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Politics

BREAKING: House GOP Votes Down Resolution Containing Disaster Relief Funds It Promised Not To Hold Hostage

By Travis Waldron on Sep 21, 2011 at 6:04 pm

With just more than a week until the government’s spending authority ends, the House’s continuing resolution failed 195-230 today, as 48 Republicans broke with party leadership to vote down the measure that would have kept the government functioning through mid-November had the Senate passed the same version. The resolution had been expected to pass easily.

Republican opposition was based on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) attachment of $1 billion in disaster relief funds in the wake of Hurricane Irene and other climate disasters, which Republicans, including Cantor, had demanded be offset by spending cuts in other areas. Last week, Cantor promised that no one in the House Republican caucus would hold disaster relief hostage over spending cuts — an assertion that today’s vote has apparently proven false. Democrats opposed the offsets Republicans did find, which targeted funding for energy efficienct vehicles. A bipartisan Senate majority approved $7 billion in disaster relief funds last week.

The House GOP brought the government to the brink of shutdown in April, when a last-minute deal with Democrats ended in a six-month spending bill that expires next week. It appears they’re doing it again.

Security

What The Neocons Don’t Ask: How Much Will It Cost To Stay In Iraq?

By Ben Armbruster on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:39 pm

In an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complained about a report that the Obama administration is considering keeping 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq past the end-of-the-year total withdrawal deadline — not because the president is maintaining a U.S. troop presence there, but because it’s too small:

We have frequently traveled to Iraq, meeting with national leaders in Baghdad, local officials throughout the country, and U.S. military commanders and diplomats. What we have consistently heard on these visits is that Iraq’s security and stability will require a continuing — though greatly reduced — U.S. military presence after the end of this year, when our current security agreement with Iraq expires. We have also heard that, given the essential missions that this post-2011 force must carry out, no fewer than 10,000 and as many as 25,000 troops will be required. No one has suggested that 3,000 would be enough.

While Army Chief of Staff and former top U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have both suggested that it may be unwise to keep a large U.S force structure in Iraq, McCain, Lieberman and Graham conveniently omitted that the Iraqis may not want tens of thousands of U.S. troops in their country past 2011. But that’s not all they left out. As Just Foreign Policy‘s Robert Naiman points out in a letter to the editor, keeping American forces in Iraq beyond the pullout deadline costs money:

According to the Congressional Research Service, it currently costs an average of $802,000 to keep one U.S. soldier in Iraq for one year. At that rate, to keep 10,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq from 2012 to 2021 would cost $80 billion; to keep 25,000 soldiers there would cost $200 billion. This $200 billion represents one-sixth of the $1.2 trillion target of the debt reduction “supercommittee.” It is also more than the government would save over 10 years if it were to cut the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security and raise the Medicare retirement age to 67, as earlier discussed by President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner.

It’s not surprising McCain and Co. didn’t consider the financial burden of keeping a sizable U.S. force in Iraq indefinitely, ignoring the war’s cost has been a hallmark of the entire campaign.

NEWS FLASH

Senators Introduce Permanent Ban To Global Gag Rule | Last night, Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and 15 other senators reintroduced legislation that would permanently repeal the Global Gag Rule — which prohibits foreign organizations receiving U.S. development assistance from using their own funds to perform abortions or provide women with information and referrals for the procedure. The gag rule was initially instituted by President Ronald Reagan in Mexico City in 1984, lifted by President Bill Clinton on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in 1993, reinstated by President George W. Bush on his first working day in office in 2001, and then lifted again by President Barack Obama. The Republican House is now seeking to bring back the measure. Lautenberg’s and Boxer’s Global Democracy Promotion Act (GDPA) states, “foreign nongovernmental organizations shall not be ineligible for such assistance solely on the basis of health or medical services, including counseling and referral services, provided by such organizations with non-United States Government funds if such services do not violate the laws of the country.”

Justice

Right-Wing Media Says It’s ‘Time To Execute’ Troy Davis

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:30 pm

As demonstrations break out around the world to protest the execution of Troy Davis tonight in Georgia, some conservatives have been less than concerned with the doubt surrounding his conviction. CNN contributor and Red State editor Erick Erickson wrote that Davis is noting more than a “cop killer who, 20 years later, defense attorneys and liberals are turning into a victim.” “The state maintained a finding of guilt. Time to execute him,” Erickson added on Twitter.

Davis was convicted of killing an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard, but seven of the nine witnesses have since recanted and many experts say there is “too much doubt” to proceed with an execution.

