The Surprising Brain Differences Between Democrats and Republicans

Two new studies further support the theory that our political decision making could have a neurological basis.

It is still considered highly uncool to ascribe a person's political beliefs, even in part, to that person's biology: hormones, physiological responses, even brain structures and genes. And no wonder: Doing so raises all kinds of thorny, non-PC issues involving free will, determinism, toleration, and much else.

There's just one problem: Published scientific research keeps going there, with ever increasing audacity (not to mention growing stacks of data).

The past two weeks have seen not one but two studies published in scientific journals on the biological underpinnings of political ideology. And these studies go straight at the role of genes and the brain in shaping our views, and even our votes.

First, in the American Journal of Political Science, a team of researchers including Peter Hatemi of Penn State University and Rose McDermott of Brown University studied the relationship between our deep-seated tendencies to experience fear—tendencies that vary from person to person, partly for reasons that seem rooted in our genes—and our political beliefs. What they found is that people who have more fearful disposition also tend to be more politically conservative, and less tolerant of immigrants and people of races different from their own. As McDermott carefully emphasizes, that does not mean that every conservative has a high fear disposition. "It's not that conservative people are more fearful, it's that fearful people are more conservative," as she puts it.

I interviewed the paper's lead author, Peter Hatemi, about his research for my 2012 book The Republican Brain. Hatemi is both a political scientist and also a microbiologist, and as he stressed to me, "nothing is all genes, or all environment." These forces combine to make us who we are, in incredibly intricate ways.

And if Hatemi's and McDermott's research blows your mind, get this: Darren Schreiber, a political neuroscientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, first performed brain scans on 82 people participating in a risky gambling task, one in which holding out for more money increases your possible rewards, but also your possible losses. Later, cross-referencing the findings with the participants' publicly available political party registration information, Schreiber noticed something astonishing: Republicans, when they took the same gambling risk, were activating a different part of the brain than Democrats.

Republicans were using the right amygdala, the center of the brain's threat response system. Democrats, in contrast, were using the insula, involved in internal monitoring of one's feelings. Amazingly, Schreiber and his colleagues write that this test predicted 82.9 percent of the study subjects' political party choices—considerably better, they note, than a simple model that predicts your political party affiliation based on the affiliation of your parents.

I also interviewed Schreiber for The Republican Brain. He's a scientist who was once quite cautious about the relevance of brain studies to people's politics. As he put it to me: "If you had called me four years ago and said, 'What is your view on whether Republicans and Democrats have different brains?' I would have said no." Now, his own published research suggests otherwise.

The current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences your brain.

One again, though, there's a critical nuance here. Schreiber thinks the current research suggests not only that having a particular brain influences your political views, but also that having a particular political view influences and changes your brain. The causal arrow seems likely to run in both directions—which would make sense in light of what we know about the plasticity of the brain. Simply by living our lives, we change our brains. Our political affiliations, and the lifestyles that go along with them, probably condition many such changes.

The two new studies described here are likely connected: It is hard not to infer that fear of outsiders or those different from you—along with greater fear dispositions in general—may be related to the role of amygdala, a brain structure that has been dubbed the "heart and soul of the fear system." The amygdala has been repeatedly implicated in politics. Indeed, Schreiber's research builds on prior brain studies: In a group of University College of London students, for instance, conservatives showed more gray matter in the right amygdala.

So what's the upshot? How about this: We need a much broader and more thoughtful discussion about what it means if political ideology turns out to be nothing like what we actually thought it was. Scientists working in this new field tend towards the conclusion that the new research should make us more tolerant, not less, of political difference—not to mention a whole lot more humble about our own deeply held beliefs.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/brain-difference-democrats-republicans

Study Shows Black Men Receive 20% Longer Prison Terms than White Men for Committing the Same Crime

Prison sentences of black men were nearly 20% longer than those of white men for similar crimes in recent years, an analysis by the U.S. Sentencing Commission found.

That racial gap has widened since the Supreme Court restored judicial discretion in sentencing in 2005, according to the Sentencing Commission's findings, which were submitted to Congress last month and released publicly this week.

In its report, the commission recommended that federal judges give sentencing guidelines more weight, and that appeals courts more closely scrutinize sentences that fall beyond them.

The commission, which is part of the judicial branch, was careful to avoid the implication of racism among federal judges, acknowledging that they "make sentencing decisions based on many legitimate considerations that are not or cannot be measured."

Still, the findings drew criticism from advocacy groups and researchers, who said the commission's focus on the very end of the criminal-justice process ignored possible bias at earlier stages, such as when a person is arrested and charged, or enters into a plea deal with prosecutors.

"They've only got data on this final slice of the process, but they are still missing crucial parts of the criminal-justice process," said Sonja Starr, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who has analyzed sentencing and arrest data and found no marked increase in racial disparity since 2005.

Douglas A. Berman, a law professor at the Ohio State University who studies sentencing, said, "It's not surprising that the commission that's in charge of both monitoring and amending the guidelines has a general affinity for the guidelines."

The Sentencing Commission didn't return requests for comment.

The Supreme Court, in the 2005 case U.S. v. Booker, struck down a 1984 law that required federal district judges to impose a sentence within the range of the federal sentencing guidelines, which are set by the commission.

The law was meant to alleviate the disparity in federal sentences, but critics say placing restrictions on judges can exacerbate the problem by rendering them powerless to deviate from guidelines and laws that are inherently biased. An often-cited example is a federal law that created steeper penalties for crack-cocaine offenses, which are committed by blacks more frequently than whites, than for powder-cocaine offenses.

Congress reduced the disparity in 2010.

In the two years after the Booker ruling, sentences of blacks were on average 15.2% longer than the sentences of similarly situated whites, according to the Sentencing Commission report. Between December 2007 and September 2011, the most recent period covered in the report, sentences of black males were 19.5% longer than those for whites. The analysis also found that black males were 25% less likely than whites in the same period to receive a sentence below the guidelines' range.

The Sentencing Commission released a similar report in 2010. Researchers criticized its analysis for including sentences of probation, which they argued amplified the demographic differences.

In the new study, the Sentencing Commission conducted a separate analysis that excluded sentences of probation. It yielded the same pattern, but the racial disparity was less pronounced. Sentences of black males were 14.5% longer than whites, rather than nearly 20%.

Jeff Ulmer, a sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University, described the commission's latest report as an improvement but said it was "a long way from proving that [judicial discretion] has caused greater black-white federal sentencing disparity."

http://www.myfalseworld.org/2013/02/study-shows-black-men-receive-20-longer.html

Russian Meteor Footage

Illinois Senate to Vote on Same-Sex Marriage Bill on Valentine's Day

The Illinois Senate will vote Thursday -- Valentine's Day -- on whether to legalize same-sex marriage.

Because Democrats have supermajority control of the General Assembly, the measure is expected to be approved. After the Senate vote, the measure would be considered by the House.

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, has indicated he would sign the bill.

