CIA Operatives Reportedly On The Ground In Libya

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA has sent small teams of operatives into Libya after the agency's station in the capital was forced to close, and officers assisted in rescuing one of the two crew members of an F-15E Strike Eagle that crashed, an American official and a former U.S. intelligence officer told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The agency's precise role in Libya is unclear. Intelligence experts said the CIA would have sent officials to make contact with the opposition and assess the strength and needs of the rebel forces battling Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in the event President Barack Obama decided to arm them.

The American official and the former U.S. intelligence officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the CIA helped safely recover the fighter jet's weapons specialist, who was first picked up by rebels. The pilot was rescued by Marines.

Proposed South Carolina Gun Bill Would Allow For Guns In Churches, Day-Care Centers

A proposed law making its way through the South Carolina legislature would loosen gun ownership to an astonishing level. If passed, legal gun owners could bring their weapons to restaurants, day-care centers, and churches. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Thad Viers (R),says that expanding the places that one can carry a concealed weapon in the state is an effective anti-crime measure:

“It puts criminals on the defense,” said state Rep. Thad Viers, R-Horry, a co-sponsor of the bill and the owner of about 25 firearms and a concealed weapons permit. “Criminals don’t know if you’re carrying or not.”

Amazingly, the only debate in the legislature appears to be whether the bill goes far enough. Ed Kelleher, president of GrassRoots South Carolina, a powerful gun group in the state, says the bill “violates the constitutional rights of gun owners” because it only allows for adult, state residents to carry guns in these places — not young people or out-of-state residents. “While the bill might make it better for people in South Carolina, it’s going to be a lot worse for others, including those visiting us,” Kelleher said. “We depend on tourism here, and this has chilling effect on that.”

In a story about the bill, The State included a list of extreme gun bills that South Carolina has adopted in recent years:

– 2009: New law allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep their guns in their cars while dropping their children off at school.
– 2008: New law conceals from the public the list of people with concealed weapons permits. At that time, about one in 50 South Carolinians, 21 and older, had a permit to legally carry a concealed firearm. One in five state lawmakers had a permit.
– 2008: New law allows lawmakers and visitors to keep their guns in their vehicles while parked on State House grounds.
– 2006: New law says pro-gun laws cannot be voided in a state of emergency, such as Katrina.

South Carolina has the ninth-highest rate of firearm murders by state, according to FBI statistics. Just over 68 percent of murders in the state are done with a gun.

With New ‘Monkey Bill,’ Tennessee Takes Evolution Education Back To Scopes

Eighty six years after the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial opened Tennessee classrooms to the teaching of evolution, the state House is trying to slam the door shut again. Tennessee’s House Education Committee approved a bill Tuesday in the name of “academic freedom,” but in reality, it is a thinly veiled attempt to curtail the teaching of evolution. House Speaker Emeritus Jimmy Naifeh (D) has even taken to calling it “the monkey bill.” From the bill’s summary:

This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming.

Should this bill pass, Tennessee teachers will have official sanction to teach about evolutionary “controversies” that simply do not exist. Furthermore, it will allow teachers to teach pseudo-scientific ideas — such as creationism or intelligent design — as legitimate scientific theories comparable to evolution.

While evolution apparently remains controversial politically, it is not a controversial idea scientifically. Scientists have reached a consensus that evolution is “one of the most robust and widely accepted principles of modern science,” and as such, it is “a core element in science education.” The state of Tennessee has done the same, as it includes evolution in its Tennessee Science Framework, its official science curriculum. So 86 years after the Scopes Monkey Trial gave evolution its rightful place in the state’s classrooms, why are Tennessee Republicans trying to re-litigate the case?

Tennessee’s law is not just out of the scientific mainstream, it falls outside the political mainstream as well. This year, legislators have tried and failed to pass similar legislation in multiple states, including New Mexico, Kentucky, and Oklahoma.

VIDEO: Indiana GOP Rep Says Women Will Pretend To Be Raped To Get Free Abortions

Yesterday morning, the Indiana House considered an anti-abortion bill that “would put some of the tightest abortion restrictions in the nation into Indiana law.” Introduced by state Rep. Eric Turner (R), HB 1210 would make most abortions illegal after 20 weeks. Current law restricts abortions after the fetus is viable, generally around 24 weeks.

