DNC Live Blog: Day 3
Posted: September 6, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Live Blog, Mitt Romney, Reproductive Rights, The DNC, the GOP, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, War on Women, Women's Healthcare | Tags: American Crossroads superpac, Charlie Crist, Democratic National Convention 2012, Dodd-Frank bill, Eva Longoria, hotel workers, housing crisis, Joe Biden, Michigan, Nate Silver, North Carolina, Paul Ryan, right to work states, Sandra Fluke, union workers, Wall Street 46 Comments
Here we go . . . This is the last night of the 2012 Democratic National Convention. We can only hope the speeches will be as thrilling as the ones we heard last night.
Tonight Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama will accept their nominations to run for reelection. In addition, there will be a who slew of celebrity appearances, including Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, The Foo Fighters, Eva Longoria, Mary J. Blige, James Taylor, Earth Wind & Fire, Marc Anthony, and Kerry Washington. Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will lead the pledge of allegiance.
At 8:00, former Florida Governor Charlie Crist will speak. At 10:00, we’ll hear from Eva Longoria, Joe Biden, and President Obama. The rest of the night’s schedule has not been released.
Just a few headlines to get you going:
Amanda Marcotte: Sandra Fluke’s Speech Made Republicans Crazy. Which Is Just What the Democrats Want.
For a short period yesterday evening, a moment of panicked confusion broke out among those of us obsessively watching and tweeting the Democratic National Convention, when Sandra Fluke did not go on stage as scheduled. It turns out that we needn’t have worried; convention organizers made an apparently last minute decision to move Fluke’s speech to later in the night, giving her a prime-time audience. It’s a move that indicates Democrats have finally stopped freaking out at the first sign of reactionary histrionics, and instead have embraced the strategy of taking the fight to conservatives.
After decades of playing along with conservatives who dress up their hostility to female sexuality as nothing more than an interest in “life,” Democrats have finally realized that baiting the anti-choice right into showing its misogynist, sex-phobic side may just be a winning strategy.
Marcotte posts some of the rageful Republican tweets at the link.
HuffPo: Unions Hope Democratic National Convention Draws Attention To Plight Of North Carolina Workers
North Carolina passed right-to-work legislation in 1947, barring contracts that require all workers at unionized companies to pay union dues. North Carolina is now the least-unionized state in the country, with about 3 percent of workers belonging to one, according to the Labor Department. The state also bans collective bargaining for public-sector workers. Feeling snubbed, some activists skipped the convention in favor of what was billed as a “shadow convention” for organized labor in Philadelphia.
“This entire saga, from the beginning to today – the site selection, the state selection — the way it’s been handled is just nothing more than confirmation to me that the standing of organized labor in the eyes of the Democratic Party is lower than it’s ever been in my time,” said Chris Townsend, political director of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America union, who has been in the labor movement for more than three decades.
CNN Money: Is Wall Street Being Bamboozled by Romney?
FORTUNE — Wall Street is taking quite a pounding at the Democratic National Convention this week as speakers, like Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren, fire populist missives so inflammatory it would cause even the most liberal banker to cringe. While the speeches are meant to fire up the Democratic base, they are also likely to induce some financiers to double their contributions to Republicans, namely, Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
But is that a safe bet? Much of Wall Street’s concerns derive from the passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, even though some of the most controversial aspects of the bill seem permanently lost in regulatory limbo. Going forward, there remain questions as to what, if anything, a Romney Presidency could truly deliver in the next four years that would be so different from a second term Obama presidency. Given that uncertainty, Wall Street could possibly be better off sticking with the devil they already know.
New York Observer: We Can All Breathe a Sigh of Relief: Mitt Romney Has a Plan to End the Housing Crisis
Is Mitt Romney really the man to solve the housing crisis? Well, consider this: Mr. Romney may not have ever struggled “to put food on the table” as folksy politicians are so fond of saying, but he has four houses. Four. So he knows a thing or two about home ownership. And, unlike some homeowners who took out mortgages and couldn’t pay them back, Mr. Romney is wealthy enough not to have to take out mortgages (although there’s a possibility that he did—the man does have the common touch, at times).
