Has the Egg Industry Finally Cracked?

Twice in 2010, the Humane Society of the United States snuck undercover, camera-toting investigators into factory-scale egg facilities, and both times they revealed savage animal-welfare and public-health abuses: everything from unpackaged eggs exposed to rotting hen carcasses to "trapped birds unable to reach food and water."

Meanwhile, the industry put a bunch of egg on its own face by releasing a cool half-billion salmonella-tainted eggs. They turned out to have emerged from the fetid factories of a shadowy magnate named Jack Decoster, who has a decades-long history of violations. Congressional investigators found that the Decoster operation's own testing had detected salmonella on its conveyor belts no fewer than 73 times before the outbreak, and did nothing to remedy the situation.

Perhaps chastened by these revelations, the industry is now playing ball with its most prominent critic. In what could prove to be an historic deal, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the United Egg Producers (UEP) have joined forces to push for federal legislation that would transform industrial egg production. According to their joint press release, the proposed legislation would be the "first federal law addressing the treatment of animals on farms." Among other things, it would nearly double the amount of space allotted each hen—making conditions less cramped and thus more humane and hygienic—and provide the birds "with environments that will allow them to express natural behaviors, such as perches, nesting boxes, and scratching areas." 

If the UEP, which claims that its members produce 97 percent of the eggs consumed in the US, seriously pushes for and then complies with such legislation, it will truly be an amazing turnabout: Industry groups typically react to such proposals with howls and fierce oppositional lobbying. Indeed, other sectors of the industrial livestock trade are already lining up against the legislation. The pork industry, which has also been documented by HSUS abusing animals, has condemned the UEP's move, declaring it a "dangerous precedent" that will "take away producers’ freedom to operate."

Full Article
Source: Mother Jones  

Alabama Judges Impose Death Though Juries Vote For Life In Prison

Last November, jurors in Lee County, Ala., found Courtney Lockhart, a 26-year-old Iraq War veteran, guilty of the 2008 murder of Lauren Burk, an 18-year-old college student.

During sentencing, all 12 members of the jury recommended that Lockhart serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for his crime. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty, but the defense argued for lenience, presenting evidence that Lockhart had suffered psychological damage during a bloody 16-month combat tour in Iraq.

The jurors' unanimous decision to spare Lockhart's life was not the final word, however. On March 3, 2011, Judge Jacob Walker, who presided over the trial, nullified the jury's recommendation of life without parole and sentenced Lockhart to death by lethal injection.

In a lengthy decision, the judge wrote that Lockhart deserved death because of evidence of other crimes not presented by prosecutors during his trial. Had the jury heard these "additional facts," he wrote, "their sentencing recommendation would likely have differed."

In virtually all 35 states that allow the death penalty, juries are the supreme arbiter of whether capital defendants live or die. But not in Alabama. Since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty after a four-year ban, Alabama judges have held the power to overturn the sentencing recommendations of juries in capital cases.

Since then, state judges have overturned 107 jury decisions in capital cases, and in 92 percent of those cases, jury recommendations of life imprisonment were rejected in favor of death sentences, according to a new report by the Equal Justice Initiative, a non-profit law firm based in Montgomery, Ala.

The group's report is strongly critical of the practice, calling it arbitrary and lacking meaningful standards or oversight.

"No capital sentencing procedure in the United States has come under more criticism as unreliable, unpredictable and arbitrary than the unique Alabama practice of permitting elected trial judges to override jury verdicts of life and impose death sentences," it states.

Alabama has the highest per capita death sentencing rate in the country; last year, the state, with a population of 4.5 million, sentenced more offenders to death than Texas, with a population of nearly 25 million. And more than one in five prisoners now on death row in Alabama are there because of judicial override of jury decisions, the report found.

Full Article
Source: Huffington 

Lai Changxing, Chinese Refugee, Released Pending Deportation

THE CANADIAN PRESS -- VANCOUVER - One of China's most wanted fugitives has been ordered released again from the revolving door of custody in what's believed to be Canada's longest refugee battle.

Lai Changxing has spent 12 years fighting his return to China, and he faces expulsion again next week after Canada's Federal Court reviews his latest deportation order.

He was arrested last week in preparation for deportation after a second federal government report concluded Lai wasn't in danger if he was returned to face justice in China.

The federal court granted a temporary stay against the order Monday and will listen to full arguments July 21 on whether Lai could be tortured or killed if he's returned.

Chinese authorities allege Lai orchestrated a vast smuggling ring that cheated the government out of billions of dollars in duties on imported goods and bribed officials to look the other way.

Lawyers for the Canada Border Services Agency asked that Lai be held in custody until the hearing, but an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator ordered Lai released Tuesday.

Leeann King concluded Lai is not a flight risk, but did require him to report in once a week, instead of once a month. She did, however, remove one previous condition of his release that he not associate with known members of the criminal gang the Big Circle Boys.

An agency lawyer argued the Lai breached the previous conditions by having contact with gang members, but King reasoned that if border agency officers wouldn't tell him who they believed were gang members, how was he supposed to know.

"They are unreasonable conditions and impossible for Mr. Lai to comply with," she said in her ruling.

King noted that when Lai received his first pre-removal assessment in May 2006 he knew for a few days before he was contacted by border agency officials.

"Mr. Lai didn't flee, didn't attempt to evade CBSA officers and didn't beach his terms."

A second pre-removal assessment took almost five years to complete and Lai's lawyer, Darryl Larson, said it appeared as if the 100-page report was written to make sure Lai was removed from Canada.

He said his client doesn't think he'll get the death sentence, because that would be a public process.

"What he thinks will happen is that he'll be back in the system and all of the sudden he'll have heart attack or there will be some kind of fatal illness or something that he suffers that basically takes him out of the picture," Larson said outside the hearing room.

Larson said Lai can only continue with his legal fight, hoping eventually something breaks through in his favour.

"If it comes down to that, the man is prepared to go back."

Larson said if Lai's case isn't the longest process in Canadian history, it is certainly close.

Lai, who was listening to the decision over the telephone from jail, let out an audible sigh when he heard the decision.
Chinese authorities accuse Lai of masterminding a network that smuggled as much as $10 billion of goods with the protection of corrupt government officials who he plied with cash, prostitutes and booze.

Full Article
Source: Huffington 

The Wisdom of McConnell's Debt-Ceiling Plan

Mitch McConnell's sudden and shocking "contingency plan" to allow President Obama to raise the debt ceiling is getting pilloried by most conservatives and praised by liberals like the Washington Post's Ezra Klein. Most people want to know--and not just because the plan is incredibly confusing--what is he thinking? McConnell is offering to let Democrats raise the debt ceiling without demanding any policy concessions at all. Instead, his plan would impose political pain on Democrats, forcing them into a series of unpalatable votes to raise the debt limit.

