ThinkProgress Logo

Health

Georgia May Allow Mental Health Counselors To ‘Involuntarily Commit’ Patients

By Sy Mukherjee on Feb 6, 2013 at 4:00 pm

A Georgia Senate health committee has unanimously passed a bill “that would allow licensed professional counselors to involuntarily commit to an institution for 72 hours patients who appear to be mentally ill and a danger,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

While doctors and psychologists in Georgia already possess the authority to involuntarily commit mentally ill patients they deem to be a “danger,” licensed counselors do not share that power. The bill — SB 65 — looks to change that, with supporters arguing that the additional authorities will ease the burden on Georgia’s mental health institutions:

Giving licensed professional counselors the authority to involuntarily commit patients would fill a need and ease the strain on Georgia’s mental health system, promoters of SB 65 testified Tuesday. Georgia has roughly 4,800 licensed professional counselors.

“We need more investment in our mental health services,” Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, told members of the Senate Health and Human Service Committee. “This is one piece of the puzzle.”

The bill is under discussion at a time when Georgia is struggling to provide more community-based mental health services, including mobile crisis teams, as part of a 2010 agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that stemmed from an investigation into the abuse and death of patients in state mental hospitals.

The history of mental health institutionalization in America is fraught with controversy, but advocates for the mentally ill generally agree that community-based mental health services are medically preferable — and more humane — than institutionalized services. The fact that SB 65 was spurred by Georgia’s dearth of community-based practices suggests that the bill is simply treating a symptom of Georgia’s mental health woes, rather than addressing the issue’s root cause — namely, that the state does’t have nearly enough funding allocated for its mental health care system.

While the temporary institutionalization of mentally ill Americans who might be a danger to themselves or others is a relatively uncontroversial status quo, such laws may add to existing stigmas about mental health care and dissuade Americans with violent thoughts from seeking the care they need. For example, New York’s sweeping new gun safety law was met with reticence by mental health professionals for what some perceived to be draconian provisions requiring care providers to “report” potentially violent patients to a state board.

But Georgia’s law goes even further than that, adding institutionalization to the powers that a doctor has over patients. That’s pretty significant for the over half a million Georgians suffering from a severe mental disorder, as studies have shown that over a third of the mentally ill do not seek care due to social stigmas and the fear of being committed.

Climate Progress

Discussion on Future Energy Mix at NARUC Celebrates Natural Gas and Coal, Doesn’t Mention Climate

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 6, 2013 at 3:44 pm

By Adam James

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners recently held a session titled “Getting It Right: Gas, coal, and the Future Generation Resources Mix.” In an embarrassingly one-sided panel discussion featuring David Carroll, President and CEO of the Gas Technology Institute and Mark McCollough, Executive Vice-President of Generation at American Electric Power, the verdict came in:

The future of the American generation mix should (prominently) feature natural gas and coal.

Put a pin in that for a second, and you may also be interested to note that the word “climate” did not come up once in the entire session.

Why is one of the most powerful groups of energy regulators in the United States having a conversation about the future of energy in American that doesn’t include consideration of climate change? This is by no means an unintelligent group. They are used to optimizing for economic and environmental concerns. They have a wide range of legal and regulatory experience, and access to the best scientific data available. They should be a high priority target for local environmental activists for education and influence. And yet….

In the generation game, it is a simple fact that if you don’t mention climate, renewables are just another special interest. Although they are rapidly reaching cost competitiveness (in fact, they are competing on an even footing in some markets), renewables have one crucial selling point: They are zero-carbon, and as a result, do not contribute to climate change.

Regulators will play a massive role in shaping the conditions under which new generation projects get built — and as two panelists emphatically noted, the risks associated with investing billions of dollars in projects that span 30 or more years are huge. They called for certainty about the policies that would govern these future projects. Regulators have a responsibility to get educated about the science of climate change, and create the appropriate disincentives for high-carbon generation. In other words, if costs really are going to be the bottom line, regulators should begin by translating the “externalities” from high carbon generation, that means gas and coal, into the cost analysis and decision making process around approving new plants. If climate change is never mentioned, though, and you write off the costs of pollution and climate change as non-factors, fossil fuels will continue to win the day.

