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Arizona Governor Tries To Thwart Obama’s Immigration Directive With Executive Order

By Igor Volsky on Aug 15, 2012 at 7:24 pm

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has signed an executive order that attempts to thwart President Obama’s directive extending temporary work permits to more than a million undocumented immigrants. The Obama administration’s policy — which would grant two-year work authorizations to undocumented youth between 15 and 30 years of age who have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least five years — was announced in June and went into effect on Wednesday.

Brewer’s order directs “state agencies to deny driver’s licenses and other public benefits to young illegal immigrants who obtain work authorizations” and “directs state agencies to start emergency rulemaking processes as necessary to implement her order.” From the document:

Update

TPM reports that Brewer’s order is a dud. “Arizona already had a number of strict immigration laws in place, including one that barred illegal immigrants from getting drivers licenses or state issued identification cards.” And as Brewer herself admitted at a press conference, “It actually is no different than what was already in place.”

Climate Progress

The Sounds Of Silence On Science: The Country Is On Fire, But Obama Isn’t

By Joe Romm on Aug 15, 2012 at 6:26 pm

Record-breaking heat is helping to fuel an ever-worsening drought, which is in turn devastating our forests and crops.

Does science have anything to say about what is causing all these off-the-charts records today — and, more importantly, what the future holds if we keep doing what we are doing?

Apparently not, according to the man who famously promised that his election would usher in “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Here is Obama’s “weekly address” (which should really be described as “address weakly”):

This may be the President’s idea of an “All-Hands-On-Deck Response” but it is also a “No-Brains-On-Deck Response.” Where is a frog with a brain stem when you need one?

Obama ends by saying of his proposed drought response, “If we look out for each other, we’ll come out of this stronger than before.” Actually, if we keep ignoring climate science and climate scientists, the only thing that will come out of this stronger than before will be the droughts of the future — see “James Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don’t Act Now.”

And yes, it was just April that Obama told Rolling Stone that because of the poor economy:

… it’s been easy for the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk climate-change science. I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.

Four months down, two to go. If not now, when? If not the President, who?

Team Obama needs to read the new Yale public opinion analysis, “The Political Benefits of Taking a Pro-Climate Stand in 2012” along with these other polls and studies:

Justice

Federal Appeals Court Holds Second Amendment Does Not Allow People To Own Machine Guns

By Ian Millhiser on Aug 15, 2012 at 6:00 pm

In an opinion by George W. Bush appointed Judge Milan Smith, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a criminal defendant’s claim that he has a Second Amendment right to own a machine gun:

In Heller, the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s ban on handgun possession, concluding that the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.” However, the Court stated that the Second Amendment only protects the right to own certain weapons, and that it “does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.” The Court also concluded that the “historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’” limits the right to keep and carry arms.

Heller did not specify the types of weapons that qualify as “dangerous and unusual,” but the Court stated that it would be “startling” for the Second Amendment to protect machine guns. Since Heller was decided, every circuit court to address the issue has held that there is no Second Amendment right to possess a machine gun.

We agree with the reasoning of our sister circuits that machine guns are “dangerous and unusual weapons” that are not protected by the Second Amendment. An object is “dangerous” when it is “likely to cause serious bodily harm.” Congress defines “machinegun” as “any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.” The machine gun was first widely used during World War I, where it “demonstrated its murderously effective firepower over and over again.” A modern machine gun can fire more than 1,000 rounds per minute, allowing a shooter to kill dozens of people within a matter of seconds. Short of bombs, missiles, and biochemical agents, we can conceive of few weapons that are more dangerous than machine guns.

