The Company That Ran The ‘Cruise From Hell’ Pays Almost No Income Tax

By Pat Garofalo on Feb 15, 2013 at 5:45 pm

Carnival’s “cruise from hell” — during which the ship lost power off the Yucatan peninsula and was stuck for days, leaving passengers no recourse to relieving themselves in plastic bags — finally ended last night as the crippled boat was tugged into port. “It was horrible. Horrible,” one passenger said. “The bathroom facilities were horrible and we could not flush toilets. No electricity and our rooms were in total darkness.”

Carnival will be refunding money to the passengers of the ill-fated cruise and offering them a free trip in the future. (“This is my first and last cruise. So if anyone wants my free cruise, look me up,” one passenger said.) But one entity to which Carnival has not been giving any money is the national treasury — as the New York Times’ David Leonhardt reported, the company has paid just a 1.1 percent rate on 11.3 billion in profits over the last five years:

The Carnival Corporation wouldn’t have much of a business without help from various branches of the government. The United States Coast Guard keeps the seas safe for Carnival’s cruise ships. Customs officers make it possible for Carnival cruises to travel to other countries. State and local governments have built roads and bridges leading up to the ports where Carnival’s ships dock.

But Carnival’s biggest government benefit of all may be the price it pays for many of those services. Over the last five years, the company has paid total corporate taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — equal to only 1.1 percent of its cumulative $11.3 billion in profits. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes.

Carnival uses a tax loophole that allows companies incorporated overseas to avoid U.S. taxes, even if the bulk of their operations are based in the states. Between 2008 and 2011, 26 major corporations in the U.S. managed to pay no income tax, despite making $205 billion in pre-tax profits. (HT: Teamster Nation)

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Justice

New York Mayor: Minor Marijuana Possession No Longer Means A Night In Jail

By Nicole Flatow on Feb 15, 2013 at 5:20 pm

Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), arrests in New York City for marijuana have skyrocketed. And while Bloomberg made clear during a radio interview Friday that he does not support legalization of marijuana, he is ready to soften his stance. Bloomberg announced during his State of the City address Thursday that, in the absence of a state law decriminalizing public marijuana possession, he will use his executive power to eliminate jail custody for those arrested for low-level marijuana possession:

Commissioner Kelly and I support Governor Cuomo’s proposal to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a violation, rather than a misdemeanor and we’ll work to help him pass it this year. But we won’t wait for that to happen.

Right now, those arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana are often held in custody overnight. We’re changing that. Effective next month, anyone presenting an ID and clearing a warrant check will be released directly from the precinct with a desk appearance ticket to return to court. It’s consistent with the law, it’s the right thing to do and it will allow us to target police resources where they’re needed most.

In his statement, Bloomberg also joins Cuomo in supporting a stronger state decriminalization measure. Technically, New York decriminalized marijuana possession in 1977 when it reduced the penalty for possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana to a civil fine. But the punishment does not protect public possession of marijuana, which, according to CNN, includes when an individual is asked to empty his or her pockets during one of the more than half a million stop-and-frisks conducted by the New York Police Department. Cuomo’s proposal would decriminalize possession of less than 15 grams of marijuana even in public view.

Bloomberg’s measure would mitigate the immediate harm to people arrested for marijuana – many of whom never face subsequent charges — but it would not change the fact that those found guilty of public marijuana possession will have a misdemeanor on their record, rather than paying a civil fine.

New York is one of 14 states that have some marijuana decriminalization measure on the books – in addition to the 18 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized medical marijuana, and the two states that have legalized recreational marijuana. Arrests for marijuana possession and other minor drug offenses nonetheless remain frequent and disproportionately impact African Americans.

U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, known for opposing legalization of even medical marijuana, joined with NAACP President Ben Jealous in an op-ed published yesterday that declares: “It is clear that we cannot simply arrest our way out of the drug problem. Instead, we need smarter, results-based criminal justice policies to keep our communities safe, including treatment for people with substance use disorders and mental health issues.”

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Health

GOP ‘Savior’ Marco Rubio Falls Back On The Same Old Anti-Woman Policies

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Feb 15, 2013 at 5:15 pm

In an interview on Thursday with conservative magazine Newsmax, Tea Party standard-bearer and so-called ‘savior’ of the Republican party Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) revealed that he will become a cosponsor of the “Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act.” The bill is a concerted effort to prevent girls in dangerous family situations from going across state lines to receive abortions.

