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Security

Independent Commission Says Bahrain Security Forces Used Torture, ‘Excessive’ Force Against Protesters

By Guest Blogger on Nov 23, 2011 at 4:03 pm

Our guest bloggers are Sarah Margon, associate director for Sustainable Security at the Center for American Progress, and Martin Wolberg-Stok, sustainable security intern at CAP.

Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of Middle East experts and leading human rights organizations sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their concerns about the ongoing political tensions in Bahrain. The letter urged the U.S. to hold the Bahraini government to its commitments for reform and to encourage constructive participation from the opposition

The impetus for this letter was the much-anticipated report of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) report, released earlier today. The report sought to address the violent events that occurred last February, when hundreds of thousands Bahrainis demonstrated peacefully in support of greater political freedom. Appointed by the King of Bahrain, the Commission was headed by an Egyptian-American professor and made up of independent, internationally recognized scholars and jurists. Despite this diverse group, the Commission still had an uphill battle given the surrounding environment of paranoia and mistrust to conduct its investigations.

In a move welcomed by many Bahrain watchers, the commission, found that the government’s security forces used “unnecessary and excessive force” and that many detainees were subjected to torture. The report effectively confirms the accusations from national and international human rights groups that the government of Bahrain was guilty of systematic human rights violations.

The response from the Bahraini government is notable, with a spokesman commenting that, “The government welcomes the findings of the Independent Commission, and acknowledges its criticisms.” However, many of the BICI recommendations center around the need for institutional change in Bahrain’s legal framework — a complex and potentially lengthy process. Indeed, as the report notes, the “systematic pattern of behavior…indicates that this [use of excessive force] is how these security forces were trained and were expected to behave.” Specific, concrete recommendations for changing these structural problems — and a willingness to implement them — are vital for any real progress to occur.

Given the unrest throughout the broader Middle East, the Commission’s report has gained international significance, including for many law and policymakers in Washington, who have walked a careful line in dealing with the Bahraini government over the last few months. As ThinkProgress reported last September, the administration came under pressure from rights groups for approving a $53 million arms package to Bahrain, seemingly ignoring the crackdown on protesters. Bahrain has been a critical ally of the United States in the Middle East and the island serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet.
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Economy

Romney Once Raised Business Taxes To Pay For Unemployment Benefits He Now Wants To Privatize

By Marie Diamond on Nov 23, 2011 at 4:00 pm

Despite their unwillingness to raise taxes one penny on millionaires and billionaires, Republicans have stubbornly refused to extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax break that middle class families depend on in these difficult times.

GOP presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has dutifully toed the party line. In a USA Today op-ed opposing the extension, Romney argued that the central problem was that “unemployment benefits, despite a web of regulations, actually serve to discourage some individuals from taking jobs…”

Yet Huffington Post reports that when he was governor of Massachusetts in 2003, Romney actually supported a “huge increase” in business taxes to pay for unemployment benefits:

Facing a depleted unemployment insurance trust fund upon entering the Massachusetts governor’s office in 2003, Mitt Romney proposed a $260 million tax increase on employers as part of a plan that included comprehensive benefit reforms. [...]

[T]he willingness to sign off on an agreement that involved even those tax hikes also reflected a type of political pragmatism that few Republicans would show today. “There’s still going to be a huge increase,” Romney told The Patriot Ledger’s editorial board at the time, acknowledging that his plan would also include a tax hike. [...]

Indeed, two years after making that initial proposal, Romney had presidential ambitions and had shifted to a more conservative plank, calling for tax cuts for employers as part of comprehensive unemployment insurance reform. Six years later, second-time presidential candidate Romney has gone even further, suggesting the privatization of the program.

Romney’s evolution on the issue is yet another example of his willingness to ditch any previously held position to pander to the conservative base. When asked at a debate whether he would support an extension of unemployment insurance benefits set to expire at the end of the year, Romney said he favored privatizing benefits. In short, Romney believes workers should pay for their own unemployment benefits.

