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News Release Archive - Electoral Issues

Beyond “Both Sides” — Doctors Against Mandate and for Universal Coverage

March 26, 2012

In a recent letter published by the New York Times, the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Arnold Relman, notes that their coverage of the debate about a health insurance mandate didn’t “mention an important new argument against the Affordable Care Act’s mandated purchase of private insurance, the key issue before the Supreme Court.

“Last month, an amicus brief was filed by 50 doctors and two nonprofit organizations arguing that Congress could avoid a mandate by legislating a national single-payer system that provides nearly universal insurance coverage.

“Congress has already created two limited single-payer systems — Medicare and the veterans’ health system — and no legal barriers prevent doing more. Since a mandate isn’t necessary for Congress to exercise its legitimate role in regulating health insurance, there is no justification under the Constitution’s ‘necessary and proper’ clause for such a legislative requirement.”

The following are signatories to this Supreme Court brief and are available for interviews; those in D.C. will be at the Court on Tuesday. See: “Single Payer Doctors to Rally at Supreme Court,” which links to a PDF of the brief.

MARGARET FLOWERS, M.D., mdpnhp at gmail.com
Flowers an organizer with the National Occupation of Washington, D.C.

RUSSELL MOKHIBER, russellmokhiber at gmail.com
Mokhiber is founder of Single Payer Action and editor of the Corporate Crime Reporter. He said today: “The Obama people say: uphold the law. The right wing says: strike down the law and go back to how things were. We say: strike down the Obama mandate — it’s unconstitutional and pass single payer — everybody in, nobody out.”

CLARK NEWHALL, clark.newhall at health-justice.org
Executive director of Health Justice, Newhall is a doctor and a lawyer. He said today: “The divide is not between liberal and conservative so much as it is between corporatists and everyone else. The current system is in effect a subsidy to the heath insurance industry. We should instead move to get rid of that industry, it is simply not sustainable.”

Filed Under: Tagged With: Clark Newhall, healthcare, Margaret Flowers, Russell Mokhiber,

Ryan Budget: Increases Pentagon, “Out of Touch”

March 20, 2012

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) unveiled a 2013 budget plan today.

WILLIAM HARTUNG, hartung at newamerica.net
Hartung is a senior research fellow in the New America Foundation’s American Strategy Program and author of the book Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex, which is just being released in paperback. He said today: “While pretending to make the ‘tough choices,’ Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget cutting plan gives a free ride to the largest single item in the discretionary budget: Pentagon spending. In fact, Ryan would spend $400 billion MORE over the next decade than current Pentagon plans. That will result in harsh cuts to virtually every other domestic program. By contrast, the budget developed by the Sustainable Defense Task Force, a plan endorsed by Representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), would reduce military expenditures by $1 trillion over the next ten years. This can be done without undermining our security, by taking measures such as eliminating outmoded and unnecessary conventional weapons, cutting the Army and Marines back to pre-2001 levels, and eliminating plans for new nuclear bombers, submarines and weapons factories.

“Even as Ryan goes easy on the Pentagon, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney offers the arms industry an unprecedented bonanza. His plan, which would keep Pentagon spending at 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product, would result in $8 trillion more in Pentagon spending over the next decade, roughly 25 percent more than even Ryan’s generous plan. If Romney endorses the Ryan plan, it is fair to ask whether he is going to eliminate his prior commitment to massive Pentagon budgets or simply pretend the differences between the two approaches don’t exist. That would be a huge deception, if he’s allowed to get away with it.”

ROBERT KRAIG, robert.kraig at citizenactionwi.org
Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He said today: “It is shameful that Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are proposing massive cuts that will further threaten economic and health security for 99% of Americans to fund billions of dollars in irresponsible new tax giveaways for the wealthy.”

KAREN DOLAN, via Lacy MacAuley, lacy at ips-dc.org
Dolan, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and director of IPS’s Cities for Progress project, said today: “Ryan unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would impose unnecessary hardship on already hurting Americans. Before the economy has had a chance to bounce back, the GOP budget would slash critical safety net programs to rates below what both parties had agreed to in last summer’s Budget Control Act. At the same time, the Ryan budget would give tax breaks to the wealthy and to corporations. I think this shows not only that the GOP is wildly out of touch with average Americans, but that they lack the ability to lead us anywhere but off a cliff. We need revenues, investments, jobs and a strong safety net for the millions of Americans who continue to suffer from the 2008 recession. Tax breaks for the rich and less for everyone else is an idea which has already failed the vast majority of Americans.”

