A new bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a rising conservative star and leading contender for the Republican vice-presidential nomination in 2012, could cut off birth control coverage for millions of women who receive it through their health plans.

Rubio has sold his proposal—introduced January 31 as the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” or S. 2043—as a way to counter President Barack Obama’s controversial rule requiring even religiously-affiliated schools and universities to offer copay-free birth control to their employees. But health care experts say that its implications could be far broader.

If passed, the bill would allow any institution or corporation to cut off birth control coverage simply by citing religious grounds. (You can read the bill here or in the DocumentCloud embed below.) It has 26 cosponsors in the Senate; a similar proposal sponsored by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) has 148 cosponsors in the House. On Wednesday, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) vowed to repeal Obama’s rule, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pointed to Rubio’s bill as a potential model for doing so.

Joe Manchin may think he is protecting religious freedom, but he’s actually launched the first shot in the latest skirmish in the GOP war on women.

Pathetic, Senator Manchin. Just plain pathetic. Our only hope is if this bill makes it to the floor of the Senate, Manchin will miss it while on an Easter retreat with his family.

At this point, I think he is just positioning himself to be a Republican should the Democrats lose the Senate.

U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) today will introduce bipartisan legislation, called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012, that would repeal the Obama Administration’s mandate requiring religious employers to cover contraception for their employees under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Last week, Manchin sent a letter to President Obama, explaining his strong opposition to the mandate that he called “a direct affront to the religious freedoms protected under the First Amendment of our Constitution.” He asked the President to expand the mandate’s exemption for religious employers.

“Under our Constitution, religious organizations have the freedom to follow their beliefs, and government should honor that,” Senator Manchin said. “The Obama Administration’s position on this mandate is wrong and just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan legislation with Senator Rubio, which will ensure that the First Amendment rights of religious employers are afforded the respect they deserve.”

Again, I am no lawyer, but my understanding of the bill these two is proposing is that it goes well beyond religious organizations and is basically waging war on women’s health insurance provided by any organization. Basically, anyone can say “that offends me” and screw women over, even if it really doesn’t and it is just a way for them to save a few bucks. I really liked Manchin as governor, but every single time he has made the news in the Senate it is undercutting this administration. Well, not every time. There was that time he demagogued DADT and the DREAM ACT for weeks and then turned himself into a national laughingstock by skipping the votes to go hang out with his family. It’s like he senses that with the Lieberman/Nelson retirements, there is a real opportunity for him to be the biggest asshole Democrat in the Senate.

What he fails to realize is that all this mavericky nonsense is self-defeating. First, he’s at odds with the majority of the nation. Second, he’s backing bad policy. Third, this isn’t going to make Republicans like him anymore, because they hate him simply because he has a (D) after his name. He could vote with Republicans on very single issue, and they are still going to spend millions funding John Raese or whatever wingnut they find to run against Joe. And finally, if he is ever in a fix, no one is going to rally to his aid- Democrats like me will say, just like we are with Nelson and Lieberman- “Good riddance. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.” Remember when Weiner got in trouble and all his colleagues basically said “Ehh, screw him?” No one likes grandstanding jackasses.

I don’t think it is unfair to expect Manchin to at some point, some time in his term, to behave like a Democrat. Or at least just shut up once in a while and stop undercutting other Democrats.

The sharpest edges of President Obama’s counterterrorism policy, including the use of drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists abroad and keeping open the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have broad public support, including from the left wing of the Democratic Party.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to close the brig at Guantanamo Bay and to change national security policies he criticized as inconsistent with U.S. law and values, has little to fear politically for failing to live up to all of those promises.

The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents approve of Obama’s decision to keep open the prison at Guantanamo Bay. . . . The poll shows that 53 percent of self-identified liberal Democrats — and 67 percent of moderate or conservative Democrats — support keeping Guantanamo Bay open, even though it emerged as a symbol of the post-Sept. 11 national security policies of George W. Bush, which many liberals bitterly opposed.

I’d like to see the pre-Obama partisan breakdown, if indeed there was polling done, but the fact that 53% of liberal Democrats support keeping Gitmo open is just very, very depressing. It also shows why the Senate voted almost unanimously to hose Obama when he did try to close Gitmo.

Just depressing.

(via)

Brian Beutler at TPM wonders if the GOP plans to follow Paul Ryan down the kill-Medicare rabbit hole again in an election year and concludes that yes, they do:

Why on earth would Republicans put the whole party back on the line? Particularly after a year of serial brinkmanship and overreach that has dragged their popularity down to record lows?

