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Politics

Toby Keith joins LL Cool J in shock at being used for Palin’s Fox News show.

By Amanda Terkel on Mar 31, 2010 at 10:35 pm

Toby Keith Fox News has been promoting Sarah Palin’s first episode of “Real American Stories,” set to air on Thursday, with “In Their Own Words” segments featuring celebrities talking about their lives. Last night on Twitter, rapper LL Cool J objected to being included in the show, saying that Fox was “misrepresenting” one of his interviews from 2008 (which was not conducted by Palin). LL Cool J’s spokesperson said that the interview “was being repurposed without LL’s permission.” Fox ended up cutting LL Cool J’s interview out of Palin’s show. Now, country singer Toby Keith, another person featured in the “In Their Own Words” segments, is also upset at being caught off guard:

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Elaine Schock, a publicist for Mr. Keith said: “I have no idea what interview they are using. Toby’s talked to Fox a number of times, and I had no idea that this was going to be on Sarah Palin’s special. Fox has never contacted me — not now, not when they were putting this together, not at all. I have no idea what they’re using.” [...]

In a subsequent email message, Ms. Schock said that the interview with Mr. Keith likely happened in early 2009. Asked if Mr. Keith was ever interviewed by Ms. Palin, Ms. Schock said, “Absolutely not.”

A Fox News executive is claiming that the network e-mailed Schock on Monday “to report our show is finally going to air,” but Schock says she never received the message. “The last email I have from them is from January, 2009,” she said, adding, “I’m not saying Fox did not email me. Maybe they spelled my name wrong. I’m just saying I never got an email or a phone call from them.”

Security

‘De-Radicalizing’ — Or Just Cutting Deals With Terrorists?

By Peter Juul, Guest Blogger on Mar 31, 2010 at 8:40 pm

gaddafiI’m back in Washington and pretty much recovered from traveling to and from Libya for a conference on that country’s terrorist rehabilitation program. I should note that the trip would have been impossible until 2006, when the United States restored diplomatic relations with Libya after a 27-year break and following a two-and-a-half year diplomatic process. While the trip itself felt like an extended advertisement for Libya’s heir apparent, Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, it’s worth noting that the terrorists who have gone through Libya’s rehabilitation program don’t seem to have de-radicalized so much as they have simply made a deal with the Libyan government not to fight against Tripoli anymore. There was no categorical renunciation of violence, rather one limited to a renunciation of violence against the Qaddafi regime and the Libyan state.

For one, the religious scholar who oversees the rehabilitation program, Sheikh Ali Salabi, evaded questions from the assembled group of foreign scholars and think-tankers about the new religious views he had promoted among militants on the permissibility of fighting against the United States or any other “occupier” in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.

Second, for the most part, the militants we were able to talk to did, in fact, have conditions that would lead them to take up violence against the Libyan state again. Combined with Salabi’s evasions on the question of fighting elsewhere and their own familiar criticisms of U.S. policy in the Middle East, I got the impression that these militants haven’t so much as made some sort of intellectual conversion into renouncing violence as a method of political change as they have constructed an intellectual edifice justifying a deal with the Libyan government.

This perception seemed to be confirmed by the rambling lecture given us by the head of Libya’s internal security organization, where he claimed that the militants had recognized the error of their interpretation of Islam and the truth of Qaddafi’s own interpretation. Also included in the security chief’s remarks were several gratuitous attacks on secularism, as well as bizarre claims that there were no “infidels” in Libya and that Libya had ideal religious freedom since it is governed by Qaddafi’s correct interpretation of Islam.

There’s a certain irony to the way the Libyans presented their claims to fronting a successful terrorist rehabilitation program – they were employing the very means the terrorists used to justify violence against the regime. That is, the presenters claimed that the group had an incorrect and false interpretation of Islam – which is exactly what the militant group claimed of the Libyan government to justify rebelling against it. So the program remains stuck in a narrow and futile debate of what is or is not “true Islam.”

This view was confirmed, to me at least, by the press conference marking the release of some 200-plus prisoners from Libyan prisons we were trucked off to following the security chief’s presentation. Both Saif al-Islam Qaddafi’s opening remarks and the militants’ were conducted in the same narrow space of religion, and the militants included some remarks on the Danish Mohammad cartoon controversy that could only be interpreted as blackmail – i.e., don’t offend us or we’ll start blowing things up again.