In an attempt to soften the blow this bill would land on Hoosier women, state Rep. Gail Riecken (D) introduced an amendment to exempt “women who became pregnant due to rape or incest, or women for whom pregnancy threatens their life or could cause serious and irreversible physical harm” from being forced to carry to term. Fearing this bill would “push women to the back alleys” for illegal abortions, Riecken pleaded with lawmakers to allow women to make the choice in these cases.

Turner then stepped to the podium and insisted that Riecken’s amendment would create a “giant loophole” for women. That loophole? Women “could simply say they’ve been raped”:

TURNER: With all do respect to Rep. Riecken, I understand what she’s trying to do. But as you know that when the federal health care bill was going through Congress there was a lot of discussion whether this would allow for abortion coverage and of course we were all told it would not. And the bill, my house bill 1210, would prevent that for any insurance company to provide abortion coverage under federal health care bill. This [amendment] would open that window and I would ask you to oppose this amendment.
I just want you to think about this, in my view, giant loophole that could be created where someone who could — now i want to be careful, I don’t want to disparage in any way someone who has gone through the experience of a rape or incest — but someone who is desirous of an abortion could simply say that they’ve been raped or there’s incest.

Watch it:

Outraged by Turner’s allegation, state Rep. Linda Lawson (D) — who spent six years as a sex crimes investigator for the Indiana police — delivered an emotional rebuke. Describing her experience with both elderly and young children who had been raped, she forcefully informed Turner that “they don’t make it up.” “Women don’t make this up! My Goodness!” she exclaimed. “This is the state of Indiana!”

The House voted down Riecken’s amendment 42 to 54. The bill “now is eligible for a final vote in the House later this week. It then would move to the Senate, which earlier passed similar legislation aimed at abortion.”

Obama Treasury Celebrates Bailout Profits While Ignoring Costs, Legacy

NEW YORK -- On Wednesday, the Treasury Department celebrated the fact that its $250 billion investment in the nation's banking system has officially made money. What's more, the entirety of the federal government's efforts to rescue a financial system that sowed the seeds of its own demise will also eventually do the same, according to new Treasury projections.

Treasury did not, however, commemorate the hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer aid left to be repaid; the billions the Troubled Asset Relief Program will ultimately cost taxpayers; the extraordinary actions of the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that made Treasury's bank profits possible; or the fact that the entire enterprise of pumping taxpayer cash into a financial system rife with unrecognized losses will likely be remembered as a "dismal failure," in at least one Nobel Prize-winning economist's estimation.

In other words: not so fast.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression spurred an alphabet soup of federal programs designed to calm markets and allow banks to rely on taxpayers as credit froze and investors fled. One of those programs, TARP, became the face of the government's unprecedented involvement in the financial sector.

KS GOP Rep. Slams Anti-Abortion Bill: I’m ‘Embarrased To Be A State That Bases Its Laws On Untruths’

The nationwide war on a woman’s right to choose secured significant victories this week. Yesterday, Arizona became the first state in the nation to criminalize abortions based on a problem that doesn’t exist. Virginia will now force 80 percent of its clinics to close. Not to be outdone, the Kansas legislature swiftly approved not one, but two anti-abortion bills yesterday. HB 2218, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, strictly limits abortions after 22 weeks “based on disputed research that fetuses can feel pain at that point of development.” Though only 1.5 percent of abortions are performed after this period, the bill marks a significant victory for anti-choice activists who “have turned fetal pain into a new front in their battle to restrict or ban abortion.”

But not all Republicans bought the Republican argument that “this is a significant advancement” and “a more appropriate benchmark for late-term abortions.” “It’s based on false research,” said GOP Rep. Barbara Bollier who joined 8 other Republicans who voted against the bill:

“No one really knows and it’s based on false research,” said Rep. Barbara Bollier, R-Mission Hills. “It’s not universally held and I would be embarrassed to be a state that bases its laws on untruths.”

Bollier’s skepticism is shared by many in the medical profession. Though debate exists, a thorough review of the medical evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association determined that “pain perception probably does not function before the third trimester.” Before then, “the fetus’s higher pain pathways are not yet fully developed and functional.”

But why worry about “untruths” when right-wing lawmakers can use “false research” to challenge Roe v. Wade? This bill, a twin of Nebraska’s “first in the nation” fetal pain law, challenges the ruling’s key viability standard — “the point at which the fetus can live outside the womb” — as the point when states can ban abortions. These laws could submit fetal pain as “a new dividing line at which abortions could be banned.” Nebraska’s law, enacted last year, has already had drastic consequences — just askDanielle Deaver.

