Daily Kos

As we've reported several times previously this year, 2011 broke records for legislation chipping away at reproductive freedom. Thanks to the Guttmacher Institute's year-end report, we now know that there was 50 percent more such legislation enacted in 2011 than in 2010, and 75 percent more than in 2009. That amounts to 135 provisions enacted in 36 states during 2011 relating to reproductive health or rights. These include 89 provisions restricting abortion, 50 more than in 2005, the previous record year for such legislation.

The bottom line: The foes of reproductive freedom never rest. Supporters can't afford to either.

The abortion restrictions fell into six categories: bans, waiting periods, ultrasound requirements, insurance coverage, new clinic regulations specifically designed to close down abortion providers, and limiting medication abortions.

In addition, states restricted funding for family planning, especially Planned Parenthood, a specific target of anti-choice activists. This included cutting funding even for clinics that do not provide abortions. There was at least some good news on this score: Only half the 18 states with a line item in their state budgets for family planning wound up making cuts despite both economic and unprecedented political pressure to do so.

After years of moving toward more comprehensive sex education, the only legislation enacted in this arena in 2011 enhanced abstinence-only education. Mississippi added provisions to its already-mandated abstinence education that restrict school districts from expanding their curricula to include other material, such as contraception. Getting permission to do so will now require a district to get specific permission from the state department of education.

Despite the new restrictions, there were some victories. These 135 provisions were only a fraction of more than 1,100 introduced. A few of the important setbacks for the anti-choice forces were several relating to "personhood":

• Mississippians rejected a constitutional amendment that might have curtailed women's access to birth control and abortion services by defining a legal person as a “human being from the moment of fertilization.”

• In Montana, the House passed, but the Senate defeated, legislation putting an initiative on the ballot that would amend the state constitution to define a “person” to include “all members of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development, including the stage of fertilization or conception.”

• In North Dakota, the House passed but the Senate defeated a bill to ban abortion by defining a human being as an “an individual member of the species Homo sapiens at every stage of development.”

• In Oklahoma, the House approved legisation to ban abortion by defining a “person” as i “a human being at all stages of human development of life, including the state of fertilization or conception.” But the Senate did not take action before the legislature adjourned.

• In South Dakota, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit blocked some provisions in a 2005 abortion counseling law and upheld one. The court struck down a provision requiring that a woman seeking an abortion be informed in counseling that the procedure increases the risk of suicide and thoughts of suicide because the claim is not supported by scientific evidence and means a provider must participate in “untruthful and misleading speech.” The requirement that the woman be told that the fetus is a “whole, separate, unique, living human being” was upheld and was not considered a violation of free speech protections because the provider is not required to repeat the exact words in the law.

Among major restrictions added by various states this year:

• Five states (Kansas, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Texas) mandated pre-abortion counseling and waiting periods. South Dakota's law, pending a legal challenge, requires a 72-hour waiting period during which the woman must visit one of those anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers" that provide inaccurate and ideologically tainted "information." She must also obtain counseling in person from the physician who will perform the procedure. Those are major obstacles in South Dakota, which has a single abortion clinic in Sioux Falls that is staffed once a week by physicians who fly in from Minnesota. That means an out-of-town woman would have to hang around for more than a week to obtain a procedure guaranteed to her by the U.S. Supreme Court.

• Alaska, Iowa and Maryland enacted laws restricting Medicaid abortions for low-income women to cases of life endangerment, rape or incest, and, in Maryland, for fetal impairment.

• Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma and Idaho enacted laws prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks of gestation based on the claim of "fetal pain." Nebraska adopted a similar law in 2010. Pro-choice advocates argue that these laws violate the Supreme Court's rulings that forbid states from placing undue burdens on women seeking abortions.

• Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Virginia enacted laws restricting abortion coverage under all private health insurance plans, including those that will be part of health exchanges. Twelve states now restrict private insurance coverage of abortion, and nine others restrict only coverage through health exchanges.

