This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://prorevnews.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

THE MOST VITAL INGREDIENT IN WALL STREET REFORM GOES MISSING

DOG EATS POLICE CAR

BOING BOING

TONY BLAIR AND FORMER TOP PENTAGON OFFICIALS INVOLVED OIL FIRM SEEKING IRAQ ROLE

JAYNE LYN STAHL, COUNTERPUNCH -  Late last week came word of a major scandal from the UK Daily Mail. In the three years since he stepped down as prime minister, [Tony] Blair pocketed more than $30 million in oil revenues from his secret dealings with a South Korean oil consortium, UI Energy Corporation. Despite all his best efforts to keep his connection to UI secret, word is spreading like wildfire throughout the U.K.

Now, you might ask, that he's no longer in government and has his own company, Blair Associates, why would anyone care what his business dealings are? Well, for openers, Mr. Blair is also the West's envoy to the Middle East. Of concern to British politicians, too, is that a former prime minister has been stone cold silent about being on the payroll of an immense multinational oil corporation, specializing in oil exploration in Iraq, and one that coincidentally happens to find itself in another challenging part of the globe.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Blair isn't the only prominent politician on UI's payroll. Others reportedly include former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke, as well as politicians like Congressman Stephen J. Solarz, former secretary of defense Frank Carlucci, former ambassador to Egypt, Nicholas A. Belites, and U.S. Commander for the Middle East General John P. Abizaid. And, these are just the ones who acknowledge any association with the oil conglomerate.

Two-time presidential candidate, Ross Perot, is listed on UI Energy Corp.'s Web site as part of their extended family. One wonders if there are any other presidents, or presidential candidates, who may have been considered family by the South Korean oil firm.

While they've only been around for about twenty years, it didn't take UI long to come up to speed. A message from the company's president, posted to their Web site, says they are interested in "development of overseas resources such as the Middle East and Africa. Especially, Iraq where various Energy (sic) developments are expected."

THERE, I FIXED IT

THERE, I FIXED IT

OBAMA WILL SPEND MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH ON WAR SUPPLEMENTAL AS ON FORECLOSURE AID

NY TIMES - The Obama administration on Friday announced broad new initiatives to help troubled homeowners, potentially refinancing several million of them into fresh government-backed mortgages with lower payments. . . Sources said the agency would use $14 billion in funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, some of which it could dangle in front of financial institutions as incentives to participate.

ANTIWAR - In a move that was widely expected, Obama Administration officials headed to the Senate to press for approval of a $33 billion war supplemental bill, with most of the money going to pay for the Afghan War. The $33 billion supplement would be in addition to the record $708 billion military budget reported in January.

LOCAL HERO: 18 YEAR-OLD STRIKES BLOW FOR GENDER RIGHTS

CHANGE - Constance McMillen has become a lot of things to an awful lot of people these past few weeks. Less than a month ago, she was an 18-year-old high school student at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi. Today, she's become a de facto face of the movement for LGBT student rights, blazing a trail from the courtrooms of Mississippi to the couches of America's most popular talk shows.

McMillen, openly lesbian, sued her school earlier this month after they refused to allow her to attend the prom with her girlfriend. In a town of 4,000 people, where anti-gay fervor runs a little high, it was a bold move to bring the movement for LGBT equality to the most local of levels in this country. Her school, as the world would soon find out, canceled the prom altogether rather than be forced to allow McMillen and her girlfriend to show up and drink punch together.

This week, McMillen won her court case, with a federal judge in Mississippi saying that by canceling the prom, the Itawamba Agricultural High School violated McMillen's rights. It was a victory for McMillen in name only -- the judge refused to order the school to reinstate the prom, and Itawamba Agricultural High School has buckled down in their decision to cancel the prom. . .

McMillen responded to her court victory with what has become her standard humility.

"It hurts me that they would rather punish everybody than just do the right thing," said McMillen. . .

McMillen has become a national hero. Wanda Sykes asked McMillen to present an equality award in her name. Ellen DeGeneres brought McMillen on her show to award her $30,000 scholarship and announce that she could have an internship at tonic.com this summer. And other schools around the country have expressed their support for McMillen by inviting her to their prom.

And yet, despite the international celebrity, McMillen says that at the end of the day, she'd really just like to see her equal rights validated in her own community. . .

CAIFORNIA FOOD STAMP PROGRAM UNDERUSED

CALIFORNIA WATCH - As record numbers of Californians struggle to put food on the table, programs designed to help the hungry are under stress.

An examination by California Watch and reporters from USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism shows that food banks and food stamps, two key safety net programs for poor people in the Golden State, are sagging under soaring demand and long-ignored problems that impair their effectiveness.

In recession-battered California, an unprecedented 11 million people – more than one in four – live in households that are "food insecure," meaning they lack regular access to sufficient food, according to a survey by UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research.

Yet the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported that as many as 2.9 million Californians who are eligible for federal food-stamp aid don't receive these benefits. . .

Experts says a labyrinth of bureaucratic rules, regulations and requirements – created by state officials to check welfare fraud – have deterred huge numbers of eligible Californians from applying for food stamps.

Boosting the state's low rate of participation in the food stamp program would pump as much as $3.7 billion per year into California's economy, advocates say.

It would also ease pressure on the charities and local agencies that provided free food to an estimated four million Californians last year via a network of foods banks.

Food banks form a vital front line in the battle against hunger in California. Last year they doled out 302 million pounds of free food in California, according to Feeding America, a national anti-hunger group. Four million people were served last year, according to an estimate based on reports from California food banks.

ARNE DUNCAN'S PHONY REFORM STRIKES AGAIN: 200 FIRED AT GEORGIA SCHOOL

SAVANNAH MORNING NEWS, GA - Beach High School Principal Deonn Stone informed her faculty and staff today that they will all be let go as part of a restructuring plan to prevent state takeover of the high school.

Beach High will get up to $6 million in federal funds to make a fresh start under the restructuring plan.

But everyone, from the principal and teachers to the cafeteria workers and custodians, must go. Most will be able to reapply for their jobs.

However, only 49 percent of the current employees, excluding the principal, can be rehired to work at the school next school year.

MORNING LINE

PRESIDENTIAL: Latest 3 poll average: Obama beats Romney by 6, Palin by 6 and Huckabee by 4.

SENATE: Democrats down by 5 seats with 7 Dems unclear


GOVERNORS: Democrats down by 4 with 4 GOP and 3 Democrats unclear & 1 Independent taking a GOP seat

DETAILS

LAUTENBERG PROPOSES 'MR SMITH' FILIBUSTER RULE

POLITICO - Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants senators who block bills to have their own "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment - whether they want to actually filibuster or not.

Lautenberg introduced a bill Tuesday that would require senators who block legislation to be present in the Senate chamber - or else the majority leader could call for "an immediate vote" on the bill in question.

"If a Senator wants to delay our work in the Senate, then that Senator must show up on the floor and debate," Lautenberg said in a statement. "If any of my colleagues feel strongly enough about a bill or nomination to stop all work in the Senate, they should have no problem standing on the Senate floor to explain their opposition to the American public."

Last year, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) determined that the Senate's cloture rule - which cuts off a filibuster - did not actually require a senator to talk for an indefinite period of time. He released a memo stating that a member "can be forced to sit on the [Senate] floor to keep us from voting on that legislation for a finite period of time according to existing rules but he/she can't be forced to keep talking for an indefinite period of time."

In the previous congressional session, Republicans forced a record 112 cloture votes to break filibusters. And in this session, which began in 2009, the minority party has already forced 49 cloture votes.

Lautenberg's legislation would alter those rules.

HOMEOWNERS GETTING LITTLE HELP FROM OBAMA'S FORECLOSURE PLAN

SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR, HUFFINGTON POST - The average homeowner in the Obama administration's signature foreclosure-prevention program owes more on their mortgage than their home is worth, yet the program does virtually nothing to address this problem, according to a scathing new report by a government watchdog, casting doubt on the effectiveness of the $50 billion effort.

