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VIDEO: Elizabeth Warren Opposes Obama's Nominee for Trade Representative

Erika Eichelberger — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:23:32 +0000

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked her colleagues Wednesday to oppose Michael Froman, President Barack Obama's pick for US Trade Representative, charging that he is not committed to giving the American public information about a sweeping trade deal now being negotiated between the US and 11 other countries.

The massive free trade agreement, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, would affect everything from intellectual property rights, to product safety standards, to financial regulations. Many lawmakers criticized the previous trade representative, Ron Kirk, for the secrecy surrounding the deal; certain members of Congress can see the proposed text of the deal, but the public cannot. Warren has called on the office of the US Trade Representative to release the full text of the TPP deal to the public. But in a floor speech Wednesday, she said Froman has made clear he would not release the text of the deal and is not interested in making the negotiations more transparent:

I asked the President's nominee to be Trade Representative—Michael Froman—three questions: First, would he commit to releasing the composite bracketed text [the full text of the TPP as it currently stands]? Or second, if not, would he commit to releasing just a scrubbed version of the bracketed text that made anonymous which country proposed which provision...

Third, I asked Mr. Froman if he would provide more transparency behind what information is made [available] to the trade office's outside advisors. Currently, there are about 600 outside advisors that have access to sensitive information, and the roster includes a wide diversity of industry representatives and some labor and NGO representatives too. But there is no transparency around who gets what information and whether they all see the same things, and I think that's a real problem.

Mr. Froman's response was clear: No, no, no.

Warren has raised concerns that Wall Street is trying to weaken financial regulations through the TPP. Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.) is worried that the deal could imperil an open internet. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) says the trade agreement could move jobs overseas. The TPP is not final yet, so no one can say for sure what will be in it. But Warren says the American public deserves to be a part of the discussion.

"The American people have the right to know more about the negotiations that will have dramatic impact on the future of the American economy," Warren said. "I believe in transparency and democracy, and I think the U.S. Trade Representative should too." A vote is expected Wednesday afternoon.

Ron Paul's Immigration Conspiracy Theory

Gavin Aronsen — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:48:29 +0000

On Wednesday, Ron Paul continued his push against immigration reform with an email promoting a conspiratorial video released in May by the Campaign for Liberty, the former Texas congressman's 501(c)(4) non-profit. In the video, Paul warns, without evidence, that "it's only a matter of time before 'ID scans' will be required to travel, attend public events, or even make routine purchases." Paul also claims that the Senate's bipartisan Gang of Eight immigration bill is a sneaky collaboration with President Barack Obama to create "by far the worst National ID scheme the statists have come up with yet."

The video was first posted to YouTube in May, and Paul's anti-immigration views are no secret. But the new email is notable given that Ron Paul's son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), has said he could support the Senate bill if it includes an amendment addressing Republican concerns about border security. Rand Paul has said repeatedly that he supports immigration reform, but has expressed concerns about a national ID system and wants the bill to include triggers that would restrict immigrants' path to citizenship if certain border security goals aren't met. But he hasn't echoed his father's most conspiratorial claims.

"Not only does this bill increase federal spending," the elder Paul says in the video, "it mandates every American carry a National ID card with their photo and creates a new federal database containing biometric information on every American, such as fingerprints and retinal scans. The card would be required for all US workers regardless of place of birth, making it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn't obtain an ID card."

That's not true. In reality, the Senate bill explicitly prohibits a national ID card. Some privacy advocates have argued the bill would create a de facto national ID system by requiring mandatory electronic employment checks against a federal database containing some biometric information, such as fingerprints and photographs. Ron Paul goes much further than the privacy groups, though, arguing, "This is exactly the type of battle that often decides whether a country remains free or continues down a slide to tyranny."

Julian Assange: WikiLeaks Preparing More Disclosures

Dana Liebelson — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:19:51 +0000

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent the last year holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking asylum from Swedish and American authorities, held a press call today to discuss former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and the charges leveled against Bradley Manning, who is currently on trial for allegedly leaking thousands of diplomatic cables and other classified documents to WikiLeaks. On the call, Assange said that his organization is continuing to consider documents for release and gave new details about his contact with Snowden.

"Wikileaks is always in the process of preparing its next publication," Assange told Mother Jones. "We [have] pending publications, but as a matter of policy, we can't discuss them." The organization's releases have been sporadic since Assange took refuge in the embassy last June. Its last big document dump was in April of this year, when it disclosed diplomatic cables from the 1970s.

Assange, who is Australian, spoke from inside the embassy, where he is staying until he has assurance that British authorities won't extradite him. He is wanted by Sweden for questioning in relation to allegations that he sexually assaulted two women, but even if that investigation is dropped, he says that he won't leave the building because he fears the United States will extradite him in connection with the leak of the cables and other secret documents. He is currently under investigation by the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and his lawyer has said it's likely the Justice Department has already prepared a sealed indictment against Assange. "My primary concern is dealing with the US case," Assange said.

The WikiLeaks founder again expressed his support for Snowden, who is facing extradition worries of his own in Hong Kong. He said that WikiLeaks is in touch with Snowden's legal team to help him potentially gain asylum in Iceland, but did not provide detail on whether he had personal contact with Snowden. When Mother Jones asked Assange whether Wikileaks had any contact with Snowden before he made his first disclosures to the press, Assange said, "We never discuss issues potentially related to sourcing." (Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, who broke Snowden's disclosures, told BuzzFeed that “I’m not aware that WikiLeaks has any substantive involvement at all with Snowden, though I know they’ve previously offered to help.")

Although Assange acknowledged that he is hindered in doing WikiLeaks work because he cannot personally meet with sources, he said that if US authorities are attempting "place me in a position where I cannot investigate national security, that's a clear failure. Because there is nothing else to do but work."

Shortly after the call wrapped up, the WikiLeaks' Twitter account sent a widely criticized tweet suggesting that the tragic death yesterday of journalist Michael Hastings "has a very serious non-public complication" and noted the group would "have more details later."

In Between Controversies Real and False, Obama Tackles the Biggest Issue Ever

David Corn — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 18:17:39 +0000

The news cycle can be a silly place. The Republicans in recent months have sucked up a lot of oxygen with a phony scandal (Benghazi) and a trumped-up scandal (the IRS's improper targeting of tea party groups for scrutiny). The White House has been pinned down by some of this, while also contending with a very real and front-page debate over NSA surveillance prompted by leaks regarding two of its super-secret programs. Yet one matter that is perhaps more important than all of this and that is in the news for the moment registers much lower on the media Richter scale: trying to prevent humans from blowing up the one planet they have.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama announced a new guidance for US nuclear weapons policies, and it's a big deal. It follows Obama's 2009 Prague speech, in which he declared the long-term goal of zeroing out nuclear weapons. According to a White House fact sheet, the new guidance "narrows U.S. nuclear strategy to focus on only those objectives and missions that are necessary for deterrence in the 21^st century" and "directs DOD to strengthen non-nuclear capabilities and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks." The fact sheet notes, "the guidance takes further steps toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our security strategy." In non-wonk terms that means the US military will alter its planning that might entail the use of a nuclear weapon. And Obama's new guidance declares that it would be reasonable to cut the level of strategic nuclear weapons by a third, beyond the lower levels Obama negotiated with the Russians for the New START treaty. Obama announced this proposed reduction in a Berlin speech.