If it is approved, Illinois would be the 10th state, plus the District of Columbia, to legalize same-sex marriage, according to Lambda Legal, a gay rights organization.

Three other states are considering similar legalization, said Camilla Taylor, marriage project director for Lambda Legal. A bill has passed the Rhode Island House and has been sent to the Senate. A proposal has been introduced in the Hawaii legislature and another is expected in Delaware, Taylor said.

"All eyes are on us," said Taylor, who is based in Illinois. "It's looking great. We're very excited about Illinois."

On February 6, Quinn said that "marriage equality is a matter of fairness and equal rights under law."

"We took the first step towards marriage equality two years ago when I signed civil unions into law. Since that day, thousands of committed couples in 92 counties across our state have entered into civil unions," he said. "Now is the time for the next step in providing equal rights to all people in Illinois."

Five states, including Illinois, have civil union laws, according to Lambda Legal and the National Conference of State Legislatures. The others are Hawaii, Delaware, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The groups list four states as having some type of domestic-partnership recognition: California, Oregon, Nevada and Wisconsin. Lambda Legal lists Colorado as recognizing designated beneficiary agreements.

Twenty-nine states have constitutional provisions banning same-sex marriage, the NCSL says.

Polls show that legalizing same-sex marriage is gaining support across the country, although it remains less popular in some Midwestern and Southern states than in the rest of the country.

Even Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said last month that he supported same-sex marriage and urged legislators to vote for it. The move prompted criticism from conservative Republicans, including state Sen. Jim Oberweis.

But Oberweis seemed resigned to Republicans lacking the votes to stop the bill.

"I hope that we resolve this issue sooner rather than later because the state of Illinois has some tremendous financial problems to deal with, which in my view is where we should be concentrating our focus and our time," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/12/us/illinois-same-sex-marriage/

Politician Moves to make Vulgar Photoshopping Illegal

Sometimes people don't appreciate flattery.

They are so engrossed in their own grossly skewed view of the world that their sense of humor flies into the night like a married lover late home for dinner.

How else can one explain the quite bizarre intentions of Georgia state Rep. Earnest Smith?

He clearly sees a vast importance in being Earnest.

He clearly believes that his constituents are so drawn to his Earnestness that anything that deviates it from absolute Earnestness deserves the full metal force of the law.

Which is why he wants to make lewd, coarse, filthy Photoshopping illegal and punishable with a fine of $1,000.

You see, some devious, twisted human being placed His Earnestness's head on the body of a porn star. He did this for public consumption on the blog Georgia Politics Unfiltered. The porn star has a very nice body. He is a porn star, after all. And he is not Ron Jeremy.

The human being behind this affrontery has come forward. His name is Andre Walker. It is unknown if he was moved by the boast on His Earnestness's own Web site that says he is both "accessible" and "audacious."

However, Walker told Fox News: "The first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects all forms of speech, not just spoken word."

His Earnestness is undeterred by this almost pornographic argument.

He fulminated to Fox News: "No one has a right to make fun of anyone. It's not a First Amendment right."

If this turns out to be true, Technically Incorrect is operating under some very strange illusions.

Smith insists that he has legislation in his mind that will put a stop to all the appallingly imaginative filthmongers who are destroying society with this awful technology.

He isn't, to the naked eye, keen to disrobe the details of this legislation, explaining to Fox News: "I don't have to tell you anything."

It seems that Smith first had the idea last year in order to protect a girl who had been subject to some form of online bullying.

The idea then was to make it a misdemeanor to cause "an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction."

Might Smith be now in doubt that there exists anyone who, on seeing this Photoshopped image of him as porn legend, would consider it to be, well, real?

His, he insists, is a higher cause.

"This is about being vulgar," he told Fox News. "We're becoming a nation of vulgar people."

Some might be concerned about his use of the word "becoming." Especially to Fox News.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57569287-71/politician-moves-to-make-vulgar-photoshopping-illegal/

Study Confirms Tea Party was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, 'To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts': the tobacco industry and the Tea Party, is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes:

"Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda."

The two main organizations identified in the UCSF Quarterback study are Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks. Both groups are now "supporting the tobacco companies' political agenda by mobilizing local Tea Party opposition to tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws." Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity were once a single organization called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE was founded in 1984 by the infamous Koch Brothers, David and Charles Koch, and received over $5.3 million from tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, between 1991 and 2004.

In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco's head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry's fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote:

"... coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a "movement," a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf." 

The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Party is that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009.

However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com. Here's a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002:

CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, "In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated." The site features a "Patriot Guest book" where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement.

Sometime around September 2011, the U.S. Tea Party site was taken offline. According to the DNS registry, the web address www.usteaparty.com is currently owned by Freedomworks. 

The implications of the UCSF Quarterback report are widespread. The main concern expressed by the authors lies in what they see happening overseas as the Tea Party movement expands internationally, training activists in 30 countries including Israel, Georgia, Japan and Serbia.

As the authors explain:

"This international expansion makes it likely that Tea Party organizations will be mounting opposition to tobacco control (and other health) policies as they have done in the USA."

Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity are both multi-issue organizations that have expanded their battles to include other policies they see as threats to the free market principles they claim to defend, namely fighting health care reform and regulations on global warming pollution. The report's warning about overseas expansion efforts by Freedomworks should therefore also be heeded by groups in the health and environment arenas.

Finally, this report might serve as a wake-up call to some people in the Tea Party itself, who would find it a little disturbing that the "grassroots" movement they are so emotionally attached to, is in fact a pawn created by billionaires and large corporations with little interest in fighting for the rights of the common person, but instead using the common person to fight for their own unfettered profits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/study-confirms-tea-party-_b_2663125.html

The One Percent Gobbled Up the Recovery, Too

President Obama's State of the Union speech will reportedly address the problems of the middle class, which has not fared well in this economy. Practically the only people who have fared well are the notorious one percent. To paraphrase the late New York City Mayor Ed Koch: How are they doin'?

Astoundingly well. Emmanuel Saez, the Berkeley economist who (with Thomas Piketty, an economist at the École d'economie de Paris) first mapped the enormous 34-year run-up in income share for America's top 1 percent, came up last year with a statistic that was widely quoted by people who care about rising income inequality. In 2010, the first year of economic recovery after the 2009-2010 recession, 93 percent of all pre-tax income gains went to the top 1 percent, which in that year meant any household making more than about $358,000. This was, I quipped at the time, a members-only recovery. No 99-percenters need apply.

Saez has now updated this statistic to include 2011. When you look at the economic recovery's first two years, the top one percent (which by 2011 meant any household making more than about $367,000) captured 121 percent of all pre-tax income gains.

How is it even possible for the one percent to capture more than 100 percent of all income gains since the last recession? Looked at from one point of view, it's not. It is enough to say that in 2010 and 2011 all of the recovery went to the one percent. If you were in the bottom 99 percent, as by definition nearly all of us are, you didn’t see a dime of that recovery.

