REUTERS: Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits

Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits
10:06am EDT
By Alexandra Valencia and Brian Ellsworth

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on
Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights
training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence
contractor Edward Snowden.

The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden,
and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's
principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist
leader Hugo Chavez.

"Ecuador will not accept pressures or threats from anyone, and it does not
traffic in its values or allow them to be subjugated to mercantile interests,"
government spokesman Fernando Alvarado said at a news conference.

In a cheeky jab at the U.S. spying program that Snowden unveiled through leaks
to the media, the South American nation offered $23 million per year to finance
human rights training.

The funding would be destined to help "avoid violations of privacy, torture and
other actions that are denigrating to humanity," Alvarado said. He said the
amount was the equivalent of what Ecuador gained each year from the trade
benefits.

"Ecuador gives up, unilaterally and irrevocably, the said customs benefits," he
said.

An influential U.S. senator on Wednesday said he would seek to end those
benefits if Ecuador gave Snowden asylum.

Snowden, 30, is believed to be at Moscow's international airport and seeking
safe passage to Ecuador.

The Andean nation's government denies reports that it provided a travel document
to the former National Security Agency contractor, whose U.S. passport has been
revoked.

The government has not been able to process his asylum request because he is not
on Ecuadorean territory, another government official said.

COMBATIVE CORREA

Never shy of taking on the West, the pugnacious Correa last year granted asylum
to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to help him avoid extradition from Great
Britain to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault
accusations.

The 50-year-old U.S.-trained economist won a landslide re-election in February
on generous state spending to improve infrastructure and health services, and
his Alianza Pais party holds a majority in the legislature.

Ecuadorean officials said Washington was unfairly using the Andean Trade
Promotion and Drug Eradication Act, which provides customs benefits in exchange
for efforts to fight the drug trade, as a political weapon.

The program was set to expire at the end of this month.

An OPEC nation of 15 million people, Ecuador exported $5.4 billion worth of oil,
$166 million of cut flowers, $122 million of fruits and vegetables and $80
million of tuna to the United States under the Andean trade program in 2012.

Termination of the benefits could hurt the cut flower industry, which has
blossomed under the program and employs more than 100,000 workers, many of them
women.

Critics of Correa say Ecuador's embrace of Assange - and now possibly Snowden -
is hypocritical given what they say is his authoritarian style and suppression
of media at home.

Supporters of Correa say he has simply taken on media and business elites who
were trying to erode what the president calls his "Citizens' Revolution."

(Writing by Brian Ellsworth and Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Iran's new president looks westward for nuke talks

BRIAN MURPHY

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Hasan Rouhani knew there was an element of risk.

Just a week before Iran's election gatekeepers announced the presidential ballot, Rouhani said one-on-one talks with Washington are the only way for breakthroughs in the nuclear standoff, given that the United States - as he put it - is the world's "sheriff."

Such a public portrayal of America's importance and the need to make overtures to it undoubtedly rattled a few among Iran's ruling clerics, who decide which candidates are cleared to run. Yet they allowed Rouhani to enter the race, and to the surprise of many, he surged to a runaway victory.

Rouhani's repeated emphasis on direct outreach to Washington may now have a chance for real traction among the ultimate decision-makers in Iran - the ruling clerics and the powerful Revolutionary Guard. They have long opposed bilateral talks, insisting they would do no good. But the lack of major blowback to Rouhani's speech in mid-May signaled that the idea is no longer a taboo for the establishment, even if it is not yet entirely convinced. Another sign came from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in March hinted he would not stand in the way.

"We have disagreements with the U.S. on regional and international matters, but obviously friendship or hostility with the world is not permanent," Rouhani told an audience at Tehran's Sharif University in his May address. "Every country can improve its relations with others."

Rouhani was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 and he has said he is convinced he could have sealed a deal if Tehran had been talking directly to Washington at the time. Efforts are under way for a new, fourth round of the multilateral nuclear talks bringing together Iran and the U.S. and other world powers. Earlier rounds have brought no headway.

It's far too early to gain anything more than hints from Iran on whether Rouhani's election this month could shift tactics in nuclear negotiations.

Rouhani does not formally take office until August. Washington has said it appreciates Rouhani's appeals for more engagement, but knows the meaningful decisions are made higher up by Iran's theocracy.

Moreover, Rouhani has made clear he has the same red lines as the ruling clerics: He said in his first post-victory news conference that Iran will never surrender its ability to enrich uranium - the central issue of the disputes.

Still, the next chief nuclear envoy on the Iranian side is almost certain to side closer to Rouhani's view that seeking one-on-one talks with Washington is a worthy pursuit. It's widely expected that hard-liner Saeed Jalili - who finished a distant third behind Rouhani in the June 14 election - will be sent packing by the ruling clerics to avoid internal tensions.

It may be weeks before a shortlist for successors is known. But some possible names mentioned include former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who finished next-to-last in the presidential race; Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former envoy to the U.N., and Amir Hossein Zamaninia, a former member of Iran's negotiating team.

No dates have been proposed to possibly resume talks between Iran and a six-nation bloc, the permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany. The four previous rounds since last year have foundered on a central deadlock: The U.S. and others insist Iran sharply scales back its uranium enrichment as a first step, while Iran says the West should ease sanctions as an opening offer.

The West and allies fear Iran's enrichment labs could eventually produce material for a nuclear weapon - and some critics in Israel and elsewhere believe that extended negotiations will only give Iran more time to advance its program.

