Baucus & Rockefeller: Insurer ‘Mistaken’ If It ‘Thinks It Can Blame’ Health Reform ‘For Rising Premiums’
Baucus & Rockefeller: Insurer ‘Mistaken’ If It ‘Thinks It Can Blame’ Health Reform ‘For Rising Premiums’
Just days after HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned insurers against using the early benefits in the health care law to justify unreasonable premiums increases, Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) have written to the CEOs of WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Health Care Services Corp., and CIGNA, saying insurers are “mistaken” if they believe they can continue to blame double digit premium increases on reform.” “This level of misinformation is not acceptable,” the two write, pointing out that the early benefits should not increase costs by more than 2 percent on average:
And if an insurer thinks it can continue to impose double-digit premium increases, while providing fewer health benefits and enjoying record surpluses, it is again mistaken. There have been too many reports of insurance companies imposing insurance premiums increases at will with little oversight or public accountability. We are committed to ensuring that premium increases are fair and justified. [...]
We have and will continue to strongly encourage states and HHS to use their existing authority as well as the authority created under the Affordable Care Act to its fullest to ensure that premium increases across the country are justified and communications are honest. We will continue to work toward ensuring that the federal and state governments have the necessary resources and authority to review potentially unjustified premium increases and to hold insurance companies accountable.
Baucus and Rockefeller pledge that they “are committed to ensuring that consumers are treated fairly and will closely examine any potentially misleading communications to consumers,” but there is actually little the federal government can do — outside of publicly shaming insurers or passing a federal rate review law — to hold insurers accountable.
As Sebelius explained today, “it’s a real catch-22. The law assumes that states will regulate rates, that that’s the best marketplace. This is really a state-based bill…only if they abdicate that responsibility or say that they don’t want to participate do we have kind of the back-up responsibility.”
For ways the federal government can pressure states to hold down unreasonable rates, click here.
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New Poll: Majority Of Americans Support Same-Sex Marriage
A new AP-National Constitution Center Poll finds that individuals who oppose marriage equality — including President Obama — are quickly falling outside of the political mainstream, as a growing number of individuals are now embracing the idea. Support for marriage has exceeded the 50 percent mark in at least 17 states, but now, for the first time, a national poll has found that 52% of Americans believe that the federal government should “give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex”:
This poll comes on the heels of another survey which found that a majority of Americans are also saying that “their definition of family includes same-sex couples with children, as well as married gay and lesbian couples.” The increasing visibility of LGBT issues, positive media representations, and the coming out of family members and friends have all contributed to the increase in support. Significantly, the nation crossed the 50 percent mark on marriage after Judge Walker’s Prop 8 decision, suggesting that his ruling (and the GOP’s quiet response) may have also played some role in changing hearts and minds.
Still, popular support does not necessarily translate into political action or repeal the many state prohibitions against extending marriage benefits to gays and lesbians. Backers of marriage are much more likely to live in large cities on the coast, giving senators from middle America almost no political reason to support the policy. But as the younger younger new voters come of age, and as their older counterparts exit the voting pool, it’s likely that support will only increase — as will the political will to actually do something about it.
The poll also found that 58 percent of Americans believe that “couples of the same sex (should) be entitled to the same government benefits as married couples of the opposite sex.” Fifty-six percent also agree that “Judges should interpret laws broadly, taking into account the broader interests of the nation.”
Carl Levin Points Out McCain Introduced A ‘Non-Relevant’ Amendment To Defense Reauthorization Bill In 2000
Carl Levin Points Out McCain Introduced A ‘Non-Relevant’ Amendment To Defense Reauthorization Bill In 2000
Since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that he would be introducing a defense authorization bill next week that includes the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been desperately trying to justify his opposition to a bill he co-sponsored in 2005, 2006, and 2007. One of McCain’s main arguments is that for “many many years we never put any extraneous items on the bill” and that, starting last year, “Carl Levin and Harry Reid put hate crimes on it which had nothing to do with it.”
However, today, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) noted that not only was hate crimes legislation considered as an amendment to the defense authorization bill in 2001, 2005, and 2008, each time the hate crimes amendment was approved. The only difference last year, Levin points out, is that the provision was not dropped in conference and was included in the enacted in legislation.
Levin also noted that “over the last dozen years” the Senate has debated “non-relevant amendments” to the defense authorization bill “on a number of issues.” One of those amendments was introduced by McCain himself.
In 2000, McCain offered an amendment to the defense authorization bill that required public disclosure of donors and expenditures. McCain faced similar criticism from his opponents who argued that his amendment had nothing to do with defense. Even one of his critics conceded that McCain was “acting under the rules.”
Levin explains why he supported McCain’s amendment at the time:
I supported the McCain amendment at that time and I also supported the right of the Senator from Arizona to offer it — not because it was relevant to the defense authorization bill, it was not. But because it was the only opportunity apparently to consider that bill and it was the right thing to do.
Watch it:
The DREAM Act has a lot more to do with defense than a campaign finance amendment. Back in 2006 when the Senate was about to debate comprehensive immigration reform that would legalize millions of undocumented immigrants, McCain explicitly made the connection himself, stating “[r]ight now, at this very moment, there are fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers who are not yet American citizens but who have dreamed that dream, and have risked their lives to defend it. They should make us proud, not selfish to be Americans.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have shown zero interest in taking up either the DREAM Act or comprehensive immigration reform on its own. And, in the past, McCain has clearly agreed that passing the DREAM Act is in fact the “right” thing to do through his repeated sponsorship of the bill. In his 2006 speech, McCain concluded, “They came to grasp the lowest rung of the ladder, and they intend to rise. Let them rise. Let them rise.”
