With millions of Americans out of work, House Republicans are focusing in on real priorities: decimating private abortion coverage and crippling public funding for abortion, as Jessica Arons reports in RH Reality Check.
In AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte notes that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3, also redefines rape as "forcible rape" in order to determine whether a patient is eligible for a Medicaid-funded abortion. Under the Hyde Amendment, government-funded insurance programs can only cover abortions in cases of rape and incest, or to save the life of the mother. Note that the term "forcible rape" is legally meaningless. Supporters of the bill just want to go on the record as saying that a poor 13-year-old girl pregnant by a 30-year-old should be forced to give birth.
Feminist blogger Sady Doyle has launched a twitter campaign against the bill under the hashtag #dearjohn, a reference to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Tweet to let him know how you feel about a bill that discriminates against 70% of rape victims because their rapes weren't violent enough for @johnboehner, append the hashtag #dearjohn.
Everybody chill out
A federal judge in Florida ruled the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional on Monday. However, as political scientist and court watcher Scott Lemieux explains at TAPPED, the ruling is not necessarily a death blow to health care reform:
[T]his ruling is less important than the controversy it will generate might suggest. Many cornerstone programs of the New Deal were held unconstitutional by lower courts before being upheld by the Supreme Court. This ruling tells us nothing we didn't already know: There is a faction of conservative judges who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Unless this view has the support of five members of the Supreme Court -- which I still consider very unlikely -- it won't matter; Vinson's reasoning would have a much greater impact if adopted by the Court, but for this reason it is even less likely to be adopted by higher courts.
In a follow-up post, Lemieux explains the shaky legal reasoning behind Judge Robert Vinson's decision. The judge asserts bizarrely that being uninsured has no effect on interstate commerce. That premise is objectively false. Health insurers operate across state lines and the size and composition of their risk pools directly affects their business.
Given the glaring factual inaccuracies, Judge Vinson's decision may be overturned by a higher court before it gets to the Supreme Court.
Scamming Medicare
Terry J. Allen of In These Times win's the headline of the week award for an article entitled "Urology's Golden Revenue Stream." She reports that increasing numbers of urologists are investing millions on machines to irradiate prostate cancer in the office. The doctors can bill Medicare up to $40,000 per treatment, but they have to use the machines a lot to recoup the initial investment. So what does this mean for patients? Allen explains:
Rather than accessing centralized equipment and sharing costs, physicians are concentrating their own profits by buying expensive in-practice technologies that pay off only if regularly used. One result is overtreatment, which is driving up health care costs, exposing patients to unnecessary radiation and surgeries, and is frequently no better than cheaper approaches.
One third of Medicare patients with prostate cancer undergo the expensive IMRT therapy, as the procedure is known. In 2008, Medicare shelled out over a billion dollars on a treatment that has not shown to be any better for patients than less expensive therapies.
Obstetric fistula in the developing world
Reproductive Health Reality Check is running a special series on the human rights implications of obstetric fistula. Fistula is a devastating complication of unrelieved obstructed labor in which the baby's head gets stuck in the birth canal and presses against the soft tissues of the pelvis. If labor goes on long enough, the pressure will starve the pelvic tissues of blood, and they will die, creating a hole between the vagina and the bladder, and/or between the vagina and the rectum. Fistula patients face lifelong incontinence, chronic pain, and social ostracism.
The condition is virtually unknown in the developed world, where women with obstructed labor have access to cesarean delivery. However, an estimated 2 million women, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, have untreated fistulas with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year. Without reconstructive surgery, these women will be incontinent for life.
Sarah Omega, a fistula survivor from Kenya, tells her story. Omega sustained a fistula when she delivered her first child at the age of 19. She suffered for 12 years before she finally obtained the surgery she needed. As Agnes Odhiambo explains in another installment in the series, fistula is a symptom of a dysfunctional health care system. Women suffer needlessly because they can't get access to quality health care.
The most likely victims of fistula are the most vulnerable members of their respective communities. Early childbearing increases a woman's risk of fistula. Pregnant rape victims may face even greater barriers to a safe delivery, thanks to the social stigma that accrues to victims of sexual violence in many societies. (Not to mention any names, House Republicans...)
