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LGBT

WATCH: A Dallas Pastor’s Inspiring Endorsement of Marriage Equality

By Guest Blogger posted from ThinkProgress LGBT on Jun 9, 2012 at 11:00 am

Pastor Frederick Haynes of the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas gave a powerful sermon in support of President Obama’s recent endorsement of marriage equality. Haynes notes that during his oath of office, Obama vowed to uphold the constitution, not the Bible. During his sermon, which criticized both fellow pastors and the congregation for their condemnation of marriage equality, “the congregation stood up and shouted their disapproval at him.” Haynes argued that the congregation should change its views:

HAYNES: He [President Obama] swore upon oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution, not the Bible, but the Constitution of the United States. He is not the pastor of the United States, but the president of the United States. And for the first time in the history of this nation, we have a president who has dared to use his position to make the democratic promise available, not just for a select few who are up and in, but for everybody, regardless of their race, their creed, their color, or their sexual orientation! And my brothers and sisters, I salute the President.

Have you ever read the Gospel and heard Jesus say anything about homosexuality?…Black folk can’t even deal with homosexuality because we got issues with sexuality. And because we got issues with sexuality we can’t have a healthy discussion about homosexuality. Why, why do you get so upset?

Watch the video:

Haynes’ poignant endorsement reflects the growing number of African-American voters that have shifted their views and now support same-sex marriage. Polls in Missouri and Pennsylvania, Maryland indicate that, following Obama’s endorsement, the majority of African Americans now support marriage equality. Overall, African American support for marriage equality is currently higher than the general population.

-Nina Liss-Schultz

NEWS FLASH

Study: Increase in prison sentence lengths cost states $10 billion in 2009 | According to a study conducted by Pew, the amount of time that offenders spend behind bars has drastically increased in recent decades. In 2009, prisoners served “an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990.” This new trend in the criminal justice system has its price: “prisoners released from incarceration in 2009 cost states $23,300 per offender–or a total of over $10 billion nationwide. More than half of that amount was for nonviolent offenders.”

– Nina Liss-Schultz

By Guest Blogger on Jun 9, 2012 at 9:30 am

Security

Suicide Rate In Military At Highest Level In Ten Years

By Eli Clifton posted from ThinkProgress Security on Jun 8, 2012 at 7:00 pm

NATO combat operations in Afghanistan are expected to draw to a close by the middle of next year and the U.S. completed its withdrawal of troops from Iraq last December. But while fewer American soldiers are in the line of fire each day, new Pentagon statistics show that an average of one military suicide occurred each day in the first six months of 2012, the fastest pace in the past ten years.

The statistics reported by The Associated Press show that military deaths from suicide outweighed combat deaths by a two-to-one ratio, a dramatic uptick since 2010 and 2011 when military suicides decreased from previous years. See the chart below:

The 154 suicides for active duty troops in the first 155 days of 2012 raises serious questions about why military suicide rates have surged in the first half of 2012. Studies conducted by the Defense Department suggest that soldiers with multiple combat tours are more likely to commit suicide and other studies have found that combat exposure, post-traumatic stress, misuse of prescription medications and personal financial problems can all contribute to military suicides.

A report released last year [PDF] by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) found that while the military and the Veterans Authority have taken admirable steps to improve suicide prevention and mental health counseling services but serious obstacles remain. They include:

  • Frequent personnel transfers complicate efforts to provide consistent mental health services.
  • Personnel transfers occuring quickly after return from deployments hampers efforts to identify mental health conditions in the post-deployment period.
  • Commanders are not always aware when subordinates are the subject investigation, an event which is sometimes a suicide trigger.
  • Soldiers are sometimes encouraged to provide untruthful answers in post-deployment mental health screening questionnaires.
  • A cultural stigma against mental health care persists in the armed forces.

    • Last month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta sent an internal memo to the Pentagon’s top civilian and military leaders addressing the stigma associated with seeking helping for mental distress in the military.

    “We must continue to fight to eliminate the stigma from those with post-traumatic stress and other mental health issues,” Panetta wrote, adding that commanders “cannot tolerate any actions that belittle, haze, humiliate or ostracize any individual, especially those who require or are responsibly seeking professional services.”