Rouhani "may well create an opening," wrote Dennis Ross, a former White House envoy for the Middle East and South Asia, in a commentary published Tuesday in The New York Times. "But we should be on our guard: It must be an opening to clarify what is possible and to test outcomes, not to engage in unending talks for their own sake."

Iranian officials, including Rouhani, say that Iran will not give up control over the entire nuclear cycle, which turns uranium ore into reactor-ready fuel, but that it only seeks the technology for energy production and medical uses.

"The bottom line is that Rouhani's views are not a wholesale change from the ruling system's. They are pretty much the same on all the central points on what Iran wants," said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a British-based Middle East expert concentrating on Iranian affairs. "The issue is over tactics and how to get there."

For Rouhani, that likely means pushing the ruling clerics to see the value in direct nuclear talks with the U.S., which broke off ties with Tehran after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani's frequent references to a failed 2005 accord help explain his views.

He said he was close to a French-backed deal that would have allowed the maximum level of inspection by the U.N.'s nuclear agency in exchange for keeping Iran's nuclear case from reaching the U.N. Security Council, which set in motion layer after layer of economic sanctions over the years. The deal was not backed by France's European partners, and Rouhani now believes it was a mistake not to deal directly with Washington.

"The American are, as the saying goes, the sheriff. So it would be easier if we rather hammer things out with the sheriff than deal with lesser authorities," he told the university audience in May.

The scholar Shabani said Rouhani now hopes to "redeem himself" for letting the 2005 deal slip away.

"It's a mistake to think Rouhani is soft," he said. "He's not. He has a clear view that the only talks that matter - the only talks that are meaningful in the end - are with the Americans."

Whether Rouhani can sell this with the ruling establishment is not so simple.

The supreme leader opened the door in March for one-on-one nuclear talks with the U.S. in a significant reversal of policy. But it was far from a ringing endorsement. "I'm not optimistic about these talks, but I'm not opposed to them, either," Khamenei said.

In the past, Iran has insisted that any unilateral negotiations with Washington deal with a host of disputes between the two countries beyond the nuclear issue. The U.S. has rebuffed such multitasking talks.

One major sticking point could be efforts by Iran's establishment to use any new openings for nuclear dialogue as a back channel forum to discuss the civil war in Syria, where Washington backs the opposition and Iran is firmly behind its crucial alliance with Bashar Assad's regime.

"For much of the Iranian leadership at the moment, Syria is more of a priority than the nuclear talks," said Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst at the Gulf Research Center based in Geneva.

"Rouhani, though, believes the nuclear issue is the key to everything else. You resolve that and then move on to other things. This view may be logical, but may be not what Iran's rulers are thinking. This could leave Rouhani trying to swim against the current."

In Memoriam Carol Eileen Jaglowski

In memoriam Carol Eileen Jaglowski.  

I keep hearing these words but it still doesn’t seem real.  

In memory of Carol Jaglowski.  

We’ve lost her far too young.  She was 64.  She and her husband, my father-in-law, Dan, were planning their retirement together.   She had become a routine presence with her grandchildren, my three sons, her only daughter Jessica’s children.   A few times a week, Grammy, as our kids called her, would be hanging out with the older boys, Owen and Tenzin, sitting on the ground putting puzzles together, sorting Legos, teaching them to fold paper airplanes, listening to bird calls, and playing kid’s games.  Or she’d be holding the baby and watching the other lads while allowing their mother a much needed respite.

And now she’s gone.  We buried her on Friday in a wicker basket in a prairie in a cemetery decorated with giant memorials with bold, renowned names, like Dreyfus and Paul.  But grand memorials and ostentatiousness were not Carol’s way.  She was an unassuming, peaceful, and loving soul who should have had more years to live.  She was an accepting, open-minded person who early on in my marriage to her daughter asked that I call her mom, which from that time on I did.  

And at the drop of a quarter-note, she’s gone.  And however hard that is for us, for me, to accept, we have no choice.  That’s all we have.  Steven Wright said, “First you don't exist; then you exist; then you don’t exist; so this whole thing is just an interruption from non-existence.”

And Ecclesiastes reminds us, “all is vanity” that just like other animals humans “are of the dust and will turn to dust again.”  A lot of what happens to us is just a matter of chance or fate that we have little or no control of.   We can’t talk about being alive without talking about being dead.  

A few months ago, a few of us sat in a room with doctors and nurses who told us that when the feeding tube and the continuous dialysis were stopped, mom would die.  She wanted to go home in the worst way.  She wanted out of the hospital after two months of being stuck in bed.  As a show of her resolve and her strength, she proved the doctors wrong.  When one doctor walked in, his nose in her file, he looked up at her startled, and said “Wow, you look a lot better than your numbers.”  Even in this short part of her life, the last few months of it, mom was showing how she lived with fortitude and perseverance and a strong will.

Mom believed in life and that belief extended into death.  She was an organ donor and her final wish was to be put to rest naturally where she’ll be among the wild flowers she so adored and the birds and animals she vowed to protect.  It was a wonderful side of her.  She believed in standing up for those who cannot defend themselves.  She took refuge and found peace in watching the birds and would have given anything to protect the wildlife sanctuaries across the country.  To protect some of the least regarded among us.  

Mom was a thoughtful person who trusted in family.  A couple of years ago out of the blue she called her Aunt Arlene and they enjoyed getting together for lunch.  They planned on searching through photographs, retracing their past through pictures.  

She was a loyal and committed wife who shared 42 years of marriage with Dan.  They travelled together to Alaska, Horicon Marsh, Florida, anywhere as long as it was together.  Dan was with her nearly every moment she was hospitalized.  When Mom died peacefully at home, she was fittingly with Dan in just the way she wanted to go.

