Races Update
ARIZONA: Democrat Richard Carmona’s entry into the race has put this red state in play, according to a new poll. Republican Rep. Jeff Flake – “one of the GOP’s most outspoken critics of extending the payroll tax cut” – leads Carmona by just 4 points, 40-36. Carmona is receiving especially strong support from Hispanic voters, who favor him 56-19 [Full Story]
FLORIDA: A new poll of Sunshine State voters shows that Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has a 46-35 lead over Republican Connie Mack, and an even larger lead over the rest of the GOP field. The Republican primary is shaping up to be brutal slog, and whoever emerges will most likely be damaged for the general election. [Full Story]
MASSACHUSETTS: This is a state where we have a really good shot at turning a red Senate seat blue. Elizabeth Warren is building a massive following, and in recent polls, she’s either tied with or leading Wall Street’s favorite senator, Republican Scott Brown. This is definitely a race to keep your eyes on. [Full Story]
MONTANA: A brand new Montana Chamber of Commerce poll has Democratic Sen. Jon Tester leading Republican Rep. Dennis Rehberg by 5 points – and that’s after the national Chamber of Commerce ran a slew of attack ads targeting Tester. Rehberg, if you remember, is the lawmaker who sued his hometown fire department and called Pell grants “the welfare of the 21st century.” [Full Story]
NEVADA: In Nevada, a recent poll showed Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley in a dead heat with appointed Sen. Dean Heller, 45-45. In a previous poll, Heller led by 3 points. Heller has the dubious distinction of being the only lawmaker to vote for Rep. Paul Ryan’s End Medicare Plan twice – once in the House and once after he was appointed to the Senate. [Full Story]
NORTH DAKOTA: The entry of former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp into the North Dakota Senate race caused leading analysts to shift their prediction from Likely Republican to Tossup. And recent polling shows Heitkamp leading freshman GOP Rep. Rick Berg by 5 points, 47-42. In fact, only 28% of poll respondents gave Berg favorable marks, while 56% were thumbs down. [Full Story]
WISCONSIN: The most recent polling in Wisconsin shows a tossup, with Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin within the margin of error of three Republican candidates. The Republican primary in Wisconsin is hotly contested and has already become nasty, giving Baldwin the opportunity to concentrate on sharing her plan to create jobs, protect Medicare and Social Security and put middle class families first. [Full Story]
Obama Deals a Blow to Choice
Something like this should not happen with a pro-choice president in the White House.
Today, [Dec 7th,] Obama administration officials blocked a change in policy that would have helped prevent unintended teen pregnancies.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was planning to make Plan B®, a brand of emergency contraception, available to all women without a prescription. But at the last minute, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius intervened and blocked the FDA from removing an age restriction on Plan B®. What’s worse is that this interference means a policy put in place by the Bush administration will continue.
Plan B® is emergency birth control that works after sex, and could be used, for example, when the condom breaks or in the cases of rape. Medical experts agree that improving access to Plan B® by making it available over the counter for young women could help reduce teen-pregnancy rates.
When emergency contraception was first approved for over-the-counter sales, anti-choice politicians in the Bush administration intervened and blocked access to women under 18. Medical experts never stopped advocating to remove the age restriction because Plan B® is proven to be safe for women of all ages.
As we predicted, the Bush administration-imposed barrier was unworkable. For example, the rule poses a terrible problem for a young woman who is a survivor of rape or incest and does not have the option of talking with her parents if she is from a violent home or was attacked by a relative. Under the Bush-era policy, many teens still may be blocked from accessing the medication – and could face unintended pregnancies as a result.
We had every confidence that this Bush-era policy would come to an end.
That’s why today’s news is so shocking. The Obama administration has broken a key promise to the American people that it would base its decisions on sound science and what’s in the best interest of women’s health.
In solidarity,
Nancy Keenan
National News
- Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:06:51 +0000: Staying Put but Still in the Shadows - Domestic
Leah Muse-Orlinoff on why anti-immigrant laws fail to drive unauthorized immigrants out of the country. - Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:42:51 +0000: Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Supports Birth Control Provision - Domestic
Ruy Teixeira finds strong public backing for the federal requirement that insurance plans cover the full cost of birth control for women. - Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:53:15 +0000: Positive Student Outcomes in Community Schools - Domestic
Community schools that align schools and community resources are a promising strategy for improving student outcomes, write Sebastian Castrechini and Rebecca A. London. - Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:27:38 +0000: Opening Up a New World of Learning - Domestic
The Center for American Progress hosted a discussion on how open source learning tools are changing the face of higher education. - Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:41:08 +0000: Federal Judicial Emergencies - Domestic
Andrew Blotky and April Carson on the state of judicial emergencies in the nation.
