TAI analyzed statistics from each state the super committee members represent to see how dependent, on average, the states’ residents, and their women, are on some of the entitlement programs they are proposing to cut. TAI predominantly relied on state-by-state information compiled by the National Women’s Law Center.

(Read more about how the current super committee plans would impact women.)

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), committee co-chair:

Sen. Patty Murray (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in six Washington residents (PDF) -– 1,089,900 people -– received disability, survivor and/or retirement benefits from Social Security in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 43 percent to 10 percent and lifted 14,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, 307,300 non-elderly women relied on Medicaid, some for pregnancy assistance or due to permanent disability. In addition, 60,600 non-elderly women were on Medicaid because not all of their health-care services were covered by Medicare.
• About 839,000 people in Washington receive benefits from Medicare; 54 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program –- which helps low-income working families afford child care -– served an average of 27,100 Washington families (PDF) with 46,400 children each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs -– which provide grants for child development and early-education programs for low-income children -– served 11,300 young children in Washington.
• In 2010, 474,700 Washington households used the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps.
• Between 2007 (PDF) (before the recession began) and 2010 (PDF), unemployment for Washington women has increased from 4.4 percent to 8.9 percent.

Sen. Max Baucus (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in five Montana residents (PDF) -– 192,700 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 60 percent to 6 percent and lifted 1,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 25,700 non-elderly women and 7,200 elderly women in Montana relied on Medicaid.
• Approximately 177,000 individuals in Montana use Medicare; 53 percent of them women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 2,400 Montana families (PDF), with 4,000 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 2,900 Montana children.
• In 2010, 51,100 Montana households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Montana (PDF) increased from 3.4 percent to 5.9 percent.

Sen. John Kerry (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in six Massachusetts residents (PDF) -– 1,140,800 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 46 percent to 11 percent and lifted 21,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 494,500 non-elderly women and 111,800 elderly women in Massachusetts were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 1,094,000 individuals in Massachusetts use Medicare; 53 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 18,300 Massachusetts families (PDF), with 24,800 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 12,700 young children in Massachusetts.
• In 2010, 407,300 Massachusetts households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Massachusetts (PDF) increased from 4.1 percent to 7.5 percent.

Rep. James Clyburn (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in five South Carolina residents (PDF) -– 924,700  people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 55 percent to 14 percent and lifted 25,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 244,200 non-elderly women and 61,700 elderly women in South Carolina were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 785,000 individuals in South Carolina use Medicare; 55 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 11,800 South Carolina families (PDF), with 20,400 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 12,200 young children in South Carolina.
• In 2010, 359,500 South Carolina households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in South Carolina (PDF) increased from 6 percent to 9.6 percent.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in eight California residents (PDF) -– 4,979,100 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 42 percent to 11 percent and lifted 100,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 3,969,600 non-elderly women and 619,600 elderly women in California were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 4,421,000 individuals in California use Medicare; 56 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 68,200 California families (PDF), with 106,900 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 97,900 young children in California.
•  In 2010, 1,391,400 California households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in California (PDF) increased from 5.2 percent to 11.3 percent.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in seven Maryland residents (PDF) -– 850,400 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 39 percent to 10 percent and lifted 11,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 217,100 non-elderly women and 52,700 elderly women in Maryland were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 703,000 individuals in Maryland use Medicare; 59 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 14,400 Maryland families (PDF), with 24,400 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 10,300 young children in Maryland.
• In 2010, 265,800 Maryland households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women (PDF) in Maryland increased from 3.9 percent to 7.4 percent.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in seven Texas residents (PDF) -– 3,440,400 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 48 percent to 15 percent and lifted 102,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 791,800 non-elderly women and 295,600 elderly women in Texas were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 2,730,000 individuals in Texas use Medicare; 55 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 66,200 Texas families (PDF), with 121,600 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 67,600 young children in Texas.
•  In 2010, 1,407,100 Texas households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Texas (PDF) increased from 4.8 percent to 7.9 percent.

