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Potential 2016 Contender Martin O’Malley Supports New Bill to Wean Politicians Off Big Money

by ImogeneSchafer Posted on February 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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While Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential contest, has made headlines lately for the big-money-fueled super-PACs lining up in her corner, another potential Democratic contender, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, is embracing the other end of the political money spectrum.

O’Malley, who would likely run to the left of Clinton in 2016, says he supports the Government By The People Act, a new bill recently introduced by Maryland Congressman John Sarbanes intended to increase the number of small-dollar donors in congressional elections and nudge federal candidates to court those $50 and $100 givers instead of wealthier people who can easily cut $2,500 checks. The nuts and bolts of the Government By The People Act are nothing new: To encourage political giving, Americans get a $25 tax credit for the primary season and another $25 credit for the general election. And on the candidate side, every dollar of donations up to $150 will be matched with six dollars of public money, in effect “supersizing” small donations. (Participating candidates must agree to a $1,000 cap on all contributions to get that 6-to-1 match.) In other words, the Sarbanes bill wants federal campaigns funded by more people giving smaller amounts instead of fewer people maxing out.

What makes the Sarbanes bill stand out is breadth of support it enjoys. The bill has 130 cosponsors—all Democrats with the exception of Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.)—including Sarbanes and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) And practically every progressive group under the sun has stumped for the Government By The People Act, including the Communication Workers of America, the Teamsters, Sierra Club, NAACP, Working Families, Friends of Democracy super-PAC, and more. Through efforts like the Democracy Initiative and the Fund for the Republic, progressives are mobilizing around the issue of money in politics, and their championing of Sarbanes’ bill is a case in point.

But O’Malley is the first 2016 hopeful to stump for the reforms outlined in the Government By The People Act. “We need more action and smarter solutions to improve our nation’s campaign finance system, and I commend Congressmen John Sarbanes and Chris Van Hollen for their leadership on this important issue,” O’Malley said in a statement. “Elections are the foundation of a successful democracy and these ideas will put us one step closer toward a better, more representative system that reflects the American values we share.”

No other Democratic headliners, including Clinton, have taken a position on the Sarbanes bill. (New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did include a statewide public financing program in his latest budget proposal. And Clinton, as a senator, cosponsored the Kerry-Wellstone Clean Elections Act.) Yet with nearly every major liberal group rallying around the money-in-politics issue, any Democrat angling for the White House in 2016 will need to speak up on how he or she will reform today’s big-money political system.

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Potential 2016 Contender Martin O’Malley Supports New Bill to Wean Politicians Off Big Money

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Boehner Gives In, Introduces Clean Debt Ceiling Bill

by ErnestoCTL Posted on February 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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John Boehner has surrendered completely on the debt ceiling. None of his proposals managed to attract majority support among Republicans, so now he plans to introduce a clean bill and leave it up to Democrats to pass it:

“House Republican leaders told members this morning that it is clear the paid-for military COLA provision will not attract enough support, so we will be bringing up a ‘clean’ debt limit bill tomorrow,” a Republican official said, referring to a plan on veterans’ benefits. “Boehner made clear the G.O.P. would provide the requisite number of Republican votes for the measure but that Democrats will be expected to carry the vote.”

…Mr. Boehner explained the decision to go forward with a “clean” debt ceiling bill as a reflection of the political reality that he simply did not have enough Republican votes to pass anything more ambitious.

“It’s the fact that we don’t have 218 votes,” he said after meeting with House Republicans, “and when you don’t have 218 votes, you have nothing.” He added that he expected almost all of the House Democrats to vote to pass the bill, though he said he would still need to muster about 18 Republican votes to get the legislation over the finish line. “We’ll have to find them,” Mr. Boehner said. “I’ll be one.”

So whom did Boehner surrender to? That’s actually a little fuzzy. Democrats were willing to support his previous plan, which would have tied the debt limit increase to a restoration of full benefits for veterans, but it was the tea party that rebelled against that plan. So in a way, this was basically a surrender to the tea party.

In any case, that’s that. Boehner has decided (probably wisely) to take one for the team and get a bill passed so that Republicans can move on. In a way, this is the best choice he could have made. He gets the debt limit off the table, which is good for the party, since it means no more public debacles getting in the way of their election-year messages. At the same time, he’s allowing virtually the entire Republican caucus to vote against it, which is also good for the party, since it allows individual candidates to rail against it and attack big-spending Democrats. And who loses? No one, really. Boehner himself will take some flack as a sellout, but he’s been taking it anyway.