Familiarly known as “the Grandmother Incarceration Act,” CIANA bills have come up in Congress several times in recent years. Nearly every iteration of the legislation would prevent even a victim of rape or incest from getting a ride to an abortion clinic beyond state lines from her grandmother or older sibling, if she is under the age of 18. Instead, the girl would be forced to inform her parents or legal guardian, and be required to have them present.

While the bill has not yet been introduced, previous versions of the text would even apply the requirements to girls who require a medically necessary, potentially lifesaving abortion.

The fact that Rubio will serve as a co-sponsor on the legislation reveals a lot about the supposed new face of the Republican party. The policy, like many of Rubio’s policy choices, is actually an old trick from the Grand Old Party, not some new approach to Republican ideals. And it falls in line with Rubio’s party’s, and the Senator’s own, recent anti-woman efforts:

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Rubio voted against the Violence Against Women Act because it allocated money to rape victims.

MINIMUM WAGE: He won’t support a minimum wage, despite its huge benefits for women.

BIRTH CONTROL: The senator introduced a bill that would have prevented millions of women from accessing birth control.

PAY EQUITY: He called a bill to promote pay equity between men and women “nothing but an effort to help trial lawyers.”

With his post-State of the Union rebuttal, Rubio signed up to be the face of a Republican party that is working hard to win over women and people of color, the groups that cost Republicans the election last time around. But with Rubio’s history of anti-woman policies, and now his renewed commitment to co-sponsor more of the same, he may just on the vanguard of a new Republican path back to the same Republican problems.

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Alyssa

The Obscuring of Black Culture, Or Why I Hate The Fake ‘Harlem Shake’ Meme

By Hayes Brown on Feb 15, 2013 at 5:06 pm

The pretender in action

I was confused, and somewhat excited, earlier this week when I first saw a link to a video that purported that the Norwegian Army was captured on video doing the Harlem Shake. Memories flooded back to my time in high school in Flint, MI, and watching my classmates pull off the moves associated with the dance in the darkness of the gym. I clicked, curious to see how a dance associated with Harlem had made its way to Norway after all these years.

That hint of excitement soon gave way to disappointment. Expecting the smooth choreography that I had known, what I was greeted with was a mass of flailing to an electonica song I’d never heard before. The song wasn’t the issue, called “Harlem Shake” and released by Harry Rodrigues, also known as the producer Baauer, last year. No, my problem was with the dancing itself. No unity, no precision, no sense that anything was going on other than pure chaos hiding under the label of a dance that’s existed for years.

That disappointment in turn gave way to dismay when I realized that the Norwegian video was by no means a fluke, but instead just one entry in what has become a meme of global proportions. That meme reached what I can only hope is its breaking point as the anti-debt group “The Can Kicks Back” posted their own version of the video, showing former Former Comptroller General David Walker and former Office of Management and Budget Director Alice Rivlin taking part:

If that truly is the death knell of this meme, I certainly will not miss it once it’s gone.
Read more

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Climate Progress

Obama Makes Case For Curbing Carbon Pollution From Existing Power Plants, Also Vows To Use ‘Bully Pulpit’

By Joe Romm on Feb 15, 2013 at 4:42 pm

The President has (finally) been talking hawkish on climate. Turns out he now realizes that is part of his job! (Duh?)

In his second inaugural address, Obama said failing to respond to the threat of climate change “would betray our children and future generations.” In his State of the Union, Obama vowed to take executive action if Congress fails to pass a climate bill.

The most important action he can take without further Congressional approval is restricting emissions from existing coal-fired power plants using his authority under the Clean Air Act.

While he didn’t announce specific plans for such regulations in the SOTU, he did make the case for them during a recent Google+ hangout:

“The truth is if you produce power using old power plants, you’re going to be emitting more carbon — but to upgrade those plants, energy’s going to be a little bit more expensive, at least on the front end. At the core, we have to do something that’s really difficult for any society to do, and that is to take actions now where the benefits are coming down the road, or at least we’re avoiding big problems down the road,”

Watch it:

During the online video chat, he also said that speaking out on climate change is part of his job:

“Part of my job is to use the bully pulpit to help raise people’s awareness, because if the public cares about it, eventually Congress acts. If the public doesn’t care about it, it’s very hard to get big stuff done because legislators respond to their constituents sooner or later.”

That is quite a reversal from the climate silence Obama has practiced for much of the past years — a flawed strategy that team Obama actually pushed others to adopt starting back in March 2009. Let’s hope this is all more than rhetoric, something we will find out relatively soon — when he makes the final Keystone XL tar sands pipeline decision.

