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Five Reasons Why Michigan’s Anti-Abortion Bill Is The Nation’s Worst (UPDATED)

The Michigan House has passed HB 5711, the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion bill that combines some of the worst attacks on women’s access to abortion care into one bill. The massive 45-page, Republican-backed legislation limits when a woman could have an abortion and puts a greater, unnecessary burden on abortion providers.

Opponents have loudly protested against the measure that has been jammed through the legislature — it was introduced on May 31 and a committee approved it last week — and Democratic lawmakers spoke out against it before the House passed the bill 70-39. “This bill is not about protecting women’s health,” said state Rep. Kate Segal (D).

Here’s what you should know about these far-reaching anti-abortion bills:

1) Bans Abortions After 20 Weeks, Even For Rape And Incest Victims: A woman would not be able to have an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation based on the widely disputed idea that a fetus can feel pain after that point. The only exception would be if a woman’s life was in danger.

2) Transforms Doctors Into Detectives: The Republican-backed legislation would make it a crime for anyone to coerce a woman into having an abortion. Doctors will have to give their patients a questionnaire to inform them of the illegality of coercion and determine if the woman had been coerced or is the victim of domestic abuse before the abortion procedure.

3) Limits Access For Rural Women: Under the omnibus bill, doctors would have to be physically present to perform a medication abortion, thus preventing a doctor from administering abortion-inducing medication by consulting via telephone or internet. This would especially hurt rural women, who may have to travel hours to meet in-person with a specialist.

4) Requires Doctors To Purchase Costly Malpractice Insurance: If HB 5711 goes into effect, then doctors would be required to carry $1 million in liability insurance if they perform five or more abortions each month or have been subject to two more more civil suits in the past seven years, among other requirements. But the qualifications are so vague that almost all doctors who perform abortions could be required to carry the additional liability insurance at a potential cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

5) Regulates Clinics Out Of Existence: HB 5711 would create new regulations so that any clinic that provides six or more abortions in a month or one which advertises abortion services would have to be licensed as a “freestanding surgical outpatient facility.” That means that even if a clinic does not offer surgical abortions, it would be required to have a full surgical suite.

Now that the state House has passed the largest of the three bills, it will likely approve the two companion measures as well. Even though lawmakers rushed the bill through the House, the state Senate is not expected to vote on the measure until September. The body is composed of 26 Republicans and 12 Democrats.

Annie-Rose Strasser contributed to this report.

Update

The ban on abortions after 20 weeks is in HB 5713, one of the companion bills that the House is expected to pass soon.


Update

Lawmakers will not hold votes on the two additional anti-abortion bills, including the 20-week ban. “We decided not to take that up right now so we can discuss the legislation further,” Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger (R), told the Detroit News.

Alyssa

From GoDaddy To E3, Pop Culture That Treats Men Like They’re Dumb And Forgets Women Exist

Today on the Penny Arcade Report, Ben Kuchera explains why the E3 convention’s reliance on booth babes to sell video games is a fundamental misreading of the video game market:

The first thing I saw at E3 this year was a group of scantily clad ladies giving out energy drinks in front of the Los Angeles convention center. There was another group of female models posing for pictures upon entering the building, and to the right was another pod of “booth babes” giving away T-shirts. Going up the escalators I was greeted by yet another leather-clad group of women pitching a war game. The amount of female flesh on display before you even enter the show floor was impressive, and impossible to miss. The message it sends is clear: This is a show for men, with advertising, promotions, and booth design aimed at grabbing male eyes. In a time when console makers and major publishers are struggling to connect products with gamers, this is a dangerously short sighted marketing strategy…

There is very real money to be made marketing technology to women, or at the very least creating an environment where women feel like they can be part of the discussion. Consider that the high level of consumer adoption of technology by women happens despite the fact that trade show are usually designed by men for an aggressively male audience. In fact, E3 isn’t the only show to struggle with the changing reality of the market. CES has long pandered to a male audience, despite the huge female market for emerging technologies. “It’s confusing, because it’s sending this message of what my sex is here to do, and obviously I don’t feel that way, because I’d rather be learning about the products,” Molly McHugh, a technology writer for Digital Trends, stated in a piece about booth babes at the show.