Kansas’s second anti-abortion bill, HB 2035, would require parental consent for anyone under 18 to have an abortion. Current law requires that one parent be notified, but neither parent can veto a daughter’s abortion. Unsatisfied with tightening parental control, the GOP included provisions that allow family members to sue doctors and force women to agree that they’re terminating a human being:

* Allow a woman’s close family members to sue if they believe an illegal abortion was performed.
* Require providers of abortions to provide patients with a newly revised informed consent statement including wording that abortion “terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

Both bills go directly to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R). Brownback, “who is pro-life, has promised to sign” the fetal pain measure into law. Florida, Arkansas, Minnesota,Oklahoma, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, and Kentucky are mulling similar “fetal pain” bills.

GOP Is Demanding Budget Riders That Would Increase Federal Spending

The ongoing budget negotiations between the House Republican leadership and Senate Democrats has broken down, as Republicans continue to insist that their spending bill — H.R. 1 — “serve as a starting point for all negotiations.” House Republicans “have demanded everything: not just some of their cuts but almost all of them, and not just a reduction in spending but a reduction only in the programs they don’t like,” the New York Times notes today. In fact, many are “insisting Democrats also agree to nonbudgetary riders, like ending the financing of Planned Parenthood or health care reform.”

But a closer examination of the at least 81 riders from OMB Watch reveals that many would have the opposite of the GOP’s intended effect and actually increase federal spending. For instance, a CBO analysis of Sec. 4017 of H.R. 1 — which would strip funding for any provisions in the Affordable Care Act — argues that partially defunding the law increases costs “by $3.1 billion in fiscal year 2012 and by smaller amounts in each of the fiscal years 2013 through 2021.” The same may be true for the following riders:

Sec. 4013 — Prohibits funds to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America: Planned parenthood provides services more efficiently and each dollar spent on contraception saves taxpayers multiple dollars down the line. For instance, it’s estimated that pushing contraceptive care patients from Planned Parenthood to other clinics would “cost the government an additional $174 million a year.”
Sec. 1591 — Prohibits funding for needle exchange programs: As an example, the cost to prevent a single HIV infection by needle exchange “has been calculated at $4,000 to $12,000, considerably less than the estimated $190,000 (listed in 1997 dollars) medical costs of treating a person infected with HIV.”
Sec. 4020 — Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command: Closing the Joint Forces Command, which “employs more contractors than troops” and which Defense Secretary Gates says is no longer necessary, could save up to $240 million per year.
Sec. 4051 — Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund”: This provision prevents Texas from collecting money from the education jobs bill passed last year unless it maintains its own rate of current education funding. Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has previously stuck federal education money into his state’s Rainy Day Fund. Blocking the provision amounts to giving Texas more than $800 million with no oversight.
Sec. 4012 — Bans funding for the Department of Education regulations on Gainful Employment: These regulations would restrict federal fundingfor subprime schools, many of which make 90 percent of their revenuefrom the federal government, while accounting for nearly half of student loan defaults.

Earlier this month, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) insisted that riders would not be part of a budgetary agreement. “[W]e’re not going to have any riders,” Harkin told Politico. “So, that’s just not going to happen. It won’t be part of the deal.”

Rep. McDermott Scolds GE: It’s ‘Absolutely Irritating’ That It Pays Less In Taxes Than A Nonprofit’s Secretary

Last week, the New York Times reported that General Electric (GE), the world’s largest corporation paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes in 2010. In fact, the company made over $14 billion in profits and actually received a$3.2 billion tax benefit.

