NEWS FLASH

Polls Tightening In Maine Marriage Equality Vote, But Majority Still Support | Two new polls in Maine today show the marriage equality referendum closer, but LGBT advocates still in the lead. A Public Policy Polling survey found 52 percent of Mainers back Question 1, which would legalize marriage equality, compared to 44 percent opposed. Interestingly, PPP notes that opposition drops to 40 percent “When we ask simply whether or not voters think same sex marriage should be legal.” Meanwhile, a poll from the Maine People’s Resource Center found 53 percent supported the measure with 43 percent opposed.

GOP Parrots Glenn Beck Conspiracy Theory, Suggests Obama Plans To Release World Trade Center Bomber

By Ben Armbruster on Sep 20, 2012 at 4:19 pm

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) (Photo: The Washington Post)

The Republican chairpersons of the House’s top security and fiscal committees wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder expressing concern that the Obama administration may release Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, aka the “Blind Sheikh,” as part of a deal with Egyptian officials in the aftermath of the attacks the U.S. Embassy there and the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Abdel Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in a federal prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

In the letter dated September 19, 2012, GOP Reps. Lamar Smith, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mike Rogers, Howard “Buck” McKeon, Peter King, Hal Rogers, Frank Wolf and Kay Granger write:

We are concerned about recent reports that the Obama administration is considering the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman. … Succumbing to the demands of a country whose citizens threaten our embassy and the Americans serving in it would send a clear message that acts of violence will be responded to with appeasement rather than strength.

The Obama administration has already said this report is false (“utter garbage” in the words of a Justice Department spokesperson). Yet these top Republicans ran with the charge anyway. So where did it come from?

It seems that the conspiracy theory started in part with a post on the Weekly Standard’s website last week, quoting a USA Today story reporting that the protests in Cairo may have been planned by a group the blind sheik formerly led.

But Glenn Beck’s website the Blaze reported on Sept. 17 that according to an anonymous source, “the transfer of the Blind Sheikh to Egypt is something that is being ‘actively considered’ by the administration as a solution to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.” The Blaze also reported DOJ’s denial and did not corroborate the anonymous source’s claim.

Right-wing blog Red State then picked up the story on Sept. 18. Yet Obama administration officials continued to say the story is false. “To my knowledge, it hasn’t come up,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said on that day. On Sept. 19, a reporter pressed the issue, and Nuland was a bit more direct. “Let me say as clearly as I can, there is no plan to release the blind sheikh,” she said. “There is no plan.”

Despite the very direct denials, Ros-Lehtinen, Rogers, King and the other top House Republicans ran with the Glenn Beck-inspired accusation and issued the letter. Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post picked up on the story today, reporting the Obama administration officials’ denials. Yet the right won’t let the conspiracy theory die.

“There’s no way to believe anything they say,” said documented conspiracy theorist and leading Islamophobe Andrew McCarthy. (McCarthy was the the former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Abdel Rahman). “I believe there may already be a nod-and-wink agreement in place.”

ThinkProgress intern Nate Niemann contributed to this post.

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Climate Progress

The GOP’s ‘War On Coal’ Myth, Brought To You By Millions In Coal Cash

By Rebecca Leber on Sep 20, 2012 at 4:00 pm

Before the House of Representatives takes a two-month recess, its final votes focuses on a Republican package of pro-coal bills, which dismantle essential water, air, and climate protections.

The White House has threatened to veto the package for its “harmful measures that would undermine landmark environmental laws and adversely affect public health, the economy, and the environment.”

Coal has backed the GOP’s political campaign with heavy spending on TV ads, lobbying and political contributions. Coal and dirty utilities have spent a total $66 million on lobbying since 2011. House Republicans have received $4.4 million in career contributions from the coal industry — nearly 5 times the amount Democratic members received, according to a ThinkProgress analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data.

In 2012 alone, Republicans received 89 percent of the coal industry’s campaign contributions. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the Energy and Commerce committee, has received $60,000 from both major utilities and the coal industry. Another sponsor, Rep. David McKinley (R-WV), is the top recipient of coal cash for 2012, receiving over $200,000.

