Analysis Refutes ‘Anti-Israel’ Charge Against Human Rights Watch
Analysis Refutes ‘Anti-Israel’ Charge Against Human Rights Watch
In response to the ongoing propaganda war against human rights NGOs by the Netanyahu government and its outriders here in the U.S. — especially the recent criticism of Human Rights Watch from HRW founder Robert Bernstein — a couple of Canadian social scientists did a statistical analysis of both HRW’s and Amnesty International’s reporting. Here’s what they found:
There is no anti-Israel or anti-democratic conspiracy at work. Like Pakistan or Afghanistan today, Israel is, and has been for many years, a tremendously newsworthy place. This is true for many reasons, but much of the interest must be driven by Israel’s very large claim on America’s overseas assistance envelope and foreign policy resources.
Global watchdogs, like western reporters and politicians, are keen to be heard, seen, and make an impact. As a result, they join the public debate wherever it takes place, prompting them to devote more resources and attention to Israel than to North Korea, Niger, or Burkina Faso.
Note also, however, that Israel’s security forces regularly commit violations against Palestinians and southern Lebanese, and since the statistical models show that actual abuse is also a significant factor, Israeli behaviour — along with other factors — is also driving the coverage.
Careful analysis, in other words, is a calming remedy in times of emotion, allegation, and counter-allegation. Statistics, disdained as boring by so many university students, can, occasionally, offer useful insights not found elsewhere.
For the most committed Likudniks, of course, the fact that their charges of anti-Israel bias are not borne out by a careful analysis of NGO reporting will only be taken as proof that the authors of that analysis themselves — indeed perhaps even the entire social science discipline — suffers from an anti-Israel bias. Certainly that fact that the authors even suggest — and actually assert straight out — that “Israel’s security forces regularly commit violations against Palestinians and southern Lebanese” (a claim that is uncontroversial in any country other than the U.S.) is quite enough to get them tarred as Israel-bashers in some circles. But for those seriously interested in interrogating recent claims made against human rights NGOs, this analysis should be very useful.
There’s no question that Israel has to deal with a precarious security situation, however this does not exonerate the country from its own commitment to uphold certain human rights standards, nor immunize it from criticism when it fails to meet those standards. It’s really unfortunate that, rather than cooperate with an American president who has made it a priority to improve that security situation, Israel’s current government has chosen instead to thumb him in the eye while organizing a smear campaign against its human rights critics.
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Is Ronald Reagan Responsible For 1,990 Page Health Bill?
Is Ronald Reagan Responsible For 1,990 Page Health Bill?
Republicans responded to the release of the House health bill by criticizing the sheer size of the legislation. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) began the Republican press conference by carrying out the 1,990 page bill and positioning the stack between the two microphones on the podium, in full view of the cameras.
“Now tell me how we’re going to fix the health care system with 1,990 pages of government bureaucracy. Now this is what the American people have been saying over the last few months, ‘enough is enough,’” he said.
Watch a compilation:
The original Medicare legislation was a mere 15 pages. Today, Congress regularly produces legislation that that is thousands of pages long. So what happened? It’s the result of the “polarization of American politics,” Congressional historian Ross Baker told the Wonk Room. In the last 50 years, “the total number of pages of legislation has gone up from slightly more than 2,000 pages in 1948 to more than 7,000 pages in 2006.”
The trend started during the 1980s, once the Regan administration began padding various committees with industry cronies and taking full advantage of the vagueness of the legislative language. Congress began writing longer bills to ensure that its intent would be properly enforced. Lesley Russell, currently a visiting Fellow at the Center of American Progress, but at the time a member of the professional staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, recalls how in 1987, her committee, along with Ways and Means, produced an unusually large bill governing nursing home regulations.
The Reagan administration had sought to “repeal the federal rules that governed nursing homes,” including “basic requirements that nursing homes maintain a safe and sanitary environment and respect the privacy and dignity of residents.” Congress enacted moratorium prohibiting the repeal and the Institute of Medicine was commissioned to study the conditions of nursing homes.
The report concluded that “individuals who are admitted receive very inadequate — sometimes shockingly deficient — care that is likely to hasten the deterioration of their physical, mental, and emotional health,” and Congress responded by writing “broad reform legislation, commonly referred to as the Nursing Home Reform Act.” For the first time, “the law placed a new focus on resident rights. It gave nursing home residents the right to choose a personal attending physician, to participate in planning their own care and treatment, and to be free from physical and mental abuse, corporal punishment, involuntary seclusion, and “any physical or chemical restraints imposed for purposes of discipline or convenience.”
“We knew, when we were writing this needed legislation, that it was intrinsically opposed by the administration and so we were very conscious of the need to insure that all the provisions were fully enacted as Congress intended,” Russell said. “This is my earliest recollection of Congress deliberately putting a lot of detail into legislative language,” Russell said.
Baker explained that large multi-paget bills allow Congress to hide controversial provisions, but dismissed the oft-cited argument that smaller bills would help the public better digest legislation and enhance the Democratic process. “It’s a quaint thought to think that the public would read smaller bills,” but there is really no correlation between the size of the bill and the willingness of Americans to read it, he insisted.
The Chance Of Schwarzenegger’s ‘F*ck You’ Acrostic Being Random: One In A Trillion
The Chance Of Schwarzenegger’s ‘F*ck You’ Acrostic Being Random: One In A Trillion
The likelihood that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R-CA) recent vulgar hidden message was inadvertent is about one in a trillion, according to a Wonk Room analysis. In a recent message announcing a veto of a bill sponsored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano — who had earlier told the governor to “kiss my gay ass” — the first letters in each line of the two paragraphs spelled out “Fuck You,” with that capitalization. The governor’s press secretary claimed it was just a “weird coincidence“:
Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, insisted Tuesday it was simply a “weird coincidence.” He sent us veto messages the governor sent out in the past with linguistic lineups such as “soap” and “poet,” which he said were also unintended.
