WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) praised the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee’s bipartisan passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15), which includes all of the amendments Blunt introduced and co-sponsored during the committee mark-up.

“As people in Missouri and across America honor our fallen military heroes this Memorial Day weekend, I am glad the Armed Services Committee approved this bipartisan bill, including all of the amendments that I introduced. This is a step in the right direction as we work to ensure our service members and their families have the resources they need and the care they deserve,” Blunt said.

Missouri is home to more than 17,000 active duty servicemen and women, more than 8,000 civilian Department of Defense employees, and more than 20,000 reservists and members of the National Guard. Blunt serves as a member of both the defense appropriations and authorizing committees.

Blunt introduced and co-sponsored a number of key provisions that were included in the base bill or passed during the committee mark-up, including:

Military Mental Health Amendment: As part of his continued efforts to improve access to quality behavioral health treatment for all Americans, Blunt worked with committee leaders to include a provision in the bill that directs the Department of Defense (DoD) to provide its plan to implement recommendations that were included in studies by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on the mental health treatment of service members deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. Specifically, the amendment calls on DoD to provide its views and a feasibility assessment based on IOM findings and recommendations for improving current DoD treatment and prevention programs for mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral abilities associated with managing adversity, adapting to change, recovering, and learning in connection to service in the Armed Forces. The DoD report is due to the congressional defense committees no later than 180 days after enactment of the FY15 NDAA. Earlier this week, Blunt led a letter co-signed by U.S. Senators Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) calling on DoD and the VA to explain their findings on the IOM mental health studies.
Caring For America’s Heroes Amendment: Blunt worked with committee leaders to include a provision in the bill that mirrors language from the “Caring For America’s Heroes Act” to bring mental health treatment in line with the way physical injuries are treated under TRICARE. Earlier this month, Blunt introduced it as a stand-alone bill.
E/A-18G Growler Aircraft Amendment: Blunt and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (Mo.) offered an amendment that authorizes $100 million for the Navy to keep the Growler production line open and directs the Navy to take steps to ensure the Navy retains the option of buying more EA-18G aircraft if further analysis of airborne electronic attack (AEA) force structure indicates the Navy should buy more EA-18G aircraft. The amendment also directs the Navy to brief the defense congressional committees by September, 2014 on options available to the Navy for ensuring that the Navy will not be precluded from buying more EA-18G aircraft if that is what the Navy analysis concludes should be done. An estimated 15,000 people work at the plant that manufactures Growler and Super Hornet aircraft in St. Louis, Mo.
Air Force C-130 Aircraft Modernization and Recapitalization Plan: Blunt and McCaskill offered an amendment directing the Secretary of the Air Force to provide the congressional defense committees a report 180 days after enactment, including: (1) a full fielding plan for the C-130J aircraft; (2) specific details of the Air Force’s plan to maintain airlift capability through modernization and recapitalization efforts; and (3) an explanation and justification of Air Force views regarding the “proportional and concurrent” fielding of C-130J model aircraft among the Air National Guard, Reserve, and active components. In March 2014, Blunt and McCaskill visited Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph, Mo., which is home of the 139th Airlift Wing. Blunt led a letter with McCaskill and 17 other Senators encouraging Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (Mich.) and Ranking Member Jim Inhofe (Okla.) to address the C-130 issue during the committee’s mark-up of the NDAA.

Praising the History and Service of Military Chaplains Amendment: Blunt offered an amendment expressing strong and continuing support of chaplains and their mission, and commending the spiritual guidance that chaplains provide to our servicemen and women and their families. The amendment refers to the core purposes of the chaplaincies, which “are established to advise and assist commanders in the discharge of their responsibilities to provide for the free exercise of religion in the context of military service as guaranteed by the Constitution, to assist commanders in managing Religious Affairs, and to serve as the principal advisors to commanders for all issues regarding the impact of religion on military operations.”

Army Emergency Management Training Center at Fort Leonard Wood: Blunt offered an amendment directing the Secretary of the Army to brief the congressional defense committees regarding the Army’s plan for consolidating homeland defense functions across military installations to better support consequence management and homeland defense missions. Fort Leonard Wood’s Maneuver Support Center of Excellence possesses the core capabilities for such a training center, which is required for Emergency Management and Defense Support to Civil Authorities functions.

Rare Earth and U.S. Military Capability Amendment: Blunt offered an amendment directing the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to complete a study relating to the current state of domestic capacity for extracting, processing, and refining rare earth materials in support of DoD requirements. The GAO study would build on the language included in the Blunt/Brown manufacturing bill, which was reported out of the Senate Commerce Committee in April 2014.

