Bloomberg Poll: 61% Don’t Want To Repeal Health Law
Bloomberg Poll: 61% Don’t Want To Repeal Health Law
Yesterday, I speculated that support for repeal will diminish as benefits like the new preventive care guidelines are rolled out and people actually realize what’s in this bill and now the Huffington Posts’ Sam Stein reports that this already seems to be happening:
A Bloomberg News poll released on Wednesday shows that a full 61 percent of respondents don’t have interest in repealing the health care legislation that Congress passed earlier this year (47 percent want to see how it works, 14 percent say it should be left alone). Just 37 percent want the bill repealed (as is the wish of the Republican leadership).
The numbers underscore increasing public approval of the health care reform law. It also illustrates the potential dangers the Republican caucus assumes by make the repeal agenda a major plank of its campaign platform.
I think these results generally mirror what we’ve been seeing in other focus groups around the country. People may not understand what exactly is in the bill but they’re also confused by the GOP’s knee-jerk repeal it now campaign. As the early benefits are being rolled out, taking away dependent coverage and high risk pool insurance will become politically unpopular positions and Republicans need to be asked if they support repealing those benefits. Already, polls have shown that this will be a tough question to answer as an increasing number of Americans are coming out in favor of the health law (even Rasmussen agrees).
The GOP leadership has thrown its weight behind two discharge petitions offered by Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Wally Herger (R-CA) as recently as last month. The petitions will need to attract 218 members to force the House to take up repeal legislation that would eliminate the entirety of the health law. As of Thursday, 133 members have signed on to King’s petition and Herger’s repeal and replace bill has 42 co-sponsors.
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Banks Take Aim At CFPB Director: ‘This Is Akin To A Supreme Court Nominee For Financial Services’
Banks Take Aim At CFPB Director: ‘This Is Akin To A Supreme Court Nominee For Financial Services’
Potential hard feelings between Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Elizabeth Warren aside, the financial services industry is already gearing up to influence the next stage of financial regulatory reform, which is the design of new rules reining in Wall Street and the actual construction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. There are plenty of regulations that have to be made, and plenty of discretion for regulators in crafting them, so bank lobbyists will have ample opportunity to influence a process that will be nowhere near as high-profile as was the regulatory reform fight on Capitol Hill.
But, first things first, the financial service industry is trying to influence who becomes the inaugural nominee for CFPB director:
“This is akin to a Supreme Court nominee for financial services,” Richard Hunt, president of the Consumer Bankers Association in Arlington, Virginia, said in an interview. “We are taking this very seriously.”
“All of that power is in the hands of one person. It’s going to be the closest approximation to a czar that Washington has ever seen,” said Joseph Lynyak, a law partner at Venable LLP who represents financial services companies. This conveniently leaves aside that the CFPB’s rules can be vetoed by the newly created Financial Stability Oversight Council — which is composed mostly of bank regulators — but it’s true that the CFPB’s director is going to have a lot of influence over in which direction the agency sets its initial course.
As Matt Yglesias wrote, “effective, high-prestige public agencies (the United States Navy, the Federal Reserve) attract a lot of motivated applicants and thus get on a self-reenforcing path of effective personnel and high prestige. But when you start something new, everything is wide open.” And as the Bush administration ably demonstrated, appointing heads of regulatory agencies who have no interest in actually regulating anything can turn those agencies into nothing more than a punchline.
For instance, remember SEC Chairman Chris Cox? Under him, the agency meant to be on the front lines of policing financial fraud became an afterthought and then released a laughable response plan long after the financial crisis was already well underway. But that was just par for the course for administration that had no interest in reining in financial services industry excess. The CFPB has the potential to be a game-changer for consumers, but only if it does not come under the thumb of the bank regulators or have a director unwilling to stand up to the banks themselves.
“’There’s always that possibility‘ that Wall Street lobbyists will succeed in weakening the bill’s provisions during the rule-making process,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT). So in that sense, the work of financial reform is still very much underway.
Right-Wing Judges Suggest Reviving Discredited Bush-Era Detention Policies
The Supreme Court rejected President George W. Bush’s claim that a president may lock up anyone he wants without giving them a meaningful opportunity to prove that they are wrongfully detained on four separate occasions. Nevertheless, a panel of conservative judges on the right-wing D.C. Circuit recently suggested that they will carve a hole in these four decisions that is so big as to render them absolutely meaningless.
One of the most important questions in any lawsuit is what “evidentiary standard” applies. In criminal cases, for example, the government cannot win unless they prove their case “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus requiring them to present a very convincing case in order to achieve a conviction.
Shortly after the Supreme Court’s last major detention case, all of the judges on the DC federal trial court charged with hearing detainee hearings met and decided that these cases should be decided under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, and the Justice Department agrees that this is the proper standard. In English, this means that the government may only detain an individual if it can demonstrate that it is more likely than not that the detention is justified.
This week, however, in a case called Al-Adahi v. Obama, a panel of three right-wing appeals court judges claimed that this “preponderance” bar should be replaced by one that is so low that it would be almost impossible for a detainee to be released:
[W]e are aware of no precedents in which eighteenth century English courts adopted a preponderance standard. Even in later statutory habeas cases in this country, that standard was not the norm. For years, in habeas proceedings contesting orders of deportation, the government had to produce only “some evidence to support the order.” In such cases courts did not otherwise “review factual determinations made by the Executive.” In habeas petitions challenging selective service decisions, the government also had the minimal burden of providing “some evidence” to support the decision. Habeas petitions contesting courts martial required the government to show only that the military prisoner had received, in the military tribunal, “full and fair consideration” of the allegations in his habeas petition. And in response to habeas petitions brought after an individual’s arrest, the government had to show only that it had probable cause for the arrest.
Many of the standards listed here would turn detainees’ right to challenge their detention into an empty charade. If the government, for example, only had to show “some evidence” proving that a person was a terrorist, then even the weakest case against a detainee would be sufficient to keep them locked up forever.