    NEWS FLASH

    In Wake Of Voter Purge, Rick Scott’s Approval Rating Drops To 31% | Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s continued push to remove hundreds of eligible voters is unpopular with both Democrat and Republican voters, according to Public Policy Polling. Just 31 percent approve of Scott’s performance and 56 percent disapprove. Support has dropped off among Republicans as well, which reflects the bipartisan opposition to his voter suppression efforts, including both Republican and Democrat local election officials. The voter purge especially targets minority voters, and more Hispanics (14 percent) and African-Americans (8 percent) said they knew someone who was removed from the voter rolls.

    Economy

    Romney Says America Doesn’t Need ‘More Firemen, More Policemen, More Teachers’

    By Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 8, 2012 at 5:00 pm

    The last three years are the worst on record for public sector job loss, and the 700,000 government jobs that no longer exist remain a large drag on the American economy.

    Today, New Jersey Gov. and Mitt Romney campaign surrogate Chris Christie (R) said that those losses meant the country was moving in “the right direction,” and Romney himself backed that statement up later, criticizing President Obama for calling for the hiring of more teachers, firefighters, and police officers, the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports. From CNN’s report of the Romney event:

    Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”

    State and local governments have been forced to layoff mass amounts of teachers, firefighters, and police officers because budget crunches have led to school closures and the elimination of public safety departments. That has hurt the unemployment situation (which Romney also criticizes), considering the unemployment rate would be a full point lower without the 700,000 layoffs.

    Romney’s honesty isn’t a new position for him or the GOP — he’s called for more government layoffs since the beginning of his campaign. But it’s yet another indication that Romney is more interested in continuing the GOP’s ideological battle against government instead of curing the ills that are plaguing the American economy.

    Climate Progress

    Power Plant Mercury Emissions Poisoning the Great Lakes

    By Climate Guest Blogger posted from Climate Progress on Jun 8, 2012 at 4:30 pm

    Swanksalot, via Flickr

    by Thom Cmar, via NRDC’s Switchboard

    This week we released a report, Poisoning the Great Lakes: Mercury Emissions from Coal Fired Power Plants in the Great Lakes Region, which highlights the impacts of mercury emissions from Great Lakes power plants on the people, fish, birds, and wildlife of our region.  EPA recently issued new nationwide Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that require power plants to cut their mercury emissions by 90% on average, as well as to make similar cuts to their emissions of arsenic, lead, acid gases, and other toxic air pollution.

    Our report focuses on the 144 coal-fired power plants in the Great Lakes region, and names the 25 worst emitters, which were responsible for putting over 7,000 pounds of mercury into the air in 2010.  Mercury emissions from power plants in the Great Lakes region account for close to 25% of the nation’s mercury emissions total.  Mercury is so highly toxic that exposure to even very small amounts in fish has serious implications for public health, and especially our children’s health.  And mercury fish consumption advisories depress the Great Lakes’ multi-billion dollar fishing economy.

    Mercury is a dangerous brain poison that doesn’t belong in our Great Lakes. It puts the health of kids and pregnant women at risk and adds an unwelcome danger to eating what our fishermen catch. That’s why it is so important that we support the EPA’s standards to reduce mercury pollution by holding polluters accountable.  Even more critical is that every single US Senator from the region stand up for the Lakes by rejecting reckless attempts to derail the long overdue Clean Air Act updates that can help tame this problem.

    EPA’s authority to adopt these critical safeguards goes back to 1990, when the first President Bush signed amendments to the Clean Air Act that were passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in Congress and directed EPA to set standards on major sources such as power plants.   But now, twenty-two years later, Congress is seeking to roll back these and other basic provisions of the Clean Air and Clean Water Act that have protected our health and environment for decades.

    Next week we expect that there will be a vote in the U.S. Senate on a resolution that would void EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards and permanently block EPA from re-issuing similar safeguards.  At stake in this vote are the thousands of lives that would be saved every year by the EPA standards and the hundreds of thousands of avoided respiratory illnesses and lost work days.

