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This Week in God, 4.19.14
First up from the God Machine this week is an interesting faith-based dispute involving Hobby Lobby's corporate owner -- but it's probably not the dispute you've already heard about.
Hobby Lobby, an arts-and-crafts chain owned by Christian conservative Steve Green, is perhaps best known in political and legal circles for its pending Supreme Court case in which Green's attorneys believe corporations are people with their own religious beliefs. It's this corporate spirituality, the argument goes, that entitles Hobby Lobby to deny contraception coverage to its employees.
But as Sarah Jones reported this week, this isn't Green's only interest in church-state policy.
An Oklahoma school district has approved the use of a Bible curriculum designed by Steve Green, the controversial owner of Hobby Lobby. The Mustang public schools will begin offering the curriculum next academic year.As reported by Religion News Service, Green's curriculum is designed to correspond with his planned Museum of the Bible, which is currently under construction in Washington, D.C. Jerry Pattengale, who heads the Green Scholars Initiative and is overseeing the curriculum's development, said the ultimate goal is put the curriculum in "thousands" of schools.Little is known publicly about the details of the curriculum. However, in a 2013 speech he delivered to the National Bible Association, Green explained that it's divided into three sections: the history of the Bible, the story of the Bible, and the impact of the Bible.
It's worth emphasizing that public schools are legally permitted to offer classes related to religious history and religious texts, so long as the curricula is secular and objective. A scholarly, historical analysis of scripture is consistent with the First Amendment's separation of church and state; public-school evangelism is not.
What does Hobby Lobby's Green have in mind for public high-school students? The Green Scholars Initiative insists lesson plans will honor the law and remain religiously neutral, but in Green's 2013 speech, he specifically told his audience, "The history is to show the reliability of this book.... When you present the evidence, the evidence is overwhelming."
Now that Green's Bible curriculum has been embraced by an Oklahoma school district, don't be too surprised if Hobby Lobby's owner ends up in another major church-state court fight.
Also from the God Machine this week:
Putting the GOP line on jobless aid to the test
When congressional Republicans explain their opposition to extended unemployment benefits, they don't say, "We dislike jobless Americans." They actually argue the opposite: they like the unemployed and want what's best for them, so GOP lawmakers have cut off benefits so jobless Americans will have no choice but to accept an available position, re-enter the workforce, and earn a paycheck worth more than a government check.
In effect, it's just tough love. The jobless will thank them later.
What's more, taking this argument one step further, congressional Republicans also believe they've been proven right. After the GOP cut off extended benefits a few days after Christmas, the job picture has been pretty good -- over 530,000 jobs were created from January through March -- and workforce participation has improved. "See?" Republicans replied, "we were right all along."
Except, as Ben Casselman noted, they really weren't.
The cutoff of federal unemployment benefits doesn't seem to be helping the long-term unemployed get back to work. [...]So far, however, the evidence doesn't seem to support that theory. Rather than finding jobs, the long-term unemployed continue to be out of luck.... First, the short-term unemployed have a much better chance of finding a job than the long-term unemployed and always have. Second, the short-term unemployed are seeing a steady improvement in their prospects, but the long-term jobless are not. And third, there's been no major shift since the benefits program expired at the end of last year.
This shouldn't come as too big a surprise to anyone other than GOP lawmakers (assuming their talking points are sincere).
Jailed for eight years without a trial.
5 other inmates > 4 years
16 > 3 years
75 > 2 years
#IntheUS
http://t.co/TFrPgbpF6K
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) April 18, 2014
South Carolina town helps make the case for ENDA
Part of the problem with the debate over the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is that much of the public assumes existing law is already adequate. Just a couple of months ago, a national survey found 75% of the country believes it's already illegal under federal law to discriminate against LGBT Americans in the workforce.
Even House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who presumably should know better, has refused to allow a simple vote on ENDA. Asked why, the Ohio Republican said in November, "I am opposed to discrimination of any kind in the workplace or anyplace else, but I think this legislation … is unnecessary and would provide a basis for frivolous lawsuits. People are already protected in the workplace."
We're occasionally reminded that people are not already protected in the workplace. Jennifer Bendery reported today:
The mayor of a tiny South Carolina town has triggered protests, prayer vigils and even a city council vote to weaken his powers after firing longtime police chief Crystal Moore, who is a lesbian and who some believe is a target of the mayor's homophobia. [...]Latta Mayor Earl Bullard fired Moore on Tuesday soon after she received seven reprimands, which alleged that she had failed to maintain order and questioned authority, among other offenses, according to a report by WBTW News 13. The reprimands were the first Moore ever received after more than 20 years on the job. What's more, members of the city council said Bullard, who just became mayor in December, broke with protocol by not giving Moore a verbal or written warning for any wrongdoing, or discussing the matter with the council before taking action.
In a situation like this one, it's best not to jump to conclusions about why a fired employee was dismissed -- the new mayor didn't explicitly say Moore's ouster was the result of anti-gay animus -- but local reporting doesn't seem to leave much doubt as to what transpired in Latta, South Carolina.
