Romney’s ‘Binders Full Of Women’ Didn’t Include Many Judges

By Ian Millhiser on Oct 24, 2012 at 4:30 pm

In his second debate with President Obama, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney was asked how he would close the pay gap between men and women. Rather than answer the question, he instead told a false story about how he requested “binders full of women” to help him select female candidates to serve in his cabinet while he was governor of Massachusetts. In reality, Romney did not request these binders; they were assembled by a bipartisan group called MassGAP and presented to him after his election. According to a UMass-Boston study, “the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006.”

As it turns out, Romney also didn’t spend much time going through the binders when it was time to select judges:

By 2005, after two years in office, Romney had nominated 19 judges, of which 17 were men, according to the Associated Press.

With the governor taking heat, a Romney spokesperson argued in a 2005 Boston Globe story that there had a been a lack of qualified women and minority applicants. . . .

But the Boston Herald reported in March 2006 that Romney had passed over a number of widely respected women, including Assistant U.S. Attorney Antoinette E.M. Leoney, Boston lawyer Toni Wolfman, who represented the NAACP, and trial attorney Sally Ann Janulevicus. Leoney was later appointed to a judgeship by Gov. Deval Patrick, Romney’s successor.

Marianne LeBlanc, president of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts from 2004 to 2005, told The Huffington Post that her organization was aware of a “substantial number of very qualified women” who had applied for judgeships.

By contrast, Romney’s successor, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) nominated 57 judges between January 2007 and June 2010. 28 were women.

Romney has also promised to appoint more Supreme Court justices in the vein of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito, all of whom joined the Court’s anti-pay equality decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire. The co-chair of Romney’s “Judicial Advisory Committee” is failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, who once claimed it is “utterly specious” to suggest that women have a constitutional right to use contraception. Bork also believes that the Constitution does not protect women from gender discrimination — and he recently said it was “silly” to think that women are discriminated against.

()

Election

The 8 Campaign Funders Romney Would Be Most Beholden To

By Josh Israel on Oct 24, 2012 at 4:22 pm

Mitt Romney meets with Paul Singer and others

Mitt Romney meets with Paul Singer (right) and others (credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America)

Will Rogers reportedly once said “politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.” Between his campaign — which has raised at least $283 million to date — and the more than $90 million raised for his “independent” super PAC, calling the amount going to elect Mitt Romney “a lot” would be an understatement. While Romney will owe the top donors and bundlers to his campaign a great personal debt of gratitude even if he loses in November, should he win, those who bankrolled his campaign will likely expect access and influence.

A ThinkProgress review of the top donors to Restore Our Future Inc. and top “bundlers” (supporters who volunteer to collect large bundles of campaign contributions for the former Massachusetts governor) identified by USA Today and the Sunlight Foundation, finds eight have done the most for Romney’s campaign. Each has raised large sums for the campaign and also contributed at least $500,000 to the pro-Romney super PAC.

They are:

1. Ed Conard of New York, NY. Romney’s former partner at Bain Capital, Conard headed Bain’s New York office and led the firm’s controversial acquisitions of large industrial companies. Conard is perhaps best known for his 2012 book Unintended Consequence:Why Everything You’ve Been Told About The Economy Is Wrong in which actually makes the case that American needs more income inequality and defends off-shoring of American jobs. He has claimed that “predatory lending and Wall Street greed did not cause the collapse of the housing market.” He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future.

John Paulson 2. John A. Paulson of New York, NY. The billionaire founder of Paulson and Co., among the world’s largest hedge funds, gained about $4 billion as the subprime mortgage market melted down in 2007. While he earns more in an hour than the average American earns in a year, he pays a lower tax rate, thanks in part to the hedge fund “carried interest” loophole. He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future and let the Romney campaign hold an April fundraiser at his Manhattan townhouse.

Paul Singer 3. Paul E. Singer of New York, NY. The billionaire manager of Elliott Management Corp., another major hedge fund, has been a persistent critic of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms and Federal Reserve Bank monetary policy. A major funder for right-wing media, the mainstream press has dubbed him a “vulture capitalist” for his controversial record of buying up debt from developing nations at a discounted price and then suing for full repayment. Fortune called him “a passionate defender of the 1%” and noted that he is viewed by many as “an intellectual with the tenacious spirit necessary to help them turn back the clock on regulation and resist higher taxes on the wealthy.” Singer is chairman of the the anti-regulation Manhattan Institute and has donated heavily to the Club for Growth. In one regard, his support for Romney is ironic, given that Singer is a strong supporter of marriage equality and his openly gay son married in Massachusetts in 2010 — despite Romney’s unyielding attempts to revoke that right from same-sex couples. He has donated at least $1 million, to date, to Restore Our Future.

