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NEWS FLASH

12,000 Encircle White House In Protest of Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline | Today, more than 12,000 people from across the United States and Canada gathered at the White House to call on President Obama to stop the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.  After a rally in Lafayette Square addressed by elected officials, youth climate activists,  environmental leaders, climate scientist James Hansen, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams, Naomi Klein, and local opponents of the pipeline from South Dakota, Texas, and Nebraska, the boisterous crowd formed a human chain that completely encircled the White House.  The protest, organized by Tar Sands Action, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, 350.org, and others, appeared to exceed turnout expectations, with the human chain running several people deep in most areas.  President Obama acknowledged last week that he will make the final decision on the controversial pipeline — a decision expected before year’s end.

Security

Evan Bayh Plays Bill Kristol’s Role On Fox News Sunday, Says U.S. Should Bomb Iran

Talk of Iran’s nuclear program has heated up in recent weeks with reports that the IAEA will soon release details showing that the Islamic Republic is developing an atomic weapons capability. And this week, Israeli media outlets have been reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mobilizing support for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilites. The news prompted Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace to ask the show’s weekly panel for reaction. While leading neocon Bill Kristol usually fires off about attacking Iran, today he was a bit measured. “It seems to me the United States has an obligation to act and not leave it to Israel to stop this threat,” he said.

The real warmongering was left to former Democratic senator and member of the war charging Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Evan Bayh, who boosted the right-wing claim that the Iranians are suicidal maniacs incapable of being deterred and added that, ultimately, the United States will have to attack Iran:

BAYH: The Israelis may be able to launch a one off strike on Iran but they don’t have the ability for the kind of sustained bombing campaign that it would really take to degrade their nuclear arsenal. … You’d have to bomb them for several weeks in a row. There’s only one country that has that kind of capability and that’s the United States. For Israelis it is an existential question. For us it raises the issue, is the Iranian nation a normal nation-state that’s belligerent and does things we don’t like but ultimately is not suicidal and can be deterred. Or are they really a suicidal theocracy that might actually use nuclear weapons even if it meant a nuclear retaliation against them. That’s a different case. … The odds are that they are not a suicidal theocracy. But the question is if you’re Israel can you afford to run that risk? Probably not. …

For us it may be better to try and stop that [proliferation] before it gets started by using limited force to prevent Iran from going nuclear when it gets right down to it. … We have to ask ourselves, is a nuclear Iran acceptable? If the answer is no, there’s really only one way to keep that from coming about and that’s the use of force.

Watch the clip:

While Bayh claimed that for Israelis, the Iran issue “is an existential question,” ex-Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy pushed back on this narrative last week, saying Iran is “far from posing an existential threat to Israel.”

And the claim that Iran is ruled by suicidal maniacs hell bent on blowing up Europe, the United States and Israel with nuclear weapons is an alarmist charge that the right trots out when advocating for military strikes to stop Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program. CAP’s Matt Duss recently outlined this “martyr state myth” over at Foreign Policy and notes that it is based on ” flawed assumptions.”

Thus, Bayh’s warmongering is also based on flawed assumptions. Perhaps he has yet to learn any lessons from his days hawking war with Iraq.

Security

Rice: Cain Uzbekistan Gaffe ‘Wasn’t A Great Thing To Say If You’re Running For President’

On ABC’s This Week, former George W. Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dinged the sometimes goofy, gaffe-prone foreign policy of Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain. Asked by host Christiane Amanpour about Cain’s seeming ignorance, and in particular the now-infamousUbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan” gaffe, Rice responded with a chuckle that those sorts of comments weren’t the sort of things you like to hear out of a presidential candidate’s mouth:

AMANPOUR: [I]n this particular campaign, [Republicans] all seem like they’re rushing for the exits when it comes to foreign policy. Or, in the case of Herman Cain, kind of making fun of a lack of knowledge — I mean, he did the whole “Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan.” Do you find that a little cavalier?

RICE: Well, I think in retrospect it probably wasn’t a great thing to say if you’re running for president. And foreign policy ought to be more a part of the debate than it is, because we’re so interconnected.

Watch the video:

Amanpour also brought up Cain’s statement this week that China’s “indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability,” when, as Amanpour put it, “obviously we all know China has been a nuclear power since the 1960s.” Last week Rice said “not everybody’s a foreign policy expert” when asked to comment on Cain’s China claim. But today when Amanpour asked if she was “alarmed” by the gaffe, the former Secretary of State demurred and said Cain might have misspoke — a suggestion that left Amanpour incredulous. “Christiane, I wasn’t listening and I really don’t know,” said the former Secretary of State. “It concerns me that we are not having a discussion about foreign policy.”

