One of the areas where Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) veer to the far right in his struggle for re-election has been the most apparent is on immigration. In 2003, 2005, and 2007, for example, McCain co-sponsored the DREAM Act, which would provide provide undocumented high school graduates a path to legal residency and the chance to attend college.
McCain now opposes the DREAM Act. This shift came while he was running for president. In 2007, he skipped a vote on this legislation, which he had co-sponsored earlier in the year, and said he would probably have voted “against it in its present form.” Yesterday in an interview with KTAR, McCain reiterated his opposition to the DREAM Act, trying to argue that his stance of securing the border first was more “humane” because it would fully address the “human tragedy”:
Q: I take it you’re familiar with the DREAM Act, where do you stand on that?
McCAIN: I think it’s fine, I would take a look at that issue, it’s a heartbreaking issue, to see young people who were separated from their parents and all that, but the way you solve it –
Q: They’re people that were brought here at age two or four, not their own decision necessarily –
McCAIN: Yeah, that’s a heart-rending situation, but if we could secure the border, and make sure that there isn’t going to be a repeat of this kind of human tragedy, we can address that issue, and I think we can address it in a humane, compassionate fashion. But just to pass the DREAM Act now, what’s to prevent further of these humanitarian cases?
Host: Another 10 to 15 to 20 million —
McCain: Exactly.
Listen here:
There is nothing “compassionate” about McCain’s position, and these “humanitarian cases” will get worse without the DREAM Act. Currently, the children of undocumented immigrants — who didn’t make the decision to come to the United States illegally — face a cruel fate: Each year, about 65,000 of these young people graduate from high school and are then denied opportunities to pursue higher education, barred from “in-state tuition rates, state and federal grants and loans, most private scholarships, and the ability to legally work their way through college.”
The DREAM Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN), would give 360,000 undocumented high school graduates with a “legal means to work and attend college,” and provide incentives for another 715,000 children between the ages of five and 17 to finish high school and pursue postsecondary education.
Last month, five immigrants dressed in academic caps and gowns staged a sit-in at Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) Tucson, AZ office and called on him to co-sponsor the DREAM Act. Four of them — including three who were undocumented — were arrested and faced the threat of deportation. Underscoring how necessary the DREAM Act is to address “humanitarian cases,” one of those students, Mohammad Abdollahi, came from Iran with his parents when he was three years old. Now, returning could be deadly since Abdollahi is gay, and Iran is known for putting LGBT individuals to death.
This weekend, the National League’s Chicago Cubs are facing off against their crosstown American League rivals, the Chicago White Sox. The interleague showdown is being sponsored by BP. The British company signed a three-year deal with the teams on April 26, just days after the oil disaster in the Gulf occurred.
BP’s sponsorship of the games features broad dissemination of their company logo and includes the presentation of an official trophy — the “BP Crosstown Cup” — to the victor:
As the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers notes, instead of wasting money on this marketing exercise, BP could probably “use every dollar it can get to try to get to the bottom of the devastating leak in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Before the game, the trophy was wheeled out to the home-plate area and presented to the fans. As might be expected, the fans responded by booing loudly. Watch a local report:
Promotions during the games have been “scaled back.” Both teams, however, sent out press releases on Friday saying they stand with their corporate sponsor:
– Brooks Boyer, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the White Sox: “But just like we have tough seasons, our partners have tough times and we aren’t going to turn our back on our partners. We hope that in the coming years, the BP Crosstown Cup will be part of the social fabric of Chicago.”
– Cubs spokesman Kevin Saghy said: “We’re trying to stand behind our sponsor, but at the same time be respectful of what’s happening off the ballfield.”
The teams are out of touch with what their respective fans think. Cubs fan Chris Silva said he is upset at how BP has handled the oil spill. “It’s ruined the environment. It’s ridiculous how can you support them doing this cup between the two teams. It’s sad,” he said.
Local Fox reporter Tera Williams said she tried to look for baseball fans who thought that the BP cup was a good idea, “but we couldn’t find anyone. In fact, a lot of fans telling us that they are boycotting BP gas stations.”
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman who was concerned that her husband frequently flirts with “other women he finds attractive.” Naturally, Robertson blamed the wife, advising her to “make yourself as attractive as possible,” and to not “hassle him about it,” lest she “drive him away”:
CO-HOST: Pat, this is from Anne who says, “My husband has always been a flirt and loves to talk with other women he finds attractive. He says he would never cheat on me but his actions are starting to get to me. What should I do?”
