Saturday, March 09, 2013 9:22:35 AM
Catholic bishops oppose Violence Against Women Act over lesbian provisions
Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.
Photo courtesy Shutterstock.com
By Lauren Markoe
Mar 7, 2013
(RNS) Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.
The act, which was signed into law by President Obama on Thursday (March 7), is intended to protect women from domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, and allows the federal government to spend money to treat victims and prosecute offenders.
But for the first time since the original act became law in 1994, it spells out that no person may be excluded from the law’s protections because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” — specifically covering lesbian, transgender and bisexual women.
That language disturbs several bishops who head key committees within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that deal with, among other issues, marriage, the laity, youth and religious liberty.
“These two classifications are unnecessary to establish the just protections due to all persons. They undermine the meaning and importance of sexual difference,” the bishops said in a statement released by the USCCB [ http://www.usccb.org/news/2013/13-046.cfm ] on Wednesday.
“They are unjustly exploited for purposes of marriage redefinition, and marriage is the only institution that unites a man and a woman with each other and with any children born from their union,” the statement continued.
The bishops also take issue with the lack of “conscience protection” for faith-based groups that help victims of human trafficking, an addition they sought after the Obama administration decided in 2011 to discontinue funding for a Catholic group that works with trafficking victims, many of whom were forced to work as prostitutes.
The administration instead funded other groups that, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, could provide a full range of women’s health services, including referrals for contraception or abortion, both of which the Catholic Church opposes.
“Conscience protections are needed in this legislation to ensure that these service providers are not required to violate their bona fide religious beliefs as a condition for serving the needy,” reads the statement of the bishops, who have supported previous versions of the act.
The statement was signed by:
– Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development
– Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage
– Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
– Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
– Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the Committee on Migration
The bill passed the Senate 78 to 22 on Feb. 12, and the House passed it on Feb. 28 on a vote of 286 to 138, with no Democrats in opposition. Some Republicans objected to the bill for reasons similar to the bishops’.
© 2013 Religion News LLC
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/03/07/lesbian-provisions-prompt-catholic-bishops-to-oppose-violence-against-women-act/ [with comments]
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GOP Congresswoman: I Opposed Domestic Violence Bill Because It Protected Too Many Groups
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/04/1669601/blackburn-vawa/ [the YouTube, embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtbkjv2KH0 ; with comments]
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House GOPers boast about VAWA after voting against it
"I know how important it is to empower women in difficult situations,” said Rep. Steve King
Mar 8, 2013
House Republicans who voted against the final version of the Violence Against Women Act have been sending statements to their constituents boasting about their votes…for the Violence Against Women Act.
[...]
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/house_gopers_boast_about_vawa_after_voting_against_it/ [with comments]
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John Cornyn Applauds Violence Against Women Act Becoming Law, Even Though He Voted Against It
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/john-cornyn-violence-against-women-act_n_2839282.html [with comments]
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Nusreta Sivac, Bosnian Woman, Helped Make Rape A War Crime
Largely because of Muslim Bosniak woman Nusreta Sivac, people are regularly prosecuted for wartime sexual violence.
03/08/13
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House Republicans Propose Rolling Back Access To Birth Control To Avert Government Shutdown
Mar 5, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/05/1675731/house-republicans-birth-control-shutdown/ [with comments]
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Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill Advances In Legislature
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has said he will sign anti-abortion legislation that reaches his desk.
03/07/2013
A Kansas legislative committee advanced a sweeping anti-abortion bill [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/kansas-abortion-bill_n_2618366.html ] Thursday after removing a provision that would have banned abortion clinic workers from volunteering to bake cupcakes for their children's schools.
The state House Federal and State Affairs Committee passed a 70-page bill [ http://kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2253_00_0000.pdf ] that would tax abortions, establish life beginning at fertilization and prohibit state employees from performing abortions during the workday. The bill also would require doctors to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, even though the claim defies scientific fact. The bill is likely to pass.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/kansas-anti-abortion-bill_n_2832066.html [with comments]
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Illinois GOP Gay Marriage Backers Could Lose Their Jobs After Party Anger Flares Over Equality Stance
Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady could lose his job soon after members of the state party were angered by his support of gay marriage in the state.
(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
By SARA BURNETT
03/08/13 05:43 PM ET EST
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Two Illinois Republicans are finding out that for all the talk nationally of the GOP becoming more inclusive and appealing to voters by softening stances on social issues, it's difficult to actually follow through.
The state Republican Party's central committee will meet Saturday to consider firing chairman Pat Brady, largely because he spoke out in favor of a bill to end Illinois' ban on gay marriage. And the only Republican state senator to vote in favor of same-sex marriage, Sen. Jason Barickman, has been chastised by his colleagues and a national organization opposing the measure.
Brady and Barickman say they've heard from hundreds of people since taking their positions earlier this year – some were thankful, others excoriated them. A conservative organization even posted Brady's cellphone number online and his voicemail quickly filled up while on vacation with words he said he "didn't know were in the Bible."
"This issue is not about me. It's about the direction of the party going forward," Brady said. "It just plays into a national narrative of the GOP as closed-minded."
After a poor showing at the polls in November, national Republican party leaders vowed to work harder to attract more young, moderate and minority voters – those who may be on board with the party fiscally speaking, but are turned off by the conservative views on social issues, such as immigration and gay rights.
Last month, more than 75 prominent Republicans, including four governors and advisers to former President George W. Bush, signed a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on same-sex marriage. Former First Lady Laura Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney also support gay marriage.
But politicians who step out on the ledge in order to instigate change risk getting pushed off, as their actions raise the ire of social conservatives, the Republicans most likely to vote in primaries and have leadership posts.
Rep. Tom Cross, the top Republican in the Illinois House, called Brady's possible firing "a big mistake."
"We're a party that prides itself and often talks about having a big tent approach. And if we're going to be a party that grows ... we need to acknowledge that ... we're not always going to agree with each other 100 percent," Cross said. "To me, you can be for (gay marriage), or you can be against it. But we ought to say to `You have a place in this party.'"
U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, the state's ranking Republican lawmaker, also believes it would be "a mistake" to remove Brady, spokesman Lance Trover said Friday. Kirk voted to end the policy on gays serving in the military, known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Illinois is a well-known Democratic stronghold, but Republicans did so poorly in November's elections that Democrats now have veto-proof majorities in the state House and Senate. Cross believes Republicans "turned a lot of people off" – particularly younger, suburban and minority voters who felt the GOP was trying to tell them how to live their lives.
Barickman's vote helped the Illinois Senate approve gay marriage last month. Gov. Pat Quinn has signaled he'll sign the bill to make Illinois the 10th state allowing gay marriage. But first, the House likely needs Republican votes to pass it, since not all Democrats support it.
An Associated Press analysis conducted last month shows Illinois isn't the only place where Republicans are seeing that their gay marriage votes have consequences. Just 47 Republicans over eight state Legislatures have voted for gay marriage, the analysis found, and many said they paid for it – including losses in primary and general elections.
In Minnesota, where a vote to allow gay marriage could occur this spring, only one Republican state lawmaker has publicly backed it, state Sen. Branden Petersen. Soon after he declared his support, the National Organization for Marriage announced it would spend $500,000 to defeat Republican lawmakers in Minnesota who vote to legalize it.
That organization made a similar pledge against Illinois Republicans who votes yes, and has posted a link on its website for gay marriage opponents to email state GOP committeemen and tell them to fire Brady.
"Brady has betrayed his party, misrepresented `key Republican values,' and insulted conservative voters in Illinois and across America," the website states.
State Sen. Jim Oberweis is one of the GOP committeemen leading the charge to oust Brady. He said gay marriage isn't the only reason he wants him gone; he also blames Brady for poor November election results and for working against some Republicans in primary elections.
If Brady opposed the party's position on gay marriage, Oberweis said, he should have properly changed the GOP platform.
"I believe that the Republican Party identity has to be on financial sanity, solving some of our fiscal mess," said Oberweis, a dairy magnate. "This other stuff is a diversion from that."
Brady will be out of state with his family this weekend, and had asked the committee to reschedule. They declined, saying he could participate by phone, but Brady doesn't plan to do so.
He said he still believes he took the right position, and that what the people who are trying to kick him out are doing is wrong.
Barickman said by working with Democrats, he was able to get an amendment added that protects religious freedom, so churches that oppose gay marriage won't be forced to perform ceremonies or allow ceremonies in their sanctuaries.
"The discussion that's happening on this issue is a healthy one for the Republican Party because it's helping us find our identity," Barickman said.
Asked if he had any advice for his Republican colleagues in the House, Barickman chose his words carefully, saying those who "stand strong on issues for which there are disagreements ... must have a thick skin."
Associated Press writer Patrick Condon in St. Paul, Minn., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/illinois-gop-gay-marriage_n_2839508.html [with comments]
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Chicago Churches Vow To Ban Gay Marriage-Supporting Illinois Politicians
Posted: 03/08/2013 5:33 pm EST | Updated: 03/08/2013 8:45 pm EST
Same-sex couples may soon be able to legally tie the knot [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/illinois-gay-marriage-bill_n_2687105.html ] in Illinois, but several conservative Christian churches aren't having it.
As WBEZ is reporting [ http://www.wbez.org/sections/religion/chicago-clergy-say-they%E2%80%99ll-ban-lawmakers-who-vote-same-sex-marriage-105962 ], about two dozen conservative Catholic and African-American clergymen formed a new religious coalition with the Catholic Conference of Illinois, vowing to ban Illinois lawmakers who support same-sex marriage from their Chicago-based churches.
Among those to decry the state's pending marriage equality legislation, which is currently awaiting a House vote [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/illinois-gay-marriage-hou_n_2765241.html ], was Bishop Lance Davis, senior pastor at a church in Dolton.
“We want to make sure that we a send a message to our elected officials that as a collective community and a collaborative, we will not allow you to speak in our churches, you will not be invited to our church when you’re running for office because we as a community are incensed," he is quoted by the radio station as saying.
The group is reportedly planning to launch a March 8 media campaign, urging residents to contact their area lawmakers and ask them to vote against same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, two Illinois Republicans have come under fire after speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage.
As the Associated Press reports [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/illinois-gop-gay-marriage_n_2839508.html (just above)], the state Republican Party's central committee is scheduled to meet March 9 to debate whether or not to fire chairman Pat Brady, who came out in favor of ending the state's ban on gay marriage. Meanwhile, Sen. Jason Barickman [ http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-government/2013-02-24/tom-kacich-gop-not-yet-done-berating-barickman.html ] (R-Bloomington) has also been heavily criticized for voting in support of allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples the right to wed.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/chicago-clergy-gay-marriage-politician-ban_n_2839927.html [with comments]
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On Eve Of Marriage Equality Cases, Justice Kennedy Suddenly Claims To Care About Judicial Restraint
Justice Anthony Kennedy
By Ian Millhiser on Mar 8, 2013 at 10:30 am
Justice Anthony Kennedy doesn’t like law. Or, at least, he doesn’t like for people that aren’t him to engage in lawmaking. Kennedy did not simply vote to toss out nearly two-hundred years of established law [ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/03/aca_lawsuit.html ] in order to strike down part of the Affordable Care Act, he wanted to toss out the entirety of Obamacare [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/29/508522/dissenting-opinion-analysis-justice-kennedy-abandons-all-pretensions-of-being-a-moderate/ ]. He was the driving force behind Citizens United [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/14/483711/so-called-moderate-justice-anthony-kennedy-was-the-driving-force-behind-citizens-united/ ]. He’s given sweeping legal immunity [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/02/456421/on-economic-justice-justice-kennedy-is-no-moderate/ ] to corporations. A 2005 study found that Kennedy was the second most likely justice [ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/opinion/06gewirtz.html ] to strike down acts of Congress — second only to the guy who thinks federal child labor laws are unconstitutional [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/19/321978/justice-thomas-who-thinks-federal-child-labor-laws-are-unconstitutional-complains-about-judicial-activism/ ].
So Kennedy is very quick on the draw when he has the opportunity to shape American law more to his liking, an instinct on his part that has generally served America very badly. One rare instance where Kennedy’s has actually been a force of good, however, is gay rights. Kennedy authored two landmark [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1039.ZO.html ] decisions [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html ] in this space, and is viewed as the most likely fifth vote to strike down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act.
Which is why it is a bit concerning to see Kennedy suddenly claiming that he believes in judicial restraint [ http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/03/07/justice-kennedy-serious-problem-supreme-court-deciding-too-many-issues-that-can-be-decided-by-congress/ ] while he is no doubt in the process of reviewing briefs in the marriage equality cases:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday that congressional lawmakers need to maintain the nation’s balance of power by being able to compromise, expressing concerns that the high court is increasingly the venue for deciding politically charged issues such as gay marriage, health care and immigration.
Kennedy, a former Sacramento law school professor, was asked by reporters whether he thought the court was deciding too many issues that can be decided by Congress.
“I think it’s a serious problem. A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say,” Kennedy said. “And I think it’s of tremendous importance for our political system to show the rest of the world — and we have to show ourselves first — that democracy works because we can reach agreement on a principle basis.”
Now, let’s be clear. If Kennedy has now decided that he cares about judicial restraint, than that could be a very good thing. Kennedy’s opinion in Citizens United did terrible damage to our democracy, as did the deciding vote he cast to install George W. Bush in the White House [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html ]. He expanded abusive companies’ ability to exploit their consumers [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/03/334251/has-corporate-america-achieved-total-judicial-victory-over-american-consumers/ ] through forced arbitration and similar practices. He stole away Lilly Ledbetter’s right to equal pay for equal work [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1490360091599190176&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ]. And, of course, the pending challenge to the Voting Rights Act [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1647811/the-double-standard-behind-the-roberts-courts-hostility-to-voting-rights/ ] presents him with a fantastic opportunity to show that he is now committed to restraint — an opportunity he did not seem likely to seize during oral arguments.
But his recent claim to care about judicial restraint is, at best, entirely inconsistent with his record on the Court. At worst, it is a warning that he’s suddenly decided to restrain himself now that he has a rare opportunity to do good in the world in the marriage equality cases.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/08/1689611/on-eve-of-marriage-equality-cases-justice-kennedy-suddenly-claims-to-care-about-judicial-restraint/ [with comments]
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A First Amendment Storm
Editorial
Published: March 4, 2013
House Republicans and Democrats do not agree on much these days, but they managed to join together last month to breach the proper separation between church and state. By a 354-to-72 vote, the House approved a measure sponsored by Representatives Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Grace Meng, a New York Democrat, that would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make direct grants to churches, mosques, synagogues and other houses of worship “without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.”
In the bipartisan lunge to give in to political pressure from some religious groups after Hurricane Sandy, the House dispensed with holding even a single hearing before passing the bill, which abandons decades of Supreme Court precedent and longstanding administrative rules barring direct taxpayer financing of religious activities.
Complaints that current rules unfairly discriminate against houses of worship are simply wrong. Churches, like most nonprofit organizations and businesses, are eligible for government loans to make storm-related repairs. They are also eligible for disaster assistance grants, just as secular nonprofit organizations are, if they dedicate at least 50 percent of their facilities to providing “essential services of a governmental nature” — like a community homeless shelter or soup kitchen open to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, one of only six Republicans to vote against the bill, rightly argued that it unfairly exempts churches from the neutral requirement that beneficiaries of federal aid have to provide key secular services.
Supreme Court rulings interpreting the First Amendment’s prohibition against establishment of religion have long barred the direct use of tax money to build, repair or maintain buildings devoted to religious services or other religious activities.
George W. Bush’s administration, which accelerated government backing for “faith-based” social service programs, did not order FEMA financing for church reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. It is troubling that two-thirds of the House Democrats went along with the new measure, and that only two Democratic lawmakers, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Bobby Scott of Virginia, vocally challenged the dismantling of the church-state barrier. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, an influential voice on Hurricane Sandy aid, has also endorsed the measure.
The First Amendment does not allow a Hurricane Sandy exception to pay for the rebuilding of damaged houses of worship. The Senate should let the bill die.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/opinion/separation-between-church-and-state.html
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‘A Big New Power’
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
March 6, 2013, 9:00 pm
Years from now, when the Supreme Court has come to its senses, justices then sitting will look back on the spring of 2013 in bewilderment. On what basis, they will wonder, did five conservative justices, professed believers in judicial restraint, reach out to grab the authority that the framers of the post-Civil War 14th and 15th Amendments had vested in Congress nearly a century and a half earlier “to enforce, by appropriate legislation” the right to equal protection and the right to vote. How on earth did it come to pass that the Supreme Court ruled a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional?
You will have noticed that I’m making a premature assumption here about the outcome of a case, Shelby County v. Holder, that was argued just last week. Although I’m willing to bet that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has already drafted his 5-to-4 majority opinion, I’d be nothing but relieved if the court proves me wrong when it issues the decision sometime before the end of June. But except for a few wishful thinkers, everyone who witnessed the argument, read the transcript [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf ], or listened to the audio [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=12-96 ] now expects the court to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act – and seriously harm itself in the process.
As I made clear in my most recent column [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/the-more-things-change/ ], I wasn’t expecting anything good to come out of this argument. But neither did I anticipate the ugliness that erupted from the bench. While Justice Antonin Scalia’s depiction of the Voting Rights Act as the “perpetuation of racial entitlement” quickly went viral (40 screens of Google hits, by the time I checked earlier this week), that was not even the half of it.
“Even the name of it is wonderful: the Voting Rights Act,” Justice Scalia said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he suggested that only political correctness, rather than a principled commitment to protect the right to vote, had kept the disputed Section 5 of the act alive through four successive Congressional re-enactments. (And, he might have added and no doubt thought, four successive Supreme Court affirmations of the law’s constitutionality.)
Is it better to be black these days in Mississippi or in Massachusetts? Not being likely to find myself black in either state, I wouldn’t presume to say, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. exhibited no such diffidence. Without having asked a single question of Shelby County’s lawyer, Bert W. Rein, he taunted Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli with statistics purporting to show that Mississippi has the better record of African-American voter registration and turnout.
It was a “gotcha” performance beneath the dignity of a chief justice, and it turned out to be based on a – to put it charitably – misunderstanding of the data. The next day, the Massachusetts secretary of state, William F. Galvin, complained publicly [ http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/03/01/massachusetts-official-challenges-chief-justice-roberts-claim-about-voting/u8rYN2MVzc3GOdq4cWyYEK/story.html ] that Chief Justice Roberts had used “phony statistics” in a “deceptive” and “truly disturbing” manner. (Mississippi, by the way, signed a brief [ http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/12-96_resp_amcu_states.authcheckdam.pdf ] urging the court to uphold Section 5.)
Section 5 of the act is the “preclearance” provision, covering all or parts of 16 states, most but not all in the South. Before making any change in voting procedures, a “covered jurisdiction” must satisfy the Justice Department or a federal court that the change will have neither the purpose nor effect of “denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” Last year, Section 5 kept Texas from enforcing what would have been the country’s most stringent voter ID law. At the same time, Section 5 induced South Carolina to make sufficient changes in a proposed voter ID law to satisfy a federal court, an illustration of how the provision has often served as a deterrent to mischief or as negotiating tool to avoid it.
The goal of Shelby County, Ala., and its friends on the Supreme Court is to depict Section 5 as an anachronism, a needless cudgel held by the big bad federal government over the head of a transformed South. “The Voting Rights Act, Stuck in the Past” was the headline on George F. Will’s post-argument column [ http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-01/opinions/37371599_1_progressives-federalism-house-vote ]. He bemoans the asserted fact that “progressives are remarkably uninterested in progress,” observing that Social Security remains “frozen, like a fly in amber” despite the increase in life expectancy since its creation in 1935 and that “progressives cling to Medicare ‘as we know it’ ” despite advances in medicine.
Acknowledging the overwhelming vote by which Congress renewed Section 5 in 2006 – 98-to-0 in the Senate and 390-to-33 in the House – Mr. Will writes that “obviously, the political class’s piety about the act has extinguished thought about its necessity,” therefore requiring “active judicial engagement” to accomplish what politics cannot or will not. (“Judicial engagement” is a right-wing neologism, applied to old-fashioned judicial activism [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/engagement-as-the-new-activism/ ] that runs in the right direction. )
Because George Will’s Washington Post columns on legal matters tend to channel the thinking of his friend Nino Scalia, they are often worth pondering, and this one is no exception. So Social Security, Medicare and the Voting Rights Act are all outdated? How interesting – except that the Supreme Court isn’t reaching out to invalidate the first two. Only the Voting Rights Act is in its sights. As they say on Sesame Street, which of these things is not like the others?