Yesterday, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) spoke at a CAP event titled “Measuring Our Progress in Reducing U.S. Poverty,” where he discussed adequate benchmarks for measuring poverty in the United States. He sat down with ThinkProgress for an interview, where we asked him about GE’s corporate tax dodging. The congressman told us that it’s absolutely irritating that a company as rich as GE could be paying less in taxes than a secretary at our workplace, the Center for American Progress:

THINKPROGRESS: Congressman, last week we saw a front page New York Times story about General Electric, which is the largest corporation in our country, it actually didn’t pay anything, in taxes, it actually received billions of dollars in tax benefits —
MCDERMOTT: $3.2 billion –
THINKPROGRESS: Yes, 3.2 billion, exactly. Don’t you see a contradiction here between asking low-income people, middle-income people, working class people, students, paying with their services and benefits, while big corporations like this are getting away with nothing or even getting benefits? [...]
MCDERMOTT: Everybody in a civilized society should pay their fair share, according to their ability to pay. You don’t expect poor people to pay half their salary for the society in which they live. But this society lives, and people make money in it and do very well in it because we’ve created this society. And it costs money to do that. And for General Electric to fool around and not pay anything, that’s where the Alternative Minimum Tax came from, a long time ago. Because it’s absolutely irritating that General Electric pays less than the secretary at the front desk of this agency, this organization. It is simply not fair.

Watch it:

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart has been repeatedly skewering GE for its tax avoidance. On Monday, Stewart asked rhetorically, “I thought the corporate tax rate needed to be lower. How can you lower it from nothing?” The Washington Post — echoing reportingby ThinkProgress — notes that the story of GE’s taxes has been “conspicuously absentfrom the reportage of one news organization: NBC [which is owned by GE].”

Unfortunately, GE is not alone in its tax avoidance. It joins Bank of America, Citigroup, ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo, Boeing, and many other major corporations have gone quarters or or entire years without paying any federal corporate income taxes. That’s part of the reason that there is a Main Street Movement erupted across America demanding fair sacrifice that doesn’t shoulder the burdens of an economic crisis on those who didn’t cause it.

UPDATECiting GE CEO Jeff Immelt's growing compensation, Russ Feingold's Progressives United is running a campaign calling on Immelt to step down from his chairmanship of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. MoveOn is also running a campaign with the same demand.

'Three Big Pigs' Tells The Story Of Arab World Revolts Through Angry Birds

A new video aims to tell the story of the revolutions and protests rocking the Middle East and North Africa through the porcine protagonists of Angry Birds.

British Arts Groups Feel The Sting Of Funding Cuts

LONDON -- Hundreds of British arts organizations had their public funding slashed or eliminated Wednesday, the result of government spending cuts aimed at tackling the country's deficit.

The government-funded Arts Council England must cut 15 percent from the amount it gives to art, music, theater, dance and literature groups by 2015 – which still leaves it with almost 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to hand out.

The council said that instead of "salami slicing" – cutting 15 percent from everyone – it wanted to create a smaller but stronger portfolio of groups. So some have been cut off entirely, while others have seen their funding increase.

"We have taken the brave path of strategic choices, not salami slices, which has meant some painful decisions," said council chair Liz Forgan.

Japan Crisis Renews Call For Wider Distribution of Radiation Pills in U.S.

NEW YORK -- Three weeks ago, it was a chemical compound familiar mostly to pharmacists and radiation experts. Now, in light of the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, potassium iodide has become a highly desired commodity in both Japan and the United States for its protection against radiation-induced thyroid cancer, especially in young children.

But in the years leading up to the calamity at Fukushima, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and top officials in the Bush and Obama administrations have resisted efforts to expand distribution of potassium iodide to a wider array of people living near nuclear power plants in the United States.

Their principal argument has been that limiting access to food, water and milk potentially tainted by radioactive elements is more effective than supplying more radiation pills to the public.

'The Zoetrope': A Do-It-Yourself Wind Turbine

From EarthTechling's Caleb Denison:

If you live in an area that sees a fair amount of wind and you'd like to reduce your utility bill by harnessing some of that wind power, a wind turbinemight be a good idea. The trouble with most commercially made home wind turbines, though, is that they're fairly expensive, extremely tall and, if you have neighbors, they might not appreciate the new addition to the neighborhood.

Black And Blue 2: Blacks Flee Blue States in Droves

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD, March 27, 2011


Two milestones in the long, painful decline of the blue social model were reached this week and reported, of all places, in the pages of the very éminence grise of the monde bleu: the New York Times.

The first was a piece of national and historical news: The Census reported that waves of blue state blacks fled the stagnant job opportunities, high taxes and rotten social conditions of the mostly blue northern states to seek better lives for themselves in the south.  The second milestone was local and literary:  Bob Herbert, for many years the only regular Black columnist on the New York Times‘ op-ed page, has written his last column before stepping down.

