NEWS FLASH

Title X Grants Help Planned Parenthood Clinics In Tennessee, New Jersey | In addition to the federal Title X grant that helped Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina avoid being defunded by the state, the Obama administration has awarded hefty Title X grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates in both Tennessee and New Jersey after state legislators refused to fund the family planning organization in those states as well. According to the Huffington Post, Tennessee has been awarded $395,000 a year for the next three years, and the New Jersey Family Planning League has been given $3.1 million to for Planned Parenthood and other provider clinics. While HHS often contracts with Planned Parenthood affiliates through Title X grants, states were not pressured to apply for grants until this year after “defunding in their states created the need for federal money.”

By Josh Israel on Jul 27, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Freedom Path ad

In late March, a federal judge ruled that the Federal Election Commission had ignored the law and improperly allowed some outside groups to shield their donors from required disclosure. The decision ordered that secret-money groups running “electioneering communications” — independent ads run within 30 days of federal primaries or within 60 days of federal general elections that mention candidates but do not expressly advocate for or against them — must identify all donors contributing over $1,000 bankrolling their efforts. An appeals court refused to stay the ruling.

Today, the Federal Election Commission announced that it will retroactively implement the ruling, until such time as the ruling is overturned:

Effective March 30, 2012, persons making disbursements for electioneering communications should report “the name and address of each donor who donated an amount aggregating $1,000 or more to the person making the disbursement, aggregating since the first day of the preceding calendar year.”

While this would appear to be a victory for disclosure, a review of the new electioneering communication reports filed since that time reveals that outside groups have stopped making these types of decisions entirely. Dark money groups like Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that had previously spent heavily on electioneering communications have instead circumvented the ruling by running “independent expenditures” that are more explicitly for or against federal candidates and, ironically, do not require donor disclosure.

The one outside group that has reported a new electioneering communication since that March 30 starting point was a Utah-based 501(c)(4) committee called Freedom Path. Its $26,940 expenditure praising Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Mitt Romney was reported on April 5. As such, it appears the group will have to amend its filings to identify every donor who gave $1,000 or more in 2012.

J. Scott Bensing of Freedom Path told ThinkProgress that the group would have to consult with their legal counsel before making a statement on whether it intends to comply with the new rule.

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Alyssa

Why Dane Cook’s Aurora Joke Failed

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jul 27, 2012 at 5:06 pm

Some days, it feels like we’re in an arms race of stupid, as is the case when Dane Cook decides that the timing is right to pull this joke in response to the shootings at The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado:

So I heard that the guy came into the theater about 25 minutes into the movie. And I don’t know if you’ve seen the movie, but the movie is pretty much a piece of crap. Yea, spoiler alert. I know that if none of that would have happened, pretty sure that somebody in that theater, about 25 minutes in, realizing it was a piece of crap, was probably like ‘ugh fucking shoot me.

There is, in fact, a point to be made about the extent to which images of gun violence are integrated into our culture, and the degree to which we’ve become callous about the prospect of shootings. But I’m not sure that this routine really conveys the horror of that disconnect between our everyday conversation and our reaction when the things we joke about become real. There’s a strain of comedy that relies on the people who stories are told about believing in things no one would ever believe, or reacting in ways actual humans would never react, whether it’s a disgruntled moviegoer wanting someone to end it all for them, or Daniel Tosh’s joke involving his sister thinking it’s hilarious that a prank he played on her left her unable to defend herself from a rapist. Jokes like that tend to reveal more about how the people telling them see the world than about the actual foibles and hypocrisies of their targets.

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Economy

House Republican Bill Would Fast-Track Tax Cuts For The Wealthy And Corporations

By Pat Garofalo on Jul 27, 2012 at 5:00 pm

House Republicans next week intend to vote on a plan that would both extend all of the Bush tax cuts — including those on income in excess of $250,000 — and fast-track “tax reform.” If the House GOP bill were adopted, tax reform legislation would “have special protections in the U.S. Senate, limiting the opportunities for lawmakers to use blocking tactics.”

But the GOP bill only calls for a certain kind of tax reform — specifically that which would benefit the rich and corporations. Under the GOP’s fast-track approach, a tax reform bill would have to consist of:

(1) a consolidation of the current 6 individual income tax brackets into not more than two brackets of 10 and not more than 25 percent;

(2) a reduction in the corporate tax rate to not greater than 25 percent;

(3) a repeal of the Alternative Minimum Tax;

(4) a broadening of the tax base to maintain revenue between 18 and 19 percent of the economy; and

(5) a change from a ‘‘worldwide’’ to a ‘‘territorial’’ system of taxation.