Economy

George Will On Public Sector Job Losses: ‘That’s Good’

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced last Friday that 80,000 jobs were added to the American economy last month, ticking the unemployment rate down slightly to 9 percent. The 80,000 added is a net gain, factoring in 104,000 private jobs added and 24,000 public sector jobs lost. Today on ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will said people losing their public sector jobs is a good thing:

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Let me turn to you George and ask you about the unemployment numbers. Is that something of a trend or is that scratching the surface? What difference is that going to make?

WILL: Not much. First of all, 80,000 isn’t nearly enough to accomodate even the natural growth month by month of the workforce. There are two bits of good news in there. The 80,000 is a net number. The private sector created 104,000 jobs. The public sector happily shrank by 24,000 jobs. Both of that’s good.

Watch the clip:

Conservatives rejoice at public sector job loss because they think it will spur private job creation (and also fulfill their collective fantasy of controlling the ever encroaching tentacles of the federal government). But the reality is that public sector losses are equaling out private sector gains and thus holding back a wider recovery. And as Matt Yglesias has noted, public sector job loss over the last yeah and a half has not been “delivering any private sector magic.” Federal, state and local governments have shed hundreds of thousands of jobs over the past year alone while the percentage of millionaires grew by 20 percent. And as the AP noted, the public job “losses add strain” on the overall economic recovery.

“As we’ve seen that federal support for states diminish, you’ve seen the biggest job losses in the public sector — teachers, police officers, firefighters losing their jobs,” President Obama said this summer trying to push his jobs plan that Republicans continually object to.

But to George Will, this is all a good thing; he celebrates when Americans lose their jobs with the unemployment rate stagnant at 9 percent.

NEWS FLASH

Jon Huntsman: Personhood Movement ‘Goes Too Far’ | Former Utah Governor and GOP presidential candidate Jon Hutsman told Meet The Press’ David Gregory this morning that state efforts to declare a fertilized human egg a legal person go “too far,” joining a growing chorus of anti-abortion Republicans, doctors, and religious leaders, in questioning the extremist “pesonhood” movement. At least half-dozen states are considering personhood amendments, with Mississippi slated to vote on the measure this coming Tuesday. The measure would essentially criminalize abortion, outlaw contraception like the birth control pill, and even prevent couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization. Watch it:

Security

Islamophobic Texas Gun Instructor: All Muslims Have ‘Sworn The Annihilation Of The United States’

Islamophobic gun instructor Crockett Keller

In an interview with the New York Times, a state-certified gun instructor in Texas doubled down on Islamophobic comments he made in a radio ad to attract new customers. As ThinkProgress reported, Crockett Keller of Mason, Texas, said in the ad that he refused to teach Muslims, telling local news outlets and advocacy groups, “I would give up my license to teach before I will teach them,” because he considered all Muslims “enemies.”

Keller, who, as the Times reporter approached him, put his hand on his holstered sidearm because, he said, of death threats, told the newspaper:

Why would I teach people who have sworn the annihilation of the United States and who can lie, cheat, steal and murder Americans in order to further Islam? Why would I arm someone like that? Why would I enable them to carry a weapon legally? I don’t want to be a part of that. [...]

I don’t care what your religion, what your creed is. That makes no bearing. But when people consider themselves a particular religion that has proven itself to be anti-American, well, then, I’m anti-them.

The Texas Public Safety Board, which regulates gun instructors, launched an investigation and said in a statement that an instructor who “denied service to individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion would place that instructor’s certification by the department at risk of suspension or revocation.”

Throughout all his interviews with the media, Keller has made no distinction between the tiny minority of radical, militant Muslims and the faith at large. Of more than a billion Muslims worldwide, up to about seven million live in the United States. “[I]f you are a devout Muslim, how can you pledge allegiance to the United States of America? You can’t,” Keller said. “The ideologies are diametrically opposed.”

Green

Congressman From Koch Mike Pompeo: ‘We’re Trying’ To Defund The EPA

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Defending The American Dream Summit in Washington DC

The Koch brothers and the foundation they fund, Americans for Prosperity, are among the biggest backers of the right’s anti-environment movement, pushing for the repeal of environmental laws and regulations on both the state and federal level. Those efforts continued at AFP’s annual Defending the American Dream Summit this weekend, as attacks on the EPA came from seemingly every prominent speaker and in multiple panels.