There are, of course, many open legal questions concerning detainees’ habeas rights. If a person who was previously associated with a terrorist group convincingly reputates that group and its tactics, for example, must they be freed? One thing is clear, however. All detainees must be given a meanful opportunity to challenge they detention. Al-Adahi is simply wrong to suggest that a detainee’s tribunal can be nothing more than a sham.
Utah Republican Attorney General Rejects Arizona Law, Seeks Support Of Mormon Church
Last night, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff (R) told On the Record host Greta Van Susteren that though he shares Arizona’s frustration with the broken immigration system, he does not support the state’s new immigration law, SB-1070. Shurtleff echoed many of the arguments often made by police chiefs who oppose SB-1070 on the basis that it will make communities less safe by using scarce resources to pursue people who aren’t a threat to public safety and hurt local law enforcement’s relationships with immigrant communities:
And as the chief law enforcement official in the state of Utah, and speaking on behalf of most law enforcement officers, we don’t want to be put in the position of doing the job for the feds. But we do have to have a role in security and public safety. [...] And quite frankly, we need the cooperation of other undocumented aliens as confidential informants to work with us so that we can get rid of the worst of the worst. And something like Arizona makes it more difficult for us to do that job. So that’s the security part of this issue.
Watch it:
While many police chiefs and local citizens support his position, Shurtleff is largely bucking a large segment of the Republican party. State Rep. Stephen Sandstrom (R-UT) is currently drafting a bill for the 2011 Utah legislative session that’s modeled after Arizona’s. “It is imperative that we pass similar legislation here in Utah,” Sandstrom said. “In the past, when we’ve seen tougher legislation in Arizona … a lot of illegal immigrants just move here.” Sandstrom plans on moving ahead with the legislation, despite the federal lawsuit that is currently challenging SB-1070. Utah is also the state where citizen vigilantes sent a witch-hunt list of 1,300 suspected undocumented immigrants, including social security numbers and pregnancy due dates to state authorities.
However, Shurtleff has been seeking the support of a powerful potential ally: the Mormon Church. While many leaders of other faiths have come out against the Arizona law, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has remained relatively neutral. “I think that would help stop an Arizona style law here, if they would definitely come out against the Arizona style law,” said Shurtleff in a separate interview. It appears fellow Mormon lawmakers have accused Shurtleff of defying his faith by standing against the Arizona law. “They consistently get on me saying if I’m not out there rounding up every illegal alien in the state, then I’m not obeying my own article of faith,” said Shurtleff.
Sandstrom appears confident that the Mormon Church will remain neutral on the issue, but he shouldn’t be so sure. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints if often said to be the fastest growing religion in Latin America with 5.2 million members and 5,500 chapels. The number of Spanish-speaking Mormon congregations nationwide has grown by 90 percent in the past decade, up to more than 700. Meanwhile, the majority of Latinos in the U.S. bitterly oppose the Arizona law. In fact, Mormon Latinos launched a letter-writing campaign to Latter Day Saints Church President Thomas S. Monson, asking him to define the church’s official position on immigration. “This is affecting our families,” Tony Yapias, who launched the campaign, stated. “Where’s the church in this? The longer they stay quiet, the more political it gets, the more divisive.”
In some ways, some of the damage is already done. The sponsor of SB-1070, state Sen. Russell Pearce (R-AZ), is a devout Mormon. The Arizona Republic reported that his association with SB-1070 has “tarnished the Mormon Church’s image among many Latinos.” Pearce has repeatedly said his anti-immigration efforts have been guided by the Mormon Church’s 13 Articles of Faith, which includes obeying the law. In the past, the Mormon church has also faced criticism over the “racist doctrine” found in Mormon texts and the lack of a diverse leadership that reflects its heterogeneous membership.
While Shurtleff agrees with the federal government on immigration, his support stops there. He is part of the dozen other states who have filed a lawsuit challenging the health care reform package passed earlier this year.
Massey Miners Disabled Methane Monitors Before Killer Explosion
Directed by supervisors, miners at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine commonly disabled monitors that could detect methane gas before the explosion that killed 29 in April. An investigation by NPR has “documented an incident in February 2010 in which an Upper Big Branch electrician was ordered to circumvent the automatic shutoff mechanism on a methane detector installed on a continuous mining machine.” Ricky Lee Campbell, a 24-year-old coal shuttle driver and roof bolter who witnessed the incident, told NPR they circumvented the safety device so that they could “continue to run coal”:
Everybody was getting mad because the continuous miner kept shutting off because there was methane. So, they shut the section down and the electrician got into the methane detector box and rewired it so we could continue to run coal.
There were dozens of such incidents, NPR reports. Maintenance foreman Clay Mullins told NPR he “believed miners could run mining machines temporarily with disabled monitors because that’s what the mine’s foreman and superintendent told him.”
Don Blankenship, the CEO of Massey Energy, was caught with a 2006 memo that told workers faced with safety rules, “you need to ignore them and run coal” because “coal pays the bills.”
Gov. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) special investigator has found that the April 5 explosion “was so large and powerful that it ripped through more than 2 1/2 miles of underground tunnels ‘in an instant.’” No charges have yet been brought against Massey Energy or its management for the fatal incident.
Meanwhile, four activists — 22-year-old Kathryn Huszcza, 22-year-old Colin Flood, 20-year-old Sophie Kern and 22-year-old James Tobias — “are in jail following a protest in which two chained themselves to a highwall miner at a Massey Energy surface mine in Raleigh County.” Massey Energy is the largest mountaintop removal company in the United States.
Whatever Geithner’s Feelings, Warren Is A Good Choice To Lead The New Consumer Protection Agency
Whatever Geithner’s Feelings, Warren Is A Good Choice To Lead The New Consumer Protection Agency
Yesterday, the Senate passed the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill on a 60-39 vote, meaning that, among many other things, a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will come into being. The agency fixes a critical gap in the regulatory framework, as there is no regulator specifically tasked with policing consumer products and ensuring that banks can’t rip off consumers with (usually highly profitable) predatory products.
