Forgive my late comment on it, but in early November, PBS' Frontline did a fantastic program titled The Confessions. If you haven't heard about the case (I hadn't), I'd really recommend watching or listening to the program, but to boil it down as short as possible, a woman named Michelle Moore-Bosko was raped and murdered in her Virginia apartment in 1997, and through a series of bad police and prosecutorial decisions, seven US sailors were wrongly dragged into it, and four were ultimately convicted on rape or murder charges and imprisoned by Virginia. They were eventually freed on a partial clemency by Governor Tim Kaine in 2009, having spent most of 12 years in prison.
All this happened despite the eventual (but still timely enough) confession of acting alone by a known sexually violent man who had no association with the accused sailors, and had the only DNA from the crime scene. The first sailor was implicated just by the random suspicious comment of someone in Michelle's building (where he also lived) during initial police canvassing and after he was induced to (falsely) confess by sheer psychological wear-down, one by one additional sailors were pulled in as each would be brought in, grilled for extended times by one detective with a long record of extracting confessions, and when their DNA did not actually match the crime scene, they were coerced to name additional people involved and re-state their confessions to match a growing list of suspects, which ultimately reached 8. The case took numerous absurd twists and turns and really the program does an excellent job showing how the State's case against the seven (three never convicted) strained credulity by the end, despite the confessions.
PBS covers many aspects of this preposterous travesty of justice, because it is obvious that many flaws in the criminal justice system aligned to create such a massive error. There is no monocausal explanation, a bad cop, bad prosecutors, bad supervisors, bad Judges and sloppy defence lawyers all played significant parts in the result, but if I had to name the factor which, if absent, would have prevented the outcome while still leading to the eventual conviction of the actual murderer, it is the Death Penalty.
The Virginia federal judge who ruled against a key component of health care reform on Monday has ties to a Republican consulting firm. Judge Henry Hudson is a co-owner of Campaign Solutions, as Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! reports.
Hudson, a President George W. Bush appointee, has earned as much as $108,000 in royalties from Campaign Solutions since 2003. A cached version of the firm's client roster lists such vocal opponents of health reform as Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), the Republican National Committee and the American Medical Association.
In November, Collins and Snowe joined McConnell in signing an amicus brief to challenge the constitutionality of health care reform in a separate suit in Florida. Campaign finance records show that Campaign Solutions has also worked for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is spearheading the lawsuit. Tiahrt added an amicus brief to Cuccinelli's lawsuit.
Today, the mandate. Tomorrow, the regulatory state?
Hudson ruled that the individual mandate of health care reform is unconstitutional. The mandate stipulates that, after 2014, everyone who doesn't already have health insurance will have to buy some or pay a small fine. The judge argues that this requirement exceeds the federal government's power to regulate interstate commerce.
The Commerce Clause gives the federal government the power to regulate commerce between the states and international trade. Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones explains that this clause underpins the power of the federal government to regulate the economy in any way:
But the issues at stake in Cuccinelli v. Sebelius (Ken Cuccinelli is the conservative attorney general of Virginia; Katherine Sebelius is President Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services, or HHS) are actually far broader. Hudson's ruling doesn't just show how the Supreme Court could gut the health law-it shows how the court could neuter the entire federal government.
Is it constitutional?
Chris Hayes of The Nation interviews Prof. Gillian Metzger, a constitutional law scholar at Columbia University, about the merits of challenges to the constitutionality of health care reform. According to Metzger, "the argument that [the mandate] is outside the commerce power is also pretty specious given the existing precedent."
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly accuses Judge Hudson of committing an "inexplicable error" in legal reasoning. There is a longstanding precedent that the federal government can regulate economic activity under the Commerce Clause. Hudson acknowledges this, but he maintains that this power doesn't cover regulations of "economic inactivity" (i.e. not buying health insurance). As Benen notes, people who don't buy insurance aren't opting out of the market, they're opting to let society absorb their future medical costs. Everyone who does buy insurance pays more because freeloaders coast without insurance and hope for the best.
Luckily for the Obama administration, the judge did not bar the implementation of health reform while the case works its way through the courts. The Supreme Court will ultimately hear this case. In the meantime, the federal government can continue building the infrastructure that will eventually support health care reform.