Ignoring the likelihood of the paragraphs breaking into the correct 4-3 lines necessary for “Fuck You” and the likelihood of the capitalization being inadvertently correct, the probability of that particular phrase is approximately one in a trillion.
This is considerably smaller than the likelihood of the vulgarity appearing if the distribution of first letters were even, which is 1 in 10 billion (26^-7 = 1.25e-10).
If word distribution were based on the frequency of first letters in a common word dictionary [3esl.txt], then the likelihood of randomly spelling out the particular phrase would be one in a trillion (1.19e-12).
However, that ignores the distribution of word frequency in speech — words beginning with “t” (e.g. “the”, “that”) appear much more often than any other. Calculating first-letter frequencies from a 30,000-word concordance of recent speeches by Schwarzenegger (removing instances of “Thank you”), we still find the likelihood of the phrase in question randomly appearing to be one in a trillion (8.8e-13), in line with our less well-designed estimate.
Now, the likelihood that some phrase would be spelled out? Ignoring letter distribution, there’s about a 0.3% chance any four letter string is a common English word, and a 3% chance any three letter string is a common English word. The specific likelihood of the words “soap” and “poet” appearing, for example, given the Schwarzenegger speeches, is one in 100,000 — much greater than the one in 10 million shot of “fuck” appearing.
As letter distribution would make the appearance of common words more likely (e.g. “teas”), the probability of some two-word combination appearing is on the order of two percent. The likelihood of it making any sense, of course, is smaller. A more accurate estimation is left to the reader.
How likely is one in a trillion? To give a sense of scale, one trillion is about 10 to 20 times the number of human beings who have ever lived on the planet. For a person to speak a trillion words, you’d have to live for 400,000 years. About 20 trillion words are spoken every day on the planet. You would need to search through about the number of books in seven Libraries of Congress to find a book that randomly had Schwarzenegger’s phrase going down one of its pages.
Still, that means there’s a chance.
| First-letter distribution | |
|---|---|
| Common English words | Schwarzenegger speeches |
|
s: 11.57% c: 9.29% p: 8.14% a: 6.04% d: 5.91% r: 5.43% b: 5.25% m: 5.22% t: 5.02% f: 4.92% i: 4.88% e: 4.15% h: 3.99% g: 3.52% l: 2.99% w: 2.93% o: 2.56% u: 2.24% n: 2.06% v: 1.43% j: 0.91% k: 0.60% q: 0.43% y: 0.33% z: 0.12% x: 0.05% |
t: 17.44% a: 12.74% i: 8.62% w: 7.84% o: 5.96% s: 5.83% c: 4.66% h: 4.55% b: 4.28% p: 3.06% f: 3.06% g: 3.00% m: 2.97% d: 2.42% l: 2.42% y: 2.15% n: 2.07% e: 2.01% r: 1.93% u: 0.81% k: 0.74% j: 0.72% v: 0.68% q: 0.03% z: 0.01% x: 0.00% |
ANALYSIS: House Bill More Affordable Than Senate Legislation
ANALYSIS: House Bill More Affordable Than Senate Legislation
A rough analysis of the affordability measures in the House and Senate conducted by Sonia Sekhar at the Center for American Progress Action Fund demonstrates that the House health bill provides more affordable coverage than the latest available version of the Senate legislation. While the chart below does not provide a perfect comparison between the amount an average family of four would spend on coverage within the exchange, it’s the first actual representation of the premium differences under the two bills.
Both measures provide subsidies on a sliding scale. Under the Senate bill, families between 133-300%FPL have to spend between 2 and 12% of their income on premiums, while families between 300-400%FPL, spend 12% on premiums. In the House legislation families between 150 – 400% of the federal poverty line would spend between 1.5 and 12% of income on premiums. Cost sharing amounts also vary.
The chart below estimates what families will pay for coverage (premiums and cost sharing) in the Exchange in year one, 2013:
The chart relies on the language in the Chairman’s Amendment to the Senate Finance Committee bill and the the text of the House bill (H.R. 3962). It comes with several caveats. First, we took the projected premiums and average out-of-pocket costs of a “silver” plan from the CBO’s analysis of the Baucus bill and deflated both amounts (using the CBO’s CPI projections for premiums and cost sharing) to 2013 dollars. Note that the actuarial value of the silver plan in the Senate Finance bill is 70%, while it’s 75% in the House bill, a difference we did not control for. The premiums and cost-sharing amounts will be slightly different for each bill, though not significantly so.
Read the rough affordability tables HERE.
Bank Lobbyists: Overdraft Fees Are ‘A Courtesy,’ ‘Very Popular,’ Keep Customers ‘Happy’
Bank Lobbyists: Overdraft Fees Are ‘A Courtesy,’ ‘Very Popular,’ Keep Customers ‘Happy’
Today, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing to examine Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s (D-NY) Overdraft Protection Act of 2009, which would amend the Truth in Lending Act to address a spate of problems with overdraft protection programs.
Overdraft fees — which are incurred when a consumer overdraws a checking account — may climb to $38.5 billion this year, up from $10.3 billion just five years ago. According to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), at least 50 million Americans overdraw their accounts over the course of a twelve month period, and 27 million of those will incur five or more fees. The standard fee across the banking industry is currently $34.
But you wouldn’t know that there were any problems with overdraft fees if you listened to the representatives of the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers Association, who were singing the praises of such fees during the hearing. They said that overdraft fees are actually “a courtesy,” “very popular,” and ultimately keep customers “happy.” Watch a compilation:
Actually, 80 percent of consumers say that they would rather have their debit card rejected for a $5 purchase than be charged an overdraft fee, which only falls to 77 percent when the price of the purchase is increased to $40. And the fees tend to hit those who can least afford them, as CRL’s Eric Halperin told the committee:
The FDIC’s recent study of overdraft programs, consistent with CRL’s previous research, found that account holders who overdrew their accounts five or more times per year paid 93 percent of all overdraft fees. It also found that consumers living in lower-income areas bear the brunt of these fees. Seniors, young adults, military families, and the unemployed are also hit hard. Americans aged 55 and over pay $6.2 billion in total overdraft fees annually — $2.5 billion for debit card/ATM transactions alone — and those heavily dependent on Social Security pay $1.4 billion annually.