Here's one reason why conservatives should be a little more favorably inclined toward McConnell: if you take him at his word that this is a last-ditch plan, and ponder the alternatives, it's actually not such a bad option. McConnell is nothing if not a realist. He knows Democrats won't sign off on a debt-reduction deal that doesn't raise revenue** and so he has to think ahead to what's likely to happen. Well, what's likely to happen is that at some point in the coming weeks, the financial markets will freak out--and most Americans will too. This is referred to on the Hill as the "TARP scenario," meaning a replay of the stock-market collapse that followed the House's rejection of the first TARP bill in the fall of 2008. The great fear among some conservatives is that a replay of the TARP scenario would allow President Obama to assume the role of "adult"--he's been laying the groundwork, if you haven't noticed--and demand a "clean" debt-ceiling vote that the suddenly alarmed public would support. The vote would likely succeed. And conservatives will have lost all their leverage and been vilified to boot.

Lousy option, right? McConnell's plan, bitter though it may be to true-believing Tea Partiers, lays down an alternative that, in the event of a TARP scenario, would leave Republicans in much better stead. It wouldn't do anything to reduce the deficit, but by forcing incumbent Democrats to cast unpopular votes it could very well improve the Republicans' chances of winning back the Senate next year--which happens to be the very thing that Mitch McConnell covets most. And if you're a conservative, and you're being honest with yourself, that's not such a bad consolation prize.

**I actually don't agree with this and if sufficiently motivated/caffeinated will explain why tomorrow

Origin
Source: The Atlantic 

Mitch McConnell Opens the Escape Hatch in Debt Limit Talks

Despite daily meetings at the White House and a flurry of press releases from negotiators, a deal to raise the debt ceiling effectively died over the past several days. On Saturday, House Speaker John Boehner pulled out of talks that might have produced a “grand bargain.” President Obama was reportedly willing to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67, tinker with Social Security’s cost-of-living formula, lock in tax rates below a full repeal of the Bush-era cuts, and enact $4 trillion in spending cuts. The catch was that he also insisted on raising government revenue, which prompted Boehner’s walkout.

Revenue and recalcitrant Tea Party members stand as seemingly immovable obstacles to a deal. There are at least sixty or seventy Republicans in the House, mostly Tea Partiers, who will vote against any deal that comes before them—either on principle, because they simply don’t believe the debt ceiling should be raised at all (John Boehner admitted this on Fox News yesterday), or because they will only approve a deal that includes a balanced budget amendment, which is not making it into any package.

These holdouts mean that any deal will need significant Democratic votes to pass the House. But minority whip Steny Hoyer has vehemently insisted that a bill that doesn’t raise revenue won’t get a single Democratic vote, and he’s probably right. Meanwhile, majority leader Eric Cantor has said that any deal that does raise revenue won’t get Republican votes—also probably correct. This impasse isn’t likely to be resolved. The Rubik’s cube, as Boehner calls it, is basically unsolvable.

Faced with the very real possibility of a federal default, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell opened the escape hatch yesterday. He floated a plan that would give Obama the authority to raise the debt limit all by himself. There’s a catch, of course—Obama has to request the increase three times before the end of next year, with the final request coming only months before the presidential election.

Under McConnell’s plan, when Obama requests a debt limit increase, $100 billion is given to him automatically. He must also outline spending cuts commensurate to the increase. Then Congress has to consider his request to raise the debt limit, and either chamber can pass a “resolution of disapproval” by a simple majority vote. That freezes the increase, but only temporarily—Obama can veto that resolution, meaning Congress would need to muster two-thirds of members to overturn that veto, which will not happen.

It’s a stunning de-leveraging of their position—after spending much of 2011 threatening to execute the economy unless they get their way, McConnell is now proposing to just release the hostage without one scrap of policy concessions from Democrats. Obama will propose spending cuts, but there’s nothing guaranteeing anything happens with that proposal.

One certainly wonders if McConnell was pressured to act by his Big Business backers once negotiations hit a wall. In his remarks yesterday, McConnell said that it was “extremely important that the country reassure the markets that default is not an option.” A large coalition of Wall Street and Main Street business leaders stepped up public pressure to find a deal this week, and there is increasing concern over market potential market reactions even before August 2.

Full Article
Source: The Nation 

McConnell Offers Debt Ceiling Out, But Obama Keeps Focus On Deficit

WASHINGTON -- There were no real signs of progress in Tuesday's White House debt talks. But the meeting did shed light on two evolving dynamics taking place in the ongoing negotiations: President Barack Obama's increasing appetite to cut spending in a substantial way, and Republicans sinking under the weight of their own hard-line approach to a deal.

For all its talk of the importance of averting a debt default, the White House is signaling that major deficit reduction has become more than just a bargaining chip to bring Republicans aboard a debt deal.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner opened Tuesday's meeting not by focusing on the perils of debt default, but instead with a "vivid" presentation on "what happens if you don't cut the deficit," according to a Democratic source familiar with the talks.

Geithner warned the group that ratings agencies are actively watching both the debt ceiling debate and the ability of Congress to turn around the nation's growing deficit and debt. He pointed to the economic unrest in Europe as evidence of what could happen in the United States if the White House and Congress don't tackle the deficit in a serious way.

Lawmakers obviously discussed the pressing consequences of debt default, said the Democratic official. And on that front there still "continues to be a big difference on revenue."

But as negotiations on a debt package resumed, Obama made it clear that he isn't playing small ball. He warned Republicans that the major concessions he has offered on entitlement reforms are off the table if they don't agree to a sizable debt deal. There could still be some tinkering with Medicare and Medicaid, he told the group, but it would come from the supplier side, not the benefit side.

Throughout the meeting, the president urged Republicans to reconsider the benefits of passing a bigger package, which now seems likely to fall somewhere between the $4 trillion that Obama wanted and the $2.4 trillion that Vice President Joseph Biden targeted in his now-defunct bipartisan deficit group. Whether entitlement reforms remain part of that equation is undetermined. But Democratic negotiators reiterated that even the low end of that deal would have to include a revenue component.

The partisanship simmering beneath the talks also appeared to wane somewhat on Tuesday. Another Democratic official with knowledge of the meeting described it as "more constructive than the other ones," adding that there was a "general consensus about the need to stop talking past each other."

Congressional leaders are headed back to the White House on Wednesday at 4 p.m. to "begin trying to go officially through the stuff in the Biden discussion."

An alternative debt plan floated earlier Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "was brought up" during the meeting, the official added. "But it was sort of pushed to the side" as attendees focused on areas of agreement on spending cuts and revenue reforms discussed in Biden's group.