The average homeowner may owe their lender as much as two-and-a-half times more than the home is worth, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program states in its new report examining the administration's year-old Home Affordable Modification Program, citing November data from Fannie Mae. The Treasury Department told government investigators that the average homeowner likely owes their lender about $1.14 for every $1 of the home's current market value, the report notes.
Yet the program doesn't address this problem of negative equity -- commonly referred to as being "underwater" -- according to the report. The administration's effort has been touted as a way to stem the rising tide of foreclosures by reducing monthly payments for up to four million troubled borrowers.

Mortgage servicers forgave principal on less than two percent of HAMP trial loans, the report notes. But before HAMP, 10 percent of servicer-sponsored mortgage modifications forgave principal, according to the report. Servicers are incentivized to lower monthly payments by getting cash for every sustainable mortgage modification. . .

This data had never been publicly disclosed prior to Tuesday.

About a quarter of all homeowners with a mortgage are currently underwater, according to real estate research firm First American Core Logic. The watchdog report notes that underwater homeowners represent about half of all foreclosures.

The lack of principal reductions, which the report notes is the "primary method of quickly addressing negative equity," may lead to homeowners walking away from their mortgages.

GUESS IT'S BACK TO THE PAT DOWN

TELEGRAPH, UK - Breast implants packed with explosives could be used to blow up an airliner, experts are said to have warned. Radical Islamist plastic surgeons could be carrying out the implant operations in lawless areas of Pakistan, security sources are said to warned.

Explosives experts have reportedly said just five ounces of Pentaerythritol Tetrabitrate packed into a breast implant would be enough to blow a "considerable" hole in the side of a jumbo jet.

It would be virtually possible for airport security scanners to detect the explosive if hidden inside a breast, medics have said.

One plastic surgeon told The Sun: "Properly inserted the implant would be virtually impossible to detect by the usual airport scanning machines.

"You would need to subject a suspect to a sophisticated X-ray. Given that the explosive would be inserted in a sealed plastic sachet, and would be a small amount, would make it all the more impossible to spot it with the usual body scanner."

WIFE OF ATLANTIC MAGAZINE OWNER PAYING FOR DC SCHOOL SUPER'S MEDIA SPIN

GARY IMHOFF, DC WATCH - In Sunday’s issue of themail, I wrote that the private grantmaker who paid for Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s hiring of public relations consultant Anita Dunn to promote her hadn’t been revealed, nor had Dunn’s fee. At Monday’s city council hearing on DCPS, Rhee revealed that the initial gift was $100,000, and that it came from Katherine Bradley, who with her husband David Bradley runs the City Bridge Foundation. David Bradley is the owner of The Atlantic. . . . At the Monday hearing, Rhee also revealed that the $100,000 grant was just the first installment of what would be paid to Dunn, and that more donations were being sought to pay her.

Rhee is part of a small, close-knit group of big-city school superintendents who believe the schools are best run through unchecked, strongman control by city mayors. Most prominent among this group are Rhee, New York City’s superintendent Joel Klein, and Chicago’s Arne Duncan, now the US Secretary of Education. Last year, Rhee faced accusations of favoritism when Mayor Fenty’s sons got admission into an out-of-boundary public school. How that admission was arranged was never explained. . .

Now it’s Arne Duncan’s turn. The Chicago Tribute reported yesterday: "While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under former schools chief Arne Duncan. Whispers have long swirled that some children get spots in the city’s premier schools based on whom their parents know. But a list maintained over several years in Duncan’s office and obtained by the Tribune lends further evidence to those charges. Duncan is now secretary of education under President Barack Obama. The log is a compilation of politicians and influential business people who interceded on behalf of children during Duncan’s tenure. It includes 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard Daley’s office, House Speaker Michael Madigan, his daughter Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers and former US Sen. Carol Moseley Braun. Non-connected parents, such as those who sought spots for their special-needs child or who were new to the city, also appear on the log. But the politically connected make up about three-quarters of those making requests in the documents obtained by the Tribune". Duncan’s defenders are reacting with the same offended reaction of, "How dare you question us," as Rhee did earlier. But what else should be expected? When politicians run a city’s school system with unchecked and unquestioned power, the same kind of corruption, cronyism, and favoritism that pervades the rest of the city’s government will pervade its schools.

POT FOR PLEASURE TO BE ON CALIFORNIA'S BALLOT

LA TIMES - A measure to legalize marijuana will be on California's November ballot Supporters of the initiative collected well more than the 433,971 signatures needed for it to go before voters in the fall, again putting the state at the forefront of the nation's drug debate. . .

The measure, like the medical marijuana initiative, could put California on a collision course with the federal government. The possession and sale of marijuana remain a federal crime.

This month, President Obama's drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowske, decried legalization in a speech to police chiefs in San Jose.

The initiative would allow adults 21 or older to possess up to an ounce for personal use.

Possession of an ounce or less has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine since 1975, when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who was then governor, signed a law that reduced tough marijuana penalties that had allowed judges to impose 10-year sentences.

Legalization supporters note that misdemeanor arrests have risen dramatically in California in the last two decades. The initiative would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana per residence or parcel.

But the measure, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, goes further, allowing cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana, which could be taxed to raise revenue.

RECOVERED HISTORY: AMERICAN MEDIA IGNORED BRITISH PRESS REVELATION OF POPE COVERING UP SEX ABUSE CASES

The corporate media has finally been forced to face up to the fact that Pope in the mid-90s was head of a watchdog group meant to deal with church sex abuse charges. Five years ago, the Review was one of the few American journals to tell its readers what British Observer had uncovered about how the Pope handled those cases in a manner that would be considered criminal obstruction of justice under American law:


JAMIE DOWARD, OBSERVER, UK, 2005 - Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.

Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'. . .

Ratzinger's letter states that the church can claim jurisdiction in cases where abuse has been 'perpetrated with a minor by a cleric.' The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years. . .

'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication.

ROAD SIGNS

WASHINGTON POST - Nearly one out of five District residents lives at or below the poverty line. The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995.

Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents -- up 11,000 in a year . . .

The overall poverty rate in the District rose to 18.9 percent in 2009, up from 16.9 percent the previous year, according to the report. In contrast, the Census Bureau has reported a steady increase in median household income in the District, estimated at $58,000 in 2008. But there are big disparities between white and black families. Although white households had a median income of about $101,000 in 2008, the median income of black households was about $39,000.

THERE, I FIXED IT

TEST TYRANTS FLOP AGAIN

 
Above are 4th grade reading scores for the nation and California, recently released by the federal test tyrants. To understand what is going on here, imagine that you were paid $30,000 a year in 1992. If your salary had gone up as fast as national reading scores you would currently be paid $30,600. The federal takeover of public schools is a major fraud on parents and children that is not not being reported in the corporate media. Note the asterisk implying that such a small increase is "signicantly different."

AUSTRALIA STUDY FINDS COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTER WORKS

VICTORIA NEIGHBORHOOD JUSTICE, AUSTRALIA - The Brumby Labor Government's Neighborhood Justice Centre helped reduce crime and increased offender compliance in the City of Yarra, Deputy Premier and Attorney-General Rob Hulls announced today.

Mr Hulls said an extensive review of the Neighborhood Justice Centre in Collingwood - the only community justice centre in Australia - found it had also delivered value for money.

The evaluation of the NJC, completed by the University of Melbourne, Flinders University, the Brotherhood of St Lawrence and Price Waterhouse Coopers, found:

- Recidivism rates dropped from 41 per cent to 34 per cent among NJC offenders;

- NJC offenders were 14 per cent less likely to re-offend than offenders at other courts;

- NJC offenders completed an average 105 hours of unpaid community work compared to the state average of 68 hours;

- The Yarra crime rate had dropped by 12 per cent since the centre was established.

"These results show that the Government's commitment to community justice works, and the NJC has the capacity to turn around people's lives and get people engaging with their neighbourhoods," Mr Hulls said.

The Neighbourhood Justice Centre was set up in 2007 as a multi-jurisdictional court that also provides drug and alcohol counseling, advice on mental health, housing and employment, victims' support and appropriate dispute resolution.

Mr Hulls said the evaluation found the NJC had provided Victorians with a return on their investment. "For every $1 the Government has invested in the NJC, the expected return is between $1.09 and $2.23 in savings to the wider justice system," he said.

"More than 11,000 residents have made contact since the centre was established in 2007 and, as it celebrates its third anniversary, it's important to note it has become a real community asset to the Collingwood area and its surrounds."

