Supreme Court Tackles Gay Marriage As Advocates Line Up For Historic Argument

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Photo Credit: Lost Albatross

The front-lines of the gay marriage debate move this week to the Supreme Court, as it considers two cases which have the potential to redefine marriage on a national level.

The arguments come at a time of changing views, with support for gay marriage becoming a mainstream Democratic position and the issue causing a sharp divide among Republicans.

The first case the court will take up, on Tuesday, is California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. The court on Wednesday weighs the Defense of Marriage Act, considering a provision that defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits.

It is the California case, though, that could have sweeping implications for the states. The judges could, if they choose to rule broadly, overturn every state constitutional provision and law banning same-sex marriages. Or, they could set back the gay marriage movement by upholding California’s ban and continuing to leave the issue up to the states.

Signaling the widespread interest in the rulings, spectators have been lining up all weekend outside the court, camping out in Washington for a chance to hear the arguments. The issue has created fault lines within the Republican Party, as some prominent members drop their opposition to same-sex marriage while others stiffen it.

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Poverty Hits The Suburbs

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Photo Credit: WND

By Garth Kant. The stock market is roaring but that doesn’t mean the nation’s economy is healthy. Warning signs include a startling growth of poverty in the suburbs and among the elderly who, increasingly, can’t afford to retire. Many other dark clouds are also gathering on the economy’s horizon, not just the nation’s astronomical $17 trillion dollars of debt.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has made a remarkable comeback from its recession low of 6,594.44 on March 5, 2009, to close for the week at 14,512.03. The Dow surpassed its previous all-time high on March 11 when it closed at 14,254.38.

But the gains on Wall Street aren’t being realized on Main Street, according to a study by the Brookings Institute. It found the number of people in the suburbs living in poverty skyrocketed by almost 64 percent between 2000 and 2011. That’s double the rate of growth of poverty in urban areas, and 16.4 million more suburbanites in poverty.

“I think we have an outdated perception of where poverty is and who it is affecting,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a co-author of the report, adding, “We tend to think of it as a very urban and a very rural phenomenon, but it is increasingly suburban.” Poverty is also growing rapidly among older Americans.

Writing in Forbes, Edward “Ted” Siedle says millions of elderly Americans are falling into poverty and the country is facing the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. More and more older Americans face the dilemma of being too poor to retire and too frail to work. Siedle lists a number of causes for the predicament.

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More kids get free lunch in D.C.’s wealthy suburb

By Rachel Baye. The Washington area’s wealthy suburbs have seen a sharp rise in the portion of children receiving free, government-funded lunches over the last several years, an indication of rising poverty levels.

In Fairfax County, the second-wealthiest county in the country, nearly 27 percent — 47,874 — of the public school system’s 179,253 students receive free or subsidized school lunches this year, up from 21 percent — 33,479 — of 162,986 just five years ago, data show. Across the Potomac, Montgomery County, the 10th-wealthiest county in the country, has a similar story, with one-third of its 149,051 students receiving free or reduced-price school lunches, up from 26 percent of 137,745 five years ago.

“[The trend] puts strain on these districts and on these schools that may not have the infrastructure or services in place to meet the needs of a growing low-income population,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Students who receive Free and Reduced Price Meals — or FARMS — are more likely to be behind academically, according to a recent study by Montgomery County’s Office of Legislative Oversight, requiring districts to provide more remediation in math and reading.

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RINO Fundraisers See Big Cash Opportunity In Gay Marriage Shift

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Photo Credit: AP

Republican fundraisers say the changing views of gay marriage in their party could unlock big money from GOP donors in places like New York, California and Florida — where some Republicans have kept their checkbooks closed over what they saw as misplaced priorities, at best, or intolerance, at worst, at the highest ranks of the party.

Several Republicans pointed to Sen. Rob Portman’s switch in support of gay marriage as a watershed moment for the party. And more than two dozen high-profile GOP-ers asked the Supreme Court to back gay rights. And even Foster Friess, Rick Santorum’s top benefactor, has softened his stance on domestic partnership.

