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Here’s What the Presidential Candidates Had to Say About Reproductive Rights in the First GOP Debate

by ZacheryHaydon0 Posted on August 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Thursday night, the ten front-runners in the race for the GOP presidential nomination gathered in Cleveland for the first debate of the primaries and naturally the discussion included women’s health issues. Fox News hosts grilled Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on his opposition to exceptions to abortion laws for victims of rape and incest and Gov. Scott Walker over his support for a ban on abortion that doesn’t make an exception for the life of the mother. They pressed former Gov. Jeb Bush over his ties to a pro-abortion rights group, and Donald Trump on his onetime support of reproductive rights.

Here’s what they had to say:

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — Kelly asked Rubio about his record of opposing exceptions to abortion restrictions for victims of rape or incest. “I’m not sure that’s a correct assessment of my record,” Rubio shot back. “I have never advocated that.” Kelly may have been referring to the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. This was a bill Rubio sponsored in 2011 that would make it a crime for anyone—except for the parents— to take a girl across state lines for an abortion with no exception for victims of rape or incest. Rubio was also a sponsor, in 2011, of a controversial 20-week ban on abortion that only made exceptions for victims of rape if they reported the crime to the police.

Rubio added he felt that the Constitution bans abortion: “I believe that every single human being is entitled to the protection of our laws whether they…have their birth certificate or not.”

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin — Kelly pressed Walker on his across-the-board opposition to abortion, even in to save the life of the mother: “Would you really let a mother die rather than let her have an abortion?” she asked, wondering if his position put him too far out of the mainstream to win the general election.

Walker answered, “There are many other alternatives that can also protect the life of that mother. That’s been consistently proven.” Walker was alluding to a popular pro-life myth that abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother, an opinion rejected by mainstream medical practitioners.

Walker also noted that he defunded Planned Parenthood as governor; he signed several budgets that stripped of all funding for the women’s healthcare network.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida — Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Bush about his seat on the board of the Bloomberg Family Foundation when the group is “so openly in support of abortion.” Bush denied knowing about the organization’s support of abortion. He also pointed to a number of actions he has taken to limit abortion rights when he was governor of Florida. He cut funding for Planned Parenthood from the state budget, directed state funds toward crisis pregnancy centers—pro-life alternatives to abortion clinics which often spread misinformation about the negative effects of abortion—and signed laws requiring parents to be informed before a minor has an abortion.

Donald Trump — The moderators asked Trump about his declaration, many years ago, that he was “very pro choice.”

“I’ve evolved on many issues over the years,” Trump replied. “And you know who else has evolved, is Ronald Reagan.” Trump then told the story of a pair of friends who decided against abortion. “And that child today is a total superstar.”

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas — Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Huckabee about his support for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, and whether it would work against him among moderate voters. In response, Huckabee came out swinging for personhood: “I think the next president ought to invoke the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception,” he said. “This notion that we just continue to ignore the personhood of the individual is a violation of that unborn child’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. It’s time that we recognize the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being.”

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — In his closing statement, Cruz promised that “on my first day in office” he would prosecute Planned Parenthood over the sting videos dominating the headlines.

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Here’s What the Presidential Candidates Had to Say About Reproductive Rights in the First GOP Debate

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Donald Trump Was Totally Right to Skip the Big Candidate Forum in New Hampshire

by AngeliaRivenbur Posted on August 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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So this is what it looks like when Donald Trump stays home. The businessman and board game magnate, who is currently leading the Republican presidential field by a mile, skipped the first full candidate forum of the 2016 presidential race on Monday in New Hampshire. His official reason: the host newspaper, New Hampshire’s Union-Leader, had already signaled that it wasn’t interested in endorsing his campaign. But maybe he had an inkling of what we know for certain now—14 candidates racing against the clock to recite canned talking points makes for a total snoozefest.