McConnell's proposal crashed and burned within his own party almost as soon as it was unveiled. Under his proposal, Congress would give up its power to raise the debt ceiling and effectively transfer that authority to the White House for the remainder of Obama's current term. Conservatives immediately trashed the idea and accused McConnell of capitulating in the debt debate. The conservative blog RedState even called on supporters to send McConnell a weasel -- and provided a link to a toy weasel on Amazon.com -- as "a testament to his treachery."

Full Article
Source: Huffington 

Canada China Relations: John Baird Seeks To Improve Strained Relationship With Superpower

THE CANADIAN PRESS — OTTAWA - Call it going back to the future instead of a great leap forward.

John Baird's first trip to China as foreign affairs minister later this week will continue the Conservative government's efforts to improve strained relations with Beijing. The situation has improved in the last two years, but analysts say that progress has simply healed the wounds inflicted by the Tories between 2006 and 2009.

"We're basically back to where Canada was in 2005, trying to make sense of what a strategic partnership with China might be," said Paul Evans, an Asian issues expert at the Liu Institute for Global Issues in Vancouver.

Two weeks ago, Baird referred to the China relationship as a strategic partnership and declared to the business audience in Toronto that visiting there was a "huge priority."

Wenran Jiang, a China expert with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, said Baird's speech set a positive new tone that will resonate well in Beijing. But the strategic partnership designation is something former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin set in motion in the dying days of his government in late 2005 when he hosted China's president.

"Everybody begins to talk about the golden age, everything is normal. It's not normal when you bring a relationship back in 2010 to the level of 2005 because in those five years the Chinese economy has grown by 60 per cent," Jiang said.

Baird will be in China from July 16-20. He'll also be tilling the ground for a second trip to the country by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, perhaps before the end of the year.

Baird will also attend a meeting of the ASEAN regional security forum on the Indonesian island of Bali following the China trip.

Evans and Jiang agreed that Sino-Canadian relations are back on a much more solid footing, but there's still much more work to be done. Unlike the Liberals before them, the Harper government has no overarching strategic plan on engaging China, whether on economic matters or pressing human rights.

Full Article
Source: Huffington 

The Case for Decriminalizing Prostitution

The sex workers challenging Canada's sex laws say it's about safety – and freedom.

By now, you have probably heard that there is a case in the courts challenging Canada’s current prostitution laws. Valerie Scott, Terri-Jean Bedford, and I are the three plaintiffs, and there are many other current and former sex workers and academics who have given their voices and expertise to this case.

Although the exchange of sex for money is legal in Canada, there are provisions within the Criminal Code that make it impossible to work in this business legally and safely.

First, we are challenging Section 210 of the Criminal Code, which is also known as the bawdyhouse law. This law prevents us from working in the safety of our own home, or in a familiar location, either by ourselves or as a collective. A bawdyhouse is any place used for prostitution. This law thus applies to a sex worker seeing a few clients from her home, which is how much of sex work is conducted in this country, and to a place that two or three sex workers use as their work place. Under this law, such actions are considered an enterprise crime. Upon being charged, the government seizes all of your assets. The police can, and do, show up with moving vans and take everything the sex worker owns, including freezing any bank accounts. Everyone should feel safe in their homes and their places of work, but the bawdyhouse law puts our safety and lives in jeopardy. Because working this way is completely illegal, we are afraid that if we were to call the police to report a bad client we would be investigated and charged. This has happened all too often. Bad clients know this, and use it to their advantage.

Second, we are challenging Section 212(j), which forbids anyone from living “wholly or in part on the avails of prostitution,” including someone who “lives with or is habitually in the company of a prostitute.” This is the only section of the Procuring Law that we are challenging. Far from protecting us, it criminalizes all of our everyday and healthy relationships. It is illegal for us to have a roommate or any other kind of relationship, including a spouse. If we are working at a location away from our homes, this even prevents us from having vital support staff such as receptionists and drivers, and from implementing other security measures.

The third law that we are challenging is Section 213(1)(c), also known as the Communicating Law, which prevents my colleagues who work on the street from interacting with potential clients. The “communicating for the purpose of prostitution” law came into effect on Dec. 20, 1985. It forbids anyone who is in a public place, or in a place open to public view, from “stop[ping] or attempt[ing] to stop any person or in any manner communicat[ing] or attempt[ing] to communicate with any person.”

This law creates an environment in which my street-based colleagues are working out of the public eye, in industrial areas. They are unable to assess and negotiate with a client out in the open for fear of being seen by the police and charged. Those who seek to hurt us know this, and seek out my colleagues on the street, committing horrific crimes.

Full Article
Source: The Mark 

Harnessing the 'Indigenous Potential'

First Nations deserve a fair shake in the development of energy and mining resources.

This is a time of enormous potential for indigenous peoples in Canada and around the globe – a time when respectful energy and mining development could be a key tool in helping our peoples and nations reach their full potential.

Across North America, there are unprecedented opportunities to develop resources on indigenous lands in a responsible and sustainable manner, and many First Nations in Canada are using these opportunities to build and rebuild their nations, build skills and capacities for their people, and build up their economies. They are creating thriving communities in which their people can live, work, and grow.

With the reality of climate change and the prospects of green energy, there is a growing global demand for natural resources and energy. This creates an opportunity for us to shift the view from what is too often seen as the “indigenous problem” to one of “indigenous potential.”

In Canada, First Nations citizens can add over $400 billion to the economy by 2026 if we close the education and labour-force gap between First Nations and other Canadians. As the fastest and largest growing segment of Canada’s population, with almost half of our people under the age of 25, First Nations citizens in Canada could fill the looming labour shortage created by Canada’s aging, retiring population.

By increasing and improving the collective understanding of indigenous rights, responsibilities, and opportunities in relation to resource development, we can, and will, create the space for indigenous citizens, communities, and economies to thrive. These are the factors that recently brought together more than 800 indigenous leaders and citizens and representatives from government and industry from around the world in Niagara Falls for the first-ever International Indigenous Summit on Energy and Mining.

The three-day summit, hosted by the Assembly of First Nations and the National Congress of American Indians, is just one of the many efforts underway to transform the relationship between indigenous peoples and the rest of the world. The summit was a chance for all the key players to identify and discuss effective approaches to energy and resource development, keeping in mind the necessity for approaches that respect indigenous rights and treaties. Through this – and through other relationship-building approaches – we will continue to share experiences and challenges, answer questions, and develop best practices that will eventually lead to increased recognition, respect, partnerships, and prosperity for all.