The answers speak as much to the hubris of this GOP majority as it does to the fact that the party’s in thrall to a movement that demands unyielding commitment to a platform of reducing taxes on high-income earners and rolling back popular, though expensive, federal support programs.

Ryan & Co. plan to coat the poison pill with saccharine-flavored provisions (inexplicably) contributed by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, which were soundly rejected by Wyden’s fellow Democrats when the “bipartisan” agreement was announced a couple of months ago.

However, the sham “compromise” backed by Wyden puts the GOP in the unenviable position of having to explain subtleties to two different audiences with opposing agendas: It doesn’t accomplish the utter annihilation of Medicare the tea party extremists want since it contains a “public option” (no, really) that purports to preserve the program in its original form rather than leaving seniors entirely to the tender mercies of the private insurance industry.

But it does tie the cost of the “public option” version of Medicare to market permutations, which would almost certainly drive costs up for seniors, many of whom are Republicans. The devil is in the details, but it’s hard to see how this could actually save money without reducing benefits or raising costs.

As Beutler notes, Democrats are happy to have this debate again, especially in an election year. But should they be? Does Wyden’s participation provide a sufficient fig leaf for the “zombie-eyed granny starver”? I’m thinking not, though surely outfits like PolitiHack will do their utmost to muddy the waters.

[X-POSTED at Rumproast]

Say what you will about all the wingnutty things I said 2001-2005ish, at least I was looking for a fight with the opposition party and going after them. Since I became a Democrat, it seems like the only time we ever get our damned dander up is with other Democrats. The rest of the time we are on defensive, linking to logical explanations from TAPPED or Kevin Drum, talking about negotiating, etc. Or spending our time dealing with dipshits in our own party, like that jackass Rosen who tried to sink Sotomayor. Or we spend all our time angry about the stupid things teahadists do and say and snark about it, but nothing ever comes of it and they never pay a price. Or, as often is the case at this website, wailing about our worthless media.

This time, though, was different. It was nice to watch everyone go for blood, and sink their teeth in and get some. That’s what we need in the Democratic party. We need a killer instinct. We need to stop putting up with this bullshit from these crazy people. We need to fight back, we need to start running for local elections and state elections and running the show, and we need to go after them every chance we can. We don’t have to stoop to lies and innuendo, we can go after them with the truth, just like we did this time. They are lying about tax and regulatory burdens. They are lying about social security. They are lying about Obamacare and Medicare and Medicaid. They are lying about the environment and global warming. They are lying about poor people and black people and gay people and immigrants. They are lying about Obama. They are lying about everything.

There is nothing noble or wise about trying to have rational arguments, or acting like the mature people when you are dealing with fanatics. This stuff is important. You should be pissed off and fighting mad.

God damned this feels good for a change. God damn I am fired up for November 2012. No prisoners. No backing down. Republicans don’t want to negotiate or govern with you, they want you dead. So either reach down and grab a pair and fight back, or take what they give you. Your choice. I’ve made mine. And as we have seen this week, if you fight, and you don’t put up with the bullshit, people will join you and we will win.

That’s most of what there is to know about American politics. Sure, there’s other more Inside Baseball type stuff, but after 2006 and 2008, it’s not out of place to ask Karl Rove how that microey, targety thing is working’ out for ya.

The gender gap is not as pronounced as the others. There was a 12 point gender gap in the 2008 election, 14 in 2004, 21 in 2000, whereas the other gaps I mentioned (white versus non-white, Tebow-fearing versus Tebow-hating) are more like 40. But it’s pretty good bet in any general election that the Democratic candidate will do 10 or more points better among women than men. That’s why this is so dumb:

Elizabeth Warren is poised to thrash Scott Brown in their marquee U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, and the reason is simple: Women voters love her. In the most recent poll, in December, Warren and Brown were virtually tied amongst men, but Warren led by 13 percentage points, 51 percent to 38 percent, amongst women.

[....]

President Obama ought to pay heed: Warren’s campaign can offer important lessons to his own. He too will need to secure women voters if he wants to earn re-election. And he, too, could do so by adopting Warren’s proud communitarian appeal.

In other words, Warren does exactly as well among women voters as Obama did among women voters in 2008 (I mean exactly—Obama won women voters by 13 points in 2008) and therefore Obama should learn from her campaign.

I love Elizabeth Warren, probably to a degree that is a bit unhealthy, I can’d deny it. But how is her performance among women in MA news? She’s a woman, which might make her poll better among women, in state supposedly filled with woman-hating Catholic men (though see above, haters), and yet almost exactly duplicates Obama’s numbers.

