Justin's Political Corner

The Alabama legislature passed a bill on Tuesday that will heavily restrict abortion, potentially shutting down all five of the state’s abortion clinics. The state House and Senate passed the bill by votes of 68-21 and 22-10 respectively, and Governor Bentley is expected to sign it soon.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, argued in February that this new law was necessary to protect women because “abortion removes the largest organ in a woman’s body.” 

That comment was neither scientifically accurate nor did it explain what Alabama’s Women’s Health and Safety Act is designed to do, so here it is: The bill, which copies legislation passed in Mississippi in 2012, mandates that doctors at abortion clinics have admitting privileges at local hospitals. This gives local hospitals the leeway to flat-out deny doctors these privileges. The doctors at Mississippi’s last abortion clinic, for instance, were rejected at all seven hospitals they approached for admitting privileges.

Williams says she expects women’s rights advocates in Alabama will also head to court to try and keep the state’s last few clinics open.

h/t: Mother Jones

Republican lawmakers in Alabama took a crucial step on Wednesday towards their goal of shuttering the state’s last five abortion clinics, advancing a bill to the full house that would impose strict requirements on abortion providers.

The bill, the so-called “Women’s Health and Safety Act,” passed the Republican-controlled House Health Committee on Wednesday morning, and could come to vote in the full legislature as soon as Thursday. If passed, it would require clinics to meet certain architectural standards and have a physician present for all abortions — a provision Republicans claim is for the safety of patients, but is in fact a smokescreen designed to make compliance as difficult as possible.

Among the staffing concerns is a provision which states that only a licensed physician with admitting privileges to a hospital within the same metropolitan area as the clinic be allowed to administer abortion-inducing drugs.The end result — much to the delight of the anti-choice lawmakers who propose these bills — is that clinics fall out of compliance and are forced to close or end their abortion services.

The right-wing media falsely reported that Alabama-based utility companies were turned away in New Jersey for hurricane disaster relief because they use non-union labor. However, multiple Alabama utility companies mentioned in these media reports say the claims are “rumors” and simply “not true,” and New Jersey utility companies have also denied that non-union working crews have been turned away.

Local Alabama news station WAFF was quoted in multiple right-wing news reports after it claimed that three utility crews from Alabama were not allowed to help with storm aid in New Jersey because they were non-union. Predictably, Fox News picked up the report almost immediately. During the November 2 edition of Fox & Friends, the hosts asserted that non-union crews were not allowed to help in New Jersey hurricane relief, and frequent guest Charles Payne added that this is “one of the more despicable aspects of what we are seeing”:

Following this report, Drudge linked to other right-wing websites making similar claims under the headlines “Non-union crews turned away from NJ…” and “‘No Red Tape’?”:

Later on Fox, host Gretchen Carlson issued a minor update explaining that many of their viewers had in fact seen Alabama crews working in New Jersey.

WAFF, the source of the original reports, has since updated its post about these claims. It continues to report claims from an Alabama-based Decatur Utilities employee that his crew was presented with documents by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) that required union affiliation in order to provide disaster relief. However, WAFF clarifies that Decatur Utilities’ general manager said crews “were not turned away but were made to believe that affiliating with the union was a requirement to work.”

NorthJersey.com further noted that New Jersey utility companies were accepting all offers of help, regardless of union status:

Non-union crews should not be concerned about coming to New Jersey to help bolster the efforts of New Jersey utility companies, officials said today.

“We are accepting any available resource,” said Karen Johnson, a spokeswoman for PSE&G.

“We are working with our union and have non union crews participating in our restoration efforts,” said Ron Morano, a spokesman for JCP&L. “We continue to accept support from out of state utility companies and contractors.”

See Also: Dana Busted: Anti-Union hack Dana Loesch falsely attacks unions of “not helping the Hurricane Sandy storm victims”

h/t: MMFA

Conservative blogs and news media are all buzzing about a team of international election monitors coming to observe the presidential elections in November. The observers are arriving at the invitation of the State Department and the behest of a number of civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, ACLU, and others.