All of this is receiving some news coverage today, but it won't draw a smidgeon of the attention the assorted quasi-scandals do. Yet the effort to lower the possibility of a nuclear war is one of the most noble and significant endeavors for a president. (Addressing climate change ranks high, too.) Still, not since the early 1980s, when literally millions of Americans took to the street to protest President Ronald Reagan's nuclear policies, has this been a hot political subject. It may be that the notion of a nuclear conflagration is too overwhelming to consider on a routine basis. Certainly, it's more fun to fret about a stolen (or not stolen) Super Bowl ring.

Arms controllers did hail Obama's actions. The Ploughshares Fund noted that the president "has finally replaced the nuclear guidance issued in 2002 by President George W. Bush with new policies that will reduce the roles, numbers and alert rates of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy." (The United States currently maintains 7000 nuclear weapons in its arsenal.) And the Union of Concerned Scientists applauded Obama's nuclear policy reform and urged him to go further, noting the United States "can maintain a robust deterrent with less than a 1,000 nuclear weapons—including strategic and tactical, deployed and stored—independent of Russia’s arsenal. Maintaining more weapons than needed undercuts U.S. security and wastes taxpayer dollars." Hawks, inevitably, will denounce Obama's attempt to reduce the United States' warehouse of nukes and to decrease the significance of nuclear weapons in contingency planning. Yet it's unlikely that a robust debate will erupt to equal the fuss over, say, Michelle Obama's latest hair style. But for anyone who is serious about divining crucial national security differences between Obama and his predecessors, Obama's new nuclear posture is significant and worthy of much notice.

The Secret Message in This Rand Paul Pic

Tim Murphy — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:35:06 +0000

The New Republic's profile of Sen. Rand Paul is well worth a look—and so is the remarkable cover photograph, which captures the Kentucky lawmaker crossing his fingers:

The New Republic

The amazing photo set off a round of accusations that the image had been Photoshopped to make Paul look bad. But the picture, by the esteemed photographer Platon, wasn't doctored. Nor, as TNR senior editor Noam Scheiber points out, did Platon ask Paul to pose in this fashion. It wasn't until Platon was reviewing his photographs after their shoot that he noticed the money shot.

So why was Paul crossing his fingers? As some internet commenters have observed, there may be deeper significance to this "good luck" hand gesture. The crossed fingers have traditionally been used by POWs trotted out for propaganda purposes to indicate that the subject is participating under duress. Perhaps Paul was embracing the role he's carved out in Washington from Day One—that of a conservative freedom fighter deep in enemy territory.

The hidden messages may not stop there. Paul's choice of neck tie may also be sending a signal. As Matthew Schmitz, the deputy editor of the conservative religious magazine First Things, notes on Twitter, the libertarian-leaning lawmaker appears to be wearing a floral tie from a London-based company: Liberty.

Liberty London

Paul's office didn't respond to an inquiry about whether he was photographed under duress, or about whether the symbolism of his attire was intentional.

MAP: Border Security Spending Is Often Wasted

Gavin Aronsen — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 10:35:05 +0000

As the Senate immigration bill enters its second week of floor negotiations and the House begins marking up its bill, much of the debate will center on how border security can be further expanded and better enforced. That means more deal-making. It also means a lot of money—the current bill already calls for $4.5 billion in additional border security, with few specifics on how, exactly, it will be managed. That's consistent with the billions of dollars in federal money that states have already spent since 2003, when the Department of Homeland Security began doling out grants for border security efforts. The money's also been spent in a variety of other ways, largely due to scant oversight.

In a 2010 report in the Boston Review, journalist Tom Barry revealed how Texas Gov. Rick Perry has supplemented DHS funds with millions more from the state Legislature and from the Justice Department, which provided aid for law enforcement agencies through President Obama's stimulus package. As a result, border counties, many of them sparsely populated and otherwise struggling economically, have received millions of dollars to amp up security with federal funds. But local law enforcement officials have had other ideas for the money, too, like padding their wallets with overtime cash, doing deals with drug traffickers, and raising irrational fears about Al Qaeda and even Chinese soldiers south of the border.

Similar stories have played out in other border states. In 2009, the Arizona Daily Star published the results of a seven-month investigation into Operation Stonegarden, a DHS Federal Emergency Management Agency program that provides millions of dollars in grants to border states throughout the United States, criticizing the program for its "little tracking of how the money is spent, no clear objective, and no benchmarks for success." The Star explained that the program gives states an increasing amount of money each two-year grant cycle based on the assumption that it has been improving security—but, as the paper noted, "the agency can't prove that because it didn't establish a standard of success."

The immigration reform bill in the Senate doesn't provide a lot of clarity with that: It would simply give DHS six months to unveil a plan to surveil the entire southwest border that ensures a "90 percent effectiveness rate" in stopping illegal crossings. If those goals aren't met in five years, a commission would be formed. All of that means more money on a border security program that critics, pointing to recent drops in immigration, say is already adequately funded.

Below, you can hover over the map points for a few examples of waste and abuse associated with federal border security funds.

RIP Michael Hastings. Here's His Advice to Young Journalists.

Nick Baumann — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:46:54 +0000

Michael Hastings, a respected young journalist for Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed, was killed in a car accident in Los Angeles Tuesday, according to his boss, BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Ben Smith.

Hastings, who was 33, was perhaps most famous for "The Runaway General," his June 2010 Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of US forces in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama fired McChrystal after the publication of the article. Hastings expanded "The Runaway General" into a book, The Operators, that was published in January 2012 and became a New York Times bestseller.

Hastings first rose to prominence for his coverage of the Iraq war in Newsweek. His then-fiancée Andrea Parhamovich was killed in Iraq in 2007; he later wrote a book, I Lost My Love in Baghdad, about his years in Iraq.

You can find Hastings' Rolling Stone archives here and his BuzzFeed stuff here, but his Newsweek writing is mostly not available online. Rolling Stone's obituary for him is here; Smith's, which is a particularly gutting read, is here.

Hastings aided and mentored many other journalists during his all-too-short career. Last year, he posted his advice for aspiring journalists on Reddit. Here it is:

Okay, here's my advice to you (and young journalists in general):

1.) You basically have to be willing to devote your life to journalism if you want to break in. Treat it like it's medical school or law school.

2.) When interviewing for a job, tell the editor how you love to report. How your passion is gathering information. Do not mention how you want to be a writer, use the word "prose," or that deep down you have a sinking suspicion you are the next Norman Mailer.

3.) Be prepared to do a lot of things for free. This sucks, and it's unfair, and it gives rich kids an edge. But it's also the reality.

4.) When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.

5.) Also, keep the stories simple and to the point, at least at first.

6.) You should have a blog and be following journalists you like on Twitter.

7.) If there's a publication you want to work for or write for, cold call the editors and/or email them. This can work.

8.) By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained. (In other words, if you can't come up with a rough headline for your story idea, it's going to be a challenge to get it published.)

9.) Mainly you really have to love writing and reporting. Like it's more important to you than anything else in your life--family, friends, social life, whatever.

10.) Learn to embrace rejection as part of the gig. Keep writing/pitching/reading.

Hastings is survived by his wife, Elise Jordan.

Sen. Reid: "Poison Pill" Immigration Amendment Will Get a Vote

Gavin Aronsen — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:25:10 +0000

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has called an amendment floated by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) a "poison pill" that, if passed, could kill the immigration bill. Nevertheless, Reid will allow the controversial border security measure, which his fellow Gang of Eighter Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) recently called "very reasonable," to come to a floor vote as early as Wednesday before he moves to end debate and bring the full bill to a vote.