The coal industry has also waged a separate “public awareness” campaign on pro-coal TV ads. The American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity has so far spent $12 million of its promised $40 million election-year budget on ads this cycle. So far, total fossil fuel spending has exceeded $153 million.

Backed by a pile of corporate polluter cash, House Republicans and the Romney campaign have rallied around the myth that the administration is waging a “war on coal.” Instead of focusing on the slew of bills needing action, the GOP has waged a messaging campaign to oppose safeguards for public health against air pollution.

The GOP’s campaign is a giveaway to big polluters. It’s a plan that does nothing to moving energy policy forward — only threatening public health:

– It undermines clean air, clean water protections The package blocks EPA greenhouse gas regulation, prevents the EPA from regulating mercury, arsenic, smog, and coal ash from power plants. One bill repeals mercury standards that prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths, 5,000 heart attacks, 130,000 asthma attacks, and 5,700 hospital visits annually. The legislation also threatens water quality by stripping the Department of Interior’s and EPA’s strip mining regulation and protections in the Clean Water Act.

– Selectively edits out health concerns, science: Ignoring overwhelming scientific consensus, H.R. 910 declares that carbon pollution is not a danger to health and the climate. In the latest version of legislation blocking EPA carbon pollution standards, the House Energy and Power Subcommittee deleted a mild climate change mention, which said the U.S. plays a role “in resolving global climate change matters on an international basis.” On Thursday, the Energy and Commerce Committee heard from a hearing witness that carbon pollution is good for the environment, because it is “plant food.”

–Public health standards will create jobs: A spokesman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) calls the package “jobs legislation.” But the same health standards Republicans oppose create tens of thousands more jobs in the manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of modern pollution reduction equipment. EPA protections against mercury would create a net 84,500 jobs by 2015, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, coal mining jobs in West Virginia reached a two-decade record in 2011. In Pennsylvania and Virginia, data shows a 2.3 percent increase and 6.7 percent increase in coal mining employment from 2009 to 2010.

The GOP’s effort could end up hurting the coal industry more by opposing technology that reduce the industry’s carbon pollution so it complies with the Clean Air Act. For instance, McKinley’s bill would prevent the EPA from reducing carbon pollution from power plants — the largest uncontrolled source — until the pollution control technology is economical. But that will never happen without a market for it, which requires some sort of pollution reduction regime.

– Makes U.S. more dependent on foreign oil: H.R. 3409 blocks new fuel economy standards that will save the U.S. 3 million barrels of oil daily and creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. These standards will reduce U.S. oil use, so blocking them will maintain our demand for foreign oil. The standards would also save the average driver a net of $4,400 on lower gasoline purchases over the life of a 2025 car.

With this package, House Republicans will add to their 302 votes against the environment, including 87 efforts to dismantle the Clean Air Act, 34 against the Clean Water Act, and 128 against pollution measures.

Economy

400 Richest Americans Saw Wealth Grow 13 Percent To $1.7 Trillion In 2011

By Travis Waldron on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:55 pm

The collective wealth of the 400 richest Americans totaled $1.7 trillion in 2011, a 13 percent jump from a year ago, as the stock market reached its highest mark in a decade and real estate rebounded, Forbes announced Wednesday. Microsoft founder Bill Gates led the list of America’s wealthiest with a net worth of $66 billion, followed by Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett ($46 billion) and Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($41 billion). Charles and David Koch, co-founders of Koch Industries and conservative mega-donors, rounded out the top five at $31 billion each.

The amount needed to join the list rose in 2011 as the average net worth of the richest 400 Americans jumped to its highest level in more than a decade, CNN Money reports:

The average net worth of a member of the Forbes 400 hit $4.2 billion. That’s the highest level it’s been in at least a decade, according to the magazine, and up from $3.8 billion last year. The net worth cut off to make the list this year was $1.1 billion, up from $1.05 billion in 2011.