So will Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan vote for the debt ceiling increase? How about Kevin McCarthy, who will theoretically be the guy in charge of rounding up those 18 votes? Good question. Wait and see.

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Boehner Gives In, Introduces Clean Debt Ceiling Bill

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A Big Oil foe runs for Congress — as a Republican

by ElouiseR69 Posted on February 6, 2014

A Big Oil foe runs for Congress — as a Republican

By

@IowansForShaw

At first blush, Monte Shaw, a newly announced GOP candidate for Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, sounds like any other conservative. He denounces talk of new taxes, pledges to defend the Constitution, and speaks reverently of his “hero” Ronald Reagan. “Conservatives must hold this seat if we’re to have any hope at all of stopping the leftward plunge of our federal government,” Shaw said this week in announcing that he would run to replace Rep. Tom Latham (R), who is not seeking reelection.

Yeah, yeah, yada yada. But get this: “Big Oil,” as Shaw calls the industry that controls so many House Republicans (and some Democrats), is his professional enemy. Supporting renewables is currently his full-time job. He’s the executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.

A Big Oil opponent running on a Republican ticket? Whaaa?

The catch is that Shaw’s association doesn’t champion solar panels or wind turbines. It promotes biofuels derived from the region’s cornfields.

The biofuel and oil industries are locking horns over how much ethanol the federal government should require to be blended into gasoline under its Renewable Fuel Standard program. Here’s what Shaw had to say about the issue in an op-ed published in The Hill last year:

Big Oil is back to its old tricks, this time trying to convince Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency that the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) cannot work and should be eliminated.

To combat Big Oil’s monopoly on transportation fuels, the RFS requires refiners to gradually increase the amount of renewable fuels available to consumers over time. However, refiners now say it cannot be done. Once again, they are wrong.

We call this the Big Oil Bluff.

While it’s refreshing to hear a GOP candidate calling out “Big Oil” on its bullshit, it’s not so refreshing that he’s pimping for the ethanol industry — which has been wrecking havoc on the environment and the climate as corn fields expand into natural areas to help satisfy our thirst for gasoline.

But it could still be fun to watch a Republican run against the oil industry.


Source
Monte Shaw kicks off bid for Congress, says conservatives must hold seat, The Des Moines Register

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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A Big Oil foe runs for Congress — as a Republican

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Why Are Republicans Shooting Themselves in the Foot With a Health Care Bill?

by Lavon5225vx Posted on February 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore points me to The Hill today, which reports that House Republicans plan to draft a genuine Obamacare replacement bill later this year:

For years, Republicans have promised a “repeal and replace” strategy on ObamaCare, but have never coalesced behind one plan. President Obama has repeatedly mocked the GOP for not delivering an alternative.

Eric Cantor intends to move a repeal-and-replace bill before the midterm elections in November, according to a source familiar with the situation. He broached the issue at the House GOP retreat in Cambridge, Md., late last week.

“I think it is very likely that we’re going to have it before the election, we’re going to give the people — or at least we are going to try to give the people — a clear distinction of who we are versus who the Democrats are,” Florida Rep. Tom Rooney (R) said.

I’m genuinely baffled by this. Why bother? Republicans have spent years screaming “Repeal and Replace!” without ever offering up a replacement, and it’s worked fine. Sure, it invites mockery from folks like me, but has that ever done them any harm? Not that I can see.

On the flip side, any actual bill will be divisive within their own caucus and provide a rich target for Democrats at the same time. When it’s all just hazy smoke, Dems have nothing to get a handle on. Once there’s actual legislative language, all they have to do is find the least popular bits, twist them into granny-killing death panels, and go to town.

If there were an actual chance of passing this bill, it might be worth it. But there’s not, and as near as I can tell, it’s literally 100 percent downside and no upside. What on earth is the point?

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Why Are Republicans Shooting Themselves in the Foot With a Health Care Bill?

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Will Obama do the right thing on ozone and smog this time around?

by AudreaEQQE Posted on February 6, 2014

Will Obama do the right thing on ozone and smog this time around?

By

Barack Obama has been just as bad as George W. Bush when it comes to curbing ground-level ozone pollution. But soon he’ll have another chance to get ozone regulations right.

Ozone rocks when it’s up in the stratosphere, protecting us from UV rays and skin cancer. But when it’s at ground level, where it’s the main component of smog, it can cause respiratory infections, asthma, and other ailments. Ground-level ozone pollution is produced when sunlight triggers reactions involving the chemicals that are spewed out of factories and tailpipes. Naturally, oil companies and other polluting industries don’t want to be required to rein in this pollution.