Cornyn's amendment would require the implementation of four security measures before undocumented immigrants could be granted provisional legal status: complete surveillance of the southern border, a 90 percent apprehension success rate for people who cross the border illegally, a mandatory national E-Verify system, and an operational biometrics security system—typically fingerprint identification—at United States air and sea ports. The amendment is strongly opposed by Democrats, as well as some Republicans, who say it would be overly expensive and logistically difficult to implement, and would therefore effectively cripple the 13-year path to citizenship that is the centerpiece of the Senate bill.

"If [the Gang of Eight doesn't] take reasonable measures to deal with the border security concerns of the American people, I don't think we're going to get an immigration bill," Cornyn told reporters Tuesday afternoon. "So that itself will be a poison pill." Reid said Tuesday that he believed the bill, as currently written, already has enough votes to surmount a filibuster. However, the Gang of Eight wants the bill to pass with at least 70 votes to put pressure on the GOP-led House to take action.

The current Senate bill already requires round-the-clock surveillance of the southern border, a 90 percent apprehension rate within five years, and a mandatory E-Verify system. But those measures don't serve as triggers that would preclude undocumented immigrants from getting legal status before they are implemented. Republicans have clamored for triggers as part of a broader bipartisan compromise, although the conservative Heritage Foundation has come out strongly against Cornyn's amendment, calling it a "fig leaf" that still puts legal status first and foremost.

Earlier, Cornyn said that his immigration amendment held true to "Ronald Reagan's old adage: Trust but verify."

"Trust but Verify" is also the name of a Reagan-inspired amendment authored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would require the Department of Homeland Security to provide annual reports to Congress to show that the border is "provably secure" before undocumented immigrants would be given provisional legal status. Paul's amendment is one of nine other amendments that will likely get a vote Wednesday. Both Cornyn and Paul have expressed some willingness to work toward a broader compromise, although many Democrats think Cornyn has been insincere.

Soros-Backed Super-PAC to New York Pols: Pass Reform or We're Taking You Down

Andy Kroll — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:13:11 +0000

The deadline draws closer by the hour. In New York, the band of good-government reformers, labor unions, enviros, community organizers, religious leaders, and more have until Thursday night, when the current legislative session ends, to press state lawmakers to pass legislation combating political corruption and kickstarting a public financing program for statewide elections. Standing in their way: The odd coalition of breakaway Democrats and Republicans who control the state Senate and who are blocking the public financing bill, which passed the state Assembly earlier this year and is backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Friends of Democracy, the super-PAC run by political operatives Jonathan Soros and David Donnelly, is one of the most aggressive backers of public financing in New York State. Soros, the son of liberal financier and mega-donor George Soros, and Donnelly see New York as the front line in the post-Citizens United battle against big-money politics. In an interview on Tuesday, Donnelly had a cut-and-dry message for the independent Democrats, who broke away from the traditional Democratic caucus to form a new leadership coalition, and the Republican legislators who are denying a vote on public financing: Support reform, or we'll fight to replace you.

Donnelly says public financing should be a no-brainer for independent Democrats and Republicans given the public support for the issue. According to a recent Siena College poll (PDF), 61 percent of New Yorkers say they support statewide public financing. Indeed, in five Siena polls dating back to August 2012, a majority of New Yorkers backed a public financing program. The way it's proposed, a statewide public financing program would match each dollar of donations up to $175 with $6 in state money. The goal is to nudge political candidates into courting lots of less-wealthy donors instead of a few very wealthy ones.

"It's pretty painfully clear that if this leadership structure, the [Independent Democratic Conference] and Republicans together, doesn't produce on behalf of the citizens of the state a public financing law that addresses corruption, there needs to be a leadership structure that will do that," Donnelly says. "That means electing people who will lead the Senate in a way that moves that legislation. It's not so much of a threat as the reality of what we're going to have to do."

Donnelly declined to say which state senators Friends of Democracy would target. (Nor would he say how much Friends of Democracy has spent so far on New York's public financing fight.) "I'm not about one senator or not about [independent Democratic senators] Diane Savino or Jeff Klein or any of these other Republican senators," he says. "I'm agnostic about how we go about doing it. It's a numbers game; we need to take out those numbers."

Donnelly says he still holds out hope that the state Senate will pass a public financing bill before heading home for the summer. But if the state Senate fails, Friends of Democracy won't walk away from the issue. In addition to targeting anti-reform senators, Donnelly explains, the super-PAC will continue pushing for a bill in the legislature, possibly during a special session or when lawmakers return later this year to work on a state budget. "If the senators can do it under the current leadership, great. Do it by Thursday, do it in a special session, during the budget session, great," he says. "We're not going away."

5 New Revelations About NSA Surveillance

Dana Liebelson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:45:49 +0000

In the wake of Edward Snowden's leaks, National Security Agency and Justice Department officials testified today before the House intelligence committee about the government's controversial surveillance programs. Here are the five most interesting revelations to emerge from the hearing:

1. Surveillance has contributed to thwarting more than 50 terror plots since 9/11, according to the NSA.
NSA Director Keith Alexander testified that NSA surveillance has played a role in preventing more than 50 terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001. FBI deputy director Sean Joyce provided an outline of four of those cases:

The 2009 arrest of Najibullah Zazi for plotting to bomb the New York City subway system came after the NSA intercepted an email in which he discussed perfecting a bomb recipe. The agency executed search warrants with New York Police Department and found bomb-making components. (Serious questions have been raised about whether the FBI actually needed NSA surveillance in order to obtain this information, since the FBI wouldn't have had trouble getting a warrant to monitor the email account of a terrorist suspect.)
Using its authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the NSA discovered Khalid Ouzzani's nascent plans to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. Ouzzani pleaded guilty in 2010 to providing support to Al Qaeda.
NSA surveillance derailed David Headley's 2009 plan to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper. At the time, he was considered a suspect in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He later confessed to conducting surveillance for the Mumbai attacks.
Joyce only provided vague details about a fourth plot: After 9/11, the NSA monitored an individual who had indirect contact with a known foreign terrorist organization overseas. Doing so, he said, allowed the FBI to reopen an investigation and disrupt terrorist activity.

2. The NSA doesn't need court approval each time it searches Americans' phone records.
NSA Deputy Director John Inglis said that 22 NSA officials are authorized to approve requests to query an agency database that contains the cellphone metadata of American citizens. (Metadata includes the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls, the date and time the calls took place, and their duration.) Deputy AG Cole also said that all queries of this database must be documented and can be subject to audits. Cole also said that the the NSA does not have to get separate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approval for each query; instead, the agency merely has to file a monthly report with the court on how many times the database was queried, and how many of those searches targeted the phone records of Americans.

3. 10 NSA officials have permission to give information about US citizens to the FBI
There are 10 NSA officials—including Inglis and Alexander—involved in determining whether information collected about US citizens can be provided to the FBI. It can only be shared if there's independent evidence that the target has connections to a terrorist organization. Inglis said that if the information is found to be irrelevant, it must be destroyed. If the NSA mistakenly targets an American citizen, it must report this to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

4. Other countries are less transparent than the US, officials say.
Cole said that the FISA Amendments Act provides more due process than is afforded to citizens of European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. Alexander added that "virtually all" countries have laws that compel telecommunications firms to turn over information on suspects.