YOUR EYES ONLY

VIDEOS
Contraflow bike lanes
The making of an activist:  How one woman got into the battle against corporate interference in our politics
Sam Smith's Apology to Younger Americans set to music by John Halle, performed by the Now Ensemble with Sarah Chalfy.

BOOKS

Backing Into Forward: A memoir by Jules Feiffer
The Big Short: Inside the Wall Street meltdown
Death and Life of the Great American School System
We Shall Overcome: A Song That Changed the World
The Spirit Level
Ending the war in Afghanistan
We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now,
False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy Dean Baker
Graffiti New York
Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathic Civilization

FILMS

Soundtrack for a Revolution: music of the civil rights movement
Waiting for Armageddon
The Corporation: Dissecting one of America's great myths
The Garden: An LA community tries to save its 14 acre garden from politicians and developers
Invictus: The story of Nelson Mandela

BREVITAS

WALL STREET JOURNAL - The United States Conference of Mayors is citing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs as its members push for more infrastructure money to go directly to local governments. They are pointing to the legacy of programs like the WPA to bolster their case that such direct public-sector job efforts can work when mayors run them. . . The Civil Works Administration, created during a lunchtime meeting in November 1933, put 4.3 million people to work 10 weeks later on roads, schools, parks, playgrounds and athletic fields, according to Bonnie Fox Schwartz, a historian of the program. President Roosevelt's better-known WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps employed millions more and left durable monuments all over the country.

WASHINGTON POST - Maryland, trying to protect a species whose ranks have declined by 99 percent, is cracking down on watermen who catch oysters in protected sanctuaries or with banned equipment. Over the winter, officers with the Maryland Natural Resources Police conducted undercover surveillance operations in small fishing towns and on rivers, hiding on patrol boats in the dark. . . In the past few months, police and poachers have played hide-and-seek in a tense drama that seems out of place along the new Chesapeake, with its art galleries and weekend homes.

USA TODAY - A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Itawamba County, Miss., school board violated the rights of a lesbian student by canceling the prom when the student challenged a ban on same-sex dates, but the judge stopped short of ordering the district to reinstate the April 2 prom. U.S. District Court Judge Glen Davidson said he denied the injunction request because a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as the school prom and because "requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue." ACLU Mississippi legal director Kristy Bennett called Tuesday's ruling a victory. "This ruling clearly tells school districts there is a First Amendment right to bring same-sex dates to the prom," Bennett said.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER - The Obama administration's six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama's term.

TECH NEWS WORLD - Biking directions and extensive bike trail data are now available for the United States through Google Maps, giving cyclists nationwide a way to customize their trips, figure out the most efficient routes, make use of bike lanes and avoid big hills. . . More than 12,000 miles of trails are now included in biking directions and outlined directly on maps through the service . . . Also included are data on bike lanes and recommended streets for 150 cities across the country.

LOCAL HEROES - The Idaho House of Representatives has voted to limit use of digital strip search machines. The 58-9 vote sends Bill 573 to the Idaho Senate, which will vote on the anti-body scanner measure. The bill would bar body scanners as primary screening, require security officers to offer an alternative search, and mandate an independent investigation into the scanners' health risks.

HOW TO BUILD A RAISED GARDEN BED

FROM OUR READERS

EDWARD TUFTE

- You probably encountered Edward Tufte for the first time, as I did, in the glorious Whole Earth Catalog; but I'm sure most people don't know who he is so it would be fair to post links to his website - or better, to his essay on PowerPoint and the Columbia disaster - Axel

OBAMA CALLS ON ALAN SIMPSON TO TARGET SOCIAL SECURITY

UNSILENT GENERATION - No one is even trying very hard to pretend that the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has any purpose other than cutting Social Security, Medicare, and probably Medicaid as well. That choice was clear from the get-go, based on Obama's choice of Alan Simpson to co-chair the commission. The former Republican senator from Wyoming has already described his mission as "saving" the United States from "insolvency" by hacking away at entitlements. And if we want any more proof, we need only look at Simpson's background, as detailed by Saul Friedman in his latest "Gray Matters" column:

"This time President Obama, in his obsessive reaching across the political aisle, may have gone a stretch too far. For the Republican he picked to co-chair the so-called deficit reduction commission, former Sen. Alan Simpson, has been a harsh critic of Social Security and Medicare. And he sought to destroy their most powerful defenders, especially AARP.

"That was 15 years ago, but as recently as 2005, Simpson, a conservative from Wyoming who left the Senate in 1997, supported attempts by President George Bush to privatize Social Security by turning part of the pension and insurance program into millions of individual investment accounts, which by now would have lost 20 percent of their value. Bush's plan failed, largely because of the opposition of AARP and other advocates that Simpson sought to discredit.

"Even now, Simpson, who should know better, conflates or deliberately confuses Social Security's long term fiscal problems, which are minor, with its supposed contribution to the federal deficit, which is almost nil.

"In an interview with the NewsHour after his appointment, Simpson said of Social Security, 'You have two choices. . . you either raise the payroll tax or decrease the benefits or start affluence testing. The rest of it is B.S. And if the people are really ingesting B.S. all day long, their grandchildren will be picking grit with the chickens. This country is gonna go to the bow-wows unless we deal with entitlements, Social Security and Medicare.'"

In an interview on CNBC, Simpson referred to cutting entitlements as "correcting Social Security."

Simpson also told old people and their advocates to stay out of the debate, since the cuts would only apply to younger people. . .

OBAMA OBSOLETUS: TRANSPARENCY

COMMON DREAMS: Agencies are still bitterly resisting requests and lawsuits for release of internal records under the Freedom of Information Act according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama vowed to conduct government business with openness and ordered federal agencies to "adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA." Since that promise, PEER has filed eight new FOIA lawsuits, as agencies either ignore requests and appeals or improperly withhold records.

THINGS THEY FORGOT TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE HEALTH CARE BILL

CONTRARY TO THE IMPRESSION deliberately given, insurance companies can still deny coverage to new children applicants because of pre-existing conditions. It's only children already under coverage who are in the clear. The new young applicants won't be covered until 2014.

BLOOMBERG - President Barack Obama faces a fight over the health-care overhaul from states that sued today because the legislation’s expansion of Medicaid imposes a fiscal strain on their cash-strapped budgets. Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania are among 14 states that filed suit after the president signed the bill over the constitutionality of the burden imposed by the legislation. The health-care overhaul will make as many as 15 million more Americans eligible for Medicaid nationwide starting in 2014 and will cost the states billions to administer.

States faced with unprecedented declines in tax collections are cutting benefits and payments to hospitals and doctors in Medicaid, the health program for the poor paid jointly by state and U.S. governments. The costs to hire staff and plan for the average 25 percent increase in Medicaid rolls may swamp budgets, said Toby Douglas, who manages the Medicaid program for California, which hasn’t joined the lawsuits.

HOW CAN THEY STOP BOMBERS IF THEY CAN'T EVEN STOP AIRPORT WORKERS WITH CAMERAS?

GUARDIAN - The police have issued a warning for harassment against an airport worker after he allegedly took a photo of a female colleague as she went through a full-body scanner at Heathrow airport.

The incident, which occurred at terminal 5 on 10 March, is believed to be the first time an airport worker has been formally disciplined for misusing the scanners. . .

The BAA employee took a photo of his co-worker, Jo Margetson, when she inadvertently went through a scanner.

The incident is likely to reignite privacy concerns over the scanners by civil liberty groups. The Equality and Human Rights Commission last month warned that the government needed to take action to bring its policy for body-scanning passengers at UK airports within the law.

The commission said it had concerns about the apparent absence of safeguards to ensure the scanners were operated in a lawful, fair and non-discriminatory manner. It raised doubts as to whether the decision to install them at all UK airports was legal.

PRINCETON STUDY FINDS HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP CAUSES MORE WEIGHT GAIN THAT OTHER SWEETENERS

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY - A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight." . . .

TEENS FIND HIGH IN LEGAL HERBAL INCENSE

CNN - The latest trend at teen parties isn't warm beer or prescription medicines pilfered from parents' medicine cabinets. Instead, increasing numbers of youths are turning to an herb-based product to get high, and unlike marijuana, it's perfectly legal.