A handful of names have been tossed around in the media as to who will be nominated to be the CFPB’s first director. The most oft-mentioned name is Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor who is currently heading the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief program.
It was a 2007 journal article written by Warren that motivated lawmakers to propose creating the new agency in the first place. “Clearly, it is time for a new model of financial regulation, one focused primarily on consumer safety rather than corporate profitability. Financial products should be subject to the same routine safety screening that now governs the sale of every toaster, washing machine, and child’s car seat sold on the American market,” Warren wrote.
Last night, it was reported that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is opposed to Warren heading the agency. Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr refuted that notion today, saying “I don’t know where that (report) came from.” “I believe and Secretary Geithner believes that she’s exceptionally well-qualified to run it,” he said.
Whetever Geithner’s personal feelings on the matter, Warren is eminently qualified to lead the CFPB. She explained her philosophy regarding the regulation of consumer products to me during an interview back in May 2009:
We need to think at the product level. All these lousy mortgages got sold, one family at a time. These were crummy mortgages, like selling plastic spoons that have carcinogens in them or toys that put out little children’s eyes. We sold them one product in a time. If we had had just basic safety standards in place from the beginning, then we never would have fed these into the front end of the financial system, where they then would have been bundled up and then sliced into tranches and rated and rebundled and sold and rated again.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) backed Warren, saying “she is a brilliant advocate. She is sensible. She has a good sense how to operate. She is not some windmill-tilting ideologue.”
Barr himself has also been mentioned as a potential CFPB head, and would be an excellent choice, as he’s been intimately involved with the regulatory reform bill since the beginning. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who was one of the first public officials to try to crack down on subprime lending, has also had her name tossed into the ring, but said that she preferred Warren. “She has long understood the need for such an agency to ensure that another financial crisis doesn’t devastate the futures of millions of hardworking Americans,” Madigan said.
The Differing Views On The DADT Survey Seem Irreconcilable
Rachel Maddow’s interview with Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach, who has spent 19 years as a fighter pilot in the Air Force and is in the process of being discharged from the military because he’s gay, is the personification of the failure of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and a test case for the Pentagon’s new “more humane” approach towards discharging gay and lesbian servicemembers:
FEHRENBACH: And we also don`t know if they`re taking extra time because Secretary Gates, as you know, announced new, more lenient, more humane enforcement standards in March. So maybe they`re taking the extra time to apply those standards. We hope so. As you know, those standards – some of the things you now see, my case meets all those standards. For instance, it was not credible information that was presented. It was not from a reliable source. And my chain of command did not take into consideration how that information was gained.
And then finally, it was clearly malicious intent involved by the person who outed me. So my case should be, you know, basically the poster case for the new enforcement standards. My case meets every one of those criteria. So really, the Air Force has the opportunity to do the right thing here, to dismiss my cases and retain me. And I hope they do that under these new enforcement standards.
Watch it:
On Monday, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell couldn’t understand why some gay troops would find the survey or its questions insulting. Here, Fehrenbach explains: “[Y]ou know, there are things in combat that we just don`t think about. You think about where your next meal is going to come from. You think about your next mission. You think about your family back home. And you just don`t think about who`s showering next to you.” “Questions like that – they got specific – seem somewhat insulting.”
Fehrenbach also argued that polling the troops was not effective way of ensuring effective implementation. “You know, if we wanted to see if everybody was comfortable, you know, we could ask them if they wanted to go home for Christmas or stay in a tent in Afghanistan. You`d probably get 90 percent that said they`d rather go home for Christmas,” he said. “And nobody asked me if I was comfortable while I was getting shot at eight times over Baghdad. Nobody if I was comfortable in my 13-hour mission over Afghanistan.”
The Pentagon however, insists that these questions are necessary for effective repeal. “Do you want us to put our head in the sand and ignore concerns that have been voiced to us by the force?” Morrell asked me. “It is better for us to ask some of these questions up front in as candid a manner as possible, to get as much information as possible, so we are prepared for this eventuality. It would be irresponsible of us to do otherwise.”
These two views seem irreconcilable: gay service members believe that some of the assumptions made about “homosexuals” are offensive, but the military believes that it needs to make these assumptions to garner enough information to implement repeal effectively. For now, it seems like gays will just have to feel offended.
Why The Nuclear Neo-Cons Oppose START – It’s Arms Control
Why The Nuclear Neo-Cons Oppose START – It’s Arms Control
The debate over START is overall a pretty weak one. Conservatives on the far-right try to find things to nitpick about the treaty, or make factually dubious or contradictory claims about its impact. These points are then thoroughly refuted. And then the cycle repeats itself. The basic problem for treaty opponents is not just that there are not that many of them and that they are grasping at straws, but that even if it were true that this New START treaty had flaws or was not as good as the old one, it is still better than the alternative — which is no treaty and no inspection or monitoring of Russia’s nuclear forces. As a result, most serious relatively status quo national security officials — even those that feverishly oppose broader Obama’s nuclear agenda, like arch-conservative James Schlesinger — support START.
New START is really just about stability, it is about continuing down the status-quo arms-control path that has been practiced by the US for the last half century. Thus, the pro-START side represents the general post-Cold War foreign policy consensus in the US that is in favor of reducing nuclear weapons and gradually unwinding the massive nuclear build up of the Cold War. This view unites the Democratic foreign policy establishment (Sam Nunn, Bill Perry) and the traditional Republican foreign policy establishment (Kissinger, Powell, Baker, Scowcroft).