She was a devoted mother and Grammy who would have done anything for her daughter and our family and often did, taking the kids to the domes, the botanical gardens and parks, flying kites, going for walks.  When she was sick, just hearing their voices returned the color to her face, and the brightness in her eyes.

She loved music.  A rocker at heart, she attended countless Kansas shows then would sit down at the piano and play a Beethoven sonata.  One day I got home from work to the sound of Hoagy Carmichael from the piano.  She was teaching our oldest son to play “Heart and Soul.”

Mom’s life was not an easy one.  She lost her biological father at a young age and was raised along with her brother Dale by her mother, Betty.  Years later, after Betty had remarried to Frank, when little Mark came along, mom helped care for him.  She learned a lot about living during those years, traits and qualities she learned from her mom that she passed on to her daughter.  And that Jessica will pass on to our kids.

Mom was an invaluable role model and resource for Jessica.  Mom taught her daughter the value of generosity and kindness.  And Jessica always admired her for that.  

There were times when we would be trying to solve a dilemma, we’d call mom and she’d know the answer.  One day on the other end of the phone, mom walked me through making pecan fingers.  Somehow, mine never turned out like hers though.   Isn’t that strange how that happens? We follow the same recipe but something’s just not the same in the end. 

Mom could be temperamental, especially in the face of a bad pun, but in the 18 years I knew her, I never heard her utter a disparaging word about anyone even when others were less kind.

In the end each of us comprises pages of snapshots some flattering, some regretful that we hope people will look at with fondness.  We hope that when we die, others will sit around talking about the good we brought to the world and hopefully we’ve contributed more benefit than harm.  We are who we surround ourselves with, whether they are our children or friends or relatives.  And we live through them and because of them.  We carry mom’s memory, we remember her through these pictures and a not-too-distant voice in our heads.  “It’s all in the grand scheme of things,” she would have said. 

The last time I saw her was two days before she died.  We were talking about the dialysis she had to suffer through three times a week.  It was hard on her.  She confided in me, “I don’t know how long I can do this.”  Five months of constant pain had finally worn her out.  

I’ll miss her.  I’ll miss her effervescence, her rambunctiousness.  I’ll miss sharing a cold drink with her.  I’ll miss her laugh and the twinkle in her eye when she’d feign disgust after hearing an awful play-on-words from her husband.  I’ll miss her uncanny ability to remember anything because in the end that’s all we are – memories.  We are only what we remember ourselves to be and what others remember us to be.  I ask that we remember Carol Eileen Jaglowski today for who she was, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a cousin, a woman with a huge heart who loved life and gave her all to what she did.  Look at her pictures, she was full of vitality.  

However hard we try, words can never adequately express how we feel.  That’s why there is music.  Hammerstein said, “All the sounds of the earth are like music.”   

    

The song you’re going to hear is a rock song by Kansas, mom’s favorite musical group.  This was the song she wanted played at her funeral.  It’s a little loud and poorly edited by the man at the podium but as you listen to the lyrics try to understand what the song means.  It reveals a lot about the woman we memorialize here.  For the underlying message is one of hope. 

(cue to play edited version of Lamplight Symphony)

G8 exposes rift among leaders on Syria

G8 exposes rift among leaders on Syria

JULIE PACE

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland (AP) - Deep differences over Syria's fierce civil war clouded a summit of world leaders Monday, with Russian President Vladimir Putin defiantly rejecting calls from the U.S., Britain and France to halt his political and military support for Syrian leader Bashar Assad's regime.

But there were also fissures among the three Western nations, despite their shared belief that Assad must leave power. Britain and France appear unwilling - at least for now - to join President Barack Obama in arming the Syrian rebels, a step the U.S. president reluctantly finalized last week.

The debate over the Syria conflict loomed large as the two-day summit of the Group of 8 industrial nations opened Monday at a lakeside resort in Northern Ireland. The lack of consensus even among allies underscored the vexing nature of the two-year conflict in Syria, where at least 93,000 people have been killed as rebels struggle to overtake Assad forces buttressed by support from Hezbollah, Iran and Russia.

Obama and Putin, who already have a frosty relationship, did little to hide their differing views on the matter while speaking to reporters following one-on-one talks on the sidelines of the summit Monday evening. The two-hour meeting marked the first time the leaders have met in person since last year.

"We do have different perspectives on the problem," Obama said of their divergent views on Syria.

The Russian leader, speaking through a translator, agreed, saying, "our opinions do not coincide."

But despite their seemingly intractable differences, Obama and Putin did express a shared desire to stop the violence in Syria and convene a political conference in Geneva, Switzerland. U.S. officials said they were still aiming to hold the summit next month, though that prospect was looking increasingly unlikely given the deepening violence.

It's also unclear who would participate in such a meeting or whether the rebels, given their weakened position, would have any leverage if they did.

U.S. officials say Obama's decision to send the rebels weapons and ammunition for the first time was an attempt to increase their military strength in order to bolster their political bargaining power. But the American inventory for the rebels is not yet expected to include the high-powered weaponry sought by the opposition, raising questions about whether the deepening U.S. involvement will be effective in changing the situation on the ground.

The White House also announced Monday an additional $300 million in humanitarian aid for Syria and neighboring countries absorbing refugees escaping the violence. The new money brings the total U.S. humanitarian assistance to $800 million, according to the White House.

