On Monday at the Republic, MO school board meeting, four Republic School Board members reviewed a year-old complaint that three books are inappropriate reading material for high school children. In a 4-0 vote, the members decided to ax two of the three books from the high school curriculum and the library shelves: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was spared. The resident who filed the original complaint targeted these three books because “they teach principles contrary to the Bible“:

Wesley Scroggins, a Republic resident, challenged the use of the books and lesson plans in Republic schools, arguing they teach principles contrary to the Bible.

“I congratulate them for doing what’s right and removing the two books,” said Scroggins, who didn’t attend the board meeting. “It’s unfortunate they chose to keep the other book.”

Speak is an award-winning novel that describes a high school date rape victim’s personal struggles. This novel was approved because, as school superintendent Vern Minor said, only one page is used to “tastefully, not graphically” describe the rape and there were only three instances of profanity. But Twenty Boy Summer, a book about a young girl who struggles with loving another after her boyfriend suddenly dies, apparently focused too much on “sensationalizing sexual promiscuity” and featured “questionable language, drunkenness, lying to parents and a lack of remorse.” “If the book had ended on a different note, I might have though differently,” said Minor.

As for the modern classic Slaughterhouse Five, the book is no stranger to censorship. One of the first literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, or “fairies” in the novel, were victims in the Holocaust, school classrooms and libraries frequently ban the book for its use of profanity and depictions of sex. The Supreme Court actually considered the First Amendment implications of the removal of this book, among others, from libraries in the 1982 case Island Tree School District v. Pico. The Court’s plurality concluded that “local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’” Minor’s reason for removing the novel? “The language is just really, really intense…I don’t think it has any place in high school…I’m not saying it’s a bad book.”

While the books will be removed from the curriculum and the library, students desiring to read these books can get parent permission to use them for a school project. “If the parent thinks ‘For Johnny, it is age-appropriate,’ then we’ll let the parent make the call,” Minor said. It is important to note that, out of the four School Board Members, only one has actually read all three books.

House Democrats say Obama has a constitutional option to hike the debt ceiling.

Today, a group of House Democrats held a press conference where they advocated for a fail-safe measure to ensure that the debt ceiling is hiked. These Democrats said that if all other measures fail, President Obama should simply issue an executive order invoking the 14th amendment to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. John Larson (CT) and Assistant Minority Leader Jim Clyburn (SC) explained that their colleagues believe that if Republicans are intent on “destroying government,” then there should be a “fail-safe mechanism” to ensure that the debt ceiling is hiked and that this mechanism is the 14th amendment:

LARSON: If a small group is really that intent on destroying government, and is intent on saying they don’t believe there are any ramifications for their irresponsibility then we have to have a fail-safe mechanism, we believe that fail safe mechanism is the 14th amendment and the president of the United States.

CLYBURN: So I would say to the president, if that’s what lands on his desk, a short-term listing of the debt ceiling — he should put it on his desk next to an executive order he will have drawn up. And with the same pen that he vetoes that short term debt ceiling extension, he should sign an executive order invoking the 14th Amendment to this issue. I am convinced that whatever discussions about the legality of this issue can continue.

Watch it:

Clyburn added that when he presented his idea to the Democratic Caucus, it was met with applause. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has not yet taken an stance on the issue, but Larson said she is aware of Democrats’ support for the method.

President Obama is currently throwing cold water on the idea that the Constitution will save America from the impending default crisis, but this view has some high-profile dissenters. Right-wing legal scholars Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule made the argument that Obama can invoke the constitutional option in a New York Times op-ed published last week. Earlier this month, former President Bill Clinton said that if he was in Obama’s place, he would use the 14th amendment himself to raise the ceiling.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX)

A Texas lawmaker is calling for a Congressional investigation of the Houston National Cemetery after he went undercover and determined that cemetery officials are still preventing Christian prayers at the funerals of military veterans.

“The Obama administration continues to try to prevent the word ‘God’ from being used at the funerals of our heroes,” said. Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). “It’s unacceptable and I’m going to put a stop to it as fast as humanly possible.”

Culberson told Fox News Radio he attended a burial service at the cemetery under cover on July 8 where he said volunteer members of the honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars were prohibited from using any references to God.