And the New York Times reports that GoDaddy, the domain name company infamous for its boneheaded ads featuring scantily-clothed celebrities and assorted other women, has realized that the campaign may not be in its long-term best interest, because it sends the message that the product is cheap and unserious:

In July, private equity powerhouses that included Kohlberg Kravis Roberts paid about $2.25 billion for a majority stake in GoDaddy and named Warren Adelman the chief executive; Mr. Parsons became executive chairman. In a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, Mr. Adelman signaled that the era of racy GoDaddy marketing would come to an end. “We are synonymous with inexpensive domains and sexy girls,” Mr. Adelman told the magazine. “I think there is a different message we have to expose people to.”

GoDaddy appears to be learning faster than the video game business, but it’s amazing to see how long it’s taking both an industry and this company to absorb a fundamental point: sexism looks increasingly dated. And nothing’s less sexy in advertising than looking square.
Read more

Health

Health Care Insurers Spent $100 Million To Defeat Obamacare

As the Supreme Court readies to announce their decision on the individual mandate portion of the health reform, it has emerged that the largest health care lobbying group in the country spent a total of $102.4 million in just 15 months to prevent Obamacare from becoming law in the first place.

In 2009 alone, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) pumped $86.2 million into a conservative lobbying group, the US Chamber of Commerce, to combat President Obama’s health care reform plan. But with the added months of 2010 prior to the ACA’s March passage, AHIP piled on an additional $16 million to be used against the bill.

That staggering total, which the National Journal’s Influence Alley uncovered today, was not out in the open — rather, the funds were transferred through a secretive process and listed only by the organization as ‘advocacy’ spending:

The backchannel spending allowed insurers to publicly stake out a pro-reform position while privately funding the leading anti-reform lobbying group in Washington. The chamber spent tens of millions of dollars bankrolling efforts to kill health care reform.

The behind-the-scenes transfers were particularly hard to track because the law does not require groups to publicly disclose where they are sending the money or who they are receiving it from. [...]

The next year followed a similar pattern. In 2010, AHIP reported giving $16.5 million to unnamed advocacy organizations working on health care reform and the chamber reported receiving about $16.2 million from an undisclosed source, which the Alley has learned was AHIP. The $16.2 million accounted for about 8.6 percent of the total contributions and grants the chamber received that year.

This funneling scheme allowed health groups like AHIP to save face no matter whether the bill passed or not — if the bill failed, the groups figured, they would be able to point to their lobbying efforts against it. When it succeeded, AHIP and others remained quiet about any efforts against the legislation.

With the ruling coming down in the coming weeks from the Supreme Court, and with all the money spent to defeat the law, AHIP may be all to happy if it’s overturned.

Update

According to US Chamber Watch, athough AHIP only made contributions to the Chamber of Commerce during the first three months of 2010, it was still the single largest funder of the group for all of that year.

Alyssa

How A Justice Department Investigation Could Shake Up The Cable Television Model

There are a lot of people who want a lot of things about the way we watch television to change: to be able to buy channels on a stand-alone basis rather than in bundles, to be able to buy streaming access to premium networks like HBO without having to purchase a cable subscription first, to be able to stream shows that are available through services like Hulu as quickly and smoothly as if they were airing on a network. As much as I would also like to see some of those things come to pass, and as much as some networks would like to be able to offer some, if not all, of those options it’s been hard to get through to folks that there is a complex system governing cable television and internet that makes those changes difficult to make without current successful business models take a major hit that could disrupt the delivery and quality of the programming we currently find so desirable.

