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Journalists Must Donate To Anti-Choice Organization In Order To Cover Palin’s Speech

By Ben Armbruster on Apr 29, 2010 at 4:49 pm

sarah-palinToday, Sarah Palin will be speaking at a fundraiser for the Austin-based Heroic Media, a “faith-based” anti-choice organization that seeks to reduce the number of abortions “by creating a Culture of Life through television, billboard and internet advertising.” As part of its anti-choice media strategy, Heroic Media airs television commercials that “encourage viewers to learn more about and rethink the Life issue.” The group’s Internet strategy tries to direct Google users to an anti-choice website:

Heroic Media utilizes an online strategy to purchase top listings on search engines, such as google, so when teens “google” the word “abortion,”… “I think I’m pregnant,” … or “terminate pregnancy,” one of the top web sites they’ll see is our partner web site http://www.teenbreaks.com

Teenbreaks.com provides information about abortion, communicating with parents, adoption, cutting and more.

As Indecision Forever notes, the fact that Teenbreaks.com provides “information” on “cutting” is a giveaway that it isn’t interested in providing women with the best possible facts about their reproductive rights: “Cutting, that’s right, because self-mutilation has everything to do with handling an unplanned pregnancy.”

But in order to cover Palin’s speech, the Austin-American Statesman reports that journalists will have to make a contribution to Heroic Media:

Restrictions: Heroic Media will try to prohibit video and audio recordings of Palin’s appearance, and news organizations wishing to cover her speech must buy a ticket, the proceeds of which will go to Heroic Media.

Denying media access has become Palin’s standard operating procedure. After the debacle that was her interview with CBS’ Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin made sure she wouldn’t step into any embarrassing interviews — often demanding that reporters submit their questions “ahead of time” to guarantee a one-on-one. And as a private citizen, the former Alaska governor requires that any questions asked at her speaking engagements be pre-screened. Just last week at an event in Eugene, OR, media were “not…allowed to ask her questions and take still pictures… [or] videotape or record it in anyway.”

Earlier this year, after conservatives criticized Palin’s $100,000+ fee to speak at the Tea Party convention, she said she would donate the proceeds to “the cause.” Perhaps that’s what she is trying to get the media to do as well.

Yglesias

The Falling Price of Computing Power

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2010 at 4:44 pm

appleiipcb

That computing power has been getting cheaper over time is of course something people know. But it’s really staggering when you see it staring you in the face. Here’s an amusing story about buying an Apple IIe to use as a Twitter terminal:

Actually the story begins another week or two earlier at the Silicon Valley Electronics Flea Market. I came across a guy with a bunch of Apple II computers stacked up and ended up buying an Apple //e and a disk drive for $20. His prices were $10 for an Apple //e and $25 for an Apple II+. The Apple II+ is technically the lesser machine – an earlier model that lacked the features of the Apple //e but is more expensive due to scarcity. The computer my parents purchased for me was the original Apple II, an even older and more rare model. I asked him if he had any of that model and he said no, but if he did they’d run a few hundred dollars.

The $798 price of the board-only Apple IIe 1980 dollars, by contrast, would be over $2,000 today—less than one percent of the contemporary price, despite the scarcity issue.

This is context that I think needs to be kept in mind when people talk about, for example, the growing share of the economy dedicated to providing health care services. The different sectors need to sum up to 100 percent of GDP and some stuff gets much cheaper thanks to technological progress. In part, that leads us to buy more and more of it—and we certainly buy a lot more computing power than we did 30 years ago. But in part it means that a bigger share of the economy winds up going to other things, like health care.

Politics

Florida tries to ban sex with animals after failing to do so last year.

By Faiz Shakir on Apr 29, 2010 at 4:16 pm

gatorsThe South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Florida is trying to rectify the fact it “is one of only a dozen or so states that don’t have a law against having sex with animals.” Given the disturbing accounts of bestiality in Florida, the state senate is taking action. But, as Barbara Hijek notes, Florida has had difficulty getting the law passed:

The law was passed unanimously by the Senate this week. It would make it a first-degree misdemeanor to have sex with an animal, with a penalty of up to a year in jail.

The Senate had passed a similar bill last year, but it fizzled out before it came before the House. The House bill has a similar measure, but it awaits debate.

What is there to debate?

So, just to recap what you can and can’t do in Florida: Get married if you’re gay? Illegal. Adopt a child if you’re gay? Illegal. Marry your cousin? Legal. Have sex with an animal? Also legal.