• Mandatory "counseling" of women seeking abortions was enacted or expanded in Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana and North Dakota. In Indiana, the counseling must include the statement that “human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm." In Kansas, the counseling must include a written statement that an abortion “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”  

• Kansas, Arizona, North Dakota, Nebraska and Tennessee banned telemedicine for the provision of medication abortion. This procedure allows women to go to an abortion provider and receive counseling via videoconference from a physician in another location who then authorizes on-site staff to dispense the medication. Given the dwindling number of abortion providers nationwide, and particularly in underserved rural areas and small towns, telemedicine can bring medical services to people for whom they would otherwise be inaccessible.

Union-busting lawmakers and their patrons in Indiana got some new opponents Friday, the National Football League Players Association. As Laura Clawson has written here and Chris Bowers has written here, Republican legislators, who are in the majority, are trying to ram the anti-union legislation through and Democrats are holding them at bay.

The NFLPA stated:

As NFL players, we know our success on the field comes from working together as a team. We’re not just a team of football players—we’re also the fans at games and at home, the employees who work the concession stands and the kids who wear the jerseys of our favorite football heroes. NFL players know what it means to fight for workers’ rights, better pensions and health and safety in the workplace.

To win, we have to work together and look out for one another. Today, even as the city of Indianapolis is exemplifying that teamwork in preparing to host the Super Bowl, politicians are looking to destroy it trying to ram through so-called “right-to-work” legislation.

“Right-to-work” is a political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights. It’s not about jobs or rights, and it’s the wrong priority for Indiana.

The facts are clear—according to a January 2012 Economic Policy Institute briefing report (“Working Hard to Make Indiana Look Bad”), “right-to-work” will lower wages for a worker in Indiana by $1,500 a year because it weakens the ability of working families to work together, and it will make it less likely that working people will get health care and pensions.

So-called “right-to-work” bills divide working families at a time when communities need to stand united. We need unity—not division. We urge legislators in Indiana to oppose “right-to-work” efforts, and focus instead on job creation.

As Indianapolis proudly prepares to host the Super Bowl it should be a time to shine in the national spotlight and highlight the hard-working families that make Indiana run instead of launching political attacks on their basic rights. It is important to keep in mind the plight of the average Indiana worker and not let them get lost in the ceremony and spectacle of such a special event. This Super Bowl should be about celebrating the best of what Indianapolis has to offer, not about legislation that hurts the people of Indiana.

A bit of solidarity from an unexpected quarter. Nice to see them butting heads with some of the guys who keep thinking "19th Century" when it comes to unions.

Although the direction of the administration was made clear in October, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will on Monday finalize a 20-year ban on new uranium-mining on some one million acres of land near the Grand Canyon. The announcement will be made at the National Geographic Society HQ in Washington, D.C.

The ban, which is actually an extension of an existing ban, has been under consideration since 2009. Under the Bush administration, thousands of new mining claims had been encouraged under the 1872 Mining Act.

After Salazar's position became clear when he chose "Alternative B" from the Bureau of Land Management's final environmental impact statement on withdrawing lands, Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, as well as Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, announced their intention to introduced legislation that would allow new uranium mining.

Alternative B bars 1,006,545 acres of federal lands from new mining. It allows previously approved operations to continue and some new operations on mining claims with valid existing rights. The federal lands are located on two parcels north of the Grand Canyon National Park and one parcel south of the Grand Canyon in the Kaibab National Forest.

The move no doubt would be approved by a Republican President unlike any we have seen since, Teddy Roosevelt, who said in a speech at the Grand Canyon more than a century ago:

Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see.

We have gotten past the stage, my fellow-citizens, when we are to be pardoned if we treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the water, the scenery. Whatever it is, handle it so that your children's children will get the benefit of it."

Some people just can't stand to see any land unmolested by development or mining. Thankfully, these million acres are getting another 20-year reprieve. But count on the "improvers" to be back licking their chops about 18 years from now.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Late night snark? Sure, why not.