Obama's decision to arm the rebels coincided with the White House's announcement last week that it had definitive evidence of multiple instances of chemical weapons use by Assad's regime against the opposition. Britain and France have also accused Assad of using the deadly agent sarin, while Russia has publicly questioned the credibility of chemical weapons evidence.

"It's necessary to refrain from unproven claims by either party," Putin adviser Alexei Kvasov told reporters at the summit Monday. "We have no evidence proving it."

Moscow's continued support for Assad is based in part on Russia's deep economic and military ties with his regime. Last month, Russia acknowledged it has agreed to sell Syria advanced S-300 air-defense missiles, which are considered to be the cutting edge in aircraft interception technology.

The Russian president's divisions with Western leaders on Syria were also on display in his separate meetings with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande. Both European leaders have previously indicated a willingness to arm vetted Syrian rebels and successfully pushed for the European Union to allow an arms embargo preventing the flow of weapons to expire.

Still, neither country is yet to join Obama in arming the opposition. Following the U.S. decision, there has been growing public concern in both countries over the wisdom of delivering weapons to a country where groups affiliated with al-Qaida are supporting elements of the rebellion.

"I am as worried as anybody else about elements of the Syrian opposition, who are extremists, who support terrorism and who are a great danger to our world," Cameron said Monday.

Hollande, following his own meeting with Putin, did not commit to sending weapons to the rebels. But he did appear to open the door to some form of deeper involvement from Paris.

"How can you allow Russia to continue to send weapons to the regime of Bashar al-Assad while the opposition gets so few weapons?" Hollande asked. "How can we accept the fact that we have proof of the use of chemical weapons without a unanimous condemnation by the international community, and that includes the G8?"

Obama, who has long signaled a preference for deepening U.S. engagement in Syria in conjunction with international partners, was expected to urge his British and French counterparts to join the U.S. in boosting lethal aid to the opposition. Syria was the primary topic among the G-8 leaders at a working dinner Monday night.

Britain, which is hosting the summit, has pressed leaders to ensure the meeting results in a statement on Syria, including the need for greater humanitarian access. The U.K. floated the possibility of releasing a statement even without Russia's approval, but a British official said the dinner resulted in broad consensus among the leaders on key points.

While Putin did not publicly criticize the U.S. decision to arm the opposition during his meeting with Obama, he exhibited far less restraint Sunday following his meeting with Cameron.

"One hardly should back those who kill their enemies and, you know, eat their organs," he said, referencing a gruesome Internet video purportedly showing a rebel commander committing an act of cannibalism.

"Do we want to support these people?" Putin asked. "Do we want to supply arms to these people?"

Among the other options being considered by the U.S. - though reluctantly is a no-fly zone to stop Assad from using his air power to crush rebel forces of kill civilians. But European nations are so far opposed to that idea, and Obama's own aides have publicly questioned the feasibility, given Assad's air defenses and the significant costs of such a program.

Perhaps signaling another fight to come between the U.S. and Russia, the foreign ministry in Moscow said Russia would veto a motion to set up a no-fly zone if the U.S. sought authorization from the United Nations Security Council.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn, Shawn Pogatchnik, Vladimir Isachenkov and Cassandra Vinograd in Northern Ireland and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Two Articles on Healthcare Changes in Wisconsin

http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/enrolling-uninsured-in-obamacare-will-be-a-challenge-b9930926z1-211703801.html Enrolling uninsured in Obamacare will be a challenge

Statewide coalition prepares to help with health insurance sign-up

By Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel June 15, 2013

Ray Bochas had little reason to learn about the details of the Affordable Care Act before February. That's when the InnoWare paper napkin and plate factory in Menomonee Falls shut down, and he lost his job and his health insurance.

"The loss of insurance really hurt me," said Bochas, who takes seven prescriptions.

He has heard that he's supposed to get health insurance next year but doesn't know what he and his wife will need to do.

"It's so complicated," Bochas said.

The Affordable Care Act's main goal of increasing the number of people with health insurance could hinge on reaching people like Bochas who will be eligible next year for coverage through Medicaid or through subsidized health plans sold on marketplaces known as exchanges.

Yet one recent poll found that two-thirds of those without health insurance were unaware of how the Affordable Care Act would affect them.

It suggests the challenge ahead in reaching the hundreds of thousands of people in Wisconsin who will be eligible for coverage and helping them through the complex process of signing up for Medicaid or a private health plan.

A statewide coalition of more than 70 groups is quietly preparing to take on the challenge.

The Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association, which represents community health centers, and several other groups began working more than a year ago to create the coalition that is calling itself the Wisconsin Access Network.

"It became evident that there might not be anyone else if we didn't take the lead on this," said Lisa Davidson, director of government relations and advocacy for the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association.

The idea is to build on the existing network of financial counselors at community health centers, hospitals, city health departments and community groups that help people enroll in state health programs.

"We need all hands on deck to make this work," Davidson said.

Money for navigators

The Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association, which represents the clinics that provide primary care to many of the state's low-income residents in urban and rural areas, has applied for the limited federal money available to help people sign up for coverage.

The application is for the $829,000 that the federal government allocated for Wisconsin for so-called navigators who will provide consumer assistance.

Funding for the program will increase in subsequent years, but it is considered woefully inadequate for the first year, given the challenge of helping potentially hundreds of thousands of people as well as small employers understand the new law and their options.

Here's how inadequate: The Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association's proposal calls for hiring six full-time navigators statewide as well as two staffers to oversee coordination. It estimates that the six navigators will be able to sign up a total of only 6,000 of those hundreds of thousands of people statewide who may need help.

That's based on each application taking an hour — an estimate that the association admits is optimistic.

