March 30, 2015

Did Barack Obama once support a law just like Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act?

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“Then state Sen. Barack Obama voted for (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) when he was in the state Senate of Illinois,” Pence said. “The very same language."

Those claims rate Half True.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama did vote for a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It passed the Illinois Senate 56-0 and became law on July 1, 1998. However, the language isn’t the “very same,” and the claim is not as simple as lining up one vote next to the other and declaring them equal, experts told us.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was originally passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1993 with overwhelming bipartisan support. The intent of the bill was to protect religious practices from government interference, such as whether a Muslim prison guard could wear a beard or whether a Jehovah’s Witness needed special coverage for medical procedures because he or she is against blood transfusions.

States started passing their own laws when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1997 that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act did not apply to the states. Since then, 19 states have passed their own laws. Many, like Illinois, did so in the initial wave. “To say ‘We did what Illinois did’ without acknowledging the fact that Illinois gave protections really misses the real debate.”

Fast-forward to the current climate. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the constitutionality of same sex marriage bans. Meanwhile, same sex marriage bans in states like Indiana have been struck down by lower courts, dramatically changing the concept of legal marriage at breakneck speed.

Conservatives in Indiana and elsewhere see the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a vehicle for fighting back against the legalization of same-sex marriage.

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When Pence signed SB 101 in a private ceremony, three people who work for groups that supported the same sex marriage ban and want to limit civil rights for gays and lesbians were in attendance. One of the lobbyists, Eric Miller of Advance America, heralded the state’s law as protecting Christian bakers, florists, and photographers from penalty “for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage, among other examples.” This is a direct reference to high-profile cases of Christian wedding vendors refusing to provide services for gay couples in other states.

In one sense, there isn’t all that much difference between the bill that got Obama’s vote in Illinois 17 years ago and the bill that Pence signed into law last week. But how people want the law applied, on top of other legislative changes, has changed the landscape dramatically, said Steve Sanders, a professor of family and constitutional law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

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full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/29/fact-checking-the-sunday-shows-march-29.html

See also:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/29/mike-pence/did-barack-obama-vote-religious-freedom-restoratio/

March 29, 2015

Why the backlash against Indiana and not other states with similar laws? Timing.

By Philip Bump March 29 at 2:01 PM

Gov. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) can't seem to figure out why his state has been the focus of condemnation and boycotts after having passed a version of "religious freedom" legislation that already exists in 19 other states. Pointing out those states, Pence told a reporter from the Indianapolis Star, "I just can't account for the hostility that's been directed at our state."

We can. Pence's problem is that the 19 other laws were largely passed well before the recent and dramatic swing toward support for gay marriage — and after a similar bill was vetoed by the Republican governor of Arizona.



In 2011, support for same-sex marriage passed 50 percent in Gallup polling, the same year that New York's legislature passed a law allowing marriage in that state. New York was still at the front end of the wave of states approving gay marriage; to that point, the trend had mostly been the opposite. When the federal government passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, a bill that made the same accommodations that are seen in Indiana's bill, a number of states echoed it. By 2003, 12 of the 19 states to which Pence referred had RFRA-like bills on the books. By the time the Supreme Court weighed in on two key gay marriage questions in June 2013, the total was 18 — only Mississippi had yet to pass its similar law.

Shortly before Mississippi's measure was passed, a national outcry arose over a bill that passed the legislature of Arizona. Ultimately, then-Gov. Jan Brewer (R) rejected that measure, after weeks of boycott threats from organizations and corporations concerned about being seen as friendly to a state that allowed businesses to deny service to gay couples.

Pence and the Indiana legislature did something similar to what those 19 states had done, but in a moment that included more scrutiny on gay issues and after public opinion had shifted away from blocking the rights of gay couples. Whether or not boycotts and outrage will extend to the other 19 states remains to be seen, but, by planting its stake in the ground at this moment, it's obvious why Indiana is already seeing such a backlash.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/29/why-the-backlash-against-indiana-and-not-other-states-with-similar-laws-timing/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b

March 29, 2015

Congressional GOP’s Immigrant ‘Outreach’ Is With a Fist

Eleanor Clift

Now, Republicans want to tighten asylum standards for Central American kids—but loosen them for one home-schooling German family. Surprised?