Rep. Dave Camp (Wikimedia Commons)

Reps. Dave Camp(R-Mich.) and

Rep. Fred Upton (Wikimedia Commons)

Fred Upton (R-Mich.)

• One in five Michigan residents (PDF) –- 1,964,900 people –- received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 54 percent to 9 percent and lifted 34,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 534,900 non-elderly women and 97,600 elderly women in Michigan were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 1,454,000 individuals in Michigan use Medicare; 56 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 37,000 Michigan families (PDF), with 71,800 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 34,200 young children in Michigan.
• In 2010, 865,500 Michigan households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Michigan (PDF) has increased from 7.1 percent to 9.9 percent.

Sen Jon Kyl (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in six Arizona residents (PDF) –- 1,067,700 people people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 46 percent to 13 percent and lifted 18,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 433,200 non-elderly women and 63,900 elderly women in Arizona were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 848,000 individuals in Arizona use Medicare; 58 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 19,900 Arizona families (PDF), with 32,700 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 12,900 young children in Arizona.
• In 2010, 439,400 Arizona households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Arizona (PDF) increased from 4.0 percent to 9.4 percent.

Sen. Pat Toomey (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in five Pennsylvania residents (PDF) –- 2,577,700 people people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 54 percent to 12 percent and lifted 49,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 610,600 non-elderly women and 168,400 elderly women in Pennsylvania were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 2,060,000 individuals in Pennsylvania use Medicare; 57 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 54,900 Pennsylvania families (PDF), with 93,900 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 35,300 young children in Pennsylvania.
• In 2010, 740,200 Pennsylvania households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Pennsylvania (PDF) increased from 3.7 percent to 7.6 percent.

Sen. Rob Portman (Wikimedia Commons)

• One in five Ohio residents (PDF) -– 2,124,700 people -– received Social Security benefits in 2010, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
• Social Security reduced the poverty rate for women 65 and older from 53 percent to 10 percent and lifted 47,000 children out of poverty.
• In 2008, about 570,500 non-elderly women and 131,200 elderly women in Ohio were on Medicaid.
• Approximately 1,802,000 individuals in Ohio use Medicare; 54 percent of them are women.
• In 2009, the CCDBG served approximately 29,800 Ohio families (PDF), with 51,700 children, each month.
• In 2009, Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs served 37,100 young children in Ohio.
• In 2010, 751,300 Ohio households were beneficiaries of the SNAP program.
• Between 2007 and 2010, unemployment for women in Ohio (PDF) increased from 5.1 percent to 8.5 percent.

Photo: Flickr/longislandwins

In the case of today’s long-term deficit-reduction negotiations in Congress –- currently being deliberated by the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or “super committee” –- Congress is Dwight, Nov. 23 is Dwight’s 5 p.m. (the sequester deadline, i.e., the trigger mechanism that would make $1.2 trillion across-the-board cuts), and both scenarios can be nipped in the bud by their respective creators.

Time is running out for the super committee, appointed to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next decade, and if — as many news outlets are predicting — they fail to come up with a solid plan within the next nine days, Congress will plan to slash $600 billion from defense spending and $600 billion from domestic programs excluding Social Security and Medicaid, including cuts to Medicare payments to hospitals and other providers, come the 2013 budget.

The American Independent recently reported on how certain GOP presidential candidates’ proposed tax-policy plans would disproportionately affect women, who tend to earn lower wages and depend more on entitlement programs than men. This week, TAI takes a look at how the super committee’s proposal could disproportionately impact women.

What’s on the table?

Reporting that has emerged from the closed-door super committee meetings reveals the six Democrats on the panel are generally insistent on raising revenues from tax increases; wish to end the Bush-era tax cuts; and preserve Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The six Republicans, meanwhile, have slowly begun to discuss revenues but are opposed to achieving them through tax cuts; want to make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts; and are pushing to restructure how Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are paid for in the future.

Roll Call details the latest in negotiations: Last week panel member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) proposed a $1.2 trillion plan comprising $700 billion in cuts and $500 billion in revenues (half of the revenues would come from $250 billion in “tax code reform’). The most recent Democratic offer is a $2.3 trillion reduction plan over 10 years involving $1 trillion in revenues (including tax hikes) and $400 billion in “entitlement reform.”

