In Sit Down With Bloggers, Obama Hints At Change On Same-Sex Marriage, Reiterates DADT Approach
In Sit Down With Bloggers, Obama Hints At Change On Same-Sex Marriage, Reiterates DADT Approach
During a first-of-its-kind sit down with progressive bloggers at the White House this afternoon, President Obama told AmericaBlog’s Joe Sudbay that he didn’t think the LGBT community’s “disillusionment and disappointment” in his approach to issues like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was justified, saying “I guess my attitude is that we have been as vocal, as supportive of the LGBT community as any President in history.”
Speaking directly to the DADT issue, Obama reiterated that the policy “is not just harmful to the brave men and women who are serving…but it doesn’t serve our interests.” “I think that the best way to overturn it is for Congress to act,” he insisted, revealing that he asked Log Cabin Republicans’ executive director R. Clarke Cooper, who attended yesterday’s top level meeting about ending the ban, to “Get me those votes.” After district court judge Virginia Phillips ruled the ban unconstitutional and barred the Pentagon from enforcing the policy, LGBT advocates urged Obama to agree with her interpretation of the law and refuse to appeal her decision. The administration, however, is asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the injunction and reverse the ruling, insisting that it was bound to defend existing law.
During the sit down, Obama avoided Sudbay’s question about the constitutionality of the policy since “I’m not sitting on the Supreme Court,” he said. “And I’ve got to be careful, as President of the United States, to make sure that when I’m making pronouncements about laws that Congress passed I don’t do so just off the top of my head.” But he also hinted that he understood the community’s frustration with the pace of change, recalling how African American civil rights leaders responded to similar arguments about “patience and time”:
Now, I say that as somebody who appreciates that the LGBT community very legitimately feels these issues in very personal terms. So it’s not my place to counsel patience. One of my favorite pieces of literature is “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and Dr. King had to battle people counseling patience and time. And he rightly said that time is neutral. And things don’t automatically get better unless people push to try to get things better.
So I don’t begrudge the LGBT community pushing, but the flip side of it is that this notion somehow that this administration has been a source of disappointment to the LGBT community, as opposed to a stalwart ally of the LGBT community, I think is wrong.
Responding to Sudbay’s question about the growing support for same-sex marriage, Obama reiterated his belief in civil unions but conceded that “attitudes evolve, including mine.” “And I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about…while I’m not prepared to reverse myself here, sitting in the Roosevelt Room at 3:30 in the afternoon, I think it’s fair to say that it’s something that I think a lot about,” he said.
For a full transcript of Obama’s remarks, click here.
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Utah’s Republican Senate Candidate Calls For 40% Federal Spending Cut Or A Government Shutdown
Utah’s Republican Senate Candidate Calls For 40% Federal Spending Cut Or A Government Shutdown
House Republicans, in their much-ballyhooed “Pledge to America,” suggested immediately cutting $100 billion from the non-defense discretionary portion federal budget, which would require a 21 percent reduction in, among other things, federal education funding. But Mike Lee, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Utah, has doubled down on the House GOP’s idea, saying that he would like to see an immediate 40 percent reduction in the federal budget, adding that he’s willing to see the government shut down if President Obama refuses to accede to such draconian cuts:
Lee said he’d “call their bluff” by first passing the tax cuts and forcing President Obama to sign them or veto them. Then, pass a balanced budget, which “would require about a 40 percent cut,” and force Obama to either sign it or shutdown the government. The prospect of such a showdown between Obama and Republicans, in fact, made Lee “giddy.” When asked about it Friday afternoon, Lee said that Thursday night was the first time he’d used the 40 percent figure.
What would this mean in practical terms, particularly in light of Lee’s previous decision to rule Social Security and the defense budget as out of bounds for cuts? As Newsweek’s Andrew Romano put it, “the math is simple–and bleak“:
In Obama’s budget, Social Security costs $787.6 billion; defense costs $928.5 billion; debt payments cost $250.7 billion. Together they total $1.967 trillion. If you remove that $1.967 trillion from the equation–as Lee suggests–you’re left with $1.863 trillion in spending to work with. At this point, balancing the budget–i.e., wringing $1.669 trillion in savings out of that last $1.863 trillion–would require slashing every government program that’s not defense or Social Security (Medicare, Medicaid, veterans affairs, education, and so on) by 89.6 percent.
Republican candidates like Lee and Marco Rubio (FL) like to act as if reducing the federal budget is a simple task that involves rooting out waste, fraud, and eliminating programs that nobody likes. But Lee’s plan would involve a nearly 90 percent reduction in the health care entitlements, education funding, and other discretionary programs like federal highway funding, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
Are such reductions practical or economically advisable? Of course not. But Lee’s willing to stoke the Tea Party into a frenzy with his talk of balanced budgets and a government shutdown.
Republicans Will Likely Preserve The Health Insurance Exchanges, Since It Was Their Idea
Republicans Will Likely Preserve The Health Insurance Exchanges, Since It Was Their Idea
On Friday, Joel Ario, the Director of the Office of Insurance Exchanges at HHS reiterated his claim that regulators on the state level are far more open to implementing the exchanges in the Affordable Care Act than the current political rhetoric suggests. Speaking at a panel for the Alliance on Health Reform, Ario said “that there was a lot of interest on the state level in these exchanges and that it was very focused and very specific to the fact that state markets are broken.” “It’s hard to see who’s from a red state or a blue state, you just see people who are working in their marketplaces trying to put things together.” Watch it:
Washington and Lee University law professor Tim Jost, also a member of the panel, reiterated that the idea behind an exchange “comes out of free market advocacy groups and has been endorsed by them in the past. The particular way it is shaped, we’ll see blue states taking one approach and red states taking one approach, maybe,” he stressed, referring to the two existing exchange models in Massachusetts and Utah. Blue states may follow California’s lead and adopt the Massachusetts model, which allows the authority that governs the Exchange to bargain with insurance companies on behalf of consumers and requires issuers to meet certain minimum standards. Red states, conversely, may consider the Utah model where consumers can “compare a wide variety of health plans sold by any insurers that want to participate.”