Military Voting Amendment:Blunt and U.S. Senator Angus King (Maine) offered an amendment to develop a comprehensive voter assistance program for service members. Specifically, the amendment would:
Require DoD to implement a new online voter registration system and require voter assistance as a routine part of service members’ annual training;
Ensure requests for absentee ballots are valid for one full federal election cycle;
Strengthen protection of voting rights of military and overseas voters;
Require reporting on implementation and effectiveness of new voter assistance obligations.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have endorsed proposals aimed at bolstering privacy protections for electronic communications, public school students and library records.

Lawmakers approved several measures dealing with electronic privacy during the annual session that ended this month. Two bills are heading to Gov. Jay Nixon and a constitutional amendment will appear on the August ballot.

One bill would bar school districts from requiring students to use IDs with radio frequency identification to monitor or track students. Another measure would protect from disclosure library records about a patron’s use of e-books and digital materials.

OSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama seems to have caught a bad case of cabin fever.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new antibiotic from Durata Therapeutics to treat adults with common skin infections often acquired in U.S. hospitals.

Regulators approved the intravenous drug Dalvance to treat bacterial skin infections caused by common bacteria, including antibiotic-resistant strains of those germs.

The FDA gave Dalvance an expedited review, under a 2012 law designed to encourage research and development of new antibiotics. Under the measure, Chicago-based Durata will receive an additional five years of exclusive marketing rights on the drug.

The FDA said it approved Dalvance based on two trials of nearly 1,300 patients with skin and skin structure infections.

By Alex Smith
KCUR

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Despite the well-known risks, rates of smoking have remained stubbornly high in Missouri – about 25 percent of adults, compared with 18 percent nationally. In Kansas City, Mo., public housing, the problem is even worse, with smokers comprising 40 percent of all tenants.

That high rate is especially disturbing to health advocates because of the high numbers of vulnerable people – particularly children, the disabled and elderly – who live in public housing.

A new policy aims to do away with smoking in city-owned housing, but many residents are not pleased.
On a breezy Friday afternoon at Guinotte Manor, a public housing subdivision northeast of downtown, Kerrie Terry lights a cigarette and fumes over the changes coming to her building.

“It’s BS,” she says. “It’s against our legal rights as a U.S. citizen.”

After a year and a half of planning and asking for comments, the Housing Authority of Kansas City, Mo., made it official earlier this month: A smoking ban – both inside and outside Housing Authority properties – will go into effect July 1, affecting more than 5,000 people living in about 1,750 apartments and houses.

People in the Housing Choice Voucher Program, or what used to be called Section 8 Housing, won’t be affected. Under that program, residents receive vouchers to live in privately owned buildings.

HUD encourages ban on smoking

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development first encouraged local housing authorities to ban smoking in 2009. Today, more than 600, or 20 percent, of housing authorities in the United States have done so, according to Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Among them are housing authorities in Boston, Detroit and Houston. Bergman says that a decade ago, only two housing authorities in the country had banned smoking.

The Lawrence–Douglas County Housing Authority in Kansas banned smoking in January 2011, a move prompted by a fire in a senior high rise.

“We’ve had some people who it took awhile to get them to respect the policy,” says Shannon Oury, executive director of the Lawrence housing authority.

The Lawrence authority has a six-step enforcement system.

Oury says that while a few residents have violated the ban, particularly in the winter, it has not led to any evictions.
Lawrence–Douglas County appears to be the only public housing authority in Kansas to have banned smoking.
Edwin Lowndes, executive director of the Kansas City Housing Authority, says the ban there, like the one in Lawrence, was prompted by a fire at Brush Creek Towers, a high-rise designated for seniors and the disabled, in July 2012.

“It was a smoker who was smoking in bed who also was on oxygen,” Lowndes says. “He had respiratory issues. And somehow his apartment caught on fire because of his smoking, and it caused a significant amount of damage to the high rise.”

Lowndes says the ban is needed to protect the safety and health of the residents and to shield non-smokers from second-hand smoke. Health advocates also warn of the dangers of “third-hand smoke,” carcinogenic substances that remain in walls and carpets long after smoking has stopped.

The high costs of smoking

The ban is also intended to protect buildings from smoke damage. Lowndes says about a quarter of the residential units change tenants every year, and cleaning up after smokers costs the Housing Authority a lot of money.

