A Funny Kind Of Populist


The rhetoric is merely going to ramp up.       Fresh off an astonishing day of victories in three states, Rick Santorum, who as a Virginia resident represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate, will continue to be described favorably by the mainstream media.       The characterization by Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times was typical when today he remarked "Mr. Santorum, whose appeal has been built on a populist message and a loyal following among conservative voters..."    

Rick Santorum for months has been described as a "populist," the candidate promoting a "populist message," or embodying "populism."     Beyond the easy labels, however, lies an ugly reality.         Dictionary.com defines populism as "A political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite."        ABC News' blog The Note tells of an appearance in Colorado in which

GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies.   Santorum, himself the father of a child with a rare genetic disorder, compared buying drugs to buying an iPad, and said demand would determine the cost of medical therapies. 
“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” Santorum said, “but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”

The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.    Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs.

“You have that drug, and maybe you’re alive today because people have a profit motive to make that drug,” Santorum said. “There are many people sick today who, 10 years from now, are going to be alive because of some drug invented in the next 10 years. If we say: ‘You drug companies are greedy and bad, you can’t make a return on your money,’ then we will freeze innovation.”

Santorum told a large Tea Party crowd here that he sympathized with the boy’s case, but he also believed in the marketplace.    “He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” Santorum said. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here. I sympathize with these compassionate cases. … I want your son to stay alive on much-needed drugs. Fact is, we need companies to have incentives to make drugs. If they don’t have incentives, they won’t make those drugs. We either believe in markets or we don’t.”

Perhaps the journalists who label Santorum a populist don't believe that children in need of lifesaving care qualify as people, or that drug companies are among the privileged elite.  But as Marcia Angell explained in The New York Review of Books in 2004

Drug companies reveal very little about the most crucial aspects of their business. We know next to nothing about how much they spend to bring each drug to market or what they spend it on. (We know that it is not $802 million, as some industry apologists have recently claimed.) Nor do we know what their gigantic “marketing and administration” budgets cover. We don’t even know the prices they charge their various customers. Perhaps most important, we do not know the results of the clinical trials they sponsor—only those they choose to make public, which tend to be the most favorable findings. (The FDA is not allowed to reveal the results it has.) The industry claims all of this is “proprietary” information. Yet, unlike other businesses, drug companies are dependent on the public for a host of special favors—including the rights to NIH-funded research, long periods of market monopoly, and multiple tax breaks that almost guarantee a profit. Because of these special favors and the importance of its products to public health, as well as the fact that the government is a major purchaser of its products, the pharmaceutical industry should be regarded much as a public utility.

That seems to be a pretty good description of a "privileged elite," and one Rick Santorum heartily defends.         And if the ex-Senator believes that we must place our undying faith in the "market," no matter its excesses, he might want to be reminded of what one apparent liberal a couple of thousand years ago thought of market excesses:

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.     It is written "My house shall be called a house of prayer but you make it a den of robbers."

But to Rick Santorum, who believes "we either believe in markets or we don't,"  Jesus Christ might not be the only god worthy of worship.

   






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Dash For Cash



He was wrong about Sarah Palin (except he noticed right away how attractive she is); wrong enough, that it alone should have disqualified his ticket from serious electoral consideration.

He wasn't wrong, however, about campaign finance reform.     In January, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) asserted "As you know, I think the outside super PACs and others is so disgraceful that I'm ashamed of the United States Supreme Court in their decision on United.....   I predict to you there will be a major scandal associated with the Supreme Court decision on Citizens versus United. There is too much money washing around."         A few days later, appearing on Meet The Press, he labeled the ruling an "outrage" and blasted the Supreme Court's "naivete."      

Responding to the specter (not Arlen) of a GOP general election campaign, the Obama campaign, as it revealed in an e-mail from Jim Messina (not this Jim Messina) to the pro-Obama Talking Points Memo

has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC. We will do so only in the knowledge and with the expectation that all of its donations will be fully disclosed as required by law to the Federal Election Commission.