Preventing and repairing obstetric fistula is a major human rights issue. The U.S. should make this effort a high priority for foreign aid.
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Tobacco companies must have all their products reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration within the next 10 weeks. A law passed during 2009 gives the FDA authority to regulate tobacco as a drug. The merchandise review is a provision required by that law. To continue selling them, tobacco companies must submit data about items that have been launched or altered since the tobacco regulation law was recommended four years ago. Otherwise they could be considering payday loan as a way to get their merchandise approved.
Many tobacco companies are giving money to regulation for tobacco
Any products from tobacco companies that have been launched or altered since Feb 15, 2007 have to get FDA approval which was meant to get the worst tobacco products off the market. By March 22, tobacco companies must prove to the FDA that cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold today are, in the words of the agency, "substantially equivalent to those marketed prior to that date." Tobacco companies must pay to fund the reviews and any resulting regulatory action. If the ingredients and design of those tobacco products have been altered enough to increase health risks for smokers or encourage non-smokers to smoke, the Food and Drug Administration will ban their sale going forward.
Tobacco becomes more addictive with a secret ingredient
Anti-smoking activists have accused tobacco companies of secretly manipulating tobacco products to make them more addictive and more compelling to children in recent years. The additives in cigarettes are things that the typical user doesn't know is in there. The law has required a full disclosure of ingredients though. For years, this has been the case. Until Wed., tobacco companies were exempt from such needs. A concession won by the tobacco industry lobbyists during debate on the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the FDA can't ban tobacco products outright, but can insist that current and future products aren't more dangerous than those manufactured four years ago.
Out of all United States deaths, the most were from smoking
About 20 percent of adult Americans smoke cigarettes, reports the Centers for Disease Control. Smokeless tobacco is only used by 3 %. The number 1 killer within the U.S. is smoking. Every year, about 443,000 people die. Each and every year you will find 230 new tobacco products introduced, the FDA explains. The number likely won't go down because of regulations Wednesday. Things will change in the future. Other regulation might have to be added to do this.
I have to work fast over the next two days to get you this story, but it is a good one.
We are all aware of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), championed by former Congressman Bob "I'm A Libertarian If It Doesn't Involve Your Penis Or Vagina" Barr; we now have two rulings, released on the same day by the same Federal judge, that will render the Act moot, if they're either upheld throughout the appeals process...or if the Obama Administration decides to end that appeals process right now.
There's a lot of ground to cover, and time is short.
The strategy and legal question that has been buzzing around LGBT circles, and articulated here at OpenLeft by Mark Matson, is whether or not advocates for equality between same-sex and opposite-sex couples should actually be hoping for the Department of Justice to appeal the case to the First Circuit and then the Supreme Court. The reason is because these cases are limited in their effects to the married, same-sex couples residing within Massachusetts borders only, while if the case is appealed and won at the First Circuit, same-sex couples in other states (most notably New Hampshire, which has legalized same-sex marriage, but also a few other states and Puerto Rico) would benefit. And of course, if won at the Supreme Court, it would affect the country.
The answers is complicated. Let me first get into the pathway for equality going forward.
First, let me say the caveat that after speaking with numerous legal experts, it is unlikely that one of the three following events would occur:
1) The Department of Justice declines to appeal.
2) The Department of Justice appeals, and our side wins, but the Department of Justice then declines to appeal to the Supreme Court.
3) The Department of Justice appeals, and our side wins, and the Department of Justice appeals to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court declines to hear the case.
I'm also told #3 is especially unlikely to occur if our side wins at the First Circuit.
With that said, let's say for the sake of argument that one of the three does occur. The question on the table, then, is what is the pathway to equality for married, same-sex couples living in other states not in the First Circuit (either currently with legalized same-sex marriage now, or in the future)?
I spoke on the phone this afternoon with Gary Buseck, the Legal Director at GLAD, and over e-mail with Adam Bonin, the resident legal guru over at DailyKos and an attorney with Cozen O'Connor in Philadelphia. According to them, the pathway would be as follows:
1) Married, same-sex couples in other states/territories would need to experience some form of discrimination similar to what Gill experienced in the GLAD case, e.g. a denial of benefits such as health insurance for her partner that constitutes the federal government having two separate classifications of married couples- one with rights, one without. This is the rationale for the GLAD lawsuit.
