This week, House Republicans will hold a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The bill is expected to pass the House, where the GOP holds a majority, but stall in the Democratic-controlled Senate. In the meantime, the symbolic vote is giving both Republicans and Democrats a pretext to publicly rehash their views on the legislation.
At AlterNet, Faiz Shakir and colleagues point out that repealing health care reform would cost the federal government an additional $320 billion over the next decade, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The authors also note that despite Republican campaign promises to "repeal and replace" the law, their bill contains no replacement plan. Health care reform protects Americans with preexisting conditions from some forms discrimination by insurers. At least half of all Americans under the age of 65 could be construed as having a preexisting condition. No wonder only 1 in 4 Americans support repeal, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released on Monday.
Perhaps that explains, as Paul Waldman reports at TAPPED, why the White House is vigorously defending health care reform. The Obama administration is making full use of the aforementioned statistics from The Department Health and Human Services on the percentage of Americans who have preexisting conditions:
As the House prepares to vote on the "Repeal the Puppy-Strangling Job-Vivisecting O-Commie-Care Act," or whatever they're now calling it, the White House and its allies actually seem to have their act together when it comes to fighting this war for public opinion. The latest is an analysis from the Department of Health and Human Services on just how many people have pre-existing conditions, and thus will be protected from denials of health insurance when the Affordable Care Act goes fully into effect in 2014
Republicans are fuming that Democrats are "politicizing" a policy debate by bringing up the uncomfortable fact that, if the GOP's repeal plan became law, millions of people could lose their health insurance. As Waldman points out, the high incidence of preexisting conditions is an argument for a universal mandate. It's impossible to insure people with known health problems at an affordable cost unless they share the risk with healthier policy-holders. Hence the need for a mandate.
Anti-choice at the end of life
In The Nation, Ann Neumann explains how anti-choice leaders fought to re-eliminate free end-of-life counseling for seniors under Medicare. The provision was taken out of the health care reform bill but briefly reinstated by Department of Health and Social Services before being rescinded again by HHS amid false allegations by anti-choice groups, including The Family Research Council, that the government was promulgating euthanasia for the elderly.
As seen on TV
The Kansas-based anti-choice group Operation Rescue is lashing out at the Iowa Board of Medicine for dismissing their complaint against Dr. Linda Haskell, Lynda Waddington reports in The Iowa Independent. Dr. Haskell attracted the ire of anti-choicers for using telemedicine to help doctors provide abortion care. The board investigated Operation Rescue's allegations, which it cannot discuss or even acknowledge, but found no basis for sanctions against Haskell. Iowa medical authorities said they were still deliberating about the rules for telemedicine in general.
Salon retracts RFK vaccine story
Online news magazine Salon.com has retracted a 2005 article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. alleging a link between childhood vaccines and autism, Kristina Chew reports at Care2. The article leaned heavily on now discredited research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. His research had been discredited for some time, but only recently did an investigative journalist reveal that Wakefield skewed his data as part of an elaborate scam to profit from a lawsuit against vaccine makers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
The Republicans won control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate in the midterm election on nebulous promises to slash spending and reduce the size of the federal government. House Speaker John Boehner has pledged to reduce spending to 2008 levels, as per the GOP's campaign manifesto, known as the "Pledge to America."
House Republicans will hold a symbolic vote to overturn health care reform on January 12. The bill, which would repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and set the nation's health care laws back to the way they were last March, has no chance of becoming law. The GOP controls the House, but Democrats control the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Senate Democrats will block the bill.
Suzy Khimm of Mother Jones reports that the 2-page House bill carries no price tag. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the ACA would save $143 billion dollars over the next decade. The GOP repeal bill contains no alternative plan. So, repealing the ACA would be tantamount to adding $143 billion to the deficit. So much for fiscal responsibility.
Why are the Republicans rushing to vote on a doomed bill without even bothering to hold hearings, or formulate a counter-proposal for the Congressional Budget Office to score? Kevin Drum of Mother Joneshazards a guess:
[Speaker John] Boehner [(R-OH)] knows two things: (a) he has to schedule a repeal vote because the tea partiers will go into open revolt if he doesn't, and (b) it's a dead letter with nothing more than symbolic value. So he's scheduling a quick vote with no hearings and no CBO scoring just so he can say he's done it, after which he can move on to other business he actually cares about.
An opportunity?
Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly argues that all this political theater around repealing the Affordable Care Act is an opportunity for Democrats to remind the public about all the popular aspects of the bill that the GOP is trying to strip away.
Last weekend several key provisions of the ACA took effect, including help for middle income seniors who are running up against the prescription drug "donut hole." Until last Saturday, their drugs were covered up to a relatively low threshold, then they were on their own until they spent enough on prescriptions for the catastrophic coverage to kick in again. Those seniors will be reluctant to give up their brand new 50% discount on drugs in the donut hole.