Granting political asylum to homeschoolers while making it harder for kids fleeing gang violence in Central America to find refuge in the United States is the latest in a wave of little noticed anti-immigrant proposals emerging from the Republican Congress. GOP lawmakers want to tighten laws that allow unaccompanied minors, often running away from violent and dangerous situations, to remain in the United States. But at the same time, they are seeking to protect a German homeschooling family with six children whose appeal for asylum was turned down by a federal appeals court judge who ruled that fleeing compulsory education in Germany did not qualify as credible persecution.

A petition to grant the devoutly Christian Romeike family, who arrived in the United States in 2008, permanent legal status got 127,258 signatures on a White House “We the People” petition, an online forum to persuade the Obama administration to take action. Last year the Department of Homeland Security declined to deport them, extending the family’s “deferred action” indefinitely, mirroring President Obama’s executive orders on immigration that have so angered the GOP.

The family, with their now seven children (the last was born after they arrived), are happily settled in Morristown, Tennessee, but that victory was not sufficient for Utah Representative Jason Chaffetz, who sponsored the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act, which seeks to define homeschoolers as a group eligible for federal protection. Under current law, asylum is granted to people persecuted because of their race, religion, or membership in a distinct group.

“I don’t recall any other three-month period where more aggressive anti-immigrant legislation has been introduced and debated,” says Fitz.
“This is a far-fetched, unprecedented claim to define a social group and an act of persecution,” says Marshall Fitz, an immigration expert at the liberal Center for American Progress. “It’s silly to try to bootstrap a prohibition on homeschooling into a recognized claim of persecution.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/29/congressional-gop-s-immigrant-outreach-is-with-a-fist.html

March 29, 2015

Ted Cruz: ‘Part of the problem’ with America is the White House isn’t in Texas

Reublican presidential candidate Ted Cruz argued in a recent interview that the United States would be better off — and he would be more liked — if the White House moved to Texas.

On Sunday’s edition of State of the Union, CNN host Dana Bash pointed out to Cruz that he was “not the most popular person” among Republican lawmakers. “But again, when you are president of the United States, you have to have some level or measure of liability in order to reach out and get things done,” Bash explained. “How will you overcome that?”

According to Cruz, there was an “inverse relationship” between being “reviled in Washington and appreciated back home.”

Sticking to the claim that it had actually been Democrats who shut down the government when he filibustered over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, Cruz recalled that he had been hailed as a hero in Texas.

“You were in Texas when I came home to the State Convention of the Texas Federation of Republican Women, and you saw the reaction of, in that case, the women back home who enthusiastically appreciated someone who was standing and fighting for them,” he opined.

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/ted-cruz-part-of-the-problem-with-america-is-the-white-house-isnt-in-texas/

March 29, 2015

Watch the moment a Fox host realizes Louie Gohmert is crazy because he has ‘plan’ to bomb Iran

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/watch-the-moment-a-fox-host-realizes-louie-gohmert-is-crazy-because-he-has-plan-to-bomb-iran/

March 29, 2015

Oops. Somebody Didn't See That Coming - By Josh Marshall

Did the State of Indiana have any idea what it was getting itself into? Reading the history of this particular law, the relatively quiet progress of the legislation, followed by the avalanche of criticism and boycotts, the answer seems almost certainly to be no. There's now even a backdraft of commentary that the criticism and boycotts are somehow hypocritical since 19 other states and the federal government have similar laws. And the state's hapless Gov. Mike Pence is claiming that Barack Obama voted for a similar law when he was in the Illinois state legislature. Indeed, Pence now says he will push for a new law to "clarify" the law that's gotten his state in all this trouble.

But all of this seems to miss the point. There are tipping point moments in which things that were once uncontroversial or unpunished suddenly become very controversial and bring in their wake a storm of backlash. What's most interesting is how these changes are often not incremental. They build slowly and then suddenly the terms are entirely different. It's not surprising that something like this would eventually happen. But just why it happened in this case and in this way is less than clear.

The fact that other states have so called "religious freedom restoration acts" is at best misleading. The movement to push these laws goes back at least two decades. But until quite recently they were not specifically, almost exclusively, focused on gays and lesbians. Two things have changed. In the last eighteen months, social conservatives have recognized that they've lost the public battle over gay rights. Marriage equality will almost certainly be the law of the land nationwide in the near future. And the rulings that set the stage for that change will likely knock down all remaining legally sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians in the coming years. So social conservatives have retreated to a defensive action of accepting legally sanctioned equality but trying to create a carve out of discrimination under the guise of 'religious liberty.' The second thing is Hobby Lobby and that the signal that the Supreme Court will accept a concept of religious liberty far more expansive than anything seen in the past.