Ario also added that he first heard of exchanges from a Republican legislator in Oregon, “who had a concept paper from Ed Haislmaie at the Heritage Foundation. I followed the idea for several years there, as it made its way through the Heritage foundation. They took credit for getting Governor Romney to support the idea in Massachusetts and to date, the three states that have exchanges have all been led by Republican governors.” (Click here to read Haislmaie’s article praising the exchanges and the individual mandate.)
Heritage may now be downplaying its support for the concept, but the exchanges are still fairly popular in conservative states. Last month, for instance, 48 states — 21 of which are suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — accepted federal grants “to invest in research and planning to get the Exchanges up and running” by 2014.
Rep. Royce Says GOP Would Allow Bank Regulators To Veto New Consumer Protection Agency
Rep. Royce Says GOP Would Allow Bank Regulators To Veto New Consumer Protection Agency
Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee have already made it quite clear that they intend to attempt to defund the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if the GOP gains control of the lower chamber. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), one of the top Republicans on the committee, has explicitly announced his intention to defund the agency, as he believes it “assaults the liberties of the consumer.”
But denying the CFPB funds may not be the only way in which Republicans look to kneecap the new agency. Rep. Ed Royce (R-TX), who has been floated as a possible challenger to Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) for the Financial Services chairmanship, told American Banker that he also wants to give bank regulators direct veto power over the CFPB’s rulemaking:
“If the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can trump the safety and soundness regulator, you run the risk of creating the same type of environment that was created with the government-sponsored enterprises in which you created moral hazard in the system,” he said. “We need to address giving the regulators for safety and soundness the ability to trump the actions on consumer protection if they threaten safety and soundness. Safety and soundness has to be our fundamental concern.“
This “safety and soundness” talking point was constantly employed by Republicans during the debate over financial regulatory reform, showing that they care more about a bank’s ability to make a profit than the government’s responsibility to protect consumers from financial shenanigans. And Royce is evidently not ready to give it up.
But the CFPB is already subject to veto by the bank regulators. A two-thirds vote of the Financial Stability Oversight Council — a nine member board composed of the heads of the bank regulators, the Treasury Secretary, and an “insurance expert” — can nullify any CFPB regulation.
Is Royce suggesting that the individual bank regulators have veto power over rules that affect the insitutions that they regulate? If so, such a move would be incredibly destructive, as those agencies have already shown that they are easily co-opted by the firms they oversee. The entire point of creating the CFPB was to level the playing field a bit between the banks and consumers. Giving the bank regulators a straight veto would effectively put the consumer protection system right back where it was before the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill passed.
In an interview with National Journal, CFPB head Elizabeth Warren said that the agency will be bolstered by crowd-sourcing, collecting stories from the public’s interactions with the financial system. Evidently Royce wants the crowd to be composed solely of bankers.
When Asked What Latinos Care About, Newt Gingrich Fails To Mention Immigration
When Asked What Latinos Care About, Newt Gingrich Fails To Mention Immigration
Today, the South Florida Sun Sentinel posted an interview with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. In the interview, Gingrich was asked several times about what he thinks Latinos care about. Each time, Gingrich provided an array of answers from the Pope, to abortion, to the economy. However, not once did Gingrich cite immigration as an important issue in the Latino community:
HOST: Is it a hard sell given the rancor over immigration…a number of Republicans have taken a hardline on immigration. Is it a hard sell?
GINGRICH: I would start and say if you are a Hispanic who is interested in a job and a paycheck rather than unemployment and food stamps, there’s no reason to look at Harry Reid. [...] I would like to appeal to every Hispanic American on the basic interests of their family, their values and their concerns. [...]
HOST: Besides the economics what else are the key issues that you’ve identified in the center right group that appeal to Hispanics?
GINGRICH: We just did a movie about called Nine Days That Changed the world about Pope John Paul II. [...] In most of their community that movie would be very well received because the community is actually very religiously faithful. If you look at the values of the Hispanic community they are much more conservative than the values that Harry Reid has been voting for.
HOST: So what are some of the issues besides the faith stuff?
GINGRICH: You talk about strong family values, you talk about right to life. There are a number of issues where the Hispanic community finds itself much more compatible…you talk about the importance of work and education. Those are all very important values in the Hispanic community.
Listen:
According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, Latinos rank education, jobs, and health care (which Gingrich also failed to mention) as the three most important issues. Immigration is ranked fourth. And though immigration certainly isn’t the most important issue, it’s often a deal breaker when it comes time to vote. According to a poll by Latino Decisions, immigration is the second-most important issue Latino voters look at when deciding who to vote for, after the economy.
It’s no wonder Gingrich avoided mentioning immigration as an issue that attracts Latinos to the “center-right.” An overwhelming majority of Latinos support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to legalization and oppose state and local immigration initiatives like Arizona’s immigration law. Meanwhile, there is not a single Republican in currently Congress who has been willing to sign on to immigration reform, while the GOP has largely been behind Arizona-copycat efforts. That’s probably a main reason why, when asked which party has more concern for Latinos, 47 percent of Latino registered voters identify the Democratic Party as the better party and only 6 percent see the Republican Party.
Gingrich did mention immigration in a response to a separate question later in the interview on what he hopes to get done at an upcoming conference he’s hosting. “I think we do have to find an answer on immigration,” said Gingrich. Though he didn’t provide any specifics, in the past, he has proposed sending 12 million undocumented immigrants back to their home countries and allowing them to return on temporary guest worker visas.
