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Justice

Indiana Lawmaker Proposes Unconstitutional Bill To Take Away Voting Rights From Out-Of-State College Students

By Scott Keyes on Feb 6, 2013 at 6:00 pm

In 1979, the Supreme Court upheld a decision holding that it is unconstitutional to treat college students any differently than other voters in terms of residency requirements to vote. Three and a half decades later, some Republican lawmakers are still trying to prevent college students from voting.

The latest instance is in Indiana, where a state lawmaker just introduced legislation that would prevent students from considering their campus address as their place of residency. Instead, the bill would only allow students to claim the address where they grew up.

The Indianapolis Star has more:

Under House Bill 1311, students who pay out-of-state tuition would not be able to vote in Indiana.

Rep. Peggy Mayfield, the Martinsville Republican who filed the bill, said she’s trying to resolve an issue about determining who is an Indiana resident.

“We’re having people who are not necessarily residents voting in our elections,” she said.

Indiana’s constitution only requires that a voter establish residency for 30 days prior to an election in order to be eligible. Passing a bill that would impose a unique requirement on college students clearly violates the constitutional protections affirmed in Symm v. United States.

Over the past few years, Republicans have made a habit of trying to disenfranchise college students. In Maine, then-Secretary of State Charlie Summers sent a threatening letter to hundreds of college students in 2011 implying that many of them were illegally registered to vote simply because they had grown up out of state. The same year, then-New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien tried to discourage students from casting a ballot because he feared they’d vote “liberal.”

One Indiana Republican is already speaking out against Mayfield’s bill. State Rep. Randy Truitt (R) opposed the measure on the grounds that it would depress turnout among students. “We worked so hard on making the students a part of our community,” Truitt said. “And whether they’re there for a short period of time or not, from my perspective, they’re part of our community, and I’m just not in favor of disenfranchising them.”

Indeed, young Americans already vote at lower rates than the rest of the electorate. Even if this bill weren’t unconstitutional, its primary effect would be to drive down turnout among students.

Climate Progress

Obama Likely To Push Curbs On Carbon Pollution From Existing Power Plants In State Of The Union

By Jeff Spross and Joe Romm on Feb 6, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The Wall Street Journal reports the President will continue his push on climate action in his State Of The Union address next week.

The GOP-dominated House in particular is against passing any policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But even without Congress’s cooperation, the Executive Branch has a wide array of regulatory tools at its disposal to tackle the problem, particularly the Clean Air Act.

The President surprised almost everyone by devoting so much of his second inaugural address to climate, framing the issue in moral terms, “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” This raised expectations for the SOTU address.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports:

President Barack Obama in next week’s State of the Union speech will lay out a renewed effort to combat climate change that is expected to include using his authority to curb emissions from existing power plants, people who have talked to the administration about its plans said.

The Environmental Protection Agency has already proposed rules, set to be finalized this spring, to limit carbon pollution emitted from new power plants to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour of electricity. This would make the construction of new coal-fired power plants effectively impossible.

Mr. Obama is likely to signal he wants to move beyond proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules on emissions from new power plants and tackle existing coal-fired plants, people familiar with the administration’s plans said….

“You will ultimately see a proposal from EPA to regulate existing power plants,” one person familiar with the matter said. “How he talks about it in the State of the Union could be anything from, ‘We’ve taken important steps and we need to take more,’ to ‘We need to make more [progress] and the next one on the chopping block is existing sources’” of carbon emissions.

No final decisions about what the president will propose next Tuesday appear to have been made.

President Obama has already committed to reducing carbon emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and the Energy Information Administration recently concluded we’re already at 9 percent below today. But further aggressive steps will be needed to prevent losing those gains and to close the rest of the gap.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA would be required to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act if it found that those emissions endangered public health and the environment. The agency came to that exact conclusion in 2009 — indeed, they did so in 2008 under President Bush, but he blocked making the endangerment finding.

EPA scientists noted that the climate change associated with carbon emissions will, for instance, increase the dangers posed by extreme weather, such as drought and floods, will worsen air pollution, and will boost the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves, with all the attendant threats to the health and welfare of Americans.

That in turn led to the EPA’s proposal to regulate carbon pollution from new power plants, and during the comment period for the proposal the agency received more than 3 million comments in favor of reducing carbon pollution from both new and existing power plants — a record for an EPA rule proposal. But up until now, the EPA hasn’t moved to reduce emissions from power plants already in operation.