Another crack at turning eggs into persons
A Colorado ballot initiative to bestow full human rights on fertilized ova was resoundingly defeated for the second time in the last midterm elections. Attempts to reclassify fertilized ova as people are an attempt to ban abortion, stem cell research, and some forms of birth control. Patrick Caldwell of the American Independent reports that new egg-as-person campaigns are stirring in other states where activists hope to take advantage of new Republican majorities.
Personhood USA, the group behind the failed Colorado ballot initiatives, claims that there is "action" (of some description) on personhood legislation in 30 states. Caldwell says Florida may be the next battleground. Personhood USA needs 676,000 signatures to get their proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. Right now, they have zero, but they promise a "big push" in 2011.
Ronald McDonald = Joe the Camel
In AlterNet, Kelle Louaillier calls for more regulation of fast food industry advertising to children. New research shows that children are being exposed to significantly more fast food ads than they were just a few years ago. Other studies demonstrate that children give higher marks to food products when they are paired with a cartoon character. Louaillier writes of her organization's campaign to prevent fast food companies from using cartoons to market fast food to kids:
For our part, my organization launched a campaign in March to convince McDonald's to retire Ronald McDonald, its iconic advertising character, and the suite of predatory marketing practices of which the clown is at the heart. A study we commissioned by Lake Research Partners found that more than half of those polled say they "favor stopping corporations from using cartoons and other children's characters to sell harmful products to children."
Local elected officials are joining the cause, too. Los Angeles recently voted to make permanent a ban on the construction of new fast food restaurants in parts of the city. San Francisco has limited toy giveaway promotions to children's meals that meet basic health criteria. The idea is spreading to other cities.
2011 trendspotting: Baby food
The hot new snack trend for 2011 is mush, as Bonnie Azab Powell reports in Grist. In an attempt to burnish its portfolio of "healthier" snack options for kids Tropicana (a PepsiCo company) is introducing a new line of pureed fruit and vegetable slurries. The products, sold under the brand name Tropolis, feature ground up fruits and veggies, vitamin C, and fiber in a portable plastic pouch. These "drinkified snacks" or "snackified drinks" will be priced at $2.49 to $3.49 for a four-pack, making them more expensive than fresh fruit.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Pulse: GOP Plays Chicken with the Debt Ceiling
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is calling for a "big showdown" over the upcoming vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion from $13.9 trillion. The debt ceiling is simply the maximum amount the government can borrow.
Weekly Audit: Millions of Americans Could Lose Unemployment Benefits
Editor's Note: Happy Thanksgiving from the Media Consortium! This week, we aren't stopping The Audit, The Pulse, The Diaspora, or The Mulch, but we are taking a bit of a break. Expect shorter blog posts, and The Diaspora and The Mulch will be posted on Wednesday afternoon, instead of their usual Thursday and Friday postings. We'll return to our normal schedule next week.
Republicans don't have the votes to repeal health care reform, but they are determined to use their newly-won control of the House to fight it every step of the way. Marilyn Werber Serafini gives Truthout readers a sneak-peek at the GOP playbook to attack healthcare reform in 2011.
Who are some of the top contenders in this coming battle? Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) is a leading candidate to chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Barton is vowing, if elected chairman, to use the oversight powers of the committee to hold a flurry of hearings on alleged misconduct in the crafting of the Affordable Care Act. Barton plans to show that budget experts "covered up" the true projected costs of health care reform. In Barton's world, the fact that there's no evidence to support this allegation is all the more reason to investigate.
Other key players include James Gelfand, the director of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who has already compiled a wishlist of 31 investigations that he wants the newly Republican-controlled House to undertake. The Chamber spent millions to elect Republicans this cycle. Barton's hearings will have to compete for political oxygen with those of Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), the chair apparent of the Investigations Committee, who is promising to gum up the works of government with at least to seven hearings a week for 40 weeks, a projected rate nearly triple that of his predecessor Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca).
Health care freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
If they can't undo health reform in the corridors of Washington, conservatives are looking to the states and the federal courts. In The Nation, Nicholas Kusnetz reports on how a coalition of hard right groups are organizing against health care reform at the state level.
A group known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is at the forefront of the drive to pass so-called "health care freedom acts" in the states to preemptively outlaw federal health reform before it can be implemented. ALEC claims to have filed or pre-filed bills in 38 states and passed 6 so far. Few expect these laws to stand up in court, if challenged, but they are part of ALEC's long term strategy to fight health reform itself in the federal courts. A Virginia judge recently ruled that an ALEC-sponsored "freedom" law gave the state standing to challenge federal reform.
Kusnetz shows the close ties between ALEC officials and Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, and other Koch-Industries-funded conservative activist groups that are campaigning against health care reform in various capacities.
What about Medicare?
At the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen notes that many Republicans, including Senator-Elect Rand Paul (R-KY) successfully campaigned on a platform of repealing health care reform to save Medicare. Benen explains that repealing the Affordable Care Act would actually put Medicare in worse financial straights than staying the course. The Republican rhetoric of defending Medicare and railing against socialized medicine is a flagrant self-contradiction. It's not hard to see which of these two projects they are more committed to.
As Brie Cadman points out at Change.org, the self-proclaimed "Young Guns" of the Republican Party are keen to privatize Medicare all together.