Elizabeth Warren is not the Lifetime Network of candidates. These numbers prove that and anyone who’s seen her speeches can see that. You can give to her campaign here.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called off a vote on controversial anti-piracy legislation Friday — the surest sign yet that a wave of online protests have killed SOPA and PIPA for now and maybe forever.

Reid canceled the procedural vote on PIPA scheduled for Tuesday. Meanwhile, in the House, Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), announced plans Friday to put off any consideration of SOPA indefinitely.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said in a statement Friday. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Silicon Valley interests and cyber activists rejoiced at the victory.

“Hallelujah!” tweeted Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.

“Dems, Sen. Reid has just saved u from a lot of embarrassment/loss of support,” tweeted Gigi Sohn, co-founder of Public Knowledge, which had helped organize protests.

Meanwhile, Chris Dodd continues to be a whore for monied interests everywhere, and is going back to the drawing board:

Dodd blames the bills’ reduced support on a slow timeline that allowed opposition to mobilize, but also on a strategy that ended up making the anti-piracy effort seem specifically about helping Hollywood. His own efforts were also limited by a law that prevents him from lobbying Congress directly within two years of leaving office.

Dodd mentioned rethinking the film industry’s distant relationship with Silicon Valley, and said he would welcome a meeting between Internet companies and content providers in order to rework the bills. Unfortunately, there was no mention of his inflammatory comments before the blackout, including calling the Internet protests an “abuse of power” and accusing critics of punishing officials trying to fight “foreign criminals.” Dodd may take a different tack in his next round of lobbying, but cutting out the alarmist rhetoric probably won’t be part of it.

Got it? Dodd thinks the bill failed because they didn’t ram it through fast enough without people knowing what was in it and what it did. That’s his vision of democracy. Additionally, he is now launching threats at the President:

Hollywood’s top lobbyist and former Sen. Chris Dodd is threatening to cut off campaign funds to President Obama’s re-election effort because of anger over the White House appearing to side with tech companies in a bitter fight over anti-piracy legislation.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Dodd fired off a warning to Obama—his former Senate Democratic colleague in this election year—“don’t take us for granted.”

“Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,” Dodd told Fox News. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

The money party always plays hardball- that is why they have been winning the last thirty years. It’s also a very solid reminder how bad some Democrats are, especially when you consider how many Democrats are co-sponsors of these bills. This is how far the rot goes:

Believe it or not, South Florida Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ted Deutch—supporters of the Stop Online Piracy Act—happened to get a lot of money from interest groups supporting the legislation.

According to the nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization MapLight, Wasserman Schultz and Deutch took in nearly $1 million combined in contributions from interest groups supporting SOPA, compared to only around $125,000 in contributions from interest groups not in favor of it.

That’s the chair of the DNC supporting this wretched bill because of who lines her pockets. Also particularly awesome is the fact that all the lobbying only impacted one side of the Hill:

Following the protests Wednesday that saw dozens of websites go dark in opposition to federal anti-piracy legislation, the four remaining Republican presidential candidate said the U.S. House’s bill would be a disaster for freedom on the Internet.

During a debate in South Carolina Thursday, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Congressman Ron Paul all said they did not support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

CNN moderator John King noted in his question to the candidates that CNN’s parent company Time Warner “says we need a law like this because some of its products — movies, programs and the like — are being ripped off online.”

I know of no high profile Senators or Congressmen on the Democratic side who changed their positions on this. As we love to say, Democrats hate their base, Republicans fear theirs. I’ll let Emptywheel sum it all up:

Props to President Obama for being on the right side of this issue, once again (as with Gitmo and so many other issues), going it alone while the Democrats continue to shoot themselves in the foot while it is in their mouths.

I like being able to fire people.

Hah! Ain’t that just like a plutocrat who’s spent most of his career buying companies and then making millions by mounting brutal mass layoffs of their workers? Of course, this is wildly out of context. What Romney really said was that he likes being able to buy, say, health insurance from whoever he wants, so that he can switch companies if he gets bad service. It’s really completely unobjectionable. So what about that out-of-context snippet? Do you think:

1. It’s fair game. After all, Romney himself, after airing a plainly deceptive quote about Barack Obama, was the guy who proposed the “what’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander” standard for quote doctoring. And pretty much everyone on the right backed him up.

2. It’s ridiculous. We lefties should have more integrity than to stoop to stuff like this.

How did so much of the left descend into this kind of dickless navel-gazing? Because you know this is pretty typical of the tote-bag crowd. I’m glad Mike Royko isn’t alive to see all of this.