ROBERTSON: Anne, first thing is you need to make yourself as attractive as possible and don’t hassle him about it. And why is he doing this? Well, he’s doing it because he wants affirmation that he is still a man, that he is attractive — and he gets an affirmation of himself. That means he’s got an inferiority complex that’s coming out. And he’s not gonna cheat on you. He’s just playing.
But you need to not drive him away or start hassling and hounding on him, but make yourself as beautiful as you can, as fun as you can, and say let’s go out here, let’s go there, let’s go to the other thing.
Roberts has a long history of making outrageously chauvinistic comments. He famously once said, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women,” but is rather “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” On the proper role of a wife, Robertson has said, “Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that’s the way it is, period.”
Earlier this week, former President Bill Clinton visited the group that almost single-handedly brought down his health care bill in 1993 with their infamous Harry and Louise ads. Clinton delivered the keynote address at the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) conference in Las Vegas, where he thanked them for supporting reform the second time around:
“I want to thank you for your support of the health care reform movement,” Clinton said numerous times during his lengthy, largely economics-oriented speech, which dealt with everything from the BP oil spill, to a new bus system in Lima, Peru.
“You deserve credit for taking a different position on this health care reform debate than the last one,” he said. The Health Insurance Association of America, an earlier incarnation of AHIP, was largely credited with torpedoing Clinton’s reform plans with their multimillion dollar “Harry and Louise” ad campaign.[...]
“I agree with you that we should have done more on cost-control,” he said, but he added that the law’s new insurance exchanges — which will begin operations in 2014 — will spur competition between insurance companies and lower costs.
“Americans tend to blame insurance companies for things that are really probably providers’ faults,” he said.
Clinton certainly isn’t wrong in suggesting that under the leadership of Karen Ignagni, the insurers adopted a more conciliatory tone towards reform. But he’s overstating the intensity of their support. In 2009-10, industry support for reform was certainly more vocal, but it was unmistakably in opposition at the end. From September to December 2009 — while publicly embracing the idea of universal coverage — the nation’s biggest health insurers ran a “duplicitous campaign” by quietly “pumping big money into third-party television ads aimed at killing or significantly modifying the major health reform bills moving through Congress.” An AHIP lobbyist urged Republicans not to vote for health care, arguing that they would be “giving comfort to the enemy who is down.” AHIP frightened seniors, fought the public plan, and funneled money to the Chamber of Commerce to underwrite tens of millions of dollars in attack ads.
In his latest Wall Street Journal column, Karl Rove drudges out the old 2008 campaign attack on President Obama’s “present” votes as a state senator in Illinois, and wittily remarks that Obama “may now be president, but at times he appears to be merely present” in dealing with BP’s oil spill.
On Fox News last night, Rove discussed the column and advised Obama to get ideas from academics around the country on dealing with the oil disaster:
ROVE: So why has he not met with industry experts to say, Explain to me what we ought to be doing? And if he doesn’t want to meet with people in the oil industry, then you — there are plenty of very smart petroleum engineering professors in America’s great colleges and universities he could meet with. [...]
I’d get the smartest engineering minds in the petroleum and — and — petroleum engineering departments of major universities to come in and brief him. Maybe there are some other ideas that BP has not done that might be usable.
Yet later in the segment, Rove criticized Obama for having academics surround him in the White House:
ROVE: He lacks the experience to make executive decisions. His policies have turned out to be very, very liberal. And he’s populated his administration with people just like him, eggheads from academia who have no practical working knowledge of how the American economy works or what ordinary families face in their daily lives, and the disconnect simply is growing.
Watch it:
To recap: It’s both good and bad to be listening to experts and academics, depending on what your political attack on Obama is at the moment.
There’s also a hint of irony in Rove’s attack. Did he have any “practical working knowledge of how the American economy works” before he went to work in the Bush White House?
This morning on Fox Business, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking Republican legislator on the House Oversight Committee, spoke to host Don Imus about BP’s oil spill disaster. Imus asked Issa if he thought the Gulf region will ever be cleaned up and fully restored to its original state before the spill. Issa responded that he did believe the oil pollution could be taken care of, and explained that in Alaska, after the Exxon Valdez spill, the “environment heals itself in time after you take most of the sludge away”:
IMUS: I don’t see how they ever — I don’t see how they ever return the gulf region to pre this gulf spill. Do you?
