The Transportation Security Administration clarified its cupcake policy in a blog post. Cupcakegate — as the agency has termed it — was prompted in December, when TSA officers told Rebecca Hains, who was flying out of Las Vegas, she could not carry cupcakes in her carry-on luggage. The TSA said the icing on the two cupcakes was a security risk.
At the time Hains told MSNBC she thought it "was terrible logic."
Yesterday, the TSA defended its action in a 500-word post written by the TSA's Bob Burns, who drew a red line between a normal cupcake and a cupcake in a jar like the one Hains tried to pass through security.
"I wanted to make it clear that this wasn't your everyday, run-of-the-mill cupcake. If you're not familiar with it, we have a policy directly related to the UK liquid bomb plot of 2006 called 3-1-1 that limits the amount of liquids, gels and aerosols you can bring in your carry-on luggage. Icing falls under the "gel" category. As you can see from the picture, unlike a thin layer of icing that resides on the top of most cupcakes, this cupcake had a thick layer of icing inside a jar.
"In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry-on luggage, however, the officer in this case used their discretion on whether or not to allow the newfangled modern take on a cupcake per 3-1-1 guidelines. They chose not to let it go."
Burns goes on to say that the days of terrorists taking the three-sticks-of-dynamite route are over.
"When you think about it, do you think an explosive would be concealed in an ominous item that would draw attention, or something as simple as a cute cupcake jar?" Burns writes. The bottom line, Burns says, is that if you bring a cake, pie or cupcake expect some extra attention from TSA officials.
November 21, 2011, 3:04 pm How to Attack Your Opponent for Things He Didn’t DoBy ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressGov. Rick Perry waves as he enters the Thanksgiving Family Forum sponsored by The Family Leader, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa.
As a journalist who’s covered American politics for the last 24 years, and who covered the Soviet Union as a foreign correspondent before that, I’ve learn to appreciate the dark art of political propaganda.
There’s the outright lie (Barack Obama is not an American citizen), which some people will believe if you say it often enough. There is the subtle lie, which contains enough of a germ of truth to make your opponent look evil (Democrats want to take away your guns). And then there is the damning-by-implication ploy (Sarah Palin is a real American, so that must mean you are not).
One of my all-time favorites is the straw man scam. There are two ways you can do this. One is simply to take a page from the big lie and accuse your opponent of doing something he never did, so you can attack him for it. For example, Newt Gingrich has said that Barack Obama doesn’t believe in the exceptional nature of American democracy because he goes around the world apologizing for it.
The second way is to put an extra spin on damning-by-implication—to announce that if you were in charge, you would do X or Y or Z, thereby suggesting that your opponent couldn’t, wouldn’t, or hasn’t done that.
A recent example of the straw man scam came courtesy of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. At a Family Leader conference in Iowa on Saturday, Mr. Perry said that “there is a time and a place for us to intervene and intervene militarily.”
Phew. Glad we got that cleared up.
Mr. Perry went on: “But when we intervene militarily, we best make the decision on how we are going to win and how we are going to win convincingly and quickly, send those young men and women with the equipment to win.”
As opposed to what? I think President George W. Bush and his bungling Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld actually thought they were planning an effective invasion of Iraq. It wasn’t that they didn’t think about winning. They were just were really bad at it. (I doubt Mr. Perry had them in mind anyway.)
But Mr. Perry was not satisfied with two straw men, so we he went for a third. He said he did not want to “let some Congressman sitting in an air-conditioned office in Washington, D.C. deciding what the rules of engagement are. … And for us to micromanage them, in a civilian way, without their commanders truly in charge, is absolute irresponsible and as commander-in-chief of this country I will not let it happen.”
That’s a lot of stuff to digest, even leaving out that the president is not commander-in-chief of the country, but of the military. Surely he was not suggesting we do away with civilian control of the military. So what problem does he want to fix? When exactly does Mr. Perry think a politician micromanaged troops in the field? Is he trying to say that’s what President Obama does, or what one of his opponents would do?
Only one recent example comes to mind of a president personally supervising a military operation: the assassination of Osama bin Laden. I’m not in favor of a junta, but that actually turned out rather well.
Our topic for today is: Where do the Republican candidates for president get their money?
Earl Wilson/The New York Times
Gail Collins
The personal finances of the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls are important for two reasons. One is that we’re talking about people who aspire to the most prestigious and important job the nation has to offer. The other is that these folks seem to have done really, really well. Perhaps, they can offer career tips.
Remember when Newt Gingrich claimed that the mortgage giant Freddie Mac paid him $300,000 for his advice “as a historian?” Thousands of young history majors who were resigned to a future in which they would pad out their $2,000-a-semester salaries as part-time adjunct lecturers with fulfilling careers in bartending suddenly were engulfed with new hope.
Unfortunately, it turned out that Newt’s income actually comes from running think tanks that help promote the corporate clients’ goals in the public sector. That may be a little harder for the youth of America to put their heads around. But, kids, if anybody asks you what you want to be when you grow up, say: policy guru.
