Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of two Muslim members of Congress, is under attack from an anti-Muslim group because he sits on the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism. The paradoxically named Americans Against Hate held a rally in Florida this week to call for Ellison’s immediate removal, and issued a statement asking Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL), co-chair of CTFAS, to take Ellison off the task force:
Representative Klein has both the authority and the responsibility to remove Keith Ellison from the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism, a group that Ellison has no business being on. We demand that he does so immediately. Every day that Ellison sits on that task force is an offense to those who fell victim to anti-Semitism and/or radical Islam.
AHA claims that Ellison has “associations” with groups that are supposedly connected to terror, but cites only speeches Ellison has given to Muslim-advocacy groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, which sponsored a recent trip Ellison took to Gaza. (When he came back from that trip, Ellison met with a local Jewish group and told them about his conversations with Gazans “who didn’t seem to appreciate how devastating the rocket attacks have been on Israel.”)
AHA’s founder, Joe Kaufman, is no stranger to mainstream conservatism. He spoke at a major Tea Party rally in Ft. Lauderdale this July, and has appeared several times on Fox News, including on Hannity. In his most recent appearance, on Fox & Friends, Kaufman decried a Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Great Adventure. Watch it:
Rep. Klein has denied AHA’s request to remove Ellison in the past, but apparently the group thinks it will be able to change his mind. Interestingly, AHA already approached Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) — CTFAS’s other co-chair — and Kaufman claimed that Pence told him that he simply “would defer his position on Ellison to Klein.”
In their much-touted “Pledge To America,” Republicans last month said they plan to end the nation’s “crushing debt.” Yet they explicitly exempt the Department of Defense from any spending cuts, and even promise to “fully fund missle defense” — conservatives’ long-sought pipe dream program that would use domestic missiles to intercept incoming ones, which has never proven workable. In a recent interview with a local news station, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) said that reining in the deficit “begins with the Department of Defense,” a laudable sentiment that unfortunately has not yet been backed up by the senator’s actions.
Now, another major Republican is rebuking the Pledge’s call for declaring the defense budget off-limits from waste trimming. Kentucky GOP candidate for U.S. Senate Rand Paul was leaving an event at a local Chamber of Commerce in Kentucky yesterday when PBS reporter Gwen Ifill approached him and asked him about his views on various issues. At one point, Paul began to explain that while he’s running as Republican, he sees himself as being independent of the party, and complained that “often we get too distracted by getting too partisan.” As an example, he explained that to tackle the budget deficit, there has to be a “compromise” where Congress looks “at the whole budget.” He chided Republicans for “always” excluding the military from cuts and saying “we’re not gonna look at the military.” He concluded, “Everything has to be on the table. We have to do this intelligently“:
PAUL: I think the issues are more important than the party. I think often we get too distracted by getting too partisan. I don’t see people who are Democrats as always being wrong or Republicans as always being wrong. I think there has to be a compromise on the budget. In order to address the deficit the only compromise that I think we can have is you have to look at the whole budget. We’ve always excluded the military and said we’re not gonna look at the military. Or the Democrats exclude the social and domestic welfare spending. Everything has to be on the table. We have to do this intelligently.
Watch it:
If Paul is really serious about including the Pentagon’s budget in a deficit-reduction effort, they can look to The Sustainable Defense Task (SDTF) report released earlier this year. Assembled by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and consisting of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts, the SDTF identified nearly $1 trillion in waste that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years simply by eliminating outdated Cold War-era programs. He could also reference a recent report by CAP experts Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley that lays out $108 billion in defense cuts in the current 2015 budget forecast.
Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum appeared on Fox News yesterday to defend former House Speaker Newt Gignrich’s absurd war on food stamps, and threw in a factually-challenged defense of the Bush administration as well for good measure. Speaking of increased poverty rates during the recession, Santorum boldly stated that “Bush polices worked,” and resulted in the lowest poverty rates “ever in the history of this country” for African Americans and single women:
SANTORUM: Yeah, remember, under the Bush administration, welfare — I mean, excuse me, poverty among African Americans and among single unmarried women, poverty was at the lowest rate ever in the history of this country. So Obama’s policies are not working, Bush polices worked! For long a time as a matter of fact.
Watch it:
There’s one small problem with Santorum’s claim — it’s completely false. In fact, while the Bush years were disastrous for the economy as a whole, they were particularly devastating for the poorest Americans. Under Bush, the number of Americans living in poverty jumped an astonishing 26.1 percent. When President Clinton left office in 2000, there were about 31.6 million Americans living in poverty, according to the Census Bureau. When Bush left office in 2008, that number had jumped to 39.8 million — the largest number in absolute terms since 1960.