As a matter of law, this was an easy case. The Ninth Circuit now joins the Third, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits which have all rejected claims that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to own machine guns. Nevertheless, it is an important reminder that the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment cases still permit robust gun regulation. As conservative Justice Scalia explained in his Heller opinion, the Second Amendment not only does not apply to “dangerous and unusual” weapons, it also does not apply to “longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

NEWS FLASH

Texas Woman Asks For A Public Hearing About State’s Cuts To Planned Parenthood | Texas is at risk of losing $40 million in Medicaid funding because the state health commissioner signed a rule banning Planned Parenthood or any abortion provider from participating in Medicaid’s Women’s Health Program, even though the program provides health screenings and contraception — but not abortions — to some of the poorest women in Texas. Now, 25-year-old Rene Resendez, who is a patient in the program, is calling on the state to hold a public hearing before Gov. Rick Perry (R) overhauls the program without federal funding for Planned Parenthood. “As a patient of Planned Parenthood, and an enrollee in the Women’s Health Program, I want a voice in Governor Perry’s overhaul of the program. I should be able to decide who provides my healthcare,” Resendez writes at her Change.org petition for the public hearing.

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Aug 15, 2012 at 5:32 pm

Economy

Romney Adviser ‘Embarrassed’ He Doesn’t Know When Romney Would Balance Budget, But Shouldn’t Be

By Aviva Shen on Aug 15, 2012 at 5:18 pm

Senior Romney adviser Ed Gillespie was caught off guard Wednesday when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked him how long Romney’s budget proposal would take to balance the national budget:

BLITZER: How many years would it take for the Romney budget to result in a balanced budget?

GILLESPIE: Uh…Wolf, I’m not sure of that myself, actually. I’ll get that to you though and I’m sure it’s on our website. I should know it and I’m embarrassed on your air that I don’t have that number at the top of my head. I didn’t know we were going to talk about that today. I apologize. I should have prepared for that question. I didn’t know you were going to ask.

Watch it:

Gillespie didn’t have the number on hand because, as Romney himself said in March, his budget plan “can’t be scored” and is missing key details about which deductions it would eliminate. Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan failed to answer the same question a day earlier, telling Fox News’ Brit Hume, “I don’t know exactly what the balance is. I don’t want to get wonky on you, but we haven’t run the numbers on that specific plan.” In sum, Romney’s plan is “mathematically impossible.”

The Romney budget requires even harsher cuts in entitlement programs than Ryan’s radical House-endorsed plan. Ten-year cuts in spending would range from one-third deeper than those in the Ryan budget to almost twice as deep as the Ryan cuts, with potentially disastrous consequences for low-income and middle class Americans — including taking food stamps away from as many as 13 million people.

Alyssa

Me At SXSW Again

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Aug 15, 2012 at 5:07 pm

I had a lovely time at SXSW talking Islam and pop culture this spring, and I’m hoping to head back next year. Slate’s proposed a panel involving me, Slate editor Hanna Rosin, The New Republic’s Noreen Malone, and Girls executive producer Jenni Konner talking sex and raunch involving women on television. If it happens, I think it should be a good conversation. In between Louie, Girls, Don’t Trust the B—- In Apartment 23 and movies like Bridesmaids, I think we’re at an interesting moment where female characters are playing with dignity, instrumentalism and aggression in sex in challenging ways, and the reaction to these sex scenes and approaches to sex demonstrate how early we are in these sorts of conversations. If the right to be undignified without having it reflect on every member of every group you’re a part of is a marker of true equality, then this conversation gets at something particularly important. If you agree, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a moment to support the panel through SXSW’s Panel Picker. And if we get to go, I’ll be sure to arrange a meetup in Austin, especially now that I have a better sense of the city.

NEWS FLASH

CHART: Treasury Loses Billions Of Dollars Due To Tax Deductions For Executive Bonuses | According to a new report by Temple University accounting professor Steven Balsam, the federal government lost $30.4 billion between 2007 and 2010 thanks to corporations taking tax deductions for executive compensation, including nearly $17 billion for “performance based” bonuses. This revenue loss has occurred despite efforts to limit the tax deductibility of executive pay, as companies take advantage of loopholes and weak restrictions. At the moment, it would take the typical American worker 244 years to make the amount made by the average CEO in one year.