What did the bottom 99 percent see? Over 2010 and 2011, it saw, on average, a slight net decline in pre-tax income of 0.4 percent. This "negative growth" is what, at least theoretically, boosts the one percent's share of income gains from 100 percent to 121 percent. If you think of income distribution as a Pac-Man game, with the one percent as Pac-Man, imagine your Pac-Man consuming all the pac-dots in one game and then somehow, after you’ve left the arcade, gobbling up some of the pac-dots in the next player’s game too. Another way to put it is that the one percent didn’t just gobble up all of the recovery during 2010 and 2011; it put the 99 percent back into recession.

It’s worth noting that 2011 wasn't an especially great year even for the mighty one percent. The one percent's pre-tax income stagnated that year. But the 99 percent's pre-tax income stagnated more. In 2010, the 99 percent's pre-tax income also stagnated (but didn’t decline), while the one percent's income rose sharply—sharply enough that, over both 2010 and 2011, the one percent saw a net increase in income, on average, of 11.2 percent. (All these numbers are corrected for inflation, of which there's been very little.) When the numbers come in for 2012, Saez predicts the one percent's income, on average, will once again have risen sharply "due to booming stock prices as well as re-timing of income to avoid the higher 2013 rates." The bottom 99 percent will have seen some income growth too, Saez predicts--though nothing remotely like the increase for the one percent.

In the meantime, we're left with an economic "recovery" in which the bottom 99 percent saw its pre-tax income decline over two years, and, during the second year, even the top one percent experienced negligible pre-tax income growth. If not to the one percent, where, in 2011, did the (admittedly anemic) economic recovery go? We have progressed from a members-only recovery to a Where's Waldo? recovery.

So where is Waldo? Initially I figured he had to be hiding in the nosebleed sections--the top 0.1 percent or the top 0.01 percent. But that turns out to be wrong.* The biggest gainers in 2011 were the bottom half of the top one percent, i.e., those making between $358,000 and $545,000. They saw their incomes increase, on average, by 1.70 percent (not much to write home about, but you've got to put a weak recovery somewhere). Interestingly, the group situated above the 99.99th percentile (2011 threshold: about $8 million) lost income in 2011. Remember, Saez urged me via e-mail, that not all the expansion in Gross Domestic Product for 2011 would be measurable as somebody's income. Undistributed corporate profits and non-taxable health insurance benefits both grew in 2011, Saez noted, but these wouldn't turn up in the IRS data on which he based these calculations.

If I were Obama, I'd be of two minds about flagging these statistics. On the one hand, they certainly make his case for the middle class more compelling. On the other hand … this happened on his watch! Since 1948, economic growth has most benefited those at the bottom of the income distribution whenever a Democrat was in the White House, and it's most benefited those at the top of the income distribution whenever a Republican was in the White House. Obama's first term, it seems increasingly clear, constitutes a dramatic break from this historic pattern. The U.S. economy’s current ability to expand—no matter who is president—without benefiting the 99 percent is something new. Perhaps we should do something to change that.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112397/one-percent-gobbles-economic-recovery

Pope Benedict XVI Says He Will Resign

Pope Benedict XVI stunned the Roman Catholic world on Monday by saying that he would resign on Feb. 28 after less than eight years in office, the first pope to do so in six centuries.

After examining his conscience “before God,” he said in a statement that reverberated around the world on the Internet and on social media, “I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise” of his position as head of the world’s one billion Roman Catholics.

A profoundly conservative figure whose papacy was overshadowed by clerical abuse scandals, Benedict, 85, was elected by fellow cardinals in 2005 after the death of John Paul II.

The Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said that the pope would continue to carry out his duties until Feb. 28 and that a successor could be elected by Easter, which falls on March 31. But, he added, the timing for an election of a new pope is “not an announcement, it’s a hypothesis.”

While there had been questions about Benedict’s health, the timing of his announcement sent shock waves around the world, even though he had in the past endorsed the notion that an incapacitated pope could resign.

“The pope took us by surprise,” said Father Lombardi, who explained that many cardinals were in Rome on Monday for a ceremony at the Vatican and heard the pope’s address. Italy’s prime minister, Mario Monti, said he was “very shaken by the unexpected news.”

The announcement plunged the Roman Catholic world into intense speculation about who will succeed him and seemed likely to inspire many contrasting evaluations of a papacy that was seen as both conservative and contentious.

The pope made his announcement in Latin, but his statement was translated into seven languages: Italian, French, English, German, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.

“In today’s world,” the pope said, “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

“For this reason,” he continued, “and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom, I declare that I renounce the ministry of bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter.”

Benedict, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was elected on April 19, 2005.

At a news conference, the Vatican spokesman said the pope did not express strong emotion as he made his announcement but spoke with “great dignity, great concentration and great understanding of the significance of the moment.”

Father Lombardi said that the pope would retire first to his summer residence in Castelgandolfo, in the hills outside Rome, and later at a monastery in Vatican City.

At the time of his election, Benedict was a popular choice within the college of 115 cardinals who chose him as a man who shared — and at times went beyond — the conservative theology of his predecessor and mentor, John Paul II, and seemed ready to take over the job after serving beside him for more than two decades.

In the final years of John Paul II’s papacy, which were dogged by illness, Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, said that if the pope “sees that he absolutely cannot do it anymore, then certainly he will resign.”

When he took office, Pope Benedict’s well-known stands included the assertion that Catholicism is “true” and other religions are “deficient”; that the modern, secular world, especially in Europe, is spiritually weak; and that Catholicism is in competition with Islam. He had also strongly opposed homosexuality, the ordination of female priests and stem cell research.

Born on April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn, in Bavaria, he was the son of a police officer. He was ordained in 1951, at age 24, and began his career as a liberal academic and theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council, supporting many efforts to make the church more open.

But he moved theologically and politically to the right. Pope Paul VI named him bishop of Munich in 1977 and appointed him a cardinal within three months. Taking the chief doctrinal job at the Vatican in 1981, he moved with vigor to quash liberation theology in Latin America, cracked down on liberal theologians and in 2000 wrote the contentious Vatican document “Dominus Jesus,” asserting the truth of Catholic belief over others.

The last pope to resign was Gregory XII, who left the papacy in 1415 to end what was known as the Western Schism among several competitors for the papacy.

Benedict’s tenure was caught up in growing sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church that crept ever closer to the Vatican itself.

In 2010, as outrage built over clerical abuses, some secular and liberal Catholic voices called for his resignation, their demands fueled by reports that laid part of the blame at his doorstep, citing his response both as a bishop long ago in Germany and as a cardinal heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases.

In one disclosure, news emerged that in 1985, when Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger, he signed a letter putting off efforts to defrock a convicted child-molesting priest. He cited the priest’s relative youth but also the good of the church.

Vatican officials and experts who follow the papacy dismissed the idea of his stepping down at the time. “There is no objective motive to think in terms of resignation, absolutely no motive,” said Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. “It’s a completely unfounded idea.”