Combined, these remarks signaled to me a narrowing of the ideological distance between the regime and the militants. It’d be wrong to say the regime is “giving in” in some sense to the religious ideology of the militants since Qaddafi has always incorporated religion into his eccentric and idiosyncratic ideology, but I did get the sense both the government and militants were determined to keep acceptable political discourse in the narrow confines of religion.

Finally, the next day we went to the Libyan prison where a large number of these prisoners were being held to witness their release. Of the 200-plus prisoners released, an official told us, some 85 had been detained either in Iraq or in transit to fight there. Combined with the previous day’s experiences and evasiveness we received on the question of Libyans fighting abroad, I came to the conclusion that these prisoners haven’t been de-radicalized at all; rather, they have simply been induced by means unknown to give up (at least for now) violence in Libya and against the Qaddafi regime. (As Human Rights Watch noted, a number of the prisoners released had been held arbitrarily by the Libyan regime even after formal acquittal by the court system.) They still hold radical political views but have decided, temporarily at least, not to implement those views by violence domestically.

Labeling this rehabilitation program a “deradicalization” program is a misnomer that plays upon the faulty and quite frankly bigoted division of people of Muslim religious background into “radicals” (people who blow stuff up) and “moderates” (people who don’t blow stuff up). Either way, if you’re born into a Muslim religious background, this view implies, we view you as intrinsically and essentially conservative and concerned above all else with your presumed religion.

This view is reactionary, and cedes the political playing field to religious conservatives and regional dictators. Neither the United States nor progressives should make such a concession to the agendas of these players.

Justice

Army Chief Of Staff Claims Forces Oppose Repealing DADT, Overstates Complications Of Repeal

By Igor Volsky on Mar 31, 2010 at 7:50 pm

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates — after 1,260 days in office in which more than 2,000 people have been discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) — belatedly issued more lenient guidelines for enforcing the policy that prohibits gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military. The new rules represent the first significant step by the administration in addressing the policy, but they’re not necessarily an indication of how committed the military is to repealing DADT. In fact, some military leaders, including Gates, continue to insist that Congress should not change the policy or impose a moratorium on discharges before the Pentagon completes its year-long review. Others, like Marine Commandant James Conway and General Benjamin Mixon are publicly opposing repeal.

On Tuesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey — who testified last month that a moratorium would complicate the Pentagon’s study — said that “any resistance must be understood and addressed in order for a potential repeal to be effectively implemented,” suggesting that the military would slow-walk the process. “You get a sense that, at least within the Army, a little better than half the force is probably opposed to the repeal right now, given what they know,” Casey told CQ in an interview:

In his most extensive comments yet on the issue of gays in the military, the Army chief said the opposition to allowing gays to serve openly runs deep and needs to be approached carefully. He said he fears a repeal could even result in some midcareer personnel — the service’s backbone — retiring prematurely. But he also allowed that education and leadership can help allay fear and uncertainty about a possible change.

“What I worry about is you’ve got a force that’s already been stretched and been at war for eight-and-a-half years,” he said. “The young company commanders and midlevel non-commissioned officers — the ones who would have to implement this policy — when I talk to them, they’re kind of in the mode of, ‘My God, what else do you want us to do right now?’ Those are the folks that are frankly the ones that are most at risk. If the midlevel and non-commissioned officers start walking, they’re the ones that take a decade to grow. I don’t want to overdo that, but that’s a possibility.”

But Casey’s concerns of mass resignations are unsubstantiated. “Studies done by and for the Pentagon for the past 50 years and the experiences of our closest allies, like the British, Canadians, and the Israelis, demonstrate that allowing openly gay people to serve will not undermine unit cohesion or military readiness” or lead to mass resignations. Moreover, the personal opinions of military members — who already serve alongside gay and lesbian soldiers — should not determine the policy. As Rep. Susan Davis’ (D-CA) explained, we have previously desegregated the armed forces despite the military’s opposition to integration and allowed women in without regard to military or public opinion. “It’s not usual for us to go to the military and to have necessarily them believe that their personal feelings are going to determine the policy that moves forward,” she said. They should be surveyed, but they should not be determinative.