The moderator, Jack Heath, deliberately steered clear of any Trump-related questions, which is a shame, because Trump, even in absentia, might have have at least forced the candidates to talk about something besides themselves. As it was, Monday’s forum, the first of three such Q&A sessions in early primary states and a dress rehearsal of sorts for the first GOP debate on Thursday, was like freshman orientation in a class of introverts. The candidates were provided the most generic of icebreaker questions (Carly Fiorina was asked for an example of a time she showed leadership), which they promptly segued away from, and pivoted to the boilerplate speeches they’ve already been delivering in Iowa and New Hampshire for months. Because it was a forum, not a debate, the candidates weren’t allowed to interact with each other. Save for Scott Walker noting that no one in his family had been president before, none of them even tried. In a rare moment of drama, the C-SPAN cameras caught Chris Christie with a finger (his) wiggling in his ear.

But there were still a handful of highlights:

Four years after famously forgetting the third federal agency he intended to eliminate, former Texas governor Rick Perry was offered a shot at a do-over. “I’ve heard this question before!” he said eagerly. Then he pivoted to another topic and never answered it.
Jeb Bush said the president needs to do more to combat the “barbarians” of ISIS, but perhaps wary of unpleasant comparisons to that other Bush (or both of them, really), stopped short of saying “boots on the ground” were needed in the Middle East beyond special forces Ttroops.
Fortunately, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham was happy to do just that, calling on an America-Turkish-Egyptian force to bring Syria back under control. He’d tell those allies, “You’re gonna pay for this war, we paid for the last two. We are gonna pull the caliphate up by its roots.”
Graham, who could surely use the boost, also got a laugh from the audience when he suggested that the solution to Washington’s gridlock was to “drink more.”
Ben Carson announced that he would reform the tax code by consulting with “the fairest individual in the universe—that would be God.” The result, he explained, would be a base tax rate of around 10 to 15 percent, similar to a church tithe. But an hour later, he informed the audience that taking more than 10 percent of a billionaire’s income is “called socialism.”
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said President Obama has “declared war on trans-fats and a ceasefire with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” (That would be Iran.) His first act as president: hold a huge meeting with the Joint Chiefs to announce that America “is back.”
Much has been made of the Republican party’s recent shift toward criminal justice reform, which includes lighter sentencing for many drug crimes. But Florida Sen. Marco Rubio offered a snapshot on how elements of the party might push back. Seizing on northern New England’s heroin epidemic, he reprised an argument that any legalization of marijuana except for strictly medicinal uses would only contribute to drug abuse. Expect this to come up again at a later date, when candidates are allowed to talk to each other.
How will the next president’s policies on climate change be affected by the White House’s big new plan to fight global warming? We still have no idea, because only one candidate was asked about the proposal, and then only in passing. For the record, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says it will be a “buzzsaw to the nation’s economy.”

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Donald Trump Was Totally Right to Skip the Big Candidate Forum in New Hampshire

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How Far Will GOP Candidates Go to Get Into Next Week’s Debate?

by rogalski_adam@o2.pl Posted on July 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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Trailing in the polls, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee grabbed the media’s attention this weekend by claiming that President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran is “marching the Israelis to the door of the oven.” On Friday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz made headlines by calling fellow Republican Mitch McConnell—the Senate Majority Leader—a liar on the Senate floor. A few days before that, Rand Paul literally took a chainsaw to the tax code over an electric-guitar rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.”

The first Republican presidential debate is next Thursday on Fox News. And under rules set by Fox (with the blessing of the Republican National Committee), just 10 of the 16 declared major candidates—those with the highest average in the five most recent national polls leading up to the debate—will get a spot on the stage. Participants in the second debate, hosted by CNN in September, will also be selected based largely on polling averages. The result is a last-minute scramble by the candidates to crack the top 10 any way they can.

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How Far Will GOP Candidates Go to Get Into Next Week’s Debate?

