Reports Of BP Disaster’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
Reports Of BP Disaster’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated
In a contrarian take today, Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald wrote a preemptive post-mortem impact of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, saying that it “does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. Grunwald believes that Rush Limbaugh “has a point” because the right-wing radio host spent weeks dismissing the disaster. New York Times reporters Justin Gillis and Campbell Robertson wrote that the “oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico appears to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected.” The Associated Press’s John Carey believes “the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared.” The narrative of the disappearing disaster has been promoted by Politico’s Mike Allen and the Drudge Report.
Meanwhile, the oil blowout has been contained but not killed, oil continues to wash ashore, and the haphazard scientific effort to understand the 100-day disaster is hobbled by BP’s interference and governmental lassitude. It’s fair to point out, as Grunwald does, that the oil disaster’s impact on Louisiana’s shoreline is likely to be meaningless if the marshlands continue to disappear. Fringe rumors of global eco-collapse — never promoted by major environmental groups — continue to be as baseless as the nonsense spouted by conservative activists, media, and politicians on behalf of the oil industry.
However, the only honest take on the BP disaster right now is that this is a calamity, the true scope of which will take years to discover, with many impacts impossible to ever know. No one knows how badly this disaster will affect the dying marshlands of Louisiana. No one knows how badly the toxic oil plumes will affect the spawning grounds of the bluefin tuna, the feeding grounds of the threatened Gulf sturgeon, or the future of the endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles, whose corpses have been found at 15 times the historical rate this summer. No one knows what the long-term physical and mental health impacts will be on the tens of thousands of cleanup workers.
Moreover, it is undoubtedly premature to announce that the vast oil slick has largely disappeared from the ocean’s surface. Thick oil, vast slicks, and tar balls continue to wash ashore along Louisiana’s coastline. Satellite imagery from July 27 and 28 — as the stories of disappearing oil were being filed — show a vast region still discolored by slicks and sheen, little diminished from previous weeks:
 Composite of MODIS visible satellite imagery from July 27 and July 28. Analysis of spill extent by Brad Johnson, Center for American Progress Action Fund. |
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This Has Been An Equal Opportunity Recession When It Comes To Job Losses Across Industries
This Has Been An Equal Opportunity Recession When It Comes To Job Losses Across Industries
Our guest blogger is Heather Boushey, Senior Economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Economist Paul Krugman highlights Raghuram Rajan arguing in today’s Financial Times that the Federal Reserve should begin raising interest rates because “the US had far too much productive capacity devoted to houses and cars, because consumers could obtain financing for them easily.” Essentially, Rajan is arguing that monetary tightening is necessary to shift resources out of the too-large housing and car sectors. Krugman points out that this makes no sense because most of the job losses during the Great Recession haven’t been in the construction sector:
OK, I actually haven’t taken cars into account; someone with more time can do that. But let’s look at the role of job losses in construction versus other sectors, since December 2007. It looks like this:
If high unemployment were largely about shifting workers out of an overblown construction sector, wouldn’t you expect job losses to be concentrated in that sector? Wouldn’t you expect employment elsewhere to be, if anything, rising? In fact, however, the vast majority of job losses have occurred in parts of the economy with little direct connection to the housing bubble. Yes, as a percentage job losses have been much larger in construction; but nothing in Rajan’s argument explains why we shouldn’t be using policy in an attempt to prevent vast job losses in parts of the economy that aren’t overblown.
Let me add a bit more meat to this story. In fact, the Great Recession has been more of an “equal opportunity” recession than other recent recessions (click here for a larger image):
Certainly, construction has lost a significant chunk of jobs, but other industries — manufacturing, professional and business services, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and information services — have all lost a larger share. Much of financial activities could be considered tied to the run-up and bust of the housing market, but all the others? This Great Recession has had fairly broad, widespread job losses across industry, which contradicts the idea that there’s one or two sectors that U.S. workers need to transition out of.
LGBT Advocates Pressure Senate To Hold Vote On Repealing DADT In September
LGBT Advocates Pressure Senate To Hold Vote On Repealing DADT In September
With just 12 days before Congress leaves for a month-long recess, two LGBT advocacy are pressuring the Senate to hold a vote on repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in September. Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) are urging supporters in 10 states to contact their representatives and “tell them to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and follow the lead of Chairman Carl Levin who will be managing the defense bill on the floor.” Levin had previously told supporters that he had hoped to vote on the defense authorization bill before the August break and later predicted that it would go to the floor last week.
The groups’ campaign, called Countdown 2010, hopes to “mobilize grassroots supporters of equality across the country through in-district meetings as well as a call-in and email campaign” and will also focus on passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the House:
HRC and SLDN’s efforts will be specifically focused on 10 states with key lawmakers whose votes on DADT repeal are critical: Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Virginia. HRC will also engage the LGBT community and our allies in those states on ENDA in addition to on-the-ground work for ENDA in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Supporters of equality are encouraged to meet with Representatives and Senators while they are in their districts and states for the August Congressional recess.
To participate, individuals can sign up at countdown2010.hrc.org . There, they’ll find downloadable meeting toolkits, videos on in-district meetings and information on how to schedule a meeting and report back on how it went.
Advocates fear that pushing the vote past September, closer to “when the Pentagon’s working group study on implementation is due to be released,” would “provide an opening for detractors of repeal to scuttle support for the measure, whether through an overt effort to strip it from the bill or through a secondary amendment to broaden the certification requirement beyond the president, Defense secretary, and chairman of the Joint chiefs.”
Indeed, it’s still unclear if Democrats have enough votes to defeat a measure that would expand the certification process to chiefs who have publicly expressed support for the ban on open service. Yesterday, the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson reported that Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), widely considered a swing vote on the issue, said that she would support the existing DADT repeal amendment, but “wouldn’t commit to a position on a possible floor amendment that would strip the language from the bill.” Lincoln actually has a surprisingly positive record on LGBT issues. She did not register a vote on the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, supported DADT in 1993, but voted for the hate crimes bill 2009, and against cloture on a measure that would have prohibited individual states from recognizing marital status and/or legal benefits from any other unions other than that of a man and woman.
Last week at Netroots Nation, the group GetEqual stopped traffic to protest Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) failure to pass ENDA and Lt. Dan Choi presented Reid with his West Point ring, urging the Senator to repeal DADT.
As Obama Praises Race To The Top’s Success, Congress Cuts Its Funding In Half
As Obama Praises Race To The Top’s Success, Congress Cuts Its Funding In Half
Earlier this week, a coalition of civil rights groups blasted the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program — which provides competitive grants to states that implement education reforms — saying that “by emphasizing competitive incentives in this economic climate, the majority of low-income and minority students will be left behind and, as a result, the United States will be left behind as a global leader.”