As Citizens for Tax Justice noted, these changes would massively benefit the wealthy and corporations, shifting the tax burden down the income scale. In fact, consolidation of the tax code in the way the GOP envisions would give millionaires a $187,000 annual tax cut, while likely increasing taxes on the middle-class and working families, due to the elimination of deductions upon which they depend.

Changing to a “territorial” system of corporate taxation, meanwhile, would boost the incentive to invest overseas and push jobs offshore. These are the sort of changes which Republicans want to protect from procedural shenanigans, even as they drive the use of the filibuster to unprecedented heights, including on legislation that could boost the sluggish economic recovery.

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Health

Reductions In Hospital Payments Could Undermine Health Care For Undocumented Immigrants

By Guest Blogger on Jul 27, 2012 at 4:45 pm

All hospitals in the U.S. are legally obligated to provide for anyone seeking emergency care, and the federal government spends billions annually to reimburse hospitals that treat the uninsured. Unfortunately, as the New York Times points out, the amount of federal aid to these hospitals — many of which are in poor areas of the country — will significantly drop as the Affordable Care Act is implemented, and undocumented immigrants could find it more difficult to access affordable care as a result:

The federal government has been spending $20 billion annually to reimburse these hospitals — most in poor urban and rural areas — for treating more than their share of the uninsured, including illegal immigrants. The health care law will eventually cut that money in half, based on the premise that fewer people will lack insurance after the law takes effect.

But the estimated 11 million people now living illegally in the United States are not covered by the health care law. Its sponsors, seeking to sidestep the contentious debate over immigration, excluded them from the law’s benefits.

As a result, so-called safety-net hospitals said the cuts would deal a severe blow to their finances.

In other words, because the mandate is meant to increase the number of people insured, the federal government estimates that hospitals won’t have to cover as many uninsured seeking emergency care. As a result, hospital budgets are put under strain as they lose money but must continue to provide care for the uninsured.

For some hospitals, nearly 50 percent of the patients they treat are undocumented.

The New York Times notes that the sponsors of the Affordable Care Act largely sidestepped the immigration issue in an effort to avoid the conversation. Alan Aviles, president and chief executive of the Health and Hospitals Corporation, said that “it is a difficult time to really advocate around this issue, because there is so much antipathy against new immigrants.”

– Nina Liss-Schultz

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Justice

Federally Funded Organization Provides Job Training To Male Veterans, Teaches Female Veterans To Knit

By Guest Blogger on Jul 27, 2012 at 4:30 pm

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a sex-discrimination complaint on Wednesday against the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry (ABCCM). According to the complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, the ABCCM, which “is a cooperative ministry of churches in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina that provides assistance and services to the homeless, veterans and families in poverty,” has been excluding female veterans from the job training services offered to men.

The ABCCM receives federal funding specifically for its “Veterans Employment & Training Services,” which self-purportedly provides “skills assessment, training, job placement and coaching for those seeking new career level jobs to break the bonds of homelessness and poverty.” But, Emily Bagby, one of the female Army veterans represented by the Law Center, alleges that ABCCM had gender-segregated training programs that offered women only poor quality services.

Apparently, women were only allowed to participate in job training courses intending to create the perfect housewife. A press release from the Law Center states that:

Bagby wasn’t allowed to take the courses that actually might help her find a job. She discovered, in fact, that the ministry didn’t allow female veterans to take the same classes offered to men, such as truck driving, culinary arts and training for “green” jobs. Instead, the women were offered training in such things as knitting, art therapy, yoga, meditation, how to de-clutter your room, self-esteem and Bible study.

The Law Center also noted that while “male veterans are provided 24 different job training programs at their Veterans Restoration Quarters, while female veterans are offered 16 different “personal skill-building” programs at the Steadfast House, the organization’s housing facility for women.”

According to the press release, female veterans are already four times more likely to become homeless than their male counterparts, a number that is undoubtedly caused at least in part by the terrible job training female veterans are apparently receiving.

– Nina Liss-Schultz

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LGBT

Pope Benedict XVI Names Viciously Anti-Gay Priest As Archbishop Of San Francisco

By Guest Blogger on Jul 27, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Salvatore Cordileone

Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a new Archbishop of San Francisco: Salvatore Cordileone. Though his name is not yet widespread, Cordileone, currently the Bishop of Oakland, has already had massive success pushing an anti-equality agenda: he was the heart of the Catholic Church’s strategy to pass Proposition 8 in California, which eliminated marriage equality for millions of Americans.