But if you think the status quo is highly dangerous, if you want to radically and fundamentally change US nuclear policy and you have an entirely different perception of the world that believes the Cold War never really ended and as a result you aren’t just distrustful, but outwardly paranoid of Russian intentions than this treaty is probably not for you. This side consists of the Heritage Foundation and some prominent Republican Senators – like Senator Jon Kyl, Jim DeMint, and James Inhofe. What they want is to shatter the nuclear status quo. James Carafano of Heritage clarified the dividing lines of the debate, when he wrote:
What Senator Kerry and Senator Lugar both overlook is probably one of the most important questions to address – why in the post-Cold War era is the U.S. content with accepting the Cold War status quo? This treaty solidifies Russia’s role as a dominant nuclear power by putting the Russian arsenal on par with ours. It was a classic example of nuclear diplomacy and will only lead to Russia seeking further concessions down the road. It is imperative that this treaty is looked at as something more than an arms control document. Once that is done, it will become clear why this treaty is wrong for the U.S.
See the problem with START not that this or that monitoring provision isn’t good, Carafano’s problem is simply that this is an “arms-control document.” To Carafano this is a treaty that keeps the US at relative nuclear parity with Russia, which ensures Russia’s status as a dominant nuclear power. But to Carafano only the US should be the dominant nuclear power and as a result the only way to have an arms-control treaty with Russia is to have one where there is designed disparity, where the US is allowed to have more nukes than the Russians, where the Russians are forced to acknowledge the US as nuclear top dog. After all to Carafano and the right we have the capability to bury them. We are richer and could spend billions or trillions building more nukes in a new arms race or building a super sweet (yet infeasible) missile defense system to target them. At the point, then Russia will really have to kneel and kiss the ring.
This is an extremely radical and destabilizing view. This is a vision that doesn’t want to unwind the Cold War — since to them the Soviet/Russian adversary is still out there. This is a vision that therefore is determined to build and test new, more usable nuclear weapons. They don’t want to unwind the Cold War, they want to try to win it again.
Yet this is such a warped, outdated, and dumb conception of power. We worry about China’s strategic intentions and would tend to see China as more powerful and influential than Russia now, yet they only have around 250 nuclear weapons compared to our 5,000. The Chinese know that if they can take out Los Angeles, we will be deterred from invading them, to them any capability beyond that is basically just a waste of money — since being able to kill 8 million people in 30 minutes is a pretty massive deterrent.
‘Emergency Committee for Israel’ Based Out Of ‘Committee for the Liberation of Iraq’ Offices
‘Emergency Committee for Israel’ Based Out Of ‘Committee for the Liberation of Iraq’ Offices
In a nice catch, Eli Clifton reports that the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), the latest neocon astroturf pro-war outfit, is based out of the same office as a previous neocon astroturf pro-war outfit, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI):
The evidence lies in a a letter from ECI’s executive director (pdf), Noah Pollak, to Comcast regarding the attack ad the group has been running in Pennsylvania. The letterhead bears the following address: “918 Pennsylvania Ave., SE · Washington, D.C. 20003.”
That address happens to be the same as that of Orion Strategies, a public-relations consultancy owned and operated by renowned GOP lobbyist Randy Scheunemann, who, in addition to serving as president of the CLI, has been retained since the 2008 elections as Sarah Palin’s personal — and Bill Kristol-approved — foreign-policy trainer.
The connection to Orion Strategies comes through former Weekly Standard web editor and regrettable McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb, who joined Scheunemann’s firm last January, and serves as an adviser to the Emergency Committee for Israel. In addition to his work with ECI, Goldfarb also advises the Liz Cheney/Bill Kristol-led Keep America Safe, and was a research associate at the Project for the New American Century, which served as the mothership for various neocon enterprises in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, most notably the invasion of Iraq.
In addition to serving as president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Scheunemann served as PNAC’s director, and was a key ally of Iran-connected con-man Ahmad Chalabi.
Considering how disastrous the Iraq invasion was, not only for U.S. security but also for Israel’s — driving radicalism and sectarianism in the region, vastly increasing Iranian influence in the region and allowing it to advance its nuclear program — it is deeply ironic that the people operating the “Emergency Committee for Israel” are among those most responsible for creating that “emergency” in the first place.
Greenspan Calls For Full Expiration Of The Bush Tax Cuts That He Helped Enact
With the legislative calendar starting to dwindle, lawmakers are paying more and more attention to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of the year. Republicans across the board are advocating for the extension of all the cuts, and have explicitly said that extending the cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans (which would cost $678 billion) does not have to be paid for.
President Obama has called for letting the cuts for the very richest expire, allowing the rates to reset to where they were under the Clinton administration. In an interview with Bloomberg News’ Judy Woodruff, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan went a step further, calling for all of the tax cuts to expire, essentially sending the tax code back to 2001:
WOODRUFF: On those tax cuts, they are due to expire at the end of this year. Should they be extended? What should Congress do?
GREENSPAN: I should say they should follow the law and let them lapse.
WOODRUFF: Meaning what happens?
GREENSPAN: Taxes go up. The problem is, unless we start to come to grips with this long-term outlook, we are going to have major problems. I think we misunderstand the momentum of this deficit going forward.
Greenspan’s right that addressing the long-term structural deficit is going to require raising some taxes, as getting the budget anywhere near balance entirely on the spending side would mean draconian cuts to popular programs that Americans support and rely on. But Greenspan was able to call for allowing the cuts while conveniently leaving out his role in getting them enacted in the first place.
As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, “in 2001 Alan Greenspan warned the country against the prospect of budget surpluses and debt reduction and argued that only large regressive tax cuts could save the country from this specter.” It is “far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases,” Greenspan said. Of course, the Bush tax cuts are now one of the biggest drivers of the country’s long term deficits, amounting to more than $3 trillion in deficits over the next ten years.
While Greenspan is now expressing concern that “we misunderstand the momentum” of the deficit, less than a decade ago, he was claiming that we misunderstand the momentum of the surplus. In fact, as the New York Times reported at the time, Greenspan said that “without a tax cut the surplus might be so big that it would force the government to begin buying stocks and bonds on Wall Street in as little as five years, a development he said would be harmful to the free enterprise system.”