It's known as K2 or Spice, a synthetic substance that, when smoked, gives users a marijuana-like high, according to drug authorities. . .

Manufactured in Asia and sold online or in local stores, K2 and similar substances are marketed as herbal incense. A disclaimer on a K2-selling Web site reads: "K2Herbal products are novelty incenses and are not for consumption."

Sold in various flavors in 3-gram bags, the product consists of herbs that are sprayed with synthetic substances that mimic THC, the high-causing natural chemical found in marijuana.

ARNE DUNCAN KEPT LOG OF POWERFUL SEEKING ADMISSION TO SELECTIVE CHICAGO SCHOOLS

NY TIMES - When Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, his office kept a log of nearly 40 pages listing the local politicians and business people and others who sought help getting children into the city’s most selective public schools.

According to an article in The Chicago Tribune, which first obtained and reported on the confidential log, those who sought such help included 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, the State House speaker, the state attorney general, the former White House social secretary and a former United States senator.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said that the log was a record of those who asked for help, and that neither Mr. Duncan nor the aide who maintained the list, David Pickens, ever pressured principals to accept a child. Rather, he said, the creation of the list was an effort to reduce pressure on principals. . .

According to The Chicago Tribune, about three-quarters of those in the log had political connections. The log noted "AD" as the person requesting help for 10 students, and as a co-requester about 40 times, according to The Tribune. Mr. Duncan’s mother and wife also appeared to have requested help for students.

"The fact that his name might be next to some of these names doesn’t mean he was trying to get the kid in a school," Mr. Cunningham said. "He was only asking after someone said, ‘Hi, Arne, is there any way to get into this school?’ ". . .

Admission to top Chicago schools has long been a competitive and murky process, with longstanding rumors of abuse. Mr. Duncan created a formal appeals process in 2008, and when he left to join the Obama administration, his successor, Ron Huberman, created a system to stop the gaming of the system.

BEHIND THE TALK OF DOWNGRADING GOVERNMENT DEBT RATING

DEAN BAKER - The media have been bombarding the public with scare stories about the country's "record" budget deficits. Newspapers and news shows that never bothered to mention the growth of the $8 trillion housing bubble that eventually crashed the economy are giving us an endless barrage of stories claiming that current and projected future deficits will bankrupt our grandchildren. The implication of most of these stories is that we have to cut back Social Security and Medicare for all those high living seniors as a matter of generational equity.

Most of these deficit stories feature a potpourri of wrong or misleading information. One item that is especially effective at raising fear levels in the public is the warnings from Moody's, the huge bond-rating agency, that it may downgrade its rating of U.S. government debt. U.S. government debt has always held Moody's highest AAA rating. If Moody's were to lower the rating on government debt it would be a huge embarrassment to the country; essentially an indictment of the government's poor financial practices. It would also could have the practical effect of raising the government's interest burden as a downgrade could lead to higher interest rates on U.S. government debt. . .

Moody's and the other bond rating agencies have featured prominently in the build-up to the financial crisis. These agencies gave investment grade ratings to complex financial instruments filled with subprime mortgages and other bad assets. These ratings allowed Goldman Sachs and other investment banks to sell this trash around the country and the world, ensuring that the effects of the collapse of the housing bubble would reverberate throughout the financial system.

It was not just incompetence that caused Moody's to misunderstand the quality of the issues it was rating; it was corruption. Moody's and the other bond rating agencies were getting paid by the banks whose assets that they were rating. The bond-rating agencies knew that these companies wanted investment grade ratings for their issues. As one examiner for Standard & Poor's said in an e-mail, they would give investment grade ratings to products "structured by cows."

This record must be kept in mind when considering the possibility of a Moody's downgrade of U.S. government debt. It is no secret that many on Wall Street would love to see Social Security and Medicare cut back or even privatized. Investment banker Peter Peterson has even committed $1 billion toward promoting this agenda. When Moody's threatens to downgrade U.S. government debt, or if it actually does so, it may reflect its actual assessment of the creditworthiness of the U.S. government or it could be a reflection of the Wall Street agenda to cut back these key public programs.

There is one way in which the public can better recognize Moody's motivations. All banks, including giants like Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, hold huge amounts of U.S. government debt. There are also reliant on the U.S. government for all sorts of reasons, including potential bailouts. If the U.S. government were to default on its debts, then it would almost certainly wipe out every major bank in the country. There is no plausible scenario in which the U.S. government defaults on its debts and the banks will still be able to make good on their debt payments.

This means that if Moody's were to downgrade the government's debt, to be consistent it must also downgrade the debt of Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and the other big banks. If Moody's downgrades the government's debt, without downgrading the debt of the big banks -- or even threatens to downgrade the government's debt without also threatening to downgrade the debt of the big banks -- then it is more likely acting in pursuit of Wall Street's political agenda than presenting its best assessment of the creditworthiness of the U.S. government.

It is unfortunate that we have to suspect a major credit rating agency of such dishonesty, but given its track record, serious people have no choice. To paraphrase an old Winston Churchill joke, we already know about the character of the bond-rating agencies, we are only asking if they are prostituting themselves now.

BIDEN STATS

INSIDE THE BELTWAY, WASHINGTON TIMES - The ever-enthusiastic Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. muttered a choice cuss word near an open White House mike before his boss took over to bask in health care reform glory Tuesday. The moment is already immortalized on YouTube and emblazoned upon an instant T-shirt priced at $23.50, courtesy of the wags at Zazzle.com.

370: The number of stories the moment generated within 60 minutes of its occurrence.

"F--ing": Term preferred by The Washington Times, Associated Press, CBS News, Times of London, Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Entertainment Weekly.

"F-Bomb": Term preferred by the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, CNN, New York Post, Politico, USA Today, Kansas City Star, Newsday, Russia Television, National Public Radio.

[fracking]: Used only by The Washington Post

The real expletive: Britain's Guardian newspaper, Reason, Rolling Stone.

RAHM EMANUEL'S SOUTHERN POLITICS

WAYNE MADSEN REPORT - WMR has learned from sources close to ousted White House chief counsel Greg Craig that it was not President Obama's top legal adviser who balked at ordering the Justice Department to review the politically-motivated criminal cases brought by the Bush administration against three top Democrats in the South, but it was White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who made the decision to nix any White House backing for new trials for the southern Democratic officials involved -- former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, former Georgia state Senate leader Charles Walker, and Mississippi attorney Paul Minor.

Walker and Minor are currently incarcerated in federal prisons while Siegelman was freed from prison pending an appeal of his conviction in a trial headed by a corrupt Bush-appointed federal judge and former Republican operative, Mark Fuller.

Craig announced his resignation as chief counsel last November. Although press reports indicated that Craig was forced out by Emanuel over Craig's determination to close the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison and to release Bush administration Justice Department memos on harsh interrogation techniques, the new information suggests that Craig and Emanuel also differed over Bush-era Justice Department prosecutions of Siegelman, Walker, and Minor, with Craig favoring a Justice Department review of the cases and possible new trials.

The involvement of Emanuel in blocking Justice Department review of the cases against Siegelman, Walker, and Minor is the first evidence that ties Obama's chief of staff to the continuation of the political prosecutions of a number of Democrats that was brought about largely by President Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove.

This is not the first instance in which Emanuel and Rove find themselves on the same side. Obama's Harvard Law School friend, Representative Artur Davis (D-AL) is running to be the first black governor of Alabama. Davis has not only received the support of Rove's good friend, Alabama Republican and businessman Bill Canary, whose wife, Leura Canary, prosecuted Siegelman, but also signed up former Alabama Lieutenant Governor Jere Beasley, who served under Governor George Wallace, as his campaign manager.

BREVITAS

POLTICIAL WIRE - A new CNN poll finds that Americans oppose the current health care reform plan passed by Congesss, 59 to 39%. However, parsing the numbers shows that many of those against the plan actually oppose it because "it is not liberal enough." In fact, 52% of Americans either support the current legislation or think it should be more liberal, while only 43% oppose the plan saying it is "too liberal."

