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Justice

Florida Officially Restarts Voter Purge, Revised List Still Appears To Be Inaccurate

By Judd Legum on Sep 26, 2012 at 10:05 pm

Florida has officially restarted it’s controversial purge of registered voters less than 6 weeks before election day. Governor Scott’s intention to resume the effort, detailed in a PowerPoint presentation, was first reported by ThinkProgress.

Initially, Florida identified 180,000 potential non-citizens to be purged from the voter rolls. That list was subsequently narrowed down to 2600 “sure fire” non-citizens. When it became clear in early June that even the smaller list was riddled with errors, elections officials stopped the effort.

According to the Miami Herald, Florida has sent just 198 names to local election supervisors. (Of those, no more than 36 have ever cast a ballot.) But there is already evidence that the latest list still is not accurate. From the Herald:

For voters like Yeral Arroliga, it’s a pain.

Arroliga, 25, who immigrated from Nicaragua in 1995, said he already sent his proof of citizenship earlier this summer under the first version of the purge program. He’s ready to do it again, after ending up on the new list. But he’s not happy about it.

“It sounds like you have Big Brother watching over you,” he told The Herald. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

Of this list of 198 potential non-citizens, about 58 percent are minority — 41 percent Hispanic and 17 percent black.

Multiple election officials have spoken out against the latest purge. Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall, a Republican, told ThinkProgress “It just doesn’t help us whatsoever… It’s awful.”

Health

Retired Generals Call for Healthier School Lunches Because ‘Junk Food In School Is A National Security Issue’

By Guest Blogger on Sep 26, 2012 at 6:30 pm

Retired generals and admirals of the advocacy group Mission: Readiness document the impact that the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic has on military service in a new report entitled “Still Too Fat to Fight.” Referring to junk food in school cafeterias as a “national security issue,” their study estimates that roughly 25 percent of all American adults are now disqualified from military service due to being overweight.

The study calls on U.S. officials to do their part to address poor health standards in school lunch programs in an attempt to curb childhood obesity rates:

Finding ways to reverse our epidemic of obesity is crucial because the U.S. Department of Defense alone spends an estimated $1 billion per year for medical care associated with weight-related health problems. In a dramatic move to address this problem, the military is bringing healthier foods to its schools, dining facilities, and vending machines, but it cannot win this fight alone. The civilian sector needs to do its part.

The 300 retired generals and admirals of Mission: Readiness are joining parents and nutritionists in strongly supporting new efforts to limit the sale of junk food in our schools. Removing the junk food from our schools should be part of nationwide comprehensive action that involves parents, schools and communities in helping students build stronger bodies with less excess fat. We need action to ensure that America’s child obesity crisis does not become a national security crisis.

Some Republican lawmakers stand in stark disagreement with the generals’ call to regulate nutrition standards in school lunches. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), for one, does not believe that schools should provide lunch programs at all. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) — who has referred to efforts to cap calories in school lunches as “the nanny state personified” — claims that constituents have told him “kids are starving in school” and introduced the No Hungry Kids Act to remove the calorie limits on school lunches that are currently in place.

However, even with the current calorie limits, junk foods in school lunches already account for almost 400 billion calories — which, according to the generals’ study, would weigh more than the aircraft carrier Midway if converted to candy bars.

– Nate Niemann

Justice

Bronx Prosecutors Wary Of Arrests From NYPD Stop-And-Frisks

By Nicole Flatow on Sep 26, 2012 at 6:20 pm

Reacting to the New York Police Department’s aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics, the Bronx district attorney’s office has halted all prosecutions of people at public housing projects for trespassing, unless and until they can conduct an interview with the arresting officer. This is the “first known instance in which a district attorney has questioned any segment of arrests resulting from stop-and-frisk tactics,” according to the New York Times.

The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactics came under fire after news emerged that police stops in New York City increased by more than half a million between 2003 and 2011, and that New York officers conducted more stops of young black men in 2011 than there are young black men in the city. A significant proportion of NYPD stops, 10 to 15 percent, occur at public housing facilities, where police can arrest someone who they believe does not live at the housing project and is not a guest.

After receiving numerous complaints from defense attorneys about trespass arrests, Jeanette Rucker of the Bronx DA’s office conducted an investigation that yielded disturbing results. The New York Times explains:

[S]he found that “in many (but not all) of the cases the defendants arrested were either legitimate tenants or invited guests,” she wrote.

In some cases, Ms. Rucker claimed, the police arrested people even when there was persuasive evidence that they were not trespassing, citing “several instances where defendants who were guests, had the person whom they were visiting verify this fact to the arresting officer, yet the defendant was arrested anyway.” In those cases, the deposition from the arresting officer “indicated the defendant did not know the name of any tenant or the apartment number.”

