Daily Kos

This Slate piece published just before Sen. Dick Lugar lost his primary bid to the more froth-friendly Richard Mourdock is notable primarily for the number of looney statements freely proffered by the participants:

Taking out the Republicans who compromise with Democrats is a cold, logical decision, the easiest one they make. Jim Bopp, a lawyer who’s worked on dozens of lawsuits to break up the campaign finance regime, was one of the first notable Indiana Republicans to dump Lugar. His USA Super PAC sent out around $100,000 of mail for Mourdock. It wasn’t personal.

“Lugar is an honest and decent man, but he's voted wrong too many times,” says Bopp. “His approach is just wrong now. When Reagan was president, we could afford someone who approaches these issues in a moderate, bipartisan way. But now we have an administration out to destroy us, and we need a fighter. Here’s another way to say it. We’re in a march to socialism. Obama’s getting us there at 100 mph. If you endorse bipartisanship, you get us there at 50 mph.”

This seems to be the common refrain in certain Republican circles. Barack Obama has us, apparently, on a high-speed march to socialism. What the hell socialism is supposed to entail or how we might be getting there as a damn baffling thing, since it seems the most radical positions yet taken by the entire Democratic caucus don't amount to much more than what Reagan would have done on his more coherent days. There's that whole healthcare thing, which became socialist at the exact moment a Democrat proposed it, no matter how many damn years or damn think tanks conservatives spent proposing the same damn thing. There's supposed gun law changes that Did Not Fucking Happen. What's the rest of it?

It is a damn peculiar thing, how people on the left can lament the agonizing devotion to centrism that marks nearly everything the White House has done, and how the media can document over and over the Obama attempts to compromise on this, on that, and on the other thing, and how many stories can go by where the administration has gone out of their way to pre-compromise on legislation, only to have to compromise yet again, and likely even then find themselves predictably burned when whatever resulting "bargain" they negotiated for was batted away again six months later. Really, it's been in all the papers. You can't really miss it.

There's that version of reality. Then there's another one in which we're on a high-speed train to socialism (well, high-speed by U.S. standards, since that is yet another area in which the United States has patriotically decided to suck turnips, rather than to do anything Europe, Japan or China can do in their sleep at this point), and the train is being conducted by a non-compromising madman who will stop at nothing until the United States has marginally increased spending toward non-fossil-feul energy sources, or who rabidly demands we not cut critical assistance to poor folk by quite as much as Rand Paul, American Patriot, demands, or—you know what? I have no idea. If there's a plot there, it was lost long ago. There was the lightbulb law; that one was passed under George W. Bush, who was not known for his rampant forays into communism. There's now Teh Gays thing, in which Obama is a socialist for now expressing the same opinion as a very wide swath of America. It's not just a question of not knowing what the word "socialist" means. It's an entirely different plane of reality. You can only think Barack Obama is hurtling toward "socialism" if you think he's an extremist, and you can only think he's an "extremist" if you are so very, very fucking removed from reality that even Ronald Reagan himself now looks like a potential communist. Which, as it turns out, is exactly where we are:

“I’ve read New START, and it doesn’t address North Korea or Iran,” says [Greg] Fettig. “Why would we want to limit our arsenal and hope that Russia does when we’re not even addressing other nations? I've been to Lugar’s office in D.C. It's wallpapered with pictures of him climbing in nuclear silos in Russia. I guess that's the legacy he sees himself leaving, but it's an outdated legacy. He not only refuses to leave the beltway, he refuses to leave the 1980s.”

Well, that bastard. Here he cares about nuclear disarmament, and doth hast hanged some pictures up in his office of him doing that sort of thing, but the end of the Cold War is just so damn boring. Avoiding accidental nuclear annihilation is just so passe, so archaic; the modern conservative is obsessed instead with the existential crisis of nations who would be hard pressed to deliver so much as one nuclear bomb. Screw diplomacy with all the countries that already have them.

And so we have the spectacle of a supposed true conservative, a fellow of the clan that looks to Ronald Reagan as a god among men, complaining bitterly about someone being stuck in the 1980s. This would be funny if it did not involve at least some level of absolute batshit stupidity, and of the sort that normally people would be eager to hide from the outside world and not parade around publicly.

