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NEWS FLASH

California Governor Signs Law Making State The Nation’s First To Ban ‘Gay Cure’ Therapy | California has become the first state in the country to ban so-called “sexual orientation therapy” for anyone under the age of 18 after Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1172 Sunday morning. The bill prohibits anyone in the state from performing any kind of psychotherapy designed to alter a minor’s sexual orientation, a controversial practice with no basis in actual science or psychiatry. LGBT groups were quick to applaud the new law, which goes into effect on January 1: “Governor Brown has sent a powerful message of affirmation and support to LGBT youth and their families. This law will ensure that state-licensed therapists can no longer abuse their power to harm LGBT youth and propagate the dangerous and deadly lie that sexual orientation is an illness or disorder that can be ‘cured,’” Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement published by NBC News.

Security

NBC’s David Gregory Misquotes Obama, Falsely Claims President Said ‘Al Qaeda Has Been Defeated’

By Judd Legum on Sep 30, 2012 at 12:11 pm

This morning on Meet The Press, David Gregory twice asserted that, in May, President Obama declared that “al Qaeda has been defeated.” Gregory used that claim to advance a theory that Obama was simply not concerned enough about al Qaeda in advance of the attack on the American embassy in Libya. Here’s the transcript:

GREGORY: The President has said as recently as May of this year that al Qaeda has not had a chance to rebuild, that al Qaeda has been defeated. There is an election on, as we’ve been talking about, and the President’s challenger said plain and simple, the President failed to level with the American people and call this a terrorist attack, because you had to be concerned about another terrorist attack from al Qaeda in the Middle East after the President said that al Qaeda had been defeated. 

Watch it:

That is not, however, what Obama said in May. Gregory was apparently referring to an address that Obama delivered from Afghanistan in May on the one year anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s death. Here is what Obama said:

And one year ago, from a base here in Afghanistan, our troops launched the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The goal that I set — to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild — is now within our reach.

Still, there will be difficult days ahead. The enormous sacrifices of our men and women are not over.

So, the truth is that Obama did not say al Qaeda had already been defeated and specifically acknowledged that there were “difficult days” and “enormous sacrifices” yet to come.

Economy

Christie Accuses Obama of Lying About Romney’s Tax Plan, Then Misrepresents Romney’s Tax Plan

By Ian Millhiser on Sep 30, 2012 at 11:41 am

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ)

On ABC News’s This Week this morning, host George Stephanopoulos played an Obama campaign ad where the President says that Romney believes in “even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy.” New Jersey Governor and Romney surrogate Chris Christie (R) responded by falsely accusing President Obama of lying:

CHRISTIE: Stop lying Mr. President.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Lying?

CHRISTIE: Yeah . . . Gov. Romney’s not talking about more tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, what he said is that the wealthy will pay just as much under a Romney administration as they pay today.

Romney may not be “talking” about how his plan reduces taxes on the very rich, but it is simply false to claim that it does not. The Romney income tax plan works in two parts. First, he calls for an “across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates.” In addition, Romney supports eliminating unspecified tax deductions and other loopholes which, he claims, will add as much to the wealthy’s tax burden as his rate reductions will take away. Romney also says his plan will be “revenue neutral,” meaning that the amount of money lost by reducing rates will be identical to the amount gained by closing loopholes.

Unfortunately, this plan is mathematically impossible.

As a report by the Tax Policy Center demonstrated last month, even if Romney were to eliminate every single tax loophole benefiting the wealthy, there simply are not enough of them to keep the richest taxpayers from paying substantially less under Romney’s plan. Indeed, the average taxpayer who earns over $1 million per year would receive a tax cut of over $87,000 under Romney’s plan. So when Christie suggests that “the wealthy will pay just as much under a Romney administration as they pay today,” he is not telling the truth.

Meanwhile, middle class families will bear the cost of these tax cuts for the very rich. According to the same Tax Policy Center report, Romney’s plan will pay for its tax cuts for upper income earners through substantial tax hikes on families earning less than $200,000 a year — many of whom would need to lose common tax benefits such as the mortgage interest tax deduction or the child tax credit in order for Romney’s plan to be revenue neutral. The average family with children earning less than $200,000 a year will see their taxes increase by $2,041 under the Romney tax plan:

So regardless of what Romney may say his Reverse Robin Hood tax plan does on the campaign trail, what it actually does is take money away from middle class Americans and give it to the wealthiest few.

Climate Progress

Epic ‘Dust Bowl Of 2012′ Expands Again

By Joe Romm on Sep 30, 2012 at 11:30 am

The latest weekly Drought Monitor update set another grim record. The brutal U.S. drought expanded to 65.45% of the contiguous U.S. — the highest ever in the Monitor’s 12-year history. The previous record was 64.8% — set just last week.

In the third quarter alone, crop production dropped $12 billion “due to this summer’s severe heat and drought.”  The drop in farm inventories was so sharp in the last quarter that it wiped 0.2% off of U.S. GDP in the latest revision.

In Texas, the drought has killed more than 300 million trees. Nearly 98% of Nebraska is in extreme to exceptional drought — 3 months ago, none of it was!