Other steps the Executive Branch could take unilaterally to protect the environment and public health include adopting the “Tier 3″ standard the EPA is working on to further reduce smog, using public lands and waters to promote clean energy projects, establishing more stringent renewable energy standards for utilities, and nixing the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to a former administration official who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, the President has been “pushing the team to get very specific about how to achieve the goals he set on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.” Obama will deliver the State of the Union speech next Tuesday, February 12.

Security

The One Question Congress Must Ask Before Confirming Obama’s CIA Director

By Zack Beauchamp and Hayes Brown on Feb 6, 2013 at 6:00 pm

The Senate Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on the confirmation of President Obama’s nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan. There are a number of questions Brennan should and needs to answer but the hearing presents the perfect opportunity to get the current top Obama administration counterterrorism official perhaps most closely involved in the targeted killing program against al Qaeda to answer the fundamental question about it: when does it end?

Since his first bid to direct the Agency fizzled in 2008 after questions were raised about his role in the CIA torture program during the Bush years, Brennan has filled an at times more vital role in the Obama administration. Acting as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, serving under the National Security Adviser, Brennan has advised the President on counterterrorism for the past four years. As such, his access to the President to weigh in on security matters domestic and international has been almost unparalleled. In the aftermath of the failed Christmas Day bombing in 2009, Brennan authored a scathing review of what was then U.S. counterterrorism policy. While the Newtown tragedy was still ongoing last December, it was Brennan who first briefed Obama about the school shooting.

Brennan’s most controversial role has been his front-and-center position in the Administration’s military campaign against al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The use of targeted killings — most famously executed with drones — against individuals and groups suspect of connection to terrorist groups off the battlefield is by far the most visible outcome of those discussions. In a profile written in the Washington Post, Brennan is identified as the primary supporter of codifying the rules regarding when and where armed drone strikes could be carried out into what’s now called “the playbook” and the benign-sounding disposition matrix that identifies targets for strikes.

So Brennan, then, is ideally positioned to answer the fundamental question that needs to be answered to get a hold on America’s targeted killing program:

What role do targeted killings play in the broader U.S. counter-terrorism strategy and under what circumstances might we cease to employ them?

The question goes beyond the tactic of drone strikes to the conditions that cause them to be used in the first place. As a tactic, drone strikes have garnered significant opposition due to the potential for blowback among the populations where they are utilized, as well as the secrecy that surrounds the CIA’s classified program in Pakistan and moral questions about the serious harm cost in civilian lives the program carries with it. However, whether the program is achieving the ends that the Obama administration seeks, or even an explanation of what those ends are, is often left out of the debate and questioning of government officials.

Read more

Health

Michigan GOP Would Force Women To Undergo Invasive Ultrasounds Before Getting An Abortion

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Feb 6, 2013 at 5:37 pm

Example of a transvaginal probe

Michigan Republicans introduced a mandatory ultrasound bill this week with a carefully-worded clause that threatens to stir up controversy that first erupted during the height of last year’s “War on Women.” By stipulating that the ultrasounds must use the “most technologically advanced equipment on site,” Michigan lawmakers would require women seeking abortions to undergo an invasive transvaginal probe.

Transvaginal ultrasound bills, which require doctors to insert a wand into a woman’s vagina before proceeding with an abortion procedure, were introduced last year in Virginia and Alabama. Widespread public outcry — including considerable derision from the national media — forced GOP lawmakers to back away from the extreme legislation, but Talking Points Memo reports that Michigan lawmakers are now ready to revive the fight:

The bill requires the use of ultrasound equipment “providing the most visibly clear image of the gross anatomical development of the fetus and the most audible fetal heartbeat.” As a practical matter, that requires transvaginal ultrasounds, said Donna Crane, the policy director of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

“It does lay bare that the real motive is to make abortion providers continue to acquire more and more and more equipment before they’re even eligible to perform an abortion,” Crane told TPM. “They’re trying to make it harder for doctors to do their jobs.” [...]

Crane said NARAL and its allies are prepared to fight to sink the legislation.

“Women should be up in arms over these types of laws,” she said. “Unfortunately they’re not new. But the fact that politicians just went through an election cycle and got spanked over how they treat women and reproductive freedoms and still introduce bills like this really boggles the mind. It’s not clear that the sponsors haven’t been living under rocks since November.”