Shalikashvili Asks Congress To Approve Defense Bill: DADT Repeal ‘Allows The Pentagon The Time It May Need’
Shalikashvili Asks Congress To Approve Defense Bill: DADT Repeal ‘Allows The Pentagon The Time It May Need’
As the Senate prepares to vote for cloture on the Defense Authorization Bill that includes a gradual repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Democrats are conceding that they may not have 60 votes to halt a GOP filibuster and worry that moderate Republicans like Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins may be faltering in their initial support for the measure. The Serivcemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) has recruited Lady Gaga to headline a pro-repeal rally at the University of Southern Maine in Portland today to pressure the two moderate senators, but as the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson pointed out on Friday, new anxieties are emerging. The GOP is pressuring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV) to allow the Senate to consider more Republican amendments during floor debate and the disagreement “has made moving forward with the defense authorization bill “a partisan issue” for senators who would have otherwise voted in favor of cloture.” “Republicans would have liked to have seen additional amendments considered and so the party leaders on both the majority and minority side are holding their caucuses to these procedural issues on party line,” Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications and marketing, told Johnson.
In light of this stagnation, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili — who is already on record in favor of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — has written a letter to Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging them to move forward with the defense measure:
In particular, I support the DADT repeal language that passed through the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year and is currently part of the pending legislation.
The Pentagon is currently conducting a study on how to implement a policy of open service. Congressional repeal is vital for the Pentagon to implement their findings, whatever they may be. As I have said before, repeal strikes down the law that straitjackets military leaders’ ability to craft a sensible and practical policy about open service. Most importantly, the current repeal language allows the Pentagon the time it may need to answer any questions about how to actually implement the change.
Additionally, repeal would allow military leaders to make personnel decisions based on a person’s skills, experience, and overall job performance. Reflecting on my own service and experience, I’m quite confident that sexual orientation does not impact a person’s ability to defuse IEDs, provide medical care for someone wounded the line of duty, or translate intercepted enemy intelligence into English.
Many Republicans still object to the DADT amendment, citing the objections of the four service chiefs in moving forward with repeal before the Pentagon completes its review of the policy. But those concerns seem overstated. At the Air Force Association’s fall conference over the weekend, for instance, Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz said that “[i]f the law changes, there is no doubt in my mind that all airmen in the U.S. Air Force will implement the change professionally, thoroughly and effectively.” Similarly Marine Corps Commandant and strong DADT supporter Gen. James Conway has said, “And if the law changes and we have homosexual Marines, we’ll be as concerned about their rights, their privileges, their morale, as we will Marines who feel differently about that whole paradigm.” He added that local commanders will be required “to assist us in making sure that every Marine is provided for and is focused on the fight at hand.”
Buck Claims That By Extending The Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich ‘You Pay Down The Deficit’
Buck Claims That By Extending The Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich ‘You Pay Down The Deficit’
A handful of Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and California’s GOP senate nominee Carly Fiorina — have been claiming recently that extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans (at a cost of $830 billion) will pay for itself. “Let me propose something that may seem crazy to you: you don’t need to pay for tax cuts. They pay for themselves, if they are targeted, because they create jobs,” Fiorina said.
There is a whole host of economic data showing that this claim is clearly and demonstrably false. But Colorado’s Republican senate nominee, Ken Buck, not only thinks that the tax cuts will pay for themselves, but that they will actually help to “pay down the deficit“:
By extending tax cuts you pay down the deficit, you grow the economy by giving people more money and giving people the certainty they’ll know how to spend, they’ll have more money down the road to spend.
If there is no evidence that tax cuts pay for themselves, there is certainly no evidence that they reduce the deficit. After the Bush tax cuts, revenue plunged from 19 percent of GDP to 17 percent, and never recovered. Same thing after the Reagan tax cuts. And in both cases, deficits certainly did not go down.
But asserting that cutting taxes for the rich will somehow cause the deficit to magically vanish into the night is symbolic of Buck’s wider economic agenda. He is an avowed supporter of privatizing Social Security, saying, “we’ve got to peg Social Security to individuals so those individuals have the ability perhaps to invest in various funds that are approved by the government. But those individuals also own that fund.”
He also wholeheartedly supports Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) Roadmap for America’s Future, which is a plan for slashing entitlements and raising taxes on 90 percent of individuals, while still losing $2 trillion in revenue. “The best plan that I saw to try to balance this budget is Paul Ryan’s plan,” Buck said. “He has put out a plan that has suggested that we can balance the budget through some spending cuts and changing some of our tax structure.”
Of course, calling a plan to dramatically reduce Social Security and Medicare “some spending cuts” shows that Buck either doesn’t understand Ryan’s plan or has no sympathy for the millions of Americans who depend on those programs. And his pronouncement that reductions in revenue also cause the deficit to go down shows that he doesn’t really understand the federal budget either.
Sebelius On Repealing Health Care: ‘I Think The Question Is, And Go Back To What?’
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius questioned the GOP’s promise to repeal the health care law, arguing that the party has no alternative for coving the 50 million Americans who went uninsured in 2009 or the ability to make up for the deficit reductions achieved by the law. Speaking this morning at a National Journal event to commemorate the six months since President Obama signed the reform bill, Sebelius also predicted that repealing the law will become less popular, as “millions of Americans” “will be receiving direct benefits from the passage of the law”:
SEBELIUS: By January there will be millions of Americans who will be receiving direct benefits from the passage of the law…I think the question is, and go back to what? Leaving 50+ millions Americans with no health care coverage, with rates continue to dramatically increase year-in and year-out with no safety net system. With no focus on the future. And with frankly an increase in the deficit that according to the Congressional Budget Office the implementation of this bill will reduce the deficit by $100 billion in the first 10 years and by close to a trillion in the second 10 years. [...]