The enrollment period runs from Oct. 1 to March 31.

One of the quirks in the law is that states such as Wisconsin that aren't setting up their own exchanges are getting far less federal money for consumer assistance.

Maryland, a state with a population of 5.9 million, about 200,000 more than Wisconsin, plans to spend a total of $24.6 million for its assistance program, including $8.6 million in state funds in addition to $16 million from the federal government, according to Kaiser Health News. That will pay for an estimated 300 consumer assistance counselors.

In Wisconsin, the community health centers have received a $1.7 million federal grant to help people sign up for coverage. There also will be a federal call line that may be able to help consumers, although details on its role aren't available.

And Gov. Scott Walker requested, and the Joint Finance Committee's proposed budget includes, $10.3 million in state and federal state dollars to hire an additional 88 people to implement the law, including 70 people in Milwaukee County to help people enroll in Medicaid.

Brokers, who can earn commissions on health plans sold through the exchanges, also could have a key role.

'A huge task'

All that will help. But seemingly no one underestimates the challenge.

"It's a huge task," said Bobby Peterson of ABC for Health, a public interest law firm based in Madison. "They are going to have to pull in a lot of people."

He remembers the initial glitches with the introduction of Medicare Part D, the prescription drug benefit.

"This is going to be worse," he said.

Many people will be buying health insurance for the first time. Some may need little help. But some will have limited education or problems with literacy.

People will need to provide financial information to determine if they are eligible for Medicaid or for subsidies for plans sold on the exchange for individuals and families.

Some will not have checking accounts or credit cards, which may prevent them from signing up online. And even with the subsidies, the health plans on the exchange will be costly for many people on limited incomes.

Adding to the challenge is many people without health insurance know little about the law and how it could benefit them.

Bob Berndt, uninsured since losing his job in January 2012, wasn't aware that he could be eligible for coverage next year. "Not at all," he said.

He isn't alone.

"Most people don't have a clue about it," said Steve Ohly, manager of Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic, which provides care to the uninsured.

Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic tentatively plans to train a staffer to help people through the process.

Little time to prepare

Encouraging others to do the same is the goal of the Wisconsin Access Network.

Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare and Columbia St. Mary's Health System said they plan to help with enrollment, and other health systems are expected to join the effort.

"We have to take advantage of every group in the state that's doing enrollment," said Sara Eskrich, a health care policy analyst at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, one of the groups that took the lead in creating the Wisconsin Access Network.

The hope is to train people as "certified application counselors" who can help people go through the process, answering questions as they fill out an application and help them determine what health plans are available and their cost.

By law, navigators and certified application counselors can't say that one health plan is better than another. But they can show people the information available to help them make a decision.

Navigators and certified application counselors will be required to take 30 hours of training under the federal regulations. They also could be required to have 16 hours of state training under a provision pushed by the Independent Insurance Agents of Wisconsin and now before the Legislature.

The Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association will not find out until August whether its application — perhaps the only one for the state — was accepted. That will give it less than two months to prepare before enrollment begins on Oct. 1.

But the real work will be done by the certified application counselors who work for the groups in the coalition.

"We are doing a lot of behind the scenes work to be prepared," said Joy Tapper, executive director of the Milwaukee Health Care Partnership, which includes the health systems in Milwaukee County, the community health centers and other groups.

"There is a real commitment by this collaborative to do the best job we can," Tapper said.

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http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/more-in-state-must-shop-for-health-care-coverage-b9930935z1-211703541.html More in state must shop for health care coverage

Gov. Scott Walker's decision means thousands more will enter new health marketplace

By Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel June 15, 2013

Gov. Scott Walker rejected federal money to expand the state's Medicaid program because he would like more people to get coverage through commercial health plans instead of government programs.

But the decision also means that tens of thousands more people will need to shop for a commercial health plan on the new marketplace known as an exchange.

That, in turn, will put additional demands on people at hospitals, community health centers and community groups who are expected to do much of the work in helping people sign up for coverage.

"We unfortunately are going to see a very different marketplace in Wisconsin than we have the opportunity to create," said Sara Eskrich, a health care policy analyst at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, an advocacy group. "And we are going to have to work with that."

One advantage of Walker's plan is that health insurance sold on the exchange will pay higher rates to doctors and hospitals and generally provide better access to care.

At the same time, people who get subsidized coverage through the exchange will have to pay a premium of as much as 3% of their income and will have higher deductibles than with BadgerCare Plus, the state's Medicaid program for families with children under 19.

They also are going to have to sign up for coverage, a process that will entail shopping for a health plan and determining the federal subsidies available to make the coverage more affordable.

Karla Ashenhurst, director of system advocacy and public policy for Ministry Health Care and Columbia St. Mary's Health System, said that conceivably fewer people in Wisconsin could have health insurance coverage a year from now, although both health systems plan to help people enroll.

The governor's proposal will cost the state almost $150 million more in the next two years — and potentially more than $450 million through 2021 — than if the state had accepted the federal money available under the Affordable Care Act, according to estimates by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

That includes $30 million in state dollars for the $73.5 million added to the proposed state budget by the legislative budget committee to compensate hospitals for an expected increase in people without health insurance under the governor's proposal.

The governor's proposal means that an estimated 80,000 to 90,000 people who would have gotten coverage through Medicaid will need to buy subsidized health insurance through the exchange.

Some now have coverage through BadgerCare Plus. Others previously hadn't been eligible for coverage.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau as well as critics of the governor's proposal said that many people who would have been eligible for coverage under Medicaid will not shop for private plans.