The New York Times
August 31, 2011
‘Thank You, America!’
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, TRIPOLI, Libya
Americans are not often heroes in the Arab world, but as nonstop celebrations unfold here in the Libyan capital I keep running into ordinary people who learn where I’m from and then fervently repeat variants of the same phrase: “Thank you, America!”
As I was walking back from Green Square (now renamed “Martyrs’ Square”) to my hotel on Wednesday morning, a car draped in the victorious Libyan flag pulled up and offered me a lift. “I just want you to feel welcome here,” explained the driver, Sufian al-Gariani, a 21-year-old salesman. He beamed when he heard where I was from and declared: “Thank you, Americans. Thank you, President Obama.”
The hard work in Libya is only just beginning, and it’ll be a Herculean challenge to knit together tribal divisions and nurture democracy in a nation where all civil society has been squelched. The Libyan experiment could yet fail. Yet let’s also savor a historic moment: This was a rare military intervention for humanitarian reasons, and it has succeeded. So far.
President Obama took a huge political risk, averted a massacre and helped topple an odious regime. To me, the lesson is not that we should barge into Syria or Yemen — I don’t think we should — but that on rare occasions military force can advance human rights. Libya has so far been a model of such an intervention.
I drove to Tripoli from Tunisia, and the roads in some places are still insecure. Nervous rebels — occasionally child soldiers — operate frequent checkpoints, and there are long lines for gasoline.
Yet there has been great progress in the last few days. More roads and shops are opening, and Tripoli now feels reasonably safe. The biggest menace comes not from Qaddafi militias but from rebels firing automatic weapons into the air in celebration.
Most strikingly, there has been almost no looting, and little apparent retaliation against the families of loyalists to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. People have grabbed grenade-launchers from arsenals, but they haven’t helped themselves to private shops or homes (with rare exceptions, such as the homes of the Qaddafi family).
Pro-Americanism now is ubiquitous. I was particularly moved by a rebel soldier near Zuwarah in the west who asked me if New York City was safe. When I looked puzzled, he explained: “Irene. The hurricane.” And he asked how he could help.
“Without America, we would not be here,” Ismael Taweel, a businessman, told me as he stood by Martyrs’ Square with a huge grin on his face. “I hope there will be more relations between Libya and America now,” he added. That’s a common refrain: Libyans are hungry to rejoin the world.
Belgassim Ali, a petroleum engineer, told me: “I would thank America for the stance to protect my people.” Without America, he added, “we would not be celebrating. We would be in the cemetery.”
I told him that many Americans criticized Mr. Obama for the Libyan intervention, arguing that America should solve its own economic problems first. He looked pained and said: “Your money, we will give it back. We are a rich country.” He added that without American military backing, vast numbers of Libyans would have been massacred — that should count for something, he pleaded.
Some Libyans told me that they initially had distrusted the American intervention, fearing that it might turn Libya into something like war-torn Iraq. And Haithem Ahmed, a 24-year-old student with bullet wounds in his stomach and arm, disputed that the intervention was primarily humanitarian: “They didn’t do it for us,” he said. “They did it for oil.”
But, in his next breath, he added: “I love America so much. It’s the land of freedom.” That warmth toward the United States seems to have replaced the early doubts. It’s coupled with huge appreciation for other foreign supporters such as Qatar, Tunisia, France and Britain.
We Americans have seen military interventions go awry — we are still seared by Vietnam and Iraq — and caution is worthwhile, for the end of the Libya story has yet to be written. We can’t avert every atrocity, and there are legitimate arguments for investing in nation-building at home rather than abroad. In any case, our use of force will inevitably be inconsistent.
Yet to me Libya is a reminder that sometimes it is possible to use military tools to advance humanitarian causes. This was an exceptional case where we had international and local backing. The big difference with Syria and Yemen is that Libyans overwhelmingly favored our multilateral military intervention, while Syrians and Yemenis mostly don’t.
The question of humanitarian intervention is one of the knottiest in foreign policy, and it will arise again. The next time it does, let’s remember a lesson of Libya: It is better to inconsistently save some lives than to consistently save none.