Politics

United States Park Police bearing riot gear and on horse back raided Occupy DC this morning and throughout the day, removing tents that were deemed to be in violation of a no camping rule at McPherson Square. Park Police spokesperson Sgt. David Schlosser said the raid did not constitute an eviction and that protesters would be allowed to continue activities at the park as long as they complied with the no camping rule.

Six protesters had been arrested as of about four o’clock this afternoon — two for crossing a police barricade and four for violating police orders — but the majority were “very cooperative” as police moved through the park, Schlosser said. Two more were arrested later, according to various reports. Park Police moved methodically through the park, closing sections at a time while the rest remained open, using riot shields and sticks to move protesters as Park Service employees in hazardous materials suits cleared and removed tents.

At different times, small groups of protesters collided with police, who pushed protesters back with riot shields. One police officer was struck by a brick in the face and taken to the hospital. At one point, multiple protesters were struck by riot sticks as they clashed with police moving through the park. Watch:

One protester said Police had offered a compromise, telling Occupy DC that if they removed the giant tarp covering the statue at the center of the park — known as the tent of dreams — police would not confiscate tents. Schlosser would not confirm or deny that such a deal had been proposed, saying only that notices had been provided to protesters telling them that noncompliant tents were subject to removal.

According to the notice, tents must be free of sleeping materials and remain open on one side at all times to stay in compliance with Park Police regulations.

Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R)

Yesterday, a jury found Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (R) guilty on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury. The conviction cost White his job, though he plans to ask the judge to reduce the charges to misdemeanors and hopes to perhaps regain the position.

In a statement, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) announced White’s deputy will take over on an interim basis:

I have chosen not to make a permanent appointment today out of respect for the judge’s authority to lessen the verdict to a misdemeanor and reinstate the elected office holder… If the felony convictions are not altered, I anticipate making a permanent appointment quickly.

But a second court case could ultimately give the job to Democrat Vop Osili, who lost to White in November 2010. A judge’s December 2011 ruling — currently on hold, pending appeal — held that due to the voter fraud charges, White’s election was invalid. Should that ruling survive the appeals process, Osili would assume the office.

Ironically, White’s now-removed 2010 campaign website listed election integrity as among his top concerns, and promised he would “protect and defend Indiana’s Voter ID law to ensure our elections are fair and protect the most basic and precious right and responsibility of our democracy-voting.”

Update

In 2005, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed “the strictest voter ID requirements in the nation,” and Republicans said at the time that it was “needed to guard against voter fraud.”

One thing you can say about the Los Angeles Times, they are consistent in their miscoverage of global warming.

On January 27, they committed “journalistic malpractice,” as climatologist Michael Mann tweeted, for omitting any mention of global warming whatsoever in their article seeking to explain why the U.S. “seems to have largely escaped winter.”

On Groundhog day, coincidentally enough, they did it again.  Hmm.  Maybe this is like the movie and they are just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again…..

As the L.A. Times “explains” in the article:

“It’s mild,” said Pastelok, a meteorologist from AccuWeather, in one of the bigger understatements of the season.

“The departures have been way above normal this season, maybe in a top five or top 10 category,” he said when asked to rank how unusual the winter from the Plains eastward had been in terms of temperatures and lack of snow.

The situation has stymied forecasters, who study previous years’ patterns to predict the future. This year has been unique because even when there have been cold snaps, they have been extremely brief and followed by long, mild stretches.

If only scientists had predicted years ago that spewing billions and billions of tons of heat trapping greenhouse gases into the air would cause more frequent extreme heat waves — ones that covered a bigger area and lasted far longer than before.

And no, confusionists and their enablers, those scientists didn’t say that global warming would be responsible for 100% of all heat waves.  But we are now pushing so far beyond the historical norm that we are seeing  unprecedented uber-extreme heat waves (see Hansen et al: “Extreme Heat Waves … in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 Were ‘Caused’ by Global Warming”).

The good news is that while the L.A. Times remains clueless, NBC news got the story just right — global warming piles the heat on top of whatever natural variability, like La Niña, we see.  Here’s their excellent story on the heat wave so unusual, people were “calling it JUNuary”:

Again, one can always tell the difference between good  journalism and not so good journalism by whether they quote real climate scientists who have actually studied the issue in question.