Leaving race aside for the moment (did someone mention that the Voting Rights Act has something to do with empowering black voters – who just might, for some strange reason, prefer Democrats?), what the court’s conservatives seem to see in Section 5 is a threat to state sovereignty — the “sovereign dignity” of the states, a phrase Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has used in another federalism context. This theme ran throughout the argument. Justice Scalia referred to Section 5 as imposing “these extraordinary procedures that deny the states sovereign powers which the Constitution preserves to them.” Justice Kennedy asked whether “if Alabama wants to acknowledge the wrongs of its past, is it better off doing that if it’s an independent sovereign or if it’s under the trusteeship of the United States government?”
These are astounding comments, bespeaking willful ignorance of the origin (as in “originalism”) of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which transformed the constitutional relationship between the federal government and the states. Their very point was to invoke federal power to make sure the states delivered on the amendments’ promises: due process, equal protection, the right to vote for all. Recall that the Constitution’s first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, imposed limitations only on the power of Congress; only through later Supreme Court interpretation were most of them understood to apply to the states as well. But the Reconstruction amendments were aimed directly at the states. As Justice Stephen G. Breyer put it during the argument: “And one thing to say is, of course this is aimed at states. What do you think the Civil War was about?”
Whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act covers the wrong jurisdictions, or too many, or too few is a policy judgment, as much for Congress to make as whether to raise the eligibility age for Social Security or Medicare. With mounting frustration, the liberal justices tried to make that point. “Why should we make the judgment, and not Congress, about the types and forms of discrimination and the need to remedy them?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Mr. Rein, Shelby County’s lawyer.
Addressing Mr. Rein, Justice Elena Kagan asked: “You said the problem has been solved. But who gets to make that judgment really? Is it you, or is it the court, or is it Congress?” When the lawyer answered that while Congress can examine a problem, “it is up to the court to determine whether the problem indeed has been solved,” Justice Kagan responded: “Well, that’s a big new power that you are giving us – that we have the power now to decide whether racial discrimination has been solved? I did not think that that fell within our bailiwick.”
The Roberts court stands on the brink of making an error of historic proportions. A needless and reckless aggrandizement of power in one case to satisfy the current majority’s agenda will erode the court’s authority over time.
But there was no sign from the majority last week of an appetite for stepping back this time, as the court did in its last confrontation with Section 5 four years ago. Justice Scalia – he who flaunts his refusal to join any portion of any opinion that cites legislative history – returned repeatedly to his view that manifest Congressional support for the Voting Rights Act was somehow illegitimate, not to be taken at face value. The problem was, he said, that members of Congress “are going to lose votes if they do not re-enact the Voting Rights Act.”
Justice Scalia, that’s called democracy.
Or it was.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/a-big-new-power/ [with comments]
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Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Quote Is Even Scarier Than You Think
By Ian Millhiser on Feb 28, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Justice Antonin Scalia quite deservedly came under fire yesterday for his claim that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1646891/scalia-voting-rights-act-is-perpetuation-of-racial-entitlement/ ].” If the justice were looking to confirm every suspicion that conservative opposition to the law that broke the back of Jim Crow voter exclusions is rooted in white racial resentment, he could hardly have picked a better way to do so.
Viewed in context, however, Scalia’s quote is actually even more disturbing than the initial headlines suggested. Beyond whatever resentments Justice Scalia may hold, his “racial entitlements” statement was also part of a broader theory about the proper role of judges in society. And if that theory were taken seriously by a majority of the justices, it would potentially undermine Medicare, Social Security and countless other programs. According to Scalia:
Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.
That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.
As Scott Lemieux points out, this theory resembles some of the reasoning behind an 1883 decision which struck down an early precursor to the 1964 Civil Rights Act [ http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat ] that banned many forms of segregation by private business. But the roots of Scalia’s legal theory are probably several decades more recent than the late Nineteenth Century.
A major reason why U.S. constitutional law is difficult and American judges are powerful is that the Constitution is not a particularly precise document. The Ninth Amendment [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution ] provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” but it provides absolutely no guidance whatsoever on what those other rights could be. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from abridging the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and it prevents the loss of life, liberty or property “without due process of law.” What are the “privileges or immunities” protected by the Constitution? The Constitution doesn’t say! And the Supreme Court’s answer to this question is rather ridiculous [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0083_0036_ZO.html ].
Because the Constitution is so imprecisely drafted, judges have at times wielded it as a tool to impose their own policy preferences on the law. After all, nothing in the Constitution doesn’t say that the word “liberty” means the liberty to work in a grueling job that literally tears your lungs apart from the inside without the benefit of workplace safety laws or other basic labor protections. Indeed, that was more or less the holding of the Supreme Court’s 1905 opinion in Lochner v. New York [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html ].
Beginning in the 1930s, the Supreme Court more or less came to terms with the fact that judges were fabricating imaginary constitutional restrictions, and that this was a bad thing. Indeed, probably the most important question addressed by Twentieth Century constitutional law and scholarship was how to reconcile the legitimate need for judges to police the boundaries of liberty with the fact that the Constitution provides them with little guidance on how to do so. An unelected Supreme Court had recently engaged in overreach that harmed the most vulnerable Americans and struck down laws enacted by elected representatives in the process, and this situation was untenable. But a Court that simply gave Congress free reign to engage in racism or sexism or to toss people in jail for no reason would be equally intolerable.
One of the best, and most influential answers to this dilemma came in a 1938 case called United States v. Carolene Products [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1808251577400430843&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ]. Carolene Products suggested that judges should step into the breach when a law “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation.” Thus, when lawmakers enact “restrictions upon the right to vote,” limit the ready availability of information to voters, or restrict political organizing, judges must remedy the situation. Carolene Products also provides that judges must enforce the Bill of Rights and other explicit constitutional protections, and that it must prevent discrimination against certain minority groups, but in most circumstances we are governed by democratically elected representatives and judges should defer to officials who can actually be voted out of office.
When Scalia uses the term “racial entitlement” he appears to be referring to the kind of law that entrenches itself because lawmakers are too afraid to vote against it for fear of being accused of racially improper motives. As Scalia puts it, “[w]henever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” In other words, Scalia believes that the Voting Rights Act somehow “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation,” and thus it is his job as a judge to strike it down.
This is a disturbing idea for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that its logic could extend well beyond the Voting Rights Act. There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html ].” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.
To be sure, Scalia has never explicitly endorsed Romney’s view of welfare — although I’d be willing to make a $10,000 bet [ http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/12/387594/10000-mitt-romney-6-median-american/ ] that he agrees with Romney. But it’s not hard to predict how a judge who agrees with both Romney’s view of welfare and Scalia’s view of when judges must destroy democracy in order to save it would react to the modern welfare state. With his racial entitlement comment, Scalia offered a constitutional theory that would allow movement conservatives to strike down the entire American safety net.
The irony in all this is that Scalia used to be one of the most articulate spokespeople for why judges should not strike down laws unless the Constitution’s text explicitly instructs them to do so. Just last year he denounced Roe v. Wade specifically because he does not believe that supporters of Roe “stick to the text” of the Constitution [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/18/864351/30-seconds-after-denying-court-is-politicized-scalia-says-democrats-do-not-stick-to-the-text-of-the-constitution/ ]. Whatever the virtues of Roe, Scalia appears perfectly willing to abandon his rigid textualism when it comes time to strike down a law he personally disapproves of. I’ve read the Constitution many times, but I’ve never found a ban on what Scalia calls “racial entitlements.”
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1649421/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-quote-is-even-scarier-than-you-think/ [with comments]
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Rand Paul Praises Horrendous Supreme Court Decision, Would Let Employers Ruthlessly Exploit Workers
By Ian Millhiser on Mar 7, 2013 at 9:00 am
Lochner v. New York is widely viewed as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/06/641591/george-will-corporations-have-a-constitutional-right-to-exploit-workers-unless-they-play-football/ ]. It is taught in law schools, alongside decisions upholding segregation [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson ] and permitting Japanese detention camps [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/06/641591/george-will-corporations-have-a-constitutional-right-to-exploit-workers-unless-they-play-football/ ], in order to instruct budding lawyers on how judges should not behave. Even Robert Bork, the failed, right-wing Supreme Court nominee who claimed women “aren’t discriminated against anymore [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/17/345467/romney-legal-advisor-robert-bork-women-aren%E2%80%99t-discriminated-against-anymore/ ]”, called Lochner an “abomination” that “lives in the law as the symbol, indeed the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/19/1358911/even-the-late-robert-bork-thought-the-tea-party-was-out-of-its-mind/ ].”
Lochner [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html ] fabricated a so-called right to contract in order to strike down a New York law preventing bakery owners from overworking bakers, but its rationale has implications for any law intended to shield workers from exploitation. In essence, Lochner established that any law that limits any contract between an employer and an employee is constitutionally suspect. If desperation forces someone to agree to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a dollar a day in a factory filled with toxic air, then courts must treat that law with heavy skepticism. Not every workplace law was struck down during the so-called Lochner Era — the justices of that era sometimes valued sexism [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller_v._Oregon ] more than they valued exploiting workers, for example — but Lochner placed any law benefiting workers on constitutionally weak footing. Needless to say, the “right to contract” it invented appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster [ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/06/1683851/rand-paul-launches-talking-filibuster-demands-assurance-obama-wont-use-drones-against-americans-in-us/ ] yesterday to praise this “abomination” of a decision on the Senate floor:
You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama’s a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I’m asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case. . . . I think it’s a wonderful decision.
Watch it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQwdurNY3qo (next below, as embedded)]:
Paul’s speech also includes a somewhat rambling attempt to claim that Lochner helped “end Jim Crow,” a claim that would cause anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of civil rights history to scratch their head. Lochner was decided in 1905, and, while Paul is correct that the Lochner Era justices very occasionally struck down discriminatory laws [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17109776118808449915&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ], Jim Crow was still very much alive when Lochner was overruled in the 1930s [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish ]. The Supreme Court decision that did the most to eradicate Jim Crow — Brown v. Board of Education [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education ] — rested on the Constitution’s guarantee that no person shall be denied the “the equal protection of the laws,” not on some fabricated right to contract. And Brown alone was insufficient to overcome the campaign of “massive resistance [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_resistance ]” segregationists mounted in defense of Jim Crow.
What finally killed American apartheid was big, centralized government of the kind Paul and his fellow tea partiers love to hate. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required business owners to contract with minorities — something that would undoubtedly been unconstitutional under Lochner. And, of course, the same Voting Rights Act that is now endangered in the Supreme Court [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1649421/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-quote-is-even-scarier-than-you-think/ (just above)] tore down Jim Crown voter exclusions. Sen. Paul, for his part, has incorrectly [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung ] suggested that the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution [ http://yalelawandpolicy.org/sites/default/files/YLPRIA29_Millhiser.pdf ].
Paul’s endorsement of Lochner reflects a disturbing evolution in Tea Party thought. For much of Obama’s first term, Tea Party conservatives rallied behind “tentherism [ http://prospect.org/article/rally-round-true-constitutio ],” the false belief that most of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. Unlike tentherism, which applies only to federal laws, Lochnerism prevents both the federal government and the states from enacting necessary legislation. Although a handful of the most radical federal judges [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/16/464731/two-federal-judges-suggest-all-labor-business-or-wall-street-regulation-is-unconstitutional/ ] openly embrace Lochnerism or similar reasoning, this particularly virulent misreading of the Constitution was largely absent from elected officials’ rhetoric until Paul’s speech yesterday.
(HT: Josh Blackman [ http://joshblackman.com/blog/2013/03/06/rand-paul-talks-about-david-bernsteins-work-on-lochner-and-randy-barnets-presumption-of-liberty-during-filibuster/ ])
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1684111/rand-paul-all-laws-protecting-workers-are-constitutionally-suspect/ [with comments]
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States With Most Gun Laws Have Fewest Gun Deaths, Study Finds
By Nicole Flatow on Mar 7, 2013 at 4:30 pm
States with more gun laws have lower levels of gun fatalities, according to a new study from Boston Children’s Hospital. While the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine [ http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661390 ], does not establish cause-and-effect, nor which particular gun laws are most effective, it does suggest a positive relationship between gun control and gun violence prevention. According to NBC News [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17213303-fewer-gun-deaths-in-states-with-most-gun-laws-study-finds ]:
“It seems pretty clear: If you want to know which of the states have the lowest gun-mortality rates just look for those with the greatest number of gun laws,” said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler of Boston Children’s Hospital who, with colleagues, analyzed firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010.
By scoring individual states simply by the sheer volume of gun laws they have on the books, the researchers noted that in states with the highest number of firearms measures, their rate of gun deaths is collectively 42 percent lower when compared to states that have passed the fewest number of gun rules. [...]
As proof, Fleegler pointed to the firearm-fatality rates in law-laden states such as Massachusetts (where there were 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000 individuals), New Jersey (4.9 per 100,000) and Connecticut (5.1 per 100,000). In states with sparser firearms laws, researchers reported that gun-mortality rates were higher: Louisiana (18.0 per 100,000), Alaska (17.5 per 100,000) and Arizona (13.6 per 100,000).
The authors of the study openly acknowledge that correlation research has a much more limited application than research that establishes cause-and-effect, and conclude that further study is necessary. But in an accompanying commentary [ http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661391 ], Dr. Garen J. Wintemute of the University of California, Davis, Sacramento, laments that anything more than this sort of simple and cost-free analysis of already-available data has been alarmingly difficult achieve, thanks to a chokehold on funding [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/20/1366561/how-the-nra-stifled-gun-violence-research/ ] that has cleared the field of researchers with gun expertise. Even with President Obama’s recent executive order [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16532333-obama-plan-eases-freeze-on-cdc-gun-violence-research ] calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to resume the gun violence research it ceased in the 1990s, it is up to Congress to fund that research (Obama called for $10 million), and will require a sustained, significant commitment to develop new academics whose careers are focused on gun violence. Wintemute writes:
The United States has belatedly awakened to the knowledge that it is, in effect, under armed attack. More than 30,000 people are purposely shot to death each year—more than 300,000 since the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001. Rates of firearm-related violent crime have increased 26% since 2008. Physicians have joined others in demanding a strong response to this crisis. We look to scientific research to provide the evidence on which that response should be based. Such evidence should include a thorough exploration of risk and protective factors and, most importantly, controlled studies showing which interventions work to reduce firearm violence and why. [...]
Today, with almost no funding for firearm violence research, there are almost no researchers. Counting all academic disciplines together, no more than a dozen active, experienced investigators in the United States have focused their careers primarily on firearm violence. Only 2 are physicians. Only 1 has evaluated the effectiveness of an assault weapons ban.
Why did this happen? In the early 1990s, scientists were producing evidence that might have been used to reform the nation’s firearm policies. To those whose interests were threatened by such reforms, it made perfect sense to choke off the production of the evidence. This effort was led by Congressman Jay Dickey, self-described “point person for the NRA.” It succeeded. When rates of firearm violence were at historic highs and appeared to be increasing, the government abandoned its commitment to understanding the problem and devising evidence-based solutions.
Wintemute contrasts this with the “usual” U.S. approach to public health emergencies, citing the victory of science over what the U.S. Supreme Court described as the “regulatory equivalent of war [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/463/29 ]” by the motor vehicle industry when an agency was created that ultimately recommended airbags and other vehicle safety protections. Of course, one need only look to drug policy or climate science research to see that this approach is becoming less [ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/13/442106/war-on-science/ ] and less [ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/13/442106/war-on-science/ ] “usual” in the policy sphere.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1686081/study-states-with-most-gun-laws-have-fewest-gun-deaths/ [with comments]
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Even Gun Manufacturers Think The NRA’s Opposition To Background Checks Is Nuts
Mar 6, 2013
Update: That was quick. The NSSF walked back its support [ http://www.nssfblog.com/be-wary-of-media-reports-we-all-agree-lets-fix-nics/ ] for universal background checks.
[...]
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/06/1679581/even-gun-manufacturers-think-the-nras-opposition-to-background-checks-is-nuts/ [with comments]
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Man kills Sportsman Channel host, self in Montana
March 08, 2013 at 2:07 PM
HELENA, Mont. — A northwestern Montana man shot and killed the host of the Sportsman Channel show "A Rifleman's Journal [ http://www.thesportsmanchannel.com/programming/descriptions/description.php?ID=541 ]" in an apparent jealous rage while the TV personality was visiting the shooter's wife, police said Friday.
Wayne Bengston, 41, then beat his wife, took his 2-year-old son to a relative's house and drove to his home about 25 miles away in West Glacier, where he killed himself, Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said.
"It's pretty much an open-and-closed case. Homicide and suicide," Dial said.
Police identified the shooting victim as Gregory G. Rodriguez, 43, of Sugar Land, Texas. Bengston's wife told police that Rodriguez was in town on business and visiting her at her mother's house in Whitefish when her husband showed up Thursday at about 10:30 p.m.
Rodriguez and the woman, who works for a firearms manufacturer in the Flathead Valley, met at a trade show and struck up a casual relationship that police do not believe was romantic, Dial said.
She and Rodriguez were sitting at the kitchen table, talking over a glass of wine, when Bengston entered the house and shot Rodriguez, Dial said.
He then beat his wife on the face and head, most likely with the pistol, he said. She was treated at a hospital and released.
"I think it was a jealous husband, but this is all conjecture," Dial said.
After the shooting was reported, Flathead County sheriff's deputies found Bengston's truck parked in his driveway. Efforts by a police SWAT team to contact Bengston inside the house were unsuccessful, and officers found his body with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Besides appearing on TV, Rodriguez was the founder and CEO of Global Adventure Outfitters. According to the company's website, he was an editor at Shooting Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Petersen's Hunting, Guns & Ammo and Dangerous Game.
He was a mortgage banker before founding Global Adventure Outfitters and has hunted in 21 countries, the website says.
"A Rifleman's Journal" tracks Rodriguez's hunting travels to exotic locations, according to a Sportsman Channel description.
He has a wife and two children, it says.
A woman who answered the phone at Global Adventure Outfitters [ http://www.gaohunts.com/ ] confirmed that Rodriguez had been in Montana but said the organization would not be making a statement at the time.
Bengston worked for the U.S. Forest Service, Dial said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/03/man_kills_sportsmanchannel_hos.html [with comments]
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Defense Distributed's 'Feinstein AK Magazine' Named After Gun Control Advocate Sen. Dianne Feinstein
The Feinstein AK Mag
A pro-gun non-profit has created the world’s first 3-D printable magazine for an AK-47 assault weapon and decided to name the ammunition after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch proponent of stricter gun control.
Defense Distributed [ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/gunpowder-regulation/ ] creates digital firearm blueprints that are free to download and can be used to print guns on a 3-D printer. It's calling its newest printable ammunition magazine the “Feinstein AK Mag.” (Hat tip: Business Insider [ http://www.businessinsider.com/defense-distributed-feinstein-ak-mag-2013-3 ])
Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old founder of Defense Distributed, said the magazine’s name is a symbol of what’s happening in Washington [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/gun-control-senate_n_2828146.html ] and reflects the group’s belief that Feinstein’s proposed ban on assault weapons [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/dianne-feinstein-assault-weapons-ban_n_2541743.html ] will fail.
“We want to commemorate a personal failure of Feinstein’s to take away semi-automatic weapons,” Wilson, who is also a law student in Austin, Texas, told The Huffington Post.
Feinstein introduced legislation in January that would ban more than 150 types of assault weapons, along with certain high-capacity gun magazines, including those that feed bullets into an AK-47.
But those familiar with 3-D printing have pointed to the technology as a way around such regulations. “Restrictions are difficult to enforce in a world where anybody can make anything,” Hod Lipson, a 3-D printing expert at Cornell University, told the Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/weapons-made-with-3-d-printers-could-test-gun-control-efforts/2013/02/18/9ad8b45e-779b-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html ]. “Talking about old-fashioned control will be very ineffective.”
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) suggested a ban on 3-D printed guns [ http://www.meetthe112th.com/latest-news/rep-steve-israel-urges-congress-to-renew-wiki-weapon-ban/ ] in a recent speech calling for a renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act, to which Defense Distributed responded, "good f***ing luck [ http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ny-congressman-introducing-ban-on-3d-printed-high ]."
In January, state lawmakers in New York banned magazines that hold more than seven rounds. In response, Defense Distributed began testing a printable 30-round magazine for the AR-15 rifle and named it the “Cuomo” after the New York governor [ http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/defense-distributed-unveils-new-3d-printed-gun-magazine-cuomo-video.php ]. Gun hobbyists have since replicated the group’s design [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1U5rEAUD4E (next below)].
DEFCAD launched in December after Makerbot, a creator of 3-D printed items, began enforcing its ban on gun components [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/12/19/3d-printing-startup-makerbot-cracks-down-on-printable-gun-designs/ ]. Since then, users have downloaded DEFCAD gun design files over half a million times, according to Wilson.
“The message is in what we’re doing,” Wilson said in an interview with Ars Technica [ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/download-this-gun-3d-printed-semi-automatic-fires-over-600-rounds/ ] earlier this month. “The message is: download this gun.”