"Trickin" See it at the NNB (Negro News Brief)

More Tylenol Recalled

Johnson & Johnson said it was recalling more than 700,000 bottles or packages of Tylenol and other consumer medicines made at a now-closed plant, the latest in a litany of recalls by the company.

J&J's McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit recalled one lot of Tylenol 8 Hour Extended Release Caplets, or 34,056 bottles, from retailers, the company said.

The company cited a musty odor that has prompted many other J&J recalls. The product was made at its Fort Washington, Pennsylvania plant before J&J closed the facility in April 2010.

Separately, McNeil added 10 lots of other products, amounting to 717,696 bottles or packages, to a wholesale level recall it initiated on January 14. Those products included various forms of pain reliever Tylenol, as well as allergy drug Benadryl and cough/cold medicine Sudafed.

In that recall, McNeil said it was taking precautions after a review of records found instances where equipment cleaning procedures were insufficient or cleaning was not adequately documented, although it said it was unlikely to have hurt product quality.

J&J has recalled more than 300 million bottles and packages of adult and children's consumer medicines in the past 15 months. Although no injuries have been linked to the recalls, they have sullied J&J's reputation, pressured its share price and sparked Congressional investigations.

P.J. Crowley: Congress About To Drive The U.S. Off A 'Cliff'

WASHINGTON -- Despite resigning as State Department spokesman on March 13, P.J. Crowley remains deeply concerned about the effect that deep cuts to the agency's budget could have on foreign events, potentially undermining the United States' ability to lead in the Middle East.

In an interview with The Huffington Post on Wednesday, Crowley said that State Department officials regularly encourage other countries undergoing political turmoil to sit down and resolve their challenges for the benefit of their people. It's now time, he added, for the United States to heed its own advice.

"I can't see a global benefit to the political crisis that we're facing," said Crowley. "Congress is charged with producing a budget. That budget supports both domestic and international priorities...At a critical time, when the United States can have influence in encouraging the Middle East to transform itself, we're at risk of driving ourselves off the cliff."

He added that the United States needs not only military and economic strength, but political strength as well.

"The political brinkmanship that has characterized our country over the last couple of decades can hamper our ability to shape the world events in ways that are consistent with our values and our interests," he said.

Crowley stepped down from his position after criticizing the Defense Department's treatment of Bradley Manning while in prison but said he has no regrets about his comments and has received a "broadly positive" response.

The beginning of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is just three months away, but in recent weeks, debate over the war there has been eclipsed by events elsewhere in the Middle East.

Yet Crowley said that draining the State Department and international aid budgets, as some Republicans have advocated, could also affect the ability of the United States to carry out its mission in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The solution in Afghanistan is a political one," he said.

While U.S. forces are expected to begin pulling out in July and combat operations are expected to end in 2014, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that some troops will remain beyond that date. Crowley stressed that the United States will remain engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade.

"People think that when we pull out military forces, our work is done," said Crowley. "No -- in many respects, our work is just beginning. There's a lot of turmoil in Iraq, there's a lot of work that has to be done to help Iraq emerge as a stable and peaceful in a critical part of the world. That's done by diplomats and development experts, not by soldiers."

Responding to critics in Congress who believe taxpayers are giving too much to the State Department, Crowley argued that such an rise is appropriate considering the increased responsibility being placed on diplomats.

"We have to make sure that as we more judiciously use our military power in the future, we make sure that we have a comparable civilian capability to -- in most cases -- prevent the emergence of crises that require military action," he added. "But where we do require military action, the military has to have a civilian partner to hand a mission off to. Members of Congress have challenged the recent growth in the State Department budget, and yet, that reflects the increased responsibility we are placing on our diplomats and our development experts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq."

When asked whether he was optimistic that the United States could win in the war in Afghanistan, Crowley paused and said, "There's reason for optimism. It's going to be tough, it's going to take a long time. It's important to be able to sustain what we're doing for as long as it takes. We have a history of interventions where the intervention itself was appropriate, but we didn't stay long enough to have a lasting effect."

Obama Talking Energy Policy As Gas Prices Climb

WASHINGTON -- Facing pressure to curb rising gasoline prices, President Barack Obama is calling for the U.S. to reduce its oil imports by one third by 2025, a lofty goal likely to run into significant obstacles.

The White House said Obama will seek to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil by boosting domestic energy production, increasing the use of biofuels and natural gas, and making cars and trucks more fuel-efficient. Obama planned to outline these steps during a speech Wednesday at Georgetown University.