But major changes to that system might be closer than we think.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that the Justice Department is probing many of the elements of the cable and internet delivery system that throw up barriers to alternate means of distributing content. The story’s pegged as an investigation of whether Comcast, in violation of its anti-trust agreement that let it merge with NBCUniversal, is giving preferential treatment to content that streams through its own outlets so it streams faster and cleaner than content that comes over the internet from companies like Netflix. That’s critically important, as is net neutrality generally, but apparently, that’s not the only thing Justice is looking into:

Another issue that investigators have asked about is whether cable companies are acting anticompetitively by making viewers have a cable subscription before being able to access certain online programming. Comcast and some other companies have verification systems requiring viewers to enter their cable subscription details before being able to watch, say, ESPN’s programming on an iPad tablet…

The Justice Department also is investigating the contracts that programmers sign in order to be distributed on cable systems. Some contracts include so-called most-favored nation clauses, which make programmers give the biggest cable companies the best price they are offering anywhere, among other conditions. The Justice Department is questioning whether there are legitimate business reasons for such terms or whether they are intended to stop programmers from experimenting with other forms of online distribution, a person familiar with the matter said.

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the investigation, I’m glad it’s taking place. So much of the conversation around what people find frustrating in the current cable regime is erroneously aimed at networks, rather than the regime they operate within. This investigation should recenter that conversation, and hopefully give us more insight into the fulcrums we need to push on to give us an environment where networks can have more opportunities to monetize their content and to pursue new subscribers without risking the ones they currently have.

Justice

Meet Florence: The 95-Year-Old Wisconsin Woman Who Can’t Get A Voter ID

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Last year, nearly a dozen new states passed voter ID laws. These laws may have prevented the nine cases of voter impersonation that occurred between 2000 and 2007, but the Brennan Center estimates they could collectively disenfranchise more than three million people this year. In other words, for each case of voter impersonation these laws prevent, nearly 350,000 citizens may lose their right to vote.

ThinkProgress traveled to Wisconsin recently to investigate how the new law, if allowed to stand by the state judiciary, would affect voters in the state. (Two judges recently blocked the law, but their ruling will be appealed.)

One Wisconsinite we spoke with, 95-year-old Florence Hessing of Bayfield, said that she’d voted in every election without any problems until voter ID was enacted. However, her driver’s license expired when she stopped driving at the age of 90 (she’s now half-blind) and because she was likely born via midwife, she didn’t have a birth certificate required to get a new photo ID. Lawyers were eventually able to find an exemption for Hessing that will ultimately allow her to vote, but thousands of other Wisconsinites might not be as lucky. Indeed, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study found that approximately 300,000 lack photo ID.

Watch a short video about Hessing and other potential victims of new Wisconsin’s voter ID law:


You can read about other people denied their voting rights by new voter ID laws here.

Election

Romney Touts Presidential Salary Plan That Was Literally A Saturday Night Live Skit

Apparent Romney policy adviser Dana Carvey in 1992

In an interview with conservative radio host Neal Boortz, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney floated an unusual profit-making opportunity for himself if he becomes president — paying himself a higher salary if he performs well in the White House. In Romney’s words, “I do believe in linking my incentives and my commitment to the accomplishment of specific goals . . . . I wish we had that happen throughout government — where people recognized they are not going to get rewarded in substantial ways unless they are able to achieve the objectives that they were elected to carry out.”

This is not a new proposal, however. It was actually proposed in 1992 by billionaire presidential candidate Ross Perot — or at least by someone pretending to be Perot. In a 1992 Saturday Night Live skit, Perot impersonator Dana Carvey outlined something very similar to the Romney plan for presidential compensation:

If I’m President, we get 0% growth, you don’t pay me nothing. 1% growth? Hell, a chimpanzee could run this country and make 1% growth! So you don’t pay me dime one. Got my own plane, don’t need Air Force One. State Dinners? I’ll pay it, it’s nothing to me, sand on the beach! Now, don’t worry about ol’ Ross Perot, I got $3 billion back at home.

Now, here’s the deal. Here’s what I’m trying to tell you. 3% growth in our economy, $120 billion growth in our GNP – I get a billion dollars. Now, think about it, that’s a bargain! You’re up $119 billion. I’m telling you, 2.99% growth, I don’t see a penny, not one red cent. But don’t feel sorry for me – I got $3 billion. I’m gonna be fine.

