ThinkProgress Logo

NEWS FLASH

CHART: Low-Income Students Are Five Times More Likely To Drop Out Than Affluent Students | A new report on dropout rates from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that “while there has been an overall decline in dropouts since 1972, there are still 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 without a high school diploma, a disproportionate number of whom are minority and poor.” In fact, low-income students are five times more likely to drop out of school than students from affluent families.

Politics

Rep. Allen West: ‘Martin Luther King Jr. Would Not Have Backed’ The 99 Percent Movement

By Tanya Somanader on Oct 19, 2011 at 5:55 pm

At the dedication of the national Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. memorial last Sunday, the Rev. Bernice King said her father Dr. King would support the 99 Percent Movement: “I hear my father saying what we are seeing now all across the streets of America and the world is a freedom explosion.” She reminded the nation that civil rights leader worked not just for racial justice, but for economic justice as well. “We should never adjust to the one percent controlling more than 40 percent of the wealth,” she said.

Florida Rep. Allen West (R), however, was “born and raised” in the same town that Dr. King grew up in. Therefore, he asserted as a fact today in a Newsmax interview that “Martin Luther King, Jr. would not back these types of protesters”:

WEST: I was born and raised in the same town that Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up in. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not have backed these type of protesters. First of all, Martin Luther King, Jr. had a focus, he had a message. He was divinely inspired. I don’t know what the inspiration is for these individuals.

Watch it:

Unfortunately for West, geographical proximity clearly did not provide West any insight into the man himself. Like the 99 percent movement, King consistently called for economic justice. He critiqued unregulated free marketism as a system that permits “necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few.” He envisioned a “Poor People’s Campaign” in which a multiracial coalition would march through the capital to “demand that President Lyndon Johnson and Congress help the poor get jobs, health care, and decent homes.”

King was assassinated just weeks before the march on May 12, 1968. Rev. Ralph Abernathy carried his legacy to DC, stating, “We come with an appeal to open the doors of America to the almost 50 million Americans who have not been given a fair share of American’s wealth and opportunity, and we will stay until we get it.” This, incidentally, is what the 99 Percent Movement is about.

This, however, is also what West sees as “contradictory to the foundational principles and values that we have in the United States.” If West grew up anywhere near Dr. King and his legacy, he has now turned his back on him.

NEWS FLASH

DOD Allows Same-Sex Couple To Attend Family Event | “The Department of Defense has clarified regulations that will allow Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Morgan of the New Hampshire National Guard to bring her same-sex partner to a yellow ribbon family reintegration event in North Conway this weekend,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen just announced in a press release. Shaheen had written a letter urging Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to review the military’s regulations prohibiting same-sex couples from attending such events. “This is terrific news for Charlie Morgan and her family,” said Shaheen. “But this is just one small part of a much larger problem. We have a fundamental inequity in our policy, which has created two classes of soldiers. It isn’t fair and it has to end.” Indeed, while gays and lesbians can now serve openly, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act still denies same-sex couples and their families access to federal benefits.

Yglesias

You Don’t Need A Regressive “Flat Tax” To Eliminate Deductions

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 19, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Rick Perry apparently is hoping to revive his failing campaign with the old flat tax bait and switch:

Mr. Perry did not offer details of how his plan would work. He said he wanted to scrap “the three million words of the current tax code and start with something simple: a flat tax.”

“I want to make the tax code so simple that even Timothy Geithner can file his taxes on time,” the governor said.

Our tax code differs from what Perry is proposing in two ways. One is that the definition of taxable income is complicated because you can deduct home mortgage interest, non-reimbursed business expenses, a whole suite of small-bore tax credits, charitable contributions, and various other things. A second is that we have multiple tax brackets, such that a rich guy pays a higher marginal rate than a poor person. It’s changing the first that makes a tax code simpler. There’s nothing complicated about calculating how much you owe in taxes once you’ve calculated your taxable income. The second change just helps rich people pay less taxes.

Alyssa

The Vulnerabilities Of Britney Spears

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Oct 19, 2011 at 5:21 pm

This may sound strange, but even though Britney Spears is three years older and vastly wealthier and more famous than I am, I’ve felt for years like she was my pop-cultural little sister. Maybe it was the video for “Lucky,” which felt like the confessions I heard from cheerleaders in high school about how miserable they were — I know, I know, but pretty blondes have problems, too. Maybe it was the very public meltdown, that left her, a grown woman with two children, under her father’s conservatorship. And maybe it’s the perpetual sadness that seems to haunt so many of her subsequent music videos: her smile at the end of the video for “Circus” felt like the happiest we’d seen her in performances — or in life — in years.

But it’s also fascinating to me the way post-breakdown Britney and the folks around her have aestheticized her vulnerability. Take her new video for “Criminal”:

It’s not that we don’t see female pop stars put themselves in a position to be manhandled in their own videos — Rihanna suffers a much more brutal and extensive assault in “Man Down.” But in this case, we’re attuned to Britney’s vulnerability, we believe she really would choose a guy who would do something like this to her. And even though her bad behavior once she ditches him isn’t directed at her nasty ex, the fact that he treated her badly becomes a form of narrative permission for her to hold up convenience stores and get steamy with her real-life boyfriend on film.