Climate Central explains:

The drought is the worst to strike the U.S. since the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s and lengthy droughts of the 1950s. It came on suddenly and largely without warning, and although the main trigger was most likely the pattern of water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the drought was exacerbated by extremely hot temperatures during the spring and summer. Climate studies have shown that the odds of severe heat waves are increasing due to manmade climate change.

As I wrote in July, “We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming.” The WashPost reported in August:

The United States will suffer a series of severe droughts in the next two decades, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Moreover, global warming will play an increasingly important role in their abundance and severity, claims Aiguo Dai, the study’s author.

His findings bolster conclusions from climate models used by researchers around the globe that have predicted severe and widespread droughts in coming decades over many land areas…

“We can now be more confident that the models are correct,” Dai said, “but unfortunately, their predictions are dire.”

For more on what the models have been saying, see “James Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don’t Act Now.” I’ll do a post on Dai’s latest work in October.

Related Posts:

NEWS FLASH

Romney As Governor: ‘we’d be a lot better off in this country if we had European gas prices’ | Republicans have criticized President Obama for rising gas prices during his administration, but as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney once remarked that “we’d be a lot better off in this country if we had European gas prices,” the New York Times reports. Romney also wrote that he “shared my own dream for a super-efficient commuter vehicle” when he met with an advocate for fuel-efficient vehicles and often talked about such a plan, Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) told the Times. “He was ahead of his time and very progressive,” a former Romney appointee said. As a candidate, though, Romney has backed off such advocacy, instead pushing for more domestic oil drilling.

Economy

Paul Ryan To Fox News: ‘I Don’t Have The Time’ To Explain How We Will Pay For Our Tax Plan

By Adam Peck on Sep 30, 2012 at 10:39 am

For much of the general election, the Romney campaign has avoided any discussion of specifics, especially when it comes to the tax plan that he and Paul Ryan have put forward. On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace gave Ryan an opportunity to finally talk about the details of his plan to a national audience, how much it will cost and how the Romney administration would pay for it.

Instead, Ryan said he didn’t have time to get into the nuts and bolts of the proposal:

WALLACE: So how much would it cost?

RYAN: It’s revenue neutral…

WALLACE: No no, I’m just talking about cuts. We’ll get to the deductions, but the cut in tax rates.

RYAN: The cut in tax rates is lowering all Americans’ tax rates by 20 percent.

WALLACE: Right, how much does that cost?

RYAN: It’s revenue neutral.
[...]
WALLACE: But I have to point out, you haven’t given me the math.

Ryan: No, but you…well, I don’t have the time. It would take me too long to go through all of the math. But let me say it this way: you can lower tax rates by 20 percent across the board by closing loopholes and still have preferences for the middle class. For things like charitable deductions, for home purchases, for health care. So what we’re saying is, people are going to get lower tax rates.

Watch it:

Ryan has been the Republican vice presidential nominee for nearly three months, and has still not found the time to explain how a Romney administration would fund its tax plan of 20 percent deductions across the board. Perhaps that is because if he did, voters would balk at the cuts that would need to occur in programs like Medicare for the plan to remain revenue neutral.

Ryan’s refusal to talk specifics only lends further credibility to the various studies and reports that have found time to do the math. And as ThinkProgress has reported, those studies from non-partisan organizations show that the Romney/Ryan tax plan would actually result in a huge tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. And the only way to keep it revenue neutral is to balance their plan on the backs of middle class families, who would see a tax increase of more than $2,000.

Climate Progress

Southeastern Louisiana University Has ‘Honor’ Of Hosting Birther And Climate Denier Lord Monckton

By Climate Guest Blogger on Sep 30, 2012 at 10:00 am

by Graham Readfearn, via DeSmogBlog

Dr. Russell McKenzie, an associate professor at Southeastern Louisiana University Department of Management and Business Administration, is rather pleased with the guy he has secured to speak to students and the public about the economic cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are honored to have someone of his stature speaking,” he told an online university community newspaper. In another story, Dr McKenzie added: “It’s not every day you have the opportunity to have a world renowned speaker to come to Southeastern”.

So who is this global powerhouse on climate change and economics? Sir Nicholas Stern, perhaps, author of the UK government’s “Stern Review”? Could it be James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and famed climate scientist?

No. The “world renowned speaker” appearing at Southeastern Louisiana University on 2 October is none other than Lord Christopher Monckton, the British hereditary peer who believes climate scientists are part of a plot to introduce a socialist world government.

Apparently, the university is “honored” to host a man who told told climate scientists through a partisan crowd that “we are coming after you. We are going to prosecute you, and we are going to lock you up”.

Honored to have someone who compared former Australian government climate policy advisor Ross Garnaut to a Nazi? Honored to have someone who tells young climate change campaigners that they are the “Hitler youth“? Honored to be in the presence of a person shown to have misrepresented climate science (repeatedly) and yet is promoted by coal mining magnate and world’s richest woman Gina Rinehart?

And yes, honored to host a man who has written that the chances of Barack Obama having been born in the US are  ”no better than 1 in 62,500,000,000,000,000,000“.