More and more, First Nations citizens in Canada are taking their rightful place as leaders and active participants in the economy in ways that benefit our peoples, our communities, and our collective future. While there are good examples of effective engagement and agreements between industry and First Nations, there are also too many bad examples. This is our chance to work together to eliminate the bad examples. I have said, recently, that this could be our new fur trade. Indigenous peoples in Canada were essential to the fur trade. We were active participants, providing knowledge and insight to traders, and the traders, in turn, respected our right to our resources, lands, and territories.

First Nations are not opposed to development, but we do not believe in development at any cost. We continue to advocate for the full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the principle of free, prior, and informed consent before any development occurs. That means consulting and accommodating First Nations prior to development. Our mantra is: “Engage early and engage often.” This is necessary to establish the relationships required to build effective partnerships and agreements between First Nations, governments, and industry.

As stewards of the land, as fathers and mothers, and as business people and community leaders, indigenous peoples in Canada have a responsibility to our ancestors to fulfill their vision. This is a vision of strong, healthy communities that are thriving in our languages, cultures, and economies. With this knowledge and respect for our ancestors and Elders, we continually seek an important balance – living and learning according to their wisdom while gaining the knowledge and support we need to fulfill our roles and responsibilities for future generations.

Those who attended the International Indigenous Summit on Energy and Mining brought with them their best ideas and best practices. We announced the creation of a First Nations Virtual Institute on Energy and Mining, which will serve as an online tool for sharing information, experience, and data. And everyone who participated agreed we must gather again soon to maintain momentum on this important matter.

We have shown that we can build on existing successes, learn from our challenges, and recognize opportunities for indigenous peoples to work together and lead the way based on the original relationships set out in treaties and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We can transform these relationships in ways that strengthen our citizens, communities, and economies. This is a win-win situation for everyone. By raising the collective literacy around energy and mining development and the rights of indigenous peoples, we will unleash the full potential and energy of our people in a way that strengthens all of us.

Origin
Source: The Mark 

Ford’s campaign mantra runs out of gas

Rob Ford’s campaign narrative was almost out of gas heading into this week. And judging by the first two instalments of a spending review meant to find ways for Toronto to solve a massive budget shortfall, this car is almost ready for the scrap yard. It’s the burnt-out rental Dodge from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, with three-quarters of a bumper sticker reading “Respect for Taxp.”

Mr. Ford swore that the core services review reports, prepared by the firm KPMG, would find “at least $50- or $100-million” in savings, else their authors wouldn’t receive “one red cent” in compensation. Yet they largely vindicate his opponents’ stance: We know what the city does. We don’t need to pay consultants big bucks to tell us. Most of what the city does is either essential, provincially mandated or both — 96% of the services covered by Monday’s and Tuesday’s reports. (There are six more reports to come.)

And those services are delivered pretty decently, according to the reports. They don’t even suggest what efficiencies might be found — the mythical gravy — because that’s not what KPMG was commissioned to do.

That City Hall wastes some money is as obvious as it ever was. The question remains how much. We were promised enough to significantly ameliorate the nearly $800-million budget shortfall. We’re still waiting.

And we were promised it wouldn’t impact services. Now we know it will.

Look at KPMG’s cost-saving suggestions to the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee. It could opt to make the city dirtier (less street-sweeping), the streets more treacherous (less snow-plowing), and garbage collection more expensive (by taking away the four free garbage bag tags per year). In each of these cases, the “potential savings” level was assessed as “low” — no more than 5% of the costs of those particular programs. We might be talking about $10- or $15-million at the outside if all of the recommendations were implemented.

And they won’t all be. Count on it. If KPMG had assessed the potential citizen annoyance level of their proposals, it would likely have found it “extreme.” These are the sorts of things that provoked Ford Nation’s fury in the first place. Pay the same, or more, and get less? How could Mr. Ford possibly get behind that?

Admittedly, some useful, debatable suggestions have emerged thus far: Outsourcing more waste collection and social support programs, getting out of the “small commercial waste collection” business, re-examining the city’s business development model. And perhaps there are some moves Mr. Ford could undertake without alienating his core supporters, such as eviscerating arts funding or slashing money for “bicycle infrastructure management.”

But even that won’t come close to plugging the hole. All signs point to a pretty significant tax hike coming down the pipe. Budget chief Mike Del Grande noted Monday that Torontonians pay relatively low tax and receive pretty good services. That’s heresy to the many Ford voters who believe we’re both overtaxed and underserved — and who believe Mr. Ford promised to cut their taxes, even though he didn’t.

Maybe these voters can be forgiven for being confused, considering Mr. Ford used to insist the city had no revenue problem. But that door fell off the burned-out Dodge ages ago. We need more money, and to spend less of it, and we need to figure out how to get it and what to cut — all more or less immediately.

“I think it’s only fair that we wait until [the consultants] finish doing their job,” Mr. Ford told reporters on Tuesday. “Let’s wait till it’s all complete and I think you’ll see more than $10- to $15-million in savings.”

But it won’t be $150- or $200-million, let alone $700-million. The gravy-train, no-service-cuts, plenty-of-revenue fantasy is kaput. As soon as that last KPMG installment lands, if not sooner, Mayor Ford needs to start talking frankly about his Plan B.

Full Article
Source: National Post 

Ruthless clear-cutting bares Myanmar’s hills

For more than two decades, the merchants in the Kunming Southwest Timber Market have conducted a brisk trade in a coveted but controversial resource: teak and other woods harvested from isolated, military-ruled Myanmar.

But these days, the merchants who warehouse their refined timber and raw logs in a muddy maze of garages on the edge of this southwestern Chinese city say they can no longer make a go of it dealing in Myanmar timber alone. Some have started shifting their focus to the relatively unscathed forests of Laos, while others have switched from forestry to mining in Myanmar. Some have already closed their shops for good.

What is happening is a tragedy foretold for years by opponents of the generals who rule the country better known as Burma. Desperate for cash, and hemmed in by international sanctions, Myanmar’s government opened up the country’s bountiful forests, and other natural resources, to companies in China, long the country’s only major trading partner.

After 20 years of almost unhindered clear-cutting, the traders and forestry experts say, only a fraction of Myanmar’s legendary forests of teak and redwood remain standing. Timber merchants in Kunming – the biggest hub anywhere for buying and selling Myanmar timber – say there will be no more Myanmar teak left to harvest in a decade, maybe less.

“It can’t last more than another 10 years, maybe just five or six years if they cut faster,” said Chen Jinian, office manager at Sen Long Timber, a company owned by his uncle that has been importing wood from Myanmar since the early 1990s.

Mr. Chen recently returned from a cross-border trip to negotiate a purchase, and said that his company has had to go deeper and deeper into the heart of Myanmar to find good-quality wood since the once-lush forests in the borderlands were now all but exhausted. In Yunnan province, on the Chinese side of the border, cutting is strictly regulated by authorities and the mountains are still topped with valuable but protected forests.