“Republicans’ intolerance to marriage equality has been detrimental to winning,” said Aaron McLear, a California Republican strategist. “Big donors understand that they don’t want to invest in campaigns focused on a losing issue, and I think certainly the fiscal issues for Republicans are much more marketable.”

Republican fundraiser Jim McCray agreed. “I think it will open up donors across the board, because it demonstrates Republicans are trying to recreate the big tent they were known for,” McCray said.

It’s not clear how much money could come from donors supportive of the party’s move toward new thoughts on gay marriage. Pro gay-rights donors have long been an important source of campaign cash for Democrats, including after President Barack Obama pushed through a repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which barred openly gay people from serving in the military.

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Surprise: Obama’s Science Advisers Press For Carbon Standards

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Photo Credit: Allison Harger

President Obama’s outside team of scientific advisers is recommending the creation of carbon emissions standards for existing pollution sources and continued expansion of shale gas production in order to confront global warming.

Those are two of the wide-ranging climate policy suggestions that the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) unveiled Friday that address ways to curb emissions and adapt to inevitable climatic changes.

Others include creation of a “National Commission on Climate Preparedness,” infrastructure planning that integrates climate risks, and various steps to “decarbonize” the economy.

“Mitigation is needed to avoid a degree of climate change that would be unmanageable despite efforts to adapt. Adaptation is needed because the climate is already changing and some further change is inevitable regardless of what is done to reduce its pace and magnitude,” PCAST said in a letter to Obama released Friday.
The advisers note that broad policies to impose a cost on carbon emissions, such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, don’t have political traction. But other options to address emissions are available.

Their letter to Obama urges “new performance standards for CO2 emissions from existing stationary sources.” The endorsement arrives as environmentalists are pressing the administration to begin setting standards for the current fleet of coal-fired power plants.

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Landrieu Angrily Confronts Cruz Over Abortion Amendment

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Photo Credit: John Orrell

Ted Cruz’s effort to tie United Nations funding to China’s abortion policy provoked a sharp, private rebuke from Mary L. Landrieu on the Senate floor Saturday morning.

Shortly before 4 a.m., the Louisiana Democrat strode from her desk on the Democratic side of the chamber all the way to the Texas Republican’s desk on the far side to give him a piece of her mind after Cruz insisted on a roll call vote on his amendment to the Senate budget resolution. Cruz wanted to create a new point of order against funding the United Nations as long as any of its member nations have a policy of involuntary abortions.

“I suggested to him that a more direct and a more effective route might be for Texas to stop all exports to China or to stop any financial exchanges between Texas and China,” Landrieu told CQ Roll Call after she voted on the budget shortly before 5 a.m.

“That would have had a much more direct effect on what he was trying to do than take money from the U.N. … I thought he might like the idea. He should try it next time,” Landrieu said. After a cross-looking Landrieu left to return to her desk, a bemused Cruz smirked and chatted with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who voted for the amendment.

The amendment had zero chance of passing — it was defeated 38-61 — but like many of the other amendments considered well after midnight, it appeared to be aimed at putting senators in a politically difficult position: either they go on record whacking the United Nations or they face the potential for attack ads saying they voted to protect forced abortions in China.

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News Editor’s Note: Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski sided with the Democrats (including, of course, Sen. Mark Begich) in voting against Cruz’s anti-abortion amendment.

Mental-Health Officials Clash on N.Y. Gun Law Reporting

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Photo Credit: Seth Wenig AP

Psychiatrists, county officials and law enforcement are questioning a portion of New York’s new gun-control law that requires them to take steps that could lead to guns being seized from potentially dangerous people.

Since mid-March, New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act has required mental health professionals to report when a patient is a potential danger to himself or others. A county receives the information, decides whether to approve it, and if so sends it to the state for entry into a database. Local law enforcement officials then must suspend or revoke any gun licenses and remove a gun owner’s firearms.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has touted the reporting requirements outlined in the law, saying they will keep guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill and prevent mass shootings that have claimed more than 900 victims in the past seven years.