“If it’s a light smoker, it might add to our costs about $1,500, just to change it,” Lowndes says. “But if it were a heavy smoker that lived in that apartment for a considerable time, it might be a total of $5,000 more than what we’d ordinarily turn.”

He estimates that banning smoking could save the Housing Authority as much as a half a million dollars a year.

Guinotte Manor resident Abdul Salam Ibraheem, an Iraqi refugee who arrived with his family in Kansas City two years ago, supports the ban. He is bothered by the debris of cigarette butts and harmful effects of smoking on children and teenagers in his neighborhood.

“I see girls, young girls – 13 years, 14 years – smoke,” Ibraheen says. “I don’t like to see cigarettes in (their) hands. This is not good.”

Ibraheem is not alone. A Mid-America Regional Council survey shows the majority of the residents favor the ban.

For many residents, however, the issue isn’t quitting; it’s one of personal rights. In Kansas City, public housing residents pay 30 percent of their income for rent and, as Allen explains, the idea of home is an emotional issue

“People figure when they got a home, nobody should be able to go into their home and tell them what to do,” she says.

Allen Rostron, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, sympathizes with opponents of the ban but says their arguments don’t have much of a legal basis.

“I can certainly understand why they feel that way, and it is their home, but it is property that belongs to someone else,” Rostron says.

Not only is the Housing Authority a property owner, he says, but it’s also a government agency, which means it has that much more authority to implement a ban.

As for “smoker’s rights,” tenants who light up are not entitled to legal protection in the way, say, that members of racial or religious groups might be. Indeed, local civil liberties groups are not challenging the ban.

“All the government needs to do to regulate smoking is show that the regulation in question is rational,” Rostron says. “It really just has to be something that is at least possible or arguable that it could serve a legitimate government interest of some sort.”

Guinotte Manor resident Rene Lewis, who supports the smoking ban, believes that many of her smoking neighbors will ignore it.

“We’re going to have a lot of people who don’t want to abide by what’s right,” she says.

A policy with teeth

Lowndes insists the Housing Authority won’t be intrusive in enforcing the ban.

“We’re not going to be knocking on doors and going into apartments,” he says.

But the enforcement policy will have teeth, he adds. It will be a three-strikes system, with two warnings followed by the possibility of eviction.

Though the consequences could be severe for low-income residents, that doesn’t bother Lewis, who is more concerned about the health of her children than the rights of her smoking neighbors.

“I would report them,” Lewis says. “Because if I have to live by the rules, I feel that you would as well.”

Allen says that though she is somewhat concerned her neighbors might be evicted, she is hopeful the Housing Authority will be flexible.

“Can you imagine someone who’s on Social Security, Medicaid or probably not getting any income at all, and they started smoking when they were very young,” she asks. “And now you’re telling them you’ve got to quit?”

Allen supports the ban but, along with the Resident Council, pushed for a few accommodations to help smokers. One would offer a grace period for some smokers that would last until the end of the year.

The Housing Authority will also connect with residents with low- or no-cost smoking cessation programs. Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center and the Jackson County Health Department are offering programs specifically designed for residents.

“I think we can go to Housing and discuss it and see what other solutions we can come up with,” Allen says.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Jay Nixon on Friday referred five measures to the August primary ballot while leaving three proposed constitutional amendments for the November election.
Voters consider constitutional amendments endorsed by the Legislature in November unless the governor sets a different date. Nixon’s office says it put several measures on the August ballot because of the large number of issues referred to this year’s ballot.
Here are the issues voters will see on ballots this year:
Aug 5:
TRANSPORTATION SALES TAX: Proposes a three-quarters cent sales tax increase for roads and other transportation projects that is projected to raise $534 million annually for a decade. It would be the largest tax increase in state history and would help a transportation system facing declining funds.
GUNS: Defines the right to bear arms as “unalienable” and would require the state to defend against any “infringement.” It would include the keeping of ammunition and defending one’s family with a firearm as constitutional rights. The Missouri Constitution already protects the right to bear arms in defense of one’s home, property and person. Supporters contend the proposal would force courts to use a higher standard of review when considering constitutionality of gun controls.
FARMING: Establishes the right to farm within the Missouri Constitution.
VETERANS LOTTERY TICKETS: Directs the Lottery Commission to develop a new lottery ticket to benefit state veterans homes.
ELECTRONIC PRIVACY: Adds electronic communications and data as things protected from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Nov. 4:
EARLY VOTING: Permits early voting for six business days ending the Wednesday before an election. In-person ballots would be cast during the regular business hours of local election officials, who would be barred from activities or incurring expenses for early voting unless funding is included in the state budget.
BUDGET: Gives the Legislature new authority to override gubernatorial budget cuts.
CHILD SEX ABUSE: Allows evidence about prior criminal acts to be used against people facing prosecution for child sex offenses.