What is the alternative? …There was never really an alternative put forward…but no strategy about what to do about the now 50 million Americans that are uninsured. No real strategies about cost control and containment. No strategies about how to go after fraud. All of the ideas that were put on the table were essentially incorporated. So I think there has got to be a realism about this debate.
Watch it:
To be fair, the GOP did offer and vote on a reform alternative that would have covered just 3 million people and actually lead to an increase in the number of uninsured. But Sebelius touches on an important reality. While the GOP may find some ways to defund certain parts of the health care law, they won’t be able to repeal it outright: they won’t have the votes, the offsets to pay for the deficit savings, or the public support. Consider this: according to the latest CBS News/NYT poll, 40% of Americans say they support repealing the health care law. But when told that repeal would allow insurance companies to exclude people with pre-existing conditions, support fell to just 19%.
As the benefits set in, reform will grow less popular and the GOP will have to stand up to its base. After all, it’s one thing to speak exclusively to conservative activists in a midst of a political campaign, but once the GOP is in charge, they will have to govern for the entire country. And telling millions of Americans that they will be taking away the law’s consumer protections and pre-existing conditions exclusions is not a good way to retain power. As Collin Powell put it yesterday, once you’re in power, “You can’t just say ‘no’ to everything. You can’t just sit around beating up the President.”
Of course, that’s not to say that the law won’t need to be amended or improved. At today’s event Sebelius predicted that the law will likely evolve, just like Medicare did after 1965. “Will the bill need fixing along the way? You bet,” she said. “You know, Medicare today looks little like it did when my dad in 1965 was a member of Congress and voted for Medicare. … It doesn’t work exactly like it did in 1965. It’s changed and developed along the way and I think that’s the framework possibility that we have.”
The House’s Vulnerable Climate Champions
The House’s Vulnerable Climate Champions
The Wonk Room has previously identified seven key U.S. Senate races and eight U.S. House races between a vote for climate action and a global warming denier. Today, the Wonk Room highlights six House races of the most vulnerable champions for climate action. They include three freshman representatives, two elected in 2006, and one veteran congressman, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA-11), who together represented the swing votes in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2009. Their opponents are right-wing ideologues who parrot the party line that cap-and-trade legislation is a job-killing “energy tax”:
(86%) VA-5 Tom Perriello v Robert Hurt
(84%) MD-1 Frank Kratovil v Andy Harris
(72%) CO-4 Betsy Markey v Cory Gardner
(67%) NY-19 John Hall v Nan Hayworth
(63%) PA-11 Paul Kanjorski v Lou Barletta
(61%) NH-1 Carol Shea-Porter v Frank Guinta
The full list of key House climate races identified by the Wonk Room is available here.
The Only Specific Program Fiorina Would Cut From The Budget Is Consumer Protection Regulation
The Only Specific Program Fiorina Would Cut From The Budget Is Consumer Protection Regulation
Last week, Ben Armbruster noted that a slew of Republicans say that they want to cut federal spending, but when pressed for specifics, can’t come up with anything tangible to cut. One of these is Carly Fiorina, the Republican senate nominee in California, who was asked on CNBC last week to identify a specific spending cut that she would like to see, and only called for a spending freeze at 2008 levels.
Fiorina recently sat down for a nearly hour-long interview with the San Fransisco Chronicle editorial board, where she was asked the same question and at first provided the same answer. However, unlike CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, the Chronicle’s board pushed Fiorina further, asking for a tangible, specific cut that she would make. All that Fiorina could come up with, after a lengthy silence, is the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
Q: Can’t you name some areas that you’d like to cut, some programs?
FIORINA: Sure. [pause] When you have, let’s just look at this financial regulatory reform bill as an example of an opportunity missed. What happened? We had 20 plus agencies who were responsible in some way for overseeing Wall Street and preventing Bernie Madoff. They all failed. They all failed. There is overlap, there is redundancy, there are gaps in their portfolios, and by the way, they cost a lot of money. And instead of dealing with that, instead of saying we need to have a more rigorous, accountable, and streamlined regulatory scheme, what did we do?…We’re going to create another one, called the Consumer Protection Agency, and we now have literally hundreds of regulations that are going to have to be written by thousands of bureaucrats. Wrong approach.
Watch it:
There are a couple of problems here. First, Fiorina is incorrect that no agencies were dissolved as a result of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill. In fact, the Office of Thrift Supervision, which everyone agreed was an abysmal failure, will be absorbed into the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Second, Fiorina implies that she would defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but the CFPB is funded out of the Federal Reserve budget and is not subject to Congressional appropriations.
Even if the CFPB’s budget were overseen by Congress, it hasn’t been set up yet, so it isn’t having a budgetary impact at the moment. Fiorina didn’t name any current spending that she would cut, but future spending from a source over which the Senate has no jurisdiction.
But this is emblematic of the conservative approach to budgeting. The one specific thing that Fiorina can identify to cut, in a $3 trillion federal budget, is $500 million for the only regulatory agency whose sole purpose is to protect consumers from the excesses of the financial services industry. Besides that, all she can do is resort to the tired promise of rooting out “waste, fraud, and abuse” and budget gimmicks. (For a partial list of responsible spending cuts and revenue increases that we’d suggest, see here.)
Sebelius: ‘I Think The Rate Increases Are Likely To Be Somewhat Substantial’
Speaking this morning at the National Journal’s Empowering Conversations series, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius — who last week warned insurers against using the early benefits in the health care law to substantially increase premium rates — pointed to two actuarial estimates which found that the early benefits could increase costs gradually by “1 to 2 percent.” Still, Sebelius conceded that insurance premiums will continue to increase. “Well, I think the rate increases are likely to be somewhat substantial,” Sebelius admitted, agreeing that the poor economy will continue to force healthier individuals to leave the risk pool and increase costs for everyone else:
SEBELIUS: The cost trends and their practice is fairly substantial and it has little to do with the passage of the Act. It has to do with their market place. And frankly there is some justification in saying that one of the issues that has hit companies in the economy — again particularly in the individual market where people are out purchasing on their own — is that healthy folks drop their coverage when the economic squeeze occurs. If you are sicker of have a sicker family member you don’t have that luxury, so you’re keeping it. So their own risk experience is becoming more expensive. So what we have to do is get healthier people back into the marketplace.