In 2005, Greenspan said that “it turns out that we were all wrong” when it came to his 2001 support for the tax cuts (to which then Sen. Hillary Clinton shot back “just for the record, we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong”). He has also famously repented for his deregulatory zeal during the 1990’s, saying “those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
So, Greenspan at least seems to be coming around to the notion that the conservative economic philosophy is a big sham that doesn’t work in practice. Will the rest of the GOP ever follow?
Mormon Church Tries But Fails To Influence Argentina’s Gay Marriage Vote
Buenos Aires Argentina Temple
The Mormon Church spent millions of dollars and countless man hours to pass Proposition 8 in California, and now the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that “despite the LDS Church’s claim last week that it had not taken a stand on Argentina’s move to allow gay marriage, a high-ranking church official did join other religious leaders there to plan opposition to the bill“:
Carlos Aguero, LDS public-affairs director for Argentina and a former Area Authority Seventy, attended a July 7 meeting with leaders from several conservative Christian churches and traditional family organizations, according to a Buenos Aires newspaper. [...]
Mormon leaders in Argentina on Sunday read a letter from the Utah-based church’s governing First Presidency, reiterating its support for traditional marriage, to all congregations in that South American country. The letter did not ask members to contribute time or money to the opposition, as it had in California’s Proposition 8, which opposed gay marriage.
A Church spokesperson confirmed that “the letter was sent to local leaders in Argentina, where the faith has more than 371,000 members, according to a 2010 church almanac.” “The letter falls short of calling for political activism by members in Argentina, but is an echo of a 2008 letter from Monson to Latter-day Saints in California. Monson had called for Mormons to give their time and money to help pass Proposition 8.”
Proposition 8 won by less than 5% of the vote and “individual Mormons contributed $20 million of its $40 million war chest.” The marriage initiative in Argentina passed 33-27 in the Senate, making the country the “first Latin American nation to legalize gay marriage, granting same-sex couples all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexuals.”
The WonkLine: July 16, 2010
The WonkLine: July 16, 2010
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest news about health care, the economy, national security, immigration and climate policy. This is what we’re reading. Tell us what you found in the comments section below. You can also follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Economy
The Senate passed the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill yesterday on a 60-39 vote, sending it to President Obama for his signature. The banking industry is “now turning to Plan B: Adapting to the rules and turning them to their advantage.”
“In one of the largest penalties in Wall Street history,” Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to settle charges “that it duped clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market’s collapse.”
Is Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) encouraging the Fed to do more about boosting employment?
National Security
“The Iranian scientist who American officials say defected to the United States, only to return to Tehran on Thursday, had been an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency inside Iran for several years, providing information about the country’s nuclear program.”
“BP faced a new furor on Thursday as it confirmed that it had lobbied the British government to conclude a prisoner-transfer agreement that the Libyan government wanted to secure the release of the only person ever convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing.”
“Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the Uganda bomb attacks that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final on television.”
Immigration
In the first hearing on a challenge to the Arizona immigration law, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court asked both sides “pointed questions” and could not promise to rule before July 29, when the law takes effect.
Two Arizona sheriffs who support the state’s immigration law have hired a local law firm to help fight lawsuits against the controversial law and pursue countersuits against the Obama administration.
The government has issued all 10,000 “U” visas available this year for immigrant crime victims who help authorities investigate and prosecute perpetrators.
Health Care
“The nation’s largest provider of abortion services is slamming the Obama administration for seeking to restrict abortion coverage in high-risk pools, even as anti-abortion groups continued to argue the exact opposite.”
“Nearly 83 percent of Colorado’s smallest businesses will qualify for tax credits under the federal healthcare reform act, but less than 25 percent of state businesses with 25 or less workers will be able to receive the maximum tax benefits, according to a report released Thursday.”
“Would you be more likely to choose a medical provider that has embraced electronic medical records?”
Climate Change
“We have some real reservations about the utility-only approach and that’s hard for us to get past,” said Glenn English, the chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, staking out opposition to the stripped-down climate bill being negotiated for Senate debate at the end of July.
“March, April, May and June set records, making 2010 the warmest year worldwide since record-keeping began in 1880,” as Italy is sweltering, “women in bikinis are sunbathing in Moscow,” and southern California is baking.
Scientists have found that “carbon dioxide-induced global warming is in the process of killing off a major coral species in the Red Sea.”
Michigan Attorney General Admits Arizona Immigration Law Does Not Mirror Federal Law
Michigan Attorney General Admits Arizona Immigration Law Does Not Mirror Federal Law
Defenders of Arizona’s immigration law, have repeatedly claimed that SB-1070 simply mirrors federal law. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) legal challenge against the law is based on argument that SB-1070 is federally preempted and interferes with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws. If SB-1070 were really a “mirror image” of federal law, the DOJ wouldn’t have a very a strong case. However, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox (R), who filed a brief in support of SB-1070 along with eight other states, admitted today on Fox News that the Arizona law is not identical to federal law:
Right now, in every single state, state police officers can exercise their discretion if they have reasonable suspicion that someone they stop is an illegal and check with the feds. What Arizona said, instead of leaving that up to the individual cop, we’re gonna make it our state policy that whenever there’s reasonable suspicion, we’re gonna give it to the feds. There really hasn’t been that big of change in the laws. The Obama administration is a little “miffed” that Arizona is forcing it to enforce immigration law.
Watch Cox and those who claim SB-1070 “mirrors” federal law:
However, what Cox dismisses as not “that big of a change” is actually a huge deal with potentially devastating effects. Before deciding to file the lawsuit, Attorney General Holder met with nine police chiefs who expressed concerns about what the difference between mandating local enforcement of immigration laws and allowing police to use “discretion” implies for the safety of their communities. “This law is the culmination of a very broken immigration system,” Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said. “It doesn’t fix the immigration problem, it only diverts our scarce resources.” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck added, “This bill breaks the trust with our communities.”