Campus collisions over commencement speakers. Over-the-top public reaction to celebrity shockers. And genuine fear of physical reprisals over controversial issues.

Clearly, we’re a nation vigorously exercising our lungs as well as our rights.

Vigorous give-and-take in the “marketplace of ideas” is part and parcel of the First Amendment. The amendment’s 45 words protect our right to speak out, but certainly don’t mandate politeness in public comment or shelter those in that marketplace from less than full-throttle debate in the hope of changing minds or winning elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court over the years has reaffirmed our right to speak out even when it brings pain to others — at military funerals or by allowing Nazi-wannabes march through a predominately Jewish neighborhood near Chicago.

But we can go from “rights to wrong” — by preventing speakers from being heard simply because we oppose their views. By threatening harm rather than challenging ideas. And by trying to extinguish voices in place of speaking out ourselves.

William Bowen, former president of Princeton University, used his commencement speech at Haverford College just days ago to criticize a small group of students and professors who campaigned against the original speaker, Robert Birgeneau, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. The critics attacked Birgeneau for his 2011 decisions in an incident involving police and student demonstrators.

Vocal protests and the threat of more led former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel her commencement speech at Rutgers University. International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde withdrew as speaker at Smith College’s graduation ceremonies. Brandeis University pulled back an invitation — along with the offer of honorary degree — after opposition arose to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim women’s advocate who has made comments critical of Islam.

If nowhere else in our society, universities should be places where differences of opinion and opposing views are aired and discussed, not shunned or victim to political correctness and closed minds. But lest we think this rampant aversion to being offended by those whose views we oppose is limited to academia, let’s take a broader view.

Mozilla co-founder CEO Brendan Eich resigned some weeks ago after an orchestrated campaign by some staff and businesses to damage the company’s business. Criticism erupted earlier this year over a $1,000 personal donation Eich made in 2008 to an California petition effort opposing gay marriage.

One column writer, in the online publication The Daily Beast, advanced the theory that Eich invited such retaliation because he didn’t just express his views, but rather urged using the “power of the state” in support of them. I believe Madison and Jefferson and others called that the democratic process — advocating policies and laws based on one’s views, in a freely conducted political campaign in which all arguments may be heard.

The Dixie Chicks’ country music career hit a slump in 2003 after singer Natalie Maines slammed then-President George W. Bush during a concert in Great Britain. Critics stopped buying “Chicks” records and concert tickets — but others made death threats.

As Maines later asked in song: “How in the world/ can the words that I said/ Send somebody so over the edge/ That they’d write me a letter/ Saying that I better shut up and sing/ Or my life will be over.”

Threats of over-the-top retaliation have led to legal attempts — unsuccessful thus far — in California and Washington state to hide the names of those who signed petitions in support of referendums opposing laws legalizing gay marriage — advancing the theory that public debate will be diminished if one side fears violence or intimidation simply for participating.

In court filings, those advocates presented multiple accounts of vandalism, threats of being “gunned down,” ongoing public harassment at home or work, and even of people being fired from jobs though no political activity had taken place at work. In other words, mob over mind.

There’s no ready answer — or bright “don’t cross” line — in determining when sharp and pointed debate turns into what’s colloquially called a “heckler’s veto,” hushing a speaker by shouting them down.

But there is value in allowing an opponent’s views to be fully heard — if only to be better prepared to counter those ideas, and to ensure the right to be fully heard oneself.

Long-deferred national conversations over race, gay rights, religious diversity and more have been prompted remarks and proposals that have been uncomfortable to hear, at times even repugnant to many. Time and again, the key to countering such views — and advancing our nation — has been more speech, not less.

Freedom of speech means all can set up and “hawk their wares” in the marketplace of ideas. It does not empower someone to, figuratively or literally, burn down the opposition’s display.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. gpolicinski@newseum.org

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says he will veto legislation seeking to overhaul a law that requires unaccredited school districts to pay costs for students to transfer to better-performing nearby schools.

Nixon said in a statement Friday the legislation could allow students to transfer to private schools at taxpayers’ expense. He says it also could lead to further disruption by no longer requiring unaccredited districts to pay for transportation costs.