As for Santorum’s claims about Africans Americans, he is dead wrong. A Center for American Progress report found, “The percent of African Americans living in poverty increased from 2000 to 2006 by an average of 0.82 percent per year, after having declined by an average of 1.25 percent per year in the 1990s” — and that was before the recession. Poverty rates among African Americans climbed even higher in the last two years of the Bush administration, reaching an astonishing 24.7 percent in 2008.
And despite Santorum’s claims, the poverty rates for unmarried women also climbed under Bush. As a Center for American Progress report on single women found, single mothers were particularly hard hit, with nearly 30 percent living in poverty in 2008 — “a significant increase” over 2000 when fewer than than 26 percent were impoverished. And not only did the rate increase, but the gap between married and unmarried women grew: “The poverty rate of unmarried women was 13.4 percentage points higher than married women in 2000, but it was 14.6 percentage points higher in 2008,” the report found. Not surprisingly, that gap was even wider for women of color.
It’s unclear where Santorum came up with his bogus claim, as the data is easily accessible and irrefutable. Of all the issues on which to try to defend Bush’s record, poverty is among the most difficult. As the Atlantic’s Ron Brownstein noted last year parsing the Census Bureau’s annual report on poverty, “On every major measurement…the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms.”
As ThinkProgress has been reporting all week, South Fulton Fire Department firefighters from Obion, Tennessee, stood by and watched as the Cranick family’s home burned down because their fire-fighting services were available on a subscription basis only, and the family had not paid the $75 fee. Immediately, right-wing writers at the conservative movement’s bulkhead magazine, The National Review, and conservative radio host Glenn Beck defended the county and argued that firefighting should not be a public service available to all, regardless of ability to pay.
The Cranicks revealed in an interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that they lost four pets in the fire — three dogs and a cat. Now, the Human Society of the United States (HSUS) — the 11 million member-strong organization dedicated to animal welfare — has condemned the Obion County policy of only offering firefighting to rural residents through a subscription-based service. In their statement, the Humane Society writes that it’s “inexecusable that three dogs and a cat would have to die in such a horrible way, with firefighters ordered to not intervene, because of an unpaid $75 service fee“:
The Humane Society of the United States is issuing the following statement in response to the heartbreaking news that four animals died in an Obion County, Tenn., fire because the homeowner didn’t pay a service fee, and firefighters were told they could not extinguish the blaze:
“It is inexcusable that three dogs and a cat would have to die in such a horrible way, with firefighters ordered to not intervene, because of an unpaid $75 service fee. Putting out fires is a matter of life and death for people and animals, and South Fulton city officials should quickly reconsider their emergency response policies before others are put at risk,” said Leighann McCollum, Tennessee state director for The HSUS.
The Humane Society is not the only major national organization to condemn Obion County’s policy following ThinkProgress’s reporting. Earlier this week, the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) — which “represents more than 298,000 full-time professional fire fighters and paramedics who protect 85 percent of the nation’s population” — called the firefighters who refused to help the Cranicks “incredibly irresponsible. … [Firefighters] shouldn’t be forced to check a list before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up,” said a statement by the group.
As the Progress Report writes, “The story of Gene Cranick’s home illustrates the ascendancy of a compassion-less conservative philosophy that believes in the on-your-own society and has virtually abandoned the common-good creed that we are our brothers keepers. Only by rededicating ourselves to rebuilding an American Dream that works for all Americans can progressives repudiate this merciless philosophy.”
Social Security privatization has been a long-standing priority of the GOP. President Bush and the Republican congressional majorities focused on it when they last won an election cycle in 2004 and the idea is reemerging as a GOP pledge this year. Privatization is a central tenet of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan, “a Roadmap for America’s Future,” and Reps. Dan Lungren (R-CA), Jack Kingston (R-GA), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, senate candidates Sharron Angle (R-NV), and Ken Buck (R-CO) have all embraced Social Security privatization measures.
The right-wing Club for Growth’s “primary tactic” is to find candidates that will enthusiastically adopt measures like privatization and “support it loudly.” Indeed, the Club endorsed senate candidate Marco Rubio (R-FL) in 2009 when he supported privatization, saying he is “the real deal” and a “champion of economic liberty.”
But, after Wednesday night’s senatorial debate in Florida, the Club may want to reconsider its champion. During the debate, Rubio’s opponents Gov. Charlie Crist (I) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) pounced on Rubio’s record for “being all over the map” on his privatization stance, citing previous times in which Rubio had touted the idea. Rubio said their claims were “blatantly untrue” and “lies.” But when pressed by moderator George Stephanopoulos to nail down his stance, Rubio firmly rejected privatization “because it doesn’t work”:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s– let’s try to wrap this up and then move on to the next round of questioning. On the question of privatization, you’ve raised some charges, as well. And I just want a yes or no answer. Is it still on the table?