She doesn’t need any such permission in the video for “Toxic,” where she’s a totally confident troublemaker (And the nodding white, male business-class passengers actually feel like a call-out, whether it’s intentional or not, to OutKast’s circus audience in the video for “The Whole World.”):

That same sort of permission narrative is at work in the video for “I Wanna Go,” where the obnoxious questions of celebrity journalists and persistence of paparazzi photographers (also, the fact that they’re terminators) justify Britney’s decision to lash out against them violently and go for a joy ride:

The invasiveness of celebrity journalism is a common theme in Britney’s conservatorship-era videos, whether she’s critiquing their voraciousness in “Piece of Me” or punking the folks who are camped outside her sex den by baking them pie and presenting herself as an All-American housewife in “If You Seek Amy.” It’s a smart ploy, letting Spears present herself as a victim rather than complicit in an industry that’s ugly but that helps her make a lot of money. But part of what’s interesting about the story in “I Wanna Go” is that it neutralizes her rebellion in the end. The agent of her escape, the guy who tells her he loves dreams and seashells, is one of the same Terminators who were harassing her with cameras earlier. She can never really escape. Her rebellion is sexy, but ultimately futile.

NEWS FLASH

HHS Confirms It Will Establish A Federal Exchange | The Affordable Care Act allows the federal government to build a health insurance exchange for states that refuse to establish their own marketplaces. But the limited funding for a federal exchange may have led some governors to believe that HHS would not have the ability to live up to that promise and they’ve flouting the law’s requirements in the hopes that reform will never come to fruition. Well yesterday, the HHS official in charge of overseeing the creation of insurance exchanges emphasized “that a federal exchange will be ready to step in to the extent states don’t have their own new marketplaces ready to offer insurance choices to the uninsured by Jan. 1, 2014.” “‘There’s been a lot of backing and forthing in the press saying the feds won’t do it, it’s not going to happen, we don’t have the ability. Well, I’m here to tell you all of that isn’t true,’ Tim Hill told a health care conference sponsored by the American Bar Association (ABA).” In other words, states that fail to build their own exchanges will be inviting federal intervention — the very thing they say they are trying to prevent by avoiding implementation of the law.

Climate Progress

Anti-EPA Congressmen Come Under Fire For Blocking Clean Air Regulations

By Rebecca Leber on Oct 19, 2011 at 5:15 pm

House Republicans are on defense after their latest attacks on the EPA and clean air. The House recently passed two bills that would block the EPA from regulating toxic materials at cement kilns and power plants.

Now, legislators are feeling pressure from environmental groups, particularly in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The group Environment New Jersey has targeted three Republicans who represent one of the smoggiest states in the country. Meanwhile, the National Resources Defense Council has launched an ad campaign against Pennsylvania Reps. Tim Holden (D) and Lou Barletta (R) for supporting weakened rules. Their offices have responded, telling PoliticsPA they did not repeal “existing” regulation under the Clean Air Act, despite the fact they voted against cleaner standards. Holden responded:

I mean, if they would have said ‘Holden represents the … coal fields and he votes for coal,’ I deserve that. But I don’t deserve to have pictures of children, innocent children, with masks on like we’re hurting their health.

However, by preventing new measures, the representatives are hurting public health. For instance, new EPA rules would limit oversight of coal ash, which contain toxins like arsenic and lead. Spokesmen for the congressmen evade accusations by saying they did not roll back “existing” regulations. The EPA estimates the House’s actions would lead to more than 32,500 premature deaths.

These measures stand little chance of moving further than the House, with President Obama threatening to veto the bills. Legislators will continue to be put on the defense in coming months, with environmental groups reporting a financial boost from the House’s attacks.

Justice

Women Required To Sit At The Back Of A Public Bus In Brooklyn

By Marie Diamond on Oct 19, 2011 at 5:10 pm

Segregated public buses may seem like a anachronism that went out with Rosa Parks, but women are still required to sit at the back on one New York City bus line. The New York World reports that while the B110 in Brooklyn is open to the public, a council of Orthodox Jewish leaders has control over its policies because the route serves a Jewish community in the city.

And the rabbis on the bus’ consulting council have decreed that male passengers should ride in the front of the bus and female passengers in the back:

The B110 bus travels between Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn. It is open to the public, and has a route number and tall blue bus stop signs like any other city bus. But the B110 operates according to its own distinct rules. The bus line is run by a private company and serves the Hasidic communities of the two neighborhoods. To avoid physical contact between members of opposite sexes that is prohibited by Hasidic tradition, men sit in the front of the bus and women sit in the back.

The arrangement that the B110 operates under can only be described as unorthodox. It operates as a franchise, in which a private company, Private Transportation Corporation, pays the city for the right to provide a public service.[...]

City, state and federal law all proscribe discrimination based on gender in public accommodations.[...] The Department of Transportation, which issues the franchise, confirms that it understands the B110 to be subject to anti-discrimination laws. “This is a private company, but it is a public service,” said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the DOT. “The company has to comply with all applicable laws.”