Still they remain at an impasse.

But as Politico recently reported, despite having the power to dismantle the doomsday device, the president won’t take it. According to a White House statement, on Friday Obama called super committee co-chairs Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb. Hensarling (R-Texas) to tell them he will refuse attempts to override the automatic cuts if the panel can’t complete the task. (In the “Office” episode, Dwight makes the same promise after the staff does fail, but he caves at the 11th hour.)

“The sequester was agreed to by both parties to ensure there was a meaningful enforcement mechanism to force a result from the Committee,” Obama said in the statement. “Congress must not shirk its responsibilities.”

Lobbying ladies

One prediction if the super committee fails is that industries and special-interest groups will spend a year before the trigger takes effect lobbying Congress to reconsider cuts to specific programs. The Hill forecasts heavy lobbying from the Pentagon, defense contractors, liberal activists and labor unions.

Women’s advocacy groups have already begun voicing suggestions as to how to trim spending without devastating the neediest Americans, many of whom happen to be single women with children.

Early this month, National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O’Neill blasted the super committee’s “irresponsible proposals,” referring to assumptions the Republican members on the committee are pushing for Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan-style changes to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while, at the same time, opposing tax increases on corporations and millionaires. O’Neill similarly censured proposals she had heard from the Democratic side:

[I]t’s beyond distressing to see some Democrats knuckling under and now embracing plans that would cause great hardship on retirees — mainly women, particularly women of color, as well as people with severe disabilities and our oldest seniors. The Democrats’ proposal would change the [Social Security Cost-of-Living adjustment] (COLA) so that monthly benefits are dramatically reduced, further impoverishing the millions of seniors who depend exclusively on their Social Security check. Medicare would be cut by $400 billion (on top of the $500 billion savings adopted in the Affordable Care Act), and Medicaid would be cut by $75 billion. … There’s not much worse than taking from the most vulnerable in society to pay for a deficit caused by a failure to tax millionaires and billionaires and waging two unfunded wars.

So what does NOW want the super committee to do?

• Preserve COLA and minimize cuts to programs that disproportionately serve and employ women, among them Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps; college-tuition-assistance programs, child care; and family planning programs.
• End Bush-era tax cuts.
• Eliminate the payroll tax cap, which would raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), a think thank that focuses on women’s domestic issues, has ideas of how to improve women’s economic standing in this country — ideas that likely contradict proposals the super committee members have been tossing around. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although men have regained nearly 30 percent of the jobs they lost during the recession, women have regained only 10 percent of the jobs they lost. In July, men earned 136,000 jobs; women lost 19,000.

Among IWPR proposals, as laid out in a September 2011 report titled “Recommendations for Improving Women’s Employment in the Recovery”:

• Make federal transfers available to state and local governments to replace lost revenues and allow them to hire back the teachers, case workers, nurses and others they have laid off.
• Expand the length of the school day and school year.
• Create an “Urban Conservation Corps” — programs partnering labor unions with inner-city youth with the goal of bring skills and employment opportunities to young women and men.
• Fund child care.
• Adopt tax incentives for businesses that offer their employees “work-life balance.”
• Expand unemployment insurance benefits for workers with reduced working hours.
• Expand employment for women in male-dominated fields, such as construction, transportation and green energy
• Increase funding for jobs that provide direct care to children, disabled adults and the elderly. (According to the Economic Policy Institute (PDF), investments in physical infrastructure and human capital, such as early childhood development, education, health care, job training, would create jobs for women and men and contribute to long-term economic growth.)

Over at the National Women’s Law Center, the general position on the super committee proceedings is that the panel should promote job growth and strengthen the economy while simultaneously protecting programs that women and their families depend on now and in old age — women in general depend on Medicare and Medicaid at higher rates than men, and two-thirds of SNAP recipients are female, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (PDF).