These Mourdock supporters, though, have nothing on the man himself. Here we have a man who on first impression seems to do his level best to be an arrogant, pompous ass with no particular redeeming qualities, a man for whom the only purpose of government is to do precisely what he says or to be destroyed. His post-primary victory statements were positively turgid:

RICHARD MOURDOCK: Well, what I've said is that I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view. [...]

To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else with a microphone or in front of a camera. [...]

I feel I can defend the purpose of conservatism, and more Republicans should be doing it just as I want to.

That sounds less like a potential legislator than a bratty pre-teen telling the world off. Do what I say has never been less eloquently expressed. What a toad.

I do wonder at the delusional world "true conservatives" now find themselves in. It is a world in which they literally will tolerate no compromise, upon pain of being primaried and Super PACed out of existence—but it is the other side that is made up of radical extremists. The people willing to go to war over the mere suspicion of a bomb are patriots; those that want to address a thousand or so of them are living in the past. And leading the radical, radical charge toward socialism is ... Barack Obama. Or the Democrats. Or anyone who is merely not quite as conservative as the "true" conservative wishes.

I admit it; I would feel better if the Republican Party was merely under the thrall of business interests, or the wealthy, or Super PACs for either of them. That, at least, would be expected. I could at least wrap my brain around social conservatism if it still merely consisted of the tribal, despise-everyone-and-anything bigotries that they have been obsessed with for decades. But I think instead that the election of the first black president sent a good portion of them completely off their rockers, perhaps for reasons not even they themselves can parse out. When you look around you, after an economic collapse caused by greed and fraud and imaginary paperwork, and after all the bullying pseudo-patriotism of the Bush years, and after seeing all the simple, easy-to-understand charts that show how certain wealthy interests have made off better and better over the last years and decades, while everyone else, the whole of the rest of the country, has been doing worse, and when you read about how advertisers are no longer targeting the "middle class" so much because there is not really much of a "middle class" anymore—if you can look around at all that and see a march to socialism in all of it, than you are simply not a rational person. There is something wrong with you. You, dear conservative, are fucking nuts.

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2010:

Spencer Ackerman has been in Guantanamo for the past week, reporting on the pre-trial hearing of Omar Khadr. The whole of his coverage is worth reading, but probably the most critical of them is this one:

GUANTANAMO BAY — Two weeks’ worth of proceedings in the pre-trial hearing of Omar Khadr found an unexpected meta-conclusion this [Thursday] afternoon as the public affairs shop in the Office of the Secretary of Defense banned four reporters from returning to Guantanamo Bay. Their offense: reporting the name of a witness whose identity is under a protective order.

The four journalists are Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, Steven Edwards of Canwest, Paul Koring of the Globe & Mail and Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. They are not being thrown off the base, but, as of now, they are barred from returning.

A letter written by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s public affairs division specified that each had published the name of a witness who testified to the military commissions today under the name “Interrogator #1.” Identifying information about that interrogator was entered into the record of the hearing during open court testimony by both the prosecution and the defense. Ironically, the letter confirmed that witness’s identity.

In other words, as Adam Serwer says the Pentagon banned these reporters for doing their jobs.

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Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser

It pretty much has to be said at this point—Gallup and Rasmussen (the only two pollsters offering up a daily tracking poll of the presidential race) are on an island. Today brings another set of polls that stand rather far from the assessment of those two firms on the state of the race.

Not only is there contrary national polling, but there are also a set of three state polls that don't look far enough from the 2008 presidential numbers to justify the 10-12 point swing to the GOP that Gallup and the House of Ras are claiming.

To the numbers!

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Angus Reid): Romney d. Obama (49-46)

NATIONAL (Associated Press/GfK): Obama d. Romney (50-42)

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney d. Obama (47-44)

NATIONAL (PPP for Daily Kos/SEIU): Obama d. Romney (48-45)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Romney d. Obama (49-44)

NATIONAL (YouGov/The Economist): Obama d. Romney (44-43)

FLORIDA (Suffolk University): Obama d. Romney (46-45)

MASSACHUSETTS (Rasmussen): Obama d. Romney (56-35)

NEW JERSEY (Fairleigh Dickinson): Obama d. Romney (50-36)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

TX-SEN—R (Dresner Wickers Barber Sanders for a PAC supporting David Dewhurst): David Dewhurst 51, Ted Cruz 16, Tom Leppert 7, Craig James 2

WI-SEN—R (North Star Opinion Research for Eric Hovde): Tommy Thompson 30, Eric Hovde 27, Mark Neumann 23, Jeff Fitzgerald 10

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...

