Thanks, Newt!

Thanks to the drawn out GOP nomination contest, more Americans are getting a good look at the GOP frontrunner. And the more Americans see of Mitt Romney, the less they like him, and the better President Barack Obama looks in comparison.

Things will undoubtedly tighten up before all's said and done, but hundreds of millions of Karl Rove Super PAC attack ads aren't going to make people like Romney any better. And as long as only a quarter of Americans have a favorable opinion of him, he ain't going anywhere near the White House.

This probably won't surprise anyone, but Mitt Romney, who once sought the endorsement of Planned Parenthood back when he was pretending to be a staunch supporter of women's rights, is now joining the anti-woman extremists and railing against Planned Parenthood. And he thinks it's just grand that Susan G. Komen for the Cure would rather court the "pro-life" movement than actually support cancer screening and prevention.

Laura Bassett at Huffington Post reports that in a radio interview yesterday, Romney said that he doesn't think Komen should continue to fund cancer screening at Planned Parenthood. And then he went further:

I also feel that the government should cut off funding to Planned Parenthood [...] Look, the idea that we're subsidizing an institution which is providing abortion, in my view, is wrong. Planned Parenthood ought to stand on their own feet, and should not get government subsidy.

Typical Mitt, though, wants to have it both ways. He wants the government to cut off Planned Parenthood because it "ought to stand on their own feet," but he wants private organizations that support Planned Parenthood to also cut off funding. So basically, Planned Parenthood is supposed to magically operate all on its own, without any support from the public or private sectors. So if it can't take support from anyone, well, maybe it will just go away completely, and those poor women Mitt doesn't care about will be completely without health care.

No wonder that's Mitt's position: Screw the poor people of this country by defunding their health care. Yup, that sure sounds like a plan Romney can get behind. Today, at least.

Click to donate to Planned Parenthood.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Appeals court: California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages is unconstitutional
— @jmartpolitico via UberSocial for BlackBerry

10:05 AM PT: More information:

A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage, clearing the way for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on gay marriage as early as next year.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that limited marriage to one man and one woman, violated the U.S. Constitution. The architects of Prop. 8 have vowed to appeal. [...]

?Proposition 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California,? the court said.

10:08 AM PT: Read the Court's opinion here.

With Mitt Romney now on board the "Obama is attacking Catholics" train, is he actually going to be able to sway Catholics onto his side? Romney has joined attacks on the new rules the administration has created, requiring that employers and insurance companies provide coverage for prescription birth control with no-copay, with an exemption for religious institutions who's primary mission in ministering to people of faith.

New polling from the nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute suggests that Catholics are a-okay with that rule.

A majority (55%) of Americans agree that ?employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost.? Four-in-ten (40%) disagree with this requirement. [...]

Roughly 6-in-10 Catholics (58%) believe that employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception.

The sliver of people who are offended by the idea of health insurance policies?which people pay for, with their own money?having to cover contraception is small. And extreme. And unfortunately, heavily male. "Women are significantly more likely than men to agree that employers should be required to provide health care plans that cover contraception (62% vs. 47% respectively)."

Fighting President Obama over contraceptive coverage might be a great way for Republicans to fire up their base, but it's not going to have much appeal when the primary is over.

I openly acknowledge my role in the matter ...

Oh, right. That's because it was last week:

Well, let me just for the record tell you, Karen did not have anything to do with this decision.

Karen Handel was the prime instigator of this effort, and she herself personally came up with investigation criteria," the source, who requested anonymity for professional reasons, told HuffPost. "She said, 'If we just say it's about investigations, we can defund Planned Parenthood and no one can blame us for being political.'"

Komen's been dealing with the Planned Parenthood issue for years, and you know, some right-wing groups would organize a protest or send out a mailing every now and then, but it was on a low simmer [...[ What Karen's been doing for the past six months is ratcheting up the issue with leadership. Every time someone would even mention a protest, she would magnify it, pump it up, exaggerate it. She's the one that kept driving this issue.

For the past week, Brinker has insisted that Handel had nothing to do with the decision, and that the decision had nothing to do with politics. But it has become increasingly clear that Nancy Brinker is lying. And now Handel has confirmed it.

Click here to contribute $5 to Planned Parenthood.