5) Fewer than 300 phone numbers were targeted in 2012.
NSA officials say that even though the agency has access to Americans' phone records, it investigated fewer than 300 phone numbers connected to US citizens in 2012. The officials did not provide any detail on the number of email addresses targeted.

Study: Poor People More Likely to Get a Job If They Work for Free First

Erika Eichelberger — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:03:10 +0000

The current share of the American population with a job is still far below what it was before the recession, stagnating at a level not seen since the 1980s. And the jobs that have been regained since 2008 have overwhelmingly been low-wage. But now there's good news for unskilled unemployed people who are interested in getting one of those low-wage jobs—working for free can help them eventually land a paid gig.

A new study to be released Tuesday by a federal agency called the Corporation for National and Community Service found that jobless Americans can increase their chances of finding work by 27 percent if they volunteer first. People without a high school diploma and people in rural areas can increase their chances by more than 50 percent, the Washington Post reports.

Volunteering is useful for people at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, Christopher Spera, the lead author of the study, explained to the Post, because they don't have the same opportunities as better-off Americans: "Folks with lower levels of education tend not to have the networks and social capital enjoyed by folks with higher levels of education," he says. Here's the Post on how volunteering can help:

The report builds on other research that has found that volunteering helps people learn skills, be presented with leadership opportunities, enhance their résumés and—perhaps most crucially—develop a network of contacts that can help them find work...

The link between volunteering and reducing joblessness was endorsed by former labor secretary Hilda L. Solis, who last year issued a guidance to state workforce agencies emphasizing that volunteering may be one strategy that can help put the unemployed—particularly the 4.4 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months—back to work.

"In a complex 21st-century economy that demands new skills of American workers, volunteerism is not a substitute for job training," Solis said. "But it can be an important complement."

Now we know that poor, less-educated people can benefit from unpaid work in the same way that their more well-heeled, highly-educated counterparts can. After all, unpaid internships have exploded in recent years; over half of the class of 2012 had an internship during college, and half of those were unpaid. The only difference is that when poor people work for free, their parents probably won't be able to help them get by.

Wall Street Banks Still Engaged in Pre-Crash Shenanigans

Nick Baumann — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:30:30 +0000

Financial reformers cheered this week's news that Wall Street banks were unable to find buyers for a certain type of risky financial product—called a synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligation, or synthetic CDO. But if you think the big banks have given up on slicing and dicing crappy loans and semi-magically turning them into higher-rated, supposedly safer securities, think again. There's still plenty of that happening.

CDOs are types of derivatives—financial products with values derived from underlying variables. With many CDOs, the underlying variable in question is the stream of payments from a group of bundled loans. Synthetic CDOs, the products that the banks were unable to sell, are different from standard CDOs in a key way. This is complicated, so bear with me: Instead of being based on streams of payments from loans, their value is instead based on payments from insurance policies on those loans.

Here's a simplified explanation of what's happening in a synthetic CDO. To make a synthetic CDO, someone—let's call this Person A—has to have taken out what is essentially an insurance policy (called a credit default swap) against the possibility that a grouping of loans will default. Person A is betting that those loans will default. If they do, Person A gets paid; until then, he or she has to make premium payments. To make a synthetic CDO, a bank mashes together the premium payment streams from a bunch of these insurance policies. Generally, banks don't hold on to these products. Instead, they sell them to investors. For simplicity, we'll assume Person B buys the entire synthetic CDO. (In reality, it's broken up into several pieces, which are usually sold to different investors.) Person B is betting that the loans won't default and that Person A will have to keep making premium payments.

Here's the problem. Person A has a huge advantage in this transaction because he's picking the loans he wants to bet against. He can cherry pick the crappiest pile of loans and bet only against them. Person B, the person who owns the synthetic CDO, is taking the other side of that bet. Person B is not simply buying a pile of loans. He's betting on a group of loans that Person A has already bet are going to turn out to be worthless. And that's why the Person Bs of the world are now so wary: they realize that the Person As might know something they don't.

The good news is that the banks haven't been able to find anyone to take the synthetic CDO bet quite yet. But synthetic CDOs, while perhaps the most notorious of the products involved in the financial crisis, weren't the only problem. One of the big underlying issues that led to the crisis was that slicing and dicing loans and selling them off in chunks made them appear less risky to ratings agencies and investors than they actually were. But banks still do that slicing and dicing all the time. Taking the payment streams from a bunch of loans and mashing them together into a standard CDO is still big business for the banks, and there are plenty of buyers. So far in 2013, $38 billion worth of CLOs—CDOs based on business loans—have been sold in the US. That's up from $15.6 billion in the same period last year, according to numbers from the Royal Bank of Scotland cited in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month. Maybe this time the borrowers of the underlying loans are more likely to pay them back, or the ratings agencies have done a better job of assessing how risky each CDO is. Wanna bet?

Republican Congressman Opposes Abortion Partly Because Male Fetuses Play With Their Genitals

Asawin Suebsaeng — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:24:01 +0000

Well, okay then.

Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) US Congress

On Monday night, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Tex.) contended that HR 1797—a bill the House is debating on Tuesday that would outlaw almost all abortions 20 weeks post fertilization—didn't go far enough. Burgess, an Ob/Gyn by trade and all-around tea partier, argued passionately in favor of banning abortions at an earlier stage in pregnancy. Here's a snippet of what he said, via RH Reality Check:

There's no question in my mind...that a baby at 20 weeks after conception can feel pain...I thought the date was far too late...Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful. They stroke their face. If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. They feel pleasure. Why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?

("Well, this is a subject that I do know something about," Burgess also asserted.)

Top medical experts in the US and UK dispute the Republicans' claim of fetal pain prior to the third trimester—the talking point at the heart of the proposed ban. But the part that caught the internet's attention was Burgess' odd "masturbating fetuses" logic. I've reached out to Rep. Burgess' office regarding his statements but I have not yet received a response.

US Military Set To Train Women for Elite Combat Roles by 2015

Asawin Suebsaeng — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:53:29 +0000

On Tuesday, the Pentagon is expected to announce that women will be allowed train for and potentially serve in elite combat positions in the US military, including the Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, and other special ops forces. (In January, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lifted a ban on women serving in combat roles, which made women eligible for another 238,000 jobs in the military.) According to details of the proposals obtained by the Associated Press, women will be able to train for the Army Rangers by mid-2015 and for the Navy SEALs in 2016 if senior leaders sign on. The AP reports:

[The plan will] call for requiring women and men to meet the same physical and mental standards to qualify for certain infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reviewed the plans and has ordered the services to move ahead...Military leaders have suggested [to Hagel] bringing senior women from the officer and enlisted ranks into special forces units first to ensure that younger, lower-ranking women have a support system to help them get through the transition...U.S. Special Operations Command is coordinating the matter of what commando jobs could be opened to women, what exceptions might be requested and when the transition would take place.

The proposals leave some wiggle room for continued exclusion of women from certain roles if future studies indicate that women would somehow be significantly less equipped for these positions. The services would, however, have to defend the continued exclusion to top Pentagon officials, and common sense and the success of women already serving in tough jobs in the US military have long discredited such arguments.