The Ohio House, dominated by Republicans, is trying to pull a fast one on Ohio voters, and still keep Democratic-leaning voters away from the polls in this critical election in a decisive state.

Last June, the legislature passed House Bill 194, to restrict early voting, prohibit counties from sending absentee ballot applications to registered voters, and eliminate the requirement for poll workers to help voters find their correct polling place, among other restrictions. In September of last year, Fair Elections Ohio succeeded in getting enough signatures to get a referendum on the new law on November's ballot, effectively nullifying the law for the 2012 election.

The Republican-dominated legislature didn't want its voter suppression work entirely undone, so it has now passed a repeal of the law to prevent voters from killing it entirely.

"By taking the action that we're proposing to take today, we discourage people in the future from taking advantage of the initiative and referendum right," Rep. Dennis Murray, a Democrat from Sandusky, said on the House floor. "This goes fundamentally to the question of who it is in this state that holds the power of government. I think that's the people of this state, and I think the action we're taking today violates the constitution." [...]

Democrats and voting rights advocates argued the legislation is not a "clean" repeal of HB 194 because it leaves in place a prohibition on in-person early voting the weekend before an election. The restriction will remain in effect because it was duplicated in a separate bill.

The Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted says the referendum won't be on the ballot because "there is no longer a question to place before the voters." But Fair Elections Ohio disputes this, because determinations of what goes on a ballot are not made by the Secretary of State unilaterally, but by the petition committee that organized the referendum.

This is an entirely unprecedented action, so it's unclear now whether Husted or Fair Elections Ohio has the law on their side, and if the referendum will be on the ballot in November. Also unclear is whether the in-person early voting will be available, since it's both subject to the referendum and was passed in a separate bill. These are determinations that are likely going to be settled by the courts.

For a long time, but more intensely the past two years, the states have been in a contest to see who can pass the most restrictive anti-abortion laws.

Denying insurance coverage, setting gestational age limits, mandating ultrasounds, defunding Planned Parenthood and other public providers, requiring hospital privileges, demanding providers' credentials, lengthening waiting periods, restricting medical school's curriculums and even laying out the size of clinic closets are all fodder for the forced-birthers to dick around with if it means they can make it more difficult for women to obtain a medical procedure that the Supreme Court says is their inherent right.

The ultimate goal, as the Republican-controlled Mississippi legislature and Republican governor made clear with passage of a bill that will shut down the last abortion clinic in the state, is to make exercising that right impossible.

In Kansas, doctors and nurses are now encouraged by law to lie about abortion by saying it increases breast-cancer risk.

And now the Republican-dominated Kansas House and Senate have added another provision to its already prodigious collection of regulations seeking to give the state sovereignty over women's wombs. The Republican governor is certain to sign the monstrous bill in which this provision is contained. As the Kansas City Star warns in an editorial:

That bill [...] extends the state’s “conscience” provision for medical personnel to include the right to refuse to refer a woman to an abortion provider, or prescribe or administer a prescription or treatment that terminates a pregnancy.

Taken to its extreme, the legislation could empower doctors and medical staffers to refuse to provide birth control or even chemotherapy to a pregnant cancer patient.

Not only will this allow physicians to refuse to provide treatment on "moral" grounds, they will not be required to explain why they aren't providing the treatment, and they can also refuse to refer patients to other physicians would provide the treatment.

An outrage? That hardly covers it. This is downright evil.

Whatever happened to: "First, do no harm"?

Fellow Americans, hide the children, because this is shocking:

Rep. Michele Bachmann is now officially a Swiss miss.

Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently became a citizen of Switzerland, making her eligible to run for office in the tiny European nation, according to a Swiss TV report Tuesday.

For those of you who haven't died laughing yet, here's the reason:

Marcus Bachmann, the congresswoman’s husband since 1978, reportedly was eligible for Swiss citizenship due to his parents’ nationality — but only registered it with the Swiss government Feb. 15. Once the process was finalized on March 19, Michele automatically became a citizen as well, according to Honegger.

But wait! There's more! Not only is Michele Bachmann now Swiss, with a Swiss husband, but she has Swiss children too! And it seems this decision by the Bachmanns to become Swiss citizens has a rather sinister purpose:

“Congresswoman Bachmann’s husband is of Swiss descent, so she has been eligible for dual-citizenship since they got married in 1978. However, recently some of their children wanted to exercise their eligibility for dual-citizenship so they went through the process as a family,” said Bachmann spokesperson Becky Rogness.