But Fox News didn’t seem too concerned. Throughout the day, the network has overwhelmingly presented the prosecutions’ view, giving little airtime to the other side. Fox and Friends host Gretchen Carlson said Davis “murdered a police officer 22 years ago” and will soon “pay the ultimate price,” while host Bill Hemmer called Davis a “cop killer.” The network then interviewed the daughter of the victim, who is convinced of Davis’ guilt.

The first time Fox interviewed anybody with an alternative view, it was a “short segment” debate in which host Megyn Kelly repeatedly interrupted Amnesty International’s Laura Moye, and echoed former prosecutor Jeffrey Steinberger’s argument to such a degree that he said, “that’s exactly what I said!” Watch it:

As contrast, CNN and MSNBC have both run multiple full segments on the issue, devoting entire interviews to opponents of the execution.

Update

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter chimes in:

For decades, liberals tried persuading Americans to abolish the death penalty, using their usual argument: hysterical sobbing.

Only when the media began lying about innocent people being executed did support for the death penalty begin to waver, falling from 80 percent to about 60 percent in a little more than a decade. (Silver lining: That’s still more Americans than believe in man-made global warming.) [...]

Davis is the media’s current baby seal of death row.

Yglesias

Whittling Away At Affordable Housing

By Matthew Yglesias on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Another day, another blow against affordable housing in the DC area struck by the Historic Preservation Review Board:

Callcott also praised the revised design: “Both in massing and design, the compatibility of the project has been significantly improved. With slight reductions in the building mass and the use of different architectural vocabularies, the weight of the building is broken down into smaller scaled elements that will coexist much more compatibly with the surrounding smaller historic buildings.”

Although the building’s height (7 stories) and 16,000 s.f. footprint remains unchanged, an approximate reduction in mass of 4,000 s.f., due to more significant step-downs, has taken the number of residential units from 154 to 144 units.

That’s 10 fewer housing units, which means 10 fewer people will be able to live in DC. The curious thing here is that you might intuitively think that a historic preservation board is trying to preserve certain existing structures from demolition by developers. But that’s not the case here. Rather, the issue all turns out whether or not something is “out of place on 14th Street” or is able to “coexist . . . compatibly” with other different buildings. Once again, I’m left to wonder what the aesthetic principle driving this is. Why is there should be government regulations requiring that new things resemble old things? Would we apply this to people who design things other than buildings? Sorry, Sleigh Bells, “Tell ‘Em” sounds out of place amongst other indie songs, so you can’t release it?

Climate Progress

CGI: Randi Weingarten Explains Why Teachers Are Supporting Green Infrastructure Investment

By Brad Johnson on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:27 pm

ThinkProgress Green is reporting live from the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York City.

A billion-dollar collaboration between unions and public pension funds is spearheading a nationwide effort to invest in energy efficient infrastructure projects. Along with the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers was critical to the establishment of this Clinton Global Initiative commitment, engaging a broad group of unions and public pension funds, including CalSTERS, California’s teacher pension fund.

ThinkProgress Green interviewed AFT President Randi Weingarten to find out why the nation’s largest teacher’s union got involved in a green jobs program which doesn’t have a direct connection to the educational system. Weingarten explained that America’s teachers believe in a stronger America, in which working people help each other:

If you actually believe in America, and believe in the American dream, and believe that we need to get people back to work and we need to build things, instead of waiting for other people to do it, you figure out the hows. You try to figure out how you can take and utilize — as long as they are fiduciarily sound investments — pension funds, which are working people’s capital, and put that to work for other working people.

Watch it:

The commitment of the American Federation of Teachers is also intergenerational, in keeping with the fundamental purpose of the educational profession. Teachers “want to make a difference in the lives of kids,” and rebuilding our nation’s crumbling infrastructure while fighting pollution does that. “If we create a stronger economy, we will have a stronger America. And frankly, a stronger economy and stronger educational opportunity go hand in hand,” Weingarten concluded.

Alyssa

‘The Boondocks’ And The Death Penalty

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:22 pm

I’ve tended not to think that The Boondocks is as funny as an animated show as it was when it was a syndicated newspaper strip (particularly in the early days). But there’s something resonant, angry, and sad about Huey’s plan to break a brother in the cause out of death row on the eve of Troy Davis’ execution:

The idea is that the court system provides us with some measure of impartial justice, inspired and guided beyond our petty politics. But what happens when, as Emily Hauser wrote in The Atlantic, “a long list of legal experts have, in fact, come forward to say that the case against Troy Davis is far too thin to support the death penalty…The entire case against Davis is based on eyewitness testimony — and seven out of nine eyewitnesses have either recanted or changed their testimonies…There is no physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. Just the word of people who have since said that they were frightened into lying.” It is terrifying when a supposedly apolitical branch of government becomes clearly political, but in a way that leaves us no political recourse to respond.