In any event, the Republican candidate has revealed his four-point plan while taking a few swings at Obama, like: “the dream of home ownership is out of reach for many Americans as a result of President Obama’s failed policies and stalled economy.”
Because Americans were doing so well with home ownership before Mr. Obama took the helm. Ha! Good one! As though the “stalled economy” and, well, the “economic crisis” weren’t a result of the fact that many Americans were actually really horrible when it came to assessing risk and making responsible choices about home ownership.
The consensus is that it’s not much of a “plan.”
ABC News: Paul Ryan Anticipates and Counters Obama’s Convention Speech Tonight
COLORADO SPRINGS–Just hours before the president takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention, Paul Ryan attempted to counter Obama’s speech by reminding voters in this battleground state of then candidate Obama’s promises in his 2008 speech in Denver.
“Right here in Colorado, four years ago with the Styrofoam Greek columns, the big stadium, the president gave this long speech with lots of big promises,” Ryan said. “He said … that Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress. By those very measurements, his leadership has fallen woefully short.”
Yawn. . . Lots more of Lyin’ Ryan’s psychic predictions at the link. Frankly, after the spanking he got from Bill Clinton last night, the little twerp would do better to just STFU; but I’m hoping he continues making a fool of himself. I guess he doesn’t know that he has lost all credibility with everyone but obsessive Fox watchers.
Detroit News: Conservatives Pull Ads from Michigan
Mitt Romney’s conservative allies are bypassing Michigan with their advertising while stepping up efforts in other battleground states — suggesting campaign strategists don’t believe his road to the White House leads through his native state.
The pro-Romney groups American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity are pouring nearly $13 million into advertising in key states, indicating they remain eager to lend considerable financial muscle to Romney in states viewed as truly competitive.
There are no presidential campaign ads of any kind airing in Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to information provided by media trackers to the Associated Press.
Nate Silver: The Simple Case for Why Obama Is the Favorite
…our forecast has moved toward President Obama over the past several days. It now gives him about a three-in-four chance of winning the Electoral College on Nov. 6.
I’ll explain a little bit more about how the model comes to that conclusion in a moment, but the intuition behind it is pretty simple:
1. Polls usually overrate the standing of the candidate who just held his convention.
2. Mitt Romney just held his convention. But he seems to have gotten a below-average bounce out of it. The national polls that have come out since the Republican National Convention have shown an almost exact tie in the race.
3. If the polls overrate Mr. Romney, and they show only a tie for him now, then he will eventually lose.
The first point is the simplest of all, but perhaps the most important. There is a lot of focus on the bounce that a candidate gets after his convention — that is, how the polls conducted just after the convention compare with the ones taken immediately beforehand.
Silver predicted the 2008 election results almost perfectly.
I’m looking forward to reading your comments tonight, so bring it!
Monday Reads
Posted: September 3, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, morning reads, the GOP, U.S. Politics | Tags: Bain Capital, Barack Obama, Clint Eastwood, Joe Biden, Katie Holmes, Moonies, Nazanin Boniadi, Patrick Gaspard, Paul Ryan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Rahm Emmanuel, Republican National Convention, scientology, Sherman Yellin, Sun Myung Moon, tax evasion, The Master, Tom Cruise, Unification Church 50 Comments
Good Morning!!
Dakinkat is back on-line! Now if I can just get my internet back, we may have a full complement of writers by the beginning of the Democratic Convention. Now let’s see what’s in the news this morning.
I have to hand it to President Obama. He had to be angry about Clint Eastwood’s disrespectful performance at the RNC last Thursday, but he’s not going to give Mitt Romney the satisfaction of showing it.
USA Today: Obama, a ‘huge’ Clint Eastwood fan, not offended by skit
“He is a great actor, and an even better director,” the president said in an interview with USA TODAY aboard Air Force One, on his way to campaign rallies in Iowa Saturday. “I think the last few movies that he’s made have been terrific.”
….
Was he offended?
“One thing about being president or running for president — if you’re easily offended, you should probably choose another profession.” Obama said with a smile. He said there would be no effort to counter with a similar stunt at the Democratic National Convention, which opens in Charlotte Tuesday.“I think we’ll be playing this pretty straight,” he said.
