Democrats failing the people; Republicans acting worst than third-graders

Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
The House of Representatives debate on the health insurance “reform” is over with the Democrats failing the people and the Republicans disgracing themselves as having left their minds back in the third grade (with apologies to third graders).

House Democrats were determined to pass any bill with a nice sounding name, such as “The Affordable Health Care for America Act”. Single payer, full Medicare for all was never on the table even though a majority of citizens, physicians and nurses support that far more efficient, free choice of health care professionals, system.

There are no effective cost containment or prevention measures in the bill. The public option is so weak it will be a receptacle for the sickest of patients among the meager number of people who qualify for its coverage. There are no provisions to reduce the number of people (100,000) who die annually from medical malpractice in hospitals.

Nor is there a major program to reduce the tens of billions of dollars that is stolen yearly out of Medicare from criminals inside and outside the medical profession.

The cover story in the November issue of the AARP Bulletin is on the elaborate but detectable schemes to swindle Medicare with phantom services, phony rentals of equipment, stolen Medicare numbers and the like. The author, Jay Weaver, writes: “So lucrative, and so low-risk, the FBI reports, that a number of cocaine dealers in Florida and California have switched from illicit drugs to Medicare fraud.”

Although more money is finally going for prosecutions, there is nowhere near enough for this corporate crime wave. Medicare’s office of Inspector General asserts that every dollar of law enforcement will save $17 of theft.

Computerized billing fraud and abuse takes anywhere from $250 billion to double that estimate by the General Accounting Office. (The GAO said ten percent of health care expenditures are going down the drain.) The reason why the estimates cover such a broad range, according to Professor Malcolm Sparrow of Harvard University, is that there are inadequate resources to document the huge hemorrhaging of the nation’s health care budget and come up with better data.

Apart from the impoverishment of the debate, there is the actual doing of harm. The bill, if enacted, doesn’t take effect until after the presidential elections in 2013, mostly to let the drug and health insurance industries adjust, though they can scarcely believe their good fortune at being delivered all those profitable customers paid for by taxpayers with scarcely any price restraints.

The Journal of Public Health has just published a peer-reviewed study by Harvard physicians-researchers that estimates 45,000 Americans lose their lives yearly because they cannot afford health insurance to receive diagnosis and treatment. Strange how cool the House is to giving these fatalities a four year pass.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a leading single payer advocate, voted against this legislation for many reasons, most notably the Obama-driven omission of his amendment to clear the way legally for states to pass their own single payer laws. Several states, such as Pennsylvania, are in the process of moving legislation in this direction, but are concerned that the health insurers will claim federal pre-emption.

The victims of medical malpractice – estimated by the Institute of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health to be about 100,000 deaths a year – escaped having to overcome more hurdles before they have their full day in court. Helping to beat back the Republicans, who define “medical malpractice reform” as letting the negligent perpetrators get away with their lethal consequences, was Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA).

Rising on the House floor he delivered a factual plea for patient safety. Hardly had he started to speak with Republicans started shouting “trial lawyer, trial lawyer” referring to his previous profession of representing wrongfully injured people before local juries in Iowa. This rare display of shouting by opponents was punctuated by one of their unleashed members rushing down the aisle shouting “You’ll pay for this.”

During this overall debate on the bill, Republicans stood up one by one, as prevaricatory dittoheads, to often scream and howl (like coyotes) that this is “a government takeover of one sixth of the economy,” “would destroy the economy,” “put 5.5 million people out of work,” “destroy the doctor-patient relationship,” “be a steamroller of socialism,” “force millions of seniors to lose their current health coverage” (meaning, Medicare?) and, in a passionate appeal to the Almighty, Congressman John Fleming (R-LA) declared “God help us as the government takes over your day-to-day life.”

Never mind that this bill is just an expansion, however misdirected, of government health insurance designed to increase corporate profits and increase the corporate grip over the day-to-day decisions regarding who, when and how people get their health care or get their bills paid.

To top off the madness, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), an ever maturing political hermaphrodite, reneged on his assurance to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and imperiously announced on Fox News Sunday that “if the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote.”

For media-centric Joe, his motto seems to be “L’Senat c’est moi.”

Hilarious political ad

This is funny and so true: ["Pass Medicare for All or Pass Nothing"].