RUBIO:It is not. Because it doesn’t work. Because you’re taking payers out of the sys[tem]. And I said that in March, by the way, in a debate. Governor Crist was sitting right next to me. I said it to the Wall Street Journal. But once again, the Governor’s mischaracterized my position. But once again, the Governor’s mischaracterized my position. He’s saying that this impacts seniors. Not a single senior watching this program would be impacted by any of the changes that I’ve discussed. Not one.
Watch it:
Crist and Meek were justifiably critical of Rubio’s stance on this issue. In late January, Rubio told newspaper reporters and editors in Tallahassee that “he favored giving younger workers the option of investing some of their payroll taxes ‘in an alternative to the Social Security System’” and endorsed the private account measure outlined in Ryan’s “Roadmap.” However, after giving his position some actual thought, he later determined that the time for privatization “has come and gone.”
Rubio’s Republican colleagues should take note of his awakening. Touting privatization as a budget reform measure that would not adversely affect seniors is “unrealistic” and “imprudent.” Not only would this type of reform create new administrative costs and force benefit reductions, it would impose significant risk on seniors and would actually cost more than the current system. Now if Rubio would just give his other stances similar thought, he just might have to part ways with his compatriots altogether.
A significant number of Republicans are beginning to rally around the idea of shutting down the government if they control Congress next year. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) and Steve King (R-IA) have openly called for a shutdown, while Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and RNC Chairman Michael Steele have given their tacit endorsements. The last time Republicans shut down the government, right after taking power in 1995, the government lost $800 million and millions of Americans were denied or delayed access to Medicare, Social Security, national parks, and other federally-funded programs.
Undaunted, Tea Party darling Joe Miller is pitching his tent in the government-shutdown camp. Miller, currently locked in a three-way Alaska Senate race, has already generated significant controversy after it was revealed that his wife received unemployment benefits that he believes are unconstitutional and he personally received Medicaid benefits that he believes are unconstitutional. Now, Miller is not only endorsing a government shutdown if he is elected, but also told National Review Online’s Robert Costa that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has put the option “on the table”:
“I think there’s an understanding that the mood of the nation has changed in such a way that there is not going to be toleration of business as usual. If that means shutting down the government, so be it. I mean, we’ll do what it takes,” [Miller] says. “I think that we will have enough like-minded people coming into D.C. that we’re actually going to be able to accomplish something.”
But is Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, open to the possibility of shutting down the federal government? “There was a comment made at breakfast this morning about shutting down the government, and he reacted in a positive way,” Miller says. “I’m not going to quote him, but I think that he recognizes that that’s on the table.”
McConnell’s office has since responded that the Republican Leader “has not called for shutting down the government.” However, McConnell’s spokesman was silent on whether or not the option is on the table, as Miller asserted.
In his interview, Miller also called for war with Iran if they did not cease their nuclear ambitions, saying “we will do what we can militarily to take care of that.” However, moments later, Mr. “Noun, Verb, and Unconstitutional” hedged on actually toppling the Iranian government because that would not be “constitutionally authorized.” For those keeping score, Miller has now added nation-building to his growing list of things he views as unconstitutional, including Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, Medicaid, and the minimum wage.
CNN’s Jim Acosta had the opportunity to interview GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell yesterday, weeks after the tea party favorite swore off national media appearances. O’Donnell gave Acosta the GOP line on tax cuts, health care, and national security, and joined the rest of the Republican Party’s candidates for U.S. Senate who question the science that global warming is manmade:
ACOSTA: Global warming, is it manmade? Does human activity contribute to global warming?
O’DONNELL: I don’t have an opinion on that. I would have to look at a specific piece of legislation when it comes to cap and trade, the bill that has been pout there supposedly out there to combat climate change. I’m opposed to cap and trade because of the economic consequences. What it will do to the individual household, skyrocketing our utility bills beyond what we can afford, and it doesn’t address the real issue it was intended to address.
Watch it:
The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson notes, “In May, 2010, the National Academies of Science reported to Congress that ‘the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change’ because global warming is ’caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems.’”
For more on O’Donnell’s record, check out our ThinkProgress report: The Old Adventures of New Christine.
A whole host of Republican congressional candidates and lawmakers — including former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-PA) — have tried to run away from their support for Social Security privatization, denying that they favor such a move (despite continuing to call for the creation of personal Social Security accounts). Last night, Colorado’s Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck became to latest to deny that his privatization plan would actually privatize the system:
“I’ve never said we should privatize Social Security,” [Buck] told [Sen. Michael] Bennet, whose committee has made that accusation against Buck in television ads.