At the same time that their collective wealth hits new heights, the tax rate for the Forbes 400 has remained low, thanks to the high-income Bush tax cuts, which slashed the rate on investments and capital gains. The average rate paid by the Forbes 400 in 2009, the last year for which tax data is available, was 19.9 percent. The estimated rate for last year’s list fell to 18 percent, according to economist Steven Rattner (the IRS releases official data on a two-year delay). From 1995 to 2007, tax rates for the Forbes 400 were halved even as their incomes quadrupled.

President Obama has vowed to let the high-income Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2012, and both he and Senate Democrats have proposed hikes in the capital gains rate, though neither would tax investments at the 35 percent top income rate, as capital gains were taxed until the 1990s.

Republicans, however, have promised not just to extend the Bush tax cuts but to lower the overall rate on wealthy Americans. After taking the government to the brink of shutdown and default in 2011, the House GOP voted to give the rich and corporations more than $3 trillion in tax breaks in its budget this year.

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Health

Obamacare Is Still A Massive Tax Cut For The Middle Class

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:50 pm

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the health care reform law under Congress’ taxing power, Republicans misconstrued its individual mandate as a “massive tax hike” on the middle class. This week, after the Congressional Budget Office upped its estimate on the number of Americans who are expected to face a penalty in 2016 for failing to purchase health insurance — increasing their original 4 million figure to 6 million — conservative outlets once again lamented the middle class families who will be “hit with a tax hike.”

But the revised 6 million figure does not mean the health care law puts a strain on the middle class. In fact, Obamacare will provide millions of families with large tax credits to help make health care more affordable for them, and the penalty will only be leveled against those Americans who choose not to purchase insurance even though they are able to afford it. The penalty from the individual mandate is projected to affect just 2 percent of the American population. The Center for American Progress shows how Obamacare represents a major tax cut for many families, even with the CBO’s new estimate:

The CBO pointed out that some of the increase in their revised figure reflects Republican governors’ opposition to expanding the Medicaid program in their states to provide more of their low-income residents with health coverage.

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Justice

LA Medical Marijuana Supporters Successfully Force Vote On Ban, But Officials Flout Suspension and Pledge To Crack Down

By Nicole Flatow on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:40 pm

An initiative to repeal the two-month-old ban on medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles garnered enough verified signatures this week to force a vote on the issue, reaffirming the strong popular support for legalizing medical marijuana.

Officials told the Los Angeles Times last month that the immediate effect of certifying the referendum would be suspension of the ban, but just as the announcement came, the city attorney’s office pledged to continue cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries. Although marijuana is prohibited under federal law, California passed a ballot initiative in 1996 to allow physicians to recommend marijuana to their patients for medical purposes. Since then, over 1,000 medical marijuana shops have sprung up across L.A., and the city council claims the sheer number of dispensaries has made them impossible to effectively regulate.

Also compromising the state law allowing medical marijuana are federal efforts to crack down on marijuana dispensaries, including the largest dispensary, Harborside Health Center, with locations in Oakland and San Jose, California.

Now that opponents of the ban have gathered enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, the city council can choose to proceed in one of three ways: it can repeal the ordinance or replace it with a different version, call a special election to vote on the issue, or put the measure on the March 5 ballot, when residents will vote on city officials.

Proponents of medical marijuana are holding protests today at 15 “Obama for America” offices in 8 states, seeking to elevate Obama’s harsh stance on medical marijuana as a campaign issue. According to Americans for Safe Access, the Obama Department of Justice has sought to enforce federal drug law by conducting more than 200 raids on medical marijuana businesses, even in states where these facilities are legal, and even as beneficiaries of medical marijuana have highlighted the needless harm imposed when dispensaries are shut down.

GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has flip-flopped on support for medical marijuana, saying it’s up to the states to decide, before later changing his position to say that he “agrees with Mitt Romney that marijuana should never be legalized.” Romney has promised to fight marijuana legalization “tooth and nail.”