In Myanmar, Mr. Chen said, it’s a free-for-all, with the central government in Naypyidaw, local military commanders and anti-government ethnic militias that control the border areas all willing to sell the forests under their control in exchange for desperately needed cash. “When you cross the border to the Myanmar side, you can see the mountains that no longer have any trees on them,” he said. “Soon the trees will be all cut. Without the trees, there will be only mountains. So we will look into mining them.”

Mr. Chen’s bleak description is matched by other traders in the Kunming timber market, where the growing scarcity of Myanmar teak and redwood has driven up prices and hurt demand. Traders say business has fallen sharply in recent years, due in part to the global financial downturn, but also to the Chinese government’s efforts to regulate trade across the Myanmar border, which has resulted in the imposition of tariffs of as high as 100 per cent on some wood.

Full Article
Source: Globe & Mail 

City buyouts will hurt services

Toronto's plans to offer buyout packages to municipal workers will inevitably lead to more service cuts, the head of one of the workers' unions warned.

Mark Ferguson, the president of CUPE Local 416, made those comments one day after the city said that it planned to offer the packages to some 17,000 municipal workers as it tries to pare a $774-million budget shortfall. His union represents the city's outside employees, including garbage workers.

Ferguson said Wednesday continued cuts are harming the city. He noted that his union has lost about 30 per cent of its members since 2005 because of a hiring freeze.

"So any further reduction in staff would definitely translate into service cuts for residents," Ferguson told CBC's Metro Morning.

"You can't have services without employees. And we know that the downsizing over the last number of years has got to the point that it will definitely impact services if there are further reductions in staff."

The city isn't sure how much the buyouts will cost because it's not known how many people will take the offer.

The deadline for workers to accept the voluntary offer is Sept. 9.

Labour costs account for 45% of budget

Union, non-union and management employees are all being offered buyouts of up to six months salary. Police, transit and library workers are not included.

About 45 per cent, or $4.6 billion of the city's operating budget, is earmarked for salaries and benefits.

Richard Majkot, executive director of the City of Toronto Administrative, Professional and Supervisory Association, also fears that the residents will suffer from the cuts.

"My concern is that the city is going to gut key people and won't be able to deliver the services to the citizens of Toronto. That's very important," Majkot said. "Municipalities are labour intensive businesses."

But the city's budget chief Mike Del Grande said the city has no choice but to make the cuts given its serious financial situation.

"It's a very delicate situation that we find ourselves in but it is a position that we have to undertake in order to correct our structural problem here at the City of Toronto."

Full Article
Source: CBC news 

CBC Not Immune To Budget Cuts, Moore Says

CBC/Radio-Canada must be prepared to face a cut of at least five per cent in its parliamentary allocation in the next budget, Heritage Minister James Moore says.

CBC — CBC/Radio-Canada must be prepared to face a cut of at least five per cent in its parliamentary allocation in the next budget, Heritage Minister James Moore says.

In a wide-ranging interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show on Monday, Moore ruled out privatizing the public broadcaster, but said all government spending, except for health care and support for seniors, is under review.

"The CBC has to do its part. The idea that the CBC can't find five per cent efficiencies within the CBC to give back to the broader economic framework is silly," he said. "Of course the CBC will be part of this overall process."

He said his promise to maintain or raise CBC funding had been based on the 2008 election platform.
"Everybody, including the CBC, has to be part of the strategic review and find five per cent. All of this is dictated by the process going forward of the strategic review which is to look at the macro framework of the Canadian economy, going forward the next few quarters. And we'll see where we are next year, but everybody has got to be a part of it."

He also backed up Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's warning last month to arts organizations not to expect regular government funding.

"The source of funding cannot just be government," Moore said. "You have to draw more private-sector funding into arts organizations."

Flaherty made the remarks after a controversy over SummerWorks, a Toronto independent theatre festival that lost its federal funding after it made headlines last year with Homegrown, a play about a convicted terrorist.

Moore denied that the loss of funding to SummerWorks was a result of political interference.
"The SummerWorks festival received funding for five straight years," he said. "The request this year was for $45,000. To be blunt, it had nothing to do with the Homegrown play. I haven't seen it — I've heard the debate on it, but I'm not interested in it."

Conspiracy theories

Moore said SummerWorks funding was cut so other festivals could get access to government grants.

"People can draw up whatever conspiracy theories they want," he said. "The fact is that funding went to another festival, and other festivals are going forward."

Moore agreed that arts organizations face a challenging environment, and said government's role has to be to set the stage so arts groups succeed.

Moore dismissed what he called a "stereotype" that Conservatives do not support the arts, saying the government fully understands the importance of culture to Canada's economy.

"We need to make sure that regime of policies that the government has — not just funding but copyright legislation, investments, drawing in the private sector to make sure there is a steady base for culture that doesn't just come from taxpayers — all of these things have to be working in concert to make sure that Canada continues to lead the world," Moore said.

One of the priorities of the government this fall will be copyright reform, he added.

Origin
Source: Huffington 

Canada’s income gap growing

Income inequality in Canada is widening as the rich get richer and poor and middle-income Canadians lose ground, says the Conference Board of Canada in a report being released Wednesday.

“While the poor are minimally better off in an absolute sense, they are significantly worse off in a relative sense,” said board president Anne Golden.

“And where is the middle-class in all of this? These are important questions for society,” she said in an interview.

The 33-year trend which has accelerated since 1993, raises questions about the country’s economic well-being, including whether Canada is using all the skills and talents of its citizens and whether social cohesion and fairness are being undermined, says How Canada Performs: Is Canada becoming more unequal?

Social policy experts who have been raising the alarm over Canada’s growing income gap since 2006, say the Conference Board report represents a watershed.

“The significance of this report is that it is now firmly on the radar of the business establishment,” said economist Armine Yalnizyan who has written several reports on the issue for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that are referenced by the Conference Board.

“The jury is no longer out. This is a pressing issue of our era,” Yalnizyan said in an interview.

The Conference Board report examines various measures of inequality, including median income, the point at which half of earners have more income and half earn less.

The report notes that between 1976 and 2009, the median income rose by just 5.5 per cent from $45,800 to $48,300.

While the poor didn’t get poorer according to real income levels, they did get poorer in a relative sense, says the report.

Between 1976 and 2009 the earnings gap between the lowest 20 per cent and the top 20 per cent of earners grew from $92,300 to $177,500, showing that income growth is being distributed unequally.

Another measure of inequality, called the Gini index, shows that in 2009, 32 per cent of Canada’s national income would have to be redistributed to have a country that is completely equal in terms of income, the report says. In the late 1980s, it was just 28 per cent.