In this case, they went to the source, Dr. Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).  You can read about his work here:  “Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across U.S.”  NCAR explained their findings in a news release:

Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”

Of course, it’s not warm winters that cause the big problem, it’s the blistering summers.

Here’s a Stanford release for Climatic Change study (PDF here) I wrote about in June:

The tropics and much of the Northern Hemisphere are likely to experience an irreversible rise in summer temperatures within the next 20 to 60 years if atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, according to a new climate study by Stanford University scientists….

“According to our projections, large areas of the globe are likely to warm up so quickly that, by the middle of this century, even the coolest summers will be hotter than the hottest summers of the past 50 years,” said the study’s lead author, Noah Diffenbaugh, The study, based on observations and models, finds that most major countries, including the United States, are “likely to face unprecedented climate stresses even with the relatively moderate warming expected over the next half-century.”

I interviewed Diffenbaugh for my book, Hell and High Water, and in 2008 wrote about his earlier work in a post titled, “When can we expect very high surface temperatures?”

Bottom line: By century’s end, extreme temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year.

The peak temperature analysis comes from a Geophysical Research Letters paper that focused on the annual-maximum “once-in-a-century” temperature. The key scientific point is that “the extremes rise faster than the means in a warming climate.”

The results, depicted above (in °C), are quite remarkable, especially when you consider that this is just the A1B scenario. In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures “only” about 3°C (5 F) warmer than today.

In fact, on our current emissions path, a 3C temperature rise will happen much sooner (see Hadley Center: “Catastrophic” 5-7°C  warming by 2100 on current emissions path and M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F — with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F).   And remember, the worst-case scenario is that this happens by mid-century [see Royal Society special issue details ‘hellish vision’ of 7°F (4°C) world — which we may face in the 2060s!]

On our current emissions path, these record temperatures could be seen closer to 2060 than 2100:

… values in excess of 50°C [122°F] in Australia, India, the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel and equatorial and subtropical South America.

As you can see from the map, extreme temperature peaks are only slightly lower over large parts of this country. The study notes:

Such temperatures, if lasting for some days, are life threatening and receive relatively little attention in the climate change debate.

On our current emissions path, we may well exceed the A2 scenario and hit A1FI, 1000 ppm (see here).  In a terrific March 2010 presentation, Climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe has a figure of what the A1FI would mean:

Mother Nature is just warming up.

The time to act is yesterday.

Related Post:

• Science stunner — On our current emissions path, CO2 levels in 2100 will hit levels last seen when the Earth was 29°F (16°C) hotter:  Paleoclimate data suggests CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models”

Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney on Thursday in a high-profile ceremony in Las Vegas. And while they’ve had their differences in the past, in many ways, the two have a lot in common. In honor of the occasion, we produced this video documenting the values that Romney and Trump share:

Amid brutal violence in Syria, Russia and China vetoed a resolution before the 15-member body to support an Arab League plan to end the crisis. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave dueling speeches in Munich, Germany. “As a tyrant in Damascus brutalizes his own people, the U.S. and Europe stand shoulder to shoulder…alongside the Arab League, in demanding an end to the bloodshed and a democratic future for Syria,” Clinton said. President Obama also threw his support behind the resolution and, going even farther, ended his statement by saying: “The suffering citizens of Syria must know: we are with you, and the Assad regime must come to an end.” But Russia and China blocked the resolution. U.N. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who tweeted that she was “disgusted” by the veto, said on the Council floor: “This intransigence is even more shameful when you consider that at least one of these members” — Russia — “is still delivering weapons to Syria.”