    Many power companies support EPA’s standards, along with doctors, nurses, scientists, and public health professionals.  We have all known for years that these standards were imminent, and many companies have already invested millions to reduce their mercury and toxic air emissions.  Meanwhile, other industries have worked hard to clean up their own pollution.  Rolling back EPA’s power plant standards now would unfairly penalize companies that have invested money to modernize their plants, while granting amnesty to the laggards that disregarded the law and kept polluting and harming our children’s health.  Many of the plants have been operating for decades without modern pollution controls.  It’s long overdue for these polluters to clean up their act and stop demanding that we subsidize their plants with our lungs.

    Thom Cmar is an attorney at the National Resources Defense Council. This piece was originally published at Switchboard and is reprinted with permission.

    Economy

    Governor Christie Cheers Firing Of Public Employees: ‘That’s The Right Direction’

    By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 8, 2012 at 3:30 pm

    During a press conference Friday, President Obama noted accurately that layoffs at the state and local government level have hurt the economy as it slowly recovers from the Great Recession. “The big challenge we have in our economy right now is state and local government hiring has been going in the wrong direction,” he said.

    Later in the day, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) responded by saying that the firing of government workers means things are going in “the right direction,” as reported by CBS’ Rebecca Kaplan:


    The public sector has shed more than 700,000 jobs since President Obama took office, making it the worst three year stretch for public employment since records have been kept. And it’s in Republican states that the bulk of the cutbacks occurred. If the public sector had grown over that period at the same rate that it grew under Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, the unemployment rate would be a full point lower.

    Christie is not along amongst the GOP in calling for laying off more public sector workers, despite the detrimental effect that it has on the economy. In fact, GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R) responded to the latest jobs report, which was disappointing by all accounts, by claiming that public sector job growth was harming the recovery.

    Justice

    30 Elected Florida Republicans Stop Rick Scott’s Voter Purge

    By Judd Legum posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jun 8, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    Wednesday, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced he would defy the Department of Justice and push forward with his purge of thousands of registered voters. The process has targeted hundreds of fully eligible U.S. voters.

    Scott and other prominent Republicans in Florida argue that the Justice Department’s actions were motivated by partisanship. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL), for example, directly accused Attorney General Eric Holder of “working to enable voter fraud” to get Obama elected.

    But Scott’s battle with the Department of Justice may end up being more symbolic than substantive. Why? All of Florida’s county election supervisors, who are ultimately responsible for maintaining the voter rolls, refuse the execute the purge. Florida’s 67 local election supervisors include 30 Republicans.

    More from the Miami Herald:

    Florida’s noncitizen voter purge looks like it’s all but over.

    The 67 county elections supervisors — who have final say over voter purges —are not moving forward with the purge for now because nearly all of them don’t trust the accuracy of a list of nearly 2,700 potential noncitizens identified by the state’s elections office.The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered the state to stop the purge.

    “We’re just not going to do this,” said Leon County’s elections supervisor, Ion Sancho, one of the most outspoken of his peers. “I’ve talked to many of the other supervisors and they agree. The list is bad. And this is illegal.”

    Yesterday, ThinkProgress spoke with the Republican election supervisor of Pinellas County, Deborah Clark, who echoed Sancho’s concerns. “We will not use unreliable data,” Clark told ThinkProgress.

    The reality is, Rick Scott’s voter purge is dead (for now) — not because of partisan action by the Obama administration — but because he has failed to convince members of his own party that the purge is justified or legal.

    Economy

    GOP Candidate Wants To Let Student Rates Double July 1, Work On More ‘Important Things’ Now

    By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 8, 2012 at 12:30 pm

    GOP Candidate Jesse Kelly

    The Republican nominee for Gabby Giffords’ old congressional seat declared this week that he’s willing to let interest rates on student loans double on July 1 because Congress should “deal with the huge problems right now” instead.

    Jesse Kelly, who gained notoriety after hosting an M-16 shooting event in 2010 to “remove” Giffords from her seat, was asked on MSNBC Wednesday about student loan interest rates, which are set to double next month. Kelly tepidly said he wanted to fix the interest rates, but then declared that he didn’t want to take up the issue until after Congress had dealt with the Bush tax cuts and the debt ceiling. The solution, according to Kelly, was to let the student loan rates double now, then “deal with that retroactively.”

