THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/26/12 [Last Ever Edition!]

STUDENT LOAN FIGHT: This week, President Obama has been campaigning at full throttle for Congress to act to prevent student loan interest rates from rising. “At issue is a 2007 law, set to expire on July 1, which keeps the interest rate for federal Direct Stafford Loans at 3.4%. If Congress fails to act, the rate will double, affecting more than 7.4 million students, who'll face, on average, an additional $1,000 in debt.” The Dems are going all out on this not only because the law is set to expire soon and requires congressional action, but because they realize they can trap the Republicans on something that is obviously popular. And it’s starting to work: Romney has already tried to Etch-a-Sketch his way through this one, going out of his way to express his support for extending the lower rates, despite telling a student just a month ago that he shouldn’t expect any government help with his loans. The GOP is scrambling to respond. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) expresses the radical view that the government should have nothing to do with student loans whatsoever: “America has got the equivalent of the stage three cancer of socialism because the federal government is tampering in all kinds of stuff it has no business tampering in.” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), however, is trying to walk a more delicate line, claiming that it is the Democrats who are responsible for the impending rate increase -- because they had the audacity to lower them five years ago. He tweeted this week: “Student loan rates set to double because Democratic-controlled Congress voted to double them.” Despite the flaws in Boehner’s logic, his office is running with this line of criticism. "The rising cost of tuition is a serious problem for students and their families,” Boehner’s spokesman said this week, “so it's unfortunate that Washington Democrats put in place a law that would double student loan rates.” As Steve Benen points out, the exact same thing could be said about the Bush tax cuts, which also contained an expiration date. “It would be every bit as accurate for me to say, ‘It's unfortunate that Washington Republicans put in place a law that would increase federal taxes by trillions of dollars over the next decade.’ If one is true, the other true.”

Now the House GOP has announced that it will move its own bill to extend the loan rates, and pay for it out of a “slush fund” included in Obamacare. “Which Obamacare ‘slush fund’ is being referred to here? Speaking to reporters this afternoon, John Boehner clarified that the ‘slush fund’ in question is the law’s $17 billion account that the Health and Human Services Secretary can use to fund prevention and public health programs.”

NO, OBAMA’S USE OF EXECUTIVE POWER IS NOT THE SAME AS BUSH’S: Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a cover story suggesting that President Obama is amassing executive power, and that it’s hypocritical given his previous criticism of his predecessor’s use of executive power.  You had to get halfway through the first page before you get this very crucial caveat: “But for the most part, Mr. Obama’s increased unilateralism in domestic policy has relied on a different form of executive power than the sort that had led to heated debates during his predecessor’s administration: Mr. Bush’s frequent assertion of a right to override statutes on matters like surveillance and torture.” And that’s a pretty important distinction! Where Obama has tried to use executive and administrative authority to move on priorities that Congress refuses to touch, it’s important to remember that Bush simply flouted the law, and insisted that, in certain realms, the president was not bound by law at all. Further, as Mary Lederman points out, every instance cited by the Times (except for the recess appointment) of Obama using executive power are “instances in which the Executive has acted pursuant to what it views as delegated statutory authority” -- delegated, of course, by Congress itself. This is a far, far cry from Bush’s invocation of a “unitary” executive. “[W]hat [Obama] has done, while Congress fiddles, is simply to use the imperfect authorities conferred upon him by earlier, less stubborn legislatures. That is, indeed, a notable emphasis in the second half of the term, worthy of a story. But it is nothing like the assertion of ‘unilateral’ executive power, let alone the ‘flouting’ of Congress or the adoption of his predecessor's constitutional views.” Let’s not forget this very crucial distinction, and let’s avoid hasty comparisons to his lawless predecessor.  