Gingrich wants everyone to understand that he does not lobby. Really, whatever the exact legal definition of lobbying is, that is something he did not do. The Gingrich Group got what turns out to be about $1.6 million to not-lobby for Freddie Mac, one of a long, long list of clients. Let’s all pause to recall the high dudgeon with which Gingrich announced, during one of the debates, that Representative Barney Frank ought to be put in jail for being “close to” Freddie Mac lobbyists. What kind of politician demands that an elected official be incarcerated for hanging out with the same people who are paying said politician $1.6 million or so to not-lobby?
This is an unusually delusional presidential field. Mitt Romney’s greatest political asset is that he doesn’t seem to actually believe it when he says he’s been consistent on matters like health care reform or abortion. Thank God there’s at least one guy on the stage who knows he’s fibbing.
Romney is the richest person running for president, worth somewhere between $190 million and $250 million. Most of that came from his work at Bain Capital, a firm that bought up troubled companies and gave them makeovers. Although many people lost their jobs when Bain Capital reeled in their employers, Romney’s work did create a lot of new value. Which, on occasion, Bain Capital walked away with, leaving the remnants of the company flopping helplessly on the beach.
In 2010, Mitt earned somewhere between $9.6 million and $43.2 million, according to The National Journal’s calculation of his financial reports. I believe I speak for us all when I say that there seems to be a lot of room in the middle of that estimate, but you get the idea. Much of that came from investments, but Romney also gets quite a bit of cash for making speeches. He once made $68,000 for one appearance before the International Franchise Association in Las Vegas.
People, if you were raking in more than $9.6 million a year, would you waste your time talking to the International Franchise Association? Perhaps you would if international franchises were especially close to your heart. But, in that case, why charge them $68,000? There are a lot of mysteries in the Mitt saga. For instance, if you were a very wealthy father of five energetic young boys, would you choose to spend your vacation driving the whole family to Canada with the dog strapped to the roof of the car? Wouldn’t it be more fun to take a plane to Disneyland?
Some of the Republican candidates seem to have no visible means of support whatsoever — like Rick Santorum, who has seven kids. You would hate to think they were going without shoes just so Dad could continue his never-ending quest to break into the 5 percent range in the polls.
But, good news! Santorum made at least $970,000 in 2010, in all those mysterious ways unsuccessful Republican candidates for president seem to have of making money. Part of it came from being a commentator for Fox News, and part of it came from Santorum’s work at — yes! — a think tank.
Rick Perry does not have a vast fortune, although he is blessed with friends who fly him around on private jets, take him on cool vacations and, occasionally, sell him real estate at bargain-basement prices. This week, Perry laced into Barack Obama as a man who could not possibly understand what ordinary Americans were going through because he “grew up in a privileged way.” This is a strange way to describe the president’s upbringing — particularly when Romney, the guy Perry is actually supposed to be running against, was the son of the head of American Motors. Maybe he got the two mixed up.
All I can tell you is this. Rick Perry will never be paid by a tank to think.
WASHINGTON — A slice of pizza still counts as a vegetable.
Lori Wolfe/The Herald-Dispatch, via Associated Press
Titus Bailey, a pre-kindergartener, in line for his lunch this month at West Hamlin Elementary School in West Hamlin, W.Va.
In a victory for the makers of frozen pizzas, tomato paste and French fries, Congress on Monday blocked rules proposed by the Agriculture Department that would have overhauled the nation’s school lunch program.
The proposed changes — the first in 15 years to the $11 billion school lunch program — were meant to reduce childhood obesity by adding more fruits and green vegetables to lunch menus, Agriculture Department officials said.
The rules, proposed last January, would have cut the amount of potatoes served and would have changed the way schools received credit for serving vegetables by continuing to count tomato paste on a slice of pizza only if more than a quarter-cup of it was used. The rules would have also halved the amount of sodium in school meals over the next 10 years.
But late Monday, lawmakers drafting a House and Senate compromise for the agriculture spending bill blocked the department from using money to carry out any of the proposed rules.
In a statement, the Agriculture Department expressed its disappointment with the decision.
“While it is unfortunate that some in Congress chose to bow to special interests, U.S.D.A. remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals that improve the health of our children,” the department said in the statement.
Food companies including ConAgra, Coca-Cola, Del Monte Foods and makers of frozen pizza like Schwan argued that the proposed rules would raise the cost of meals and require food that many children would throw away.
The companies called the Congressional response reasonable, adding that the Agriculture Department went too far in trying to improve nutrition in school lunches.
“This is an important step for the school districts, parents and taxpayers who would shoulder the burden of U.S.D.A.’s proposed $6.8 billion school meal regulation that will not increase the delivery of key nutrients,” said John Keeling, executive vice president and chief executive of the National Potato Council.
The Agriculture Department had estimated that the proposal would have cost about $6.8 billion over the next five years, adding about 14 cents a meal to the cost of a school lunch.
Corey Henry, a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute, said the proposed rules simply did not make sense, especially when it came to pizza.