So Bachmann's family wants to be able to "exercise" their dual citizenship, eh? Like taking advantage of that sweet, sweet socialist health care? After all, Swiss citizens are required by their government to buy insurance, which is subsidized by the government, which, as we all know from Michele Bachmann, is just like Hitler!

And speaking of Hitler, it can't be a mere coincidence that the European country Michele Bachmann is now a citizen of right next to Germany. You know, where the Nazis come from? And even worse, German is one of the three official languages of Switzerland. You know who else spoke German? That's right, Hitler! And ever worse than that, Switzerland does not recognize English as one of its official languages, which is blatantly anti-American. Why do you hate America, Michele? Why?

Clearly, her decision to become a citizen of German-speaking, right-next-to-formerly-Nazi-Germany Switzerland raises a number of security concerns for Americans. After all, as she is fond of reminding us, she is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, which means she can get her dirty socialist hands all over our national security secrets. How do we know she won't divulge them to Switzerland? How can we be sure that our security is not now compromised by Michele's dual loyalty? After all, it was Michele who warned us in 2008 of the creeping threat of insufficiently loyal members of Congress:

I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out if they are pro-America or anti-America.

And let us not forget then-CNN host Glenn Beck's demand to Rep. Keith Ellison:

And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way.

And that was just for being a Muslim, not actually being a citizen of another country! Certainly those same "lot of Americans" who wanted Rep. Ellison to prove he isn't working with our enemies will want Michele Bachmann to prove the same. After all, now that she's European—by choice, mind you, not accident of birth—it seems only fair that she prove to us she won't be trading away our state secrets for a watch and some chocolates. Especially because she has now put her U.S. citizenship in jeopardy:

However, a person who acquires a foreign citizenship by applying for it may lose U.S. citizenship. In order to lose U.S. citizenship, the law requires that the person must apply for the foreign citizenship voluntarily, by free choice, and with the intention to give up U.S. citizenship.

Why would she risk her U.S. citizenship to become European unless she hated America? Especially when she's making comments like this:

Asked if she would run for office in Switzerland — as she is now eligible to do — Bachmann joked that the competition “would be very stiff because they are very good,” referring to the parliamentarians behind her.

So now Michele's actually praising the not-American parliamentarians of Switzerland? What next, Michele? Pissing on the graves of our founding fathers? Dipping the Constitution in a pot of fondue?

It seems Michele was right after all. The media really should look into which members of Congress are "pro-America or anti-America." Starting with Michele Bachmann.

Billionaire money at work: Right-wingers are being urged to cooperate to trash President Obama's clean energy plans. The approach specifies an attack on wind turbines and provides a list of suggested approaches. So says the Guardian after viewing a confidential memorandum edited by John Droz Jr., a senior fellow at the American Tradition Institute. Senior fellow and climate-change denier.

Droz is a long-time anti-wind activist who claims the technology is unsound and the benefits non-existent. This no doubt will come as a surprise to Iowans, whose state generated 19 percent of its electricity with wind turbines in 2011.

Droz has repeatedly urged anti-wind activists to develop an "effective National PR Plan." The memo, which has been seen by reporters at The Guardian and Stephen Lacey at Think Progress, seems to be the blueprint for such a plan. ATI claims it has no connection to the memo. That may be so, but it sounds precisely like something it would produce having for years been in the business of climate-change denial, attacking state-level efforts at building renewable energy infrastructure and trashing environmental controls.

Suzanne Goldenberg writes that ATI is in coalition with like-minded "thinktanks and networks united by their efforts to discredit climate science and their close connections to the oil and gas industry, including the Koch family." Included are the Heartland Institute, whose vile climate-change billboards featuring the Unabomber have generated a firestorm of outrage, the John Locke Foundation and Americans for Prosperity, the tea party-funding operation founded by the Koch brothers.

Lacey writes:

The [memo], authored by Illinois anti-wind attorney Rich Porter and edited by Droz, outlines in great detail how a national PR campaign would function. The group’s campaign efforts would include outreach to a who’s who of conservative media outlets and think tanks already working to discredit renewable energy: Fox News, The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Heartland Institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and Americans for Prosperity.