2) The couples would need to become plaintiffs in a suit and file in the federal jurisdiction in which they live. This would then route through their own legal system, beginning with the appropriate federal district court and then into the Court of Appeals with jurisdiction over that district.
Alternatively,
1) A state would need to experience the same kind of treatment as Massachusetts did, which under Coakley argued that it was being forced to choose between denial of federal aid and discriminating against its own residents.
2) A state Attorney General would need to file a similar lawsuit on these grounds.
Essentially, go through the same process that has been gone through here, should one of the three situations listed above occur.
And of course, the other avenue to accomplish the same goal is to enact Rep. Nadler's Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the entire DOMA statute, as well as legally extend the same federal rights and recognitions accorded to opposite-sex couples, no matter the state in which they are residing.
Now, does having to go through the legal maneuvers, plus the pain of continued discrimination, overpayment in taxes, having to buy one's own health insurance, denial of certain Social Security benefits, etc. while the cases are working their way through the system, constitute a reason to hope that the Department of Justice appeals so that the effects of the ruling can be expanded across the nation?
That may be the wrong question to ask. Aside from it being unlikely for one of the three situations to come true, it appears unlikely that the SCOTUS will not hear this case, sooner or later.
I say that for three reasons Gary and I worked through. One, it's not likely that one by one, a lawsuit or lawsuits will work its way through each of this country's twelve circuits (not including the Federal Circuit, which only does patent law) over the next few decades, and every single time the federal government declines to appeal. Nor is it likely that if the government does, that every single time the SCOTUS declines to hear them. If we lose at one, it's also not likely to happen for a second reason, which Gary pointed out to me- where there is a conflict in circuit court rulings- e.g., we win at the 1st Circuit but the 9th Circuit decides differently- that is often where the SCOTUS decides to step in. A third reason it's also not likely is because if our side prevails, I'm told it's more likely the SCOTUS will hear the case than if we lose.
So, when it comes to advocates for equality, there are definitely downsides to the government not appealing. On the other hand, this seems to be a road that has an end at the SCOTUS anyway, sooner or later. With that point of view, what would matter in determining whether or not to hope for appeal is your view of how friendly the SCOTUS is, now versus in the future. Which may be the better question to ask.
Hi all. Welcome back to The One About....'s special weekend feature, The One About Book Club. For those of you who are new readers to The One About...., let me recap for you. On the weekends I write in depth about a book that I feel is of significance to Progressives, looking at one or more chapters per post. For the complete introduction to the project you can go here. My pick to inaugurate this project is The 48 Laws Of Power. So far I've offered an introduction and overview of the book, and written about Chapters(or in keeping with the tone of the book Laws) 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 5 and 6. So I bet you can guess what comes next.
Well here we are again. I wasn't sure at first if there was going to be an installment as for most of the morning my 'Net access was down. But here we are. Yesterday I talked about Laws 3 and 4, and now without further Apu....
Welcome back to the special weekend edition of The One About...., known as The One About Book Club. Currently at The Book Club I'm taking an in depth look at The 48 Laws Of Power. Last week I offered an over view of the book, and delved into the first two chapters, or Laws. Today I'll be looking at Laws 3 and 4, and tomorrow Laws 5 and 6.
The refrain from Washington has been that we need to look forward and not investigate credible allegations of wrongdoing. Such an approach has become something of a Beltway tradition, but this time it looks especially perverse.
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
Have we developed into a country that has one set of rules for the people at the top of the ladder and another for the rest of us? Or perhaps a special set of rules for Republicans and their cronies - IOKIYAR - and a completely different set of rules for Democrats?
I think the original model for "special set of rules" was Richard Nixon. When Nixon was pardoned the whole country learned that you can get away with things if you have enough power. You had to be there. It wasn't just about "Watergate," it was about corrupting the entire system, breaking every rule, taking every bribe, starting illegal wars, spying on and using the power of government against your political opponents -- you name it the country by then knew that the Nixon administration had done it.