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Scott Walker Is Starting to Look Like a Loser

by Selma4889gkgw Posted on July 16, 2015

Mother Jones

It seems that Scott Walker may be having problems. First, there’s this from our own Russ Choma about Walker’s fundraising woes in Texas, home to America’s biggest treasure trove of conservative zillionaires:

The union-busting Wisconsin governor may be a conservative darling, but he’s way behind the curve when it comes to courting Texas’ biggest money men. Bill Miller, a top Texas lobbyist who regularly advises megadonors on their contributions, says he’s heard almost no buzz from the donor class about Walker….”No one is asking about him,” Miller says. “None of our clients. We have a huge client base. It’s oddly quiet for a guy that’s supposedly top three among the potential nominees.”

….Walker campaign aides say he has been to Austin, Houston, and San Antonio as well, and the response has been “enthusiastic.” Future trips to Texas are planned, they say. But if there’s an on-the-ground fundraising operation for Walker, Miller isn’t the only one who has missed it.

….”Scott Walker has no visible organization in my part of the state. He really doesn’t come up,” says Gaylord Hughey, a lawyer who’s known as the “don of East Texas” by Republican operatives. Hughey has worked as a bundler for the campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain, and he’s currently signed up to raise money for Jeb Bush. “Among the sort of really hard R Republicans, Scott Walker is probably big,” he notes, “but to the business donor group, he has not really resonated.”

Hmmm. Maybe Walker isn’t mean enough for Texas? That’s probably not it. In fact, Paul Waldman thinks the guy is so mean it’s turning into a problem of its own for Walker. Exhibit A: Walker is hell-bent on demanding drug tests for all welfare recipients:

This is why Scott Walker is never going to be president of the United States.

First, some context. The drug testing programs for welfare recipients are usually justified by saying they’ll save money by rooting out all the junkies on the dole, but in practice they’ve been almost comically ineffective. In state after state, testing programs have found that welfare recipients use drugs at lower rates than the general population, finding only a tiny number of welfare recipients who test positive.

But this hasn’t discouraged politicians like Walker….The test is the point, not the result. Walker isn’t trying to solve a practical problem here. He wants to test food stamp recipients as a way of expressing moral condemnation. You can get this benefit, he’s saying, but we want to give you a little humiliation so you know that because you sought the government’s help, we think you’re a rotten person.

….What does this have to do with Walker’s chances of winning a general election? What George W. Bush understood is that the Republican Party is generally considered to be somewhat, well, mean….So when Bush campaigned as a “compassionate conservative”…he was sending a message to moderate voters, one that said: See, I’m different. I’m a nice guy.

….And Scott Walker’s attitude is nothing like George W. Bush’s. He practically oozes malice, for anyone and everyone who might oppose him, or just be the wrong kind of person.

So money in Texas-sized chunks is looking like a problem for Walker in the primaries, and his Cruella de Vil-sized malice is likely to be a problem in the general election.

The conventional wisdom about Walker—which I’ve agreed with in the past—is that he’s the candidate best suited to appeal to both the Republican base, thanks to his hardcore meanspiritedness, and to business-class Republicans, thanks to his executive experience and relatively mild demeanor. The problem is that it’s a tricky act to make both of these personas work at the same time, and so far Walker doesn’t even seem to be trying. He’s just sticking with the Mr. Mean persona, and it’s not clear if that’s even enough to win the primaries, let alone get him into the White House. He’s going to need to change his tune if he ever wants to hear the Marine band playing “Hail to the Chief” for him.

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Scott Walker Is Starting to Look Like a Loser

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court Just Removed a Major Threat to Scott Walker’s Presidential Campaign

by GiselleMcCorkin Posted on July 16, 2015

Mother Jones

On Thursday morning, the Wisconsin Supreme Court squashed a criminal investigation into whether Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign illegally coordinated with conservative dark-money groups to defeat a recall effort against him in 2012. The sharply worded decision aggressively slapped back the local prosecutor leading the probe and contended there was no constitutional basis for the investigation. This move appears to permanently settle a matter that posed a potential threat to Walker’s presidential ambitions.