Security

Why Kris Kobach Is Wrong About The Arizona Law He Takes Credit For Drafting

By Guest Blogger on Apr 29, 2010 at 4:10 pm

Kris Kobach of the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Kris Kobach of the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Our guest blogger today is David Leopold, President-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and immigration lawyer at David Wolfe Leopold & Associates.

In an Op-Ed piece published in today’s New York Times, Kris W. Kobach, who claims that he “helped draft” Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant S.B. 1070, sets out to “rebut the major criticisms” of the new law individually. However, Kobach offers little more than a recital of the fallacious propaganda espoused by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—a group which has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as a hate group—and its legal arm the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), to which Kobach serves as counsel. Let’s look at Kobach’s central claims:

CLAIM: The Arizona Law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime—failure to carry proof of immigration status.

FACT: While the federal immigration law requires foreign nationals to carry registration documents with them, Kobach fails to mention that the Arizona law punishes people much more severely than does the federal law. Under S.B. 1070, failure to carry a registration card leads to a prison sentence of six months for a first offense and a $500 fine with substantial enhancements for repeat offenders. In contrast, under the federal law failure to carry a registration document results in up to 30 days in jail and a $100 fine.

Arizona’s new law might sound like a good way to get tough on undocumented immigrants; that is until you consider what would qualify as a crime. For example a mother who leaves her home in a rush to pick up a medical prescription for her sick child and forgets her green card is a criminal under the Arizona law. She is now exposed to a substantial fine and jail—all because she forgot a document. Kobach also fails to note that the federal immigration law prescribes a myriad of registration forms that can be used to show lawful immigration status, including Inspection Records, Arrival-Departure Records, and Crewman’s Landing Permits to name just a few. The Arizona registration provision places local police the untenable position of having to decide whether a particular document is one prescribed by federal law. Incorporating federal registration law into Arizona state law is mistake and an invitation to chaos and abuse.

CLAIM: “Reasonable Suspicion” will not permit police misconduct.

FACT: Kobach tries to convince readers that there is nothing to fear from the notorious “reasonable suspicion” standard because “over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining” the term. He then goes on to claim that under the Arizona law “reasonable suspicion” will only come into play when, under the “totality of the circumstances”, things look suspicious to the police. He offers an example of a car full of passengers speeding on a freeway frequented by drug traffickers.

Frankly, Kobach is intellectually dishonest to claim that “reasonable suspicion” will not turn Arizona into a “show me your papers” state by effectively forcing the police to use racial profiling. What Kobach fails to point out is that law enforcement may question anyone under the Arizona law whom they suspect is an undocumented immigrant once they have made “lawful contact.” Arizona law does not define what “lawful contact” means and, therefore, the phrase is open to very broad interpretation by the police. It does suggest some limit, but that limit is well short of the “reasonable suspicion” standard (articulable facts, along with rational inferences that arise from those facts) set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio. Why else would the drafters of the Arizona legislation have felt the need to use the term “legal contact” and as a pre-requisite to “reasonable suspicion” rather than “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity? For example, if someone approaches a police officer on the street, there is “legal contact”. If the person then speaks English with an accent or “looks Latino” that might raise “reasonable suspicion” that the person is not documented. While “reasonable suspicion” under Terry v. Ohio is based on criminal activity, “reasonable suspicion” under S.B. 1070 is based on a subjective notion of a person’s status. The Arizona law not only doesn’t prohibit racial profiling, it effectively requires it.

CLAIM: S.B. 1070 prohibits racial profiling.

FACT: Here, Kobach simply ignores the plain language of the Arizona law. He assures us that there will be no racial profiling under the law because “Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official ‘may not solely consider race, color, or national origin’ in making any stops or determining immigration status. But read carefully, the law doesn’t prohibit the police from using race, color, or national origin in deciding whether or not to stop someone or checking their immigration status. It merely prohibits the police from only considering race, color, or national origin. Thus, a police officer who hears a brown skin person speaking Spanish may take apparent race and national origin into consideration; as long as there are other factors that suggest unlawful immigration status. But what are those other factors? Manner of dress? Hair style? Shoes? In effect, the law will not prohibit a police officer from stopping or checking the immigration status of a person—even a U.S. citizen—based solely on their appearance.