The industry backs the current rules which say that about a quarter-cup of tomato paste on a slice of pizza can count as a vegetable serving. The Agriculture Department proposal would have required that schools serve more tomato paste per piece of pizza to get a vegetable credit, an idea the industry thought would make pizza unappetizing.
The department said the change would have simply brought tomato paste in line with the way other fruit pastes and purees were credited in school meals.
Nutrition experts called the action by Congress a setback for improving the nutritional standards in school lunches and addressing childhood obesity.
“It’s a shame that Congress seems more interested in protecting industry than protecting children’s health,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit research group. “At a time when child nutrition and childhood obesity are national health concerns, Congress should be supporting U.S.D.A. and school efforts to serve healthier school meals, not undermining them.”
Knuckleheads and Worse, Bringing Guns in Carry-ons
By JOE SHARKEY
Published: November 14, 2011
EVERY day, screening officers find four to five guns in carry-on bags at American airports, according to John S. Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration.
Now, considering that about 1.7 million travelers pass through security checkpoints each day at the nation’s 450 commercial airports, that may not sound like a lot — until you think about how many guns it would take to set off a nasty scene on an airplane.
And the number of guns found seems to be increasing. In August 2010, for example, the T.S.A.’s blog said that, on average, “our officers find about two guns a day at checkpoints.”
Two other things seem to be at work here, and neither involves terrorism. The first I’ll call the knucklehead factor. A majority of passengers found with firearms in their carry-ons explain sheepishly that they simply forgot they had them in their bags. This seems plausible since many states have been steadily relaxing laws regulating the possession and carrying of firearms.
The other factor is more serious. A small percentage of firearms detected at checkpoints have been “artfully concealed,” as the T.S.A. puts it. That is, the traveler made an obvious attempt to hide the guns as they passed through metal detectors or as screeners inspected bags. The agency won’t speculate on this, but I’m guessing that certain misguided people are determined to have their weapons with them, even if it means risking arrest.
On its blog, the T.S.A. notes that finding prohibited items like guns on people “does not mean they had bad intentions.” That, it says, is “for the law-enforcement officer to decide.” And I should note an exception to all this. Travelers can carry guns — but only unloaded and in checked bags — after they have notified the airline.
In recent testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Mr. Pistole described one example in which guns were found. On Oct. 20, a passenger tried to board a plane at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport with three carry-on bags that concealed two pistols, two ammunition magazines, eight knives and a handsaw.
“Artfully concealed” doesn’t seem to require either art or skill. In this instance, the man was immediately arrested on state weapons charges.
“If a gun is detected in a carry-on bag, T.S.A. contacts local law enforcement,” said Kristin Lee, a spokeswoman for the agency. “Violations can result in state and local criminal prosecution, as well as civil penalties up to $2,000 per violation.” As of last week, “there have been 689 gun-related arrests” at checkpoints this year, she said.
A lot of these guns are loaded. According to the T.S.A., 24 loaded firearms were found in carry-on bags from Nov. 4 to Nov. 9.
This particular firearms issue, to me, reflects a culture in which laws covering the possession of guns are becoming increasingly looser. Lots of Americans carry guns. While I haven’t carried a firearm since I was required to in Vietnam, I happen to live in southern Arizona, where the Wild West is not that distant a memory.
In about an hour, for example, I can drive to Tombstone, site of the fabled gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But during that drive across the desert, I can also reflect on the fact that one of the events leading to that 1881 shootout was the insistence by Virgil Earp, a marshal, and his brother Wyatt that their antagonists, the Clanton and McLaury brothers, adhere to Tombstone’s ban on carrying firearms in town.
Few of the most ardent firearms advocates would argue that it’s a good idea for a passenger to try to board an airplane with a gun. But I have to wonder, given the white-hot politics of gun control, whether some travelers adequately understand that it is an extremely serious offense to deliberately try to take a gun onto a plane.
And for those who explain that they simply forgot they had it in a bag, I would add that is a serious offense. It goes against a basic gun-safety protocol, that you should always know where your firearm is. If you completely forgot that it was in your gym bag, that’s bad gun safety.
“Most travelers present very little risk of committing acts of terrorism,” Mr. Pistole said in outlining to the Senate committee the agency’s plans to rely more on “intelligence-based risk-assessment.” In the future, security agents will focus less on the “one size fits all” approach at the checkpoints, where they are constantly searching every passenger for various contraband.
I would say that somebody blithely carrying a loaded .45-caliber pistol in a bag to a checkpoint, as the T.S.A. says a man did last week at the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., creates a real hurdle for any “intelligence-based” initiative.
Caroline Brewer, a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, agrees.
“We’re just pleased that the T.S.A. is being aggressive about searching for guns,” even though that often increases waits at the checkpoints, she said.
Of the apparent increase in guns, she added: “It could be that people aren’t getting the news that you just don’t bring your gun to the airport. The National Rifle Association in recent years has been trying to expand the number of places that people can take their guns — restaurants and bars, stadiums and other places. So it could be that there is a sense by some gun owners, why not take my gun to the airport? Maybe people just aren’t getting the word that, listen, you simply don’t bring your gun to the airport.”