Scenes From Iowa Judge Bus Tour: Gay People Are ‘A Disease Carrying Nasty Threat’
Scenes From Iowa Judge Bus Tour: Gay People Are ‘A Disease Carrying Nasty Threat’
A handful of conservative “family values” organizations have embarked on a bus tour across Iowa, urging voters to oust three Iowa Supreme Court judges who overturned an Iowa statute banning same-sex marriage in April 2009. Prominent Republicans like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have endorsed the campaign and Reps. Steven King (R-IA) and Louis Gohmert (R-TX) are making personal appearances on tour. Santorum is expected to also join the bus later this week.
And while the politicians enveloped their opposition to same-sex marriage in democracy — allowing Iowans to vote on the issue — Arisha Michelle Hatch of Prop 8 Trial Tracker got a better taste of the kind of constituency this whose-who of conservative politics is attracting. As it turns out, the relatively small crowds have no qualms about “revealing their views on man/animal marriage, disease-carrying nasty gays, and sodomy-marriage.” Below are some highlights:
RON: “[Gay people] don’t do anything for society. They’re only a drain on society, so much so that the medical profession recognizes that they’re a disease carrying nasty threat to society and are not allowed to donate blood. That’s my position.”
DAVE: “Can I marry your camera? I mean, I really like cameras. I love cameras. Okay? Can I marry my camera? …Triangles and squares, round pegs and square pegs, man and woman, okay?…Why not marry goats, why not marry my camera…”
DON: “Sodomy causes AIDS, okay? And AIDS is a serious problem in this nation as well as around the world.
Watch it:
As of October 4th, the Iowa Poll found that “44 percent of Iowans who plan to vote in the election say they’ll vote ‘yes’ [to retain] to all three justices. Forty percent will vote to remove the judges, while 16 percent say they want to retain some.”
In April 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously upheld a District Court’s ruling that the Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman “violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.” “We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” Justice Mark S. Cady wrote for the Iowa court. “The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification.”
Global Boiling: Continental ‘Weather Bomb’ Hits Midwest With Power Of Cat Three Hurricane
Global Boiling: Continental ‘Weather Bomb’ Hits Midwest With Power Of Cat Three Hurricane
Fueled by fossil fuel pollution, an unprecedented, freak “land hurricane” swept through the continental United States, leaving a path of devastation from Saskatchewan to Texas — while the Republican Party has been taken over by a hurricane of science denial. Our destabilized climate system, supercharged with billions of tons of manmade global warming pollution, is unlike anything in the historical record. “Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes,” Minnesota meteorologist Paul Douglas gasped. “The storm is huge,” Peter Kimbell, emergency preparedness meteorologist for Environment Canada, said. “Much of North America is being affected by this storm. It’s covering millions of square kilometers.” Even the right-wing Anthony Watts called this storm — centered in Wisconsin — a “subtropical/tropically oriented monster.” Douglas found intensity of the “weather bomb” something “hard to fathom”:
Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a “bomb”, spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr. That’s 28.14″ of mercury. Bigfork, MN reported 955 mb, about 28.22″ of mercury. The final (official) number may be closer to 28.20-28.22″, but at some point the number becomes academic. What is pretty much certain is that Tuesday’s incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA. That’s a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.
The storm front — also dubbed the “Chiclone” for the bizarreness of having a cyclone-like system over Chicago — drew its power from a sharp temperature contrast between record warmth in the southeastern United States and average cold in the north. Thus this record stormfront, though it exhibited hurricane-like power, is unlike actual hurricanes that derive their power directly from heat trapped in the ocean.
In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, Douglas — a nationally renowned meteorologist from Minnesota — discussed this “unprecedented, historic storm” and the consequences for our nation of our artificially altered climate. “We have to get acclimated mentally and physically for this kind of world where these kinds of supercharged storms are more frequent,” he said, as the atmosphere continues to warm. When asked about the numerous conservative global warming deniers in his own state — gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Congressional candidates Chip Cravaack and Randy Demmer — and across the nation, Douglas said he was “ashamed” of the Grand Old Party for ignoring the “writing on the wall”:
I’m a recovering Republican, and I don’t recognize my party any more. I’m ashamed so many Republicans don’t recognize the science. The writing is on the wall.
When asked if reducing global warming pollution is a moral challenge and not just an economic debate, he agreed strongly:
My dad was the biggest Republican that ever walked the earth. He always said: “Actions have consequences.” To pretend that a 38 percent increase in greenhouse gases isn’t going to have any impact, that we can have our cake and eat it too, and smear it all over our face, and maybe have our grandchildren deal with the hangover, I think it is immoral.
Douglas said that this election has “been corrupted with money,” as the “energy lobby is obviously well-funded and powerful, and nobody wants to make waves.”
Local NBC Affiliate: ‘Will The Acceptance Of Homosexuality In This Society Be The Downfall Of America?’
Local NBC Affiliate: ‘Will The Acceptance Of Homosexuality In This Society Be The Downfall Of America?’
Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that President Obama has appointed upwards of 150 openly gay officials less than half way through his first term in office, surpassing “the previous high of about 140 reached during two full terms under President Bill Clinton.” Shin Inouye, a spokesperson for Obama said the president “is proud that his appointments reflect the diversity of the American public.” “He is committed to appointing highly qualified individuals for each post,” Inouye said. “We have made a record number of openly LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender) appointments and we are confident that this number will only continue to grow.”
For some, that may prove to be too much to handle, however. Today, KTBB AM600 host Garth Maier in Tyler, Texas responded to the AP report by asking his radio listeners and the morning show viewers of a local NBC affiliate if “the acceptance of homosexuality, pushed hard by the gay rights activists, will it be the fall of this country?“:
BOB BRACKEEN: A record number of openly gay appointees in the Obama administration. And there are other gay men and women who perhaps wish to keep their lives secret who also are in the Obama administration, perhaps as judges as well. [...]