Contrary to his assertion, Buck has been a full-throated supporter of privatization, saying, “we’ve got to peg Social Security to individuals so those individuals have the ability perhaps to invest in various funds that are approved by the government. But those individuals also own that fund.” In fact, Buck has questioned whether the federal government should have any role in a retirement plan at all, saying “the idea the federal government should be running health care or retirement or any of those programs is fundamentally against what I believe and that is that the private sector runs programs like that far better.” As The Wonk Room explained, Buck’s claim that his plan would limit investments to safe, government approved funds, is also dubious.
Earlier this week, a ThinkProgress investigation found that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been raising funds from foreign-based corporations to solicit funding for their general 501(c)(6) entity, and that entity runs approximately $75 million worth of partisan attack ads. This week alone, the Chamber ran nearly $10.5 million in attack ads in many of the most competitive elections in America. Republican candidates in the nine Senate and 22 House districts are benefiting from the Chamber’s support.
Now, Politico reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — perhaps in an attempt to distance itself from the fact that it operates as a wing of the Republican Party — will start airing aids backing conservative Democrats who voted against the recent health care overhaul:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is giving air support to a group of Democrats who opposed the White House-backed health care overhaul, according to a Republican source who tracks political advertising. The ads are boosting Reps. Frank Kratovil of Maryland, Glenn Nye of Virginia, Travis Childers of Mississippi, Jim Marshall of Georgia and Bobby Bright of Alabama. “When seniors look to Washington today, they wonder who will protect them,” one ad goes. “With Congress cutting $500 billion from Medicare to pay for their big-government health care bill, it’s good to know Frank Kratovil voted ‘no.”
While the Chamber ads may lead many to believe that the organization is taking on a more bipartisan stance, the truth is that it has a long history of allying itself closely to Republicans. A 2009 Think Progress analysis of “analysis of federal election contribution data compiled by the LittleSis project has found that the Chamber’s 116-member board of directors has given more than six times as much money to Republican candidates and committees ($4,741,747) as it has to Democrats ($778,282), with $1,074,697 flowing to corporate political action committees.”
Alaska GOP Senate candidate Joe Miller has repeatedly claimed that federal health care benefits violate the Constitution. It turns out, however, that “Mr. Noun, Verb, and Unconstitutional” doesn’t actually think that the Constitution applies to himself. Yesterday, Miller acknowledged that the received the very same kind of federally funded health care benefits that he believes to be unconstitutional:
U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller acknowledged Thursday that in the past his family received assistance from federal Medicaid and Denali KidCare, the state low income health care program. His opponents in the race responded that he’s a hypocrite for taking assistance while now saying federal entitlement programs are unconstitutional.
Miller’s campaign didn’t provide an answer for for the past week-and-a-half did not answer when asked what low-income assistance he has received. But Miller addressed it Thursday when asked by reporters after a debate in Anchorage, saying people are entitled to know about his past benefits but “it’s a bit of a distraction from where we’re at today.”
Miller attempts to distract from his own hypocrisy by pointing out that he only objects to federally-funded health care benefits, claiming that it is “ultimately a state decision” whether or not to provide a basic safety net to the nation’s least fortunate. But this claim does nothing to change the fact that the Medicaid benefits Miller accepted are paid in part by the federal government — a violation of Miller’s bizarre view of the Constitution.
And Miller isn’t just a hypocrite, he also has no idea what he is talking about. Had Miller actually bothered to read the Constitution, he would know that Congress has the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the . . . general welfare of the United States.” Federal health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid clearly fit within this power to raise revenue and spend it to benefit the nation at large. Additionally, Miller’s proposal for a state takeover of federal entitlement programs is economically impossible unless America forbids its citizens from retiring in a different state than the one that they paid taxes in while working.
There is one thing that’s clear from Miller’s actions, however. He is perfectly happy to leave millions of other people helpless against the twin dragons of poverty and disease, but there is no way that he is going to follow his own draconian rules.
A new Labor Department report released this morning states that unemployment remained unchanged last month, resting at 9.6 percent. Approximately 159,000 government jobs were lost, but the private sector adding 64,000 jobs. Steve Benen produces a chart to depict the trend.
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office announced that the federal budget deficit is “slightly less than $1.3 trillion” for fiscal 2010, $125 billion less than the record high of $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009. The deficit is expected to become a key focus of Congress and the Obama administration next year as “they try to rein in spending without jeopardizing the ongoing economic recovery.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend more than $10 million on political attack ads this week, which is “the biggest of the campaign season by a group other than a national political party.” Having spent “just less than $9 million this year through Monday,” the Chamber is drawing fire from watchdog groups who are asking Chamber-backed candidates to inquire whether the ads receive foreign funds.
Prominent Chinese literary critic and democracy activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, but will be unable to attend any ceremony due to the fact he is “currently serving an 11-year term on subversion charges.” “Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry in a statement.
Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, who advocated for unaffordable tax cuts for the rich during the Bush administration, is now arguing that the resulting deficit would be addressed by cutting entitlements. “You need” austerity, said Greenspan. “We’re going to have to start to cut” from government entitlement programs, he added.
A Senate investigation has found that Afghan private security forces “with ties to the Taliban, criminal networks and Iranian intelligence have been hired to guard American military bases in Afghanistan,” exposing U.S. soldiers to surprise attack and complicating the fight against insurgents. Oversight of Afghan guards is “virtually nonexistent” which allows deals with warlords tied to the insurgency.
Israel signaled that a compromise may be reached over settlements in the West Bank yesterday. A freeze on new construction recently expired, threatening to derail peace talks with the Palestinians, but “incentives offered by the Obama administration to Israel may allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to push through his Cabinet a limited renewal of the 10-month freeze.”
Ethics trials for Reps. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) will take place after the midterm elections in November. Rangel and Waters requested pre-election hearings, which “will determine whether the lawmakers violated standards of conduct. Rangel is accused of financial and fundraising improprieties and Waters is charged with improperly helping a bank where her husband has an investment.”
A new Pew Research Center survey finds that “forty-two percent of respondents said they favor same-sex marriage, up 5 percentage points from 2009 and the highest number registered since Pew began asking the question in 1996.” The poll also finds that 60 percent of Americans support allowing gays to openly serve in the military, with only 30 percent opposed.
And finally: While the real Christine O’Donnell tries to distance herself from her occult past with ads proclaiming “I’m not a witch,” a new doll of the Delaware GOP Senate nominee proudly highlights her witchcraft dabbling. Offbeat doll maker HeroBuilders is offering two O’Donnell figurines, one “with a witchy cape and hat for a bargain price of $39.95.”
ThinkProgress is hiring! Details here.
Tomorrow, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to hold a reception for the Bahrain Banks Association, a trade group for banks operating in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Bahrain Minister of Finance, Central Bank, and Bahrain Ambassador will be attending, and the event listing invites “banks and investment firms” to attend.
The Bahrain Banks Association includes many foreign investment firms that, as ThinkProgress reported this week, have been sending funds to the Chamber. The funds are deposited in the same 501(c)(6) account that the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 million dollar attack campaign, mostly against Democrats like Jack Conway in Kentucky and Robin Carnahan in Missouri. ThinkProgress has documented at least $300,000 in foreign money to the Chamber from two countries alone. Below are a list of Bahrain Bank Association members which the Chamber has indicated are dues-paying members:
– Bahrain Financial Harbour Holding Company (based in Bahrain)
– ICICI Bank (based in India)
– TAIB Bank (based in Bahrain)
– State Bank of India (state-owned and based in India)
The event occurs as the Chamber continues to refuse to answer simple questions about the legality of its fundraising operation for its political attack campaign. Foreign businesses and foreign agents are prohibited by law from contributing to any American political campaign expenditure. So far, the Chamber denies any inappropriate conduct, but has failed to produce any documentation that it is segregating its foreign dues from its American money. According to Graham Gillette, a participant at an Iowa event attended by Chamber CEO Tom Donohue today, Donohue replied to the controversy by simply attacking ThinkProgress as a “blog supported by George Soros.”
As ThinkProgress reported, the Chamber has internal fundraising departments called “Business Councils” — like the U.S.-Bahrain Business Council and the U.S.-India Business Council — which are run by Chamber development officers. Promotions to join the Chamber have included promises that foreign firms obtain “access to the US Chamber of Commerce and everything that it does,” noting that the Chamber is “enormous within the US.” ThinkProgress has reported that the application to join the Business Councils welcome foreign-owned entities, and the application encourages businesses to wire or send their dues to the same general 501(c)(6) the Chamber is currently using for its political campaign advertisements all over the country. See below for a link and screen shot to one such application:
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the Chamber hosting an event with Bahrain banks, or any foreign-owned banks. The problem arises if the Chamber is using foreign funding to help launch partisan advertising here in the United States.
GOP U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell sparked a media firestorm after her victory in the Delaware primary last month. After establishment Republicans attacked her and comedian Bill Maher released a video clip of her saying she had once dabbled in witchcraft, O’Donnell went into damage control mode. First she canceled Sunday show interviews and then told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that she would no longer appear on national news media.
But, O’Donnell has broken her pledge. Yesterday, she promised CNN’s Jim Acosta that she would talk to him, and today, she granted him an interview, part of which has already aired on CNN’s The Situation Room.