The inquiry focused on whether Walker’s top advisers worked with a dozen outside groups—politically active nonprofits that do not disclose their donors—to run campaign ads opposing the recall campaign that was launched after Walker crushed public sector unions in his state. On the federal level and in most states, it is illegal for outside groups that can collect unlimited amounts of money to work closely with candidates they support. In today’s decision, the Wisconsin court ruled there was no legal rationale for an investigation because the dark-money groups did not explicitly call for voters to vote against the recall. Instead, they put out a slightly less specific message: support Walker. As a result, the court ordered the investigation to halt immediately—and they instructed prosecutors to destroy all related documents and free witnesses from the obligation to cooperate.

“To be clear, this conclusion ends the…investigation because the special prosecutor’s legal theory is unsupported in either reason or law,” Justice Michael Gableman wrote for the majority in the four-to-two decision. “Consequently, the investigation is closed.”

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court Just Removed a Major Threat to Scott Walker’s Presidential Campaign

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These biodegradable computer chips are made from wood

by MyrnaLigertwood Posted on July 14, 2015

These biodegradable computer chips are made from wood

By on 14 Jul 2015commentsShare

What if I told you that we could make computer chips out of biodegradable wood, instead of the semiconducting materials like silicon that we currently use and then promptly dump in landfills? Would you call me a dirty hippie and tell me to get real? How about if Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin, told you?

According to MIT Technology Review, Ma and his colleagues have indeed made such a chip:

The inventors argue that the new chips could help address the global problem of rapidly accumulating electronic waste, some of which contains potentially toxic materials. The results also show that a transparent, wood-derived material called nanocellulose paper is an attractive alternative to plastic as a surface for flexible electronics. …

In two recent demonstrations, Ma and his colleagues showed they can use nanocellulose as the support layer for radio frequency circuits that perform comparably to those commonly used in smartphones and tablets. They also showed that these chips can be broken down by a common fungus.

It’s worth noting that the nanocellulose doesn’t replace the actual electronic components on these chips, just the base on which those components lie. That’s still a big deal, though, because the electronic components on a chip are tiny compared to the base.

Ma told Technology Review that the chips are even ready for commercialization — but that the market might not be ready for them:

… He thinks it’s likely to take heightened environmental pressure, or a spike in the price of rare semiconductor materials like gallium, for the mainstream electronics industry to change its current practices and consider making chips from wood.

I’d say the environmental pressure is already there, but then again, who are we to make decisions based on what’s good for the environment?

Fortunately, there’s another reason to push for biodegradable computer chips. John Rogers, a materials scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Technology Review that the military might be interested in using this technology for “transient electronics” that could conveniently disappear before they fall into the wrong hands. And if the military wants it, that means we’ll probably do it.

Source:
A Biodegradable Computer Chip That Performs Surprisingly Well

, MIT Technology Review.

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These biodegradable computer chips are made from wood

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Today’s Proposal In Legislative Transparency: You Amend It, You Own It

by MargieIGTj Posted on July 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last week Wisconsin Republicans tried to sneak language into a budget bill that would have gutted the state’s open records law. Sadly for them, they got caught and had to withdraw the proposal—which, Gov. Scott Walker hastily assured us, “was never intended to inhibit transparent government in any way.” Uh huh.

This kind of sleazy behavior is hardly uncommon, but there’s one bit of it that’s equally common and even sleazier:

State Republicans have refused to disclose who inserted the language into the budget legislation, which was approved late Thursday evening. Before dropping the provisions entirely, the governor’s office said Friday it was considering changes to the proposals concerning public records law, but would not comment as to whether Walker was involved in the proposals in the first place.

Here’s my proposal for transparency in legislating: every change in every law has to be attributed to someone. There’s no virgin birth here. Someone wrote this language. Someone asked that it be inserted. Someone agreed to insert it. You have to be pretty contemptuous of your constituents to clam up and pretend that no one knows where it came from.

This kind of puerile buck-passing is way too common, and it needs to stop. Maybe if they knew their name was going to be attached, legislators would think twice before inserting egregiously self-serving crap like this.