But unfortunately for the women in Michigan, this is hardly the only recent attack on their reproductive rights. Their lawmakers already capitalized on the lame duck session at the end of last year to push through extreme anti-abortion legislation that limits abortion access for women who live in rural areas, requires doctors to prove that mentally competent women haven’t been “coerced” into their decision to have the procedure, and enacts unnecessary, complicated rules for abortion clinics and providers.

Abortion opponents often use mandatory ultrasounds as a tactic to impose additional barriers to reproductive care, as well as convince women to change their minds about having an abortion. But they don’t work. Studies have shown that nearly 90 percent of women feel “very confident” about their decision to have an abortion before they approach a doctor, and forcing them to look at an ultrasound doesn’t change their mind.

Update

Talking Points Memo reports that Michigan Democrats are now calling on their governor to publicly threaten to veto the extreme legislation. “Rick Snyder should come out publicly and denounce this extreme, Tea Party bill, which would invade women’s privacy and endanger their health with an unnecessary medical procedure,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said in a statement.

Economy

U.S. Corporations Haven’t Been Paying The Full Corporate Tax Rate For 45 Years

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 6, 2013 at 5:35 pm

In 2011, U.S. corporations paid a 12.1 percent effective corporate income tax rate, a 40-year low. The statutory corporate tax rate is 35 percent, but companies drive their rates fare lower due to the proliferation of loopholes and deductions and the growing use of offshore tax havens.

This isn’t a new problem, as Goldman Sachs’ David Kostin shows. In fact, corporations have been paying below the statutory rate for 45 years (the chart uses 39 percent due to its inclusion of state corporate taxes):

For the last 45 years, the median S&P 500 firm has paid an effective tax rate averaging more than 5 percentage points below the statutory rate. Despite statutory rates hovering near 39% for the last 25 years, effective tax rates have been gradually decreasing (see Exhibit 2). At 30%, the current S&P 500 median effective tax rate is almost 10 percentage points below the statutory level, and close to the global statutory average.

The corporate income tax is so riddled with holes that 26 major corporations paid nothing between 2008 and 2011, while making a collective $205 billion in profits. Democratic Sen. Carl Levin (MI) this week released a plan to raise $200 billion over ten years by closing corporate tax loopholes. (HT: Sam Ro)

Security

Senate Democrats Delay Hagel Vote After Desperate And Unprecedented GOP Stall Tactics

By Ben Armbruster on Feb 6, 2013 at 5:21 pm

Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin (D-MI) will reportedly delay the committee’s vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense. Republicans are demanding that Hagel produce the texts of private speeches he made and disclose the financial dealings of private companies he is associated with. A spokesperson for Levin told ThinkProgress that the committee is “working on their concerns.”

The vote was expected to take place as early as Thursday, but Republicans — led by Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) — asked that the vote be delayed after Hagel — citing legal and logistics issues — said he could not give the them everything they’re asking for.

“It’s up in the air,” the committee staffer told Politico. “Levin isn’t interested in pushing it through against their will. We’re trying to resolve their concerns, and hopefully we can get it addressed by tomorrow,” a committee staffer told Politico on Wednesday.

But now it seems like those concerns won’t be met and it’s unclear just how they can or should be addressed at all, seeing that Hagel has said he doesn’t have the texts of all his private speeches and the business dealings of private companies and organizations Hagel is affiliated with is, as the Atlantic’s Steve Clemons points out, “going to be a really fun slippery slope”:

The entangled relationships of all US senators and spouses would be screened to see what they might be able to cough up about firms they have some connection to but don’t run.

I don’t think we should go down that road — but if Senator Cruz compels it, it should be interesting.

“The committee’s vote on Senator Hagel’s nomination has not been scheduled,” Levin said today in a statement. “I had hoped to hold a vote on the nomination this week, but the committee’s review of the nomination is not yet complete. I intend to schedule a vote on the nomination as soon as possible.”

“If we’re really going to go down this route,” TPM’s Josh Marshall writes, “is it time to air the fact that AEI is partly funded by secret grants by the Taiwanese government (at least as of mid-last decade)?”