But parties who must participate in the process said the new law was hastily designed and broadly written.

“When someone drops a whole new set of rules out of the sky, … you trip up on a lot of stuff,” said Eric Caine, psychiatry department chairman at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

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Washington State Considers Mandating that Insurance Plans Pay for Killing Unborn Children

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Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren, AP

In 1970, Washington became the first — and remains the only — state in the country to legalize elective abortions by a popular vote.

A generation later, and 40 years removed from the landmark United States Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling that extended abortion access nationwide, Washington is once again poised to stand out.

With 21 states having adopted bans or severe restrictions on insurance companies from paying for abortions, Washington is alone in seriously considering legislation mandating the opposite.

The Reproductive Parity Act, as supporters call it, would require insurers in Washington state who cover maternity care — which all insurers must do — to also pay for abortions.

The bill passed the state House earlier this month by a vote of 53-43, though it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. A similar bill in the New York state Assembly has been introduced each session for over a decade but has never received a public hearing.

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Bloomberg Begins Multimillion Dollar TV Gun Control Blitz to Push Swing Senators

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Photo Credit: NY Times

The commercial is an unambiguous appeal to gun owners: a middle-aged hunter, rifle in hand, vows that he will fight to protect the Second Amendment. But in a sensible, father-of-the-house tone, he also urges voters to support comprehensive background checks, “so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can’t buy guns.”

The man behind the advertisement is not known for his kinship with the gun crowd: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the nation’s fiercest advocate of restrictions on firearms since the December rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Determined to persuade Congress to act in response to that shooting, Mr. Bloomberg on Monday will begin bankrolling a $12 million national advertising campaign that focuses on senators who he believes might be persuaded to support a pending package of federal regulations to curb gun violence. The ads, in 13 states, will blanket those senators’ districts during an Easter Congressional recess that is to be followed by debate over the legislation.

In a telling sign of how much the white-hot demands for gun control have been tempered by political reality, Mr. Bloomberg’s commercials make no mention of an assault weapons ban once sought by the White House and its allies, instead focusing on the more achievable goal of universal background checks.

“You don’t want to lose everything in the interest of getting the perfect,” Mr. Bloomberg said in an interview, acknowledging his disappointment over the apparent unlikelihood of an assault weapons ban, but insisting he is resolved to push the legislation through at a time when its prospects are uncertain.

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The Iran, Hezbollah, Venezuela Axis to “Grow Exponentially” Under Chavez’s Successor

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Iran has illegally laundered billions of dollars through the Venezuelan financial sector and is currently stashing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in “virtually every Venezuelan bank today,” according to a former senior State Department official.

“It’s a huge blind spot in those trying to implement sanctions” on Iran, Roger Noriega, a former United States ambassador and assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Venezuela served as Iran’s closest Western ally under the late President Hugo Chavez, who allowed the rogue regime to establish a military and financial presence at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government.

Iran’s foothold in the country is expected to grow exponentially under the rule of Chavez’s likely successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Noriega and other experts warned House lawmakers at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday that Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah is gaining power in Venezuela.

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GOP Lawmaker Proposes that Congress “Telecommute” to Reduce DC’s Control and Bring Local Accountability

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Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) wants to create a “virtual Congress,” where lawmakers would leverage videoconferencing and other remote work technology to conduct their daily duties in Washington from their home districts.

Under a resolution Pearce introduced on Thursday, lawmakers would be able to hold hearings, debate and vote on legislation virtually from their district offices.

While Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer may have recently nixed the Web company’s work-from-home policy to boost its performance, Pearce believes a remote work arrangement may benefit Congress and make lawmakers more accountable to folks in their home districts.

Pearce says the resolution would eradicate the need for members to jet back and forth from their districts to Washington each weekend. This would allow lawmakers to spend more time with their constituents rather than the armies of lobbyists from K St., he argues.

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