4. Joseph W. Craft III of Tulsa, OK. The billionaire head of Alliance Resource Partners LP, a major coal producer, is the lone person on this list who did not make his or her fortune in investment banking or hedge-fund management. The coal industry has strongly opposed environmental protection standards that would hurt coal companies’ bottom lines and the pro-deregulation Romney campaign has hit the Obama administration repeatedly for what it calls a “war on coal.” Romney has proposed increasing production and consumption of dirty energy sources. Alliance owns and operates the Dotiki Mine in Providence, Kentucky, where two miners were killed in a roof collapse in April 2010. Alliance had been cited for 840 safety violations in the 16 months preceding the Dotiki collapse. He has donated at least $1,000,000, to date, to Restore Our Future and also has given $1,250,000 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads.

5. William Laverack, Jr. of New Canaan, CT. The chairman and chief executive officer of Laverack Capital Partners, a privately-held investment firm, is also a senior advisor to Tiger Infrastructure, another private equity group known for investing sectors like power and natural resource infrastructure. The New York Times reported in February that his initial contributions to Restore Our Future appeared to hidden from public view. Tiger Infrastructure’s website highlights its investment priorities including “monopolies with sustainable competitive advantage underpinned by regulation, contracted revenues or barriers to entry.” He has donated at least $750,00 to Restore Our Future, to date.

6. Kelly Loeffler of Atlanta, GA. The vice president of investor relations and corporate communications at IntercontinentalExchange, she helps lead a company that provides online marketplaces for investors to trade futures, energy contracts, and financial derivatives. The company has lobbied extensively on Dodd-Frank implementation, focusing on derivative rules. Before that, she held a similar position for Crossroads Investment Advisers, a private equity firm. She co-owns and co-chairs the Atlanta Dream, a WNBA franchise. Should Romney win Georgia, Loeffler will also serve as a Romney elector from that state. She has donated at least $500,000 to Restore Our Future, to date.

Warren Stephens 7. Warren A. Stephens of Little Rock, AR. The billionaire head of Stephens Inc., an investment banking firm, has been an outspoken opponent of government regulation of business and Wall Street. He has complained that “CEOs literally cannot keep up with the changes in regulation and the behavior of the regulators” and has endorsed legislation to make it harder for government to regulate industry. He has called proposed increased taxes for billionaires like himself “just not a good idea,” putting him in line with Romney, who has proposed lower taxes for the richest Americans. He has donated at least $500,000, to date, to Restore Our Future.

Stephen Zide 8. Stephen M. Zide of Old Greenwich, CT. The Bain Capital Private Equity managing director, is another former colleague of Romney’s. Zide reportedly is on the board of a Bain-purchased company that is laying off 170 employees and off-shoring jobs to China. He has donated at least $500,000, to date, to Restore Our Future.

The bundler data is based on a USA Today review of political fundraiser invitations. The Romney campaign has, steadfastly refused to disclose the identities of its campaign bundlers — except for a small list of registered lobbyists who bundle, as required by federal law. President Obama, on the other hand, voluntarily discloses all of its major bundlers, as did President George W. Bush (R) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and in their 2000, 2004, and 2008 races.

()

Climate Progress

Three Ways Big Oil Spends Its Profits To Defend Oil Subsidies And Defeat Clean Energy

By Rebecca Leber on Oct 24, 2012 at 4:16 pm

Starting tomorrow, the world’s largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips — will begin to announce their third-quarter profits for 2012. In the first half of 2012, these companies — all ranked in the top 10 of Fortune 500 Global — earned over $60 billion.

The oil industry reinvests tens of millions of these dollars for political purposes, including nearly all political contributions to Republicans, lobbying, and campaign ads. Through its enormous spending, these five and other Big Oil companies have fought to maintain $4 billion of their annual subsidies, while seeking to undermine clean energy investments:

$105 Million On Lobbying Since 2011, 90 Percent Of Campaign Contributions To GOP: The big five companies have spent over $105 million on lobbying Congress since 2011, according to lobbying disclosures through the third quarter. The biggest spenders were Shell ($25.7 million), Exxon ($25.4 million), and ConocoPhillips ($22.9 million). The five companies’ oil PACs have donated over $2.16 million to mostly Republican candidates this election cycle. Koch Industries also spends big money to pressure Congress, with $16.2 million on lobbying and more than $1.3 million from its PAC (the top oil and gas spender). In total, the oil and gas industry sends 90 percent of its near $50 million in contributions to Republicans, far eclipsing their record spending in 2008.