In a speech Tuesday in New York City, Obama pointed to rising gasoline prices to underscore the need for a comprehensive energy plan.

"We've still got a lot of work to do on energy," the president told an audience of donors at The Studio Museum in Harlem. "The last time gas prices were this high was 2008 when I was running."

Obama contrasted his approach to an energy slogan popular among Republicans.

"The other side kept talking about `drill, baby, drill.' That was the slogan," he said. "What we were talking about was breaking the pattern of being shocked by high prices" and then lulled into inaction.

Obama is far from the first president to set out to make the country more energy independent. U.S. presidents dating back to Richard Nixon had similar goals that achieved little success; the U.S. continues to be the world's top oil consumer and gets more than 60 percent of its oil from foreign sources.

Still, the White House is eager to show that the president understands the burden rising gasoline prices have on middle-class Americans, particularly as his re-election bid draws near. Gas prices have jumped more than 50 cents a gallon this year, due in part to a spike in oil prices amid instability in the oil-rich Middle East. Last week, gas prices averaged $3.58 a gallon nationwide, according to AAA's daily survey.

Even if U.S. consumption of oil drops, it will have little if any impact on gasoline prices, since oil is priced globally and increased demand from China and other developing nations continues to push prices up.

Republicans put the blame for the increased costs on Obama's policies, pointing to the slow pace of issuing permits for new offshore oil wells in the wake of last summer's massive Gulf of Mexico spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deep-water exploration. GOP leaders have also assailed the president for saying last week in Latin America that he wanted the U.S. to be a "major customer" for the huge oil reserves Brazil recently discovered off its coast.

"The problem isn't that we need to look elsewhere for our energy. The problem is that Democrats don't want us to use the energy we have. It's enough to make you wonder whether anybody in the White House has driven by a gas station lately," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday.

In order to meet his goal of cutting oil imports by one third, Obama will call Wednesday for new incentives for companies to speed up oil and gas production on current and future leases. An Interior Department report released Tuesday said more than two-thirds of offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico are sitting idle, neither producing oil and gas nor being actively explored by the companies who hold the leases. The department said those leases could potentially hold more than 11 billion barrels of oil and 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Obama will also call for increased use of biofuels and the construction of four new advanced biofuel plants in the U.S. within the next two year. However, advanced biofuels – fuels made from non-food sources such as wood chips, switch grass or plant waste – are still in their infancy and cannot yet be made in amounts similar to corn ethanol. Congress has directed more money to research and development of those fuels in recent years as some critics of corn ethanol have linked the diversion of corn for fuel to rising food prices.

The president will also order government agencies to ensure that by 2015, all new vehicles they purchase are alternative-fuel vehicles, including hybrid and electric. Obama has previously set a goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015.

Administration officials said Obama's plans would require significant spending on research and development, though they offered no cost estimates.

Officials said Obama also would reaffirm his support for nuclear power, which has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks after an earthquake and tsunami in Japan severely damaged a nuclear power plant there. As a result of the crisis, U.S. government regulators are reviewing a wide range of issues potentially affecting the 104 U.S. nuclear power reactors, including safeguards to protect them against natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

The Chamber's Genie

Ever since Chief Justice Roberts joined the Supreme Court, corporate America has treated his Court as its personal genie, and Roberts has been eager to grant even many of their most outlandish wishes. As soon as Roberts and his fellow conservative Justice Alito joined the high Court, the Chamber of Commerce's win rate before the justices spiked eight percentage points above its already very high levels under his conservative predecessor William Rehnquist. Nor is Roberts alone in his willingness to go the extra mile for wealthy corporations. A recent study found that every single justice is more likely to side with the Chamber than the justice who held the seat 25 years ago. As one of the Chamber's top Supreme Court litigators bragged, "except for the solicitor general representing the United States, no single entity has more influence on what cases the Supreme Court decides and how it decides them than the National Chamber Litigation Center." This week, corporate America made three especially large wishes to the justices, and the Court's conservatives once again appear eager to grant them.

