joke at the expense of his “moon base” speech — Gingrich also launched into an extended laundry list of his own achievements, up to and including former internships. It was a strange digression, but also in keeping with Gingrich’s rather unique personality. ThinkProgress has compiled the video. Watch it:

Economy

Illinois Senate Set To Vote To Increase Minimum Wage to $10 An Hour

By Travis Waldron on May 2, 2012 at 6:30 pm

The Illinois state senate is preparing to vote on legislation that would boost the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour, the first increase since an increase to $8.25, the current rate, was phased in over three years starting in 2006. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the increase would raise wages for more than a million workers, particularly women and minorities, who make up a disproportionate share of minimum wage-earners.

Business leaders, as is typical, oppose the increase, which they say will fall disproportionately on small businesses and cost the state jobs, the Decatur Herald-Review reports:

Mike Palmer, marketing and brand manager for the McLean County Chamber of Commerce, said increases in the minimum wage fall disproportionately on small-business owners, who he said are less able to absorb increases in their labor costs.

Despite claims that the increase would lead to job losses, studies of increases in both federal and state minimum wage increases haven’t shown that to be true. In fact, when states across the country boosted their minimum wages at the beginning of 2012, EPI estimated that the additional money in the economy would actually create 3,000 jobs.

Increasing the minimum wage to $10 would make Illinois one of the few states to make today’s minimum wage as strong as it when it was first implemented. While the current federal minimum is $7.25 an hour, it would take an hourly wage of $9.92 to match the minimum wage’s buying power in 1968.

Climate Progress

Climate Change Is Not A ‘Message.’ It’s An Objective Reality And An Urgent Crisis. That’s Why We Must Talk About It.

By Climate Guest Blogger on May 2, 2012 at 6:14 pm

KC Golden, via Climate Access

Have climate campaigners learned the art of political communication too well?  We poll and focus group.  We segment audiences and target swings. We “go to people where they’re at” – activating live communication frames and salient issues. We move the dial. There is tactical merit in all this … but climate change is not a “message.” It’s an objective reality and an urgent crisis.

Deception about it will surely go down as history’s most egregious lie. Avoiding or hedging this reality isn’t as bad as denying it, but it reinforces the larger ecosystem of denial.  It’s tough to imagine how we begin to turn the tide until we stand tall – with both feet, whole hearts, and strong, explicit words – on the side of the truth.

Our sophisticated calibrations about whether, when, and with whom climate change is an effective “message” have a perverse effect:  they reinforce our opponents’ message that it’s just a stalking horse for a political agenda. When we bounce around from “jobs” to “clean air” to whatever we think will give us a bump in a swing-state poll, we undermine our own integrity and the moral urgency of climate change.

It is of course true that we sometimes gain tactical advantage this way. And no one wants to risk losing important battles just to make a rhetorical point. But overreliance on these maneuvers can limit our power and drain morale.  Climate advocates and organizers rightly wonder whether leaders who keep changing the subject have much confidence in our ultimate ability to prevail.

Read more

Security

Leading Republicans Praise Obama’s Afghanistan Trip: ‘I Applaud Him For Doing It’

By Ali Gharib on May 2, 2012 at 6:10 pm

After arriving in Afghanistan’s capitol Kabul to sign a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai, President Obama took to the American airwaves to explain the agreement and his broader Afghanistan strategy to the U.S. A few critics on the right — prone to faulting Obama for his every move — sought to bash the president. “Clearly this trip is campaign-related,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), admonishing Obama for a supposed “attempt to shore up his national security credentials” in the 2012 campaign.

But Inhofe’s blatantly political shot is being undermined by members of his own party and their ideological allies, who have either praised Obama or stuck to criticizing the strategy. Asked by CNN’s Dana Bash before the speech if he viewed the trip as “spiking the football” for the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who has been a critic of Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, said, “No, I don’t view it as that.” He also lauded the trip and the strategic agreement:

MCCAIN: I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s always good when the president goes to where young men and women are in harm’s way.

And I think that many of us who have been involved in Afghanistan are very supportive of the strategic partnership agreement, which I’m sure he’ll be talking about, and we think the agreement is good. We obviously would like to know the details.

BASH: …Do you think that this trip is also part of his political campaign?

MCCAIN: No, I can’t accuse the president of that.

Appearing separately on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Homeland Security Committee chair Rep. Peter King (R-NY) also supported the trip, though he reserved judgement on the agreement until he could view it in detail. King said, “(H)is visit to Afghanistan is perfectly right. I applaud him for doing it.” The Congressman went on:

KING: Well, as president and commander-in-chief, I applaud him being in Afghanistan. I think it’s important for the troops to see the president and certainly after all of these years of fighting where the troops have done such heroic work and did such an outstanding job. I think it’s important for the president to be there and signing the agreement with President Karzai.

…I think it is always very good when the president of the United States can visit a war zone, especially on such a key moment as this.

Watch clips of the interviews with McCain and King:

McCain and King aren’t the only Republicans praising Obama’s trip. Romney foreign policy adviser Max Boot wrote that “substance of the speech” was “somber and serious and largely free of election-year politicking.” Romney himself released a statement that said: “I am pleased that President Obama has returned to Afghanistan. Our troops and the American people deserve to hear from our President about what is at stake in this war.”

Justice

Romney Courts Endorsement From Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Gun Regulation Mayor Michael Bloomberg

By Ian Millhiser on May 2, 2012 at 6:00 pm

Mitt Romney’s held many positions on guns. As a candidate for governor of Massachusetts, Romney offered unequivocal support for gun regulation: “We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts — I support them. I won’t chip away at them. I believe they help protect us, and provide for our safety.” As governor, he made these laws even stronger, signing into law a permanent ban on assault rifles.