Read more

Justice

Federal Prison Agency Agrees To Examine U.S. Solitary Confinement Practice

By Nicole Flatow on Feb 6, 2013 at 3:30 pm

The practice has been deemed torture, cruel and inhumane, and worse than being held hostage in Iran. Yet in the United States, the country with far more prisoners than any other in the world, solitary confinement remains a common practice even for holding juveniles and the mentally ill. In the wake of a Senate hearing on the human rights, fiscal, and safety impacts of confining a prisoner in isolation for months or years at a time, the federal agency tasked with overseeing prisons has agreed for the first time to undertake a close examination of the practice.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons will hire an independent auditor to examine U.S. use of solitary confinement, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced this week after meeting with officials from the National Institute of Corrections, which will carry out the study. There are more than 80,000 people in some sort of isolated U.S. confinement at any given time, and in Durbin’s home state of Illinois, 56 percent of the population has spent time in isolation. Since the Senate hearing spearheaded by Durbin, the Bureau of Prisons says it has reduced the federal segregated population by 25 percent, and that the national agency that oversees state prisons has worked with Mississippi and Colorado to reduce their isolated populations.

Solitary confinement often involves holding prisoners in isolation for 23 hours a day in a small, often windowless cell with a steel door. When prisoners are let out of the cell for showers at least 3 times a week, they are taken to another small, isolated space where they are sometimes locked for extended periods of time. 

This treatment is not reserved for the most dangerous offenders. Solitary confinement is applied to children as young as 13, some of whom are in prison for charges as minimal as nonviolent burglary or drug possession. Sometimes people are placed in isolation as punishment, but other times it is merely for their own protection from other prisoners or as a purported mental health treatment. While many prisoners are held for months or years at a time in solitary, studies show the treatment has detrimental long-term psychological impacts after just ten days. Shane Bauer, who was taken hostage while hiking in Iran, called his experience in isolation – whether in Iran or at the notorious California supermax facility Pelican Bay — a “a living death.” What’s more, a remarkable piece of reporting by Bauer for Mother Jones reveals the process by which inmates are placed in isolation to be arbitrary, secret and virtually irreversible.

LGBT

Focus On The Family ‘Analyst’: Gender And Sexuality Are Only Determined By Procreation

By Zack Ford on Feb 6, 2013 at 3:25 pm

Jeff Johnston is Focus on the Family’s resident ex-gay, who regularly promotes harmful ex-gay therapy because he claims conforming to heteronormativity is ideal for society. He applies this to trans people too, rejecting transgender identities as disordered. In a new screed against LGBT equality today, he discounted any understanding of gender whatsoever, claiming the only determining factors in gender are what men and women contribute to human reproduction:

Despite years of brainwashing from academia, radical feminists, the media, and entertainment, most people know that men and women are different, unique and complementary. A society that attempts to erase male and female or to create new categories to stand next to male and female is living in unreality. Which of the supposed “other genders” being created by individuals or groups can reproduce or replicate itself? [...]

As Christians we also reject the reduction of humanity to groups defined by their sexual attractions and behaviors. Male and female are categories of existence – there is the biological reality of being male or female, and we live in the spiritual reality of a masculinity or femininity that reflects God’s image. It is de-humanizing to categorize individuals by the ever-proliferating alphabet of identities based on sexual attractions or behavior or “gender identity” – LGBBTTQQIAAFPPBDSM – however many letters are added. No. We stand with the truth that there are male and female. There is no recently discovered race of “homosexuals” or “gays” or “lesbians.” We don’t define people’s essence, their being, by their sexual appetites or by other desires.

Actually, there is a biological reality of being gay or straight too, and no sexual orientation compromises whether someone is male or female. And gender involves so much more than just whether you contribute sperm or eggs — it is the complex intersection of socially constructed roles, behaviors, expressions, activities, and attributes that might be associated with one’s sex and how they interact with society.

Johnston believes he successfully erased his own sexual identity so now he works to erase others’. His simple-minded view of the world ignores wide swaths of diversity within sex, gender, and sexual orientation to the detriment of all. He may claim that Christians “reject the reduction of humanity,” but his narrow categories for who people can be does just that.

Education

Republican Congresswoman Likens Regulations Of For-Profit Colleges To The Holocaust

By Scott Keyes on Feb 6, 2013 at 3:15 pm

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) compared efforts to regulate the for-profit college industry to the Holocaust during a speech Tuesday. Speaking at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Foxx invoked a famous Holocaust maxim in order to defend for-profit colleges against increased scrutiny. “They came for the for-profits, and I didn’t speak up,” the North Carolina congresswoman said.

Insider Higher Ed has the details:

In criticizing the private college presidents, Representative Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who leads the subcommittee on higher education, adapted the famous statement from the German theologian Martin Niemöller on Germans who ignored Nazi persecution. (“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.”)