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Health

Lawmakers Introduce Sweeping Sex Ed Bill To Expand LGBT Inclusive, Gender Balanced Health Classes

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Feb 15, 2013 at 4:30 pm

Just this week, the CDC released new data pointing to the United States’ “ongoing, severe epidemic” of sexually transmitted infections, which incur the country an estimate $16 billion each year in medical costs. That public health crisis is partly fueled by the lack of comprehensive, medically accurate sexual health instruction in classrooms across the country — but some lawmakers are seeking to change that with a sex ed bill that would overhaul the outdated health classes in America’s public schools.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and 32 other Democratic politicians re-introduced the “Real Education for Healthy Youth Act” on Thursday, legislation that would “expand comprehensive sex education programs in schools and ensure that federal funds are spent on effective, age-appropriate, medically accurate programs.”

“The bill does a lot of important things — it’s a big bill,” Sarah Audelo, the Domestic Policy Director for Advocates for Youth, explained to ThinkProgress. “There’s a lot to be covered, and a lot of resources that young people need that they’re not currently getting.” In particular, the legislation would ensure that federal funding is allocated only to the sexual health programs that include inclusive language about LGBT issues, don’t rely on outdated gender stereotypes, and impart accurate information about HIV.

Right now, sexual education standards vary widely across states. Just 12 states mandate that sexual health curricula must be medically accurate — which means that young people across the country are receiving false information about birth control’s effectiveness, the right way to prevent STDs, and the way that HIV is transmitted.

“Ultimately, we have a long way to go when it comes to sex ed,” Audelo pointed out. “The United States has some of the worst sexual health outcomes in the developed world, and we can’t blame young people for their poor decisions when we don’t teach them how to make the right choices for their bodies.”

And there is concrete evidence to back up Audelo’s claims. The states that push abstinence-only education programs in their public schools — which don’t trust teens enough to teach them facts about their bodies — have the highest rates of teen pregnancies, while adolescents who actually receive instruction about prevention methods are 60 percent less likely to get someone else pregnant or get pregnant themselves. Nevertheless, right-wing politicians continue to do exactly what Audelo cautions against — and blame teenagers themselves for failed abstinence-only policies.

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Justice

Sen. Ron Johnson Joins The Violence Against Women Act Is Unconstitutional Club

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 15, 2013 at 4:20 pm

Four senators, Jim Risch (R-ID), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) previously suggested that any effort to prevent violence against women exceeds the federal government’s power under the Constitution. Earlier this week, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined their club of senators who think legislation reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is unconstitutional:

Some Republicans have objected to new provisions in the law, including one allowing tribal courts for the first time to prosecute men who aren’t American Indians when they’re accused of abusing an American Indian woman on a reservation. . . .

[JOHNSON]: “the Senate has approved a piece of legislation that sounds nice, but which is fatally flawed. By including an unconstitutional expansion of tribal authority and introducing a bill before the Congressional Budget Office could review it to estimate its cost, Senate Democrats made it impossible for me to support a bill covering an issue I would like to address.”

In fairness to Johnson, his objection is much narrower than the one raised by senators like Paul and Cruz, and applies only the provision of the VAWA renewal that would permit tribal prosecutions against non-members of the prosecuting tribe. Nevertheless, Johnson is simply wrong about the Constitution.

It is true that the Supreme Court held back in the 1970s that tribal courts do not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Native Americans, but that decision concluded that “Indian tribes . . . give up their power to try non-Indian citizens of the United States except in a manner acceptable to Congress.” More recently, the Court’s 2004 decision in United States v. Lara recognized that Congress “does possess the constitutional power to lift the restrictions on the tribes’ criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians.” The reasoning of that decision would also apply to a law expanding tribal jurisdiction further to include non-Native Americans who engage in violence against women on reservations.

So Johnson is wrong about the Constitution, and his opposition to protecting Native American women is downright cruel. Eighty percent of Native American rape survivors were attacked by non-Indians, and a 2010 report by the General Accounting Office determined that federal prosecutors “declined to prosecute 46 percent of assault matters and 67 percent of sexual abuse and related matters.” As a result, many reservations are virtually law free zones for serial rapists who prey upon Native American women without consequence.

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Alyssa

Wealthy Professional Boxer Refuses To Fight In U.S. Because He’d Have To Pay Taxes

By Travis Waldron on Feb 15, 2013 at 3:42 pm

Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino boxing champion who regularly pulls in guaranteed purses north of $20 million a fight, is now refusing to hold his next bout in Las Vegas because the United States insists on taxing the income of people who make money inside its borders.

