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Woman Dressed In Giant Birth Control Costume Will Follow Romney On The Campaign Trail | Planned Parenthood’s action fund is sending a costumed package of birth control dubbed “Pillamina” out on the campaign trail to highlight Mitt Romney’s opposition to President Obama’s birth control coverage provision. In a statement introducing Pillamina, Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards noted that her organization wants to emphasize the fact that birth control is “an economic issue for women — period. That’s something that President Obama clearly understands, and that Mitt Romney simply doesn’t.” Romney has said that he opposes requiring insurers to offer birth control coverage without additional co-pays. Image via Planned Parenthood:

Security

National Review’s New Contributor: White Nationalist David Yerushalmi

Back in April, National Review finally parted ways with longtime contributor John Derbyshire after Derbyshire penned an especially racist piece advising non-black American parents on how to talk to their kids about black people. Explaining his decision to sever ties, editor Rich Lowry called Derbyshire’s piece “nasty and indefensible,” and wrote that Derbyshire:

“is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise. So there has to be a parting of the ways. Derb has long danced around the line on these issues, but this column is so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation.”

While National Review’s decision to can Derbyshire was commendable (if long overdue), ThinkProgress noted at the time that it continued to feature the writings of prominent Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer, David Horowitz, and Daniel Pipes, and called on the magazine to sever ties with these figures as well.

Unfortunately, not only has National Review continued to publish these Islamophobic authors, it has now taken on as a contributor one of the Islamophobia network’s worst offenders, David Yerushalmi.

Back in September 2010, ThinkProgress examined Yerushalmi’s long history of extremists statements, which include a proposal making it “a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.” In a 2006 article, Yerushalmi lamented in the inability to engage in “a discussion of Islam as an evil religion, or of blacks as the most murderous of peoples (at least in New York City), or of illegal immigrants as deserving of no rights” without being labeled a racist. He also wrote that the American founders were on to something when they limited the vote to white men. “There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote.”

As Mother Jones noted, the Anti-Defimation League said Yerushalmi has “record of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and anti-black bigotry.”

In short, he has espoused white nationalist views very similar to John Derbyshire’s, with the added bonus of anti-Muslim “creeping sharia” nonsense. Were the editors of National Review simply unaware if these statements? Or don’t they consider this stuff “nasty and indefensible”?

Justice

10 Issues To Watch On State Ballot Initiatives This November

This November, voters won’t just choose the next President of the United States, they will vote on referendums and state constitutional amendments that may determine the course of public policy in their states in a number of subject areas. Currently, 127 questions are certified for spots on 33 statewide ballots and 104 of them will be voted on in November. Here are ten of the most important policies that will be voted on in November:

1. Health Care in Alabama, Florida, Montana, Wyoming: Voters in four states, Alabama, Florida, Montana, and Wyoming will vote on whether to alter their state constitutions to essentially nullify the Affordable Care Act’s requirement to carry insurance or pay slightly more income taxes. Assuming the Supreme Court upholds the Constitution in the pending health care case, these amendments would have no lawful effect because a state cannot constitutionally block a federal law.

2. State Land Seizure in Arizona: Speaking of the unconstitutionality of nullification, Arizona’s voters will vote on an amendment that would declare state sovereigntyover the air, water, public lands, wildlife and other natural resources” within Arizona’s borders. The question, which was referred by the state legislature, is widely viewed as an unconstitutional effort to seize federal lands.

3. Abortion in Florida, Montana: Voters in Florida and Montana will decide whether they want to enshrine abortion restrictions in their state constitutions. Florida voters will vote on an amendment to prohibit the use of public funds for abortions except as required by federal law and to save the mother’s life, and stipulate that Florida’s constitution does not include broader rights to abortion than the US Constitution. Montana voters will vote on an amendment that would require parental notification prior to a minor’s abortion absent judicial waiver.

4. Marriage Equality in Maine, Maryland, Washington, Minnesota: Four states, Maine, Maryland, Washington, and Minnesota, have questions on their ballot that could decide whether gay couples enjoy their constitutional right to marry in those states. While voters in Maryland and Washington are asked to ratify state marriage equality laws, Minnesota voters will decide whether marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman in the state constitution. Additionally, Maine voters will have the opportunity to reverse an anti-gay ballot initiative from 2009.

5. Race in Oklahoma, Alabama: Oklahoma and Alabama both have questions on their November ballots concerning race. Oklahomans will vote on whether to ban affirmative action based on race or sex. Alabamans will decide whether racially charged language, referencing segregation in schools, should be removed from the state constitution. Voters defeated a similar measure in 2004 by .2%.