Confounding this problem is the fact that 75.1 percent of banks with overdraft programs automatically enroll consumers, according to the FDIC. In fact, Maloney’s legislation would mandate that overdraft protection be opt in instead of automatic. As Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), a co-sponsor of Maloney’s bill, said, “We wouldn’t be in a situation where we’re considering legislation if you would have had an opt-in regime from the beginning…Don’t do people favors without asking them.”
Of course, there is serious merit to the point that consumers should take some personal responsibility and not overdraw their account. But, until fairly recently, banks were willing to discipline poor accounting by simply rejecting a debit card purchase at the point of sale. In fact, in 2004, 80 percent of institutions had a policy of rejecting a purchase if it would overdraw the account. Today, the percentage is exactly the opposite, with 80 percent permitting the purchase and charging an overdraft fee. Banks saw that overdraft fees were a significant profit center, and have now taken such fees to absurd heights.
Krauthammer’s Latest Attempt To Avoid Admitting Error
Krauthammer’s Latest Attempt To Avoid Admitting Error
Calling President Obama’s “compulsion to attack” the previous administration “unseemly,” Charles Krauthammer seems to have invented an alternate history of the U.S. in Afghanistan:
It’s as if Obama’s presidency hasn’t really started. He’s still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to “long years of drift” in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan. [...]
The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy “footprint.”
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. For obvious reasons: less risk and fewer losses for our troops, while reducing the intrusiveness of the occupation and thus the chances of creating an anti-foreigner backlash that would fan an insurgency. [...]
It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, but it proved wrong. The strategy failed. Not just because the enemy proved highly resilient but because the allegiance of the population turned out to hinge far less on resentment of foreign intrusiveness (in fact the locals came to hate the insurgents — al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan — far more than us) than on physical insecurity, which made them side with the insurgents out of sheer fear. [...]
In both places, the deterioration of the military situation was not the result of “drift,” but of considered policies that seemed reasonable, cautious and culturally sensitive at the time but that ultimately turned out to be wrong.
What happened in Afghanistan wasn’t that the Bush administration tried a strategy and it failed; rather, it was that the Bush administration tried a strategy, committed itself to resourcing it, and then lost interest as it refocused attention and resources to the showpiece invasion of Iraq — and then promptly screwed that up, requiring years of further attention and resources, and resulting in further disregard of Afghanistan. The strategic misjudgment of going into Iraq, which Krauthammer vigorously advocated, is, more than anything else, what led to the current crisis over which President Obama is deliberating.
And it’s not just Obama who speaks of “drift” in U.S. Afghanistan policy, but also the current Chairman of the Join Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September that the U.S. had “very badly under-resourced Afghanistan for the better part of five years.” Speaking to the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative in March, Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said “we have under-resourced Afghanistan for too long, we took our eye off the ball when we went into Iraq. All of our resources were devoted to that effort.” An international aid worker in Afghanistan told the New York Times’ Dexter Filkins that “the tragedy” is “the $70 billion that would have given you enough police and army to stabilize this place all went to Iraq.”
It gets tiresome to have to keep repeating all of this, but not as tiresome as reading Krauthammer’s ever more baroque efforts to avoid owning up to his massive errors in judgment. Like the rest of his neocon brethren, Krauthammer has expended an enormous amount of energy to distract from the fact that his ideas about the transformative potential of American military force have been utterly discredited. It’s a bit comical that the best advice Krauthammer can come up with for the president who has to deal with the consequences of those ideas is: “Needs more force!”
Sen. Jeff Merkley: Kerry-Boxer Sets The Stage For A Clean Energy Future
Sen. Jeff Merkley: Kerry-Boxer Sets The Stage For A Clean Energy Future
Our guest blogger is Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
The Senate is hard at work crafting legislation to create clean energy jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and fight climate change. I am very proud of what we’ve accomplished on the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act so far and I wanted to let you all know about the progress we’ve made. I want to point out how critical it is that we reach out to folks beyond the blogosphere to let them know why this legislation will benefit all Americans.
We have to face the fact that curbing global warming isn’t the top priority for every American. When I talk to folks back in Oregon who may be skeptical about the scientific consensus on the threat of global warming, I take the opportunity to point out that there is a consensus among Americans when it comes to the many benefits of this legislation:
– This bill will create jobs.
– It will make our air cleaner.
– And it will reduce our dangerous dependence on oil imported from countries like Saudia Arabia and Venezuela.
These are goals we can all get behind. When Americans are presented with the choice of jobs, clean air and self-sufficiency versus a stagnant economy, dirty air and billions sent overseas to purchase foreign fuel, it’s an easy choice.
Senators Kerry and Boxer have put together an excellent framework that adds up to a comprehensive plan that would create a number of new renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. In addition, the bill includes a pollution reduction and investment program that would go beyond what the House proposed, to cut pollution 20 percent by 2020 and more than 80 percent by 2050. It will reduce dependence on foreign oil by helping cities and states plan for cleaner and more efficient transportation infrastructure that reduces the pollution coming from cars and trucks and by investing in clean vehicle technology and electric vehicle deployment.
That’s the overview of why we must pass this bill. But the details are important too: Read the rest of this entry »
The New Luntz Memo Is The Same As The Old Luntz Memo
The New Luntz Memo Is The Same As The Old Luntz Memo
GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz has penned another self-aggrandizing memo advising Republicans how to talk about health care reform. The new memo is the same as the old memo: admit the health care system is in crisis but remind Americans that the Democratic proposals would lead to a government-takeover of health care. “Suggestion: So far, most of the ads featuring concerned patients have been women. It’s time to include men in these ads, too. Treatment of prostate cancer can be delayed just as much as for breast cancer when the government takes over care – and American men deserve to know about that,” he writes.