Filed Under: , Tagged With: budget, economy, military spending, Robert Kraig, social security, William Hartung,

Santorum “The Catholic Theocrat”

March 7, 2012

BETTY CLERMONT, bettyclermont at yahoo.com
Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America and just wrote the piece “Santorum — The Catholic Theocrat.” She said today: “GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently stated on ABC: ‘I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.’ Santorum also recently told a Michigan audience, ‘I’m for separation of church and state: The state has no business telling the church what do to’ — without ever criticizing the obstructionism of some religious leaders to civil government.

“Since Santorum surged ahead in the GOP primaries, and especially since his attacks against JKF’s speech about the separation of church and state, the majority opinion has been that Santorum isn’t in the ‘real’ Catholic political tradition as formulated by former American Catholic leaders.

“However, looking at the entire history of the Roman Catholic Church, Santorum is very much espousing the tradition of alliances between church and state. Prelates defended the ‘divine right of kings’ and monarchs gave the hierarchs privilege, royal titles, land and money. After the Vatican received over a billion dollars (in today’s money) from the 1929 Lateran Treaty, the financial genius Bernardino Nogara, who Cardinal Francis Spellman called ‘the greatest thing to happen to the Church since Jesus Christ,’ made the Holy See a powerful plutocracy.

“Since then, Rome has backed the corporatists except for the brief combined pontificates of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, when Liberation Theology and a progressive U.S. episcopate were allowed to develop. John Paul II returned the Church to business as usual. The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy supports wealth and power and the high and mighty make sure the prelates are heard, obeyed and paid.”

In “Santorum — The Catholic Theocrat,” Clermont writes: “Many have also incorrectly suggested that because Santorum is Catholic and has links to Opus Dei that he has the backing of the Catholic Church. But as in Reagan and both Bush presidents, as well as the U.S. episcopate’s vicious assault against the Catholic John Kerry in 2004, it makes no difference if an American politician is or is not Catholic or even a member of Opus Dei in order to get the backing of the Catholic Church. As we have seen by the sex-abuse scandals, the pre-eminent concern of Church hierarchies is the retention and growth of their own influence and money. Therefore, they will support any pro-business candidate willing to partner with them who they think is electable.”

Filed Under: Tagged With: Betty Clermont, Rick Santorum,

Contraception Controversy Would Be Irrelevant with National Health Care

March 2, 2012

AP reports: “In an election year battle mixing birth control, religion and politics, Democrats narrowly blocked an effort by Senate Republicans to overturn President Barack Obama’s order that most employers or their insurers cover the cost of contraceptives.”

CLARK NEWHALL, clark.newhall at health-justice.org
Executive director of Health Justice, Newhall is a doctor and a lawyer. He said today: “What a stupid argument we’re having. If we had national health care, a single-payer program, that would make this irrelevant. Everyone would have health care and it doesn’t matter what your employer thinks. It would be your health care, not the business or your employer or anyone else.”

See MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell commentary: “With single payer, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

The point was also made in a recent letter in the Chicago Tribune:

“I would like to point out that the recent controversy over employers’ religious views and employees’ health coverage would never have happened if our country had a universal coverage, single-payer health care system.

“That’s because, under single-payer, employers would no longer have to have any involvement in their employees’ health insurance.

“An employer’s religious affiliation or moral beliefs would be a non-issue.

“Under single-payer, everyone would have the same health coverage, regardless of whom they worked for.

“And under single-payer, losing one’s job would no longer mean losing one’s health insurance.

“Something to think about.”

– Dr. Thomas M. Duffy, Northbrook

Filed Under: Tagged With: Clark Newhall, healthcare,

The .0000063% Election

February 16, 2012

ARI BERMAN, ari at thenation.com
Berman just wrote the piece “The .0000063% Election: How the Politics of the Super Rich Became American Politics,” which states: “At a time when it’s become a cliché to say that Occupy Wall Street has changed the nation’s political conversation — drawing long overdue attention to the struggles of the 99% — electoral politics and the 2012 presidential election have become almost exclusively defined by the 1%. Or, to be more precise, the .0000063%. Those are the 196 individual donors who have provided nearly 80 percent of the money raised by super PACs in 2011 by giving $100,000 or more each.

“These political action committees, spawned by the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United decision in January 2010, can raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, or unions for the purpose of supporting or opposing a political candidate. In theory, super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating directly with a candidate, though in practice they’re just a murkier extension of political campaigns, performing all the functions of a traditional campaign without any of the corresponding accountability. …

“The Wesleyan Media Project recently reported a 1,600 percent increase in interest-group-sponsored TV ads in this cycle as compared to the 2008 primaries. Florida has proven the battle royal of the super PACs thus far. There, the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, outspent the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, five to one. In the last week of the campaign alone, Romney and his allies ran 13,000 TV ads in Florida, compared to only 200 for Gingrich. Ninety-two percent of the ads were negative in nature, with two-thirds attacking Gingrich, who, ironically enough, had been a fervent advocate of the Citizens United decision.

“With the exception of Ron Paul’s underdog candidacy and Rick Santorum’s upset victory in Iowa — where he spent almost no money but visited all of the state’s 99 counties — the Republican candidates and their allied super PACs have all but abandoned retail campaigning and grassroots politicking. They have chosen instead to spend their war chests on TV.”

Berman wrote the piece for TomDispatch.com and is a contributing writer for the Nation magazine and author of “Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics.”

Filed Under: Tagged With: Ari Berman, corporations, democracy,

Progressives Respond to Obama

May 19, 2011

AIMEE ALLISON, aimee at rootsaction.org
Co-Executive Director of RootsAction, Allison said today: “Obama will need the support of progressives in his reelection bid, but the biggest issues — from closing Guantanamo to ending war in Iraq to protecting the social safety net haven’t been addressed.” The group released a video today titled “Louder Than Words” featured on their webpage: RootsAction.org.

KEVIN GRAY, kevinagray57 at gmail.com
Today is Malcolm X’s birthday. Gray is author of The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama. He said today: “Cornel West for all his class contradictions isn’t so far off the mark when he says ‘Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men.’ Obama’s White House can have the black entertainment-minstrel class come to the White House through a revolving door because they’re safe. Yet meeting with black leadership — elected and not, to include the black press — has to be done behind closed doors or with no record of what was discussed behind those doors.

“And in the face of depression-level unemployment in the black community, Obama’s response to black critics is ‘cut me some slack’ instead of ‘make me do it.’

“If Malcolm X were alive — and had for the most part, the same politics he had at the time of his death — no doubt Obama would repudiate Malcolm and his history quicker than he rejected Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

“Barack Obama is for protecting empire, structural white supremacy and the global capitalist elites, that’s the job he volunteered to do. Malcolm was for the recognition of human and civil rights protections for all individuals.”

Background: IPA news release, “Malcolm X’s Legacy” which includes quotes from Malcolm X

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , ,

Haiti: “Would Kill Aristide” Says Presidential Candidate Martelly in Video

March 16, 2011

MARK WEISBROT, via Dan Beeton
Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot has been been involved in Haiti policy work for over 20 years. He has co-authored two papers analyzing the outcome of the first round of Haiti’s elections and several op-eds and columns on the elections and Aristide’s return.

He said today: “Haiti is preparing for the second round of presidential elections on Sunday, following a widely criticized first round in November in which the most popular party, Fanmi Lavalas, was banned from the ballot and in which only 23 percent of registered voters participated. As a result of U.S. and international pressure to overturn the results of the election, the contest will now be between two right-wing candidates: former first lady Mirlande Manigat, and kompas music singer Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly. Both Manigat, who received votes from 6.4 percent of registered voters in the first round and Martelly, who received 4.5 percent of registered voters’ ballots, support reviving the Haitian army, which former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded in a popular move in 1995 and which historically was responsible for a great deal of human rights violations in Haiti.

“Aristide’s return after seven years in forced exile is an historic victory for democracy in the hemisphere. The United States, which destroyed Haiti’s economy in order to overthrow his government in 2004, naturally opposes his return — just as they opposed the return of President Zelaya in 2009 to Honduras, after his democratic government was overthrown by the military. Washington manipulated the OAS [Organization of American States] and forced Haiti to have a presidential runoff election between two right-wing candidates, who would help them keep Aristide out of Haiti after Sunday’s vote. That is why he has to come back now. It is a new era in the Western Hemisphere, and Washington does not get to pick other countries’ leaders. The Obama administration will have to learn to accept this reality.”

KIM IVES
Ives is in Haiti to cover Aristide’s return and the Sunday elections. He just wrote a piece entitled “Haiti Wants Aristide: Let Him Go,” which states: “Aristide first came to power 20 years ago as the champion of the people’s uprising against the Duvalier dictatorship and the neo-Duvalierist juntas that followed its February 7, 1986 fall. Seven months after his inauguration, President Aristide was overthrown by a U.S.-backed neo-Duvalierist military putsch on September 30, 1991. ‘Sweet Micky’ was one of the principal cheerleaders of this three-year coup, which claimed some 5,000 lives, according to Amnesty International.

“In the years following Aristide’s restoration to power in 1994, Martelly became obsessed with hatred for the man. In a video from not too long ago, which can be seen on YouTube, the candidate threatens a patron in a bar where he has performed. ‘All those shits were Aristide’s faggots,’ he says. ‘I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up your ass.’ … [Video]

“Manigat is not much better. She is the wife, and many say the proxy, of former Haitian President Leslie Manigat. He was a perennial rightwing candidate who came to power in a 1988 election that was run and rigged by a neo-Duvalierist military junta.”

MELINDA MILES, Skype: melindayiti
Miles is director of the Let Haiti Live Project at TransAfrica Forum. She is in Haiti and will observe events during the Sunday elections. She said today: “Only 14 months after the devastating earthquake, Haiti’s sovereignty is seriously compromised by the presence of thousands of foreign troops and an Interim Recovery Commission that gives foreigners equal voice to Haitians in deciding reconstruction contracts. At this critical moment, Haiti needs a real democratic process to allow the people to express their will. However, despite the fact that first round of elections in November was highly fraudulent, marked by massive disenfranchisement and low voter participation, electoral authorities are moving forward towards a second round this Sunday.

“Due to intense international pressure, particularly from the United States and the Organization of American States, the provisional electoral council changed its initial first round results leaving Haitians to choose between two right-wing candidates. The result is an election that is pure theater at a time when Haitians are still in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis and hundreds of millions of earthquake aid are hanging in the balance.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: haiti,

Wisconsin Struggle: Now Come the Tractors

March 10, 2011

The Wisconsin State Journal reports: “‘General Strike!’ Thousands Storm, Reoccupy Wisconsin Capitol in Response to Legislative Votes.”

ROBERT KRAIG
Kraig is executive director of Citizen Action of Wisconsin. He has been at the Capitol in Madison and is closely following developments. He said today: “[Gov. Scott] Walker has been claiming that this is about the budget, but he’s trying to ram this union-busting legislation through by removing the budget portions of it.”
Kraig wrote the piece “Walker’s National Guard comments a thinly veiled threat against workers.”

BEN MANSKI
Manski is executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation and a spokesperson for the new umbrella group Wisconsin Wave. He is a lifelong Wisconsinite and a public interest attorney. Manski said today: “Some who are claiming that the vote means things are over — like the New York Times today — could not be more out of touch. The resistance to what Walker is doing is broadening.”

JOHN PECK
Peck is with Family Farm Defenders, which has announced that on Saturday: “Farmers from across the dairyland will bring tractors and solidarity to the [Wisconsin] capitol to fight for labor rights and a just state budget. Rural communities will be disproportionately hurt by the cuts to education and BadgerCare, as well as Gov. Walker’s decision to eliminate funding for other sustainable agriculture initiatives such as the Buy Local Buy Wisconsin program.”

KABZUAG VAJ
Vaj is a co-founder and current co-executive director of the group Freedom Inc. She is a long-time advocate for women of color and a Hmong refugee. Vaj and her family have been active community members in Madison for more than 25 years. She said today: “In the past few weeks we have been fighting for more than just workers rights. For Wisconsin’s most vulnerable communities, i.e (communities of color, immigrants, children, and poor people), Walker’s agenda eliminates services and creates laws that will destroy our quality of life in Wisconsin. Overturning current racial profiling laws, mascot laws and creating an Arizona-like [immigration] law in Wisconsin, Walker is indeed waging war on all of us.”

Resource page, which includes a video feed: commondreams.org/wisconsin_rising

Community radio in Madison: http://www.wort-fm.org

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , Tagged With: Wisconsin,

Egypt: Mubarak Out, Is Democracy Coming?

February 14, 2011

Dr. AIDA SEIF EL-DAWLA
El-Dawla is with the Nadeem Center for Victims of Torture in Cairo. She was profiled by Time magazine as a global hero in 2004. She sent an email to the Institute for Public Accuracy: “Mubarak has fallen. The regime didn’t. We still have the same cabinet appointed by [Mubarak]. The emergency state is still enforced. Old detainees are still in detentions and new ones since the 25th of January remain missing. There is no public apology for the killings. We hear several executives are being prosecuted, including minister of Interior Habib El Adly. Process [is] not transparent.”

KHALED BEYDOUN
Beydoun is co-founder of FreeEgyptNow.org — he is currently in Detroit and will be in D.C. Tuesday.
He said today: “Mubarak gained an absurd amount of wealth by effectively impoverishing his own people, and therefore, his funds should be frozen, reclaimed, and returned to the people of Egypt. … One cannot ignore the thousands of imprisoned Egyptians who were locked away for the very same actions and behavior of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square — political dissent, speaking truth to power and organizing against government repression and corruption. The army should take the immediate steps to vindicate these individuals, as well as any detained since January 25.” See: “Mubarak family fortune could reach $70 billion, say experts.”

GILBERT ACHCAR
Currently traveling in North America and available for a limited number of interviews, Achcar is professor of development studies and international relations at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. He said today: “Barack Obama’s statement [following Mubarak's resignation]  was very obviously trying to make the best of what actually is a severe blow to U.S. influence in the region, because it affects a major ally of the United States, a major strategic ally of the United States. That’s what Egypt has been since the early ’70s in the region. So what Obama basically has been trying is to recuperate this whole event as a confirmation of the adherence of the Egyptian people to U.S. values. … But if we get to real democratic elections and the people of Egypt really have their say in the political direction of events and the foreign policy of their country, you can be sure that the choice won’t be friendly to either the state of Israel or the United States of America as a hegemonic power.”

Achcar, whose latest book is The Arabs and the Holocaust, has done a series of interviews on Egypt with The Real News. The latest is titled: “Will Democracy Movement Challenge Military After Mubarak?”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: Egypt,

The Real Context of the GE Appointment

January 21, 2011

One year ago today, the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case that corporate entities can spend unlimited money in elections, arguing that they have the same basic First Amendment rights as human beings.

President Obama is in Schenectady today, appointing by executive order GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt as chair of a new “President’s Council on Jobs and Competetiveness.” He is in effect replacing economic adviser Paul Volcker.

THOMAS FERGUSON
Ferguson’s books include Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems. He is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and a senior fellow of the Roosevelt Institute.

He said today: “Volcker out and Immelt in, because the administration now wants to emphasize ‘recovery’ and ‘jobs’ instead of ‘crisis stabilization’? Since when did any stabilization not include jobs as a top priority? What we actually have here is the disappearance from the scene of the best known and most visible critic of the excesses of the financial sector and his replacement by the sitting CEO of a company that is heavily dependent on government aid of all sorts, including diplomatic assistance to invest more in China. This is not about jobs, but political money — the White House knows that after Citizens United, it will need to raise about a billion dollars — that’s right, a billion — for its reelection campaign. That’s the context in which this and its other recent appointments need to be judged.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: , , Tagged With: citizens united, economy, job, money in politics,
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