NEWS FLASH

Arkansas Likely To Vote On Medical Marijuana In November | On Monday, supporters of a petition to put medical marijuana legalization on the November ballot in Arkansas turned in to the Secretary of State more than double the number of signatures required. Arkansans for Compassionate Care fell short of the required 62,507 signatures from registered voters in July, but submitted 74,000 additional signatures after an extra month of canvassing. The Secretary of State’s office is expected to rule within ten days whether or not the initiative qualifies for the ballot. Massachusetts already has a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana ready for the November election, while voters in Washington State and Colorado will vote on legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

Climate Progress

Building Better Neighborhoods: A Success Story On Innovation, Jobs And Consumer Savings From Energy Efficiency

By Climate Guest Blogger on Aug 15, 2012 at 4:57 pm

by Bracken Hendricks and Adam James

Question: What is the Department of Energy doing to address the fact that American homeowners and businesses spend about $300 billion on energy bills per year?

Answer: Helping the private sector to create new markets that provide thousands of workers with paychecks, and launch innovative new business models for capturing energy efficiency.

The Better Buildings Neighborhoods program, formerly known as the “Retrofit Ramp-Up,” was launched in April of 2010 with the aim of jumpstarting state and locally based energy efficiency programs using Recovery Act grants as one-time seed funding. To date, $508 million in grant funding has gone out to 41 different programs, serving hundreds of communities nationwide.

The 2009 “Recovery through Retrofit” report spearheaded by Vice President Biden and the White House Council on Environmental Quality identified several key barriers that have slowed the growth of a residential energy efficiency market. These barriers to scale include:

  • Access to Information: Average consumers rarely have easy and understandable data about their home’s energy usage, the return-on-investment for upgrades, or the various options available to them.
  • Access to Financing: A lot of energy efficient upgrades make good financial sense over the long run, but the up-front capital costs are intimidating. Financing can soften the blow and space payments out over a period of time which mirrors the way consumers see energy bills.
  • Access to Skilled Workers: Despite large numbers of construction workers being out of work, the pool of skilled labor is constrained. This can be traced to a lack of demand for these services. Who stakes their livelihood where a solid market doesn’t yet exist?

With these barriers in mind, the Better Buildings Neighborhoods programs set out to create the conditions for a scalable energy efficiency market. Their approach: strategic and creative use of ARRA grant funds as seed money (requiring recipients to leverage private capital 3:1) to get programs off the ground, build constituencies and stakeholders for these programs, and extract lessons learned to inform future program design.

Halfway through the funding and about two thirds of the way through its lifetime, the program has already demonstrated important success.

Read more

LGBT

Mother Of Kidnapped Daughter Files Racketeering Suit Against Liberty University Law School

By Josh Israel on Aug 15, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Lisa Miller, Janet Jenkins, and Isabella before their separation.

On the same day a Mennonite pastor was convicted of abetting international kidnapping of the child of a same-sex couple, one of the girl’s mothers filed a civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) suit against that pastor and others who she alleges helped her former partner kidnap their child Isabella and flee the country.

The lawsuit, filed by Janet Jenkins Tuesday in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont, also names her former partner Lisa Miller, the Liberty University School of Law, and the Thomas Road Baptist Church, among others. Both Liberty University and Thomas Road Baptist were founded by the late Jerry Falwell and are based in Lynchburg, Virginia.

In Jenkins’ filing, she complains:

against Defendants for intentionally kidnapping and conspiring to kidnap Isabella Miller-Jenkins on or about September 21, 2009, and intentionally causing her continued detention outside the State of Vermont to the present day. The Plaintiffs also complain against Defendants for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (c) and (d) for participating and conspiring to participate in the affairs of the Beachy Amish-Mennonite Christian Brotherhood through a pattern of past and continuing acts and threats involving kidnapping, money laundering and mail fraud. Plaintiffs further complain against the above named Defendants for conspiring to violate their civil rights in violation of 42 U .S.C. § 1985 (3) and 42 U.S.C. §1986.

The suit seeks an immediate return of the kidnapped child to the U.S., as well as actual and punitive damages.

While anti-LGBT extremists have cheered this kidnapping, actually comparing it to the “Underground Railroad,” the verdict in the criminal case and this new case could finally hold those behind the kidnapping accountable for their actions.

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