Government cheese: Corporate welfare edition
The USDA is scheming to make you eat more cheese. Tom Philpott of Grist explains how it works. Big Dairy produces more milk than Americans care to drink. Plus, consumers are increasingly demanding reduced-fat milk. That leaves a lot of milk left over to make cheese, but Americans aren't eating enough cheese to make a dent in the national milk fat surplus.
Unsold milk fat could become a toxic asset on the books of Big Dairy. So, the USDA created a non-profit corporation called Dairy Management (DM) to convince fast food companies to spike their products with millions of tons more cheese every year. With the help of DM, Domino's Pizza created a line of "Legend" pizzas with 40% more cheese. Who can forget the epic 2002 "Summer of Cheese" when DM teamed up with Pizza Hut to boost cheese consumption by an astonishing 102 million pounds? The average American now eats 33 pounds of cheese per year, three times as much as in 1970.
Officially, the USDA is supposed to help Americans eat better and support the agriculture industry. Cheese can be part of a healthy diet, but not in ever-increasing quantities. In practice, supporting the profits of Big Agra should not take precedence over preventing obesity or reducing the incidence of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.
CPCs: Incubators for anti-choice violence
In Ms. Magazine, Kathryn Joyce explores the shadowy world of "crisis pregnancy centers," anti-choice ministries that pose as full-service reproductive health clinics, but offer no real health services. CPCs have a business model built on deceit. They seek to prevent abortions by tricking women seeking comprehensive reproductive health care, which might include abortion.
Activism rooted in such deceit and contempt for women's autonomy can flare into violence. Joyce reveals that CPCs also serve as incubators for radical anti-choice activism. Radical groups like Operation Rescue encourage their supporters to volunteer. Scott Roeder, the assassin of Dr. George Tiller, got his start accosting women on the street outside abortion clinics as a volunteer "sidewalk counselor" for a crisis pregnancy center.
Just the presence of a CPC near an abortion clinic is correlated with increased violence against the clinic, as Joyce reports:
A recent survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation of women's reproductive-health clinics nationwide found 32.7 percent of clinics located near a CPC experienced one or more incidents of severe violence, compared to only 11.3 percent of clinics not near a CPC. (Severe violence includes clinic blockades and invasions, bombings, arson, bombing and arson threats, death threats, chemical attacks, stalking, physical violence and gunfire.)
Doctors on the front line see the overlap between CPCs and more virulent forms of anti-choice activism every day. "[CPCs and violent anti-choice activists] have two different spheres," OB-GYN Dr. LeRoy Carhart, one of the nation's last remaining specialists in late-term abortions, told Joyce. "The underlying theory of both is never let the truth stand in the way of getting your point across. If you distort facts to women, there is no difference."
Flip Benham's slap on the wrist
One of the activists Joyce interviews in her piece is Rev. "Flip" Benham, director of Operation Save America/Operation Rescue. Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports that Benham was found guilty of stalking an abortion provider and posting "Wanted" posters with the doctor's picture on them, accusing him of being a baby killer. Benham was sentenced to 24 months probation.
In his defense, Benham claimed that this was a harmless gesture that never killed anyone. In fact, "wanted" posters for abortion doctors are a time-honored intimidation tactic that has been used repeatedly before the murders of abortion providers. Benham is deliberately cultivating a climate of fear and rage is conducive to violence.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
A chill is coming to Washington. A wave of climate change deniers were elected to office this week, and come January, we can expect a freeze in all reasonable and productive discussion about the fate of the planet.
Last year, the political discussion about climate change and carbon regulation was complicated and bogged down, but at least it was happening.
Who are the deniers?
Grist has pulled together a list of the climate deniers headed into power in the Senate. "Overall, the Senate next year will be more hostile to climate action than ever before," the site's staff says.
If these climate-denying legislators came from deeply red states, Tuesday's results might not be so shocking. But many of them represent swing states, or states that might be red in presidential contests, but that have previously elected Democrats to Congress.
Farewell, moderation
These latter states include North Dakota, whose new senator, John Hoeven, made Grist's list, and Indiana. Also on the list are Marco Rubio, from Florida, Kelly Ayotte, from New Hampshire, and Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania.
Perhaps most disheartening is the replacement of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with Senator-Elect Ron Johnson. Johnson is to the right of the independent-minded Feingold on a host of issues, but as Mother Jones' Andy Kroll writes, "What landed Johnson in headlines earlier this year was his claim that climate change wasn't created by humans but instead was the result of 'sunspot activity.'"
The new climate "science"
Sunspot activity is just one explanation that newly elected Republicans have grabbed onto to explain the very real phenomenon of climate change. Care2's Beth Buczynski has rounded up a few choice quotes from these new leaders:
"With the possible exception of Tiger Woods, nothing has had a worse year than global warming. We have discovered that a good portion of the science used to justify "climate change" was a hoax perpetrated by leftist ideologues with an agenda." -Todd Young, new congressperson from Indiana
"There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth." -Roy Blunt, new senator from Missouri
What does this shift mean? In short, that the United States and our environmental policies will be limping forward and falling behind the rest of the world as international communities try to deal with climate change. As Brian Merchant writes at AlterNet:
...the current crop of GOP politicians have adopted a somewhat united ideological front opposing not only climate legislation, but the general notion of climate science itself. Nowhere else in the world has a leading political party availed itself of a position so directly in opposition to science -- indeed, today's GOP is the only party in the world that incorporates climate change denial as part of its political platform.