GARTH MAIER: President Obama very aggressive with his appointment of homosexuals. Christian conservatives of course criticizing Obama for upholding what is considered by many an immoral lifestyle….What do you think, the acceptance of homosexuality, pushed hard by the gay rights activists, will it be the fall of this country? [...]
CALLER 1: We know that there are more gays in Washington, DC than there is in San Francisco or Southern Florida or anywhere in this nation. There are double, trust me, three times as many gays in Washington, DC than there is in San Francisco. So if he hired a bunch of them, probably because all anyone was there to work. So you need help, you need help! [...]
CALLER 2: I think the whole issue of homosexuality is overblown. We seem to be so conscious about being politically correct. According to most of the statistics homosexuals occupy just 7% of the population, so why do we spend 30% of our time talking about it? [...]
MAIER: Will the acceptance of homosexuality in this society be the downfall of America?….Will it be that destroys American society as we know it right now? You see it everywhere accepted at every level and certainly in the entertainment industry since the late 1980s, all over, gay characters in television shows, in the movies, so on and so forth. [...]
BRACKEEN: Again, the last caller, hit the nail on the head, Garth. Obviously the mainstream media, Hollywood caters to less than 10% of the population. They have a very strong voice in this country. Politically and in pop culture as well.
Watch it:
Maier has a history of anti-gay remarks and innuendo. During Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court, for instance, Maier reported “there have been numerous question about her own sexuality” and asked, “does it matter to you?” “Considering perhaps a justice on the high court, being a homosexual. Does the sexual orientation of a Supreme Court nominee matter to you?” “I’m curious to see if any of the conservatives will raise questions about her orientation and see if she’ll answer questions about it,” he added.
Calls to KTBB and Maier were not immediately returned.
After Backing Crazy Mortgage Finance Plan, Corker Wants ‘Leading Role’ In Mortgage Finance Reform
After Backing Crazy Mortgage Finance Plan, Corker Wants ‘Leading Role’ In Mortgage Finance Reform
When Congress tackled financial regulatory reform, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said that he was going to play a productive role, negotiating with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) after the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), made it clear that he wasn’t interested in cutting a deal.
However, Corker ended up playing the role that the Gang of Six played during the health care reform debate: insisting that his ideas get placed into the bill, and then voting against it anyway, while decrying the breakdown of bipartisanship.
According to the Nashville Business Journal, Corker is looking ahead to his next performance — playing a “leading role” in the inevitable reform of mortgage lending and the government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican, led a forum on the U.S. housing market Tuesday, making clear his intentions to again try shaping legislation in reaction to the financial crisis…“I think this is a much heavier lift for Congress than what we saw during Dodd-Frank,” he said of the bill overhauling the financial system, which he ultimately opposed.
Corker’s intentions are distressing enough after seeing the role that he played during the financial reform debate. But considering Corker’s position on mortgage finance reform, they’re even worse.
When Dodd-Frank was being hashed out on the Senate floor, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) offered a truly irresponsible amendment that would have simply set a date certain for dissolving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, despite the fact that the mortgage giants back more than 90 percent of mortgages in the country. “The McCain amendment would cause significant uncertainty among the investors in GSE-issued mortgage-backed securities, threatening the primary source of mortgage credit we have at this time, without offering any alternative sources of liquidity,” we here at CAP noted at the time. “Such a large drop in mortgage liquidity could strongly threaten the prospects of economic recovery.”
McCain’s plan would have not only threatened America’s economy, but macroeconomic stability, as “investor appetite for the MBS issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helps to finance the significant borrowing of overseas’ capital by the U.S. government.” The amendment was an ideologically driven catastrophe waiting to happen.
Corker was a co-sponsor of that amendment and voted for it, saying later that it was a “really thoughful amendment.” And now he’s looking for a way to be even more involved in the process the next time around.
Hatch On GOP’s Health Agenda: ‘We Could Come Up With A System Americans Would Actually Love’
Hatch On GOP’s Health Agenda: ‘We Could Come Up With A System Americans Would Actually Love’
The LA Times’ Noam Levey reminds us that the policies Republicans would replace the Affordable Care Act with are the same old tired proposals that have been offered (and rejected) in the past:
But some conservatives acknowledge that the healthcare program offered by party leaders is largely unchanged from the proposals the GOP pushed when it held majorities from 2000 to 2006. During that period, insurance premiums skyrocketed, businesses reduced benefits and the number of Americans without health insurance rose. [...]
While there is some disagreement, Republicans have largely coalesced around an approach that builds on basic pillars of GOP healthcare policy: loosen state regulation of insurance markets to allow insurers to sell policies across state lines; put new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits; and expand so-called high-risk pools to provide insurance to sick Americans who are denied coverage.
“We will approach it in smaller bites. That is the wiser course,” said Minnesota Rep. John Kline, who is in line to chair the Education and Labor Committee in a Republican-controlled House.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — who has offered several proposals to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act — predicts some kind of conservative health renaissance, telling Levey, “We could come up with a healthcare system that the American people would not only be proud of, but would actually love,” he said. “We’ve never had a real conservative majority.” But this seems unlikely, particularly if Republicans continue to recycle the health care policies of President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). In fact, most existing GOP proposals are almost identical to what McCain offered during the 2008 campaign and are filled with the same kinds of consequences that arise from deregulating the insurance industry and unraveling the employer-based system without simultaneously adding consumer protections to the individual market.
Interestingly, if Republicans were really looking for the kind of reforms that the “American people would not only be proud of, but would actually love,” they would have to reclaim their old support for the exchanges, consumer reforms in the individual health market and subsidies to help lower income Americans afford coverage. But that would require preserving the existing health law.
Will House Republicans Stall Financial Reform Rule Writing, Even As Banks Exploit Vague Restrictions?
Will House Republicans Stall Financial Reform Rule Writing, Even As Banks Exploit Vague Restrictions?
