Obama Suggests Raising Medicare Eligibility Age Is On The Table In Fiscal Cliff Talks

By Igor Volsky on Dec 11, 2012 at 6:45 pm

President Obama didn’t rule out raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 as part of a comprehensive package to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff,” during an interview with ABC News on Tuesday.

Obama told Barbara Walters that keeping younger seniors out of the health care program is “something that’s been floated” and didn’t immediately reject the idea:

“When you look at the evidence, it’s not clear that it actually saves a lot of money,” he said. “But what I’ve said is let’s look at every avenue, because what is true is we need to strengthen Social Security, we need to strengthen Medicare for future generations, the current path is not sustainable because we’ve got an aging population and health care costs are shooting up so quickly.”

Indeed, the idea — which has been floated by Republicans demanding “painful” cuts in the Medicare program — would only save the federal government a net $5.7 billion, while shifting an added $11.4 billion in health care spending to states, employers, and individuals.

A report released by the Center for American Progress on Tuesday found that if lawmakers were to raise the eligibility age to 67, as many as 5.4 million 65- and 66-year-olds would have to search for alternative sources of coverage by postponing retirement, enrolling in private insurance, or qualifying for Medicaid.

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Economy

Michigan Governor Signs Union Busting Bills Behind Closed Doors

By Igor Volsky on Dec 11, 2012 at 6:12 pm

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) announced during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon that he had privately signed into law so-called “right-to-work” legislation, despite mass protests from unions. The measure would allow public and private union members to opt out of paying union dues, while benefiting from union contracts. It does not apply to existing union contracts.

Snyder attributed his sudden (and unexpected) push for the measure earlier last week to unions themselves, who unsuccessfully sought to pass a constitutional amendment (known as Proposition 2) voiding “existing and future laws restricting workers’ ability to organize unions, or to negotiate and enforce collective bargaining agreements, including employees’ financial support of their labor unions.” The governor argued that this failed effort divided the public and brought the issue to a head.

“I don’t believe we wouldn’t be standing here in this timeframe if it hadn’t been for Proposition 2 moving ahead,” Snyder said. “If you look at what clearly happened after the election, there was an extreme escalation in discussions on right-to-work that was very divisive. And so the divisiveness was there. And my view is, since it’s here, let’s step up, take some leadership, take a position and get an answer.” Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers, however, were surprised and caught off guard by Snyder’s sudden push for legislation, though the move that was supported by the Koch-funded Americans For Prosperity.

Challenged by a reporter as to why he signed the right-to-work legislation behind closed doors, Snyder again faulted union organizers. “It’s one of those things, there were a number of people out protesting. So I don’t see the need to have a public ceremony to over-emphasize that.”

Michigan voters may now seek to repeal the bill through a state ballot initiative.

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Health

Rick Perry: Outlawing All Access To Abortion Is ‘My Goal’

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:50 pm

At a press conference on Tuesday organized by the anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) reaffirmed that his ultimate legislative objective is to restrict all women’s access to abortion services.

Members of Texas Right to Life are currently pushing their state’s legislators to pass a “fetal pain” bill that would ban abortions after just 20 weeks — despite the fact that there’s no scientific evidence that fetuses can actually feel pain at that point. As the Huffington Post reports, Perry not only enthusiastically endorsed such a measure, but also confirmed his “goal” to continue passing restrictive legislation to limit women’s Constitutional right to choose:

To be clear, my goal, and the goal of many of those joining me here today, is to make abortion, at any stage, a thing of the past. While Roe v. Wade prevents us from taking that step, it does allow states to do some things to protect life if they can show there is a compelling state interest. I don’t think there is any issue that better fits the definition of ‘compelling state interest’ than preventing the suffering of our state’s unborn. [...]

Again, the ideal world is a world without abortion. Until then, however, we will continue to pass laws to ensure abortions are as rare as possible under existing law.

Perry does not support legal abortion access for women who have become impregnated from rape or incest, a far-right position that cost several anti-choice candidates their seats in last month’s election.

The governor has already taken significant steps toward accomplishing his goal in Texas. He has signed a bill requiring women seeking abortions to undergo a mandatory ultrasound — the same type of legislation that the Oklahoma Supreme Court recently ruled unconstitutional because it goes too far to restrict women’s right to legal abortion under Roe v. Wade — and is working hard to defund the Planned Parenthood clinics that provide reproductive services to low-income women across the state.