ELECTIONS FOR SALE: The best way for big business to push its agenda is to ensure that elected officials throughout the country owe wealthy corporations their jobs -- and the Supreme Court took a big step towards making this vision a reality with its infamous Citizens United decision. In the wake of Citizens United, the Chamber pledged to spend a massive $75 million to elect corporate-aligned conservatives, and the Chamber's right-wing allies kicked in hundreds of millions of dollars more. Yet Citizens United is merely one part of a much larger campaign to cement big money's control over American elections. On Monday, the justices moved on to the next stage of this effort. Public financing laws provide one of the strongest defenses against the corrupting influence of big money in politics, but public financing schemes only work if they allow candidates who opt into them to remain competitive. To defend against this problem, Arizona developed a two-tiered public financing system. Candidates receive additional funds if their opponent or corporate interest groups overwhelm them with attack ads, and thus candidates who are determined not to be tainted by the corrupting influence of major donors are not left defenseless. Yet, in a case called McComish v. Bennett, the Court's five conservatives appear poised to strike this two-tiered system down. If they do so, it could be the death knell for public financing, since no candidate is safe from massive infusions of corporate money after Citizens United.

SLAMMING COURTHOUSE DOORS: Many of the Court's most corporate-friendly decisions create complicated and arcane procedural barriers to Americans seeking justice. The Court's discredited Ledbetter decision didn't literally take away women's right to equal work for equal pay. It just created a procedural rule that made it impossible for women to vindicate their rights if they didn't learn that they were paid less than their male colleagues until a short time after the discrimination began. In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the Supreme Court will decide whether to shut off another opportunity for women in the workplace to seek relief — class actions. Class action lawsuits are brought by groups of plaintiffs who share a common injury with each other. These suits are essential to allow ordinary Americans, who often lack the resources to hire lawyers capable of taking on a major corporation on their own, to pool their resources in order to hire counsel that are capable of facing off against someone like Wal-Mart. There is substantial evidence that women who work for Wal-Mart stores shared the same experience of systematic pay and promotion discrimination and thus should be able to bring a class action. If the Supreme Court denies them this right -- which it seems likely to do -- many of them will be left powerless before Wal-Mart's legal team.

IMMUNITY TO THE LAW: Procedural victories are all well and good, but there's nothing corporate America loves more than actual immunity from the law. Past Supreme Court decisions gave sweeping legal immunity to medical device manufacturers and health insurers, and even gave the thumbs up to a biased system of corporate-owned courts that overwhelmingly rule against consumers and employees. In a case called PLIVA, Inc. v. Mensing, the justices will now decide whether to give sweeping immunity to the makers of generic prescription drugs. If the Court sides with the drug makers in this case, two women could be left with no recourse after a prescription drug caused them to develop a horrific neurological disorder resulting in "grotesque involuntary movements of the mouth, tongue, lips, and extremities, involuntary chewing movements, and a general sense of agitation." And thousands of other Americans could be left similarly defenseless against the powerful pharmaceutical industry.

Hannity Follows Trump’s Lead: Fox Host Pushes Pawlenty On Questions About Obama’s Birth

Fox News host Sean Hannity scored an interview with GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty last night, but instead of focusing on important issues, Hannity used the first third of his interview to discuss President Obama’s birth certificate, an increasing fascination of his. Pawlenty, to his credit, dismissed the myth, calling it a “big distraction” and noting that CNN had physically handled Obama’s birth certificate and published pictures of it. “Never trust CNN,” Hannity replied, before pushing Pawlenty twice more on the issue:

Caught On Tape: Republicans Touting Support For Government Shutdown

The latest continuing resolution to fund the federal government runs out on April 8. While the last six deadlines have ultimately produced a temporary budget agreement between Republicans and Democrats, both sides say they are fed up with the piece-meal approach and want to hammer out a final budget for the rest of the year.

Exclusive: Issa Secured Nearly $1 Million In Earmarks Potentially Benefiting Real Estate That He Owns

As Roll Call reported earlier this month, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has a history of blending his personal business interests with his work as a member of Congress. Companies owned by the Issa family, including a firm called DEI (an acronym for Issa’s initials), set up websites to channel users to Issa’s official congressional campaign website. After Roll Call made an ethical inquiry to Issa, he changed the website.

ThinkProgress has discovered more troubling evidence that Issa may have blended his work as a lawmaker with his own business empire. After founding a successful car alarm company, Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa’s most valuable properties, a medical office building at 2067 West Vista Way in Vista, California, is called the Vista Medical Center, and was purchased in 2008 for $16.6 million. Described as “a long-term investment,” the property was bought by a company called Viper LLC, a business entity operated by Issa’s family that Issa has up to a $25 million dollar stake in.