One of the more legitimate criticisms of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory reform bill that was signed into law by President Obama earlier this year is that it leaves too much discretion to regulators for crafting rules that will govern Wall Street’s activities. Not only does placing so much responsibility in the hands of regulators give the financial services industry ample opportunity to lobby for weaker restrictions, but it is also a time-consuming process.
And according to Reuters, the drawn out rule-writing process may provide an opening for House Republicans to blunt the effects of Dodd-Frank should they win control of the House:
If Republicans can gain control of key House committees, their chairmen could throw so many time-consuming subpoenas, hearings and information requests at regulators that rule-writing for Dodd-Frank would slow down. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a small agency with a lot on its plate, could be vulnerable to this, as could the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau], still in its infancy.
House Republicans have already made it quite clear that they would repeal Dodd-Frank if they could, and at the very least they’d like to see the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau defunded. But bogging down the regulatory agencies in an avalanche of paperwork and hearing appearances is an obvious avenue for preventing Dodd-Frank’s rules from coming online, should the repeal effort fall flat (which it likely will, as President Obama would almost surely veto any repeal, even if it got through both houses of Congress).
Such a move could have a big effect, as the rule-writing process is gaining importance. Bloomberg noted today that Wall Street banks are already exploiting vagueness in the Dodd-Frank law to continue proprietary trading — trading for their own account — which the law is meant to restrict:
The banks have no intention of ceasing their prop trading. They are merely disguising the activity, by giving it some other name. A former employee of JPMorgan, for instance, wrote to say that the unit he recently worked for, called the Chief Investment Office, advertised itself largely as a hedging operation but was in fact making massive bets with JPMorgan’s capital. And it would of course continue to do so. [...] It falls to the comptroller general – - or, more specifically, the General Accountability Office, which is overseen by the comptroller general — to determine precisely what the phrase [restricting such trading] means. And, at the moment, the GAO pretty clearly hasn’t the first clue.
In a sign of potential things to come, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who is slated to take over the House Financial Services Committee if the Republicans gain a majority, has already been begging the banks for donations, on the premise that the GOP believes financial reform was too tough.
Confronting The Iraqi Nakba
Confronting The Iraqi Nakba
Surveying the vast trove of WikiLeaks Iraq documents, Steve Coll makes what I think is a great point about how “American understanding of the Iraq war has so far been distorted, in a way, by the heavy scrutiny of American conduct, generalship, politics, and domestic narratives of who won and who lost, who succeeded and who failed”:
The war we have absorbed much less of, but the one experienced by many Iraqis, is the one Jon Lee Anderson, among others, chronicled in this magazine in 2007. It was, particularly between 2005 and 2007, a war of nihilism, death squads, and elemental sectarian violence. The WikiLeaks archive seems to contain a lot of that war because it is weighted toward the frontline experience of the officers and soldiers sent to try to bring the sectarian violence under some semblance of control. The Times has organized its online selection of the documents into sections, one of which is entitled, “Country In Chaos.” An intelligence report under that heading has been labeled “Unchecked Torture.” It says, in the startlingly routine language of a forwarded office e-mail,
EVIDENCE OF UNCHECKED TORTURE WAS NOTED IN THE IRAQI POLICE STATION IN HUSAYBAH, IZ. LARGE AMOUNTS OF BLOOD ON THE CELL FLOOR, A WIRE USED FOR ELECTRIC SHOCK AND A RUBBER HOSE WERE LOCATED IN THE HOLDING CELL. ENCLOSURES
That is the Iraq war that will live on for a long time in the memories of families, militia commanders and political leaders — and by doing so, it will shape the future of the country in ways that are hard to predict, but are unlikely to be constructive.
To put in some perspective the role that 2005-2007 will play in Iraqi politics, my recent trip to Israel and Palestine, with my colleague Matt Yglesias as well as a number of other journalists, brought home once again the enormity of the challenge of overcoming the pain, resentment, and distrust that has calcified (both between and within the Jewish and Palestinian communities) in the decades since the expulsion and displacement of some 700,000 Palestinians in 1948, amid the conflicts that Israelis refer to collectively as their War of Independence, and the Palestinians refer to as al-Nakba, the catastrophe. To be honest, I’m as pessimistic as I’ve ever been about the possibility of disentangling the various claims and counter-claims toward arriving a just accommodation (though also as sure as I’ve ever been that it’s imperative that President Obama continue to try).
But the point is this: between 2003 and 2009, in addition to the more than 100,000 Iraqis killed and many more wounded and maimed, more than 4.5 million Iraqis were expelled and displaced amid Iraq’s sectarian civil war — new, grim details of which are contained in the WikiLeaks trove. Around 2.6 million remain internally displaced in Iraq, unable to return to their homes. Another 1.9 million remain refugees, mostly in neighboring Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. It has utterly changed the face not only of Iraq, but of the region. If Americans are going to learn the right lessons from Iraq, and satisfy the huge moral debt we’ve incurred, we’ve simply got to regain our sense of shock about the enormity of what we have done there: Through a combination of hubris, idealism, incompetence, and plain ignorance, the United States facilitated, sponsored, and oversaw Iraq’s Nakba.
Since taking office, President Obama has endeavored to put the political arguments surrounding Iraq behind us. In terms of American political unity, I suppose that’s admirable. But, as we know — as Obama has shown that he himself knows — the past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. Not in America. Not in Iraq. We will be paying the costs and grappling with the consequences of the Iraq war for decades. I see nothing to be gained, and much to be lost, by refusing to squarely and publicly confront those costs and consequences.