The WaPo’s Jonathan Capehart asked DNC executive director Patrick Gaspard about if Eastwood presentation was “disrespectful.” Here’s the response:
“First, Clint Eastwood spoke to an empty chair and then Mitt Romney gave an empty speech,” Gaspard replied. “So, I’m going to focus on Mitt Romney [and] his lack of clearly delineated plans for middle-class Americans.” But Gaspard, who was Obama’s political director in the first half of the term, had more to say.
This was not Clint Eastwood’s convention. It was Mitt Romney’s. He hired these Hollywood consultants to reinvent himself and all I saw, yet again, was the same guy who was a private-sector outsourcer, a failed governor of Massachusetts and now an extreme right-wing candidate for the presidency. So, I’m going to focus on that.
I guess Romney wasn’t really all that proud of the Eastwood skit after all. According to ABC News Eastwood was left on the cutting room floor during production of the RNC promotional video.
A video mash-up of speakers from last week’s Republican National Convention does not include an appearance from the “mystery RNC speaker,” Clint Eastwood.
The two-and-a-half minute video posted today to the Romney campaign’s YouTube account features former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, VP nominee Paul Ryan and of course, Romney himself, but it leaves out Eastwood’s controversial speech.
Interesting.
Joe Biden went on the attack yesterday.
Campaigning in Pennsylvania, vice president Joe Biden attacked Mr Romney’s international agenda as laid out in last week’s convention address, suggesting that it put him out of step with the US’s priorities overseas.
“He said it was a mistake to end the war in Iraq and bring all of our warriors home. He said it was a mistake to set an end date for our warriors in Afghanistan and bring them home,” Biden told supporters.
He added: “He implies by the speech that he’s ready to go to war in Syria and Iran.”
Biden also ripped Paul Ryan’s speech.
He…noted Ryan had not told the complete story when he talked about a General Motors plant that closed in Janesville, Wis., his hometown.
“What he didn’t tell you was that plant in Janesville actually closed while President Bush was still president,” Biden said.
Later, in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, Biden again challenged Ryan’s criticism of Obama.
“He created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing,” Ryan said of Obama during his acceptance speech in Tampa.
Biden was having none of that telling.
“What he didn’t tell you is he sat on that commission,” Biden said to laughter.
“I love these guys. Oh, I love these guys, how they claim to care about the deficit,” Biden went on. “Ladies and gentlemen, the thing I most love about them is about how they discovered the middle class at their convention. Isn’t that amazing? All of a sudden their heart was bleeding for the middle class.”
Rahm Emmanuel was out defending his former boss. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former President Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, framed Mitt Romney Sunday as a backward-looking candidate, blistering his acceptance speech as laying “out the policies of Ground Hog Day.”
Emanuel discussed the upcoming Democratic National Convention with David Gregory on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he was introduced as an “architect” of Obama’s first term policies.
“If people want to know about the first term? Very simple. General Motors is alive and well. And Osama Bin Laden is not. And that’s what got done,” Emanuel said.
Emmanuel also criticized Romney’s acceptance speech as “weak.” From The Hill:
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) said Mitt Romney’s convention speech was “devoid and vacuous” and allowed for Clint Eastwood’s appearance to claim the spotlight.
President Obama’s former chief of staff said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that there was “nothing memorable about Mitt Romney’s speech” in Tampa.
“Not a memorable line, not a memorable philosophy,” Emanuel said.” “There was nothing there.”
I strongly recommend this piece at HuffPo by Sherman Yellin: Why Mitt Romney IS NOT Like a Bad Haircut. I can’t do it justice with an excerpt. Please click on the link and read it. It’s not very long.
In other news, there’s a story coming out soon in Vanity Fair about how Scientology auditioned women to be Tom Cruise’s next wife–and Katie Holmes wasn’t their first choice.
