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This Republican plans to spend $175 million trying to get his party to care about climate change

by OmerSWLPnimnq Posted on June 9, 2015

A Tom Steyer for the right?

This Republican plans to spend $175 million trying to get his party to care about climate change

By on 9 Jun 2015commentsShare

A North Carolina businessman is wading into the 2016 big-money slugfest, planning to spend $175 million to back action on climate change. But unlike Tom Steyer and the other big donors focused on the issue, this guy is a Republican. And though he hopes to influence the candidates, he also hopes, more generally, to change the conversation Republican voters are having.

“There’s a lot of good solutions, but we are not going to get there if we keep arguing about the problem,” the donor, Jay Faison, told Reuters.

With the exception of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who is a long-shot candidate, and former New York Gov. George Pataki, who is a really long-shot candidate, the Republican presidential contenders all either dodge questions about or outright deny climate science. “Here’s a question you need to ask everybody running as a Republican: What is the environmental policy of the Republican party?” Graham said on CNN’s State of the Union this Sunday. “When I ask that question, I get a blank stare.”

Faison has contributed $25,000 to Graham’s campaign, and $50,000 to a PAC supporting Jeb Bush. Bush has at least said he’s “concerned” about climate change, though he continues to waffle. Faison told Politico that he has not yet decided which candidate to endorse.

Faison thinks a good chunk of Republican voters do care about global warming. He, for instance, came to his views because his love of hunting and fishing begat concerns about the environment. He’s launched a new organization, the ClearPath Foundation, that has a list of recommendations for what environmentally conscious conservatives can do to fight climate change — including rooftop solar installation and environmentally conscious investing. (True, they aren’t the kind of drastic measures we need to actually deal with climate change, but plenty of Democrats aren’t endorsing drastic measures either.)

And the polling — at least some of it — supports his position. According to a poll by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, 56 percent of all Republicans support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant:

Click chart to embiggen.

Yale Project on Climate Change Communication

A separate poll by The New York Times, Stanford University, and research group Resources for the Future arrived at similar results, and a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that younger Republicans are particularly supportive of climate action.

Even if Republican politicians almost universally decry Obama’s executive actions on climate change, some policy-minded people on the right are trying to figure out an answer to Graham’s question: What should Republicans do instead? There’s some support among conservative wonks for a market-based solution — like a carbon tax — as an alternative to EPA regulation. And some Republicans on the front lines of climate change, like in Florida, are also increasingly admitting that a discussion needs to happen.

But as of now, these aren’t loud voices in the party. Most Republicans — unlike a certain segment of Democrats and independents — just don’t care that much about climate change, regardless of whether they accept the science, and regardless of whether they are for action or against it. It may take more than $175 million to change that.

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This Republican plans to spend $175 million trying to get his party to care about climate change

Posted in Anchor, Casio, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Republican plans to spend $175 million trying to get his party to care about climate change

Here Are America’s Top 50 Health Care Thugs

by KevinWanganeen Posted on June 8, 2015

Mother Jones

As long as we’re on the subject of how poor people get screwed in the United States, the Washington Post revisits an old favorite today: the way hospitals gouge the uninsured. Here’s their summary of a new study that looks at the 50 biggest gougers, which charge uninsured patients more than ten times the actual cost of care:

All but one of the these facilities is owned by for-profit entities, and by far the largest number of hospitals — 20 — are in Florida. For the most part, researchers said, the hospitals with the highest markups are not in pricey neighborhoods or big cities, where the market might explain the higher prices.

….Community Health Systems operates 25 of the hospitals on the list; Hospital Corp. of America operates another 14. “They are price-gouging because they can,” said Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, co-author of the study in Health Affairs. “They are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can’t.”

….Most hospital patients covered by private or government insurance don’t pay full price because insurers and programs like Medicare negotiate lower rates for their patients. But the millions of Americans who don’t have insurance don’t have anyone to negotiate on their behalf. They are most likely to be charged the full hospital price. As a result, uninsured patients, who are often the most vulnerable, face skyrocketing medical bills that can lead to personal bankruptcy, damaged credit scores or avoidance of needed medical care.

It’s hard to find the words to describe how loathsome this is. It’s a structure deliberately designed to bleed the maximum possible amount from the people who are least able to afford it and least able to fight back. We normally associate this kind of thing with Charles Dickens novels, or with thugs in leather jackets who have a habit of breaking kneecaps. But these thugs all wear suits and ties.

I’m not really sure how they sleep at night, but I guess they find a way.