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Justice

GOP Consultant: Voter ID, Longer Lines Are Partisan Strategy

By Aviva Shen on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:45 pm

On Monday, the Pew Center on the States hosted an election post-mortem conference to discuss voting issues. During one panel focused on the long lines and voting difficulties many Americans faced this election, Republican campaign consultant Scott Tranter laughed off the idea that bipartisan support for election reform could ever be achieved. Tranter noted that, as campaign staffers, “we want to do everything we can to help our sides,” even when that means longer lines or voter ID laws:

I don’t hold out any hope that there’s going to be any grand bipartisan agreement on voter ID laws, or you know, Internet voting or whatever it may be to alleviate some of these problems, because at the end of the day, a lot of us are campaign professionals and we want to do everything we can to help our sides. Sometimes we think that’s voter ID, sometimes we think that’s longer lines, whatever it may be.

Watch it:

Tranter, whose data consulting company was hired by Mitt Romney’s campaign, conceded that he believed elections officials needed to be better prepared to minimize problems, and suggested he supports more polling locations per precincts. Still, his unguarded remark revealed that GOP campaign staffers think of voter ID laws and longer lines as simply a component in campaign strategy.

Tranter’s comments fall in line with admissions made by other Republicans that their motives for pushing new election laws are less than pristine. Florida Republicans recently conceded that new changes to election laws, which led to 6-hour lines at the polls, were intended to suppress Democratic and minority votes. Even earlier in the election cycle, Pennsylvania House Leader Mike Turzai (R-PA) championed the state’s voter ID law because it was “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.” The voter ID law was invalidated for the 2012 election, and Governor Romney did not win the state.

Watch the full clip at C-SPAN.

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LGBT

Why Anti-Smoking Campaigns Need To Focus Their Efforts On The LGBT Community

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:15 pm

A new report from the Legacy Foundation highlights the lack of structural support within the public health community to combat the disproportionately high rates of smoking among LGBT individuals. Despite the fact that members of the LGBT community are about twice as likely to smoke as their heterosexual counterparts — largely due to minority stress, but also because the tobacco industry has specifically targeted LGBT Americans in their marketing campaigns over the past decade — Legacy notes that mainstream anti-smoking campaigns still tend to lack adequate LGBT representation to ensure their messages are having an impact on that population.

And the LGBT community itself doesn’t have enough infrastructure and capacity to address issues of tobacco use either, partly because LGBT leaders often don’t cite smoking as a pressing health concern for the members of their community. But high rates of smoking — and the subsequent increased risks of asthma attacks, lung cancer, and heart disease — is putting a strain on the well-being of LGBT Americans. According to some estimates, tobacco use causes at least 30,000 gay and lesbian deaths each year (PDF).

“It’s very likely that smoking is the single greatest health issue stealing years off the lives of LGBT people,” Dr. Scout, the director of the Network for LGBT Health Equity, explains in video that Legacy produced to accompany the report. “More LGBT civil rights leaders’ voices have been silenced by tobacco disparities than any other single thing. For me, tobacco is one of the biggest social justice issues.”

Legacy’s video also features Bil Browning, editor of The Bilerico Project, who chronicles his personal struggle to quit smoking. Watch it:

Although the CDC has directed a few of its anti-smoking advertisements at LGBT populations, Legacy’s report recommends that public health organizations can continue to improve their engagement with the LGBT community by focusing more of their research specifically on LGBT smokers and designing their smoking cessation campaigns with LGBT-inclusive messages. And since Big Tobacco currently targets LBGT individuals partly by sponsoring campaigns and events in the community — cultivating a false sense of being allied with LGBT causes — Legacy notes that the public health sector could also step up by providing the LGBT community with alternatives to tobacco industry funding.

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Health

Why Congress Shouldn’t Delay Obamacare’s Funding Sources Without Finding New Solutions To Finance Reform

By Sy Mukherjee on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:10 pm

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 17 Democratic senators and senators-elect have joined Republicans in calling for a delay on Obamacare’s 2.3 percent surtax on most medical devices.

Device manufacturers have been trying to get the tax onto the chopping block as part of budget negotiations over the so-called “fiscal cliff,” setting up a showdown with the White House over an important Obamacare funding mechanism that proponents say will be balanced out by an influx of newly-insured, paying Americans into the health care market:

The Democrats’ support could give new momentum to the industry’s intense lobbying campaign to repeal or delay the 2.3% tax on device sales, which companies say will hurt profits and lead to U.S. job losses. However, they face a battle because other Democrats, as well as the White House, oppose any postponement.

“It’s already law; they’re not going to budge on that,” said Bart Stupak, the former Democratic congressman who is now an attorney at Washington law firm Venable LLP.

The tax, part of the health-care overhaul bill passed in 2010, is expected to generate $30 billion over the next 10 years to help pay for expanded health insurance. Along with the device industry, the law also placed new taxes and cost-cutting measures on the pharmaceutical, hospital and insurance industries under the premise that the newly insured will translate into new customers.