6. Capital Punishment in California: Voters in California will get a chance to end the death penalty in California. If the initiative succeeds, the 724 inmates on death row will have their sentences changed to life in prison without possibility of parole, and California will join the 17 states that have already halted the use of the death penalty. Given recent revelations about the serious problems inherent in utilizing the death penalty, including the risk of executing innocents, this initiative should receive special attention.

7. Guns in Louisiana: In Louisiana, voters will decide whether to alter the state constitution by adding the rights to acquire, transport, carry, transfer, and use firearms in addition to the existing right to keep and bear them. If the amendment is approved, it could be interpreted to gut current gun restrictions in Louisiana, including laws that ban guns on college campuses and in bars.

8. Immigration in Maryland: Maryland voters will decide whether to overturn legislation guaranteeing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, and Montana voters will decide the fate of an amendment that would require proof of citizenship in order to receive certain services, including a state permit or license and services for crime victims.

9. Voter IDs in Minnesota: Minnesota voters will face a question concerning voter IDs. If accepted by voters, the amendment would require all voters to show photo ID. Similar requirements in other states have been criticized, particularly for their disparate affects on minority voters and low-income voters. Elderly voters may also be uniquely burdened by photo ID requirements.

10. Religious Funding in Florida: Florida voters will decide with to repeal the “Blaine Amendment” which bans the use of public money on religious organizations. Opponents believe passage of the amendment would “virtually require taxpayer funding of religious activities.”

Alex Brown

Alyssa

The 15 Most Insanely Sexist Things In Bleacher Report’s Insanely Sexist Ranking of Female Olympians

As someone who writes about popular culture, I have to shake my head and laugh rather than vigorously bashing it into my desk. Such is the case with Thomas Delatte’s “100 Hottest Olympians” post for Bleacher Report, a piece so sexist, so insulting, so foolishly written, and that reflects so poorly on the writer that it’s astonishing that someone thought it passed muster. The concept is simple: help heterosexual dudes spot attractive women at the Olympic games (God forbid women admire the bodies of any competitors), and remind them that the important thing isn’t that these women have trained their entire lives to prove that they’re preeminent in their fields, but they’re available to be ogled by viewers at home. Along the way, Delatte reveals that he doesn’t know much about a lot of Olympic sports, but that he’s a gold medal contender in the field of condescending grossness. What follows are the fifteen (out of one hundred profiles) most astonishingly awful things Delatte has to say about female Olympians from around the world, in no particular order:

1. “Maja Wloszczowska won a silver in the women’s cross-country back in 2008 and is back for gold. As long as she wears those sexy bike tights, I don’t mind her returning every four years.”: Because she’s there for you, not for her, or for her country or anything like that.

2. “It is an Olympic year and that means we get to meet all kinds of new hotties like Stacey.”: Wait, you mean this isn’t an international effort to promote peace and unity? It’s a Maxim fan convention? Thanks for clarifying it!

3. “If the soccer thing doesn’t work out—and we already know it will, but if it doesn’t—she can just become a WAG. She is dating Jrue Holiday.”: Here that, fellow working women? Marriage is the exact equivalent of obtaining your own professional goals!

4. “Rowing is a sport that gets no love. That might be because, unless you have grown up around the sport, it is boring. You are watching a team of women row a boat faster than the other women. Uh, yawn. But there is a six-foot, 157-pound reason to enjoy it this year. Her name is Gevvie Stone.”: Apparently mastering the nuances of, say, football or basketball, leaves no room for understanding the strategy of any other sport except OMG HOT GIRLS.

5. “If she doesn’t win anything in London, at least she can go home as part of the hottest Czech Republic duo in beach volleyball.”: Someone needs a lesson in false equivalencIes.
Read more

Economy

Senate Republicans Attempt To Raid Food Stamps In Farm Bill (UPDATED)

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is advancing an amendment to the 2012 farm bill that will cut $11 billion over ten years from the food stamp program. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) agreed to bring the measure up for a vote, along with an amendment from Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY) that may “restore some of the lost funding” that is in the underlying bill.

Sessions claims that the cuts would prevent fraud in the program. As he put it during a June 7th floor speech:

We also have to ask: Is the benefit going to the right people? Is the money being expended wisely? Is it helping people become independent? Is it encouraging people to look for ways to be productive and be responsible for their families? Or does it create dependency on a series of government programs?