Misinformation Campaigns, Including Over $150 Million In Election Ads:
Over $150 million has been spent on TV ads promoting fossil fuel interests, particularly oil and coal, reports the New York Times. In addition to traditional campaign donations, the oil industry has turned to outside groups running attack ads. Earlier this year, Americans For Prosperity — founded and funded by the Koch brothers — launched a bogus ad claiming that clean energy stimulus dollars went overseas. And the oil lobby American Petroleum Institute has its own campaign promoting myths about oil production and gas prices. For example, API chief Jack Gerard, rumored to be on Mitt Romney’s shortlist for a White House or agency appointment, claimed that oil production on federal land is down. This is simply not true, since oil production is up 240 million barrels on federal lands and waters under President Obama compared to the Bush administration. And oil companies hold 20 million acres of federal oil, gas leases in Gulf of Mexico that remain unexplored or undeveloped. This is just one of the many myths Big Oil has pushed this campaign cycle.

Behind-The-Scenes Campaign To Defeat Clean Energy: Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups are mobilizing to defeat the extension of modest tax incentives for wind energy, even though oil tax breaks are permanent. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, aims to make the credit “so toxic” for Republicans it would be “impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid.” The Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity is also campaigning against wind energy. Meanwhile, the industry has argued its own century-old tax breaks are necessary to maintain, despite years of record-breaking profits.

Overall, these efforts to keep their tax breaks while weakening public health safeguards from pollution have paid off in Congress and for Republican candidates. The House of Representatives is the most anti-environment in Congressional history, averaging at least one anti-environment vote per day to eliminate or undermine pollution protections, many benefiting Big Oil. And the Romney/Ryan budget plan would give the big five oil companies another $2.3 billion annual tax cut beyond existing loopholes.

After the big five companies’ second quarter profits, ThinkProgress calculated what a typical 24 hours looks like for the oil industry:

Security

Former Israeli Spy Chief Criticizes Romney For ‘Drawing Israel Into This Campaign’

By Hamed Aleaziz on Oct 24, 2012 at 4:00 pm

Efraim Halevy

In an interview published today in Foreign Policy magazine, Efraim Halevy, former head of the Israeli spy organization the Mossad, slammed Mitt Romney for repeatedly turning Israel into a campaign issue during the election:

“Regarding the election, I think many of the statements made by the Republican candidate are very undesirable as far as Israel is concerned. I remember an article of Governor Romney’s in the Washington Post in March where he advocated dispatching American warships to the Eastern Mediterranean. Shooting from the hip on these matters is a very dangerous sport to be engaged in. And I think that drawing Israel into this campaign is detrimental to Israeli interests, and I regret that one of the candidates is doing this.”

Romney has criticized the Obama administration’s relationship with Israel throughout the campaign, claiming that the president has “thrown allies like Israel under the bus.” Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan described Obama’s treatment of Israel as “indifference bordering on contempt.” In this week’s debate in which Romney echoed many of Obama’s views, the former governer used Israel to try to differentiate their positions. Romney said that there has been “turmoil with Israel” under President Obama. But Halevy says the Obama administration has been fine: “On the practical side, the United States has been very supportive of Israel during President Barack Obama’s administration — both financially and strategically, we have received a lot of support.”

Just today, Halevy wrote an op-ed in the New York Times directed at Romney’s “under the bus” comments, saying that U.S. pressure on Israel “has come from Republican presidents, not Democratic ones.”

Israeli officials and politicians, like Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, have repeatedly said that the U.S.-Israeli relationship is in good shape under the Obama administration. In July, Barak, Israel’s defense minister, told CNN: “I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing, in regard to our security, more than anything that I can remember in the past.”

Halevy’s comments published today follow an interview he gave on Sunday to Al-Monitor in which he said of Romney: “What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war.” In the same interview, Halevy lauded President Obama’s approach: “Obama does think there is still room for negotiations. It’s a very courageous thing to say in this atmosphere.”

()

Economy

Kentucky Rep: GOP Belief That Tax Cuts For Rich Spur Economic Growth Is ‘Faith-Based Economics’

By Travis Waldron on Oct 24, 2012 at 3:55 pm

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY)

The Republican Party’s insistence on protecting tax cuts for the wealthy as their end-of-year expiration approaches is a practice in “faith-based economics” that ignores statistics about job growth over the last decade, Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth (D) said Tuesday.