Around the same time, Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve the highway adjacent to the building. In 2008, he requested $2 million to expand West Vista Way, the road in front of his “long-term investment,” but only received $245,000 from the government. The next year, Issa made another earmark request for improving the West Vista Way highway next to his building. He earmarked another$570,000, bringing his total to $815,000, to add parking lots, widen the road, add bus stops, improve the sewer system, and other utility work. A map showing the location of Issa’s property, and the road, is below:

Issa has said that an “earmark is tantamount to a bribe.” While Issa has handed outearmarks to his campaign donors in the past, in this case, he appears to be helping himself.

Although the highway project has not begun yet (because of local budget problems), the federal money is allocated through Issa’s efforts. Already, a firm representing Issa’s real estate company is advertising the Vista Medical Building and its “Excellent Access with Freeway Visibility.” As ethics experts have explained, lawmakers shouldavoid earmarks in the immediate area of their own business interests.

Issa’s highway earmarks not only potentially benefit his multi-million dollar medical office building, they provide better access to his other properties in the area. About 2 miles down West Vista Way from the Vista Medical Center, Issa owns a commercialoffice building worth over $9 million, as well as an adjacent retail office building. The commercial office building leases to a number of different clients, and Issa’s retail building leases to a Hooter’s. All three properties are on the same highway, which Issa plans to retrofit with taxpayer money.

Obama's Red Rooster fundraising bash pulls in $1.5 million for Democratic National Committee

President Obama rolled into Harlem on Tuesday night for his first major Democratic dinner-for-dollars of the 2012 campaign season.

After a whirlwind day in the city, Obama attended the swank $30,800-a-plate soiree with 50 fat cats at the new Red Rooster restaurant on Lenox Ave.

The cash bash raked in a cool $1.5 million for the Democratic National Committee.

As hundreds of New Yorkers jammed the streets outside hoping to get a peek at the Prez, Obama rubbed elbows with movers and shakers inside the hot spot.

He received a standing ovation as he emerged from the kitchen after being ushered in through a back alley.

"You guys applauding for the corn bread?" he joked, before discussing a "challenging time" for the nation and the world, mentioning the Japan earthquake and the U.S. military intervention in Libya.

"I could not do what I do, making the best possible decisions I can for American people, without knowing that I had so many people rooting for me," he said.

His remarks were brief, but he pledged to visit all six tables of guests, who dined on lobster salad, braised short ribs and chocolate cake with rhubarb compote.

The fat cats chowing down at the Red Rooster shindig didn't match the racial makeup of Harlem, but a "Thank You" get-together Obama hosted after at the nearby Studio Museum was more diverse.

The Red Rooster event unofficially marks the kickoff of the 2012 political season - and serves as an early marker of Obama's moneymaking prowess. New York was a gold mine for Obama in 2008, with area residents pumping more than $42 million into his campaign war chest - an amazing feat considering he was up against hometown Sen. Hillary Clinton in a brutal primary.

The hop into Harlem offered Obama a chance to repair ties with many of New York's prominent African-American Democrats.

He angered many with his team's clumsy attempt to push then-Gov. David Paterson out of the 2010 gubernatorial race, and he rankled others by suggesting Rep. Charles Rangel resign after the congressman was censured for ethics violations last fall.

Rangel (D-Harlem) was in the crowd at the Red Rooster, and was also alongside Obama at an earlier dedication of a UN building named after late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. There, Obama also teamed up with the other Democratic presidential titan - Bill Clinton. Bubba, who had a tense relationship with Obama during the 2008 primary, couldn't have given the current President a bigger shoutout.

"He [Brown] would be very proud that Barack Obama became President of the United States, and very proud, Mr. President, of what you're doing in Libya," Clinton told Obama.

His first stop in Manhattan was at the American Museum of Natural History on the upper West Side, where Obama taped TV interviews and then addressed students at a citywide science fair. He was joined by Mayor Bloomberg.

"You are key to our success," Obama said. "What you're doing is important for our country."

Bronx High School of Science senior Max Kiss took pride in giving the President details about the bamboo bicycle he had built. "I've been riding it to school for at least two years," Kiss told Obama.

"What, they wouldn't let you bring an actual bike?" the President quipped.