Here's a video of the Feinstein AK Mag being used [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2KCuymRLMk (next below, as embedded):
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/feinstein-ak-magazine_n_2838366.html [with comments]
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MakerBot unveils its most disruptive tool yet: The Digitizer 3D scanner
Photo: Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat
Ricardo Bilton
March 8, 2013 12:09 PM
Forget printing objects — with its latest invention, MakerBot [ http://www.makerbot.com/ ] wants you to scan them.
Unveiled as a prototype at SXSW today, it’s new Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner [ http://store.makerbot.com/digitizer.html ] fills a major hole in MakerBot’s 3D printing ecosystem: Getting the objects you already have in the physical world into the digital one.
“This is sort of like the scene in Tron when they get digitized into the game,” MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said during the device’s unveiling. “This kind of the washer-dryer combo of 3D printing,” he added.
With the device, owners can not only prototype new objects, but they can also re-create existing ones. The idea isn’t new, but MakerBot says it’s doing 3D scanning in a way that’s easy and accessible, which has been one of the company’s biggest strengths so far.
But like 3D printing, 3D scanning brings with it a whole host of copyright issues, all of which are likely to give manufacturers the vapors. Just because consumers can scan their property, does that mean they should be legally allowed to? In many ways, 3D scanning is the most dangerous technology yet for anyone who makes a living creating widgets. MakerBot may have just opened up a can of worms — not only for others but itself as well.
“Yes, it’s possible for a MakerBot to make a MakerBot,” Pettis said. “But I’m cool with that.”
© Copyright 2013 VentureBeat
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/08/makerbot-digitizer-3d-scanner/
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Patient has 75 per cent of SKULL replaced with 3D-printed implant in groundbreaking operation
A patient had 75 per cent of skull replaced with a 3D-printed implant
The inventors now hope to use 3D-printing to replace other missing bones
They can 'print' custom made bones within two weeks
7 March 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2289726/Patient-75-cent-SKULL-replaced-3D-printed-implant-groundbreaking-operation.html [with comments]
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Old Earth, Young Minds: Evangelical Homeschoolers Embrace Evolution
Jen Baird Seurkamp, a Kentucky evangelical who homeschools her children, avoids textbooks that discredit evolution.
(Kate Mitchell Hisey)
More Christian parents are asking for mainstream science in their children's curricula. Will religious textbook companies deliver?
By David R. Wheeler
Mar 8 2013, 10:27 AM ET
For homeschooling parents who want to teach their children that the earth is only a few thousand years old, the theory of evolution is a lie, and dinosaurs coexisted with humans, there is no shortage of materials. Kids can start with the Answers in Genesis curriculum, which features books such as Dinosaurs of Eden [ http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Eden-Tracing-Mystery-Through/dp/0890513406 ], written by Creation Museum founder Ken Ham. As the publisher's description states, "This exciting book for the entire family uses the Bible as a 'time machine' to journey through the events of the past and future."
It's no secret that the majority of homeschooled children in America belong to evangelical Christian families. What's less known is that a growing number of their parents are dismayed by these textbooks.
Take Erinn Cameron Warton, an evangelical Christian who homeschools her children. Warton, a scientist, says she was horrified when she opened a homeschool science textbook and found a picture of Adam and Eve putting a saddle on a dinosaur. "I nearly choked," says the mother of three. "When researching homeschooling curricula, I found that the majority of Christian homeschool textbooks are written from this ridiculous perspective. Once I saw this, I vowed never to use them." Instead, Warton has pulled together a curriculum inspired partly by homeschool pioneer Susan Wise Bauer and partly by the Waldorf holistic educational movement.
For many evangelical families, the rationale for homeschooling has nothing to do with a belief in Young Earth Creationism or a rejection of evolutionary theory. Some parents choose to homeschool because they're disenchanted with the values taught in the public school system. Others want to incorporate more travel into their children's education. Still others want to implement specific learning techniques they believe are more suitable for their children.
But whatever their reason for homeschooling, evangelical families who embrace modern science are becoming more vocal about it -- and are facing the inevitable criticism that comes with that choice. "We get a lot of flak from others for not using Christian textbooks," Warton says.
Theologically conservative Christians were not always so polarized. "By the late 19th century," says David R. Montgomery author of The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood [ http://www.amazon.com/Rocks-Dont-Lie-Geologist-Investigates/dp/0393082393 ], "evangelical theologians generally accepted the compelling geological evidence for the reality of an old earth." However, Darwin's idea of natural selection scared away many fundamentalists, who saw "survival of the fittest" as an atheistic concept. Over time, those who insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible's account of creation came to reject both geology and evolutionary biology.
This staunch rejection of modern science tends to characterize today's leading homeschool textbooks. For example, Science 4 Christian Schools [ http://www.amazon.com/Science-Christian-Schools-Teachers-Edition/dp/0890845697 ], a homeschool textbook published by Bob Jones University Press, doesn't mince words when it comes to evolution and Christian faith. "People who accept the Bible believe that God made everything," the book states. "They call God's description of how things began the Creation Model. Those who disregard the Bible believe instead that everything got here by itself. They call this description of how things began the Evolution Model."
The assertion that anyone who believes in evolution "disregards" the Bible offends many evangelicals who want their children to be well-versed in modern science. Jen Baird Seurkamp, an evangelical who homeschools her children, avoids textbooks that discredit evolution. "Our science curriculum is one currently used in public schools," she says. "We want our children to be educated, not sheltered from things we are afraid of them learning."
The rising number of homeschool families striving to reconcile belief in God with today's scientific consensus has attracted the attention of at least one publisher -- Christian Schools International [ http://www.csionline.org/ ] in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "Most science textbooks that attempt to present the content from a Christian perspective also attempt to discredit the theory of evolution," says Ken Bergwerff, a science curriculum specialist at Christian Schools International. "Some do it discreetly; others are quite blatant. The CSI science curriculum clearly presents science from a Christian perspective, but does not attempt to discredit the theory of evolution. The content presents God as the author of all of creation, no matter how he did it or when he did it."
Dorothy Boorse, a biology professor at Gordon College, a Christian college in Massachusetts, applauds these underdog homeschool textbooks. "I believe that the best evidence is that the earth is very old and that God used and continues to use the biological process of evolution," she says. "Many Christians in the sciences believe such a position is consistent with several possible interpretations of Scripture, including some that go way back in Christian history, and several from the Jewish tradition."
Other Christian organizations that believe in evolution are beginning to put money and resources into their efforts to reframe the conversation. In 2012, the BioLogos organization received a multimillion-dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund its Evolution and Christian Faith project, which disburses money to Christians who reconcile theology with evolutionary biology.
For example, grant recipients Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, and Scot McKnight, a New Testament scholar at Northern Seminary, will "write a book on the evidence for evolution and population genetics, with informed theological reflection on how these issues interact with orthodox Christianity," the BioLogos website states.
Meanwhile, professors at evangelical colleges that attract homeschoolers often have to deal with objections from Young Earth proponents. "We do have to address some one-sided perspectives in biological science that some of our freshman biology majors come pre-loaded with," says Jeffrey Duerr, a biology professor at George Fox University, a Christian university in Oregon. "But we do this by first addressing why science and Christian faith are compatible and then by teaching biology to them."
For Seurkamp, the ability to reconcile science and faith is one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling. "God knew what his creatures would need to survive and thrive when he created them," she says. "The ability to evolve and adapt is just one example of his creativity and infinite wisdom."
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/old-earth-young-minds-evangelical-homeschoolers-embrace-evolution/273844/ [with comments]
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The Market Speaks
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 7, 2013
Four years ago, as a newly elected president began his efforts to rescue the economy and strengthen the social safety net, conservative economic pundits — people who claimed to understand markets and know how to satisfy them — warned of imminent financial disaster. Stocks, they declared, would plunge, while interest rates would soar.
Even a casual trawl through the headlines of the time turns up one dire pronouncement after another. “Obama’s radicalism is killing the Dow,” warned an op-ed article by Michael Boskin, an economic adviser to both Presidents Bush. “The disciplinarians of U.S. policy makers return,” declared The Wall Street Journal, warning that the “bond vigilantes” would soon push Treasury yields to destructive heights.
Sure enough, this week the Dow Jones industrial average has been hitting all-time highs, while the current yield on 10-year U.S. government bonds is roughly half what it was when The Journal published that screed.
O.K., everyone makes a bad prediction now and then. But these predictions have special significance, and not just because the people who made them have had such a remarkable track record of error these past several years.
No, the important point about these particular bad predictions is that they came from people who constantly invoke the potential wrath of the markets as a reason we must follow their policy advice. Don’t try to cover America’s uninsured, they told us; if you do, you will undermine business confidence and the stock market will tank. Don’t try to reform Wall Street, or even criticize its abuses; you’ll hurt the plutocrats’ feelings, and that will lead to plunging markets. Don’t try to fight unemployment with higher government spending; if you do, interest rates will skyrocket.
And, of course, do slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right away, or the markets will punish you for your presumption.
By the way, I’m not just talking about the hard right; a fair number of self-proclaimed centrists play the same game. For example, two years ago, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson warned us to expect an attack of the bond vigilantes within, um, two years unless we adopted, you guessed it, Simpson-Bowles.
So what the bad predictions tell us is that we are, in effect, dealing with priests who demand human sacrifices to appease their angry gods — but who actually have no insight whatsoever into what those gods actually want, and are simply projecting their own preferences onto the alleged mind of the market.
What, then, are the markets actually telling us?
I wish I could say that it’s all good news, but it isn’t. Those low interest rates are the sign of an economy that is nowhere near to a full recovery from the financial crisis of 2008, while the high level of stock prices shouldn’t be cause for celebration; it is, in large part, a reflection of the growing disconnect between productivity and wages.
The interest-rate story is fairly simple. As some of us have been trying to explain for four years and more, the financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble created a situation in which almost all of the economy’s major players are simultaneously trying to pay down debt by spending less than their income. Since my spending is your income and your spending is my income, this means a deeply depressed economy. It also means low interest rates, because another way to look at our situation is, to put it loosely, that right now everyone wants to save and nobody wants to invest. So we’re awash in desired savings with no place to go, and those excess savings are driving down borrowing costs.
Under these conditions, of course, the government should ignore its short-run deficit and ramp up spending to support the economy. Unfortunately, policy makers have been intimidated by those false priests, who have convinced them that they must pursue austerity or face the wrath of the invisible market gods.
Meanwhile, about the stock market: Stocks are high, in part, because bond yields are so low, and investors have to put their money somewhere. It’s also true, however, that while the economy remains deeply depressed, corporate profits have staged a strong recovery. And that’s a bad thing! Not only are workers failing to share in the fruits of their own rising productivity, hundreds of billions of dollars are piling up in the treasuries of corporations that, facing weak consumer demand, see no reason to put those dollars to work.
So the message from the markets is by no means a happy one. What the markets are clearly saying, however, is that the fears and prejudices that have dominated Washington discussion for years are entirely misguided. And they’re also telling us that the people who have been feeding those fears and peddling those prejudices don’t have a clue about how the economy actually works.
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Related
Dow Hits 3rd New High, Helped by Jobless Report (March 8, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/business/economy/daily-stock-market-activity.html
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© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/krugman-the-market-speaks.html [with comments]
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The Nonsense of Austerity
March 6, 2013
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/03/the-nonsense-of-austerity-1.html [with comments]
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Banks Above the Law
Attorney General Eric Holder on March 6, 2013.
Evan Vucci/Associated Press
By JULIET LAPIDOS
March 7, 2013, 4:09 pm
At the same Wednesday judiciary committee meeting where Attorney General Eric Holder hemmed and hawed before acknowledging that the president cannot authorize a drone strike [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/targeted-killing-in-the-u-s-a/ ] on American soil, against an American terrorist suspect posing no imminent threat, he explained why the Justice Department has failed to bring criminal charges against a single Wall Street bank. Mr. Holder suggested, as a Financial Times headline put it this morning, that some banks are “too big to jail.”
Arguably that was a much bigger deal than his statement on drones, since, after all, the in-country-Hellfire issue is entirely hypothetical, while banks actually blew up the economy a few short years ago. Mr. Holder’s thoughts on banking didn’t spur a 13-hour filibuster, though, so they garnered less attention.
Here’s what happened. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, asked for more information on why federal and state authorities chose not to indict HSBC [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214 ] after it acknowledged laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, helping rogue states avoid international sanctions and working closely with Saudi Arabian banks linked to terrorist organizations.
Mr. Holder said: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
It’s nice and all that Mr. Holder cares about the stability of the global financial system, but that is not Mr. Holder’s job. As attorney general he is the country’s top law enforcement officer, and in that capacity he should prosecute criminals and criminal institutions.
As we wrote in an editorial [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/hsbc-too-big-to-indict.html (original links related http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/hsbc-to-pay-record-fine-to-settle-money-laundering-charges/ )] after the no-indict decision, “when prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.”
© 2013 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/banks-above-the-law/ [with comments]
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Household Wealth Is Back To Its Pre-Crisis Level, But It’s Mostly Flowing To The Rich
By Pat Garofalo on Mar 8, 2013 at 12:40 pm
The Great Recession destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth and economic output. Amd in what looks like a measure of good news, most of the household wealth that was vaporized is back. However, it’s almost all going to the rich [ http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-household-wealth-regains-pre-recession-peak-18675925 ( http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NET_WORTH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT )]:
Surging stock prices and steady home-price increases have finally allowed Americans to regain the $16 trillion in wealth they lost to the Great Recession. The gains are helping support the economy and could lead to further spending and growth.
The recovered wealth – most of it from higher stock prices – has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less. [...]
The upper-income Americans who have benefited most from the nation’s recovered wealth don’t tend to spend as much of their money as Americans overall do.
But they’ve gotten a lot richer. The Dow Jones industrial average has just set a record high. Since bottoming in March 2009, the Dow has jumped 119 percent. Roughly 80 percent of stocks are held by the richest 10 percent of households.
For the past five years, middle-class Americans have sold stocks and missed out on much of the rebound. During 2012, Americans dumped $204 billion in stocks, the Fed’s report showed.
While the stock market has roared back to record highs, home equity is only recovering slowly, and worker wages have been stuck in neutral, barely moving. The richest 1 percent of Americans have captured 121 percent [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/12/1579211/1-percent-121-gains/ ] of the income gains since the recession, meaning that everyone else is worse off in terms of income than they were before the crash.
Corporations have also captured a disproportionate share of the recovery. Since 2008, corporate profits have actually risen 20 times faster [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/04/1665281/corporate-profits-worker-income/ ] than worker incomes. According to a study from economists at Northeastern University, “corporate profits captured 88% of the growth [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/30/258388/corporate-profits-recovery/ ] in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1%.” So while it’s a good thing that wealth is slowly being rebuilt, it’s not yet helping the vast majority of the country.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/08/1691631/household-wealth-rich/ [with comments]
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The War On Entitlements
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
March 6, 2013, 11:40 pm
The debate over reform of Social Security and Medicare is taking place in a vacuum, without adequate consideration of fundamental facts.
These facts include the following: Two-thirds of Americans [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3261 ] who are over the age of 65 depend on an average annual Social Security benefit of $15,168.36 [ http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/ ] for at least half of their income.
Currently, earned income in excess of $113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 percent payroll tax that funds Social Security benefits (employers pay a matching 6.2 percent). 5.2 percent of working Americans make more than $113,700 a year. Simply by eliminating the payroll tax earnings cap — and thus ending this regressive exemption [ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/the-effects-of-raising-the-social-security-payroll-tax-cap ] for the top 5.2 percent of earners — would, according to the Congressional Budget Office [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ], solve the financial crisis facing the Social Security system.
So why don’t we talk about raising or eliminating the cap – a measure that has strong popular, though not elite, support?
When asked by the National Academy of Social Insurance [ http://www.nasi.org/press/releases/2013/01/press-release-americans-make-hard-choices-social-security ] whether Social Security taxes for better-off Americans should be increased, 71 percent of Republicans and 97 percent of Democrats agreed. In a 2012 Gallup Poll, 62 percent of respondents [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/153947/americans-split-whether-taxes-rise.aspx ] thought upper-income Americans paid too little in taxes.
Medicare, in turn, is financed by a flat 1.45 percent tax [ http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/social-security-and-medicare-tax-rates%3B-maximum-taxable-earnings ] on the first $200,000 of earnings for a single person and $250,000 for a married couple, matched by the employer, after which it rises by a modest 0.9 percent on all income above the $200,000 and $250,000 levels.
The Medicare and Social Security taxes are jointly known as FICA (for Federal Insurance Contributions Act [ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fica.asp#ixzz2MdQIfDYr ]) — or payroll — taxes. The combined FICA taxes are highly regressive. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center found that [ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001091_distribution_federal_taxes.pdf ] the poorest quintile pays a 7.3 percent FICA rate, while the top quintile pays 6.8 percent. The top 1 percent of the income distribution pays a 2 percent rate, and the top 0.1 percent pays just 0.9 percent. In other words, the rate paid by the poorest quintile is 8.1 times as high as the rate paid by the top 0.1 percent. The regressive character of the payroll tax, compared to the progressive structure of most other federal taxes, is clear in the accompanying chart [ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411943_distribution_federal.pdf ] (Fig. 1), from the Tax Policy Center:
Fig. 1
In the case of Social Security, proposals to raise the age of eligibility for full benefits amount to a benefit cut of 6 to 7 percent for every year that eligibility was increased. “The reduction in monthly benefits for some beneficiaries would lower average income and increase poverty rates in the future among the elderly,” according to the Congressional Budget Office [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/01-10-2012-Medicare_SS_EligibilityAgesBrief.pdf ]. If the retirement age were raised to 70, and if the early retirement age was kept at 62, the C.B.O. found that the penalty for those taking early retirement would increase: “people who claimed at 62 would receive only 55 percent of their primary insurance amount, compared with the 70 percent they would receive under current law.”
As 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day [ http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p23-190/p23190-g.pdf ], 72 percent of them are currently without the protection [ http://www.nirsonline.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=714%20are%20cur ] of a defined benefit pension plan, which leaves growing numbers dependent on inadequately funded 401(k) and other voluntary (defined contribution) plans to keep their heads above water.
At the same time, life expectancy has been extended to unprecedented lengths:
A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 83. A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 85. And those are just averages. About one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95.
In a 2012 report [ http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/590408.pdf ], the Government Accountability Office found that
older workers’ unemployment overall and long-term unemployment rates have increased dramatically since the recession began in 2007. In December 2011, the unemployment rate for older workers was 6.0 percent, up from 3.1 at the start of the recession, but down from its peak of 7.6 percent in February 2010. In particular, long-term unemployment rose substantially, and at a greater rate for older than younger workers. By 2011, 55 percent of unemployed older workers had been actively seeking a job for more than half a year (27 weeks or more).
In addition, the G.A.O. found that “long-term unemployment can put older workers at risk of deferring needed medical care, losing their homes, and accumulating debt.” In a survey of workers, the G.A.O. identified “out-of-date skills, discouragement and depression, and inexperience with online applications as reemployment barriers for older workers.”
And of course the elderly will be saddled with increased expenditures for medical care and other necessary services as they age.
Cutting benefits is frequently discussed in the halls of Congress, in research institutes and by analysts and columnists. The idea of subjecting earned income over $113,700 to the Social Security payroll tax and making the Medicare tax more progressive – steps that would affect only the relatively affluent — is largely missing from the policy conversation.
The Washington cognoscenti are more inclined to discuss two main approaches [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/opinion/brooks-our-second-adolescence.html ] that are far less costly for the affluent: means-testing of benefits and raising the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. (Sidenote: policy makers and national journalists who weigh in on this issue generally earn more than $113,700 a year.) Means-testing and raising the age of eligibility as methods of cutting spending appeal to ideological conservatives for a number of reasons.
First, insofar as benefits for the affluent are reduced or eliminated under means-testing, social insurance programs are no longer universal and are seen, instead, as a form of welfare. Public support would almost certainly decline, encouraging further cuts in the future.
Second, the focus on means-testing and raising the age of eligibility diverts attention from a much simpler and more equitable approach: raising the payroll tax to apply to the earnings of the well-to-do, a step strongly opposed by the ideological right.
Third, and most important in terms of the policy debate, while both means-testing and eliminating the $113,700 cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax hurt the affluent, the latter would inflict twice as much pain.
The C.B.O. estimates [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ] that elimination of the payroll earnings cap would cost the well-to-do the equivalent of 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, while substantially reducing Social Security payments to the top third of the income distribution, through means testing, would only cost those better off recipients the equivalent of 0.1 percent of G.D.P.
Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard and an authority on the history of the American welfare state, contended in a phone interview that policy elites avoid addressing the sharply regressive nature of social welfare taxes because, “at one level, it’s very, very privileged people wanting to make sure they cut spending on everybody else” while “holding down their own taxes.”
Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, agrees that elite proponents of cutting benefits for the elderly have a narrow view based on their own high incomes and comfortable lives: “The median voter has a much more well-rounded sense of the risks associated through everyday life than the elite,” he said in an interview.
In the rarefied community that sets many of the terms of national policy making, a recurring theme is the notion that the federal government is subsidizing the “good life” [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/business/the-payoff-in-retiring-a-few-years-later.html ] of the nation’s elderly at the expense of needed investments in young people [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-sequester-app/?ref=opinion ], in infrastructure and in innovation.
Writing in The Times, Yuval Levin, the editor of the National Interest and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argued on Feb. 19 [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/opinion/old-and-rich-less-help-for-you.html ] that both Democrats and Republicans
should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy — via means-testing. It may surprise some Americans to learn that the United States spends quite a lot on the affluent, especially through the entitlement programs at the heart of the budget fight: Social Security and Medicare. Both programs move money from relatively poorer young people to relatively richer old people, and they are growing ever more expensive. Means-testing — allocating benefits according to need — might offer both sides a way out.
Not to be outdone, the Heritage Foundation, bastion of the Republican right, has called for [ http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/56027440?access_key=key-ofxselx8xfev3cpylrp ] the imposition of tough means-testing on both Social Security and Medicare. The plan would cut benefits in half for a single person when income exceeds $82,000, and eliminate benefits altogether for those making more than $110,000. Benefits for married couples would be cut in half when their combined income reaches $137,000 and are eliminated altogether when income reaches $165,000.
“At the end the day,” write the authors of Heritage’s “Saving the American Dream,”
our plan, while economic in nature, has a higher moral purpose. If entitlements are not reformed, the next generation and future ones will have to pay punitive tax rates that will end liberty as we have known it. Our proposal aims to preserve America’s promise bequeathed to us by past generations.
Contrary to the claims Heritage is making, current levels of federal taxation are at historically low levels, and the increases needed to finance restoration of the Social Security trust fund will not break the bank.
Federal tax revenues in 2009, 2010 and 2011 [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals ] have been 15.1 percent, 15.1 percent and 15.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, lower than any level since 1950.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ] that the amount of new revenue required to bring the Social Security trust fund into balance over the next 75 years would amount to 0.6 percent of G.D.P.
The same C.B.O. document presents a series of alternative ways to achieve such a goal, including the elimination of the current $113,700 cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. If the cap or ceiling were lifted, the amount of money raised would be 0.6 percent of G.D.P., the exact amount of income needed to get Social Security out of the red — a striking coincidence.
This approach has substantial public support, which is reflected in one of the findings in the extensive NASI survey [ http://www.nasi.org/research/2013/report-strengthening-social-security-what-do-americans-want ] that there is “a sharp contrast between what Americans say they want and changes being discussed in Washington.” The report goes on:
Large majorities of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, agree on ways to strengthen Social Security — without cutting benefits. Fully 74% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats agree that “it is critical to preserve Social Security even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by working Americans.”
The question in the NASI survey reads as follows:
Workers currently pay 6.2% of their earnings to Social Security, matched by the employer. One proposal would very gradually raise the Social Security tax rate over the next 20 years. Example: For a worker earning $50,000, gradually raising the tax rate by 1/20th of 1% per year for 20 years would mean, each year, paying about 50 cents more per week, matched by the employer. This change would close 53% of Social Security’s financing gap. Do you favor or oppose this change?
Sixty-nine percent of respondents favored the proposal, including 65 percent of Republicans; 11 percent opposed; and 21 percent had no opinion.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll [ http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/8405-C.pdf ] (see Figs. 2 and 3) found strong opposition to reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits and strong support for taxing the rich.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
In fact, let’s go back and look at the dependence of retirees on Social Security. Fig. 4 illustrates data [ http://www.ebri.org/pdf/publications/books/databook/DB.Chapter%2007.pdf ] from the Employee Benefit Research Institute which shows the dependence on Social Security in 2010 for those over the age of 65 by quintile. For the first and second quintiles – the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution – Social Security provides nearly 90 percent of total household income. For those in the middle quintile, Social Security accounts for over 75 percent of total income.
Fig. 4
On Nov. 12, 2012, the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds issued a report [ http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html ] concerning Social Security:
After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2086.
The trustees estimate in the same report that the Medicare trust fund will reach “exhaustion” even sooner: 2024.
My conversations with a range of academics and policy analysts revealed very little consensus over strategies to deal with the fiscal crises facing the two major entitlement programs. Thoughtful scholars like Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the economist Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T.; and Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, contend that my own favorite solution, eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, goes too far, and that that ceiling should instead be raised to somewhere between $150,000 to $215,000.
Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a current trustee of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, said he could see the advantage of raising the age of Social Security eligibility to encourage more labor force participation as long as federal policies lessened the cost to employers of hiring older workers. He cautioned that such a step should include protection of benefits for low-income workers forced by hardship to take early retirement.
James Wetzler, former chief economist on Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation and a former New York State tax commissioner, warned that increasing tax burdens on the affluent, while reducing or eliminating their retirement benefits, poses the danger of “creating a class of influential people — relatively high earners — with a vested interest in eliminating the program.”
Elite anxiety over entitlement-driven budget deficits and accumulating national debt has created a powerful class in the nation’s capital. The agenda of this class is in many respects on a collision course with mounting demands for action by those lower down the ladder to address the threat to government social insurance programs. Intransigent opposition by the better off and their representatives to raising the necessary revenue means that not only Social Security and Medicare face a budgetary ax.
Among the additional likely casualties [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sequester-factsheets/North-Dakota.pdf ]: WIC, which provides free nutrition [ http://www.nwica.org/?q=advocacy/1 ] for women, infants and children; long-term and emergency unemployment compensation benefits; low-income housing vouchers; vaccines for poor children; schooling for children with disabilities; special education; preschool programs; child care for disadvantaged and vulnerable children; after-school programs; treatment of the mentally ill; and meals for sick and homebound seniors.
This conflict could not have come at a more difficult time: the United States is in the midst of a zero sum struggle requiring politicians to pick losers, not winners. The population of those over 65 is set to multiply, with longevity steadily increasing even as median annual household income for the population at large has shrunk [ http://www.sentierresearch.com/reports/Sentier_Household_Income_Trends_Report_January2013_02_28_13.pdf ] to $51,584 in January 2013 from $54,000 in 2008.
In this kind of conflict over limited goods, one of the most valuable resources that can get lost in the fray is the wisdom of the electorate at large. In this case, the electorate is pointing toward progressive tax increases for those closer to the top far more readily than members of the political class, for whom high-earners are a crucial source of campaign contributions.
The very nature of the basic security Americans are entitled to is at stake.
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Related Posts from Opinionator
Let Them Eat Crow
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/let-them-eat-crow/
Whose Ryan Is It Anyway?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/whose-ryan-is-it-anyway/
Entitlement Reform For the Entitled
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/entitlement-reform-for-the-entitled/
Arguing From the Facts
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/arguing-from-the-facts/
The Sequester App
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-sequester-app/
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© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-war-on-entitlements/ [with comments]
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An Open Letter to MSNBC: Disclose Ed Rendell's Conflicts of Interest
By Daniel Marans
Posted: 03/06/2013 11:08 am
Dear MSNBC President Phil Griffin,
I am a longtime fan of MSNBC. I have watched it regularly for years and admired its growth into a commercially successful platform for smart news and analysis.
That is why I am so disappointed that MSNBC did not respond to a CREDO petition [ http://org.credoaction.com/petitions/msnbc-disclose-fix-the-debt-co-chair-ed-rendell-s-conflicts-of-interest-when-booking ] asking it to disclose Governor Ed Rendell's conflicts of interest when featuring him as a guest or analyst. The petition simply states:
Disclose Ed Rendell's conflicts of interest due to his position as a co-chair of the Fix the Debt campaign -- a billionaire-financed campaign to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- when he appears on MSNBC to offer commentary on budget, public investment, infrastructure or environmental issues.
The petition, started last week by Sean Kitchen [ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/author/skitchen/ ], a student at Kutztown University and a former constituent of Rendell's from Horsham, PA, now has more than 6,000 signers.
Mr. Griffin, I have called and emailed you personally asking for comment on the petition, and to date, I have received no response.
Governor Rendell's role as co-chair of the Fix the Debt campaign stands out because he frequently uses his platform as an MSNBC analyst to call for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Specifically, Governor Rendell has suggested on MSNBC [ http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fix-debt-shill-ed-rendell-argues-chaine ] that the president should enact the chained CPI [ http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Chained_CPI_Fact_Sheet_FINAL_Feb-2013_0.pdf ], a cut to Social Security benefits that would grow deeper over time, hitting oldest beneficiaries hardest. He has also said that President Obama should propose raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 [ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/report/2012/12/11/47645/raising-the-medicare-eligibility-age-would-harm-seniors-and-increase-health-care-spending/ ], which is projected to deprive nearly half a million seniors of health insurance and drive up out-of-pocket costs for just about everybody else.
Whatever one thinks of Governor Rendell's positions, the public deserves to know that he is not just a neutral commentator. The public deserves to know that Governor Rendell is a co-chair of Fix the Debt, an initiative funded by private equity billionaire Peter G. Peterson to promote Social Security and Medicare cuts as part of a Grand Bargain. The public also deserves to know about Governor Rendell's lobbying work for the investment bank Greenhill & Co., the Ballard Spahr law firm, and the wound care technology company KCI USA. All of these organizations have an interest in particular policy outcomes that may influence the positions Governor Rendell endorses on MSNBC.
As recently as 2010, MSNBC was the gold standard of transparency in the media world. In November 2010, the network suspended first Keith Olbermann [ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/olbermann-suspended-from-msnbc-for-campaign-donations/ ], a Democrat, and then Joe Scarborough [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45411.html ], a Republican, for donating to political candidates. MSNBC came under intense criticism at the time for the decision, but defended it in the name of consistency with NBC News' policy on conflicts of interest. As of 2007, MSNBC's policy said [ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/olbermann-suspended-from-msnbc-for-campaign-donations/ ]:
Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee.
By contrast, Fox News' parent company, News Corporation, donated $1.25 million to Republican candidates in 2010, and star host Sean Hannity donated $2,400 to Republican candidates, with little fanfare.
If the NBC News standards applied to Scarborough and Olbermann in 2010, why do they not apply to contributors like Governor Rendell in 2013? Does co-chairing the Fix the Debt campaign not constitute a "civic" or "outside activity" that "creates the appearance of a conflict of interest"? Nobody is asking that Governor Rendell be suspended as Scarborough and Olbermann were. Petition signers, including me, are just asking that MSNBC disclose Rendell's involvement with outside groups when he appears.
Disclosures are important at all levels, including letters like these. During the week, I work for Social Security Works [ http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/ ( http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/social-security-works-0 )], an advocacy group dedicated to protecting Social Security from benefit cuts. Every Saturday, I produce and contribute to the nationally syndicated radio and YouTube show Take Action News with David Shuster [ http://www.youtube.com/takeactionnewstv ]. Whenever I speak about the issue of Social Security -- which is often, because it is an issue I care about -- I disclose my affiliation. This past Saturday, I did an entire segment on the CREDO petition, and I made very clear my affiliation with Social Security Works and my involvement in organizing the petition. When I asked David Shuster on air to weigh in, he first noted his years of work at MSNBC and the fact that his departure was a result of a disagreement with you. Only then did he speak about Rendell and MSNBC's disclosure obligations.
Viewers can decide for themselves whether our affiliations affected our presentation of the issue. I only ask that viewers get to make the same informed evaluation of positions taken by Governor Rendell and other MSNBC analysts.
I look forward to your response.
Best,
Daniel
Part 1: Take Action News segment on Petition [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3KbNTk4TKM (next below, as embedded)]
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-marans/an-open-letter-to-msnbc-d_b_2819009.html [with comments]
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‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts Pretend Man Is Actually Thomas Jefferson
Tom Kludt - 12:05 PM EST, Friday March 8, 2013
The gang at "Fox & Friends" celebrated "Founding Fathers Friday" by bringing on a Thomas Jefferson impersonator who stayed in character and on the tea party talking points throughout the bizarre interview.
From the beginning, co-host host Steve Doocy used the appearance by the "third president of the United States" to push the small government message that typifies the conservative network.
"Even though you were one of the very first presidents of the United States, as you remember, you were a budget cutter, weren't ya?" Doocy asked, fully playing along.
"Well, I was. I believe that government needs to be simple and frugal," the impersonator said. "And when I became president in 1801I inherited a debt, $83 million. When I left the presidency eight years later I had reduced that $33 million."
He continued, "We are not only being irresponsible but stealing from posterity. Posterity that we paid a great price to purchase liberty for that it seems we're giving away."
Co-host Gretchen Carlson then reminded "Jefferson" that the world — and government spending — had changed dramatically since he died in 1826.
"I know that you've never seen a number that big that we just showed on the screen," Carlson said, referring to a graphic that detailed the U.S. government's debt. "That's something that's been created since you've passed."
Doocy closed by revealing that Jefferson was in fact Stephen McDowell, president of Biblical Worldview University [ http://providencefoundation.com/?page_id=6 ].
Watch the highlights from the interview [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eANj0IJ4h4 (next below, as embedded)]:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/fox-friends-hosts-pretend-man-is-actually-thomas--1 [with comments] [and see, re the teabugger/bagnut/wingbutt myth that Jefferson, in drafting the Declaration, ever used the formulation "life, liberty and property" rather than the formulation "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", e.g. (linked in) http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.html , http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/rough.htm , http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html (via http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara4.html ), http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/uc004215.jpg (via http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt001.html ), http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h33.html ; and, more generally, (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78744850 and preceding and following, and (for that matter)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83512306 and preceding (and any future following)]
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Fox News Brings On Santa Claus To Discuss The ‘War On Christmas’
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/12/20/1365271/fox-news-brings-on-santa-claus-to-discuss-the-war-on-christmas/ [the YouTube, embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XApkZoPM25w ; with comments]
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Bob Woodward's Dark Days
Woodward's recent flap reveals a grotesquely swollen ego fed by 40 years of hero worship. In Newsweek, Max Holland asks: why is this man an American icon?
Mar 12, 2013
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/03/11/the-myth-of-bob-woodward-why-is-this-man-an-american-icon.html [with comments]
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Robert Menendez Prostitution Claims Investigated, Bypassed By New York Post, Star-Ledger
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/robert-menendez-prostitution-new-york-post-star-ledger_n_2836144.html [with comments]
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Politico Investigated Menendez Claims Before Daily Caller Report
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/politico-menendez-claims-daily-caller_n_2838060.html [with comments]
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What Does the Consumer Data Industry Know About You?
Enjoy a bodice-ripping page-turner from time to time? You're on a purchasable list. [hear that, rooster?]
(Reuters)
Ever been bankrupt? Expecting a child? A whole lot of information about who you are -- and what kind of consumer you are -- is for sale.
By Rebecca J. Rosen
Mar 7 2013, 6:06 PM ET
ProPublica's Lois Beckett has done yeowoman's work and just published an informative report [ http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-what-data-brokers-know-about-you ] on the huge variety of personal information the consumer data industry now tracks.
Here is a breakdown of her findings:
1. The Basics
• Demographic data such as name, address, age, race, occupation, education
• "Life-event triggers." Are you getting married? Soon to have a baby? Beckett reports that one company, Experian, updates its list of expectant and new parents "weekly."
• Salary and wages: "A subsidiary of credit reporting company Equifax even collects detailed salary and paystub information [ http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16762661-exclusive-your-employer-may-share-your-salary-and-equifax-might-sell-that-data ] for roughly 38 percent of employed Americans, as NBC news reported," Beckett writes. But, she adds, "that if a mortgage company or other lender wants to access information about your salary, they must obtain your permission to do so."
2. Retail information
• One company, Datalogix, keeps track of consumer spending on store loyalty cards amounting to $1 trillion at more than 1,400 brands. Datalogix did not respond to ProPublica's inquiries for further details.
• In one study, Beckett reports, Walt Disney explained that shared a person's name, address, and purchase history with other companies including Honda and Dannon, though a spokeswoman said that the data sharing was limited to the context of a specific joint promotion.
• Romance-novel purchasers.
• Donors to international charities.
3. Government records
• The DMV has information about what you drive, and may sell that for limited purposes.
• Voting records are public -- not whom you voted for but whether you voted at all. In some states, Beckett reports, these records "can also be bought and sold for commercial purposes [ http://www.propublica.org/article/how-companies-have-assembled-political-profiles-for-millions-of-internet-us ]."
• Prison records
• Bankruptcy filings
4. Health records
• "Federal law," Beckett writes, "protects the confidentiality of your medical records [ http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/consumers/index.html ] and your conversations with your doctor." But that doesn't mean that no information about your health is out there. She explains:
Data companies can capture information about your "interests" in certain health conditions based on what you buy -- or what you search for online. Datalogix has lists of people classified as "allergy sufferers" and "dieters." Acxiom sells data on whether an individual has an "online search propensity" for a certain "ailment or prescription."
• Data including information on people who bought plus-sized clothing was bought by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, though Beckett notes that the information was purchased "for current plan members, not as part of screening people for potential coverage," in order to offer targeted free programming.
5. Online data
• Email addresses for 80 percent of the U.S. population, linked to categories such as "estimated household income" and political leanings
• Facebook contains tons of information about you, and if you haven't made that information private, it's out there -- how many friends you have, any additional screen-names you might use, the URL for a personal website, etc.
• One company Beckett found tracks which social media sites a person uses and with what frequency.
• Datalogix (again) is trying to pair retail data with Facebook data to see whether people's purchases are influenced by Facebook ads they've seen.
According to Beckett, there is at least some information available on "basically everyone in the U.S." And why do they want all this data? "Mostly to sell you stuff."
Surprise, surprise.
For more information on how to opt out (good luck) and what new privacy laws would do to protect consumers if passed (not much), head over to ProPublica's full report [ http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-what-data-brokers-know-about-you ].
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/what-does-the-consumer-data-industry-know-about-you/273829/ [with comments]
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Aspartame In Milk Petition Sparks Thousands Of Angry Comments To FDA, Counter-Signatures
03/08/2013
Consumer group SumOfUs is urging the FDA to reject a dairy industry petition currently being considered by agency, which asks that the requirement to label milk and other dairy products as "artificially sweetened" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/aspartame-milk_n_2764729.html ] be dropped when they contain sweeteners like aspartame. A counter petition from SumOfUs outlining its cause [ http://action.sumofus.org/a/aspartame-milk/ ] has already gathered 93,142 signers.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/aspartame-milk_n_2828359.html [with comments]
===
(linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85420660 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85427039 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85427298 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85428004 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85428137 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85428694 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85428884 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85428930 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85429051 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85429448 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85435119 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85435918 and preceding (and any future following)
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85461733 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85471501 (and any future following)
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85479007 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85479225 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=85485295 and preceding (and any future following)
Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.
Photo courtesy Shutterstock.com
By Lauren Markoe
Mar 7, 2013
(RNS) Five key Catholic bishops are opposing the newly authorized Violence Against Women Act for fear it will subvert traditional views of marriage and gender, and compromise the religious freedom of groups that aid victims of human trafficking.
The act, which was signed into law by President Obama on Thursday (March 7), is intended to protect women from domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, and allows the federal government to spend money to treat victims and prosecute offenders.
But for the first time since the original act became law in 1994, it spells out that no person may be excluded from the law’s protections because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” — specifically covering lesbian, transgender and bisexual women.
That language disturbs several bishops who head key committees within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that deal with, among other issues, marriage, the laity, youth and religious liberty.
“These two classifications are unnecessary to establish the just protections due to all persons. They undermine the meaning and importance of sexual difference,” the bishops said in a statement released by the USCCB [ http://www.usccb.org/news/2013/13-046.cfm ] on Wednesday.
“They are unjustly exploited for purposes of marriage redefinition, and marriage is the only institution that unites a man and a woman with each other and with any children born from their union,” the statement continued.
The bishops also take issue with the lack of “conscience protection” for faith-based groups that help victims of human trafficking, an addition they sought after the Obama administration decided in 2011 to discontinue funding for a Catholic group that works with trafficking victims, many of whom were forced to work as prostitutes.
The administration instead funded other groups that, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, could provide a full range of women’s health services, including referrals for contraception or abortion, both of which the Catholic Church opposes.
“Conscience protections are needed in this legislation to ensure that these service providers are not required to violate their bona fide religious beliefs as a condition for serving the needy,” reads the statement of the bishops, who have supported previous versions of the act.