Luntz points to poll numbers that demonstrate unease with the Democrats’ proposals:
Public anger is REAL (note to certain media outlets & bloggers who will eventually savage this memo: the town hall phenomenon is NOT manufactured). A majority of Americans (55%) agree that “When it comes to the healthcare reform debate in Washington, I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” Only 26% disagree (leaving 19%). Nearly one in five Americans strongly agree.
But it’s not that Americans are scared of exchanges, subsidies, insurance regulations or the public plan. They’re frightened by the alleged death panels, rationing and the government interference. They’re frightened by Luntz, not Obama.
Since the election, Republicans have tapped into a paranoid corner of the American electorate that sees the President as a communist intent on redistributing the wealth and outsourcing our national defense to Bill Ayers. Now, the party hopes to convince Americans that Obama will turn over the health care system to Dr. Kevorkian. That strategy lost the election and it will fail to stop health care reform.
Slowing The PACE: The Intersection Of Influence Peddling And Tax Reform
Slowing The PACE: The Intersection Of Influence Peddling And Tax Reform
Our guest bloggers are Lisa Gilbert, U.S. PIRG Democracy Advocate, and Nicole Tichon, U.S. PIRG Tax and Budget Reform Advocate.
The topic on everyone’s lips over the last three months has been health care: how the system will work, who will benefit from it, and how we will pay for it.
Congress is now considering important tax reforms that would not only help pay for health insurance reform, but also close offshore tax haven loopholes, which force American taxpayers to make up for over $100 billion per year in lost revenue.
One of the most vocal opposition groups to this reform has been the coalition called Promote America’s Competitive Edge, or PACE.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG) conducted an investigation into corporations who work with PACE and support their positions to better understand why it is so important to them to fight these tax reforms and maintain the status quo.
U.S. PIRG found that a group of 12 prominent corporations that have signed onto PACE letters to Congress rank among the top 100 largest publicly traded contractors that also maintain a significant presence in tax haven countries. In 2008, these 12 corporations received over $10 billion in government contracts, and they collectively have 443 subsidiaries in tax haven countries, where they pay minimal, if any, taxes.
So, why is the status quo important to these “dirty dozen”? Read the rest of this entry »
The WonkLine: October 30, 2009
The WonkLine: October 30, 2009
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 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, and subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, you can now follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Climate Change
“I don’t think you’ll ever have offshore drilling for oil and gas until you marry it up with emissions controls,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters. “They don’t have 60 votes for environmental policy in the House and the Senate because it’s bad for business. All of these bills, I couldn’t support because they’re cap and trade legislation that really does put us at a competitive disadvantage.”
“The nation is using less water now than it did in 1975 and 1980,” according to new data just released by the US Geological Survey (USGS) shows that total water use in the United States dropped “while the nation’s population and economy grew.”
During testimony on his opposition to the Clean Energy Jobs Act, American Farm Bureau chief Bob Stallman contested the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying “Congress should at least hold hearings to consider the scientists and climatologists who disagree with the IPCC data and analysis.”
National Security
Reuters reports that “U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled on Friday that the United States will allow talks with Iran over its nuclear programme to play out before considering fresh sanctions against Tehran.”
The Washington Post reports “Russia and the United States are scrambling to address disagreements over a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with a little more than a month left until the existing agreement between the Cold War adversaries expires.”
Reporting from Iraq, Nir Rosen writes “Sectarianism rules, if less explicitly violently than it once did. The new government is among the most corrupt in the world. It is beginning to resemble its Baa’thist predecessor in its authoritarianism and brutality. But it faces no immediate threats, and its strength gives it some form of legitimacy, even among Sunnis. An ugly peace may indeed hold” in Iraq.
Economy
The “most extensive direct count” to date finds that the economic stimulus package has created or saved 650,000 jobs. This data “doesn’t include the thousands of jobs created or saved indirectly, through tax cuts, unemployment benefits, Pell Grants and other payments.”
A new Department of Education study finds that “nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law.”
According to a new Bloomberg poll, most bank executives “expect their bonuses to match or exceed last year’s, with 1 in 10 predicting their best-ever payout.” A majority of executives “also turn thumbs down on government attempts to limit compensation, with 51 percent saying restrictions will stifle useful innovation.”
Immigration
More than 100 Democrats in the House of Representatives signed a letter to President Obama urging him to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in early 2010.
Following an almost 15 year battle, the Obama administration has recommended political asylum for Rody Alvarado Peña, “a Guatemalan woman fleeing horrific abuse by her husband, the strongest signal yet that the administration is open to a variety of asylum claims from foreign women facing domestic abuse.”
“Arizona lawmakers are renewing a push to grant local police the ability to detain and question suspected undocumented immigrants.” The legislation would make it a crime to “trespass on the territory of the state” and allow local police to arrest anyone who cannot provide documentation of their citizenship.
Health Care
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in a new Web video posted Thursday, “makes the case for a public health insurance option and appeals to voters across the country to contact Washington to “push hard” for its inclusion in the final bill.”
TPMDC’s Brian Buetler is reporting that Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) says “he will vote to bring the bill with a public option and an opt-out to the floor — getting the bill past a key procedural vote — and suggested his colleagues should do the same.”
The Wall Street Journal observes that the “House health-care bill presents more problems for drug makers than legislation in the Senate, but it gives the medical-device industry better breaks.”
Sessions Lies About Unemployment Benefits Going To ‘Illegals’
Sessions Lies About Unemployment Benefits Going To ‘Illegals’
Yesterday, on Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) proclaimed that Democrats are trying to prevent him from submitting an amendment that would prevent “illegals” from accessing jobless benefits. Sessions is upset that the Senate has denied his amendment to the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act requiring new unemployment benefit applicants to have their citizenship status checked using E-Verify — a controversial and error-ridden web-based employment verification system.