Today, Obama responded at the National Urban League Centennial Conference:
I know there’s a concern that Race to the Top doesn’t do enough for minority kids, because the argument is, well, if there’s a competition, then somehow some states or some school districts will get more help than others. Let me tell you, what’s not working for black kids and Hispanic kids and Native American kids across this country is the status quo…So the charge that Race to the Top isn’t targeted at those young people most in need is absolutely false because lifting up quality for all our children — black, white, Hispanic — that is the central premise of Race to the Top. And you can’t win one of these grants unless you’ve got a plan to deal with those schools that are failing and those young people who aren’t doing well. Every state and every school district is directly incentivized to deal with schools that have been forgotten, been given up on.
Of course, closing the achievement gap between white and minority students is a huge part of making the education system more effective. The College Board has set the goal of having 55 percent of 27-34 year olds holding a college degree by 2020 (currently 40 percent do), and “by eliminating the severity of disparities between underrepresented minorities and white Americans, it is estimated that more than half the degrees needed to meet the 55 percent goal would be produced.”
But Race to the Top has been a key driver for education reform across the country. So far, 32 states have implemented reforms in order to compete in the program. “While Race to the Top has only been in existence for a short time, it has yielded some of the most dramatic state education reforms the country has seen in many years,” said CAP’s Cindy Brown. “These changes include a new law in Colorado that ensures all teachers receive a meaningful evaluation, a raise in standards for teacher tenure, and measures that ensure that ineffective teachers who don’t improve are not teaching students.”
So it’s completely baffling that the Senate has seen fit to slice the program’s funding in half for 2011, after the administration itself requested far less than it had in 2010. The House cut the $1.4 billion request down to $850 million, and the Senate reduced it further to just $675 million. This year’s program had $4.3 billion, and with the country’s economic future at stake, it makes little sense to slice a program that’s showing tangible results.
The Right Thing To Do? HHS Issues Regulations Prohibiting States From Covering Abortion In High Risk Pools
The Right Thing To Do? HHS Issues Regulations Prohibiting States From Covering Abortion In High Risk Pools
This morning, following GOP allegations that states would be able to use federal dollars to cover none-Hyde abortions in the temporary high risk insurance pool programs, HHS issued regulations prohibiting states from covering the procedure. “The (high-risk pool) program,” the regulation states, “is Federally-created, funded, and administered (whether directly or through contract); it is a temporary Federal insurance program in which the risk is borne by the Federal government up to a fixed appropriation. As such, the services covered by the PCIP program shall not include abortion services except in the case of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered.”
The controversy that sparked the new rules originated in a press release from the National Right to Life Committee, which claimed that the Obama Administration “has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of Governor Edward Rendell (D) under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.” The charge bounced around conservative circles, despite the administration’s swift promise to issue new guidance preventing states from covering abortion services. House Republicans wrote a letter HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking her “to supply them with the applications from all the states administering their own high-risk pools” and yesterday, 13 Republican Senators penned their own missive urging Sebelius to do what the administration had already promised.
Meanwhile, progressive pro-choice advocates felt betrayed. Since there is no over-arching law that prevents states from using federal dollars to fund abortion services, the administration was not required to alter the state’s proposals. It had already promised to segregate abortion funds within the exchanges and to prohibit community health centers from using federal funds to provide abortion services, but it had said nothing of shielding funds elsewhere — including high risk pools. Writing at RH Reality Check, CAP’s Jessica Arons accused the administration of applying the Stupak amendment to the high risk pools and going beyond the bargain it struck:
It is understandable that the Administration might now feel the need to honor the “spirit” of the compromise that resulted in the Executive Order. But the whole point of the compromise was to preserve the status quo, which included both restricted and unrestricted spheres of abortion funding. Moreover, the terms of the agreement were carefully negotiated. Abortion opponents who participated in the bargaining did not raise concerns about high risk pools or other specific potential sources of federal funding, and they should be able to live with the deal they made.
Indeed, rather than developing a compromise that would have either allowed states to decide whether to cover abortions with federal funding or required them to segregate funding and use private or state money to pay for the abortion services, the administration prohibited abortion coverage almost instantly. White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle insists that “no new ground has been broken” and that “the program’s restriction on abortion coverage is not a precedent for other programs or policies” — and hopefully that’s true. But it’s hard to understand why the administration felt so compelled to make this decision so quickly and reactively. If it was hoping to score points with conservative pro-life voters, then it overestimated the GOP’s willingness to recognize its concessions and may be surprised when Republicans continue to send fundraising letters about the abortion issue.
After Arresting Over 20,000 Undocumented Immigrants, Arpaio Says He’ll Arrest ‘Rich White Guys’
After Arresting Over 20,000 Undocumented Immigrants, Arpaio Says He’ll Arrest ‘Rich White Guys’
Yesterday, on his radio show, Thom Hartmann challenged Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s strategy of going after poor, undocumented immigrants rather than focusing on the wealthy business owners who hire them. Hartmann urged Arpaio to become an advocate for “going after rich white guys” who are “making all this happen.” Arpaio wouldn’t exactly commit to lobbying for immigration laws that target employers, but he did say he would arrest anyone who breaks the law — including “rich white guys”:
HARTMANN: By and large the people who are the most energetic, the most outspoken, and the most active like you are…are gung-ho to go after poor brown people. But when it comes to talking about laying their hands on the rich white guys — the guys who own the companies, the guys who own the companies that own the companies, the guys who are creating the demand — I’m not hearing your governor out there yelling and screaming about that. I’m not hearing you talk much about that. [...] Why aren’t you and Jan Brewer advocates for laws against the rich white guys that are making all this happens?
ARPAIO: I’m the only one grabbing the people and raiding these businesses! [...]
HARTMANN: I know, but my point is, you’re doing a lot of media, you’re out there, and you could be a voice for “Hey, let’s go after these rich white guys.”
ARPAIO: I say that!
HARTMANN: Will you go on the record right now and say “the rich white guys should be in jail?”
ARPAIO: Of course, I’ll go after anybody. Give me the evidence and I’ll go after them.
Listen here:
However, Arpaio doesn’t just go after “anybody.” For the most part, the Sheriff has gone after low-hanging fruit. Arpaio has raided businesses 37 times. He has been responsible for 26,146 deportations, but has only arrested a business person under the state’s employer sanctions law once. Earlier this year, Arpaio even admitted that his deputies were arresting “very few” non-Hispanics.