The statement was signed by:
– Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development
– Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage
– Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Ind., chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth
– Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty
– Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, chairman of the Committee on Migration
The bill passed the Senate 78 to 22 on Feb. 12, and the House passed it on Feb. 28 on a vote of 286 to 138, with no Democrats in opposition. Some Republicans objected to the bill for reasons similar to the bishops’.
© 2013 Religion News LLC
http://www.religionnews.com/2013/03/07/lesbian-provisions-prompt-catholic-bishops-to-oppose-violence-against-women-act/ [with comments]
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GOP Congresswoman: I Opposed Domestic Violence Bill Because It Protected Too Many Groups
Mar 4, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/04/1669601/blackburn-vawa/ [the YouTube, embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtbkjv2KH0 ; with comments]
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House GOPers boast about VAWA after voting against it
"I know how important it is to empower women in difficult situations,” said Rep. Steve King
Mar 8, 2013
House Republicans who voted against the final version of the Violence Against Women Act have been sending statements to their constituents boasting about their votes…for the Violence Against Women Act.
[...]
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/08/house_gopers_boast_about_vawa_after_voting_against_it/ [with comments]
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John Cornyn Applauds Violence Against Women Act Becoming Law, Even Though He Voted Against It
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/john-cornyn-violence-against-women-act_n_2839282.html [with comments]
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Nusreta Sivac, Bosnian Woman, Helped Make Rape A War Crime
Largely because of Muslim Bosniak woman Nusreta Sivac, people are regularly prosecuted for wartime sexual violence.
03/08/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/nusreta-sivac-rape-war-crime_n_2835241.html [the YouTube, embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4l3vhauywk ; with comments]
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House Republicans Propose Rolling Back Access To Birth Control To Avert Government Shutdown
Mar 5, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/03/05/1675731/house-republicans-birth-control-shutdown/ [with comments]
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Kansas Anti-Abortion Bill Advances In Legislature
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has said he will sign anti-abortion legislation that reaches his desk.
03/07/2013
A Kansas legislative committee advanced a sweeping anti-abortion bill [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/kansas-abortion-bill_n_2618366.html ] Thursday after removing a provision that would have banned abortion clinic workers from volunteering to bake cupcakes for their children's schools.
The state House Federal and State Affairs Committee passed a 70-page bill [ http://kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2253_00_0000.pdf ] that would tax abortions, establish life beginning at fertilization and prohibit state employees from performing abortions during the workday. The bill also would require doctors to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, even though the claim defies scientific fact. The bill is likely to pass.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/kansas-anti-abortion-bill_n_2832066.html [with comments]
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Illinois GOP Gay Marriage Backers Could Lose Their Jobs After Party Anger Flares Over Equality Stance
Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady could lose his job soon after members of the state party were angered by his support of gay marriage in the state.
(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
By SARA BURNETT
03/08/13 05:43 PM ET EST
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Two Illinois Republicans are finding out that for all the talk nationally of the GOP becoming more inclusive and appealing to voters by softening stances on social issues, it's difficult to actually follow through.
The state Republican Party's central committee will meet Saturday to consider firing chairman Pat Brady, largely because he spoke out in favor of a bill to end Illinois' ban on gay marriage. And the only Republican state senator to vote in favor of same-sex marriage, Sen. Jason Barickman, has been chastised by his colleagues and a national organization opposing the measure.
Brady and Barickman say they've heard from hundreds of people since taking their positions earlier this year – some were thankful, others excoriated them. A conservative organization even posted Brady's cellphone number online and his voicemail quickly filled up while on vacation with words he said he "didn't know were in the Bible."
"This issue is not about me. It's about the direction of the party going forward," Brady said. "It just plays into a national narrative of the GOP as closed-minded."
After a poor showing at the polls in November, national Republican party leaders vowed to work harder to attract more young, moderate and minority voters – those who may be on board with the party fiscally speaking, but are turned off by the conservative views on social issues, such as immigration and gay rights.
Last month, more than 75 prominent Republicans, including four governors and advisers to former President George W. Bush, signed a legal brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on same-sex marriage. Former First Lady Laura Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney also support gay marriage.
But politicians who step out on the ledge in order to instigate change risk getting pushed off, as their actions raise the ire of social conservatives, the Republicans most likely to vote in primaries and have leadership posts.
Rep. Tom Cross, the top Republican in the Illinois House, called Brady's possible firing "a big mistake."
"We're a party that prides itself and often talks about having a big tent approach. And if we're going to be a party that grows ... we need to acknowledge that ... we're not always going to agree with each other 100 percent," Cross said. "To me, you can be for (gay marriage), or you can be against it. But we ought to say to `You have a place in this party.'"
U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, the state's ranking Republican lawmaker, also believes it would be "a mistake" to remove Brady, spokesman Lance Trover said Friday. Kirk voted to end the policy on gays serving in the military, known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and opposes a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Illinois is a well-known Democratic stronghold, but Republicans did so poorly in November's elections that Democrats now have veto-proof majorities in the state House and Senate. Cross believes Republicans "turned a lot of people off" – particularly younger, suburban and minority voters who felt the GOP was trying to tell them how to live their lives.
Barickman's vote helped the Illinois Senate approve gay marriage last month. Gov. Pat Quinn has signaled he'll sign the bill to make Illinois the 10th state allowing gay marriage. But first, the House likely needs Republican votes to pass it, since not all Democrats support it.
An Associated Press analysis conducted last month shows Illinois isn't the only place where Republicans are seeing that their gay marriage votes have consequences. Just 47 Republicans over eight state Legislatures have voted for gay marriage, the analysis found, and many said they paid for it – including losses in primary and general elections.
In Minnesota, where a vote to allow gay marriage could occur this spring, only one Republican state lawmaker has publicly backed it, state Sen. Branden Petersen. Soon after he declared his support, the National Organization for Marriage announced it would spend $500,000 to defeat Republican lawmakers in Minnesota who vote to legalize it.
That organization made a similar pledge against Illinois Republicans who votes yes, and has posted a link on its website for gay marriage opponents to email state GOP committeemen and tell them to fire Brady.
"Brady has betrayed his party, misrepresented `key Republican values,' and insulted conservative voters in Illinois and across America," the website states.
State Sen. Jim Oberweis is one of the GOP committeemen leading the charge to oust Brady. He said gay marriage isn't the only reason he wants him gone; he also blames Brady for poor November election results and for working against some Republicans in primary elections.
If Brady opposed the party's position on gay marriage, Oberweis said, he should have properly changed the GOP platform.
"I believe that the Republican Party identity has to be on financial sanity, solving some of our fiscal mess," said Oberweis, a dairy magnate. "This other stuff is a diversion from that."
Brady will be out of state with his family this weekend, and had asked the committee to reschedule. They declined, saying he could participate by phone, but Brady doesn't plan to do so.
He said he still believes he took the right position, and that what the people who are trying to kick him out are doing is wrong.
Barickman said by working with Democrats, he was able to get an amendment added that protects religious freedom, so churches that oppose gay marriage won't be forced to perform ceremonies or allow ceremonies in their sanctuaries.
"The discussion that's happening on this issue is a healthy one for the Republican Party because it's helping us find our identity," Barickman said.
Asked if he had any advice for his Republican colleagues in the House, Barickman chose his words carefully, saying those who "stand strong on issues for which there are disagreements ... must have a thick skin."
Associated Press writer Patrick Condon in St. Paul, Minn., contributed to this report.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/illinois-gop-gay-marriage_n_2839508.html [with comments]
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Chicago Churches Vow To Ban Gay Marriage-Supporting Illinois Politicians
Posted: 03/08/2013 5:33 pm EST | Updated: 03/08/2013 8:45 pm EST
Same-sex couples may soon be able to legally tie the knot [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/illinois-gay-marriage-bill_n_2687105.html ] in Illinois, but several conservative Christian churches aren't having it.
As WBEZ is reporting [ http://www.wbez.org/sections/religion/chicago-clergy-say-they%E2%80%99ll-ban-lawmakers-who-vote-same-sex-marriage-105962 ], about two dozen conservative Catholic and African-American clergymen formed a new religious coalition with the Catholic Conference of Illinois, vowing to ban Illinois lawmakers who support same-sex marriage from their Chicago-based churches.
Among those to decry the state's pending marriage equality legislation, which is currently awaiting a House vote [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/illinois-gay-marriage-hou_n_2765241.html ], was Bishop Lance Davis, senior pastor at a church in Dolton.
“We want to make sure that we a send a message to our elected officials that as a collective community and a collaborative, we will not allow you to speak in our churches, you will not be invited to our church when you’re running for office because we as a community are incensed," he is quoted by the radio station as saying.
The group is reportedly planning to launch a March 8 media campaign, urging residents to contact their area lawmakers and ask them to vote against same-sex marriage.
Meanwhile, two Illinois Republicans have come under fire after speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage.
As the Associated Press reports [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/illinois-gop-gay-marriage_n_2839508.html (just above)], the state Republican Party's central committee is scheduled to meet March 9 to debate whether or not to fire chairman Pat Brady, who came out in favor of ending the state's ban on gay marriage. Meanwhile, Sen. Jason Barickman [ http://www.news-gazette.com/news/politics-and-government/2013-02-24/tom-kacich-gop-not-yet-done-berating-barickman.html ] (R-Bloomington) has also been heavily criticized for voting in support of allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) couples the right to wed.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/chicago-clergy-gay-marriage-politician-ban_n_2839927.html [with comments]
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On Eve Of Marriage Equality Cases, Justice Kennedy Suddenly Claims To Care About Judicial Restraint
Justice Anthony Kennedy
By Ian Millhiser on Mar 8, 2013 at 10:30 am
Justice Anthony Kennedy doesn’t like law. Or, at least, he doesn’t like for people that aren’t him to engage in lawmaking. Kennedy did not simply vote to toss out nearly two-hundred years of established law [ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/03/aca_lawsuit.html ] in order to strike down part of the Affordable Care Act, he wanted to toss out the entirety of Obamacare [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/06/29/508522/dissenting-opinion-analysis-justice-kennedy-abandons-all-pretensions-of-being-a-moderate/ ]. He was the driving force behind Citizens United [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/14/483711/so-called-moderate-justice-anthony-kennedy-was-the-driving-force-behind-citizens-united/ ]. He’s given sweeping legal immunity [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/02/456421/on-economic-justice-justice-kennedy-is-no-moderate/ ] to corporations. A 2005 study found that Kennedy was the second most likely justice [ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/opinion/06gewirtz.html ] to strike down acts of Congress — second only to the guy who thinks federal child labor laws are unconstitutional [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/09/19/321978/justice-thomas-who-thinks-federal-child-labor-laws-are-unconstitutional-complains-about-judicial-activism/ ].
So Kennedy is very quick on the draw when he has the opportunity to shape American law more to his liking, an instinct on his part that has generally served America very badly. One rare instance where Kennedy’s has actually been a force of good, however, is gay rights. Kennedy authored two landmark [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-1039.ZO.html ] decisions [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-102.ZS.html ] in this space, and is viewed as the most likely fifth vote to strike down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act.
Which is why it is a bit concerning to see Kennedy suddenly claiming that he believes in judicial restraint [ http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/03/07/justice-kennedy-serious-problem-supreme-court-deciding-too-many-issues-that-can-be-decided-by-congress/ ] while he is no doubt in the process of reviewing briefs in the marriage equality cases:
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said Wednesday that congressional lawmakers need to maintain the nation’s balance of power by being able to compromise, expressing concerns that the high court is increasingly the venue for deciding politically charged issues such as gay marriage, health care and immigration.
Kennedy, a former Sacramento law school professor, was asked by reporters whether he thought the court was deciding too many issues that can be decided by Congress.
“I think it’s a serious problem. A democracy should not be dependent for its major decisions on what nine unelected people from a narrow legal background have to say,” Kennedy said. “And I think it’s of tremendous importance for our political system to show the rest of the world — and we have to show ourselves first — that democracy works because we can reach agreement on a principle basis.”
Now, let’s be clear. If Kennedy has now decided that he cares about judicial restraint, than that could be a very good thing. Kennedy’s opinion in Citizens United did terrible damage to our democracy, as did the deciding vote he cast to install George W. Bush in the White House [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZPC.html ]. He expanded abusive companies’ ability to exploit their consumers [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/03/334251/has-corporate-america-achieved-total-judicial-victory-over-american-consumers/ ] through forced arbitration and similar practices. He stole away Lilly Ledbetter’s right to equal pay for equal work [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1490360091599190176&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ]. And, of course, the pending challenge to the Voting Rights Act [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1647811/the-double-standard-behind-the-roberts-courts-hostility-to-voting-rights/ ] presents him with a fantastic opportunity to show that he is now committed to restraint — an opportunity he did not seem likely to seize during oral arguments.
But his recent claim to care about judicial restraint is, at best, entirely inconsistent with his record on the Court. At worst, it is a warning that he’s suddenly decided to restrain himself now that he has a rare opportunity to do good in the world in the marriage equality cases.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/08/1689611/on-eve-of-marriage-equality-cases-justice-kennedy-suddenly-claims-to-care-about-judicial-restraint/ [with comments]
===
A First Amendment Storm
Editorial
Published: March 4, 2013
House Republicans and Democrats do not agree on much these days, but they managed to join together last month to breach the proper separation between church and state. By a 354-to-72 vote, the House approved a measure sponsored by Representatives Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, and Grace Meng, a New York Democrat, that would authorize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to make direct grants to churches, mosques, synagogues and other houses of worship “without regard to the religious character of the facility or the primary religious use of the facility.”
In the bipartisan lunge to give in to political pressure from some religious groups after Hurricane Sandy, the House dispensed with holding even a single hearing before passing the bill, which abandons decades of Supreme Court precedent and longstanding administrative rules barring direct taxpayer financing of religious activities.
Complaints that current rules unfairly discriminate against houses of worship are simply wrong. Churches, like most nonprofit organizations and businesses, are eligible for government loans to make storm-related repairs. They are also eligible for disaster assistance grants, just as secular nonprofit organizations are, if they dedicate at least 50 percent of their facilities to providing “essential services of a governmental nature” — like a community homeless shelter or soup kitchen open to the general public on a nondiscriminatory basis. Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, one of only six Republicans to vote against the bill, rightly argued that it unfairly exempts churches from the neutral requirement that beneficiaries of federal aid have to provide key secular services.
Supreme Court rulings interpreting the First Amendment’s prohibition against establishment of religion have long barred the direct use of tax money to build, repair or maintain buildings devoted to religious services or other religious activities.
George W. Bush’s administration, which accelerated government backing for “faith-based” social service programs, did not order FEMA financing for church reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina. It is troubling that two-thirds of the House Democrats went along with the new measure, and that only two Democratic lawmakers, Jerrold Nadler of New York and Bobby Scott of Virginia, vocally challenged the dismantling of the church-state barrier. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, an influential voice on Hurricane Sandy aid, has also endorsed the measure.
The First Amendment does not allow a Hurricane Sandy exception to pay for the rebuilding of damaged houses of worship. The Senate should let the bill die.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/opinion/separation-between-church-and-state.html
===
‘A Big New Power’
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
March 6, 2013, 9:00 pm
Years from now, when the Supreme Court has come to its senses, justices then sitting will look back on the spring of 2013 in bewilderment. On what basis, they will wonder, did five conservative justices, professed believers in judicial restraint, reach out to grab the authority that the framers of the post-Civil War 14th and 15th Amendments had vested in Congress nearly a century and a half earlier “to enforce, by appropriate legislation” the right to equal protection and the right to vote. How on earth did it come to pass that the Supreme Court ruled a major provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 unconstitutional?
You will have noticed that I’m making a premature assumption here about the outcome of a case, Shelby County v. Holder, that was argued just last week. Although I’m willing to bet that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has already drafted his 5-to-4 majority opinion, I’d be nothing but relieved if the court proves me wrong when it issues the decision sometime before the end of June. But except for a few wishful thinkers, everyone who witnessed the argument, read the transcript [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf ], or listened to the audio [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=12-96 ] now expects the court to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act – and seriously harm itself in the process.
As I made clear in my most recent column [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/the-more-things-change/ ], I wasn’t expecting anything good to come out of this argument. But neither did I anticipate the ugliness that erupted from the bench. While Justice Antonin Scalia’s depiction of the Voting Rights Act as the “perpetuation of racial entitlement” quickly went viral (40 screens of Google hits, by the time I checked earlier this week), that was not even the half of it.
“Even the name of it is wonderful: the Voting Rights Act,” Justice Scalia said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he suggested that only political correctness, rather than a principled commitment to protect the right to vote, had kept the disputed Section 5 of the act alive through four successive Congressional re-enactments. (And, he might have added and no doubt thought, four successive Supreme Court affirmations of the law’s constitutionality.)
Is it better to be black these days in Mississippi or in Massachusetts? Not being likely to find myself black in either state, I wouldn’t presume to say, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. exhibited no such diffidence. Without having asked a single question of Shelby County’s lawyer, Bert W. Rein, he taunted Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli with statistics purporting to show that Mississippi has the better record of African-American voter registration and turnout.
It was a “gotcha” performance beneath the dignity of a chief justice, and it turned out to be based on a – to put it charitably – misunderstanding of the data. The next day, the Massachusetts secretary of state, William F. Galvin, complained publicly [ http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/03/01/massachusetts-official-challenges-chief-justice-roberts-claim-about-voting/u8rYN2MVzc3GOdq4cWyYEK/story.html ] that Chief Justice Roberts had used “phony statistics” in a “deceptive” and “truly disturbing” manner. (Mississippi, by the way, signed a brief [ http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/supreme_court_preview/briefs-v2/12-96_resp_amcu_states.authcheckdam.pdf ] urging the court to uphold Section 5.)
Section 5 of the act is the “preclearance” provision, covering all or parts of 16 states, most but not all in the South. Before making any change in voting procedures, a “covered jurisdiction” must satisfy the Justice Department or a federal court that the change will have neither the purpose nor effect of “denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.” Last year, Section 5 kept Texas from enforcing what would have been the country’s most stringent voter ID law. At the same time, Section 5 induced South Carolina to make sufficient changes in a proposed voter ID law to satisfy a federal court, an illustration of how the provision has often served as a deterrent to mischief or as negotiating tool to avoid it.
The goal of Shelby County, Ala., and its friends on the Supreme Court is to depict Section 5 as an anachronism, a needless cudgel held by the big bad federal government over the head of a transformed South. “The Voting Rights Act, Stuck in the Past” was the headline on George F. Will’s post-argument column [ http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-01/opinions/37371599_1_progressives-federalism-house-vote ]. He bemoans the asserted fact that “progressives are remarkably uninterested in progress,” observing that Social Security remains “frozen, like a fly in amber” despite the increase in life expectancy since its creation in 1935 and that “progressives cling to Medicare ‘as we know it’ ” despite advances in medicine.
Acknowledging the overwhelming vote by which Congress renewed Section 5 in 2006 – 98-to-0 in the Senate and 390-to-33 in the House – Mr. Will writes that “obviously, the political class’s piety about the act has extinguished thought about its necessity,” therefore requiring “active judicial engagement” to accomplish what politics cannot or will not. (“Judicial engagement” is a right-wing neologism, applied to old-fashioned judicial activism [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/engagement-as-the-new-activism/ ] that runs in the right direction. )
Because George Will’s Washington Post columns on legal matters tend to channel the thinking of his friend Nino Scalia, they are often worth pondering, and this one is no exception. So Social Security, Medicare and the Voting Rights Act are all outdated? How interesting – except that the Supreme Court isn’t reaching out to invalidate the first two. Only the Voting Rights Act is in its sights. As they say on Sesame Street, which of these things is not like the others?
Leaving race aside for the moment (did someone mention that the Voting Rights Act has something to do with empowering black voters – who just might, for some strange reason, prefer Democrats?), what the court’s conservatives seem to see in Section 5 is a threat to state sovereignty — the “sovereign dignity” of the states, a phrase Justice Anthony M. Kennedy has used in another federalism context. This theme ran throughout the argument. Justice Scalia referred to Section 5 as imposing “these extraordinary procedures that deny the states sovereign powers which the Constitution preserves to them.” Justice Kennedy asked whether “if Alabama wants to acknowledge the wrongs of its past, is it better off doing that if it’s an independent sovereign or if it’s under the trusteeship of the United States government?”
These are astounding comments, bespeaking willful ignorance of the origin (as in “originalism”) of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which transformed the constitutional relationship between the federal government and the states. Their very point was to invoke federal power to make sure the states delivered on the amendments’ promises: due process, equal protection, the right to vote for all. Recall that the Constitution’s first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, imposed limitations only on the power of Congress; only through later Supreme Court interpretation were most of them understood to apply to the states as well. But the Reconstruction amendments were aimed directly at the states. As Justice Stephen G. Breyer put it during the argument: “And one thing to say is, of course this is aimed at states. What do you think the Civil War was about?”