In 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, the EPA finalized new rules on ground-level ozone, allowing 75 parts per billion in the air. Clean air advocates and enviros had called for a lower limit of 60 ppb, saying it was needed to protect public health. In 2011, the EPA was poised to tighten the standard, but the Obama White House cravenly quashed the effort, fearing backlash from industry the year before a presidential election. At the time, John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council called this “the most outrageous environmental offense of the Obama administration.”

Under the requirements of the Clean Air Act, the EPA was supposed to revise its ozone rules in 2013, but it missed the deadline. Now it’s being sued by environmental and health groups for its tardiness.

As EPA slowly moves toward crafting new ozone rules, its experts are taking another look at the science. And — surprise, surprise — those experts have found that the current Bush-era rules could be exposing Americans to dangerously high levels of ozone pollution.

From E&E Publishing:

In a draft document released [Monday], U.S. EPA staff say that based on available scientific evidence, the agency should consider tightening its current ozone standard to a level as low as 60 parts per billion. …

In a separate health and risk exposure assessment, agency staff says that setting a standard in the 60-70 ppb range would result in reduced child exposure, lower hospitalization and mortality rates, and reduced risk of lower lung function.

The documents are meant to inform agency scientists and policymakers ahead of a meeting of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee at the end of March. Following that meeting, the agency is expected to release a proposal, although the administration has not specified a timeline.

As Bloomberg BNA reports reports, “A stricter ozone standard would lead to new requirements for emissions controls on sources that emit nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, which contribute to ozone formation, including industrial facilities, power plants and vehicles.”

Now that he doesn’t have to worry about reelection, will Obama endorse stronger ozone rules? We’ll be watching.


Source
EPA Draft Policy Document Says Science Justifies Stricter Ozone Air Quality Standard, Bloomberg BNA
EPA draft eyes tightening ozone standard to 60 ppb, E&E Publishing

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Meet the GOP Congressional Candidate Who Called Hillary Clinton the "Antichrist"

by GabrieleGalbrai Posted on February 4, 2014

Mother Jones

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Montana GOP congressional candidate Ryan Zinke made waves last week when, speaking at a campaign stop, he called Hillary Clinton the “Antichrist.”*

But before Zinke was in the news for equating the former secretary of state to the Great Deceiver, Mother Jones flagged Zinke for the dubious campaign finance methods surrounding his campaign for Montana’s only seat in the House of Representatives.

Zinke, 53, is a former Navy SEAL, a fact he advertised loudly in 2012 when he launched a super-PAC—a political action committee that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising. The super-PAC, “Special Operations for America,” (SOFA) raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars in 2012 to support the election of Mitt Romney. And although SOFA didn’t succeed in putting Romney in the White House, the election allowed it to gather a substantial list of small-dollar donors and continue raising money after the 2012 election ended. At the end of 2013, the group had $255,904 on hand.

By that point, Zinke was no longer involved with the super-PAC’s leadership—he had resigned on September 30 and announced three weeks later that he was running for Congress. Soon, the super-PAC Zinke started became his biggest cheerleader. Throughout last fall, SOFA’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter account all urged donors to give to Zinke’s congressional exploratory committee, and then, his congressional campaign. In January 2014 alone, SOFA spent almost $60,000 supporting Zinke’s campaign. (The last time the seat was up for grabs, in 2012, outside spending totaled $240,000.)

If this strategy, which is entirely legal, sounds familiar, that’s because it was pioneered by Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert in 2012. As Mother Jones noted in November:

In January 2012, Colbert summoned Daily Show host Jon Stewart and Trevor Potter, a campaign finance expert, to the Colbert Report studio for a surprise announcement: Colbert was handing control of his super-PAC to Stewart. The two comedians signed a two-page document, then held hands and locked eyes while Potter bellowed the words, “Colbert super-PAC transfer, activate!” Colbert then announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to weigh a run for “President of the United States of South Carolina.” Stewart, meanwhile, renamed Colbert’s super-PAC the Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC, and promised Colbert he would run ads to support Colbert’s presidential bid.

The aim of Colbert’s stunt was to show that campaign finance laws are so flimsy that it was legal, in theory, for a politician to start a super-PAC, raise unlimited heaps of cash from big-money donors for that super-PAC, quit the super-PAC, and then run for federal office supported by that super-PAC.

Zinke’s campaign, in other words, was pretty shameless before he called Clinton the “Antichrist.” And pretty well-funded, too.