On the domestic front, writes The Washington Independent's Andrew Restuccia, that means that even unambitious legislation, like the renewable energy standard, stands little chance of passing. As it's currently written, the renewable energy standard would require a certain percentage of the country's electricity to come from renewable sources. In reality, it would not even push clean energy production to grow faster than market forces alone would. The main purpose of passing a standard would be to signal to clean energy investors that the government supports their work.
In other words, in the current legislative climate, our leaders wouldn't even get behind legislation that is just a sign of support for clean energy and the jobs it would create.
Zombie Climategate
Instead, the House's leadership plans on spending its time staging a show trial of climate science. The chief executor of this strategy will be Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is set to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Change.org's Jess Leber explains:
From his new position, the former car-alarm company owner plans to raise false alarm about climate conspiracy theories. As Nikki Gloudeman wrote, just a few weeks ago Issa vowed to make investigating "Climategate"-the climate pseudo-scandal that's already died 1,000 deaths-a top oversight priority should he win the committee.
In theory, Issa would be investigating a series of emails, sent by British climate scientists. Climate skeptics argue the emails prove that scientists are falsifying evidence of climate change. Extensive investigations have already debunked those claims.
In short, environmental leader Bill McKibben had the right idea back in September. Anyone who's interested in advocating for climate change action in this country would do well to stop trying to convince Congress to do its job. Our leaders won't be listening.
The best path forward may be to start convincing the American people, in the hope that, t
by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
A chill is coming to Washington. A wave of climate change deniers were elected to office this week, and come January, we can expect a freeze in all reasonable and productive discussion about the fate of the planet.
Last year, the political discussion about climate change and carbon regulation was complicated and bogged down, but at least it was happening.
Who are the deniers?
Grist has pulled together a list of the climate deniers headed into power in the Senate. "Overall, the Senate next year will be more hostile to climate action than ever before," the site's staff says.
If these climate-denying legislators came from deeply red states, Tuesday's results might not be so shocking. But many of them represent swing states, or states that might be red in presidential contests, but that have previously elected Democrats to Congress.
Farewell, moderation
These latter states include North Dakota, whose new senator, John Hoeven, made Grist's list, and Indiana. Also on the list are Marco Rubio, from Florida, Kelly Ayotte, from New Hampshire, and Pat Toomey, from Pennsylvania.
Perhaps most disheartening is the replacement of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with Senator-Elect Ron Johnson. Johnson is to the right of the independent-minded Feingold on a host of issues, but as Mother Jones' Andy Kroll writes, "What landed Johnson in headlines earlier this year was his claim that climate change wasn't created by humans but instead was the result of 'sunspot activity.'"
The new climate "science"
Sunspot activity is just one explanation that newly elected Republicans have grabbed onto to explain the very real phenomenon of climate change. Care2's Beth Buczynski has rounded up a few choice quotes from these new leaders:
"With the possible exception of Tiger Woods, nothing has had a worse year than global warming. We have discovered that a good portion of the science used to justify "climate change" was a hoax perpetrated by leftist ideologues with an agenda." -Todd Young, new congressperson from Indiana
"There isn't any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth." -Roy Blunt, new senator from Missouri
What does this shift mean? In short, that the United States and our environmental policies will be limping forward and falling behind the rest of the world as international communities try to deal with climate change. As Brian Merchant writes at AlterNet:
...the current crop of GOP politicians have adopted a somewhat united ideological front opposing not only climate legislation, but the general notion of climate science itself. Nowhere else in the world has a leading political party availed itself of a position so directly in opposition to science -- indeed, today's GOP is the only party in the world that incorporates climate change denial as part of its political platform.
On the domestic front, writes The Washington Independent's Andrew Restuccia, that means that even unambitious legislation, like the renewable energy standard, stands little chance of passing. As it's currently written, the renewable energy standard would require a certain percentage of the country's electricity to come from renewable sources. In reality, it would not even push clean energy production to grow faster than market forces alone would. The main purpose of passing a standard would be to signal to clean energy investors that the government supports their work.
In other words, in the current legislative climate, our leaders wouldn't even get behind legislation that is just a sign of support for clean energy and the jobs it would create.
Zombie Climategate
Instead, the House's leadership plans on spending its time staging a show trial of climate science. The chief executor of this strategy will be Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is set to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Change.org's Jess Leber explains:
From his new position, the former car-alarm company owner plans to raise false alarm about climate conspiracy theories. As Nikki Gloudeman wrote, just a few weeks ago Issa vowed to make investigating "Climategate"-the climate pseudo-scandal that's already died 1,000 deaths-a top oversight priority should he win the committee.