The Conference Board analysis is part a multi-year research project to help leaders identify relative strengths and weaknesses in Canada’s socio-economic performance. It is funded this year by 24 major public and private sector corporations including Ontario’s economic development ministry and Hydro-Quebec.

Origin
Source: Toronto Star 

The CIA's Secret Sites in Somalia

Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.

As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.

The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents. “In this environment, it’s very tricky. They want to help us, but the situation is not allowing them to do [it] however they want. They are not in control of the politics, they are not in control of the security,” he adds. “They are not controlling the environment like Afghanistan and Iraq. In Somalia, the situation is fluid, the situation is changing, personalities changing.”

Full Article
Source: The Nation 

How Britain's Guardian is Making Journalism History

Britain's Guardian newspaper, founded in 1821 as the Manchester Guardian, is making journalism history. The newspaper, owned and subsidized by the Scott Trust, has been instrumental this past year in two major episodes that are defining the ethics and practice of contemporary journalism. A year ago, the Guardian sought out Julian Assange who was then just starting to attract attention as the founder of an organization called WikiLeaks. The full and fascinating story of how the Guardian handled the WikiLeaks material is captured in the book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy by David Leigh and Luke Harding, two of the newspaper's lead investigative reporters (and published in the United States by PublicAffairs in February).

Now the Guardian is again at the center of a news story of enormous importance, both in substance and in how journalism functions. The newspaper has taken the lead in breaking open the phone- and data-hacking scandal that poses probably the most serious threat to the future of Rupert Murdoch's News International in its decades of ascendancy as Britain's most powerful news enterprise (aside from the BBC) and, it is becoming increasingly clear, a source of criminal corruption. Murdoch already has been forced to close the 168-year-old Sunday tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, running the risk that the paper's sacked journalists may sue News International; the British prime minister has said he would have accepted the resignation of the CEO of News International and one-time editor of the News of the World, Rebekah Brooks; the deputy prime minister has recommended that News International "do the decent thing" and drop their attempt to take over complete control of the satellite broadcaster BSkyB. There are daily revelations as to whose phone records might have been hacked or stolen: Gordon Brown's doctors, Prince Charles and his wife, Prince William, and a raft of celebrities and sports stars.

The two crucial names in the investigation are, however, not as well known. The first is Gordon Taylor. He is the chief executive of the English soccer players' trades union, the Professional Footballers Association, whose cell phone was hacked by a private investigator hired by News International. In 2009, James Murdoch approved a settlement said to be worth around £1 million to Taylor in court costs and damages, but it was conditional on Taylor agreeing to the court records being sealed and that he would make no public statement about the content of the trial. Murdoch had bought his silence. Nick Davies, an investigative reporter at the Guardian, pursued the attempted cover-up through his contacts in the legal world. Initially, Davies and the Guardian were greeted by what investigations editor David Leigh described in an interview as a "fusillade of lies" from News International and the police, some of whose officers had illegally sold material to reporters. Even Britain's Press Complaints Commission accused the Guardian of "exaggerating." For two years, Davies kept going, amid considerable hostility. The Trinity Mirror papers, Associated Newspapers (publishers of the Daily Mail), and News International, which includes the London Times, were all but silent about the hacking story. When the story might have flagged, the Guardian finally got support not from the British press but from the New York Times, which sent three journalists to write a long piece for the New York Times Magazine in September 2010, adding new details and fresh life to the investigation. The papers were also cooperating on the WikiLeaks revelations.

The second name, which transformed the power of the story, was that of an English schoolgirl. Millie Dowler was 13 years old in 2002 when she was murdered by Levi Bellfield. For six months, her body lay undiscovered and her disappearance was the subject of national attention. The Sun, the News of the World's daily sister paper, offered a reward of £100,000. That was not all. Journalists at News International, it was later revealed, had hacked Millie's phone records, hindering the police investigation and causing enormous distress for the family of the missing girl. The British public, which had not been unduly angered about the invasion of privacy of stars and politicians, was outraged. The lack of respect shown to a dead schoolgirl and her distraught, grieving family brought the News of the World to its knees because, among the public, it "touched a huge emotional button," according to Leigh.

Suddenly, as the Guardian's story resonated across the U.K., the two-year investigation blew wide open, finding its way into the media around the world. The public was made starkly aware that nearly anyone could be the victim of a grotesque invasion of their privacy. Almost overnight, News International acquired pariah status, the share price of BSkyB fell as the takeover seemed in jeopardy, and the News of the World was shuttered. Leigh compares Nick Davies to Woodward and Bernstein: he was one dogged reporter who broke the story in the face of widespread institutional denial. But Davies needed a strong editor and paper at his back. Alan Rusbridger, editor in chief of the Guardian, gave the story his staunch support partly because he had for years been arguing that the U.K. press inadequately policed its own standards and would eventually be punished. He broke the unwritten gentlemen's agreement that newspapers don't criticize the behavior of rival newspapers, that you don't "piss on your own," as one journalist put it. The fact that the Guardian is owned by a trust, and therefore is not beholden to owners or shareholders who might in such situations be put under pressure, allowed the paper to keep going when the denials were at their fiercest. As Leigh put it, "we have pretty clean hands" and, in Alan Rusbridger, "the only guy willing to take on Rupert Murdoch."

Origin
Source: The Atlantic 

The Budget-Slashing Hysteria's Latest Victim: Legal Aid for the Poor

Legal assistance for the poor will take a huge hit under a proposal just released by the House Appropriations Committee, which aims to slash the budget of the Legal Services Corporation back to 1999 levels. Officials at LSC, which has been around for four decades and supports 136 independent legal-aid outposts all over America, knew big cuts were coming—the program was by no means exempt from DC’s budget-slashing hysteria. But supporters were betting on losing $70 million, the figure proposed last year during budget negotiations.

The new proposal would take away $104 million—26 percent of the program’s resources—at a time when demand is soaring. Legal-aid offices from Texas to Maine report that the need for their services already has been outstripping funding for years.

"Demand is just going to keep going up. People are still losing their jobs. People are still struggling to put food on the table. Foreclosures are still happening," says Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, the state's largest legal-services agency. "Last year, we had to turn away half of the people that came to us because we just don't have the resources. And it's not like when we say no, the legal problems just go away."

You'll hear similar stories nationwide. "We know that in February we were only able to handle about 20 percent of the calls that were actually tracked on our voicemail system, in one office location," said Nan Heald, executive director of Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Maine's largest legal-services provider. "And a lot of people don't even get through on the phones because they're busy."

More of those who do get through, Heald says, "are getting limited service rather than full representation, because we're trying to manage the demand with reduced staff." She has lost seven staffers since 2009. It's not just the federal cuts that are hurting these agencies. "We get foundations, we get individual donations, state grants, state funding. All of our funding sources are dropping," Heald adds.