Tens of thousands of Russian protesters defied sub-zero temperatures in Moscow to keep alive the blossoming protest movement against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s bid to reassert himself as president and allegedly fraudulent elections. The third such large-scale protest in Moscow — following a December 10 outing and a massive December 24 rally (amid other smaller actions) — made light of temperatures of minus 17 degrees Centigrade (minus 1 Fahrenheit) after the authorities waged a bizarre propaganda campaign to discourage people from going out in the cold. Organizers, though, waged a sometimes light-hearted counter-campaign, and claimed 120,000 people came out to demonstrate (police put the number at 35,000). Their signs read “Down with the cold, down with Putin,” “They froze our democracy” and “We are frozen in solidarity.” Here’s an AP picture of bundled-up protesters run by the New York Times:

By Andrew Freedman, in a Climate Central repost

Although recent rains have put a dent in the Texas drought, a day of reckoning looms for the state’s long-grain rice growers, who pump millions into the economy in Southeast Texas each year and account for about 5 percent of America’s rice production. Come March 1, if there is less than 850,000 acre-feet of water in reservoirs along the Lower Colorado River, water managers will be forced to take the unprecedented step of withholding water from agricultural users, which will mean severe cuts to Texas rice production this year.

According to Bob Rose, chief meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), it’s unlikely that enough rain will fall between now and March 1 to reach the 850,000 acre-feet threshold that was established by a recent agreement between the authority and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. An acre-foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot, and it amounts to about 326,000 gallons.

As of January 30, the highland lakes that serve as the area’s reservoirs held about 758,000 acre-feet.

“This is going to be a huge, huge deal,” Rose said during a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans. “What’s going to happen is that there will be no water for rice irrigation in the Lower Colorado River Basin this year.”

Driving the Lower Colorado River Authority’s decision-making is the need to ensure there is enough water to meet the demand from Austin, the rapidly growing state capital that is completely reliant on water from the Lower Colorado River, as well as other municipalities and users, such as electric utilities that need water to run power plants.

The agricultural water restrictions would hit three Southeast Texas counties the hardest: Colorado, Matagordo, and Wharton. According to a 2011 analysis by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service, the combined direct and indirect economic benefits of rice production and processing in these three counties alone amounts to $675 million, including the support of nearly 9,000 jobs.

“This will be a huge blow to the region’s economy,” Rose told Climate Central. “We have never had a year where we have curtailed their [rice growers’] water or cut them off” completely, he said.

The 2011-12 drought ranks as the state’s most intense one-year drought since records began in 1895. The drought has had major impacts on agriculture in the Lone Star State, particularly for cattle ranchers, causing at least $5.2 billion in agricultural losses during 2011. This includes $1.8 billion in cotton losses, $750 million in lost hay production, and $243 million in wheat losses.

Texas is the largest cattle ranching state in the country, and the dry weather, combined with record summer heat and shortage of affordable feed this year caused many ranchers to cull their herds early or move their cattle to ranches in other states. The Texas cattle herd dropped by 11 percent during 2011, which translates to more than a million head of cattle.

Scientists say the drought is a likely result of a La Nina event in the Pacific Ocean, which tends to depress rainfall totals in Texas, particularly during the winter. However, global warming has likely exacerbated the drought and led to more heat extremes last summer, according to Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon.

Brent Batchelor, who works for Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Matagorda County, said rice growers there are “hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.”

“They’re very apprehensive because we’re a long ways from getting any water,” he said. He added that even if the reservoirs do rise above 850,000 acre-feet, rice growers would still receive less water than normal through a system of Lower Colorado River Authority-managed canals.

Although it boosted morale, an unusually heavy January rainstorm was not enough to significantly raise reservoir levels, which remain about 100,000 acre-feet shy of the threshold, according to Rose. “We still have about five weeks till March 1, so it’s possible we could see another storm like this. But the overall pattern still looks drier than normal. I’m not very optimistic at this point,” he said.

The Weather Service’s Murphy said the long-range weather outlook calls for a drier than average February, although he noted that dry weather was forecast for December and January, and both months turned out to be wetter than average.

– By Andrew Freedman, in a Climate Central repost

Related Posts:

• Catastrophic $5.3 Billion Texas Drought Hits Global Cotton, Beef, Peanut Butter and Even Pumpkin Market
• With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change.

• Water. Coal. Fracking. Texas. Sanity. One of These Words Does Not Belong
• In Drought-Stricken Texas, Drillers Use Billions Of Gallons Of Water For Fracking:  The Texas Water Development Board estimates the total amount of water used for fracking statewide in 2010 was 13.5 billion gallons. That’s likely to more than double by 2020
• As Texas Withers, Gas Industry Guzzles:  … in the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District (UTGCD) west of Fort Worth, the share of groundwater used by frackers was 40 percent in the first half of 2011, up from 25 percent in 2010.