Specifically the NWLC wants:

• Reduced tax breaks for oil and gas industries and corporations that move jobs and profits overseas.
• New tax brackets for annual income starting above $1 million and taxing income from capital gains and dividends at the same rate as income from work for taxpayers with income above $1 million.
• A small tax on financial transactions such as stock trades — to raise revenue but also to discourage short-term speculation. According to the Economic Policy Institute and the Century Foundation, a 0.5 percent tax on stock transactions would raise about $77 billion per year; a 0.5 percent tax on all financial transactions (options, futures, swap transactions) would raise approximately $150 billion per year.
• An extension on federal emergency unemployment benefits.

But for now, what women want — what all Americans want, and they all want different things — is in the hands of 12 under-pressure representatives and senators. And the clock is ticking.

Photo: Flickr/AMagill

In its brief with the court (pdf), Catholic Answers argues that, in seeking to establish the legality of the group’s claim to tax-exempt status, the IRS has forced the group to continue to refile refund claims for years, effectively postponing a decision in the matter and thereby “chilling speech.”

Tax-exempt nonprofit groups such as churches are barred from performing express political candidate advocacy. They can take up political issues, however, and in championing charged issues like abortion, for example, the line separating advocacy for an anti-abortion position and the Republican Party generally has become thinner and thinner.

Catholic Answers calls itself an “apostolate,” by which it means it is carrying on its educational and evangelical mission with the Church’s blessing, although none of its members are ordained. Established in 1979, the group produces books, magazines, videos and a daily radio show on Church teachings and Church positions on issues of the day.

The group is being represented in its case against the IRS by high-profile religious-right attorney James Bopp, a reported adviser to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Bopp advised Citizens United in its now-famous campaign finance case. He also defended the national anti-abortion organization Susan B Anthony List in a defamation suit filed by former Congressman Steve Driehaus. Bopp has also served as general counsel for National Right to Life and as special counsel for Focus on the Family.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

Education Week, published by the nonprofit Editorial Projects in Education, asks: So who in the education world has given a lot of money to these supercommittee members?

According to the publication, “the National Education Association, NEA gave $297,650 to supercommittee members from 1989 to 2011. Eighty-nine percent of that money went to the Democrats on the supercommittee, while just about 10 percent of it went to Republicans.” Education Week adds: “The American Federation of Teachers wasn’t far behind, with $215,950 in donations, all of it to the committee’s Democrats. That puts the AFT at 68th on the list of top 100 donors.”

Education Week also reports that “the Club for Growth, a political action committee that supports candidates who favor low-taxes and slimmed down government” is the top contributor, with more than $1 million given from 1989 through 2011. All of its contributions went to the committee’s Republicans. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., is a committee member and a former president of the Club for Growth.

OpenSecrets — a website of campaign contribution data run by the Center for Responsive Politics — shows that the top 100 contributors to supercommittee members include agribusiness, communications/electronics, construction, defense, energy/natural resources, finance, bankers, Realtors, health, lawyers, lobbyists and transportation industries.

The supercommittee is co-chaired by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

Senate members include: Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., John Kerry, D-Mass., John Kyl, R-Ariz, and Rob Portman, R-Ohio (former head of the Office of Management and Budget).

Education Week adds that other House Republican members include Reps. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Dave Camp, R-Mich. House Democrats on the committee include Reps. Xavier Becerra of California, James Clyburn of South Carolina, and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) last week launched a campaign to prevent gay men from donating blood. Keep the Gay Blood Ban (KGB²) was sparked, LaBarbera says, because of “renewed lobby efforts to open up the U.S. blood supply to homosexuality-practicing men.”

Since 1983*, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned blood donations frommen who have ever had sex with men and women who have ever had sex with men who have had sex with men. In 2010, 40 members of Congress called on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to lift the ban on gay men donating blood. However, LaBarbera only mentioned Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), “who represents the homosexual Boystown neighborhood in Chicago,” in hisKGB² launch article on AFTAH’s website.