Watch it:
Sebelius did argue that insurers often overstate their premium requests. “I was in the state legislature in Kansas for eight years. And year after year after, when legislatures would consider some sort of a mandated benefit, companies would testify to dramatic rate increases as a result,” she explained. “Year after year after year, that turned out to be absolutely factually incorrect. It was never justifiable and frankly in most cases they didn’t do it at all.”
Sebelius also explained that the burden of the rate review will fall to the states, where the jurisdiction of state insurance commissioners “varies dramatically.” “It’s a real catch 22,” she said. “The law assumes that states will regulate rates, that that’s the best marketplace. This is really a state-based bill…only if they abdicate that responsibility or say that they don’t want to participate do we have kind of the back-up responsibility.”
The Department of Health and Human Services is also preparing medical-loss ratio (MLR) regulations that would require insurers to spend 80 to 85% of premium dollars on health care costs. Sebelius said she hoped to define “health care spending” in the next month and implement the remainder of the regulation by the end of the year. The regulation — which requires insurers that don’t meet the ratio to issue rebates for the difference — is fully implemented by 2012.
Jan Brewer: ‘I Love’ Hispanics, ‘I’m Hurt They Would Think I’m A Racist’
This Sunday, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) appeared on Univision’s Al Punto with Jorge Ramos to talk about immigration and Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070. In the interview, Brewer insisted she was not a racist and proclaimed that she loves Latinos. “I love them from the bottom of my heart,” Brewer told Ramos:
RAMOS: I remember having an interview with him [Arpaio] and he told me that some people call him racist. Are you concerned that some people might think the same thing of you?
BREWER: Not only am I concerned, it’s really disappointing to me. I’ve lived in the southwest my whole life. I’ve got many friends, of many cultures and certainly a great deal of them are Hispanics, and I love them from the bottom of my heart. I love everybody Jorge, from the bottom of my heart.
RAMOS: Do you feel rejected by the Hispanic community?
BREWER: I feel that I’m somewhat hurt that they would think that I would be a racist, you know. And I was… and a bigot and that I would stand by and allow any kind of racial profiling or anything like that to take place.
Watch it [in Spanish]:
However, Brewer stood by many of the comments that have most offended the Latino community.
Brewer downplayed her controversial and erroneous claim that illegal immigration has led to beheadings in the Arizona desert. “Well I think that was a misunderstanding,” said Brewer, suggesting that the public misunderstood what she meant by “border region.” (Brewer’s actual statement was: “We cannot afford all this illegal immigration and everything that comes with it, everything from the crime and to the drugs and the kidnappings and the extortion and the beheadings and the fact that people can’t feel safe in their community.”)
When Ramos challenged Brewer on her statements that most undocumented immigrants are drug mules, Brewer defended her remarks. “Well, if you know; if you are coming across with the drug cartels, and you’re hauling drugs, then you are,” said Brewer. “We can’t assimilate it,” Brewer told Ramos in reference to the number of undocumented immigrants coming to the U.S. “Those people that are coming across are now under the control of the drug cartels,” she affirmed.
Brewer denied that SB-1070 will lead to racial profiling simply because racial profiling is illegal. Racial profiling “is illegal in Arizona,” Brewer reasoned, so therefore “Senate Bill 1070 didn’t have anything to do with that.” Nonetheless, Brewer has “no idea” what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and has “not a clue of what an undocumented, anybody looks like.” Brewer additionally affirmed that she believes that “illegal immigration doesn’t have anything to do with human rights.”
Meanwhile, the largest Latino civil rights group, National Council of La Raza, holds, “SB 1070 would make Latinos in Arizona suspects in their own communities—even though the vast majority of them are native-born U.S. citizens and legal residents.” Even Arizona Hispanic Republicans slammed SB-1070, stating “SB 1070 is a direct slap in the face to Hispanic Americans who have fought and died for several American wars because this new law can be abused by authorities to pull us over with mere ‘reasonable suspicion.’”
As a champion of Arizona’s immigration law, Brewer’s popularity has soared. However, her support of the law probably won’t win her too many Latino votes: 84 percent of Latinos think that SB-1070 will result in police in Arizona stopping and questioning legal Latino immigrants or U.S. citizens and 81 percent percent of Arizona Latino registered voters oppose the bill. Approximately 80 percent of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are from Latin America.
Neocon ‘Team B’ Author Yerushalmi: ‘Islam Was Born In Violence; It Will Die That Way’
Neocon ‘Team B’ Author Yerushalmi: ‘Islam Was Born In Violence; It Will Die That Way’
I wrote last week that the new “Team B” report from neoconservative activist Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy on the threat of Islamic sharia law is notable for, among other things, the fact that its authors consulted with no actual Muslims or Islamic scholars in writing it.
A key “expert” behind the report’s interpretation of Islamic law is a man named David Yerushalmi. In addition to running a DC law practice, Yerushalmi serves as General Counsel of the Center for Security Policy. Yerushalmi is also a contributor to Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace. On his law office website, Yerushalmi claims to be “considered an expert on Islamic law.”
The release of the sharia report was hailed last week by three leading Congressional conservatives — Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) — so it’s worth looking into what one the report’s key contributors actually believes about Muslims and Islam.