In his interview with Hartmann, Arpaio argued that he had “weak, Mickey Mouse” employer sanction laws to enforce. However, the problem isn’t necessarily that laws targeting employers are weak, it’s that they’re rarely enforced. Immigration lawyer David Kotick notes that “[e]mployers who hire undocumented aliens face steep fines and the loss of their business licenses. Some laws even mandate jail time for repeat offenders.” If an employer is shown to have engaged in a “pattern and practice” of violating the immigration employment laws, that person could face a prison sentence of up to six months. Arizona recently passed even tougher employer sanction laws that are being challenged in the Supreme Court by the Chamber of Commerce.
Meanwhile, working in the U.S. without authorization is considered a civil violation. However, Arpaio has been creatively interpreting the law in a way that allows him to arrest and jail thousands of undocumented immigrants for being “co-conspirators” in their own smuggling. Arpaio and his former accomplice, the ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, were the only state officials in Arizona bringing charges of conspiracy to commit human smuggling against individuals paying to be smuggled.
In all fairness, while unscrupulous employers that hire and exploit undocumented labor should be punished to the full extent of the law, abiding by immigration employment laws isn’t an easy task. It is often difficult to distinguish between a valid Social Security document and a fake one. And while Arizona’s new laws require employers to electronically verify the status of their workers, studies have shown that the E-verify program fails to catch half of all undocumented workers.
Republicans Claim To Be The Defenders Of Small Business, While Filibustering Small Business Lending Bill
Republicans Claim To Be The Defenders Of Small Business, While Filibustering Small Business Lending Bill
Both the Washington Post and the New York Times today have articles on Democrats and Republicans vying for to be seen as more supportive of small businesses. “At the core of some of the major policy fights in Washington these days is a ferocious competition between Republicans and Democrats over which party is the champion of America’s small businesses,” the Times wrote.
Republicans loudly claim that Democrats have “hit small business with a sledgehammer,” but when given the opportunity to provide tax credits and lending capacity to small businesses today, they instead chose obstruction. The Senate failed to invoke cloture on a bill creating a lending fund for small businesses and providing those businesses with a series of tax credits, on a 58-42 vote. All Republicans voted against the bill (and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) switched his vote at the last moment as a procedural matter, which allows him to bring the bill up again later).
For months, Republicans in the Senate have been bogging down this particular bill by threatening to attach a cut in the estate tax to it, which would benefit just the richest 0.25 percent of households in the country. And at the same time, the GOP has been waging an intense campaign to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, because they falsely claim that a failure to do so would be a blow to small businesses.
But as Dylan Matthews pointed out, IRS data shows that “the filers reporting small business income who would be affected by letting the tax cuts expire come disproportionately from the ranks of the super-rich.” In fact, the Tax Policy Center has made the case that the Bush tax cuts actually harm small businesses, because their cost of capital goes up as the deficit increases, and the cuts made the tax code more corporation-friendly:
While the 2001-2003 tax cuts were described as “pro-entrepreneur,” a recent study found that the majority of taxpayers would see their tax burden rise, once the eventual financing of the cuts was taken into account. Specifically, the study found that 72 percent of taxpayers with business income would be worse off if the tax cuts were eventually paid for by proportional financing, and that 58 percent of filers with business income would be worse off if the cuts were eventually paid for with equal-dollar financing.
Even those Republicans who supported the small business lending bill — like Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — voted against it today, claiming that they didn’t have ample opportunity to attach amendments. So in the end, Senate Republicans had the chance to do something helpful for small businesses, but decided obstruction was the more productive route.
Speaker At NOM’s ‘Peaceful And Prayerful’ Marriage Tour Has Compared Gays To Pedophiles, Hitler
Speaker At NOM’s ‘Peaceful And Prayerful’ Marriage Tour Has Compared Gays To Pedophiles, Hitler
Throughout its 23-city “Summer for Marriage Tour 2010,” the National Organization For Marriage (NOM) has gone to great lengths to portray itself as a tolerant organization of Christians driven to oppose same-sex marriage by their religion. NOM has argued that its members are in a great “civil rights” struggle against intolerant LGBT counter protesters who have sabotaged its tour and threatened its members. Former NOM President Maggie Gallagher has described her supporters as “very peaceful and prayerful and respectful of the law, because that’s who our people are” while painting LGBT activists as “a real face of hatred.” “It isn’t just ‘we disagree with you, we’re supporting our point of view,” Gallagher quoted the counter protesters as saying, “it’s ‘you’re wrong, you’re haters, you’re bigots.’”
The blog NOM Tour Tracker has worked to expose the thin veil of NOM’s tolerance throughout their tour and has noted that NOM has coached its supporters to focus on the movements message of “love” when speaking with reporters. Yesterday, the blog cross-posted an item by Good As You’s Jeremy Hooper, which uncovered the homophobic record of pastor Brad Brandon, one of the speaker’s NOM’s rally in Minneapolis. Brandon had previously warned supporters that gays would teach children how to masturbate and compared gays to alcoholics, pedophiles and Hitler:
COMPARES GAYS TO ALCOHOLICS: “If you had an uncle who was a drunk and he was destroying his marriage and he was destroying his life and he was dying from problems that come along with drinking….Would you love him to go up to him and say, ‘oh, it’s okay, what you’re doing is alright?’ ….no you wouldn’t… But yet when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, all of the sudden, we have to keep our mouths shut, and we cannot say anything when it comes to this issue.”
COMPARES GAYS TO ADULTERERS, PEDOPHILES: “On the 17th, the ELCA convenes to vote on whether to allow homosexuals to be clergy. I mean, to me that’s like asking somebody who is living an open adulterous lifestyle to become a pastor. To me, that is like asking a pedophile to become a pastor.”
BELIEVES IN REPARATIVE THERAPY: “We need to preach Christ, the love of Christ, the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Get These homosexuals saved and get them out of this lifestyle.”
Listen:
Ironically, Gallagher has criticized LGBT leaders for failing to condemn the counter protesters’ “disruptive” tactics, but has yet to issue a statement distancing NOM from Brandon’s controversial remarks or the now infamous noose placard that appeared at NOM’s rally in Indianapolis. “I mean, what kind of people do that, first of all, and what kind of movement doesn’t step up and say, ‘No, this isn’t what our movement is about,’” Gallagher asked of the LGBT movement.