INTERNET SIGHTINGS - I yield the last 62 characters of this tweet to the gentleman from California. - ironicsans

NY TIMES - Under Stewart Udall's leadership from 1961 through 1968, the Interior Department aggressively promoted an expansion of public lands and helped win enactment of major environmental laws, including ones to protect endangered species. Udall [who died this week at the age of 90] helped write several of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation, including the Wilderness Act of 1964. More than 60 additions were made to the National Park system during the Udall years, including Canyonlands National Park in Utah, North Cascades National Park in Washington, Redwood National Park in California and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail stretching from Georgia to Maine.

INTERNET SIGHTINGS - It's always a tad annoying when a computer tells you to be patient. I lived through the 90s, computer, you have no idea. - apelad

THE HILL - Some people name their yachts after their wives. But for Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon, naming her boat was a bit more personal. The "Sexy Bitch" is McMahon's 47 foot speedboat. . . The campaign of Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.), who is running against McMahon in the Senate GOP primary, emailed a column about the boat's name to reporters on Friday. . . Former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) had a yacht infamously named Monkey Business, which, photos later revealed, is exactly what the married lawmaker was engaging in with model Donna Rice.

WE CAN DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS BY ADDING $922 TO EVERYONE'S TAXES

HOUSTON CHRONICLE - A new report by the Center for American Progress says it will cost $285 billion to find, apprehend, detain, legally process and transport the almost 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and maintain current enforcement levels at the border and interior for five years.

CAP says deportation alone would cost $200 billion. Then you have to figure in the $85 billion needed to maintain the current enforcement strategy for five years.

From the report:

"When viewed through this most narrow but most telling fiscal lens, it should be clear that a deportation-only strategy is highly irresponsible. In these challenging economic times, spending a king's ransom to tackle a symptom of our immigration crisis without addressing root causes would be a massive waste of taxpayer dollars. Spending $285 billion would require $922 in new taxes for every man, woman, and child in this country.

"If this kind of money were raised, it could provide every public and private school student from prekindergarten to the 12th grade an extra $5,100 for their education. Or more frivolously, that $285 billion would pay for about 26,146 trips in the private space travel rocket.

LAWMAKERS PUSHING NATIONAL ID CARD FOR ALL WORKERS

WIRED - Lawmakers are proposing a national identification card - what they're calling "high-tech, fraud-proof Social Security cards" -that would be required for all employees in the United States.

The proposal by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) comes as the states are grappling to produce another national identification card at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security. Virtually none of the states are in compliance with this Real ID program - adopted in 2005 - requiring state motor vehicle bureaus to obtain and internally scan and store personal information like Social Security cards and birth certificates for a national database.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, suggests the plan would undoubtedly lead to a national database. He added that "there is no practical way of making a national identity document fraud-proof."

What's more, Richard Esguerra, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's in-house activist, notes that a national ID card likely would expand from its stated purpose.

"Because of the ID card's proposed universality, it will likely be requested and required by airlines, insurance agencies, health care providers, mortgage lenders, credit card companies, and so forth," he said.


See Also:

OUR STRANGE POLITICS: DEMOCRATS PASS REPUBLICAN BILL AND GOP HATES ITS

TAYLOR MARSH, HUFFINGTON POST - Before the vote, Robert Reich demanded that House Democrats pass the bill. Yesterday he said no one should be confused that it's progressive in the least.

"Medicare built on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal notion of government as insurer, with citizens making payments to government, and government paying out benefits. That was the central idea of Social Security, and Medicare piggybacked on Social Security.

"Obama's legislation comes from an alternative idea, begun under the Eisenhower administration and developed under Nixon, of a market for health care based on private insurers and employers... Obama applies Nixon's idea and takes it a step further by requiring all Americans to carry health insurance, and giving subsidies to those who need it."

As for the appalling way Democrats handled women's rights, Planned Parenthood simply shrugged, while NARAL and NOW sent out strong condemnation of the Obama-Stupak final deal, complete with executive order. But where were these women's groups when Stupak was rising? Expect a fundraising letter in your email inbox. Their ineptitude to manage any meaningful campaign to thwart or at least challenge the conservative Democratic minority is one reason I don't belong to any of these groups.
2010-03-23-nixonobama.jpg

The whole health care affair has made leading conservative editorial pages, written by Bill Kristol and the editors of NRO, crack under the strain, while forgetting their own history. Pushing repeal of the the health care bill, as did Rush Limbaugh, it doesn't seem Republicans are living in reality. Megan McArdle's "tyranny of the majority" is one of the more humorous responses to Speaker Pelosi's win, though I concur on her assessment of America's "toxic politics."

EJ Dionne, one of the biggest insider Dems, but also one of the only ones honest enough to write it, said it through a title on Friday: Why Democrats Are Fighting for a Republican Health Plan. A snippet is below:

Yes, Democrats have rallied behind a bill that Republicans--or at least large numbers of them--should love. It is built on a series of principles that Republicans espoused for years.

Republicans have said that they do not want to destroy the private insurance market. This bill not only preserves that market but strengthens it by bringing in millions of new customers. The plan before Congress does not call for a government "takeover" of health care. It provides subsidies so more people can buy private insurance.

Republicans always say they are against "socialized medicine." Not only is this bill nothing like a "single-payer" health system along Canadian or British lines. It doesn't even include the "public option" that would have allowed people voluntarily to buy their insurance from the government.

... [...] You could argue that Democrats have learned from Republicans. Some might say that Democrats have been less than true to their principles.

But there is a simpler conclusion: Democrats, including President Obama, are so anxious to get everyone health insurance that they are more than willing to try a market-based system and hope it works. It's a shame the Republicans can no longer take "yes" for an answer.

When you have Speaker Pelosi's office inviting only the boys, so called "progressives" who are insider Democrats whose only goal it is to prop up the presidency instead of focusing on strong policy, the current health care bill is what you get. Even when you go beyond the issue that Democrats willingly eroded women's rights, the fact that Democrats didn't even try to push for a public option reveals the fundamental failure of Democrats, because they ignored what the majority of the American people want.

The conservative minority was able to beat them and target women's rights in the bill by simply sticking together. The larger block of progressives who wanted a public option simply folded, as did the pro-choice caucus. Relegating the progressive brand to that of wimps, there is simply no way these people and their enablers in new media will ever best the likes of Rahm Emanuel. The reality is that congressional progressives failed utterly.

From throwing the American people into a system without any choice, providing private insurance companies with new customers, to using women's rights to get it done while progressive Democrats enabled it to happen, what Democrats have done is produce a Republican health care bill that Richard Nixon would have loved.

From Steve Pearlstein back in August 2009:

It was back in 1971 and President Nixon was concerned that he would once again have to face a Kennedy in the next year's election -- in this case a Kennedy with a proposal to extend health care to all Americans. Feeling the need to offer an alternative, Nixon asked Congress to require for the first time that all companies provide a health plan for their employees, with federal subsidies for low-income workers. Nixon was particularly intrigued by a new idea called health maintenance organizations, which held the promise of providing high-quality care at lower prices by relying on salaried physicians to manage and coordinate patient care.


At first, Kennedy rejected Nixon's proposal as nothing more than a bonanza for the insurance industry that would create a two-class system of health care in America. But after Nixon won reelection, Kennedy began a series of secret negotiations with the White House that almost led to a public agreement. In the end, Nixon backed out after receiving pressure from small-business owners and the American Medical Association. And Kennedy himself decided to back off after receiving heavy pressure from labor leaders, who urged him to hold out for a single-payer system once Democrats recaptured the White House in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

But it should tell you how far the country has moved to the right that the various proposals put forward by a Democratic president and Congress bear an eerie resemblance to the deal cooked up between Kennedy and Nixon, while Nixon's political heirs vilify it as nothing less than a socialist plot. [...]

Yes, Nixon would have loved Obama's Republican health care bill. Well, except maybe for the taxes.

... "even socialists like myself know you don't raise taxes in a recession." - Lawrence O'Donnell, via Joe Scarborough on Twitter

I now return Democrats and progressives to cheerleading, art provided by the White House and a fancy signing ceremony.

Taylor Marsh is a political analyst out of Washington, D.C.
More on Barack Obama

FROM OUR READERS

HEALTH CARE


There is an increase in patients, but the number of doctors 'in the pipeline' in medical school will not be enough. This will be heavily evident in urban areas, and most likely a very unpopular and burdensome effect. These people are, as far as I can tell, also not assumed to add any costs to the system at all. This is highly unlikely, and it is most likely that 32 million new patients will only serve to drain additional resources. Solution is necessary.