In theory, Issa would be investigating a series of emails, sent by British climate scientists. Climate skeptics argue the emails prove that scientists are falsifying evidence of climate change. Extensive investigations have already debunked those claims.
In short, environmental leader Bill McKibben had the right idea back in September. Anyone who's interested in advocating for climate change action in this country would do well to stop trying to convince Congress to do its job. Our leaders won't be listening.
The best path forward may be to start convincing the American people, in the hope that, two years from now, they'll vote for candidates who have a clue.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
wo years from now, they'll vote for candidates who have a clue.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
The Republicans gained ground in last night's midterm elections, recapturing the House and gaining seats in the Senate. The future House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) wasted no time in affirming that the GOP will try to repeal health care reform.
A full-scale repeal is unlikely in the next two years because the Democrats have retained control of the White House and the Senate. However, Republicans are already making noises about shutting down the government to force the issue. The House controls the nation's purse strings, which confers significant leverage if the majority is willing to bring the government to a screeching halt to make a point.
Don't assume they'll blink. The GOP shut down government in 1995, albeit to its own political detriment. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his allies have sworn a "blood oath" to shut down the government, regardless of the consequences. The Republicans may actually succeed in modifying minor aspects of the Affordable Care Act, such as the controversial 1099 reporting requirement for small business.
The most significant threat to the implementation of health care reform may be at the state level. Republicans picked up several governorships, and the Affordable Care Act requires the cooperation of states to set up their own insurance exchanges. Hostile governors could seriously impede things.
Mixed results for radical, anti-choice senate candidates
As a group, the eight ultra-radical, anti-choice Republican Senate candidates had mixed results last night. Three wins, two sure losses, and three likely losses that haven't been definitively called. Voters didn't seem thrilled about electing senators who oppose a woman's right to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
Two cruised to victory: Rand Paul easily defeated Democrat Jack Conway in Kentucky. Paul is one of the most extreme the of a radical cohort. As Amie Newman reported in RH Reality Check, Paul doesn't even believe in a woman's right to abort to save her own life. In Florida, anti-choice standard bearer Marco Rubio defeated Independent Charlie Christ.
Another radical anti-choicer, Pat Toomey, who favors jailing abortion providers, narrowly edged out Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.
Two were soundly defeated. Evangelical code-talker Sharron Angle lost to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and anti-masturbation crusader Christine O'Donnell lost to Chris Coons in Delaware.
The last three radical anti-choice senate candidates were down, but not, out as of this morning. Democrat Sen. Michael Bennett leads Republican Ken Buck by just 15,000 votes out of over 1.5 million ballots cast, according to TPMDC. Planned Parenthood launched an 11th hour offensive against Buck because of his retrograde stances on abortion, sexual assault, and other women's issues, as Joseph Boven reports for the Colorado Independent.
This morning, Tea Party Republican Joe Miller was trailing behind incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who challenged him as an Independent, but no winner had been declared. In Washington State, Democrat Sen. Patti Murray maintains a 1% lead over radical anti-choicer Republican Dino Rossi.
Are fertilized eggs people in Colorado?
Coloradans won a decisive victory for reproductive rights last night. Fertilized eggs are still not people in Colorado, as Jodi Jacobson reports for RH Reality Check.
Amendment 62, which would have conferred full person status from the moment of conception, thereby outlawing abortion and in vitro fertilization. It also called into question the legality of many forms of birth control, including an array of medical procedures for pregnant women that might harm their fetuses. The proposed amendment was resoundingly defeated: 72% against to 28% in favor. This is the second time Colorado voters have rejected an egg-as-person amendment.
Blue Dogs and anti-choice Dems feel the pain
Last night was brutal for corporatist Democrats who fought the more progressive options for health care reform and Democrats who put their anti-choice ideology ahead passing health care. In AlterNet, Sarah Seltzer reports only 12 of the 34 Democrats who voted against health care reform hung on to their seats. The Blue Dog caucus was halved overnight from 56 to 24. Nick Baumann of Mother Jones speculated that the midterms would mark the end of the Stupak bloc, the coalition of anti-choice Democrats whose last-minute brinksmanship could have derailed health care reform.
Did foot-dragging on health care hurt Democrats?
Jamelle Bouie suggests at TAPPED that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by passing a health care reform bill that won't provide tangible benefits to most people for years. The exchanges that are supposed to provide affordable insurance for millions of Americans won't be up and running until 2014.
In Summer 2009, Former DNC chair Howard Dean predicted that the Democrats would be penalized at the polls if they failed to deliver tangible benefits from health care reform before the midterm elections. That's why Dean suggested expanding the public health insurance programs we already have, rather than creating insurance exchanges from scratch.
Sink, sunk by Scott
Andy Kroll of Mother Jones profiles Rick Scott, the billionaire health clinic mogul, corporate fraudster, and enemy of health care reform who spent over $50 million of his own money to eke out a very narrow victory over Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida governor's race.