“Obviously, that’s a pretty heavy draw on an aquifer when we’re in the midst of a drought,” says Bob Patterson, UTGCD’s general manager. In his water district, 40 to 50 wells have run dry and many municipalities have declared stage two or stage three drought conditions, which involve severe restrictions on residential outdoor water use. But natural gas drillers can still pump as much water from the district as they want….

Critics of fracking claim the industry actually uses far more water than it lets on. Because water used in the fracking process becomes contaminated with hydrocarbons and other toxins, frackers typically sequester it deep underground, removing that wastewater permanently from the hydrologic cycle. Unlike the water used for irrigation or daily living, it doesn’t reenter rivers, aquifers, or the atmosphere. “Fracking water is typically not recycled,” says Paul Hudak, a hydrologist with the University of North Texas. “It’s not really economical.”

Arizona’s unremitting campaign against its Hispanic communities has certainly reached an extreme, with the state GOP initiating a spate of radical anti-immigrant laws, banning Mexican-American and other ethnic studies, and ensuring that Spanish-speakers will never hold elected office. But one lawmaker is intent on turning the party’s xenophobic paranoia into a full-blown caricature.

Reacting to a Democratic colleagues apparently incendiary request to celebrate a Latino American day, State Rep. Cecil Ash (R) declared that he’d support the idea as long as there’s a holiday for white people too. “I’m supportive of this proposition. I just want them to assure me that when we do become in the minority you’ll have a day for us,” he said. Ash was “trying to lighten things up,” but when CBS 5 asked if he was serious about a Caucasian holiday, he offered an unequivocal “yes”:

ASH: Yes, I think it was appropriate. It was appropriate for the mood that was in the House and I think that if and when the Caucasian population becomes a minority, they may want to celebrate the accomplishments and the contributions of the Caucasian population the same way.

You can watch the report here. As CBS 5 notes, some Arizonans were supportive of the idea. “Good idea,” said one woman. “Like they have Cinco de Mayo for Mexicans. We need something for whites.”

A cybernickel for your thoughts — yes, I want thoughts that are 5 times as valuable as usual!

To inspire you, this classic Toles cartoon:

This feminist football fan will be hoping for a Patriots win, not least to honor the memory of Myra Kraft, who vetoed the team’s draft of a serial abuser of women, made her husband promise that buying a football team wouldn’t mean they’d cut down on their charitable work (they increased it, giving to causes that included closing the gap on health disparities and women’s health), and awesomely, proposed to Bob herself—on their first date.

That said, I remain anxious about Rob Gronkowski, and about history repeating. What are your predictions? Whoever’s closest on final score and throwing yards for the winning Super Bowl quarterback gets to make me write a post on a question or work of their choice.

The Susan G. Komen Foundation announced it would no longer cut Planned Parenthood funding after intense public scrutiny, but the organization still needs a public image shakeup. So Komen’s next move? The foundation famous for marketing pink breast cancer awareness products will offer pink handguns, courtesy of Discount Gun Sales. “Discount Gun Sales is proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman Foundation to offer the Walther P-22 Hope Edition in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” the company’s website reads. “Utilizing the same reliable controls and firing mechanism that has made the Walther P-22 America’s top selling handgun, the Hope Edition will be a limited production pistol offered exclusively through Discount Gun Sales.” The gun store takes an undisclosed portion of the sales profits. These $429.99 Hope Edition guns have an “exclusive DuraCoat Pink slide,” to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness month.

A Komen spokesperson said this afternoon that it did not have any affiliation with the handgun manufacturer:

“This fundraising scheme is not sanctioned by us; we had no knowledge of it. We have not received a single penny from this gun seller. It is a rogue scheme,” said Jim Clune, communications manager for the Puget Sound Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. “We have forwarded this issue to the National Komen office, requesting they contact Discount Gun Sales with a cease and desist order.”

Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Koch)

Liberal blogs and publications have published countless slanted pieces on Koch Industries, heavy on innuendo and light on facts.