The lecture in question has been well promoted through official university channels and through a university-based website for student journalists which has written not one, but two stories promoting the event. Between 75 and 120 people are expected to attend.

News went out earlier this week to staff and students via the university’s weekly newsletter and on a 21 September daily bulletin, which included a link to a flyer promoting the event. The fawning newsletter article provided a potted biography of Lord Monckton:

Read more

Security

McCain Suggests Harry Reid ‘Doesn’t Care’ About The Death Of US Ambassador

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Sep 30, 2012 at 9:53 am

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Sunday accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) of not caring about the deaths of four American diplomats, including US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. All four men were killed in an attack on the American embassy in Libya on September 11th of this year.

Republicans have argued that President Obama botched the response to, and preparation for, the attack. But when asked whether Reid’s statement that the incident was being politicized, McCain politicized it further, saying that Reid “doesn’t care” about it:

CROWLEY: Senator Reid put out a statement yesterday where he called it sad and disappointing that some people seem more focused on trying this score cheap political points off when this intelligence information came than mourning the loss of the ambassador and the other three.

MCCAIN: Maybe Senator Reid doesn’t care about Christopher Stevens. Maybe he doesn’t care about those three other brave Americans.

CROWLEY: You know he does, though?

MCCAIN: Well, to make a statement like that. Well, to make a statement like that, of course, politicizes an issue that all Americans should be concerned about what information there was. No matter whether Democrat or Republican. He is the one that’s taking the cheap political shot.

Watch it:

Climate Progress

There’s More To Life Than Energy Costs

By Climate Guest Blogger on Sep 30, 2012 at 8:31 am

Gunnar Ries, via Flickr

by Robert Hutchinson and Molly Miller, via the Rocky Mountain Institute

Why just talk about energy when what people really need is comfort?

For example, when researching Reinventing Fire we spoke with a regional insulation installer who says he never needs to bring up energy to make a sale. He walks into a potential customer’s house, finds an overly chilly (often north facing) room and says, “Is this space uncomfortable? I bet you don’t use this room much.”

Why might selling space usability and comfort—as opposed to selling energy savings—work as a go-to-market model?

Because people get really engaged about comfort and not always excited about energy efficiency (confusion or…snore).

At home, at work, and even in our cars, comfort influences not only our happiness and well-being, but also our effectiveness and productivity. Studies show increased productivity and decreased absenteeism is directly tied to comfort; even a tiny increase in productivity has huge financial ramifications.

But it’s more than productivity. In many places (think Singapore or Houston) moving between high heat and humidity and freezing air-conditioned cabs and buildings feels as it if it is not very healthy. People certainly complain about it and blame summer colds on it!

Not only is cranked-up AC—or even a little bit of cold air near the door—potentially unhealthy, it can lead to Junk Under Your Desk Syndrome (JUYDS). If you need a heater or a fan in your personal workspace, you have this affliction. Or, rather, your building has this affliction—and it pays the price.

(If this blog were about energy, like many of our other blogs, we would mention that JUYDS can be death to plug loads, which make designing really good buildings very challenging these days, because they are so difficult to predict upfront—and increasingly, so large.

We spend thousands of dollars on Herman Miller chairs for people’s ergonomic comfort in our office buildings, but put little thought into their thermal comfort.

The good news today is we know much more about comfort and controls than we used to. First, well-designed, highly efficient buildings are also much more comfortable because they are usually meant to keep temperature stable—no freezing or broiling first thing in the morning, then the opposite later. Read more

Health

Why Mitt Romney’s Lyme Disease Mailers Are Dangerous

By Judd Legum on Sep 29, 2012 at 6:08 pm

The Romney campaign is sending out a flyer in Northern Virginia pledging to fight Lyme Disease, which is describes as a “massive epidemic threatening Virginia”:

The Washington Post notes that “According to the CDC there are less than 1,000 reported cases of Lyme disease in Virginia a year — in a state of eight million people.”

It’s fairly difficult to contract Lyme disease because “an infected tick must be attached to the skin for at least 36 hours to transmit Lyme bacteria.” For those who are affected, there is a straight-forward and effective treatments for the disease — a course of antibiotics for 2 to 4 weeks.

So what’s the point of this Romney mailer?

A highly influential social conservative in Virginia, Michael Farris, believes that people can contract “chronic Lyme disease” that must be treated with long-term antibiotics. The Center for Disease Control says there is no such thing as “chronic Lyme disease” and “long-term antibiotic treatment for Lyme disease has been associated with serious complications.”

You can read about these complications in this article from “Clinical Infectious Diseases,” the official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, called “Death from Inappropriate Therapy for Lyme Disease.”

Farris “claims that his wife is a chronic Lyme sufferer as are all his seven children.”

Farris, who has no medical training, was invited to speak with Romney on his campaign bus a couple of weeks ago. Farris said that he and Romney “talked about Lyme disease. It was cordial and encouraging.” Here’s a photo of the meeting from Romney’s Facebook page:

The Romney flier advocates providing “local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics that are required.” Farris’ wife receives treatment from “Dr. Joseph Jemsek, who moved his practice to Washington, D.C., after losing his medical license in North Carolina for treating patients with long-term antibiotics.”

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