Apparently, many Floridians were willing to overlook the fact that Scott had to pay a $1.7 billion fine for defrauding Medicare, the largest fine of its kind in history. Scott also spent $5 million of his own money to found Conservatives for Patients' Rights, one of the leading independent groups opposing health care reform.
Pot isn't legalized in California
California defeated Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana for personal use. David Borden of DRCnet, a pro-legalization group, writes in AlterNet that the fight over Prop 19 brought legalization into the political mainstream, even if the measure didn't prevail at the polls. The initiative won the backing of the California NAACP, SEIU California, the National Black Police Association, and the National Latino Officers Association and other established groups.
So, what's next for health care reform? The question everyone is asking is whether John Boehner will cave to the extremists in his own party and attempt a full-scale government shutdown, or whether the Republicans will content themselves with extracting piecemeal modifications of the health care law.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Let me indulge in one of my favorite pastimes, torturing a metaphor, for just a moment: in this most unpredictable of elections, my sense is that we are on a high speed train barreling down the track but we are coming up on a switch with 3 different junctions we might head down. Those junctions take us very different directions even though the train is currently barreling just one way.
Okay, let the torment of the poor metaphor end and the explanation begin. I think there are 3 scenarios left in this election, each of which is quite possible:
1. Undecided voters decide they don't care about any other election argument or local candidate dynamics, and just want to vote no on the party in power. The last minute surge goes to the Republicans, and a tough year turns into a tsunami. In this scenario, Democrats lose the Senate and around 75 seats in the House.
2. The polling turns out to be mostly right, the close races break fairly predictably with neither party getting the lion's share. Under that scenario, Democrats keep the Senate with about 52 seats, pick up around 4 seats currently held by Republicans but lose about 50-55 of their own, meaning the Republicans claim control by around 10 seats.
3. Democratic base constituencies turn out in higher numbers than most of the likely voter forecasts predicted, the no-cell-phone polls prove once and for all they undercount Democrats, and a fair number of undecideds make the call that as discouraged as they are with the economy and establishment, they just can't bring themselves to vote for the wacky tea partiers running in so many of these races. The result is that Democrats do much better than expected, losing only 25ish seats in the House, 4 in the Senate, and actually win most of the close Gov races in states like CA, FL, OH, MN, and OR.
Notice I have left out the Democrats barely keep control of the House scenario. Given the number of contested races, I think either a serious last minute uptick/surprise, or a loss of the House is far more likely than a narrow win.
I think any of the 3 most likely scenarios listed above have a reasonably high chance of happening. But given recent history in elections, I'd rate the most predictable and expected scenario, number 2, as the least likely given the strangeness of this year. Look at what happened in the past 8 elections:
in 2008, no one expected the Democrats to pick up enough Senate seats to make it to 60, and very few experts predicted the level of electoral landslide Obama came away with. But a strong Democratic GOTV operation made both things come true, and Democrats won most of the close states in both Senate seats and the Presidential race.
in 2006, no one expected Democrats would have enough lift to win 6 of the 7 closest Senate seats needed in order to take control of that legislative body, but a last minute surge made it happen.
in 2004, everyone predicted a close Presidential race, but when we exceeded our vote goals in big states like Ohio and Florida, we thought we had won the Presidency. However, no one predicted that extraordinarily high Republican turnout would not only carry Bush to victory but sweep away virtually every Democratic Senate candidate in a competitive race.
in 2002, Democrats held the majority in the Senate and had relatively strong incumbents running in all the competitive races except where Paul Wellstone's tragic death had left Mondale filling in at the last minute. A last week Republican trend caused us to lose most of those competitive races and the Senate majority.
in 2000, Rove was so confident of a Bush victory he had W go to uncontested CA to boost congressional candidates. Gore won the popular vote, would have won the FL vote if it hadn't been stolen away, and Democrats shocked everyone by winning every close Senate race to gain 5 seats and pull into a 50-50 tie.
in 1998, Republicans (and most political pundits) felt sure they were going to pick up 30+ seats in the House and a few in the Senate, but the "let's move on from the impeachment" message came on strong at the end. We didn't lose a Senate seat, picked up 5 in the House, and won some Gov races we had no business winning.
in 1996, it looked very much like Clinton's large margin over Dole would help carry enough congressional seats for the Democrats to regain control of the House. The last minute DNC fundraising scandal stopped Democratic momentum enough that we fell 10 seats short.
in 1994, all our polling suggested we would lose about 25-30 seats in the House and maybe 5 or 6 in the Senate. The Republican tide kept building in the final days and we lost 52 in the House and 8 in the Senate.
That is a lot of elections in a row with surprises and last-second surges for one party or the other. I'm not ruling out the most predicted and expected thing happening, but my strong guess is that we will see a last week surge by one side or the other. I'm too superstitious to predict one way or the other, and can make a really strong argument on both the pessimistic and optimistic sides. But if you want the Democrats to win, your time would be very well spent this last week focusing on helping turn out Democratic voters, because a higher turnout than expected among Democratic base voters is our best shot for the optimistic scenario to be the one that happens on election day.