Here’s what Yerushalmi wrote in the American Thinker in 2006:
Islam was born in violence; it will die that way. Any wish to the contrary is sheer Pollyannaism. The same way the post World War II German youth were taught by their German teachers and political leaders to despise the fascism of their fathers, with strict laws extant still today restricting even speech that casts doubt on the Holocaust, so too must the Muslim youth be taught from the cradle to reject the religion of their forebears.
Yerushalmi also wrote in 2006 that the Muslim Brotherhood “has succeeded in penetrating our educational, legal, and political systems, as well as top levels of government, intelligence, the media, and U.S. military, virtually paralyzing our ability to respond effectively.” He criticized President Bush for his “fatal, but well-intentioned ideological whim to build democracies among a ruthless people who believe in a murderous creed falsely labeled a ‘religion of peace.‘”
Yerushalmi heads an organization called Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), whose charter — now hidden behind a paywall but shared here by Talk to Action’s Brian Wilson — states:
America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence… America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d. The founding fathers understood that party-led parliaments and democracy were the worse form of government and sought to resist the movement that was soon to find fertile ground in France with the French Revolution…
…at its core, SANE is dedicated to the rejection of democracy and party rule and a return to a constitutional republic…
…Any world view, ideology, or -ism that promotes directly or indirectly the elimination of national existence and the establishment of a world state is our foe. So you can know at the start that liberalism (and this includes libertarianism) and Islam are in our sights.
Yerushalmi’s group suggests the following measures for dealing with America’s Muslim problem:
- It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.
- The Congress of the United States of America shall declare the US at war with the Muslim Nation or Umma.
- The President of the United States of America shall immediately declare that all non-US citizen Muslims are Alien Enemies under Chapter 3 of Title 50 of the US Code and shall be subject to immediate deportation.
- No Muslim shall be granted an entry visa into the United States of America.
Unsurprisingly, Yerushalmi’s antipathies extend beyond Muslims. In a 2006 article, “On Race: A Tentative Discussion” — tentative because, as Yerushalmi laments in the article, one cannot engage in “a discussion of Islam as an evil religion, or of blacks as the most murderous of peoples (at least in New York City), or of illegal immigrants as deserving of no rights” without being labeled a racist — Yerushalmi writes that the American founders were on to something when they limited the vote to white men:
There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country’s founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously. Why is that? Were they so flawed in their political reckonings that they manhandled the most important aspect of a free society – the vote? If the vote counts for so much in a free and liberal democracy as we ‘know’ it today, why did they limit the vote so dramatically.
So Yerushalmi isn’t crazy about Muslims, African-Americans, immigrants, or women. But wait, he also strongly dislikes liberal Jews:
Jews of the modern age are the most radical, aggressive and effective of the liberal Elite. Their goal is the goal of all “progressives:” a determined use of liberal principles to deconstruct the Western nation state in a “historical” march to the World State…
…one must admit readily that the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one.
I contacted Mr. Yerushalmi to give him an opportunity to explain these writings. He declined.
For more, see Sheila Musaji, Charles Johnson, Brian Wilson, Alex Kane, Dan Luban, and Richard Silverstein.
The WonkLine: September 20, 2010
The WonkLine: September 20, 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.
Immigration
Retired Gen. Colin Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “we’ve got to invest in education. We should use the DREAM Act as one way to do it.”
Five of the eight Senate Democrats who blocked an immigration bill in 2007 say they are undecided on how to vote on the measure this week.
Hollywood star Jessica Alba has slammed Arizona’s SB-1070, branding the legislation “a very racist, foolish law“.
Health Care
“The Obama administration this week plans to revive its pitch for the health-care overhaul, hoping that a slate of consumer-friendly provisions will boost public support before midterm elections.”
“Republicans are promising to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul if they win control of Congress. But with what?”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said the health care reform legislation “is beneficial to the party’s chances this November as a whole.”
Climate Change
UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon ” has called for an urgent global response to the Pakistan flood crisisL’a:” including a plea for $2 billion in aid, “calling it the most complex natural disaster in the history of the world organization.”
As it continues to be the hottest year ever recorded, Republicans continue to deny the existence of global warming pollution: “I think the climate is changing, but I don’t believe humans are causing that change to the extent that’s been in the news,” said Cory Gardner, a Colorado candidate.
“After months of confusion and contradictory reports, the Obama administration has at last embarked on a systematic effort involving some of the nation’s top scientists to measure the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf of Mexico and its potential impact on marine life.”
Economy
The Hill reports that “at least seven Democrats in battleground states say they support or could support extending tax breaks for families who make more than $250,000,” putting them at odds with the Obama administration.
“The Federal Reserve is likely to spend its policy meeting on Tuesday weighing the merits of additional steps to stimulate the economy, while deferring some major decisions until later this year,” the New York Times reports.
The Washington Post looks at families who are struggling to build nest eggs in the wake of the Great Recession.
National Security
“Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers jailed for more than a year in Iran, returned to the United States on Sunday, saying she was ‘one-third free’ and appealed to Iran to release her fiancé and another American friend.”
“The administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush offered to absorb 100,000 Palestinian refugees if Israel and the Palestinians reached a peace deal, Ehud Olmert said.”
“Afghan authorities said Sunday that they recovered the bodies of three election workers kidnapped Saturday during parliamentary balloting marked by violence and reports of widespread fraud.”