In 2008, Cordileone and a select cadre of Catholic leaders decided that their best chance to end marriage equality was to pass an amendment to the state constitution. Cordileone found the first major donor and built a lasting fundraising network for the group. He brought in an organization to lead the petition. He activated a network of California’s Catholic churches, and helped craft the Prop 8 messaging campaign, even using focus groups. The campaign was successful in passing Prop 8, making Cordileone a primary reason Californians are currently denied marriage equality. After the amendment passed, Cordileone bragged to a Catholic radio show that gay Americans never saw him coming, and called gay marriage a Satanic plot by “the Evil One” to annihilate morality.

Cordileone has continued to be one of America’s most prominent anti-gay Catholic officials. In January 2011, Cordileone was named the chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, a group dedicated to using religious influence to deny marriage equality. Cordileone is one of only 18 American bishops who have signed the Manhattan Declaration, a pledge to protect “the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty,” even if doing so means violating the law.

Pope Benedict’s choice of Cordileone is exactly wrong for the diocese of San Francisco, a city with a storied history of LGBT pride. It is a further step in the Vatican’s dedication to use Catholic doctrine to keep LGBT Americans suppressed and with fewer rights. In June, the Church publicly condemned Sister Margaret Farley, who wrote a book approving of marriage equality and advocating for comprehensive sex education. Cordileone can be relied on to side with the Vatican in such rebukes of reason and equality, and for that, the Church rewards him.

– Ben Sherman

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Alyssa

Why Did The NCAA Rely On The Freeh Report To Punish Penn State?

By Travis Waldron on Jul 27, 2012 at 4:02 pm

That the NCAA relied heavily on the report produced by former FBI director Louis Freeh and his team to level the Penn State football program earlier this week is hardly a shock or a secret — the report, as NCAA president Mark Emmert said, was “vastly more involved and thorough than any investigation we’ve ever conducted.”

But the Freeh Report, commissioned by Penn State’s Board of Trustees, was never meant to investigate whether the football program violated NCAA rules, according to a source from Freeh’s team reached by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Freeh Report, the source said, was an investigation into “how Penn State operated, not how they worked within the NCAA’s system,” and it “was not meant to be used as the sole piece, or the large piece, of the NCAA’s decision-making.” Instead, the source said, the report “was meant to be a mechanism to help Penn State move forward. To be used otherwise creates an obstacle to the institution changing.”

Looking through the Freeh Report, it’s hard to dispute that point. The report is a legal investigation meant to lead to changes that prevent another such institutional failure, and it includes specific recommended changes to Penn State’s administrative and academic culture to achieve that goal. In no way does it examine Penn State’s role within NCAA bylaws or whether it might have broken NCAA rules.

Given that, it seems a thorough investigation into whether, and how, Penn State violated NCAA rules should have been in order, especially before the program was hit with massive fines, bowl bans, and scholarship reductions. Some sort of investigation was begun — Emmert delivered questions to Penn State in November, and the university was reportedly set to deliver its formal response around the time Emmert handed down the sanctions — but it was abruptly aborted, a fact that always seemed odd, especially when Emmert struggled to name specific bylaws Penn State had violated. The reasoning the NCAA uses to justify going forth with the sanctions before it conducted an investigation is shoddy, at best, as Emmert said the Freeh Report provided all the information he and the organization’s Executive Committee needed to know.

The fact is, there are multiple investigations going on at Penn State. To produce the Freeh Report, investigators combed through millions of emails and conducted a thorough investigation. The Department of Education is now carrying out its own investigation into whether Penn State violated federal law by not reporting crimes committed on campus, and deep investigations will continue to take place involving the federal charges facing two former Penn State officials. And the NCAA has even reserved the right to conduct a more complete investigation and bring more punishments to the table for individuals once the legal process is completed.

For whatever reason, though, the only organization to have punished Penn State thus far did not conduct its own investigation and instead relied on a document we now know was used outside its stated purpose. That’s a step that, frankly, does absolutely nothing to dispel the notion that the NCAA has overstepped its legal bounds to hand down a punishment because it felt it had to do something and because, with football season just weeks away, doing nothing might have seemed like an abdication of its duties, even if that something ignored its own role in the creation and fostering of the culture it says it wants to change.

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Health

How Anti-Choice Are The Possible GOP Vice Presidential Picks?

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jul 27, 2012 at 3:57 pm

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (NH) and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MN) have been mentioned as possible vice president picks for Mitt Romney.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has campaigned as an anti-choice candidate. He endorsed an amendment that would allow employers to deny contraception coverage and promised to support radical measures to define life as beginning at conception. He would likely carry these views with him into the White House, where the president “wields more power over reproductive rights than anyone else in the country,” said Donna Crane, NARAL Pro-Choice America’s policy director.

And when it comes to selecting his running mate, Romney will pick a vice presidential candidate who is just as anti-choice as he is. “The person that I would select in that position would share my views on those important issues,” Romney said at the 2011 Palmetto Freedom Forum.