It makes clear that the campaign should appear to be a grassroots groundswell of opposition to the use of wind power.

Some highlights:

• Youth Outreach will create program for public school coordination as well as college coordination. This will include community activity and participation with sponsorships for science fairs, school activity etc. with preset parameters that cause students to steer away from wind because they discover it doesn’t meet the criteria we set up (poster contest, essays etc).

• Set up a dummy business that will go into communities considering wind development, proposing to build 400 foot billboards.

• Create a “think-tank” subgroup to produce and disseminate white paper reports and scientific quotes and papers that back-up the message.

• Employ a well-known spokesman with star credibility. (Find one to volunteer?)

• Create counter-intelligence branch (responsible for communicating current industry tactics and strategies as feedback to this organization)

• Write exposé book on the industry, showing government waste, harm to communities and other negative impacts on people and the environment.

• A team investigates links to any organization supporting wind in order to expose that support.

This is just one more operation designed to chip a few more votes away from Obama's total in November. The president has been a friend to the oil industry, opening up new land—including vast off-shore acreage—to drilling. He is encouraging the export of coal to China. But this support for the fossil fuels magnates is not good enough. To be a real friend in the view of Droz and the Kochs and all their beneficiaries, Obama must also be an enemy of renewable energy sources.

As he proved Tuesday with his speech in Albany that included extension of the production tax credit subsidy for electricity generated by solar, wind and geothermal sources and with the billions of dollars put into spurring more development and commercialization of renewable technologies, he is not going to be that enemy.

Droz's plans may be more subtle than to link Obama to the Unabomber, but his intent is the same. Demonization. It's an old schtick no matter what new method is used to spread it.

Republicans are unanimous; they don't like Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage. They aren't quite on the same page as to why, but they'll work that out later.

The Log Cabin Republicans call the announcement "offensive and callous" and want you to know that the true hero of gay marriage rights was Dick Cheney, who during his tenure as important person did approximately jack-squat on the topic, as I recall, but no matter. When you're a gay Republican, every day presents these kind of challenges.

“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. [...]”

Interestingly, GOProud went with a nearly identical statement:

“It is good to see that after intense political pressure that President Obama has finally come around to the Dick Cheney position on marriage equality.  I am sure, however, the President’s newly discovered support for marriage is cold comfort to the gay couples in North Carolina.  The President waited until after North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.”

Is Dick Cheney some sort of gay mega-icon that I never heard about? I knew about the secrecy stuff, the torture stuff, and the general "should be in prison for war crimes" stuff, but if Dick Effing Cheney counts as the touchstone of GOP tolerance of gay people, I'd say gay Republicans are even more hard up than I thought.

(More reactions below the fold)

Think Progress reports from the land of Mitt, where up is down, down is up, the trees are the right height and the cookies all taste like crap:

The Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo reports that next week the Romney campaign will be doing a major fundraising blitz across Florida, including an event “at the Star Island manse of pharmaceutical magnate Phil and Pat Frost where dinner costs $50,000.”

Who is Dr. Phil Frost? He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Teva Pharmaceuticals, a major manufacturer of contraceptives. Its North American website prominently advertises several forms of contraception, including Plan B One Step, which Romney previously denounced as an “abortive pill”:

Oh no! According to Mitt Romney, Plan B is evil, and he has previously expressed his no doubt very, very sincere outrage that religious folks will have to give their employees access to such evil, non-their-specific-religious-group-approved products. (Since, in Future America, employers will need to sign off on each individual medical request made by an employee. You thought it was bad to have your insurance company fighting with you, wait until all your medical decisions get decided by Larry, the floor manager, who may or may not believe that the Sun God disapproves of treating your ruptured appendix, especially at those prices.)

So if a certain small subset of religious prudes are up in arms over their employees getting birth control coverage even though they don't have to pay a dime towards it, doesn't Mitt Romney get similarly tainted by taking Teva Pharmaceuticals' filthy, filthy birth control money? (Oh, and since Mitt is under the impression that Plan B is an "abortion" pill, it's even worse than that.)

I can't wait to hear how Mitt Romney rationalizes this one. I have some guesses, though.

1. "I like money, and that guy over there has money, so shut up."

2." Money is people too, my friends."

3. "I'm only taking this money so that he can't spend it to make more birth control pills. I'm on your side here, people!"