Whether Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act covers the wrong jurisdictions, or too many, or too few is a policy judgment, as much for Congress to make as whether to raise the eligibility age for Social Security or Medicare. With mounting frustration, the liberal justices tried to make that point. “Why should we make the judgment, and not Congress, about the types and forms of discrimination and the need to remedy them?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Mr. Rein, Shelby County’s lawyer.
Addressing Mr. Rein, Justice Elena Kagan asked: “You said the problem has been solved. But who gets to make that judgment really? Is it you, or is it the court, or is it Congress?” When the lawyer answered that while Congress can examine a problem, “it is up to the court to determine whether the problem indeed has been solved,” Justice Kagan responded: “Well, that’s a big new power that you are giving us – that we have the power now to decide whether racial discrimination has been solved? I did not think that that fell within our bailiwick.”
The Roberts court stands on the brink of making an error of historic proportions. A needless and reckless aggrandizement of power in one case to satisfy the current majority’s agenda will erode the court’s authority over time.
But there was no sign from the majority last week of an appetite for stepping back this time, as the court did in its last confrontation with Section 5 four years ago. Justice Scalia – he who flaunts his refusal to join any portion of any opinion that cites legislative history – returned repeatedly to his view that manifest Congressional support for the Voting Rights Act was somehow illegitimate, not to be taken at face value. The problem was, he said, that members of Congress “are going to lose votes if they do not re-enact the Voting Rights Act.”
Justice Scalia, that’s called democracy.
Or it was.
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/a-big-new-power/ [with comments]
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Why Scalia’s ‘Racial Entitlement’ Quote Is Even Scarier Than You Think
By Ian Millhiser on Feb 28, 2013 at 3:00 pm
Justice Antonin Scalia quite deservedly came under fire yesterday for his claim that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is a “perpetuation of racial entitlement [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/27/1646891/scalia-voting-rights-act-is-perpetuation-of-racial-entitlement/ ].” If the justice were looking to confirm every suspicion that conservative opposition to the law that broke the back of Jim Crow voter exclusions is rooted in white racial resentment, he could hardly have picked a better way to do so.
Viewed in context, however, Scalia’s quote is actually even more disturbing than the initial headlines suggested. Beyond whatever resentments Justice Scalia may hold, his “racial entitlements” statement was also part of a broader theory about the proper role of judges in society. And if that theory were taken seriously by a majority of the justices, it would potentially undermine Medicare, Social Security and countless other programs. According to Scalia:
Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes. I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.
That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.
As Scott Lemieux points out, this theory resembles some of the reasoning behind an 1883 decision which struck down an early precursor to the 1964 Civil Rights Act [ http://prospect.org/article/scalias-weird-vra-spat ] that banned many forms of segregation by private business. But the roots of Scalia’s legal theory are probably several decades more recent than the late Nineteenth Century.
A major reason why U.S. constitutional law is difficult and American judges are powerful is that the Constitution is not a particularly precise document. The Ninth Amendment [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution ] provides that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,” but it provides absolutely no guidance whatsoever on what those other rights could be. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from abridging the “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and it prevents the loss of life, liberty or property “without due process of law.” What are the “privileges or immunities” protected by the Constitution? The Constitution doesn’t say! And the Supreme Court’s answer to this question is rather ridiculous [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0083_0036_ZO.html ].
Because the Constitution is so imprecisely drafted, judges have at times wielded it as a tool to impose their own policy preferences on the law. After all, nothing in the Constitution doesn’t say that the word “liberty” means the liberty to work in a grueling job that literally tears your lungs apart from the inside without the benefit of workplace safety laws or other basic labor protections. Indeed, that was more or less the holding of the Supreme Court’s 1905 opinion in Lochner v. New York [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html ].
Beginning in the 1930s, the Supreme Court more or less came to terms with the fact that judges were fabricating imaginary constitutional restrictions, and that this was a bad thing. Indeed, probably the most important question addressed by Twentieth Century constitutional law and scholarship was how to reconcile the legitimate need for judges to police the boundaries of liberty with the fact that the Constitution provides them with little guidance on how to do so. An unelected Supreme Court had recently engaged in overreach that harmed the most vulnerable Americans and struck down laws enacted by elected representatives in the process, and this situation was untenable. But a Court that simply gave Congress free reign to engage in racism or sexism or to toss people in jail for no reason would be equally intolerable.
One of the best, and most influential answers to this dilemma came in a 1938 case called United States v. Carolene Products [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1808251577400430843&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ]. Carolene Products suggested that judges should step into the breach when a law “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation.” Thus, when lawmakers enact “restrictions upon the right to vote,” limit the ready availability of information to voters, or restrict political organizing, judges must remedy the situation. Carolene Products also provides that judges must enforce the Bill of Rights and other explicit constitutional protections, and that it must prevent discrimination against certain minority groups, but in most circumstances we are governed by democratically elected representatives and judges should defer to officials who can actually be voted out of office.
When Scalia uses the term “racial entitlement” he appears to be referring to the kind of law that entrenches itself because lawmakers are too afraid to vote against it for fear of being accused of racially improper motives. As Scalia puts it, “[w]henever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.” In other words, Scalia believes that the Voting Rights Act somehow “restricts those political processes which can ordinarily be expected to bring about repeal of undesirable legislation,” and thus it is his job as a judge to strike it down.
This is a disturbing idea for many reasons, but one of the biggest ones is that its logic could extend well beyond the Voting Rights Act. There is a common belief among conservatives that welfare programs by their very nature lead to the kind of so-called breakdown of democracy that Scalia finds objectionable in the Voting Rights Act case. Indeed, the most famous articulation of this view was Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark: “those that are dependent on government and those that think government’s job is to redistribute — I’m not going to get them [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/mitt-romney-video_n_1829455.html ].” In essence, Romney warned that as the government creates welfare programs, this transforms welfare recipients into a constituency for those programs. And eventually that constituency becomes so large that it is impossible for a lawmaker to repeal those programs, or for people who oppose those programs to get elected.
To be sure, Scalia has never explicitly endorsed Romney’s view of welfare — although I’d be willing to make a $10,000 bet [ http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/12/12/387594/10000-mitt-romney-6-median-american/ ] that he agrees with Romney. But it’s not hard to predict how a judge who agrees with both Romney’s view of welfare and Scalia’s view of when judges must destroy democracy in order to save it would react to the modern welfare state. With his racial entitlement comment, Scalia offered a constitutional theory that would allow movement conservatives to strike down the entire American safety net.
The irony in all this is that Scalia used to be one of the most articulate spokespeople for why judges should not strike down laws unless the Constitution’s text explicitly instructs them to do so. Just last year he denounced Roe v. Wade specifically because he does not believe that supporters of Roe “stick to the text” of the Constitution [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/09/18/864351/30-seconds-after-denying-court-is-politicized-scalia-says-democrats-do-not-stick-to-the-text-of-the-constitution/ ]. Whatever the virtues of Roe, Scalia appears perfectly willing to abandon his rigid textualism when it comes time to strike down a law he personally disapproves of. I’ve read the Constitution many times, but I’ve never found a ban on what Scalia calls “racial entitlements.”
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1649421/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-quote-is-even-scarier-than-you-think/ [with comments]
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Rand Paul Praises Horrendous Supreme Court Decision, Would Let Employers Ruthlessly Exploit Workers
By Ian Millhiser on Mar 7, 2013 at 9:00 am
Lochner v. New York is widely viewed as one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/06/641591/george-will-corporations-have-a-constitutional-right-to-exploit-workers-unless-they-play-football/ ]. It is taught in law schools, alongside decisions upholding segregation [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson ] and permitting Japanese detention camps [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/06/641591/george-will-corporations-have-a-constitutional-right-to-exploit-workers-unless-they-play-football/ ], in order to instruct budding lawyers on how judges should not behave. Even Robert Bork, the failed, right-wing Supreme Court nominee who claimed women “aren’t discriminated against anymore [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/17/345467/romney-legal-advisor-robert-bork-women-aren%E2%80%99t-discriminated-against-anymore/ ]”, called Lochner an “abomination” that “lives in the law as the symbol, indeed the quintessence of judicial usurpation of power [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/19/1358911/even-the-late-robert-bork-thought-the-tea-party-was-out-of-its-mind/ ].”
Lochner [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0198_0045_ZS.html ] fabricated a so-called right to contract in order to strike down a New York law preventing bakery owners from overworking bakers, but its rationale has implications for any law intended to shield workers from exploitation. In essence, Lochner established that any law that limits any contract between an employer and an employee is constitutionally suspect. If desperation forces someone to agree to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for a dollar a day in a factory filled with toxic air, then courts must treat that law with heavy skepticism. Not every workplace law was struck down during the so-called Lochner Era — the justices of that era sometimes valued sexism [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muller_v._Oregon ] more than they valued exploiting workers, for example — but Lochner placed any law benefiting workers on constitutionally weak footing. Needless to say, the “right to contract” it invented appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Nevertheless, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) took several minutes out of his lengthy talking filibuster [ http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/03/06/1683851/rand-paul-launches-talking-filibuster-demands-assurance-obama-wont-use-drones-against-americans-in-us/ ] yesterday to praise this “abomination” of a decision on the Senate floor:
You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama’s a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I’m asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case. . . . I think it’s a wonderful decision.
Watch it [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQwdurNY3qo (next below, as embedded)]:
Although its not entirely clear what exploiting workers has to do with drone strikes, the primary subject of Paul’s filibuster, the senator seemed to think that Lochner was relevant because that case claimed that its fabricated right to contract flowed from the Constitution’s “due process” guarantee.
Paul’s speech also includes a somewhat rambling attempt to claim that Lochner helped “end Jim Crow,” a claim that would cause anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of civil rights history to scratch their head. Lochner was decided in 1905, and, while Paul is correct that the Lochner Era justices very occasionally struck down discriminatory laws [ http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17109776118808449915&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr ], Jim Crow was still very much alive when Lochner was overruled in the 1930s [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Hotel_Co._v._Parrish ]. The Supreme Court decision that did the most to eradicate Jim Crow — Brown v. Board of Education [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education ] — rested on the Constitution’s guarantee that no person shall be denied the “the equal protection of the laws,” not on some fabricated right to contract. And Brown alone was insufficient to overcome the campaign of “massive resistance [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_resistance ]” segregationists mounted in defense of Jim Crow.
What finally killed American apartheid was big, centralized government of the kind Paul and his fellow tea partiers love to hate. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 required business owners to contract with minorities — something that would undoubtedly been unconstitutional under Lochner. And, of course, the same Voting Rights Act that is now endangered in the Supreme Court [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/28/1649421/why-scalias-racial-entitlement-quote-is-even-scarier-than-you-think/ (just above)] tore down Jim Crown voter exclusions. Sen. Paul, for his part, has incorrectly [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung ] suggested that the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution [ http://yalelawandpolicy.org/sites/default/files/YLPRIA29_Millhiser.pdf ].
Paul’s endorsement of Lochner reflects a disturbing evolution in Tea Party thought. For much of Obama’s first term, Tea Party conservatives rallied behind “tentherism [ http://prospect.org/article/rally-round-true-constitutio ],” the false belief that most of what the federal government does is unconstitutional. Unlike tentherism, which applies only to federal laws, Lochnerism prevents both the federal government and the states from enacting necessary legislation. Although a handful of the most radical federal judges [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/16/464731/two-federal-judges-suggest-all-labor-business-or-wall-street-regulation-is-unconstitutional/ ] openly embrace Lochnerism or similar reasoning, this particularly virulent misreading of the Constitution was largely absent from elected officials’ rhetoric until Paul’s speech yesterday.
(HT: Josh Blackman [ http://joshblackman.com/blog/2013/03/06/rand-paul-talks-about-david-bernsteins-work-on-lochner-and-randy-barnets-presumption-of-liberty-during-filibuster/ ])
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1684111/rand-paul-all-laws-protecting-workers-are-constitutionally-suspect/ [with comments]
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States With Most Gun Laws Have Fewest Gun Deaths, Study Finds
By Nicole Flatow on Mar 7, 2013 at 4:30 pm
States with more gun laws have lower levels of gun fatalities, according to a new study from Boston Children’s Hospital. While the study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine [ http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661390 ], does not establish cause-and-effect, nor which particular gun laws are most effective, it does suggest a positive relationship between gun control and gun violence prevention. According to NBC News [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17213303-fewer-gun-deaths-in-states-with-most-gun-laws-study-finds ]:
“It seems pretty clear: If you want to know which of the states have the lowest gun-mortality rates just look for those with the greatest number of gun laws,” said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler of Boston Children’s Hospital who, with colleagues, analyzed firearm-related deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010.
By scoring individual states simply by the sheer volume of gun laws they have on the books, the researchers noted that in states with the highest number of firearms measures, their rate of gun deaths is collectively 42 percent lower when compared to states that have passed the fewest number of gun rules. [...]
As proof, Fleegler pointed to the firearm-fatality rates in law-laden states such as Massachusetts (where there were 3.4 gun deaths per 100,000 individuals), New Jersey (4.9 per 100,000) and Connecticut (5.1 per 100,000). In states with sparser firearms laws, researchers reported that gun-mortality rates were higher: Louisiana (18.0 per 100,000), Alaska (17.5 per 100,000) and Arizona (13.6 per 100,000).
The authors of the study openly acknowledge that correlation research has a much more limited application than research that establishes cause-and-effect, and conclude that further study is necessary. But in an accompanying commentary [ http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1661391 ], Dr. Garen J. Wintemute of the University of California, Davis, Sacramento, laments that anything more than this sort of simple and cost-free analysis of already-available data has been alarmingly difficult achieve, thanks to a chokehold on funding [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/20/1366561/how-the-nra-stifled-gun-violence-research/ ] that has cleared the field of researchers with gun expertise. Even with President Obama’s recent executive order [ http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16532333-obama-plan-eases-freeze-on-cdc-gun-violence-research ] calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to resume the gun violence research it ceased in the 1990s, it is up to Congress to fund that research (Obama called for $10 million), and will require a sustained, significant commitment to develop new academics whose careers are focused on gun violence. Wintemute writes:
The United States has belatedly awakened to the knowledge that it is, in effect, under armed attack. More than 30,000 people are purposely shot to death each year—more than 300,000 since the World Trade Center was destroyed in 2001. Rates of firearm-related violent crime have increased 26% since 2008. Physicians have joined others in demanding a strong response to this crisis. We look to scientific research to provide the evidence on which that response should be based. Such evidence should include a thorough exploration of risk and protective factors and, most importantly, controlled studies showing which interventions work to reduce firearm violence and why. [...]
Today, with almost no funding for firearm violence research, there are almost no researchers. Counting all academic disciplines together, no more than a dozen active, experienced investigators in the United States have focused their careers primarily on firearm violence. Only 2 are physicians. Only 1 has evaluated the effectiveness of an assault weapons ban.
Why did this happen? In the early 1990s, scientists were producing evidence that might have been used to reform the nation’s firearm policies. To those whose interests were threatened by such reforms, it made perfect sense to choke off the production of the evidence. This effort was led by Congressman Jay Dickey, self-described “point person for the NRA.” It succeeded. When rates of firearm violence were at historic highs and appeared to be increasing, the government abandoned its commitment to understanding the problem and devising evidence-based solutions.
Wintemute contrasts this with the “usual” U.S. approach to public health emergencies, citing the victory of science over what the U.S. Supreme Court described as the “regulatory equivalent of war [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/463/29 ]” by the motor vehicle industry when an agency was created that ultimately recommended airbags and other vehicle safety protections. Of course, one need only look to drug policy or climate science research to see that this approach is becoming less [ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/13/442106/war-on-science/ ] and less [ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/13/442106/war-on-science/ ] “usual” in the policy sphere.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/07/1686081/study-states-with-most-gun-laws-have-fewest-gun-deaths/ [with comments]
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Even Gun Manufacturers Think The NRA’s Opposition To Background Checks Is Nuts
Mar 6, 2013
Update: That was quick. The NSSF walked back its support [ http://www.nssfblog.com/be-wary-of-media-reports-we-all-agree-lets-fix-nics/ ] for universal background checks.
[...]
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/06/1679581/even-gun-manufacturers-think-the-nras-opposition-to-background-checks-is-nuts/ [with comments]
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Man kills Sportsman Channel host, self in Montana
March 08, 2013 at 2:07 PM
HELENA, Mont. — A northwestern Montana man shot and killed the host of the Sportsman Channel show "A Rifleman's Journal [ http://www.thesportsmanchannel.com/programming/descriptions/description.php?ID=541 ]" in an apparent jealous rage while the TV personality was visiting the shooter's wife, police said Friday.
Wayne Bengston, 41, then beat his wife, took his 2-year-old son to a relative's house and drove to his home about 25 miles away in West Glacier, where he killed himself, Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said.
"It's pretty much an open-and-closed case. Homicide and suicide," Dial said.
Police identified the shooting victim as Gregory G. Rodriguez, 43, of Sugar Land, Texas. Bengston's wife told police that Rodriguez was in town on business and visiting her at her mother's house in Whitefish when her husband showed up Thursday at about 10:30 p.m.
Rodriguez and the woman, who works for a firearms manufacturer in the Flathead Valley, met at a trade show and struck up a casual relationship that police do not believe was romantic, Dial said.
She and Rodriguez were sitting at the kitchen table, talking over a glass of wine, when Bengston entered the house and shot Rodriguez, Dial said.
He then beat his wife on the face and head, most likely with the pistol, he said. She was treated at a hospital and released.
"I think it was a jealous husband, but this is all conjecture," Dial said.
After the shooting was reported, Flathead County sheriff's deputies found Bengston's truck parked in his driveway. Efforts by a police SWAT team to contact Bengston inside the house were unsuccessful, and officers found his body with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Besides appearing on TV, Rodriguez was the founder and CEO of Global Adventure Outfitters. According to the company's website, he was an editor at Shooting Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Petersen's Hunting, Guns & Ammo and Dangerous Game.
He was a mortgage banker before founding Global Adventure Outfitters and has hunted in 21 countries, the website says.
"A Rifleman's Journal" tracks Rodriguez's hunting travels to exotic locations, according to a Sportsman Channel description.
He has a wife and two children, it says.
A woman who answered the phone at Global Adventure Outfitters [ http://www.gaohunts.com/ ] confirmed that Rodriguez had been in Montana but said the organization would not be making a statement at the time.
Bengston worked for the U.S. Forest Service, Dial said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/03/man_kills_sportsmanchannel_hos.html [with comments]
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Defense Distributed's 'Feinstein AK Magazine' Named After Gun Control Advocate Sen. Dianne Feinstein
The Feinstein AK Mag
A pro-gun non-profit has created the world’s first 3-D printable magazine for an AK-47 assault weapon and decided to name the ammunition after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a staunch proponent of stricter gun control.
Defense Distributed [ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/gunpowder-regulation/ ] creates digital firearm blueprints that are free to download and can be used to print guns on a 3-D printer. It's calling its newest printable ammunition magazine the “Feinstein AK Mag.” (Hat tip: Business Insider [ http://www.businessinsider.com/defense-distributed-feinstein-ak-mag-2013-3 ])
Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old founder of Defense Distributed, said the magazine’s name is a symbol of what’s happening in Washington [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/gun-control-senate_n_2828146.html ] and reflects the group’s belief that Feinstein’s proposed ban on assault weapons [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/dianne-feinstein-assault-weapons-ban_n_2541743.html ] will fail.
“We want to commemorate a personal failure of Feinstein’s to take away semi-automatic weapons,” Wilson, who is also a law student in Austin, Texas, told The Huffington Post.
Feinstein introduced legislation in January that would ban more than 150 types of assault weapons, along with certain high-capacity gun magazines, including those that feed bullets into an AK-47.
But those familiar with 3-D printing have pointed to the technology as a way around such regulations. “Restrictions are difficult to enforce in a world where anybody can make anything,” Hod Lipson, a 3-D printing expert at Cornell University, told the Washington Post [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/weapons-made-with-3-d-printers-could-test-gun-control-efforts/2013/02/18/9ad8b45e-779b-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html ]. “Talking about old-fashioned control will be very ineffective.”
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) suggested a ban on 3-D printed guns [ http://www.meetthe112th.com/latest-news/rep-steve-israel-urges-congress-to-renew-wiki-weapon-ban/ ] in a recent speech calling for a renewal of the Undetectable Firearms Act, to which Defense Distributed responded, "good f***ing luck [ http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ny-congressman-introducing-ban-on-3d-printed-high ]."
In January, state lawmakers in New York banned magazines that hold more than seven rounds. In response, Defense Distributed began testing a printable 30-round magazine for the AR-15 rifle and named it the “Cuomo” after the New York governor [ http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/02/defense-distributed-unveils-new-3d-printed-gun-magazine-cuomo-video.php ]. Gun hobbyists have since replicated the group’s design [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1U5rEAUD4E (next below)].