Former pizza magnate Herman Cain (R) drew some of his largest cheers when he declared that the EPA “needs an attitude adjustment,” while former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) decried the burden of federal regulations on job creation. But while Romney has insisted in the past that Republicans aren’t “anti-regulation” and other conservatives have insisted that the party doesn’t want to defund the EPA, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) — the Congressman from Koch — made it clear during an environmental panel that that was exactly his goal:

POMPEO: We’re trying. Indeed, I personally tried. … We’ve got a Senate that has a deeply different worldview, and there my bill sits. We won’t be able to slow down the growth of the EPA dramatically until we change the view of folks in Congress, and I speak mostly of the Senate here, and we get a new leader in the White House.

Watch it:

Pompeo is hardly the only Republican to state plainly that defunding the EPA is one of the GOP’s primary goals. In July, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) said the EPA “would be discontinued” if the GOP gained control of the Senate and the White House.

Pompeo, however, seems perplexed that President Obama and House and Senate Democrats aren’t willing to do the Kochs’ bidding by joining him in his anti-environmental campaign. Perhaps that’s because they have no desire to aid the efforts of what Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) called the “most anti-environmental House of Representatives in American history.”

Economy

Tennessee Lieutenant Governor Calls Unemployment Benefits A ‘Lifestyle’

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R)

Despite the necessary aid that unemployment benefits provide for those who have been laid off (not to mention the boost they give to the entire national economy), Republicans continue to attack and deride people who collect those benefits. In September, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) dismissed unemployment benefits as “welfare for people that won’t work,” and an Ohio state representative suggested his state drug test all benefit applicants. (He got the idea from Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who signed a law in June requiring drug tests for all welfare recipients.)

Now Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey (R) thinks receiving unemployment benefits (an average of $285 per week in Tennessee) is simply a “lifestyle“:

Ramsey, during his “Red Tape Road Trip” luncheon highlighting government’s negative effect on business, said he’s been getting an earful from employers about people opting for an unemployment check rather than seeking a job when the state’s jobless rate remains well above 9 percent.

He cited a trucking company that wants but can’t find drivers and a heating and cooling firm with unfilled technician positions.

When does it become a benefit and when does it become a lifestyle?” Ramsey, R-Blountville, asked of the current unemployment compensation system. [...] Beneficiaries aren’t pressed hard enough to look for work, Ramsey said.

While Jordan Young, Ramsey’s special assistant, insists there are jobs available, people should not have to forego benefits while they look for one (even assuming that they could move to where jobs are available). Nationally, there are more than four job applicants for every open position.

While Republicans like to claim that those on benefits are not looking for work, research from the San Francisco Fed has found that workers who qualify for unemployment benefits stay unemployed just 1.6 weeks longer than those who do not qualify for benefits. Meanwhile, without extended unemployment benefits, the United States economy would lose $57 billion, or 0.38 percent of GDP, in the first three months of 2012. Clearly Ramsey has not considered how this could impact Tennessee businesses during his “Red Tape Road Trip.”

Health

Mississippi Catholic Bishop, Religious Leaders Denounce Personhood Anti-Abortion Bill

This Tuesday, Mississippians will vote on Initiative 26, a “personhood” amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” This “profoundly ambiguous” amendment will deliberately trample on a woman’s reproductive health and privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion, outlawing contraception like the birth control pill, and even preventing couples from having a child through in vitro fertilization.

It is these consequences that leave even the most staunch anti-choice activists cold. The National Right to Life organization has refused to promote it. Even the Catholic Bishops have refused to endorse the amendment, noting that the bill is so extreme, it could jeopardize their more serious efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade:

In the letter [Jackson Bishop Joseph Latino] called Personhood Mississippi “a noble initiative.” However, he said, “I join with Catholic bishops in several other states in not endorsing personhood petitions to be circulated in our Catholic parishes. We have committed ourselves to working for a federal amendment and feel the push for a state amendment could ultimately harm our efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Numerous religious leaders, who joined Bishop Latino at a press conference to speak out against the bill, were more forthright in their denunciations. “It is a blunt instrument which, if passed, will harm Mississippi women and their families both physically and spiritually,” said Rabbi Debra Kassoff. “Because God has sanctified not only fetal life, but all life, we urge Mississippians to vote against Initiative 26.”