But as ThinkProgress has previously reported, repealing or delaying the device tax could prove to be a bad deal for Americans if Congress does not find an effective, alternative revenue source for funding Obamacare’s vast insurance expansion. While it is important for the tax to be applied in a way that doesn’t burden patients, hospitals, and smaller manufacturers, delaying the tax simply means putting off establishing reliable funding sources for Obamacare.

$30 billion over the next decade — which the health reform law will use to extend coverage to previously uninsured Americans through the state-level health exchanges and the Medicaid expansion — isn’t going to come out of thin air. And Congress’s mercurial approach to budgeting doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in lawmakers’ ability to make difficult fiscal decisions. Since the health reform law already imposes taxes on wealthier Americans and consumers who purchase top-of-the-line insurance plans, Congress will either have to get creative or get on board with raising more Obamacare revenue to avoid raising the cost of Americans’ health care.

The Republican-led House has already voted to repeal the device tax.

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Economy

Women Haven’t Gained A Larger Share Of Corporate Board Seats In Seven Years

By Pat Garofalo on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:00 pm

In addition to grappling with a persistent pay gap, working women also have to deal with extreme difficulty ascending to powerful corporate positions, according to a report by the research organization Catalyst. As Bryce Covert explained at The Nation:

Women held just over 14 percent of executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies this year and 16.6 percent of board seats at the same. Adding insult to injury, an even smaller percent of those female executive officers are counted among the highest earners—less than 8 percent of the top earner positions were held by women. Meanwhile, a full quarter of these companies simply had no women executive officers at all and one-tenth had no women directors on their boards. [...]

Did this year represent a step forward? Not even close. Women’s share of these positions went up by a mere half of a percentage point or less last year. Even worse, 2012 was the seventh consecutive year in which we haven’t seen any growth in board seats and the third year of stagnation in the C-suite.

Overall, more than one-third of companies have no women on their board of directors. But economic evidence shows that keeping women out of the board room is a mistake. According to work by the Credit Suisse Research Institute, “companies with at least one woman on the board would have outperformed in terms of share price performance, those with no women on the board over the course of the past six years.”

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Security

New Coup Throws Off Plans For Intervention In Mali

By Hayes Brown on Dec 11, 2012 at 5:00 pm

Mali coup leader Army Capt. Amadou Sanogo

Plans for intervention in Mali, already contentious within the international community, now have potentially been set back by the second coup within the county in less than twelve months.

Soldiers in the Malian Army arrested Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra last night at his home, prompting him to later appear on national television to announce the resignation of his government. According to reports from the capital, the soldiers acted on the order of Capt. Amadou Sanogo, a low-level officer who engineered the short-lived coup in March that set off the current chain of events within the West African state. While forced to abdicate power officially in May, the coup orchestrators have continued to wield significant influence in Mali, as indicated by last nights’ incidents. President Diouncounda Traore has appointed Django Cissoko as prime minister in Diarra’s stead.

Diarra’s resignation portends an increased level of difficulty in winning approval at the United Nations for an African Union-backed plan for military intervention. In particular, the plan revolves around a relatively small number of international forces providing support to a bolstered and retrained Malian army in a push to reclaim territory in the north of the country from Islamist and ethnic Tuareg rebels. Sanogo had disagreed with Diarra’s desire to see the plan come to fruition, believing that the Malian military was able to handle the situation on its own.

The plan had already hit a road block in the U.N. Security Council as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has expressed considerable concern with the plan and a French initiative to transform the A.U. request into a U.N. mandate. Rice believes that France’s desire — which syncs up with that of the African Union — to approve intervention as soon as possible is premature, according to reports from a closed-door meeting of the Council. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has also voiced reservations about the plan’s viability, noting in a report to the Council that many details remain unresolved.

Reservations come in contrast to declarations that the situation grows increasingly dire due to the presence of terrorist organization Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) within areas of the North. The Washington Post on Monday ran an editorial calling for an immediate commencing of military strikes within Mali, to prevent AQIM from gaining further footholds.

Despite the sudden nature of the coup, and the deleterious effect it may have on Mali’s ability to reclaim territory, the reassertion of the army into Malian politics is not entirely surprising according to political scientist Jay Ulfelder. A forecaster of political turmoil, Ulfelder earlier this year listed Mali as number eleven among the top twenty most likely states to suffer a coup in 2012. In a blog post following the most recent events, Ulfelder noted that coups tend to be recursive, with attempts both successful and unsuccessful begetting further attempts.