This is the third time a federal judge has ruled on the constitutionality of health care reforms and the first victory for the anti-reform contingent.
Mandatory mandate
Paul Waldman reminds TAPPED readers why the mandate is critical to any health care reform based on private insurance. With a single-payer system, you don't need a mandate because everyone is automatically covered. A mandate only comes into play when you have to force people to buy insurance.
Without a mandate, healthy risk-takers who don't buy insurance will starve the system of premiums while they are well and bleed the system for benefits when they get sick. Meanwhile, people who already know they're sick will sign up in droves, and the Affordable Care Act will force insurers to accept them. Without a mandate, the private health insurance industry would collapse and take health care reform down with it.
Is expanding Medicare the answer?
Matthew Rothschild of the Progressive argues that the legal headaches over the individual mandate illustrate why it would have been legally and procedurally easier to achieve universal health care by simply expanding Medicare to cover everyone.
At Truthout, Thom Hartmann argues universal health insurance in the form of "Medicare Part E" would spur economic growth and innovation because entrepreneurs could start businesses without worrying about how to provide health insurance for their employees.
Meanwhile, Brie Cadman reports at Change.Org, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is trying to defund health care reform by cutting funds for preventive health care. Coburn is urging his fellow Republicans to vote against a House-passed measure that would allocate $750 million for the 2011 Prevention and Public Health Fund. Cadman notes the irony of a medical doctor like Coburn, who also claims to be a fiscal conservative, trying to scuttle funds to control preventable diseases which would otherwise cost society billions of dollars a year.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
(Project Vote Asks, "Who exactly isn't being listened to?" - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
"Can you hear me?" That's the recurring refrain in a radio promo for this weekend's "Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention," which-with an estimated crowd of 3,000-purports to be one of the largest rallies yet of so-called "Tea Party" sympathizers. The 60-second radio spot by keynote speaker Lou Dobbs features allegedly outraged Americans repeating that line, interspersed with un-attributed stats about how Americans supposedly oppose stimulus spending, health care, and other government spending policies "Maybe Washington can't hear us," Dobbs intones dramatically, "because they're just not listening."
Not listening to whom? For two years media obsession with the Tea Party has drowned out nearly every other voice in the public debate, a self-perpetuating feeding frenzy that has raised the volume on this population’s views to a disproportionately deafening roar. Yet, as is shown all too clearly in Project Vote’s recent poll report What Happened to Hope and Change? A Poll of 2008 Voters, these shouts for attention are coming from a segment of the population that is overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and older—and one that is out of touch with the needs and views of most Americans.
One thing that Tea Party sympathizers say is confirmed by Project Vote’s poll: they are indeed almost universally angry. Yet, based on their responses to Project Vote’s survey, they seem to have precious little to be angry about. Three fourths of them report that their personal financial situation is fairly good or very good. Eight out of ten are employed or retired; they are overwhelmingly married; they went to college; and they make more money. Contrary to claims that the Tea Party represents a “wide swath of Americans,” nine out of ten Tea Party sympathizers are White.
Older, wealthier, White conservatives: this is hardly a population overlooked or ignored, either by the media or by Washington.
Can you hear me? This question is better asked by the 21 percent of young voters, the 37 percent of Black voters, and the 39 percent of low-income voters who reported to Project Vote that they did not have enough money to buy food for their families at some point during the past year. (Only 6 percent of Tea Partiers said the same.)
It is a question better asked by the strong majorities of black voters, young voters, and low-income voters who support stimulus spending, government programs to create jobs, and who say they agree with the statement that “government should work to provide for the needs of all citizens.”
It is a question better asked by the majorities of all American voters who support raising taxes on capital gains, ending combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and raising the minimum wage to ensure that no family of three with a full-time worker has to live below the poverty line.
Belying the exaggerated claims of Tea Party activists, Project Vote’s poll shows that most Americans—and particularly the black, low-income, and youth voters who increased their participation so decisively in 2008—share a common expectation that government should provide for the needs of all Americans rather than limit its activities to national security and police protection. This value translates into support for increased spending on infrastructure and public education and maintaining or increasing spending on income security programs such as Food Stamps.