Medicaid expansion depends on state sharing of the cost. Even with new federal money, budget-crunched states will not come through with their part. Also, the list of treatments and care covered by Medicaid will shrink. - CA

COLD FUSION NEARLY 50 PRESENTATIONS AT AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY MEETING

PHYSORG - A potential new energy source so controversial that people once regarded it as junk science is moving closer to acceptance by the mainstream scientific community. That's the conclusion of the organizer of one of the largest scientific sessions on the topic -- "cold fusion" -- being held in San Francisco for the next two days in the Moscone Center during the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

"Years ago, many scientists were afraid to speak about 'cold fusion' to a mainstream audience," said Jan Marwan, Ph.D., the internationally known expert who organized the symposium. . . Entitled "New Energy Technology," the symposium will include nearly 50 presentations describing the latest discoveries on the topic.

The presentations describe invention of an inexpensive new measuring device that could enable more labs to begin cold fusion research; indications that cold fusion may occur naturally in certain bacteria; progress toward a battery based on cold fusion; and a range of other topics. Marwan noted that many of the presentations suggest that cold fusion is real, with a potential to contribute to energy supplies in the 21st Century.

"Now most of the scientists are no longer afraid and most of the cold fusion researchers are attracted to the ACS meeting," Marwan said. "I've also noticed that the field is gaining new researchers from universities that had previously not pursued cold fusion research. More and more people are becoming interested in it. There's still some resistance to this field. But we just have to keep on as we have done so far, exploring cold fusion step by step, and that will make it a successful alternative energy source. With time and patience, I'm really optimistic we can do this!"

The term "cold fusion" originated in 1989 when Martin Fleishmann and Stanley Pons claimed achieving nuclear fusion at room temperature with a simple, inexpensive tabletop device. That claim fomented an international sensation because nuclear fusion holds potential for providing the world with a virtually limitless new source of energy. Fuel for fusion comes from ordinary seawater, and estimates indicate that 1 gallon of seawater packs the energy equivalent of 16 gallons of gasoline at 100 percent efficiency for energy production. The claim also ignited skepticism, because conventional wisdom said that achieving fusion required multi-billion-dollar fusion reactors that operate at tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

When other scientists could not reproduce the Pons-Fleishmann results, research on cold fusion fell into disrepute. Humiliated by the scientific establishment, their reputations ruined, Pons and Fleishmann closed their labs, fled the country, and dropped out of sight. The handful of scientists who continued research avoided the term "cold fusion." Instead, they used the term "low energy nuclear reactions." Research papers at the ACS symposium openly refer to "cold fusion" and some describe cold fusion as the "Fleishmann-Pons Effect" in honor of the pioneers, Marwan noted.

"The field is now experiencing a rebirth in research efforts and interest, with evidence suggesting that cold fusion may be a reality." Marwan said. He noted, for instance, that the number of presentations on the topic at ACS National Meetings has quadrupled since 2007.

SAM SMITH, 2002 - I was attracted to the cold fusion issue because of political, rather than scientific, factors. After the initial Pons-Fleischmann experiments had proven faulty, a number of anomalies developed. Some of the media seemed to go out of its way to beat a presumed dead horse and a couple of anti-cold fusion books even appeared. The Department of Energy made it publicly clear it wanted nothing to do with the matter. The Patent Office refused to consider it.

Meanwhile, in other countries research continued, sometimes - as in Japan - with public monies, and some hardy American scientists kept plugging away, all gathering at international conferences notable for media absence. Even Toyota put money into the research.
Also in foreign lands was little suggestion that those interested in the subject belonged at Waco rather than in the lab. As one investigator put it, "In the U.S. there is a degree of envy among cold fusion researchers for their Japanese colleagues. In Japan, the debate over cold fusion is polite and scientific. Researchers are not rashly judged or branded incompetent for suggesting cold fusion could be real. Their American counterparts would like to conduct research in a similar atmosphere, without accusations and emotionalism."

The potential import of cold fusion, should it prove valid, along with the economic interests involved - including those involved in conventional energy or getting government money for other alternatives - raised the suspicion that some of the opposition might not be scientific at all. The hostility seemed to go beyond skepticism and veered towards political or public relations campaigning.

And when Jed Rothwell, who heads Cold Fusion Research Advocates, asked the editor of Scientific American why his journal had not covered the cold fusion story, he described it as "pathological science" with no merit whatsoever. But, as another reader noted, Scientific American treated the flight of the Wright Brothers the same way

WIKIPEDIA - The only photos of the [Wright Brothers] flights of 1904 -1905 were taken by the brothers. . . In 1904 Ohio beekeeping businessman Amos Root, a technology enthusiast, saw a few flights including the first circle. Articles he wrote for his beekeeping magazine were the only published eyewitness reports of the Huffman Prairie flights, except for the unimpressive early hop local newsmen saw. Root offered a report to Scientific American magazine, but the editor turned it down. As a result, the news was not widely known outside of Ohio, and was often met with skepticism. The Paris edition of the Herald Tribune headlined a 1906 article on the Wrights "FLYERS OR LIARS?"

OBAMA OBSOLETUS: THE AGE OF BIPARTISANSHIP

NY TIMES - Never in modern memory has a major piece of legislation passed without a single Republican vote. Even President Lyndon B. Johnson got just shy of half of Republicans in the House to vote for Medicare in 1965, a piece of legislation that was denounced with many of the same words used to oppose this one.

THE FALSE PROMISE OF REFORM

PHYSICIANS FOR A NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAM - Instead of eliminating the root of the problem - the profit-driven, private health insurance industry - this costly new legislation will enrich and further entrench these firms. The bill would require millions of Americans to buy private insurers' defective products, and turn over to them vast amounts of public money.

The hype surrounding the new health bill is belied by the facts:

- About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering.

- Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

- Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.

- The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.

- People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan's limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.

- Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.

- The much-vaunted insurance regulations - e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions - are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.

- Women's reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and for all other medical services.

It didn't have to be like this. Whatever salutary measures are contained in this bill, e.g. additional funding for community health centers, could have been enacted on a stand-alone basis.

Similarly, the expansion of Medicaid - a woefully underfunded program that provides substandard care for the poor - could have been done separately, along with an increase in federal appropriations to upgrade its quality.

But instead the Congress and the Obama administration have saddled Americans with an expensive package of onerous individual mandates, new taxes on workers' health plans, countless sweetheart deals with the insurers and Big Pharma, and a perpetuation of the fragmented, dysfunctional, and unsustainable system that is taking such a heavy toll on our health and economy today.

A genuine remedy is in plain sight. Sooner rather than later, our nation will have to adopt a single-payer national health insurance program, an improved Medicare for all. Only a single-payer plan can assure truly universal, comprehensive and affordable care to all.

By replacing the private insurers with a streamlined system of public financing, our nation could save $400 billion annually in unnecessary, wasteful administrative costs. That's enough to cover all the uninsured and to upgrade everyone else's coverage without having to increase overall U.S. health spending by one penny.

Moreover, only a single-payer system offers effective tools for cost control like bulk purchasing, negotiated fees, global hospital budgeting and capital planning.

INTERNET SIGHTINGS

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how socialism in medicine is bad because the government can't do anything right.


SAM SMITH, GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL, 1997 -People who complain about the welfare state remind me of the man from Virginia who went to college on the GI Bill and bought his first house with a VA loan. When a hurricane struck he got federal disaster aid. When he got sick he was treated at a veteran's hospital. When he was laid off he received unemployment insurance and then got a SBA loan to start his own business. His bank funds were protected under federal deposit insurance laws. Now he's retired and on social security and Medicare. The other day he got into his car, drove the federal interstate to the railroad station, took Amtrak to Washington and went to Capitol Hill to ask his congressman to get the government off his back.

BANANAS GOING AT MUSEUM

WALL STREET JOURNAL - Ken Bannister is going bananas because no one wants his bananas. Over the past 38 years, Mr. Bannister has collected more than 17,000 banana-themed artifacts. He is the founder of the International Banana Club and Museum in Hesperia, Calif., in the High Desert northeast of Los Angeles.