Now, this here’s a business proposition. Now, see, 4% growth, you pay me $20 billion. The way I see it, you’re ahead $140 billion, see? Now, this ain’t no golden parachute, this isn’t the President GM giving himself a big bonus when the company’s losing money sending jobs to Mexico. I get my money if and when you get yours.

Now, 5% growth, I get $50 billion. Everybody’s happy, see?

Hulu Plus subscribers can watch the entire skit here:

Romney did not elaborate on whether his incentive structure for himself would include the kind of outlandish payouts Fake Ross Perot called for in his very similar plan. Nevertheless, the very idea of incentive pay for the president is a little bizarre. The President of the United States is the nation’s top public service position. If a person needs a financial incentive in order to be motivated to do the job well, they might want to consider working in private equity instead.

Justice

Seven More States May Legalize Medical Marijuana In 2012

Currently, 17 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. In the second half of 2012, seven more states will decide, either in the state legislature or via ballot initiatives, whether they will join them in legalizing the use of marijuana, in whole or in part.

Recent polling shows that 3/4 of Americans support the right to use state-sanctioned medical marijuana. Support for full marijuana legalization is at an all-time high of 50%.

1. Illinois House Bill 0030, the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act, would legalize medical marijuana on a trial basis. Physicians who diagnose their patients with debilitating conditions could prescribe medical marijuana. Patients, who would have to register with the Department of Health, would be able to possess up to 6 marjiuana plants and up to 2 ounces of usable marijuana. After three years, the Act would expire, meaning that the legislature would have the chance to decide whether to keep it in place.

2. Massachussetts - Two house bills, one to legalize marijuana for adults over 21 and the other to legalize only medical marijuana, failed to pass the state legislature. Bay Staters have gotten to work getting the Massachusetts Medical Marijuana Initiative on the ballot. Their deadline for the 68,911 signatures is right after the July 4 holiday.

3. Missouri – House Bill 1421 would allow Missourians with debilitating conditions to grow up to three marijuana plants with a yield of up to one ounce per plant. It also legalizes medical marijuana dispensaries in the state. It has not yet been voted on.

4. New York – The State Assembly will soon vote on Senate Bill 7283, which would legalize “the possession, manufacture, use, delivery, transfer, transport or administration of marihuana by a certified patient or designated caregiver for a certified medical use”.

5. New Hampshire – Senate Bill 409, authored by Republican Jim Forsythe, legalizes medical marijuana for patients who meet state-mandated criteria. In early June, the bill passed the state legislature, becoming the first medical marijuana bill to pass a Republican-led state senate. However, Gov. Jim Lynch has said he will veto the bill, necessitating further action from its supporters.

6. Ohio – In Ohio, citizens didn’t gather enough signatures to get the Ohio Medical Cannabis Act of 2012 on the ballot in November, which would create a state commission to regulate medical marijuana, functioning much like liquor controlling commissions.

7. Pennsylvania – The state senate will soon vote on SB 1003, which would legalize medical marijuana in the state. The bill may be renamed “The Governor Raymond Shafer Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act” in honor of moderate Republican governor Raymond Shafer (1967-1971).

(HT: The Inquisitr)

Update

This story has been corrected to reflect that Ohio’s initiative did not make it onto the ballot.

Ben Sherman

NEWS FLASH

‘Freedom To Skip Traffic Lights’ Initiative Fails In North Dakota | A broadly-written ‘religious liberty’ ballot initiative failed in North Dakota last night. The measure was an attempt to defy discrimination bans against LGBT people and to refuse reproductive health services to women, but the language was so expansive that it could have allowed religious people to exempt any law under the guise of religious liberty — even something like speeding through red lights. The initiative failed two-to-one.