[...] I do think any Senate member of either party should be held to three simple rules: You must not endorse candidates (particularly for president) of the other party; you must not habitually attack your own party and its leaders to establish your alleged “independence;” and you must support your party on key procedural votes, including cloture motions.

Ben Nelson failed #2 and #3, while Joe Lieberman fails them all. I’m trying to think of someone other than those two who routinely violates these rules. Any ideas?

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska will announce his retirement, according to Politico. Nelson will hold a press conference as early as today to announce his decision according to “several Democratic insiders close to the leadership,” Politico reports.
Nelson, first elected in 2000, was facing a tough fight for third term. His retirement will likely make Democrats’ chances of holding onto the seat more difficult.
Former senator Bob Kerry has talked to “top Democrats” about another run, according to Politico

I guess you could say Democrats won’t have to spend any money to defend him, but you could also say Republicans won’t have to spend any (more) money to attack him.

There were 8 toss-up Senate races prior to today’s news, 6 of which are held by Democrats: MA, MO, MT, NM, NV, NE, VA, WI

So, take Nebraska off that list

... Sen. Ron Wyden did indeed do a bad, bad thing in his joint proposal with Paul Ryan. Ezra Klein explains why; and the devil isn’t in the details.

What Wyden did was to give cover to the fundamental fallacy of right-wing attempts to dismantle Medicare: the claim that market competition is the key to reducing health care costs. We have overwhelming evidence on this — and it just isn’t true…

Oh, and if someone starts talking about how the Affordable Care Act relies on private insurers, give me a break; the reason the ACA works the way it does is the raw power of the insurance industry, which forced advocates of universal coverage to settle for an inferior system. I still think that deal was worth doing, but there’s no reason to take Medicare, which does it right — or at least closer to right — and degrade it into a worse system.

So why would anyone who isn’t a right-wing ideologue propose that kind of degradation? Inquiring minds want to know.

Dave Weigel at Slate suggests a possible reason, in “Ron Wyden Will Have His Revenge“:

... So what explains the Democrat from Utopia deciding to get on board with this? Occam’s razor: He believes in it. But another factor has to be the fate of one of Wyden’s great contributions to the Affordable Care Act, his Free Choice Vouchers. In April, when the parties were trading away pieces of the government in order to pass a continuing resolution, the vouchers were killed. No funeral—just gone. Wyden banged on about it at the time, but you can see that his Huffington Post column about the diss has as many reads as a slideshow about cats gets in its first hour. Wyden’s idea was unceremoniously killed. And what do you know—Free Choice Vouchers are part of Wyden-Ryan.

In the rush of holiday preparation, it may have escaped your notice that this is National Sellout Day, when we celebrate the arrival of baby Jesus into this world so that the Magi can show up at the stable, pay him homage, present him with gifts, and then peddle his location to Herod for 25 denarii and a bucket of oats for the camels.

The Democratic party certainly has gone to great lengths to remind us what day it is. They have made great preparation. They have cooked the goose (their own, naturellement, and ours) and placed it on the table in the traditional manner, with a knife stuck in its back. They have rehearsed all the traditional holiday songs, including Ploys to the World, Hark the Deceitful Scumbags Sing, and Angles We Have Played on High. They have filled the wassail bowl to overflowing with the customary holiday libation, Hot Mulled Blood of Constituent. And later, we will all gather around the fire while our party elders read the famous story. I particularly like the part at the end when Scrooge realizes that reformation has its limits and sells the Cratchit children into indentured servitude so that the other men of the Exchange won’t think him weak, or mired in the past.

Oh, they have made a day of it. First, the pillars of Jell-O in the Senate roll over on the itty-bitty surtax they wanted to lay on the plutocrats to pay for a payroll tax cut for the rest of us. Then, the president announces that he’s not going to veto after all the bill in which 400 years of Western jurisprudence is pretty much torn to ribbons and tossed to the wind, albeit slightly less deeply into the wind than the original monstrosity would have liked. And, finally, Ron Wyden of Oregon steps forward to give cover to zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan’s latest attempt to “reform” Medicare in the same way that Arthur (Bomber) Harris “reformed” the building codes in Dresden. It’s a Very Special Holiday Episode of the long-running hit comedy, Ah, Who Gives a Fk Anyway?...

I never knew the amount of depression and self-loathing that was involved in becoming a Democrat. I honestly think I hate Democrats more now that I am one than I did when I was a Republican.