*Zinke made the Antichrist comment, which was first reported by the Montana website Bigfork Eagle, after telling his audience, “We need to focus on the real enemy.” He did not reply to a request for comment from Mother Jones. When Aaron Flint of Northern Broadcasting asked Zinke about the comment, Zinke said, “I’ve already been put on the Obama campaign enemy list—and they’re just gonna attack. That’s all these people do is attack, attack, attack.”

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Meet the GOP Congressional Candidate Who Called Hillary Clinton the "Antichrist"

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Senate votes to keep subsidizing flood insurance in flood-prone areas

by MicaelaL71 Posted on February 3, 2014

Senate votes to keep subsidizing flood insurance in flood-prone areas

By

Liz Roll / FEMA

Members of Congress have been clamoring for months to undo one of the most ambitious pieces of climate-related legislation they ever passed. The Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 would force coastal property owners to pay full market rates for their flood insurance. The law barely mentioned climate change, but it laid the groundwork for a more sane approach to building — and rebuilding — along increasingly disaster-prone coastlines and riverbanks.

Last Thursday, however, the Senate voted 67 to 32 to approve the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act, which would delay the phaseout of federally subsidized flood insurance by as many as four years. That would postpone flood-insurance hike shocks for Americans living in coastal and shoreline properties. But it would also mean that the federal government would continue to encourage homebuilding in vulnerable areas — with taxpayers picking up the tab following inevitable inundations.

Unless, that is, the delays are blocked in the House, or vetoed by the president.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said that the House won’t take up a bill delaying the rate hikes. Budget hawks in the House, along with insurance industry reps and environmentalists, point out that the National Flood Insurance Program will soon be nearly $30 billion in debt — the result of below-market rates and a string of hurricanes that have pummeled the coasts.

But pressure is mounting to call a “time-out” on the rate hikes, so FEMA has time to more thoroughly study the economic impacts.

If the legislation does manage to pass the House, a veto might still stop it. The White House put out a statement last week expressing its concerns about the Senate bill. “Delaying implementation of these reforms would further erode the financial position of the [National Flood Insurance Program], which is already $24 billion in debt,” it said. But the statement contained no veto threat.

So it might fall to the budget hawks in the House to decide. If they do salvage Biggert-Waters, it will be in the name of fiscal conservatism, not in the name of preparing for climate change. Still, call it what you want: The two are increasingly synonymous.


Source
Senate approves delay in higher flood insurance premiums, The Washington Post

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Senate votes to keep subsidizing flood insurance in flood-prone areas

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Meet the Next Michele Bachmann

by EileenRubinstei Posted on February 3, 2014

Mother Jones

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Liberals rejoiced when Michele Bachmann announced her intention to retire from Congress at the end of 2014. Bachmann will no longer be around to carry the Tea Party banner in Congress. But she’s almost guaranteed to be replaced by another far-right conservative. Minnesota’s 6th congressional district skews heavily Republican—voting 56 percent for Romney in 2012. Whichever GOPer emerges from the primary should easily waltz to a general election win in November. And that successor could either be a Bachmann clone or Minnesota’s own version of Grover Norquist.

The race is between two candidates from diverging wings of the Republican party: There’s Tom Emmer, the social conservative who hews closely to Bachmann and Phil Krinkie, a small-business owner whose mission in life is to block tax increases. A key vote for the nomination comes this week. Minnesota’s primary isn’t until August, but candidates are traditionally handpicked at summer conventions by the state party, while the primary is a mere formality. Local precincts will hold caucuses on Tuesday to elect delegates to the state convention, determining which candidate has the edge.

Emmer, a failed gubernatorial candidate from 2010, closely replicated the Bachmann model. For his first major bill after he entered the Minnesota House in 2005, Emmer proposed that the state medically castrate sex offenders. That was just the beginning of a career defined by extreme views. He’s unsure when quizzed about evolution. He favors harsh immigration laws—Arizona’s punitive 2010 law was a “wonderful first step.” He thinks a minimum wage for restaurant staff is a silly concept: “With the tips that they get to take home, they are some people earning over $100,000 a year,” Emmer said during his 2010 campaign.

Exempting Minnesota from federal laws was Emmer’s pet cause as a legislator. He proposed the Firearms Freedom Act, an implausible bill that would have declared Minnesota exempt from federal gun laws. He then took that a step further, introducing a bill that said Minnesota must ignore any federal law unless a supermajority approved each measure. “A federal law does not apply in Minnesota unless that law is approved by a two-thirds vote of the members of each house of the legislature and is signed by the governor,” his bill read. None of these measures succeeded, but they charmed the Bachmann wing of Minnesota’s Republican Party.