Planned Parenthood Struggles After State Budget Cuts
By THANH TAN
Published: October 15, 2011
Hidalgo County, situated along the border that separates Texas and Mexico, is home to one of the country’s fastest-growing but poorest populations. Largely Hispanic and Catholic, the county also has one of the highest birth rates in a state where Medicaid finances more than half of all deliveries.
Patients at the McAllen clinic to voice their concerns over the Legislature's family-planning budget cuts.
Not all of those new mothers and fathers are ready to be parents, and Patricio Gonzales, a former social worker in McAllen, the county’s largest city, has witnessed the consequences — case after case of child neglect and abuse. Convinced that family planning could be a solution, he became the chief executive of the Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, which was founded in a Methodist church in nearby Mission.
In 2010, the Hidalgo County network’s eight clinics provided family-planning services to 23,000 patients, many of whom are uninsured and cannot afford to pay. The services include contraception, breast and cervical cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted diseases, and wellness exams for both men and women — but not abortions.
“Basically, we are their doctors,” Mr. Gonzales said. “And for many of them, this is a way to help them get out of poverty.”
Operating in a region with a limited donor base and high need for health services, Mr. Gonzales said, the clinics have relied heavily on government financing. So when state cuts to family planning took effect in September, the Hidalgo County network lost a $3.1 million contract and was forced to lay off half its staff and shut down four of its facilities. (Another five clinics have closed around the state since the beginning of September.) Mr. Gonzales estimated that the closings would affect approximately 16,000 low-income men, women and teenagers in the Rio Grande Valley.
What is happening in Texas is emblematic of a national trend. Unable to overturn Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion campaigners have worked in recent years within Congress and state legislatures, many of which have become increasingly conservative, to make gaining access to the procedure as difficult as possible. Around the country, state legislatures from Arizona to Kansas have passed sweeping measures this year intended to make it more onerous for Planned Parenthood clinics to stay open.
In Texas, lawmakers approved a measure requiring doctors to perform sonograms on women seeking abortions and to describe to them what they see and hear. They also worked to strip financing from any organization that performs abortions or refers women to abortion providers, even if the majority of the organization’s services — or all of them — are primary and preventive care.
“Taxpayers should not be subsidizing the abortion industry,” said Elizabeth Graham, the director of Texas Right to Life.
Supporters of Planned Parenthood maintain that about 95 percent of the organization’s services consist of routine health care. Planned Parenthood clinics receive state aid in Texas by legally separating their family-planning services from their abortion services, which are off limits to tax dollars, but the distinction has never been enough to appease politicians who oppose abortion.
“Their interest is not in giving women options,” Representative Wayne Christian, Republican of Center, said during this year’s legislative session. “Their ultimate answer is, ‘The best we can do is an abortion.’ ”
Earlier this year, Mr. Christian and his colleagues cut the state’s family-planning budget by two-thirds, to $37.9 million over the next two years from $111.5 million. The money was diverted to other causes, including autism and early childhood programs. Budget analysts warned lawmakers that reducing family-planning access would affect at least 180,000 men and women each year and could lead to more than 20,000 additional babies being born at a cost of more than $200 million.
Planned Parenthood reports that 66 of its Texas clinics remain open, but hours and educational outreach efforts have been reduced. This year, 11 clinics received state support, down from 40 clinics last year.
Anti-abortion activists say the women who have relied on Planned Parenthood can go to crisis pregnancy centers — for which lawmakers increased financing — and other community health clinics that do not refer for the procedure. But community health clinics have faced budget cuts as well.
In late August, the Department of State Health Services enforced a new priority financing system that determined that 56 family- planning providers would receive smaller grants through November. But 15 organizations would immediately lose their contracts because of “lack of need” or because there was another agency “within the same service area.” Centers that lost financing included nine unaffiliated with Planned Parenthood, like the People’s Community Clinic in Austin and Haven Health Clinics in Amarillo.
Lone Star Circle of Care, a federally qualified health center with locations throughout Central Texas, received some financing but not enough to cover the demand for birth control and testing.
“We’re talking about basic primary things that everyone should be entitled to, and it really shouldn’t be attached to any political or religious agenda,” said Dr. Tamarah Duperval-Brownlee, Lone Star’s chief medical officer.
In Hidalgo County, the Planned Parenthood network received a one-time award of $113,000 from the state in September after two other agencies rejected the money — enough to treat about 650 patients, but not enough to keep its clinics open in Mission, Progreso, Rio Grande City and San Carlos.
Mr. Gonzales said he was most concerned that clients would have to travel longer distances for care — or would stop seeking treatment altogether.
One of those clients, Nidia Torres, 62, of San Juan, started going to Planned Parenthood when she was 15. Ms. Torres said the organization helped her plan five pregnancies and treated early signs of cervical cancer in 1985.
Though she is staunchly opposed to abortion, Ms. Torres said she supports prevention. She is concerned that a desire to punish Planned Parenthood could have unintended consequences for the health of those in the community.