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Here Are America’s Top 50 Health Care Thugs

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Note to Politicians: Stop Being So Self-Centered About Medical Research Funding

by AmosBuiezwtwn Posted on May 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Steve Benen mentions one of my pet peeves today: politicians who want to cut spending on everything except for research on one particular disease that happens to affect them personally. A couple of years ago, for example, Sen. Mark Kirk suddenly became interested in Medicaid’s approach to treating strokes after he himself suffered a stroke. The latest example is Jeb Bush, whose mother-in-law has Alzheimer’s. I suppose you can guess what’s coming next. Here’s Jeb in a letter he sent to Maria Shriver:

I have gotten lots of emails based on my comments regarding Alzheimer’s and dementia at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. It is not the first time I have spoken about this disease. I have done so regularly.

Here is what I believe:

We need to increase funding to find a cure. We need to reform FDA regulations to accelerate the approval process for drug and device approval at a much lower cost. We need to find more community based solutions for care.

As Benen points out, Bush vetoed a bunch of bills that would have assisted Alzheimer’s patients when he was governor of Florida. I guess that’s changed now that he actually knows someone with the disease. However, it doesn’t seem to have affected his attitude toward any other kind of medical research spending.

I’m not even sure what to call this syndrome, but it’s mighty common. It’s also wildly inappropriate. If Jeb wants to personally start a charity that helps fund Alzheimer’s research, that’s great. But if he’s running for president, he should be concerned with medical research for everyone. I mean, where’s the billion dollars that I’d like to see invested in multiple myeloma research? Huh?

Presidents and members of Congress represent the country, not their own families. They should get straight on the fact that if their pet disease is being underfunded, then maybe a lot of other diseases are being underfunded too. It shouldn’t take a family member getting sick to get them to figure that out.

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Note to Politicians: Stop Being So Self-Centered About Medical Research Funding

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Marco Rubio Is a Moron

by AdelaidaH Posted on May 18, 2015

Mother Jones

Here’s the latest from Florida wunderkind Marco Rubio:

Marco Rubio Struggles With Question on Iraq War

Under a barrage of questions from Chris Wallace of Fox News, Mr. Rubio repeatedly said “it was not a mistake” for President George W. Bush to order the invasion based on the intelligence he had at the time. But Mr. Rubio grew defensive as Mr. Wallace pressed him to say flatly whether he now believed the war was a mistake. Mr. Rubio chose instead to criticize the questions themselves, saying that in “the real world” presidents have to make decisions based on evidence presented to them at the time.

“It’s not a mistake — I still say it was not a mistake because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it was governed by a man who had committed atrocities in the past with weapons of mass destruction,” Mr. Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday.”

A moment later, as Mr. Wallace tried to pin him down on his view, Mr. Rubio began to reply, “Based on what we know now, I think everyone agrees — ” but Mr. Wallace cut him off before he finished the thought.

“So was it a mistake now?” Mr. Wallace asked.

“I don’t understand the question you’re asking,” Mr. Rubio said.

The truth is that I don’t care about Rubio’s actual position on the Iraq War. The guy’s trying to run on a platform of more-hawkish-than-thou, and that’s pretty much all I need to know. Most of the time he sounds like a ten-year-old trying to sound tough in front of the older kids.

But I’m seriously beginning to wonder if he has a 3-digit IQ. After Jeb Bush’s weeklong debacle trying to answer this question, every Republican candidate ought to have their own answer figured out. And not just figured out: by now their answers ought to poll-tested, cut down into nice little soundbites, and so smoothly delivered you’d never even know this was a tricky issue in the first place.

But no. Rubio sounded like this question came as a total surprise. Seriously, Marco? This guy does not sound like he’s ready for prime time.

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Marco Rubio Is a Moron

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Bush v. Rubio: Who Will Win Neocons’ Hearts and Minds?

by DemetriMattox Posted on May 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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As Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, once political pals, now compete for the Republican presidential nomination, one battle they will be waging with each other will be who has better neoconservative bragging rights. Both have recruited prominent policy wonks from the hawkish wing of the GOP, and they may be heading to a showdown over who gains more support from this influential cadre. (Should he enter the 2016 race, Republican candidate Lindsey Graham will take a stab at winning over this group too.)

Ever since Rubio entered the Senate in 2011, he has made a strong play for the neocons. He has reached out to some of the George W. Bush administration’s most hawkish alumni for advice on foreign policy, and he has made national security a centerpiece of his campaign. The Rubio Doctrine, which he outlined in his first major foreign policy address as a candidate on Wednesday, comes straight out of the neocon playbook, calling for a robust military and aggressive approach to intervention.

But Rubio may find that out-neoconing Jeb Bush won’t be so easy. Bush, too, has assembled a foreign policy team almost entirely made up of former George W. Bush administration officials—including Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq War who for years peddled a conspiracy theory favored by neocons that held that Saddam Hussein, not Al Qaeda, was the main sponsor of anti-US terrorism. And Bush’s ties to the neoconservative movement date back to the mid-1990s, when he became affiliated with the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a foreign policy think tank established by leading neocons and hawks.