For his supporters, it was a painful paradox that the long-gathering abuse scandal finally hit the Vatican with a vengeance under Benedict. As the leader of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he had been ahead of many of his peers in recognizing how deeply the church had been damaged by revelations that priests around the world had sexually abused youths for decades. As early as 2005, he obliquely referred to priestly abuse as a “filth in the church.”

He went on to apologize for the abuse and met with victims, a first for the papacy. But he could not escape the reality that the church had shielded priests accused of molesting, minimized behavior it would have otherwise deemed immoral and kept it secret from the civil authorities, forestalling criminal prosecution.

 The church’s 265th pope, Benedict was the first German to hold the title in half a millennium, and his election was a milestone toward Germany’s spiritual renewal 60 years after World War II and the Holocaust. At 78, he was also the oldest new pope since 1730.

The church he inherited was in crisis, the sexual abuse scandal being its most vivid manifestation. It was an institution run by a largely European hierarchy overseeing a faithful largely residing in the developing world. And it was increasingly being torn between its ancient, insular ways and the modern world.

For the church’s liberal elements, rather than being the answer to that crisis, Benedict’s election represented the problem: an out-of-step conservative European academic. Many wondered if he would be a mere caretaker, filling the post after the long papacy of the beloved John Paul until a younger, more dynamic heir could be elevated.

In 2006, less than two years into his papacy, Benedict stirred ire across the Muslim world, referring in a long, scholarly address to a conversation on the truths of Christianity and Islam that took place between a 14th-century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, and a Persian scholar.

“The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the pope said. “He said, I quote, ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’ ”

While making clear that he was quoting someone else, Benedict did not say whether he agreed. He also briefly discussed the Islamic concept of jihad, which he defined as “holy war,” and said that violence in the name of religion was contrary to God’s nature and to reason.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/europe/pope-benedict-xvi-says-he-will-retire.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Scottsboro Boys Exoneration Bill To Be Presented To Alabama Legislature

In 1931, Alabama wanted to execute the black Scottsboro Boys because two white women claimed they were gang-raped. Now, state officials are trying to exonerate them in a famous case from the segregated South that some consider the beginning of the modern civil rights movement.

Two Democratic and two Republican legislators unveiled proposals Monday for the legislative session starting Tuesday. A resolution labels the Scottsboro Boys as "victims of a series of gross injustice" and declares them exonerated. A companion bill gives the state parole board the power to issue posthumous pardons.

Republican Sen. Arthur Orr of Decatur said Alabama can't change history, "but that does not that mean we should not take steps today to address things that we can here in the 21st century that might not have been as they should have been."

Gov. Robert Bentley's press secretary, Jennifer Ardis, said he supports the effort to pardon the Scottsboro Boys and believes "it's time to right this wrong."

Sheila Washington, founder of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center in Scottsboro, started organizing the effort after the museum opened in 2010.

The museum chronicles how race and sex intersected in the segregated South on March 25, 1931, when a sheriff's posse stopped a train at Paint Rock. Nine black youths, ages 12 to 19, were hoboing on the train and thought they were being arrested for fighting with whites on the train. Instead, they were accused of gang-raping two white women who were also riding the freight train.

The nine, from Georgia and Tennessee, went on trial in Scottsboro and were convicted by an all-white jury. All but the youngest received a death sentence but later won new trials. One of the women recanted her story. Five of the Scottsboro Boys eventually had the rape charges dropped, while four were convicted during their retrials.

In 1976, the only known living Scottsboro Boy, Clarence Norris, obtained a pardon from then-Gov. George C. Wallace and the state parole board. At the time, there was talk of trying to do something for Andy and Roy Wright, Haywood Patterson, Olen Montgomery, Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, William Roberson and Eugene Williams. But nothing happened, and then little was said after Norris died in 1989.

Washington called the new legislative effort "a triumph for me."

 

"It's long overdue. It's almost 83 years old, but the case will never die as long as there is a courtroom to present justice in," she said.

The Scottsboro Boys' appeals resulted in two significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions saying that criminal defendants are entitled to effective counsel and that blacks can't be systematically excluded from criminal juries.

The leader of a group that looks out for the rights of minorities said providing pardons is important, but Alabama shouldn't stop there.

"It's equally important that we ask ourselves today: Are criminal defendants always provided with effective assistance of counsel? Today, are our juries chosen free of racial discrimination? Until we answer yes to both of those questions, the shadow of the Scottsboro Boys will continue to linger and continue to remind us of the importance of doing justice – not just in past times, but in our time," said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery.

University of Alabama history professor Tom Reidy, who has written about the Scottsboro Boys, said they should be considered "the beginning of the modern civil rights movement."

State Tourism Director Lee Sentell said civil rights tourism has become an important part of the state's travel business, and the Scottsboro Boys museum is among the attractions promoted by the state. "A positive action like this improves Alabama's image and shows how far our state has come from the days of discrimination," he said.

Joining Orr in sponsoring the legislation are Democratic Reps. John Robinson of Scottsboro and Laura Hall of Huntsville and Republican Sen. Shad McGill of Woodville.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/05/scottsboro-boys-exoneration-bill-alabama-legislator_n_2622249.html

Tom Toles, Copyright 2013 Universal Press Syndicate

Rove at Center of GOP Family Feud

Some Republicans see Karl Rove as a political genius, masterminding winning campaigns at every level on the ballot, including the White House. Others call him a "fake conservative" and a symbol of what's wrong with the party.

A Rove-affiliated super PAC's efforts to push what it believes will be more electable congressional candidates -- and the backlash it has created -- is symbolic of the battle for the soul of the GOP.

The uproar is in response to American Crossroads forming a new super PAC called the Conservative Victory Project, which says its aim is to improve the GOP's record in congressional races.

The group wants to institutionalize the rule of the late conservative activist William F. Buckley and to nominate "the most conservative candidate in the primary who can win the general election," according to Victory Project spokesman Jonathan Collegio.

"Our party has lost at least six Senate races in the last two election cycles not because of conservative ideas but because of undisciplined candidates and subpar campaigns," Collegio told CNN.

"We want to elect conservative candidates to the House and Senate," he added. "But we have to win general elections."

As he does with other Crossroads groups, former George W. Bush strategist Rove will advise this new organization, which will be led by Steven Law, the president of both American Crossroads and its advocacy sister Crossroads GPS.

But some in the tea party wing of the party say the group's aim is to elect more moderate Republicans. One tea party group declared in an email solicitation: "Karl Rove has declared war" on the movement..."Our response. BRING IT!"

Some conservative activists think the Conservative Victory Project organizers really aim to elect more establishment candidates who are not conservative enough -- a charge the group's leaders vehemently deny.

On Tuesday conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham criticized the Victory Project's Law, who was a guest on her show, for specifically highlighting losses by tea party candidates last year.

Law said his groups have backed tea party candidates as well as establishment ones and that the Victory Project's aim is not to go after one group but to field the most competitive candidates possible.