Suzy Khimm at the Washington Post points out “Americans are heavily dependent on UI benefits because there are no jobs to be found, not because they’re not motivated enough to find them. Currently, there are 4.5 job seekers for every open job — and that ratio is worse in areas with high unemployment.”

The system Romney proposes would disadvantage low-wage workers who have “have more trouble building up funds in their accounts on a regular basis, particularly in a climate of economic instability.” He would also nix the protection workers have that requires employers who lay off large numbers of people to pay a higher payroll insurance tax.

Additionally, Romney refuses to back an extension of the payroll tax breaks everyone who gets a paycheck is receiving this year — apparently the one tax hike he is willing to support. Yesterday President Obama once again challenged Congress to extend and expand the tax cut, in the spirit of the holiday season. He noted that if Republicans vote no, middle class families will have to pay an additional $1,000 in taxes next year.

“If your members of Congress aren’t listening, you’ve got to send them a message,” Obama said. “Tell them, don’t be a Grinch.”

Special Topic

Angry Over Unfair Mortgage Practices, Churches Pull Money From Wall Street Banks

By Travis Waldron on Nov 23, 2011 at 3:30 pm

Religious leaders at Occupy Wall Street

Even though their profits are rising, Wall Street banks have begun getting bad news from the 99 Percent Movement. More than 40,000 people moved their money from banks to credit unions on Bank Transfer Day earlier this month, bringing total new credit union enrollment up to more than 650,000 since the beginning of October. For the 10 largest banks, that could mean about $185 billion in lost deposits next year alone.

Now, a new coalition of groups is planning to move even more money off of Wall Street. Angered by predatory and often discriminatory mortgage lending practices that continue to come to light, an inter-faith coalition of churches and religious organizations is pledging to move as much as $1 billion away from the nation’s biggest banks, the Washington Post reports:

The New Bottom Line (NBL) coalition of congregations, community organizations, labor unions and individuals is promoting a “Move Our Money” campaign with the goal of shifting $1 billion from big banks to community banks and credit unions.

“In a way, the banks have divested from our communities, especially communities of color,” said the Rev. Ryan Bell, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Los Angeles. “So we’re basically telling Bank of America that we want them to invest in our communities, and until they do that we’re not going to give our money to them.”

The Move Our Money campaign is the latest sign of religious organizations joining in the 99 Percent Movement’s struggle. As of Monday, churches had already moved more than $55 million from Wall Street banks, and about 100 leaders from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups have pledged to move more than $100 million more in the coming days.

The campaign, meanwhile, should draw more attention to predatory lending practices from Wall Street. Bank of America and other banks have come under fire for various types of mortgage fraud and abuse, including robo-signing foreclosure documents and repossessing homes that either weren’t in foreclosure or that the banks didn’t own. As Bell told the Post, recent reports have also shed light on the discriminatory nature of those mortgage practices, as blacks and Latinos were twice as likely to have been affected by the housing crisis as white borrowers.

Justice

After Alabama Arrests Mercedes Executive, St. Louis Paper Tries To Poach Mercedes Plant For Missouri

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Nov 23, 2011 at 3:20 pm

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch proposed a plan for Mercedes-Benz’s SUV plant in Alabama after one of the automaker’s German managers, Detlev Hager, was arrested under Alabama’s draconian immigration law — move the factory to Missouri instead. The paper’s editorial board lays out their reasons in today’s editorial:

Our state has many advantages over Alabama. We are the Show-Me State, not the “Show me your papers” state. Our Legislature is hostile on the immigration issue, but not as hostile as Alabama’s or Arizona’s. [...]

We realize that moving a massive automotive plant is quite the undertaking, but we happen to have space for one in Fenton and a lot of trained autoworkers. A lot.

We have a state law that offers up to $100 million in tax incentives for automobile plant expansion; in the last 12 months Ford and General Motors have expanded operations here. We probably could come up with a lot more for a brand new plant. [...]

You’ve got two choices. Either ask your executives to carry their immigration papers at all times, or move to a state that understands gemüchlichkeit.

Some business leaders are worried that the extreme immigration law will scare away foreign investors; by 2014, Mercedes will have invested $4 billion in Alabama after opening its first U.S. factory in the state in 1993. And with about 2,800 people employed by Mercedes in Alabama, losing the investment would compound the economic damage the immigration law is already causing in Alabama.