Arne Duncan isn’t quoted in the piece, but I’ve been reading up on the deregulation and privatization of K-12 public schools since the Issue Two battle in Ohio began, and one of two things is true about Arne Duncan re: K-12 education. He is either unaware of the (unintended!) privatization now underway and made (partly) possible by his deregulatory education agenda in public school districts in Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Illinois, Colorado and Pennsylvania, or he is aware it’s happening but has no problem with the deregulation and (then) privatization of public schools. In other words, I’m not confident the Department of Education fought these for-profit college lobbyists real hard, because Duncan is a knee-jerk cheerleader for deregulation and market-based reforms in K-12 public schools.

On the other hand, I do have respect for Cass Sunstein, and this is what Sunstein said about the lobbying effort:

“The haranguing had zero effect,” said Cass R. Sunstein, the White House official who oversees rule making.

Hmmm. Draw your own conclusions. I don’t know.

I wasn’t surprised that so many big-name Democrats are either working for or onboard with the for-profit college sector because Democrats are well represented in promotion and sales of the for-profit K-12 sector. This is an NBC News product, Education Nation, which was co-sponsored by the University of Phoenix, and is basically a long infomercial trashing traditional public schools and promoting corporate K-12 school reform. Both Arne Duncan and Bill Clinton were featured in several of the exciting episodes that I viewed.

Today, there is a piece in the NYtimes on for-profit, publicly funded K-12 online education:

Kids mean money. Agora is expecting income of $72 million this school year, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total anticipated revenues of K12, the biggest player in the online-school business. The second-largest, Connections Education, with revenues estimated at $190 million, was bought this year by the education and publishing giant Pearson for $400 million.
The business taps into a formidable coalition of private groups and officials promoting nontraditional forms of public education. The growth of for-profit online schools, one of the more overtly commercial segments of the school choice movement, is rooted in the theory that corporate efficiencies combined with the Internet can revolutionize public education, offering high quality at reduced cost.
The New York Times has spent several months examining this idea, focusing on K12 Inc. A look at the company’s operations, based on interviews and a review of school finances and performance records, raises serious questions about whether K12 schools — and full-time online schools in general — benefit children or taxpayers, particularly as state education budgets are being slashed. Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.

“Kids mean money”. Read it and weep. Market-based reform.

“What we’re talking about here is the financialization of public education,” said Alex Molnar, a research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education who is affiliated with the education policy center. “These folks are fundamentally trying to do to public education what the banks did with home mortgages.”

This is why I’m madly in love with teachers’ unions although I’m fully aware of the many flaws of unions. Unions are the only thing standing in the way.

The huge lobbying push by school reformers to sell K-12 online for-profit schools is particularly cruel, because school reform was (supposedly) premised on how we needed great teachers, but had lousy teachers, which is why we had to deregulate in the first place. The problem was those lousy teachers, we were told. If we just had great teachers, and we could innovate and get around all these pesky regulations and democratically elected school boards, all our education problems would disappear.

That’s why it’s a tad disconcerting that reformers are now pushing a school model that replaces teachers and schools with an over-priced computer program. The level of deception there just makes my head spin. We were told we needed to deregulate because we needed excellent teachers and schools and now it turns out we don’t really need teachers and schools at all! Instead, we simply need to ship public funding for schools out of our states and districts, and to one of these national education corporations, where it goes to shareholders and executives and…excellence! That was easy. Must be that market-based reform again, working its voodoo market magic.

Finally, I bitch about pundits all the time here, but Gail Collins is the one and only top-tier pundit who’s writing about privatization and the conversion of public schools to for-profits. It’s not polite or fashionable to ask questions about for-profits and school reform (although it’s perfectly okay, and very fashionable, to delve into minute detail when talking about the salaries of unionized teachers) and Collins is asking anyway. I’m grateful to her, because I don’t believe the public were informed they were buying for-profit K-12 education when they were sold school reform. I think they should have been told. And you know what? They’re going to find out. Good. It’s about time. This is why I buy newspapers, for information like this.

Of that ugly list, I’d have to say that the Plan B decision rankles the most. Obama’s effort to pin this on Sebelius just makes him look wimpy and weak. And, the only thing worse than an obvious cave to the right is the stupidity of this explanation:

And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old going into a drugstore should be able — alongside bubble gum or batteries — be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect. And I think most parents would probably feel the same way.

“As I understand it”? Jesus wept. As for the rest, how about this: don’t sell Plan B to 10 or 11-year olds. Sell it to any kid who has some form of age-identifying id that puts him or her over the age of 13 or 15 or some other age under 18, call it a compromise, and move on.

Finally, remember the youth vote that supposedly was so god damned important to Democrats and is taken for granted even more than the minority vote? I’ll bet the polling on letting your little sister have Plan B if she makes a mistake is about 90/10 in favor in the 18-25 demographic.