Defense Distributed said it will make the Feinstein AK Mag available sometime next week on DEFCAD, its online library of free downloadable gun design files.
DEFCAD launched in December after Makerbot, a creator of 3-D printed items, began enforcing its ban on gun components [ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/12/19/3d-printing-startup-makerbot-cracks-down-on-printable-gun-designs/ ]. Since then, users have downloaded DEFCAD gun design files over half a million times, according to Wilson.
“The message is in what we’re doing,” Wilson said in an interview with Ars Technica [ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/download-this-gun-3d-printed-semi-automatic-fires-over-600-rounds/ ] earlier this month. “The message is: download this gun.”
Here's a video of the Feinstein AK Mag being used [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2KCuymRLMk (next below, as embedded):
[and (the updated) Part II, featuring the Cuomo AK Mag, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY16r6EkUNY , next below:]
[and another, highlighted in the related Rachel Maddow Show segment included in the post to which this is a reply, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAW72Y_XPF4 , next below:]
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/feinstein-ak-magazine_n_2838366.html [with comments]
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MakerBot unveils its most disruptive tool yet: The Digitizer 3D scanner
Photo: Tom Cheredar/VentureBeat
Ricardo Bilton
March 8, 2013 12:09 PM
Forget printing objects — with its latest invention, MakerBot [ http://www.makerbot.com/ ] wants you to scan them.
Unveiled as a prototype at SXSW today, it’s new Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner [ http://store.makerbot.com/digitizer.html ] fills a major hole in MakerBot’s 3D printing ecosystem: Getting the objects you already have in the physical world into the digital one.
“This is sort of like the scene in Tron when they get digitized into the game,” MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said during the device’s unveiling. “This kind of the washer-dryer combo of 3D printing,” he added.
With the device, owners can not only prototype new objects, but they can also re-create existing ones. The idea isn’t new, but MakerBot says it’s doing 3D scanning in a way that’s easy and accessible, which has been one of the company’s biggest strengths so far.
But like 3D printing, 3D scanning brings with it a whole host of copyright issues, all of which are likely to give manufacturers the vapors. Just because consumers can scan their property, does that mean they should be legally allowed to? In many ways, 3D scanning is the most dangerous technology yet for anyone who makes a living creating widgets. MakerBot may have just opened up a can of worms — not only for others but itself as well.
“Yes, it’s possible for a MakerBot to make a MakerBot,” Pettis said. “But I’m cool with that.”
© Copyright 2013 VentureBeat
http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/08/makerbot-digitizer-3d-scanner/
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Patient has 75 per cent of SKULL replaced with 3D-printed implant in groundbreaking operation
A patient had 75 per cent of skull replaced with a 3D-printed implant
The inventors now hope to use 3D-printing to replace other missing bones
They can 'print' custom made bones within two weeks
7 March 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2289726/Patient-75-cent-SKULL-replaced-3D-printed-implant-groundbreaking-operation.html [with comments]
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Old Earth, Young Minds: Evangelical Homeschoolers Embrace Evolution
Jen Baird Seurkamp, a Kentucky evangelical who homeschools her children, avoids textbooks that discredit evolution.
(Kate Mitchell Hisey)
More Christian parents are asking for mainstream science in their children's curricula. Will religious textbook companies deliver?
By David R. Wheeler
Mar 8 2013, 10:27 AM ET
For homeschooling parents who want to teach their children that the earth is only a few thousand years old, the theory of evolution is a lie, and dinosaurs coexisted with humans, there is no shortage of materials. Kids can start with the Answers in Genesis curriculum, which features books such as Dinosaurs of Eden [ http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Eden-Tracing-Mystery-Through/dp/0890513406 ], written by Creation Museum founder Ken Ham. As the publisher's description states, "This exciting book for the entire family uses the Bible as a 'time machine' to journey through the events of the past and future."
It's no secret that the majority of homeschooled children in America belong to evangelical Christian families. What's less known is that a growing number of their parents are dismayed by these textbooks.
Take Erinn Cameron Warton, an evangelical Christian who homeschools her children. Warton, a scientist, says she was horrified when she opened a homeschool science textbook and found a picture of Adam and Eve putting a saddle on a dinosaur. "I nearly choked," says the mother of three. "When researching homeschooling curricula, I found that the majority of Christian homeschool textbooks are written from this ridiculous perspective. Once I saw this, I vowed never to use them." Instead, Warton has pulled together a curriculum inspired partly by homeschool pioneer Susan Wise Bauer and partly by the Waldorf holistic educational movement.
For many evangelical families, the rationale for homeschooling has nothing to do with a belief in Young Earth Creationism or a rejection of evolutionary theory. Some parents choose to homeschool because they're disenchanted with the values taught in the public school system. Others want to incorporate more travel into their children's education. Still others want to implement specific learning techniques they believe are more suitable for their children.
But whatever their reason for homeschooling, evangelical families who embrace modern science are becoming more vocal about it -- and are facing the inevitable criticism that comes with that choice. "We get a lot of flak from others for not using Christian textbooks," Warton says.
Theologically conservative Christians were not always so polarized. "By the late 19th century," says David R. Montgomery author of The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood [ http://www.amazon.com/Rocks-Dont-Lie-Geologist-Investigates/dp/0393082393 ], "evangelical theologians generally accepted the compelling geological evidence for the reality of an old earth." However, Darwin's idea of natural selection scared away many fundamentalists, who saw "survival of the fittest" as an atheistic concept. Over time, those who insisted on a literal interpretation of the Bible's account of creation came to reject both geology and evolutionary biology.
This staunch rejection of modern science tends to characterize today's leading homeschool textbooks. For example, Science 4 Christian Schools [ http://www.amazon.com/Science-Christian-Schools-Teachers-Edition/dp/0890845697 ], a homeschool textbook published by Bob Jones University Press, doesn't mince words when it comes to evolution and Christian faith. "People who accept the Bible believe that God made everything," the book states. "They call God's description of how things began the Creation Model. Those who disregard the Bible believe instead that everything got here by itself. They call this description of how things began the Evolution Model."
The assertion that anyone who believes in evolution "disregards" the Bible offends many evangelicals who want their children to be well-versed in modern science. Jen Baird Seurkamp, an evangelical who homeschools her children, avoids textbooks that discredit evolution. "Our science curriculum is one currently used in public schools," she says. "We want our children to be educated, not sheltered from things we are afraid of them learning."
The rising number of homeschool families striving to reconcile belief in God with today's scientific consensus has attracted the attention of at least one publisher -- Christian Schools International [ http://www.csionline.org/ ] in Grand Rapids, Michigan. "Most science textbooks that attempt to present the content from a Christian perspective also attempt to discredit the theory of evolution," says Ken Bergwerff, a science curriculum specialist at Christian Schools International. "Some do it discreetly; others are quite blatant. The CSI science curriculum clearly presents science from a Christian perspective, but does not attempt to discredit the theory of evolution. The content presents God as the author of all of creation, no matter how he did it or when he did it."
Dorothy Boorse, a biology professor at Gordon College, a Christian college in Massachusetts, applauds these underdog homeschool textbooks. "I believe that the best evidence is that the earth is very old and that God used and continues to use the biological process of evolution," she says. "Many Christians in the sciences believe such a position is consistent with several possible interpretations of Scripture, including some that go way back in Christian history, and several from the Jewish tradition."
Other Christian organizations that believe in evolution are beginning to put money and resources into their efforts to reframe the conversation. In 2012, the BioLogos organization received a multimillion-dollar grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund its Evolution and Christian Faith project, which disburses money to Christians who reconcile theology with evolutionary biology.
For example, grant recipients Dennis Venema, a biologist at Trinity Western University, and Scot McKnight, a New Testament scholar at Northern Seminary, will "write a book on the evidence for evolution and population genetics, with informed theological reflection on how these issues interact with orthodox Christianity," the BioLogos website states.
Meanwhile, professors at evangelical colleges that attract homeschoolers often have to deal with objections from Young Earth proponents. "We do have to address some one-sided perspectives in biological science that some of our freshman biology majors come pre-loaded with," says Jeffrey Duerr, a biology professor at George Fox University, a Christian university in Oregon. "But we do this by first addressing why science and Christian faith are compatible and then by teaching biology to them."
For Seurkamp, the ability to reconcile science and faith is one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling. "God knew what his creatures would need to survive and thrive when he created them," she says. "The ability to evolve and adapt is just one example of his creativity and infinite wisdom."
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/old-earth-young-minds-evangelical-homeschoolers-embrace-evolution/273844/ [with comments]
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The Market Speaks
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 7, 2013
Four years ago, as a newly elected president began his efforts to rescue the economy and strengthen the social safety net, conservative economic pundits — people who claimed to understand markets and know how to satisfy them — warned of imminent financial disaster. Stocks, they declared, would plunge, while interest rates would soar.
Even a casual trawl through the headlines of the time turns up one dire pronouncement after another. “Obama’s radicalism is killing the Dow,” warned an op-ed article by Michael Boskin, an economic adviser to both Presidents Bush. “The disciplinarians of U.S. policy makers return,” declared The Wall Street Journal, warning that the “bond vigilantes” would soon push Treasury yields to destructive heights.
Sure enough, this week the Dow Jones industrial average has been hitting all-time highs, while the current yield on 10-year U.S. government bonds is roughly half what it was when The Journal published that screed.
O.K., everyone makes a bad prediction now and then. But these predictions have special significance, and not just because the people who made them have had such a remarkable track record of error these past several years.
No, the important point about these particular bad predictions is that they came from people who constantly invoke the potential wrath of the markets as a reason we must follow their policy advice. Don’t try to cover America’s uninsured, they told us; if you do, you will undermine business confidence and the stock market will tank. Don’t try to reform Wall Street, or even criticize its abuses; you’ll hurt the plutocrats’ feelings, and that will lead to plunging markets. Don’t try to fight unemployment with higher government spending; if you do, interest rates will skyrocket.
And, of course, do slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid right away, or the markets will punish you for your presumption.
By the way, I’m not just talking about the hard right; a fair number of self-proclaimed centrists play the same game. For example, two years ago, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson warned us to expect an attack of the bond vigilantes within, um, two years unless we adopted, you guessed it, Simpson-Bowles.
So what the bad predictions tell us is that we are, in effect, dealing with priests who demand human sacrifices to appease their angry gods — but who actually have no insight whatsoever into what those gods actually want, and are simply projecting their own preferences onto the alleged mind of the market.
What, then, are the markets actually telling us?
I wish I could say that it’s all good news, but it isn’t. Those low interest rates are the sign of an economy that is nowhere near to a full recovery from the financial crisis of 2008, while the high level of stock prices shouldn’t be cause for celebration; it is, in large part, a reflection of the growing disconnect between productivity and wages.
The interest-rate story is fairly simple. As some of us have been trying to explain for four years and more, the financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble created a situation in which almost all of the economy’s major players are simultaneously trying to pay down debt by spending less than their income. Since my spending is your income and your spending is my income, this means a deeply depressed economy. It also means low interest rates, because another way to look at our situation is, to put it loosely, that right now everyone wants to save and nobody wants to invest. So we’re awash in desired savings with no place to go, and those excess savings are driving down borrowing costs.
Under these conditions, of course, the government should ignore its short-run deficit and ramp up spending to support the economy. Unfortunately, policy makers have been intimidated by those false priests, who have convinced them that they must pursue austerity or face the wrath of the invisible market gods.
Meanwhile, about the stock market: Stocks are high, in part, because bond yields are so low, and investors have to put their money somewhere. It’s also true, however, that while the economy remains deeply depressed, corporate profits have staged a strong recovery. And that’s a bad thing! Not only are workers failing to share in the fruits of their own rising productivity, hundreds of billions of dollars are piling up in the treasuries of corporations that, facing weak consumer demand, see no reason to put those dollars to work.
So the message from the markets is by no means a happy one. What the markets are clearly saying, however, is that the fears and prejudices that have dominated Washington discussion for years are entirely misguided. And they’re also telling us that the people who have been feeding those fears and peddling those prejudices don’t have a clue about how the economy actually works.
*
Related
Dow Hits 3rd New High, Helped by Jobless Report (March 8, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/business/economy/daily-stock-market-activity.html
*
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/krugman-the-market-speaks.html [with comments]
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The Nonsense of Austerity
March 6, 2013
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/businessdesk/2013/03/the-nonsense-of-austerity-1.html [with comments]
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Banks Above the Law
Attorney General Eric Holder on March 6, 2013.
Evan Vucci/Associated Press
By JULIET LAPIDOS
March 7, 2013, 4:09 pm
At the same Wednesday judiciary committee meeting where Attorney General Eric Holder hemmed and hawed before acknowledging that the president cannot authorize a drone strike [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/targeted-killing-in-the-u-s-a/ ] on American soil, against an American terrorist suspect posing no imminent threat, he explained why the Justice Department has failed to bring criminal charges against a single Wall Street bank. Mr. Holder suggested, as a Financial Times headline put it this morning, that some banks are “too big to jail.”
Arguably that was a much bigger deal than his statement on drones, since, after all, the in-country-Hellfire issue is entirely hypothetical, while banks actually blew up the economy a few short years ago. Mr. Holder’s thoughts on banking didn’t spur a 13-hour filibuster, though, so they garnered less attention.
Here’s what happened. Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, asked for more information on why federal and state authorities chose not to indict HSBC [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214 ] after it acknowledged laundering money for Mexican drug cartels, helping rogue states avoid international sanctions and working closely with Saudi Arabian banks linked to terrorist organizations.
Mr. Holder said: “I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute, if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
It’s nice and all that Mr. Holder cares about the stability of the global financial system, but that is not Mr. Holder’s job. As attorney general he is the country’s top law enforcement officer, and in that capacity he should prosecute criminals and criminal institutions.
As we wrote in an editorial [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/opinion/hsbc-too-big-to-indict.html (original links related http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/hsbc-to-pay-record-fine-to-settle-money-laundering-charges/ )] after the no-indict decision, “when prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.”
© 2013 The New York Times Company (emphasis in original)
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/banks-above-the-law/ [with comments]
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Household Wealth Is Back To Its Pre-Crisis Level, But It’s Mostly Flowing To The Rich
By Pat Garofalo on Mar 8, 2013 at 12:40 pm
The Great Recession destroyed trillions of dollars in wealth and economic output. Amd in what looks like a measure of good news, most of the household wealth that was vaporized is back. However, it’s almost all going to the rich [ http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-household-wealth-regains-pre-recession-peak-18675925 ( http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NET_WORTH?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT )]:
Surging stock prices and steady home-price increases have finally allowed Americans to regain the $16 trillion in wealth they lost to the Great Recession. The gains are helping support the economy and could lead to further spending and growth.
The recovered wealth – most of it from higher stock prices – has been flowing mainly to richer Americans. By contrast, middle class wealth is mostly in the form of home equity, which has risen much less. [...]
The upper-income Americans who have benefited most from the nation’s recovered wealth don’t tend to spend as much of their money as Americans overall do.
But they’ve gotten a lot richer. The Dow Jones industrial average has just set a record high. Since bottoming in March 2009, the Dow has jumped 119 percent. Roughly 80 percent of stocks are held by the richest 10 percent of households.
For the past five years, middle-class Americans have sold stocks and missed out on much of the rebound. During 2012, Americans dumped $204 billion in stocks, the Fed’s report showed.
While the stock market has roared back to record highs, home equity is only recovering slowly, and worker wages have been stuck in neutral, barely moving. The richest 1 percent of Americans have captured 121 percent [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/12/1579211/1-percent-121-gains/ ] of the income gains since the recession, meaning that everyone else is worse off in terms of income than they were before the crash.
Corporations have also captured a disproportionate share of the recovery. Since 2008, corporate profits have actually risen 20 times faster [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/04/1665281/corporate-profits-worker-income/ ] than worker incomes. According to a study from economists at Northeastern University, “corporate profits captured 88% of the growth [ http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/30/258388/corporate-profits-recovery/ ] in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1%.” So while it’s a good thing that wealth is slowly being rebuilt, it’s not yet helping the vast majority of the country.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund (emphasis in original)
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/08/1691631/household-wealth-rich/ [with comments]
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The War On Entitlements
By THOMAS B. EDSALL
March 6, 2013, 11:40 pm
The debate over reform of Social Security and Medicare is taking place in a vacuum, without adequate consideration of fundamental facts.
These facts include the following: Two-thirds of Americans [ http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3261 ] who are over the age of 65 depend on an average annual Social Security benefit of $15,168.36 [ http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/ ] for at least half of their income.
Currently, earned income in excess of $113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 percent payroll tax that funds Social Security benefits (employers pay a matching 6.2 percent). 5.2 percent of working Americans make more than $113,700 a year. Simply by eliminating the payroll tax earnings cap — and thus ending this regressive exemption [ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/the-effects-of-raising-the-social-security-payroll-tax-cap ] for the top 5.2 percent of earners — would, according to the Congressional Budget Office [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ], solve the financial crisis facing the Social Security system.
So why don’t we talk about raising or eliminating the cap – a measure that has strong popular, though not elite, support?
When asked by the National Academy of Social Insurance [ http://www.nasi.org/press/releases/2013/01/press-release-americans-make-hard-choices-social-security ] whether Social Security taxes for better-off Americans should be increased, 71 percent of Republicans and 97 percent of Democrats agreed. In a 2012 Gallup Poll, 62 percent of respondents [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/153947/americans-split-whether-taxes-rise.aspx ] thought upper-income Americans paid too little in taxes.
Medicare, in turn, is financed by a flat 1.45 percent tax [ http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/social-security-and-medicare-tax-rates%3B-maximum-taxable-earnings ] on the first $200,000 of earnings for a single person and $250,000 for a married couple, matched by the employer, after which it rises by a modest 0.9 percent on all income above the $200,000 and $250,000 levels.
The Medicare and Social Security taxes are jointly known as FICA (for Federal Insurance Contributions Act [ http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fica.asp#ixzz2MdQIfDYr ]) — or payroll — taxes. The combined FICA taxes are highly regressive. The non-partisan Tax Policy Center found that [ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/1001091_distribution_federal_taxes.pdf ] the poorest quintile pays a 7.3 percent FICA rate, while the top quintile pays 6.8 percent. The top 1 percent of the income distribution pays a 2 percent rate, and the top 0.1 percent pays just 0.9 percent. In other words, the rate paid by the poorest quintile is 8.1 times as high as the rate paid by the top 0.1 percent. The regressive character of the payroll tax, compared to the progressive structure of most other federal taxes, is clear in the accompanying chart [ http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/UploadedPDF/411943_distribution_federal.pdf ] (Fig. 1), from the Tax Policy Center:
Fig. 1
In the case of Social Security, proposals to raise the age of eligibility for full benefits amount to a benefit cut of 6 to 7 percent for every year that eligibility was increased. “The reduction in monthly benefits for some beneficiaries would lower average income and increase poverty rates in the future among the elderly,” according to the Congressional Budget Office [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/01-10-2012-Medicare_SS_EligibilityAgesBrief.pdf ]. If the retirement age were raised to 70, and if the early retirement age was kept at 62, the C.B.O. found that the penalty for those taking early retirement would increase: “people who claimed at 62 would receive only 55 percent of their primary insurance amount, compared with the 70 percent they would receive under current law.”
As 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day [ http://www.census.gov/prod/1/pop/p23-190/p23190-g.pdf ], 72 percent of them are currently without the protection [ http://www.nirsonline.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=714%20are%20cur ] of a defined benefit pension plan, which leaves growing numbers dependent on inadequately funded 401(k) and other voluntary (defined contribution) plans to keep their heads above water.
At the same time, life expectancy has been extended to unprecedented lengths:
A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 83. A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 85. And those are just averages. About one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95.
In a 2012 report [ http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/590408.pdf ], the Government Accountability Office found that
older workers’ unemployment overall and long-term unemployment rates have increased dramatically since the recession began in 2007. In December 2011, the unemployment rate for older workers was 6.0 percent, up from 3.1 at the start of the recession, but down from its peak of 7.6 percent in February 2010. In particular, long-term unemployment rose substantially, and at a greater rate for older than younger workers. By 2011, 55 percent of unemployed older workers had been actively seeking a job for more than half a year (27 weeks or more).
In addition, the G.A.O. found that “long-term unemployment can put older workers at risk of deferring needed medical care, losing their homes, and accumulating debt.” In a survey of workers, the G.A.O. identified “out-of-date skills, discouragement and depression, and inexperience with online applications as reemployment barriers for older workers.”
And of course the elderly will be saddled with increased expenditures for medical care and other necessary services as they age.
Cutting benefits is frequently discussed in the halls of Congress, in research institutes and by analysts and columnists. The idea of subjecting earned income over $113,700 to the Social Security payroll tax and making the Medicare tax more progressive – steps that would affect only the relatively affluent — is largely missing from the policy conversation.