But we don't need to look at RFRAs. Don't we go through this story almost every year in which some red or reddish state pushes through some anti-gay rights law? This happens every year like spring follows winter. But this time something is different. Yes, there have been boycotts before. In Indiana itself, business groups wary of bad publicity and boycotts played a role in beating back another effort to ban same sex marriages. But here you have a flood of proactive statements by different companies saying they'll shun the state. That seems to have created something of a rush to the exits (or entrances?) with various organizations which a few years ago likely wouldn't have touched this kind of controversy signing themselves up for the effort.

Now Gov. Pence is reduced to lamely complaining that his and the legislatures efforts have been misunderstood or distorted. "I just can’t account for the hostility that’s been directed at our state,” Pence told the Indianapolis Star. “I’ve been taken aback by the mischaracterizations from outside the state of Indiana about what is in this bill.” He can't even manage the standard, conservatives in my state are being victimized by the axis of gays and liberals. He seems genuinely surprised.

In the past, states could pass these bills as sops to social conservatives with little penalty other than disapprobation from people they didn't care about anyway. But that seems to have changed.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/somebody-didnt-see-that-coming

March 29, 2015

Josh Earnest Slams John Boehner's Criticism Of Obama's Foreign Policy

Source: HP

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Sunday blasted House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for criticizing the president's foreign policy without saying what he would do differently.

Earnest was responding to comments that Boehner made Thursday after Saudi Arabia began launching airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. The speaker said that the world wanted American leadership but that President Barack Obama is an "antiwar president" who has no overarching strategy to deal with terrorist threats.

"I will simply say that if John Boehner thinks that U.S. troops should be on the ground in Yemen fighting the Houthis, or that we should re-occupy Iraq, or that the United States should bomb Iran to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon, then he should have the courage of his convictions to actually say so," Earnest said on ABC's "This Week."

The White House has said that the United States is providing intelligence support to the Saudi campaign, and Earnest said Sunday that the U.S. could best protect itself by working with international partners.

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Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/john-boehner-obama-foreign-policy_n_6964506.html

March 29, 2015

Before Edward Snowden Leaks, NSA Mulled Ending Phone Program

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency considered abandoning its secret program to collect and store American calling records in the months before leaker Edward Snowden revealed the practice, current and former intelligence officials say, because some officials believed the costs outweighed the meager counterterrorism benefits.

After the leak and the collective surprise around the world, NSA leaders strongly defended the phone records program to Congress and the public, but without disclosing the internal debate.

The proposal to kill the program was circulating among top managers but had not yet reached the desk of Gen. Keith Alexander, then the NSA director, according to current and former intelligence officials who would not be quoted because the details are sensitive. Two former senior NSA officials say they doubt Alexander would have approved it.

Still, the behind-the-scenes NSA concerns, which have not been reported previously, could be relevant as Congress decides whether to renew or modify the phone records collection when the law authorizing it expires in June.

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Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/nsa-phone-program_n_6963804.html

March 29, 2015

Netanyahu: Expected Iranian Nuclear Deal Even Worse Than Israel Feared

Source: Reuters

JERUSALEM, March 29 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned on Sunday the framework Iranian nuclear agreement being sought by international negotiators, saying it was even worse than his country had feared.

"This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that," Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem as six world powers and Iran worked toward a March 31 deadline in Switzerland. (Reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller)

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Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/netanyahu-iran-nuclear-deal_n_6963720.html

March 29, 2015

Mike Pence Dodges Questions On Anti-Gay Discrimination In Indiana

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) refused to say on Sunday whether it should be illegal under state law to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Pence appeared on ABC's "This Week" to defend his decision to sign a controversial piece of legislation intended to protect religious liberties that critics say will enable discrimination in the state. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow individuals and corporations to cite religious beliefs in private litigation. Pence's decision to sign the bill into law has sparked backlash against the state.

In the interview, Pence dodged a question from George Stephanopoulos about whether the law would allow florists and bakers to deny their wedding services to gay couples by citing their religious beliefs. He also twice dodged a yes-or-no question on whether he believed it should be legal to discriminate against gays and lesbians under state law.

Pence defended his decision to sign the legislation, saying it was "absolutely not" a mistake to sign the law.

"If the general assembly in Indiana sends me a bill that adds a section that reiterates and amplifies and clarifies what the law really is and what it has been for the last 20 years, then I'm open to that," the governor said. "But we're -- we're not going to change this law."

more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/mike-pence-indiana-discrimination_n_6964214.html

Check out the front page headline of the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/