"How about that Rick Santorum? He came in second because he is the anti-Romney. Wait a minute---I thought Mitt Romney was the anti-Romney."
---David Letterman
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"Everything about Romney tells the tale of a man who just fired your dad."
---John Oliver, on The Daily Show
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"Rick Santorum’s campaign is celebrating the Iowa caucuses with a pizza party. Here's the embarrassing part: It was delivered by Herman Cain."
---Jay Leno
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[Clip of Michele Bachmann bowing-out speech in Iowa]: Yesterday when we were out on Main Street in Des Moines, [my husband] was out buying doggie sunglasses for our dog Boomer while we were out visiting the many businesses.
Jon Stewart: To be fair, nothing salves the wound of a sixth-place finish like a dog wearing sunglasses.
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Clip of Jon Huntsman interview: They pick corn in Iowa. They actually pick presidents here in New Hampshire.
Stephen Colbert: Yes! New Hampshire picks presidents! Just ask Presidents Buchanan, Tsongas and Kefauver.
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"It is being reported that school children in North Korea were taught that Kim Jong Il did not ever use the bathroom. So today, most school children in North Korea assumed that their fearless leader exploded."
---Conan O'Brien

And one year ago…

"Republicans took control of the House for the first time in four years. They say they’re going to stick to a strict interpretation of the Constitution. I hope you didn’t like voting, women and non-whites."
---Jimmy Kimmel

Don’t forget that Netroots Nation is now soliciting ideas for the panels and programs to be featured at the 2012 convention (Providence, June 7-10). Click here for details and submit yours. Otherwise it'll just be me and my booby tassles a' twirlin' in a four-day stripper marathon. You've been warned.

C'mon down 'n splash. I'm giving away pickle buckets full of leftover holiday myrrh. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Michael Gerson, the former Bush speechwriter, is delighted by the rise of Rick Santorum in the contest for the GOP presidential nomination. This guy, Gerson tells us, is of the compassionate conservative branch of the party and he most definitely should be listened to.

What does one hear upon taking Gerson's advice? Santorum appeared Friday morning at a townhall meeting in Keene, New Hampshire, population 23,409. To an emergency-room nurse who said her son had had cancer at age 5 and asked the candidate his views on excluding people with pre-existing conditions from health insurance coverage or charging them more for it, Santorum replied:

Insurance works when people who are higher risk end up having to pay more, as they should. You say, in your case, your son absolutely obviously did nothing wrong. Obviously, there are a lot of other people that increased their health risk that did do things wrong and as a result ... it resulted in higher health care costs. So, of course, you always have cases, if it was all the same case as your son then maybe you could make the argument, well nobody did anything to cause their ... instance of health care costs to go up, but of course, that's not the case.

Uh-huh. The kid did nothing wrong, but that shouldn't keep the companies from excluding him from coverage or charging him more than he can afford because most cases aren't like his, right? In most cases, Santorum seems to be implying, it was somebody's behavior that brought on their health condition. So charge 'em up the wazoo. Or just flat out tell 'em no at the door.

So what have insurers included as reasons for not covering people besides the fact they had cancer at age 5?

Having had acne, hemorrhoids or bunions; being a cop or firefighter or migrant worker; being pregnant or an "expectant father"; having had therapy in the past six months; living with a domestic abuser; having had asthma, hay fever, severe headaches or heart disease; suffering from chiropractic problems; having cataracts, cerebral palsy or diabetes; being afflicted by AIDS; having arthritis; or being born prematurely.

One would assume under the candidate's prescription that you could also be excluded if you consume burgers at Micky D's twice a month, ride a motorcycle or commute in the snow, don't religiously exercise for 20 minutes a day or fail to sell your house at a loss because it's downwind of a coal-fired power plant.

What the compassionate Santorum really means when he says some people have engaged in poor judgment that led to their health-care problems is that he just wants the insurance companies to decide who gets covered and who doesn't. Keep the gubmint out of it. What he is compassionate about is the corporate bottom line.

It's views like Santorum's that pushed people to demand health coverage reform in the first place. The results haven't been everything the reformers wanted, not by a long shot, but what's been enacted goes way too far for the likes of the Santorums and the Gersons and the boatload of others who think health care should be a privilege not a right.