ROMNEY, REBOOTED: On Tuesday, Romney won a bunch of primaries in the northeast, and declared the primaries over and himself the nominee. He took the occasion to debut the latest version of his stump speech (one writer counts it as the 97th “pivot” of his campaign), which spent 8 paragraphs on his biography of success, 8 paragraphs attacking Obama, and wrapped up by detailing his vision of a thriving middle class and a free-enterprise economy driven by free people loving their freedom to be free in a free world. (Seriously, here’s the quote: “I have a very different vision for America, and of our future. It is an America driven by freedom, where free people, pursuing happiness in their own unique ways, create free enterprises that employ more and more Americans.”) He declared once Obamacare was fully in place, “we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.” (If only Marx had known it was that easy!) The speech was shocking light on anything resembling a detail, or even a vague idea of how to achieve Romney’s “very different vision for America.” Ezra Klein: “If this speech was all you knew of Mitt Romney -- if it was your one guide to his presidential campaign -- you'd sum his message up as, ‘vote for me: I think America is great.’
Romney never makes the turn to how he would achieve this America. Believing in it is apparently enough.” Steve Benen delves deeper:

Romney reached out, for example, to "the mom and dad who never thought they'd be on food stamps," without acknowledging that he supports slashing funding for food stamps. He spoke repeatedly about "unfairness" in the economy, without mentioning he supports some millionaires and billionaires paying a lower tax rate than most of the middle class. He talked about rising debt without noting that he has no way of paying for the massive tax breaks he's sworn to pass. He said he'd rescue "grandparents" without acknowledging that he intends to turn Medicare into a voucher program, push partial privatization of Social Security, and bring back the Medicare prescription drug "donut hole."

Benen is fairly incredulous at Romney’s closing lines, telling his audience that once upon a time -- but no longer -- we could be proud to be Americans. He accurately notes that, if a Democrat were ever to have said such a thing, we would spend the next six months arguing whether he really loved his country and questioning his patriotism (remember Michelle Obama’s “first time in my life” gaffe?). “And yet there was Mitt Romney, effectively arguing that the only way to have national pride is to give him power.” Jon Chait argues the whole speech is just another example of Romney treating voters like idiots.

SCOTUS CONSIDERS ARIZONA IMMIGRATION LAW: On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over Arizona’s notorious immigration law, four parts of which have been suspended after a federal district judge ruled them unconstitutional. The Court appeared inclined to uphold the most controversial part of the law, which requires state police to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest whom they suspect may be here illegally. In a Verrilli-Clement rematch, the government argued that the Arizona law was preempted by federal law, meaning that the states don’t have authority to regulate immigration in the federal government’s stead. Dahlia Lithwick watched the argument, and writes that Verrilli told the Justices that state action like this could interfere with the federal government’s foreign relations powers. “‘Well, can't you avoid that particular foreign relations problem by simply deporting them?’ Verrilli tries to explain that this could cause considerable friction between the United States and Mexico, to which Scalia shoots back: ‘So we have to enforce our laws in a manner that will please Mexico?’” (You’ll find it absolutely shocking that Scalia was less than sympathetic to the plight of undocumented immigrants.) The whole argument was premised on the fiction that the law does not have anything to do with race and does not implicate racial profiling -- a premise the government imposed when it decided to challenge the law only on preemption and not on racial discrimination. Before Verrilli could even open his mouth yesterday, Chief Justice Roberts set the stage: “I just want to make clear what this law is not about,” Roberts said. “No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?” Adam Liptak notes that if this challenge fails, other advocates may try to bring suit again based on racial discrimination, what many critics consider to be the real problem with the law. The Justices appeared less comfortable with other portions of the law, including extra penalties on employers who hire undocumented immigrants; the decision may very well uphold only parts of the law, and could end up with a messy 4-4 split on some issues, since Justice Kagan recused herself from the case. SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston sums up:

At the end of the argument in Arizona v. United States (11-182), though, the question remained how a final opinion might be written to enlarge states’ power to deal with some 12 million foreign nationals without basing that authority upon the Scalia view that states have a free hand under the Constitution to craft their own immigration policies. The other Justices who spoke up obviously did not want to turn states entirely loose in this field.  So perhaps not all of the four clauses would survive — especially vulnerable may be sections that created new state crimes as a way to enforce federal immigration restrictions.