“If someone comes in and she’s pregnant? She’s pregnant. There’s nothing we can do,” Ms. Torres said. “We’ll be worse if they take away that money for Planned Parenthood. The hospitals will be filled. We will have more children. We will need more food stamps. This is not what the Valley needs. This is not what our community needs. This is not what Texas needs.”
Hank Williams Jr. has kicked off Monday Night Football for two decades.
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: October 5, 2011
Sometimes people surprise you. For more than 20 years, Hank Williams Jr. sang his adapted version of “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” to open “Monday Night Football.” Over the years, the production values grew but the message stayed the same: “Are you ready for some football?” The musical bit traveled with “Monday Night” from ABC to ESPN. Although it has grown stale, it was harmless.
And there was no reason to think about Williams’s right-wing politics.
Then on Monday, Williams compared President Obama to Hitler during an appearance on Fox News Channel. He described the round of golf between Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner last summer as “Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu” — referring to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — then punctuated his political tirade by calling Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “the enemy.”
ESPN quickly pulled Williams’s opener from Monday’s Indianapolis-Tampa Bay game (the national anthem replaced the song) and left open further action against him.
Williams has issued two statements, one an apology of sorts, the second a condemnation of news media characterizations of Tea Party members as racist and extremist. He admitted that his Obama-to-Hitler analogy was “extreme” but said he did it to make a point. He canceled a follow-up appearance Tuesday night on Fox News Channel.
ESPN is contemplating whether to cut its ties to Williams, who is not an employee and is tangential to the company’s success. Comparing Obama to the epitome of pure evil seems to be a dismissible offense. But ESPN executives could conclude that Williams’s contrition is sufficient (despite the semi-sincere “if I offended anyone” part of his de rigueur celebrity apology) and declare a one-week suspension adequate.
But James Miller, the co-author of the recent book about ESPN, “Those Guys Have All the Fun,” said that the importance of “Monday Night” to the Bristol, Conn.-based empire has accelerated an internal debate about what to do about Williams. “Even before this occurred, there were people who thought the opening was past its prime and were advocating a new one,” he said. “Others want to keep it for its tradition and legacy.”
Williams’s remarks demonstrated the potency of Hitler’s name — and how almost any comparison, except to another genocidal tyrant, is extreme.
Mel Brooks angered some people by his mockery of Hitler and the Nazis in the film and stage versions of “The Producers.” Several years ago, he explained his approach to satirizing Hitler to the German publication Der Spiegel: “Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance.” He added that “by using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power and myths.”
ESPN has past experience — none of it comedic — with personnel who could not resist including Hitler in their analyses. In an online column, Jemele Hill said that cheering for the Celtics “is like saying Hitler was a victim,” for which she was suspended. She apologized.
On the air, Lou Holtz discussed Michigan’s tough start in 2008 and Coach Rich Rodriguez’s leadership. Holtz’s point was simple: “Ya know, Hitler was a good leader, too.” (You wonder when Holtz the historian thought Hitler’s skills eroded.)
Unlike Hill, Holtz was not suspended, which suggested a double standard. In “Those Guys Have All the Fun,” Holtz defended himself by saying, “I think the point I made was very valid, very solid, and it was a different angle than the way people look at it.”
“We’ve seen it at rallies with posters of Obama with Hitler mustaches and in the comments sections of right-wing news sites,” he said. “I think that’s what he’s picking up on.”
Thirty-eight years after Roe v. Wade recognized a woman’s right to make her own childbearing decisions and legalized abortion nationwide, a newly intensified drive by anti-abortion forces who refuse to accept the law of the land has seriously imperiled women’s ability to exercise that right. Opponents of abortion rights know they cannot achieve their ultimate goal of an outright ban, at least in the near future. So they are concentrating on enacting laws and regulations narrowing the legal right and making abortion more difficult to obtain.
The most visible battleground is Congress, where the House Republican majority seems to have time for a big-government attack on women’s reproductive health and freedom but not to pass a job-creating bill.
However, as in the past, most of the fights are taking place in state capitals. The result has been a huge number of new abortion restrictions, traceable in part to the 2010 mid-term elections, which increased the number of anti-abortion governors and state legislatures controlled by abortion opponents, who keep concocting new schemes to make terminating a pregnancy a right on paper only. The spate of new laws comes on top of many state and federal abortion curbs already in place.
The map illustrates the barriers, state by state, facing women needing access to a constitutionally protected medical procedure. States shown in the darkest shade have enacted five of the most harmful restrictions: mandatory waiting periods; demeaning “counseling” sessions lacking a real medical justification; parental consent or notification laws that pose a particular hardship for teenagers from troubled homes, including incest victims; needlessly onerous clinic “safety” rules governing such things as the width of hallways and the amount of storage space for janitorial supplies; and prohibitions on abortion coverage in insurance policies. States in lighter shades have fewer of these restrictions. Twenty-seven states have enacted three or more of these laws, while only 12 states, shown in white, have none.