News of this proposal comes after a series of stories in recent months highlighting the startlingly high number of sexual assaults and incidents of harassment in the US armed forces. In January, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a press conference that he was convinced that rampant sexual misconduct in the ranks exists partly because women have been so long subordinated to men in American military culture, and hadn't been permitted to serve officially in military combat roles including special operations forces. "It's because we've had separate classes of military personnel," Dempsey said. "The more we can treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally."

Gov. Rick Scott Deflowers Florida

Stephanie Mencimer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:30:32 +0000

Members of the Florida state Legislature rarely agree on anything. It's unusual for a bill to get unanimous support from the body. But as it turns out, there is one thing that both Republicans and Democrats really love: wildflowers. Florida lawmakers in both houses of the Legislature voted a collective 157 to 0 this spring to increase the fee for a special Florida wildflower license plate from $15 to $25 starting in July. The proceeds would have gone to the Florida Wildflower Foundation, which for 13 years has been using license plate fees to dole out $2.5 million in grants to schools, garden clubs, and other green-thumb groups to plant native Florida flowers. The only problem is that on Friday afternoon, Republican Gov. Rick Scott vetoed the bill.

The move seems to have left even Republicans somewhat mystified. The only people who paid the fee were those who wanted to chip in for the pretty roadside flowers, and it brought the cost of the license plate in line with another one Scott approved for the Freemasons. But Scott apparently saw it otherwise, insisting that the wildflower license plate fee is apparently just another manifestation of big government. He wrote:

The bill increases the annual use fee for a specialty license plate; an expense in addition to the standard fees paid when registering a motor vehicle. Although buying a specialty license plate is voluntary, Floridians wishing to demonstrate their support for our State's natural beauty would be subjected to the cost increases sought by this bill.

The veto might be in keeping with Scott's image as a strict small-government tea partier, though it's unclear that even the tea partiers are part of the anti-wildflower lobby. What's really odd about the veto is that Scott has spent the past few months running away from the tea party, which has made him one of the nation's most unpopular governors. He's been transforming himself into a more traditional tax-and-spend politician, even coming out in support of expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, as he tries to hang on to his job in next year's election. But the flower veto suggests that the tea partier in him is refusing to go quietly. Or maybe he just really hates flowers. Either explanation probably isn't going to help him win any votes. As the Legislature has shown, in Florida, just about everyone loves wildflowers.

Supreme Court: Arizona Law Requiring Proof of Citizenship to Register to Vote Is Unconstitutional

AJ Vicens — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 22:27:49 +0000

The US Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that required people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. The case, Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, concerned Arizona's Proposition 200, which was passed by voters in 2004 during the fight over President George W. Bush's immigration reform proposal. The now-defunct law required new voters to prove that they're citizens during the voter registration process. That proof could be in the form of a driver's license number, a copy of a birth certificate, a copy of a passport, copies of naturalization documents, a Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, a tribal treaty card number, or a tribal enrollment number.

Unfortunately, millions of US citizens—mostly poor and elderly people—lack documentary evidence of their citizenship. Because of that, thousands of US citizens who should otherwise have been able to vote—31,000, according to the American Civil Liberties Union—were denied access to the ballot box under Proposition 200.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 requires only that potential voters check a box on a form attesting that they are citizens and eligible to vote. During oral arguments before the high court in March, the groups challenging Proposition 200 said that the federal voter registration law and the stricter Arizona law were incompatible, and the federal statute should take precedence. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, defending Proposition 200, said the federal requirement was "essentially an honor system" and that the two laws should be allowed to coexist. The Supreme Court decided the anti-Proposition 200 forces were right, and the federal law trumped Arizona's.

But voting rights advocates aren't out of the woods yet. At SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston notes that although the justices ruled that the state's requirements were out of line with federal election law, states that want to require potential voters to provide proof of citizenship may still be able to convince the Election Assistance Commission or Congress to implement such a requirement. The court also said that states could claim they had a constitutional right to require proof of citizenship for voter registration—an argument Arizona did not make in this particular case. In other words, there's a strong chance that Arizona or any other state that wants to could eventually get strict proof-of-citizenship requirements into law.

"The opinion seemed to leave little doubt that, if Arizona or another state went to court to try to establish such a constitutional power, it might well get a very sympathetic hearing, because that part of [Justice Antonin Scalia's] opinion laid a very heavy stress on the power of states under the Constitution to decide who gets to vote," Denniston wrote.

Arizona voting rights advocates will also have to deal with a batch of election-reform bills sitting on Republican Gov. Jan Brewer's desk right now that could derail mail-ballot collection drives and purge the state's permanent early voting list.

Want to Know How Your Rep. Voted on Wall Street Regs? Check the Campaign Cash.

Erika Eichelberger — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:18:03 +0000

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow US banks to get out of new financial regulations by operating through their overseas arms. Financial reformers say this is dangerous because markets are global, and a bad bet made by a US bank operating in another country could easily affect banks in the US and cause the US economy to crash again. Bad for America, but good for banks that want to avoid tough new rules. Perhaps that's why lawmakers who received more money from banks and the finance industry in recent years were more likely to vote in favor of the bill. House members who supported the bill received more than twice as much in contributions from the financial industry over the past two years as lawmakers who voted against it, according to a new analysis from the MapLight Foundation, an independent research group that tracks campaign finance.

Interest groups supporting the bill, including securities and investment companies, banks, and chambers of commerce, contributed an average of 102 percent more to House members who supported the bill than to those who voted no. Check it out:

Democratic House members who voted yes on the bill received 75 percent more money from from the financial services industry than Democrats who voted no.

In 2011 and 2012, groups that supported this bill gave five times more to House members than groups that opposed the bill did. The gap was even larger for donations to Democrats. Over those two years, House Democrats received less than $250,000 from interests that opposed this measure. During the same time period, groups in favor of allowing the banks to skirt regulation gave Dems 28 times as much—close to $7 million. Here's what that looks like:

What's remarkable is that some Democrats held firm. Although the bill passed the House last week by a vote of 301 to 124, most Democrats voted against it, which financial reformers say is a significant turn of events. "A majority of Democrats voted against a pro-Wall Street bill...even though it was co-sponsored by Democrats… that was heavily lobbied by Wall Street and everyone had predicted would win by a landslide," Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, told Mother Jones after the vote last week. "I'm pretty psyched."

7 New Revelations From Edward Snowden

Dana Liebelson — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:05:52 +0000

Today, the Guardian hosted a live chat with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed classified information about top-secret NSA surveillance programs. Readers and journalists asked the 29-year-old, who was reportedly chatting over a secure internet connection, about his departure to Hong Kong, his new disclosures on the US hacking foreign countries, and his thoughts on the Obama administration. Here are the seven most significant revelations:

1. Snowden denies having any contact with the Chinese government…in colorful language.

Because Snowden is allegedly taking refuge in Hong Kong and recently disclosed information about US cyberattacks on China, he was asked whether he's prepared to make a deal with the Chinese government in exchange for amnesty. Snowden insists that he has not had any contact with the Chinese government. He adds, "I did not reveal any US operations against legitimate military targets. I pointed out where the NSA has hacked civilian infrastructure such as universities, hospitals, and private businesses because it is dangerous." He also says that "the US media has a knee-jerk 'RED CHINA!' reaction…If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now." Snowden did not address the close relationship between the Chinese government and its military, business, and civilian institutions.

2. Snowden suggests that the NSA reviews the email and phone calls of Americans on a daily basis, without a warrant. But then he says there are some protections against this, even if the security measures are weak.