The Obama administration has long been criticized for maintaining a de facto “enemies list” of its perceived political opponents, whether they are respected Supreme Court justices, disfavored reporters or private citizens who just want to keep their own doctors. The Democrats’ obsession with the Kochs as a political target is, indeed, additional evidence of a truly Nixonian approach to politics.

That the Obama administration and its allies use private citizens as symbols to be attacked and vilified is unfair and deeply threatening to our civic life and the rule of law.

In fact, the Koch brothers have made themselves very public figures. After Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute in 1977, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket he bankrolled in 1980. In person and through their latest front group, the astroturf organization Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have “attacked and vilified” the Obama administration to a level that approaches “obsession”:

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Greatest Assault On American Freedom.’ In his letter inviting fellow conservative millionaires and billionaires to a secret Palm Springs retreat in January 2011, Charles Koch accused President Obama of “the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.” [ThinkProgress]

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Saddam Hussein.’ At another secret retreat in the fall of 2011, Charles Koch compared President Obama and the 2012 elections to Saddam Hussein and the Iraq War. “We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country.” [Mother Jones, 9/6/11]

David Koch: ‘Hardcore Socialist’ Obama Is ‘Scary To Me.’ “Obama’s a hardcore socialist,” David Koch told New York Magazine, “and he’s marvelous at pretending to be something other than that, but that is what I believe he truly is, a hardcore socialist. He’s scary to me.” [New York Magazine, 5/5/11]

‘Radical Global Warming Agenda.’ “President Obama is at again,” the Americans for Prosperity Regulation Reality Tour warns, with a “radical global warming agenda” by “unelected bureaucrats regulating our life,” “ignoring the entire democratic process all together.” Supposed threats of “EPA’s power grab” include “Grass Mileage Standards,” “Government Control of your Thermostat,” “Churches would need EPA Permits,” and The tour features “EPA Carbon Cops” who want to punish you if you “opened your refrigerator” or “drove a car.” [RegulationReality.com]

‘We Might As Well Forget Freedom.’ The Americans for Prosperity Hot Air Tour says that “far left environmentalists” are “radicals” with a “radical Global Warming ideology that claims people are the problem” who “want GOVERNMENT to force us to drive less and live in smaller homes while killing jobs that help grow our economy” and “want GOVERNMENT dictating our lives.” [HotAirTour.org]

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Koch Industries is Pompeo’s largest campaign contributor, having contributed $107,500 to his campaign from both individuals and its PAC, nearly three times more than any other single entity.

The brothers’ combined net worth is about $50 billion, making them the fourth richest Americans individually; combined, they are richer than any American except for Bill Gates. Last weekend, the “private citizens” pledged $60 million of that wealth to defeat President Obama at their semi-annual retreat of right-wing millionaires and billionaires.

– Zach Bernstein

Though same-sex marriage has been legal in New York for six months, even the New York Times is still catching up with the times. The newspaper issued a correction today for a photo caption of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, which included lobbyist Emily Giske with her wife, Anne Washburn. The caption originally described Washburn as Giske’s “partner,” but has been adjusted to properly identify her as Giske’s “spouse.”

So, um, this is the origin story for the Beast in one of the two, count ‘em, two, Beauty and the Beast shows in development:

Vincent worked as a doctor at the New York University hospital – and was working On September 11, 2001 when the towers came down. Long story short, a wounded Vincent ends up in a medical clinic where he’s injected with a DNA-changing drug. The drug turns him into an unstoppable soldier type that is used in Afghanistan. Think ‘Captain America’ or a ‘Universal Soldier’. Unfortunately, the strength and stamina comes with a price…it also changes Vincent’s look — in particular, hair sprouts hair everywhere. When he returned from Afghanistan, looking like he is, he hid himself away.

That’s a way of integrating fairy tales into our self-mythology of our actions after September 11, I guess? There are certainly real side effects of the way we treat our veterans, including a dramatic overprescription of really powerful painkillers that are more serious than a lot of body hair. But I have to say that I think Sherlock has done a better job of linking an old story to a new Afghan war.