The latter groups’ call for an international team to keep an eye on the U.S. elections focuses particularly on states that have enacted strict voter I.D. laws and other curtailing of voting rights. An NAACP delegation visited the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland in September to bring attention to the issue. The NAACP’s move, and the idea of foreign presence in the U.S. to observe elections, has infuriated many on the right.

The response at the state-level is varying. Alabama Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard is, in protest of the monitors’ presence preparing legislation to have all poll watchers in Alabama hold U.S. citizenship. “It’s bad enough that Alabama remains trapped under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act,” Hubbard said “So we certainly don’t need anyone from the United Nations coming into our state and meddling in our elections, as well.”

Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote appeared on Fox News on Monday claiming that the monitors’ presence was actually intended to prevent and discourage U.S. voters from exercising their rights. Fox’s Megyn Kelly readily agreed, stressing the left-leaning nature of the civil rights groups, seemingly unaware of the State Department’s role in inviting the monitors. It’s worth mentioning that True the Vote, itself a Tea Party group voter suppression effort, is currently under investigation for possible criminal conspiracy.

What none of these commentators mention is that this is neither an unprecedented event nor particularly worrisome. The Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) is a group of over fifty countries in North America, Europe, and Central Asia committed to security and strengthening democracy. Counter to many of the exclamatory statements by the right-wing, the OSCE is not a part of the United Nations, but instead is loosely affiliated with the global organization.

Also, counter to conservatives, the monitors have no mandate to interfere in the elections. 

H/T: Hayes Brown at Think Progress Security

Since being thrown out of office in 2003 for refusing to take down a granite-monument to the Ten Commandments that he’d installed on the steps of the state supreme court, former Alabama chief justice Roy Moore has:

• Toured the state in 2005 with his Ten Commandments monument, in the back of his flatbed truck.
• Launched an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2006.
• Called, in 2006, for a prohibition on the use of the Koran in congressional swearing-in ceremonies because, “In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on Mein Kampf.”
• Taken a job as a columnist for conspiracy haven World Net Daily in 2007, where he alleged that Pre-K education was a stepping stone to totalitarianism.
• Filed a brief in support of a fringe religious sect whose members believe in pet mummification (in 2008).
• Launched an unsuccessful bid for Governor in 2010.
• Toyed with entering the GOP presidential race in 2011, ultimately defeating Jon Huntsman in at least one Des Moines-area caucus.

Now he wants his old job back. On Tuesday, Moore will vie with two other candidates for the Republican nomination for a spot on the Alabama supreme court. He will, the Mobile Press-Registerreports, ride his horse to the polling station—a venture that’s consistent with his theme of returning Alabama to the 19th century and comes just nine months after he broke several ribs in a riding accident (no word on whether it’s the same horse).

The race has, understandably, not received as much attention as the GOP presidential primary at the top of the ballot, but judicial elections are serious business, and Moore’s no ordinary candidate. His judicial philosophy of a Christian nation, divinely inspired, has endeared him to Teavangelicals and Tenth Amendment activists over the last few years—a not insignificant swath of the electorate in Alabama. (Tellingly, Moore’s opponents have been reluctant to criticize Moore for his handling of the Ten Commandments incident on the campaign trail.)

H/T: Tim Murphy at Mother Jones

Determined to distinguish herself with the most draconian immigration position in the GOP field, today Michele Bachmann elaborated on her plan to deport every single undocumented immigrant in the country:

[P]residential candidate Michele Bachmann called for 11 million illegal immigrants to be deported from the United States in steps. […]

Asked by radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday about an earlier statement she made differentiating between immigrants who had recently entered the country illegally from those with longstanding ties to the United States, Bachmann said she was never referring to legalization.

“What I’m talking about is the order of deportation, the sequence of deportation,” Bachmann replied. “It is almost impossible to move 11 million illegal immigrants overnight. You do it in steps.” Bachmann said deporting those convicted of crimes would be the first step.