Not only does SB-1070 require police to ask about immigration status, it also allows Arizona residents to sue law enforcement officials if they believe the law is not being enforced. Additionally, SB-1070 criminalizes several aspects of immigration that are only considered civil violations under federal law and in some cases aren’t even illegal — such as the transport of an undocumented immigrant and the solicitation of work in a public space (day labor). Finally the explicitly stated purpose of SB-1070 is to make “attrition through enforcement” the law. In other words, the law is crafted to make life in Arizona unbearable — if not impossible — so that they self-deport. The federal government meanwhile prioritizes removing dangerous undocumented immigrants. In its brief, the DOJ explains that the “federal government will be required to divert resources from its own, carefully considered enforcement priorities – dangerous aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety – to address the work that Arizona will now create for it.”
Republican Credibility On Deficits Is A Joke
Republican Credibility On Deficits Is A Joke
Our guest blogger is Michael Linden, Associate Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A Republican Senator walks into a bar and goes on and on about how bad the deficit is, and how much money the “Democrat” Congress has been spending and how President Obama has run up all this debt. The GOP Senator is so incensed about the state of the federal budget that he votes against extending unemployment benefits, even though the unemployment rate is at 9.5 percent. $33 billion, says the senator, is just too much to spend on the millions of people who are pounding the pavement looking for work.
Now here comes the punch line. The bartender asks the Senator if he’s in favor of $800 billion in tax cuts for the richest 2 percent of Americans, and the Senator replies that not only is he strongly in favor of more tax breaks for wealthy people, but, “tax cuts should not have to be offset.”
It’s not a particularly funny joke, because, sadly, it’s not a joke at all. This is the position of the Republican party. Senate Republicans unanimously opposed extending jobless aid one day, citing concern over the deficit, but then turn right around and push for huge tax cuts for the very richest people in the country, which would cost more than 20 times as much.
I’ll never understand how a Senator can feign such anxiety about the deficit one minute, push for budget busting tax cuts the next and still keep a straight face. I’ll also never understand how they keep getting away with it.
The New Preventive Services The GOP Can’t Bring Itself To Take Away
The New Preventive Services The GOP Can’t Bring Itself To Take Away
Yesterday, I explained why the new regulations about which preventive services insurers will be required to cover at no additional cost did not include family planing services without really delving into the specifics of the rules themselves. Luckily, Tim Jost has looked at the regulations and as he points out, this is the simplest rule yet:
– Insurers will begin following the new rules starting September 23, but we expect to see relatively few changes at first. Grandfathered plans — i.e. all existing insurance plans — aren’t required to follow the new rules, although laws in many states already require insurers provide the preventive treatments. “Over time, however, plans will lose grandfathered status and the benefits and costs will rise.”
– The lists of preventive services is available here and it includes most screenings, laboratory tests, and vaccinations.
– Plans may also use “reasonable medical management techniques to determine the frequency, method, treatment, or setting for an item or service” if consistent with the recommendation or guideline.
– The three federal departments estimate that premiums will increase on average about 1.5 percent, with some of the increase resulting from a transfer of costs to insurers from individuals who will face reduced cost-sharing, and some due to increased demand attributable to the absence of cost-sharing.
These kinds of benefits make the entire Republican premise of repeal so completely intangible. As I will never tire from pointing out, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) took credit for the provision on Monday and the pro-repeal crowd has been remarkably silent about the new regulations. They like to discuss the law in the broad terms of deficits, entitlements, and rationing and use rhetoric that has no connection to the very tangible benefits of affordable cancer screenings and vaccinations. They’ll cling to their terms even as the law is slowly implemented, but I suspect that as the benefits increase, support for repeal will tapper off to the point where its mere mention will be seen as inappropriate. Of course health reform has its costs and the law has its problems, but eventually, people won’t want to give up what the Republicans want to take away because they’ll actually have it.
What Would Republicans Take Away By Repealing The Wall Street Reform Bill?
What Would Republicans Take Away By Repealing The Wall Street Reform Bill?
Before the Senate had even managed to vote on final passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill today (which it approved on a 60-39 vote), House Republican leaders were publicly promising to repeal it. “I think it ought to be repealed,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH). “We hope [the Senate vote] falters so we can start over,” agreed Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). “I think the reason you’re not hearing talk about efforts to repeal the permanent bailout authority is because the bill hasn’t passed yet.”
This isn’t a surprising development, as House Republicans have gone gangbusters with threats to repeal health care reform ever since it passed. However, much like repealing health care reform would remove protections like the ban on discriminating against customers with preexisting conditions, repealing the Dodd-Frank bill would send the country back to a status quo in which an unshackled Wall Street built up huge amounts of systemic risk, with the full knowledge that a taxpayer-funded bailout awaited their almost inevitable implosion. Here are some provisions of the Dodd-Frank that will become law with President Obama’s signature, but that the GOP is already set to repeal:
– Ability to unwind failed banks without bailouts: Republicans constantly demagogue the bailouts that occurred in 2008 to stabilize the financial system (though they occurred under a Republican administration), but repealing the Dodd-Frank bill would take away new tools granted to regulators to unwind failing firms without taxpayer dollars. This week, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said he “would have loved to have” the bill’s authorities during the crisis of 2008.
– Bringing derivatives out of the dark: The $600 trillion derivatives market is almost entirely unregulated, and helped bring about the demise of some of the big financial institutions, most notably AIG, that needed to be rescued by the government. The Dodd-Frank bill puts these instruments onto public exchanges and through clearinghouses, giving the companies clear price information and regulators transparent paths to follow while policing abuse. It also prevents banks from engaging in some derivatives trading with federally insured dollars.