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Today’s Proposal In Legislative Transparency: You Amend It, You Own It

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Even Wisconsin’s Republicans Are Getting Tired of Scott Walker

by BeauDrewvd Posted on June 23, 2015

Mother Jones

Our story so far in America’s laboratories of democracy: Over the past few years, Republican governors have been eagerly implementing big tax cuts, insisting that they will supercharge their states’ economies and increase revenue instead of reducing it. Kansas was the poster child for this experiment, and it failed miserably. Louisiana has been a disaster too. Now comes Wisconsin, where fellow Republicans are getting a little tired of Governor Scott Walker’s denial of reality:

Leaders of Mr. Walker’s party, which controls the Legislature, are balking at his demands for the state’s budget. Critics say the governor’s spending blueprint is aimed more at appealing to conservatives in early-voting states like Iowa than doing what is best for Wisconsin.

Lawmakers are stymied over how to pay for road and bridge repairs without raising taxes or fees, which Mr. Walker has ruled out. The governor’s fellow Republicans rejected his proposal to borrow $1.3 billion for the roadwork, arguing that adding to the state’s debt is irresponsible.

Oh man. Been there, done that. This was also Arnold Schwarzenegger’s solution to a budget hole created by his own tax cuts, and it didn’t work out so well. It turns out that spending is spending, whether you pay for it now or later.

As in so many other states, even Republican legislators are starting to glom onto the fact that if you cut taxes, you’re pretty likely to create a big budget hole. Unfortunately for them, they’re learning that there’s only so far you can go in crapping on the poor to close the hole.1 At some point, you have to start cutting back on stuff you approve of too, like roads and bridges. But Walker doesn’t care. He’s got a presidential run coming up, and he wants to be able to say he didn’t raise taxes. If that means playing “let’s pretend” and borrowing the money instead, he’s OK with that.

On the bright side, at least it’s better than the childishness that Bobby Jindal came up with. And borrowing costs are low right now. So I guess things could be worse.

1Though in Wisconsin’s case, Walker’s signature move for crapping on the poor has been to refuse Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. This will cost Wisconsin $345 million over the next two years, making their budget hole even worse. That’s how much Walker wants to crap on the poor.

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Even Wisconsin’s Republicans Are Getting Tired of Scott Walker

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If You Read One Post About Labor Force Participation This Decade, Let It Be This One

by NelsonHaylupwbx Posted on April 24, 2015

Mother Jones

While Kevin Drum is focused on getting better, we’ve invited some of the remarkable writers and thinkers who have traded links and ideas with him from Blogosphere 1.0 through today to pitch in posts and keep the conversation going. Here’s a missive from Max Sawicky, a DC-based economist and blogger. You can read his always entertaining work on welfare policy, politics, and many other topics at MaxSpeak, You Listen! or find him on Twitter.

I started blogging in May of 2002. In those days the liberal side of the blogosphere was relatively thin, so I got a bit of notoriety. In my recollection, that fall I started noticing the blog of Mr. Kevin Drum. As the weeks went on I noticed this guy Drum was writing a lot, all well-reasoned, articulate prose. Other people were noticing as well. He left me in the dust. At least Kevin was reading me. At some point he came through D.C. with his wife and we had lunch.

I’m honored to be invited to contribute to this festschrift. Yes, that’s the word his editors used when they got in touch. Such high-falutin academic terminology. I prefer to think of it as a roast. But there is nothing funny about Kevin. He’s just too damn reasonable and level-headed. No doubt this contributes to his success. I usually have something obnoxious to say about everybody, but with Kevin I draw a blank. Since I’ve been able to infiltrate the ginormous Mother Jones web site, I need to come up with something. My default mode is attack, so here’s some MaxSpeak love for KD and MoJo.

In this post from just last weekend, Kevin links to a bit from Tyler Cowen. That was your first mistake, Brother Drum. I realize linking is not endorsing, though KD offers a limited, tentative ‘interesting possibility’ type of approval. You see, the prolific and very smart Tyler hails from the zany economics department of George Mason University. No good can come from referencing him. These characters spend all their time excoriating Government and social protection for the working class from tenured, Koch-subsidized positions at a public university. Sweet.