ISSA: Nah, I do.
IMUS: You do?
ISSA: I’ve made two trips to Alaska and you know our environment heals itself in time after you take most of the sludge away. But, having said that, I don’t see we ever return to trusting our government or the oil companies without real reform.
Watch it:
In reality, while the vast majority of the oil from the Exxon Valdez spill has been cleaned up, toxic chemicals remain and the environment is still ruined in many respects. The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council lists seven distinct species — including sea otters, killer whales, and clams — that still are considered to be “recovering” from the initial effects of the oil. Herring, the once abundant species of fish most of the local fisherman relied on before Exxon’s spill, have been virtually eradicated from the Prince William Sound. Many scientists believe that BP’s oil disaster has produced “five to six times the amount spilled in Alaskan waters in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez,” and many experts fear the chemicals used to disperse the oil will have lingering environmental effects for decades.
The National Republican Congressional Committee often touts its “Young Guns” program, an initiative “dedicated to identifying, recruiting, and mobilizing a new generation of conservative leaders.” But as the Daily Beast points out, this fresh-faced group really isn’t that young:
In fact, the current crop of the 22 Young Guns looks very much like the old generation of conservative leaders. These upstarts together average an age of 49.6 years old — two months shy of the average age of new members who joined Congress in 2008. And those current reps are no spring chickens themselves. According to one analysis, the 111th Congress is the oldest, on average, of any since 1907.
More than half of the Young Guns, having celebrated the big 5-0, are already eligible for an AARP membership. Only two of the group’s designated candidates– Martha Roby, who is running for Alabama’s 2nd District, and district attorney-cum-reality-television star Sean Duffy, who is running for the open seat in Wisconsin’s 7th District — are under the age of 40.
In the past, the Republican National Committee has had to lure younger GOP donors — aka “Young Eagles” — with trips to topless clubs. (HT: Wonkette)
This past Wednesday, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) delivered a wide-ranging speech at an Orthodox Union event in Washington, D.C. The senator’s lecture touched on areas such as Iran’s nuclear program, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and several domestic policy issues.
During one point of his speech, Schumer turned his attention to the situation in Gaza. He told the audience that the “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution,” and also that “they don’t believe in the Torah, in David.” He went on to say “you have to force them to say Israel is here to stay.”
New York’s senior senator explained that the current Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip — which is causing a humanitarian crisis there — is not only justified because it keeps weapons out of the Palestinian territory, but also because it shows the Palestinians living there that “when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement.” Summing up his feelings, Schumer emphasized the need to “to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go”:
SCHUMER: The Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution. More do than before, but a majority still do not. Their fundamental view is, the Europeans treated the Jews badly and gave them our land — this is Palestinian thinking [...] They don’t believe in the Torah, in David [...] You have to force them to say Israel is here to stay. The boycott of Gaza to me has another purpose — obviously the first purpose is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons by which they will use to hurt Israel — but the second is actually to show the Palestinians that when there’s some moderation and cooperation, they can have an economic advancement. When there’s total war against Israel, which Hamas wages, they’re going to get nowhere. And to me, since the Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas, while certainly there should be humanitarian aid and people not starving to death, to strangle them economically until they see that’s not the way to go, makes sense.
Watch it:
Schumer is simply factually incorrect that the “majority” of Palestinians refuse to accept a two-state solution. Recent polling has found that 74 percent of the Palestinian population wants to see a two-state solution with an Israeli and Palestinian state side by side. It is also the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and there is evidence that Gaza’s Hamas rulers may be compelled to support such a solution as well.
As for the senator’s comments on economic strangulation making “sense” to produce better leadership in Gaza, they are as offensive as they are wrong. Schumer believes it is logical to economically harm the civilian population of Gaza — where 44 percent of the people under the age of 14 — for freely voting in an election the U.S. supported, then undermined, in order to change the territory’s government. The reality is that its leadership has only become further radicalized and entrenched as a result of the embargo. (HT: Mondoweiss)
Yesterday, the Senate voted 53-47 to block Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) resolution that would have stripped the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its power to regulate carbon emissions. Murkowski’s resolution was aimed at overturning the EPA’s scientific finding, mandated by the Supreme Court, that manmade greenhouse gases endanger the American public.