In the October issue, Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth reports that in 2004 Scientology embarked on a top-secret project headed by Shelly Miscavige, wife of Scientology chief David Miscavige, which involved finding a girlfriend for Tom Cruise. According to several sources, the organization devised an elaborate auditioning process in which actresses who were already Scientology members were called in, told they were auditioning for a new training film, and then asked a series of curious questions including: “What do you think of Tom Cruise?” Marc Headley, a Scientologist from age seven, who says he watched a number of the audition videotapes when he was head of Scientology’s in-house studio, tells Orth, “It’s not like you only have to please your husband—you have to toe the line for Scientology.” Both Nicole Kidman and Penélope Cruz ran afoul of Scientology and David Miscavige, according to another former Scientologist. “You can’t do anything to displease Scientology, because Tom Cruise will freak out,” Headley says.
According to Orth, Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born, London-raised actress and Scientologist, was selected and dated Cruise from November 2004 until January 2005. Initially she was told only that she had been selected for a very important mission. In a month-long preparation in October 2004, she was audited every day, a process in which she told a high-ranking Scientology official her innermost secrets and every detail of her sex life. Boniadi allegedly was told to lose her braces, her red highlights, and her boyfriend. According to a knowledgeable source, she was shown confidential auditing files of her boyfriend to expedite a breakup. (Scientology denies any misuse of confidential material.) The source says Boniadi signed a confidentiality agreement and was told that if she “messed up” in any way she would be declared a Suppressive Person (a pariah and enemy of Scientology).
I’m looking forward to reading the entire gossipy article!
In other Scientology news, there’s a new movie out that is supposedly based on Scientology, The Master.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson acknowledges that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was the inspiration for the title character in `’The Master,” but says the focus of the film is the relationship between a charismatic spiritual leader and his troubled follower, not the movement itself.
The movie, set in the 1950s, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a charismatic cult leader who captivates a tortured but sympathetic World War II veteran portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix.
….
Anderson sought to quickly dispel any speculation about the film’s influence on his friendship with Tom Cruise, who starred in Anderson’s 1999 film `’Magnolia” and whose Scientology beliefs are well-documented.
`’We are still friends. I showed him the film, and the rest is between us,” Anderson said.
In other cult news, Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon has died.
The Universal Peace Federation said on its website that Moon died early Monday morning of complications related to pneumonia. He was 92.
“Our True Father passed into the spiritual world at 1:54 AM Monday, September 3rd, Korea time,” a message on a Unification Church English-language website said.
Ahn Ho-yeol, a church spokesman, said Moon’s funeral will be held Thursday, with “individual prayers” planned for the three days until then.
“Rev. Moon died from overwork, from frequent trips aboard, including to the U.S., and from morning prayers which caused respiratory disease,” Ahn said.
I posted this on yesterday’s morning thread, but I think it bears repeating: Private equity firm founded by Mitt Romney under investigation for tax strategy
New York’s attorney general is investigating whether executives at Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, improperly avoided paying $200 million in federal income taxes, according to a report by The New York Times.
More than a dozen firms are under investigation by the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, who has subpoenaed documents that would show whether some fund management fees were converted to fund investments. Profits on investments are taxed at a much lower rate than management fees, which count as earned income.
Hundreds of pages of leaked financial documents from Bain Capital that have been posted online indicate at least $1 billion in executives’ management fees were converted to investments, whose capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, instead of the 35 percent paid on earned income in the top tax bracket.
According to the documents, executives could take money that would have been paid to them for managing investment funds and put the money into the funds, instead. The executives could pick and choose which companies to invest in, within a given fund, and were not required to invest the value of their fees for the entire life of a fund. They could decide whether to convert fees to investments on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
Today’s WaPo also has a story on Bain Capital and Romney’s taxes: Mitt Romney exited Bain Capital with rare tax benefits in retirement
Before Mitt Romney retired from Bain Capital, the enormously profitable investment firm he founded, he made sure to lock in his gains, both realized and expected, for years to come.
He did so, in part, the way millions of other Americans do — with the tax benefits of an individual retirement account. But he was able to turbocharge the impact of those advantages and other tax breaks in his severance package from Bain in a way that few but the country’s super-rich can ever hope to do.
As a result, his IRA could be worth as much as $87 million, according to his estimates, and he can continue to earn tax-advantaged income from Bain more than a decade after he formally left the firm.
If Romney wants to demonstrate his honesty, he can always release those secret tax returns.
That’s all I’ve got for today. What are you reading and blogging about?