The graphic traces the total number of a broad range of major abortion restrictions enacted by the states, including the five covered in the map and others, like mandatory ultrasounds. Sixty-one such laws were enacted during just the first eight months of this year — nearly triple the number in all of 2010, and more than double the previous record of 28 set in 1997. Although some of this year’s statutes have already been preliminarily enjoined by courts as unconstitutional, others will be left to stand as constraints on women’s reproductive freedom.
If anything, the chart understates the limits on access to abortion. It fails to capture other negative developments, like the big decline in the number of abortion providers. In 1982, there were 2,908 providers nationwide. As of 2008, there were only 1,793. In 97 percent of the counties that are outside metropolitan areas there are no abortion providers at all.
One powerful strategy of the anti-abortion forces has been to portray abortion as outside the mainstream and cast women who have abortions as immoral outliers. In reality, abortion is one of the safest and most common of medical procedures, one that about one-third of American women undergo during their lifetime.
One clear lesson of this year’s skyrocketing number of new state laws is that those who care about keeping the procedure safe, legal and accessible need to raise their voices as loudly and effectively as those on the other side. If they don’t do so, and quickly, the number of harmful restrictions will continue to balloon, at a rising cost to women’s lives, health and equality.
We really wanted to move things to a higher plane. But they keep having these debates.
After all, it did appear at moments this week that life might still be fantastic, mind-expanding and shot through with wonder. First, 50 new planets outside our solar system were found, one of them orbiting not one but two suns. Then, a report of subatomic particles shattering the speed of light. The world in a grain of sand. Infinity in the palms of our hands! Wow. What wasn’t possible?
Plus, isn’t the new iPhone coming out?
NASA/NASA, via Getty ImagesAn illustration of the planet Kepler 16b orbiting two stars.
Back on terra firma, though, things were less awesome and more confounding. Here, humans still roamed the earth, with predictable results, and could be observed saying things like “we would move forward in conformity with what was happening in the past” to large audiences, who would then applaud.
That statement was not uttered by a mischievous astrophysicist but by Rick Santorum, a candidate for president, speaking at the most recent Republican debate last night in Orlando. Santorum’s time-twisting formulation was his way of saying that, if he were president, he would reinstate the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gay men and women in the military. The law, of course, was repealed Tuesday, after years of efforts by advocates; discrimination in the armed forces based on sexual orientation would never again be allowed. The march of time could not be reversed. Or could it?
That the past and future could dovetail in some Mobius strip of time was suggested by Santorum in a response to a question from a gay soldier, Stephen Hill, who is serving in Iraq. Hill appeared at the debate to ask his question via the magic of video. Please watch:
Or read.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: In 2010, when I was deployed to Iraq, I had to lie about who I was, because I’m a gay soldier, and I didn’t want to lose my job.
My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you intend to circumvent the progress that’s been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(Booing from audience.)
SANTORUM: Yeah, I — I would say, any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they’re making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to — to — and removing “don’t ask/don’t tell” I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military’s job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.
We need to give the military, which is all-volunteer, the ability to do so in a way that is most efficient at protecting our men and women in uniform.
(APPLAUSE)
And I believe this undermines that ability.
(APPLAUSE)
KELLY: So what — what — what would you do with soldiers like Stephen Hill? I mean, he’s — now he’s out. He’s — you know, you saw his face on camera. When he first submitted this video to us, it was without his face on camera. Now he’s out. So what would you do as president?
SANTORUM: I think it’s it’s — it’s — look, what we’re doing is playing social experimentation with — with our military right now. And that’s tragic.
I would — I would just say that, going forward, we would — we would reinstitute that policy, if Rick Santorum was president, period.
That policy would be reinstituted. And as far as people who are in — in — I would not throw them out, because that would be unfair to them because of the policy of this administration, but we would move forward in — in conformity with what was happening in the past, which was, sex is not an issue. It is — it should not be an issue. Leave it alone, keep it — keep it to yourself, whether you’re a heterosexual or a homosexual.
(APPLAUSE)
The gay conservative group GOProud quickly demanded an apology from Santorum. “Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform,” the statement said, “and he owes Stephen Hill …an immediate apology. That brave gay soldier is doing something Rick Santorum has never done — put his life on the line to defend our freedoms and our way of life. It is telling that Rick Santorum is so blinded by his anti-gay bigotry that he couldn’t even bring himself to thank that gay soldier for his service.”
But that sure wasn’t the end of it.
(Santorum, in a follow up interview today, did thank the soldier, and claimed he did not hear the booing, but alas he could not turn back time. The truth was out there.)
Yes, the boos were for the soldier. And the applause for Santorum’s explanation of why he would repeal the repeal as president. This more or less followed the pattern of the notable audience outbursts at the two previous debates — the “Texas death penalty cheer” and the “Let him die” uninsured whoop.
Jonathan Weisman at The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire was quick to note the pattern, which is certainly being used by opponents of the G.O.P.
Three Republican debates in as many weeks have produced plenty of fodder for voters deciding not just who the Republican presidential nominee should be but ultimately who should sit in the White House.