    TODD: First of all, are you in favor of trying to fix the interest rate on student loans so that it does not double?

    KELLY: I am in favor of it, but I am in favor of taking care of that after we take care of the most important things right now, which is stopping the Obama tax increases, that’s making sure we don’t increase the debt ceiling without spending concessions. It’s things like that that the Congress needs to be sinking its teeth into right now.

    TODD: So you would let it double? Because it’s going to double on July 1st? Let it double now, deal with it later?

    KELLY: What I can say is I say the same thing the Speaker of the House is saying right now. Deal with that retroactively, deal with the huge problems right now.

    Watch it:

    The Bush tax cuts won’t expire until the end of 2012, and we will not hit the debt ceiling until a few months into 2013. If Kelly wants to wait until those other issues are resolved before dealing with student loans, rates could double for at least nine months. In that time, needy students could wind up paying as much as $750 in added interest payments.

    Whether or not Kelly gets to put his plan into action will be determined next week. Voters in Arizona’s 8th congressional district will have a special election on Tuesday, June 12 to fill the remainder of Giffords’ term.

    Health

    NEW DATA: 6.6 Million Young Adults Insured Thanks To Obamacare

    By Guest Blogger posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 8, 2012 at 11:30 am

    Even though much of the Affordable Care Act does not go into effect until 2014, conservatives insist the bill is making things worse for Americans. But a new study shows that one implemented provision of the ACA is already providing millions of young Americans with health insurance.

    According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, 6.6 million young adults have signed up for coverage through their parents’ health insurance plans. Under the ACA provision, young people can now stay on their parents’ plans until the age of 26. About half of the 19-to-25 year-olds interviewed for the study reported opting in to their parents’ plans between November 2010 and November 2011.

    Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote college presidents and student organizations urging them to remind students they can stay on their parents’ plans after graduation. “Now, graduating students are free to make career choices based on what they want to do, not where they can get health insurance,” they wrote.

    Some of President Obama’s staunchest critics are also beginning to realize the benefit of increased young people in insurance pools. Republican Senators Scott Brown and Roy Blunt broke ranks to speak approvingly of the provision. Even Tea Party favorite Rep. Allen West signaled his support of the measure in an interview with ThinkProgress.

    A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll also showed that about 71 percent of Americans view the provision favorably.

    Late last year, the government estimated there would be 2.5 million new young adults covered under the provision. The new estimate is higher, in part, because it also includes young people who were previously covered but were able to obtain better, cheaper coverage under the Obamacare provision.

    – Steven Perlberg

    Economy

    Three Democratic Senators Undecided On Extension Of Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich

    By Travis Waldron posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 8, 2012 at 10:30 am

    Two days after the White House said it would not extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich under any circumstances, multiple Democratic senators refused to rule out the same scenario.

    Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D), both of whom are facing re-election fights this fall, refused to take a position on ending the cuts when asked Thursday, The Hill reports:

    “If you want to do something in the spirit of compromise, you don’t start out by saying, ‘I refuse to do this’ or ‘I refuse to do that,’ ” said McCaskill. “It’s not my preference to extend tax cuts to multimillionaires — that’s not my preference — but I want to keep every option open in the spirit of compromise.”

    Said Nelson, “I can’t get into a hypothetical.”

    According to The Hill, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor (D) was also undecided on the issue.

    Ending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, however, should be an easy decision. Republicans argue that letting the tax cuts expire will hurt job growth, even though evidence shows lower taxes on the rich don’t lead to job creation and GOP lawmakers have willingly admitted that the Bush tax cuts didn’t lead to a spike in jobs.

    Republican intransigence on tax revenues nearly pushed the country over the brink of default last summer and caused the first credit downgrade in American history, but ending the Bush tax cuts — which cost $36 billion a year while benefiting just 2 percent of Americans — gives the country a chance to raise revenues now that will reduce the debt and help avoid painful spending cuts to vital programs.

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