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Alyssa

Daily Caller Editors Are Publishing ‘The Lizard King,’ A Novel About Obama And Reptilian Conspiracies

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:37 pm

The idea that shape-shifting lizards from Alpha Draconis are secretly controlling humanity is not precisely a new conspiracy theory, or even new to American politics. Louis C.K. once asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to confirm or deny that he was actually a lizard:

A ballot in the Senate race between now-Sen. Al Franken and then-incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman was challenged when the man who cast it, Lucas Davenport, wrote in “Lizard People” as a candidate. But it’s one that gains new resonance with the word that Jamie Weinstein, a senior editor at the conservative website the Daily Caller and his colleague Will Rahn, the DC deputy editor, are publishing The Lizard King: The Shocking Inside Account of Obama’s True Intergalactic Ambitions by an Anonymous White House Staffer.

If it was written by anyone else, the idea that President Obama is actually a 12-foot tall reptile would be a genius satire of the conspiracies theories that argue Obama is everything from a secret Muslim to an obvious socialist driven by an anti-colonialist agenda. It may be easier to suggest the latter than to prove that Obama is not actually human (maybe he’s a Skrull instead), but possessing either theory says vastly more about the person who is desperate to see Obama as a deceptive enemy of the American public than Obama himself. But instead, The Lizard King will be coming to us people from a publication that’s consistently peddled misinformation about the Obama administration, even if they were never sufficiently possessed of the chutzpah and tabloid drive to sales to suggest that the president is an alien from outer space. That’s really too bad, because a killer satire of those conspiracies would be a real tonic for our current political climate. Maybe Weinstein and Rahn will rise to the occasion. But this seems more like a jab the people who, rightly, deny that Obama is a conspiratorial enemy of freedom, than the people who spin wild fantasies about him.

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LGBT

Sen. Michael Bennet (D) Introduces LGBT-Inclusive Amendment To Older Americans Act

By Zack Ford on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:25 pm

Lesbian pioneers Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon at their wedding in 2008.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) has introduced a new bill to amend the Older Americans Act of 1965 to make it LGBT-inclusive. The amendment creates visibility for LGBT seniors by calling for data collection, professional training, and privacy protections that reflect their unique needs. It also would permanently codify the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging into law:

To address the unique challenges faced by LGBT older adults, the Center shall provide national, State, and local organizations, including those with a primary mission of serving LGBT individuals, and those with a primary mission of serving older adults, with the information and technical assistance the organizations need to effectively serve LGBT older adults.

The Center shall have 3 primary objectives, consisting of (A) educating aging services organizations about the existence and special needs of LGBT older adults; (B) sensitizing LGBT organizations about the existence and special needs of older adults; and (C) providing educational resources to LGBT older adults and their caregivers.

The Center would also be able to help connect organizations that support these objectives to grants and other funding opportunities.

It is among LGBT older adults that the consequences of inequality are most visible. Stigma stands in the way of getting proper healthcare, and many depend on “families of choice,” having lost the support of their families and not raised children of their own. Because of a lifetime of discrimination, as well as lower access to benefits like Social Security because of marriage inequality, LGBT older adults face significantly higher rates of poverty and even homelessness. This amendment will help ensure all seniors have access to the services they need and the care they deserve.

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Election

GOP Candidate Wants To Eliminate Department Of Energy Because He Saw Officials ‘Sitting There Reading Books’

By Scott Keyes on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:19 pm

NC-7 GOP nominee David Rouzer

In a statement that would make Ray Bradbury blush, a Republican congressional candidate in North Carolina said he wants to eliminate the Department of Energy, because he personally witnessed officials “sitting there reading books and reading magazines.”

State Sen. David Rouzer, the Republican nominee in North Carolina’s 7th congressional district slated to take on Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC), recounted during a primary debate in April about how his experience in the executive branch gives him a unique understanding of how to get rid of cabinet departments wholesale. “When I went over to the Department of Energy one day, you walk down the hall and most of them who are drawing 6-figure salaries are sitting there reading books and reading magazines,” Rouzer told the audience. “Ladies and gentlemen, we can devolve, get rid of the Department of Energy.”

Rouzer also singled out three other cabinet agencies he would like to eliminate: the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Education.