And I’m actually more interested in the way in which Beauty and the Beast narratives intersect with our schlub-gets-the-girl trope popularized by Judd Apatow’s movies. There have already been some feints in mashing up those movies with superhero or secret identity narratives, most notably Kick Ass. But it’s one thing to take a guy who’s always been a schlub and putting him in the path of a gorgeous, talented woman, and another to take a guy who’s been popular and attractive, strip him of his physical assets, and then put him in the path of the kind of woman he’d be able to conquer easily were he his old handsome self. That whole breaking a main character down before he can be built back up thing sounds suspiciously like what we so often do to female characters.

Our guest bloggers are Lawrence J. Korb and Alex Rothman.

Earlier today, President Obama unveiled his latest initiative to reduce veteran unemployment: a $6 billion jobs corps program which, if approved by Congress, will create opportunities for returning service members to serve their country in a new capacity — as policemen, firefighters, and employees of the National Park Service.

In addition, General Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs and himself a wounded war veteran, announced that the Small Business Administration will begin offering online entrepreneurial training courses to veterans and their families.

These initiatives are the latest example of the Obama administration’s deep and ongoing commitment to taking care of our men and women in uniform, even as they transition out of the service. Since coming into office, President Obama has substantially increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is the VA that assumes responsibility for service members as they leave the force and transition back to civilian life, and its programs will only become more essential as more men and women return from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last November, Obama signed the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, which provides companies with a substantial tax credit if they hire unemployed or disabled veterans. And the President has also used his executive authority to establish a national Veterans Job Bank, authorize 6-months of career counseling at locations across the country, and create My Next Move, an online database that helps connect veterans with jobs that build off their military experience.

Perhaps most importantly, President Obama, the first lady, and Dr. Jill Biden have brought public attention to the problem of veteran unemployment and the valuable skills that our service members possess. All the president and his administration have done to highlight this issue appears to have prompted employers to take a second look.

As a result of the President’s policy, the jobless rate among post-9/11 veterans — as this blog noted earlier today — fell four percent in January, from 13.1 percent in December to 9.1 percent today. This is a tremendous improvement from one year ago, when the unemployment rate for these veterans stood at about 15 percent. And the initiatives announced by President Obama today will continue to target veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who suffer from unemployment rates significantly higher than those facing the broader veteran population.

President Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment. But much work remains to be done. The unemployment rate for veterans under the age of 25 is nearly 30 percent, more than twice the rate of civilians their age.

Moreover, with the war in Iraq over and U.S. involvement in Afghanistan coming to a close, the Pentagon has announced that it plans to reduce the ground forces to near their pre-war levels. This process will entail shedding about 100,000 ground troops, a move that will further increase the number of service members looking for civilian jobs.

Over the past decade, in the name of supporting our troops, Congress has steadfastly passed war supplemental after war supplemental. But it is imperative that this support does not end when our men and women in uniform come home. Congress should approve President Obama’s veterans jobs corps and allow these men and women who have served so admirably overseas to reinvest their efforts at home.

The Catholic Bishops and their Republican allies argue that the Obama administration’s regulation requiring insurers and employers to offer reproductive health coverage at no additional cost sharing is an “unprecedented attack on religious liberties” that will force houses of worships to sacrifice deeply held beliefs. In reality, the rule, part of the Affordable Care Act, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith. But religious groups contend that its conscience protections are too narrow.

A closer examination of the Obama provision, however, reveals that the conscience language closely mirrors the existing provisions in at least five states:

– OBAMA: For purposes of this subsection, a “religious employer” is an organization that meets all of the following criteria:

(1) The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the organization.
(2) The organization primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization.
(3) The organization serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization.
(4)The organization is a nonprofit organization

– NEW YORK: For purposes of this subsection, a “religious employer” is an entity for which each of the following is true:

(a) The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the entity.
(b) The entity primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the entity.
(c) The entity serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the entity.
(d) The entity is a nonprofit organization

– CALIFORNIA: For purposes of this section, a “religious employer” is an entity for which each of the following is true:

(A) The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the entity.
(B) The entity primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the entity.
(C) The entity serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the entity.
(D) The entity is a nonprofit organization

– MICHIGAN: For our purposes, a “religious employer” is an entity for which all the following are true:

(a) The entity is a nonprofit organization
(b) The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the entity.
(c) The entity primarily employs people who share the religious tenets of the entity.
(d) The entity serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the entity.