Back in 2008, I did a video for my friend Mark Goldberg’s On Day One project, which allowed people to share what they would like the next president to do on his or her first day in office. I called for the President of the United States to announce support for, and full cooperation with, the creation of an Iraqi Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and I’d like to repeat that now:
After Pulling Two Misleading Ads, American Action Network Says ‘This Is All Democrat Hyperventilation’
After Pulling Two Misleading Ads, American Action Network Says ‘This Is All Democrat Hyperventilation’
Yesterday, FOX CT, a local Fox affiliate in Connecticut, pulled an ad bankrolled by undisclosed donors to the American Action Network because “the commercial’s claims are unsubstantiated” and made “false or misleading statements” about the Affordable Care Act. Now, Politico’s Pulse is reporting that in Colorado, “AAN voluntarily took down an ad on the local NBC affiliate, 9News, that claims Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) supported a health reform bill that would pay for Viagra for rapists” after “a 9News reporter had posted a fact check challenging the ad’s claims late Monday.”
WOMAN 1: You have to check the article I sent you. Apparently convicted rapists can get Viagra paid for by the new health care bill.
WOMAN 2: Are you serious?
WOMAN 1: Yep! I mean Viagra for rapists? With my tax dollars? And Congressman Perlmutter voted for it.
Watch it:
But as the K9News fact check notes, “this is false. Perlmutter never voted for it.” “The new health law treats sex offenders who are not incarcerated the same way the old law did. They can buy any health plan they choose. Some might cover drugs like Viagra, some might not. The new law doesn’t say anything about these types of drugs.”
Meanwhile, an AAN spokesperson tells Politico that “This is all Democrat hyperventilation” and claims that they were planning on taking down the Colorado ad anyway.
The WonkLine: October 27, 2010
The WonkLine: October 27, 2010
Welcome to The WonkLine, a daily 9:30 a.m. roundup of the latest public policy news. 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.
National Security
“An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials.”
“Iran started to fully load fuel into its only nuclear reactor Tuesday, after a leak in the Russian-built reactor’s basin delayed the process for months, state media reported.”
“The annual United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to lift its longstanding economic embargo against Cuba passed by the lopsided vote of 187 to 2. Only the United States and Israel opposed the nonbinding measure.”
Immigration
A federal appeals court has ruled against an Arizona law that requires residents to prove their U.S. citizenship to register to vote, but upheld a part of the same law that mandates residents to show identification before voting.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) blasted Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle’s (R) new immigration ad, saying “I think it’s despicable. I think it tries to portray all Latinos in this country in a negative light.”
California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman has a new ad in Spanish in which she affirms she is against Arizona’s immigration law, though in English she has always said that she “would let the Arizona law stand for Arizona.”
Health Care
“HHS will allocate up to $335 million for existing community health centers through the Expanded Services initiative, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday.”
“Senate Republicans should repeatedly offer bills to repeal health reform even if it’s in vain, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) said Tuesday.”
“National Health, Aetna, John Alden, and Principal all have told the state’s Division of Insurance that they will no longer write individual or small group plans in New Mexico, according to a Public Regulation Commission spokesman.”
LGBT Equality
“President Barack Obama made a brief appearance at the White House’s strategy meeting Tuesday afternoon with advocates for “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, according to two White House officials.”
“Joe Miller, the Republican candidate for Senate from Alaska, talked with Rachel Maddow about his antigay views including support for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.”
“Now that University of Michigan student body president Chris Armstrong has dropped his restraining order request against Andrew Shirvell, the assistant attorney general wants the university to lift its ban against him.”
Justice
Who gets to decide if Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife’s anti-health reform advocacy requires him to recuse from the cases challenging the Affordable Care Act? Turns out, it’s Clarence Thomas.
A Court of Appeals panel including retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor struck down an Arizona law requiring voters to prove their citizenship at registration.
A 5-4 Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s stay of an Arizona execution. In an early sign of how new Justice Elena Kagan will align her votes, she joined the other three moderates in dissent.
Education
The New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn looks at whether or not education policy stands a chance in a Republican Congress?
“Certain types of harassment rooted in sex-role stereotyping or religious differences may be a federal civil rights violation,” according to new guidance issued by the Department of Education’s office of civil rights.
The Ohio gubernatorial election carries high stakes for Ohio’s higher education system.
Climate Change
“Yes, our weather seems to be getting more extreme over time: Yesterday’s “land hurricane” is an atmospheric explanation point coming at the end of what turned out to be a wild summer season.”
The Colorado Springs Gazette has endorsed Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck’s denial of man-made global warming: “It’s just a highly questionable theory.”
President Barack Obama is heading to Charlottesville to stump for progressive climate champion Rep. Tom Perriello, the first-term congressman who has been battered with a barrage of attack ads from the Chamber of Commerce, the American Action Network, and Americans for Prosperity.
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Economy
“US companies are hoarding almost $1 trillion in cash but are unlikely to spend on expanding their business and hiring new employees due to continuing uncertainty about the strength of the economy,” Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.
The Wall Street Journal outlines the Federal Reserve’s plan for monetary stimulus, with the central bank planning purchases “worth a few hundred billion dollars over several months.”
The Federal Reserve may help the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “meet its one-year deadline for issuing rules revamping mortgage disclosures, while effectively sidestepping critics who have questioned the bureau’s rule-making authority.”
The Silver Lining In The Seniors Are Opposed To Health Reform Storyline
The Silver Lining In The Seniors Are Opposed To Health Reform Storyline
USA Today has an interesting story on how despite endorsements from the AARP, the Democrats’ vote for the Affordable Care Act can jeopardize their electoral chances with seniors:
Until this spring, lifelong Democrat Carolyn Land never had a second thought about voting for Rep. Allen Boyd, a Democrat who has represented her area since 1997.
But the day after Boyd cast his vote on March 21 for the new health care overhaul law, Land, 65, got out of her La-Z-Boy, switched her registration to Republican and began stumping for Boyd’s Republican challenger, Steve Southerland. The law “cut $500 billion from Medicare,” she complained. “Right now, I can see a doctor when I need to, but I’m afraid I won’t if that happens. I foresee a long wait.”