Though he’s considered a potential swing vote on future clean energy legislation and was facing pressure to help block the action, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) voted in favor of Murkowski’s resolution. In a Cape Cod Times op-ed yesterday, Brown defended his position by claiming that “this action would give an unelected and unaccountable government agency the power to impose restrictive and damaging carbon dioxide regulations that will drive up energy prices and hurt job-creating small businesses in our country.”
Brown took a different position, however, on a local right-wing radio show, claiming that “a non-governmental agency” would be empowered:
CARR: They’ve been, they’ve been advertising, as you probably know, all over the radio and TV, you know, demanding, the liberals, the moonbats, that you vote for this thing. How do you explain your vote against it?
BROWN: Well, I’m looking out for jobs and jobs in Massachusetts and throughout the country. And to give a non-governmental agency the ability to regulate the way that they have the potential to, they can regulate churches and restaurants and drop it all the way down from the big emitters to the very smallest emitters and it’s not appropriate. And, you know, we in Congress should continue to work on this issue and have the authority to do just that. And I would encourage, certainly, the majority party to start to work on a lot of these energy issues right away.
Listen here:
Clearly, as Brown acknowledged in his op-ed, the EPA is a governmental agency in the executive branch. But that’s not the only thing he got wrong in his discussion with Howie Carr. Brown asserted that the EPA could use the Clean Air Act to “regulate churches and restaurants,” ignoring the fact that the EPA has issued “tailoring” rules that would limit regulations to 75,000 tons a year for large emitters. Churches emit around 100 tons a year.
Transcript: More »
Last week, South Carolina state Sen. Jake Knotts (R) came under fire for calling President Obama and Nikki Haley, his party’s nominee for governor, “a raghead.” The South Carolina Republican party condemned Knotts’ comments immediately after he made them last Thursday. And last night, the Republican Party of Lexington County — where both Knotts and Haley live — voted to officially censure him. In 25-7 vote, the party voted to “condemn, censure and ask for the resignation” of Knotts. Despite the overwhelming vote, some party members defended Knotts, who was not present:
In the original resolution, it called for Knotts to be kicked out of the Lexington County GOP, but they decided to remove that wording.
During the meeting, people spoke up for and against Knotts.
“I actually thought the apology was just as bad, the attempt at the apology was just as bad as the original remark,” said Joshua Gross.
“I do not feel like we should be divisive and sew more discord by doing something so ugly as to censure him,” said Tommy Blonk.
Lexington County GOP Chairman Rich Bolen said before the vote that Knotts’ comments “lended credence to the idea that South Carolinians are redneck, backward, Neanderthals, and we obviously don’t want that to be our image across the country.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the powerful Greenville County Republican Party called for Knotts to be “expelled from the party.” “I cannot sit idly by and watch our Party be torn apart by Senator Jake Knotts’ bigotry,” Patrick Haddon said in a statement. Even Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), an ally of Knotts who infamously shouted “you lie” to President Obama during an address to Congress, condemned Knotts, saying, “I was hurt and disgusted to hear Senator Jake Knotts direct such offensive slurs at a community which is very close to me.”
In response to the censure, Knotts said he “could care less” and would not resign. In a separate interview, he said the censure was “all politics,” and warned that libertarians had “infiltrated” the party. He said he had not called Haley to personally apologize, and that the “press has given Nikki Haley a free ride.” When a reporter asked where the press had failed to hold her accountable, Knotts said, “have you ever asked her if she believes in Jesus Christ as her lord and savior and that he died on the cross for her sins? Have you ever asked her that?”
Given the other recent embarrassments of the South Carolina Republican Party, it’s not surprising that leaders have been so quick to condemn Knotts for his obviously inappropriate comments.
The tea party movement and their corporate-funded astroturf backers at FreedomWorks often claim to be fighting “big government.” For instance, FreedomWorks complained that the individual mandate in the new health care law was an “unacceptable, unconscionable, … complete perversion of the liberties our founders fought and died to protect.” Now, local chapters of the tea party and FreedomWorks are collaborating to plan a protest in Gwinnet County, Georgia, to voice their latest grievance against government powers — mandatory home trash collection:
Three political activist groups are joining together Saturday to protest Gwinnett County’s new trash plan, which begins July 1. The Four Corners Tea Party, FreedomWorks Gwinnett and Gwinnett Citizens for Responsible Government have organized the protest, which will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at the gazebo next to the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse on the Lawrenceville square. [...]