But now that O’Donnell has given CNN an interview, thus breaking her “no national media” pledge, perhaps she can also do an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. After all, O’Donnell used Maddow-as-villain in a recent fundraising campaign. Maddow, along with some of her staff, was kicked out of O’Donnell’s campaign office this week after making an attempt to interview her. And the MSNBC host responded last night that she’d be happy to have O’Donnell on her show so she can provide her point of view:
MADDOW: If you are unhappy with our coverage of you, Ms. O’Donnell, if you think that we intentionally “cover up the truth”… as you said in your fundraising letter, I can assure you that our reporting on you would be so much better-informed if you were actually in it, if you would actually talk to us, instead of having your staffers call us names and getting some angry man to yell “Get off my lawn” at us, just because we asked for an interview.
Watch it:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
At the end of the segment, Maddow made a pledge of her own. “So say, ‘Yes,’ Christine O’Donnell!” Maddow said. “It will be fun, I promise!”
Today was a victory for the Affordable Care Act. The first court decision to render a verdict on the constitutionality of the landmark health reform package upheld a key portion of law. Earlier today, Judge George Caram Steeh of the Eastern District of Michigan handed down a twenty page order dismissing a challenge to the Act’s minimum coverage provision on the merits:
“In assessing the scope of Congress’ authority under the Commerce Clause,” the court’s task “is a modest one.” The court need not itself determine whether the regulated activities, “taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a ‘rational basis’ exists for so concluding.”
There is a rational basis to conclude that, in the aggregate, decisions to forego insurance coverage in preference to attempting to pay for health care out of pocket drive up the cost of insurance. The costs of caring for the uninsured who prove unable to pay are shifted to health care providers, to the insured population in the form of higher premiums, to governments, and to taxpayers. The decision whether to purchase insurance or to attempt to pay for health care out of pocket, is plainly economic. These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance. These are the economic effects addressed by Congress in enacting the Act and the minimum coverage provision.
Although Judge Steeh is the second judge to dismiss a challenge to health reform — last August, a George W. Bush appointee dismissed a health care case on procedural grounds — he is the first judge to reach the merits of whether or not the law is constitutional. Interestingly, Steeh sided against the Obama Administration’s three procedural arguments that would have effectively delayed any litigation challenging the ACA until 2014, before completely rejecting the plaintiff’s claim that the law is unconstitutional.
This case is far from over, however. Judge Steeh’s decision will appeal to the notoriously right-wing Sixth Circuit, a Court which tried to manipulate federal election law to benefit the Ohio Republican Party in 2008 before being unanimously smacked down by the Supreme Court just three days later. If the Sixth Circuit reverses Judge Steeh, that decision is almost certain to be reviewed by the Supreme Court.
In the end, however, there is no question that Steeh reached the correct decision. Even ultra-conservative Justice Scalia agrees that Congress has sweeping power to regulate “economic activity,” and there is simply no question that health reform will have an enormous economic impact on the health insurance market. In other words, today’s decision will be the first of many affirming the Affordable Care Act.
Pressure has been mounting on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce since a ThinkProgress investigation published Tuesday revealed that the right-wing business group may be using donations from foreign corporations to bankroll its general account — the same account that is being used to launch an unprecedented $75 million attack ad campaign against progressive candidates. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) and others have called for an FEC investigation into the Chamber, and numerous media outlets have pressed the group for answers. Meanwhile, the Chamber continues to stonewall. Today, while stumping for Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), President Obama referenced the investigation, warning that “groups that receive foreign money” are a “threat to our democracy”:
OBAMA: Just this week, we learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ad regularly takes in money from foreign corporations. So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections. And they won’t tell you where the money for the ads come from.
So this isn’t just a threat to Democrats. All Republicans should be concerned. Independents should be concerned. This is a threat to our democracy. The American people deserve to know who’s trying to influence their elections. And if we just stand by and allow the special interests to silence anybody who’s got the guts to stand up to them, our country’s going to be a very different place.
Watch it:
During his January State of the Union address, Obama warned that the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision “will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our election.” And in his weekly address in September, Obama warned again, “Foreign-controlled corporations seeking to influence our democracy are able to spend freely in order to swing an election toward a candidate they prefer.” His prediction, widely mocked by conservatives, has unfortunately proven prescient.
Since ThinkProgress issued a report two days ago about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign funding, there has been a considerable reaction. The New York Times published an editorial yesterday, saying that the report “raises fresh questions about whether they [the Chamber] are violating both the letter and spirit of the campaign finance laws.” Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has called on the Federal Election Commission to investigate whether the Chamber is in fact using foreign funds to pay for political attacks in the United States. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) called on his Republican opponent to denounce a Chamber ad that attacks Feingold.
Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, former FEC chairman Scott Thomas — who was appointed by Ronald Reagan and re-appointed to the commission by George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton — said “if it turns out that any money in fact is being knowingly put into the process from foreign companies or from foreign government sources, that would be a serious problem.” Watch it:
Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, went further. He told ThinkProgress that there was “absolutely no doubt” that there is a potential for the Chamber to violate election law, and called for much tougher enforcement of campaign finance regulations:
To me there is absolutely no doubt that this is a back-door way to get around what are long-standing and legitimate restrictions. This is happening not just because of Citizen’s United, it’s also happening because we have an utterly worthless and feckless Federal Election Commission and an IRS code that needs serious toughening and revamping. We also have a very serious need to have the IRS look at the regulations involving 527s and especially 501(c)(4)s — regulations that are being flouted and abused even as we speak.
Good government groups are weighing in as well. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan organization that works on democracy and governance issues, said that the ThinkProgress report “raises a series of very important questions that must be addressed”:
The CAP article shows that we need an immediate investigation to determine whether the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money to fund its $75 million campaign to influence the 2010 federal elections, since that would be illegal. If the Chamber wants to make the case that they are keeping their foreign funds away from being spent on campaign activities, they ought to do so publicly and disclose how they are accomplishing this since money is fungible.
David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, said:
The Chamber opposes transparency in political spending. They support outsourcing jobs overseas. They’re taking foreign money. And now they basically say, “trust us” when there’s mounting evidence they’re outsourcing the funding of their political attacks ads? Yeah, right. They should immediately pull any ads they’re running, and any candidate benefiting from their spending ought to join us in demanding the Chamber come clean.
Not all groups agree, of course. The conservative Center for Competitive Politics asserted in a memo that the Chamber should simply be trusted. “[I]n America, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. Individuals and groups are not presumed to have violated the law based on a bogus blog post from a political opponent which cites tenuous evidence to show ‘likely’ violations of the law.” When pressed during a phone interview with ThinkProgress, Jeff Patch, the group’s communications director and author of the memo, reiterated that the Chamber should simply be trusted. “It doesn’t seem to be that there’s any evidence they’ve used the funds for political activity,” he said. “I think the answer is generally, yeah, we do trust organizations unless there’s a clear indication they violated the law.” It’s hard to consider evidence, however, when the Chamber refuses to release any evidence whatsoever of their accounting methods. Patch acknowledged this, but said “I don’t know what they would do besides releasing a forensic audit of their funds.” If the outcry continues and the FEC does begin a serious investigation, perhaps that’s exactly what will happen.
Right before it recessed last week, the Senate passed a bill — the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 — that could have made it more difficult for foreclosure victims to challenge banks that may have improperly approved their foreclosure. The legislation would have forced states to accept documents that were notarized in other states, under potentially different sets of notary standards, without verifying any of the documentation. The Senate passed the bill without debate and despite widespread reports of foreclosures across the country being approved by bank “robo-signers” (employees who weren’t verifying the necessary documentation to legally okay a foreclosure). This morning, The Wonk Room called on President Obama to veto the legislation. This afternoon, the White House announced that Obama will not sign the bill:
Today, the White House announced that President Obama will not sign H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010, and will return the bill to the House of Representatives. The Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010 was designed to remove impediments to interstate commerce. While we share this goal, we believe it is necessary to have further deliberations about the intended and unintended impact of this bill on consumer protections, including those for mortgages, before this bill can be finalized.
Notarizations are important for a large range of documents, including financial documents. As the President has made clear, consumer financial protections are incredibly important, and he has made this one of his top priorities, including signing into law the strongest consumer protections in history in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. That is why we need to think through the intended and unintended consequences of this bill on consumer protections, especially in light of the recent developments with mortgage processors.
This will be the second pocket veto of Obama’s presidency. The Wonk Room explains how the bill was pushed quickly through the Senate and its potential ramifications for homeowners.
An offhand comment by right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch could land him in hot water with his company’s shareholders. Last June, News Corporation, which Murdoch leads, gave a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association. Yet in a recent interview, Murdoch claimed that News Corp. made this donation solely because of Murdoch’s personal friendship with a GOP gubernatorial candidate:
Murdoch, who was in Washington to receive an award from The Media Institute, brushed aside concerns that the gift, which was unusually large and one-sided for a media company, might hurt Fox’s credibility as a news organization that reports on politics.
“It doesn’t reflect on Fox News,” he said. “It had nothing to do with Fox News. The RGA [gift] was actually [a result of] my friendship with John Kasich.”
Unfortunately for Murdoch, there actually are laws against corporate managers treating a publicly-traded corporation as if it were their own personal bank account. Although News Corp. was founded in Australia, it was recently reincorporated in Delaware and thus must comply with key Delaware court decisions. Significantly, the Delaware Supreme Court determined over 70 years ago that “[c]orporate officers and directors are not permitted to use their position of trust and confidence to further their private interests.”