On Jan. 8, he received a letter from the Hesperia Recreation & Parks District informing him the banana collection must go, because the district wants to bring in new blood to the city-owned space. It will be replaced by artifacts collected by the late John Swisher, a local historian. Mr. Bannister has until the end of the month to pack up his bananas.

Ken Bannister's Banana Museum holds the Guinness World Record for the "world's largest collection devoted to any one fruit." The collection includes a banana golf putter, banana beverages, and a gold-sequined "Michael Jackson banana." Mr. Bannister organizes the goods into "hard" (brass, lead, wood, plastic banana wares) and "soft" (stuffed bananas, banana beach mats, banana tents). He estimates the effort has cost him over $150,000 over the years.

There are other fruit and vegetable museums. The Carrot Museum in England boasts more than 1,000 items. The National Apple Museum of Biglerville, Pa., has a related Apple Core Band. And the Vidalia Onion Museum in Georgia will open a new 1,500 square-foot space in April. Still, the banana museum holds the Guinness Book of World Records title for the "world's largest collection devoted to any one fruit."

WHY THE QUACK CARE BILL MAY HAVE SEVERELY DAMAGED ABORTION RIGHTS

NATASHIA CHART, OPEN LEFT - The Nelson abortion provision in the Senate bill isn't status quo, goes beyond Hyde, and is very likely to end most abortion coverage in a few years, when at present, the vast majority of private plans cover it. The reason why the Nelson language is indeed such a big deal is that, like the Stupak language, any federal money is assumed to taint the entire plan, requiring that separate checks be written for abortion riders on plans that have even a single enrollee getting federal subsidies to purchase insurance. It's expensive to insurance companies in administrative costs and stigmatizing to individuals.

MORE
MORE

WHY NOTHING MAKES MUCH SENSE ANYMORE

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim

38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did" *

24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

From a new Harris poll reported by Daily Beast

NY TIMES FEAR MONGERS AGAIN ON SOCIAL SECURITY

DEAN BAKER - Serious newspapers don't pull down ghosts from the sky to present their views to readers. However, in an article discussing the implications of the health care plan, the NYT told readers, "many have come to believe that the system [Social Security] must change or go broke, the battle Mr. Bush fought and lost in 2005."

Of course people who are familiar with the finances of the system don't believe such things. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the program can pay all scheduled benefits through the year 2044 with no changes whatsoever. Even after this date it could still pay more than 75 percent of projected benefits long into the future (a level far higher than current benefits) even if no changes were ever made.

In fact, these projections show that Social Security is on a sounder financial footing today than it has been through most of its history since it can go 34 years with no changes being made at all. This was not true at any point in the first 40 years of the program's existence.

LOCAL HEROES: MARRIED TO JUSTICE AND EACH OTHER

WASHINGTON POST - They won a battle to have a Trinidad neighborhood police checkpoint program struck down as illegal and forced D.C. police to release thousands of documents detailing internal policies on high-speed chases, recording interrogations and other use of police powers. And they've obtained more than $14 million in damages on behalf of protesters who were unjustly arrested by D.C. police over the years.

Nationally, they got more space for protesters along the inauguration parade route and in New York's Central Park, where demonstrators were banned in advance of the 2004 Republican convention.

All the while, they've managed to stay married.

OBAMA OBSOLETUS

REAL CLEAR POLITICS - On the campaign trail President Obama said the "public will have five days to look at every bill that lands on my desk" before he signs it into law. VIDEO

MEDIA GROSSLY EXAGGERATING BILL'S IMPORTANCE

 Sam Smith

IT'S PROBABLY to be expected of people who spend all day quoting disingenuous public officials, but the media is grossly exaggerating the importance of the health care bill. The comparisons to Medicare and Medicaid are not only wrong, they're insulting.

There are presently about 137 million people on Medicare and Medicaid. Although the Democrats claim to be providing health care to 32 million, half that number are being order to provide themselves with health care, which the government will partially subsidize. Those to be added to Medicaid represent only 12% of those currently enrolled in these programs and even if you add those ordered to buy insurance the number is only a quarter of those benefiting from earlier programs.

Further, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has pointed out that, "the bill wouldn't really kick in until 2014. To get a more accurate annual figure, look at a year in which the bill is fully operational. In, say, 2016, the bill's spending will be about $160 billion. According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, total health-care spending that year will be about $3.7 trillion. In other words, the bill's spending is equivalent to about 4 percent of what we'll spend in health care in a year."

THE REAL CAUSE OF INFLATION

Sam Smith

Did you know the soda I bought yesterday at a convenience store cost $19.90? Or that it costs you about $13,000 to drive your car? Or that the property tax on what you thought was a modest home is $17,000?

How did I reach such figures? The same way politicians and the media have been doing in recent years: just multiple everything by ten, but don't tell any one.

It's so much more impressive, for example, to think that a healthcare bill is going to cost a trillion dollars than only one hundred billion.

Of course, if you watch carefully you discover that the use of this ploy is selective. For example, you don't see it much when estimating the cost of the Afghanistan war in which we may well be for a decade.

The ten year inflation has crept up on us quietly. Nobody told us about it. And It's dishonest and confusing, but most of all, it's extremely useful for those trying to cut the budget for something.

While you can't expect politicians to reform, it's not unreasonable to demand that the media stop multiplying budget figures by ten. Just tell us what it will cost each year.

If we don't stop this digital inflation now, the next thing we know our kids in kindergarten will all be sixty years old and the Washington Post will be running editorials on the severe problems of premature aging.

We've got enough problems with reality to the first power. Stop multiplying it by ten.

OBAMA CONSIDERING USING ABU GRAB EAST FOR GITMO PRISONERS

LA TIMES - The White House is considering whether to detain international terrorism suspects at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said, an option that would lead to another prison with the same purpose as Guantanamo Bay, which it has promised to close.

The idea, which would require approval by President Obama, already has drawn resistance from within the government. Army Gen. Stanley A. McCrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and other senior officials strongly oppose it, fearing that expansion of the U.S. detention facility at Bagram air base could make the job of stabilizing the country even tougher. . .

With such a move certain to draw furious criticism by allies and human rights groups that the administration was re-creating the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, officials stressed that no final decisions have been made, and a White House spokesman declined to comment.

The idea of using Bagram emerged as the White House National Security Council solicited suggestions on how to handle detainees from the Justice Department, CIA and other government agencies. . .

Bagram remains controversial in Afghanistan because of documented cases of detainee abuse there, including two deaths, in the early months of the Afghan war. The original prison was recently replaced by a new detention facility on the U.S. base. . .

HASSAN NEMAZEE CONT'D

LLOYD GROVE, DAILY BEAST - The strange case of Hassan Nemazee is a lurid example of the human capacity for self-delusion, and a cautionary tale for all those savvy political players who take pride in their ability to size people up.

Seldom has so talented a con man flourished for so long in the confidence of the high and mighty. For two decades, Nemazee was a top fundraiser for the Democratic Party and-for the past 12 years, it turns out-a Ponzi scheme felon who stole hundreds of millions dollars of other people's money. Before he was unmasked by the FBI seven months ago, Nemazee campaigned behind the scenes to be a U.S. ambassador in the Obama administration, and personally lobbied his longtime friend, Joe Biden, to enlist his support for a high-level diplomatic post. . .

It's unclear what, if anything, came of Nemazee's conversation with Biden, or whether Biden was receptive to his old friend's entreaties. A spokesman for the vice president declined to comment on Friday. A proposed meeting about an ambassadorial appointment with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton-for whom Nemazee had raised cash during the 2008 presidential campaign-never occurred, said a well-placed source. The White House, likewise, had no comment. . .

When Barack Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate, Nemazee was "ecstatic," according to an associate, "because now he would have a direct line to the White House." He boasted that Biden was among his closest friends, and finally he would obtain that ambassadorship he'd always dreamed of. Indeed, he narrowly missed getting one in 1999, when Biden was his lead defender on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Republican senators worked to quash Nemazee's nomination to be President Clinton's ambassador to Argentina. A damaging article in Forbes magazine detailing Nemazee's sharp business practices over the years didn't help his cause.

"When his nomination failed, that was a big shock to him," says the longtime friend, who met Nemazee as a Harvard undergraduate. . .

Nemazee had been a valued friend and supporter of Biden, Al Gore, John Kerry, Chuck Schumer, and Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were part of a cavalcade of powerful office-holders who dined regularly at the Park Avenue apartment. . .