In Texas, a bill providing $20 million for legal services was passed only after a major fight in the state legislature, and Gov. Rick Perry has yet to sign it. In Florida, renowned for its "rocket-docket" foreclosure courts, Gov. Rick Scott vetoed a bill providing $1 million in funding for legal aid, despite broad bipartisan support.

Another key funding source for legal services comes through interest on lawyers' trust accounts. When a lawyer wins a cash settlement for a client, the money often goes into a pooled account before it's paid out. The interest on that money is used to support civil legal services. But with interest rates plummeting, that revenue source has also been gutted.

Already, the legal-aid nonprofits supported by the LSC are slated to lose a total of 445 staff members, including 200 lawyers, by the end of 2011, according to a survey of the groups. Last year, 63 million people—an all-time high—qualified for their help, an increase of 11 percent from the year before. "This is not the time to undercut the fundamental American commitment to equal justice for all," says Legal Services president James Sandman.

"There is never a convenient time to make tough decisions," counters Frank Wolf, chair of the House subcommittee responsible for the LSC’s budget. "But the longer we put off fixing the problem, the worse the medicine will be…The bill represents our best take on matching needs with scarce resources."

Heald says she understands the need to cut spending, but explains that legal services has a "preventive effect" that actually saves money for the states. Housing a family in a homeless shelter in Maine for just two or three weeks is five to ten times more expensive than supporting a lawyer who can help keep the family in stable housing, she says. "And that's just the cost of the shelter nights, and not the cost on all the other supportive systems a family might need."

"I think it's important to have the full picture, and not to see just part of it," she adds.

For now, the hopes of the legal aid community hinge on the Senate. "We're hopeful that things will continue to be okay, and we're not going to face these major cuts," said Linda Perle, director of legal services at the DC-based Center for Law and Social Policy. "But that might just be wishful thinking."

If the proposed cuts do take effect, the LSC estimates that 235,000 people eligible for help will be turned away. And that will have a direct impact on vulnerable Americans, Rodriguez says.

Full Article
Source: Mother Jones 

A Visit to the Warehouse of Soul-Crushing Sadness

Last week, when my ex-girlfriend asked me if I'd ever been in a warehouse before, I shot her the most withering scowl I could muster. "Don't talk to me like I'm fancy-pants," I said as I followed her into the site she manages. "You know I worked for a moving company for five years." But within five minutes, it was clear I had never been in a warehouse like this before.

This is a warehouse where people ship stuff for big online companies that you've definitely heard of. The company, which I won't name, provides staffing for a nationwide logistics contractor that handles getting those Internet purchases from their origin—usually Chinese factories—to your doorstep. I won't name my ex so she doesn't get in trouble. Let's call her Susie.

She kicked off my visit with a tour around the warehouse floor. First stop: Workers standing at tables, taking items out of a bulk box and putting them into different boxes with shipping labels on them. And that's...pretty much it. For efficiency purposes, every step of every process has been broken down and separated out so that almost everyone does the exact same motion over and over. The people at the next stop are standing at tables and putting labels on boxes, over and over. Sweating.

"It's hot in here," I said. It was like 90 degrees outside. "Don't you guys have air conditioning?"

"We do, but it's controlled by the big guys in the suits." Susie said everybody wears hats and coats during the winter because it's freezing inside.

"That job sucks," she said when we passed by the loading docks. A semi was backed up to the open door. A guy was standing inside it catching taped-up, ready-to-ship boxes off the conveyor belt and stacking them in the truck bed. "There's no circulation in there," Susie said, shaking her head.

"How much do these people make?"

About $9 an hour. When I said that wasn't very much—when I worked at the moving-company warehouse starting in 1998, I made $10 an hour—she replied, "For them it is. They have no jobs." Also, it's 50 cents an hour more than the people on the previous shift make. In a state with 8.6 percent unemployment, fierce competition for limited job openings, and a minimum wage of $7.25, you could do a lot worse.

Technically, these workers are all temps. They're hired as temps by the warehouse company, which is contracted to handle temporary staffing by a logistics company. If they make it 90 days, they have the opportunity to become full-blown employees of the logistics company, which means benefits and an extra dollar an hour. It's been six months since the logistics company graduated someone here from temp to employee status. At one of the other locations Susie manages, no one has been hired as a real employee for two years. One of the workers in this warehouse has been a temp for a year and a half.

After we walked past workers stuffing inflated plastic air pockets in boxes and a guy continuously taping shut the bottom of just-made boxes, we went to Susie's office. "Hold on, I gotta fire somebody real quick," she said, picking up the phone. She called a guy who'd been working for her for two months. She was sorry, she told him, but she had to let him go because one of the supervisors had caught him talking on the floor. The man, who she guessed is in his late 40s or early 50s, protested that he had only asked a new guy where he was from. That's just not the culture, Susie told him. You know the rules. The logistics company sets them, and she has no choice but to enforce them.

Indeed, it does say in the new-temp handout that there is no talking allowed on the warehouse floor. Also, there are no cell phones allowed. Like a high school teacher, Susie had a pile of phones she'd confiscated in a plastic bowl on her desk. Two sick days are allotted per year, and they must be excused; after that, the temp is terminated, doctor's note or no. Every temp is allowed one 30-minute break per day, and it must be taken in the break room. Every temp is required to have an ID badge. The cost of this badge is deducted from the temp's first paycheck, and is more than an hour's worth of wages.

I hadn't even finished the orientation document when Susie picked up the phone and got instructions from another supervisor that I could tell were bad news for another guy. "You're not really about to fire somebody else, are you?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"You just fired somebody less than 10 minutes ago."

"Yeah, but he's been taking too many breaks."

"Are you kidding? Is anybody going to ask him why he's taking breaks? Maybe he's sick."

"No, they said he's been doing it all week. He's a bigger dude, so they think he's doing it"—the breakroom and the bathroom are in the heavily air conditioned part of the warehouse where the guys in the suits have offices—"because it's too hot for him on the floor." Susie called him and fired him for "excessive" breaks, though she pointed out to me that she didn't actually have to give him a reason.

A few days later, I had breakfast with someone who coincidentally works with the CEOs of logistics companies. Telling him about the conditions and the sterility and the mind-numbing sadness of the warehouse made him almost too bummed to eat his oatmeal. "Somebody did studies and spreadsheets and crunched those numbers," he said, "and figured out that the cheapest way to get that job done is to treat people like that." Which is important, he explained, because "the profit margins on those contracts are razor thin." Of course. A lot of the Internet retailers' merchandise is nearly worthless—ice princess star-shaped ice cube trays, cheap sunglasses, anthropomorphic stuffed bacon toys—and is sold for nearly nothing, often with free or reduced-price shipping.