As a presidential candidate, however, Romney morphed into a gun owner and NRA member who told the gun lobbying group that President Obama is waging an “assault on our freedoms.”

The same thing can be said about Romney’s views on immigration. During the GOP presidential primary, Romney frequently staked out the most extreme position on immigration of any of the major candidates. He promised to make undocumented immigrants’ lives so miserable that they flee the country. He promised to veto the DREAM Act, and he even campaigned with the author of Alabama and Arizona’s harsh immigration laws — on Martin Luther King Day. Romney started backtracking away from those positions as well, once he locked down his party’s nomination.

Romney may now be preparing to Etch-a-Sketch his views on guns and immigration even further. The GOP candidate is currently courting an endorsement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one the nation’s leading advocates for both gun regulation and liberalized immigration policy:

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have reached a rare consensus: They are both determined to score the endorsement of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, whose name is all but synonymous with Wall Street clout and nonpartisan politics.

On Tuesday, Romney showed up at the mayor’s philanthropic foundation in Manhattan for a secret breakfast meeting. Over coffee and juice, Romney made clear that he was there to pick the mayoral brain: “Tell me what’s on your mind,” he told Bloomberg, according to aides briefed on the 30-minute discussion, which touched on immigration, gun control and education policy.

However, Bloomberg is not simply a supporter of more robust gun regulation — he may be the nation’s leading advocate on these issues. The Mayor supports closing loopholes so that everyone who buys a gun undergoes a background check. He led a national charge to roll back the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played such a significant role in the Trayvon Martin tragedy. And he co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which describes ensuring criminals do not illegally obtain guns as a matter of “life and death.”

Similarly, Bloomberg is a major supporter of the kinds of progressive immigration policies Romney shunned as a primary candidate. Bloomberg proudly describes New York as America’s most immigrant-friendly city. He expanded legal services in his city for immigrants. And he once described our current, restrictive immigration policies as “suicide.”

Now, let’s be clear. Bloomberg is right, and Romney has at times been very wrong, on both the need for sensible gun regulation and the need to repair our immigration policy. If Bloomberg succeeds in convincing Romney to abandon some of his past views, that would be a very positive development, regardless of who Bloomberg ultimately winds up endorsing.

Given Romney’s long history of Etch-a-Sketching, however, it is unlikely that any position Romney announces today will remain his position tomorrow — especially after his uncertain allies in the NRA and the anti-immigrant community react to Romney’s announcement in disgust.

NEWS FLASH

Religious Leaders Endorse California Governor’s Plan To Raise Taxes On The Rich | A coalition of religious groups endorsed California Gov. Jerry Brown’s (D) proposal to raise taxes on the rich to help balance the state’s budget, the National Catholic Reporter reports. Brown’s plan, which raises taxes on Californians with incomes over $250,000, is aimed at helping avoid cuts to schools and education programs. About 200 religious leaders from the PICO National Network, based in Oakland, promised Brown that they would encourage their members to vote for the plan, which is expected to qualify for the state ballot. According to recent polls, more than 60 percent of California voters support the proposal.

NEWS FLASH

Baptist Law Students Oppose Amendment One | Proponents of North Carolina’s discriminatory Amendment One have campaigned heavily on the foundation of legal perspectives from Campbell University School of Law, which has a conservative Baptist affiliation. Apparently, though, even the students at Campbell oppose Amendment One.  Last month, over half of the entire student body signed on to a resolution that condemned the measure as divisive, harmful to domestic partners, and stigmatizing to LGBT families. It doesn’t bode well for conservatives that Campbell University has the only legal experts willing to defend the amendment and its own students oppose it.

Justice

Federal Judge Threatens Sanctions Against Oakland Police For ‘Military-Type Response’ To Occupy Protests

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 2, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Yesterday, a federal judge ordered Oakland’s police department to submit a plan to address numerous unresolved complaints regarding their handling of the Occupy Oakland protests, warning that failure to comply within a week could lead to sanctions. District Judge Thelton Henderson’s mandate comes just a day after the release of a report by an outside monitor that concluded Oakland police used “an overwhelming military-type response” to Occupy’s demonstrations — the first official report to confirm Occupy Oakland’s struggles against police brutality.

The Oakland police department has received more than 1,000 misconduct complaints since the Occupy protests began, most have which have become backlogged. The department has been under court-ordered external monitoring and review since 2003, after four officers were accused of planting evidence, fabricating police reports and using excessive force. Henderson’s mandate sets strict deadlines for the department to clean up its act while continuing to comply with the reforms that stemmed from that 2003 case:

HENDERSON: It would be problematic enough if, as seems inevitable, [Oakland police's] compliance levels were to backslide as a result of their failure to address the Occupy Oakland complaints in a timely fashion. Such failures would be further indication that, despite the changed leadership at the City of Oakland and its police department, [Oakland police] might still lack the will, capacity, or both to complete the reforms to which they so long ago agreed. The court will consider appropriate sanctions, including the imposition of daily or weekly monetary sanctions, until compliance is achieved.

The Oakland police force’s clashes with Occupy demonstrators have been well-documented on ThinkProgress. On October 25, police attempted to subdue protesters with heavy-handed tactics such as rubber bullets, flash grenades, and smoke bombs — and ended up injuring an Iraq War veteran in the process. The Oakland police department later rejected an ACLU public records request to investigate the October events, and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan’s legal adviser resigned in outrage over the city’s treatment of the Occupy protesters.

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