Despite the sheer impracticality (and sinister connotations) of somehow identifying, rounding up, and transporting each and every undocumented immigrant to their country of origin, experts say that such a radical move would be utterly calamitous for the U.S. economy. A Center for American Progress analysis estimated that the cost of deporting the undocumented population would total $285 billion over five years.

It costs $23,148 for each person to be apprehended, detained, legally processed, and transported out of the country. A deportation-only policy would amount to $922 in new taxes for “every man, woman, and child in this country” — an exorbitant price tag for the satisfaction of appearing tough on immigrants.

Furthermore, mass deportation would reduce the country’s GDP by 1.46 percent, which would amount to $2.6 trillion in cumulative losses over 10 years. It would also cripple several essential industries, like agriculture, that depend on immigrant labor — which is why the farmers and business owners Bachmann claims to represent have been vehemently opposed to such a plan.

Harsh immigration laws in states like Alabama have already resulted in a mass exodus of migrant workers that many farmers say will drive them out of business by next year. Crops are rotting in the field without migrant workers to harvest them.

n the wake of HB 56, Alabama’s extreme immigration law, students have been bullied by their peers simply for looking Hispanic, and now even one teacher has singled out a student because she looked foreign — even though she is an American citizen.

The ACLU reports that a teacher gave Cineo Gonzales’ young daughter a pamphlet in Spanish about HB 56. When Gonzales, a Birmingham taxi driver, went to the school’s principal to ask why it was given to his daughter specifically, the principal told him that the school handed out the pamphlets to students “who looked like they weren’t from there”:

Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, the most harmful in the nation, has opened the door for racial profiling like this by targeting those who look like undocumented immigrants. And the issue pushed its way into schools because the law required schools to ask the citizenship status of newly enrolled students, a provision which has since been blocked by a federal appeals court. Thousands of Hispanic students skipped school when the law went into effect, fearing that they or their parents could be deported just for going to school, and many are not returning to class even though the Eleventh circuit blocked the policy.

While students still avoid classrooms across Alabama and some of those who remain are racially profiled based solely on their appearance, state Attorney General Luther Strange is arguing that the Justice Department shouldn’t be able to ask Alabama school districts for data about the student absences since the state’s immigration law went into effect. He argued on Monday “that the Justice Department wants to make Alabama an example because of its history going back 50 to 60 years ago.”

But just as separate schools for black and white children were found to be unconstitutional almost 60 years ago, the Supreme Court also has ruled that it is unconstitutional to deny a student a public education because of their immigration status. If Strange is so concerned about Alabama’s past history, perhaps he should protect students from being racially profiled like Gonzales’ daughter and let the Justice Department verify that students are not being denied their right to an education.

In a sadly predictable development, Hispanic public school students in Alabama — some of whom are United States citizens — are now facing racially motivated bullying in the wake of the state’s unconstitutional attack on undocumented school children:

It was just another schoolyard basketball game until a group of Hispanic seventh-graders defeated a group of boys from Alabama. … “They told them, `You shouldn’t be winning. You should go back to Mexico‘” … .

Machine shop manager Hector Conde said his family has seen the problem firsthand. Conde, whose family lives in Autauga County north of Montgomery, was appalled when his 12-year-old daughter, Monica Torres, told him a schoolmate called her a “damn Mexican” during a school bus ride.

“She is a citizen. She doesn’t even speak Spanish,” said Conde, a U.S. citizen originally from Puerto Rico. “The culture being created (by the law) is that this sort of thing is OK.”

A Hispanic woman said her 13-year-old niece was called a “stupid Mexican” and told to “go back to Mexico” by a classmate in Walker County.

For the time being, the provision of the Alabama law requiring public schools to check the students’ immigration status cannot be enforced due to a federal court order. But these bullying incidents are further proof that the law does not need to be upheld by the judiciary in order to succeed in its goal of making Alabama inhospitable to certain kinds of people. When the state government places its official sanction on anti-immigrant bullying, it shouldn’t be surprised when people take matters into their own hands.