“‘They came for the for-profits, and I didn’t speak up…’” Foxx said. “Nobody really spoke up like they should have.”

Even if her choice of words is shocking, her willingness to stand up for the industry is of little surprise. Foxx is heavily-financed by the for-profit college industry. As the Center for Responsive Politics reported, “In her first year on the [Higher Education and Workforce Training] subcommittee, Foxx picked up at least $48,668 from PACs or individuals affiliated with for-profit colleges.”

Though Foxx is readily willing to advocate on behalf of an industry that saddles students with debt and leaves them with few employment prospects, she paradoxically dislikes people who take out student loans. Said Foxx on a radio show last year, “I have very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt because there’s no reason for that.” In fact, many of the students with such large amounts of debt can trace their troubles to the fact that largely unregulated for-profit colleges are extraordinarily expensive.

Foxx is no back-bencher in the GOP caucus. She was elected to her party’s leadership last year to serve as Secretary for the House Republican Conference and has been touted as a possible Senate candidate in 2014.

Health

Michigan Governor Supports Extending Medicaid Coverage To Nearly Half A Million Low-Income Residents

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Feb 6, 2013 at 2:35 pm

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R)

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is set to announce his support for Obamacare’s optional expansion of the Medicaid program at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. The announcement, which comes a day before the governor will address his budget priorities for the upcoming legislative session, will make Snyder the sixth Republican leader to agree to the health law’s Medicaid expansion.

Implementing this aspect of President Obama’s health reform law will be particularly impactful in Michigan, where an estimated 470,000 uninsured residents will gain health coverage. The health policy groups that provided Snyder’s office with research about expanding Medicaid — including the fact that the state could save up to $1 billion over the next decade by accepting the federal funding to increase their Medicaid rolls — are welcoming the governor’s decision:

Snyder’s support for Medicaid expansion “really is a big deal,” said Marianne Udow-Phillips, director of the Ann Arbor-based Center for Healthcare Research & Transformation, which provided research to the governor’s office. CHRT concluded Michigan would save more than $1 billion in the next ten years as the federal government picks up the cost for health care for those who currently are not covered by insurance.

Moreover, most primary care doctors reported to CHRT that they are able to accept new patients who now would have insurance, she said.

“What’s really powerful about this is that the governor did come at this from a very objective, analytical approach,” she said. “He looked at the facts, he pulled research from our center and … lots of people,” Udow-Phillips said. “I don’t want to say we’re surprised, but we’re very pleased that the facts did speak for themselves.”

The state’s Medicaid expansion will still have to be approved by Michigan’s legislature, where conservative opponents of Obamacare could present a roadblock. State-level resistance to health care reform has considerably slowed the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — but, as Snyder joins the growing list of Republican leaders who are conceding that implementing Obamacare makes sense for their constituents, the tide may be about to turn.

Justice

BREAKING: Republican Virginia House Speaker Kills GOP Senate Gerrymander Scheme

By Josh Israel on Feb 6, 2013 at 2:19 pm

Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (R)

Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell (R)

Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William Howell (R) killed the Inauguration Day sneak attack by Senate Republicans who hoped to pass a massive mid-decade gerrymander. Howell ruled that the Senate’s amendment to a House bill making minor technical corrections to the House legislative maps were not germane, as it was a “vast rewrite” and would “stray dramatically” from the legislation’s original purpose.

When a Republican colleague requested a ruling on the amendment’s germaneness, Howell told his colleagues:

[Germaneness] prevents the presentation to the House of propositions that may not be reasonably anticipated, and for which they may not be properly prepared. A proposition of a narrow or limited scope may not be amended by a proposition of a more general nature… even though they might be related… I am going to rule that Senate amendments are not germane and out of order.

The Senate passed the controversial maps on January 21 on a party-lines vote. The measure passed 20-19 because Senator Henry Marsh (D), a legendary civil rights leader, was absent attending President Obama’s inauguration.

Update

Virginia Senate Republican Leader Tommy Norment blasted Howell’s ruling Wednesday, saying: “The entire Senate Republican Caucus is deeply disappointed by Speaker Howell’s unilateral ruling today.” Norment added: “The Virginia Senate Republican Caucus remains committed to correcting the egregious hyperpartisan [2011] gerrymander that has resulted in the current tortuously drawn Senate districts.” The “hyperpartisan” maps passed on a 32-5 bipartisan vote in 2011, with Norment voting for the maps.