The Washington cognoscenti are more inclined to discuss two main approaches [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/opinion/brooks-our-second-adolescence.html ] that are far less costly for the affluent: means-testing of benefits and raising the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. (Sidenote: policy makers and national journalists who weigh in on this issue generally earn more than $113,700 a year.) Means-testing and raising the age of eligibility as methods of cutting spending appeal to ideological conservatives for a number of reasons.
First, insofar as benefits for the affluent are reduced or eliminated under means-testing, social insurance programs are no longer universal and are seen, instead, as a form of welfare. Public support would almost certainly decline, encouraging further cuts in the future.
Second, the focus on means-testing and raising the age of eligibility diverts attention from a much simpler and more equitable approach: raising the payroll tax to apply to the earnings of the well-to-do, a step strongly opposed by the ideological right.
Third, and most important in terms of the policy debate, while both means-testing and eliminating the $113,700 cap on earnings subject to the payroll tax hurt the affluent, the latter would inflict twice as much pain.
The C.B.O. estimates [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ] that elimination of the payroll earnings cap would cost the well-to-do the equivalent of 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, while substantially reducing Social Security payments to the top third of the income distribution, through means testing, would only cost those better off recipients the equivalent of 0.1 percent of G.D.P.
Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard and an authority on the history of the American welfare state, contended in a phone interview that policy elites avoid addressing the sharply regressive nature of social welfare taxes because, “at one level, it’s very, very privileged people wanting to make sure they cut spending on everybody else” while “holding down their own taxes.”
Gary Burtless, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, agrees that elite proponents of cutting benefits for the elderly have a narrow view based on their own high incomes and comfortable lives: “The median voter has a much more well-rounded sense of the risks associated through everyday life than the elite,” he said in an interview.
In the rarefied community that sets many of the terms of national policy making, a recurring theme is the notion that the federal government is subsidizing the “good life” [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/business/the-payoff-in-retiring-a-few-years-later.html ] of the nation’s elderly at the expense of needed investments in young people [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-sequester-app/?ref=opinion ], in infrastructure and in innovation.
Writing in The Times, Yuval Levin, the editor of the National Interest and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argued on Feb. 19 [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/opinion/old-and-rich-less-help-for-you.html ] that both Democrats and Republicans
should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy — via means-testing. It may surprise some Americans to learn that the United States spends quite a lot on the affluent, especially through the entitlement programs at the heart of the budget fight: Social Security and Medicare. Both programs move money from relatively poorer young people to relatively richer old people, and they are growing ever more expensive. Means-testing — allocating benefits according to need — might offer both sides a way out.
Not to be outdone, the Heritage Foundation, bastion of the Republican right, has called for [ http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/56027440?access_key=key-ofxselx8xfev3cpylrp ] the imposition of tough means-testing on both Social Security and Medicare. The plan would cut benefits in half for a single person when income exceeds $82,000, and eliminate benefits altogether for those making more than $110,000. Benefits for married couples would be cut in half when their combined income reaches $137,000 and are eliminated altogether when income reaches $165,000.
“At the end the day,” write the authors of Heritage’s “Saving the American Dream,”
our plan, while economic in nature, has a higher moral purpose. If entitlements are not reformed, the next generation and future ones will have to pay punitive tax rates that will end liberty as we have known it. Our proposal aims to preserve America’s promise bequeathed to us by past generations.
Contrary to the claims Heritage is making, current levels of federal taxation are at historically low levels, and the increases needed to finance restoration of the Social Security trust fund will not break the bank.
Federal tax revenues in 2009, 2010 and 2011 [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals ] have been 15.1 percent, 15.1 percent and 15.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, lower than any level since 1950.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates [ http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11580/07-01-ssoptions_forweb.pdf ] that the amount of new revenue required to bring the Social Security trust fund into balance over the next 75 years would amount to 0.6 percent of G.D.P.
The same C.B.O. document presents a series of alternative ways to achieve such a goal, including the elimination of the current $113,700 cap on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. If the cap or ceiling were lifted, the amount of money raised would be 0.6 percent of G.D.P., the exact amount of income needed to get Social Security out of the red — a striking coincidence.
This approach has substantial public support, which is reflected in one of the findings in the extensive NASI survey [ http://www.nasi.org/research/2013/report-strengthening-social-security-what-do-americans-want ] that there is “a sharp contrast between what Americans say they want and changes being discussed in Washington.” The report goes on:
Large majorities of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, agree on ways to strengthen Social Security — without cutting benefits. Fully 74% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats agree that “it is critical to preserve Social Security even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by working Americans.”
The question in the NASI survey reads as follows:
Workers currently pay 6.2% of their earnings to Social Security, matched by the employer. One proposal would very gradually raise the Social Security tax rate over the next 20 years. Example: For a worker earning $50,000, gradually raising the tax rate by 1/20th of 1% per year for 20 years would mean, each year, paying about 50 cents more per week, matched by the employer. This change would close 53% of Social Security’s financing gap. Do you favor or oppose this change?
Sixty-nine percent of respondents favored the proposal, including 65 percent of Republicans; 11 percent opposed; and 21 percent had no opinion.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll [ http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/8405-C.pdf ] (see Figs. 2 and 3) found strong opposition to reductions in Medicare and Social Security benefits and strong support for taxing the rich.
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
In fact, let’s go back and look at the dependence of retirees on Social Security. Fig. 4 illustrates data [ http://www.ebri.org/pdf/publications/books/databook/DB.Chapter%2007.pdf ] from the Employee Benefit Research Institute which shows the dependence on Social Security in 2010 for those over the age of 65 by quintile. For the first and second quintiles – the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution – Social Security provides nearly 90 percent of total household income. For those in the middle quintile, Social Security accounts for over 75 percent of total income.
Fig. 4
On Nov. 12, 2012, the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds issued a report [ http://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html ] concerning Social Security:
After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund assets in amounts that exceed interest earnings until exhaustion of trust fund reserves in 2033, three years earlier than projected last year. Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2086.
The trustees estimate in the same report that the Medicare trust fund will reach “exhaustion” even sooner: 2024.
My conversations with a range of academics and policy analysts revealed very little consensus over strategies to deal with the fiscal crises facing the two major entitlement programs. Thoughtful scholars like Timothy Smeeding, a professor of public policy at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the economist Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T.; and Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, contend that my own favorite solution, eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, goes too far, and that that ceiling should instead be raised to somewhere between $150,000 to $215,000.
Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a current trustee of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, said he could see the advantage of raising the age of Social Security eligibility to encourage more labor force participation as long as federal policies lessened the cost to employers of hiring older workers. He cautioned that such a step should include protection of benefits for low-income workers forced by hardship to take early retirement.
James Wetzler, former chief economist on Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation and a former New York State tax commissioner, warned that increasing tax burdens on the affluent, while reducing or eliminating their retirement benefits, poses the danger of “creating a class of influential people — relatively high earners — with a vested interest in eliminating the program.”
Elite anxiety over entitlement-driven budget deficits and accumulating national debt has created a powerful class in the nation’s capital. The agenda of this class is in many respects on a collision course with mounting demands for action by those lower down the ladder to address the threat to government social insurance programs. Intransigent opposition by the better off and their representatives to raising the necessary revenue means that not only Social Security and Medicare face a budgetary ax.
Among the additional likely casualties [ http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/sequester-factsheets/North-Dakota.pdf ]: WIC, which provides free nutrition [ http://www.nwica.org/?q=advocacy/1 ] for women, infants and children; long-term and emergency unemployment compensation benefits; low-income housing vouchers; vaccines for poor children; schooling for children with disabilities; special education; preschool programs; child care for disadvantaged and vulnerable children; after-school programs; treatment of the mentally ill; and meals for sick and homebound seniors.
This conflict could not have come at a more difficult time: the United States is in the midst of a zero sum struggle requiring politicians to pick losers, not winners. The population of those over 65 is set to multiply, with longevity steadily increasing even as median annual household income for the population at large has shrunk [ http://www.sentierresearch.com/reports/Sentier_Household_Income_Trends_Report_January2013_02_28_13.pdf ] to $51,584 in January 2013 from $54,000 in 2008.
In this kind of conflict over limited goods, one of the most valuable resources that can get lost in the fray is the wisdom of the electorate at large. In this case, the electorate is pointing toward progressive tax increases for those closer to the top far more readily than members of the political class, for whom high-earners are a crucial source of campaign contributions.
The very nature of the basic security Americans are entitled to is at stake.
*
Related Posts from Opinionator
Let Them Eat Crow
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/let-them-eat-crow/
Whose Ryan Is It Anyway?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/whose-ryan-is-it-anyway/
Entitlement Reform For the Entitled
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/entitlement-reform-for-the-entitled/
Arguing From the Facts
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/arguing-from-the-facts/
The Sequester App
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-sequester-app/
*
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/the-war-on-entitlements/ [with comments]
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An Open Letter to MSNBC: Disclose Ed Rendell's Conflicts of Interest
By Daniel Marans
Posted: 03/06/2013 11:08 am
Dear MSNBC President Phil Griffin,
I am a longtime fan of MSNBC. I have watched it regularly for years and admired its growth into a commercially successful platform for smart news and analysis.
That is why I am so disappointed that MSNBC did not respond to a CREDO petition [ http://org.credoaction.com/petitions/msnbc-disclose-fix-the-debt-co-chair-ed-rendell-s-conflicts-of-interest-when-booking ] asking it to disclose Governor Ed Rendell's conflicts of interest when featuring him as a guest or analyst. The petition simply states:
Disclose Ed Rendell's conflicts of interest due to his position as a co-chair of the Fix the Debt campaign -- a billionaire-financed campaign to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- when he appears on MSNBC to offer commentary on budget, public investment, infrastructure or environmental issues.
The petition, started last week by Sean Kitchen [ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/author/skitchen/ ], a student at Kutztown University and a former constituent of Rendell's from Horsham, PA, now has more than 6,000 signers.
Mr. Griffin, I have called and emailed you personally asking for comment on the petition, and to date, I have received no response.
Governor Rendell's role as co-chair of the Fix the Debt campaign stands out because he frequently uses his platform as an MSNBC analyst to call for cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Specifically, Governor Rendell has suggested on MSNBC [ http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/fix-debt-shill-ed-rendell-argues-chaine ] that the president should enact the chained CPI [ http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Chained_CPI_Fact_Sheet_FINAL_Feb-2013_0.pdf ], a cut to Social Security benefits that would grow deeper over time, hitting oldest beneficiaries hardest. He has also said that President Obama should propose raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 [ http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/report/2012/12/11/47645/raising-the-medicare-eligibility-age-would-harm-seniors-and-increase-health-care-spending/ ], which is projected to deprive nearly half a million seniors of health insurance and drive up out-of-pocket costs for just about everybody else.
Whatever one thinks of Governor Rendell's positions, the public deserves to know that he is not just a neutral commentator. The public deserves to know that Governor Rendell is a co-chair of Fix the Debt, an initiative funded by private equity billionaire Peter G. Peterson to promote Social Security and Medicare cuts as part of a Grand Bargain. The public also deserves to know about Governor Rendell's lobbying work for the investment bank Greenhill & Co., the Ballard Spahr law firm, and the wound care technology company KCI USA. All of these organizations have an interest in particular policy outcomes that may influence the positions Governor Rendell endorses on MSNBC.
As recently as 2010, MSNBC was the gold standard of transparency in the media world. In November 2010, the network suspended first Keith Olbermann [ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/olbermann-suspended-from-msnbc-for-campaign-donations/ ], a Democrat, and then Joe Scarborough [ http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45411.html ], a Republican, for donating to political candidates. MSNBC came under intense criticism at the time for the decision, but defended it in the name of consistency with NBC News' policy on conflicts of interest. As of 2007, MSNBC's policy said [ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/olbermann-suspended-from-msnbc-for-campaign-donations/ ]:
Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee.
By contrast, Fox News' parent company, News Corporation, donated $1.25 million to Republican candidates in 2010, and star host Sean Hannity donated $2,400 to Republican candidates, with little fanfare.
If the NBC News standards applied to Scarborough and Olbermann in 2010, why do they not apply to contributors like Governor Rendell in 2013? Does co-chairing the Fix the Debt campaign not constitute a "civic" or "outside activity" that "creates the appearance of a conflict of interest"? Nobody is asking that Governor Rendell be suspended as Scarborough and Olbermann were. Petition signers, including me, are just asking that MSNBC disclose Rendell's involvement with outside groups when he appears.
Disclosures are important at all levels, including letters like these. During the week, I work for Social Security Works [ http://www.strengthensocialsecurity.org/ ( http://strengthensocialsecurity.org/social-security-works-0 )], an advocacy group dedicated to protecting Social Security from benefit cuts. Every Saturday, I produce and contribute to the nationally syndicated radio and YouTube show Take Action News with David Shuster [ http://www.youtube.com/takeactionnewstv ]. Whenever I speak about the issue of Social Security -- which is often, because it is an issue I care about -- I disclose my affiliation. This past Saturday, I did an entire segment on the CREDO petition, and I made very clear my affiliation with Social Security Works and my involvement in organizing the petition. When I asked David Shuster on air to weigh in, he first noted his years of work at MSNBC and the fact that his departure was a result of a disagreement with you. Only then did he speak about Rendell and MSNBC's disclosure obligations.
Viewers can decide for themselves whether our affiliations affected our presentation of the issue. I only ask that viewers get to make the same informed evaluation of positions taken by Governor Rendell and other MSNBC analysts.
I look forward to your response.
Best,
Daniel
Part 1: Take Action News segment on Petition [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3KbNTk4TKM (next below, as embedded)]
Part 2: Take Action News segment on Petition [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q9XFCJ_d54 (next below, as embedded)]
Views expressed are the author's own.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-marans/an-open-letter-to-msnbc-d_b_2819009.html [with comments]
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‘Fox & Friends’ Hosts Pretend Man Is Actually Thomas Jefferson
Tom Kludt - 12:05 PM EST, Friday March 8, 2013
The gang at "Fox & Friends" celebrated "Founding Fathers Friday" by bringing on a Thomas Jefferson impersonator who stayed in character and on the tea party talking points throughout the bizarre interview.
From the beginning, co-host host Steve Doocy used the appearance by the "third president of the United States" to push the small government message that typifies the conservative network.
"Even though you were one of the very first presidents of the United States, as you remember, you were a budget cutter, weren't ya?" Doocy asked, fully playing along.
"Well, I was. I believe that government needs to be simple and frugal," the impersonator said. "And when I became president in 1801I inherited a debt, $83 million. When I left the presidency eight years later I had reduced that $33 million."
He continued, "We are not only being irresponsible but stealing from posterity. Posterity that we paid a great price to purchase liberty for that it seems we're giving away."
Co-host Gretchen Carlson then reminded "Jefferson" that the world — and government spending — had changed dramatically since he died in 1826.
"I know that you've never seen a number that big that we just showed on the screen," Carlson said, referring to a graphic that detailed the U.S. government's debt. "That's something that's been created since you've passed."
Doocy closed by revealing that Jefferson was in fact Stephen McDowell, president of Biblical Worldview University [ http://providencefoundation.com/?page_id=6 ].
Watch the highlights from the interview [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eANj0IJ4h4 (next below, as embedded)]:
© 2013 TPM Media LLC
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/fox-friends-hosts-pretend-man-is-actually-thomas--1 [with comments] [and see, re the teabugger/bagnut/wingbutt myth that Jefferson, in drafting the Declaration, ever used the formulation "life, liberty and property" rather than the formulation "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", e.g. (linked in) http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/declaration/declaration.html , http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/rough.htm , http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/ruffdrft.html (via http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/declara/declara4.html ), http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/uc004215.jpg (via http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt001.html ), http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h33.html ; and, more generally, (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78744850 and preceding and following, and (for that matter)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83512306 and preceding (and any future following)]
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Fox News Brings On Santa Claus To Discuss The ‘War On Christmas’
Dec 20, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/12/20/1365271/fox-news-brings-on-santa-claus-to-discuss-the-war-on-christmas/ [the YouTube, embedded, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XApkZoPM25w ; with comments]
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Bob Woodward's Dark Days
Woodward's recent flap reveals a grotesquely swollen ego fed by 40 years of hero worship. In Newsweek, Max Holland asks: why is this man an American icon?
Mar 12, 2013
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/03/11/the-myth-of-bob-woodward-why-is-this-man-an-american-icon.html [with comments]
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Robert Menendez Prostitution Claims Investigated, Bypassed By New York Post, Star-Ledger
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/robert-menendez-prostitution-new-york-post-star-ledger_n_2836144.html [with comments]
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Politico Investigated Menendez Claims Before Daily Caller Report
03/08/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/08/politico-menendez-claims-daily-caller_n_2838060.html [with comments]
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What Does the Consumer Data Industry Know About You?
Enjoy a bodice-ripping page-turner from time to time? You're on a purchasable list. [hear that, rooster?]
(Reuters)
Ever been bankrupt? Expecting a child? A whole lot of information about who you are -- and what kind of consumer you are -- is for sale.
By Rebecca J. Rosen
Mar 7 2013, 6:06 PM ET
ProPublica's Lois Beckett has done yeowoman's work and just published an informative report [ http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-what-data-brokers-know-about-you ] on the huge variety of personal information the consumer data industry now tracks.
Here is a breakdown of her findings:
1. The Basics
• Demographic data such as name, address, age, race, occupation, education
• "Life-event triggers." Are you getting married? Soon to have a baby? Beckett reports that one company, Experian, updates its list of expectant and new parents "weekly."
• Salary and wages: "A subsidiary of credit reporting company Equifax even collects detailed salary and paystub information [ http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/30/16762661-exclusive-your-employer-may-share-your-salary-and-equifax-might-sell-that-data ] for roughly 38 percent of employed Americans, as NBC news reported," Beckett writes. But, she adds, "that if a mortgage company or other lender wants to access information about your salary, they must obtain your permission to do so."
2. Retail information
• One company, Datalogix, keeps track of consumer spending on store loyalty cards amounting to $1 trillion at more than 1,400 brands. Datalogix did not respond to ProPublica's inquiries for further details.
• In one study, Beckett reports, Walt Disney explained that shared a person's name, address, and purchase history with other companies including Honda and Dannon, though a spokeswoman said that the data sharing was limited to the context of a specific joint promotion.
• Romance-novel purchasers.
• Donors to international charities.
3. Government records
• The DMV has information about what you drive, and may sell that for limited purposes.
• Voting records are public -- not whom you voted for but whether you voted at all. In some states, Beckett reports, these records "can also be bought and sold for commercial purposes [ http://www.propublica.org/article/how-companies-have-assembled-political-profiles-for-millions-of-internet-us ]."
• Prison records
• Bankruptcy filings
4. Health records
• "Federal law," Beckett writes, "protects the confidentiality of your medical records [ http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/consumers/index.html ] and your conversations with your doctor." But that doesn't mean that no information about your health is out there. She explains:
Data companies can capture information about your "interests" in certain health conditions based on what you buy -- or what you search for online. Datalogix has lists of people classified as "allergy sufferers" and "dieters." Acxiom sells data on whether an individual has an "online search propensity" for a certain "ailment or prescription."
• Data including information on people who bought plus-sized clothing was bought by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, though Beckett notes that the information was purchased "for current plan members, not as part of screening people for potential coverage," in order to offer targeted free programming.
5. Online data
• Email addresses for 80 percent of the U.S. population, linked to categories such as "estimated household income" and political leanings
• Facebook contains tons of information about you, and if you haven't made that information private, it's out there -- how many friends you have, any additional screen-names you might use, the URL for a personal website, etc.
• One company Beckett found tracks which social media sites a person uses and with what frequency.
• Datalogix (again) is trying to pair retail data with Facebook data to see whether people's purchases are influenced by Facebook ads they've seen.
According to Beckett, there is at least some information available on "basically everyone in the U.S." And why do they want all this data? "Mostly to sell you stuff."
Surprise, surprise.
For more information on how to opt out (good luck) and what new privacy laws would do to protect consumers if passed (not much), head over to ProPublica's full report [ http://www.propublica.org/article/everything-we-know-about-what-data-brokers-know-about-you ].
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/what-does-the-consumer-data-industry-know-about-you/273829/ [with comments]
--
Aspartame In Milk Petition Sparks Thousands Of Angry Comments To FDA, Counter-Signatures
03/08/2013
Consumer group SumOfUs is urging the FDA to reject a dairy industry petition currently being considered by agency, which asks that the requirement to label milk and other dairy products as "artificially sweetened" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/26/aspartame-milk_n_2764729.html ] be dropped when they contain sweeteners like aspartame. A counter petition from SumOfUs outlining its cause [ http://action.sumofus.org/a/aspartame-milk/ ] has already gathered 93,142 signers.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/07/aspartame-milk_n_2828359.html [with comments]
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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