Foreclosures Up In 75% Of Metro Areas, But Congress Reduced To Pleading With Banks To Modify Mortgages
Foreclosures Up In 75% Of Metro Areas, But Congress Reduced To Pleading With Banks To Modify Mortgages
According to the latest data from RealtyTrac, “foreclosures rose in three of every four large U.S. metro areas in this year’s first half,” providing yet another piece of proof that the foreclosure crisis is far from over. “More than 3 million households are seen getting at least one foreclosure notice this year, and this record will be surpassed slightly at the peak of next year,” RealtryTrac estimated.
The slow but consistently mounting number of foreclosures is, sadly, warranting little attention from lawmakers. And the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure prevention program, the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), has fallen flat on its face. The latest report shows that fewer than 400,000 homeowners have received permanent modifications. In fact, more homeowners (520,814) have fallen out of the program than have had their mortgage modified.
HAMP has suffered from a series of design flaws, but one of the biggest is that there’s simply no incentive for banks to make a wide effort at implementing modifications, as the program contains no stick to force a bank’s hand. In fact, at this point, Democratic lawmakers have been reduced to asking banks if they would deign to pick up the pace of modifications on their own:
In a letter Tuesday, [Sen. Sherrod] Brown (D-OH) stated that a number of constituents have contacted his office saying banks are offering limited assistance in helping them restructure their home loans. The senator used the letter to call on banks to do more to help these individuals. “It is in the best interest of your banks to work with responsible borrowers to help them stay in their homes or find other alternatives to foreclosure,” Brown wrote.
As Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the TARP Oversight Panel, said, “for every family that Treasury has helped into a sustainable mortgage modification, ten other families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Foreclosures show no clear signs of abating.” Atrios added, “HAMP was announced with great fanfare, a big budget, and a promise that the program could help millions of homeowners. Instead it’s mostly gouged desperate people, extracting a few more mortgage payments out of them while doing little to help them.”
Treasury has been reluctant to implement substantial changes to the HAMP program, but states across the country are trying other approaches to stem the foreclosure tide, including mediation programs that compel banks to meet with a homeowner before finalizing a foreclosure. And it remains the case that the failure to get a handle on the housing crisis will impair an economic recovery.
Opposition To Health Care Reform Decreasing, But Seniors Remain Split
Opposition To Health Care Reform Decreasing, But Seniors Remain Split
A July Health Tracking Poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that opposition to health care reform continues to decrease, but is still being driven by popular misconceptions about the law. Seniors — most of whom already have access to insurance — also view the law more negatively than “their younger counterparts,” the survey concluded:
The July Health Tracking Poll indicates overall public support for the health reform law is steady from June, while unfavorable views of the law have trended downward. Half the public (50%) now expresses a favorable view of the law, while 35 percent say they have an unfavorable opinion (down from 41% in June) [...]
[Seniors] remain roughly split about the law with 46 percent of seniors holding an unfavorable view of the law and 38 percent holding a favorable one. While 35 percent of seniors think they will be worse off under reform, a greater share (57%) say they will be better off (20%) or it will make no difference (37%).
A large number of seniors “mistakenly believe the law includes provisions that cut some previously universal Medicare benefits” and 36% think that the law creates ‘death panels.’ Also, only 14 percent of seniors know that the law will increase the Medicare Part A trust fund by 12 years “and nearly half (45%) of seniors think the health reform law will weaken the financial condition of the fund. ”
These results are interesting in that they demonstrate the effectiveness of the GOP’s pre-reform messaging and the ineffectiveness of their current repeal and replace campaign: once a benefit has been extended, the public don’t want it taken away. Only 27 percent of the public overall say the law should be repealed “as soon as possible,” a number that’s remained consistent since June.
On the seniors front, the results are also promising. While many still cling to the vestiges of the old death panel attacks, a good number remain uncertain about what’s in the law and may still be swayed by the positive news around implementation. This is evident in this poll and in an earlier survey released on Monday. That questionnaire, sponsored by the National Council on Aging (NCOA), “found that only 17 percent of respondents could answer even half of the 12 questions about key provisions in the law.”
The WonkLine: July 29, 2010
The WonkLine: July 29, 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.
Climate Change
Second-quarter profits at both Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil have nearly doubled from last year to $4.5 billion and $7.6 billion respectively, while ConocoPhillips profits quadrupled to $4.1 billion.
Republicans are slamming the inclusion of natural gas fracking disclosure rules in Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-NV) “spill bill.”
30,000 Washington, DC, residents are still without power after a storm this weekend, two people were killed by a freak tornado in northeastern Montana, and at least “52 people are reported to have died and an additional 20 are missing following rain-triggered floods in central China’s Henan Province.”
Immigration
The New York Times reports that “the Pima County [Arizona] morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year.”
Alan Bersin and John Morton of the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies write that they have undertaken “the most serious approach to enforcement we have witnessed in our careers.”
Heading into fall elections, Democrats are vying for the upper hand by advancing targeted immigration and border security bills that “GOP lawmakers will be hard pressed to oppose.”
Economy
Today, President Obama “will deliver a major education reform speech at the National Urban League’s 100th Anniversary Convention,” discussing “how his signature Race to the Top program and other initiatives are driving education reform across the country.”
Three of President Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors were approved by the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, “despite Republican resistance to two of his picks.”
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) “is asking the Senate Finance Committee to investigate plans by oil giant BP to cut its U.S. tax bill by $10 billion, or half the amount the British-based company has pledged to provide victims of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”
National Security
In a blow to his efforts to foster a “special relationship” with New Delhi, British Prime Minister Cameron will leave India without meeting Sonia Gandhi, “president of the Congress party widely regarded as the most powerful person in the country.”
The Obama administration “is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation” — a move many Internet providers have thus far resisted.
Today, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new security law restoring “Soviet-era powers to the Federal Security Service, the KGB’s main successor agency.”
Health Care
“Medicare Advantage plans are reducing avoidable hospital readmissions at a faster clip than traditional Medicare, the insurance industry claims, emphasizing the value of Advantage plans at a time when major cuts are slated for the plans under the new reform law.”
“A senior House Republican has stepped up his call for HHS to turn over cost estimates it received from federal actuaries about the healthcare reform legislation before it became law.”
“Health insurance plans across the country on Wednesday began to backtrack on their decision to pull out of the child-only coverage market after the Obama administration addressed their concerns about the potential damage to their bottom lines.”
Why Are Insurers Reporting Lower MLRs Ahead Of The New Regulations?
Why Are Insurers Reporting Lower MLRs Ahead Of The New Regulations?