If anything almost all of the polls show that a growing number of servicemembers have no problem serving with openly gay or lesbian troops:

- 73% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans say it is “personally acceptable to them if gay and lesbian people were allowed to serve openly in the military.” [The Vet Voice Foundation, 3/2010]

- 51% of active-duty troops oppose allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the military, down from nearly two-thirds 65% in 2004. [Military Times, 2/2010]

- 73% of military members are comfortable with lesbians and gays. [Zogby Poll, 12/2006]

As CAP’s Larry Korb argues in the Huffington Post, Gates “must speed up the work of the high-level group that is examining the administrative and legal changes that must be made when DADT is repealed and drop his opposition to Congress replacing DADT until the Pentagon completes its year-long review. There is no plausible reason that it needs to take a year to make the changes necessary to implement DADT or why it is necessary to complete the review before repealing the law.” “Gates and Mullen must push back not only on statements like those made by Mixon and Conway, but those of commanders like General David Petraeus, who said he was withholding judgment on whether to drop the ban until he sees the impact on recruitment and retention. That day is past,” Korb writes.

Fortunately, some military officials seem to have already adopted this line of thinking. Army Secretary John McHugh said today that he’s interpreting Gates’ new guidelines as a de facto moratorium on third-party discharges and promised not to take action against members who have have told him they are gay.

Health

WellPoint Reclassifies Costs As ‘Medical Care’ To Meet Reform’s Medical Loss Ratio Requirement

By Igor Volsky on Mar 31, 2010 at 7:15 pm

Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly

Wellpoint CEO Angela Braly

The health care law tries to control premium costs and insurer profits in the period between now and 2014 in two big ways: 1) it requires insurers to spent a certain percentage of their dollars on medical care and 2) it allows the Department of Health and Human Services to work with the states to disqualify insurers with outrageous rate hikes from participating in the exchanges.

But many health care policy wonks have warned lawmakers that that law does not go far enough in actually enforcing these rules and they argue that insurers will likely game the system. Already, Aetna and Cigna have announced that they plan to jack up rates in the short term and now, Consumer Reports is calling for an investigation into WellPoint in light of an electronic message the company sent “to investors describing how it would simply re-label administrative costs as ‘medical care’ in response to the new health reform law.”

In the March 17th message, WellPoint — the nation’s largest insurance company — announced that it has reclassified some of its administrative costs as medical spending in order to increase its medical loss ratio (MLR, a techinical terms which measures how much insurers spend on administrative spending v claims). The ratio is closely monitored by Wall Street investors and the new health reform law “requires that insurers spend at least 80% of customers’ premiums on medical care in the individual insurance market, and 85% in the employer/group market.” Here is how WellPoint put it:

“WellPoint’s (WLP) medical cost ratio should rise and its overhead-expense ratio decline this year as the insurer reclassifies various types of costs. Disease management, medical management and a nurse hotline, for example, ‘are being reclassified because they represent additional benefits provided to our members,’ representative says. They’ll now be part of the medical cost ratio, the percentage of premium revenue used to pay members’ health-care costs. These are claims-related costs incurred to improve member health and medical outcomes, WLP says. Accounting rules allow the changes, which better align MCR with anticipated health reform guidelines, Stifel Nicolaus says.”

Wellpoint is heavily invested in the individual health insurance market and has been among the most aggressive in opposing reform and skirting state regulations. In fact, the company has paid millions in fines for canceling individual health policies of pregnant women and chronically ill patients, illegally rescinding policies, denying prescription drugs to the elderly, and committing “serious violations that completely undermine the public trust in our healthcare delivery system.” In the fourth quarter of this year, net profits jumped to $2.74 billion from $331.4 million — mostly because the company sold a subsidiary — and CEO Angela Barly admitted that the company dramatically increased rates in the California individual health insurance market to ensure adequate profits. Meanwhile, the percentage of revenue spent on providing medical care, or medical loss ratio, “dropped to 82.6% from last year’s 83.6%.”

So while, WellPoint’s desire to skirt regulations may not come as a surprise, the story highlights just how vulnerable the MLR metric is to manipulation. As I noted here, establishing a medical-loss ratio still allows insurers to shift a disproportionate amount of premium dollars into profits. If anything, plans could pay more for certain services (to meet the benchmark), exclude certain benefits from coverage (benefits which would attract a sicker risk pool), or in the case of WellPoint, reclassify some administrative services as medical care and still meet the mark without necessarily providing more care.

As James C. Robinson points out in this Health Affairs article, “High ratios can be achieved either through a large numerator (high medical expenditures) or through a small denominator (low insurance premiums).” In 2007, for instance, 6 of the 7 largest publicly-traded health insurers reported that their profits increased by 10%, while their medical loss ratios also went up.

All of this suggests that regulators are going to have to be careful in how they define medical expenses and will need to “review the math on insurer medical loss ratios and premium calculations.”