Addressing a question on whether the NSA can listen to domestic phone calls without a warrant, Snowden says, "Americans' communications are collected and viewed on a daily basis on the certification of an analyst rather than a warrant. They excuse this as 'incidental' collection, but at the end of the day, someone at NSA still has the content of your communications." Snowden adds that the only thing protecting Americans' email is changing policy protections—which he says he doesn't trust—and a filter that "is constantly out of date, is set at what is euphemistically referred to as the 'widest allowable aperture,' and can be stripped out at any time. Even with the filter, US comms get ingested, and even more so as soon as they leave the border."

3. When the NSA taps into email, it collects content (not just metadata).

"If I target for example an email address…and that email address sent something to you, Joe America, the analyst gets it. All of it. IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything. And it gets saved for a very long time—and can be extended further with waivers rather than warrants."

4. He doesn't say whether the NSA listens in to calls without an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Asked what advice he would give whistleblowers and "what evidence do you have that refutes the assertion that the NSA is unable to listen to the content of telephone calls without an explicit and defined court order from FISC?" Snowden simply said, "this country is worth dying for."

5. He claims that NSA warrants aren't real.

"Even in the event of 'warranted' intercept, it's important to understand the intelligence community doesn't always deal with what you would consider a 'real' warrant like a Police department would have to, the 'warrant' is more of a templated form they fill out and send to a reliable judge with a rubber stamp."

6. He explains why he decided not to go to Iceland.

"I had to travel with no advance booking to a country with the cultural and legal framework to allow me to work without being immediately detained. Hong Kong provided that. Iceland could be pushed harder, quicker, before the public could have a chance to make their feelings known, and I would not put that past the current US administration."

7. He says there's more information about "direct access" coming.

Tech companies deny that the NSA has "direct access" to their servers, but Snowden claims that "more detail on how direct NSA's accesses are is coming."

Are Conservatives More Likely Than Liberals to Avoid Cognitive Dissonance?

Chris Mooney — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:20:31 +0000

Ever since Stanford psychologist Leon Festinger's pioneering work on doomsday cults in the 1950s, the concept of cognitive dissonance has been well established in psychology and even, to some extent, embedded in public consciousness. Basically, when the mind is faced with an idea that is threatening to one's identity or sense of self—an idea that induces unpleasant dissonance—one tends to try to either avoid the thought or, perhaps, reinterpret it into something unthreatening or positive. Thus, in Festinger's landmark work, a doomsday cult interpreted the failure of the world to end on the precise day they had predicted as evidence that their beliefs were right in the first place!

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But do liberals and conservatives differ in their tendency to avoid cognitive dissonance? Suggestive evidence from past research suggests they might. For instance, a study of voters in the 2000 election by Stanford public opinion specialist Shanto Iyengar and his colleagues found that although Republicans and conservatives were more interested in learning information about George W. Bush than about Al Gore, Democratic and liberal voters had no such political preference.

In a recent study in PLOS One, an online academic journal, the psychologist Jay Van Bavel and his colleagues at New York University set out to explicitly test whether conservatives are more likely than liberals to avoid the unsettling sensation of cognitive dissonance. For the experiment, they asked George W. Bush and Barack Obama supporters to write an essay supporting the president whom they had already said they opposed. It was a test, as the study's instructions instructions put it, of "the ability to craft logical arguments arguing positions you may not personally endorse."

Importantly, the study sometimes presented writing the essay as a choice—which is more likely to arouse dissonance—and other times presented it as an assignment. As a control, the participants were put through the same routine by being asked to write essays on a nonpolitical issue: How they felt about Macs vs. PCs.

Sure enough, the results yielded a significant partisan difference in the willingness to write the essay—but only when the essay was political (not about Macs vs. PCs) and only when writing it was presented a choice, not an assignment. In that context, the results were rather stunning: Not a single Bush supporter was willing to write a pro-Obama essay. That's 0 out of 28 Bush supporters overall. Obama supporters didn't like writing pro Bush essays much either, but they were a lot more willing in general: 20 out of 71 did so, or 28 percent overall. (The study sample, obtained through Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk, contained more liberals than conservatives.)

In fact, some conservatives sounded rather miffed after taking the study, leaving comments like: "Not for all the tea in China would I write that." In contrast, note the study authors, some liberals seemed to revel in the assignment. "This was fun!" as one put it.

The same finding arose—but less sharply—in a second study, when the presidents involved were Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, rather than Bush and Obama. Here, 13 out of 58 Clinton supporters—or 22 percent—wrote essays supporting Reagan, whereas just 3 out of 30—or 10 percent—of Reagan fans bothered to extoll Clinton. (The authors hypothesized that the response might have been different in this case because both former presidents are now quite well regarded, their reputations much more insulated from the partisanship of the current political moment.)

Like responsible scientists, the study authors noted factors other than the obvious one that could have contributed to their results—e.g., maybe liberals just enjoy the opportunity to be devil's advocates more than conservatives do. Or maybe it's really true (as much other research suggests) that the left-right divide reflects a deeper divide in psychology.

Liberals and conservatives did look almost identical when they were required to write the dissonance-inducing essay, rather than having a choice about the matter. When people are required to think positively about their political foes, they will, says NYU's Van Bavel. It isn't impossible, then—just something that happens far too rarely.

Senate Democrats Taking Cautious "Blumenthal Mindset" on Immigration Reform

Gavin Aronsen — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 18:51:24 +0000

On Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight who crafted the Senate immigration reform bill, warned that he would withdraw his support for the legislation if a gay rights amendment authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) is added to the bill. The measure, which Leahy filed on Tuesday, would allow a citizen to petition the government for permanent residency for his or her same-sex partner. "If this bill has in it something that gives gay couples immigration rights and so forth, it kills the bill. I'm done," Rubio said on the Andrea Tantaros Show.

Leahy spokesman David Carle said on Friday that Leahy has no plans yet to respond to Rubio's comment—the day before, Leahy declined to comment, saying that he hadn't seen Rubio's statement. The Senate leadership hasn't decided which amendments will ultimately get a vote, but even if Leahy's does, it's highly unlikely to pass. Still, the fact that it is even floating out there has concerned senators who don't want to destabilize the fragile talks.

"Everyone’s got the Blumenthal mindset right now—keeping their amendments on the table, but don't want to doom it all," says a Democratic aide familiar with the talks. He was referring to Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who is still considering whether to press for a vote on two controversial gun control amendments he's proposed for the immigration bill. "I'm not going to doom or cripple immigration reform efforts to raise those amendments," Blumenthal told Mother Jones on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the bigger threat to immigration reform in the Senate right now involves border control. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) introduced a "poison pill" amendment opposed by Democrats that would massively expand border security and could sink the bill if enough Republicans sign on. Republicans in the Gang of Eight hope to iron out a compromise with Cornyn, although Democrats are skeptical that he can be persuaded.

Republicans Want to Ban Abortions After 20 Weeks. Here's How One Group Is Fighting Back.

Kate Sheppard — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 17:55:32 +0000

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based nonprofit, is at the center of the key legal battles over abortion and contraception.

CRR filed the lawsuit that forced the Obama administration to drop its effort to restrict access to Plan B One-Step—a brand of what is popularly known as the morning-after pill—this week, making emergency contraception available over-the-counter to everyone. The group is also leading the legal fight against bans on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, which a dozen states have passed in the last three years. And next week, the Supreme Court is expected to announce whether or not it will hear Oklahoma's appeal of court decisions CRR won blocking both a mandatory sonogram law and a ban on medication abortion in that state.