There was widespread dismay from some within the party after losses in the general election by such Senate candidates as Sharron Angle in Nevada in 2010 and Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana last year.

All three were initially favored and strongly supported by tea party activists. They won primaries against candidates who experts thought had a better chance of capturing the general election. Their losses were at least partly blamed on comments they made that seemed out of the mainstream.

While Law told Ingraham "we are interested in improving the process," conservative activists believe the organizers will harm the party instead.

"These fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage," is how ForAmerica Chairman Brent Bozell put it.

Another activist derided the group as ensuring defeat for the party.

"The Conservative Defeat Project is yet another example of the Republican establishment's hostility towards its conservative base," Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund group, said in a statement on Sunday. "Rather than listening to the grassroots and working to advance their principles, the establishment has chosen to declare war on its party's most loyal supporters."

SCF, which works to push conservative candidates, backed Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer and Jeff Flake in their successful Senate races last year.

Besides its aversion to the Victory Project's intent, Rove's involvement is also an issue.

"TPPatriots want to save USA. Karl Rove wants to line pockets-Don't Tread on Us! Tea Party bites back-never gives up!" Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin tweeted over the weekend.

The Crossroads groups themselves didn't fare a lot better than the tea party groups in 2012, as most of their favored Senate candidates ended up losing -- and Rove got some of the blame.

Some conservatives point out that along with Akin and Mourdock, many mainstream candidates lost, too, like Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana, Rep. Rick Berg of North Dakota and former Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico.

Victory Project organizers have started reaching out to their financial backers, some of whom were uneasy about getting in the middle of an intra-party fights. That's why they formed separately.

"Some donors are concerned about primaries where many are concerned exclusively about the general election," Collegio said.

The group will make its decisions on whom to back based on research about candidates' positions, their fundraising power and their ability to organize and run an effective campaign.

It will not recruit candidates nor coordinate with party leaders. It will disclose its donors.

One race it could get involved is in West Virginia, where Rep. Shelley Moore Capito had already announced her decision to run for the Senate even before incumbent Sen. Jay Rockefeller announced that he was going to retire.

Capito, who is in her seventh term, is viewed as a formidable candidate with a strong fundraising base.

However, several conservative groups, including the Senate Conservatives Fund, already have come out against her, calling her record "liberal" and saying she supported too much government spending.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/05/politics/rove-gop-feud/

GOP Swears It’s Not Stupid

Republicans are on a PR campaign to repair their image and convince voters they love women, immigrants and the poor. But can they walk the walk? Howard Kurtz doubts it.

Consider: Sarah Palin and Dick Morris are out at Fox News, and Scott Brown, the Massachusetts moderate, may be in.

Eric Cantor is talking about the problems of working mothers.

Marco Rubio is on the cover of Time as “The New Voice of the GOP” and will respond next week to the president’s State of the Union.

And Karl Rove has launched a group to push mainstream conservatives in Senate primaries against the Tea Party types who have been going down in flames.

You might describe all this as a rebranding, rejiggering or recasting. It could be written off as largely cosmetic, but increasingly appears more than skin-deep. What’s beyond dispute is that Republicans are trying to shed their image as what Bobby Jindal calls the “stupid party”—at least when it comes to the stupidity of losing elections.

What’s missing from this equation is hard evidence that the GOP, having lost twice to Barack Obama, is changing its policies. Not a single legislative compromise has taken shape, especially on the big-ticket issues like the budget and taxes.

But perception matters in politics.

Fox is an interesting bellwether. It rode the Tea Party wave in 2009 with such prominent voices as Palin and Glenn Beck, along with such candidates-in-waiting as Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. But the cheerleading from folks like Dick Morris, who predicted Mitt Romney would win in an electoral landslide, left many Fox viewers unprepared for Obama’s big win.

If Fox hires Brown, the former senator who often worked with Democrats, Roger Ailes will be signaling more of a big-tent approach to Republican politics. And Fox, needless to say, is highly influential with the GOP base.

The party’s more family-friendly tone, as epitomized by Cantor’s we-really-care speech at the American Enterprise Institute, is a clear recognition that the Republican image has become one of harshness and negativity. By punting on its earlier debt-ceiling threats, the leadership is folding a losing hand that constantly made it appear that the party was holding the economy hostage to protect tax breaks for the rich.

On two of the most divisive social issues, most Republicans seem to want to concede a quarter-loaf and move on. The party is still opposed to most forms of gun control, but could compromise on stricter background checks as a way of appearing sensitive to the echoes of Newtown.

And on immigration, Rubio is providing political cover for a party that has sent Hispanic voters into the arms of Democrats with its harsh rhetoric. By joining a bipartisan compromise that aims to trade border security for a path to citizenship for those here illegally, the son of Cuban immigrants could help neutralize the issue for his party.

Perhaps the most important development is Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, an effort to shore up establishment candidates in GOP primaries. The party has blown several winnable Senate races by nominating such ultraconservatives as Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, both of whom sunk their candidacies with outlandish comments about whether rape is “legitimate” or “God’s will.”

The former George W. Bush lieutenant is getting serious blowback from the hard-edged right. “This is not Tea Party versus the establishment,” Rove said on Fox, where he retains his pundit’s perch despite becoming one of the right’s most prolific fundraisers. “I don’t want a fight.”

But he is getting one, and it’s a fight the party should have. Outside Super PACs like Rove’s have outsized influence these days because the Republican Party has become a paper tiger, especially when it comes to clearing the field in congressional elections. And, of course, primary voters, who tend to be the furthest right, get the final say.

That’s why the rebranding is above all a media war, not a battle in the trenches, although that will come when we get to 2014. It matters if Marco Rubio is on magazine covers, if Fox viewers are hearing from Scott Brown instead of Sarah Palin. But ultimately, the GOP will have to show that its new approach is more than just talk.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/08/gop-swears-it-s-not-stupid.html

Confronted with 97 Percent of Climate Scientists, Fox Makes Up Stats

Dems Move to Change Federal Pot Laws

Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Jared Polis to introduce bill to end prohibition

An effort is building in Congress to change U.S. marijuana laws, including moves to legalize the industrial production of hemp and establish a hefty federal pot tax.

While passage this year could be a longshot, lawmakers from both parties have been quietly working on several bills, the first of which Democratic Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Jared Polis of Colorado plan to introduce Tuesday, Blumenauer told The Associated Press.

Polis’ measure would regulate marijuana the way the federal government handles alcohol: In states that legalize pot, growers would have to obtain a federal permit. Oversight of marijuana would be removed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and given to the newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms, and it would remain illegal to bring marijuana from a state where it’s legal to one where it isn’t.

The bill is based on a legalization measure previously pushed by former Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas.

Blumenauer’s bill would create a federal marijuana excise tax of 50 percent on the “first sale” of marijuana — typically, from a grower to a processor or retailer. It also would tax pot producers or importers $1,000 annually and other marijuana businesses $500.