The Court will hand down its decision most likely in June, right around the time we’ll find out if they’ve decided to throw millions of people off their health insurance. Fun times!

Awesome Take-Down of the Week: Conor Friedersdorf examines GOP darling Marco Rubio’s pronouncement that George W. Bush “did a fantastic job.” And Friedersdorf is equally incredulous that in Rubio’s “major foreign policy address” today, he never once mentioned Iraq. “The Senator from Florida has given a lengthy address about the wisdom of American intervention without so much as acknowledging the most consequential foreign intervention that we've undertaken in decades.”

Crazy Fact of the Week: The Romney campaign spent over $76.6 million in the primary, more than all his competitors combined. When SuperPac spending is factored in, that total jumps to $122 million.

Farewell, Newt: We hardly knew thee. 

Fun Video of the Week: President Obama slow jams the news.

Bonus Fun Video of the Week: A brief history of President Obama’s self-deprecating humor.

Bonus Bonus Fun Video of the Week: An epic rant about Beltway culture. If you’ve lived in DC and worked in politics, surely much of this will ring true.

Must-Read of the Week: Rolling Stone interviews Obama: “I think the general election will be as sharp a contrast between the two parties as we've seen in a generation.” (When asked about marriage equality, he replied, “I'm not going to make news in this publication.”)

Bonus Must-Read: Florida Gov. Rick Scott gives us a preview of what America under Romney rule might look like. 

THAT’S ALL SHE WROTE: Well, friends, it’s been a wonderful 18-month run, but my time to hang up the keyboard has come. I hope you have enjoyed reading these missives a fraction as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. It began as and always remained a self-serving project: It was the most efficient way I could conceive of to get my friends to talk with me about the political stories I found interesting, to laugh at the videos I found funny, to shake their fists at the developments I found outrageous. So thanks for joining me in that endeavor. It has been so much fun to shout at you through the computer screen this last months, and to hear your responses and feedback and criticisms. As we get fully immersed in this election season, I hope you’ll all stay engaged, outraged, hopeful, and energized. Though I can’t comment publicly, and though I can’t knock on doors or send checks or hang up posters, I’ll be fighting the good fight, in my own head and with my own vote, at least. I hope you will be, too.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/19/12

TWO BIG STORIES (FROM LAST WEEK): Last week, I got a little over-excited about under-the-radar news, and realized with horror that I forgot to include the two biggest stories of the political week! First, obviously, Rick Santorum dropped out of the GOP race, making Mitt the official nominee. (Dave Weigel has been running a series highlighting the hilariously unenthusiastic endorsements that Mitt’s been racking up, now that it doesn’t mean anything.) Thanks to the Supreme Court, there are predictions that $1 billion (that’s billion) will be spent to defeat President Obama, $500,000 million of which Romney’s team hopes to raise from “high-dollar donations.” Second -- and I really can’t believe I left this one out last week -- the Sanford, Florida prosecutor announced last week that she would file second-degree murder charges against George Zimmerman for the killing of Trayvon Martin, the case that garnered such enormous attention over the last few weeks. It’s hard to say that this is necessarily justice. What those of us who were outraged over the killing wanted was for the investigators and the prosecution to take the killing seriously; that said, there are reasons to be skeptical that the state even has a chance of proving second-degree murder. Radley Balko sums it the concern:

The anger and outrage about how black people are treated in the criminal justice system is well-founded, well-supported, and consistent with my own experience reporting on these issues (although I think the common denominator is increasingly more poor than black). And there appears to be some of that history in Sanford as well, particularly in the way police investigate crimes—including this one. I’ve read in several places the proposition that if the races had been reversed that night in Sanford, Trayvon Martin would have spent the last month awaiting his murder trial from a jail cell. I think there’s plenty of history to support that sentiment. But we can’t hang all of the inequities of the criminal justice system on George Zimmerman. He deserves to be tried only on the facts specific to his case. Even gung-ho, wannabe cops deserve due process, and a fair crack at justice.