Culberson’s allegations echo a lawsuit that various veterans groups filed claiming that they were somehow prevented from even saying the word “God” while participating in military funerals. There’s only one problem with these claims — they have no basis in reality.

The allegations claim that a low-level Veterans Affairs official, veterans cemetery director Arleen Ocasio, specifically instructed volunteers employed by the VA not to mention God or otherwise engage in religious speech during a funeral without her approval. In reality, Ocasio said nothing of the sort:

Ocasio has never told anyone that the VFW District 4 honor guards were prohibited from including prayer or religious speech in its ritual unless families submit the prayer or religious speech to her in writing prior to the committal services. [...] Ocasio told the VA Voluntary Services trainees that they needed to ensure that their military funeral honors were reflective of the desires of the families of the Veterans being honored, that there is no “do over” for a committal service, and that no Veteran’s family should ever leave offended or unhappy with the services provided by the Cemetery staff or the registered VA volunteers.

In other words, the administration takes the radical position that military funerals should reflect the wishes of the families of the deceased. If a family wants a religious ceremony, then they should have one. But it is not the job of government workers — even those working on a volunteer basis — to decide for military families how their loved ones should be honored.

Culberson’s attempt to politicize these funerals is nothing sort of disgusting, and doubly so because his allegations lack any basis in fact.

Florida is seeking bids from private companies to take over management of 30 state prisons in an 18-country area in South Florida. The “fastest privatization venture ever undertaken by the state of Florida” is an effort by Gov. Rick Scott (R) to save the state money by outsourcing prison oversight to the lowest bidder:

In an effort to cut costs, Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature set a Jan. 1, 2012, deadline to privatize 30 state prisons, road camps and work release centers. [...]

The state will hire only one company to run all those prisons, which sets up a high-stakes competitive battle between the nation’s two biggest private prison operators: Corrections Corp. of America, based in Nashville, and the GEO Group of Boca Raton. Both companies already operate prisons in Florida. [...]

The bidding process is moving ahead despite a lawsuit filed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association, the bargaining agent for unionized correctional officers.

PBA Executive Director Matt Puckett said he had not thoroughly analyzed the bid documents and could not comment on them in detail. But the union leader said many PBA members in South Florida are “devastated” at the prospects of having to find new jobs or move upstate to keep their prison jobs.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, Scott has long advocated privatizing prisons which “could open a lucrative door to politically connected vendors who stand to profit.” GEO Group already manages two of the state’s seven private prisons and is a “prime financier of the Republican Party” that gave more than $400,000 to GOP in the 2010 election cycle alone and gave the maximum $25,000 to Scott’s inaugural fund.

The Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest corrections company, also has close connections to GOP statehouses across the country. The company has spent $373,000 in political contributions in Florida since 2003, over 60 percent of which have gone to Republicans.

And the private prison industry isn’t just lobbying to take over state prisons; it’s also “working to make money through harsh policies and longer sentences.” According to a report by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI), private prisons spend millions on lobbying to put more people in jail, which translates to more profits for them. Last year, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group made over $2.9 billion in revenue.

California Gov. Jerry Brown just nominated Berkeley Law Professor and former Ninth Circuit nominee Goodwin Liu to a seat on the California Supreme Court. Liu, a former law clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and one of the nation’s leading constitutional scholars, was the subject of a blistering smear campaign by conservatives determined to prevent Obama’s youngest and one of his most talented nominees from becoming a judge:

Yet if you spent just a few minutes listening to Liu’s opponents, you would think he was the second coming of Mao Tse-tung. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) literally accused Liu of wanting to make America more like “communist-run China.” Other senators fixated on a pair of law review articles Liu wrote as proof that Liu would use a position on the federal bench to create all kinds of new welfare programs and somehow seize control of America’s schools. [...]

[T]he suggestion that Liu would somehow create massive new welfare programs by judicial fiat stems from an article where he actually called for the opposite. That article explicitly calls for “legislative supremacy” in defining the scope of welfare rights, and it explains that it would have been utterly inappropriate for the courts to second-guess Congress’s decision to roll back welfare rights in its 1996 welfare reform law.