His office said Monday it doesn’t yet have an estimate of how much the taxes might bring in. But a policy paper Blumenauer and Polis are releasing this week suggests, based on admittedly vague estimates, that a federal tax of $50 per ounce could raise $20 billion a year. They call for directing the money to law enforcement, substance abuse treatment and the national debt.

Last fall’s votes in Colorado and Washington state to legalize recreational marijuana should push Congress to end the 75-year federal pot prohibition, Blumenauer said.

Washington state officials have estimated that its legal marijuana market could bring in about half a billion dollars a year in state taxes.

“You folks in Washington and my friends in Colorado really upset the apple cart,” Blumenauer said. “We’re still arresting two-thirds of a million people for use of a substance that a majority feel should be legal. … It’s past time for us to step in and try to sort this stuff out.”

Advocates who are working with the lawmakers acknowledge it could take years for any changes to get through Congress, but they’re encouraged by recent developments. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell last week came out in support of efforts to legalize hemp in his home state of Kentucky, and U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., is expected to introduce legislation allowing states to set their own policy on marijuana.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has indicated he plans to hold a hearing on the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws and has urged an end to federal “mandatory minimum” sentences that lead to long prison stints for drug crimes.

“We’re seeing enormous political momentum to undo the drug war failings of the past 40 years,” said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, who has been working with lawmakers on marijuana-related bills. “For the first time, the wind is behind our back.”

The Justice Department hasn’t said how it plans to respond to the votes in Washington and Colorado. It could sue to block the states from issuing licenses to marijuana growers, processors and retail stores, on the grounds that doing so would conflict with federal drug law.

Blumenauer and Polis’ paper urges a number of changes, including altering tax codes to let marijuana dispensaries deduct business expenses on federal taxes, and making it easier for marijuana-related businesses to get bank accounts. Many operate on a cash basis because federally insured banks won’t work with them, they noted.

Blumenauer said he expects to introduce the tax-code legislation as well as a bill that would reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act, allowing states to enact medical marijuana laws without fear that federal authorities will continue raiding dispensaries or prosecuting providers. It makes no sense that marijuana is a Schedule I drug, in the same category as heroin and a more restrictive category than cocaine, Blumenauer said.

The measures have little chance of passing, said Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser. Sabet recently joined former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy and former President George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum in forming a group called Project SAM — for “smart approaches to marijuana” — to counter the growing legalization movement. Sabet noted that previous federal legalization measures have always failed.

“These are really extreme solutions to the marijuana problem we have in this country,” Sabet said. “The marijuana problem we have is a problem of addiction among kids, and stigma of people who have a criminal record for marijuana crimes.

“There are a lot more people in Congress who think that marijuana should be illegal but treated as a public health problem, than think it should be legal.”

Project SAM suggests people shouldn’t get criminal records for small-time marijuana offenses, but instead could face probation or treatment.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/04/dems_move_to_change_federal_pot_laws/

Alabama Man Holding 5-Year-Old Boy Hostage 'Listened to a Lot of Conservative Talk Radio'

Jim Lee Dykes, 65, gunned down a 66-year-old bus driver named Charles Albert Poland Jr. and abducted a 5-year-old boy he’s still holding hostage in his bunker on his Alabama property. The Vietnam-era veteran is described as someone who listened to conservative radio and didn’t like government, starting with Obama.

The AP reported:

Michael Creel said Dykes kept to himself and listened to a lot of conservative talk radio.

“He was very into what’s going on with the nation and the politics and all the laws being made. The things he didn’t agree with, he would ventilate,” he said.

James Arrington, police chief of the neighboring town of Pinckard, put it differently.

“He’s against the government, starting with Obama on down,” he said.

Dykes also has been arrested for possession of marijuana and neighbors say he once killed a dog with a lead pipe. According to neighbors, he patrols his yard with a flashlight and a firearm, threatening to shoot children who step foot on his property.

Ironically, given his hatred of government, Dykes lives in a FEMA trailer on his rural property.

“I think he’s just a really angry and bitter guy with some anger management issues,” Morris Dees of Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery told the AP. “He is just against everything – the government and his neighbors.”

Against everything. That pretty much sums up the anti-government, Obama hating, conservative mantra.

While it’s certainly unfair to paint everyone who listens to talk radio with the same brush, it also can’t be ignored that this scenario is far from isolated. Far too often, we’re finding violent criminals who listen to conservative radio, which deliberately feeds into their paranoia and anger in order to make a profit.

A new report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center determined that violent attacks by right-wing groups and individuals have increased by 400% since 1990, and increased dramatically in the last five years. They write, “There are three major ideological movements within the American violent far right: a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”

The study also finds a correlation between a contentious political environment and ideological empowerment (another service of the epistemic closure inherent in the right wing media bubble) with increasing levels of violence.

While the shock jocks make money off of scaring their base with malignant seeds of hate, they’re also scaring mentally ill people and reinforcing their sense of helplessness and hopelessness — both of which can drive people on the edge into taking action on their feelings (nothing left to lose).

Conservative talk radio isn’t responsible for the murder Dyke committed or the kidnapping of an innocent 5-year-old boy, but it’s long past the time for conservative shock jocks to have a come to Jesus moment where they do the civilized thing of questioning if they are taking things too far.

The question should be asked, if this is not their intention, then why not tone it down a notch? If they don’t mean to frighten their listeners into believing that an evil man is running the government and coming for them, then why preach that very message day after day. If they don’t mean for half of the people targeted by their rhetoric to get death threats, then why do they continue on the same path and expect different results?

Yes, they are free to say whatever they want. And that’s what children do – they say whatever they want. Grown ups consider the consequences, even if they have a right to do something. Having the right to indoctrinate vulnerable people with hate does not absolve the speaker from his or her moral and ethical responsibilities to society. Preaching terror day after day to vulnerable people has consequences.

http://www.politicususa.com/alabama-man-holding-5-year-old-boy-hostage-listened-lot-conservative-talk-radio.html

Paul Krugman: Austerity is Not the Answer

There are few political commentators who excite such passion (whether admiration or, on the other end, rage) as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. The reason seems obvious: He writes directly about one of the most central issues in politics—the economy—and does so decisively and definitively. The man is, after all, a Nobel laureate in the field. But unlike so many other scientists and experts, he also happens to have a way with words and little inclination to pull punches.

Krugman's latest book, End This Depression Now!, makes a strong case that the current focus on cutting budget deficits is misplaced. An economic crisis like this, with lingering high unemployment, demands a big infusion of government stimulus, argues Krugman. In contrast, cutting spending or imposing austerity only worsens things—just as we've seen of late across Europe.

How sure is Krugman about all of this? And how do we know that he's right, and his very, very-sure-of-themselves opponents are actually dead wrong?