From 2009 to 2011, the police arrested more than 16,000 people on trespass charges in public housing, according to a report filed as part of the federal litigation over the arrests.

According to another account by counsel for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, some officers were under the mistaken impression that they “were entitled to stop and question anyone inside” public housing.

The findings led the DA’s office to require in-person interviews with arresting officers before prosecuting people for trespass in public housing. But as the Legal Aid Society in New York’s chief lawyer Steven Banks says, this is exactly the type of thing prosecutors should be doing anyway to verify the legal support for these arrests.

Over the last few months, the number of stops has dropped a dramatic 34 percent, following public outcry, new NYPD policies and three court rulings that question NYPD tactics. But that has not changed the impression that the stops are deeply discriminatory. A poll out earlier this week found that 64 percent of New Yorkers, and 80 percent of African Americans, think the police favor whites. The poll also found that a majority of New Yorkers think stop-and-frisk has led to the harassment of innocent people.

NEWS FLASH

Romney Touts Romneycare: ‘I Got Everybody In My State Insured’ | Mitt Romney touted his success in passing health care reform in Massachusetts, during an interview with NBC News on Wednesday. “I got everybody in my state insured,” he said, adding that almost all children now have coverage. “I don’t think anything shows more empathy and care…than that kind of record.” The former Massachusetts governor has repeatedly said that his health care reform — which includes an individual mandate — should not be a model for the nation (despite previously saying that it should) and has promised to repeal Obamacare, a law based on his state reforms. (HT: Mark Murray)

Economy

Ryan Justifies Romney’s Low Tax Rate: It’s Ok, Because He Created Jobs

By Travis Waldron on Sep 26, 2012 at 6:00 pm

In recent years, Republicans have taken to calling uber-wealthy Americans “job creators” to justify holding the government hostage to protect their low tax rates. Less than a week after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney released his tax returns and revealed his 14.1 percent rate — far lower than any president’s since Richard Nixon — Ryan used a local interview to revive the job creator myth.

Romney saved $1.2 million in taxes thanks to a preference that allows investment income, known as capital gains, to be taxed at a lower rate than wage income. Ryan told Cincinnati’s WLWT that paying such a low rate was justified because low capital gains rates boost job creation:

RYAN: Point number two is this money creates jobs. When people invest in riskier propositions, meaning invest in businesses, they don’t know if they’re going to succeed or not. So you want to have more capital that goes to more businesses, especially small businesses like this one, so more people can go back to work. That creates economic growth. You know what we learned about Mitt Romney in his tax returns? He’s a successful businessman. That’s a good thing.

Watch it:

The problem with Ryan’s logic is that there is little evidence that the capital gains preference increases job creation. As the Center for American Progress’ Seth Hanlon notes, the capital gains rate was higher during sustained periods of economic growth in the 1990s, while the 2003 cut to the capital gains rate was followed by weak investment and growth. After the rate dropped in 1997, growth rates hardly changed.

As this chart from professor Leonard Burman, a former economist at Treasury and the Congressional Budget Office, shows, there is no provable correlation between changes in the capital gains tax rate and economic growth:

That chart, Burman told Congress, “should dispel the notion that capital gains taxes are a very important factor in the health of the economy. Cutting capital gains taxes will not turbocharge the economy and raising them would not usher in a depression.” Other economists came to similar findings. The Tax Policy Center found no correlation between the rate and economic growth over the last 50 years, and the University of Michigan’s Joel Slemrod found that “there is no evidence that links aggregate economic performance to capital gains tax rates.”

Climate Progress

After Warmest 12-Months On Record, U.S. Poised To See Warmest Year Ever In 2012

By Joe Romm on Sep 26, 2012 at 5:49 pm

NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center reports today that this January to August is the warmest year-to-date on record for the contiguous United States. As Climate Central shows in this chart, the U.S. will easily beat the previous record warm year, 1998 — unless the rest of the year is unusually cold:

Graphic illustrating temperature anomalies for some of the warmest years on record in the U.S., and how much cooler than average the September through December period would need to be to avoid setting a record for the warmest year. Credit: Climate Central/NCDC.

Climate Central notes “according to The Weather Channel, taking only the years since World War II, the odds of not surpassing the warmest year are just 7 percent.” But that estimate, of course, downplays the effect on the odds of the recent manmade warming.

Finally, January through December is a somewhat arbitrary demarcation. We already blew past the record for warmest 12-months period in August, as NCDC shows in this chart:

Warmest 12 months

The August 2011-July 2012 temperature beat the previous pre-2012 record by over half a degree Fahrenheit!