In a press release about the Project Vote poll, Color of Change co-founder and executive director James Rucker said, “What Project Vote’s poll shows is that the views on government held by progressives represent the majority. We shouldn’t let Tea Party activists convince us that we, and not they, are the minority.”
Yet as the Tea Party minority turns up the volume on its microphones again this weekend in Richmond, Virginia, media attention will no doubt once again focus on their anti-government message. Meanwhile, the voices of the other 72 percent of American voters are calling for a different vision of government—one that does more, not less, to support and protect struggling Americans.
This is the nineteenth article in a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country.
From the Scotch-Irish who settled there starting in the 1760s to today's residents, the people of southwestern Virginia are fiercely independent. The 9th Congressional District, which covers all of southern Virginia west of Roanoke, has been known as the "Fighting Ninth," because of its raucous politics. The district was first dominated by farmers, later coal miners (though the coal industry has been in decline for more than twenty years there), and now by workers in high-tech industries. Bill Clinton carried the district twice, however George W. Bush won in 2000 and 2004 by wider margins than Clinton ever did, and John McCain won the district 59-40% in 2008.
Democrat Rick Boucher is in his 14th term representing the district in the U.S. House. Boucher's family is steeped in southwest Virginia politics - his mother was Washington County's Democratic Party chairwoman, and his grandfather and great-grandfather were Democratic members of the state House of Delegates. He hasn't faced a particularly close race since his first re-election bid in 1984. This fall he will be challenged by Republican Delegate and House Majority Leader, Morgan Griffith.
During his long Congressional career, Boucher has voted as a moderate, making his greatest mark on telecommunication and technology issues. He's been a reliable vote on clean energy and environmental issues, earning a c from the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) last year. Boucher played an influential role in shaping the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), the first global warming bill ever to pass a chamber of Congress, as the leading voice for coal-state representatives on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On the House floor during debate on ACES, Boucher said the bill:
...achieves broad reductions in greenhouse gases, enhances America's energy security, and by placing a price on carbon dioxide emissions will unleash investments in clean energy technologies that will create millions of new jobs. These energy technologies will evolve from America's laboratories. They will be deployed at home. They will be exported around the world. They will be the foundation for our next technology revolution...
This is a responsible measure. It is carefully balanced. It reduces greenhouse gases by 83 percent by 2050 as compared to 2005 levels. It keeps electricity rates affordable. It enables coal usage to grow as the demand for electricity increases. And it opens the door to a more secure energy future and the creation of millions of new jobs innovating, deploying and exporting to the world the new low CO2 emitting technologies that will power our energy future."
Boucher backs up his claims in that speech with facts from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and experts at the Environmental Protection Agency. But that hasn't stopped Morgan Griffith from asserting, without any persuasive evidence, that ACES will "result in massive job cuts in Southwest Virginia's coal industry while raising electricity, gasoline, and heating prices for all consumers." Though, as someone who also says that "many scientists do not even believe [global warming] is happening," Griffith doesn't seem bound by the facts.
The truth, according to our top experts at the National Academy of Sciences is that "Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts. This is the case for the conclusions that the Earth system is warming and that much of this warming is very likely due to human activities." As to Griffith's loss of jobs argument, according to collaborative research by the University of Illinois, Yale University and the University of California, ACES could lead to as many as 1.9 million new jobs nationally; 50,000 in Virginia alone.
The NRDC Action Fund believes that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
To follow up the series on Virginia, I've posted a few recent presidential elections in the state (courtesy of the New York Times). Each map comes with some brief analysis.
Capitalizing on a decade of Democratic movement, Senator Barack Obama becomes the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. The Senator performs best in eastern Virginia, especially the fast-growing northern Virginia metropolis. Western Virginia is not as enamored; parts of it even vote more Republican.
This is the last part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia, which aims to offer some concluding thoughts. The previous parts can be found starting here.
Conclusions
As a state, Virginia's population has always been located in three metropolitan areas: the Northern Virginia suburbs south of Washington D.C., Richmond and its suburbs, and the communities surrounding Hampton Roads. Together these three places compose more than half of Virginia's electorate:
In all three metropolitan areas, Democrats have been improving their margins.