4. "This is Florida, so, um, money is fungible and ... hey, look over there! Rick Scott's clubbing a baby deer!"

5. "No, seriously, I want this guy's money. Shut the hell up already. I will cut you."

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

The presidents of two large unions and a labor federation moved quickly to laud President Obama's support for marriage equality.

"Working people believe in equality and fairness," according to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, "and that's why we are happy to stand with ... President Obama in supporting marriage equality":

LGBT working people face numerous inequities in the workplace and in society as they struggle to care for their families. Civil unions do not guarantee the 1,138 rights, benefits and responsibilities that are triggered by the word "marriage” under federal law.

Most important, we should respect and honor our friends, neighbors, and family members who want to take care of their families and their loved ones – whatever their sexual orientation. We are proud to come together for a more just America.

"The president's support comes at a critical moment as the rights of LGBT people are under legislative attack" in several states, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement,

[...] but the growing numbers of Americans who believe in marriage equality reminds us that we cannot live up to our promise as a nation until we extend equal rights to all.

To those who have chosen to stand on the wrong side of history, we say this: There is growing momentum for equality in this country. And with each American that believes in equality, we are reminded that the continued dream of equality is our birthright, our heritage and our promise.

For anyone who counts equality among the basic tenets of a free and just America, Pres. Obama's announcement today is a victory.

Noting that "Nearly ten years ago, CWA convention delegates called for full and equal rights including civil marriage," Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen said that his union "stands with the President and those who support equality and human rights."

As Cohen's statement makes clear, many unions have supported marriage equality for years, with unions recently involved in the fight for marriage equality in Maryland and elsewhere.

3:45 PM PT: United Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen commends President Obama for his statement, and points to the ways that the UFCW supports equal rights on the job, including that:

...our union is a strong supporter of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would ensure justice in the workplace for LGBT workers. UFCW members have been negotiating equal health care coverage for same-sex couples into their union contracts all over the country for years.

7:50 PM PT: More statements: The president and secretary-treasurer of AFSCME, Gerald McEntee and Lee Saunders weigh in, as does American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, specifically citing her support for President Obama's statement "As president of the AFT and as a gay American."

When you read that House Republicans not only oppose the Senate's bipartisan expansion of protections for undocumented immigrants in the Violence Against Women Act, but want to strip abused immigrant women of confidentiality protections, the easy joke is that Republicans want to turn the Violence Against Women Act into the Mail-Order Bride Abuse Enhancement Act. Easy, but unfair, right? Maybe not. Huffington Post's Laura Bassett reports that the treasurer of one of the groups lobbying the House to make immigrant women less safe is in the business of arranging marriages between American men and Russian women.

Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, or SAVE, is a domestic violence group obsessed with false allegations of abuse. Natasha Spivack, its treasurer, became involved in SAVE after one of the Russian brides her company matched with an abusive American husband got a $434,000 award from a federal jury, claiming Spivack's company didn't screen candidates and didn't inform her the law would allow her to escape her abuser without automatic deportation:

"That was a totally false accusation," Spivack said. "This particular woman abused the system and defrauded the whole system. I was the victim of immigration fraud. And that's how I became involved in SAVE, because at that time there was no movement whatsoever against false accusations of abuse." Spivack confirmed to HuffPost that she has lobbied to revise the Violence Against Women Act to address the issue of false accusations of domestic abuse.

House Republicans share Spivack's obsession with the idea that immigrant women are concocting false stories of abuse at the hands of American husbands to ... get one of 10,000 visas available for abused immigrant women, rather than gaining legal residency and ultimately citizenship through their husbands, is apparently the theory. In reality, of course, women whose immigration status is dependent on their husbands are particularly vulnerable to abuse, which is why the protections of the bipartisan Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act are so important. These women are also particularly vulnerable to Republican politicians, since polling finds that while majorities support VAWA provisions protecting gays and lesbians and Native Americans, immigrant women don't draw the same level of support.

At a House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) called the Republican bill "a step backwards and a flat-out attack on women."

Tell your representatives to pass the expanded, bipartisan Senate reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, not the Republican House version that would exclude Native Americans and LGBT people and weaken protections for undocumented immigrants.

Here's a smattering of reaction from Democratic office-holders to President Obama's announcement that he now believes in marriage equality. The responses range from supportive to joyful, suggesting that plenty of Democrats don't see any danger in keeping up the party's modern tradition as the party of civil rights.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA):
  

  “Today marks progress for the civil rights of LGBT Americans and all Americans.  With President Obama’s support, we look forward to the day when all American families are treated equally in the eyes of the law.