Today we're kicking off a new day for our Blue America chats. Same time as always-- 11am (PT) but on Tuesday's from now on. And what better way than to start with a populist icon whose grassroots congressional just paid off with gigantic dividends a few days ago. Cecil Bothwell will be joining us below in the comments section at 2pm (ET). Last week, his classic grassroots organizing and door-to-door activist campaign astounded the political establishment with polling results that showed him likely to knock off entrenched conservative incumbent, Blue Dog Heath Shuler in the upcoming May 8th primary. Shuler saw the same results and beat a hasty retreat to, suddenly, "spend more time with my family." He actually said that. The 11th CD will never be the same.

Cecil is the Asheville City Council Member who "everyone" said was "too radical" to be elected. But when the at-large primary came around he wasn't just elected-- he got more votes than anyone else in the race. He seemed buoyed when we talked with him after Shuler-- who just months ago tried to rally reactionary Democrats against Nancy Pelosi in a race for House Democratic leader-- hoisted the white flag. "We were confident that we were going to win the primary, based on informal polling across the District. We learned from recipients that someone hired a firm in Raleigh to poll voters here, so my bet is that he was seeing the same results. Now it appears that he has tapped another Blue Dog, his Legislative Director Hayden Rogers, to step into the race. So game on!" Rogers isn't well known in the district but he is on K Street and Inside-the-Beltway. The DCCC would love to talk him into running. Cecil feels confident he could beat him just as he always predicted he would beat his boss.

Cecil is a decidedly progressive Democrat-- a movement progressive-- who has staked out populist positions in favor of federal job creation, single-payer health care and protection of the social safety net, as well as strong support for education. A participant in October's Rebuild the American Dream conference, he endorses "Jobs, Not Cuts!" as a battle cry for middle- and working-class citizens who have been hammered by the Bush recession. Coming from a career in sustainable building and environmental journalism, with more than 20 years spent in a photovoltaic-powered home, he knows the coming green economy from the inside out, and he was one of the thousands of activists who surrounded the White House in November to protest the KeystoneXL pipeline. Although North Carolina is a right-to-work state, he is a member of the National Writer's Union (AFL-CIO) and is unafraid to tell his constituents that unions are essential to introduce democracy into the work place. He is a strong advocate for fair trade instead of our current badly concocted free trade rules, and believes we need to get tough with China over its currency manipulation. Because he believes that black markets always create systemic problems in society he demands immigration reform that facilitates work-permits and a clear path to citizenship, and opposes the catastrophic failure known as the "war on drugs." He has endorsed the Move to Amend and believes that we need to adopt public financing for all elections ASAP.

"We can do better," he tells voters. "And you deserve better. I aim to represent the real people of this District, and I won't take a penny from corporations or corporate PACs." Blue America could hardly hope for a better candidate to back, anywhere. Please consider contributing to a people-to-people campaign that is already paying dividends for progressives in North Carolina. You can do that here at the Blue America ActBlue page.

A federal appeals court has upheld Judge Walker's earlier ruling on Prop. 8 the voter ban on gay marriage in California. Whole story here.

Click here to view this media

Ed Schultz spoke to the Association of Flight Attendents' Veda Shook about the Senate Democrats caving into the Republicans with the passage of the FAA reauthorization bill.

Senate Dems Greenlight Key Anti-Union Bill:

With the help of Senate Democrats, Congress took its final step Monday toward enactment of long-term FAA reauthorization legislation, despite an aggressive last-minute effort by organized labor to kill the package.

The final vote was 75-20, with ? not nearly enough Democratic opposition to prevent a supermajority from passing it and sending it off to President Obama for a signature.

Further background here. Democrats and Republicans have been tussling over this bill for a year now, with the key flashpoint being language aimed at preventing transportation workers from forming unions. In the end, Democratic leaders agreed with Republicans on a new measure that largely accomplishes the same anti-union goals ? and labor officials are steamed.

It?s unclear how steep the political ramifications will be for Democrats who supported the final package ? including President Obama. But unions will continue to make the point that this is not the year to undermine their priorities if, as an incumbent, you want to rely on union organizing power.

The roll call is available here.

Here's the shorter list of the no votes.