Last year, the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety & Availability for HHS recommended the ban not be lifted, due to lack of sufficient data to support revising the policy. The committee did, however, recommend further research into a possible ban lift, at least for “low-risk” gay and bisexual men. And just last month HHS announced that following the studies’ completion, a comprehensive evidence-based policy evaluation will begin.

In Kerry’s original letter to the committee, he was joined by medical experts at the American Red Cross, America’s Blood Centers and the American Medical Association in the position that the current blood donor policy (PDF) is discriminatory and “medically and scientifically unwarranted,” pointing out that heterosexual individuals who engage in risky sexual behavior are not subjected to a lifetime ban as gay men are. For example, heterosexual individuals who have had sex with HIV-positive individuals are only banned for a one-year period, as are heterosexual individuals who have had sex for money.

“Sadly, Sen. Kerry and others crusading against the homosexual blood ban do so on the basis that the ban is mainly about ‘anti-gay discrimination’ rather than preserving public health,” LaBarbera wrote in the article.

The thrust of LaBarbera’s call to continue banning gay men from donating blood is apubic health flier about anal sex between men (PDF) produced by Asian Health Services and funded by the California AIDS Clearinghouse.

The flier -– which graphically describes various sex practices and positions, accompanied by images of LEGO-style men demonstrating such positions — discusses health risks of oral, anal and oral-anal sex between men and speaks to the importance of using a condom to prevent the spread of disease.

LaBarbera implies that the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases is common for all gay men, quoting from the flier: “Anal sex is the riskiest sexual activity for getting/spreading HIV.” He does not, however, quote the rest of that paragraph: “That risk goes up if you have more sex partners, if you f*** without a condom or if you have sex with someone who has HIV.”

LaBarbera writes:

[F]ew seem interested in investigating – much less restricting – the actual high-risk homosexual practices and deviant behaviors depicted and described in this (pro-‘gay’) flier, which crassly helps explain the immense heath [sic] risks of male homosexuality We excerpt this flier – vulgar slang references and all – to help educate the public as to how this lifestyle is so dangerous that men who practice it must be kept from the nation’s blood supply.

LaBarbera asks readers to contact their U.S. senators and representatives and ask them “to put the safety of Americans – and a pristine blood supply – ahead of the demands of the selfish Homosexuality Lobby.” He also wants congressional leaders to launch an investigation “into the health hazards of homosexual behaviors (just as the government studied the dangers of smoking).”

AFTAH defines itself as “a group dedicated to exposing the homosexual activist agenda.” Its nonprofit status was recently revoked by the Internal Revenue Service for failure to comply with IRS nonprofit filing requirements.

The Southern Poverty Law Center still defines AFTAH as a hate group (among 29 others in the Illinois, where the organization is based).

*Correction: TAI previously reported that the FDA banned gay men from donating blood, for a lifetime, in 1977. In fact, this policy on “men who have sex with other men” began in 1983; 1977 — deemed the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the U.S. — is the cutoff year for “men who have sex with other men.” In other words, men who stopped having sex with other men before 1977 can donate blood. We regret the error.

The Leahy plan sends a message not just to Mubarak but also to the Obama administration. Charged with managing the fraught relationship the U.S. has maintained for decades with the Middle Eastern public and with Middle Eastern dictators, Obama has tread softly as the streets of Egypt have turned into a battleground and as the Egyptian authorities have trained their high-grade American-made weapons on the protesters. The back-stage diplomacy and front-stage brutality have (some would say at last after decades) given rise to frustration, including on the part of the U.S. lawmakers pushing for an end, at least, to our financing the Mubarak regime.

Democrats spearheading the proposal to cut funding from Egypt– Leahy, as well as Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry and Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett– have asked Mubarak to leave office immediately. Leahy said Mubarak had “no credibility” even to oversee a transition.

News coming fast from the streets of Cairo, however, may overtake the Leahy proposal.

Speculation jamming the internet Friday as evening curfew arrived in Egypt was that weary Mubarak would announce any minute that he was in fact stepping aside, but that speculation and the energy it produced now is fading.

Meantime, images from the streets tell the story. Nevine Zaki posting photos at yFrog is pleading with al Jazeera journalists to use her photos in their stories.