Security

Cybersecurity Bill Supporters Regroup As Executive Order Looms

By Andrea Peterson on Feb 6, 2013 at 2:15 pm

The Hill reports Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, plans to re-introduce the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), with the committee’s chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) this year. CISPA passed the House in 2012 despite significant organized opposition from privacy advocates, but was not considered by the Senate as it focused on its own cybersecurity proposal — one which also stalled, leading to reports the White House plans to issue a cybersecurity executive order calling for the creation of a voluntary program including minimum safety standards in critical infrastructure sectors.

CISPA proposed making information sharing between private companies and the intelligence agencies easier in order to allow collaborative responses to cyberattacks, likely at the expense of internet users’ privacy. While the bill enjoyed the support of many major companies including Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Symantec, AT&T and Verizon, civil liberties organizations expressed major doubts about the proposal and continue to do so. In a comment about renewed interest in CISPA to ThinkProgress today, Gregory T. Nojeim, Director of the Project on Freedom, Security & Technology at the Center for Democracy & Technology said:

“CISPA is deeply flawed. Under a broad cybersecurity umbrella, it permits companies to share user communications directly with the super secret National Security Agency and permits the NSA to use that information for non-cybersecurity reasons. This risks turning the cybersecurity program into a back door intelligence surveillance program run by a military entity with little transparency or public accountability. Members should seriously consider whether CISPA — which inflamed grassroots activists last year and was under a veto threat for these and other flaws — is the right place to start.”

The White House is expected to release a cybersecurity executive order after the State of the Union, although rumors of its imminence have been floating around since September. Nojeim noted that last year there were reasons to be optimistic about the cybersecurity executive order when rumors of it first emerged — including the White House’s threat to veto CISPA.

The executive order wouldn’t be the first foray into cybersecurity for President Obama: He signed a secret directive that redefined some cybersecurity actions previously deemed offensive as defensive in October as part of an effort to enable military personal to be more proactive in thwarting cyberattacks. The move occurred around the same time Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned of an impending “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”

The threat of cyber attacks on public and private infrastructure is very real, as demonstrated by the huge jump in incidents involving critical infrastructure requiring the involvement of U.S. Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team jumping from 9 in 2009 to 198 in 2011.

Outside of traditionally defined critical infrastructure, other sectors have also been the target of recent high profile cybersecurity breaches, including many major newspapers and banks.

Economy

Why Immigration Reform Won’t Increase Government Spending

By Igor Volsky on Feb 6, 2013 at 2:12 pm

On Tuesday, just days after a bipartisan group of Senators released a set of principles to reform the immigration system with a pathway to citizenship for the nation’s 11 million undocumented residents, House Republicans convened a hearing to consider the benefits of immigration reform. The stacked witness list — of the eight witnesses testifying, four were opposed to comprehensive reform, and only two were clearly in favor — reflected the growing anxiety among conservative lawmakers about the cost of granting legal status to undocumented people, who, Republicans fear, would qualify for state or federal benefits and cost tax payers millions.

The New York Times echoed these concerns on Wednesday with an article warning that “chances are good” that reform will “cost the government money.” The piece, by reporter Eduardo Porter, cited a 2007 Congressional Budget Office report which found that immigrants are “putting a burden on state and local budgets” and warned that once unauthorized immigrants became citizens, they “would be entitled to the same array of government benefits as other Americans”:

The White House and other backers of reform have made much of a 2007 Congressional Budget Office analysis concluding that the failed immigration overhaul would have increased government revenue by $48 billion over a decade while adding only $23 billion to direct spending on entitlements and other programs. But the report also said that including the costs of carrying out the new law would actually increase the budget deficit by $18 billion over the decade and several billion a year after that.

But there is good reason to believe that concerns about increased government spending are overstated and that immigration reform will prove to be a net benefit for the economy.

Currently “spending by state and local governments on services specifically provided to unauthorized immigrants make up a small percentage” of government spending, some of which is offset by taxes paid by the unauthorized population. The majority already “pay federal, state, and local taxes” and that number will increase as the undocumented population embarks on a path towards citizenship and leaves the cash economy.

Research shows that legalizing immigrants boosts their wages, which increases consumption, business revenue, and ultimately the entire economy. Immigration reform would add up to $5.4 billion in new tax revenue over the first three years, and a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. economy over a decade. Allowing these immigrants to naturalize would add even more economic activity, as naturalized immigrants earn 8 to 11 percent more in wages than permanent residents.