Akaka (D-HI)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Brown (D-OH)
Cardin (D-MD)
Casey (D-PA)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Leahy (D-VT)
Lee (R-UT)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Stabenow (D-MI)

And there were five not voting.

Barrasso (R-WY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Hatch (R-UT)
Kirk (R-IL)
Vitter (R-LA)

Today the two main experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, submitted the results of their latest analyses. The  new   papers  boost the case for December’s announcement of a possible Higgs signal , but let’s not get too excited.

Second in a series. Click here for part 1.

Disability advocates were seeing red after two elderly women with medical conditions were allegedly strip-searched by TSA agents at New York’s JFK airport last December. You’d have to have a pretty thick skin not to empathize with an elderly, wheelchair-bound woman having her colostomy bag frisked. But the notion of one passenger being an unlikely terrorist also belies a discomfiting flipside: another passenger being a more likely candidate.

By Carey Gillam

(Reuters) - The United States remained the primary backer of biotech crop technology in 2011, but adoption spread internationally as the total global planted area of genetically modified seeds grew 8 percent from a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday.

ACLU Hails Landmark Decision and Urges Efforts in Other States to Ensure Success on Appeal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

SAN FRANCISCO ¬– A federal appeals court today issued a historic decision upholding a lower court ruling that Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that excluded same-sex couples from marriage in the state, violates the U.S. Constitution.

The decision, unless appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, will clear the way for same-sex couples in California to marry once again. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal filed two friend-of-the-court briefs in the case supporting the argument that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

“This is a wonderful victory not only for same-sex couples, but for everyone who values fairness and dignity for all families,” said James Esseks, director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project. “Same-sex couples want to marry for the same reasons others do – to make a solemn commitment to their partners and to protect their families. It’s cruel for any state to bar them from marriage, and today’s decision confirms that it’s unconstitutional as well.”

Since the Proposition 8 case was filed in 2009, an increasing number of states have embraced protections for same-sex relationships, and a majority of the American public has come to support the freedom to marry. Currently, six states plus Washington, D.C. allow same-sex couples to marry, three other states recognize marriages of same-sex couples performed elsewhere, nine states have full domestic partnerships or civil unions and three more states have more limited domestic partnership registries.

“The best thing we can do to support this case is to continue working for greater protections for LGBT families in as many additional states as possible,” said Elizabeth Gill, staff attorney for the LGBT Project at the ACLU of Northern California. “We’ll celebrate this ruling, and then put that momentum toward important battles we’re facing this year.”

The ACLU is working in coalition with other organizations to secure the freedom to marry across the country, including passing marriage bills in Maryland and Washington state, passing a voter initiative in Maine that would allow same-sex couples to marry and defeating proposed anti-marriage amendments in Minnesota and North Carolina. The ACLU is also seeking domestic partnership protections in Montana, Missouri and Alaska.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

Indianapolis – A student wishing to express his support for breast cancer awareness will take on his school corporation in a lawsuit filed today by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

The minor child, “L.G.,” is a student at Roosevelt Middle School, which is part of the Twin Lakes School Corporation in Monticello, Ind. In early January, school officials instructed the student to turn inside-out a silicone bracelet that contains the message “I ♥ BOOBIES” as well as the ribbon symbol for breast cancer awareness, and at that time informed the student he could be expelled if he continued to wear the bracelet to school.

The student wore the “I Heart BOOBIES” bracelet to assist with breaking down the barriers that make it difficult for young people to talk about breast cancer. The bracelets help support the work of the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. Carol Baldwin is the mother of the Baldwin brothers, generally known as Hollywood actors and activists. The bracelets are popular among students at Roosevelt Middle School, and have not disrupted the educational environment.

“Decades ago the Supreme Court stressed that students do not shed their First Amendment rights when they enter school buildings,” said Ken Falk, legal director of the ACLU of Indiana, who is representing L.G.

“The bracelet did not disrupt the educational environment, and the speech here, designed to assist in the fight against breast cancer, is not profane, indecent, lewd, vulgar, or offensive to school purposes, and is therefore protected speech under the First Amendment,” added Falk.

The case, L.G., a minor child, by his father and next friend, Jeremy Glander, v. Twin Lakes School Corporation; Superintendent, Twin Lakes School Corporation was filed in the United States District Court Northern District of Indiana Lafayette Division under cause number 4:12-cv-00004-RLM-APR.