And then a few years later, Nixon explained, ""When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
Sounds like an overall model for the Bush administration.
OK, that was a funny line, but think about it. If Nixon had not been pardoned, would the corruption of the Reagan administration have occurred?
"By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."
- Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years, by Haynes Johnson
As I said above, you had to be there. These were not political prosecutions - Democrats just don't do that - these were the ones who were so bad that it just could not be ignored. (One example: the Secretary of something was prosecuted for mob activities, and found not guilty after witnesses were murdered before they could testify. Not that they were connected or anything.)
After Reagan was caught going around Congress' express instructions and sending arms to Iran the investigation was blocked and the perpetrators let loose. The crimes were investigated by Iran/Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh who was blocked at every turn:
"Walsh recognized that many of the appeals judges held a "continuing political allegiance" to the conservative Federalist Society, an organization dedicated to purging liberalism from the federal courts.
"It reminded me of the communist front groups of the 1940s and 1950s, whose members were committed to the communist cause and subject to communist direction but were not card-carrying members of the Communist Party," Walsh wrote."
Walsh's investigation ended when Bush I pardoned all the potential witnesses against him.
So just as the corruption of Nixon set the stage for the corruption of Reagan/Bush, Reagan/Bush getting away with the most serious - and public - abuses of the Constitution and democracy set the stage for the political witch hunts against Clinton. And it all set the stage for the Bush administration.
So far the Bush administration is clean off the hook for pretty much everything they did. What does that tell us about what the next Republican administration will be like?
In political circles, we sometimes use the phrase "police state," to describe losses of civil liberties or the encroachment of penal processes into our lives. But how does such a thing manifest in our every day experience? Some would point to the all-too-casual use of electric shock devices by legal authorities.
Lawlessness is typically associated with Molotov cocktail-throwing anarchists, but a far more threatening variety has been methodically implemented at the top levels of our government
For more on pruning back executive power see Pruning Shears.
In a 5-4 en-banc ruling, the US 4th Circuit ruled that the President has authority to arrest and indefinitely detain US citizens, or whomever (s)he should designate as an "enemy combatant" even in US soil proper.
In a different 5-4 decision though (one judge flipped), they ruled the particular complainant had not been given an appropriate hearing in which to challenge his status as an "enemy combatant."
Before I analyze some aspects of this party line and fairly contemptible ruling, let me use this opportunity to visually remind everyone what is at stake with this election as this picture becomes ever more red:
The US congress has been updating its surveillance policies again and has finally succeeded in removing the last shred of civil liberties based upon prior law. There are a few groups which understand the importance of ensuring the privacy of the average person and have been objecting to the wholesale intrusion on this privacy, but I think this is not the most important violation.
For example, there is some concern about getting a court-issued warrant before surveillance can take place. This is based upon the provision in the fourth amendment:
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
However, in practice this is a sham requirement. The FISA court set up to "protect" the rights of those being spied upon has approved all but a handful of such requests, so whether a warrant is "required" these days makes no difference in practice.
At a time when our constitution is in such crisis, the symptoms of which can be seen in every aspect of our politics and our government, there is one quote that sticks out to me above all others:
"I don't know if we have had a president that knows as much about the founding document as he does." - Professor Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago
By a 7-2 majority, the Supreme Court effectively restored sentencing authority in Federal cases to judges. The effect of the opinion is that District Court judges now have the leeway to use the 1984 Sentencing Reform Act as a guideline instead of the rule, allowing discretion on sentencing to return to judges for the first time in 23 years.
This is particularly encouraging:
One decision was particularly emphatic in saying judges are free to disagree with guidelines that call for much longer sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine than for crimes involving an equivalent amount of cocaine in powdered form.
The effect of this can't be overstated. Now, in federal cases, sentences will be made on a case-by-case basis, instead of applying draconian and arbitrary Federal guidelines that are often quite cruel and unjust, contributing heavily to overcrowding prisons with non-violent drug offenders. While this will not affect state cases, it is a significant signpost in a trend moving away from arbitrary sentencing statutes that crowd prisons, ruin lives, and insult justice.
UPDATE: See TalkLeft for a some insightful discussion of the opinion http://www.talkleft....
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