Sessions said, unequivocally, that undocumented immigrants are currently receiving unemployment benefits and are being “rewarded” for their “illegal behavior” by applying with their Social Security Numbers (SSN):
SESSIONS: What we want them to do is, like we’re asking businesses to do, is check with E-verify to see if the person who seeks unemployment insurance and compensation is actually lawfully in the country. That can be done, but they do not want to do that for reasons that baffle me and frankly have said that nothing is going to be voted on…
CAVUTO: So, are illegals presently getting jobless benefits, you can say that unequivocally?
SESSIONS: Yeah, uh, and they file using their Social Security Numbers and they get the benefits and if you check those numbers you would identify some of the people who shouldn’t be getting it. One of the more simple things you should do is simply not reward this illegal behavior.
Watch it:
To begin with, only US citizens individuals who are authorized to work are issued SSNs. Undocumented immigrants may possess stolen or fake SSNs, but if they try to apply for public benefits, the likelihood of them getting caught is very high. Phony SSNs immediately raise a red flag and stolen ones are easily identifiable in states that cross-match SSNs against the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) database and in all cases in which the theft has been reported.
Ultimately, most undocumented immigrants wouldn’t touch federal unemployment insurance with a ten foot pole. They’re in the US to work, not to collect public benefits. Chances are if they lose their job, they’ll just keep looking for another one before risking deportation and possible jail time. “It’s such a red herring — undocumented workers are too scared to apply for these kinds of benefits — they know the consequences of getting caught,” Jodi Conti of the National Employment Law Project tells Wonk Room.
Millions of US citizens are unemployed and they do qualify for and depend on unemployment benefits. However, if E-verify were instituted a 4% error rate could be devastating. In other words, for every million citizens that are unemployed, unemployment benefits for 40,000 American families could be denied or delayed due to errors in the SSA and Department of Homeland Security databases. The current number of total unemployed persons is currently at 15.1 million.
Cayman Islands Financiers Celebrate Weak Baucus-Rangel Tax Evasion Bill
Cayman Islands Financiers Celebrate Weak Baucus-Rangel Tax Evasion Bill
This week, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) unveiled the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009, which “would require an array of new reporting by foreign financial institutions in an attempt to give the IRS more data to detect fraud and tax evasion.” “This bill offers foreign banks a simple choice — if you wish to access our capital markets, you have to report on U.S. account holders,” said Rangel.
The Baucus/Rangel bill does go a long way toward preventing another UBS situation, in which loads of individuals are able to shelter their money offshore. However, unlike a bill sponsored by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the Baucus/Rangel legislation doesn’t go after multinational corporations that set up shell companies on foreign soil in order to avoid U.S. taxes. As Doggett said, it “stops short of targeting all fat cats.”
Dogget and Levin’s legislation, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, “would require more scrutiny of shell corporations’ actual owners and create a ‘blacklist’ of countries in which certain transactions would be more suspect.” “U.S. corporations should not be able to dodge U.S. taxes simply by filing a piece of paper and renting a foreign mailbox,” Doggett said.
And providing evidence that the Baucus/Rangel bill doesn’t strike fear into the tax haven world is the fact that the Cayman Islands’ financial sector is celebrating it:
Cayman Finance, representing the financial industry based in the Cayman Islands, today congratulated Chairman Max Baucus of the Senate Finance Committee and Chairman Rangel of the House Ways and Means Committee on their plan to tackle offshore tax abuse through increased transparency and enhanced reporting requirements. The new comprehensive proposal does away with the damaging features of Senator Levin’s Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act…”Cayman Finance commends Chairman Baucus, Chairman Rangel and their colleagues for their leadership on this important issue,” said Cayman Finance Chairman Anthony Travers. “This proposal is entirely consistent with the approach suggested by Cayman Finance in our many meetings with these and other U.S. policymakers.”
The Cayman News Service described the feeling amongst the Cayman’s financiers as “relief.”
Of course, the Caymans are one of world’s most well-known tax havens. The Government Accountability Office actually found that 18,857 U.S. companies maintained a post office box in one five story building in the Caymans. That building has only one occupant, the law firm Maples and Calder. Morgan Stanley has 158 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, while Citigroup has 90, and Bank of America has 58. Exxon, Dell, Goldman Sachs, News Corp., Pepsi, and United-Health have all set up shop there, as well.
Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) estimates that the stronger tax haven crackdown in Doggett and Levin’s bill would result in revenues of $9 billion over ten years. The Baucus/Rangel bill, as a whole, raises $8.5 billion over ten years.
CBO: Public Option To Attract Only 6 Million Enrollees & Doesn’t Offer Lower Premiums
CBO: Public Option To Attract Only 6 Million Enrollees & Doesn’t Offer Lower Premiums
The Congressional Budget Office analysis of the recently released House health bill has concluded that the bill costs $894 billion over 10 years and reduces the deficit by $104B over 10 years.
The public option would attract about 6 million enrollees by 2019 and charge premiums that are “somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.” This is because the public option would “engage in less management of utilization” by its enrollees and “attract a less healthy pool of enrollees,” the office concludes. Moreover, since the House bill expands Medicaid up to 150% of the federal poverty line, it’s possible that the enrollees that would have enrolled in the public option went into Medicaid instead.