He was a major supporter of Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, and four years later was on John Kerry's New York finance team. For the 2006 election cycle, Nemazee signed on as finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Senator Chuck Schumer. But Nemazee left abruptly, according to knowledgeable sources, after he and Schumer had an acrimonious falling out. The problem, say sources close to New York's senior senator, was that Schumer became frustrated when Nemazee failed to deliver on fundraising goals, and also suspected that he was using his title to burnish his credentials among the Democratic powers that be-and, even worse, was spending time soliciting money for Hillary Clinton

DIVERSITY TRAINING PRETTY MUCH A BUST

BOSTON GLOBE - A few social scientists are taking a hard look at [corporate diversity] programs, and, so far, what they're finding is that there's little evidence that diversity training works.

Woodrow Wilson School and the Yale University political scientist Donald Green comprehensively surveyed the literature on prejudice reduction measures and found no empirical support for the idea that diversity training programs change attitudes or behavior. Similarly, a 2008 literature review paper by Carol Kulik of the University of South Australia and Loriann Roberson of Columbia University found that, on the question of changing behavior, there were few trustworthy studies - and decidedly mixed results among those. And research by a team of sociologists on more than 800 companies over three decades has found that the best diversity training programs make little difference in who gets hired and promoted, and many programs actually decrease the number of women and minorities in management. . .

"We were increasingly frustrated by the fact that we know a lot about what kinds of disparities there are in organizations, and what kind of disadvantages women and minorities faced, but we know almost nothing about how to how to reduce them," says Alexandra Kalev, a sociologist at the University of Arizona.

Several years ago Kalev, along with Dobbin and Erin Kelly of the University of Minnesota, set out to see what works. As a measure of program success, they looked at the number of women and minorities in a company's managerial ranks . . .

The researchers found that while diversity training was by far the most popular approach, it was also the least effective at getting companies to hire and promote women and minorities. Some training programs were more effective than others: Voluntary programs were better than mandatory ones, and those that focused on the threat of bias and harassment lawsuits were worse than those that did not. But even the better programs led only to marginal changes. And those that were mandatory or discussed lawsuits - the vast majority of the programs the researchers examined - slightly reduced the number of women and minorities in management. Required training and legalistic training both make people resentful, the authors suggest, and likely to rebel against what they've heard.

What worked much better than even the best training, the researchers found, were more structural measures: minority mentoring programs, or designating an executive or a task force with specific responsibility to change promotion practices. . .

QUACK CARE BILL PASSES

Sam Smith

I ended up supporting the health care bill. Not because it was a historic measure, or the most important piece of legislation in four decades or as an icon of Obama's greatness, but for the same reason one hands over a wallet to a robber. There are times when principle takes the back seat. But when it's all over, the robber is not your hero, but still a thug.

Obama essentially said that if you want 16 million poor people covered, you have to agree to heavily subsidize the insurance industry either through your taxes or through the individual mandate. Remember that about a third of that money will go for marketing and other superfluous industry spending that might have been avoided under a public plan.

The Maine Owl put it well: "The health bill neither is the Armageddon that the Republicans claim, nor the greatest social legislation since Civil Rights and Medicare in the 1960s. Rather, it's a warmed over version of Republican Bob Dole's individual private insurance mandate proposal from 1994. It is what Barack Obama campaigned against versus Hillary Clinton and later John McCain in 2008."

I can't recall a major piece of Democratic legislation that was so coated with corruption, intellectual dishonesty, cynicism and political disloyalty by those pushing it. Obama and the Democrats have offered us a quack cure - full of corrupt, ineffective and even unconstitutional provisions - neatly moderated by some good provisions. And we'll be years straightening it all out.

The liberal groupies at Move On and the like didn't notice or weren't bothered by all this, but much of America was, and because neither side was being honest, the public predictably floundered. The irony is that the Tea Party that the liberals love to hate built itself in no small part on the indefensible way in which the Democrats have behaved on health care. Thus, we are not only getting a badly designed bill but a future in which the right will thrive even more than it already has.

WHAT'S GOOD

Center On Budget Policy Priorities: The plan would expand Medicaid up to 133 percent of the poverty line for all children and adults younger than 65 who are lawfully residing in the United States and not eligible for Medicare. This would mean that millions of low-income parents, as well non-disabled low-income adults who do not have dependent children (and who are generally ineligible for Medicaid today except in a small number of states with waivers), would become newly eligible for health coverage through Medicaid. Medicaid is the most cost-effective way to provide comprehensive and affordable coverage to people with very low incomes and thereby ensure that the low-income uninsured gain coverage.

Reuters - Within the first year of enactment Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick.

Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted.

Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

Young adults will be able to stay on their parents' health plans until the age of 26. Many health plans currently drop dependents from coverage when they turn 19 or finish college.

Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014.

A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers.

In 2011, Medicare provides 10 percent bonus payments to primary care physicians and general surgeons.

In 2011, Medicare beneficiaries will be able to get a free annual wellness visit and personalized prevention plan service. New health plans will be required to cover preventive services with little or no cost to patients.

In 2012, The threshold for claiming medical expenses on itemized tax returns is raised to 10 percent from 7.5 percent of income. The threshold remains at 7.5 percent for the elderly through 2016.

In 2012, The Medicare payroll tax is raised to 2.35 percent from 1.45 percent for individuals earning more than $200,000 and married couples with incomes over $250,000. The tax is imposed on some investment income for that income group.

In 2014, State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals open.

In 2014, Health plans no longer can exclude people from coverage due to pre-existing conditions.

In 2014, Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange. The first 30 employees aren't counted for the fine.

Crooks & Liars: Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states. Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.

WHAT'S BAD

There is a huge subsidy for health insurers, paid for out of either taxes or required purchase of health insurance.

The bill doesn't take insurance and medical cost inflation into adequate account. For example, between 2000 and 2007, health insurance went up 100%. Under such a rise, the policy subsidies would become less valuable. Congress tends to lag badly in correcting such situations.

Major provisions of the bill don't got into effect for four to nine years. This is a considerable con, because it allows politicians to say they've passed something that may not go into effect until they are either out of office or, as with the president, safely in his second term. As a result they don't have to take responsibility for any failure or unanticipated cost.

The individual mandate is unconstitutional. If the Supreme Court doesn't strike it down, it will open the door to major new intrusions by the federal government into individual freedom of choice.

Many healthy people may prefer to pay fines than to purchase health insurance. Others would have no choice. Just because you're making a middle class wage doesn't mean you can afford all your expenses. What effect this will have - including on health insurance costs - is unclear but it's not good

Medicare will be hurt one way or another, probably most deeply by cuts recommended by an appointed budget commission with unconstitutionally broad powers.

Because of the delay in programs, the election of a Republican Congress or Senate could drastically change things. As the LA Times pointed out: "Insurance industry experts say there is no way to fully gauge the effect because of its extended time frame. Four years from now, they say, Congress and the White House could have new occupants who may try again to reshape the healthcare landscape."

There will be cuts to the Medicare Advantage plans that could reduce enrollment by as much as one third.

The bill does not deal with state actions. For example, budget cuts in Arizona may slash $385 from the state's Medicaid program and end Kids Care for 39,000 poor children. Writes Casey Newton in Arizona Central: "Programs benefiting low income individuals and families, such as Medicaid and CHIP, are politically vulnerable to the whims of conservatives wielding budget cleavers. Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona has just provided us with a prime example of that. Yet popular programs benefiting everyone, such as Medicare, are relatively impenetrable to the weapons of the conservatives. Suppose Congress had included single payer in their deliberations and eventually decided that the benefits were too great to pass up ,and so enacted an improved Medicare program that covered everyone. Gov. Brewer and her ilk on the state level would be powerless to stop it. "

One of the big sleepers in the bill is the plan to "institute efficiencies" in Medicare programs. In fact, Medicare is far more efficient than any private insurance plan in the country. Consider this snippet from CBPP: "The legislation would reduce annual payment updates to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, hospices, ambulatory surgical centers, and certain other providers to account for improvements in economy-wide productivity. It would also reduce payments to home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities." And just what will happen to service and its availability? Remember: one person's efficiency is another's lack of service.