CRR's president and CEO, Nancy Northup, was in Washington this week to talk to legislators about what's happening in the states and to promote her group's proposal for a Bill of Reproductive Rights. Launched last year, the effort calls on federal legislators to pass protections for abortion and other reproductive health care at the federal level. The GOP-led House, however, was moving in the opposite direction this week, with the judiciary committee debating Rep. Trent Franks' (R-Ariz.) bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide. Mother Jones spoke to Northup during her visit.

Mother Jones: The DOJ's latest offer is that the FDA will make Plan B One-Step available over-the-counter for everyone, but the appeals court's ruling last week said that it needed to make all types of two-pill EC available. So the administration's response didn't actually answer the court's ruling. What's next?

Northup: We're going to back to the court saying, "Enough with the gamesmanship." It's safe and effective. All these pills are safe and effective for use by all ages and they should all be over the counter. And that the generic option, which is less expensive, should be available. They're $10-20 cheaper.

Mother Jones: Another issue CRR has been involved in is the 20-week abortion bans in the states. You recently won a lawsuit against Arizona's in court. But at this point, 12 states have passed this type of law. What's next on that front?

Northup: There are some states with no providers [who offer abortions up to 20 weeks]. So we're not challenging those, because we have no standing to challenge them. That again shows how much of a political and messaging campaign this is by people who want to restrict access. Why are they are passing 20 week bans in states where doctors don't even provide those services? Everywhere that they have been challenged, they have been, to date, enjoined. In Georgia there's a preliminary injunction in place. Arizona has an injunction after the 9th Circuit decision. Idaho's decision came down that it was unconstitutional. What we're now looking at is fighting the 12-week ban in Arkansas, and we will be filing in North Dakota against the six-week ban. We challenge them where it's meaningful to challenge them.

Continue Reading »

This Is What a Multimillionaire Calling In His Chits Looks Like

Andy Kroll — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 15:19:59 +0000

Art Pope is the conservative mega-donor in North Carolina whose millions helped usher in Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, and who dropped millions more in 2012 to elect Republican Gov. Pat McGrory. Perhaps to say thanks, McGrory promptly named Pope, a former board member of the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity group, the state's new budget director.

One of Pope's pet causes has been killing North Carolina's public funding program for judicial elections, an aim of his when he served in the state legislature. The NC Public Campaign Fund, as it's known, provides judicial candidates with taxpayer money to fund their campaigns so long as they collect 350 or more small donations from registered voters and also abide by campaign spending limits. The program is popular: Since its launch in 2004, 80 percent of judicial candidates in contested race for state Supreme Court and North Carolina Court of Appeals have used it. In May, 14 of the 15 judges on Court of Appeals, judges who represent both parties, urged state lawmakers to preserve the program. "Our current system of nonpartisan judicial elections supplemented by public financing is an effective and valuable tool for protecting public confidence in the impartiality and independence of the judiciary," the judges said.

North Carolina's judicial public financing program gets its money from a $3 check box on state tax forms and a $50 annual fee paid by attorneys. The budget proposed by North Carolina Republicans would suck all the money out of the elections fund and eliminate its funding sources, a death blow to the program. But as Chris Kromm of Facing South writes, state Rep. Jonathan Jordan, a Republican, had a fix. He offered a budget amendment that would preserve the $50 attorney fee while still sucking out all the fund's money and eliminating the taxpayer check-box. Although Jordan's amendment would hurt the fund in the short term, the attorneys fees would replenish it over time. Other Republicans liked this idea.

That's when Art Pope called in his chits:

Soon after Jordan's amendment was filed the next day, the multimillionaire GOP donor and budget director for Republican Gov. Pat McCrory made a rare visit to the General Assembly and took Jordan aside. When the impromptu meeting with Pope ended, Jordan made an abrupt U-turn and dropped the amendment.

The amendment died—and with it chances of saving North Carolina's pioneering judicial program.

Art Pope took a direct role in killing the landmark election reform measure even though his presence as budget director wasn't needed, since Jordan's amendment was revenue-neutral. His involvement highlights the unique power Pope holds as both a top campaign donor to state lawmakers and the highest ranking member of McCrory's cabinet.

It also marks the culmination of a more than decade-long crusade by Pope to dismantle judicial public financing and other reforms that aim to curb the clout of big donors like himself in North Carolina politics.

Why, you might ask, would Jordan so easily abandon his amendment? Well, the money trail is a good place to start:

When Jordan first ran for office in 2010, he was one of two dozen Republicans that benefited from a flood of money Pope poured into elections, helping the GOP capture the state legislature.

That year, Jordan received $16,000 in campaign contributions from Pope and his close family, the maximum allowed by law. On top of that, three groups backed by Pope—Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action, and Real Jobs NC—shoveled more than $91,500 into election spending on Jordan's behalf, bringing Pope's total investment in launching Jordan's legislative career to more than $107,000.

But Pope's connection to Rep. Jordan goes back even further. In the late 1990s, Jordan spent two years as research director at the John Locke Foundation, one of a network of conservative groups in North Carolina largely funded by Art Pope's family foundation.

In an email to the News and Observer newspaper, Pope declined to comment on his talk with Rep. Jordan. "Of course the governor's recommended budget proposed to stop giving taxpayer dollars to political campaigns," Pope said. "That position has not changed, and I have stated this to the legislators, members of the public, and organizations such as Common Cause when they have asked about the issue."

Episodes like these are what make North Carolina such a fascinating case study. On the one hand, you have Pope, an ideologue who gave handsomely to conservative causes for decades and now controls North Carolina's budget. On the other, there is a progressive groundswell pushing back against Pope, McGrory, and the Republican majorities in the legislature. But in this case, the imminent death of North Carolina's judicial funding program shows just how much clout a single donor can have.

Blumenthal: "I'm Not Going to Doom Immigration Reform"

Gavin Aronsen — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 21:15:07 +0000

Lawmakers and the families of Newtown victims held a midday press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday—the day before the six-month anniversary of the Newtown shooting—part of a renewed, day-long effort to revive the Senate's failed gun background check legislation. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat and key advocate for the victims during the gun debate, vowed to defeat the "schoolyard bullies" of the National Rifle Association in that effort, but he was less certain about whether to inject gun control into the ongoing immigration reform debate.

Blumenthal has proposed two gun-related amendments to the immigration bill being considered in the Senate. One would deny immigrants on visa waivers from buying guns; the other would require the US attorney general to alert the Department of Homeland Security when undocumented immigrants attempt to buy guns or when non-citizens attempt mass gun purchases. When the Senate judiciary committee considered the immigration bill, Blumenthal chose not to push for a vote the gun amendments. But he has considered filing them now that the immigration bill is on the Senate floor. Doing so would trigger a major fight, with NRAish senators likely to go ballistic.

"I'm not going to doom or cripple immigration reform efforts to raise those amendments," Blumenthal told Mother Jones after Thursday's conference, echoing similar comments he made earlier this week. But, he added, "The issue of gun violence belongs in the debate." In other words, Blumenthal won't doom immigration reform—but he might.