"We know that not everyone is going to make that transition," Eskrich said.

--SaraEskrich Health Care Reform ProjectCoordinator Wisconsin Alliancefor Women's Health P.O. Box 1726 |Madison, WI | 53701-1726 |[c] 608.669.6979 | [f] 608.256.3004 www.supportwomenshealth.org rwwv.wordpress.com

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NSA debate pits far left, right against the middle

 CHARLES BABINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) - Revelations of massive government collections of Americans' phone and email records have reinvigorated an odd-couple political alliance of the far left and right.

A number of Democratic civil liberties activists, along with libertarian-leaning Republicans, say the government actions are too broad and don't adequately protect citizens' privacy.

But this unlikely coalition might have trouble doing anything more than spicing up the national debate. Solid majorities of Americans and their elected representatives appear to support the chief elements of the government's secret data-gathering, and even some of Congress' most outspoken, pro-limited-government tea partyers are wading cautiously into the discussions.

Among other things, the latest privacy-vs.-security struggle may test libertarianism's clout within the Republican Party. In political circles, it's a favorite topic since the tea party emerged, built largely on antipathy toward President Barack Obama's major health care expansion.

"This is a marginal national security group within our party," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of those who call the government snooping unwarranted or unconstitutional. "I just don't see how anybody gets elected as a Republican" by running to the "left of Obama on national security," said Graham, one of the Senate's most hawkish members.

Leading the libertarian charge is Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has clashed with Graham on other issues, including the use of unmanned aircraft to kill terrorism suspects.

Paul told "Fox News Sunday" he would ask "all the Internet providers and all of the phone companies" and their customers to join a class-action lawsuit against surveillance techniques that he called "an extraordinary invasion of privacy."

"Get a warrant and go after a terrorist, or a murderer or a rapist," Paul said. "But don't troll through a billion phone records every day. That is unconstitutional."

Paul is weighing a possible presidential bid. His father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, drew a loyal libertarian following in his unsuccessful presidential campaigns.

The furor over security and privacy came with the disclosure - in unauthorized leaks to news organizations - of two far-reaching programs run by the National Security Agency. One gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records to - the administration says - search for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad. The other allows the government to tap into nine U.S. Internet companies and gather all communications to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

A handful of congressional liberals have raised complaints similar to Paul's.

"I want our law enforcement people to be vigorous in going after terrorists," Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who has long called himself a socialist, told MSNBC. "But I happen to believe they can do that without disregarding the Constitution."

The Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, and it guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. The American Civil Liberties Union - often a target of conservatives' derision - has filed a lawsuit saying the NSA programs violate those provisions.

Congressional leaders of both parties are mostly defending the surveillance programs. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, was especially outspoken Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"I've been briefed on all of these programs," Boehner said. "There are clear safeguards," he said. "There's no American who's going to be snooped on, in any way, unless they're in contact with some terrorists somewhere around the world."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said last week, "Everyone should just calm down and understand that this isn't anything that is brand new. It's been going on for some seven years." Reid said Congress will "try to make it better."

It's not unprecedented for liberal Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans to join forces on issues that essentially bend the left-right spectrum into a circle. Such activists, for example, generally support gay marriage and, in some cases, marijuana legalization.

Those out-in-the-open issues, however, differ from the covert NSA surveillance matter. Public support for gay rights has grown dramatically, and drug legalization is a comparatively low-profile issue.

America was founded by people who railed against a British government they considered oppressive. But Americans also want the federal government to protect them, a task that grew more daunting after the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Some tea party-backed senators, who have joined Paul in other causes, are moving cautiously on the NSA matter.

"What we have seen so far is troubling," but "at this point we don't have a clear picture of what their policy is," Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told reporters Tuesday.

Cruz sought to link the NSA matter to other scandals where Obama's critics feel on safer ground. That includes the Internal Revenue Service's scrutiny of tea party-related groups seeking tax-exempt status.

"Given the pattern of misconduct we have seen with the IRS, given the pattern we have seen throughout the administration," Cruz said, "their past actions do not engender trust."

Even as some critics say anti-terrorism programs go too far in scooping up electronic records, others say they've done too little to thwart terrorist attacks. They cite the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings and the 2009 fatal shooting of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas.

Cruz said both criticisms are warranted.

In the Boston and Fort Hood, cases, he said, "the administration was well aware of the terrorists long before the act of terrorism was committed," yet, "for whatever reason, dropped the ball and didn't act to prevent actual terrorists who took the lives of innocents." Cruz said the government may have been "focusing more energy on casting the net wide and invading the privacy of law-abiding Americans rather than targeting the bad guys."

A CBS News poll conducted June 9-10 showed that while most approve of government collection of phone records of Americans suspected of terrorist activity and Internet activities of foreigners, a majority disapproved of federal agencies collecting the phone records of ordinary Americans. Thirty percent agreed with the government's assessment that the revelation of the programs would hurt the U.S.' ability to prevent future terrorist attacks, while 57 percent said it would have no impact.

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Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington

Possibilities in Persia

The election of Hassan Rouhani to be the next President of Iran signals a potential opening for progress on human rights inside Iran as well as nuclear diplomacy.  The lone moderate in the race, Rouhani has criticized the securitized environment in Iran and indicated he will work for the release of prisoners of conscience detained after the 2009 elections, including the leaders of the Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, who have been under house arrest since 2011.  Rouhani, a former nuclear negotiator under former reformist President Khatami, has also called for a more constructive approach to nuclear diplomacy, sharply criticizing the confrontational approach Iran has adopted under President Ahmadinejad and the current nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili.  

