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How States Are Leading The Way On Equal Pay For Women

GOP Sources Altered Benghazi E-Mails To Suggest A Cover-Up

NEWS FLASH

Court Allows Crisis Pregnancy Centers To Deceive Women | Crisis Pregnancy Centers often masquerade as abortion consultation facilities — they lure in women who are pregnant and terrified, and then often try to convince them not to get the procedure. Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that is a totally acceptable practice. The city of Baltimore passed a law in 2009 to require such centers to post disclosures of their positions on abortion and contraception. Then, a lower court put a hold on enforcement of that law. Today, the appeals court agreed with the lower court by a vote of 2-1. It is possible this decision could be reversed by a larger panel of the same court, however. The overwhelming majority of judges on the Fourth Circuit are Democratic appointees, but the panel that decided this case included two Republicans.

NEWS FLASH

Louisiana Governor: Health Care Ruling Could Force People To Eat Tofu | Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said the Supreme Court’s “frightening” ruling that upheld the Affordable Care as a tax is a “blow to our freedoms.” “What’s next?” Jindal asked, according to The Hill. He voiced concern for people who “refuse to eat tofu” or “refuse to drive a Chevy Volt” — even though the court ruled the individual mandate to buy health insurance was not constitutional under the Commerce Clause. Jindal said he expects opposition to the law to “escalate” before the presidential election and that Republican governors will not implement the law before November.

Related Posts

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jun 30, 2012 at 2:00 pm

NEWS FLASH

DC Republicans Endorse LGBT Equality In Party Platform | The DC Republican Committee (DCRC) has included a call for LGBT equality in its party platform. “We, the Republicans of the District of Columbia support the belief that all individuals, without regard to sexual orientation, are entitled to full and equal protection under the laws and the Constitution and that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect,” the platform reads. The bold move is utterly out of step with Republican Party platforms across the country which revile gay rights; at the Texas Republican Convention earlier in June, party members included in their platform a claim that “homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit.”

– Ben Sherman

By Guest Blogger on Jun 30, 2012 at 11:23 am

Health

Leading Anti-Obamacare Congressman: ‘I Don’t Want To Hear Any Talk From Republicans About Preserving Any Aspect Of It’

By Scott Keyes posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 30, 2012 at 10:00 am

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has a message for those Republicans wavering on whether to repeal popular provisions of Obamacare: “it’s all or none.”

ThinkProgress spoke with King, who has been leading the fight against Obamacare since it was signed into law, at the Supreme Court following yesterday’s ruling. In an expectedly dour mood, the Iowa Republican pointed to the November election as their remaining chance to repeal the landmark health care law.

King promised that if Republicans took control, they would undo every part of Obamacare, even popular provisions like protections for people with pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans. “I don’t want to hear any talk from Republicans about preserving any aspect of it,” King declared. “It’s all or none”:

REPORTER: It seems like as a practical matter, it’d be very tough to get rid of the law if he wins a second term.

KING: I agree. This is it. The battle is enjoined and it’s about Obamacare here to November. And if we seat a majority of the United States Senate of Republicans, hold this majority in the House and elect Mitt Romney, we will undo Obamacare and all of it. I don’t want to hear any talk from Republicans about preserving any aspect of it. It just dilutes the argument. It’s all or none. This is it, we’re all in and I’m ready for that fight.

Watch it:

As polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans support Obamacare’s provisions, many Republicans have begun to show their support for maintaining some of its protections. Even hard-liners like Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) have pledged to protect certain aspects of Obamacare.

If Republicans prevail in November, there will almost certainly be a showdown between Tea Partiers like King who want to scrap even Obamacare’s popular provisions and more sensible legislators who recognize the importance of maintaining those protections. Unfortunately, given the rightward lurch of Republicans over the past decade, it’s not difficult to guess which side will prevail.

Steven Perlberg contributed to this report.