The Congressional Budget Office agrees with that assessment. The office’s score of the Senate’s 2006 comprehensive immigration reform plan calculated a net benefit of $12 billion over 10 years and an updated report placed the revenue gains even higher. An analysis of the 2007 immigration proposal found that legalization would increase revenue over costs by a factor of 2 to 1.

Read more

Alyssa

Mario Balotelli And The ‘Lost War’ Against Racism In Soccer

By Travis Waldron on Feb 6, 2013 at 2:06 pm

Last week, AC Milan signed one of the world’s premier soccer players in Mario Balotelli, who called it a dream come true that he was joining Italy’s most prominent soccer club. A week later, that dream isn’t as beautiful. Not after an Italian news station caught Paolo Berlusconi, an AC Milan vice president and the younger brother of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, calling Balotelli “negretto della famiglia,” which translates roughly to “the family’s little n—–.”

Balotelli, a black Italian, is no stranger to racism. During previous stints in Italy and at international club matches, fans have greeted him with monkey chants and bananas. Fans of one club banded together to tell him that “there are no black Italians.” But while Balotelli may be subject to the worst of racism, the kind that comes from his own countrymen and his own club, he’s hardly alone. Here’s a far-from-comprehensive timeline of racism in European soccer — just over the past month:

January 3: AC Milan’s Kevin Prince-Boateng, a Ghanaian, responds to racist chants from opposing fans by picking up the ball, punting it into the stands, and walking off the pitch. His teammates and opponents followed, and the match was called. Earlier in the game, fans assaulted Sulley Muntari, another Ghanaian, with monkey chants. “It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve heard these things, but I’m 25 now and I’ve had enough this bullshit,” Prince-Boateng, who threatened to walk off the field in future matches, said after the game.

January 29: Jozy Altidore, an African-American, faces monkey chants from fans of Dutch club FC Den Bosch during a club match in the Netherlands. Altidore shrugged off the chants, refused efforts from officials to stop the match, and played on. “It’s only going to make them stronger if we back down,” Altidore said afterward. “I just want to get on with it and play and win the game.” AZ Alkmaar, Altidore’s club, wins 5-0.

January 30: Barcelona’s Dani Alves, a black Brazilian, is the subject of racist chants in a Spanish cup match against rival Real Madrid. In a moment of brutal truth, a dejected Alves declares after the match that soccer’s long fight against racism is “a lost war.”

January 30: European soccer’s governing body fines three clubs — Italian club Lazio, English club Tottenham Hotspur, and Slovenian club NK Maribor, for fans’ racist and anti-Semitic chants during games in November. Lazio’s sanctions include one home game played behind closed doors with no fans in attendance.

January 31: Japanese player Yuki Nakamura quits his Slovakian club because of repeated racial abuse. Nakamura was frustrated because his teammates and club officials did little to protect or defend him.

February 5: FIFA, the sport’s international governing body, upholds sanctions against both Bulgaria and Hungary’s international teams for racist chants during World Cup qualifying matches. Both are forced to play one match behind closed doors, and FIFA warns that further incidents could result in expulsion from Cup qualifying.

In England, the Football Association has taken steps to combat racism that have been more aggressive than those in other countries. The FA suspended Luis Suarez for eight matches for racist taunts directed at Patrice Evra, who is Senegalese. It has banned fans from matches for racist taunts and levied heavy fines and sanctions against clubs whose fans exhibit racist behavior. John Terry, the English national team’s former captain, was charged with a crime for racial remarks he made in the course of play (he was found not guilty). Complaints have still arisen from black players like Rio Ferdinand, and racism still rears its ugly face far too often. But England’s serious and aggressive response seems to have thwarted much of the overt racism from fans that was once a daily feature of its matches, even if it hasn’t eliminated racism altogether.

England is hardly a total success story, but it has at least been successful enough to drive the perception among abused players that it should be a model for FIFA and other domestic federations to follow. FIFA and other governing bodies have long held the position that players who respond to racist taunts are the ones deserving of serious punishment, while the perpetrating fans and clubs receive only slaps on the wrist. That needs to change. There’s no reason that players like Prince-Boateng should have to threaten to continue walking off the field, that players like Nakamura should have to quit their clubs, that players like Altidore and Alves should be reduced to pretending they can’t hear the chants or to accepting that racism is a feature of the game they play. That they have should be viewed as no less than a tragedy, and one that’s worth addressing with more than t-shirts and advertising campaigns. If the war against racism in soccer is lost, it’s only because there’s been no serious effort to fight it.

Older

Newer

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up