Participating in democracy should be a simple exercise for anyone who is a citizen over the age of 18, but as voter registration and turnout stats indicate, it’s not always that easy. On their way to the polls, too many people encounter barriers and obstacles, and too often these impediments are a result of varying, nuanced election administration procedures across the United States. As a new Project Vote report illustrates, examples of many of these election administration dos and don’ts can be found in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
This is the fifth part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. It focuses on the traditional Democratic base and its decline. The last part can be found here.
In the days of the Solid South, Democrats worried more about primary elections than Republican challengers. The party, under the sway of the Byrd machine, dominated almost every part of the state - as it did throughout the South.
Civil rights and suburban growth broke the back of this coalition. In 1952 Virginia voted for Republican candidate Dwight Eisenhower. By the 1970s Virginia had elected its first Republican governor, senator, and attorney general in nearly a century.
Democrats were left with strength in two reliable regions - the southeast and the western panhandle. These places constituted the traditional Democratic base, which Democrats relied on for a number of decades.
The 1996 presidential election provides an excellent illustration of this base:
This is the fourth part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. It is the second section of two focusing on Northern Virginia, and focuses on analyzing the structural foundation behind NoVa's Democratic shift. The fifth part can be found here.
Demographics
In many ways, Northern Virginia represents the best America has to offer. As wealthy, diverse, and rapidly growing suburb, it offers the very essence of the American Dream.
This is the first in what will be a continuing series by the NRDC Action Fund on the environmental stances of candidates in key races around the country. Today, we examine Virginia’s 5th Congressional district, a district - stretching south from Charlottesville to the North Carolina border. Currently, the 5th CD is represented in the U.S. House of Representatives by Tom Perriello (D).
Where does Rep. Perriello stand on clean energy and environmental issues? In 2009, Perriello received a 71% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Perriello also voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) and has"touted development of a clean energy economy as a way of creating jobs; improving energy efficiency; increasing this country’s energy supplies and sources and reducing reliance on foreign energy, which also would benefit this country’s national security; and other benefits." With regard to his ACES vote, Perriello says that he "believes there are ‘huge upsides’ in manufacturing and agriculture in a clean energy economy." As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, Perriello is exactly right about the agricultural sector, as "Wind, solar, and biomass energy can be harvested forever, providing farmers with a long-term source of income." And, as California’s experience has shown, Perriello is right about the manufacturing sector as well.
Perriello does, however, favor some things that many environmentalists disagree with. For instance, Perriello says he supports an "’everything and the kitchen sink’ national energy strategy that includes an expansion of oil drilling." On the other hand, it should be noted that Perriello’s support for oil drilling comes in the context of his overall support for "using market-based solutions to create a carbon-limited economy."
The Republican candidate, Virginia State Sen. Robert Hurt, has views on energy and the environment contrast sharply with Perriello’s. In this video, for instance, Hurt incorrectly claims that cap and trade legislation would "absolutely raise the cost of energy in this country and it will hurt individuals and it will hurt businesses." In fact, as studies like this one show, "the Waxman-Markey climate bill makes economic sense, offering benefits worth at least twice as much as it costs, if not more." And, as this study concludes, the climate legislation already passed by the U.S. House of Representatives "would produce an average net energy spending reduction of $354 per household and an increase of nearly 425,000 jobs" by 2030. Finally, a recent study by the U.S. Energy Information Administration finds that the comprehensive climate and clean energy "American Power Act" being considered in the U.S. Senate would produce increases in income "almost 60 times greater than the estimated $185 annual investment** cost, exceeding $11,000 per year on average" while reducing U.S. oil imports "1.9 to 2.4 million barrels per day by 2035."
For whatever reason, Robert Hurt has ignored or discounted these studies, not to mention the overwhelming scientific evidence regarding the urgent need to act on climate change. Thus, instead of advocating for a transformation from the dirty fuels of the past, to a prosperous economy based on energy efficiency and clean energy that will never run out, Hurt’s solution is essentially the same-old, same-old: "opening up drilling in off the coast of Virginia, something I have supported year after year." Hurt adds, "We have to include drilling all over this country in order to meet the demands for our society, the demands for our businesses."