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Bush v. Rubio: Who Will Win Neocons’ Hearts and Minds?

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Jeb Bush Is Very Proud Of Ending Affirmative Action in Florida. He Shouldn’t Be.

by MirandaI21 Posted on May 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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As he courts conservatives skeptical of his right-wing bona fides, Jeb Bush, an all-but-announced GOP presidential candidate, has cited one of his most controversial moves as Florida’s governor to illustrate his record of standing firm on principle in the face of widespread opposition: His decision to unilaterally end affirmative action in Florida. “Trust me, there were a lot of people upset by this,” he boasted to activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year. But Bush’s effort to dismantle affirmative action in state college admissions and government contracting and hiring—which the Sun Sentinel dubbed the “most grievous blunder” of his tenure and a “prime example of Bush’s shoot-first, take-no-advice method of governing”—illustrates more than his executive style. At a time when racial tensions from Baltimore to Ferguson, Missouri, are a national issue, Bush’s fight against affirmative action, which led to a confrontation with the state’s black community, remains a significant episode in his political history.

In 1999, Bush’s first year as governor, Ward Connerly, the anti-affirmative action crusader who had spearheaded successful ballot initiatives to eliminate racial preferences in California and Washington, descended on Florida to gather signatures for a similar measure that would appear on the November 2000 ballot. Bush was no fan of what he called Connerly’s “divisive” approach. (Republican support for Connerly’s amendment in California had pushed minority voters away from the GOP and helped Democrats take control of Sacramento.) But Bush also expressed skepticism about Florida’s affirmative action policies, which he described in one private email as “stupid and destructive.” So Bush decided to preempt Connerly’s effort by ending affirmative action in Florida himself. He did so by signing Executive Order 99-281 on November 9, 1999.

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Jeb Bush Is Very Proud Of Ending Affirmative Action in Florida. He Shouldn’t Be.

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Want an Abortion This Year? Get Ready to Wait

by e0ebri1z Posted on May 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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For women seeking an abortion, 2015 is shaping up to be the year of the long wait.

Since the beginning of the year, six states have proposed or passed laws that would require a woman to wait days before she has an abortion—laws that critics say place an especially harsh burden on poor and rural women.

Conservative lawmakers in Arkansas and Tennessee have passed bills forcing women seeking abortions to attend an initial appointment and then wait 48 hours before the actual procedure. The Florida Legislature has passed a measure, which GOP Gov. Rick Scott promises to sign, creating a 24-hour waiting period between two appointments. A bill that died in Kentucky, which already requires women to receive counseling 24 hours before an abortion, would have forced women to receive that counseling in person.

And Oklahoma and North Carolina are poised to pass bills that would institute the longest waiting periods in the county: 72 hours between mandatory counseling and an abortion. The North Carolina proposal passed the Republican-dominated House on Thursday, and Oklahoma’s measure is awaiting the signature of Republican Gov. Mary Fallin. If the states approve the measures, Oklahoma and North Carolina will join Missouri, South Dakota, and Utah as the only other states with three-day waiting periods.

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Want an Abortion This Year? Get Ready to Wait

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Marco Rubio Is Running for President. Read These 7 Stories About Him Now.

by KianWatling9965 Posted on April 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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That makes three: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has told donors that he will mount a presidential bid. He is scheduled to officially announce his candidacy Monday evening in Miami with a speech on the steps of the Freedom Tower, the historic landmark where the US government processed Cuban refugees in the 1960s.

The first-term Florida senator was considered one of his party’s brightest rising stars until a doomed immigration reform push in 2013 eroded his support among conservatives. Rubio has since worked his way back to prominence, casting himself as a leading foreign policy hawk. His candidacy is not a surprise at this point, but it does set up a political soap opera, given that Rubio will be challenging another establishment-minded Florida Republican—Jeb Bush—who was once seen as Rubio’s mentor. Bush’s expected (official) entry into the race will likely diminish Rubio’s chances.

Here are some of the best Mother Jones stories on Rubio.

Meet the billionaire car dealer who could be Rubio’s Sheldon Adelson.
His presidential bid could revive interest in a number of past scandals—some of which have not been resolved.
Rubio was once his party’s leading advocate of immigration reform. Then he retreated.
He used to believe in climate science. What happened?
His ideas on how to beat ISIS are a little odd.
Will Rubio be the candidate of Silicon Valley?
Our original Rubio cheat sheet from 2012, when he was considered a potential Romney running mate.

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Marco Rubio Is Running for President. Read These 7 Stories About Him Now.

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Tom Steyer Is Taking on the Climate Deniers Running for President

by IvoryT33yv Posted on April 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared on the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Tom Steyer’s climate-focused political group is already gearing up for the 2016 presidential race, announcing on Monday a new effort that will focus on putting Republican candidates on the defense when it comes to global warming.