What this change means practically: Senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events. While campaign officials may be appearing at events to amplify our message, these folks won't be soliciting contributions for Priorities USA. I should also note that the President, Vice President, and First Lady will not be a part of this effort; their political activity will remain focused on the President's campaign.

The decision by the Obama campaign to accept SuperPac funding is a nearly unavoidable response to the huge amount of dough being raised by Newt Gingrich and (especially) Mitt Romney in their battle for the GOP nomination, and Repub determination to raise far more than that in the general election campaign.      

Fighting with one hand tied behind the back is self-defeating.     While the campaign's decision is not sufficient to avoid defeat, it is necessary.         Notwithstanding the poor impression the American electorate has of Mitt Romney and the possibility of an improving economy, relying on small donations- as did Senator Obama in 2008- would spell defeat for President Obama in 2012.

It didn't have to be thus.     The first blow against sane campaign financing was struck by Barack Obama himself when in the last cycle, he turned down federal matching funds, instead basing his funding on small donations.        Democrats found the proliferation of small donations to be altruistic and exciting while Republicans, generally hostile to public financing because it would reduce the corporate stranglehold on American government, were tongue-tied..      But it forced McCain-Palin to forego federal financing and the race was on.

The major blow against sensible campaign financing- and against American democracy itself- came by way of Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission which, understandably and justifiably, the co-author of McCain-Feingold rails against.           Soon after that landmark ruling, a federal appeals court in SpeechNow.org v. Federal Elections Commission, "as guided by Citizens United" ruled that corporations, unions, associations, and individuals can raise an unlimited amount of money and spend it to advocate for or against political candidates.     

That gave birth to SuperPacs,  which, as Messina suggests, must report the source of its donations to the FEC.      Messina's wording, however, is ambiguous; he states "as required by law" and the law includes a loophole allowing donors not to be identified.

No one is surprised that vulture capitalist Mitt Romney, who infamously declared "corporations are people, my friend" has applauded the decision in Citizens United.         Nor should we surprised that, in his zeal to pander to the far right which now dominates his party, Romney on Tuesday argued that the Susan G. Komen Foundation should have stuck to its decision to end to Planned Parenthood the funding it had provided for maintenance of women's health because "we're subsidizing an institution that is providing abortion."      He rationalized "I am a pro-life individual.     I was a pro-life governor, served as a pro-life governor.    I'm a pro-life candidate.    I simply do not want to participate in anything that takes away the life of an unborn child."

It's ironic that in a statement opposing measures which protect women's health and life, Romney contends he is "pro-life," and is one more reminder of the stakes in the 2012 presidential election.     We wish that Romney means little of what he has said as a candidate and, if elected president, would not remember what he advocated.      But the Republican nominee publicly supports Citizens United, would express (if actually asked) unequivocal opposition to public financing, and is determined to gobble up as much cash (more likely checks, and we accept major credit cards) as possible.    So there is only one road for the Obama campaign to take, and its GPS is fully operative.

  



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War, Hardly


Bypassing the War Powers Resolution and Article 8 of the United States Constitution, President Obama has declared war.

The Administration has decided that institutions such as Roman Catholic hospitals and universities, whose employees of varying religions are assisted by tax money as they serve individuals of various religions, are not exempt from the requirement under the Affordable Care Act to provide contraceptive care.    

"The war on religion is now formally declared," claims conservative columnist Michael Gerson, who charges

Both radicalism and maliciousness are at work in Obama's decision- an edict delivered with a sneer.   It is the most transparently anti-Catholic maneuver by the federal government since the Blaine Amendment was proposed in 1875- a measure designed to diminish public tolerance of Romanism, then regarded as foreign, authoritarian and illiberal.   Modern liberalism has progressed to the point of adopting the attitudes and methods of 19-century Republican nativists.

Gerson needn't have reached back to the 19th century to identify a Republican nativist, given the party's second leading presidential candidate, who accused the first black President of an "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview.        "Delivered with a sneer" is, however, a nice touch, pleasantly departing from the standard accusations that the President is "elitist" or "arrogant."