Pressed On New Poverty Numbers, Miller Won’t Say How He’ll Help 43.6 Million Poor
Pressed On New Poverty Numbers, Miller Won’t Say How He’ll Help 43.6 Million Poor
This morning, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked Alaska Republican senatorial candidate Joe Miller about recent data from the Census Bureau which found that a stagering one in seven or 43.6 million Americans are living in poverty, the highest level since 1994. Noting that Miller had previously claimed that unemployment benefits were unconstitutional Wallace asked, “without unemployment benefits, a lot more, millions more would be living in poverty — what would you do for them?” Miller initially ducked the question, but when Wallace persisted, Miller accused Americans of suffering from an “entitlement mentality” and argued that providing unemployment benefits was not among Congress’ enumerated powers:
MILLER: I think the question is what is the role of the federal government? Right now, we’ve grown the federal government to such a size that we have what, I think in absolute terms now, $13.4 trillion in debt if you look at the future unfunded obligations, which a lot of those are the entitlement programs, by some estimates $130 trillion. That’s unsustainable. That’s just the facts. [...]
WALLACE: But Mr. Miller, if I may, I’m not sure you answered my question. Why are unemployment benefits unconstitutional and in a time of a tough economy, a recession, a now a kind of jobless economy, what are you going to do for the 44 million people who are living in poverty?
MILLER: I think what you need to look at is the context. We have an extension of unemployment benefits several weeks ago, which is beyond what we had in the past in this country. What we have in this country is an entitlement mentality. It’s an entitlement, not just as individual but even at the state level… everything that fails the government should be involved in bailing out. And the constitution provides enumerated powers. And I guess my challenge is to anybody that ask, show me the enumerated power. And then look at what the tenth amendment that says if it’s not in the constitution, it’s a power that belongs to the state and the people.
Watch it:
Miller’s radical tenther views aside, unemployment benefits have become essential in today’s economic climate and have kept millions of American families out of poverty. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities’s (CBPP) Arloc Sherman has analyzed the latest Census numbers and found that unemployment insurance kept 3.3 million Americans out of poverty in 2009. “In other words, there were 43.6 million Americans whose families were below the poverty line in 2009, according to the official poverty statistics, which count jobless benefits as part of families’ income. But if you don’t count jobless benefits, 46.9 million Americans were poor,” the Center concluded.
Miller may have the most extreme views on unemployment benefits but as Zaid Jilani notes, he’s not the only conservative to strongly oppose extending the benefit. Republicans in the Senate have repeatedly locked arms to block extending the benefits for unemployed Americans, putting the wellbeing of jobless people in peril. And as the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo notes, a major chunk of 2009’s unemployment benefits were funded by the stimulus bill, which “House Republicans unanimously opposed.”
Gingrich Accuses Sec. Sebelius Of ‘Soviet Tyranny,’ Says GOP Congress Should Defund Her Office
Gingrich Accuses Sec. Sebelius Of ‘Soviet Tyranny,’ Says GOP Congress Should Defund Her Office
Earlier this month, after health insurers across the country announced that the early health care benefits were forcing them to increase premiums by up to 9 percentage points, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote a letter to the industry arguing that “any potential premium impact from the new consumer protections and increased quality provisions under the Affordable Care Act will be minimal” and pointed to actuary estimates which found that the early consumer protections would result in marginal increases. “I want AHIP’s members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections,” Sebelius said.
This morning, speaking at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., Newt Gingrich likened Sebelius’ letter to “Soviet tyranny” and said that a Republican-controlled House should ask for her resignation and defund her office in the Department of Health and Human Services:
GINGRICH: When Secretary Sebelius said the other day she would punish insurance companies that told the truth about the cost of Obamacare, she was behaving exactly in the spirit of the Soviet tyranny. And if she’s going to represent left-wing thought police about Obamacare, she should be forced to resign by the new Congress.
This idea that we the people have to tolerate some bureaucrat being paid with our taxes to dictate free speech to us should end in January by the Republican Congress zeroing out her office and explaining that they would be glad to pay for it when someone is there who recognizes the rights of the American people.
Watch it:
But telling Americans that extending dependent coverage to 26 year olds and ending annual limits will increase premiums by 9 percentage is just not true — and insurers know it. While there may be some justification in raising rates in response to rising health care inflation, substantiating an increase that comes in the context of record profits and a long history of issuers fudging the numbers to extract maximum increases is difficult. In fact, it was just four months ago that independent analysts in California discovered that WellPoint “overstated future medical costs” to justify its 39% premium increases in the individual health market and committed numerous other methodological errors.
Gingrich, however, is willing to put full trust in the insurance industry’s accounting practices, to the point where any review of those methods — the very same kind of review that discovered past errors — is tantamount to “Soviet” tactics.
Military Experts Call For Passage Of The DREAM Act
Military Experts Call For Passage Of The DREAM Act
U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez
Louis Caldera, former Director of the White House Military Office and United States Secretary of the Army, stated:
The DREAM Act will materially expand the pool of individuals qualified, ready and willing to serve their country in uniform. Of the 50,000 youth coming of age every year in the terrible predicament of being ineligible to work, enlist, or receive federal financial aid to attend college, many of those are not yet ready to pursue full time education. Military service is a highly appealing way to better themselves, give back to their country and earn their residency and eventually citizenship. I have no doubt many of these enlistees will be among the best soldiers in our Army.
Major General Alfred Valenzuela echoed Caldera’s call to action:
I’ve seen the sacrifice that these immigrant men and women make to this country. They come here with the dream of becoming citizens and sign up to die for the country they call home but yet are never granted citizenship. We should pass the DREAM Act so that those individuals willing to give their lives to the U.S. can also be called citizens of the U.S.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police Corps Margaret Stock reiterated her support of DREAM Act legislation:
Passage of the DREAM Act would directly benefit American national defense by enlarging the pool of highly qualified, US-educated ‘green card’ recruits for the US Armed Forces. Rather than having these US-educated young people sent back to countries they can’t remember–where they will no doubt be forced to serve in foreign militaries and other foreign organizations–they can put their talents to use for the benefit of the American people and the All Volunteer Force.