Liu’s article also explains that the Constitution provides certain protections that ensure fair and equal access to welfare—but this view is shared by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia joined the Supreme Court’s decision in Saenz v. Roe, which struck down a California law on constitutional grounds because it denied some California residents a portion of their welfare benefits. In other words, if Liu’s stance on constitutional welfare rights disqualifies him from the federal bench, it also disqualifies Scalia.

Brown’s nomination of Liu will almost certainly receive the same drummed-up outrage from the right that his nomination to the federal bench triggered, but conservatives will likely be unable to obstruct Liu from taking a seat on the state supreme court. Under the California Constitution, Liu’s nomination must be confirmed by a Commission on Judicial Appointments that includes the Chief Justice, the Attorney General and a sitting court of appeals judge. Given Liu’s sterling legal credentials, this commission will have a tough time finding objectionable in Liu’s record.

It’s worth noting, however, that Liu’s appointment is only temporary unless it is confirmed by the electorate in the next general election. So there is a very real risk that wealthy right-wing interest groups will try to buy Liu’s seat on the state Supreme Court with attack ads and other campaign funding just like they dumped money into similar efforts in Wisconsin and Iowa.

ThinkProgress Justice is still accepting applications from law students to fill three one-year research and writing fellowships that commence this fall. Each fellow will work with ThinkProgress’ Justice Editor to produce three or four blog posts a week for publication on their own byline.

The ideal candidate will:

• Be a current law student with strong academic credentials at an ABA-accredited law school (preference to third year law students).
• Possess strong research and writing skills, including the ability to explain complex legal and policy concepts in a short, 300-600 word blog post.
• Have a solid grounding in basic constitutional doctrine. Familiarity with other politically salient legal subjects — such as environmental law, voting law, financial regulatory law, or civil rights law — is a big plus.
• Be able to turn around content quickly to respond to a rapidly changing news cycle.
• Possess a keen interest in the intersection of politics and the law.

The fellowships are part-time and will require 5-10 hours of work per week. ThinkProgress Justice Law Student Fellows will receive a weekly stipend for the year of the fellowship after an initial trial period, and may work from home or from their law school. Fellows need not reside in Washington, DC, and law students from across the country are encouraged to apply.

To apply: please send a cover letter, resume, and a brief (no more than 500 word) writing sample to Ian Millhiser at imillhiser /at/ americanprogress.org. Writing samples should be written as if they were for publication on ThinkProgress Justice and should not be academic papers. Applications considered on a rolling basis.

South Carolina Republican Kershaw County co-chairman Jeff Mattox is being asked to step down after he endorsed a Facebook article titled “When Should You Shoot A Cop.” The article was posted on the Facebook page of the Kershaw County Patriots, a Tea Party group “specializing in maniacal anti-government paranoia” of which Mattox is a proud member:

A South Carolina Republican county co-chair is embroiled in a controversy over “liking” a Facebook article that advocated shooting law enforcement officers.

Jeff Mattox, who is also a tea party activist with the Kershaw County Patriots, gave digital plaudits to an article entitled “When Should You Shoot A Cop” posted on the Patriot’s Facebook page.

“That’s what it means to have an unalienable right. If you have the unalienable right to speak your mind (a la the First Amendment), then you have the right to KILL “government” agents who try to shut you up. If you have the unalienable right to be armed, then you have the right to KILL ”government” agents who try to disarm you,” argued a poster at copblock.org

The article concludes, “The next time you hear of a police officer being killed ‘in the line of duty,’ take a moment to consider the very real possibility that maybe in that case, the ‘law enforcer’ was the bad guy and the ‘cop killer’ was the good guy.”

Kershaw County Republican chair Chris Oviatt told Politico he had asked Mattox to step down from the party.

As a result of the inflammatory Facebook article, which compares American law enforcement officers and agencies to Communist and Nazi regimes, Kershaw county police officers are on higher alert and reportedly wearing body armor. Sheriff Jim Matthews called the posting “irresponsible” and “hateful.” He also expressed concern that the Patriots might be linked to the Sovereign Citizen movement, which the FBI describes as “anti-government extremists who…believe they don’t have to answer to any government authority.”

Mattox defended himself by saying, “Police sometimes do overstep their bounds, but advocating shooting a cop? No. It’s just kind of a conversation.” However, Mattox himself has posted a YouTube video called “End of Liberty,” which lambasts “out of control cops.”

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.