There are a number of reasons for the arresting trend of growth in this program. While the poor economy has undeniably increased the number of people on food stamps, this alone cannot explain the extraordinary growth in the program. … [T]he way the system is arranged—with states administering the program but the feds paying for it—states have an incentive to see their food stamp budgets swell, not shrink. That means overlooking a dramatic amount of fraud and abuse.

But the fraud rate is only 1 percent in the food stamps program and overall error rates have plunged in recent years, hitting an all-time low in 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

According to a study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food stamps reduced the poverty rate by 8 percent in 2009 and “lifted the average poor person’s income up about six percent closer to the [federal poverty] line.” In 2010, the program kept more than 5 million Americans from falling below the poverty line and reduced the number of children living in extreme poverty — defined as less than $2 per day, before government aid — by half in 2011.

Update

Sessions’ amendment was defeated 43-56.

Update

This post incorrectly stated that the cuts in Sessions’ amendment amounted to $4 billion, which would reduce average benefits by $90 per month for select households. Those cuts are in the underlying legislation advanced by Sessions and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). Sessions’ amendment would have cut billions of dollars in addition to those in the underlying bill. We apologize for the error.

NEWS FLASH

Joe The Plumber: Gun Control Caused The Holocaust | Samuel Wurzelbacher, famously known as ‘Joe The Plumber,’ is running for Congress this year on a platform of party-line Republican reforms, including gun control. But while it’s only natural that he would make a campaign advertisement around the issue, the tack he took is rather unusual — Wurzelbacher has a new advertisement in which he says that gun control laws are responsible for the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust of the Jews. What’s more, he explains the theory while loading his gun and shooting fruits and vegetables. Watch it:

Update

Hunter Walker at the New York Observer reached out to Wurzelbacher’s spokesperson, who only worsened the comparisons, comparing gun control to slavery as well:

Phil Christofanelli [said] “there’s nothing offensive” about the video and discussed how gun control may have led to slavery in the United States too…. “Well, blacks weren’t allowed to own guns in the south, that’s a historical fact as well,” said Mr. Christofanelli. “So, it would seem that the argument would apply there as well.”

Health

Iowa Could Lose $1.8 Billion By Stripping Abortion Funding For Rape And Incest Victims

Forty-one GOP legislators in Iowa have filed a motion with the Iowa Department of Human Services attempting to halt all government-funded abortion services in the state — even in cases of rape or incest. If successful, Iowa would join South Dakota, the only state that currently denies Medicaid funding for abortion services and could lose millions in federal funding:

More than 80,000 women received health care at family planning programs across the state paid for by Medicaid last year, said Planned Parenthood of the Heartland CEO Jill June.

“If (the petitioners) are successful in discontinuing health care for rape victims like this, how will they make up the shortfall that’s been providing other health services for women who depend on it?” June asked. “They need to answer that.”

Iowa already follows the requirements of the federal Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal dollars on abortion services except in the case of rape, incest, or if the life of the mother is in danger. Further limiting financing for abortion services could jeopardize the state’s federal funding stream.

While Rep. Dawn Pettengill (R), who initiated the petition, said the state will only lose about $4 million in Medicaid dollars if the rule changes, abortion rights activists contend that the state is risking $1.8 billion in annual federal Medicaid funding. This is not the first times Iowa Republicans attempted to restrict spending on abortions. In 2011, Republicans risked federal Medicaid funding by adding an amendment to a $6 billion budget bill that would have eliminated government funding on abortions in the case of rape or incest.

One state should serve as a warning to Iowa Repbuplicans: earlier this year, the Obama administration ended all federal funding of the Texas Women’s Health Program after Texas Republicans decided to block abortion providers from participating the program.

Alex Brown

Economy

Economists: Equal Access To Sports Has Boosted Incomes And Education For Women

Title IX, which was enacted 40 years ago this week, ensures that publicly funded schools give similar opportunities to all students regardless of sex. The law is widely credited with boosting women’s participation in sports, which as economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers note in Bloomberg Views today, has boosted incomes and education levels for women:

High school athletics confer substantial economic benefits that last throughout participants’ lives. When one compares people with similar educational opportunities, family backgrounds, measures of intelligence and self-esteem, the annual wages of former athletes are, on average, 7 percent higher than nonathletes. Similarly, athletes get almost half a year more education than nonathletes. The gains occur equally for girls and boys. [...]

