Democrat Wins Ariz. Test Of 2012 Themes; 'Fighting Sioux' Retired In N.D.

Enlarge Ross D. Franklin/AP

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, left, celebrates with Ron Barber after he won Tuesday's special election in Arizona to serve the remaining seven months of her term. Like Giffords, Barber is a Democrat. He's also a former Giffords aide.

Ross D. Franklin/AP

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, left, celebrates with Ron Barber after he won Tuesday's special election in Arizona to serve the remaining seven months of her term. Like Giffords, Barber is a Democrat. He's also a former Giffords aide.

In a race seen as "a testing ground for Democratic and Republican messages" that will be used from now through Nov. 6, Democrat Ron Barber won Tuesday's special election in Arizona to fill the remaining seven months of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' term.

And in one of Tuesday's other most-watched votes, North Dakotans agreed that "it's time to retire University of North Dakota's Fighting Sioux nickname."

Some highlights and notes about Tuesday's results:

 

— NPR's Ted Robbins reports from Arizona that the special election "was not as close as many expected. In his first try for public office, Barber beat his opponent by almost seven points. ... Voters apparently didn't buy the strategy of Barber's Republican opponent, Tea Party favorite Jesse Kelly, who with the help of the national GOP tried to tie Barber to President Obama."

Giffords, you'll recall, was shot and seriously wounded during a January 2011 shooting rampage at an event she was hosting in Tucson. Six people were killed and 13 — including Barber — were injured. Giffords announced this past January that she would give up her seat.

As the Arizona Republic writes, the Arizona race became a testing ground for the major parties' themes as:

"Kelly promoted a strict diet of lower taxes, growing jobs and reducing gas prices by increasing American energy production. Republican campaign advertising worked to tie Barber to the unpopular policies of President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, such as the health-care plan.

"Democrats, on the other hand, hammered Kelly on statements about privatizing Social Security, phasing out Medicare and opposing any corporate income tax. Barber called Kelly too 'extreme' for the district and promised to embrace bipartisanship, touting moderate Republican supporters and distancing himself from Obama."

— In North Dakota, as The Bismarck Tribune reports, "with 97 percent of precincts reporting, more than 67 percent of voters had voted yes on Measure 4, rejecting this latest effort by [Fighting Sioux] nickname supporters to preserve the moniker. ... With its passage, Measure 4 repeals Senate Bill 2370, which was passed during the Legislature's November 2011 special session. The bill repealed Section 15-10-46 of North Dakota Century Code, which the Legislature passed in spring 2011. Section 15-10-46 required UND to use the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo."

As NPR's Cheryl Corley has reported, "in 2005, the [NCAA] called Native American mascots and nicknames used by 18 schools 'hostile and abusive.' To keep the names, the NCAA told schools, the schools had to get permission from the tribes their sports teams were named after. Otherwise, the teams would be sanctioned; they would not be able to use any of the Native American imagery during post-season play and they would not be able to host lucrative NCAA championships. ... UND is the last of the 18 schools to come to terms with the NCAA policy." One of two Lakota, or Sioux, tribes had declined to give its OK for use of the nickname.

— "Elsewhere Tuesday," The Associated Press writes, " Virginia, Maine, Nevada, Arkansas and South Carolina held primary elections — with most of those states choosing Senate nominees. ... In Virginia, former Sen. George Allen brushed aside three rivals in the Republican Senate primary. Allen's victory set up a November clash with another former Virginia governor, Democrat Tim Kaine. ...

"In Nevada, Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley easily defeated a slate of political unknowns in their respective primaries. ... In Maine, state Sen. Cynthia Dill won the Democratic primary in the race to succeed Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe. Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers won the GOP nomination. The front-runner, former two-term Gov. Angus King, wasn't on the ballot because he's running as an independent."

(For ongoing coverage of the 2012 campaign, check It's All Politics.)

Peliculas Online

Sharp Drop In Gas Prices Puts Brakes On Inflation

Wholesale prices fell 1 percent in May from April thanks to an 8.9 percent plunge in the price of gasoline, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The overall decrease is the largest in one month since July 2009.

Excluding the energy and sectors, prices at the wholesale level ticked up 0.2 percent.