Mercedes-Benz spokeswoman Felyicia Jerald said in an email to ThinkProgress that the company was not commenting about the immigration law’s impact on Mercedes’ business in Alabama, but she said that “Mercedes-Benz will take steps to educate our visiting business guests and employees stationed in the U.S. of the documentation requirements for the State of Alabama.” Now the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has explained one way Mercedes could avoid having to make sure their foreign employees have their papers with them at all times.

NEWS FLASH

Romney Tells Iowa Audience: ‘I’m Not Trying To Put Money In People’s Pockets’ | Part of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) plan to boost economic growth, he says, is a tax cut that comes in the form of repealing certain taxes on investments for the middle class. As ThinkProgress has noted, however, those cuts won’t actually benefit most middle-class individuals. Romney may now be aware of that fact, as he told one local resident in Des Moines, Iowa today that he isn’t “trying to put money in people’s pockets. That’s the other party.” Watch it:

Despite what he says, Romney is indeed trying “to reduce the tax burden…that’s paid by the top one percent.” His tax plan, in fact, gives a $6.6 billion tax cut to corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

LGBT

Covering All The Basics: Google Benefits Now Include Transgender Employees

By Kellan Baker, Guest Blogger on Nov 23, 2011 at 2:35 pm

Internet trend-setter Google has joined the ranks of those leading another trend: offering fully inclusive health care benefits to transgender employees. Effective immediately, the company’s employee benefits policies will cover all medically necessary procedures and services for transgender employees in accordance with the Standards of Care maintained by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). These procedures include treatments commonly related to gender transition, such as hormone therapy, reconstructive chest and genital surgery, and mental health services.

In addition to WPATH, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the Endocrine Society, and other major medical professional associations have determined that transition-related care is safe, effective, and medically necessary. However, access to these medically necessary services is limited for many transgender people by insurance exclusions that specifically deny coverage for care related to being transgender.

The vast majority of medically necessary services denied to transgender people by insurance industry exclusions are routinely covered for non-transgender people and are all likely to be part of the list of essential benefits to be determined by the Department of Health and Human Services in the spring. These services include:

– coverage for services that may be involved in gender transition but that are also often medically necessary for non-transgender people, such as hormone therapy, hysterectomy, mental health services, and reconstructive surgery

– coverage for routine preventive screenings, such as screenings for ovarian, cervical, and prostate cancer, and other services that are typically associated with one gender or another

– coverage for services that are not transition-related, such setting a broken bone or treating pneumonia

Thanks to Google’s size, the company was able to negotiate with its current insurance providers to remove exclusions and to affirm that coverage is available for all services that a doctor has deemed medically necessary for a transgender employee. Google’s move to end discrimination against its transgender employees in health coverage is part of a growing trend by companies focused on winning the battle to attract and retain a highly qualified and competitive workforce. According to the 2011 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), 85 companies, including eight of the top 20 Fortune 500 companies and 26 of the American Lawyer top 200 law firms, already provide these benefits to their more than 2.6 million employees. In 2012, the CEI will begin requiring all companies that it rates to offer fully transgender-inclusive benefits in order to score a full 100 percent in its rankings.

These companies have consistently found that the costs involved in providing inclusive benefits for their transgender employees are negligible. And with overwhelming majorities of Americans agreeing that transgender people deserve protection from discrimination, there’s no better time for forward-thinking companies to cover all the basics for their transgender employees by ending discrimination in health care benefits.

Climate Progress

Congress Skips Durban Climate Talks: Is That a Good Thing?

By Stephen Lacey on Nov 23, 2011 at 2:33 pm

At least we know Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) — one of the fiercest climate deniers in Congress — won’t be making a side show out of the Durban climate talks. He won’t be attending this year.

But neither will anyone else in Congress.