The high-income tax rates expire at the end of the year, part of the so-called “fiscal cliff.” In an interview with ThinkProgress, Yarmuth blasted the GOP claim that letting the high-income cuts expire amounted to a tax hike on “job creators”:

YARMUTH: That’s nonsense, to be quite honest. All you have to do is look at the Bush years when those tax rates were in play and you had one of the worst eras of job creation in modern history. So, that was the whole purpose of cutting those rates back down. But it didn’t create jobs, and there’s really not any evidence that it ever does.

The vast majority of people who are actually hiring and firing, making those decisions, they make those decisions based on whether there’s enough business to justify hiring another person.

It’s a silly argument that’s based on some kind of faith-based economic system that really doesn’t exist in the real world.

Republican supply-side policies (once referred to as “voodoo economics” by then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush) have indeed failed to generate the job and economic growth the GOP promised. The Bush tax cuts were followed by the worst growth in job creation in more than six decades, as they blew a massive hole in the federal budget. Both jobs and the economy as a whole grew faster under the higher Clinton-era tax rates.

Recent studies have shown that the expiration of the high-end Bush tax cuts would have little or no effect on economic growth, and even some Republicans have admitted that the cuts failed to spur growth at the rates the GOP had promised. Still, the party insists on the preservation of the lower tax rates for the wealthy and has even blocked an extension of the middle-income rates because Democrats refused to extend the high-income cuts too.

()

Alyssa

American Crossroads Cuts An Anemic Clint Eastwood Ad For Romney

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Oct 24, 2012 at 3:36 pm

As Clint Eastwood appearances in politically charged content go, I’d rate this American Crossroads ad substantially above Eastwood’s meandering, bizarre rant to an empty chair at the Republican National Convention and somewhere below the “Halftime in America” spot he cut for Chrysler that aired during this year’s Super Bowl:

Part of it is just that the production values on the “Halftime in America” spot are much more attractive: better lighting, the more dramatic shot of Eastwood in the tunnel, the facade still standing even though the building behind it has been gutted, a diverse array of contemplative faces.

It’s also just much easier to make platitudes sound uplifting than specific but not-very-well substantiated claims about President Obama’s record. It’s easier to sell a car than it is to sell Mitt Romney at this stage in the game.

()

Health

Pennsylvania Bill Would Reduce Welfare Benefits For Women Who Cannot Prove They Were Raped

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Oct 24, 2012 at 3:35 pm

A Pennsylvania House bill seeks to limit the amount of TANF assistance that low-income women receive based on the amount of children they give birth to while covered under the program.

Despite the fact that low-income women who give birth to children would logically need increased assistance to care for their larger family, Pennsylvania lawmakers — State Reps. RoseMarie Swanger (R), Tom Caltagirone (D), Mark Gillen (R), Keith Gillespie (R), Adam Harris (R), and Mike Tobash (R) — don’t want their state’s welfare program to provide additional benefits for that newborn. If a woman gives birth to a child who was conceived from rape, she may seek an exception to this rule so that her welfare benefits aren’t slashed, but only if she can provide proof that she reported her sexual assault and her abuser’s identity to the police:

In determining the amount of assistance payments to a recipient family of benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) Program, the department shall revise the schedule of benefits to be paid to the recipient family by eliminating the increment in benefits under the program for which that family would otherwise be eligible as a result of the birth of a child conceived during the period in which the family is eligible for benefits under the TANF Program. [...]

Elimination of benefits under subsection (d) shall not apply to any child conceived as a result of rape or incest if the department: (1) receives a non-notarized, signed statement from the pregnant woman stating that she was a victim of rape or incest, as the case may be, and that she reported the crime, including the identity of the offender, if known, to a law enforcement agency having the requisite jurisdiction or, in the case of incest where a pregnant minor is the victim, to the county child protective service agency and stating the name of the law enforcement agency or child protective service agency to which the report was made and the date such report was made.

The language of the bill goes on to note that a sexual assault victim applying for an exemption will be required to sign a statement affirming she understands that “false reports to law enforcement authorities are punishable by law,” and stipulates that Pennsylvania will report any “evidence of false statements or fraud” to the correct department, all the way up to the Attorney General’s office.

Aside from punishing women who have children — particularly low-income women who may not have reliable access to affordable contraception — the proposed bill perpetrates a dangerous attitude toward survivors of sexual assault. Forcing women to prove the legitimacy of their sexual assault, and warning them about the serious consequences of “crying rape” to cheat the system, puts forth the misguided assumption that victims of sexual violence are not to be believed. Furthermore, countless women choose not to report their rapists to the police because they fear repercussions from their abusers, who could threaten their lives. An estimated 54 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the authorities.