You know, all across the country Republicans and pundits are gleefully conceding the makeup of the next Congress to Republican control. Republicans are salivating at Mitch McConnell becoming majority leader and John Boehner being Speaker of the House. While the Democratic Party has nobody to blame but themselves for the cowardice they have shown in fighting for any real progress for America in the last two years before waving the white flag and watching the Republicans do a victory lap everyone should consider this. The Republican Party is still less popular than dog feces on the carpet and America still realizes that the Republicans are a party totally devoid of any clue.
One thing that may be getting lost in the shuffle of having a tea-party zealot running for Senate in Kentucky is the fine slate of Democratic candidates we have running for Congress this year here. Candidates that are Washington outsiders and understand the problems that face real Kentuckians and Americans because they themselves are there facing those problems with us everyday. A good example of that is Ed Marksberry in Kentucky's Second Congressional district. Far from being a Washington elitist who is out of touch with working Kentucky and America, Ed is a Carpenter who wants to bring working values back to Washington and fight for them.
Supplemental funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be voted on in the House tomorrow. From Shaunna Thomas on twitter:
Well, its official: emergency war funding vote has been scheduled tomorrow on suspension. Where's the emergency $ for us?
Notably, the bill will also come up under a :suspension of the rules." This means it will require a two-thirds majority in order to pass.
The two-thirds majority requirement means there is a chance it will be defeated, at least for tomorrow. Here is how:
Votes needed to pass: The are currently.432 members of the House, with three vacancies (there might only be two vacancies--I am checking on that). This means that 289 votes are required to pas the bill if everyone votes (or 290 if there are only two vacancies, and 433 members), and 133 are required to defeat it (134 of there are only two vacancies)..
Many, if not most, Republicans will oppose the bill: This is not an entirely "clean" war supplemental. In addition to $33.45 billion in the bill for the Department of Defense, there is $13.4 billion in funding for the Department of Veteran's Affairs, $6.2 billion for the state department, and $5.1 billion for FEMA (see detail on the bill here). Due to this spending, it is likely that most Republicans will oppose the bill (less than a dozen Republicans would oppose a "clean" war funding bill). When the Senate passed this version of the war funding bill back in late May, 26 of the 41 Republicans in that chamber opposed the bill due to the domestic spending provisions, and three Republicans did not vote. If that same ratio of Republican opposition holds in the House vote, then 113 Republicans will oppose the bill.
A few dozen anti-war Democrats: Last year 50 Democrats who are still in the House of Representatives (Eric Massa is no longer in the house) opposed a supplemental war funding bill that contained no domestic spending. Most, but not all of these members are from the left-wing of the caucus, and opposed the funding due to their opposition to the war. However, some of the Democrats who opposed the "clean" war supplemental in May of 2009 and likely to vote for this bill. In June of 2009, under significant pressure from the White House, and after some domestic spending had been added, 19 of those 50 Democrats voted in favor of a different version of the war supplemental.
Given this mix of progressive opposition to the war and conservative opposition the non-war related funding in the bill, it is possible the bill will not pass the two-thirds threshold required under a suspension of the rules.
However, one word of caution for anti-war activists: don't sell this as an opportunity to your fellow activists as an opportunity to actually end the war in Afghanistan. While this version of the Afghanistan supplemental might be defeated (thus forcing the bill to be changed, and thus requiring a vote on a new bill in both chambers of Congress), it is extremely likely that supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually pass. As was demonstrated last May, there are upwards of 370 votes in the House in favor of a "clean" war supplemental bill, and there are at least 67 votes in favor of this version of the bill in the Senate.
Given this, we have to be honest: the votes are there to pass some version of a war supplemental, eventually. Those opposed to the passage of any funding for Iraq and Afghanistan altogether--a group to which I belong--might be able to keep using procedural hurdles such as the "suspensions of the rules" to keep the bill from passing before the start of the August recess on Friday, August 5th. From that point, perhaps even more procedural hurdles can cause the bill to be delayed all the way until the end of September. But it is going to pass eventually, and as such we should not mislead anti-war activists into thinking this is actually an opportunity to end the war. It isn't.
To close on a personal note, while I have become more amendable to supporting legislative incremental change over the past two years (see my support for health insurance reform and my support for financial reform), I have moved in the exact opposite direction on matters of war. I would not have supported this war funding bill no matter how much domestic stimulus spending was attached to it, because I simply cannot condone the continuation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Real people, both military and civilian, are dying, getting wounded, or losing their homes in enormous numbers because of these wars. Our presence there is not going to result in either stable or democratic regimes in either state. Additionally, we were not attacked by either state. Further, our presence in those countries will not prevent ethnic cleansing (ethnic cleansing took place while we were in Iraq).
Because of this, I still consider opposing this supplemental--even though it will pass eventually--a worthwhile activity. It is reminiscent of the marches against the war in late 2002 and early 2003: while I knew they would not stop the war, I still felt compelled to participate to order to publicly registered dissent. If you feel the same way, call switchboard for the House of Representatives at 202-324-3121 and register your dissent on the war to your Representative. We are not in a position to end the war right now, but we will never be in a position to end the war unless we continue to register our dissent against it.