Below is a comparison of the relevant provisions in the House and Senate Finance Committee legislation:
| CBO Score Of House Bill | CBO Score Of Baucus Bill | |
| Costs | Reduce deficits: $104B/10yrs Cost: $894B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $605B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $425B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $25B/10yrs |
Reduce deficits: $81B/10yrs Cost: $829B/10yrs Spends on subsidies: $461B/10yrs On Medicaid/CHIP: $345B/10yrs On Small Employer Credit: $23B/10yrs |
| Insured | Uninsured reduced by: 36M Uninsured in 2019: 18M In Exchanges: 30M | Public Plan: 6M In Medicaid: 15M |
Uninsured reduced by: 29M Uninsured in 2019: 25M In Exchanges: 23M In Medicaid: 14M |
| Revenue | Mandate penalty: $33B/10yrs Pay-Play penalty: $135B/10yrs New taxes: $572B/10yrs |
Mandate penalty: $4B/10yrs Free rider penalty: $23B/10yrs New taxes: $196B/10yrs |
| Medicare and Medicaid |
Total savings: 426B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $170B/10yrs |
Total savings: 404B/10yrs Medicare Advantage: $117B/10yrs |
Inslee Slams SuperFreakonomics For ‘Absolute Deception’ On Climate Science
Inslee Slams SuperFreakonomics For ‘Absolute Deception’ On Climate Science
Today, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) rebuked the authors of SuperFreakonomics for participating in a “continuing effort to deceive the American public” on the science of climate change. During an investigative hearing on forged letters sent by the coal industry to oppose climate action, Inslee condemned the industry’s effort to “hoodwink, defraud, and deceive the American public now to cover up the toxicity to the world environment” of global warming pollution. Inslee then turned to Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, criticizing them for “absolute deception” in their work on global warming:
The second thing I want to note is this is not the only continuing effort to deceive the American public. I want to note a book called Freakonomics, or SuperFreakonomics, that some authors wrote, that basically said or asserted we don’t have to control CO2, we’ll just pump sulfur dioxide up into the atmosphere and that will solve the problem. They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford who’s one of the predominant researchers in ocean acidification to suggest that Dr. Caldeira didn’t think we should control CO2. Which is an absolute deception. Dr. Caldeira I’ve spoken to personally. He’s told me we have to solve ocean acidification. You can’t solve ocean acidification without controlling CO2 and yet people are still trying to write books to deceive the American public. And we ought to blow the whistle on them, we’re blowing the whistle on one today, we’ll continue to do it, because ultimately science is going to triumph in this discussion.
Watch it:
Levitt and Dubner’s promotion of geoengineering as a “cheap and simple” alternative to carbon mitigation is in direct opposition to the views of Dr. Ken Caldeira, Paul Crutzen, and the world’s scientific community. Although Caldeira objected to the chapter and has since repeatedly said he was misrepresented in multiple ways, the SuperFreakonomics authors have continued their deception, joining the billion-dollar effort by fossil-fuel companies and the radical right to thwart action on climate change.
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
Of course, ocean acidification is an important issue. Now, there are ways to deal with ocean acidification, right, it's actually, that's actually, we know exactly how to un-acidify the oceans: it's to pour a bunch of base into it, so, so if that turns out to be an incredibly big problem, then we can deal with that.Listen here:
Gutierrez Pushes For Bank Failure Fund: Banks Don’t Race Toward Destruction Because The FDIC Exists
Gutierrez Pushes For Bank Failure Fund: Banks Don’t Race Toward Destruction Because The FDIC Exists
Today, the House Financial Services Committee began discussing how to create a resolution authority for dismantling large, complex financial institutions. Emerging as the most contentious aspect of the legislation — which was unveiled by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) this week — is how the money for dismantling these firms should be raised.
Frank and the administration have designed a plan under which the government loans money to a failing company to help it unwind, and then recovers that money by hitting up shareholders and then assessing a fee on other large banks. But some in Congress feel that the largest financial institutions should have to pre-pay into an insurance fund, which will then be accessed when a firm goes into a tailspin.
The administration prefers the post-failure assessment because it believes that the mere existence of a fund would create moral hazard, as large firms would take the knowledge of the fund as permission to excessively gamble. During the hearing, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) let Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner know that he disagrees:
Let’s create the fund, just like the FDIC, so when we need to resolve [a financial institution], it stands. Your argument is, ‘oh, but Luis, moral hazard’…I don’t see banks racing to the precipice of destruction and bankruptcy because the FDIC exists. Nor do I go to an insurance company and take out a life insurance policy on myself, and the next day decide, wow, maybe I’ll just start smoking. Maybe I’ll start drinking, maybe I’ll start driving my car in a crazy manner. Maybe I really don’t care whether I live or die. I’ve got life insurance, what the hell if I die, everything is taken care of. No, that’s not the way it works.
Watch it:
I agree with Gutierrez that a fund should be built up, over time, to be used in the event that a large financial institution hits the skids. And FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, who knows a thing or two about insurance funds, agrees as well, telling the committee that “Congress should establish a Financial Company Resolution Fund (FCRF) that is pre-funded by levies on larger financial firms — those with assets of at least $10 billion…We believe that a pre-funded FCRF has significant advantages over an ex post funded system.”
There are two reasons for this. The first is that, as Simon Johnson pointed out, “you should be paying in the good times –- not right after the crisis.” If one investment bank goes under, chances are that some others are in bad shape as well. Asking them to cough up money to facilitate their competitor’s failure could be dangerously pro-cyclical.
The second reason is political. Though it isn’t, the administration’s plan looks needlessly like the much reviled Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), because of the upfront loan by the government. And though the plan calls for all of the money to be recovered in 60 months, as Mike Lillis pointed out, “the provision also allows the government to extend that 60-month recovery window indefinitely.” “It could be 60 years,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). Having a pre-paid fund would prevent any outlays on the part of the government.
As far the moral hazard argument, I think it is rendered moot so long as the legislation makes it clear that under no circumstances will a failing financial firm be saved. As Frank put it, the resolution authority has to be a “death panel” for banks. If use of the resolution authority always results in a firm ceasing to exist, that should eliminate any notion that the government will facilitate a bailout.
Sen. Levin: Cheney Creating a ‘Poisonous, Dangerous’ Political Environment
Sen. Levin: Cheney Creating a ‘Poisonous, Dangerous’ Political Environment
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) pushed back hard today on former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s recent charge that President Obama was “dithering” on making a decision on Afghanistan strategy.
Speaking at a RAND conference on Afghanistan on Capitol Hill, Levin defended the Obama administration’s ongoing strategic review, and condemned those who were “willing to toss cheap and easy lines about presidential ‘dithering,’ or alleging the president is ‘afraid’ to reach a decision, in an effort to push him to immediately, indeed automatically, endorse recommendations from a general who is highly capable, but whose focus is understandably more narrow than that of Secretary Gates or President Obama”:
This pressure on the president goes beyond mistaken. It creates a political environment that is not just poisonous; it is dangerous — it creates growing pressure for decisions before the president has considered all the options, when what the nation needs and the troops deserve is careful, thoughtful deliberation. The wrong decisions could endanger far more lives than taking the time needed to deliberate and reach the right decisions.