NEWS FLASH

JP Morgan Chase CEO Offers To Get An Apartment In Washington So Congress Can Consult Him On Bank Regulations | During his hearing before the Senate Banking Committee today, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon offered to get an apartment in Washington, D.C., so that he can be consulted by Congress on financial regulatory matters. In response to a question from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) about whether banks are being asked to help craft regulations, Dimon said, “me and lots of other folks, we’ll do whatever you want, we’ll even get apartments down here. Let’s go through [the regulations] in detail.” Watch it:

Justice

NRA Offers ‘Stand Your Ground’ Insurance To Cover Legal Costs Of Shooting People In Self-Defense

In a rare “scoop” for an editorial cartoonist today, Matt Bors skewered a little-known National Rifle Association (NRA) program that offers insurance to cover policy holders’ costs should they become embroiled in a legal battle after shooting someone in self-defense.

The insurance — technically endorsed by the NRA and administered by Lockton Affinity exclusively for NRA members — is available as a rider to the “excess personal liability” plan. Here’s how the website advertises the added coverage for self-defense (emphasis in the original):

What’s Covered:

• Provides coverage up to the limit selected for criminal and civil defense costs.

Cost of civil suit defense is provided in addition to the limit of liability for bodily injury and property damage.

Criminal Defense Reimbursement is provided for alleged criminal actions involving self-defense when you are acquitted of such criminal charges or the charges are dropped.

The basic liability plan costs either $47 or $67 annually, for coverage up to $100,000 or $250,000, respectively. Though the coverage amounts stay the same, a policy holder can add the self-defense insurance by paying $118 or $165 for the lesser coverage, or between $187 and $254 for the larger plan. (The discrepancies are due to the different prices for coverage on two different webpages from the insurer.)

The NRA pushed its members in 2005 to support Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law — an exemption from arrest or prosecution in shootings where the police think the act was in self defense. When the law got bad press after police let the man who shot and killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin go free, the NRA refused to back down, continuing to support the law’s passage in other states (amid other acts of insensitivity around Martin’s shooting death).

Here’s Matt Bors’ cartoon skewering the insurance program:

Health

Seniors Could Lose Prescription Drug Discounts If Supreme Court Strikes Down Obamacare

Seniors have saved $3.5 billion on prescription drug costs thanks to an Affordable Care Act provision that closes the coverage gap — known as the “doughnut hole” — in their Medicare Part D plans. But if the Supreme Court strikes down Obamacare later this month, these drug savings could end, according to a drug industry spokesman.

Drug makers pledged $80 billion over 10 years to cut doughnut hole expenses for consumers during the health care reform debate. But without the law’s legal framework, “there are many questions that arise about whether the discount program could continue,” Matthew Bennett, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), told Kaiser Health News:

But if there is no law to ensure the coverage gap discount, drug makers are concerned that other laws might prohibit it, Bennett said.

For example, drug companies could try to offer the discounts on their own but that effort could run afoul of federal antitrust laws that generally prohibit businesses from agreeing together to set prices for their products. An individual drug company could offer Part D members coverage gap discounts, but it would have to steer clear of anti-fraud laws that ban a company from giving something of value to persuade beneficiaries to use its products.

Nearly one in four seniors “reported skipping doses, cutting pills in half or not filling a prescription, simply due to cost,” before health reform became law. And now, if the Supreme Court rules against the measure, it could put their drug discounts in danger.

At the same time, Medicare participants’ loss would be pharmaceutical companies’ gain because they would not have to shell out $80 billion to help fix the prescription coverage doughnut hole. One CEO estimated that closing the gap would cost his company between $20 million and $30 million in annual revenue. But without the Affordable Care Act, that would be $20 million to $30 million coming out of seniors’ pockets instead.

Obamacare is expected to completely close the prescription coverage gap by 2020.

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NEWS FLASH

Protesters Challenge JP Morgan Chase CEO: ‘Face The People You Foreclosed On’ | JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is testifying before the Senate Banking Committee today, explaining the trading debacle that caused his bank to lose billions of dollars. Before the hearing could even formally begin, protestors twice interrupted the proceedings. One man initially yelled, “Why don’t you face the people you foreclosed on?” A second group of protesters chanted “Stop foreclosures now!” before being escorted out of the hearing by Capitol Police. Dimon sat emotionless while the protests occurred. Watch it:

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