In fact, religious leaders are taking issue with the personhood movement’s foundational idea that such amendments comply with “divine law” as defined by biblical text. The Interfaith Center of New York’s Rev. Chloe Breyer and Rabbis for Human Rights’ Rabbi Jill Jacobs both insisted that the biblical text that “life at conception” activists often rely on is actually “invoked to support the rights of a woman to have an abortion” as it conveys the idea that “the fetus does not achieve personhood until emerging from the womb.”

Breyer also notes that Christian representatives have long argued against the idea that life beings at conception. Saint Augustine actually wrote on the question of “personhood” and “ascribed to the idea of delayed ‘ensoulment” in which the fetus did not “receive a human soul” until a certain number of days after conception. In 1994, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church expressed its “unequivocal opposition” to any action that would “abridge the right of a woman to reach an informed decision about the termination of her pregnancy, or that would limit the access of a woman to safe means of acting upon her decision.”

Green

Scientist Who Testified In Support Of Mining Around The Grand Canyon Stands To Make $225,000 From It

By Jessica Goad, Manager of Research and Outreach, Center for American Progress Action Fund.

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, Republican members of Congress have been waging a war to open 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon to uranium mining. Last week Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar took one of the last steps in withdrawing the area from new mining claims. But in response, Republicans have introduced H.R. 3155, the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011, to keep the decision from moving forward. The issue has become “one of the top legislative priorities of Republicans in Congress” as Energy and Environment Daily reported this morning.

At a hearing yesterday on the bill in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands, Republicans called a witness to the stand who is a retired United States Geological Survey scientist. Dr. Karen Wenrich noted in her testimony supporting the bill that the Bureau of Land Management has “vastly overstated the environmental harm caused by past and potential uranium development.”

However, under questioning from Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), it became clear through public Securities and Exchange Commission filings that Wenrich stands to make $225,000 by selling 61 uranium claims that she owns only if the Interior Department’s withdrawal does not go forward.

Read more

Special Topic

Occupy Philly Marches To Romney Fundraiser And Holds Its Own ‘Photo-Op’ With Picture Of Mitt

Today, former Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) is holding a fundraiser at a swank hotel in downtown Philadelphia, offering $2,500 photo-ops to wealthy donors inside.

Responding to Romney’s fundraising with the city’s elite, Occupy Philly and allied groups marched to the hotel and rallied outside of it. Demonstrators propped up a large poster of Romney and staged their own photo-ops with him, joking that they don’t need to be super-wealthy to take a photograph with a fake version of the candidate.

Here’s some video of the protesters rallied outside the hotel from the CloutDailyNews YouTube account:

Here are some pictures from the demonstration, taken by local demonstrators and reporters:

“The fact that we were able to pull this off so quickly says a lot about how passionate people are here in Pennsylvania about tax cuts for the rich and corporate greed,” said Jamie Mondics from Keystone Progress, which joined the protests.

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Health

Mississippi Personhood Bill Could Criminalize Doctors Who Perform An Abortion To Save A Woman’s Life

Physicians and medical associations are now speaking out against Mississippi’s personhood amendment, warning that it is “a dangerous intrusion of criminal law into the provision of medical care.”

Specifically, by criminalizing abortion, the measure could “criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy” because, according to the measure, any fertilized egg — regardless of if and where it implants — could be considered a “person.” And because the measure has no exceptions for health of the mother (let alone rape or incest), Mississippi physicians are worried that termination of such a life-threatening pregnancy could still be considered a form of homicide:

[Mississippi Medical Association President Dr. Tom] Joiner and other opponents of Initiative 26 are concerned that by attempting to criminalize abortion, the initiative will criminalize routine medical practice that intentionally or not terminates a pregnancy. There is no mention in the initiative of an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, nor for the health of the mother, as in the case of life-threatening conditions such as ectopic or molar pregnancies. (In an ectopic pregnancy the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus, most often in the fallopian tube; in a molar pregnancy the fertilized egg becomes an abnormal growth such as a tumor rather than a fetus.)

“These pregnancies were not meant to go on to be people and we don’t think calling them persons is going to do any good for the patients that carry them nor the pregnancies themselves,” said Tupelo obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Wayne Slocum, vice chair of the Mississippi section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Slocum said because ectopic and molar pregnancies never result in live births, casting those fertilized eggs as “persons” does not make sense. “They just need to be treated either with medication or surgery,” he said. “If not the mother can bleed to death or have dire consequences.”