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Justice

Groups Challenge Constitutionality Of Montana Measure Denying State Services To Those Without Citizenship Documents

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Dec 11, 2012 at 4:45 pm

An immigration advocacy organization and other groups are challenging the constitutionality of a new Montana law that requires people to provide proof of citizenship before receiving state services or benefits. It allows state agencies to deny undocumented immigrants as well as anyone else without the proper documentation the ability to attend a state college, register for a professional license, access services for victims of crimes, or receive certain benefits for people with physical disabilities.

The Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance filed the lawsuit along with the state’s largest union and Alisha Blair, a 22-year-old Montana resident who was born in Canada to a mother who’s a Canadian citizen and a father who is a U.S. citizen. According to the Independent Record, Blair was accepted to the University of Montana, but the college denied her financial aid because she did not have proof of U.S. citizenship even though she is a U.S. citizen and has lived in Montana since she was 1 year old. She said she didn’t attend college because she couldn’t afford the tuition.

In 2011, a similar bill failed in the Montana legislature before the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. David Howard (R), submitted the citizenship measure as a legislative referendum. After the legislature passed it, the bill went to the voters as a ballot referendum. Eighty percent of Montana voters approved of the measure in November. As a result, “the law now places the burden on the average Montanan to prove that they are here legally, or they will be denied state services,” the Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance said in a press release.

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Climate Progress

Interview: ‘Chasing Ice’ Star James Balog Talks Art, Science, Rationality, And Climate Denial

By Stephen Lacey on Dec 11, 2012 at 4:00 pm

Photo: James Balog

This summer, the Arctic lost an area of sea ice equivalent to the state of Maine every day for a month. When the meltback was over in September, the Arctic shed an area of ice the size of Canada and Texas combined — a 40 percent decline over the historical average.

And just last month, scientists reported that the pace of ice loss in Greenland is five times greater than it was in the 1990′s, a development they called “extraordinary.”

Some predict ice-free summers in the Arctic as soon as 2016. Yet, these changes have gotten only modest coverage in the press. Even as scientists documented the “astonishing” melt in the Arctic this summer, television news outlets covered Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan’s workout routine three times more than record sea ice loss.

Why aren’t people paying attention? One reason is that it’s difficult to imagine the scope of the problem. For those with only a casual understanding or interest in global warming, the changes listed above might read like another laundry list of environmental impacts that aren’t relevant to daily life.

That’s where James Balog, star of the new film Chasing Ice, comes in. As a long-time photographer, Balog has tried to illustrate the interaction between humans and nature throughout his career. In 2007, after personally witnessing the melting of glaciers on an assignment for National Geographic, he started a groundbreaking project to document the demise of the world’s ice. Called the Extreme Ice Survey, Balog and his team put 27 cameras in place around the world and have taken pictures of glaciers every hour of daylight since.

Chasing Ice documents the enormously challenging process of getting the project off the ground, as well as the jaw-dropping final product showing geologic changes taking place in just a few years. Suddenly, the melting of the Arctic becomes real, immediate, and terrifying.

More importantly, through the time-lapsed photos and the film’s narration, Balog and director Jeff Orlowski successfully humanize the glaciers and explain why their changes are so important. This is one of the most important outcomes of the film. And judging from the response of both viewers and film critics, their approach is moving people in a big way.

Watch Chasing Ice. Bring your family, bring your friends, watch it on the big screen if you can. It will fill you with awe for the beauty of ice, admiration for the tenacity of Balog and his crew, and terror at the scale of changes we’re creating on earth.

I spoke to Chasing Ice star James Balog about the film and his philosophy behind communicating the reality of climate change:

Stephen Lacey: I wanted to ask about your initial thoughts on climate change. You talk in the film about being a skeptic back in the 80’s when people like James Hansen were really first starting to raise alarms in the policy sphere. So as a nature photographer, at what point did you look around and realize that you could see some of these changes firsthand and how did that change your perspective?

James Balog: Well, I have to confess that my initial resistance to this was connected with my work on some other big environmental issues back in the late 80′s and early 90′s on the extinction of animals and deforestation. There was a finite well of worry that I was willing to climb over and there were only so many things I wanted to occupy my brain with. So part of it was like, “oh my God here’s another issue.”

I’ve also been a little bit of a skeptic over the years about how activists like to paint things in very black and white terms; heroes and villains in order to motivate their bases and make issues really simple so that they can get people to pay attention. So there was that.

But an even bigger thing was that I thought that the science was simply based on computer models which at the time were not at all bomb proof. Now of course they are quite good – they’re not perfect but they are extremely good. And I took the time to learn in the late 90′s that the science was not about computer models, it was about actual tangible physical evidence that was preserved in the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica. That was really the smoking gun showing how far outside normal, natural variation the world has become. And that’s when I started to really get the message that this was something consequential and serious and needed to be dealt with.