The Democratic Party is spending nearly 100 million dollars raised in part from foreign contributions to help elect more immigration reform minded men and women to Congress.
If you happen to be a conservative of the Grand Old tea Party variety, how does such startling "amnesty" related news make you feel?
Suspicious? Fearful? Angry? Perhaps even more xenophobic than usual?
Each of those emotional responses would be expected from tea partiers had the Democratic Party actually taken this foreign money -- it has not.
The "U.S." Chamber of Commerce however, is a different story entirely.
The man who admitted to gunning down Dr. George Tiller in church last May went on trial in Kansas on Friday. Tiller was one of a small number of doctors performing late term abortions in the U.S.
Scott Roeder admitted to shooting the Tiller, but he is pleading not guilty to murder, as Robin Marty reports in RH Reality Check. Yesterday, Judge Warren Wilbert shocked observers by allowing Roeder's lawyers to argue that their client is guilty of voluntary manslaughter, not premeditated murder.
Kansas law allows the accused to plead "imperfect self-defense" if he had an "honest but unreasonable belief" that deadly force was necessary to protect innocent third parties. Roeder says he killed to protect the unborn. Pro-choice activists are alarmed that the judge allowed Roeder to use this defense. If he beats the murder rap, Roder could face just five years in prison. In the unlikely event that his legal gambit is successful, the precedent could be tantamount to declaring open season on abortion providers.
No doubt Nidal Hussein sincerely believed that he was protecting innocent lives when he murdered 12 soldiers at Fort Hood last November. Somehow, I doubt the Army will be as deferential to Hasan's crazy religious ideas as Judge Warren Wilbert has been to Roeder's.
In other health care news, Robert Reich of TAPPED asks whether the rich or the middle class will pay for health reform:
There's only one big remaining issue on health care reform: How to pay for it. The House wants a 5.4 percent surtax on couples earning at least $1 million in annual income. The Senate wants a 40 percent excise tax on employer-provided "Cadillac plans." The Senate will win on this unless the public discovers that a large portion of the so-called Cadillacs are really middle-class Chevys-expensive not because they deliver more benefits but because they have higher costs.
Reich cites a shocking statistic: Less than 4% of the variation in the cost of insurance coverage is based on differences in benefits provided. Most of the difference in price is based on the perceived riskiness of the beneficiaries. So, if you're in a high risk pool comprised of, say, retired autoworkers, you're going to pay a lot more for the same benefits than someone in a younger, healthier risk pool. When you look at it that way, it seems unfair to pay for reform on the backs of people who are already paying more for the same thing due to circumstances beyond their control.
President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are meeting with top labor leaders on the "Cadillac tax," as Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo reports. Obama and Sebelius are trying to hash out a compromise that would be acceptable to the unions, who so far, have been implacably opposed to taxing expensive health care plans. The unions are reluctant to give any ground on this issue because so many of their members have accepted expanded health care benefits in lieu of wage increases over the years. Taxing those benefits now would effectively erase some hard-won gains by workers. Obama and the unions are reportedly discussing some kind of grandfather clause proposal that would exempt existing plans and only tax new plans.
Elsewhere in our high-deductible democracy, it turns out that health insurers secretly steered more than $20 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to oppose health reform while publicly professing to support the effort, according to Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones. The bagman was America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). While AHIP was soliciting donations to run attack ads, AHIP's top lobbyist, Karen Ignagni penned an op/ed in the Washington Post assuring the public that AHIP supported reform.
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly hopes that the scandal will give ammunition to Democrats in the last big push to pass health care reform: "Policymakers struggling to resolve differences on the final reform bill may want to keep a simple adage in mind: Don't let AHIP's duplicitous campaign win."
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One of the biggest selling points of the healthcare reform legislation -- a reason why we are supposed to just accept the massive concessions to the insurance industry and drug companies -- has been the promise that the private insurers would finally be banned from the disgraceful practices of denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
That was quick: It took just three days for the titans of the healthcare industry to reveal the emptiness of their pledge to the Obama administration to save $2 trillion in healthcare costs over the next 10 years.