Security

Obamacare Brings U.S. Closer To Policies It Has Advocated Overseas

By Eli Clifton posted from ThinkProgress Security on Jun 30, 2012 at 8:30 am

The Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to uphold the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marked a defining moment in the decades long battle to bring affordable healthcare to the U.S. But while healthcare continues to be a divisive issue domestically, the U.S. has funded and advocated for some of the best universal health systems around the world.

The U.S. is ranked 37th in the World Health Organization’s rankings of health systems. But the impact of U.S. health policy extends beyond U.S. borders. Laurie Garrett, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the U.S. is now in line domestically with policies it has been promoting internationally:

Dating back to the Marshall Plan in post-WWII Europe, Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s 1945-49 occupation of Japan, and then the Korean War, it has been a matter of U.S. foreign policy to invest in the creation of universal health systems. More recently, the Marshall Plan was cited by AFRICOM in support of a Department of Defense engagement in health systems construction across Africa. This year (FY2012), South Africa was the number one recipient of health aid from the United States, totaling nearly $470 million, much of which is supporting the country’s fourteen-year program to build universal health coverage.

Indeed, Japan and Marshall Plan countries in Europe make up the majority, thirteen out of twenty, of the top national health systems in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2000 report [PDF]. Those countries are highlighted in the following chart:

And a 2010 Commonwealth Fund comparison of population health [PDF] in seven countries — Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK — found the U.S. underperforming “relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance.” Half of those countries outperforming the U.S. — Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK — were recipients of Marshall Plan assistance.

The ACA will provide access to health insurance for 30 million uninsured Americans and prevent insurers from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions. “[P]erhaps it will now be possible for an HIV-infected individual in Mississippi or Alabama to have access, at taxpayers’ expense, to the same level of care as the U.S. government supports for comparable individuals in Johannesburg,” writes Garrett.

Economy

Obama Threatens To Veto Bill That Defunds Wall Street Reform

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 29, 2012 at 6:22 pm

House Republicans, after failing to prevent the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law from passing Congress, have attempted to undermine it by refusing to give Wall Street regulators adequate funds to do their jobs. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are short of the funding they require, and House Republicans recently voted in committee to fund the SEC $245 million below the Obama administration’s request for 2013.

However, should that funding bill actually reach President Obama’s desk, he has announced that he will veto it:

The 2013 Financial Services bill is heading to the House floor after being considered by the Rules Committee on Thursday.

“The bill severely undermines key investments in financial oversight and implementation of Wall Street reform to protect American consumers, as well as needed tax enforcement and taxpayer services. It also hampers effective implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA),” the White House statement reads.

House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee also recently approved a cut of $25 million to the CFTC’s budget.

Just ten days ago, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee admitted that Wall Street regulators do not have the resources necessary to do what Congress has asked of them. However, House Republicans have not acted to rectify the situation, instead bringing to the House floor a bill that would simply exacerbate the problem.

Justice

10 Ways John Roberts Is Still A Conservative’s Best Friend

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Jun 29, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts embraced a ludicrous, Tea Party reading of the two key provisions of the Constitution, tossing out nearly two centuries of established law in the process. Yet, after he also refused to join a deeply partisan decision tossing out President Obama’s signature accomplishment — agreeing with several leading conservative judges in the process — the right-wing did not waste any time drawing its knives upon him. In just 24 hours, he was accused of everything from caving to non-existent “bullying” to being mentally unfit for duty.

It’s tough to imagine a more flagrant display of ungratefulness than the pushback Roberts is now receiving from his fellow conservatives. The reality is that Roberts consistently advanced the right’s agenda from the moment he joined the Court:

1) Corporate Money In Elections: Roberts jonied the majority in Citizens United, holding that wealthy corporations should have a nearly unlimited power to buy and sell American elections. Roberts also voted to undermine public financing laws in a way that severely undermines candidates without well-moneyed backers’ ability to compete in elections.

2) Judges For Sale: Roberts wrote a dissent in Caperton v. Massey that would have allowed a wealthy coal CEO to pay $3 million to put a sympathetic supreme court justice on that court. The same justice would then go on to $50 million verdict against the big spender’s company.