Summoning a heap of righteous indignation, Gerson argues

Consider Catholicism’s most prominent academic leader, the Rev. John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame. Jenkins took a serious risk in sponsoring Obama’s 2009 honorary degree and commencement address — which promised a “sensible” approach to the conscience clause. Jenkins now complains, “This is not the kind of ‘sensible’ approach the president had in mind when he spoke here.” Obama has made Jenkins — and other progressive Catholic allies — look easily duped. 

Yes, do consider the commencement address given by Barack Obama at Notre Dame University, which had to undergo in May of 2009 the humility, the shame, and the embarrassment of having to host the President of the United States and leader of the Free World.    

Gerson's definition of "duped" is extraordinarily liberal- uh, er, expansive, inasmuch as Obama had acknowledged that his views and those of the pro-life camp are somewhat "irreconcilable."      Michael Shear of Gerson's own newspaper, The Washington Post, reported

Obama appeared energized by the controversy over his appearance, and he addressed the debate over abortion with relish. He pleaded for courtesy in the dialogue even as he acknowledged that "at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable."

It doesn't appear that the President directly addressed at Notre Dame the issue of birth control, perhaps because he believed that it was largely a settled issue when nearly 70% of Catholic women use sterilization, the birth control pill, or an IUD.        Obama did address the conscience clause, stating "let's...draft a sensible conscience clause."      But he did so in the context of abortion, urging  "Let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. Let's reduce unintended pregnancies. Let's make adoption more available. . . ."

A compromise has been reached, one far from "a power grab" and "view of religious liberty so narrow and privatized..."         The requirement to provide contraceptive services still exempts a religious employer, defined as one which has "the inculcation of religious values as  their purpose," employing "primarily" individuals who "share its religious tenets" and which "primarily serves persons who share its religious tenets."      The Roman Catholic Church qualifies.     Roman Catholic-affiliated institutions, with employees of all backgrounds serving members of the public without regard to their religious beliefs, do not.    

Failing to distinguish between beliefs and behavior, Gerson alleges this forces administrators "to forfeit their most fundamental beliefs."       The regulation does not force individuals to believe anything, only not to be privileged with an exemption from guidelines applicable to all other institutions.  And it advances the goal Obama noted- which he naively thought the anti-abortion protesters at Notre Dame supported- of reducing unintended pregnancies and the number of women seeking abortions.








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Institutional Rights



Ages ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and George F. Will was a reasonable, moderate, and relatively non-partisan conservative, Will profoundly wrote "rights inhere in individuals and do not derive in membership in government-favored minority groups."

Though the columnist then was arguing against an affirmative action provision, the concept ironically has prevailed- inadvertently- in a courageous decision recently made by Barack Obama, a president for whom Will has unconcealed contempt.      

Under terms of the Affordable Care Act, all new government-mandated health insurance policies must include preventive services, including contraception, at no additional cost.     In January, the Department of Health and Human Services chose to maintain the narrow religious exemption to organizations (as explained here) "whose primary purpose is to instill religious values and who employ and serve people with the same religious beliefs."

Roman Catholic hospitals and universities employ individuals of varying faiths, and so are not exempt.    Nor should they be, notwithstanding howls of protests from its supporters and the Church's vow to "end this mandate."

The Church seemingly would like the federal government to impose upon its followers what  its teachings have been unable to accomplish.       Joan Walsh, herself Catholic, believes "we need to preach what we practice" and explains

Obviously, the law won’t force Catholics to use contraception. And 98 percent of Catholics already practice birth control (and not the “natural family planning” kind), according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute. It’s not as though Catholics are an endangered minority of true believers being forced to transgress a fervently held and widely practiced church rule. This battle is over a Catholic Church teaching that even Catholics ignore almost unanimously.

The Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger claims DHS has "effectively denied conscience protections to church-run schools, hospitals and social service agencies."       She believes that church institutions must have a singular right- a conscience protection- to impose policies reflective of church dogma, even if contrary to the collective will of the American people as expressed in legislation.        Katha Pollitt asks rhetorically, "Are Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other pacifists exempt from taxes that pay for war and weapons? Can Scientologists, who abhor psychiatry, deduct the costs of the National Institute of Mental Health?"         The Roman Catholic Church maintains, Pollitt notes, "institutions that employ, teach and care for millions of people, for which it gets oceans of public money."     To their benefit and ours, their consciences do not interfere with the pursuit of financial support from taxpayers of the myriad of faiths which make up the American mosaic.

Henneberger, further,  wrongly implies that constitutional rights inhere in schools, hospitals, and agencies.     But rights, as Will long ago observed, adhere only in individuals.        Digby notes

We ostensibly believe in rights and liberties in America and have a set of rules in our constitution guaranteeing them. But lately, we've decided that these phony constructs of institutional rights and liberties --- "corporate personhood","conscience of the church" --- actually supercede individual rights and liberties. I don't mean to evoke the sacred founders here, but I'm afraid they would say that idea is, in their words, total bullshit. They knew very well that the government wasn't the only possible oppressor. 500 years of bloody European religious history had taught them that.

Zealous of protecting the rights of individuals and "the people," the framers neglected to include in the Bill of Rights advocacy of privileges of groups or corporations.     Nor did they guarantee a right of any one church or even of religion generally, but instead the freedom of an individual to worship freely.       Whatever the legal, political, or moral motivation of Administration officials, they got this one right.






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Less Concern Than Dagger



Liberals were aghast.    Conservatives were appalled.

Or perhaps liberals were appalled and conservatives were aghast when Mitt Romney stated to CNN anchorperson Soledad O'Brien

And, by the way, I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich; they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.

In either case, on Thursday night Mitt Romney told Nevada reporter Jon Ralston (who becomes famous every four years about this time)

Well, what I said was that my focus, my primary focus, is on helping people get in the middle class and grow the middle class.    That we have a safety net that cares for the poor, I want to keep that safety net strong and able.   The wealthy are doing just fine.   But we really need to focus on the middle income people in this country.     And you know what, if people are going to go after me when I make a mistake- when I slip up on a word I say, even when I say I got it wrong, sorry, that's not what I meant- you know that's part of the political process and I understand that.  

Mission accomplished.       Romney saying only "I got it wrong,"  a moment earlier had told Ralston

I misspoke.   I've said something that is similar to that, but quite acceptable, for a long time. And you know, when you do I don't know how many thousands of interviews, now and then you may get it wrong.

Shorter Romney:    "I worded it wrong, politically, this time."       Nevertheless Romney, though frightened of the phrase "middle class," has done what Republicans, recognizing that their policies have been undermining the middle class, have been reluctant to do:   utter the phrase "middle income."        So if the leading GOP presidential candidate is devoted to strengthening the middle class- even while neglecting the lower class- it is a major advance in the cause of pluralism and economic equality.

He isn't, of course.     And the social safety net he notes "cares for the poor" applies to the middle class, also.       In December, Romney touted the Paul Ryan Destroy Medicare Plan, claiming it "sets the right tone," and promising to sign it as President.      

Months earlier, Paul  Krugman had noted 

Take, for example, the statement that the Ryan plan would end Medicare as we know it. This may have Republicans screaming “Mediscare!” but it’s the absolute truth: The plan would replace our current system, in which the government pays major health costs, with a voucher system, in which seniors would, in effect, be handed a coupon and told to go find private coverage.

The new program might still be called Medicare — hey, we could replace government coverage of major expenses with an allowance of two free aspirins a day, and still call it “Medicare” — but it wouldn’t be the same program. And if the cost estimates of the Congressional Budget Office are at all right, the inadequate size of the vouchers — which by 2030 would cover only about a third of seniors’ health costs — would leave many if not most older Americans unable to afford essential care.  