But a surprising factor has emerged in the impressions being left: the audience. Three times now, an incident with the audience has left some watchers scratching their heads and has touched off plenty of chatter in media and pundit circles. …
Ultimately, voters are making judgments on the candidates, not the crowds that pack the debates. But liberal activists are using the crowd responses to paint the GOP as extremist.
So true. Support for Santorum’s position or for the proclivities of the audiences at the Republican debates was exceedingly hard to find.
Jazz Shaw at Hot Air agrees that, policy aside, moments like this one have repercussions for Republicans beyond the lecterns. They turn into red meat for the Democratic wolves:
When something like that happens, the response of the candidate — and even the subject itself — ceases to be the story and the media picks up on “the bloodthirsty Republican audience” as the story du jour. It happened last time with the death penalty and health insurance questions, and sure enough, when I began flipping through the morning news shows today, those two items were right up near the top of the list of what they were talking about.
Hey, look! Republicans are booing an active duty soldier and cheering for the elimination of unemployment insurance!
You don’t need to be Karl Rove to figure out this might not be a winning visual image.
Andrew Sullivan, who aside from being a blogger and editor of renown is openly gay, did fire off a quick tirade during the debate, but stewed overnight and returned Friday with an extended, angry meditation:
As I went to bed last night, the scattered boos for an American soldier in the field at any debate began to sink in. And Santorum’s despicable lie in response — that repealing DADT somehow means license of gay sexual misconduct in the armed services — was intended to reduce that soldier, his life and work, to Santorum’s obsession: the intrinsic evil of gay sex. Again, this is usual. Gays are used to being reduced to sexual acts rather than being seen as full human beings, like straight people, with sexuality sure, but a whole lot of other things as well.
But somehow the fact that these indignities were heaped on a man risking his life to serve this country, a man ballsy enough to make that video, a man in the uniform of the United States … well, it tells me a couple of things. It tells me that these Republicans don’t actually deep down care for the troops, if that means gay troops. Their constant posturing military patriotism has its limits.
The shocking silence on the stage — the fact that no one challenged this outrage — also tells me that this kind of slur is not regarded as a big deal. …
And then I think of all those gay servicemembers who have died for this country, or been wounded in battle, or been on tours year after year … and the fury builds.
At Politico, Roger Simon imagined how the audience might be called to account for its response: “The crowd, knowing it was several thousand miles away from him, felt courageous enough to boo. It’s a shame that the curtains did not part, revealing the soldier standing on the stage. Did I mention this guy had biceps he could cracked walnuts with? The boo-birds would have whimpered once or twice and then stampeded for the exits.”
Walter Shapiro at The New Republic suggested that Santorum not only went awry, but could also use to brush up on his military history: “…Santorum was unyielding in his demand for heterosexuality in the military. The former Pennsylvania senator did not even thank the solider for his service in a war zone. But Santorum did insist, ‘Any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military.’ Needless to say, that comment displayed a naiveté about the lives of soldiers since the days of Achilles and Hector at the gates of Troy.”
A few others found the “no sex in the military” line to be absurd. At The New Yorker, Amy Davidson wrote:
“Sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military”? That will be a surprise to the men and women, of every orientation, who love, marry, and become parents while serving. We have an all-volunteer military whose health relies on its strong ties to civilian life — not a praetorian guard of eunuchs. Does Santorum think that “the military” is a collection of battle scenes in an action movie? Surely not; his father worked for the Veterans Administration, and so he must know better. He also ought to know that there is no “special privilege” here, just the possibility of serving without the special obligation of lying, and the same knowledge other soldiers have that the person they love most might be able to be handed a folded flag if they die. Or is the word “gay” so strong for Santorum that it blotted out the word “soldier”?
James Joyner at Outside the Beltway followed suit: “Rick Santorum once again proved what a weird human being he is. Aside from the Mike Dukakis-like tone deafness of his response to the question being humanized rather than theoretical, the notion that ‘Any type of sexual activity has no place in the military’ is simply bizarre.”
At Opinion L.A. the Los Angeles Times opinion staff points out the damage this sort of rhetoric does for social conservatives:
That a Republican endorsed “don’t ask, don’t tell” isn’t surprising. But there was something especially crass about Santorum’s reply. His remark that “any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military” completely misses the point and continues his bizarre refocusing of the gay-rights debate on sex.
And he doesn’t know how profoundly insulting it is to gays and lesbians to call requiring the military to afford them basic respect a “social experiment.” (Besides, which is the more dubious social experiment: sexually cleansing our armed forces, or having them reflect society’s inexorable march toward fully accepting gay men and women?)
Worst, watching Santorum and other Republicans stand stoically while a handful of debate-goers shout their disgust with a homosexual soldier leaves the impression that the GOP candidates have more outwardly embraced anti-gay prejudice to win over conservative voters. This kind of behavior makes it difficult to take social conservatives at their word when they insist that their opposition to, say, same-sex marriage is rooted respect for a longstanding institution instead of prejudice.