Reuters is reporting that shares of Aetna and Wellpoint “slid on Wednesday and weighed on industry peers despite the fact that both posted strong quarterly earnings and raised their 2010 forecasts.” “A main reason for the industry’s uncertainty about the impact of the U.S. healthcare overhaul is that rules determining how much the health insurers must spend on medical costs have yet to be determined. Those details are expected to be ironed out in the next couple of months.”
Wellpoint, the nation’s largest insurer by membership, “reported a 4% increase in profit for the second quarter that helped generate earnings of $1.6 billion since the beginning of the year – a 26% increase over the same period in 2009″ and Aetna said its “second-quarter profits rose 42 percent, with a net income of $491 million, compared with $346.6 million for the same quarter last year.”
Both companies also reported lower medical-loss-ratios, as enrollment numbers declined. Kaiser Health News has this breakdown:
For the quarter, Aetna’s combined medical-loss ratio for its commercial, Medicare and Medicaid businesses was 81.8 percent, compared with 86.8 percent in the same quarter last year. The ratio for its commercial business declined to 80.1 percent for the second quarter from 85.9 percent for the same quarter in 2009…[Wellpoint] said it spent 82.9 percent of customers’ premiums on medical care during the second quarter, down from 83.9 percent during the same quarter a year ago. For all of 2010, WellPoint now expects its so-called medical loss ratio to be 83.9 percent, down from its April forecast of 84.3 percent.
In other words, insurers earned more partly because they spent less on medical care and some Democrats in Congress are already arguing that these profits should preclude insurers from raising premiums next year. “Wellpoint and Aetna are on track for great years with multi-billion dollar profits. Now it’s time for them to return those windfalls to their enrollees in the form of reduced premiums. With business booming, there is no excuse for any premium hikes or benefit cuts next year by Wellpoint or Aetna in their private sector or Medicare Advantage plans,” Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), Chairman of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee said in a statement.
The MLR indicator is closely watched by Wall Street investors as a sign of insurer profitability and companies have spent years strictly defining “medical care” to ensure that the so-called “loss” to profit is not too great. But now that the health care law will require insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical care, and 85 percent for large group plans, insurers are lobbying to expand the definition to include services they had previously classified as “administrative.”
It’s unclear why insurers’ medical loss ratios are decreasing just as the government is preparing to issue new, presumably more stringent regulations. Are beneficiaries spending less on health care during an economic downturn or are insurers dropping sicker patients, stashing cash away in reserves, and investing in other business activities? The lower the MLR rate today, the more insurers would have to spend on medical expenses to meet the new requirements (if they’re at 80% today, they’ll have to jump 5 percentage points to get to 85%, which is far more difficult than starting at 84% and moving just 1 point to the new requirement). But this lower starting point gives insurers the opportunity to whine about “unreasonable” government regulations and could even convince the Secretary to use her discretion to lower the target rates. If she doesn’t of course, it could all backfire.
Could Afghanistan’s Local Police Forces Fuel Feudalism?
Could Afghanistan’s Local Police Forces Fuel Feudalism?
Our guest blogger is Farha Faisal, a national security intern at the Center for American Progress.
Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to implement coalition commander General David Petraeus’ new plan to develop local police forces as a “temporary solution” for securing remote areas against the Taliban. However, this poses serious concerns for long-term stability, peace, and reconciliation in Afghanistan. While the idea of “partnering with tribes” to protect neighborhoods (as advocated by Maj. Jim Gant) seems enticing given the slow-paced training efforts of the formal Afghan security forces, we must not forget recent history. Training local militias has been tried in the past in Afghanistan—and failed.
In the 1980s, Afghanistan’s communist government spent thousands of dollars on Russian-recruited local militias, since its own security forces were unable to suppress an Afghan uprising beginning in 1979. After the Soviet withdrawal, these militias grew into powerful private armies controlled by brutal warlords, who terrorized the population as they fought each other in a devastating civil war in the 1990s, until the Taliban seized power in 1996.
Our current efforts could produce a similar outcome. By multiplying arms in local communities, coalition forces may well promote, rather than quell, the conflict. U.S. military officials and the Karzai administration retain hopes that the incorporation of these forces under the Interior Ministry, as “government formed, government paid, and government uniformed” units, will prevent such disaster. Their hope is founded on Petraeus’ earlier success in implementing such militias in Iraq in 2006 by hiring large numbers of Sunnis as local protection fighters against the insurgency. This rosy picture of local security, however, has fundamental problems.
First, the use of such local police units has been tested in the past year in Afghanistan with the creation of the Afghan Public Protection Program (2008) and the Local Defense Initiative groups (2009), but they have not yielded promising results. The efforts stumbled upon several obstacles, including units demanding bribes and imposing taxes, as well as major vulnerability in the face of insurgent attacks. NATO even disbanded their local police programs due to legitimate concerns about sedition, which still remains a worry amongst Afghan officials and even Ambassador Eikenberry. They fear individuals who will change their allegiance to the Taliban.
Second, the ethnic and political make-up in Afghanistan is vastly different from that of Iraq—the “tribal” understandings of Afghanistan do not accurately depict the social landscape, in which there are numerous forms of social organization. Yet, such tribal assumptions could actually heighten ethnic cleavages, and possibly lead to civil war. This seems even more plausible with Karzai’s current reintegration efforts. By moving the Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun, back into the political process, this could easily anger other minorities -– the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Hazaras — who could then mobilize their local police forces on ethnic lines.
The creation of these local police forces could present a serious issue for the central government over the long term. Such units could participate in the corruption and bribery that plagues the government structure. And the attention and resources directed at these units will inevitably undermine the training efforts of the Afghan National Security Forces, which is more integral to securing our long term security objectives in the country, particularly if we hold to Obama’s July 2011 call for initial withdrawal of combat forces. Afghans themselves have expressed concern over the use of local militia in recent polls. A BBC poll from December 2009 found that 68 percent were either “not very” or “not at all” confident in the ability of local militias to provide security in their neighborhoods, and a survey by the 2004 Afghan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium found that 88 percent wanted to reduce the power of former warlords.
Regardless of the name, arming local groups in Afghanistan for short-term security is a risky bet. History illustrates the potential for powerbrokers to attract the unpredictable loyalty of local armed units. With the region’s stability and long-term U.S. security objectives at stake, failure could be costly.
Former STRATCOM Commanders Come Out In Support Of START – Debate Is All But Done
Former STRATCOM Commanders Come Out In Support Of START – Debate Is All But Done
The debate over the new START treaty is essentially over. Today all but one former commander of the US Strategic Command – the Generals and Admirals in charge of our nuclear weapons – came out in support of the New START treaty. In a letter these Generals write:
As former commanders of Strategic Air Command and U.S. Strategic Command, we collectively spent many years providing oversight, direction and maintenance of U.S. strategic nuclear forces and advising presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush on strategic nuclear policy. We are writing to express our support for ratification of the New START Treaty… We will understand Russian strategic forces much better with the treaty than would be the case without it.