“It’s our way of letting the commissioners know we remember their vote and we’re not going to forget it,” said Debbie Dooley, a Dacula resident and the Georgia grassroots coordinator for FreedomWorks. “We want to make sure they are held accountable for their vote.”
The county’s new solid waste program will make trash collection mandatory for all homeowners in unincorporated Gwinnett County. City residents are not affected by the plan.
The Four Corners Tea Party says on its Facebook page that the group is concerned with “REQUIRING people who live in the unincorporated parts of the county to pay for trash pick-up…whether they like it or not.”
Dawn Johnsen was uniquely qualified to lead the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel — the office which, under George W. Bush, produced “clearly erroneous” memos justifying the unlawful use of torture. In addition to leading that very same office herself during the Clinton administration, Johnsen spearheaded an effort to establish ten principles which would ensure that OLC never repeats its misguided Bush-era practices. Yet Republicans twice blocked her nomination. In an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, Johnsen suggests that her opposition to torture kept her from being confirmed to lead that office again:
While attention understandably is focused on confirming the president’s Supreme Court nominee, the OLC remains, after six years, without a confirmed leader.
It is long past time to halt the damage caused by the “torture memo” by settling on a bipartisan understanding of the proper role of this critical office and confirming an assistant attorney general committed to that understanding.
There is no simple answer to why my nomination failed. But I have no doubt that the OLC torture memo — and my profoundly negative reaction to it — was a critical factor behind the substantial Republican opposition that sustained a filibuster threat. Paradoxically, prominent Republicans earlier had offered criticisms strikingly similar to my own. A bipartisan acceptance of those criticisms is key to moving forward. The Senate should not confirm anyone who defends that memo as acceptable legal advice.
Recall, Johnsen excoriated the Bush administration’s “torture memos,” writing that “we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power.” Sadly, Johnsen is only one of many exceptionally qualified Obama nominees held hostage by the filibuster and similar obstructionist tactics by the GOP.
“Whites are on the verge of becoming a minority among newborn children in the U.S.” The Census Bureau reported yesterday “that nonwhite minorities accounted for 48.6 percent of the children born in the U.S. between July 2008 and July 2009, gaining ground from 46.8 percent two years earlier.” “Minorities made up 35 percent of the U.S. population between July 2008 and July 2009, up from 31 percent in 2000.”
Congress went on a four day break “after failing again to extend jobless benefits for an estimated 325,000 people, fund summer jobs for at-risk youths or help newly laid-off people pay for health care.” Money for extended unemployment benefits expired on June 2. The House voted to continue them until Nov. 30, but the Senate failed to act.
The House-Senate conference to finalize the Wall Street reform bill opened yesterday with “sharp attacks” between Democrats and Republicans. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) warned against a “lobbying blitz” during the committee’s negotiations, while Republicans claimed they were being sidelined. Democrats vowed wrap up the process by the July 4 recess.
“A government panel on Thursday essentially doubled its estimate of how much oil has been spewing” from BP’s oil gusher into the Gulf. The new estimate is “25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day,” up from the 12,000 to 19,000 barrels originally estimated.
The Senate defeated a Republican-led effort yesterday to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from setting new limits on greenhouse gas emissions. In a nearly party-line 53-47 vote, the Senate rejected the bill proposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that would have stopped the EPA from carrying out its 2009 endangerment finding, which determined that the gases are a pollutant.
BP and federal responders continue to battle the petroleum company’s oil spill as it continues to devastate the southeastern coast of the United States. Now, a group of fire chiefs from Baldwin County, Alabama, which is located along the state’s coastline, are alleging that the oil giant is complicating this battle by “purposely keeping trained local officials away from the spill response”:
Fire chiefs along Alabama’s coast are complaining about BP’s response to the Gulf oil spill crisis. The 36-member Baldwin County Fire Chiefs Association sent a letter Wednesday to the unified command and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley saying the company appears to be purposely keeping trained local officials away from the spill response. They also say they’re getting far too little official information about what’s going on.
Addressing BP, the fire chiefs write in their letter, “Interestingly our services are free or at most cost reimbursable. [Y]ou have chosen to use commercial operations at exorbitant costs. … To be kept totally out of the loop in this disaster makes no sense. Our citizens have come to expect a high level of response from us. With us having no information for them we are not meeting their needs. They deserve better than they are getting.”