Georgia's Perdue may have an outsourcing problem
There are a variety of interesting primary races this year, but no contest is quite as competitive as Georgia's Republican U.S. Senate primary. The top five candidates are separated by just eight points, and just over the last few months, three different polls have shown three different candidates in the lead.
Recently, however, businessman David Perdue has begun to separate himself, at least a little, from the GOP pack. Perdue, a cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue (R), has spent heavily on a television ad campaign, talking up his private-sector experience, background in creating jobs, and familiarity in international affairs thanks to his international business dealings.
But Benjy Sarlin reports on a potential wrinkle in Perdue's resume.
When Perdue arrived at Haggar Clothing Co. in 1994, the historic menswear company was struggling. Revenues were down, old reliable products like suits were in decline, and competitors like Levi's were muscling in on their department store sales.As senior vice president, Perdue was in charge of international operations at Haggar and later domestic operations as well. Under his watch, the company did what so many clothing manufacturers did at the time: closed down factory lines in America and outsourced production overseas where labor was cheap and regulations were less restrictive.
Sarlin's report documents significant job losses through outsourcing, on top of factory closings, consolidations, and reduced work hours at U.S. facilities.
Perdue talked to Sarlin about the business decisions and the need to protect his company's financial interests. "We very definitely looked at trying to maintain as much volume as we could [in America]," the Senate candidate said. "The problem was if you looked at the cost sheet of a product made in Mexico versus a product made in South Texas ... the Mexican product had an advantage."
He added, "To politicians who have never been in a free enterprise system this sounds really easy. It is anything but easy. It's very messy."
As I suspect Mitt Romney can attest, that's true. When a business leader outsources jobs in the private sector and then seeks prominent public office, it can get "very messy," indeed.
Issa vs. Cummings, Round XXVII
Poor Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). The hapless chairman of the House Oversight Committee came up with all kinds of creative ideas about the IRS and assorted "scandals," all of which turned out to be baseless -- and at times, kind of silly.
But hope springs eternal. Issa now has a brand new IRS-related attack, and this time, instead of taking the offensive against the White House or Obama administration officials, the California Republican is going after the ranking member of his own committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), whom Issa recently tried to literally silence during a faux hearing on the faux IRS controversy.
Issa asked conservative media to find his new scheme interesting and Fox News quickly obliged, making Cummings its "new punching bag."
Monday night, he and other Democratic members of the House Committee investigating the IRS over allegations that it targeted conservative groups took a pounding on Megyn Kelly's show over recently released emails.Tuesday morning, the beatdown intensified on "Fox & Friends," which kept flashing headlines like: "Where's the Outrage? Media ignores Cummings role in IRS scandal.""There's explosive new evidence," host Elizabeth Hasselbeck said, introducing a discussion of Cummings, "that he was leading the charge against conservatives the entire time" that he was part of a panel that was supposed to be investigating the IRS for allegedly treating conservative groups unfairly.
Just on the surface, when Republicans and their allies can't seem to decide on their Villain of the Week, it's usually a sign of desperation. In the IRS matter, the fact that the right keeps bouncing from one suspected bad guy to the next, as one claim after another gets debunked, doesn't inspire confidence in the integrity of the "scandal."
But more specifically, the larger problem with Issa and Fox turning their guns on Cummings is that the attack is demonstrably ridiculous.
McAuliffe moves to restore voting rights
Given the sweeping voting restrictions being imposed by Republican policymakers in many states, it's heartening to occasionally see an official stepping up to expand voting rights for a change.
Ari Melber reported back in November on the "often invisible barrier to voting that is upending elections around the country." He was referring to more than 5 million Americans who are prohibited from voting because they have criminal records. In all, 48 out of 50 states impose some kind of restrictions on convict voting, and more than half bar former convicts from voting even after they are released from prison.
Virginia has some of the most punitive policies in the nation, disenfranchising roughly 350,000 adult citizens -- including a fifth of the state's black population.
To his credit, the commonwealth's Democratic governor is doing something about it.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe announced today that he will shrink the time violent felons must wait to seek reinstatement of their voting rights and will remove some offenses from that list.The policy slated to take effect April 21 comes on top of years of work to streamline the process, and aims to make the system easier to understand and to allow more felons to petition the state more quickly.In a series of changes to the state's restoration of rights process, McAuliffe wants to collapse the application waiting period from five to three years for people convicted of violent felonies and others that require a waiting period, and to remove drug offenses from that list.
"Virginians who have made a mistake and paid their debt to society should have their voting rights restored through a process that is as transparent and responsive as possible," McAuliffe said in a statement. "These changes will build on the process Virginia has in place to increase transparency for applicants and ensure that we are restoring Virginians' civil rights quickly and efficiently after they have applied and observed any necessary waiting period."
Note, this is quickly becoming a national issue.