While Supreme Leader Khamenei is expected to have the final word on major policy decisions, and conservatives are likely to retain control of many key aspects of Iran's political system, reformists appear to have the backing of the Iranian people and as a result can still prevail in achieving many of their political goals.  Many have doubted that the Supreme Leader and his allies would allow a reformist or moderate to win election given the outcome of 2009.  If the election of Rouhani stands, the Western narrative stating that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the IRGC are all-powerful needs to be revisited.  It would also signal that the underlying forces of discontent with the direction of the country, repression, and mismanagement that surfaced with the Green Movement in 2009 are still intact as they manifested again with the election of Rouhani.

Rouhani is likely to try to deliver on many of his campaign promises, including to relax the securitized political atmosphere and to take a more constructive approach to nuclear negotiations.  But the reaction of the United States and the West could make or break Rouhani and the reformists' ability to push for change in Iran.  Particularly, if the Obama administration and Congress persist in amplifying economic sanctions on Iran, it could undermine prospects of a deal before Rouhani is even inaugurated.  Now is the time  to give forces for moderation in Iran space and put major sanctions relief, including for Iran's oil and financial sectors, on the table.

The Iranians missed a major opportunity in 2009 when they assumed that President Barack Obama would be no different from previous US leaders and then acted according to that assumption.  Tehran's non-responsiveness rendered Obama's job to change the relationship more difficult. Washington should be careful not to commit that same mistake.

Tax Cuts and You: Wisconsin's Failed State Policy

Rather than investing WI's so-called "budget surplus," which happens to be an arbitrary amount not based on sustained growth, in something that matters, such as infrastructure investment, public education funding, stem cell research, environmental clean-up initiatives, or alternative energy sources, WI's conservatives have voted to cut taxes, defund public schools, fund private schools with public dollars, and ignore clean water / alternative energy concerns.

And do you know what kind of tax reductions Wisconsinites will receive?   

For taxpayers with a tax reduction, the average reduction would be $83, or -2.23%.  On average, taxpayers with an adjusted gross income (AGI) between $25,000 and $30,000 would experience the largest percentage reduction in net tax liability (3.3%), but that percentage decreases as AGI increases. The percentage reduction for taxpayers with $300,000 or more of AGI would be 0.6%. However, the average tax decrease for those taxpayers is estimated at $294, slightly less than the $298 average decrease that would be received by taxpayers with AGI between $250,000 and $300,000. The average tax decrease would increase as income rises.  Reminiscent of the recent property tax reductions that netted an average of $25 reductions.

When you just stop to think about this even for a second, it's a real struggle to come up with any logical reason for making these reductions except for politicians to be able to claim a better tax-rate ranking by state.  While some taxpayers will see a few hundred dollar reduction in taxes, tens of thousands will lose Medicaid coverage, public schools in urban and rural districts will see funding depleted, and the state will now finance two competing school districts,  

And all of this was done in the wee hours of the night on Tuesday/Wednesday and then rushed through the legislature.  It's politics at its worst.  

Then there's the vindictive vote to boot the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism off the UW campus and forbid them from hiring any employees of the UW system.  Many observers realized right away, including Charlie Sykes, that this late omnibus settled personal vendettas.  Conservatives in the state have been gunning for the WCIJ ever since it received funding from George Soros, and sprung the story of the Prosser assault.

Alberta Darling and her fellow Republicans are a disgrace to our state.  Darling receives tens of thousands of bucks from Ted Kellner, who dad must know from his time as a member of the GMC.  This guy's got his hands in so many pots and has been a staunch proponent of voucher schools and Republican causes for a long time.  So we know where the policies are coming from.

The only guy I heard making any sense on that side of the fence was Dale Schultz.  I would guess he's now in danger of losing his seat to some right-wing whack-job.

The committee chaired by Ms. Darling is called the Joint Finance Committee but the Rep majority has made it abundantly clear there is no Joint in this committee neither by way of compromise nor ganja.  We'd have been better off if these knuckleheads would have turned this late night session into a late night smoking session replete with corn nuts and SNL reruns while stoking up their hash in these cracked budget papers.

It's about time - Pakistan calls for the end of drone strikes

Anti-drone resolutions

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly on Monday calling for the end of U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Dawn). Similar to the parliamentary resolution that was passed in April 2012, the PTI measure said the drone strikes were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.  However, it added a demand that the federal government abolish all agreements with the United States pertaining to the drone campaign.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is also hoping to end U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani territory by offering to eliminate "terrorist sanctuaries," according to a senior government official (ET). Speaking anonymously, the official acknowledged that there are reasons for the drone attacks and that the new government must address those concerns.  He said Sharif's newly elected government was working on a new anti-terror strategy that would be discussed at Monday's cabinet meeting, the first for the new government.  That report comes just days after seven people were killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan and an official protest was lodged with U.S. Embassy officials (NYT, Post). 

Sharif met with Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Saturday to discuss finding a middle ground with Pakistani Taliban leadership (ET).  While the Pakistani Taliban rescinded its peace offer after the death of deputy leader Waliur Rehman in a drone strike, Pakistan's Minister of Information, Pervaiz Rashid, said the new government was working to create an environment that would bring them back to the negotiating table. 