The fight, Pacquiao’s fifth against rival Juan Manuel Marquez, would guarantee him a $25 million purse if it’s fought in Las Vegas. But American taxes would eat a significant chunk of that, while fighting it in either Singapore or Macau wouldn’t tax his earnings, the fight’s promoter said. That’s a major concern for Pacquaio, who needs to hoard as much money as he can before his career ends, his manager told Yahoo:

“We were talking only this morning about where and when and against who he would fight next,” Koncz told Yahoo! Sports. “One thing we agreed on is that the taxes make Vegas a no-go. You’re a fighter up there risking your life in the ring, so you have to maximize what you are going to get out of it.

“I know, Manny knows, that he only has a certain number of fights left, maybe one, maybe three. We don’t know. So that means the priorities change a little bit at this point.”

Pacquiao isn’t the only professional athlete to complain about American taxes recently. Professional golfer Phil Mickelson, who made more than $40 million last year, threatened to move from California and even give up golf because of high tax rates in his home state. Anti-tax groups have trumpeted both Mickelson and Pacquiao as examples of high taxes hurting the U.S., even if the rich are still paying historically low tax rates amid budget cuts to programs that benefit people who don’t have the luxury of making millions of dollars to hit a golf ball or box for a living.

These athletes, of course, have the right to perform their craft wherever someone will pay them to do it. But it’s hard to feel sympathy for Pacquiao, who would still clear $15 million — an amount that would take the average American household 284 years to equal — if the fight were held in the United States.

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LGBT

Missouri Gay Teen Wins Right To Bring Boyfriend To Prom

By Rebecca Leber on Feb 15, 2013 at 3:40 pm

This spring, a gay Missouri teen who challenged his school’s policy barring same-sex dates will get to bring his boyfriend to the prom.

Stacy Dawson found out he could not bring his boyfriend because of a single line in the school handbook stating, “high school students will be permitted to invite one guest, girls invite boys and boys invite girls.”

“I’m doing this for anyone to bring anyone they want to prom,” Dawson told LGBTQ Nation before the ban was reversed. “I hope that my school and the school board members understand it’s a wrong policy. [...] It isn’t fair that a school can randomly disregard students’ rights because it doesn’t agree with who you want to take to prom.”

Just one day after the Southern Poverty Law Center threatened a lawsuit on Dawson’s behalf, the school quickly removed its ban.

SPLC’s letter to Scott County Central High makes the strong case for the ban was unconstitutional. The letter cites Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, where the Supreme Court determined students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gates.” And a second federal case in Mississippi, McMillen v. Itawamba County School District, decided a student expressing “her identity through attending prom with a same-sex date” was “the type of speech that falls squarely within the purview of the First Amendment.”

However, the fight against same-sex discrimination at proms carries on elsewhere, as an anti-gay Indiana group faces major backlash for proposing a gay-free prom.

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Economy

65 Republicans Supported Increasing The Minimum Wage When Bush Was President

By Josh Israel on Feb 15, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Credit: Alex Wong (Getty Images)

President Obama’s call for a minimum wage increase in Tuesday’s State of the Union address — like nearly all of his proposals — was met with immediate opposition from Congressional Republicans. But six years ago, many of the same Republicans supported a similar proposal backed by Republican President George W. Bush.

A ThinkProgress analysis finds that at least 67 Republicans who are still in Congress today backed an increase in the minimum wage in some form, including Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI).

Political momentum for an increase began in 2004, after President Bush announced his support for a bill by now-Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). After Democrats won majorities of the House and Senate in the 2006 elections, a minimum wage increase became one of their first priorities. The Fair Minimum Wage Act — which also included tax cuts for small businesses — passed the House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. When the increase was folded into a larger appropriations bill, it again passed with strong bipartisan support and was eventually signed into law by Bush. 26 House Republicans even signed a letter to then-House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), asking for a vote on a minimum wage increase, including current Representatives Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Peter King (R-NY), Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Christopher Smith (R-NJ), and Fred Upton (R-MI). In incremental stages, the law raised the minimum wage from $5.15-per-hour to $7.25.

Though Ryan ultimately voted against the measure, he argued that he supported raising the hourly rate as long as it came with a suitable “offset” of small business relief. “Last year, I supported an increase in the minimum wage because it also included tax relief measures for employers to offset the cost of the proposed minimum wage increase,” he noted in a floor speech, as he announced “with great regret” that he could not back the bill without more small business tax cuts.

Like most Republicans, however, Ryan struck a far more defiant tone in response to Obama’s proposal, dispensing of any caveats and telling CNN that “I think it actually is counterproductive in many ways. You end up costing jobs from people who are at the bottom rung of the economic ladder.”

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