  “Republicans are standing on the wrong side of history. [...]

  “Throughout American history, we have worked to live up to our values of liberty and freedom, and to end discrimination in all of its forms.  Today, we took another step forward in our march toward equality.”

• Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA):
  

  Earlier this year, President Obama took a major step towards vindicating the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people to marry when he announced his refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act’s blatant discrimination against us.

  Today he has taken the next logical step to complete the process by expressing his support for our right to marry people of the same sex. [...]

  This does not meant that the President’s decision today was entirely without some political risk, but I believe it will be clear in the days ahead that this will cost him no votes, since those opposed to legal equality for LGBT people were already inclined to oppose him, and that it will make it easier for us to mobilize the people in this country who oppose discrimination to help reelect him.

• Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO):
  

  “President Obama’s announcement in support of marriage equality is welcome news for American families. I thank the president for his support for equality and look forward to working with him to strengthen the institution of marriage by securing the right of all Americans to marry the person they love.”

• Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Senate candidate:
  

  “I am proud of President Obama’s strong record of promoting fairness and equality. These are values I share, that we all share, and the pride I take in the president’s recognition today comes not just at a deeply personal level, but also because he has done the right thing for so many people. I am pleased that the president has today joined a growing number of people across the country who are moving forward on the issue of marriage equality and equal opportunity for all Americans.”

• Sen. Al Franken (D-MN):
  

  “I’m proud of what the President did today It marks an important step for loving families across the country. I’ve been married to my wife Franni for 37 years, and it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. That’s why I’ve long believed that people should be able to enter into loving, committed marriages regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  And I’m glad the President agrees.”

• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY):
  

  “The president’s unequivocal support today in favor of all committed couples to marry the person they love is a watershed moment in American history that will provide the leadership needed to finally repeal DOMA and win the unfinished fight for equality for all Americans.”

• Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT):
  

  “We passed the repeal of DOMA in the Judiciary Committee. [...] And if you have two people who love each other, we’re better off for that.”

  Nice.
• Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI):
  
  I support same sex marriage and will cosponsor the Respect for Marriage Act. #MarriageEquality #LGBT
  — @SenJackReed via web
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
  

  “My personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman. But in a civil society, I believe that people should be able to marry whomever they want, and it’s no business of mine if two men or two women want to get married. The idea that allowing two loving, committed people to marry would have any impact on my life, or on my family’s life, always struck me as absurd.

  “In talking with my children and grandchildren, it has become clear to me they take marriage equality as a given. I have no doubt that their view will carry the future.

  “I handled a fair amount of domestic relations work when I was a practicing lawyer, and it was all governed by state law. I believe that is the proper place for this issue to be decided as well.”

  So maybe we shouldn't be holding our collective breath on the Respect for Marriage Act.

Celebrate with them. Send an email to President Obama thanking him for endorsing marriage equality.

That "independent" Sen. Scott Brown once again voted lock-step with his leadership, filibustering the extension of low interest rates for federally subsidized student loans. In a state dominated by colleges and universities, 177,000 students in Massachusetts will see their student loan payments increase on average $1,000 a year.

Brown justifies his filibuster by saying he's offered up an alternative that would break through the partisanship, a cockamamie scheme to find the $6 billion necessary for the extension:

Using money the government already has but mistakenly spends. Brown, citing data he says he obtained from the Office of Management and Budget, wants to use part of the $115 billion in “improper payments made by the federal government.’’ Such payments, his office said, include money sent to the wrong recipient, incorrect amounts, and improperly disbursed funds.

What Brown doesn't talk about is actually how the government is going to go about collecting that money, and how much it's going to cost to both figure out how to recapture those funds, and to get them back.

What Brown also doesn't talk about is the fact that he's joining in with all the rest of the Republicans voting against the most lower- and middle-income students to protect some wealthy business owners. The Democrats would pay for the bill by closing a corporate tax loophole that allows some business owners to avoid paying payroll taxes.

No, regular guy Scott Brown sure isn't going to tell middle class Massachusetts that he's not on their side on student loans. Or the Buffett Rule. Or ending taxpayer subsidies to big oil.

Help get rid of one more filibuster vote. Please contribute $5 to Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.