As emotions run high over the law, anger and fear about its impact on Medicare — whether founded or not — could be a deciding factor in some particularly close congressional races, especially in areas where there are large numbers of seniors, say political analysts such as Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. “It could make a difference in any one of these races,” he said.
The article goes on to explain that Republicans are taking advantage of seniors’ anxiety about the act by “pummeling Democrats with the claim that the new law would gut the program by cutting $500 billion.” Democrats are certainly fighting back by pointing out that the cuts would protect guaranteed Medicare benefits and are designed to slow the growth of the program and shore it up for future generations, but as we know, it’s always easier to distort something than to defend it.
The one silver lining that Democrats have in seniors’ resistance to changing their government-sponsored health insurance is that it suggests that as Americans experience the benefits of the new health law, they will grow more supportive of it. By the next election cycle, younger Americans will be as opposed to tweaking the benefits of the Affordable Care Act as today’s seniors are to changing Medicare.
Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor Candidate Calls Same-Sex Marriage A ‘Fiscal Back Breaker’
Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor Candidate Calls Same-Sex Marriage A ‘Fiscal Back Breaker’
Marc Felion of FeastForFun.com catches Wisconsin’s Lt. Governor candidate Rebecca Kleefisch in an unusual explanation for why gays and lesbians should be denied the right to marry. “We just don’t have the money to be giving out for extra benefits right now,” Kleefisch told WITI-TV’s ‘Real Milwaukee’ program, “It’s a fiscal back breaker”:
KLEEFISCH: I voted that way, I’m against gay marriage as well. I think that especially when it comes to $3 billion budget and it’s climbing. The legislative fiscal bureau announced about five days ago that we are actually $265 million dollars further in the hole than we expected to be this year. We just don’t have the money to be giving out for extra benefits right now. It’s a fiscal back breaker.
Watch it:
Kleefisch has made this argument before. “This doesn’t just have roots in the Bible, this has roots and fiscal common sense. We can’t at this point, afford to just be handing out money to anyone,” she said during an interview with WVCY radio. “This is a slippery slope in addition to that at what point are we going to okay marrying inanimate objects? Can I marry this table, or this clock, can we marry dogs?”
Of course Kleefisch is wrong in her budgetary projections. As the Williams Institute has argued, allowing gay people to marry would actually boost state economies.
As Maia Spotts wrote on Change.org earlier this year, Wisconsin law is somewhere between terrible and reprehensible on the subject of equality. She noted a statute in the law, 765.30(1)(a) of the Wisconsin code, that criminalized anyone in the state of Wisconsin who participated in a same-sex marriage anywhere in the world. The statute reads: "Any person residing and intending to continue to reside in this state who goes outside the state and there contracts a marriage prohibited or declared void under the laws of this state" can be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned for up to 9 months, or both. That's right, solely for loving someone of the same gender and traveling to a place like Iowa, Massachusetts, Connecticut, D.C., Vermont or New Hampshire where same-sex marriage is legal, a Wisconsin gay person could be thrown in jail or fined.
On Univision, Marco Rubio Says He Prefers The Term ‘Undocumented’ To ‘Illegal’
On Univision, Marco Rubio Says He Prefers The Term ‘Undocumented’ To ‘Illegal’
In an interview with Univision, senatorial candidate and son of Cuban immigrants, Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Spanish language network that he doesn’t like to use the term “illegal” and prefers “undocumented” when talking about immigrants in the U.S. without papers:
UNIVISION: Is there a difference between an illegal and an undocumented?
RUBIO: Well “illegal” is a term that I don’t like to use, though it is a violation of the law to enter the U.S. with documents. They’re humans. I prefer to talk about the issue as “undocumented” because they are people who don’t have documents that follow the law.
Watch the Univision video and past clips of Rubio’s immigration remarks [In English and Spanish]:
I couldn’t find any clips in which Rubio ever employed the term “undocumented.” To his credit, in recent months, he has talked about undocumented immigrants as “people who come to the U.S. illegally.” However, when he was fighting a tough primary in which he tried to portray his opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, as soft on immigration, Rubio didn’t hesitate to use the term “illegal immigrant”:
In February, Rubio opted to use “illegal immigrants” when arguing that undocumented immigrants should be excluded from the census, saying:
“Gov. Crist’s position to include illegal immigrants in this count would dilute the voting power of every American citizen. It would actually incentivize politicians to perpetuate our broken immigration system by rewarding states with large illegal immigrant populations with a louder voice in Washington.”
When he “delivered a six-minute discourse on immigration policy” back in November in which he slammed Ronald Reagan’s support of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), Rubio stated:
“There were people trying to enter the country legally, who had done the paperwork, who were here legally, who were going through the process, who claimed, all of a sudden, ‘No, no no no , I’m illegal.’ Because it was easier to do the amnesty program than it was to do the legal process.”
Rubio also appears to have no problem with the fact that the term regularly appears on his website:
“Crist’s only real Social Security plan is to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants but that has actually been debunked as an idea that would lead to Social Security’s bankruptcy sooner rather than later.”
“Marco believes that our nation’s immigration policy should consist of border enforcement, securing the border, fixing the visa process and ensuring that no law extends amnesty to illegal immigrants.”
Many in the Latino and immigrant communities find the term “illegal immigrant” offensive because it “qualifies an entire person, rather than an act.”
This past weekend Rubio stated on CNN’s State of the Union that he supports fixing the legal immigration system so that “people in this country without documents” can go back to their home countries and reenter the country legally. In his interview with Univision, Rubio explained that he supports modernizing the immigration system so that undocumented immigrants can enter the U.S. through a process that works, but didn’t mention anything about going back to their “homeland.” You can watch the full interview here.
