Feingold, Kohl back shield law for reporters: Their stance differs from Obama's

Wisconsin's two Democratic senators say they oppose the Obama administration's proposals to weaken legislation designed to protect reporters from revealing their sources.

Sens. Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl say they have long supported a so-called federal shield law and hope that Congress will soon enact strong protections for reporters on a national level.

Supporters say the measure is needed to ultimately protect the public's access to crucial information about the government. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia already have some type of shield law in place. A bill to establish one was passed by the Wisconsin Assembly last month and is now in the state Senate judiciary committee.

President Barack Obama has come under recent criticism by journalism organizations and other advocates for a free press for his administration's proposed revisions to the shield law legislation that would allow judges to defer to the executive branch on the question of whether a news leak poses a "significant" security issue.

Kohl said the legislation in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee already balances reporters' interests with national security concerns. Both Kohl and Feingold serve on the committee.

"We hope to pass a bill out of committee that maintains that balance," Kohl said.

Feingold agreed: "I do not think that the revisions suggested by the administration are warranted."

Love story: Rep. Paul Ryan makes a brief appearance in the new documentary by liberal rabble rouser Michael Moore. The film, "Capitalism: A Love Story," shows the Janesville Republican making a forceful pitch on the House floor for a $700 billion bank bailout that Moore sees as a government handout for financial institutions. In the clip, Ryan argues that Congress needed to act to avert a further economic meltdown.

"If we fail to do the right thing, heaven help us," Ryan said.

Moore suggests that Ryan was among a number of congressmen who scared lawmakers and the public into supporting the federal bailout. A Ryan spokesman said the congressman had not seen the movie. But Ryan earlier has said that while he didn't like having to bail out Wall Street, he thought the measure could help avert a worse financial crisis.

Health care: Health reform legislation moving through Congress would end the "gender discrimination" inflicted on American women by health insurance firms, Rep. Gwen Moore said Tuesday.

The Milwaukee Democrat spoke at a news conference organized by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to drum up support for health reform legislation. Moore said women often pay more for insurance premiums on the individual health insurance market than men do and that some insurance companies don't cover maternity care in their policies. She also noted that nearly 16 in every 1,000 babies born to black women in Wisconsin die each year -- a number she suggested could decrease with better access to health care.

"This is a Third World statistic, right after the country of Botswana," Moore said.

Insurers in Wisconsin are allowed to consider gender when setting their premium rates in the individual market and can exclude coverage for "pre-existing conditions" such as previous Caesarean sections, according to the National Women's Law Center.

White House visit: A surgeon from Neenah, Wis., was among the group of doctors who visited the White House on Monday to hear Obama speak about health care reform. Jan Sarnecki, an orthopedic surgeon, said he and the other doctors at the Rose Garden traveled to Washington to lend their support to Obama's efforts and come up with ways to better advocate for changes to the country's health care system.

"I think that it's morally incumbent on us to take care of the sick people in this country whether they have wealth or don't have wealth," Sarnecki said in a phone interview. "It's time that we do that."

Sarnecki was invited to participate in the ceremony by the group Doctors for America, a nonprofit organization that stems from Doctors for Obama, which supported Obama's presidential campaign.

Bipartisan push: Former Bush health secretary Tommy Thompson has teamed up with former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt to push for health care reform.

Thompson, a Republican who served as governor of Wisconsin before joining the Bush administration, said in a joint statement with Gephardt on Monday that "failure to reach an agreement on health reform this year is not an acceptable option." The two also specifically praised the efforts by the Senate Finance Committee, which is expected to vote this week on health care legislation.

Thompson's backing of Obama's top domestic priority could help Democrats convince moderate lawmakers in both parties that a health care proposal crafted by the committee should gain bipartisan support. Another high-profile Republican, former Senate majority leader -- and physician -- Bill Frist of Tennessee, said in a recent Time magazine interview that he would vote for a health care reform bill if he was still in Congress.

In their statement, Thompson and Gephardt said the legislation moving through the Senate "moves us down the path of providing high-quality health care for all and expanding coverage for millions."

"We urge our former colleagues in Congress to work with President Obama and leaders in both houses and both parties to hammer out a final agreement this year based on common sense principles to ensure that quality care is affordable for every American," they said.