Health coverage works when everybody is covered. Period. We're not there yet. It's obvious Rick Santorum doesn't want us ever to be.

AP via TPM:

Risking the wrath of older voters, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is calling for immediate cuts to Social Security benefits and says the country can't wait to phase in reductions as most of his rivals have advocated.

This guy is such toast. Watching the Republican pundit corps rush to prop him up as a viable candidate is pretty funny, but watching them dump him again will be funnier still.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ….

• Are call centers the new sweatshops? Mark Andersen will report on workers' attempts to gain dignity and respect in a North Carolina call center.
• As Indiana Republicans make a so-called "right to work" bill their top priority, Laura Clawson will take another look at how these laws create free riders and what effects they have on unions and all workers.
• Despite hysteria over proposed cuts in the Pentagon's budget, they need to be much, much deeper. But, Meteor Blades laments, it's an election year, and they definitely won't be.
• In "Every sixty seconds a child dies," Denise Oliver Velez will explore the deadly impact of malaria, its history  and what is being done to fight the disease.
• Armando will explore whether Newt Gingrich might be Mitt Romney's most effective "surrogate" for the general election, albeit an inadvertent one,  in "Mitt the Moderate?"
• In what he guesses will become a quadrennial tradition, Laurence Lewis will recycle and update a four-year-old post.
• Scott Wooledge will reflect on what's been missing in the conversations about the NDAA amendment.
• Hunter's essay will be titled, "George Will is losing his mind."
• Dante Atkins is getting a little frustrated by all the "progressives for Ron Paul" chatter, and will have a few choice words for the Paul-curious.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

Freezing pay for federal workers was not one of President Obama's good moves, either as policy or politics. Now, he's proposing to thaw the freeze a tiny bit, calling for a 0.5 percent pay increase for federal workers.

Despite the tininess of 0.5 percent, Republicans in Congress can be reliably expected to block the raise or try to trade it for another policy the president supports:

[American Federation of Government Employees President John] Gage said “a real threat” remains that Republicans will successfully enact a pay freeze as part of the payroll tax negotiations. AFGE and other unions believe Republicans should focus on raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans instead of federal employees, the vast majority of whom are middle-class wage earners.

That sounds about right for Republicans: In exchange for a broad-based middle-class tax cut you'll be skewered for opposing, demand a sacrifice from a particular 2 million-person slice of the middle class that's already taken a big hit.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson Thirty-seven Indiana Democrats are on their third day of denying Republicans the 67-member quorum necessary to proceed with union-busting "right to work" legislation in the Indiana House of Representatives. The Democrats continue to not show up to the chamber despite now facing fines of $1,000 a day.

Why do Democrats continue to hold out, despite facing very real financial threats to themselves and their families, and despite Republicans holding a 60-40 majority in the House of Representatives? Because Democrats and unions are within striking distance of stopping the bill.

A source close to the process has told Daily Kos that Indiana Democrats are "very close to having the votes to defeat the bill on the floor." A total of 51 votes is needed to defeat the bill, and while Democrats are united in opposition, Republicans are divided.

This information is based on an anonymous source, so obviously take it with a grain of salt. Still, there is an intuitive logic backing it up. With multiple members of the Democratic caucus actually facing the possibility of losing their homes over this, at this point they would not be staying out of the chamber if the fight was hopeless.

As Indiana Democrats and unions scramble to round up the final votes needed to stop this bill, please send a supportive email to the Indiana House Democratic Caucus. It's a small gesture, but right now we need to offer whatever support we can.

Gallup's national daily tracking poll since it launched on December 5, 2011:

On Dec. 5, the gap between Mitt and the Not Romneys stood at 31 percent. Today, it's 13 percent. Romney is up 5 percent since December 5 and the Not Romneys are down 13 percent, so most of the gap closure is because his opponents are losing steam, not because he's gaining ground, but if the only thing you want to do is win, you don't care about things like that. So not only do the Not Romneys remain divided, they are collectively getting weaker. And despite Rick Santorum's surge, unless they decide to coalesce around a single candidate and stop eating their own, Romney will win.