Toomey Only Able To Name One Thing He Would Cut From The Federal Budget: Study Abroad Programs
Toomey Only Able To Name One Thing He Would Cut From The Federal Budget: Study Abroad Programs
Deficit fraud Pat Toomey, who is running for the Senate on the Republican ticket in Pennsylvania, has already made it abundantly clear that he has no real interest in tackling the country’s budget deficit. After all, his main policy ideas — extending the Bush tax cuts and repealing the Affordable Care Act — would make the deficit significantly worse.
Last night, Toomey made is even more apparent that he doesn’t have any substantive ideas for reducing the deficit. When asked by CNBC’s Larry Kudlow what he would cut from the budget to offset some of the cost of the giant tax cuts he suggested (including a 10 percent cut in the corporate tax), Toomey relied on the standard conservative tropes of ending bailouts and rescinding the stimulus, neither of which does anything to reduce the structural deficit. He then said he would end earmarks (which would reduce the budget by less than one percent) and managed to identify just one specific spending cut — study abroad programs for students:
Well, I’d bring an end to bailouts. I would rescind the unspent portion of the stimulus. I would prohibit earmarks…I’d also like to consolidate programs. You know, we discovered 75 different programs between the Departments of State and Education that all subsidize overseas travel for students, in one way or another. It’s ridiculous! We don’t need 75 such programs. So there’s a lot of places.
Watch it:
I suppose Toomey deserves some credit here, as he was at least able to point to one semi-specific part of the budget, unlike so many of his Republican counterparts. But still, the portion of the budget Toomey is willing to cut is comically small.
Funding for study abroad and cultural exchange — including for the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship Program — amounts to a whopping $635 million, or 0.02 percent of the nation’s budget. Another portion of this funding goes to the National Security Education Program, which pays for students to study languages and cultures vital to U.S. national security, with a particular emphasis on Middle Eastern and Asian languages. Students are also allowed to apply their Pell Grants to study abroad.
And of course, Toomey merely said he would consolidate these programs, not eliminate them entirely, so he wouldn’t even save the full 0.02 percent. He completely failed to mention anything in the portions of the budget that actually drive the deficit (health care spending, defense spending, and massive tax cuts), and advocated for more than $4 trillion in additional budget-busting tax cuts. At this point, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by Republicans’ complete inability to identify anything significant in the budget that they would cut, but still, Toomey needs to be able to do better than this.
Gibbs Won’t Say If Obama Is Willing To Use Stop-Loss Authority To End DADT Discharges
Gibbs Won’t Say If Obama Is Willing To Use Stop-Loss Authority To End DADT Discharges
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to say whether President Obama would be willing to use his stop-loss authority to end discharges under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell should Congress fail to repeal the policy, telling the Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld “our efforts in the short term will be focused on the durable repeal of a law that the President thinks is unjust. And that’s where our focus will be.” Watch it:
Gibbs also addressed this afternoon’s meeting between LGBT advocates and the White House, telling the Washington Blade’s Chris Johnson that administration officials will express their “desire to see the defense authorization bill pending before the Senate taken up.” “That includes a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as the House has already voted on. The president wants the defense authorization act and that repeal passed,” Gibbs said. But when asked if the administration had pressured senators who voted against repeal last month to switch their votes, Gibbs admitted that it had not. “To my knowledge it has not taken place yet,” he said. “But the only way we’ll get something through the senate is to change the vote count and to move past — look, you’re going to have to get passed a promised filibuster and moving to the bill and certainly the only way we can move to the bill is to change some of those votes.”
Gibbs explained that advocates attending the meeting were told that they could not address the Justice Department’s ongoing defense of the policy before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals because “some of the participants in the meeting are with groups that are in litigation at the plaintiff where the United States government is the defendant.” “I don’t think either side believes that those type of conversations about the litigation between two parties represented in a lawsuit is appropriate in the meeting,” he said.
“The president continues to believe that this is a law — that the time for the ending of this law has come. The courts are signaling that. And certainly it has been his political belief going back to when I first met him in 2004,” Gibbs added.
CT Fox Affiliate Pulls ‘Unsubstantiated’ American Action Network Ad About Health Reform
CT Fox Affiliate Pulls ‘Unsubstantiated’ American Action Network Ad About Health Reform
Greg Sargent points out that FOX CT, a local Fox affiliate in Connecticut, has pulled an ad bankrolled by undisclosed donors to the American Action Network. “The group has sunk at least $445,000 into attacking Rep. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who is running for reelection in a tough district against Republican Sam Caligiuri,” and this latest ad accuses him of supporting a health care law that jails individuals who don’t purchase coverage and provides “free health care for illegal immigrants”:
A government health care mess, thanks to Nancy Pelosi and Chris Murphy. Five-hundred billion in Medicare cuts, free health care for illegal immigrants, thousands of new IRS agents, jail time for anyone without coverage, and now a 47% increase in Connecticut health care premiums.
Watch it:
“Following a review of the spot titled ‘Mess’ and the documentation provided by the American Action Network, WTIC-TV, the FOX affiliate in Hartford, Connecticut, believes the commercial’s claims are unsubstantiated and has removed it from air,” FOX CT spokeswoman Andrea Savastra told the CapitolWatch blog. “It is the station’s responsibility to review commercials (candidates ‘uses’ being the exception) to protect the public from false or misleading statements,” she added.
Indeed, the Affordable Care Act specifically states that the Secretary “shall not file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by [the minimum coverage requirement], or levy on any such property with respect to such failure.’’ On March 25, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified before a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee that “the IRS won’t be auditing individuals to certify that they have obtained health insurance.” Rather, insurance companies “will issue forms certifying that individuals have coverage that meets the federal mandate.” “So there’s not going to be any discussions about health coverage with an IRS employee,” Shulman said.
Section 1411 of the Affordable Care Act states that individuals have to be legal immigrants or citizens in order to receive subsidies under the law.
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