Media

Five Reasons Why Fewer People Trust Fox News Than Ever Before

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Feb 6, 2013 at 5:09 pm

A poll released Wednesday by Public Policy Polling shows that fewer people than ever trust Fox News as a source for accurate news and reporting. Just 41 percent expressed trust in the network — down from 49 four years ago — while 46 percent said they distrust Fox. There’s an obvious reason why: Fox misrepresents facts and fudges its data to advance the conservative agenda. Indeed, it’s nothing like the “fair and balanced” network it claims to be. And, it seems, voters are catching on.

Here are just five recent examples of how Fox skews the news:

1. They misrepresented the unemployment rate. Fox News ran this chart showing the unemployment rate, but managed to somehow make an unemployment rate of 8.6 percent look higher than 8.9:

2. They misinformed viewers about Benghazi. When Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsay Graham (R-SC), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) were trying their hardest to smear President Obama and former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, Fox ran an “exclusive” report saying that the CIA had denied a diplomat permission to fend off an attack on the embassy. That never happened, and details later confirmed that the report — and the other conspiracy theories Fox ran alongside it — was totally unfounded.

3. They blamed non-existent ‘massive layoffs’ on Obama. Fox News runs frequent segments covering Obama’s supposed ‘War on Coal’ and the website Fox Nation even ran this glaring headline blaming the election for huge layoffs in the coal industry. But there were not massive layoffs. Just one business owner in Utah laid off employees. Under Obama, the industry on the whole has actually continued to grow tremendously.

4. They got almost all of their climate coverage wrong. An analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that a full 93 percent of Fox News coverage on the topic global climate change was ‘misleading.’ Here’s the breakdown of how Fox covered the climate issue:

5. They don’t cover big stories. While the rest of the country discussed senatorial candidate Todd Akin’s ‘legitimate rape’ comments, Fox News hardly covered the controversy. They similarly ignored the conflict surrounding the death of teenager Trayvon Martin, and of New York’s same-sex marriage law’s passage.

The list of areas where Fox falls down on the job is too extensive to enumerate. But what is clear is that Fox’s method of dodging the truth and giving convenient facts won’t keep working, if they can’t gain the public’s trust.

Justice

Arizona Considers Banning Non-English Government Mailings

By Aviva Shen on Feb 6, 2013 at 5:00 pm

The Arizona House is planning to take up an “English only” bill that would ban state agencies from mailing out information in any language other than English. HB 2283, cleared on Tuesday by the House Government Committee, purports to save money by only allowing non-English translations to be posted online.

Though voting materials are exempted, banning non-English mailings would essentially cut off Arizona’s substantial Spanish-speaking population from government services — particularly any Spanish speakers who receive any kind of service from the government, including Medicaid and Social Security. As of 2010, Arizona has the 8th largest population of limited English speakers, who comprise 9.9 percent of all Arizona residents. Rather than promote English language education, Arizona excluded these residents by making English the official state language in 2006.

This new bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steve Smith (R-AZ), has pushed several other radical anti-immigrant measures, most recently a bill requiring hospitals to check and report the immigration status of their patients. While he claims HB 2283 saves money by only printing documents in English, others anticipate costly lawsuits like the ones sparked by the state’s last attempt at English only legislation. In 1988, Arizona passed a constitutional amendment to require all official government business be conducted in English. The Supreme Court struck it down for violating state employees’ First Amendment rights. The 2006 measure passed muster because it only applies to official government business.

But Smith’s bill, by focusing on agencies’ abilities to disseminate information, could block non-English speakers’ access to government services and violate federal law:

“The bill as currently drafted is much broader than Rep. Smith suggests,” said attorney Ellen Katz with the William E. Morris Institute for Justice. “It violates Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act. Even in states that have an English-as-their-official-language policy, you still have to follow federal law.”

Title 6 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal funds. Katz said mailing out documents in English but not in other languages would violate that.

Even a fellow Republican, Rep. Doug Coleman, took issue with Smith’s proposal, noting that if the bill’s true purpose is to save money, all English publications should be restricted to websites as well.

English only laws exist in 16 states. Last year, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) unsuccessfully pushed a federal version of the English only law, the English Language Unity Act.

Economy

GOP Senate Leader Endorses National Union-Busting Law

By Travis Waldron on Feb 6, 2013 at 4:25 pm

Michigan workers protest "right-to-work" in December

Republicans across the country have pushed a variety of anti-union laws in the last two years, with the most heinous coming in the form of so-called “right-to-work” laws that effectively bust unions and their ability to collectively bargain for wages and benefits. Both Michigan and Indiana, traditional union states, passed such laws last year, and now, the push is moving to the federal level.