Representative Ryan proposed to cut the top individual tax rate from 35% to 25% while keeping overall tax revenues the same.      That can be accomplished only by raising taxes on the middle and working classes.        According to this table from Citizens for Tax Justice, if the Ryan plan were law and in effect in 2011, the tax rate for each income group but the top 10% of the population would rise have risen, at an average of 4.6%, while dropping for the top 10%.    

Romney promises to repeal "Obamacare" and with it, the expansion of health care to approximately 30 million Americans, through expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to people who need them.     He also applauds right-to-work laws and other efforts at undermining unions.  A President Romney would need to support the social safety net; as we have seen the past few decades, as union membership and power decline, the middle class declines with it.       The chart below, from the Center for American Progress, displays vividly the close correlation between the decline of union membership and the middle class' share of national income.

While Romney apparently envisions presiding over the dissolution of the middle class, he is blissfully unaware of current conditions in the U.S.A.      It's hard to imagine the middle class making up 90-95%  of the population when the latest statistics indicate 15.1% of Americans living below the poverty level.  

Still, Mitt Romney's admitted lack of concern (hardly surprising) for the poor is insignificant next to his advocacy of policies which would add appreciably to their number.
   

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Come Clean, Conservatives


Would the anti-abortion rights movement suffer by including honesty in its argument? Apparently it believes so.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has announced that it will no longer provide grants to affiliates of Planned Parenthood, the nearly $700,000 used to provide manual breast exams and referrals for mammograms and biopsies.        Last April, Komen hired as its senior vice president Karen G. Handel who, as a failed candidate for the Repub nomination for governor, told Georgians "since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood."

Instead of owning up to its motivation, however, the organization first contended that it cut off funding because of   a new policy prohibiting support for any organization under government investigation.    The investigation, led by U.S. Representative Cliff Stearns (R-Fl), is described by The Daily Beast's Michelle Goldberg as "a highly partisan affair based solely on evidence from anti-abortion groups," which are continuing their vendetta against health services for poor women Planned Parenthood.     (Komen later claimed that it was doing a favor for women.)

Susan G. Komen, however, has an opportunity to demonstrate its sincerity.     It has been pledged a minimum of $1,000,000 from February 2012 through May 2015 from Bank of America, currently under investigation by four states for financial fraud or other wrongdoing, and soon by the federal government for its behavior leading to the real estate crisis.       (Sarcasm Alert) No doubt Komen will be severing its agreement with BOA promptly.

The decision by the breast cancer organization has been praised by some conservatives, including Christian right luminaries Janet Parshall and Tony Perkins.      The latter two have trumpeted the junk science claiming a connection between abortion and breast cancer, now thoroughly debunked thanks to the efforts of the this research team, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Cancer Society.

Joining studies which show that women suffer no more depression from abortion than from childbirth is one finding that legal abortions are safer than childbirth for the women undergoing them.        Two researchers discovered that from 1998 and 2005 one woman died during childbirth for approximately 11,000 babies born while one woman of every 167,000 died from a legal abortion.

But finding that abortion is no worse than childbirth for the patient's mental health or mortality is no reason not to discourage, deter, or even ban a procedure many people believe ends a human life.       The state, clearly, should not be in the business of sanctioning the killing of an innocent.       Presumably, that prompted one compassionate, pro-life state legislator in North Carolina, Larry Pittman, to send an e-mail declaring

We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out.     Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner.If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them.     For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.

Unsuccessful presidential candidate and GOP News personality Mike Huckabee also would target abortion providers In December, 2007 he said during an appearance on Meet the Press

I think if a doctor knowingly took the life of an unborn child for money, and that's why he was doing it, yeah, I think you would, you would find some way to sanction that doctor.     I don't know that you'd put him in prison, but there's something to me untoward about a person who has committed himself to healing people and to making people alive who would take money to take an innocent life and to make that life dead.