Local Alabama news station WKRG reports that the chiefs had planned to meet with the oil company last week to relay their concerns, but “company officials cancelled the meeting at the last minute.” The chiefs say “their experience in hazardous material situations and knowledge of the region could be beneficial in the cleanup. But so far, BP has done a terrible job of communicating with local agencies.” Watch it:
BP Spokesman Ashley Babb denies that the company ever agreed to meet with the fire chiefs. “Since Day 1, we’ve tried to contact these people to say we’re available. We’re here,” Gib Hixon, president of the Baldwin County Fire Chiefs Association, told the Mobile Press-Register. “We’ve offered our facilities for logistics, staging, training. They have totally ignored us.”
Michael Cannon, a health policy expert for Cato, the libertarian think tank founded by Charles Koch of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, took to Twitter today to trade jokes about the oil spill. Responding to a tragic story about a New Orleans area sheriff asking federal authorities to investigate reports that undocumented workers are involved in the oil spill clean up, Cannon tweeted that undocumented workers “are very absorbent.” View a screen shot below:
While Cannon might have gotten a good laugh out of his comment, pervasive anti-immigrant rhetoric leads to dehumanization and sometimes violence.
While extension of unemployment benefits languishes in the Senate, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing yesterday to address long-term unemployment. During the hearing, Committee member Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) dismissed policy solutions for a more galling approach:
Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) didn’t have much patience for the egghead economists and their proposals for additional weeks of unemployment benefits, job-sharing or workforce retraining. ‘What would help me a lot is if you all came to Vegas and drank and gambled like crazy,’ she said.
Berkley’s dismissive remark is in stark contrast with the dire situation facing the 1.2 million unemployed Americans in need of extended benefits and the nearly 7 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. While previously viewing unemployment aid as “critical” for families “to put food on the table,” Berkley’s dismissal of the unemployed now seems more in line with her Republican counterparts. At the same hearing, Rep. John Linder (R-GA) suggested that unemployment benefits are merely “an allure” that “keep people from looking for work.” Her fellow Nevada Rep. Dean Heller (R) weighed in earlier this year, deeming unemployment extension as a policy that creates “hobos.” In a similarly misguided approach to the economy, Berkley joined republicans last year to champion tax cuts for the wealthy.
At a Memorial Day service honoring fallen troops at the Desert Lawn Cemetery in Yuma, AZ, Mayor Al Krieger decided that it was appropriate to denigrate the brave LGBT men and women who have served this country:
I cannot believe that a bunch of lacy-drawered, limp-wristed people could do what those men have done in the past.
Not surprisingly, Krieger is strongly opposed to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In a new interview with local NBC station KYMA, Krieger defended his remarks, saying that America’s greatest presidents would have agreed with his remarks:
I’m reluctant to compare myself to George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, but I did get some feedback, and I don’t think I said anything different than what they would have said.
Watch it:
At HRC Back Story, Eric Alva, a gay Marine veteran who was the first service member injured in the Iraq War, sharply responds to Krieger’s “hateful” remarks: “Many members in my unit knew I was gay — and this simple truth never once came in the way of our ability to do our job. It didn’t stop Navy corpsman Brian Alaniz from heroically coming to my aid after I stepped on a landmine, earning me the dubious distinction of being the first casualty in the Iraq War. Minutes later, he would become the second casualty of the war. Since then, we have stood by each other — literally — as we learned to walk again with our new prosthetic legs.”
While BP has denied that it is blocking the media from reporting on the Gulf oil spill, numerous press reports indicate otherwise. Today, while preparing for a Skype chat on his laptop at a public beach in Alabama, ABC News reporter Matt Gutman “was hassled by the manager of a nearby crew, asking Gutman why he was on the beach.” Gutman captured the interaction on video, and said “several people” had asked him “not to talk to any of the workers here”:
BP has said that “anyone on cleanup crews can share their views,” but Gutman and other reporters have found that field managers often prevent workers from doing so. As ThinkProgress noted, BP initially forced workers to sign a contract that explicitly barred them from talking to the media. Though that clause of the contract appears to have been removed due to a lawsuit, workers are clearly still paranoid about talking to the press. One contractor who broke the silence surreptitiously escorted a New York Daily News crew around some of the affected sites, saying he was frustrated with what he deemed the “coverup.” “They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals,” he said.