The Meme That Just Won’t Die: Hillary as VP
Posted: May 23, 2012 Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, gender gap, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Michael Tomasky, Mitt Romney, Secretary of State, Vice President 50 Comments
Here we go again. Today Michael Tomasky discusses the possibility that Hillary could switch jobs with Joe Biden. Tomasky was reacting to a snarky piece in the Washington Times, so take it with a large grain of salt. Tomasky writes:
Clinton’s positive numbers are off the charts. Biden’s are so-so—both approval and disapproval sit in the 40s. Biden’s putative asset, that he helps a bit with white working-class and Catholic voters, is even truer of Clinton, the famous drinker of shots in those proletarian Pennsylvania bars. And women—forget about it. An Obama-Clinton ticket would pulverize any Romney ticket on the distaff side (is that insulting? I’m just trying to avoid repeating the word “women” too much). It wouldn’t matter if he put Carrie Underwood on his ticket.
I know, I know. It’s silly. I can right now picture the friends reading this who will write me to say, “Mike, that’s silly.” It probably is. But here are a few points for your consideration that aren’t silly at all.
Actually, I don’t see anything silly about the idea, but then I’m “on the distaff side.” Tomasky notes that in the recent NYT-CBS poll, Romney is actually leading among women. Is it really possible that Romney has narrowed the gender gap. If so, Obama would be in big trouble.
In other words, it may well be that Romney could close the gender gap. And if he could close it to 5 points, it will be an extremely close election.
Now bring in Hillary. Forget about it. The most consistently admired woman in America over the last 20 years? The gender gap would be 20 points. And the Obama and Clinton machines fused like that—it’s like Secretariat and Zenyatta breeding. And the signal sent to Democrats and women across the country that the whole thing is being teed up for her in 2016. This would be a blowout.
And Biden, you ask? Well, the gay-marriage thing might finally have been the straw that made Obama think it’s not so great having Joe around. But don’t feel bad for him. He benefits from the fact that the White House would have to do this smoothly, which means Biden can’t possibly just be hung out to dry. So he’s going to be landing on a $300 goose-down pillow. He gets to be secretary of state—the job he’s dreamed of for years anyway!
It makes a lot of sense, but it probably won’t happen–not because it’s a “silly” idea, but because Obama doesn’t have the guts to do it. If he did, it would be a real “game changer.” Suddenly this deadly dull election season would become very exciting. And Hillary would be teed up to run in 2016.
What do you think?
Thursday Reads
Posted: May 10, 2012 Filed under: 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Democratic Politics, GLBT Rights, legislation, Mitt Romney, morning reads, Republican politics, Team Obama, torture, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: CIA torture tapes, civil unions, Joe Biden, Log Cabin Republcans, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, racial profling, Reince Priebus, RNC, rural post offices, same-sex marriage, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, waterboarding 43 Comments
Good Morning!!
Yesterday was a great day. President Obama took a clear stance on a very important issue, saying that same sex couples should have the same marriage rights and privileges as every other American. But this really is not about marriage or about LGBT rights. It’s about equal rights for every citizen of this country. The President’s action is a big step in the right direction.
The New York Times has the behind the scenes skinny on how Obama decided to take his stand yesterday.
Before President Obama left the White House on Tuesday morning to fly to an event in Albany, several aides intercepted him in the Oval Office. Within minutes it was decided: the president would endorse same-sex marriage on Wednesday, completing a wrenching personal transformation on the issue.
As described by several aides, that quick decision and his subsequent announcement in a hastily scheduled network television interview were thrust on the White House by 48 hours of frenzied will-he-or-won’t-he speculation after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. all but forced the president’s hand by embracing the idea of same-sex unions in a Sunday talk show interview.
Obama had intended to state his position on the issue before this summer’s Democratic Convention, but Joe Biden’s statement of his support for same-sex marriage last weekend accelerated the decision-making process.
Initially Mr. Obama and his aides expected that the moment would be Monday, when the president was scheduled to be on “The View,” the ABC daytime talk show, which is popular with women….