– Reining in risky trading: Courtesy of the Volcker rule — named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker — banks are prevented from trading for their own benefit with federally insured dollars. Such trading, which amounted to gambling with the government’s backing, sustained upward pressure on the housing bubble. Repealing this rule would be a sign to Wall Street that the casino is back open for business.
Repealing the bill would also mean disbanding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which fills a huge gap in the regulatory system that allows banks to run wild with predatory products while consumers have no advocate (and which Republicans have complained about so much that they probably would be all too happy to see it disappear).
Now, this bill is not perfect, and could have gone much farther in terms of breaking up the biggest banks or getting rid of risky trading entirely. But repealing it would simply let Wall Street banks right back into the wild, wild west that was created by years of deregulation and financial innovation that boosted bank profits but had no societal benefit.
Condemning ‘Islamism’ Denies Ourselves A Valuable Tool
Condemning ‘Islamism’ Denies Ourselves A Valuable Tool
The Washington Institute for near East Policy has a new report, Fighting the Ideological Battle: The Missing Link in U.S. Strategy to Counter Violent Extremism, that looks at the need to commit more resources to counter violent Islamic ideologies. While recognizing that the Obama administration has done some good work repairing America’s image by rejecting the Bush administration’s “global war on terror” rhetoric, the report argues — convincingly, in my view — that it’s a mistake for the Obama administration to simply avoid mentioning the role of Islamic faith when discussing violent extremism.
It’s also worth noting a shift from the administration on this. Speaking Tuesday about the recent Uganda terrorist attacks, President Obama acknowledged that a radical version of Islam views as anti-Islamic “any efforts to modernize, any efforts to provide basic human rights, any efforts to democratize.”
The WINEP report’s arguments about what the administration can to highlight and isolate offensive Islamic ideologies are seriously undermined, however, by one of its very first “core recommendations”:
Ensure that Islamism — a radical political ideology separate from Islam as a religion — is recognized internally within the U.S. government as the key ideological driver of the violent extremist threat posed by al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. Meanwhile, U.S. public diplomacy efforts should sharpen the distinction between the Muslim faith and the violent political ideology of Islamism.
This is a pretty astonishingly reductive rendering of Islamism, one that seriously undermines the rest of the report. For example, one of its own “strategic recommendations”:
Build upon defections and disillusionment among ranks of radical extremists, including former al-Qaeda members and other ex-jihadists such as “Dr. Fadl,” an Egyptian ideologue who broke with al-Qaeda after years of justifying the group’s radical ideology and tactics.
Good idea. Problem is, Dr. Fadl and many other ex-jihadists who’ve since renounced terrorism still consider themselves Islamists. Despite having moderated their views on the uses of violence, they still believe that Islam is not just religious faith and practice but a complete political system. Some on the right, like Frank Gaffney and Daniel Pipes, deem the conservative practice and political application of Islam to be a threat in itself. But casting “Islamism” writ large as inherently violent and irretrievably hostile to the West deprives us of a potentially valuable tool for doing exactly what the report recommends — building upon defections and disillusionment among ranks of current and former radical extremists, and isolating and dividing violent Islamists from non-violent Islamists. This is a key distinction that has yet to be embraced by the Obama administration, though the Cairo speech nodded in that direction.
Proponents SB-1070 Wrongfully Accuse The DOJ Of Being Hypocritical For Not Going After ‘Sanctuary Cities’
Proponents SB-1070 Wrongfully Accuse The DOJ Of Being Hypocritical For Not Going After ‘Sanctuary Cities’
Proponents of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070, have a new talking point: they are now arguing that if the Department of Justice (DOJ) is going to legally challenge SB-1070, it should also go after “sanctuary city” policies as well. “Sanctuary city” is a right-wing derisive term used to describe cities that have adopted community policing policies that prevent police from asking about the immigration status of or detaining and arresting immigrants solely for being undocumented. On Fox News today, the architect of SB-1070, lawyer Kris Kobach, argued that “sanctuary cities” are “expressly forbidden” by Congress and that laws like SB-1070 are encouraged:
Sanctuary cities are expressly forbidden by Congress. [...] In contrast, what Arizona is doing is not prohibited by any specific statute. And indeed, it is invited by several statutes that recognize that a state can and should help the federal government make immigration arrests. So, it’s as if the attorneys and the Justice Department are completely ignoring what Congress said in 1996 when they passed that law prohibiting Sanctuary Cities. [...] This Obama administration Justice Department is saying, “We’re not so concerned about Sanctuary Cities. We’re going to ignore that portion of federal law and we’re gonna sue Arizona instead.” It is outrageous.
Watch it:
However, while Kobach accuses the DOJ of “completely ignoring” the laws, it appears Kobach is either overlooking or unfamiliar with “sanctuary city” policies and their relation to the 1996 law. The intent of “sanctuary city” laws are to encourage cooperation between local police and the immigrant community. If undocumented immigrants believe that police will detain and deport them solely for being in the U.S. illegally, they are less likely to report crimes and serve as witnesses. However, local police are still allowed to report foreign-born criminals to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). For example, the state of Maine passed a law which prevented State employees, including police, from inquiring about a person’s immigration status. However, there are certain exceptions written into the law and other similar resolutions including cases in which “investigating or prosecuting illegal activity other than mere status as an undocumented alien” and when police are “required by federal or state law or by court order or court rule to inquire about such person’s immigration status. The law specifically states that “law enforcement officers shall continue to cooperate with federal authorities in investigating and apprehending aliens suspected of criminal activity.”
There are two 1996 laws, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) which apply directly to the third exception. AEDPA authorized state and local police to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants who have re-entered the U.S. after being deported and who have “previously been convicted of a felony in the United States.” IIRIRA authorized state and local police to enforce civil immigration laws when the Attorney General determines that there is an “actual or imminent mass influx of aliens arriving off the coast of the United States, or near a land border.” IIRIRA does ban policies that prohibit public employees from reporting immigration-related information, but it doesn’t address policies that prevent police from inquiring about an individual’s immigration status.