The Ugandan parliament is considering legislation that would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for some homosexual acts (which are already illegal), require people to report every LGBT individual they know, and criminalize renting property to gay men and women.
As Rachel Maddow repeatedly highlighted on her MSNBC show, this anti-gay push in Uganda was inspired — and promoted — by the religious far right in the United States. In March 2009, three American evangelicals — whose anti-gay teachings have been widely discredited — went to Uganda and preached about the “dark agenda” of LGBT individuals. Just one month later, Ugandan lawmaker David Bahati introduced the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill.”
While many evangelical leaders who promote hatred toward gays have tried to distance themselves from the Uganda bill, Bishop Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop from Uganda and Chaplain of Integrity Uganda, spoke at the Center for American Progress this week and blamed global anti-LGBT sentiments on the religious right in the United States. From his discussion with CAP Visiting Senior Fellow Bishop Gene Robinson (13:35):
ROBINSON: One thing that I often say to groups here is that the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic communities are responsible for most of the discrimination LGBT people have experienced. And it seems to me that the church, synagogue, the mosque needs to repent of that kind of emotional and spiritual violence, as I say, which often leads to physical violence. Do you see any movement of the churches or the Muslim community in Uganda – any movement to a recognition to the harm that has been done or is it still the source of much of the prejudice?
SENYONJO: It’s very, very unfortunate because there are even some Christian groups coming from here — that is to say, the United States — who are making it very difficult by preaching a gospel of hatred to the LGBT people. One wonders, if God — whom I do, many of us, I say, do believe — that God is a god of love, but some people are preaching a gospel of hating a certain group of people. … It’s very unfortunate, people also read the scriptures. They usually pick bits which fit them. And they pick them and say, “Oh, in the Old Testament this happened, in the Qur’an and all that.”
Robinson also pointedly criticized anti-gay religious leaders by comparing them to people who start campfires in California and then don’t want to be held accountable because they claim “that they did not intend to burn down half of Los Angeles” (18:49):
ROBINSON: It seems to me that that’s an image we ought to be using with those who go to Uganda, for instance, and in the name of the Gospel preach this kind of message. And then when violence occurs, or this legislation, like the Bahati bill occurs, you know when we confront them here in this country about that, they say, “Oh my goodness! That was never our intention!” Well, when you set off that kind of sparks you should not be surprised when it turns into a wildfire.
Watch the full event here:
Robinson is the bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church in New Hampshire and was the first openly gay priest ordained by a major Christian denomination. Senyonjo had to leave Uganda because of his efforts to decriminalize homosexuality and increase tolerance there.
Last month, the Interior Department instituted a six-month moratorium for wells deeper than 500 ft, directing them to “cease drilling any new deepwater wells, including wellbore sidekick and bypass activities.” “With the BP oil spill still growing in the gulf, and investigations and reviews still under way, a six-month pause in drilling is needed, appropriate, and prudent,” said Salazar.
But the “pause” in drilling is leading to some imprudent rhetoric from supporters of more oil drilling. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) sent a letter to the Obama administration on Monday claiming that the moratorium would cause more “economic devastation than the oil spill itself.” On PBS last night, Sen. John Barrasso called it “a second assault on the Gulf“:
LEHRER: Senator Barrasso, do you believe that the bulk of the responsibility and the lack of action, as you say, should go to B.P., or do you think it’s now the federal government’s responsibility?
BARRASSO: Well, today, in the Energy Committee hearing, the – - Secretary Salazar, the secretary of interior, said we have been on top of this and making the decisions from the beginning.
But I think, when the American people take a look at this, in day 51, and they see the oil continuing to spew out, they’re saying, is everyone helpless? What — what are the best ideas?
And — and I had additional questions for the secretary today about the moratorium, because I think that’s going to be a second assault on the Gulf, with — even by the department’s own recognition, that it’s over 100,000 jobs that can be lost if they don’t go back and continue to provide the energy for the people of the United States.
LEHRER: So, you’re — you — you are opposed to the moratorium?
BARRASSO: I am opposed to the moratorium.
In the same segment, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) defended the moratorium, saying that “we sure better know what went wrong before we continue to do this, because we sure don’t want to have another one of these things go off and fill the Gulf up all the more.” Barrasso wasn’t convinced, again calling it an “assault on the economy.” Watch it:
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