Valenzuela pointed to the moving story of Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez in an effort to highlight the desperate need for immigration reform. Gutierrez was one of the first U.S. servicemen killed in combat in Iraq. However, he was not a citizen of the country he died for. At the age of 14, Gutierrez made the 2,000-mile journey from Guatemala City to the U.S. Like many of the undocumented immigrants that politicians deride and demonize, Gutierrez hopped 14 freight trains to get through Mexico and was detained by immigration authorities. Because his parents were no longer alive, Gutierrez was made a ward of Los Angeles Juvenile Court and received permanent residency when he was 18. His foster sister stated that he “wanted to give the United States what the United States gave to him. He came with nothing. This country gave him everything.” Valenzuela presided over his funeral.
Today’s call also highlighted the stories of Caesar Vargas and Carlos Saavedra, two young men who want to give back to the U.S. by serving in the military, but can’t because they are undocumented. “Whether it is serving in the military as a JAG officer or serving in the front line as an intelligence officer to lead Marines, who themselves may be DREAMers, I want to earn my place next to the great heroes of our nation that have and are fighting to defend the bedrock principles that are embedded in our Constitution,” stated Vargas.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell And The Constitution
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell And The Constitution
At today’s Values Voter Summit, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) invoked the constitution to substantiate his support for retaining the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. “You don’t have a constitutional right to serve in the military. That’s a special society. You give us some of your constitutional rights when you do it,” Inhofe argued, in what could be interpreted as a rebuttal to Judge Phillip’s recent ruling in California. She found that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unconstitutional because it violated the document’s protections of free speech and due process, but Inhofe countered that these things don’t necessarily apply to the military. As Gen. McCarthy demonstrated, soldiers give up certain rights when they enter the armed forces and the institution does not have to abide by the same rules as civil society. It can and does discriminate.
Proponents of repealing DADT and Judge Phillips maintain that discriminating against gay people would actually undermine the military’s unique mission and today — on Constitution day — The Brookings Institute’s Peter Singer adds another historical layer to adds a historical point to the debate:
Just a generation ago, in the era of the draft, military service was viewed as something different. It was framed not so much as part of a discussion of political rights, but as an obligation of citizenship, a duty necessary to protect rights. In turn, going back further to the founding days of the republic, both the idea of draft, and, in turn, the idea of a professionalized force, were both anathema to many of the same writers and signers of the document. The debate over whether America should have a militia or professional Army or Navy were key point of contention during the first few presidential administrations, especially in the Jeffersonian years.
Singer argues that the nation must find a balance between protecting minority rights (Phillips’ perspective) and ensuring that the military can fulfill its mission of fighting for a common defense (Inhofe’s concerns) — a mission that’s only compromised when the Pentagon dismisses qualified, eager to serve soldiers from the military for being gay.
As he concludes, “hopefully, in the coming weeks, this is how the long overdue end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will play out, not forced by a court decision, nor once again delayed by all the horrible things Congress now suffers from not mentioned in the Constitution – poisonous partisan politics, filibusters and so forth. Rather, it will hopefully come through what the Founding Fathers hoped we would be able to achieve in the 223 years since they signed the document, a democratic process mature enough to deliberate and implement in a way that both establishes justice and ensures for the common defense.”
1099 Issue Moves Forward: Democrats Introducing New Offsets
1099 Issue Moves Forward: Democrats Introducing New Offsets
Since the last two attempts to fix the 1099 provision in the health law failed, Democrats are planning to introduce several measures that would repeal the entire reporting requirement — despite the broad agreement that sole proprietors are not paying their fair share of taxes. The crux of the argument is how to offset the estimated $17 billion that the extra reporting was estimated to have brought it.
Democrats have introduced several options:
- SEN. MARK BEGICH’s (D-AK) AMENDMENT: Repeal entire reporting requirement and makes up for the revenue (approximately $17 billion) by using unspent stimulus funds. But as Pat Garofalo explains, there are about $280 billion in stimulus spending that haven’t been paid out. “But much of the money has already been allocated, including $65 billion in funding for tax breaks, which are intentionally going out the door a little bit at a time.” Therefore, “canceling unspent stimulus funds would mean increasing taxes on the middle class.”
- HOUSE DEMS: Measures would repeal the reporting requirement and make up for the shortfall by “changing the inheritance tax (which is likely to get some GOP support) or a tax on carried interest (which is likely to be opposed by nearly all Republicans and some moderate Dems).” Garofalo is actually really excited about that latter offset.
- GOP RECALL PETITION: Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) is circulating a discharge petition to force a vote on his amendment to repeal the 1099 provision. The petition has 93 signatures.
POLITICO’s Pule suggests that these early difficulties in identifying adequate offsets bode poorly for the GOP’s repeal effort. If they want to repeal the entire health care law, Republicans would have to make up for the billions of dollars in deficit reductions; agreeing on set of uniform pay fors will prove challenging. In fact, beyond the deficit problem, repealing the health care law will also create problems in the Medicare program and continue the upward trajectory of health care spending (the health care law begins to bend the health care cost surve beginning in 2015). Expect all of this to cause major headaches for conservatives as their base holds them to their repeal pledge and watch as they turn to defunding the measure instead.
New Poll: Americans Favor Diplomacy, Sanctions On Iran
New Poll: Americans Favor Diplomacy, Sanctions On Iran
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has just released a new poll (pdf) which shows some pretty interesting things about American’s views of the United States’ role in the world. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the current economic situation, Americans named “protecting the jobs of American workers” and “reducing dependence on foreign oil” as their top two foreign policy goals of the United States (fig. 18).
In regard to U.S. policy in the Middle East, the poll shows that “Americans are at present reluctant to resort to a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, preferring economic sanctions and diplomacy”:
Very strong majorities do not think it is likely that a military strike would cause Iran to give up trying to have a nuclear program. They also think a strike would likely result in retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets in neighboring states as well as in the United States itself.