Reaching for an historical analogy, Levin said “If we could go back in time, don’t you think President Kennedy would tell us that he wished he would’ve taken the time for his own deliberations, rather than immediately accepting his military advisers recommendations to undertake the Bay of Pigs invasion?”
Top 10 Reasons Why Republicans Should Support The House Health Bill
Top 10 Reasons Why Republicans Should Support The House Health Bill
This morning, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) characterized the entire House health care bill as a “government run insurance 2.0.” “I mean, what we are seeing here is, you know, government-run insurance, mandates for businesses, an enormous tax increase, most of which or at least half of which will be paid for by small business owners.” But Pence and the Republicans should actually read the bill before dismissing it. For while the party may oppose the bill’s provisions to tax the top 0.3% of Americans to fund reform or the new fees imposed on the pharmaceutical industry to help close the donut hole in Medicare Part D, on the whole, the 1,990 page bill is a fairly moderate proposal that incorporates numerous conservative policies.
Here are just 10 reasons for why Republicans should support the House health bill:
1. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – DEFICIT NEUTRAL BILL: “Do the American people believe that this almost 2,000 page bill won’t add to the deficit?” [Rep. Eric Cantor, 10/29/2009]
HOUSE BILL – DEFICIT NEUTRAL BILL: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the House bill costs $894 billion over 10 years and actually reduces the deficit by $30 billion and continues to reduce the deficit over the second 10 years.
2. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – REDUCE COSTS OVER LONG TERM: “Nevertheless, House Republicans recognize the need to lower health care costs.” [Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), 9/9/09]
HOUSE BILL – REDUCES COSTS OVER LONG TERM: Encourages payment reforms that can help lower costs. Requires the Department of Health and Human Services to establish specific benchmarks for expansion of the Accountable Care Organization, Payment Bundling, and Medical Home pilot programs. The bill will also slow the rate of growth of the Medicare program from 6.6% annually to 5.3%.
3. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – POLICIES ACROSS STATE LINES: “Interstate competition allowing people to buy insurance across state lines.” [Sen. John Thune (R-SD), 9/8/2009]
HOUSE BILL – POLICIES ACROSS STATE LINES: Allows for the creation of State Health Insurance Compacts – permits states to enter into agreements to allow for the sale of insurance across state lines.
4. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – MEDICAL MALPRACTICE REFORM: “Why not bring about reasonable restrictions and limits on medical malpractice claims to end the era of defensive medicine?” [Rep. Mike Pence (R-IA), 9/9/2009]
HOUSE BILL – ENCOURAGES MALPRACTICE REFORM: The bill establishes a voluntary state incentives grant program to encourage states to implement “certificate of merit” and “early offer” alternatives to traditional medical malpractice litigation.
5. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – HIGH RISK POOLS: “Senator McCain has a proposal sometimes called high-risk pools at the state level…These are efforts I think we can have bipartisan agreement on and deal with the question of pre-existing conditions.” [Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), 9/10/2009]
HOUSE BILL – HIGH RISK POOLS: To fill the gap before the Exchange becomes available in 2013, the bill creates an insurance program with financial assistance for those uninsured for several months or denied policy due to preexisting conditions.
6. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – ALLOW YOUNG PEOPLE TO STAY ON PARENTS’ POLICIES: “Recognizes that not all high school and college graduates are able to find a job that offers health care coverage after graduation. By allowing dependents to remain on their parents’ health policies up to the age of 25, the number of uninsured Americans could be reduced by up to 7 million.” [Republican Health Solutions Group]
HOUSE BILL – ALLOW YOUNG PEOPLE TO STAY ON PARENTS’ POLICIES: The bill requires health plans to allow young people to remain on their parents’ insurance policy until they turn 27.
7. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – NO PUBLIC MONEY FOR ABORTION: “The American people will not stand for government-run insurance that uses taxpayer money to fund abortions in this country.” [Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), 10/16/2009]
HOUSE BILL – NO PUBLIC MONEY FOR ABORTION: The bill prohibits abortion services from being made part of essential benefits package and prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortion (except in cases of rape, incest, and to save life of the woman).
8. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – PROTECT SMALL BUSINESSES: “Helps employers offer health care coverage to their workers by reducing their administrative costs through a new small business tax credit.” [Republican Health Solutions Group]
HOUSE BILL – PROTECTS SMALL BUSINESSES: The bill exempts 86% of businesses from the requirement to provide coverage. Businesses with payrolls below $500,000 are exempt while firms with payrolls between $500,000 and $750,000 would pay a graduated penalty. Small businesses would also receive a tax credit that helps cover 50% of their health care expenses.
9. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – PROMOTE JOB WELLNESS PROGRAMS: “Promotes prevention and wellness by giving employers and insurers greater flexibility to financially reward employees who seek to achieve or maintain a healthy weight, quit smoking, and manage chronic illnesses like diabetes.” [Republican Health Solutions Group]
HOUSE BILL – PROMOTE JOB WELLNESS PROGRAMS: The bill establishes a grant program to help small employers create or strengthen workplace wellness programs.
10. REPUBLICANS ASKED FOR – DELIVERY SYSTEM REFORM: “Uses new and innovative treatment programs to better coordinate care between health
care providers, ensuring that those with chronic disease receive the care they need and do not continue to fall through the cracks.” [Republican Health Solutions Group]
HOUSE BILL – DELIVERY SYSTEM REFORM: The bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to establish specific benchmarks for the expansion of the Accountable Care Organization, Payment Bundling, and Medical Home pilot programs.
HOUSE BILL – HELPS AMERICANS 55-64:: Creates a reinsurance program to help cover expensive health claims for employers that provide coverage to Americans 55-64.