Ta-Nehisi Coates laments that what began as genuine outrage over the cops’ seeming indifference to the killing and the reality of Stand Your Ground laws has morphed into a political, meaningless argument about making Zimmerman pay. Read more of his essential writing on the subject here and here.

MAJORITY OF SENATE SUPPORTS BUFFETT RULE, IT FAILS ANYWAY: This week, the Senate Democrats held a vote on the so-called Buffett Rule (primer here). A majority of senators voted for it! But because of the absurd, a-historical, and deeply anti-democratic new “rule” in the Senate requiring 60 votes for any piece of legislation ever, the policy failed, on an almost purely party-line vote (Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted for it, while Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) voted against it). Of course, if you were reading the headlines, you’d be hard-pressed to figure out that the bill got a majority of votes in the Senate, and would have passed by any historical method of congressional voting. (It’s particularly rage-inducing to hear Romney claim that the rule’s proponents “couldn’t get it through their own Democratic Senate.”) Various critics have argued that the Buffett Rule is a stunt, a political ploy that won’t actually reform the tax system, produce greater equality, or solve the deficit. That’s all true! But why does that mean the vote shouldn’t have happened? As Jon Chait points out, the point is to expose GOP intransigence over any tax hike on the rich -- even the ones that they themselves insist are too small to make any sort of difference on the deficit, ones that an insanely large majority of the American people supports. It’s an election year, and one party is calling for tax hikes on the rich while signaling an openness to some spending cuts; the other party is insisting on ever-larger tax cuts for the wealthiest while simultaneously slashing the social safety net and raising taxes on the poor. It’s vital that we have this debate in the open. Holding a vote to highlight the issue of tax fairness is a completely legitimate -- and essential -- part of the Democrats’ electoral and political strategy.

MILITARY PUNISHING SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIMS: CNN is set to air a special report this weekend on the military’s abysmal treatment of rape victims in its ranks: namely, labeling sexual assault victims as mentally ill and discharging them. CNN cited findings by the Yale Law School Veterans Clinic showing that personality disorder discharges are disproportionately falling on women. For example, in the Navy, women make up 17% of sailors but 26% of personality disorder; in the Marines, women are 7% of the Corps and 14% of personality disorder discharges. These discharges are not only profoundly humiliating and unjust, but can wreak substantial financial havoc: “In the military's eyes, a personality disorder diagnosis is a pre-existing condition and does not constitute a service-related disability. That means sexual assault victims with personality disorder discharges don't receive benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to help with their trauma. They can still apply for benefits, but it's considered an uphill battle.” GI Bill educational benefits are stripped as well. Perhaps trying to preempt CNN’s full report, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced this week some new initiatives to address the problem -- which is not just about the violence occurring but also about the military justice system’s terribly inadequate response to that violence. Perhaps the best one is the creation of “special victims’ units” within each unit that are specifically trained in sexual assault and forensic investigation. The root of the problem, however, lies in commanders’ complete and unfettered discretion to stop criminal investigations in their tracks, at any stage and for whatever reason -- and without even having to explain why. This allows a commander to simply refuse to take action against a subordinate to who has been accused of a crime, even if there is clear evidence against him. In such cases and where the victim is in the same unit, it is common for the victim to be forced to move to a different unit, since she’s the one who’s uncomfortable being in the same unit as her attacker. Earlier this year, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) introduced a bill that would create an autonomous oversight office in the military, which would remove commanders’ participating in the decision whether to bring sexual assault charges against a servicemember. You can watch her speak about the bill here.

I will take this opportunity to endorse a documentary about sexual assault in the military that I saw recently. Called “The Invisible War,” it was a deeply moving, poignant, enraging film, and I really can’t recommend it highly enough. You can watch the trailer here, and check if its screening anywhere near you here. It won some awards at Sundance, so presumably it will be out on DVD soon; when it is, I really hope you’ll watch it.