Security

Steele Pledges To Enlist Another Republican In Support Of Immigration Reform

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Mar 31, 2010 at 6:35 pm

USA-POLITICS/REPUBLICANSThe Center for Community Change’s Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) released a statement this afternoon announcing that leaders from their group met with Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to discuss the future of comprehensive immigration reform in the Republican Party. According to FIRM, advocates left the meeting with a “commitment from Steele to work with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the party’s leadership to enlist another Republican senator’s support for comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform.” The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) was one of the groups represented at the meeting and issued a separate release:

Chairman Steele understands the short- and long-term importance of the immigrant vote to the Republican Party. He expressed support for bipartisan, holistic immigration reform, and understood the need for the party to tone down the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the debate. He agreed to speak today with U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to see how he could help move immigration reform forward…We are grateful for the time Chairman Steele spent with us today—but we will judge the value of this meeting based on what the Republican Party actually does on immigration reform.

Marissa Graciosa, FIRM’s director, was more blunt. “Basically, the leaders outed the Republican strategy of trying to obstruct comprehensive immigration reform by blaming Obama,” Graciosa told Wonk Room. “They made it clear that we’re not going to let a Party who doesn’t lift a finger off the hook,” said Graciosa. Graciosa also indicated that the groups expect the RNC to issue a statement to its members in support of immigration reform.

The fact that Steele even expressed interest in pursuing immigration reform represents a welcomed turnaround. In 2007, Steele absurdly opposed giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants on the basis that they might register to vote. He also referred to the 2007 immigration bill as “amnesty” and affirmed in 2008 that there would be no change in the Republican Party’s enforcement-only immigration approach.

Steele’s cooperation could also signal a possible change in the RNC’s official policy. The 2008 RNC platform offered enforcement-only solutions and stated that the RNC opposed “en masse legalizations.” Since an earned path to legalization for the majority of the nation’s undocumented population is a central tenet of comprehensive immigration reform, getting an RNC chairman on-board is a critical step forward on the issue as a whole.

However, as ICIRR pointed out in its press release, actions speak louder than words. Currently, Graham has left immigration reform at the feet of the Obama administration and indicated that it’s up to the White House to do the “heavy-lifting.” However, in the end, it’s up to Congress to deliver the votes. Immigration reform has always demanded bipartisanship and that means Graham, Steele, and other GOP leaders are going to have to do some heavy lifting themselves if they are truly committed to the issue. Also, given the fact that Steele’s relationship with Republican leaders in Congress is reportedly “not good at all,” it’s mostly up to Graham to stop finger-pointing and start getting members of his own Party to come around.

Politics

Army Secretary says Gates has placed a de facto moratorium on DADT discharges.

By Guest Blogger on Mar 31, 2010 at 6:30 pm

john-mchughIn recent congressional hearings, some top U.S. military brass debated the effectiveness of a moratorium on military discharges related to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy. “I would recommend against it, it would complicate the whole process … implementing while we were studying it,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said. However, Army Secretary John McHugh said today that the Department of Defense has basically implemented a de facto moratorium on discharges as the Army working group considers its review of the DADT. He said that while Defense Secretary Robert Gates hasn’t explicitly stated so, it was a “reasonable assumption” to make. He added that although several active-duty servicemembers have told him they are gay, he hasn’t taken any action:

“The secretary of the Army is probably not going to go out and initiate an action against an individual soldier who, in the conversation about how do you feel about ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ identified themselves as gay,” McHugh said during a breakfast with reporters. “I just thought it would be counterproductive … in engaging the force to take disciplinary action against someone who had spoken to me openly and honestly.”

McHugh himself agreed with Casey last month during the hearings, saying that “any number of current cases would be greatly complicated” by a moratorium. Top Democrats, who support repealing DADT, have questioned whether a review of the policy would be effective if discharges were to continue. They have also signaled their willingness to draft a legislative solution should the problem remain unaddressed.

– Nick McClellan

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 31, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Blow like Hootie:

— “One primatologist speculated that the real reason two male orangutans were fellating each other was nutritional.”

— The Affordable Care Act is only unconstitutional in a make-believe sense; in terms of actual law it’s in the clear.

— Interview with Elinor Olstrom.

— Upgrading internet privacy law.

— START math.

— Hilda Solis doin’ work.

Notorious B.I.G. vs The XX, “Mo Stars Mo Problems”

Economy

Bank Regulator Flips, Now Supports An Independent Consumer Protection Agency

By Pat Garofalo on Mar 31, 2010 at 5:51 pm

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan

Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan

For months, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — led by John “master of disaster” Dugan — has been lobbying against the creation of an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The OCC is responsible for regulating nationally chartered banks, and was instrumental in allowing pernicious subprime lending to spread by exempting national banks from predatory lending laws in many states.