Simply put, S.B. 1070 is hate speech transformed into law. No amount of fancy legal footwork by Kris Kobach or others at IRLI and FAIR can change that. The law is an affront to all Americans who cherish our democratic values.

Update

Yesterday, in an apparent effort to insulate S.B. 1070 from legal challenges, Arizona lawmakers approved several changes to the anti-immigrant legislation signed by Governor Jan Brewer last week. Apparently, even they disagree with Kris Kobach’s assertion yesterday in a New York Times op-ed that lawful contact with the police occurs only after a person is legitimately suspected of being in the country illegally. The lawmakers propose replacing the phrase “lawful contact” with “lawful stop, detention or arrest.” But this change will not rehabilitate Arizona’s anti-immigrant law because it still gives police license to determine a person’s immigration status based on their appearance.

Yglesias

Yellen Touts “Maximum Employment”

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm

File-Janet_yellen

Interesting catch from Annie Lowrey who notes that Janet Yellen put the Fed’s jobs mandate first when officially acknowledging her appointment as Vice Chair of the Board of Governors:

I’m honored that President Obama has asked me to serve in that capacity. If confirmed by the Senate, I am looking forward to working even more closely with Chairman Bernanke and the other governors, and continuing to collaborate with my colleagues throughout the Federal Reserve System to conduct policies that foster economic prosperity and ensure a stable financial system.

I am strongly committed to pursuing the dual goals that Congress has assigned us: maximum employment and price stability and, if confirmed, I will work to ensure that policy promotes job creation and keeps inflation in check.

Might mean nothing, might mean something. It’s probably worth observing that the dual mandate is arguably conceptually incoherent. In normal times, the Fed only uses one policy instrument so it can’t really be targeting two things. The main practical upshot of the dual mandate is that it’s impossible to say for sure whether or not the Fed is meeting it. If you gave the Fed a single clear mandate—keep M*V growing at a steady rate of approximately such-and-such then Congress and the President could specifically say whether or not the Fed was executing its mission.

Alyssa

Funny Girl

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Apr 29, 2010 at 3:47 pm

I’m not exactly sure what Easy A is about, and I worry that the fact that it’s a Scarlet Letter riff means it’ll end up being slut-shaming and sex negative.  But man, does Emma Stone look adorable in this:

I definitely know the whole “let’s see how far I can make my hair stand up on my head while I’m shampooing it” trick!  Stone is really funny, and great, and likable, and I think that unlike a lot of super-cute female actresses her age, she believably portrays that sensation of having this luscious body you haven’t quite figured out how you fit into yet.  She was authentically and charmingly dorky in The House Bunny, even when Anna Faris taught her how to rock her assets and made her over.  That’s a valuable commodity, one that even Lindsay Lohan didn’t really have in Mean Girls: she was moving smoothly, even before she got Plastic-ed.  Here’s hoping that Emma Stone keeps her hair color, her charm, and her sanity.  Lohan’s decline still feels tragic to me, but it does leave welcome space for Stone’s ascension.

Politics

Coalition Of Right-Wing Big Business Groups And Lobbyist-Led Tea Parties Force Crist From The GOP

By Lee Fang on Apr 29, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Charlie Crist and Barack ObamaToday, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced that he is leaving the Republican Party to become an independent, and will run as an independent for the U.S. Senate seat open this year. Not too long ago, Crist was praised by Republican members of Congress as a “common sense conservative,” and viewed by Republican operatives as a potential 2012 nominee for President on the GOP ticket.

Desperate to help “tea party candidate” Marco Rubio (R-FL) defeat Crist in the primary, right-wing partisans have painted Crist as a liberal who veered left from the Republican Party. There is little substance to support that claim. The right has attacked Crist for voicing support for cap and trade, a free market idea to address global warming, and for openly accepting stimulus money — which economists and Republican governors now agree was absolutely necessary to stave off severe budget cuts and to avert a much deeper recession.