The letter was signed by Generals Larry Welch, John Chain, Eugene Habiger, Bennie Davies, Lee Butler and Admirals Henry Chiles and James Ellis. We can now add them to the endless and constantly growing list of military leaders and former senior Republican officials and defense experts that support that treaty.
The debate over START has essentially reached its end. No matter what evidence is shown, the far-right consisting of Senators Jim DeMint and James Inhofe, as well as the Heritage Foundation, will oppose the treaty. After months of back and forth it is clear they do so not because of the specifics of the treaty, but because it is both a treaty and it is arms-control. They are extreme ideologues that oppose arms-control, want to build new nuclear weapons, and want to restart a new Cold War with Russia by developing and then targeting a mythical missile defense system specifically at Russia. While this is entirely nuts, their opposition is at least because they are ideologically and substantively opposed to the treaty.
But fortunately for America, they are also really in the minority. Besides DeMint and Inhofe, and perhaps a sign of declining influence, few Republicans in the Senate are publicly taking Heritage’s stance on the treaty.
In fact, having made little headway on the merits of the treaty, many Republicans, such as Senators Bob Bennett, Lamar Alexander, and Bob Corker, are now signaling that they may support the treaty. But of course there is a but – and that brings us to the leadership of the Senate GOP, specifically Senator Kyl. While Heritage at least openly oppose the treaty on ideological grounds, Senator Kyl has chosen to make this not about START but about shaking down the Administration to put even more funds into the nuclear weapons complex.
In other words, Kyl and the Senate GOP aren’t talking about the START treaty anymore – they know they have lost the factual debate – and they aren’t even really talking about how the Senate is “rushing” the treaty, since the debate is now going in repetitious circles – they are now talking about what they can extract from the Administration in exchange for passing the treaty. After all their complaints about backroom health care deals, they are now threatening to kill a treaty they now concede is vital to our nuclear security just for some more wasteful nuclear pork.
New Poll Finds Only 1-In-5 Californians Now Believe Proposition 8 Was A ‘Good Thing’ For The State
New Poll Finds Only 1-In-5 Californians Now Believe Proposition 8 Was A ‘Good Thing’ For The State
As Judge Vaughn Walker prepares to issue a verdict in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the landmark case against California’s Proposition 8, a new poll released last week by Public Religion Research Institute finds that a significant percentage of Californians, including people of faith across the California religious landscape, “say they have become increasingly supportive of gay rights over the last five years”:
– Only one-in-five (22%) Californians believe the passage of Proposition 8 was a “good thing” for the state.
– One-in-four Californians report that their views on rights for gay and lesbian people has become more supportive over the last five years, compared to only 8% who say they have become more opposed.
– If another vote similar to Proposition 8 were held tomorrow, a majority (51%) say they would vote to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, compared to 45% who say they would vote to keep same sex marriage illegal.
– An overwhelming majority of Californians say they favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people from job discrimination and favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve only in the military (75% and 69% respectively). A majority (56%) favors adoption rights for same-sex couples.
Interestingly, the poll also found that “although concerns about the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage on children figured prominently in arguments by Proposition 8 supporters during the 2008 campaigns, few Californians view this as a concern.” Sixty percent actually “disagree that children would be more likely to experiment with homosexuality if same-sex marriage were legal.”
Californians were also more willing to support marriage if reassured that “no church or congregation would be required to perform marriages for gay couples” and that the law “only provided for civil marriages like you get at city hall.” When these assurances were made, support for marriage increased by a 12 to 19 points. The poll also found a correlation between how Californians saw God and support for same-sex marriage. Californians who say they are extremely likely to identify with specific images of God as judge, father, or liberator are more likely than those who less strongly identify with these specific images of God to say they would vote to keep same-sex marriage illegal.” Similarly, Californians “who believe the Bible is a book written by men and is not the word of God” were more likely to support rights for gays and lesbians.
A Field Poll released a day before the Public Religion Research Institute survey also found that “if a vote was held on Proposition 8 now, 51 percent of all Californians would vote it down.”
AZ Law Enforcement Agencies ‘Supplement’ SB-1070 With Their Own Policies
AZ Law Enforcement Agencies ‘Supplement’ SB-1070 With Their Own Policies
When Arizona legislators enacted SB-1070, they argued that it would compel police to uniformly enforce immigration law, rather than relying on discretion or local community policing policies. However, the Arizona Republic reports that “there is anything but a uniform approach.” Although all Arizona officers have reviewed a training video, according to a survey of local law enforcement agencies, many “have supplemented that training with their own policies.” The Arizona Republic summarizes the distinct approaches that five different law enforcement entities plan on taking if and when they are required to check immigration status:
• Arizona Department of Public Safety officers will work through the agency’s dispatch centers, which will determine whether officers should contact U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection or federally trained local agents to verify the immigration status of a suspect.
• Flagstaff has instructed officers to enforce the statute as written, although Lt. Ken Koch said the statute isn’t entirely clear. “That statute is subject to interpretation,” he said. “It’s a very fluid and dynamic situation.”
• In Yuma County, where sheriff’s deputies patrol an area that includes a shared border with Mexico, deputies will continue to work with Border Patrol agents when there are questions about a suspect’s immigration status, sheriff’s Capt. Eben Bratcher said.
• Phoenix police officers will be required to contact federal authorities to verify the immigration status of everyone they arrest, regardless of whether the suspects have one of the “presumptive IDs” such as an Arizona driver’s license that the statewide training outlined.
• Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s department, the most fervent agency in the state when it comes to rooting out illegal immigrants, won’t be attempting to determine anyone’s immigration status unless deputies are taking that suspect into custody for another crime.
Reporter Jeffrey Kaye notes in the Huffington Post that the training process itself has been inconsistent across Arizona. “Some agencies require officers to attend sessions of three hours or more and distribute manuals; others simply oblige their officers to watch a 94-minute video,” writes Kaye. Meanwhile, the 287(g) program which was established by Congress and allows police to cooperate with federal immigration agents in enforcing immigration law provides a four-week training program. Despite the fact that 287(g) participating officers receive significantly more training than Arizona police will, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general released a stinging critique of the 287(g) program last year.
