The WonkLine: March 16, 2011

According to new data from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, “two out of five student loan borrowers were delinquent at some point in the first five years after they started repaying their loans.”

“To improve its public schools, the United States should raise the status of the teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more,” according to a new report.

Today, ” Republican-sponsored legislation setting up a merit pay plan for teachers and ending tenure for new hires is set for a final vote in the GOP-controlled Florida House.”

“Japan’s nuclear crisis intensified dramatically on Wednesday after the authorities announced that a second reactor unit at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan may have ruptured and appeared to be releasing radioactive steam.”

“Japan’s Emperor Akihito has said he is ‘deeply worried’ about the crisis his country is facing following last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami. In an extremely rare appearance, the emperor went on live TV to make his first public comments on the disaster.”

“A day after routing a ragtag army in an eastern town near the rebel capital of Benghazi, forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi launched attacks Wednesday on the city of Misurata, the last rebel stronghold in western Libya.”

A Kansas state representative apologized Tuesday for suggesting that immigrants be shot like hogs.

The LDS Church stepped from the sidelines on immigration reform by supporting what has happened in the Utah Legislature this session.

Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) this week reintroduced a bill that seeks to ease immigration for foreign entrepreneurs along with some current visa holders and foreign business owners.

A lawmaker from South Carolina, home of the original nullification crisis, is pushing a bill to nullify federal light bulb standards.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor warns that “[u]ntil we solve the structural problems that make an equal education unavailable in public and in private institutions, we will not be able to reach diversity of society.”

J. Paul Oetken, one of Obama’s two openly gay nominees for a federal judgeship, will receive a confirmation hearing today in the Judiciary Committee. If confirmed, Oetken will be the only openly gay man on the federal bench.

Yesterday, “a House resolution with 81 Republican cosponsors, including Rep. Michele Bachmann, condemn[ed] President Barack Obama for his decision to stop defending section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

“The House Financial Services Committee passed an amendment [yesterday] that would discourage giving aid to countries that persecute their citizens because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”

In a new poll released yesterday by the Human Rights Campaign, “51% of voters oppose DOMA, the 1996 bill, while 34% — only one-third of the American people — support” it.

“Rancor over President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has largely overshadowed some states’ efforts to use the law to help them move as fast as possible to insure more people and increase control over insurance companies.”

“Unemployment and rising expenses caused 9 million Americans to lose health insurance during the past two years” according to a new report.

“The New Hampshire House has overridden Attorney General Michael Delaney’s objections that lawmakers lack the constitutional power and ordered him to join a lawsuit against the federal health care reform law.”

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-PA) claims that top climate scientists “continue to mislead Congress and the public” by saying that global warming is real.

David Anderson exposes the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council’s attack on regional climate initiatives.

NASA researchers have begun Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission to study changes in Arctic polar ice.

The House yesterday approved a three-week continuing resolution, keeping the government funded through April 8. The bill cuts $6 billion in spending.

The White House announced yesterday that President Obama “would veto a Republican-backed bill killing his signature mortgage foreclosure prevention program if Congress passes it.”

Michigan lawmakers yesterday “approved a bill authorizing state-appointed emergency financial managers to break union contracts that struggling cities and school districts have with their workers.”

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