In an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball Monday evening, tenther Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) admitted that he is using the threat of a catastrophic default to extort the nation into rewriting the Constitution to force a permanent era of conservative governance:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: How many days do you think we have, on the outside, to get this debt ceiling through before we have a problem? How many days?

LEE: I don’t know, maybe ten days.

MATTHEWS: Okay, in ten days you want to change the United States Constitution by two-thirds vote in both houses? That’s what you’re demanding.

LEE: Yes. If possible we can’t change the Constitution just in Congress but we can submit it to the states. Let the states fight it out.

MATTHEWS: And you think you’re being reasonable by saying you want a two-thirds vote in the House, which is Republican, and in the Senate which is Democrat. You want the Democratic Senate, by a two-thirds vote, to pass a constitutional amendment or you want the house to come down?

LEE: Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying and I’ve been saying this for six months.

Watch it:

It’s important to note just what Lee wants the American people to swallow before he’ll agree not to set off an economic crisis that could cost millions of people their jobs. Lee’s proposed amendment makes it functionally impossible to raise taxes by imposing a two-thirds supermajority requirement — a provision closely modeled after the California anti-tax amendment that blew up that state’s finances. It would also require America to return to 1966 spending levels — spending cuts that are so steep they would have made every single one of Ronald Reagan’s budgets unconstitutional.

If Lee’s proposed cuts were imposed across the federal budget, every single senior would lose one quarter of their Social Security and Medicare benefits, and that’s just the beginning. Because Lee wants to write these draconian cuts into the Constitution, We the People will lose our power to overrule these cuts by electing different leaders.

So Lee wants to rewrite our Constitution to that the American people must always live under conservative governance, regardless of who they elect, and he’s got a simple plan to force his colleagues in Congress to make this happen. That’s a mighty nice economy we’ve got here, it would be a shame if Mike Lee had to break it.

Doing his part in the GOP’s voter suppression campaign, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a sweeping elections reform bill into law on July 1. Along with allowing poll workers to refuse telling voters where they can vote, the new law shortens the state’s early voting period, bans in-person early voting on Sundays, and prohibits boards of election from mailing absentee ballot requests to voters. These regressive restrictions mean that four in 10 voters in Columbus, Ohio alone will have to find a new the time, place, or way to cast their ballots. In fact, according to the Columbus Dispatch, the ballots that nearly a quarter million Columbus voters cast in 2008 would be banned under the new law:

234,000. That’s the number of Franklin County voters who cast ballots during the 2008 presidential election on dates, at times or in locations that would be shut down if the GOP election changes – which have been signed into law but are the target of a referendum campaign – are implemented:

• Almost 182,000 voters mailed in completed ballots during the first two weeks of a 35-day early-voting period. Early voting by mail would be cut to 21 days under the Republican plan.

• Nearly 52,000 people cast ballots at Veterans Memorial, which was used for in-person early voting in 2008 because it offered more space, easier access and free parking. The new law would ban early voting by machine anywhere except at county elections offices.

• The legislation also would forbid counties from mailing unsolicited absentee-ballot applications to voters. Franklin County sent applications to all registered voters, totaling nearly 1.3 million in 2008 and 2010 combined. About 380,000 voters cast ballots by mail in the two elections.

These restrictions attack much of the reform pushed in Ohio after 2004, when the state came under fire for voting methods that may have affected the outcomes of the Bush-Kerry election. It is a history lesson that is not lost on Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge (D). “We all remember 2004,” Fudge told ThinkProgress. “The only reason to limit these requirements is to limit voting, and to strip targeted populations of their right to vote. Anyone who values our democracy can understand why it is necessary to make voting easier for citizens, not more difficult.” Fudge is currently heading the House’s push to secure a Department of Justice review of the regressive voter ID laws being pushed across the country.

Even Ohio Board of Elections Chairman Doug Preisse — who is also chairman of the Franklin County GOP — also expressed concern about the law’s ill-effects. “I could quibble with a few aspects because I’m looking at it from the challenge of running elections in a big county,” he said. “Did they get it right this time? I’m not sure.”

Former Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner is leading the Fair Elections Ohio coalition of lawmakers, labor, church, and voting-rights groups in an effort to overturn parts of this law through ballot appeal.

Dr. LeRoy Carhart, one of the few remaining doctors who perform late-term abortions in the United States, explains the lengths he has to take to avoid being killed by people who call themselves “pro-life”:

He rarely stays at the same hotel twice. He rolls dice to pick the route he’ll take to work, because “the biggest part of security is not being predictable,” he said. [...]