– OREGON: A “religious employer” is an employer:

(a) Whose purpose is the inculcation of religious values;
(b) That primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the employer;
(c) That primarily serves persons who share the religious tenets of the employer; and
(d) That is a nonprofit organization

Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost. In fact, the administration will be expanding conscience protections in eight states, where all religious institutions are required to offer birth control coverage.

Lucy Panza contributed to this post.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 243,000 jobs were created last month, 100,000 more than analysts had predicted, bringing the unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent. But as the National Women’s Law Center noted, the recovery has not been kind to women, for whom the unemployment rate has been essentially flat since 2009. In fact, for the first time since 2007, BLS showed the same unemployment rate for men and women:

The NWLC noted that “women gained 95,000 jobs last month — 39 percent of the 243,000 jobs added. The largest gains for women were in professional and business services, which include temporary help services, and leisure and hospitality.”

Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin has just passed on word that the Business Committee of Uganda’s Parliament will discuss the proposed “Kill The Gays” bill next week. Despite rumors to the contrary, the bill did not die at the end of the last session of Parliament, nor were its death penalty provisions removed. It is unclear to what extent the measure will advance beyond next week’s debate. The measure would impose the death penalty or life imprisonment for some homosexual acts (which are already illegal), require people to report every LGBT individual they know, and criminalize so-called LGBT advocacy.

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush and prominent right-wing pundit, was secretly involved in the Komen Foundation’s strategy regarding Planned Parenthood. Fleischer personally interviewed candidates for the position of “Senior Vice President for Communications and External Relations” at Komen last December. According to a source with first-hand knowledge, Fleischer drilled prospective candidates during their interviews on how they would handle the controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood.

Fleischer’s relationship with Komen and the Planned Parenthood controversy was previously undisclosed. He confirmed to ThinkProgress his recent role in filling a key communication position at Komen. Fleischer stressed, however, another communications firm (Ogilvy PR) was retained by Komen to deal with crisis communications over the last few days and he has not been involved.

In November, Komen advertised for a top level communications position in Roll Call. Promising applicants received a call from Fleischer. The advertisement is no longer posted on the Roll Call website, but a portion is accessible via Google:

According to a source, during at least one interview, Planned Parenthood was a major topic of conversation. Fleischer indicated that he had discussed the Planned Parenthood issue with Komen’s CEO, Nancy Brinker, and that she was at her wits end about how to proceed. Fleischer described himself as a longtime friend of Brinker.

Fleischer confirmed to ThinkProgress that he would receive a fee from Komen when the search is complete. Fleischer did not specify the amount of his fee but said it would be “substantially below the normal placement fee charged by executive search companies” because “they’re a charity I believe in.”

Fleischer’s high-level involvement with Komen further complicates its image as an apolitical cancer charity. Fleischer is a prominent partisan commentator and a longtime critic of Planned Parenthood. In his book, Taking Heat, Fleischer criticized Planned Parenthood as a partisan, ideological organization that receives undeserved positive coverage in the press. In 2001, Fleischer said that the Clinton administration verged too far to the left on family planning efforts because “if Planned Parenthood wanted it, the previous administration favored it.”

A copy of the full listing for the position Fleischer was working to fill for Komen is still available here.

Despite the sizable public concern over the considerable consequences, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) and Republicans are gung-ho on moving forward with fracking for natural gas in the state. But one progressive policy group says that if they must “frack,” then make sure that Ohioans also see the profits, not just the consequences. Innovation Ohio released a report calling on lawmakers to extend Ohio’s severance tax, which no applies mainly to coal extraction, to natural gas and oil mining. Noting that Ohio’s tax rate is “now second-lowest” in the nation, the report finds that if Ohio raises the severance rate “to the same level as Texas — 24th in the nation — Ohio would stand to gain $2.5 billion in new revenue in the next decade.” The group also recommended a landowner bill of rights to protect property owners who sell or lease land rights to oil and gas companies. The Ohio Petroleum Council, however, labeled this “windfall profits tax proposal” an “old, failed idea…that could smother a growing industry and stifle the economic growth and energy security that many predict if the exploration proceeds safely and successfully.”