William Kristol summed up the general G.O.P. sentiment with the headline of The Weekly Standard’s special editorial following the debate: “Yikes.” Kristol does not single out Santorum, but rather channels the despair of the party faithful about the field of candidates:
Reading the reactions of thoughtful commentators after the stage emptied, talking with conservative policy types and GOP political operatives later last evening and this morning, we know we’re not alone. Most won’t express publicly just how horrified — or at least how demoralized — they are. After all, they still want to beat Obama — as do we. And they want to get along with the possible nominee and the other candidates and their supporters. They don’t want to rock the boat too much. But maybe the GOP presidential boat needs rocking.
The e-mails flooding into our inbox during the evening were less guarded. Early on, we received this missive from a bright young conservative: “I’m watching my first GOP debate…and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!” As the evening went on, the craziness receded, and the demoralized comments we received stressed the mediocrity of the field rather than its wackiness.
Conservatives reflecting on their own weaknesses? What’s next? Democratic bouts of self-examination? Maybe the earth still is a wondrous place.
If Brian Harrison and W. G. Stover, the two Solyndra executives who took the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing on Friday, ever spend a day in jail, I’ll stand on my head in Times Square.
It’s not going to happen, for one simple reason: neither they, nor anyone else connected with Solyndra, have done anything remotely criminal. The company’s recent bankruptcy — which the Republicans are now rabidly “investigating” because Solyndra had the misfortune to receive a $535 million federally guaranteed loan from the Obama administration — was largely brought on by a stunning collapse in the price of solar panels over the past year or so.
The company’s innovative solar panels, high-priced to begin with, became increasingly uncompetitive in the marketplace. Solyndra didn’t have enough big commercial customers to create the necessary economies of scale. And although Harrison and Stover remained optimistic up to the bitter end — insisting six weeks before the late-August bankruptcy filing that the company was going to be fine — they ultimately failed to raise additional capital that would have allowed Solyndra to stay in business.
The Republicans are trying to make that optimism appear sinister, but if we’ve learned anything from the financial crisis, it is that wishful thinking in the face of a collapsing market is not a crime. Otherwise, Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be wearing prison garb.
Harrison and Stover are on the hot seat. Anything they say in their defense — even an off-hand remark — can and will be used against them. Their lawyers would be fools if they didn’t insist that their clients take the Fifth Amendment.
Do the Republicans know this? Of course. Do they care? Of course not. For an hour and a half on Friday morning, they peppered the two men with questions about this “taxpayer ripoff,” as Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, described it, knowing full well that Harrison and Stover would invoke their constitutional right to remain silent. Joe McCarthy would have been proud.
The purpose of the hearing — indeed, the point of manufacturing a Solyndra investigation in the first place — is to embarrass the president. That’s how Washington works in the modern age: the party out of power gins up phony scandals aimed at hurting the party in power.
Undoubtedly, the Solyndra “scandal” will draw a little blood: there are some embarrassing e-mails showing the White House pushing to get the deal done quickly so it could tout Solyndra’s green jobs as part of the stimulus package.
But if we could just stop playing gotcha for a second, we might realize that federal loan programs — especially loans for innovative energy technologies — virtually require the government to take risks the private sector won’t take. Indeed, risk-taking is what these programs are all about. Sometimes, the risks pay off. Other times, they don’t. It’s not a taxpayer ripoff if you don’t bat 1.000; on the contrary, a zero failure rate likely means that the program is too risk-averse. Thus, the real question the Solyndra case poses is this: Are the potential successes significant enough to negate the inevitable failures?
I have a hard time answering “no.” Most electricity today is generated by coal-fired power plants, operated by monopoly, state-regulated utilities. Because they’ve been around so long, and because coal is cheap, these plants have built-in cost advantages that no new technology can overcome without help. The federal guarantees help lower the cost of capital for technologies like solar; they help spur innovation; and they help encourage private investment. These are all worthy goals.
To say “no” is also to cede the solar panel industry to China, which last year alone provided some $30 billon in subsidies for its solar industry. Over all, the American solar industry is a big success story; it now employs more people than either steel or coal, and it’s a net exporter.
But solar panel manufacturing — a potential source of middle-class jobs, and an important reason the White House was so high on Solyndra, which made its panels in Fremont, Calif. — is another story. Not so long ago, China made 6 percent of the world’s solar panels. Now it makes 54 percent, and leads the world in solar panel manufacturing. Needless to say, the U.S. share of the market has shrunk. The only way America can manufacture competitive solar panels is to come up with innovative technologies that the Chinese can’t replicate. Like, for instance, Solyndra’s.
At the hearing on Friday, several of the Republican congressmen boasted that, in passing the continuing resolution to keep the government running the day before, they had succeeded in slashing the program that had made the loan to Solyndra. It’s true: of the $4 billion that remained in the program, $1.5 billion was cut.
But the real winner isn’t the American taxpayer or even the House Republicans. It’s the Chinese solar industry.
Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressGov. Rick Perry waves as he enters the Thanksgiving Family Forum sponsored by The Family Leader, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2011, in Des Moines, Iowa.
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NASA/NASA, via Getty ImagesAn illustration of the planet Kepler 16b orbiting two stars.
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