Dobbs out

This is a bit weird:



I wonder what this is about. Speaking tours? New jobs? Presidential campaign? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Healthcare insurance isn't auto insurance

A quick break from my work duties to share this diddy from our clueless president via ABC News: ["Interview with the President: Jail Time for Those without Health Care Insurance?"].

On the issue of jail time for people who don't comply and buy federal government approved health insurance, President Obama reportedly said:

“What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.”

OK first, we can put to bed the accusations that criminal penalties are a rightwing conspiracy. Criminal penalties do exist in the bill. And the president thinks it is a good idea.
Second, I don't know about any of you but health insurance is by no means compares to auto insurance. It is a stretch to compare car insurance to health care insurance.
Here is a personal example: We have two cars in my household, excellent driving records, and extensive coverage. Our bill? Less than $100 per month for two relatively new but granted, inexpensive cars. It's about $1,000 a year.
Now, let's compare that to health insurance.
Right now, I pay $5,200 per year to cover my family via an OK plan through my employer which also has $25 co-pays and $3,000 deductibles. So, technically, it costs us much more than $5k a year to cover our health expenses. It's better than nothing, for sure.
But I, not unlike a lot of folks, was in a different situation not that long ago which makes this supposed health care reform bill intolerable.
In 2007, when I was unemployed and restarted my job at my current employer (but didn't have benefits), I had a very bad Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. For three of us, it was $900 per month, with $5,000 deductible. I kept it up as long as I could. But unemployment payments couldn't keep up with everything else. So, I dropped my insurance, got my old job back, and hoped for the best until my work plan kicked in.
According to this health care proposal, I would have been brought up on criminal charges for doing this because of no fault of my own. I just couldn't afford to cover the costs and we made too much money to qualify for anything. There were millions of people like me at that time in my life. There are millions now. And even with a federal subsidy, it still doesn't bring the costs down enough to make it realistic. And yet, the Congress, in its infinite wisdom, rammed this through. It's just plain wrong.
A bit more to get the point across: If you are self employed or have a shitty job without benefits in New Hampshire, the shitty Anthem plan your cheapest choice. I know, I looked into it extensively. So, if you were a family of three two years ago, that's nearly $11,000 AFTER taxes. If you are self-employed, you can deduct some of this expense. But if you aren't, you're out of luck.
Stay with me for a minute: Imagine you are a family of three bringing home $50k, which is realistic and, actually, above average in New Hampshire. Can you afford to take $10k-plus and pay for health care out of pocket? No, you can't.
First, about $10k is taken out in various taxes. If you rent a two- or three-bedroom apartment, or pay property taxes on a modest home, that's another $10k to $12k, or maybe more. Car payments, car insurance, food, electric, Internet/cable, telephone, and that's another $15k, easy. Tack on the shitty Anthem plan, and you're left with about $2 a week for gas, tolls, clothing, school supplies, cellphone, holidays ... what else am I forgetting?
In other words, even if you are earning a decent clip, private health insurance bought out of pocket is just not realistic in modern times. Look at the costs this bill is suggesting. They are pretty close to the shitty Anthem plan! In other words, it can't be done!
Give yourself an education. Sit down and do the math and you will realize that you too could be living in a similar situation as some of us do or have. And that makes this bill all the more intolerable and this president all the more clueless to the realities of working folks.

The time is now for single-payer
Simply put, the time is now for single-payer. It's the only answer to the problem. Bernie Sanders's bill S. 702 will cover everyone with a simple 3 percent payroll tax. This move will lower municipal government expenses which means we'll have more money for our roads, schools, and even employees to do the jobs we need done in our cities and towns. It will free up billions of dollars in capital from for-profit companies currently offering health care benefits. They can take this money out of the benefit plans and put it back into hiring people, buying new equipment, etc. It is a win-win-win. It really is the only way to go. More about this later.

Political passage of the week?

Yeah, most definitely. From this article: ["Deeds memo damning in hindsight"].

This pretense is more reassuring to the candidates paying for the advice than what is often the reality: voters are fickle, the factors that motivate them are ephemeral, political operatives are often winging it, and even the shrewdest advice often can’t compensate for a weak candidate running in a harsh environment.