Of course, if we keep doing nothing about human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, these records will be broken on an increasingly frequent basis — see Our hellish future: Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year — and that isn’t the worst case, it’s business as usual!

And for those who actually care about future generations, there is every reason to believe that the Earth would just keep getting hotter and hotter:

Health

World Contraception Day Highlights How Obamacare Is Helping U.S. Women Access Birth Control

By Amanda Peterson Beadle and Adam Peck on Sep 26, 2012 at 5:28 pm

Today is World Contraception Day, a global campaign to “enable young people to make informed decisions on sexual and reproductive health.” Every year, 100,000 women’s lives could be saved globally if access to contraception were expanded; unfortunately, more than 200 million women in the world do not have access to birth control.

Millions of women in the U.S. now have access to contraception at no additional cost to them thanks to the Obamacare provision that requires insurers to cover birth control as preventative health care, saving American women thousands of dollars a year. Despite broad public support for the Obamacare regulation, Republicans have consistently attacked it — even though nearly every single woman has used a form of birth control at some point in her life.

ThinkProgress has compiled just a few reasons that access to contraception impacts women, both in the U.S. and on a global scale:

Coinciding with World Contraception Day, world leaders struck a deal to lower the price of some forms of contraception globally, a move that will help expand access to birth control outside of the U.S. in the way that the Obamacare provision does for American women. Access to contraception is an economic issue for women, and these numbers highlight its importance.

NEWS FLASH

Out-Of-State Students Have The Right To Vote in New Hampshire, Court Rules | A New Hampshire judge held Monday that out-of-state students have a right to vote in the state, rejecting a new requirement that voters sign a statement declaring New Hampshire their domicile and subjecting them to laws that require them to register their vehicles in the state and obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license within 60 days of becoming residents. Judge John Lewis ordered that this paragraph be deleted from voter registration forms, saying it “presents an inaccurate expression of the law and has a clear harmful effect on the exercise of voting rights and education connected therewith.” The law implementing this requirement passed in June with strong Republican support, and over the veto of Gov. John Lynch. Last March, the leader of the State House, Bill O’Brien, said he supported such a law to stop students from “basically doing what I did when I was a kid: voting as a liberal.”

NEWS FLASH

EMC Endorses Washington Marriage Equality | Corporate IT and cloud computing company EMC is the latest corporation to endorse marriage equality in Washington, including approval of Referendum 74. According to Sujal Patel, President of EMC’s Isilon Storage Division, “Creating an inclusive, respectful and open culture at EMC has always been a priority, and we constantly strive to promote equality in our workplace.  Our support of the state’s legislation that provides same-sex couples with the right to civil marriage is another example of our commitment to supporting – and delivering – benefits for domestic partners.” EMC joins numerous other Washington-based companies supporting the freedom to marry, including Microsoft, Google, and Starbucks.

Economy

Phoenix Mayor Attempts To Live On A Food Stamp Budget: ‘I’m Tired, And It’s Hard To Focus’

By Travis Waldron on Sep 26, 2012 at 5:00 pm

When local activist groups challenged Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton to live on a food stamp budget for a week to mark Hunger Awareness Month, he took them up on the offer and found out just how hard it was. Stanton kept a diary on the challenge, which allotted him roughly $29 a week, the same amount 1.1 million Arizonans receive from the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program (SNAP) each week.

By day four, Stanton noted that he was “tired” and “it’s hard to focus” after leaving the house for work without time to scramble eggs or eat a decent breakfast:

OK- ran out the door today with no time to scramble eggs or even make a sandwich. So I’m surviving on an apple and handful of peanuts, and the coffee I took to the office until dinner. I’m tired, and it’s hard to focus. I can’t go buy a sandwich because that would be cheating- even the dollar menu at Taco Bell is cheating. You can’t use SNAP benefits at any restaurants, fast food or otherwise. I’m facing a long, hungry day and an even longer night getting dinner on the table, which requires making EVERYTHING from scratch on this budget. It’s only for a week, so I’ve got a decent attitude. If I were doing this with no end in sight, I probably wouldn’t be so pleasant.

Watch a local news report about Stanton’s challenge, via Huffington Post’s Bonnie Kavoussi:



According to Stanton’s Facebook page, the city he governs ranks 34th-worst among America’s 100 largest metro areas in terms of hunger, and one-in-four Arizona children are food insecure. Across the nation, there are more than 46 million people receiving SNAP benefits.

Despite the challenges presented by poverty and hunger, Republicans have proposed cuts to the programs that help struggling families afford food. The House GOP budget could kick millions out of SNAP and hundreds of thousands of children out of school lunch programs, exacerbating the high rates of food insecurity America’s families are already facing.

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