I wrote this diary, "John Waltz Continues to Show Strength" yesterday when I realized that the Waltz campaign had put up a very strong showing in fundraising for the last quarter. However, now it appears as if I put it up before I realized just how strong this showing really was. You see, as a political newcomer and a Progressive in a red area John Waltz did the unthinkable. He actually OUT-RAISED the sitting Republican Geoff Davis. Even more remarkable is that Waltz smoked Davis in donations from individuals.
BREAKING! After passage by the House of Representatives, a new campaign finance law is now ready to be bloccked by the Senate. Sam Stein:
The House of Representatives passed major reforms to campaign finance law on Thursday following a heated debate over whether an exemption granted for the National Rifle Association had sullied the final product.
The final vote was 219 to 206 in favor of the DISCLOSE Act, with only two Republicans -- Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Joseph Cao (R-La.) -- crossing party lines. The bill would provide tough new disclosure rules for groups that invest in the election process. In addition to forcing all 501c4 groups to stand by the ads they sponsor during elections (with the CEO of the organization literally forced to appear in the spot), the law would also require groups that met certain criteria to reveal who was funding their election activity.
The bill doesn't actually put any restrictions on the amount of money in politics, it just requires disclosure that is intended to make the money less effective.
With only narrow passage in the House, prospects for the bill clearing the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate, unchanged, are grim. Thirty-six Democrats voted against the bill, with only two Republicans in favor. Most of the Democrats who voted against the bill came from the right-wing of the Democratic caucus, because, you know, they are arch-populist, super-geniuses who don't want corporate CEO's to have to say which hundred million dollar ad blitzes they are funding. This is especially the case when those ad blitzes are going to be targeting those same, right-wing Democrats for re-election in red districts, as most of them will.
While some analysts think the bill will be blocked in the Senate, others think it will be merely watered down to the point of worthlessness. In truth, however, it will be watered down to the point where it is worthless, and then blocked anyway. Because, hey, that's who governance in America works.
At least we have a good men's soccer team now.
Update (Adam): Politico reports an amendment to exempt "dues-funded groups" was also added to the bill at the last minute.
A Democratic amendment tucked into campaign finance legislation Wednesday night also drew fire from Republicans and their allies, who contend it gives special treatment to Democrat-allied labor unions. The language in question would exempt from disclosure requirements transfers of cash from dues-funded groups to their affiliates to pay for certain election ads. It was inserted into the bill by Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Administration Committee and a big union backer.
Though unions sought the change because they thought an earlier version of the bill would have forced them to disclose granular information about non-political functions, Brady's spokesman Kyle Anderson said the change "applies to all membership, dues-based organizations." And he blasted efforts to cast it as a union sweetheart deal as "just another attempt by Republicans to grasp at technical straws because they can't find a valid argument against the legislation that the American people will support."
Check out the latest thing the banking barons and their friends in the Senate are trying to do to us: steal more money from our IRA accounts.
George Miller's House bill to close some corporate tax loopholes and use it to pay for creating more jobs (which seems like one of those why-the-hell-didn't-they-do-this-a-long-time-ago ideas, but thank you to Chairman Miller for pushing this) has a provision in it that Senators who listen too much to banking lobbyists want to take out. The idea is simple: it would require any fees the bankers managing your 401(k) plans take to be disclosed, and require clear information about how much risk and return are in each plan a worker might invest in. Bankers are screaming bloody murder that they might actually have to provide information to their clients, and have convinced the Senate to go along with stripping this provision in the bill.
One of the big reasons banks have grown so big and made so much money over the last 30 years is that they nickel and dime us to death, oftentimes without disclosing what they are doing. Invisible fees for managing your 401(k), or the credit/debit card swipe fees I have been working on with business and consumer groups, are another example. And this nickel and diming adds up: the swipe fee thing siphons $48 billion a year out of the real economy and goes into the banking industries pockets, while a Dept of Labor bulletin estimated that just a one percentage point difference in 401(k) fees would reduce a person's overall retirement income from 401(k)'s by 28% over their lifetime.
This is big money, and it matters a lot - to consumers, Main Street businesses, and to the bank industry. I just saw a report that said that just through March, Visa, MasterCard, and the rest of the big banks had already spent $50 million in lobbying fees alone (that number doesn't include PAC contributions or advertising - just lobbyists) on the swipe fee issue. And their PR guys have gotten a lot of media people to parrot their lines - check out Jean Chatzky on the Today Show echoing word for the word at the end of this segment bankers' talking points about how regulating swipe fees could result in higher costs for consumers (I can't even figure out the logic of how lowering credit card swipe fees will result in consumers paying more, but logic and truth have never been an important component of bankers' lobbying techniques).
The bankers have grown too big, too powerful, and too arrogant for the good of the rest of us. They think it is within their right to gouge their clients, and nickel and dime us in every way they can think of. They get offended if we think they should disclose what fees they are charging, or have a cop on the beat to keep them from taking more of our money. It's time to rein in the power of Wall Street, and show them we aren't going to take their crap anymore.
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