There are some bright lights for Murdoch. Although the law permits a News Corp. shareholder to challenge Murdoch’s actions in court, these kinds of lawsuits are notoriously difficult to win, so the Delaware courts could ultimately side with Murdoch. Then again, it’s also not every day that a corporate CEO openly admits that he distributed a million dollars from his company’s treasury solely because of a personal friendship.
Just as significantly, even if such a shareholder lawsuit were to succeed, Murdoch would likely only be required to reimburse News Corp. for the $1 million donation — a pittance for a multi-billionaire like Rupert Murdoch.
The main philosophical principle of the conservative-led tea party movement is an “aversion to big government,” with tea party organizers turning their ire on comprehensive health reform, clean energy legislation, and even mandatory trash collection.
Now, a group of Missouri tea partiers have found a new target: regulations that would mandate more humane conditions in the state’s puppy mills. This November, Missouri voters will go to the polls and decide the fate of Missouri’s Proposition B, which would place new regulations on puppy mills, including mandating that they provide “sufficient food and clean water, necessary veterinary care, sufficient housing, including protection from the elements, sufficient space to turn and stretch freely, lie down, and fully extend his or her limbs, regular exercise, and adequate rest between breeding cycles.”
As TPM Muckraker’s Jillian Rayfield reports, the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots have begun organizing meetings against the proposition. One tea party activist described the measure as being about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do“:
The Tea Party has also gotten on board the anti-Prop B bandwagon. A meeting called “Vote NO on Proposition B” on October 12 is advertised on websites for the Missouri Tea Party and the Tea Party Patriots. The event, held at Coach’s Pizza World, is being organized by the Mexico Tea Party, which activist Ron Beedle told TPM is a relatively new chapter of the Tea Party. This is their first meeting, he said, and Prop B is about the “government or the big company trying to tell people what to do.”
Also campaigning against the proposition is the local chapter of conservative Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and Samuel Wurzelbacher (”Joe The Plumber“). Wurzelbacher has teamed up with the Alliance For Truth, an anti-Prop B organization strongly backed by the kennells and mills across the state, to blog against the measure. One blog post by him features an animal rescue officer kicking down the door of a home. Meanwhile, the Missouri Cattleman’s Association is warning that if the Humane Society — which is a big booster of the proposition — manages to pass the measure, they may be able to succeed in bettering conditions for farm animals as well.
It appears that for certain segments of the conservative movement, any regulation by the government is too much regulation by the government. Even when it comes to protecting the welfare of puppies.
Newt Gingrich’s new messaging strategy has been to tell Republican candidates to label Democrats “the party of food stamps,” while, claiming the GOP is in turn “the party of paychecks.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) fired back at Gingrich yesterday. “There is some subliminal message that is being sent out there about us and them,” she said, adding that food stamps are “the biggest bang for the buck” in terms of economic stimulus.
Last night on Fox News, Gingrich responded. “She seemed to get very upset,” he said. “She says that for every dollar a person receives in food stamps, $1.79 is put back in the economy,” host Greta Van Susteren noted. But Gingrich couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact that food stamps have a stimulative effect on the economy:
GINGRICH: Well, you know, I carry around a bumper sticker that says 2 plus 2 equals 4. So I’d be very curious how a dollar given to somebody becomes a $1.79. And I think if we could get that to work with the U.S. Treasuries, so if people gave the Treasury $1,000, it became $1,790, we could pay off the federal debt and never worry about spending or anything. I mean, I — you know, somehow, I don’t understand how liberal math turns $1 into $1.79.
Watch it:
But Pelosi is correct. CNN reported that she actually understated the stimulative effect of food stamps, noting that Pelosi said “that $1.79 is put back into the economy” when someone uses $1 worth of food stamps, but “[t]he U.S. Department of Agriculture cites an even higher figure of $1.84.” In 2009, the Wall Street Journal explained this alleged “liberal math” that Gingrich doesn’t understand:
Money from the program — officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — percolates quickly through the economy. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calculates that for every $5 of food-stamp spending, there is $9.20 of total economic activity, as grocers and farmers pay their employees and suppliers, who in turn shop and pay their bills.
While other stimulus money has been slow to circulate, the food-stamp boost is almost immediate, with 80% of the benefits being redeemed within two weeks of receipt and 97% within a month, the USDA says.
CNN reported in 2008 on a Moody’s study finding that “the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program.”
There are “some things that annoy me,” CNN’s John King said this week referring to Gingrich’s “party of food stamps” strategy. “One thing [the election] is not about is whether Democrats like putting people on food stamps.” “What does that have to do with it? Let me let you in on a little fact of life,” King later said, “[I] grew up on food stamps.”
Indeed, as Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert once observed, just like the truth about food stamps, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
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