5 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT IRAN'S PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

By The Associated Press

— Jun. 9 1:16 PM EDT

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A female supporter of the Iranian presidential candidate Saeed Jalili, who is also Iran's top nuclear negotiator, distributes his leaflets at a street campaign, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 8, 2013. The presidential election will be held on June 14. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's presidential election is June 14. Here are five things you should know:

THE FIELD

Iran's election overseers allowed eight candidates on the ballot to succeed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who cannot run again because of term limits. Most are solid loyalists to the ruling Islamic theocracy, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Among the main questions: Will pro-reform voters rally behind one of the relative moderate candidates or boycott in protest of the relentless crackdowns in recent years?

WHO REALLY RULES

The Iranian president does not have a direct say in major policies such as the country's nuclear program or relations with the West. Those decisions are in the hands of the ruling clerics and its defenders, including the powerful Revolutionary Guard. The presidency, however, can help sway views. The president also directs the economy, which is an increasingly important role as international sanctions bite deeper over Tehran's nuclear program.

RAFSANJANI REBUFF

One of the major backstories of the election is the decision to bar former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from the ballot. The ruling clerics appeared worried that Rafsanjani would revive the opposition movement, which has been shattered by security forces. But blocking Rafsanjani deeply tarnished Iran's claims of a free election.

TIGHT SECURITY

Iran's security forces are on high alert. In 2009, massive protests rocked the country after Ahmadinejad's rivals claimed the outcome was rigged in his favor. There have been no indications of widespread demonstrations this time. Authorities, however, are clamping down on everything from pro-reform gatherings to social media.

OPPOSITION UNDER WRAPS

The leaders of the 2009 protests, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Madhi Karroubi, have been under house arrest since early 2011. Both ran against Ahmadinejad and alleged vote fraud. Mousavi is a former prime minister. Karroubi served as speaker of Iran's parliament.

Obama defends broad phone, Internet spy programs

LARA JAKES

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is urging Americans to "make some choices" in balancing privacy and security as he defends once-secret surveillance programs that sweep up an estimated 3 billion phone calls a day and amass Internet data from U.S. providers in an attempt to thwart terror attacks.

Obama says it will be harder to detect threats against the U.S. now that the two top-secret tools to target terrorists have been so thoroughly publicized.

At turns defensive and defiant while speaking to reporters on Friday, Obama stood by the spy programs revealed this week.

The National Security Agency has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day, creating a database through which it can learn whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S. It also was disclosed this week that the NSA has been gathering all Internet usage - audio, video, photographs, emails and searches -from nine major U.S. Internet providers, including Microsoft and Google, in hopes of detecting suspicious behavior that begins overseas.

"Nobody is listening to your telephone calls," Obama assured the nation after two days of reports that many found unsettling. What the government is doing, he said, is digesting phone numbers and the durations of calls, seeking links that might "identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism."

If there's a hit, he said, "if the intelligence community then actually wants to listen to a phone call, they've got to go back to a federal judge, just like they would in a criminal investigation."

While Obama said the aim of the programs is to make America safe, he offered no specifics about how the surveillance programs have done that. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., on Thursday said the phone records sweeps had thwarted a domestic terror attack, but he also didn't offer specifics.

Obama asserted his administration had tightened the phone records collection program since it started in the George W. Bush administration and is auditing the programs to ensure that measures to protect Americans' privacy are heeded - part of what he called efforts to resist a mindset of "you know, 'Trust me, we're doing the right thing. We know who the bad guys are.'"

But again, he provided no details on how the program was tightened or what the audit was examining.

The revelations have divided Congress and led civil liberties advocates and some constitutional scholars to accuse Obama of crossing a line in the name of rooting out terror threats.

Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, strove to calm Americans' fears but also to remind them that Congress and the courts had signed off on the surveillance.

"I think the American people understand that there are some trade-offs involved," Obama said when questioned by reporters at a health care event in San Jose, Calif.

"It's important to recognize that you can't have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience," he said. "We're going to have to make some choices as a society. And what I can say is that in evaluating these programs, they make a difference in our capacity to anticipate and prevent possible terrorist activity."

Obama said U.S. intelligence officials are looking at phone numbers and lengths of calls - not at people's names - and not listening in.

The two classified surveillance programs were revealed in newspaper reports that showed, for the first time, how deeply the NSA dives into telephone and Internet data to look for security threats. The new details were first reported by The Guardian newspaper of Britain and The Washington Post, and prompted Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to take the unusual and reluctant step of acknowledging the programs' existence.

Obama echoed intelligence experts - both inside and outside the government - who predicted that potential attackers will find other, secretive ways to communicate now that they know that their phone and Internet records may be targeted.

"The bad folks' antennas go back up and they become more cautious for a period of time," said former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee for a decade. He said he approved the phone surveillance program but did not know about the online spying.

"But we'll just keep coming up with more sophisticated ways to dig into these data. It becomes a techies game, and we will try to come up with new tools to cut through the clutter," he said.

In the immediate years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government began collecting data from U.S. telephone companies, looking at whether overseas terror suspects were calling phone numbers in the U.S. The program does not allow the government to listen in on calls, but it can track where a call was placed and how long it lasted. If intelligence officials single out phone numbers that they want to target for eavesdropping, they must return to court to get approval.

In 2006, after the telephone surveillance was first revealed and amid a public outcry, a secret court was tasked with approving all of the government requests for the records. But until this week, it was not widely known how many phone records were noted, or how often.

The NSA seizure of website and Internet provider records was even more secretive, and began only in the past few years. Clapper said those records, too, are released only with secret court orders and monitors look only for documents that appear to have come from overseas. The data are not to be used to target U.S. citizens, and the government must try to minimize any information that was mistakenly taken from Americans.

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Follow Lara Jakes Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP .