Even As Obama Focuses On Middle Class, He Shouldn't Forget 'Neediest Among Us,' Poverty Advocate Says

While President Obama used his first State of the Union address last week to refocus his agenda on helping the middle class, the White House should not overlook the needs of the poor during this time of economic struggle, a leading poverty relief leader says.

Following months of voter discontent that led to the surprise victory of a Massachusetts Republican in a Jan. 19 Senate special election, Obama used his televised address to a joint session of Congress to introduce a series of initiatives aimed at boosting the middle class.

"We support the need for further measures to help the economy with the caveat that these measures address the challenges faced by the neediest among us," says Fr. Larry Snyder, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA). "We need the Administration and Congress committed to ensuring that those living on the margins are not left behind as our nation recovers from this brutal recession. While the President's potential increase of funds available for early childhood education is a positive sign of this Administration's dedication to the nation's children, we would stress the needs many families have for increased help with access to food, shelter and other essential services."

Provding relief services for the poor for almost 300 years, Catholic Charities last week also released its 4th Quarter 2009 Snapshot Survey. Based on first-hand data from the Catholic Charities agencies that provide services to the most vulnerable every day -- the survey reveals a dramatic increase nationwide in requests for life-sustaining emergency services across the country.

Of the 47 agencies responding to the survey, 83 percent reported an increase in the working poor seeking assistance, 70 percent reported an increase in families seeking assistance, 57 percent reported an increase in the homeless seeking assistance, and 51 percent reported an increase in the middle class seeking assistance, the organization says in a statement.

Specifically, these are unemployed parents; two-income families struggling to make ends meet; pregnant women and teens; homeless with nowhere to turn; former donors to Catholic Charities organizations now in need of help; and repeat clients with deeper needs and greater barriers to self-sufficiency.

The Snapshot Survey shows new and underserved populations continuing to request help. In sobering numbers, brutal temperatures coupled with rising utility rates and loss of income have left individuals and families hungry, homeless, and cold -- many for the first time, the Catholic relief organization says.

Referencing the survey's confirmation of continued unemployment and its devastating impact on poverty, Fr. Snyder saluted the president's focus on jobs.

Even as signs indicate the U.S. economy is growing once more, the nation's unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at a decades-high 10 percent. When those forced to work part-time and those who have given up seeking employment are added, the rate is nearly twice as high.

"More must be done to get the millions of unemployed Americans back to work," says Fr. Snyder. "Without jobs, individuals and families face considerable challenges as they attempt to meet even their most basic needs."

As requests for help increase, resources diminish. Local agencies, on the frontlines of the economic recession, are forced to do more with less and make dramatic changes to their operations, CCUSA says. Some agencies are showing their creativity –- making greater fundraising efforts, using more volunteers, and sharing resources with community service providers. But other agencies are forced to make heartbreaking changes –- cutting programs, scaling down operations, redeploying and laying off staff, and turning people away, the organization says.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Harry Reid May Be In No Hurry To Finish Healthcare Reform, But Others Are

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may be in "no rush" to complete the work that sends a finished healthcare reform bill to President Obama to sign into law, but a growing number of his colleagues disagree. Some lawmakers not only see an opportunity to enact health reform, but also a new chance to establish a federally run public option that just weeks ago had been dead politically.

Where healthcare reform was once his top priority, Reid (D-Nev.) this week put healthcare on a backburner in the face of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's surprise election which gives the GOP new filibuster power over the legislation.

Other Democrats, though, aren't as willing to put aside a bill that just weeks ago Reid himself cast as a clock-ticking issue -- the more time goes by, the more Americans die due to insufficient health coverage.

A day after Reid's comments, Obama himself, in his State of the Union address, urged Congress not to "walk away from reform."

A growing number of House and Senate Democrats also are looking to keep the pressure up to pass a healthcare bill despite the new GOP ability to sustain a filibuster -- and are willing to go new lengths to do it.

With a need to bridge differences between the House health reform legislation, and a more-conservative Senate bill, Democrats are increasingly embracing the use of a procedural maneuver known as "reconciliation" which under the rules Republicans would be unable to filibuster. Rather than need 60 votes, Senate Democrats would require just a bare, 51-vote majority to approve a reconciliation bill. The GOP used reconciliation to pass President George W. Bush's tax cuts in the last decade, but have has long warned its use for healthcare reform would be the political equivilent of nuclear war.

Members of both the House and Senate are now advocating a two-step process in the Senate that a number of outside advocacy groups have been recommending to overcome the ability of Brown to sustain GOP efforts to block a health bill.

"I know that there are elements of the Senate Bill that are distasteful to many members of the House of Representatives. Believe me, there are a few elements in our bill that I’d like to see improved," says Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). "If we in the Senate pledge to fix those elements through reconciliation – a budget process that requires only 51 votes…the House of Representatives should pass the Senate Bill.

"Big pieces of legislation often need to be fixed and improved after passage. Health care would be no different. But we have to stop letting the perfect -– and everyone has different definitions of perfect –- be the enemy of the very good," Franken adds.

Franken spoke this week in Washington at the Families USA Health Action 2010 conference.

Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Penn.), meanwhile, circulated a letter to colleagues pushing them to put this two-stage approach into practice, noting that Senate Democrats still wield an overwhelming 59-seat advantage.

"We should simultaneously pass the House-Senate-White House agreed amendments through the House and Senate with the Budget Reconciliation process and the Senate healthcare bill. Just as in the House of Representatives and 1st grade classrooms, 59 is greater than 41," Fattah says. "It would be morally and intellectually dishonest to allow the results of the special election in one state to trump the 50-state results of 2008."

Two other House Democrats want their Senate counterparts to go even further, by including in that separate "reconciliation" package provision for a federally run public option that would compete with private insurers. Obama has asked -- but not demanded -- the legislation include such a public option.

The House version of health reform already includes a public option. But Reid stripped his public option out of the bill Senate Democrats approved on Christmas Eve so as to get the 60 votes he needed at the time. Under reconciliation, just 51 Democrats could approve a public option in the Senate.

"It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote 'budget reconciliation' rules," says the letter, signed by Reps. Jared Polis of Colorado and Chellie Pingree of Maine. "While there were valid reasons stated for not using reconciliation before, especially given that some important provisions of health care reform wouldn’t qualify under the reconciliation rules, those reasons no longer exist. The public option would clearly qualify as budget-related under reconciliation, and with the majority support it has garnered in the Senate, it should be included in any healthcare reform legislation that moves under reconciliation."

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Jared Polis to Skiers: We Need Your Help on The Climate Change Issue

One Colorado congressman isn't so much interested in "green jobs" as much as "white jobs."

Freshman Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.)—who represents winter sports Meccas of Keystone, Breckenridge, Winter Park, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland, Copper Mountain, and Vail—teamed up this week with Teton Gravity Research, The North Face, and Clif Bar to bring snowboarding star Jeremy Jones and adventure sports filmmaker Steve Jones to Washington to highlight the damage that climate change is already having on the ski industry and to encourage skiers to spread the word that Congress needs their help.

“The ski industry is the lifeblood of my district and climate change is already taking a toll,” says Polis, a former Internet entrepreneur. “These athletes are on the front lines of this crisis, watching snow, ice, and communities disappear all over the world. In sharing their story with Congress, they are sharing the stories of many communities who are desperately watching their way of life disappear with the warming planet. While the loss of skiing isn’t the worst consequence of climate change, these individuals show us how we all stand to be personally affected by this global problem.”

The House last summer passed legislation to enact a national carbon cap-and-trade plan. The legislation, however, has become stuck in the Senate, where Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has emerged as a broker on the bill, with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The climate bill, along with stalled healthcare reform legislation, are among President Obama's top legislative priorities.

Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also may use authority granted it under the Clean Air Act by the Supreme Court to regulate carbon emissions.
Polis hosted a Capitol Hill screening of Teton Gravity Research’s new documentary “Generations,” with special guests pro-snowboard legend Jeremy Jones and adventure sports film pioneer and founder of Teton Gravity Research Steve Jones, whose live film events attract over 80,000 people per year throughout the country and countless more through DVD and television. The film features cameos by skiing and snowboarding’s top professionals, humanizing and contextualizing the issue in a new and more personal way, according to a statement from Polis' office. You can view the film in its entirety online.

Jeremy and Steve Jones also met with Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), accompanied by Chris Steinkamp, executive director of Protect Our Winters); Elysa Hammond, director of sustainability for Cliff Bar; and Elizabeth Burakowski, a University of New Hampshire climatologist who has studied the multi-million dollar impact of shortened ski seasons on the New Hampshire ski industry, the Polis statement says. Their discussions focused on the immediate economic impacts of climate change and how the outdoor industry, a new player in this issue, can leverage major resources in the fight for climate action, it adds.

“Many people think that investing in ‘green jobs’ means simply building windmills or installing solar panels, but forget about the many jobs—restaurants, ski lifts, hotels, winter equipment and clothing companies, and small community businesses—that suffer as the ski seasons grow shorter and shorter,” says Polis. “Passing a strong climate bill will save jobs in Colorado and small towns across the country.”

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Why Obama’s Plans for NY Terror Trials Appear to Be Unraveling

by Dafna Linzer, ProPublica

For anyone wondering how one of President Obama’s signature pledges seemed to unravel between Monday and Friday, here’s a look at the week that was.

Savvy readers of The New York Times may have noticed a letter to the editor in Tuesday’s edition, co-signed by three city council members including the speaker, the chairman of the Public Safety Committee and the chairwoman of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee. One month after the Christmas Day terror plot aboard a Detroit-bound flight, all three city officials came out against trials for five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in Manhattan. The officials’ letter was in response to a speculative article, which ran a week earlier, about possibilities for moving the trial 800 yards out of Manhattan, to nearby Governors Island.

On Wednesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly reversed his earlier support for the administration’s trial plan and -- backing the city council members -- also called for the trials to be moved out of Manhattan. It’s hard to overstate the damage that Bloomberg’s position has inflicted on the White House’s efforts to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on trial in New York, as the Justice Department announced last November that it planned to do.

It’s also hard to overstate how damaging this is to the president’s efforts to close Guantanamo and bring the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to justice in a manner that he believes is consistent with his values and promises. Not because New York is the only place where the trials could occur, but because a change of heart from a powerful mayor, who supports Obama,just gave cover to key Democrats to look tough on terror by joining his push for a new trial location.

There was little reaction on Capitol Hill when New York’s unpopular governor, David Paterson, came out against the planned trials when they were announced by Attorney General Eric Holder at a Washington, D.C., news conference in November.

But Bloomberg is not Paterson.

Today, Spencer Ackerman, at The Washington Independent, posted a letter from Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to Obama calling for a venue change. It will be hard for the White House to push back on the very public warnings and concerns she voices in the letter, especially in light of the Christmas Day terror plot.

Hours after the letter surfaced, administration officials said they would continue to push for federal court trials but appeared to be abandoning the New York option.

And that, in turn, could fuel efforts by Republicans and others who oppose civilian trials altogether.

A telling tidbit appears at the very end of a Politico story today noting that Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from Massachusetts campaigned, in part, against civilian trials for terror suspects. Here’s the kicker: Brown's pollsters said the issue polled better for him than even his opposition to health reform.

Since his inauguration, the president has repeatedly taken positions regarding Guantanamo and detention that surprised his supporters on the left.

As a candidate in August 2008, Obama said: "It's time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice."

As president, his advisers stressed that Obama was focused on prosecutions, unlike his predecessor. No Guantanamo detainees were convicted in federal courts during the Bush administration. Three prisoners were convicted in military commissions -- a system that Obama derided as illegitimate.

Last May, in a speech at the National Archives, Obama again pushed for prosecutions in federal court. But he also embraced reformed military commissions and said some suspects would be held indefinitely.

“There may be a number of people,” he said, who could be held without charge or trial after Guantanamo closes. Last week, his task force recommended holding 50 detainees, roughly a quarter of the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo, and two administration officials said the number could be higher.

No more than 35 detainees of the 240 who were in the prison when Obama took office are likely to face charges anywhere. So far, the administration has charged just one detainee in federal court. Five others, including the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators, are likely to face charges. And five other detainees will be charged before military commissions.

The White House knew months ago that it would not be able to meet a one-year deadline for closing Guantanamo. The White House is still trying to figure out a way to move detainees from Guantanamo to a prison facility in Thomson, Ill. Now it is likely that it will also be searching for new trial venues.

Obama did not mention Guantanamo in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night, and the White House has set no new deadline for closing the facility.

Write to Dafna Linzer at dafna.linzer@propublica.org.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

This Just In: Government Spent More Than $1B To Support The News Industry Last Year

The two normally are seen as antagonists, but in reality the news business very much has relied financially on government support. Government at all levels -- federal, state and local -- spent more than $1 billion last to support commercial news publishers, according to a new report the University of Southern California's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy.

Public support for journalism is fading fast, however, and that drop-off has strong implications for a business already weakened by technology changes and the economic downturn, the report says.

The report, Public Policy and Funding the News, analyzes some of the financial tools that government has used to support the press over the years -- from postal rate discounts and tax breaks to public notices and government advertising. The report documents cutbacks across a range of sectors and presents a framework for the consideration of policy options to place the industry on more secure financial footing.

"It is a common myth that the commercial press in the United States is independent of governmental funding support," says Geoffrey Cowan who co-authored the report and is USC Annenberg School dean emeritus and director of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP). "There has never been a time in U.S. history when government dollars were not helping to undergird the news business to ensure that healthy journalism is sustained across the country."

The late 1960s marked a high-water mark of government support for the news business, the report's authors find. The postal service was subsidizing about 75 percent of the mailing costs for newspapers and magazines, roughly $2 billion in today's dollars. Today, however, publishers' mailing discounts for their printed news products are down to 11 percent, or $288 million.

Paid public notices, government-required announcements that give citizens information about important activities, have also been lucrative for newspaper publishers, providing hundreds of millions in revenue to publications ranging from local dailies and weeklies to national newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal.

For example, in a four-week study, researchers found that the government was responsible for the most purchases, by column inches, of ad space in the Journal. And the newspaper wants more: in 2009 they battled Virginia-area papers in a move to get their regional edition certified to print local legal notices.

This public notice income is especially important to weekly and other community newspapers, accounting, in 2000, for 5 to 10 percent of all revenue. But now, proposals are pending in 40 states to allow agencies to shift publication to the Web.

Tax breaks given to news publishers are likely to decline because many are tied to expenditures on paper and ink and cash-strapped states are seeking to find new sources of revenue. Federal and state tax laws forgive more than $900 million annually for newspapers and news magazines, with most of the money coming at the state level.

"Certainly, the U.S. has never supported news-gathering the way some European and Asian countries have," says David Westphal, report co-author, former Washington Editor for McClatchy, current CCLP senior fellow and USC Annenberg executive-in-residence. "The point here is that it's time all of us, outside and inside the industry, realize that tax dollars support the American news business, and those dollars, which throughout our history have been critical in keeping the news media alive, are now shrinking quickly."

In the last year, many once-mighty and venerable news organizations nationwide -- the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others -- have either ceased daily publication or have drastically cut their news-gathering operations.

The cumulative effect of reducing government subsidies is not the primary problem afflicting the news business today. At most, government assistance has dropped by a few billion while newspapers alone have lost more than $20 billion in revenue in the last three years, the report says.

Yet, government support represents a critical element of economic survival, and policymakers can't afford to be mere spectators while these changes flash by, the authors of the report argue.

American government does not work very well if citizens do not have a reliable supply of news and information. What is playing out in the news business is a vital national interest, the authors say.

Some lawmakers have been looking closely at the economic viability of the news business, and have proposed specific solutions. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), for instance, introduced The Newspaper Revitalization Act of 2009.

Cardin's bill would allow newspapers to operate as non-profits, if they choose, under 501(c)(3) status for educational purposes, similar to public broadcasting, according a summary of the legislation. Under this arrangement, newspapers would not be allowed to make political endorsements, but would be allowed to freely report on all issues, including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt and contributions to support coverage or operations could be tax deductible.

Cardin's office emphasizes that his bill is not a bailout does not involve any government funding for the newspaper industry. Also, the measure is targeted to preserve local newspapers serving communities and not large newspaper conglomerates.

“While we have lots of news sources, we rely on newspapers for in-depth reporting that follows important issues, records events and exposes misdeeds," Cardin says. "In fact, most if not all sources of journalistic information –- from radio to television to the Internet – gathers their news from newspaper reporters who cover the news on a daily basis and know their communities. It is in the interest of our nation and good governance that we ensure they survive.”

The USC report also offers several potential actions government could take to bolster the news business, including the non-profit approach Cardin favors. Other options are: Tax credits for taxpayers who subscribe to newspapers; expanded federal investment in digital technology and infrastructure, including broadband access; an antitrust law timeout to allow publishers to form a common strategy; and significant new government funding for public radio and public television.

"We live in an era of profound technological change that threatens many forms of news media. We do not favor government policies that keep dying media alive. But we do believe government can help to provide support during this period of transition," says Westphal.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Senate Joins The Battle Against Supreme Court's 'Attack On Democracy'

Lawmakers now appear to be introducing new legislation on a daily basis aimed at reversing the effects of last week's sweeping Supreme Court ruling that overturned more than a century of bipartisan precedent to allow corporate wealth -- including that of foreigners -- nearly unfettered influence in U.S. elections.

For the first time, such a bill has come forth in the Senate, as well as additional legislation in the House.

In a bitter 5-4 ruling led by Chief Justice John Roberts, the high court struck down major portions of the 2002 campaign finance law known as McCain-Feingold. The decision opens the floodgates to corporate political spending. More than that, the majority justices say corporations have rights the same as individuals do under the Constitution.

The case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, ostensibly was about a conservative-slanted film about then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her bid for the presidency.But in a stinging dissent, liberal stalwart John Paul Stevens complains, "Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law."

President Obama specifically condemned the Citizens United decision in his Wednesday State of the Union address, with Roberts and other justices sitting in the chamber before him. Obama and congressional Democrats have been searching for a legislative remedy to reverse the practical effects of the high court's ruling.

Sen. Al Franken's American Elections Act of 2010 is designed specifically to keep foreign interests out of American elections.

Since 1974, federal law has banned foreign companies from giving or spending in American elections. Nothing in current law, however, explicitly prohibits foreign companies from creating American subsidiaries or getting control of American companies and using them to flood the airwaves in support of their preferred candidates. Citizens United gives companies unlimited power to do that -– and does not distinguish between American companies and companies that are owned or controlled by foreign interests, according to a statement from the Minnesota Democrat.

“I was pleased to hear the President recognize the need for this bill in his address last night,” says Franken. “I think we can all agree that foreign interests have no place in American elections.”

The American Elections Act of 2010 was developed with David Schultz of Hamline University School of Business in Minnesota, the statement from Franken's office says.

"The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United was an attack on democracy and fair elections,” says Schultz. “It undid laws seeking to regulate corporations across the country and in Minnesota that go back over 60 years. As a result of it corporate money will flood into Minnesota, threatening the basic integrity of our elections and the power of citizens to control their own government. Senator Franken's bill is an important first step in addressing Citizens United and preventing money from further destroying our elections in Minnesota."

Franken's American Elections Act of 2010 will keep foreign interests out of U.S. elections by:

Banning election contributions and spending by corporations that are controlled or highly influenced by foreign nationals (foreign governments, companies, and persons). This includes:

- Corporations that receive most of their financing from foreign nationals.

- Corporations where foreign nationals hold a controlling share of stock (as defined under leading corporate law) or a majority of its board of directors.

- Corporations that allow foreign nationals to control or participate in their political activities – including ad spending, donations, and political action committees.

Requiring all corporations to certify, before giving or spending in elections, that they are in compliance with these requirements.

Requiring all corporations to disclose in their political advertising how much of their company is controlled by foreign nationals, or if this isn’t possible, how much of their financing comes from foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) introduced legislation to require shareholder approval of political spending.

“Corporations cannot vote, but have access to massive accumulated wealth which can be pointed like an arrow to directly influence the election of candidates,” says Lisa Gilbert, democracy advocate at the watchdog group, U.S. PIRG. “In addition, decisions to use corporate treasury funds for political influence are currently made by corporate boards and executives, many times without the knowledge or consent of shareholders. Shareholders and the public have a right to know exactly how corporations are spending their funds to influence elections and causes, and should have to indicate express approval of their money being spent on politics.”

Capuano's Shareholder Protection Act, H.R. 4537, would:

• Ensure that shareholders’ political interests are accurately represented by their corporation.
• Require an authorizing vote of a majority of shareholders before general treasury funds can be spent on political activities.
• Require quarterly notification to all shareholders on corporations’ contributions or expenditures for political activities.

Franken's and Capuano's legislation joins others already filed, such as the "Save Our Democracy" package of bills offered by freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:





Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

ANALYSIS: Obama Appears Not To Be The Political Dead Weight Dems Fear He Is

Coming off his first State of the Union address Wednesday, President Obama appears to be in better political shape with the American people than has been widely assumed.

Already anxious going into this year's midterm elections, the fear of many Democrats grew as Obama poll numbers continued to slide. That worry exploded into near-panic earlier this month when a Republican captured a Senate seat from Massachusetts for the first time in more than 30 years. That Scott Brown won that special election even after Obama stumped at the last minute for the Democrat put an exclamation mark for many on just how far the president had fallen since his historic Inauguration just a year earlier.

Obama, himself, acknowledged political setbacks -- and even acknowledged some were deserved -- during his televised address before a joint session of Congress.

But polling indicates that despite the scars of a nearly year-long, and as yet unsuccessful, battle to enact comprehensive healthcare legislation, the president does not appear to be the political pariah among the broad American electorate that Democrats fear, and Republicans hope, he has become.

Instant polling after the State of Union demonstrates that Obama was able to use his 71-minute speech to connect successfully with Americans. Some 48 percent rated the speech as a very positive, with three in 10 saying they had a somewhat positive response and just 21 percent with a negative response, according to a CNN survey.

Meanwhile, a CBS News poll finds that 83 percent of Americans support the proposals Obama outlined in the State of the Union, which included initiatives to bolster the middle class, as well as a broad three-year freeze on most federal spending in an attempt to rein in the deficit.

Even before he spoke the nation Wednesday, Americans continued to feel warmly toward Obama.

A majority of likely voters (51 percent) say they are proud to have Barack Obama as president, according to a Zogby Interactive poll. One-in-three likely voters (35 percent) are ashamed while 14 percent are undecided, the Zogby survey finds. While there is a strong partisan divide, independents are more likely to be proud of Obama (45 percent) than ashamed (34 percent).

And even in that Massachusetts special election that is supposed to have been the "wake-up call" that even voters in the reliably Democratic Bay State are fed up with Obama, a poll featured in the Washington Post indicates that six in 10 voters in that Jan. 19 election actually approve of Obama's job performance and about half the voters say Obama was not a factor in their vote.

These various polling results do not invalidate the slump in Obama's approval ratings since this summer. But taken together, they do paint a picture that is less dire and more fluid than recent conventional wisdom may indicate. Although there are partisans angry with Obama on both the Right and Left, his poorer approval ratings likely could be a reflection of dissatisfaction than a wholesale abandonment. Indeed, these polling results may indicate that although voters may register approval, or disapproval, at any given time, the broad electorate still hopes for Obama's ultimate success.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Reform Groups Prescribe Strong, 'Reconciliation' Rx To Bring Healthcare Legislation Back To Life

Policymakers at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. appear content to leave their once-crucial healthcare reform plans essentially in suspended animation. But that's not good enough for a collection of advocacy groups who want to see the legislation make it over the finish line -- even if that means using the contentious "reconciliation" process that Republicans consider tantamount to an act of political war.

Robbing Democrats of a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate, the surprise election of Republican Scott Brown from Massachusetts to the Senate scrambled what had been carefully set plans to enact the legislation that relied solely on Democratic votes and the ability of Senate Democrats to have the needed 60 votes to muscle past united Republican opposition.

Neither President Obama, nor congressional Democrats, have officially abandoned their reform effort. But it's clear they have put the initiative on a backburner since their negotiations immediately after Brown's elections failed to produce a consensus path forward.

"The effort to fix our dysfunctional, inequitable and unsustainable health system is at a crucial juncture. Without prompt and decisive leadership, defeat, as it has for over a century, will again prevail over reform," Ralph Neas, chief executive of the National Coalition on Health Care Action Fund, says.

Neas spoke Wednesday at a Washington press conference that brought together a number of groups who have been pushing health reform since it emerged last year as a top priority for Obama. Those organizations that came together for the event include: Families USA, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), and the American College of Cardiology.

"In less than one year, more progress was made than had been accomplished in the past 100 years," Neas says. "But, now is not the time to change course. Rather it is the time to redouble our efforts to enact comprehensive health system reform."

The House and Senate had approved competing versions of healthcare reform, and when Brown was unexpectedly elected to fill the seat once held by Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy, top Democrats were in the midst of delicate negotiations to merge those separate bills into one final piece of legislation that both chambers could agree to, and send to Obama for signature into law.

Facing this new political environment, Neas, however, argues against the case made by some that lawmakers should look to pass a more-limited reform bill instead.

"First and foremost, the campaign to enact a comprehensive bill that would produce sustainable reform must continue unabated," he says. "Because every element of the health system is interrelated and interdependent, piecemeal reform -- especially a cherry picking approach -- not only is not feasible but could make matters worse. Incrementalism simply could do more harm than good."

The easiest solution to approve a healthcare reform bill at this point would be for the House simply to approve the more-conservative Senate bill in its entirety. Doing so would leave the Senate, including incoming Sen. Brown, out of the equation. Many House progressives have balked at this option, however.

Given that, though, Neas offers a suggested, step-by-step approach for lawmakers to use to continue their work toward enacting a reform package. That process, he says, begins with continuing negotiations among House, Senate and White House leadership "without further interruptions."

Lawmakers should finish the negotiations as soon as possible and -- consistent with the rules of Congress -- incorporate those agreements into a budget reconciliation measure. Budget reconcilitation is a congressional vehicle in which a bare majority of 51 senators could approve legislation. Under this rule, Republicans would be unable to mount a filibuster with Brown.

Democrats have considered the use of reconciliation at various points throughout the healthcare reform process, and at each turn, Republicans have warned of severe consequences should Democrats turn to reconciliation.

Under Neas' approach, though, next the Senate could take up as a separate reconciliation measure those "corrections" that House members would want to see added to the Senate bill, and pass it by majority vote, even before the House of Representatives votes on the Senate-passed reform bill. After Senate passage of the "corrections" measure, the House could pass both the reconciliation bill and the Senate-passed health reform bill. Both the health reform bill and the reconciliation measure then could be sent to the president for signature as one reform package, Neas says.

"Numerous precedents and different sequences exist for such a process," he says. "Often it has been said that failure to enact a comprehensive health care reform law would be a political disaster for those elected officials who have supported such legislation. We believe that to be correct."

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:





Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Healthcare Reform With The Stroke Of A Pen: Obama Can Help 132M Without Congress

His plans for comprehensive health reform are on life support in Congress, but President Obama can help improve coverage for 132 million Americans just by a stroke of his pen, according to a consumer advocacy group.

Obama should close a legal loophole that currently prohibits 132 million Americans from holding their health insurance providers legally accountable for denials and delays of care—even if those denials or delays result in serious injury or death, according to the organization, Consumer Watchdog.

Consumer Watchdog also asked Obama not to wait for Congress, but to re-establish a special assistant for consumer affairs in the White House—a post that the organization says every other Democratic president since John Kennedy has filled to be a voice for patients who lack legal remedies against insurance companies.

At issue are denials of coverage insurers issue to those covered under employer plans -- often for catastrophic conditions. The TV magazine Dateline NBC recently broadcast an expose on the matter, which was referenced by Consumer Watchdog.

The report highlights several instances of families seeking serious care for their loved ones in the face of insurer intransigence, including the case of 57-year-old Florida firefighter Rick Crusoe. Crusoe developed a rare, virulent cancer. He missed the window for an effective treatment because his insurer wouldn't approve it. Crusoe died a short time later, according to the report.

Consumer Watchdog says that privately insurance company employees admit that the companies are more likely to delay and deny treatment to workers covered by private employers, because they face no consequences because they have no legal recourse.

"Before Wednesday's State of the Union address, we urge you to review Sunday night's edition of Dateline NBC, which features three families who suffered deeply for lack of enough legal leverage to get medical treatment promised through their employer-sponsored health insurance," the representatives from Consumer Watchdog ask Obama in a letter to the White House. "Any of the 132 million Americans with such insurance coverage could find themselves in similar straits: with health coverage but without care they desperately need, because they have no adequate legal remedies when they fall seriously ill and are wrongfully denied treatment."

The dilemma of these families stems in large part from a 1987 Supreme Court decision, Pilot Life vs. Dedeaux, which "is widely regarded as a misinterpretation of Congress's intent" in enacting the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the letter says.

The letter urges Obama to call on Congress to fix this inequity that leaves individuals "at the mercy of insurers' delays and denials of necessary care."

The organization also wants the president to take an immediate step that does not require action by Congress: the creation of a consumer affairs office in the White House.

"One benefit of this representation for consumers would be its power to speak for patients who cannot seek justice in our courts, yet lack other effective advocacy on their behalf. A consumer affairs advocate in the White House would be heard by insurers and could make sure federal agencies are more responsive to patients' needs," the letter says.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

'Opportunity' Analysis: Economic Recovery Must Address Various Inequalities

National measures of economic opportunity are in decline and that unequal barriers to opportunity facing women and people of color do not rise or fall with the overall economy, according to a new analysis.

As President Obama prepares to address the nation on the need to do more to help struggling Americans, the report concludes that economic recovery efforts must address racial and gender gaps in opportunity, as well as overall national indicators in employment, wages, poverty, and education.

Obama on Wednesday night will deliver his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. The president's televised speech is expected to focus on further ways the government can assist Americans as they continue to face record-high unemployment and other extended financial distress. Congress also is responding with jobs bills and other legislation aimed at soothing the worst effects of what has become the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Key indicators contained in The State of Opportunity in America show starkly different levels of opportunity in some communities, and trends that diverge from those of the broader economic crisis. The analysis comes from The Opportunity Agenda, a project funded by the progressive foundation, Tides Center.

"The findings refute the conventional wisdom that stark racial and gender disparities will naturally diminish or disappear if the overall economy improves," says Alan Jenkins, executive director of The Opportunity Agenda. "Promoting greater and more equal opportunity must become an important and explicit consideration in future public investments and programs. Opportunity doesn't just happen, it requires bold leadership, innovative ideas, and public attention."

Among the findings of the report:

While the overall unemployment rate increased 2.6 percent, from 7.4 percent in December 2008 to 10 percent in 2009, the increase in unemployment was significantly higher for African Americans and Latinos. African American unemployment increased 4.1 percent, from 12.1 percent to 16.2 percent, and Latino unemployment increased 3.5 percent, from 9.4 percent to 12.9 percent.

At the end of 2008, women, with a poverty rate of 14.4 percent, were 20 percent more likely than men, with a poverty rate of 12 percent, to live in poverty. Yet, this staggering gap is actually a slight improvement from 2007, when women were 24 percent more likely than men to live in poverty.

Racial and ethnic gaps in educational attainment, a key tool in surviving an economic downturn, persisted in 2008. African American young people were 55 percent as likely as white young people to have obtained a bachelor's degree, and Latino young people were 33.3 percent as likely as white young people to have obtained a bachelor's degree, rates that were statistically similar to 2007.

The report's other recommendations include more strategic enforcement of equal opportunity laws, and initiatives that simultaneously create greater and more equal opportunity, such as childcare tax credits and subsidies, community health clinics in underserved communities, and need-based scholarships instead of loans to improve college access and job preparedness.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Deep In Recession Red Ink, Bush-era Tax Break Robs States of Funds That Could Help

It's burdened by the nation's highest unemployment, and a staggering 14 percent of its residents live in poverty. But at a time when the state of Michigan could be reaching out to help the unemployed, its leaders are retrenching with cuts to Medicaid, education -- even training to help workers find new jobs -- as they attempt to make up a budget shortfall north of $1.5 billion.

Sadly, much of this pain is needless suffering. Michigan, along with two dozen other states, are losing tax dollars they could have collected -- and today so desperately need -- if only for a federal corporate tax break enacted by Congress in 2004 that the states themselves had no direct say in, according to an analysis by a Washington think tank that deals with matters important to low- and moderate-income Americans.

It's called the “domestic production deduction,” and because most states base their own tax codes on the federal tax code, the domestic production deduction was carried over into many states without specific legislative scrutiny or a vote, say the authors of the analysis, Nicholas Johnson and Ashali Singham of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

This tax break, approved by during the Bush administration, is costing not only the federal government but also half of the U.S. states a large, and growing, amount of money, the analysis says. By 2011, it will cost these states more than $500 million per year.

States aren't helpless, though, because they are not required to allow this deduction. In fact, since 2008, Connecticut, New York, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia have joined 18 other states in disallowing the deduction and thereby reducing their current budget shortfalls and benefitting their states’ economies, the analysts say.

There are those 25 continue to permit it, and four states lack personal and corporate income taxes and so are unaffected, they add.

Worse: this tax break doesn't even help save jobs or improve local economies, the analysts say.

"There is no good reason why states should accept such revenue losses," they say.

The deduction is unlikely to protect or create jobs within a state, because multi-state corporations can claim the deduction for out-of-state “production activity” just as they can for in-state activity, the analysis finds.

The deduction provides "little or no help" to businesses that are struggling in the current downturn because only profitable firms have taxable income for it to offset.

Further, the deduction is heavily slanted towards large corporations. In 2006, 94 percent of the deduction taken under the corporate income tax was claimed by the 0.4 percent of firms with more than $100 million apiece in assets. Many of these large firms are multi-state corporations and may invest little or nothing in the state granting the tax break, the analysts say.

"Most importantly, given the large cuts most states are making in education, healthcare, and almost all other areas of spending, it makes little sense for them to be growing such a large new tax break," they say. "Maintaining the tax break would mean states would have to cut more elsewhere, and the jobs lost due to such cuts would almost certainly exceed any jobs created by maintaining this costly and inefficient deduction."

The news keeps getting better, the analysts say, because decoupling a state from this crippling federal policy is simple to enact and inexpensive to administer.

"It can be done by adding a single sentence to state tax law requiring corporations to add back the deducted amount to their taxable income and a single line to state tax forms," they say.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Judiciary Chairman Conyers to Host Super Bowl Fundraiser

by Marcus Stern, ProPublica

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee has Super Bowl tickets to sell to donors willing to pay $5,000 a piece for them, according to our friends at the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time.

A check for $5,000 will get you one ticket to the game and two tickets to a fundraiser at Miami’s always-popular Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant. The event is an opportunity to rub shoulders with Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and donate to his leadership PAC, Moving America Forward.

We put in a call to Conyers’ office this morning and left a message asking how many Super Bowl tickets he has, how he got them and, of course, the all-important question: Are they close to the 50-yard line? In the meantime, we’re putting an “X” in our Super Bowl Blitz chart for Conyers.

If you don’t want to brave the crowds at the Super Bowl itself, or already have tickets, you can still rub shoulders with the Chairman over the likes of ginger salmon by attending his luncheon.

Those tickets aren’t cheap, either. You’ll pay $5,000 to stand out as a “PAC host,” $2,500 dollars to be a “PAC supporter” and $1,000 for individuals.

If you decide to drop in on the event, please let us know. Inquiring minds are always curious about who shows up at these events.

Write to Marcus Stern at Marcus.Stern@propublica.org.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

New Online 'Fact Sheet' Uses Haiti Quake Crisis To Slam Immigration, Protected Status

As Americans seek to help, and connect with, the massive humanitarian crisis in Haiti, a new fact sheet has been posted online promising to provide seemingly helpful "information about the Haitian community in the United States."

The reality is the document was released by a Washington policy organization using the intense interest in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 earthquake to advance a specific political agenda.

Americans are responding in an overwhelming fashion to the devastation in and around Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, caused by a magnitude 7.0 tremblor that has claimed the lives of 200,000 or more Haitians, and left millions of others injured, destitute, out on the streets -- or worse.

While more than 80 million reportedly tuned into a televised fundraiser on 33 networks, raising at least $57 million for relief, the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington has been using the crisis as a means to limit immigration to the United States.

The issue of immigration has been coming back to the fore in Washington, as last month Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) announced new comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

The fact sheet released by the center begins with basic Census data about the increase in the number of Haitians in the United States, and provides what appears to be a simple breakdown on the states with the highest concentrations of Haitians living in the United States.

But by the fourth bullet point, the document reads, "Our best estimate is that there are 75,000 to 125,000 illegal Haitian immigrants in the country. In 2000, the INS estimated there were 76,000 illegal Haitian immigrants."

The next bullet, which focuses on the number of Haitians who could remain in the United States under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) granted by the Obama administration following the disaster, emphasizes that of those seeking TPS protection, "most are illegal immigrants."

The fact sheet is attributed to Steven Camarota, director of research at the center. The center's avowed mission is a "low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted."

The document goes on to claim that, of households headed by Haitian immigrants, 46 percent use "at least one major welfare program," while for households headed by "native-born Americans" it is 20 percent.

Another recent post on the organization's website, attributed to Executive Director Mark Krikorian is titled, simply, "Help Haitians -- In Haiti."

Krikorian's center is not alone in politicizing what has largely been a united global relief effort, as right-wing talker Rush Limbaugh reportedly says, "Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."

Other U.S. leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have come out to emphasize the positive contributions of Haitians in the United States.

“Wherever Haitian immigrants have settled, they have thrived and they have contributed to the welfare and the well-being of their new home country, never forgetting their Haitian legacy," Pelosi says in remarks from the House floor. “We know about the artistic genius and entrepreneurial spirit of the Haitian people. Wyclef Jean, are you listening? And so many others. They will succeed if they are only given the opportunity."

Wyclef Jean is a successful Haitian-American recording artist.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Senate Bill Based On Christmas Terror Attempt Would 'Discard The Constitution'

Proposed legislation in response to the Obama administration's handling of the so-called Christmas Day bomber would essentially make constitutional protection optional in cases of suspected terrorism, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which opposes the measure.

Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins of Maine, chairman and ranking Republican, respectively, of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, are leading the charge behind a bill that would require that top U.S. intelligence officials be consulted following a foreign terrorist’s detention by the United States.

The lawmakers say the legislation is in response to "a serious error" that occurred in the handling of the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged in civilian criminal court. In a statement, Lieberman, Collins, and the other senators backing the bill say the need for the legislation came to light last week during a hearing that examined the incident in which Nigerian Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to destroy Northwest-Delta Airlines flight No. 253 to Detroit on Christmas Day by trying to detonate an explosive. The attempt was unsuccessful.

The Lieberman-Collins proposal is motivated, they say, because the Obama administration moved to try Abdulmutallab in civilian court without consulting the three top U.S. intelligence officials. The argument being that other approaches other than civilian courts ought to be considered for at least some terrorism suspects. Collins complains that the decision to place the accused in civilian court "may have prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to the United States."

Aside from Lieberman and Collins, Republican Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah, and John Ensign of Nevada, are sponsoring their legislation. No Democrats are publicly supporting it.

"It is extremely disturbing that members of the U.S. Congress are essentially calling for Obama administration officials to discard the Constitution when a terrorist suspect is apprehended – as if the Constitution should be applied on a case by case basis," says Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. "The whole idea of having constitutional protections is that they be applied across the board for all those accused of a crime. That is the only way for us to rely on our justice system and its results. Obeying the Constitution is not optional."

The decision by the FBI to place Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the criminal justice system was a correct one, Romero says.

"Terrorism is a crime, and to treat terrorism that takes place far from any battlefield as an act of war is to propose that the entire world is a battlefield, to give criminals the elevated status of warriors and to invest whoever the current president may be with the authority to imprison a broad category of people potentially forever, without ever being afforded an opportunity to defend themselves," he says. "To abandon due process in terrorism cases turns the rule of law on its head and flies in the face of the values that we are fighting to protect in the first place. Our criminal justice system is fully capable of accommodating the government's legitimate security interests while at the same time providing fundamental rights to defendants.

“If we have learned nothing else over the last decade, we've learned that disregarding the rule of law leads to tragic consequences," Romero adds. "This country is still trying to deal with the repercussions of the previous administration’s illegal torture and detention policies, which did immeasurable damage to America’s standing in the world."

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Capitol Idea: Meet President Obama 2.0

By Scott Nance

Most presidents win a new term by winning an election -- Barack Obama just got his by losing one.

Washington has experienced all manner of political aftershocks in the days following the special election on Tuesday in Massachusetts, in which Scott Brown became the first Republican to be elected in nearly 40 years to represent the Bay State in the Senate. But none has been vivid as to watch Obama.

After the immediate dust settled on what Brown's election may, or may not, mean for his healthcare reform plan, Obama didn't mope, or whine -- or really complain in any way. Rather, he just simply seemed to pivot into this new political reality.

And it didn't feel so much a coldly calculated political turn as much as swivel that just appeared to shake something loose within Obama. It's almost as though the president was just waiting, perhaps hoping, for something to blow him this way all along.

This is not to say Obama had fallen into a presidential rut. Instead it seems quite possible to imagine that he had become so enmeshed in accomplishing what he felt he needed to do that he had forgotten for a good long while to poke his head up and really take a look around.

This is not a knock on Obama. It may be a function of having come so far, so fast, but as we've heard from across the political spectrum that a year ago we were truly "at the brink," staring down at the real potential our long, deep recession was ready to become a depression.

Whether you agree with the actions he would eventually take, or not, I think Obama simply was looking to take the best -- perhaps only realistic -- advice he could find at the time to keep that from happening. (I firmly share the mindset of filmmaker Michael Moore that says that even when I may disagree with various Obama policies I remain convinced the president is "a good and decent man.")

In the midst of this serious crisis atmosphere, Obama appears to have put his head down to plow ahead to carry out the long list of tasks he wanted to accomplish to improve the nation's situation.

That's more or less the earnestness with which Obama carried on his job until last Tuesday. He seems to have been so busy that he missed the new appetite for populism that fueled Brown's startling election. But rather than let it rattle him, Obama in the days since he almost seems to exhibit a sense of relief that he could -- should -- shed the "serious crisis mode" that marked his first year and shift both the tone and substance of his presidency.

In just the few days since Brown's victory, Obama announced fresh proposal to impose new fees on big banks he had been accused of being too cozy with just days earlier. He brought the reform-minded Paul Volcker close into his circle at the apparent expense of the more-Wall Street-friendly Tim Geithner. And the president ended his week of change by angrily denouncing a nearly treasonous Supreme Court decision to allow nearly unfettered corporate influence on American politics.

Even as his nomination of the Republican Ben Bernanke to continue in his post atop the Federal Reserve began to unravel last week at the hands of his fellow Democrats, it's not entirely clear how much Obama seems to care.

Just weeks ago, Obama could have been expected to use his weekly White House address to come to Bernanke's rescue -- or at least talk about the economic recovery in a way that would have given his Bush-era nominee some cover. The president, instead, chose to stay on the populist road by continuing his attack on that sweeping Supreme Court decision.

Obama's thinking may well now concur with the Senate's prime Bernanke opponent, the liberal independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who believes Bernanke's defeat would give Obama "a golden opportunity to nominate someone who will move the Fed in a new direction and put an end to the Fed’s relationship with big banks and Wall Street."

Time will tell as to exactly where this new direction will carry Obama. But for the time being, the president appears genuinely happy to leave behind him the path of his first year in office and embrace new political realities and their potential.

Obama will soon give his State of the Union. But feels like it could be his second Inaugural.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Aid Group: In Haiti, Supplies Getting Out, But Challenges Remain at Distribution Sites

Nearly two weeks after Haiti's deadly earthquake, transport delays are clearing up and signs of recovery are emerging. However, aid groups continue to report challenges at distributions and that supply needs and security issues remain.

This is according to World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization working to deliver relief to those millions still left displaced, injured and worse even as an estimated 200,000 Haitians flee the capital of Port-au-Prince, where the worst of the magnitude-7.0 earthquake struck Jan. 12.

The situation in Haiti had been deteriorating toward chaos even after relief operations began arriving in what was the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere even before this month's devastation.

"Everywhere you go, people are still hungry, still thirsty, still desperate to feed themselves and their families," says Jean-Claude Mukadi, relief response manager for World Vision in Haiti. "We don't want to turn away people who are trying to help their families, but in order to maintain a safe and secure environment for the families in each of these camps, we must be able to deliver the relief goods in a safe, timely way."

World Vision is among the many aid groups -- which also include Oxfam, Save The Children, and more -- which are engaged in relief in Haiti alongside massive humanitarian operations mounted by the U.S. and international governments.

President Obama signed a bill into law Friday that further incentivizes Americans to give to such non-profit organizations that are working to help Haiti. The new legislation -- which lawmakers rushed through both chambers of Congress -- allows taxpayers to either deduct contributions made after Jan. 11, 2010 and before March 1, 2010 on their 2009 return or can wait and claim the deduction on their 2010 returns.

Aid groups conduct assessments and provide distribution cards to ensure that the right number of people is present at each distribution, according to World Vision. However, it appears that news of distributions spreads by word of mouth, and aid workers often see at least double the number of people they're prepared to serve at each distribution, the organization adds in a statement.

"Even if we had enough supplies to reach all 3 million people in need, we couldn't distribute them at the same time," says Mukadi. "We need to distribute food and supplies to smaller groups to protect people's safety and dignity and to ensure order. But when we arrange to distribute to 500 people and 1,000 show up, it becomes more and more difficult to do that."

The size and locations of existing camps presents another substantial problem, reports Mukadi.

"Urban disasters differ greatly from rural ones," he says.

The urban areas of Haiti's capital don't have the huge open spaces that rural areas afford, so relief workers can't set up central camps and bring supplies to reach tens of thousands at once, World Vision reports. Rather, people are scattered all over the city in abandoned soccer fields, along roads, in parks and tucked up in the hills. Some of these camps are accessible only on foot, so bringing in supplies – even for a few hundred or thousand people – becomes incredibly difficult, the organization says.

"We can't set up our usual safety parameters in these locations, because the space itself won't allow it," says Mukadi.

World Vision says its staff meets daily to assess the security situation around Port-au-Prince, to determine the most urgent needs in the communities we serve, and to meet with local camp officials to learn how best to partner to ensure that distributions are conducted safely and in ways that honor beneficiaries' dignity.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Taking Aim At SCOTUS Ruling: Grayson Gets Powerful Ally For 'Save Our Democracy' Bill

Already fast out of the box with an entire suite of legislation aimed at rolling back this week's Supreme Court campaign finance decision, a freshman House member has just as quickly picked up important backing for at least one of his measures to put the lid back on money in politics.

In a split 5-4 conservative decision that was breaktaking in its breadth, the high court struck down most of the federal campaign finance apparatus -- much of it put into law on a bipartisan basis -- designed to limit the power of corporations in American politics.

While senior Democrats from President Obama on down angrily denounced the decision and vowed to develop responses, they haven't been as forthcoming about just what those solutions might be.

Not freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). The Orlando-area liberal has proposed six bills designed to reinstate limits on the influence of big business in politics that the court's five conservative members did away with, some of those limits dating to the administration of President Teddy Roosevelt.

"If we do nothing, then before long, there won't be Senators from Oklahoma or Virginia, there will be Senators from Citibank and Walmart," he says. "Maybe they will wear insignias on their $500 suits, like NASCAR drivers do."

Grayson calls his bills his "Save Our Democracy" package, which would seek to limit corporate political spending by taxing it, requiring disclosures, and preventing political giving on the part of firms that take federal funds, and more.

Within 24 hours, Grayson had picked up the endorsement of a key House leader for at least one of his proposals, the Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433). House Judiciary Comittee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) became the first co-sponsor of the bill, which would apply antitrust laws to industry political action committees (PACs).

“I am thrilled that Chairman Conyers agrees with me that something must be done to save our democracy," Grayson says. "He exercises Congressional oversight of the Judicial Branch. We are all appalled by the Supreme Court’s reckless decision.”

Most campaign giving from PACs comes from business, not labor or Left or Right ideological groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. During the 2008 election cycle, the political action committees of business interests contributed about 4.5 times as much to candidates and parties than their labor counterparts, and nearly five times as much as ideological PACs, the center says. The ratio between business PACs and labor PACs is about the same so far during the 2010 election cycle, it adds.

H.R. 4433 has been referred to Conyers’ Judiciary Committee for action. That the bill already has the backing of the panel chairman bolsters its chances to advance greatly.

“I am looking into any and all avenues to alleviate the harm to the American people that the Supreme Court has done with yesterday's decision," Conyers says in a statement released Friday. "I appreciate Mr. Grayson's efforts to respond to the Court's decision and am pleased to be working with him in finding the best means of protecting our political process from undue corporate influence.”

The political influence coming out of the wealthy, powerful and highly pro-business U.S. Chamber of Commerce already has been the subject of much recent scrutiny.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Senior CDC Official Reassigned

by Joaquin Sapien, ProPublica

Dr. Howard Frumkin, the embattled director of a little-known, but important division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been reassigned to a position with less authority, a smaller staff and a lower budget.

Frumkin had led the CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the National Center for Environmental Health since 2005. For the past two years he had endured scathing criticism from Congress and the media for ATSDR's poor handling of public health problems created by the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers that the government provided to Hurricane Katrina victims. The agency, which assesses public health risks posed by environmental hazards, also was criticized for understating the health risks of several other, less-publicized cases.

An internal CDC e-mail sent by Frumkin on Jan. 15 and obtained by ProPublica said he was leaving his position that day and would become a special assistant to the CDC's director of Climate Change and Public Health. His old job will be temporarily filled by Henry Falk, who led ATSDR from 2003 to 2005.

In the e-mail, Frumkin praised his staff and described more than 20 ATSDR accomplishments during his tenure. They include strengthening the agency's tobacco laboratory and creating the Climate Change and Public Health program.

A CDC spokesman said Frumkin's transfer shouldn't be considered a demotion but rather a change of function and responsibilities that the CDC's director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said would benefit both the agency and Dr. Frumkin, who is a recognized expert on climate change. But Frumkin's authority has been sharply reduced, even though his salary won't change. Previously, he oversaw two departments with a combined budget of about $264 million and 746 full-time employees. Now he will be an assistant to the director of a new program that has a budget of about $7.5 million, five full-time employees and five contractors, two of whom are part time.

Through a CDC spokesman, Frumkin declined a request to be interviewed for this story.

In 2008, ProPublica reported that Frumkin and others failed to take action after learning that ATSDR botched a study on the trailers provided to Katrina victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency used the study to assure trailer occupants that the formaldehyde levels weren't high enough to harm them. ATSDR never corrected FEMA, even though Christopher De Rosa, who led ATSDR's toxicology and environmental medicine division, repeatedly warned Frumkin that the report didn't take into account the long-term health consequences of exposure to formaldehyde, like cancer risks.

Frumkin eventually reassigned De Rosa to the newly created position of assistant director for toxicology and risk analysis. De Rosa went from leading a staff of about 70 employees to having none. He has since left the agency and is starting a nonprofit that will consult with communities close to environmental hazards.

The involvement of Frumkin and ATSDR in the formaldehyde debacle was the focus of an April 2008 Congressional hearing held by a subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee. A report by the subcommittee's Democratic majority, released that October, concluded that the failure of ATSDR's leadership "kept Hurricane Katrina and Rita families living in trailers with elevated levels of formaldehyde...for at least one year longer than necessary."

About six months after the report came out, the same panel, the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, held another hearing that touched on other problems at ATSDR.

Before that hearing, the Democrats on the subcommittee released a report that revealed other cases in which the agency relied on scientifically flawed data, causing other federal agencies to mislead communities about the dangers of their exposure to hazardous substances.

For example, an ATSDR report about water contamination at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, said the chemically-tainted drinking water didn't pose an increased cancer risk to residents there. The report was used to deny at least one veteran's medical benefits for ailments that the veteran believed were related to the contamination.

A month after the subcommittee hearing, ATSDR, rescinded some of its findings, saying it didn't adequately consider the presence of benzene, a carcinogen that it found in the water.

Eight months later, the agency said it would modify another report that was criticized at the hearing, about a bomb testing site in Vieques, Puerto Rico. For decades, the U.S. military used the site to test ammunition that contained depleted uranium and other toxins. In a 2003 report, ATSDR said that heavy metals and explosive compounds found on Vieques weren't harmful to people living there. But Frumkin decided to take a fresh look at those findings because ATSDR hadn't thoroughly investigated the site.

Subcommittee investigators acknowledged that Frumkin inherited many of the problems in the report from previous ATSDR directors— the original Vieques and Camp Lejeune reports were both done before Frumkin was named director in 2005. But the investigators said he was aware of the agency's problems and did little to fix them unless he was under political pressure. A CDC spokesman said that Frumkin's reassignment had nothing to do with the congressional inquiries.

"Americans should know when their government tells them that they have nothing to worry about from environmental exposure that they really have nothing to worry about," Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC), the subcommittee's chairman, said in a statement to ProPublica regarding Frumkin's reassignment. "The nation needs ATSDR to do honest, scientifically rigorous work. There are many capable professionals at ATSDR who are committed to doing just that."

Write to Joaquin Sapien at joaquin.sapien@propublica.org.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Judges Urge Congress to Act on Indefinite Terrorism Detentions

by Chisun Lee, ProPublica

Three judges on the federal trial court hearing challenges brought by Guantanamo prisoners are calling on Congress and the Obama administration to enact a law to address one of the nation's most perplexing moral and legal dilemmas: When can the United States indefinitely detain terrorism suspects?

In lengthy interviews, Chief Judge Royce Lamberth and two of his colleagues on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., said that deciding whether to release these prisoners raises unprecedented questions about security and liberty that need to be addressed by lawmakers.

Their willingness to discuss their concerns in detail -- something federal judges rarely do in cases pending before them -- underscores the seriousness with which they view the lack of guidance from lawmakers.

"Judges aren't in the business of making law -- we interpret law," said Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee. "It should be Congress that decides a policy such as this that has a monumental impact on our society and makes a monumental impression on the world community."

Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, said the judges are struggling "to adapt legal principles to a whole new sphere of human existence that we've never witnessed in history as far as I know."

The problem, he and the other judges say, is that the battle against terrorist groups doesn't fit the classic definition of war, with clearly defined enemies who would be released when the conflict was settled. Because U.S. law doesn't currently have any other option for captives held in a conflict without end, terrorism detainees could be locked up for life, the judges say.

The judges also say the risk in ordering a detainee to be released seems much greater than in past conflicts, because a return to the battlefield is not just a return to traditional frontlines but to possible attacks on civilians.

"How confident can I be that if I make the wrong choice that he won't be the one that blows up the Washington Monument or the Capitol?" Lamberth said.

Neither the Obama administration nor Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., whose support would be crucial to passing such a law, responded to requests for comment on the judges' plea. A Leahy aide indicated that congressional Democrats won't act unless the White House does. "The administration has not yet offered a proposal for a system of prolonged detention," the aide said.

The judges' position drew support from South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Judiciary and Armed Services committees who said he'll introduce legislation in the spring to create a legal framework for terrorism detention.

"Our country needs to get a grip on this," said Graham, who for six years was an Air Force lawyer, advising pilots on the law of war during the first Gulf War. "The courts, God bless 'em, are trying to figure out questions that are outside of their lane."

The judges have been working on the Guantanamo cases since 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees could contest their detention under the constitutional doctrine of habeas corpus, which protects individuals from unlawful imprisonment by the government. Their task: Determine if the government had enough evidence that a prisoner was involved in al-Qaida or Taliban-linked hostilities to validly detain him as an enemy fighter.

Without any laws or legal precedent to guide them, the judges have had to piece together their own standards for everything from what kinds of conduct constitute enemy activity to how to evaluate evidence obtained from harsh interrogations. Individually they've drawn on general principles of law and one another's work to come up with methods they believe are fair. But the judges say they want central guidelines to answer the many difficult questions these cases can raise, such as how to evaluate the unusual intelligence and interrogation evidence involved and how certain they should be of the truth before delivering a judgment.

"It's an honor to have the responsibility of blazing the trail in determining how justice should be administered in these cases," said Judge Ricardo Urbina, a Clinton appointee. "By the same token it's also at times frustrating when not all the rules are clear and not all the specifics of how a matter should be dealt with are before us."

A major appeals court decision this month gave the lower court some guidance, Judge Lamberth said, but -- as the decision's author herself wrote -- many critical questions about how to evaluate the detentions still demand an answer from Congress.

So far judges have decided 41 of the challenges brought by some 200 detainees and have determined that 32 of the men should be released. Only 21 of those prisoners have actually left Guantanamo, however, because the Obama administration, like its predecessor, is resisting the courts' authority to compel their release -- a dispute that's now before the Supreme Court.

Lamberth said one challenge the judges are struggling with is the prospect of keeping someone in prison for life based on far less evidence than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" proof that is required in ordinary criminal cases. Currently prisoners can be held at Guantanamo based solely on secondhand or even thirdhand reports of their hostile activity, and they don't have the right to challenge the government's informants in court.

"If they meet the definition of enemy combatant, then under our traditional legal authority they're held for the duration of hostilities," Lamberth said. But "how long will the duration of hostilities here last? I don't know, and I don't think anybody on the face of the earth knows. So it makes it difficult for a legal judgment, and I think better suited for a legislative judgment about what other kinds of options might be available."

Graham wants Congress to step in and lift the specter of indefiniteness from the judges' decisions by establishing a process that allows detainees who lose in court to periodically have their cases reviewed.

"Congress should weigh in so that a person is not without a legal remedy forever. That's unacceptable. The detainee should know, the American people should know -- what happens next?" he said.

Graham said legislation should also create clear steps for addressing the greatest fear in these cases: The possibility that someone who is ordered to be released will commit an atrocity.
The judges are duty-bound to set aside such worries because they are allowed to focus only on the facts of the case before them -- the prisoner's activities at the time he was captured, which in these cases was as long as eight years ago.

"I'm sure all of us are concerned about the problem of international terrorism, and all of us were affected one way or the other by the various terrorist acts. But when you have an individual [before you], you can't factor those considerations," Walton said.

The public doesn't always understand the limitations of the judges' role, Urbina said.

He said he was reminded of that not long after he issued one of the most publicized rulings in the Guantanamo cases, deciding that a group of Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, should be released into the United States.

He said he was pulled aside at his high school reunion by a "terrifically nice, very successful lawyer."

"What are you doing? These people are terrorists!" Urbina said the lawyer told him. "You want to bring them here, to blow up our cities and our homes and put us all at risk?"

Urbina said he tried to explain that he had looked at the evidence and had done what justice required. "Have you read anything about these people?" he asked the lawyer, "These are people who the government says are not terrorists."

If Congress doesn't pass a comprehensive detention law, Urbina said, the judges will continue answering the detention questions on their own. Armed with almost no precedent and only the Constitution, "we must turn to our common sense, our sense of reasonableness, our overall sense of what the law is created to achieve, and our own kind of visceral understanding of what's fair and what isn't."

Write to Chisun Lee at Chisun.Lee@propublica.org.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.

Senate Democrats Start To Line Up To Scuttle The 2nd Bernanke Term Obama Wants

More Democratic senators are coming out of the woodwork to join their colleages, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) as declared opponents to granting a new term to the current chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The left-leaning Sanders, and Merkley, were joined Friday by Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, according to Senate statements and news reports.

“A chief responsibility of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve is to ensure a sound financial system. Under the watch of Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve permitted grossly irresponsible financial activities that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression," Feingold says. "Under Chairman Bernanke’s watch predatory mortgage lending flourished, and ‘too big to fail’ financial giants were permitted to engage in activities that put our nation’s economy at risk. And as it responds to the crisis it helped to usher in, the Federal Reserve under Chairman Bernanke’s leadership continues to resist appropriate efforts to review that response, how taxpayers’ money was being used, and whether it acted appropriately. When the full Senate considers his nomination, I will vote against another term for Chairman Bernanke.”

First appointed to the Fed chairmanship in 2006 by Republican President George W. Bush, Bernanke was reappointed by Democrat Barack Obama in August. Obama praised Bernanke for efforts to keep the current economic crisis from mushrooming into a depression.

Boxer says she "respects" Bernanke for his role in averting a deeper crisis, but ultimately his Bush pedigree is a deal-breaker.

" ... It is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed. Dr. Bernanke played a lead role in crafting the Bush administration’s economic policies, which led to the current economic crisis. Our next Federal Reserve Chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past,” Boxer says.

Dorgan hasn't released a public statement, but is opposing Bernanke, according to a report in the Washington Post. Dorgan is the least liberal of the Democrats to come out against the Federal Reserve chief.

Sanders came out against Bernanke last month, placing a hold on Bernanke's renomination. That hold means Bernanke needs 60 votes, not just 51, in order to be confirmed to a second term. Merkley voted against Bernanke's renomination as a member of the Senate Banking Committee.
Once Sen-elect. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is seated, Democrats will have 59 votes. Bernanke's renomination could be put in serious jeopardy should too many more Democrats defect. Obama would have to rely on Republicans to put his nominee over the top, which would put the president in an awkward political position particularly on a domestic economic matter.

Indeed, coming at the end of a tumultuous week that saw Brown snatch the seat held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and, in so doing, the Democrats lose their Democrats lose their 60-vote supermajority, these defections could well be political aftershocks.

Conservatives, too, appear to have cooled toward Bernanke. No Senate Republicans have publicly opposed the nomination but an odd-bedfellows coalition of Left and Right groups are pressing Congress to mandate an audit of the Federal Reserve Bank before voting to reappoint Bernanke for a second term. Bernanke's current term expires Jan. 31.

Watch more breaking news now on our video feed:



Bookmark http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/ and drop back in for more news from the nation's capital.