FLASHBACK: ACCCE Said It ‘Cannot Support’ Waxman-Markey
FLASHBACK: ACCCE Said It ‘Cannot Support’ Waxman-Markey
In the hearing investigating fraudulent letters forged on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) to attack the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), ACCCE chief Steve Miller told Congress his organization has never opposed the legislation.
The record shows otherwise.
ACCCE Called Waxman-Markey A ‘High-Risk Proposition.’ On June 18, a week before the House of Representatives voted on the legislation, ACCCE ran a full-page ad in Politico with the headline, “If a climate bill goes too far, too fast it could keep us from getting where we need to go.” The ad described the greenhouse gas pollution reductions in H.R. 2454 as a “high risk proposition.”
ACCCE Criticized Waxman-Markey For ‘Skyrocketing Energy Costs.’ On June 18, ACCCE published on its website the claim that Waxman-Markey could “have consumers paying higher costs for decades.” “In its current form, H.R. 2454 does not do enough to guarantee that consumers are protected against skyrocketing energy costs.”
ACCCE Said It ‘Cannot Support’ Waxman-Markey. Following the passage of the legislation in a 217-213 House vote on June 26, ACCCE issued a statement in opposition to the legislation: “ACCCE cannot support this bill, as it is written, because the legislation still does not adequately protect consumers and the domestic economy or ensure that the American people can continue to enjoy the benefits of affordable, reliable electricity, which has been so important to our nation.”
House Health Bill Removes Insurer Anti-Trust Exemption, Taxes Health Industry
House Health Bill Removes Insurer Anti-Trust Exemption, Taxes Health Industry
This morning, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will unveil the re-tooled Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962). (Read the bill HERE.) Coming in at around $900 billion over 10 years, the legislation will extend coverage to 36 million Americans (6-7 million more than the Senate Finance version), include a national public option that reimburses physicians at negotiated rates and require individuals to acquire coverage and large employers to provide it. The bill is paid for with a surtax on the wealthy, changes to Medicare and Medicaid, and taxes on the health care industry.
Democrats successfully lowered the price tag of the original House legislation from $1.04 trillion by expanding the Medicaid program to Americans with incomes 150% of the federal poverty line and removing the SGR fix from the bill. “A permanent doc fix will be carved out of the reform bill and introduced separately today without pay-fors,” Live Pulse reports. (Read the SGR bill text HERE)
Most of the bill’s benefits won’t start until 2013 and House leaders are introducing “a temporary government program” that would “help people turned down by private insures because of medical problems.” The Senate Finance bill includes a similar provision, a high-risk pool that would be available to Americans between 2010 and 2013.
The re-tooled House bill will also “strip the health insurance industry of a long-standing exemption from antitrust laws covering market allocation, price fixing and bid rigging” and “give the Federal Trade Commission authority to look into the health insurance industry at its own initiative.”
While Democrats are still negotiating with moderate Democrats over abortion and immigration, Speaker Pelosi hopes to have the legislation on the floor next week, with a final vote before “Veterans Day,” November 11th. At the moment, “House Democrats do not have firm commitment from enough lawmakers to guarantee passage of their bill.” One whip count has shown 23 centrist Democrats intend to vote against any health bill. Assuming that all Republicans vote against it, the bill can lose at least 38 Democrats and still pass the chamber.
The WonkLine: October 29, 2009
The WonkLine: October 29, 2009
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 10 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, and subscribe to the RSS feed. Also, you can now follow The Wonk Room on Twitter.
Health Care
The House unveils its health care reform legislation today. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “wants to have the legislation on the floor next week, with a final vote before Veterans Day, Nov. 11.”
In an effort to satisfy moderate Democrats, the House bill includes a public option that uses negotiated reimbursement rates. But asked whether more members of the Blue Dog Coalition will vote for the plan now that leaders will include negotiated rates, “Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, a spokesman for the group, said, “I don’t know. … It’s an important issue. But it’s not the only issue. It has never been the only issue.”
Meanwhile, the GOP is trying to generate business opposition to health care reform.
Immigration
A group of New Mexico Latinos who were fired by the widely publicized hotel owner who wanted them to Anglicize their names may take their case to court.
Ten New Haven residents fighting deportation are suing their supervisors and senior immigration officials, alleging that their civil rights were violated when ICE agents stormed into their homes without cause, consent or search warrants.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has vetoed a measure that supervisors passed Tuesday that would prevent local police from turning over minors to immigration officials until they are found guilty of the alleged crime.
Economy
The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, “the best showing in two years” and the first increase since the spring of 2008.
According to a new report by Pew Charitable Trusts, “none of the credit cards offered online by the 12 largest U.S. banks would meet requirements of new federal curbs on the industry’s rates and fees.” All of the companies employed practices considered “unfair or deceptive” by the Federal Reserve.
Bloomberg reports that “U.S. carriers including Delta Air Lines Inc. will have a harder time blocking union organizing campaigns under a change planned by a federal labor board.”
National Security
“Iran will seek major revisions to a U.N.-draft nuclear fuel deal, including shipping abroad its low-enriched uranium (LEU) in stages rather than all at once,” a pro-government newspaper reported on Thursday.
BBC reports that Iraqi authorities have “arrested more than 60 security force members, including 11 senior officers over Sunday’s twin suicide bombing in the capital Baghdad.”
AP reports that “Afghanistan will open more voting centers in next week’s presidential runoff than in the fraud-tainted first-round vote…rejecting U.N. recommendations that they cut sites to prevent cheating.”
Climate Change
“Jack Bonner, head of controversial political consulting firm Bonner and Associates, and Steve Miller, the CEO of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, have a lot of explaining to do” in a hearing today on the fraudulent letters they sent to Congress opposing clean energy legislation.
Western Republicans claim Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is “trying to skirt congressional authority by issuing an administrative order on climate change.”
“An international team of environmental scientists has shown that sea-level rise, at least in North Carolina, is accelerating. Researchers found 20th-century sea-level rise to be three times higher than the rate of sea-level rise during the last 500 years.”
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