Yet the pressure had become too great to wait until then, his aides told him; on Monday, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, was pummeled with questions from skeptical reporters about Mr. Obama’s stance. After the Tuesday morning meeting, Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director, contacted ABC and offered a wide-ranging interview with the president for the following day.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney announced that he continues to oppose same-sex marriage and he also opposes civil unions that resemble marriage. Appearing on a local Fox station in Colorado, Romney
“Well, when these issues were raised in my state of Massachusetts, I indicated my view, which is I do not favor marriage between people of the same gender, and I do not favor civil unions if they are identical to marriage other than by name,” Romney told KDVR. “My view is the domestic partnership benefits, hospital visitation rights, and the like are appropriate but that the others are not.”
RNC Chairman Reince Priebus responded to Obama’s announcement by suggesting that same-sex marriage would be an issue in the presidential race.
“While President Obama has played politics on this issue, the Republican Party and our presumptive nominee Mitt Romney have been clear,” Priebus said. “We support maintaining marriage between one man and one woman and would oppose any attempts to change that.”
IMO, it would be huge mistake for Romney to focus on social issues in the campaign, his campaign knows it. Just look what happened when Rick Santorum did it. But Romney should be forced to clarify his stance on this issue. Buzzfeed offered five questions to help him do so. Check it out.
Oddly, Log Cabin Republicans were enraged by President Obama’s announcement. Here is the press release the group released yesterday:
“That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director. “Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”
Addicting Info responded to the Log Cabin Republican release:
Here’s the official White House list of stuff the Obama administration has done for the LGBT community. It is not remotely comprehensive. Obama has done more for the LGBT community in three years than every single previous president combined. If that’s “manipulating” the LGBT community, what do the Log Cabin Dummies consider “full-throated support?” Should he divorce Michelle and marry Joe Biden?
As for the claim of “political gain;” what gain would that be? Will moderates suddenly sit up and say, “YES! The hell with the economy! I was only interested in gay rights!”? Will conservatives suddenly feel that their institutional bigotry is misplaced and they should embrace the LGBT community as fellow humans instead of condemning them to burn for eternity as “unnatural?” Will the GOP decide that perhaps gay-baiting is not the way to go and focus on the issues? Hell, gay Republicans can’t even muster any support for Obama. They’re outraged! They’re offended! Not at their own party whose official platform is virulently anti-gay but at that goddamned Obama for not supporting them sooner! Obama gets nothing from supporting gay marriage and only hands the right another cudgel to attack him with.
{{Loud, extended applause}}
Can you stand some more good news? Think Progress reports that on Tuesday,
Congress took up legislation that could significantly impact women’s health — and no, it doesn’t limit contraception or force anything into their vaginas.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act aims to protect pregnant women in the workplace from common discrimination — not being allowed to carry a water bottle, for example — that threatens their health and stops them from being productive employees, or from working altogether.
Introduced by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA) and George Miller (D-CA), the bill would “ensure that pregnant women are not forced out of jobs unnecessarily or denied reasonable job modifications that would allow them to continue working,”
The Republicans will fight it, and let’s hope lots of pregnant women hear about a new front in the War on Women and punish them in the voting booth.
And here’s just a little more good news from Reuters: U.S. drops plan to close rural post offices.
The U.S. Postal Service said on Wednesday that it is abandoning for now its plan to close thousands of post offices in rural locations and instead will shorten their hours of operation.
The change represents a victory for U.S. lawmakers and rural communities who created a backlash against the cash-strapped agency last summer when it began considering more than 3,600 post offices for closure this year.
Rather than shuttering offices starting next week, when a self-imposed moratorium on closings was set to end, the plan is to cut the operating hours of 13,000 locations with little traffic to between two and six hours a day.
It’s good news/bad news situation, with hours being cut at rural post offices; but it’s a step in the right direction.
And even more good news–can you believe it? The Justice Department announced yesterday that it plans to sue Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona for civil rights violations.
The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio’s office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.
Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.
Justice Department officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman’s refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.
I hate to ruin the upbeat mood, but I felt I had to include this article from the BBC: ‘Vomiting and screaming’ in destroyed waterboarding tapes. It’s an interview with Jose Rodriguez, head of the CIA Counterterrorism Ceneter, and the man who destroyed the torture tapes. Read it if you can stand it. I think every American needs to know what was done in our name.
What are you reading and blogging about today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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