The rule is no mere formality. Women who ride the bus, even those who are not Jewish, report that they are ordered by male passengers to move to the back, and scolded when they ask questions.

The DOT spokesman said the agency would contact the bus company about these incidents, “with the expectation that it will take steps to prevent the occurrence of incidents of this nature.” However, the New York City Commission on Human Rights, which prosecutes violations of anti-discrimination law, said it would not investigate unless someone filed a complaint. But a spokeswoman for the commission indicated that they too understood the bus line to be a public accommodation subject to anti-discrimination laws, even if it is run by a private company.

The city’s peculiar arrangement with a group of orthodox religious leaders often criticized for their exclusionary treatment of women seems to blur the constitutional line between church and state beyond distinction. Hasidics’ segregationist policies are not representative of the Jewish community as a whole — in fact, many Jews reject their practices because they prohibit women from participating in the most meaningful parts of religious life, including prayer and public reading of the Torah.

Ross Sandler, a professor at New York Law School, says anti-discrimination laws apply to buses that are franchises but “the question is whether there is an exception for this particular bus line.” The Transportation Department said that the B110 had not been granted any exceptions to anti-discrimination laws.

Climate Progress

Solar Trade War? Accusations of China’s Illegal Solar Subsidies Stirring Debate in the Solar Industry

By Stephen Lacey on Oct 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm

Concerns about China’s support of domestic solar companies have been brewing for years. But they have finally come to a boiling point — and it’s causing some in the solar industry to feel burned.

The German solar manufacturer SolarWorld, along with six other unnamed companies, filed a petition to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission today, calling for America to challenge China’s “illegal” subsidies to solar companies and develop tariffs for Chinese products:

With a large number of subsidies and preferential treatments, the Chinese government and its state authorities have enabled its solar industry to make price cuts well beyond their own efficiency and to massively expand the export of its goods. Many documented cases of violations of social, quality and environmental standards that regulate production sites in the U.S. and Germany have also been discovered.

SolarWorld, which just laid off 66 people at a facility in California, says that China’s “unfair practices” make it nearly impossible for solar manufacturers to continue operations in the United States.  SolarWorld executives hosted an event on Capitol Hill in Washington today with two Democratic Senators from Oregon, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. The company’s U.S. headquarters are based in Oregon.

Speaking to reporters at the event, Gordon Brisner, president of SolarWorld’s U.S. business, called China’s subsidies “no different than giving an athlete a bucket of steroids.”

But here’s the problem: No one really knows how potent those “steroids” are. Or if they’re illegal.

Climate Progress and other publications reported recently on the more than $30 billion in loans that the China Development Bank had offered Chinese companies in 2010. However, those are offers to take down the loans over a multi-year period. Many companies have not yet taken the full amount offered, so it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between loans to Chinese and U.S.-based firms.

The terms of the loans are also difficult to dissect. Suntech says it is getting a loan from the China Development Bank at 5% interest —far above what an American loan guarantee would provide. But in many cases, provincial governments will pay that interest for the company along with providing other perks. Take this example, from a very detailed investigative piece in the New York Times last year:

Read more

Security

Emergency Committee For Israel Board Member Calls Palestinians ‘Savages,’ ‘Unmanned Animals,’ ‘Food For Sharks’

By Eli Clifton on Oct 19, 2011 at 4:52 pm

Rachel Abrams

The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) — a right-wing “pro-Israel” pressure group — attempted to paint the Occupy Wall Street protests as anti-Semitic. But while plenty of evidence runs counter to the ECI’s far-reaching assertions that politicians are “turning a blind eye to anti-semitic, anti-Israel attacks,” the ECI is much slower to condemn its own ties to ethnic and religious intolerance.

ECI board member Rachel Abrams — wife of George W. Bush administration Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams — litters her blog, “Bad Rachel,” with homophobic, anti-Palestinian, innuendo-filled screeds about political opponents.

Last year, she focused on Christopher Hitchens’ bisexuality in a post titled “Giving Homosexuality a Bad name.” She wrote:

Wherever one stands on the homosexuality question—I’m agnostic, or would be if the “gay community” would quit trying to shove legislation down my throat—there can be no denying bisexuality’s double betrayal—you never know, whether you’re the man of the hour or the woman, when the ground on which you’re standing is going to turn to ashes—nor any denying the self-admiring “nourishment” its promiscuous conquests afford.

And following the death of Sen. “Teddy” Kennedy (D-MA), she offered the following innuendo-filled limerick:

An amorous sot name of Teddy
Lost control when things got a bit heady.
He went over the side,
Left his ride in the tide,
And his squeeze giving head to an eddy.

But Abrams saves her harshest, most dehumanizing, words for Palestinians. Abrams writes that after Israel finishes celebrating the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, they should:

…round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women—those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others—and their offspring—those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god—as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.

Abrams’ violent fantasies are protected under the first amendment, but the organization’s leadership might want to look in the mirror before smearing the Occupy Wall Street protests as intolerant. (HT: Media Matters)

Older

Newer

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up