The Obama administration has argued that it is suing the state of Arizona in part because the U.S. cannot have a “patchwork” of immigration laws. The vague provisions of SB-1070 have only added to the confusion within the state of Arizona. The law requires police officers to verify the immigration status of individuals, when “practicable,” during a lawful lawful stop or detention if they establish “reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented. However, SB-1070 doesn’t define “practicable” or “reasonable suspicion.” And though a federal judge enjoined several of the most problematic provisions of SB-1070, including the provision requiring police to check immigration status, Judge Susan Bolton still has to issue final rulings on the multiple lawsuits challenging the law. All of her decisions will likely be repealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, regardless of how she rules.
Recently Elected Dem Senators Want More ‘Passion,’ ‘Political Clarity,’ And ‘Fight’ For Green Economy
Recently Elected Dem Senators Want More ‘Passion,’ ‘Political Clarity,’ And ‘Fight’ For Green Economy
Democrats recently elected to the U.S. Senate have pressed their colleagues to ambitiously address climate and energy reform, and are frustrated by the lack of action. In a series of interviews with the Wonk Room at Netroots Nation, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) described the challenges of confronting climate pollution in the sclerotic legislative body, brought to a practical standstill by minority obstruction. They each discussed how the “new class” of 22 Democratic senators elected in the 2006 and 2008 waves (with independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont) have pressed for greater “political clarity” on climate by “rattling all the cages” in the Senate, alongside senior leaders such as Sen. John Kerry (D-MA).
Questioned by the Wonk Room why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shied away from introducing a comprehensive climate bill for full Senate consideration as energy crises pile up during the hottest summer ever recorded, the senators noted the ability of Republicans to thwart the will of the majority through the abuse of parliamentary procedures. They recognized Reid’s decision to try for quick action with a limited package in what little time is left during this Congress. However, they relished the chance to debate the promise of a green economy before the November elections, seeing the issue as a political winner:
CARDIN: I think we need political clarity. I wasn’t so concerned about having a vote before August. But we needed the clarity of the bill.
FRANKEN: If you want to rev up people, and say Democrats believe in this — one of the gaps they’re talking about is the enthusiasm gap. So maybe, politically, that is the right way to go. I think that Harry tends to want to get half a loaf or a third of a loaf rather than no loaf at all. This bill could be considered a first step. A lot of that is strategic, in terms of positioning yourself for the election. I was sort of of the school that we should go for pricing carbon, and if we lose, we lose. But that’s not what we did.
UDALL: Our two classes — the class of 2006 and the class of 2008 — I think have a real passion for all of the things you talked about and a desire to do something. We’re rattling all the cages in the committees we’re on, doing the things that we can do. But there is kind of an institutional thing going on there that slows everything down. There’s no doubt about that.
MERKLEY: This generational factor is why, if we can create a course that at least puts us on the right track for the next six to eight years, we will have with each subsequent election more and more folks coming in — based on what I hear at the university level, and graduate school level, and based on the difference between our class and the several classes ahead of us — there is just a growing commitment and passion to fighting this fight on climate and energy.
Watch Udall, Merkley, and Franken discuss their efforts to bring new passion to the climate and energy fight:
The Democrats described by Sen. Cardin as the “new class” overwhelmingly support strong green economy legislation, unlike the older generation peppered with climate peacocks. In fact, according to Politico, every one of the 12 Democrats elected in 2008 would vote for cloture on comprehensive climate and energy reform. Of the ten Democrats elected in 2006, only Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) make polluter-friendly arguments against clean energy reform.
“This is going to be a generational battle,” Merkley explained. “We’re going to have keep working and pushing because even our most optimistic bill has fairly weak goals for 2020. We’re going to have to be a lot more aggressive between 2020 and 2050 if we’re going to address carbon dioxide.”
“We can’t give up,” Cardin said during his interview, “because the stakes are too high for our country.”
Republicans Go After Long-Term Care Insurance, Introduce Legislation To Repeal CLASS Act
Republicans Go After Long-Term Care Insurance, Introduce Legislation To Repeal CLASS Act
On Monday, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) introduced a bill “that could block implementation” the health law’s long term care benefits program,” known as the CLASS Act. Boustany’s bill would require the government to shut down the long-term care insurance program “if government actuaries said the program was unsound.” It’s a radical solution to a very real concern that could probably be addressed with some smaller tweaks to the current law.
First, some background. CLASS is a voluntary, government long-term care insurance program that will provide medical and non-medical services like dressing, bathing, and using the bathroom to adults who become severely functionally impaired. Working adults who enroll in the program will be able to receive the benefit — approximately $50 a day — after paying into the program for five years.
Long-term care proponents contend that the current system of financing long-term care is unsustainable. Americans spend more than $200 billion a year on long term care services in nursing homes, at home, or in assisted living facilities. “Medicaid is now the largest single provider of long-term care costs — it spent more than $100 billion last year, over one-third of its budget” and “paid more than 40 percent of the nation’s total long-term care bill.” Families and senior citizens (and Medicare to a lesser extent) pick up the rest of the tab, often spending down to “$2,000 in financial assets” to qualify for Medicaid coverage. By mid-century, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that the nation will have to spend 16% of anticipated federal revenues on Medicaid to fund care for the baby-boom generation.
So the question becomes, how do we fix this system? How do we create a system that can both relieve the burden on families and relieve this burden on government? Republicans argue that the program will be overrun by sick people who desperately need long-term-care benefits, increase costs, and push out healthier enrollees. “Health economists call this an ‘adverse-selection death spiral,’ and it would likely end in program bankruptcy,” the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl noted in yesterday’s Washington Times, predicting that the government would have to consistently bail out the program with taxpayer dollars “to keep premiums low and pay out all benefits.”
But rather than repealing the program, as Boustany suggests, Congress should address some of its shortfalls. I spoke with Howard Gleckman, a resident fellow at the Urban Institute and author of “Caring For Our Parents.” He admitted that the current CLASS Program has its pitfalls and suggested several solutions to keeping it sustainable over the long term:
- Make the program mandatory: If you have a mandatory program, you accomplish two things. The first is you of course eliminate the adverse selection problem, because everyone is in the program, and the other thing is, you are able to push down rates to level where they are pretty easily affordable for most of the population.
- Include CLASS in employer cafeteria plans: The tax deduction is not so important, but including long-term insurance insurance with other benefits raises its profile.
- Provide HHS with more money to market CLASS: The law only allows 3 percent of premiums for all admin costs. That is not enough and, in the run-up to initial sales, there are no premiums.