NextGen Climate’s chief strategist, Chris Lehane, said in a call with reporters that the group’s mission heading into 2016 is to “disqualify” candidates who deny that climate change is real or caused by human activity by proving that “they don’t have what it takes to be president.” The effort will be called Hot Seat, and NextGen Climate says it will involve media and on-the-ground campaigns in key electoral states aimed at linking Republican deniers to the Koch brothers and other interests that seek to undermine climate science.

The idea, NextGen says, is to force Republican candidates who are skeptical of climate change to defend their views right out of the gate.

“If you’re in a position that is different from 97 percent of scientists, that does raise basic competency questions in terms of whether people are going to want to give you the keys to the White House,” said Lehane.

Their first target, Lehane said, is Rand Paul, who is expected to announce his candidacy Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky. The group is planning to hit Paul with a stunt involving a “lie detector test” to force him to go on the record about his views on climate change, and will also follow the candidate to Iowa. Paul has previously questioned the consensus view among scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the climate, but has also tried to moderate his stance somewhat in recent months.

The group intends to portray Republican candidates who deny climate change as being subservient to the will of major donors like the Koch brothers, the conservative fossil-fuel billionaires. “The Kochs have acquired the Republican Party and purposed it,” said Lehane. “Now they have these various Republican candidates saying they don’t believe in the science.”

Through his NextGen Climate project, billionaire investor Steyer spent more than $74 million trying to make climate change a central issue in the 2014 midterm election. The group’s effort had decidedly mixed results: Of the seven races it targeted, NextGen’s endorsed candidates won in only three. But the group has maintained that 2014 was a success, since Republican candidates were forced to go on the record about their views on climate change.

“Climate really is playing a significant role in the national election and in battleground states,” said Lehane. He noted that 2014 was the “first time that climate had really been elevated to that level in the election, where folks who believe the science were able to use it offensively, and deniers were on defense.”

In 2014, NextGen’s efforts included major television and online ad buys, as well as in-state spectacles such as following Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown’s campaign around New Hampshire in a truck loaded with oil barrels and rolling a replica of Noah’s Ark into Florida to confront Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

The group thinks that 2016 will be an even bigger year for climate, given the higher turnouts in presidential election years and the role young voters will play in the debate. Polls have found that 80 percent of voters under the age of 35 support the actions the Obama administration has taken to address climate change, and even 52 percent of young Republican voters said they were more inclined to back a candidate who supported those climate efforts.

Lehane was coy about how much Steyer intends to spend this time around, stating only that “he’s made pretty clear he will spend what it takes.” It was strongly implied that the dollar figure would be higher than it was in 2014, as the group believes that 2016 is “the defining election of our time.”

Hot Seat will include an “aggressive, state-of-the-art social media” element as well as “highly targeted” radio, television and online advertising, Lehane said. The group also plans to have a strong presence on college campuses and to engage in targeted outreach to young voters. The effort will be run from a “high-tech war room” in San Francisco.

NextGen is already planning to follow Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin and a potential 2016 candidate, as he travels to Europe later this month. Lehane didn’t elaborate on the group’s intentions for Walker’s trip, but said, “I can at the minimum guarantee it will be highly entertaining.”

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Tom Steyer Is Taking on the Climate Deniers Running for President

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Walmart, Lowe’s, Safeway, and Nordstrom Are Bankrolling a Nationwide Campaign to Gut Workers’ Comp

by KimberlyHollins Posted on March 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Nearly two dozen major corporations, including Walmart, Nordstrom, and Safeway, are bankrolling a quiet, multistate lobbying effort to make it harder for workers hurt on the job to access lost wages and medical care—the benefits collectively known as workers’ compensation.

The companies have financed a lobbying group, the Association for Responsible Alternatives to Workers’ Compensation (ARAWC), that has already helped write legislation in one state, Tennessee. Richard Evans, the group’s executive director, told an insurance journal in November that the corporations ultimately want to change workers’ comp laws in all 50 states. Lowe’s, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Sysco Food Services, and several insurance companies are also part of the year-old effort.

Laws mandating workers’ comp arose at the turn of the 20th century as a bargain between employees and employers: If a worker suffered an injury on the job, the employer would pay his medical bills and part of his wages while he recovered. In exchange, the worker gave up his right to sue for negligence.

ARAWC’s mission is to pass laws allowing private employers to opt out of the traditional workers’ compensation plans that almost every state requires businesses to carry. Employers that opt out would still be compelled to purchase workers’ comp plans. But they would be allowed to write their own rules governing when, for how long, and for which reasons an injured employee can access medical benefits and wages.

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Walmart, Lowe’s, Safeway, and Nordstrom Are Bankrolling a Nationwide Campaign to Gut Workers’ Comp

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