In those states where Title IX led to the greatest expansion in female sports, the post-Title IX generation of women enjoyed more education, employment and higher wages than their pre-Title IX forebears. They were also more likely to enter previously male-dominated professions such as law, accounting and even sports.

This chart shows the increase in women’s participation in sports since the law was passed:

Fears that the law would hurt men, meanwhile, have turned out to be unwarranted. But still, women today earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, a disparity that exists even in highly-paid, highly-educated professions. On average, women hit their peak wages at the age of 39, while men see their pay continue to rise for another decade.

Despite this persistent problem, Senate Republicans filibustered the Paycheck Fairness Act earlier this month, which would have strengthened important protections for women against pay discrimination.

NEWS FLASH

Arizona Radio Host Calls Obama a ‘Monkey’ | Barbara Espinosa, the host of an Arizona radio show called “Hair on Fire,” called the President a “monkey” on a recent radio segment. “I don’t believe in calling him the first black president,” she said, “I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey.” When outrage erupted over her racist comments, Espinosa went on the Internet to defend herself. In one comments section, she linked to a Google image search of the words “Obama as monkey cartoon” and wrote, “With a last name of Espinosa I’m anything but racist.” She also wrote a post on her website titled “YES! I Did Use the Word Monkey and Obama in same sentence…” You can listen to her original comments here:

Justice

GOP Front Group Suggests WWII Vets Fought To Protect Unlimited Secret Money In Elections

These men are not cheering for unlimited corporate election spending.

The American Future Fund (AFF), a shadowy right-wing attack ad group that does not identify its donors, was responsible for one of the most racially offensive ads of the 2010 cycle. But its latest online ad, “Thank You Senator McConnell,” may be one of the 2012 cycle’s most ridiculous.

The 80-second spot features images of the nation’s Founding Fathers, American troops on D-Day, anti-government protesters wielding “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, and a clip of Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) recent speech blasting calls for disclosure and limits to unfettered corporate political spending — all while text on the screen suggests American veterans fought for corporations’ right to buy and sell elections:

Heroes fought and died four our rights. Among them, the right to speak freely. It’s what makes us American. And our president swore to uphold it. But now, the First Amendment is under attack. By our own President.

Watch the spot:

Despite attempts by McConnell and his allies at AFF to make the issue about free speech, it is not. Prior to the Supreme Court’s election buying decision in Citizens United, no corporate CEO was prevented from saying anything he or she wished about political candidates and issues, as loudly and as often as he or she wished. This ruling was about whether CEOs and other corporate leaders could use unlimited pools of money from their corporate treasury to drown out the speech of everyone else.

Moreover, given that polling indicates more Americans believe in witchcraft than agree with Citizens United, it seems unlikely that the troops storming Normandy were doing so to protect the right of giant corporations to buy elections for sympathetic politicians.

Economy

PHOTOS: Catholic Nuns Protesting GOP Budget Cuts Visit GOP Rep. King’s Office

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, a group of Catholic nuns has kicked off a nine-state bus tour to protest cuts to the social safety net that were included in the House Republican budget. The nuns will be visiting the offices of ten Republican lawmakers, stopping yesterday the office of Rep. Steve King (R-IA). Here are photos of the event from the Des Moines Register:

When asked for comment on the visit, King’s office responded with an email that “did not say anything specifically about the nuns,” according to the Associated Press. The nuns will be visiting the office of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) today.

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Justice

Rubio Says He Would Immigrate To The U.S. Illegally ‘If My Kids Went To Sleep Hungry Every Night’

In the new memoir An American Son, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) — the son of Cuban immigrants — reveals that he would be willing to cross the border into the United States illegally to provide a better life for him and his family:

“Many people who come here illegally are doing exactly what we would do if we lived in a country where we couldn’t feed our families,” Rubio writes in his book, which went on sale Tuesday. “If my kids went to sleep hungry every night and my country didn’t give me an opportunity to feed them, there isn’t a law, no matter how restrictive, that would prevent me from coming here.”

Rubio has been exploring the possibility of introducing a Republican-backed version of the DREAM Act, but announced on Monday that he is unlikely to pursue the effort in the wake of President Obama’s directive asking the Department of Homeland Security to defer deportations for some undocumented young people.

The senator has called Obama’s directive “welcome news,” but claimed that Obama is “dividing even Hispanics against other groups of Hispanics” with his order. It “sets back our efforts to arrive at a balanced and responsible approach to this issue. It poisons the well. It leads to mistrust,” Rubio claimed.

Nina Liss-Schultz contributed to this post.

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