Personal Note: Apologies for the brief (and early) update this week. I’m off to my sister’s wedding and am too excited to read the blogs!

Must Read of the Week: Emily Bazelon on the lawlessness in the accountability-free New Orleans District Attorney’s office.
Fun Video of the Week: Actress Ashley Judd, who has been particularly awesome recently, tells Santorum that, unfortunately, he has to wait 72 hours before he can terminate his candidacy.
Bonus Fun Video of the Week: Jon Stewart on right-wing faux outrage over the Buffett Rule.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICAL NEWS -- 4/12/12

OBAMA AND LGBT RIGHTS: Disappointing his LGBT supporters, President Obama decided not to sign an executive order that would have banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation among contractors who do business with the federal government. The executive order was thought to be a second-best to a broader non-discrimination bill that has been stalled in Congress for years; the executive order would be a way for the President to move to fight anti-gay employment discrimination without waiting for Congress. It is not entirely clear why the Administration backed away from the executive order. A spokesman reemphasized the President’s support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), but offered no greater explanation. Advocates who met with the White House got the impression that the Administration was extremely wary of being seen putting any new “regulations” on businesses before the election. The move comes as Obama is facing another impending decision on gay rights, namely, whether to support a move to include a marriage equality plank in this year’s Democratic Party platform. Four former DNC chairs have called for such a plank, joining 22 senators who have called for its inclusion as well. Obama has not yet taken a stance on it, and has said only that his position on gay marriage is “evolving.” It’s a position Greg Sargent points out is largely untenable: Either way Obama moves will look like political opportunism, especially since most people know that he does support marriage equality and has been unable to say so publicly because of political constraints. Whatever happens this year, it seems clear that the Democratic nominee for 2016 will almost certainly support full marriage equality, representing enormous progress over a relatively short period of time.

ROMNEY’S WOMAN PROBLEM: In what appears to be a bizarrely effective piece of messaging from the Democratic Party (yes, you read that right: effective messaging from the Democratic Party), everyone these days is talking about the GOP’s “war on women.” It’s been effective because it is hard to deny: After campaigning on a Tea Party agenda of jobs and deficit reduction, the newly-elected Republican state legislators promptly set their sights on a massive and unprecedented roll-back abortion rights and de-funding women’s health centers. The national party has been on the same track, introducing among other things a bill that would have allowed any employer to refuse to cover a woman’s birth control if he found it morally objectionable. Mitt Romney, as the GOP nominee, is now saddled with these deeply unpopular positions -- though he hasn’t done himself any favors, explicitly endorsing the Blunt Amendment, declaring he’ll “get rid of” Planned Parenthood, and enthusiastically supporting a constitutional amendment that would declare that life begins at conception. Unsurprisingly, Romney has a woman problem: A Washington Post/ABC poll this week showed him losing to Obama among women by 19 points. That echoes an earlier poll of voters in swing states, showing Obama with an 18 point lead among women. In response, Romney this week has tried to turn the tables on Obama, insisting that it is the President who is waging a “war on women,” specifically by failing to create more jobs. (Unfortunately for Romney, his campaign fumbled the rollout of this new line of attack pretty terribly.) Romney declared repeatedly this week that “92.3 percent of all the jobs lost during the Obama years have been lost by women.” Wow, that sounds pretty bad. It is bad -- but it’s so misleading it may as well be a lie. Kevin Drum has a handy chart detailing why this is a bogus claim, but the bottom line is that where you start counting makes all the difference: This number can only be arrived at by starting to count job losses at January 2009, long after the recession began (but long before Obama’s stimulus started to take effect). Ben White explains: “The bulk of all job losses under Obama took place in the early months of 2009 before the president’s policies took effect. They were the last of the over 8 million jobs vaporized by the housing bubble burst, financial crisis and subsequent Great Recession. That these losses happened during the early months of Obama’s presidency and not under George W. Bush is simply a quirk of the calendar not the result of any actual policy.” What’s more, most of these job losses Romney is highlighting have been public sector job losses, which have accounted for nearly four-fifths of all jobs lost since Obama took office. That’s sort of important context, Catherine Rampell writes: “In other words, the ax falls predominantly on women when governments shrink, a trend that many Republicans (including Mr. Romney) have endorsed. The main way to stem these state and local job losses is to give more federal money to the states, a policy that Democrats (including the president) have been supporting and Republicans haven’t.” And let’s not forget that the Romney/Ryan budget plan would disproportionately harm women. (Bonus reading: ThinkProgress reminds us that Romney surrounds himself with unabashedly sexist/anti-woman surrogates.)