Despite the bluster, Crist is a moderate who built a career out of largely pragmatic decision making, but the modern Republican Party left him. The GOP’s creep to the far right has been steered by well heeled interests. A coalition of sharply ideological big business groups, aided by the Fox News-inspired and lobbyist-run tea parties, have successfully pushed the Republican Party so far to the right that Crist is no longer welcome:

– The Club For Growth, Wall Street’s Top Attack Group: The Club for Growth is funded by top investment bankers and other financial industry types, has a single-minded focus: to kill the income tax, to slash corporate taxes (and broaden corporate tax loopholes), and to eliminate regulations on corporates and the financial sector. The Club was one of the first large groups to go into Florida and start attacking Crist. In early June of 2009, the Club nominated Crist as “Comrade of the Month” along with liberal Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA). Soon after, the Club endorsed Rubio and began running brutal attack ads against Crist. According to recent disclosures, the Club is funded by a $1.4 million dollar donation from investor Stephen Jacksons of Stephens Groups Inc, a $1.4 million dollar donation from broker Richard Gilder, and $210,000-$630,000 donations from at least 10 other investors and financial industry professionals.

– FreedomWorks, Orchestrating Tea Parties For Corporate Interests: FreedomWorks is a corporate front group that organized the very first tea party protests, and has used its extensive staff and resources to mobilize rallies and advocacy campaigns on behalf of business interests for years. In Oct. 2007, FreedomWorks began targeting Crist because of his support for cap and trade clean energy programs. In late 2009, FreedomWorks (and Tea Party groups controlled by FreedomWorks’ staffers) began mobilizing support for Rubio — and came out in February of this year to endorse him. FreedomWorks is run by the corporate lobbyist and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), as well as by James Burnley, another powerful Washington lobbyist. FreedomWorks is also funded and chaired by Steve Forbes and Frank Sands of Sands Capital Management.

In analyzing the GOP’s far right march, many in the media have wrongly attributed it to the country’s organic reaction against reform. Why were so many moderate Republicans eagerly signing up to repeal health reform — rescinding coverage for tens of millions of Americans and reinstating insurance company abuses? The Club promised to attack any candidate that did not sign a repeal pledge months before the legislation had even passed. Why is even Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT), an extremely conservative lawmaker, poised to lose his Republican primary? FreedomWorks and the Club have been quietly organizing against him for a year, aggressively criticizing the senator and even launching a website dedicated to attacking him.

Rubio, who is a policy lightweight tinged with a major corruption scandal, is still worth the investment for his right-wing backers because he truly believes in reflexively rejecting government accountability, social programs, or anything Obama proposes. In 2008 alone, it should be noted that the Club was primarily responsible for drumming moderates Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), and former Rep. Joe Schwarz (R-MI) out of office. There is a powerful, corporate machine behind the GOP’s so-called “dogmatic race to the bottom” in search for far right candidates. It is not organic.

Related Posts

Climate Progress

Investors Call For Resignation Of Massey ‘Safety’ Directors

By Brad Johnson on Apr 29, 2010 at 3:20 pm

An investment group with ties to labor pension funds called for the resignation of Massey Energy directors who are “ultimately responsible for Massey’s alarming safety compliance record.” The Change to Win Investment Group “presented today an in-depth analysis to shareholders of Massey Energy Company, making the case to vote against the three directors up for election at the mining company’s May 18 annual meeting, the first meeting of shareholders since the tragic April 5 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, in which 29 miners lost their lives.” In a letter to investors, CtW called for the removal of directors responsible for the “preventable mine explosion” that “killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value“:

We urge you to vote “Withhold” on directors Richard M. Gabrys, Dan R. Moore and Baxter F. Phillips, Jr. at the Massey Energy Company annual meeting on May 18. As members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee (SEPPC), these directors are ultimately responsible for serious and systematic non-compliance with mine safety laws over an extended period, a risk oversight failure that likely led to the catastrophic and preventable mine explosion on April 5 that killed 29 miners and destroyed $1.1 billion in shareholder value.

The investment group “believes Massey Chair and CEO Donald Blankenship’s ‘production first’ emphasis fostered a management culture that tolerated unacceptable safety and compliance failures.” By supporting Blankenship’s drive for profits over rules, the members of the Safety, Environmental and Public Policy Committee hold ultimate responsibility for the deaths of Massey’s miners.


Don Blankenship’s ‘Safety’ Overseers

Richard Gabrys

On Massey’s board since 2007, Gabrys is “the retired vice chairman of Deloitte.” He also serves on the board of the Michigan-based companies La-Z-Boy Inc., coal-dependent utility CMS Energy, and engineering firm TriMas Corporation. Gabrys has given $6000 to Republicans, including $1000 to George W. Bush, and $500 to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI).