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Meet the Next Michele Bachmann

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Dylan Farrow Writes Open Letter Claiming Horrific Sexual Assault by Woody Allen

by ild4sho Posted on February 2, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Saturday, Nicholas Kristof’s blog at the New York Times published an open letter by Dylan Farrow, the adoptive daughter of celebrated filmmaker Woody Allen. The letter describes, in horrifying detail, sexual assault she claims to have suffered at the hands of Allen—when she was seven years old. As Kristof notes, this is the first time that Farrow has written about this in public.

Here’s an excerpt:

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.

…

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?

Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

(You can read the rest of her letter—which isn’t easy to get through—here.)

Allen’s representatives did not immediately respond to Mother Jones‘ request for comment regarding the letter. I will update this post, if that changes.

Accusations of the abuse surfaced in the early 1990s, shortly after the relationship between Allen and long-time girlfriend Mia Farrow ended after she discovered Allen had been having an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and composer/conductor André Previn. Allen denies the allegations, and has never been prosecuted in this case. Allen and his defenders say that Dylan was coached to make the allegations by Mia Farrow. Discussion of the alleged assaults was renewed following a recent tribute to Allen at the Golden Globe Awards.

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Dylan Farrow Writes Open Letter Claiming Horrific Sexual Assault by Woody Allen

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Why Are These States Actively Trying to Confuse Their Residents About Obamacare?

by Stephanj0r Posted on January 30, 2014

Mother Jones

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To help consumers and small businesses make sense of their new health insurance options, the Affordable Care Act created outreach personnel, or “navigators,” tasked with distributing information about coverage and walking people through the application process. On January 23, Texas passed a set of measures aimed at restricting these navigators because of lawmakers’ concerns about patient privacy. That same day, a federal judge in Missouri temporarily blocked enforcement of similar restrictions, ruling that they created too large an obstacle to enrollment.

This tug of war is about a seemingly straightforward program: The navigators, who are required by law to be both unbiased and free, are meant to help uninsured Americans enroll in either Medicaid or private insurance plans. Depending on whether a state has opted to use it’s own insurance marketplace, navigators get funding through state or federal grants. For example, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, in Iowa, received a $214,427 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to employ navigators, which will give in-person assistance by preparing applications and helping consumers determine which plans they qualify for, in 61 of 99 Iowa counties.

But Republican lawmakers have cried afoul, arguing that navigators could steal private information like Social Security numbers and medical records. In an August letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the HHS, the attorneys general of 13 states said they were concerned that HHS had “failed to adequately protect the privacy” of consumers because it does “not even require uniform criminal background or fingerprint checks before hiring personnel.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn, for example, praised his state’s regulations, saying on his Facebook, “Obamacare presents enough problems for Texans without the risk of a convicted felon handling their personal information.”

Privacy claims have led to a surge of restrictive measures like those in Texas. At least 17 states have passed regulations on health care navigators since, including Georgia, Ohio, and Tennessee, which barred navigators from educating consumers about the specific benefits, terms, and features of a particular health plan. Here is a map of states that have passed laws restricting navigators:

Many policymakers and health care professionals say that these privacy concerns are unfounded and worry that partisan bickering will hurt underserved populations. After 15 Republicans members of the House asked for details and briefings on 51 navigator groups, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrote, “It is an abuse of your oversight authority to launch groundless investigations into civic organizations that are trying to make health reform a success.” The Democratic members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce also noted that there are already significant privacy safeguards in place, including a $25,000 penalty for disclosing personal information and mandatory navigator training.

Peter Shin, professor of health law and policy George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services, says that conservatives are more interested in decreasing enrollment and making Obamacare look bad than they are in protecting patient privacy. “I think the privacy concern is more of a political issue than a common sense one,” says Shin.

The result of conservative politicking? Underserved populations will remain so, as outreach resources are strained. “The purpose of the navigator programs is to help those who will need most in terms of understanding their options,” says Shin. “The more disenfranchised communities will be hurt the most from the navigator restrictions.”

Several navigator programs have already closed shop because of anti-navigator laws. Cardon Outreach, a Texas-based organization that has helped people enroll in Medicaid in the past, returned its grant from HHS. As the Columbus Dispatch reported, Cardon’s chief legal adviser stated in an email that the state and federal regulatory scrutiny surrounding navigators “requires us to allocate resources which we cannot spare and will distract us from fulfilling our obligations to our clients.”

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Why Are These States Actively Trying to Confuse Their Residents About Obamacare?

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