Professor Cowen briefly discusses a paper suggesting the Clinton era welfare reform (sic) reduced labor force participation. (I too am an economist, in case you didn’t know. Ph.D. from Dave’s All-Night University.) The paper suggests that the causes are the imposition of work requirements under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF; formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or just ‘the welfare’), and the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

The TANF explanation makes no sense. To get benefits you have to work, sooner or later. Previously, you didn’t. How could that reduce labor force participation? (On pushing welfare people into Social Security Disability Insurance, thus far there is no evidence of that.) The other cause—the EITC providing enough benefits to a couple to enable one spouse to work less—is pretty well known, though the magnitude of the effect is weak. This is all basic stuff in the literature, as noted in Cowen’s comments section by Virginia Postrel, but it’s evidently new to Tyler. In his defense, Tyler publishes a dynamite guide to ethnic dining in the MD/DC/VA metro area.

So the upshot is this whole mess is thesis interruptus. Even Tyler is skeptical in the end. Though he alludes to it vaguely, the implication of one spouse working somewhat less because the other earns more is not necessarily Bad, unless you’re a Stakhanovite. More time not working can be more time with the kids.

The 1996 welfare reform looked good in the late ’90s, but that was when the whole labor market looked really, really good. Since 2000, not so much. Poverty rates, for instance, have consistently gone up since then. People have not been empowered to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Looking to Tyler for enlightenment on anti-poverty programs is like taking Driver’s Ed from Vin Diesel.

Your go-to sources on the plight of the poor would include Jared Bernstein, Matt Bruenig, Kathy Geier, Shawn Fremstad, and Elise Gould, among others, and occasionally your humble servant.

I wish Kevin the best for an industrial-strength recovery so he can continue to set a good example for progressive commentary, while also providing me periodically with inviting targets. And I look forward to Mother Jones‘ exposé of Scott Walker’s background in Wisconsin animal husbandry. With the obligatory slide show.

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If You Read One Post About Labor Force Participation This Decade, Let It Be This One

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Another State Agency Just Banned the Words "Climate Change"

by CareySargent Posted on April 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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The climate change language police just struck again.

Last month it was in Florida, where former staffers with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection alleged that senior officials, under the direction of Gov. Rick Scott (R), had instituted an unwritten ban on using the phrases “climate change” and “global warming.” Scott denied the claim.

This week’s incident is much less ambiguous. Yesterday, the three-person commission that oversees a public land trust in Wisconsin voted 2-1 to block the trust’s dozen public employees “from engaging in global warming or climate change work while on BCPL time.”

In proposing and voting on the ban, the commission “spent 19 minutes and 29 seconds talking about talking about climate change,” according to Bloomberg:

The move to ban an issue leaves staff at the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands in the unusual position of not being able to speak about how climate change might affect lands it oversees…

The Midwest warmed about 1.5F on average from 1895 to 2012. Pine, maple, birch, spruce, fir, aspen, and beech forests, which are common in the region, are likely to decline as the century progresses, according to the latest US National Climate Assessment.

The ban was proposed by newly elected State Treasurer Matt Adamczyk, a Republican who ran on the unusual campaign promise to swiftly eliminate his own job. At a public meeting on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, Adamczyk said he was disturbed to learn that the agency’s director, Tia Nelson, had spent some time co-chairing a global warming task force in 2007-08 at the request of former governor Jim Doyle (D). Dealing with climate issues—even responding to emails on the subject—isn’t in the agency’s wheelhouse, he said. Adamczyk didn’t immediately return our request for comment.

Adamczyk was joined in voting for the ban by State Attorney General Brad Schimel (R), also newly-elected. Schimel is handling Gov. Scott Walker’s lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency over President Barack Obama’s new climate regulations. The ban was opposed by the commission’s third member, Secretary of State Bob La Follette, a Democrat.

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Another State Agency Just Banned the Words "Climate Change"

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