In reality, of course, the United States contains only 3% of the world’s oil reserves and is considered by geologists to be a "mature oil province." In common language, the meaning is simple: our oil production has long since "peaked," which means we can’t "drill our way out of it." Fortunately, we can open up tremendous opportunities for our nation through policies and investments that encourage energy efficiency – also known as "Invisible Energy" – and clean, renewable energy. For whatever reason, Robert Hurt disagrees and instead is pushing to move us backwards in this area.
In general, Sen. Hurt’s environmental record is unimpressive, with a 20% Virginia League of Conservation Voters rating in 2009 and a 38% rating in 2010. During the 2010 Virginia General Assembly session, Hurt voted the "wrong" way - in the view of the LCV - on HB 787, which states that "it shall be the policy of the Commonwealth to support oil and natural gas exploration, development, and production 50 miles or more off Virginia’s coast." Hurt also voted for HB 1300, which "[p]rohibits the Air Pollution Control Board from requiring that electric generating facilities located in a nonattainment area meet NOx and SO2 compliance obligations without the purchase of allowances from in-state or out-of-state facilities." Obviously, Robert Hurt is no friend of clean energy or the environment.
That concludes our environmental profile of the Democratic and Republican candidates running in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District this year. We believe that it is important for the public in general, and the voters of specific Congressional districts, be aware of this information as they weigh their choices for November.
Take action today for a cleaner, stronger, and more sustainable future. Join NRDC Action Fund on Facebook and Twitter and stay up-to-date on the latest environmental issues and actions you can take to help protect our planet.
This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. It is the first section of two focusing on Northern Virginia. The fourth part can be found here.
NoVa
A vast and growing suburban metropolis, Northern Virginia has become increasingly important in Virginia politics. There, demographic changes have imperiled Republican dominance of Virginia.
To illustrate the exceptional nature of this movement, compare the two elections below. Here is 2000:
Eight years later, Northern Virginia has transformed:
This is the second part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. It will focus on Republican Virginia. The third part can be found here.
History
After the Civil War, Virginia constituted a reliable Democratic stronghold. Conservative Democrats such as Harry F. Byrd, who controlled the state's politics for decades, typified the state's politicians.
Like many southern states, Virginia enacted a strict set of voting restrictions which successfully disenfranchised blacks. However, it never voted as overwhelmingly Democratic as the Deep South; only one Democrat (FDR) ever won more than 70% of the vote.
Earlier than most Southern states, Virginia began moving Republican, beginning in 1952 (when it cast the ballot for General Dwight Eisenhower). Republican strength rested upon the mountainous west (Republican even in the days of the Solid South) and the fast-growing, Republican-leaning suburbs. The west still votes Republican, but the suburbs are changing fast.
This is the first part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. The second part can be found here.
During the '08 campaign, the political beltway famously defined Virginia as a Republican stronghold gone Democratic. For ten straight presidential elections, the state had reliably turned up in the Republican column. President Barack Obama, however, promised to change that - and he did.
This is the second part of two posts analyzing Virginia's 2009 gubernatorial election. The previous part can be found here.
When Democrats nominated State Senator Creigh Deeds, they nominated a rural, moderate Democrat designed to win the small towns and rural regions of western Virginia. In an ideal situation, Mr. Deeds would have carved out a coalition similar to former Governor Mark Warner's.
In 2001, Mr. Warner won a 5.13% victory over Attorney General Mark Earley, based largely upon rural support in western Virginia.
Mr. Warner is famous among Democrats for this achievement (remember, this was just two months after 9/11). He went on to become a successful and very popular governor; in 2008, Mr. Warner ran for Senate and won double his opponent's vote. Since Mr. Warner, no other Democratic candidate has ever built a coalition similar to his.
This is the first part of two posts analyzing Virginia's 2009 gubernatorial election. The second part can be found here.
A normal observer might see the above map and naturally conclude that the Democratic candidate lost a landslide election. This is not always the case. In the 1968 presidential election, for instance, the state of New York looked like this:
Although it does not look like it, Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey won the state: 49.76% to 44.30%.
STATE BLOGS