3) Corporate-Owned Courts: Roberts consistently votes to give corporations a nearly unlimited power to force workers and consumers into a privatized, corporate-run arbitration system that overwhelming favors corporations.

4) Dividing And Conquering Ordinary Americans: Roberts voted in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion to allow corporations to strip their workers and consumers of their ability to bring class action lawsuits. Because of this decision, corporations now have a nearly unlimited power to cheat the people who do business with them — so long as they only do it a few dollars at a time.

5) Corporate Immunity To The Law: Roberts voted to give generic drug makers immunity to key state laws after one of their drugs caused a condition called tardive dyskinesia in many of the people who took it. Tardive dyskinesia is an horrific neurological condition that causes sometimes crippling, uncontrollable bodily movements, often in the face:

6) Abortion: Roberts also joined the Court’s decision restricting reproductive freedom in Gonzales v. Carhart, which reasoned that a woman’s right to choose must be cut back because “it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.”

7) Race: Roberts has also consistently resisted attempts to eradicate the legacy of racism in America. Most notably, in Parents Involved v. Seattle School District No. 1, he claimed that a plan to desegregate public schools violates Brown v. Board of Education.

8) Gitimo: Roberts twice sided with President George W. Bush on questions of detainee treatment — as a lower court judge in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and as Chief Justice in Boumediene v. Bush.

9) Unequal Pay For Women: Roberts joined the Court’s discredited decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire rolling back women’s right to receive equal pay for equal work.

10) Older Workers: Roberts also joined the Court’s 5-4 decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services limiting older workers’ ability to be free from age discrimination in the workplace.

Education

Romney: Students Should Get ‘As Much Education As They Can Afford’

By Pat Garofalo posted from ThinkProgress Education on Jun 29, 2012 at 3:32 pm

On the campaign trail Wednesday night in Virginia, Mitt Romney took on the topic of education. While extolling the virtues of America as “the land of opportunity for every single person,” Romney said that he believes students should only be able to get as much education “as they can afford”:

I think this is a land of opportunity for every single person, every single citizen of this great nation. And I want to make sure that we keep America a place of opportunity, where everyone has a fair shot. They get as much education as they can afford and with their time they’re able to get and if they have a willingness to work hard and the right values, they ought to be able to provide for their family and have a shot of realizing their dreams.

Watch it:

This is similar to other comments Romney has made regarding higher education, such as when he told students to simply borrow the money for college from their parents or when he told them to “shop around” or join the military to get an education. But the crux of the matter is that Romney’s policies would make college less affordable for low- and middle-income students. So what they “can afford” is going to be a lot less.

For starters, Romney supports the radical Republican budget, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), which would cut Pell Grants for more than one million students, at a time when Pell Grants are already covering the smallest percentage of tuition in their history.

Next, Romney supports undoing the student loan reforms that were included in the 2010 health care bill. Those changes cut billions of dollars that were being wasted paying bank middlemen to service federal student loans, and instead plowed the money back into student aid. Repealing the measure, as Romney would like to do, would simply spend money to put banks back between students and their federal loans.

Finally, Romney is a staunch supporter of predatory for-profit colleges, which are much more expensive than public schools, and often leave their students buried in debt and without the credentials necessary to obtain a good job. Of course, this should come as no surprise, since the for-profit industry is donating heavily to Romney’s campaign.

Health

Five Health Care Mandates Republicans Support

By Annie-Rose Strasser posted from ThinkProgress Health on Jun 29, 2012 at 2:42 pm

Republicans are in complete upheaval over Obamacare, fired up by the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law yesterday. They have continuously claimed that the government is ramming this legislation down the throats of the American people, and now they are calling it an unwanted financial burden on everyday Americans. In fact, the individual mandate — the portion of the law that Republicans most vociferously oppose — wouldn’t even affect most Americans.