Up to this point, the OCC has been parroting the banking industry’s line that an independent CFPA would undermine bank “safety and soundness.” Dugan has been particularly vocal with his opposition, saying that the current consumer protection system “works fine.” He even reacted to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) regulatory reform legislation by saying “in every case consumer protection has the edge and will trump safety and soundness and I think that is backwards.”

But today, as Shahien Nasiripour reported, the OCC has abruptly changed positions and now supports creating an independent agency:

The OCC’s position on the proposal has “evolved over time” from one of minimal support with several caveats to one in which they now are “very much in favor of,” deputy comptroller for public affairs Robert M. Garsson told the Huffington Post on Tuesday…“It’s unlikely there will be any meaningful conflicts between safety and soundness and consumer protection,” Garsson said. “The potential for conflicts is very rare.”

With this “evolution,” the OCC is joining the growing consensus among current and former regulators that having a separate consumer protection agency will not undermine bank safety and soundness. “I cannot recall a meeting I sat in where we worried about consumer protection and looked at safety and soundness and said the two are in conflict so how do we solve this,” said Kevin Jacques, a former OCC official. “I would love to see one regulator provide a concrete example where safety and soundness and consumer protection are in conflict and it caused some difficulty. I can’t think of one.”

“In my experience I do not recall seeing a case where a consumer protection regulation was found to pose a threat to safe and sound operations of the banks,” added Brad Sabel, a former New York Federal Reserve Bank official. Of course, even the banks themselves don’t really buy that a CFPA would undermine their soundness. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out yesterday, back in 2006 the banks were arguing that it would be too confusing to combine consumer protection and bank regulation, and that the problem was “best addressed by separating them.”

So why did the OCC flip? Is it the scathing New York Times piece that was published this week? Or was it pressure from the Obama administration, since the OCC is technically a division of Treasury, yet was going around and bashing an administration priority?

Whatever the case, I’m still skeptical that the OCC is really on board with a consumer protection entity that will have enough independence to be effective; it may just be positioning itself to water-down the agency’s power somewhere down the road. But at least the OCC is willing to be one more voice acknowledging that the banks’ main argument against creating the agency is bunk.

Climate Progress

Northeast hit by record global-warming-type deluge

By Joe Romm on Mar 31, 2010 at 5:39 pm

U.S. media misses the story, while “China spends big to counter severe weather caused by climate change”

It’s pretty remarkable that we are having record rainfall and record flooding in the cold season month of March. It’s much easier to set records in August, when there is much more moisture in the air available for record rains.

Photo detail

The Northeast has been walloped with record-smashing deluges and flooding.

I have called this type of rapid deluge, “global warming type” record rainfall, since it is one of the most basic predictions of climate science “” and it’s an impact that has already been documented to have started, as I’ll discuss.

Read more

Yglesias

Corker Admits Affordable Care Act Won’t Be Repealed

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 31, 2010 at 5:31 pm

File-Bob_Corker,_official_Senate_photo,_09-21-07

This may be a little too much reality for the modern-day right:

“The fact is that’s not going to happen, OK?” Corker told dozens of people at Vanderbilt University.

Still, Corker made clear his opposition to the legislation and spoke in favor of continued, incremental legislative reform in future years to correct problems he foresees.

Then on to his substantive views, which are ridiculous:

The Tennessee Republican criticized the legislation as costly, however, doubting that changes to Medicare, for instance, would yield savings to make reform budget neutral. He expressed support for protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but said reform as it stands will squeeze out private insurance.

I’m not sure if this is sloppy thinking or sloppy paraphrase, but the issue with Medicare is whether or not congress is actually willing to let the scheduled changes take effect. It’s fair enough for journalists to express “doubt” about this, but Bob Corker is a United States Senator. He either intends to work to ensure that scheduled money-saving changes will take effect, or else he intends to work to ensure that scheduled money-saving changes will not take effect. He doesn’t get to just offer random predictions.

Meanwhile, for the thousandth time once you concede that insurers shouldn’t be allowed to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, then you have no choice but to adopt the mandate/subsidy framework. There’s no other way to make it work. And how on earth will a plan that creates no alternative to private insurance “squeeze out private insurance”? Or did Corker miss the months-long highly public argument about the public option?

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