ACLU Video Highlights Three Jurors Who Say Racial Justice Act Needed to Prevent Discrimination

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

FAYETEVILLE, N.C. – North Carolinians who say they were wrongfully struck from juries in capital cases because of their race are speaking out today in a new video produced by the American Civil Liberties Union documenting their experiences.

The video, which features three African Americans who say they were struck from capital juries by prosecutors simply because of the color of their skin, is being released in conjunction with the first hearing under North Carolina's historic Racial Justice Act. Marcus Robinson is asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Potential African American jurors in Robinson’s case were struck from his jury at a rate 3.5 times higher than other potential jurors.

“It made me feel like I was back in 1960, that racism is still very much alive,” Laverne Keys, who was excluded in the 1999 case State v. Jathiyah Al-Bayyinah, says in the video. “It makes you wonder whether all these people are being given a fair trial or given a fair consequence so far as the death penalty.”

The Racial Justice Act allows death-row prisoners like Robinson a hearing in which they can present statistics and other evidence showing that death sentences state- and county-wide were tainted by racism, and that their death sentence should be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A recent Michigan State University study shows that state prosecutors are significantly more likely to eliminate potential African-American jurors and that defendants are more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death if the victim is white than if the victim is black.

“The stories presented in this video make clear that the death penalty system in North Carolina and across the nation is plagued by discrimination,” said Denny LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “The Racial Justice Act is a crucial means of ensuring that no one is wrongfully executed because of racial bias.”

Cassandra Stubbs, staff attorney with the Capital Punishment Project, is part of the legal team representing Robinson.

One of 34 states to maintain the death penalty, North Carolina has the nation’s sixth-largest death row population, more than half of whom is African-American. Thirty-one people on North Carolina’s death row were sentenced by all-white juries.

The video highlighting the experiences of three African-Americans struck from capital juries in North Carolina is available at:
www.aclu.org/capital-punishment-racial-justice/african-americans-exclude...

A New York Police Department document recommended targeting dozens of Shiite Muslim mosques from Pennsylvania to Connecticut for surveillance in a search for possible Iranian terrorists, though no evidence of such a threat existed.  The recommendation to target groups based solely on their religion, and previous reports of NYPD infiltration and surveillance of mosques with assistance from the CIA, violate NYPD and FBI guidelines, and constitutional rights to freedom of religion. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/02/nypd-document-gather-inte_n_1250386.html

To See the NYPD document: http://bit.ly/wYrAUX

Join us for the first stop of a national tour to address the issue of prosecutorial oversight in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Connick v. Thompson, which granted prosecutors almost complete immunity for their intentional misconduct. Panelists from all aspects of the criminal justice system will discuss systemic and legal approaches for reducing prosecutorial error and misconduct.

Monday, February 6, 2012
6 to 8:30 PM
Jacob Burns Moot Court Room
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Speakers include:
Maddy deLone, Executive Director of the Innocence Project, who will moderate the panel; 
John Thompson, whose $14 million civil award for the prosecutorial misconduct that caused him to spend 14 years on death row was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, Founder and Director of Resurrection After Exoneration and Voices of Innocence;  
Ellen Yaroshefsky, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Jacob Burns Center for Ethics in the Practice of Law at Cardozo School of Law;
Hon. Richard Buchter, New York Supreme Court Judge and former Queens Assistant District Attorney;  
Hon. Elisa Koenderman, New York Supreme Court Judge and former Bronx Assistant District Attorney; 
Sarah Jo Hamilton, Principal at Scalise & Hamilton, LLP, and a former trial counsel and first deputy chief counsel to the Departmental Disciplinary Committee for New York’s First Judicial Department; and 
Ross E. Firsenbaum and Shauna Friedman,  Senior Associates at Wilmer Hale, who represented Arthur Ashe Courage Award Winner Dewey Bozella, who was wrongly convicted of murder due to police and prosecutorial misconduct and was exonerated after serving 26 years in New York prisons.

Light refreshments will be served following the panel discussion. More info here.

Seating is limited.  Pease RSVP by February 1 to info@prosecutorialoversight.org.