Susie told me it's pretty dispiriting to act as though her workers are as disposable as the products they're shipping. But that's just the way it is, she said. The logistics clients aren't interested in spending money on a better or more sustainable work culture. Nor do they need to. There are 100 people employed in the warehouse I visited, and Susie could fire every one of them today without costing her bosses a dime of lost profits. She has applications from hundreds of people ready to take the job.

Full Article
Source: Mother Jones 

Obama's Proposed Medicare Age Hike Means a 12 Percent Benefit Cut for the Average Senior

The word in Washington is that President Obama has, in negotiations with Congressional Republicans, offered to raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67.

A report in the Washington Post quoted "a Democratic official familiar with the discussions," while other media outlets quoted multiple unnamed sources with knowledge of the talks the president and Congressional leaders have been engaged in with regard to raising the debt ceiling. All the reports suggest that Obama would trade the change in the eligibility age for a Republican agreement to accept some new taxes.

Obama essentially acknowledged as much Monday, when he said: “I’m prepared to take significant heat from my party to get something done."

He should take significant heat.

The president's proposal does not resemble a plan that mainstream Democrats would suggest, let alone support. In fact, it roughly resembles a plan advanced last month by Senators Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, and Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut.

That the White House appears to be peddling proposals that parallel those of conservative senators represents an exceptionally troubling development, as even considering a hike in the Medicare eligibility age represents the worst of Washington-insider thinking.

The problem with this play is four-fold:

1. Raising the eligibility age represents a huge benefit cut for older Americans.

The average life expectancy for an American who makes it to age 65 is in the range of 82 years.

That would give an American who reaches retirement age under the current system roughly seventeen years of Medicare coverage.

That number would under Obama's proposal drop to fifteen years.

That's a roughly 12 percent cut in benefits.

2. Raising the eligibility age would not save the money that proponents of the cut suggest.

Raising the eligibility age creates new pressures on a healthcare system that is already dysfunctional for older workers who are laid off or under-insured. Far from saving money, a spike in the eligibility age simply shifts the problem to other accounts. For instance, if the federal government is providing aid to the uninsured under the healthcare reform plan, folks aged 65 to 67 will just have to seek that aid —as opposed to tapping into the already functional and efficient Medicare program.

Worse yet, the aid would be for the buying of insurance from the private sector, which will charge its highest prices for insuring the older and more vulnerable uninsured. Thus, more cost to the taxpayers.

3. Raising the eligibility age harms the struggle with unemployment.

The smartest move for older workers who do not have access to Medicare until they are 67 will be to keep working.

That means that jobs will not come open for younger workers who are entering the labor market or have been laid off.

4. Raising the eligibility age undermines the argument that Democrats want to preserve Medicare and helps Republicans such as Paul Ryan to define the debate.

When a Democratic president joins Republicans in advancing the largest cut in Medicare benefits in modern history, that takes the steam out of the argument that Democrats want to preserve Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security while Republicans want to make cuts.

Democrats had their most significant victory in the past two years when Kathy Hochul won the special election in New York's 26th District. Hochul grabbed a traditionally Republican seat by campaigning as a stalwart and unyielding defender of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. She offered real alternatives for voters who were concerned about deficits and debts: arguing for fair taxation and a broad examination of waste, fraud and abuse in federal programs.

That was a powerful, winning argument. But it cannot be made by a president or a party that imposes deep and unnecessary cuts in Medicare. Accepting that so-called “entitlement” programs are the source of America’s fiscal challenges effectively endorses House Budget Committee chairman Ryan’s false premises.

The voters rejected those false premises in the New York special election, and they will continue to do so —unless Barack Obama hands the issue to Ryan and the Republicans on the silver platter of a proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age.

Full Article
Source: The Nation 

McConnell Offers Debt Ceiling Out, But Obama Keeps Focus On Deficit

WASHINGTON -- There were no real signs of progress in Tuesday's White House debt talks. But the meeting did shed light on two evolving dynamics taking place in the ongoing negotiations: President Barack Obama's increasing appetite to cut spending in a substantial way, and Republicans sinking under the weight of their own hard-line approach to a deal.

For all its talk of the importance of averting a debt default, the White House is signaling that major deficit reduction has become more than just a bargaining chip to bring Republicans aboard a debt deal.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner opened Tuesday's meeting not by focusing on the perils of debt default, but instead with a "vivid" presentation on "what happens if you don't cut the deficit," according to a Democratic source familiar with the talks.

Geithner warned the group that ratings agencies are actively watching both the debt ceiling debate and the ability of Congress to turn around the nation's growing deficit and debt. He pointed to the economic unrest in Europe as evidence of what could happen in the United States if the White House and Congress don't tackle the deficit in a serious way.

Lawmakers obviously discussed the pressing consequences of debt default, said the Democratic official. And on that front there still "continues to be a big difference on revenue."

But as negotiations on a debt package resumed, Obama made it clear that he isn't playing small ball. He warned Republicans that the major concessions he has offered on entitlement reforms are off the table if they don't agree to a sizable debt deal. There could still be some tinkering with Medicare and Medicaid, he told the group, but it would come from the supplier side, not the benefit side.

Throughout the meeting, the president urged Republicans to reconsider the benefits of passing a bigger package, which now seems likely to fall somewhere between the $4 trillion that Obama wanted and the $2.4 trillion that Vice President Joseph Biden targeted in his now-defunct bipartisan deficit group. Whether entitlement reforms remain part of that equation is undetermined. But Democratic negotiators reiterated that even the low end of that deal would have to include a revenue component.

The partisanship simmering beneath the talks also appeared to wane somewhat on Tuesday. Another Democratic official with knowledge of the meeting described it as "more constructive than the other ones," adding that there was a "general consensus about the need to stop talking past each other."

Congressional leaders are headed back to the White House on Wednesday at 4 p.m. to "begin trying to go officially through the stuff in the Biden discussion."

An alternative debt plan floated earlier Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) "was brought up" during the meeting, the official added. "But it was sort of pushed to the side" as attendees focused on areas of agreement on spending cuts and revenue reforms discussed in Biden's group.

McConnell's proposal crashed and burned within his own party almost as soon as it was unveiled. Under his proposal, Congress would give up its power to raise the debt ceiling and effectively transfer that authority to the White House for the remainder of Obama's current term. Conservatives immediately trashed the idea and accused McConnell of capitulating in the debt debate. The conservative blog RedState even called on supporters to send McConnell a weasel -- and provided a link to a toy weasel on Amazon.com -- as "a testament to his treachery."

Full Article
Source: Huffington