Ultimately, as the Mississippi State Medical Association warns, the bill “will place in jeopardy a physician who tries to save a mother’s life by performing procedures and employing techniques have used for years.” Even while some of the doctors belonging to the association oppose abortion, Dr. Joiner says “nearly all of the association’s members oppose Initiative 26.” Dr. Slocum considers himself “pro-life” but says, “we feel like passing this amendment to the state constitution would do more to harm our patients than it will do to stop abortion.”

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Economy

Ohio GOP Candidate Josh Mandel Insists Ohio Anti-Labor Law ‘Is About Respecting Police And Firefighters’

On Tuesday, Ohioans will vote on Issue 2, a referendum on Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s (R) anti-workers’ rights law Senate Bill 5 (SB5). The bill strips teachers, police, and firefighters of their rights to collective bargain for better wages and working conditions. The bill is deeply unpopular.

This, however, has not stopped right-wing groups from flushing the pro-SB5 campaign with money or conservatives from insisting that the law helps local governments by preventing layoffs.

But while most Republicans at least acknowledge that the law disadvantages public employees, one Republican thinks the opposite. This summer, Ohio Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel said he supported Senate Bill 5 because the law, in his mind, actually “respect[s] police, and firefighters, and teachers” by giving “fiscal conservatives” the tools to ignore collective bargaining rights, which somehow “insur[es]that there is a state and there are local governments” down the road:

MANDEL: Well I’ve been supportive of Senate Bill 5…In my mind, it’s not about going after police, and firefighters and teachers. It’s about respecting police, and firefighters, and teachers and insuring that there is a state and there are local governments long into the future so that we have communities here in the state. The current level of spending in our state and our country? Simply unacceptable. And I think we need to put the tools in the tool belts of local government leaders and also people who are fiscal conservatives to bring this state into a sense of fiscal health. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve been supportive.

Watch it:

In what must come as a surprise to Mandel, Ohio’s teachers, police, firefighters, and even veterans feel slighted — not respected — by this bill. SB5 strips unions of the right to negotiate wages, eliminates pay increases, and completely bans the right to strike. As public officials and unions both note, teachers and safety forces have already made substantial sacrifices — including zero pay raises and paying more for health insurance — to accommodate the tough economy.

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NEWS FLASH

Microsoft Funds Koch’s Climate-Denying Tea Party Conference | Microsoft Corporation, which argues that climate pollution requires a “comprehensive and global response,” is sponsoring the Koch brothers’ Tea Party convention taking place in Washington, DC. Microsoft is a “gold sponsor” of the Americans For Prosperity Foundation’s fifth annual Defending The American Dream Summit, cheek and jowl with top climate denial front groups like the Heartland Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Speakers at the conference include climate deniers Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Ken Cuccinelli, Ann McElhinney, Chris Horner, Myron Ebell, and Carly Fiorina. Their prominent involvement was captured in a photograph by Slate.com reporter Dave Wiegel.

Justice

Gov. Jan Brewer Can’t Explain Her Partisan Political Tampering In Arizona’s Redistricting Process

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) has been under fire recently for her dramatic political move to interfere with the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission. Annoyed that the commission did not redraw congressional districts to benefit Republicans, Brewer convinced the GOP-controlled state Senate to impeach the commission’s independent chairwoman, Colleen Mathis.

State officials are only supposed to be impeached for “neglect of duty and gross misconduct.” But during an interview this week on Alan Colmes’ radio show, Brewer became completely incoherent when trying to defend her actions. She could not explain what offenses Mathis had committed that could possibly justify her impeachment:

COLMES: What did Colleen do that was inappropriate, Colleen Mathis?

BREWER: Well she acted, uh, inappropriately. Well it was very, pretty much obvious that she in communications, and doing things, uh, not in the public, and the people of Arizona deserve that –

COLMES: You mean she was doing things secretly? Like what?

BREWER: They just simply need to operate in a lawful and open fashion…

COLMES: I’m trying to understand what she did. What are you accusing her of having done?

BREWER: Well she wasn’t operating in the proper manner.

Listen here:

The Huffington Post reported that Brewer moved to impeach Mathis after being lobbied by incumbent GOP congressmen who wanted to protect their seats. Democrats have been calling for Brewer herself to be ousted for such an egregious attempt to compromise the integrity of the democratic process to rig elections for the GOP.

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