The sincerity is overwhelming.         Pittman went so far as to stipulate the individuals- abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers- he would have executed but significantly made one major omission.      For his part, Huckabee apparently would impose some criminal sanction, given that he explained "I don't know if prison" is appropriate while he did not preclude penalties short of prison.      But as is apparently the case with Pittman, the former Arkansas governor would exclude from his opprobrium the individual who would decide to murder her child, seek out the executioner, and pay the execution.       No, Huckabee would not penalize the woman because, he rationalizes, "I think you don't punish the woman, first of all, because it's not about.... I consider her a victim, not a criminal."

Of course, the abortion provider never would have known about this "victim" if she did not, as Huckabee would view it, go to him/her and say "Please.    Murder my baby.    And I'll pay you for it."    

Susan G. Komen can eliminate a few hundred thousand dollars for prevention of breast cancer.     But it ought to acknowledge that it has been intimidated- or, if it chooses to put it otherwise, "persuaded"- by anti-women's health activists.   And conservatives can press for elimination of legal abortion, if they choose.    But continuing the charade of being convinced that abortion is killing while maintaining that the instigator of murder is a "victim" is demonstrably insincere when the real opposition is to reproductive freedom for women.






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Disclosure Sounds So Good


Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision and believe there is too much money in politics.     It was only a matter of time, then, till Republicans began to develop a talking point in their effort to protect big money's influence in elections.

On December 21, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney contended "we'd be a lot wiser to say you can give what you'd like to a campaign.     They must report it immediately...." Former GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty argued on on January 21 "The better position is to allow full and free speech in whatever form, but have instant disclosure."     Six days later, Fred Malek, ex-president of Marriott Corporation and of Northwest Airlines and national finance committee co-chairperson of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign, similarly stated "I would favor unlimited contributions to candidates with full disclosure."    

Noting "a certain level of message coordination," CAP's Francis Keyes finds nevertheless "the GOP’s actions betray any suggestion that they actually stand behind transparency." One wonders where these guys were last September, when every Democrat in the United States Senate voted to end, and every Republican voted to continue, the GOP filibuster of the DISCLOSE Act   

A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to prohibit foreign influence in Federal elections, to prohibit government contractors from making expenditures with respect to such elections, and to establish additional disclosure requirements with respect to spending in such elections, and for other purposes.

Critics of the Citizens United decision had argued that the Court paved the way for foreign entities to influence elections in the U.S.A.     When Republicans killed Democratic efforts to impose cloture on the DISCLOSE Act, the GOP struck a blow in favor of foreign influence- and against disclosure of campaign contributions.

Disclosure and its offspring, transparency, are not panaceas, of course.      The $10 million contributed to Newt Gingrich's SuperPac by Sheldon Adelson and his wife is public knowledge.     Yet, most people are not aware of fierce Adelson's advocacy of far-right Mideast views and- far more ominously- fewer still know of his aggressive anti-union tactics in his casino business and alleged connection to Chinese organized crime.

Nevertheless, transparency does have its benefits.      Politico reported this morning

Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested Wednesday morning after attempting to film a House Science Committee hearing on hydraulic fracturing.

Fox was led out in handcuffs by the Capitol police shortly after 10 a.m., before the hearing could be gaveled into order. The "Gasland" director was attempting to film the hearing looking into EPA's investigation of potential water contamination from natural gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyo.

I'm within my First Amendment rights, and I'm being taken out," Fox shouted as he was led away.

Fox has been charged with unlawful entry, according to Capitol police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.

Fox is working on a sequel to his Oscar-nominated "Gasland."

An ABC news crew was also turned away from the hearing. The committee chairman has the discretion on whether to allow uncredentialed members of the media to film hearings, according to a democratic staffer.

The committee recessed after Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) called a motion to suspend the committee rules and allow for Fox and the ABC crew to film the hearing.

It's not likely that expulsion of Fox is a First Amendment issue, though no more a constitutional lawyer than subcommittee chairman Andy Harris, I am uncertain.     But it is even less evocative of disclosure, transparency, or openness, though the fossil fuel industry was no doubt pleased.       Meanwhile, in light of their devotion to the values of free speech and disclosure, we await expressions of outrage from the likes of Pawlenty, Romney, and Malek. 

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