On Sept. 6, 1991, the day Nebraska passed its parental-notification law, his farm burned down. No family members were hurt, but the fire destroyed his house and other buildings, and killed his dog, cat and 17 horses. The next day, Carhart received a letter informing him that the fire was in retaliation for the abortions. Local officials were unable to determine the fire’s cause. [...]

Carhart has installed two security cameras outside the clinic. (Last week, a Montgomery County circuit judge allowed him to keep the cameras after the office condo association asked for their removal.) Visitors to his Nebraska clinic have to walk through a metal detector, similar to those in airports; he would like to install one in Germantown.

Significantly, Carhart’s late-term abortion practice is limited to only a narrow group of pregnant women. One hundred percent of the abortions Carhart performed in his Maryland clinic involved fetuses with anomalies, and state laws generally forbid abortions after the point a fetus could survive outside the womb, with exceptions for the life or health of the mother or occasionally when the fetus has “serious genetic defects.”

Nevertheless, Carhart has good reason to fear for his safety. Just two years ago, anti-abortion terrorists murdered Dr. George Tiller for performing many of the same medical procedures that Carhart provides to women.

Following last week’s shocking bombing and shooting attack by alleged suspect Anders Breivik, much of the world is now awaiting his trial.

Many right wingers, particularly those in the United States, are now bemoaning Norway’s criminal justice system, noting that the country uses a maximum sentencing law that typically only allows prisoners to be jailed for 21 years (although prisoners can be held for additional five-year sentences if they are deemed dangerous). “Most murderers in Norway spend just 14 years behind bars. The terrorist is 32 years old. He will get out when he’s 53. That means he’s serving about 3 months for every person he murdered. Justice?” asked a blogger at Big Peace.

Yet before Americans rush to judge Norway’s criminal justice system — which relies far less on punitive measures than ours and that has a strong focus on rehabilitation — they should look at the results it produces. Norway is one of the safest countries on earth, boasting some of the world’s lowest crime rates:

- Norway Has Some Of The Lowest Murder Rates In The World: In 2009, Norway had .6 intentional homicides per 100,000 people. In the same year, the United States had 5 murders per 100,000 people, meaning that the U.S. proportionally has 8 times as many homicides.

- Norway’s Incarceration Rate Is A Fraction Of That Of The United States: 71 out of every 100,000 Norwegian citizens is incarcerated. In the United States, 743 out of every 100,000 citizens was incarcerated in 2009. The U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate.

- Norway’s Prisoner Recidivism Rate Is Much Lower Than The United States’: The recidivism rate for prisoners in Norway is around 20 percent. Meanwhile, it’s estimated that 67 percent of America’s prisoners are re-arrested and 52 percent are re-incarcerated.

While many Americans may have an understandable emotional reaction to a country that strives to treat even the most heinous of murderers humanely, they should also be aware of the fact that Norway’s criminal justice system appears to have produced a nation that is much safer and imprisons far less of its people than the United States or just about any other country.

Earlier this year, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became one of the many GOP governors to sign a law disenfranchising voters who do not have a photo ID — a law that disproportionately affects elderly voters, young voters, students, minorities and low-income voters. Having disenfranchised tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters, Walker is now making it harder for many of these voters to obtain the ID they need to regain their right to participate in the next election:

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is working on finalizing a plan to close as many as 10 offices where people can obtain driver’s licenses in order to expand hours elsewhere and come into compliance with new requirements that voters show photo IDs at the polls.

One Democratic lawmaker said Friday it appeared the decisions were based on politics, with the department targeting offices for closure in Democratic areas and expanding hours for those in Republican districts. [...] Rep. Andy Jorgensen, D-Fort Atkinson, called on the state Department of Transportation to reconsider its plants to close the Fort Atkinson DMV center. The department plans to expand by four hours a week the hours of a center about 30 minutes away in Watertown. [...]

“What the heck is going on here?” Jorgensen said. “Is politics at play here?”

Of course, no one has been more aggressive in waging the GOP’s war on voting that Scott Walker. Walker stripped state workers of their right to organize to strengthen the GOP’s position in the next election, and he gutted the state’s public financing system, which allows candidates to run effective campaigns without pleading for money from big dollar donors, and used this money to pay for his voter ID scheme.

Lest there be any doubt, there is absolutely no legitimate purpose behind Walker’s voter ID law. Although Republicans justify these voter disenfranchising laws by claiming that they are necessary to combat voter fraud, a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice found that only 44 one-millionths of one percent of votes are cast by people who commit voter fraud.