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Krugman about precisely this for 30 minutes on the Point of Inquiry podcast, which I cohost. Because we focus on science, I framed the discussion around what counts as science in economics—and conversely, what counts as pseudoscience. For example, I asked, how about the idea that cutting taxes increases revenue to the government? Krugman's response: "That's pure crank…nobody believes that, except the entire Republican party." (Ouch.)

"The evidence is in. Every place that has imposed austerity has seen a really sharp economic downturn."

 
And what about the idea that the 2009 stimulus bill failed to create any jobs? "That's a very marginal position," Krugman said. A few economists have supported it, he explained, but the majority of experts in the field think the stimulus, although not necessarily strong enough, do think it had a substantial effect.
 
Krugman's central point is that Keynesianism is well established in economic science, meaning that under the present, depressed economic conditions, the US government needs to spend to stimulate the economy. By contrast, cutting spending, or imposing austerity, is a terrible blow to a struggling economy. "We've had incredible, teeth-rattling austerity in Greece and Ireland," Krugman explained on the show, "and the evidence is in. Every place that has imposed austerity has seen a really sharp economic downturn."
 
So, we asked, if Keynesianism thinking is the key to fixing our present economic woes, then why won't people listen? Why are we currently so obsessed with deficits?
 
Krugman's answer was twofold: People make up their minds about economics based on heuristics and shortcuts—for instance, the misleading metaphor that likens government finances to the budget of an individual family—and Keynesianism can be complex and counterintuitive. It also runs up against the popular notion that the government shouldn't lean on the scales, because a fair system is one in which people get ahead or fall behind based on their own merits, without external help. As Krugman explained, that's not actually how it works at all—you can fail in this world for reasons that are totally beyond your control:

The economy is an interactive system. Money flows in a circle. My spending is your income, your spending is my income. And that means that your destiny has a lot to do with what other people are doing. You can lose your job, you can be in big trouble, not because we've done anything wrong, but because there's not enough spending and the economy is depressed.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/paul-krugman-economics-keynes

Three States Pushing ALEC Bill to Require Teaching Climate Change Denial in Schools

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) - known by its critics as a "corporate bill mill" - has hit the ground running in 2013, pushing "models bills" mandating the teaching of climate change denial in public school systems. 

January hasn't even ended, yet ALEC has already planted its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" - which mandates a "balanced" teaching of climate science in K-12 classrooms - in the state legislatures of Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona so far this year. 

In the past five years since 2008, among the hottest years in U.S. history, ALEC has introduced its "Environmental Literacy Improvement Act" in 11 states, or over one-fifth of the statehouses nationwide. The bill has passed in four states, an undeniable form of "big government" this "free market" organization decries in its own literature.

ALEC's "model bills" are written by and for corporate lobbyists alongside conservative legislators at its annual meetings. ALEC raises much of its corporate funding from the fossil fuel industry, which in turn utilizes ALEC as a key - though far from the only - vehicle to ram through its legislative agenda through in the states. 

A Frankenstein Co-Created with Heartland Institute

A DeSmogBlog investigation last year found that the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act's orgins date back to 2000.

The Act's creation is directly connected to the ongoing efforts of another corporate-funded group, the Heartland Institute - of "Heartland Institute Exposed" fame - a group well plugged into the climate change denial machine. 

ALEC's Natural Resources Task Force, now known as its Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force, adopted this model at a time when the Task Force was headed by Sandy Liddy Bourne. Bourne, who served in this capacity from 1999-2004, would eventually ascend to the role of Director of Legislation and Policy for ALEC in 2004. 

Upon leaving ALEC in 2006, Bourne become Heartland's Vice President for Policy Strategy. Today she serves as Exectutive Director of the American Energy Freedom Center, an outfit she co-heads withArthur G. Randol. Randol is a longtime lobbyist and PR flack for ExxonMobil, a corporation which endowed the climate change denial machine for years.

Heartland's website still lists Bourne as one of its "experts," stating that "Under her leadership, 20 percent of ALEC model bills were enacted by one state or more, up from 11 percent." 

Importantly, Heartland is still a member of ALEC's Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force that originally passed the Environmental Literacy Improvement Act.

According to internal documents leaked to and published by DeSmogBlog in Feb. 2012, Heartland obtained funding for a "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project beginning in 2012. This cirruculum aims to teach that there "is a major controversy over whether or not humans are changing the weather."

If this sounds similar to ALEC's model bill, it should, given the fact that the two outfits share funding from the same honey pot. In fact, Heartland actively promotes the ALEC model on its website. 

Model Bill Introduced in OK, CO, and AZ

Oklahoma and Colorado came first and within just over a week, Arizona followed suit in proposing the ALEC climate science "mis-education" bill.

On Jan. 18, the Sooner State's legislature took the lead for 2013 in pushing the ALEC climate change education model in the form of HB 1674, the "Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act." 

HB 1674 calls for the teaching of "scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories," including of global warming, saying it's a theory steeped in "controversy" - not that the actual scientific record thinks so.

This is necessary, the bill states, "to help students develop critical thinking skills they need in order to become intelligent, productive, and scientifically informed citizens," going on to explain that it's important to explore "differences of opinion on scientific issues." 

The ALEC model similarly calls for the teaching of "critical thinking so that students will be able to fairly and objectively evaluate scientific...controversies." The model also mandates creation of "an atmosphere of respect for different opinions and open-mindedness to new ideas" in the scientific sphere. 

The OK bill is sponsored by Rep. Gus Blackwell (R-61), unsurprisngly a dues-paying member of ALEC. According to a Dec. 2012 report published by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) titled, "Buying Influence," Blackwell has paid for his attendance at least one ALEC meeting with taxpayer money.

National Institute on Money in State Politics' data demonstrates that Blackwell's largest pool of campaign funding for his 2012 electoral victory came from the oil and gas industry, which gave him $28,800. This includes taking $7,500 from shale gas industry giant Chesapeake Energy, $2,350 from ConocoPhillips, and $1,000 each from Koch Industries and coal industry giant Duke Energy, among others. All of thesecorporations also fund ALEC.

One sure sign of a coordinated, ALEC-lead effort is the fact that Colorado's state legislature introduced the ALEC model on the same day as did Oklahoma's. The two states, it's worth noting, share a border on Oklahoma's panhandle. 

On Jan. 18, 2013, eight representatives and four senators introduced HB 13-1089, coining the bills the "Academic Freedom Acts."

Paralleling the language in the ALEC model and the Oklahoma bill, the HB 13-1089 aims to "Inform students about scientific evidence and to help students develop critical thinking skills," also recognizing that the teaching of the concept global warming "can cause controversy."

One of the senators co-sponsoring the bill, Rep. Scott Renfroe (R-13) is an ALEC dues-paying member. He's also attended at least one ALEC meeting paid for by Colorado taxpayers, according to the CMD's "Buying Influence" report. 

Of the $91,000 dollars he raised for the 2012 election, over $5,000 of it came from the oil, gas and electric utilities industry, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. This includes taking money from Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, Williams Companies, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

The Arizona (Sun) Devils are in the Details 

Eight days later, ALEC's model bill made its way to Arizona, a state sharing a "corner border" with Colorado. 