Also this morning, the Census Bureau says that retail sales edged down 0.2 percent in May from April. There's a link between that figure and the drop in gasoline prices: The value of sales at gas stations dropped 2.2 percent in May, largely because of the steep drop in gas prices.

As Bloomberg News notes, "spending increased 0.9 percent at clothing stores and 0.8 percent at electronics chains."

'Little Darth Vader' From VW Ad Is Having Open Heart Surgery

Seven-year-old Max Page, the young actor best known for being "Little Darth Vader" in a Volkswagen ad that scored big with Super Bowl viewers last year, is having open heart surgery on Thursday.

Enlarge Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Max Page in 2011, when he was six.

Sean Gardner/Getty Images

Max Page in 2011, when he was six.

Max has a role on CBS-TV's The Young and Restless soap opera. Network spokeswoman Elise Bromberg tells The Associated Press that he will be operated on at Children's Hospital Los Angeles to replace his pulmonary valve and repair a hole in his heart.

Deutsch LA, the ad agency, notes that Max is an ambassador for the hospital "and he's trying to raise money for other kids who suffer from heart problems." The hospital has an online fundraising site that links to donation pages for kids who are patients there, including Max.

Max's mother, Jennifer Page, sent Deutsch LA an email in which she says that after being told that the time had come to have the surgery "initially, Max was crying and repeating how scared how he was." But later, he said "Mom I don't have a choice. I have to go through it. I don't like it and it's still scary — but I have to. So I think I might as well go through it with a good attitude."

As many are surely thinking, may the force be with you, Max.

Why The Farm Bill's Provisions Will Matter To You

Enlarge Carrie Antlfinger/AP

Dairy cows feed on a farm in Chilton, Wis., in May. The farm bill being considered by Congress contains a number of provisions affecting dairies, part of a massive package that could cost nearly $1 trillion over a decade.

Carrie Antlfinger/AP

Dairy cows feed on a farm in Chilton, Wis., in May. The farm bill being considered by Congress contains a number of provisions affecting dairies, part of a massive package that could cost nearly $1 trillion over a decade.

If you think only farmers care about the farm bill currently being considered by Congress, you'd be very, very mistaken.

The measure will not only set policy and spending for the nation's farms for years to come, but will affect dozens of other seemingly unrelated programs — all at a cost of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. Following are a few questions and answers about the massive legislation:

Why is it called the farm bill and where did it come from?

First, the term "Farm bill" is a bit misleading. It's simply shorthand for legislation that invariably gets saddled with a different name. In 2002, it was the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, and in 2008, it was known as the Food, Conservation and Energy Act. The latest bill is the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012.

Second, perhaps 80 percent of the bill has nothing to do with farms or farming. But more on that later.

Modern farm bills date to the Great Depression and the New Deal. By the 1930s, U.S. farmers were victims of their own success. Mechanization and stepped up production during World War I, as America fed a war-weary Europe eventually led to huge surpluses and falling prices for basic crops. The Agricultural Adjustment Act sought to do something that to this day remains controversial — pay farmers not to grow crops in an effort to boost prices.

But the Supreme Court didn't like a tax provision in the 1933 law and struck down the entire act. By 1938, a new Agricultural Adjustment Act, sans the offending tax, was passed by Congress. Farm bills have been passed about every five years ever since.

"I would say the New Deal is the great, great grandfather of all the farm bills as we currently know them," says Dale Moore, director for public policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Why should you care?

It's not just about farmers. The farm bill is an all-encompassing piece of legislation comprising everything from farm subsidies and crop insurance — which have an indirect impact on food prices — to energy, forestry, food stamps and school lunches.

"It covers what is, in a lot of ways, the rural economy in this country," the Farm Bureau's Moore says.

Why is it controversial?

In an age of rising deficits, the bill has come in for a lot of scrutiny.

Chris Edwards, an economist with the libertarian Cato Institute, calls the farm bill "a bipartisan pork barrel spending spree."

"Farm subsidies redistribute wealth from taxpayers to often well-off farm businesses and landowners," he says. "In 2010, the average income of farm households was 25 percent above the average of all U.S. households."

But the largest chunk of the farm bill in dollar terms is directed to the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as the food stamp program.

Edwards says the growth in the program in recent years has been remarkable, "not just because of the recession but because of the increase in eligibility during the Bush administration."

However, Dottie Rosenbaum, a senor policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, thinks much of the criticism of food stamps has been over the top.