Greenwire reports today that only one Congressional staffer and zero members — yes zero — have plans to attend the COP 17 climate conference in South Africa next week. With the press prematurely declaring the talks all but dead, members of Congress seem to have latched onto that storyline:

Read more

Climate Progress

War On Coal? EPA Regulations Boost Coal Employment To 15-Year High

By Travis Waldron on Nov 23, 2011 at 2:28 pm

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration has increased efforts to regulate the coal industry, using tougher environmental standards under the Clean Water Act to rein in destructive coal practices like mountaintop removal. That has sparked outrage from Republicans across the country and Democrats in coal states like Kentucky and West Virginia, where industry leaders and pro-coal politicians have decried Obama and the EPA’s supposed “war on coal.”

But even as America deals with high unemployment and a sluggish economic recovery, coal employment this year rose to its highest level since 1996, according to data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration. In 2011, there were more than 90,000 coal jobs, and the 59,059 Appalachian coal jobs are the most since 1997. According to the same data, the spike in employment correlates to the EPA’s crackdown on destructive mountaintop removal policies, the Charleston Gazette reports:

Matt Wasson, director of programs for the group Appalachian Voices, said his review of the MSHA data shows the number of coal jobs in the region has increased by 10 percent since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began a crackdown on mountaintop-removal mining in June 2009.

“In other words, the idea of a ‘permitorium’ on coal mine permitting that House Republicans are pushing out is completely and demonstrably false,” Wasson said Friday.

As Wasson said, the industry and the politicians it contributes to most have slammed the EPA’s regulatory policies as “job killing” and anti-coal. In reality, however, mechanized practices like mountaintop removal can reduce employment while boosting production and profits. Underground mining, a less destructive form of coal extraction, actually requires more workers than mountaintop removal or strip mining.

The coal industry spends millions each year in advertising and political contributions to disseminate the myth that regulating mining and opposing mountaintop removal is akin to killing jobs. Reality, however, shows that just as in other industries, the opposite is true, and regulations to boost worker safety and environmental protection can actually have a positive effect on job creation. As Appalachian Voices’ Matt Wasson told the Gazette, “The hysterical reaction of coal companies to any and all regulations to protect the safety of workers and communities near their mines is about profits, not jobs.”

Security

Bachmann Still Peddling False Claim That Iranians Said They Want To Attack U.S. With Nukes

By Eli Clifton on Nov 23, 2011 at 2:20 pm

During last night’s GOP national security debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that he would use a nuclear weapon to destroy both the U.S. and Israel. Neither Ahmadinejad, nor any other Iranian official, has said any such thing but this isn’t the first time Bachmann attributed the same, inaccurate, statement to Ahmadinejad.

Here’s what she said last night:

BACHMANN: Why is that we’re talking about Israel having to make a strike against Iran? It’s because Iran has announced they plan to strike Israel. They’ve stated as recently as August, just before President Ahmadinejad came to the U.N. General Assembly. He stated they wanted to eradicate Israel from the face of the Earth. He has said that if he has a nuclear weapon, he will use it to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. He will use it against the United States of America. This isn’t just an idle threat, this is a reality.

Watch it:

Bachmann’s assertion is patently false. Iran has consistently denied that it has a nuclear weapon or is seeking to build one. Just three weeks ago, ABC’s Christiane Amanpour called Bachmann out on her misstating of the same quote, saying:

AMANPOUR: Congresswoman, of course the United States is concerned about the nuclear program. Iran denies that it has one, so it hasn’t threatened to use them.

Watch it:

A simple misunderstanding of the facts, albeit a misunderstanding with potentially serious consequences, might be excused. But Bachmann’s repeated misrepresentation of Iranian positions, even after being corrected, suggests a willful strategy of attributing inaccurate and incendiary quotes to Ahmadinejad.

NEWS FLASH

Anti-Gay Groups Spending Big, Despite Economic Downturn | A new report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that anti-gay groups like the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), Concerned Women for America, and the Family Research Council (FRC) spent big dollars opposing equality in 2008 and 2009, despite the economic recession. NOM “more than doubled its advocacy expenditures from $3.3 million in 2008 to $8.6 million in 2009,” while the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, spent $26.7 million on advocacy in 2009:

(HT: Carlos Maza)

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