Arizona's SB 1213 was introduced on Jan. 26, 2013 by six senators that, as it turns out, are all dues-paying ALEC members. Five of the six have attended conferences totally on the taxpayer dime,according to CMD's report.

SB 1213 incorporates the "critical thinking skills" operative language, the "scientific controversies" operative language and the  "teaching...global warming" can "cause controversy" operative language.

In short, SB 1213 is the same exact copycat ALEC model bill that's been proposed in both Oklahoma and Colorado.  

ALEC Celebrates Groundhog Day 2013

Groundhog Day is on Feb. 2 and fittingly, ALEC and its corporate patrons continue to sing the same tune, simultaneously promoting fracking, blockading a transition to renewable energy and pushing bills mandating teaching climate change denial on par with actual science.

"It's the same old schtick every year, the guy comes out with a big old stick, raps on the door," actor Bill Murray said in the classic film "Groundhog Day." "They pull the little rat out, they talk to him, the rat talks back, then they tell us what's gonna happen."

Replace "guy" with "corporate lobbyist" and "legislators" with "rats" and that's ALEC in a nutshell, serving as a mere microcosm of the current American political system at-large.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14267-three-states-pushing-alec-bill-to-require-teaching-climate-change-denial-in-schools

GOP Lawmaker Behind Abortion Ban: ‘We’re Not Going To Allow Minorities To Run Roughshod’

Meet Jason Rapert, the Koch-Backed Evangelical Steering Arkansas's Radical Abortion-Restriction Effort

On Wednesday, the Arkansas legislature lurched forward with a radical measure to ban most abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected within six weeks of a pregnancy, a requirement experts say will force the state to insert a probe into a woman’s vagina to detect.

The bill also penalizes doctors who perform abortions after the arbitrary cut-off date with a Class D felony, carrying up to six years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. The chief sponsor of the measure is Republican State Senator Jason Rapert, a fiddle-playing financial planner with his own evangelical outreach center that hosts mission trips to Uganda, Ghana and the Philippines. He has been among the loudest anti-abortion politicians in the state, and has sponsored a number of other radical bills, including a very strange effort to organize a constitutional convention to give state legislatures power over the national debt limit.

Here he is at a Tea Party rally from 2011, not only complaining about Obama’s Ramadan event but also warning the president that his people have had enough with “minorities” running the country (emphasis added):

RAPERT: I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama. You don’t represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is not going to save us. We’re going to take this country back for the Lord. We’re going to try to take this country back for conservatism. And we’re not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in!

In another part of the same speech, Rapert proudly declares himself a birther and attacks the state Supreme Court for knocking down a ban on gay adoptions as example of “minority interests running roughshod over you and me.”

While Rapert certainly enjoys wide support in many corners of the evangelical movement (here he is with the notorious Rev. John Hagee, what interests me is how many white-shoe corporations stepped in to support his candidacy last year. A look at his final campaign finance report reveals direct corporate dollars and corporate political action committees sponsored by companies supposedly friendly to women:

Here are some examples: Southwestern Energy Company PAC gave $2,000; ARCH PAC, of Arch Coal, gave $1,000; Eli Lilly and Company gave $500; Lisa Allen, an executive with Cox Communications, gave $1,000; Nucor Corp PAC of AR gave $500; AT&T Arkansas PAC gave $2,000; Verizon gave $1,000; and American Electric Power PAC gave $500.

In 2012, Arkansas was one of several states to become substantially more Republican, with both the state house and senate falling into GOP hands for the first time since Reconstruction. Rapert’s district, a traditionally Democratic stronghold near Conway, was one of the pivotal seats that decided the balance of power. Rapert made abortion a major issue in the campaign, attacking his opponent, State Representative Linda Tyler for not doing enough to curtail abortion rights while serving as chair to the Arkansas House Public Health Committee.

As the The Washington Post’s T.W. Farnam reported, the Koch brothers–financed Americans for Prosperity (AFP) group made Arkansas a target state last year, and pledged $1 million dollars to key races to both defeat moderate Republican during the primaries, and to wipe the state of its remaining Democrats. Jay Barth, a professor at Hendrix College, a school near Rapert’s district, noted that AFP’s Arkansas mailers “prime[d] racial sentiments by using an image of an African-American doctor.”

Rapert, a signatory to the Koch’s “No Climate Tax Pledge” and a regular participant in AFP’s political events, also received $2,000 directly from Koch Industries last year for his campaign.

Perhaps business interests were drawn to Rapert for his novel justifications for corporate-friendly legislation. According to the Blue Arkansas Blog, Rapert defended his support for bringing high-interest payday lending back to the state by comparing such loans to the microfinance loans used to support Third World farmers.

Libertarian billionaire Charles Koch, author of his own ideology he touts as the “Science of Liberty,” is famous for spreading his beliefs (and his business interests) through the aggressive use of political donations to candidates, think tanks, media outlets, universities, career-training institutes and dark-money attack-ad groups. But critics, including myself, point to the hundreds of state and federal Koch-backed politicians who seem to prioritize fairly authoritarian policies. Rapert’s transvaginal probes and government-forced pregnancies do not seem to cohere with any notion of individual liberty I’m familiar with.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/172584/meet-jason-rapert-koch-backed-evangelical-steering-arkansas-radical-abortion-restriction

Alabama, 10th Top ‘Taker’ State, is Most Conservative, According to New Poll Pensito Review

A new poll from Gallup found that more Alabamians think of themselves as “conservative” than residents of any other state. But the state may rank as first in hypocrisy, since it is also the tenth biggest recipient of federal spending among the 50 states, versus its tax receipts. (The District of Columbia was the top recipient, but it is not a state.)
Yes, this tea party/neo-Confederate hotbed is also the 10th largest “taker” state. Here’s a break-out of the socialist largess that jack-booted bureaucrats from the federal government shove down Alabama’s throat:

Total federal spending in Alabama — the big picture that includes salaries, contracts, Social Security, Medicare and hundreds of other direct payments to individuals and institutions — averaged $11,819 per capita, above the national average of $10,459. The federal government sent almost $56.5 billion to the state, which was about evenly divided among four broad categories: defense, healthcare, Social Security and all other agencies combined.
Ten years ago, the spending in Alabama was about $29.2 billion, or about $6,570 per person. Back then the national average was $5,739 per capita.

The state motto of Alabama is “Thank God for Mississippi,” which is not so apt here because the poll found that Mississippians ranked third in the Gallup poll among self-described conservative state residents — North Dakota and Wyoming were tied for second — and yet Mississippi is the ninth biggest taker among the states. That makes Alabama hands-down the most hypocritical state in the Union.
If Alabamians really were fiscal conservatives, they would live within their means and refuse to accept every dime of federal spending that exceeds what their residents pay in federal taxes.
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2013/02/01/alabama-10th-biggest-taker-state-is-most-conservative/