CHECKING IN ON THE WACKOS: You are probably aware that, of the many, many crazies on the Right, a few of them are serving in real positions of power. We got a few reminders of that fact this week. First, Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) threw in her lot with birtherism. “I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do,” she told a supportive audience. And she’s not the only out-and-proud Birther traipsing the halls of Congress. Last month, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) evinced similar skepticism about Obama’s birth certificate. “The question is, is it legitimate?” he asked a room of his constituents. Birtherism wasn’t the only way-out fringe talk going on this week. Rep. Alan West (R-FL) -- who has been promoted by the Tea Party as their top choice vice presidential pick -- told supporters this week that he “heard” there are “about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party.” He was dead serious. “No, they actually don’t hide it,” he continued. “It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.” Yes, the Progressive Caucus, calling for such radical ideas as Clinton-era tax rates and cutting the deficit by $5 trillion, should be grouped in with Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Republican Joe Scarborough, for one, was outraged, urging all fellow Republicans to refuse to contribute to West’s reelection campaign until he apologizes. Besides Scarborough, though, it’s been mostly crickets in terms of GOP condemnation. For his part, West has doubled down on the accusation. Our final stop on the Cuckoo Train takes us to Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who this week entertained the idea of impeaching the President and called Obama “a complete menace to our civilization.” Steve Benen notes that Akin is hardly alone in toying with specious impeachment threats.

CONNECTICUT REPEALS THE DEATH PENALTY: This week, the Connecticut legislature voted to repeal the death penalty and replace it with life without parole. The repeal bill passed the Senate 20-16 and the House 86-62, and now awaits the signature of Gov. Dannel Malloy, who has promised to sign it. Connecticut becomes the fifth state in five years to abolish the death penalty, although the repeal bill is prospective only, meaning that it exempts the 11 men who are currently on death row and who will, presumably, be executed at some point. The repeal is obviously a cause for celebration, though the debate revealed just how deeply the spirit of vengeance and dehumanization has penetrated our ideas about criminal justice. “Going forward,” Gov. Malloy said, “we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience. Let’s throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.” It is important to note that life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) -- also known as a “death in prison” sentence -- is extremely harsh as well. And it sets the U.S. apart: LWOP has been ruled unconstitutional in Germany, France, and Italy, and it is hardly ever imposed in the United Kingdom. In 2008, more than 41,000 people were serving life without parole sentences in the United States; a recent estimate put the figure at 23 in the U.K. That’s disturbing enough, without even noting that the U.S. is virtually alone in sentencing children to death in prison.

Some Things to Read: I didn’t feel like writing about this more in depth this week, but the Buffett Rule is in the news and the Democrats will be pounding this issue for as long as possible. So make sure you understand what it’s about (and even if you think you do, you probably don’t know the details, so click that link!). And Jon Chait knows that the fight is more political than substantive -- this isn’t going to solve our deficit in one fell swoop -- but emphasizes that it’s a really important fight anyway.
Cool Things of the Week: Check out this tax fairness calculator that lets you adjust tax brackets and rates to see their effect. Similarly, the White House has put out this nifty “Buffett Rule Calculator,” which tells you exactly how many millionaires are paying a lower effective tax rate than you are. (More than 5,000 are paying a lower rate than I am!)
Fun Video of the Week: Jon Stewart on Easter vs. Passover.