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Blumenthal's amendments "problematic" because they would sidetrack progress on immigration reform with a gun debate. Democrats, unwilling to let immigration talks implode over controversial amendments, are also eyeing the amendments with caution.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who controls the amendment process, is in discussions with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the minority leader, to determine which measures will get a vote. McConnell told Mother Jones Thursday that there is "nothing new" yet on which amendments will get floor time. Blumenthal said he is still discussing his amendments with Senate leadership and other colleagues to determine if they would be receptive.

At the press conference, Democrats claimed a renewed fight over background checks is possible. Reid said that he would reintroduce a background check bill in the Senate once he secures 60 votes in order to overcome a filibuster, claiming he has made progress with a couple Republicans. "The writing is on the wall," Reid said. "Background checks will pass the United States Senate, it's just a matter of time."

House Passes Bill That Could Lead to Another Financial Crash—But Reformers Claim Victory

Erika Eichelberger — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 19:47:38 +0000

On Wednesday evening, the House passed a bipartisan bill that would allow US banks to avoid new financial regulations by operating overseas. But financial reformers are seizing on a silver lining: most Democrats voted against the bill—something one financial reformer calls a "miracle"—signaling a tougher-than-expected road ahead for similar efforts to scale back new rules on banks that crashed the economy a few years ago, and making the bill's passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate less likely.

"In our defeatist, Eeyore sort of way, we won today," says Bart Naylor, a financial policy advocate at the consumer group Public Citizen.

"I'm pretty psyched about [the vote]," says Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform, a group of national and state organizations that advocate for Main Street-friendly financial rules. "A majority of Democrats voted against a pro-Wall Street bill… even though it was co-sponsored by Democrats… that was heavily lobbied by Wall Street and everyone had predicted would win by a landslide."

The bill in question, the clunkily titled Swap Jurisdiction Certainty Act, was introduced earlier this year by Reps. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), Mike Conaway (R-Tex.), John Carney (D-Del.), and David Scott (D-Ga.). It would exempt foreign arms of US banks from the new regulations on derivatives (which are financial products with values derived from from underlying variables, such as crop prices or interest rates) that are required by the Dodd-Frank Act, the big post-crisis Wall Street reform law.

When Garrett introduced the bill, he described it as an effort to stem government overreach, saying, "Our job creators—millions being crushed by overly burdensome Washington rules and regulations—deserve to be on a fair, level playing field with the international community." But financial reformers say the legislation would just encourage banks to move risky activities to their less regulated overseas subsidiaries. And since the derivatives market is global, if, for example, JPMorgan Chase's London office made some bad bets, the trading loss would immediately poison JPMorgan's US-based offices, and the broader US economy could come tumbling down again.

The House financial services committee passed the bill a few weeks ago, with just 11 Democrats and no Republicans on the 61-member committee voting against it. But Wall Street reformers and their allies in Congress, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), rallied the troops, and changed some minds. On Wednesday, 122 out of 195 Democrats voted against the bill, while only 2 Republicans voted against. It passed 301 to 124.

This is a "huge comeback for Maxine Waters," and financial reformers, says Jeff Connaughton, former investment banker, lobbyist, and author of The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins. Past moves to weaken financial regulation have often had strong bipartisan support. But it's now clear that "there is a large constituency in Congress who want to defend financial reform efforts," Stanley says. The fact that most of the Democratic caucus was willing to buck Wall Street's wishes and oppose this bill could help stiffen the spines of regulators, reformers argue. The vote "sends an important message that people are just not going to roll over for Wall Street trying to gut this stuff," Stanley adds.

Reformers hope that Democratic disapproval of this bill could imperil other attacks on rules governing US banks' foreign operations. Wall Street is currently lobbying regulators to weaken their rules governing how Dodd-Frank regulations would apply to US banks overseas (yes, the very rules Garrett's bill would gut); some worry that the financial industry is also trying to roll back regulations on foreign operations through a giant free trade deal now being negotiated; and Europe, too, is calling US regulators' proposed overseas rules too aggressive.

If US banks overseas are allowed to run wild and unregulated, they will concentrate business in less-regulated foreign markets, Naylor says. That's bad news: Almost every major financial scandal involving derivatives has involved trades conducted through a foreign entity. Sooner or later, Naylor says, "Either a spreadsheet error or a rogue trader will bring down an investment firm. American taxpayers then face the Hobson's Choice of… bailing out the bank…or watching [the] destruction."

Justice Dept. Loses a Round in Battle to Keep Surveillance Wrongdoing Secret

David Corn — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:57:56 +0000

Last week, I reported that in the midst of revelations about the National Security Agency's extensive top-secret surveillance operations to collect domestic phone records and internet communications, the Justice Department was fighting to keep secret a court opinion that determined that the government, on at least one occasion, had violated the spirit of federal surveillance laws and engaged in unconstitutional spying.

Last year, after Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) released a declassified statement noting that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court had found that the US government had engaged in surveillance that had circumvented the law, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a public-interest outfit that focuses on digital rights, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the Justice Department for any FISA court opinion or order that had reached such a conclusion. FISA court proceedings and opinions are top secret, and the Justice Department said, in essence, "get lost." EFF sued, and in the course of the proceedings, the Justice Department revealed that the FISA court in 2011 had indeed produced an 86-page opinion concluding a government surveillance program was not constitutionally kosher. But the department provided no details regarding the program that the opinion covered, and it contended the opinion could not be released because it was classified and the department itself did not have the authority to release a FISA court opinion, under that court's rules.

So EFF went to the FISA court last month and filed a motion that essentially asked the court to tell Justice that there was nothing in its rules that would prohibit a federal court from ordering the agency to release this opinion. And last week, the Justice Department responded, filing a motion arguing that the FISA court did not have jurisdiction to rule on the EFF motion. It also claimed that if the FISA court did rule in favor of EFF on this point, the court would create a precedent that could lead to the release of redacted opinions that would be "misleading to the public about the role of this Court." That is, the Justice Department was issuing a stark warning to the FISA court: Agree with EFF, and who knows what will happen. "A release involving the disclosure of some parts of a FISC opinion while concealing other parts creates a substantial risk of public misunderstanding or confusion regarding this Court's decision or reasoning," the department's motion stated.

The FISA court did not buy the agency's arguments. On Wednesday, it handed EFF a slam-dunk victory in this side battle, ruling, "The Court concludes that it has jurisdiction to adjudicate the EFF Motion and that the FISC Rules do not prohibit the Government's disclosure of the Opinion in the event it is ultimately determined by the District Court to be subject to disclosure under FOIA." So now the Justice Department cannot hide behind its claim that FISA court rules prevent it from releasing the opinion in response to a FOIA lawsuit.

EFF, though, has not yet reached the promised land. It still must beat the Justice Department in district court on the substance of the dispute: Can the government be forced to release a FISA court opinion—or portions of it—that declared a government surveillance program unconstitutional?

The FISA court, says David Sobel, a lawyer for EFF, "has made clear that there is nothing in its own rules that prohibits disclosure of the 2011 opinion we're seeking. So we go back to district court and continue our fight under FOIA, having removed DOJ's argument that it has no discretion to release FISC material." Pointing to this FISA court decision and a bill recently introduced in Congress that would require the declassification of certain FISA court opinion, Sobel says, "We might be on the verge of rethinking the degree of secrecy that surrounds all these activities." But he still has a tough fight ahead in this case, for the Justice Department has certainly demonstrated it will fiercely oppose disclosing an opinion revealing government surveillance gone wrong—even when the nation's most secret court has no objection.