We can protest Troy Davis’ upcoming execution for a crime he didn’t commit, but there is no mechanism by which we can guarantee the process be halted, no way to break him out of jail, no civil disobedience that would put us between his body and the needle that will deliver his lethal injection. Huey’s fantasy isn’t just hard to watch because it’s goofy. It’s hard to watch because it’s an illustration of our own disempowerment in the face of our own broken system.

Economy

Sarah Palin Praises Lamestream AP’s Misleading ‘Fact Check’ For Exposing Obama’s ‘Lies’

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Sep 21, 2011 at 5:15 pm

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has built her public image on attacking the “lamestream media” for supposedly getting everything wrong. But she praised the lamest-stream media outlet of them all — the Associated Press — last night on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show for agreeing with her about President Obama’s tax proposal:

PALIN: The president is way off on his math for one. And I hope that you will get into what the AP did in terms of fact checking. I so appreciate that they just wanted to get to their readers, some information that helps us make better decisions. And I appreciate that they called the president on some of these — you know, I call them lies. Because I think surely, the president is too smart to not have people around him with a calculator and can tell us truly what people’s tax rates are and what his proposals will result in new tax rates been.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, the AP’s “fact-check” completely missed the point of Obama’s tax plan, which would make sure that wealthy Americans don’t pay less in taxes than middle-class Americans. The provision is dubbed the “Buffett Rule,” in honor of Warren Buffett, who has been advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy, like him.

The AP “fact check” claims that Obama is wrong because the average tax rate on the wealthy is already higher than that on the middle-class. But no one is disputing this. What the AP and Palin ignore is that there are many wealthy people who do not pay anywhere close to that higher rate.

In 2009, 1,470 households reported income of more than $1 million, but paid zero federal income tax. For the richest 400 people in the country, the average effective federal income tax rate in 2008 was just 18.11 percent. The Buffett rule is meant to ensure that this group of people can no longer slip through the tax code’s cracks.

Moreover, Palin’s invocation of the word “lie” — a word, while often hinted at, that is almost never used in politics — is notable, especially considering the AP never alleged anything of the sort.

NEWS FLASH

Limbaugh: ‘Only Obama’s Skin Color’ Is Stopping Black Lawmakers’ ‘Pitchforks’ | Race-baiting conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said on his show today that black lawmakers would come after the president with “pitchforks” if it weren’t for Obama’s race. Some African-American lawmakers have expressed frustration with the president, prompting Limbaugh to say, “it is only Obama’s skin color that is standing between him and the pitchforks of the Congressional Black Caucus.” Listen here, via Mediaite:

In fact, it’s people like Limbaugh who are stopping the CBC from going after the president. “Nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president,” as CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (R-MO) said.

Related Posts

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Sep 21, 2011 at 4:55 pm

LGBT

New York Archbishop: Obama’s Opposition To DOMA Undermines His Commitment To Children

By Igor Volsky on Sep 21, 2011 at 4:50 pm

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan — who led the charge against same-sex marriage in the state — has written a letter to President Obama urging him to stop “attacking” the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act — which prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay and lesbian couples. In the letter, Dolan argues that Obama’s decision not to defend the 1996 law undermines his commitment to parenting and children:

Mr. President, your Administration‟s actions against DOMA and the values it stands for contrast sharply with your excellent Mother‟s Day and Father‟s Day proclamations issued earlier this year, which are also referenced in the attached analysis. In these perceptive and heartening statements, you correctly emphasize the critical role played by both a mom and a dad in a child‟s life, and you rightly call upon society to do all it can to uphold both mothers and fathers.

I know that you treasure the importance that you and the First Lady, separately and as a couple, share in the lives of your children. The Mother‟s Day and Father‟s Day proclamations display a welcome conviction on your part that neither a mom nor a dad is expendable. I believe therefore that you would agree that every child has the right to be loved by both a mother and a father.

Dolan’s argument appears unfounded, however. A range of existing studies, including research on gay and lesbian parents, have found that while it’s ideal for a child to be raised by two parents, the parents’ gender doesn’t cause radical differences. The American Psychological Association has also concluded that “beliefs that lesbian and gay adults are not fit parents have no empirical foundation. Lesbian and heterosexual women have not been found to differ markedly in their approaches to child rearing.”

Read the full letter here.

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