It might be time for Republicans to take a look back at their own record of health care legislation that they did like — and that forced American people, particularly women, into a lot of things:

Forcing women to get transvaginal ultrasounds: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell wanted to force every woman seeking an abortion to go through the extremely uncomfortable and medically unnecessary procedure of a transvaginal ultrasound — sticking a medical wand far into a woman’s vagina to get a clearer ultrasound image.

Ordering women to cremate and bury their miscarried fetus: A huge abortion omnibus bill in Michigan could force women who miscarry to cremate the miscarried fetuses. This comes at no small expense to the woman: cremation of a fetus costs hundreds of dollars, and interment can be additional thousands. The bill has been passed by the Michigan House, and is awaiting a vote by the Michigan Senate.

Requiring doctors to lie to female patients: In Kansas, Republicans tried to force doctors to tell women that they faced risk of cancer from having an abortion. That is patently untrue, and making doctors say that it was true would be, in effect, requiring them to lie to their patients.

Making a dying woman consult two doctors before she can get a life-saving abortion: The New Hampshire legislature just overrode a veto by the Governor, forcing through a law that bans “partial birth” abortions. The law only reinforces federal law, but has the additional requirement that any woman who is exempt from the abortion ban because her life is at risk must visit not one but two doctors before she can get the procedure to save her life. For many rural women, especially those facing life-threatening conditions, this is near impossible.

Mandating people pay extra to give medical device companies a tax break: Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) worked so hard to protect medical device companies from having to pay, that he has instead passed their costs onto the consumer — regular Americans — by increasing the cost of health coverage.

NEWS FLASH

House Passes Highway And Student Loan Bill | Moments ago, the House of Representatives passed a re-authorization of the highway bill by a vote of 373-52. House Republicans had previously been blocking the package, holding up funding for 1.9 million transportation jobs. The bill also includes an extension of the student loan rates that will prevent them from doubling on Sunday. The legislation will now go to the Senate, where it’s likely to pass.

Update

The Senate just approved the bill by a vote of 74-19.

Politics

Georgia Sheriff Who Dressed Up As KKK: Criticism Of Me Is ‘Sickening And Hurts My Family’

By Annie-Rose Strasser posted from ThinkProgress Politics on Jun 29, 2012 at 12:31 pm

Sheriff Roger Garrison and his friend in KKK attire

Sheriff Roger Garrison dressed up in a Ku Klux Klan outfit when he was 22 years old — and now he wants people to stop talking about it.

A photo obtained by local TV station WSB shows Garrison and a friend in KKK attire, drinking beer.

The Atlanta sheriff insists that the outfit was meant to imitate a scene from the movie Blazing Saddles, and says that any criticism is not fair game. Garrison considers it a stupid move but says that the fury over the picture is “sickening”:

“I don’t deny it was stupid, looking back now,” Garrison told the station, “but there again I say what 21 or 22 year-old in this world hasn’t made some stupid mistakes?”[...]

“I don’t espouse any of that. It’s just insane that politics digresses to this state,” he said.

The release of the photos comes at a bad time for the sheriff, who is facing a fight for re-election next month.

“I don’t think anyone who knows me is going to think anything of this,” Garrison told Atlanta’s CBS affiliate. “But it’s just sickening and it hurts my family.”

To the many black families living in Georgia, the outfit is far from a joke; the Ku Klux Klan are still a functioning white supremacist group with the aim of keeping white people separate from other races.

Garrison’s opponent is staying out of the debate, but did say, “it’s a statement that the suit makes and to call that a joke is – I don’t think a lot of people would laugh.”

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NEWS FLASH

Number Of Homeless Students Tops One Million For The First Time | According to a report from the Department of Education, the number of homeless students in the U.S. topped one million for the first time during the 2010-2011 school year. The number includes students enrolled in public preschool through 12th grade, and as the Orlando Sentinel pointed out, “the figure actually underestimates the number of homeless children by excluding infants, toddlers, preschool-aged children who aren’t enrolled in public programs and homeless children who are home-schooled.” According to the data, “44 states overall saw the number of homeless students increase, while “fifteen states’ homeless student population increased by one fifth or more.” (HT: Joy Resmovits and Saki Knafo)

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