- Redesign premiums: In CLASS, they are fixed at the age at which you first enroll. Unless all premiums are raised (because the program is deemed insolvent) you always pay the same premium. Instead, they could adjust premiums for inflation. This would allow premiums to start very low (especially for young workers) and rise with their incomes.
As Gleckman noted just yesterday, “Fiscal conservatives such as Capretta and Riedl ought to be looking for ways to improve CLASS, rather than demanding its repeal. The millions of Americans who will need personal assistance, their families, and taxpayers would all be better off for it.” Those principles should outweigh whatever pressure Republicans are receiving from the long-term-care insurance lobby — which sees CLASS as a competitor to their private insurance product. (When in reality it may compliment the existing market place in which private insurers will be able to market supplemental “Medigap”-like coverage to CLASS beneficiaries.)
REPORT: The Politician Behind The Campaign To Repeal California’s Clean Energy Law
REPORT: The Politician Behind The Campaign To Repeal California’s Clean Energy Law
This post is part of a Progressive Media blogging series on the fossil fuel-funded Prop 23 effort to repeal California’s clean energy climate law. Read Rebecca Lefton’s posts on Prop 23’s economic impact, national repercussions, and funding from Texas oil companies.
In the California legislature, the loudest voice to kill the landmark clean energy climate change law AB32 has become Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Chico). Described by Sacramento insiders as a “backbencher,” Logue has built a powerful coalition of former tobacco lobbyists and Texan oil companies to orchestrate Prop 23, an initiative to essentially rescind AB 32. But who is Logue?
During an interview earlier this month in Yuba City, California, Logue told the Wonk Room that he thinks that “the issue of global warming is not solved,” referring to climate change as a “scam.” Calling his repeal effort an “epic battle,” Logue claimed that the pro-Prop 23 forces would raise up to $45-50 million:
Climate Change LOGUE: I think the issue of global warming is not solved. I do not think the science has been settled. [...] This is a scam.
How Much Will Prop 23 Raise? LOGUE: But no, it could be up to forty, fifty million a piece. I don’t know if it will get there, but it will be probably the most intense petition drive in the history of the state.
Impacting The National Debate LOGUE: I got a call from the Wall Street Journal, they said if you can stop AB 32 in California, you can save the country.
Wording Of Prop 23 WR: Do you think if it was a full scale repeal, the language would turn some people off?
LOGUE: It would be more difficult to pass.
Watch it:
Logue told us that the Wall Street Journal had encouraged him to push his AB 32 repeal initiative in order to derail national efforts to address climate change. Ironically, the Wonk Room ran into the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund a week after speaking to Logue. Fund told us that he thinks people who deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change are “troglodytes.”
Originally, the initiative to repeal AB 32 was pushed by Ted Costa, a veteran right-wing activist behind many conservative initiatives and head of the group People’s Advocate. In a separate interview, Costa told the Wonk Room that he met privately with Logue, who was “crying that he had a bill to repeal AB 32.” Logue’s bill, AB 118, died in committee, but Costa said he and Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) advised Logue to use an initiative to instead rescind California’s clean energy law using provisions concerning the unemployment rate.
To draft the initiative, Costa said he initially worked with California GOP and tobacco lawyer Tom Hiltachk to write the language. But after submitting Costa’s initiative, Hiltachk resubmitted the Prop 23 “California Jobs Initiative” using slightly altered provisions “to get better financial backing.” According to Costa, Hiltachk lied to him, secretly pushing him out so that the money raised for the proposition could be funneled back to Hiltachk and his friends in the “million-dollar consultant” world. Before long, Costa said he received a call from a “high powered lobbyist” to tell him he was out of the process.
Costa told the Wonk Room that he became disgusted when he kept hearing Logue and others involved gleefully discussing the potential of raising $50 million from oil companies and the Chamber of Commerce. Logue believes Costa has “sour grapes” because he did not win the contract to gather signatures. Costa, however, says Logue is “full of shit” and is afflicted with “politician’s disease” for pushing an initiative just to get rich.
Kyl-Approved Judge Susan Bolton Blocks Key Provisions Of Arizona Immigration Law
Kyl-Approved Judge Susan Bolton Blocks Key Provisions Of Arizona Immigration Law
This afternoon, in a long-awaited decision, federal district court judge Susan Bolton enjoined several major provisions of Arizona’s immigration law, SB-1070. While it was speculated that Bolton would block parts of SB-1070 relating to warrantless arrests and document requirements, the judge also ended up striking down the law’s most controversial and significant provision: the requirement that police check immigration status. Bolton blocked the following sections of SB-1070 arguing that “the United States is likely to succeed on the merits in showing that…[they] are preempted by federal law” and the “United States is likely to suffer irreparable harm” in the absence of an injunction:
Portion of Section 2 of S.B. 1070: Requires police to inquire about the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain, or arrest if they reasonably suspect the person is in the country illegally.
Section 3 of S.B. 1070: Criminalizes the the failure to apply for or carry immigration documents.
Portion of Section 5 of S.B. 1070: Criminalizes the solicitation, application for, or performance of work by an undocumented immigrant.
Section 6 of S.B. 1070: Authorizes the warrantless arrest of a person where there is probable cause to believe the person has committed a public offense that makes the person “removable.”
Bolton also echoed the criticisms made by SB-1070 opponents over the past few months, noting that “requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is check.” She additionally found that the burdensome verification requirement “will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.” However, a few problematic sections remain including the one which allows Arizona residents to sue local police if they believe they are not enforcing what remains of SB-1070 and the creation of a separate crime for knowingly transporting an undocumented immigrant under any circumstance, even in an emergency.
Ironically, on the recommendation of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) — an ardent proponent of SB-1070 — Bolton was nominated to the United States District Court for the District of Arizona by President Bill Clinton back in 2000. During her confirmation hearing, Kyl stated:
Well, there is one person in our state who’s a real expert on this in the judiciary, and that’s Judge Bolton. And because of her expertise and fairness, all of the contending interests from Arizona have been willing to place their concerns before her to be resolved, and she is right in the middle of this important litigation right now. They will be very sorry to see her leave in Maricopa County Superior Court bench. So, I have some mixed emotions in helping to nominate or to confirm Judge Bolton, but that’s how highly thought of she is.
Prior to the announcement of her decision, Kyl speculated that “she will parse the law, that is to say she will perhaps extract certain portions of it that she think might be problematic and might enjoin those portions calling additional briefings from the parties.” Before learning of Bolton’s decision, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) stated, “I’m confident Arizona will prevail.” Bolton has been described by her peers as an “impeccable” and “fearless” judge whose rulings are “well-reasoned and unambiguous.”
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