ROUZER: When I served in the executive branch for about a year and a half, and I learned how the bureaucrats operate. It gives me a lot of insight into how to defund them and get rid of them. When I went over to the Department of Energy one day, you walk down the hall and most of them who are drawing 6-figure salaries are sitting there reading books and reading magazines. Ladies and gentlemen, we can devolve, get rid of the Department of Energy and move some of those responsibilities back to the states. Department of Commerce, same thing. HUD, Housing and Urban Development, same thing. Department of Education. If you look at the decline of education, it started when the federal government got involved in it. That’s another agency.

Watch it:

Rouzer has made a career of stymieing scientific knowledge. He grabbed national headlines earlier this year when he pushed a bill through the North Carolina Senate that banned the state from using scientific models of sea-level rise that would affect the state.

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Climate Progress

British Parliament: ‘The Race To Carve Up The Arctic Is Accelerating Faster Than Our Capacity To Manage It’

By Climate Guest Blogger on Sep 20, 2012 at 3:05 pm

by Kiley Kroh

Joining the chorus of influential voices in opposition to offshore drilling in the Arctic, British lawmakers today called for a halt to drilling in the Arctic Ocean until necessary steps are taken to protect the region from the potentially catastrophic consequences of an oil spill.

In a report citing the myriad risks and challenges of operating in the untested region, the Environmental Audit Committee of Britain’s House of Commons urged action to halt oil and gas drilling in the Arctic until new safeguards are put in place.

Lawmaker Caroline Lewis, member of the committee, explained their concern that “the race to carve up the Arctic is accelerating faster than our regulatory or technical capacity to manage it.”

An oil spill anywhere in the region could impact all of the surrounding Arctic nations, prompting the committee to call for the Arctic Council to draft a universal standard on disaster response. In addition, the report recommends a “much higher, preferably unlimited, financial liability regime for oil and gas operations.” Until there is greater certainty that individual companies and the Arctic nations are prepared to respond to a spill in the remote and unpredictable region, the committee maintains the Arctic Ocean should be off-limits to drilling.

The British parliament is yet another authoritative body expressing serious concern about the risks presented by offshore drilling in the planet’s last great frontier.

Earlier this year, insurance giant Lloyd’s of London issued a report warning that responding to an oil spill in a region that is “highly sensitive to damage” would present “multiple obstacles, which together constitute a unique and hard-to-manage risk.”

Soon after, German bank WestLB announced it would not provide financing to any offshore oil or gas drilling in the region, saying the “risks and costs are simply too high.”

Hamstrung by ice clinging to Alaska’s northern shore much longer than usual (ironically during a year with record-low ice) and a series of mishaps with its equipment, Shell Oil announced earlier this week that it would only pursue preparatory drilling in the Arctic Ocean this summer. But as the company lays the foundation for a “multi-year exploration program” in the region, it is critical to note that the glaring deficiencies in science, infrastructure, and technology must be addressed.

Seen as the bellwether for climate change, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet – leaving industries such as shipping, tourism, fisheries, and oil and gas chomping at the bit to stake their claim on the Arctic’s previously inaccessible riches. The rapid industrialization of an already fragile ecosystem could be completely devastating. With Arctic sea ice shrinking to the smallest extent ever recorded this summer, the committee’s report warns that “such development could result in significant environmental damage in a region already feeling the effects of climate change more than the rest of the planet.”

Michael Conathan, the Center for American Progress’ oceans policy director, explained the insanity of pursuing oil drilling in a part of the world under serious threat from climate change in an interview with E&E TV this week:

“I hope the irony isn’t lost on people: it is the fact that we have burned so many fossil fuels that have led to climate change that has allowed the ice to recede and that has subsequently now opened up these areas to drilling, and our response is to go in and extract more fossil fuels that we can burn and perpetuate the cycle.”

Not only is Shell ignoring the advice of some of the largest financial institutions and risk assessors, it’s also ignoring the world’s climate scientists.

Kiley Kroh is Associate Director of Oceans Communications at the Center for American Progress.