And yes, if that happens, I'll be laughing hilariously at the Republican Party for nominating a guy who has not only repeatedly benefited from federal bailouts, but is also credited with being the father of Obamacare.

Nate Silver, while noting that it doesn't really matter from a substantive perspective, points out that Iowa may not have actually been won by Mitt Romney after all:

Mr. Romney’s victory is unofficial — the counties have up to two weeks from the caucuses to send their final certified results to the state party. However, there is no provision for a recount in the caucuses, and the campaign which might have the most interest in pursuing one — Mr. Santorum’s — is making no effort to challenge the results.

Still, given Mr. Romney’s exceptionally small margin of victory, a single discrepancy could potentially reverse the outcome. On Wednesday, a voter in the town of Moulton in Appanoose County, Iowa claimed to have found one.

The voter, Edward True, signed an affidavit which stated that he had helped to count the vote after the caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library in Moulton. Mr. True claims that the results listed on the Google spreadsheet maintained by the Iowa Republican Party differed substantially from the count that had been taken at the caucus site. Mr. Romney had received only two votes in his precinct, Mr. True’s affidavit said, but had been given credit for 22 by the state. That would be enough to flip Mr. Romney’s eight-vote victory into a 12-vote win for Mr. Santorum.

Nate argues that a statistical analysis show True's claim is plausible, and notes that he witnessed multiple changes in precinct-level tallies as the Republican Party of Iowa tabulated results and corrected errors in previous counts. Given the delegate selection process and the widespread acknowledgment that an eight vote victory was essentially a tie, the final margin doesn't matter very much, but Nate concludes:

Eight votes, however, is not a lot of ground for Mr. Santorum to make up, so the outcome could easily change before the vote is certified. For now, the caucuses are probably best thought of as still being too close to call.

Although it's possible he could still "win" the caucuses, Rick Santorum is expressing total confidence in the results as reported on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. That's a smart move; the last thing he'd want is to get bogged down in a battle that doesn't actually impact the number of delegates he wins. But in two weeks time, he might wake up to a nice little surprise: that he was in fact the "winner."

The question before us today is whether or not GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich is engaged in creepy, race-baiting (or just plain racist) politics. He is indignant at the thought, which is really the only emotion I have ever seen Newt Gingrich have during his entire political career, so he's gotten pretty good at it.

Via Politico, here's the statement that has gotten him in some trouble:

The fact is if I become your nominee we will make the key test very simple — food stamps versus paychecks. Obama is the best food stamp president in American history.  More people are on food stamps today because of Obama's policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history.

Now there's no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks, you wouldn't end up with a majority saying they'd rather have a paycheck.

And so I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I'll go to them and explain a brand new social security opportunity for young people, which would be particularly good for African American males because they are the group that gets the smallest return on social security because they have the shortest life span.

Three cheers for the bold notion that people ought to be able to get paychecks, even though Newt thinks government has no bloody business helping those people to get some, which renders the entire rest of his statement into nonsense. There's the Obama-as-food-stamp-president line, which Newt has been called out for before, since it manages to quite spectacularly ignore the whole business of America being sunk into a deep recession by the end of Bush's term (but cut Newt some slack, he tends to be terrible at history).

Going from there to the desire to go to the NAACP and tell them they "should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps"? That's odd at best.

Note also there at the end, where Newt opines that since African American males don't live as long as other Americans maybe he'll adjust Social Security to reflect that. I think perhaps a better approach would be to fix the causes for one group of Americans having a shorter lifespan than others, but that is probably too social-engineeringish for Newt, or maybe it's just a path to communism—I have no damn idea, at this point, because I find Newt incoherent even when he's at his supposed best.

So was this a racist dog-whistle on Newt's part, or is he right in his assessment that the scary liberals and their media friends are out to get him? I'll give Newt some credit here, I don't think he meant to dog-whistle about anything. I think he just honestly thinks this way.