"In my view, one of the biggest myths is the claim that some people make that SNAP is growing out of control and is contributing in a substantive way to the deficit," she says. "To the extent it is growing, it's for reasons that we very much understand – it's about addressing the needs of people in a bad economy."

How much does it cost?

The details of this year's bill are still being hammered out, but the Congressional Budget Office says the cost over 10 years will be about $969 billion. The vast majority — $768.2 billion, according to the CBO — will go to food stamps.

Since the farm bill represents anticipated spending over 10 years, it's difficult to assign it an exact percentage of an evolving federal budget. But it's typically more than education and less than defense spending or Social Security.

What's in the farm bill?

The short answer is: A lot. Here's a partial list:

• Price supports and/or crop insurance for commodity crops.

• Conservation programs that affect land, water and soil use.

• Agricultural exports and food aid, including humanitarian assistance to other nations.

• Food assistance programs for poor Americans.

• Direct and guaranteed loans to farmers and ranchers.

• Forestry programs managed by the U.S. Forest Service

• Programs promoting renewable fuels such as ethanol.

• Crop insurance and disaster assistance.

How is the latest legislation different than past bills?

Sponsors of the 2012 farm bill claim it will save taxpayers $23.6 billion over 10 years. But that figure represents less than 2.5 percent of the total cost of the bill, according to the CBO.

The biggest change, supporters of the bill say, will involve a planned transition away from the direct payments to farmers that were instituted in the 1990s. Those payments were meant to streamline the process, but were granted to farmers regardless of what kind of year they had.

"If they had a very difficult year, they got the very same payment as if they had a bumper crop with fabulous prices," the NFU's Johnson says.

With the improvements, the balance of the equation for farmers shifts away from price supports and toward risk management. It's designed to protect against things like floods and droughts in a way that minimizes the need for Congress "to do ad hoc disaster legislation" for farmers each time there's a catastrophic event, the NFU's Johnson says.

But farmers in the South disagree with an end to direct payments. They argue that the yields that insurance would pay out on are set so low for 'southern' crops such as cotton, rice and peanuts, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to qualify even in very bad years.

Dozens Killed, Hundreds Wounded By Wave Of Attacks In Iraq

Enlarge Marwan Ibrahim /AFP/Getty Images

Smoke rises from the wreckage of a vehicle in Kirkuk, Iraq. A bomb in it exploded — one of a series of coordinated attacks today on Shiite Muslims across the country.

Marwan Ibrahim /AFP/Getty Images

Smoke rises from the wreckage of a vehicle in Kirkuk, Iraq. A bomb in it exploded — one of a series of coordinated attacks today on Shiite Muslims across the country.

There's grim news from Iraq this morning, where scores of people have been killed in coordinated attacks on Shiite Muslim pilgrims. As often happens when stories such as these are developing, different news outlets are reporting different death tolls. No matter which report you read, however, the news is disturbing:

— "A wave of bombings in six Iraqi provinces, including 10 locations in Baghdad, has killed 83 people and wounded nearly 300, Iraqi police say. Many of the dead in the Iraqi capital were Shia pilgrims gathering for a religious festival."

— At least 75 people were killed and scores more injured by an estimated 18 bombs. (NPR's Ghassan Adnan, reporting for our Newscast Desk from Baghdad.)

— "Coordinated car bombs in four Iraqi cities targeting Shiite pilgrims killed at least 56 people and wounded dozens more early Wednesday in Iraq's latest wave of sectarian-fueled violence, officials said." (The Associated Press)

— "One of the deadliest blasts on Wednesday occurred in the Kadhimiyah area of north Baghdad, where tens of thousands had gathered to mark the anniversary of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim's death." (Al-Jazeera)

— "Violence in Iraq has eased off since the height of the war, but Islamists tied to al-Qaida are still a potent threat, often targeting Shia pilgrims in attempts to inflame the sectarian tensions that drove Iraq close to civil war in 2006 and 2007. In the latest attacks in the capital, at least 18 people were killed when four bombs struck Shia pilgrims across Baghdad as they gathered to mark the anniversary of the death of the imam Moussa al-Kadhim, a great-grandson of the prophet Muhammad. One of those blasts killed at least nine people as pilgrims passed through a police checkpoint in central Baghdad." (The Guardian)