So how anti-choice are the most likely picks to be Romney’s vice president? NARAL Pro-Choice America broke down where 13 potential nominees stood on reproductive rights, access to abortion services, and women’s health, and it is clear that each is just as anti-choice as Romney. Several have supported giving legal rights to a fetus at some point during a pregnancy, thus limiting a woman’s ability to access abortion services. For example, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R), who is on the list, co-sponsored “personhood” legislation while serving in the South Carolina legislature.

Here are some of the anti-choice actions highlighted in NARAL’s report by the politicians frequently mentioned as top vice president picks:

TIM PAWLENTY: The former Minnesota governor signed a mandatory 24-hour delay for women seeking abortion care into law, and while serving in the state House, he wrote a bill to require women to be told medically inaccurate information about abortion services. But Pawlenty also approved a bill ensuring that women who have been sexually assaulted have access to emergency contraception — a measure similar to one Romney vetoed.

ROB PORTMAN: While serving in the House of Representatives and Senate, the current Ohio senator has voted on 115 bills related to abortion and reproductive rights — 114 of which were anti-choice. He repeatedly voted for the Federal Abortion Ban, which criminalizes some abortion services, and Portman co-sponsored a bill to effectively ban abortion coverage in state health insurance exchanges.

KELLY AYOTTE: The first-term New Hampshire senator has never cast a pro-choice vote. In 2003, Ayotte argued a case before the U.S. Supreme Court defending New Hampshire’s law requiring a girl who is a minor to notify a parent before she has an abortion.

MARCO RUBIO: The Florida senator has sponsored two bills that would gut the expansion of contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act. He also voted to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding, which would have denied health care and preventive services to millions of women.

BOBBY JINDAL: While serving in the House of Representatives, Jindal voted eight times to limit abortion access and other reproductive rights issues. And just last month, the current Louisiana governor signed three anti-choice bills into law.

JOHN THUNE: The senator from South Dakota co-sponsored a bill to allow hospitals to deny emergency abortion care, even when a woman’s life is in danger. And while serving in Congress, Thune has voted repeatedly to deny military women the right to use their own, private money for abortion care in military hospitals.

While there used to be a larger number of pro-choice GOP politicians, now “the pool is very small” as the party has grown more conservative, said NARAL’s Crane. And that leaves Romney with a slate of possible vice presidents who are “all equally threatening to a woman’s right to choose,” explained NARAL deputy policy director Lissy Moskowitz.

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Justice

South Carolina Attorney General Admits Voter ID Won’t Prevent Voter Fraud

By Aviva Shen on Jul 27, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Taking a break from defending his state’s restrictive voter ID law in court, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson spoke at a Heritage Foundation panel on Thursday regarding the dire need to prevent the threat of voter fraud. To illustrate, he offered a hypothetical in which a man votes under a stolen identity…by using a fraudulent voter ID card:

WILSON: The ability for someone to come in and, through fraud, dilute the voting pool is very present. I want to be able to give our government the ability to combat that, to give them the tools. It is very difficult to prove a negative. If Alan Wilson goes in and uses a fraudulent voter ID card under the name of John Smith and I vote under John Smith’s name and then leave the polling place, you cannot go back in time and prove the negative. It is impossible. It is very difficult to catch somebody in the act. But I hear countless stories of people who witnessed that.

Watch it:

In Wilson’s imagined scenario, a voter uses a fake ID to cast an extra vote. But his own argument rests on the idea that the requirement to show ID at the polls is necessary to combat rampant voter fraud and identity theft. By this logic, voter ID laws would do nothing to prevent this threat.

In-person voter fraud like the type Wilson claims to prevent is extremely rare. It is so rare, in fact, that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud. Even the Supreme Court could only identify one example of in-person voter fraud in the past 143 years in their 2009 decision upholding a voter ID law.

By contrast, a recent Brennan Center report found that nearly 500,000 voters — mostly low-income and minority individuals — in the ten states with voter ID laws stand to be disenfranchised.

Wilson has sued the Department of Justice for blocking South Carolina’s voter ID law, arguing, “The changes have neither the purpose nor will they have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority.”

According to the ACLU’s estimate, 180,000 voters will be affected by the South Carolina law, with minority voters hit hardest by the new requirements.

This isn’t the first time Wilson’s hypotheticals have fallen flat. After he claimed over 900 dead voters cast ballots in South Carolina, an investigation by the State Election Commission found no evidence to back him up. Wilson has continued to insist that the threat of dead voters is real, and repeated the statistic at the Heritage Foundation on Thursday.

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Pro-Disclosure Ruling Will Likely Force Just One Secret-Money Group To Name Donors