“If all efforts fail to stop Iran,” the poll shows that “Americans are about evenly divided on whether to conduct a military strike,” but a strong majority favors continue working through the UN:
A slight majority reported that, if Iran were to allow UN inspectors “permanent and full access throughout Iran to make sure it is not developing nuclear weapons,” then “Iran should be allowed to produce nuclear fuel for producing electricity.”
Particularly interesting are views on a possible military conflict between Iran and Israel, “prompted by an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities”:
A majority (56%) says the United States should not bring its military forces into such a conflict, with 38 percent saying it should. Contrary to the long-standing, official U.S. position, fewer than half of Americans show a readiness to defend Israel even against an unprovoked attack by a neighbor. Asked whether they would favor using U.S. troops in the event that Israel were attacked by a neighbor, only 47 percent say they would favor doing so, while 50 percent say they would oppose it.
In regard to U.S. involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, while a far larger percentage of respondents said that the U.S. should take Israel’s side (28%) over the Palestinian’s (3%) a large majority of 66% thought that the U.S. should “not take either side”:
Almost two thirds of Americans are against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, with 62 percent saying Israel “should not build” these settlements.
Significantly, the report also notes that “when resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is presented as a measure that could help in combating terrorism,” something Americans consider “a top, direct threat to the United States,” a clear majority (58%) favor making a “major effort” to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This demonstrates the importance of continuing to highlight the linkage argument made by Gen. Petraeus, Defense Secretary Gates and others over the last year. It also shows why those who oppose the peace process will continue to deny linkage exists.
Finally, in one of the more troubling figures in the poll (on which I hope to write more later), while still a slight minority view, a sharp rise from 2008 in the number of Americans who believe that Western and Muslim civilizations are incompatible:
At Values Voters Summit, Inhofe Rallies Conservatives To Oppose Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal
At Values Voters Summit, Inhofe Rallies Conservatives To Oppose Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal
This morning, speaking at FRC’s Voters Values Summit, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) tried to counteract Lady Gaga’s efforts to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, encouraging conservative voters to tell their representatives to “vote no” on Tuesday’s motion to proceed to the defense authorization bill. “Your message is this,” Inhofe said. “If you vote yes, are voting for open gay activity in the military and you’re voting for abortions in our hospitals,” he said referring to a separate amendment that repeals the prohibition in the use of private funds to pay for abortion care in military hospitals. “Make sure they understand that you are watching. Because if they don’t think you’re watching, it’s going to sail through,” Inhofe warned.
During the speech, Inhofe again relied on his personal experiences in the service in the late 1950s to suggest that gay activity is incompatible with the military and suggested that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and Secretary fo Defense Robert Gates cannot be trusted to objectively evaluate the results of the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell review:
INHOFE: They mentioned in my my introduction that I was an Army veteran. And I think any of the vetrans in this room. I don’t have have to tell you if you have an open gay situation there — allows people to use the military as a forum for their liberal agenda… They’ll say this doesn’t become effective until the report comes out in December and it will have to be certified by Admiral Mullen, Secretary Gates, and President Obama. But wait a minute! They’ve already made up their minds….
Watch a compilation:
Of course, Inhofe’s infusion of his own military service into the DADT debate is incredibly reactionary. America’s military and society has become significantly more tolerant towards minorities in the intervening years — as prominent military leaders who have “made up their minds” realize.” “In the almost seventeen years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed,” Gen. Collin Powell said in a statement in February, throwing his weight behind the repeal process.
Later in the conference, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) also rallied behind the policy saying, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell must remain the policy of the United States armed forces.”
Bayh Says Poverty Increase Means Congress Should Ignore ‘Fairness’ And Cut Taxes For The Rich
Bayh Says Poverty Increase Means Congress Should Ignore ‘Fairness’ And Cut Taxes For The Rich
Yesterday, the Census Bureau released a report showing that one in seven Americans is currently living in poverty, and that the median income decreased by nearly five percent during the last decade. At the same time, Congress is debating whether to adopt President Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans to expire on schedule, or whether to extend the entire package of cuts as Republicans desire.
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has adopted the Republican line when it comes to the Bush tax cuts, even though he likes to style himself as a deficit-hawk. Today, MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asked Bayh about the poverty data, and whether there is a disconnect between the real economic pain that people are feeling and lawmakers squabbling over tax rates for the wealthy. Bayh agreed that there is a disconnect, but then concluded that the poverty increase means lawmakers should forget about “fairness and things like that” and cut taxes for the rich:
TODD: Yesterday, the Census came out and said one in seven Americans are living below the poverty line. Do you look at that story today — you know, you open up your USA Today, right, and you see that story — and you see Washington is debating the tax rates for the wealthy, and you sit there and say, isn’t that a disconnect in America right now?
BAYH: It is a disconnect, Chuck. What we need to be focused on is growth, how do we create jobs, how do we expand businesses. That needs to be job one right now. And all these other issues involving, oh, fairness and things like that can wait.
Watch it:
So Bayh thinks that Congress should forget about:
– Income inequality, which is the worst its been since 1928. Currently, the top one percent of households make nearly 25 percent of the total income in the country. According to the latest data, “the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007.”
In order to:
– Borrow and spend $830 billion on the richest two percent of households. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich will give a millionaire an annual tax cut of $128,832, which is nearly two and a half times the median household income.
Bayh conceded that the top two percent of earners doesn’t include many small businesses, but said that we should spend more than $800 billion to cut their taxes anyway, because “we want them doing more hiring, more investing, and at least hanging in there from a consumption standpoint.” However, according to a new study from Moody’s Analytics, the rich are more likely to save the money if their taxes are cut than spend it.
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