Republicans typically voice concern about federal intrusion on states’ rights and the government’s intervention in agreements between employers and their workers. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has apparently cast those concerns aside, as he announced today his support for a national “right-to-work” legislation introduced by fellow Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R):

“As working class Americans continue to face daunting challenges to provide for their families, I believe the federal government has an obligation to ensure every American has the right to choose whether they want to spend part of their paycheck to support a union. The right to work should not be negotiable but unfortunately there are still twenty-six states across the country that turn a blind eye towards forced union membership. It is long past time that the federal government remedy this problem. If states like Michigan, with its proud tradition of organized labor, can look their problems in the face and address them by passing meaningful Right to Work legislation, then it is high time for the federal government to act. I proudly support the National Right to Work Act and will work with my friend Sen. Rand Paul to do all I can to ensure it receives a vote.”

It’s worth noting that Kentucky, the state both McConnell and Paul claim to represent, does not have a right-to-work law on its books. And though just 10.3 percent of the state’s workers are unionized, unions in Kentucky have played a big role in protecting workers in the state’s factories and coal mines, and national unions have made strong pushes for better mine safety laws that both McConnell and Paul have opposed.

But the effects of a national “right-to-work” law wouldn’t be limited to Kentucky. Such laws cost workers, union and non-union, $1,500 a year, according to the Economic Policy Institute, and its research “shows that there is no relationship between right-to-work laws and state unemployment rates, state per capita income, or state job growth.” Decreases in union membership that result from such laws have a negative impact on middle-class workers, and if “benefits coverage in non-right-to-work states were lowered to the levels of states with these laws, 2 million fewer workers would receive health insurance and 3.8 million fewer workers would receive pensions nationwide,” according to the Center for American Progress’ David Madland and Karla Walter.

Further, McConnell is wrong that a national “right-to-work” law would finally ensure that “every American has the right to choose whether they want to spend part of their paycheck to support a union.” Workers, of course, already have that choice, since none is forced to join a unionized workforce. “Right-to-work” simply undermines the central point of unionization by creating a free-loader problem that allows workers to directly benefit from union membership without paying dues to support the actual union.

LGBT

Tony Perkins Still Believes SPLC Motivated Shooter At Family Research Council

By Zack Ford on Feb 6, 2013 at 4:17 pm

Earlier today, Floyd Lee Corkins pleaded guilty to several counts relating to when he opened fire at the Family Research Council, injuring a guard before he was subdued. FRC’s Tony Perkins used that news to reiterate his belief that by labeling groups like his as “hate groups,” the Southern Poverty Law Center gave Corkins a “license” for violence:

PERKINS: The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarters and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a “hate group.”

Today both assertions were validated in court as Corkins plead guilty to multiple criminal charges, including terrorism. The Southern Poverty Law Center can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence.  Only by ending its hate-labeling practices will the SPLC send a message that it no longer wishes to be a source for those who would commit acts of violence that are only designed to intimidate and silence Christians and others who support natural marriage and traditional morality.

Once again, I call on the SPLC to put an immediate stop to its practice of labeling organizations that oppose their promotion of homosexuality. Whether the SPLC continues to demonize those who hold to biblical morality or not, the Family Research Council will remain unequivocally committed to our mission of advancing faith, family and freedom.

Perkins’ accusation is just as “outrageous” now as it was back in August. The SPLC is simply identifying “hate” as “hate.” Contrary to Perkins’ implication, hate crimes based on sexual orientation increased in 2011 despite the fact that the overall number of hate crimes declined. Of course, he never takes responsibility for the rhetoric FRC puts forth everyday, such as this morning when he reminded the world that he believes gay men are pedophiles, despite claiming to say the opposite. In September, just moments after once again painting FRC as a victim to the SPLC, Perkins then compared homosexuality to drug abuse. It’s not hard to draw a connection between that kind of hateful rhetoric and the ongoing harassment of the LGBT community, but FRC’s “mission of advancing faith, family, and freedom” is not particularly concerned with reality.

Update

The National Organization for Marriage, which is not itself identified as an anti-gay hate group by the SPLC, also issued a statement attacking the labels. According to Brian Brown, “irresponsible ‘hate group’ charges nearly led to a massacre at the Family Research Council.”

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