This week, the White House teamed up with healthcare industry giants for a two-day PR blitz on health reform. A coalition of industry leaders sent a letter to president Obama over the weekend, pledging to help contain healthcare costs. The signatories include PhRMA (drug makers), Advamed (device manufacturers), the AMA (doctors), the AHA (hospitals), AHIP (health insurance), and SEIU's Health Care project. The corporate signatories are the very same interest groups that have fought U.S. healthcare reform for generations. AHIP, America's Health Insurance Plans, helped torpedo the Clinton plan in the 1990s with the infamous "Harry and Louise" TV spots.
Across Massachusetts, senior citizens are writing letters to newspapers demanding that their representatives in Congress protect a form of health insurance called Medicare Advantage.
At least that's what newspaper editors are supposed to think.
Some of those seniors are unaware that they have sent any such letters to newspapers. Some of them hadn't even heard of Medicare Advantage.
"I did not write a letter to the editor. It's not from me," said Gloria Gosselin, 75, of Lawrence.
Gosselin's name was on one of three strikingly similar letters touting the Medicare Advantage program that were sent to The Eagle-Tribune.
The Dewey Square Group has been using some extremely deceptive practices to get AHIP's message out:
A tip-off to the true origin of the letters came when The Eagle-Tribune received a call from a man who turned out to be <!--more-->an intern at the Boston office of the Dewey Square Group, a national political marketing and consulting firm.
The man, who identified himself as Noah, wanted to know if Gloria Gosselin's letter had been published. Asked what interest he had in the letter, Noah replied that he was Gosselin's grandson.
Gosselin does not have a grandson named Noah working in Boston. Her only grandson is a student at Central Catholic.
If the people sending these letters have never heard of the issue or the paper "their" letter was sent to, and if hired consultants are impersonating these people's relatives, it's clear these Americans are being used by AHIP to promote their fake grassroots campaign.
Since AHIP paid the Dewey Square Group to run this campaign, and since a responsible signer of checks would have some idea of what their money is being used for, I think it's safe to assume AHIP had some idea of the tactics the Dewey Square Group is using here. I say it's safe to assume because at least up until now, AHIP has had no comment.
This is not the first time AHIP has engaged in astroturfing. Health Care for America Now activists confronted AHIP at the launch of its faux "listening tour" this summer, and the industry front group responded by altering its schedule and refusing to openly publicize future dates and times. We also exposed AHIP's hollow solicitation for consumer feedback with a video proving AHIP's toll free number went straight to voicemail and remained unanswered.
So, the question should be asked: Does the insurance industry, as represented by America's Health Insurance Plans, endorse using unsuspecting Americans in a fake grassroots campaign to combat a government giveaway that is in danger of being repealed? Are these the kind of tactics we can expect when the insurance industry tries to manufacture "grassroots" opposition to health care reform later this year?
The silence on the part of AHIP says all you and I need to know.
Why in the world are we allowing the perpetrators of the health care crisis to set the terms of the debate on how to clean up their mess?
Join nurses, doctors, and health care activists Tuesday for a day of calls in Congress and a protest against the insurers as we convey a different message.
I thought Clinton's plan, like Edwards's and Obama's, was fine. The problem is always political; just what is the new President willing to trade away to get some form of national health care? That's the black box question you can't answer with a plan, since it's the outcome of a complex series of negotiations and arguments. The proxy for the black box answer is 'trust' or 'experience' or a 'willingness to fight'. I want to know how aggressive the candidates will be around pointing their fingers at the obstacles to health care reform, the insurance companies. And here they are, threatening Clinton, and here she is, responding.
But Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, was unimpressed: "The new Clinton plan includes important ideas to make coverage more affordable; unfortunately, some of the divisive rhetoric seems reminiscent of 1993."
Addressing GOP criticisms, Clinton said, "They're attacking me before I even put my plan out there. And I frankly carry that like a badge of honor. Because we're right and they're wrong."
I am deeply skeptical of Clinton's political judgment, but this is great. Opposition from insurance companies should generate political capital for progressives, since insurance companies are so widely loathed. It sounds like Clinton gets this.
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