Missouri GOP latest to push early-voting 'reforms'
Republican policymakers in Wisconsin and Ohio recently imposed new restrictions on early voting, and this week, GOP lawmakers in Missouri followed suit, though their efforts come with a bit of a twist.
The Missouri House has endorsed a pair of early voting measures, though some Democrats contend they could create confusion for a proposed initiative petition that seeks to go further in allowing advanced voting. [...]Democratic critics say the House proposal is a "sham" and that politics are at play.
Fortunately, this is a knowable thing -- either the proposal is a sham or it's not -- so let's take a closer look.
The Republican plan in Missouri does not actually ban early voting, so much as it creates an unusual time frame in which early voting would be allowed. Under the proposal, there would be nine days of early voting, but the nine days couldn't come the week before the election and they couldn't include a Sunday, which happens to be a very popular day for early voting in states that allow it.
Saturday voting would be limited to four hours, and voting after 5 p.m. -- after many workers leave their jobs for the day -- would be prohibited.
What's more, all of this isn't just a proposed bill; it's actually a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution, which would make future reforms more difficult. What's more, the amendment comes with a built-in loophole: "If lawmakers don't appropriate money for early voting on any given year, it won't happen."
All of this coincides with a new voter-ID plan, leading the Kansas City Star to note in an editorial, "Republicans in the Missouri General Assembly are mounting a two-pronged effort to make voting more difficult for certain citizens, who are most likely to be elderly, low-income, students or minorities. They're not even subtle about it."
And to think some Missouri Dems would be so cynical as to see this as a "sham."
'They're nothing more than domestic terrorists'
It's been nearly a week since the U.S. Bureau of Land Management tried to enforce federal court orders at Cliven Bundy's Nevada ranch, only to back off in order to deescalate a potentially dangerous situation with heavily armed protesters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D), who of course represents Nevada, said earlier this week, "We can't have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it's not over."
Yesterday, Reid went further.
U.S. Sen. Harry Reid on Thursday called supporters of Bunkerville rancher Cliven Bundy "domestic terrorists" because they defended him against a Bureau of Land Management cattle roundup with guns and put their children in harm's way."Those people who hold themselves out to be patriots are not. They're nothing more than domestic terrorists," Reid said during an appearance at a Las Vegas Review-Journal "Hashtags & Headlines" event at the Paris. "... I repeat: what went on up there was domestic terrorism."
The senator added that he's been in communication with Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI leaders, and Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, as well as the Nevada Cattlemen's Association, 'which has not backed Bundy's personal battle but has expressed concerns about access to public land."
There is, Reid said, a task force being set up to deal with the situation. "It is an issue that we cannot let go, just walk away from," he added.
One assumes Bundy's militia allies weren't impressed with the senator's comments, but Reid probably isn't foremost on their minds. Rather, many on this far-right fringe are contemplating their next move, embracing what they see as a new precedent established six days ago at the Bundy ranch.
Will the GOP ever 'move on' from Obamacare?
They threw everything they had at it. Desperate to destroy the Affordable Care Act, Republican policymakers tried misinformation campaigns; they tried sabotage; and they tried repeal. The campaign did not, however, derail the law, the success of which is becoming increasingly obvious.
The next question is whether GOP officials actually care.
At his press conference yesterday, President Obama not only touted the new enrollment totals -- 8 million American consumers enrolled through exchange marketplaces during the open-enrollment period -- he also urged Republicans to end their preoccupation with the issue.
"I find it strange that the Republican position on this law is still stuck in the same place that it has always been: they still can't bring themselves to admit that the Affordable Care Act is working."They said nobody would sign up. They were wrong about that. They said it would be unaffordable for the country. They were wrong about that. They were wrong to keep trying to repeal a law that is working when they have no alternative answer for millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions who would be denied coverage again, or every woman who would be charged more for just being a woman again."I know every American isn't going to agree with this law, but I think we can agree that it's well past time to move on as a country and refocus our energy on the issues that the American people are most concerned about, and that continues to be the economy, because these endless, fruitless repeal efforts come at a cost. The 50 or so votes Republicans have taken to repeal this law could have been 50 votes to create jobs."
In all, during a fairly brief press conference, Obama used the phrase "move on" four times in reference to Republicans and the ACA.
And before the press conference was even over, the National Republican Congressional Committee declared, in response to the president's call to move on, "No, we can't."
And on the surface, congressional Republicans certainly seem to mean it. As the health care system grows stronger, GOP lawmakers are descending deeper into denial, conspiracy theories, and fairly transparent con jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Republican leaders are committed to near-constant Obamacare bashing for the rest of the year, regardless of facts that may try to get in the way.
The stubbornness might be impressive if we weren't talking about a group of policymakers desperately trying to take health care benefits away from millions of American families for no particular reason.
But there are cracks in the facade. For all the bravado and chest-thumping about how they will never, ever, ever stop trying to destroy health care reform, Republicans are not a united front.