In fact, IIRIRA specifically established a partnership program for law enforcement agencies that want to work with federal immigration agents to pursue immigration arrests. Section 287(g) permits “designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions” after they sign an agreement with and receive training from ICE. If local police were actually required to enforce immigration law, establishing an optional program that permits them to would be redundant and unecessary.
At the end of his interview today, Kobach argued that he drafted SB-1070 so that it is a “mirror image” of federal law. However, unlike federal law, SB-1070 not only requires local law enforcement to enforce immigration laws, it also allows residents to sue police who they believe are not complying with the law’s provisions. Many police chiefs have come out against the law, pointing out that it will destroy their already tenuous relationship with the immigrant community and that they don’t have the resources or training to enforce it in the first place. And as Attorney General Holder pointed out, “[t]here is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called sanctuary cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law.”
Bobby Jindal’s ‘Barrier Islands’ Are Washing Away
Bobby Jindal’s ‘Barrier Islands’ Are Washing Away
Erosion threatens 1,000-foot sand berm, July 7.
As experts warned, Bobby Jindal’s “obvious” response to the BP oil disaster is failing. Since the beginning of May, Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) has pushed a crash effort to build artificial “barrier islands” from dredged sand to prevent BP’s toxic oil from reaching Louisiana’s fragile coastline. He and other Louisiana politicians excoriated the federal government for waiting until June 3 to authorize the $360 million project, even though “categorically, across the board, every coastal scientist” questioned its wisdom. In mid-May, Jindal justified the barrier-island construction by saying it was the “obvious” thing to do:
It makes so much sense. It’s so obvious. We gotta do it.
“We know it works, we have seen it work, but if they need to see it work, they need to do that quickly,” argued Jindal. On May 27, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) attacked President Barack Obama, calling his administration’s caution “absolutely outrageous“:
Here the president doesn’t seem to have a clue. His decision on the emergency dredging barrier island plan is a thinly veiled ‘no.’ Approving two percent of the request and kicking the rest months down the road is outrageous, absolutely outrageous.
In fact, the first artificial island project is already showing serious signs of erosion, with heavy equipment sinking into the ocean. Photographs released by Louisiana scientist Leonard Bahr and the US Army Corps of Engineers show that the artificial island E-4, intended to reach an 18-mile length, is struggling to survive at 1,100 feet:
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| Berm E-4, June 25 | Berm E-4, July 7 |
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| Berm E-4, July 8 | |
“You don’t want to destroy the village to save the village,” Tom Strickland, the U.S. Interior Department’s assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, explaining on June 23 the federal government’s decision to only provisionally approve the construction of forty miles of sand berms along the Chandeleur Islands. Strickland estimated the berms would last “probably no more than 90 days.”
Jindal is pressing for the federal government to approve the emergency construction of 125 miles of sand berms, arguing the 0.2 miles constructed are “are doing what they were intended to do.”
Jindal himself would be more credible as a supporter of a science-based approach to protecting Louisiana, if he hadn’t launched an effort to block climate change regulations that are aimed at averting catastrophic climate change, which will submerge and destroy the very part of his state he is supposedly trying to save now. And Jindal has mocked federal efforts to do science-based monitoring of other disasters (see “Eruptions of know-nothingism from conservative savior Bobby Jindal“).
Sadly, Tony Perkins Invents Notion That ‘Liberals In Congress Are Moving Forward To Repeal’ DOMA
Sadly, Tony Perkins Invents Notion That ‘Liberals In Congress Are Moving Forward To Repeal’ DOMA
FRC President Tony Perkins
Ever since, DOMA has been under attack by the powerful homosexual lobby, in lockstep with their liberal allies on Capitol Hill and in the mainstream media. Now they’re running full speed ahead to reach their goal.
The pace began picking up last year when President Obama signed a federal “hate crimes” law. Then came his renewed assault on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and most recently his nomination of the pro-homosexual activist Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. And just last week an activist federal judge in Massachusetts declared unconstitutional the federal definition of “marriage”–the union of one man and one woman. He added that “it is only irrational prejudice that motivates the [traditional definition of marriage].”
The Obama Justice Department has not done its duty to defend DOMA aggressively. In fact, it appears that while Solicitor General at Justice, Elena Kagan undermined DOMA in various cases and made deliberately weak legal defenses. Imagine what she’d do with a lifetime appointment to the highest court!
It’s amusing to see how completely detached from reality Perkins is (or chooses to be), particularly since the gay community has condemned the Obama Justice Department for using Bush-era language to defend DOMA and criticized the administration for giving mere lip service to repeal.
The email suggests that conservatives will attack the administration whether it takes up unpopular liberal causes or not, and also says something interesting about the Right’s knee-jerk perception of judges that don’t agree with them as “liberal” or “activist.” For instance, Joshua Green points out that many of the recent so-called ‘gay activist’ judges were, like Joseph Tauro, appointed by conservatives:
Last year, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a gay-marriage ban on the grounds that it violated the due process and equal protection clauses of the state constitution. The unanimous decision was written by Justice Mark Cady, a conservative placed on the court by the former Republican governor Terry Branstad…. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling was written by Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, named to the court by one Republican governor (William Weld) and elevated to chief justice by another (Paul Cellucci).
This summer’s other major ruling on gay marriage, along with Tauro’s, will come from the federal district court in California, where Chief Judge Vaughn Walker will decide whether to overturn the state’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage. The betting is that he will, which would be notable not only because of his political lineage but because Walker’s nomination by Ronald Reagan was thwarted by Democrats — led by the current House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi — who believed he was prejudiced against homosexuals. They were mistaken. Reappointed by George H.W. Bush and this time confirmed, Walker demonstrated no prejudice.
I don’t want to overstate the trend, but there is probably a difference between conservative judges — who tend to be hyper-educated lawyers and think like intellectuals — and the sort of people who actually care about hating on gays. Perkins’ email represents the latter group well.
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