This one captures Christian Egyptian protesters forming a human cordon around Muslim Egyptian protesters so they could take time to pray.

And more vivid images documenting the violence.

Zaki’s caption: “@ajelive please use this, the police IS using violence & are hitting people left & right ”

“These are not rubber bullets.”

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

From the Globe:

Yet even as scientists confirm the extraordinary success of the 1990 acid rain legislation, some say its lessons are being ignored. Politicians failed this year to pass legislation on the wider threat of global warming in large part because of Republican ridicule of the bill’s “cap-and-trade’’ approach — capping emissions and letting companies trade credits earned by cutting pollution. Yet it was a similar strategy, devised by a Republican president, that solved the acid rain puzzle.

The effort to pass an acid rain cap-and-trade program, which was masterminded by George H. W. Bush, faced the same criticisms that a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions faces today: It will ruin the economy, opponents said then, and say now. But, in the end, the program did not result in such far-reaching economic impacts.

According to the Globe:

An American Electric Power official told the Globe the legislation could lead to “the potential destruction of the Midwest economy.’’ Such fears proved wildly overblown. The $2 billion annual cost of the acid rain controls is about one-fourth the initial estimate, due in part to the lower-than-expected cost of controlling pollution. Competition sprang up to produce highly efficient, lower-cost scrubbers, and rail lines competed to bring lower-sulfur coal from Western states to the Midwest.

So, what makes this time different? Why did the acid rain program succeed while the cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions went down in a ball of flames in the Senate?

One reason the Globe offers — and it’s been echoed by others — is that President Obama did not offer a clear plan from which Congress could work.

The Globe says:

Republicans say the Obama administration should have taken a lesson from the way Bush pushed the acid rain bill.  Bush staked out a clear position, filing a bill that called for halving emissions, and using it as a basis for negotiations with Congress. “A president has to lead — and at times be firm,’’ Bush said in the interview. “Once we achieved our key objectives, we were more open to compromise to get a final bill passed.’’  Obama, by contrast, did not send a climate-change bill to Congress. Instead, he laid out key concepts and urged legislators to work out their differences.

Our sister publication The Florida Independent notes that LeMieux pushed back against the New Yorker story on Twitter today:

NewYorker piece is wrong. Care about energy indep, but never favored cap & tax– would cost Florida familes 30% ^ in energy costs.

LeMieux’s support for the cap-and-trade bill that was crafted by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could have been the extra push the bill needed to move forward. But it’s ultimately unclear how much LeMieux’s support would have helped, given that Graham himself pulled his support for the bill after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations. At the same time, the New Yorker story also highlights a number of instances where the White House and the senators were not on the same page in terms of their climate strategy.

The story, by Ryan Lizza, is nearly 10,000 words, but it’s definitely worth a read. It documents, in extensive detail, how the White House and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and (at least for a time) Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) were often not on the same page as they tried to hash out a climate bill.

For instance, the White House announced a plan in March to open up new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling. The plan was announced while Kerry, Graham and Lieberman were simultaneously negotiating a plan to open up more drilling in exchange for key industry groups’ support for their climate bill.

But, Lizza reports, the White House made its drilling announcement without consulting the senators, taking away their leverage in negotiations with industry.

Since Obama took office, ten of the most active conservative donors identified by a POLITICO analysis have contributed $19 million to Republican candidates and the political committees that boost them — a pace that far eclipses their giving at this point in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, according to professional fundraisers, as well as anything big Democratic donors have done.

That number includes donor’s personal contributions, as well as contributions from their immediate family members and corporations, but it doesn’t include whatever amount of money they may have given to section 501(c)4 groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Job Security, which under current law (and the FEC interpretation of it) aren’t required to reveal their donors.

The top donors include Texas homebuilder Bob Perry ($2.9 million), billionaire investor Harold Simmons ($2.7 million), natural gas billionaire Trevor Rees-Jones ($2.3 billion) and former Univision chairman Jerry Pernchio ($1.8 million). You can see the whole list along with short bios here.