Dan R. Moore

On Massey’s board since 2002, Moore is “the Chairman of Moore Group, Inc., which owns multiple automobile dealerships in West Virginia and Kentucky.” He previously ran West Virginia’s Matewan Bank. Moore also serves on the board of the West Virginia University Foundation, the Branch Bank and Trust Company, and the West Virginia Housing Fund. Moore has contributed $8100 to Republicans since 2000.

Baxter F. Phillips

Massey’s president since 2008 and a top executive since 2000, Phillips joined Massey in 1981. Phillips has contributed $8900 to Republicans and $5950 to the Massey PAC.

On April 19, Massey director Lady Barbara Thomas Judge resigned amid shareholder unrest.

“During times like these, a change in senior management is not appropriate or in the best interest of our members and shareholders,” said Admiral Bobby R. Inman, Massey Energy’s lead independent director on April 22. “Therefore, we want to emphasize that Don Blankenship has the full support and confidence of the Massey Energy Board of Directors.”

Yglesias

Salt and Freedom

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2010 at 3:14 pm

File-Salt,_sugar_and_pepper_shakers

Monica Potts says FDA regulation of the salt content of prepared foods won’t impair our liberty:

Mario Rizzo missed the point yesterday when he wrote in the Christian Science Monitor that the government is trying to regulate how much salt we eat. Obviously, that’s not what it’s doing with this new FDA initiative. What it is trying to do is regulate the amount of salt companies put in a serving of food. People are as free to buy salt and add it to meals as they ever were. Many of the coming health-care reform provisions regulate companies, not people. The idea that that’s somehow bad for our ability to operate freely in the world is ridiculous.

“Ridiculous” seems too strong to me. Clearly, the goal here is to get people to eat less salt. And it’s true that once we accept that concern for public health is a legitimate public concern we are opening the door in principle to a lot of government activity. On the other hand, even though a lot of people have libertarian instincts about novel paternalistic measures relatively few people have a consistent view in the other direction. Government policy encourages vaccinations against infectious diseases and you never see anyone agitating for the right of poor people to use SNAP to buy tax-free cigarettes.

The basic issue with salt regulation, I think, is the one highlighted in Tom Slee’s No-one Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart. Once you get beyond a certain set of generic commodities, it’s just not the case that the free market provides you with an infinite array of choices. At my supermarket, you can buy cottage cheese with a lot of salt added or you can buy a disgusting no-salt-added alternative product. If what you really want is something with 85% of the salt of the high-salt version, you’re out of luck. Not because of any insidious corporate conspiracy, but because it doesn’t make economic sense to try to precisely meet an infinite variety of preferences.

In the case of salt, it’s a lot easier to add salt to something you find not quite salty enough, but hard to remove salt if you’d be happier (or equally happy) with less. But the market would punish a company whose product only tasted good to most people if you added extra salt of your own. The minority who prefers it with less salt is probably going to be out of luck. Force people onto the lower-salt equilibrium, meanwhile, and though some folks will add the salt back in many will probably find themselves cutting their sodium intake and not minding the difference at all. I think trying to sell this kind of “nudge” measure as somehow a form of libertarianism is pretty silly, but it’s worth emphasizing that the options facing consumers in the market for branded consumer goods is going to be pretty sharply constrained however public policy structures the market. Insofar as it’s possible for regulatory measures to create large public health gains (my understanding is that it’s actually unclear if cutting salt will do that) then that’s something I’m supportive of.

Yglesias

Too Hot for YouTube M.I.A. Video Leads to Surge of Publicity for M.I.A.

By Matthew Yglesias on Apr 29, 2010 at 2:31 pm

I was going to try to explain the situation around M.I.A.’s “Born Free” video, but Charli Carpenter’s economical explanation is better than mine:

Just a day after it was released earlier this week, the unnervingly violent anti-genocide music video, “Born Free,” was reportedly deleted by YouTube. Actually, as Wired has confirmed, it was only “buried” to make it much harder to find. But the video was simply posted on Vimeo and other sites, and the outrage over the “censorship” caused a viral response, such that the hit rate over the last few days has meant a version of it is again nearing the top of search lists on YouTube. In effect, the Internet has “routed around” this problem.

The interesting thing, of course, is that as is often the case this effort at semi-censorship has only made the video higher-profile than it otherwise would have been. Meanwhile, I’m actually a little bit surprised its taken M.I.A. this much time to land herself in a controversy of this sort—she’s always seemed to me to be deliberately pushing past the boundaries of acceptable discourse in order to get attention.

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