This is not the first type of legislation of its kind. Last month, New Mexico proposed a bill that would have required women seeking childcare assistance to prove they were “forcibly raped,” although Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has requested to remove that language.

(HT: Donnie Johnson)

()

NEWS FLASH

New Jersey Civil Rights Division Upholds Decision Against Anti-Gay Methodist Pavilion | This past January, a New Jersey judge ruled that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association illegally discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing them use of their boardwalk pavilion for a civil union ceremony. The Methodist church group had a real-estate tax exemption that was based on conservation and recreation, not their religious affiliation, and thus they were obligated under law to make their pavilion open to all people. This week, the state Division on Civil Rights upheld that decision, ruling that the group’s discrimination “clearly violates the settled laws of this state.” The couple that complained ended up holding their ceremony on a fishing pier in Neptune, and the pavilion is no longer being rented for weddings.

Justice

Organizations Sue L.A. County Sheriff’s Office For Unlawfully Detaining Immigrants

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Oct 24, 2012 at 3:00 pm

Rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit last week against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for unlawfully detaining immigrants at the federal government’s request for days longer than they should have been held. Specifically, the lawsuit highlights the case of Duncan Roy, a British filmmaker and legal immigrant who spent 89 in jail after an erroneous immigration hold prevented Roy from posting bail.

The federal government can ask for an immigration hold to keep a person in police custody while immigration officials seek deportation, but the immigrant and civil rights groups behind the lawsuit say the practice needs to stop:

“This massive unconstitutional detention is a symptom of the criminalization of immigrants, a dangerous trend that must be reversed,” Jessica Karp, an attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network that was one of the groups involved in the suit, said in a statement. [...]

Three Mexican immigrants and an Estonian who say they were unlawfully held were also party to the class action suit, filed on behalf of all current and future detainees held in a county jail for more than 48 hours solely for immigration holds.

Of the Los Angeles County jail population, around 14 percent – or roughly 2,100 people on any given day – are subject to Immigration and Customs Enforcement holds, according to the ACLU of Southern California, which was also involved in the lawsuit.

Those individuals are held in jail nearly three weeks longer than those without such holds, the group said.

In addition to unnecessary immigration holds, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has also refused to allow detainees to post bail, even when a court has set bail. After sending a demand letter before the lawsuit was filed, the ACLU says the department officials “recognized that individuals subject to ICE holds should be allowed to post bail, have sent bulletins to watch commanders clarifying this rule, and are working on revising policies and data systems to prevent unlawful detentions in the future.” So far, though, the sheriff’s department has not agreed to end detentions for people subject to ICE holds once they are eligible for release.

A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department said officers were following federal law, according to Reuters. In a statement, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said federal officials’ partnership with local officers on immigration holds ensures that “potentially dangerous criminals are not released from prisons and jails into our communities.”

Through the Secure Communities program, local officials have worked with federal immigration officials to flag undocumented immigrants who are arrested. Some jurisdictions are trying to limit the scope of the joint program, and the California legislature passed the TRUST Act last session, which pushed back against Secure Communities by preventing local law enforcement officials from referring a detainee to ICE unless the person detained has been convicted of a violent or serious felony. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed the bill that he said was “fatally flawed” because it had too narrow of a list for the crimes.

()

Economy

Obama Administration Finally Considers Firing Housing Regulator Who Blocked Aid For Homeowners

By Pat Garofalo on Oct 24, 2012 at 2:45 pm

The Financial Times’ Shahien Nasiripour reported that the Obama administration is telling housing advocates that it will remove Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, if Obama wins a second term:

If Mr Obama wins re-election, Mr DeMarco’s days may be numbered, with senior White House officials quietly telling housing industry activists in recent weeks that he will be replaced. [...]

He temporarily was named acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency in August 2009 by Barack Obama, US president, after the previous director left for the private sector.

He is still there three years later, despite clashes with the White House and the Treasury department over various administration proposals to aid the housing market.

The FHFA is responsible for regulating government backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As acting director, DeMarco has prevented Fannie and Freddie from reducing mortgage principal for troubled homeowners, even though studies have shown that principal reduction is the most effective policy for keeping families in their homes and will save taxpayers money in the long run. DeMarco has also absurdly claimed that reducing principal to avoid foreclosure would be too much of a boon to big banks for the government to consider.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner responded to DeMarco’s call on principal reduction by saying, “I do not believe [the FHFA's decision] is the best decision for the country.” According to the Financial Times, the administration is considering recess-appointing DeMarco’s replacement, as Senate Republicans seem intent on blocking any nominee who ever even considered principal reduction as a viable strategy.

()