Damn right. I can tell you this from being a consultant, volunteer, activist, and candidate. Voters are extremely fickle. They are fickle in primaries, since they often care more about voting for the winner than what the candidates stand for. If they are indie voters in finals, they can also be all over the map too. It doesn't matter where they live or what is going on. You can't predict what they will do.
It also doesn't help that the media is obsessed with horse race nonsense and personalities instead of the issues that voters supposedly care about. It comes back to my arguments about directing the news. There are good political reporters out there. But, they often get caught up in the "gotcha" moment instead of doing the thorough writing and analysis about issues. Please reporters, leave the gotcha moments for bloggers. Do what you're supposed to do.
In many ways, it's better for candidates not to have these consultants at all. If you don't know what you stand for as a candidate, there is a problem. Simply put, you shouldn't be a candidate. Do campaigns need employees? Yeah, ideally. A candidate can always use a scheduler and a media person. Not everyone can handle the technical stuff, like putting together the campaign Web site. Nowadays, you even need someone to Twitter for you! But, figuring out what to say? Knowing what to think? Polling months before an election and have that be your strategy? Studying voters on who you should and shouldn't put in your campaign advertisements? No, it's not needed. Go out, be yourself, talk to people, learn what they want, tell them your ideas, and live with the consequences. It really is that simple.

The Afghanistan quagmire

Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
Matthew P. Hoh, a former U.S. combat marine captain and Department of Defense civilian in Iraq starting in 2004 and until September a political officer in the Foreign Service stationed in Afghanistan is giving some consternation to President Obama’s advisors as the Commander in Chief considers sending more soldiers to that war-torn country next to Pakistan.

Mr. Hoh wrote a letter of resignation to the State Department in September. His four page letter frames his doubts about what he said is the “why and to what end” behind “the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. He notes that like the Soviets’ nine year occupation, “we continue to secure and bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by its people.”

Mr. Hoh focuses on the giant Pashtun society composed of 42 million people and moves to his conclusions. Read his words:

“The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul.

“The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pashtun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government’s failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion and metastatic:

• Glaring corruption and unabashed graft;
• A President whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts;
• A system of provincial and district leaders constituted of local power brokers, opportunists and strongmen allied to the United States solely for, and limited by, the value of our USAID and CERP contracts and whose own political and economic interests stand nothing to gain from any positive or genuine attempts at reconciliation; and
• The recent election process dominated by fraud and discredited by low voter turnout, which has created an enormous victory for our enemy who now claims a popular boycott and will call into question worldwide our government’s military, economic and diplomatic support for an invalid and illegitimate Afghan government.

“Our support for this kind of government, coupled with a misunderstanding of the insurgency’s true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation’s own internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology.

“I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc. Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilization and insurgency in Pakistan where we rightly fear a toppled or weakened Pakistani government may lose control of its nuclear weapons. However, again, to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan, not Afghanistan. More so, the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries. Finally, if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.

“Eight years into war, no nation has ever known a more dedicated, well trained, experienced and disciplined military as the U.S. Armed Forces. I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan. …

“’We are spending ourselves into oblivion’ a very talented and intelligent commander, one of America’s best, briefs every visitor, staff delegation and senior officer. We are mortgaging our Nation’s economy on a war, which, even with increased commitment, will remain a draw for years to come. Success and victory, whatever they may be, will be realized not in years, after billions more spent, but in decades and generations. The United States does not enjoy a national treasury for such success and victory. …

“Thousands of our men and women have returned home with physical and mental wounds, some that will never heal or will only worsen with time. The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made. As such, I submit my resignation.”

Will Mr. Hoh’s highly regarded experience, sensitivity and judgment reach the attention of millions of Americans? That will depend on whether President Obama meets with him, whether Congressional committees will provide a hearing for him and others of similar persuasion, and whether the mass media will suspend their dittoheading and trivia long enough to report these views, so that we the people can deliberate better about avoiding a devastating, worsening quagmire replete with serial tragedies over there and boomerangs back here.

House passes supposed "health care" reform ...

The vote was 220 to 215, with one Republican voting for the bill.
A provision remains in the bill that has a criminal penalty of prison time for not purchasing an insurance policy. They also took out abortion funding in order to secure the votes (to secure the votes of other Democrats, you know, the ones that are always supposedly pro-choice, wow ...).
One of the women on my Twitter feed wrote: "Can't have your abortions and have the government (aka other people) pay for it, too." Interesting point but at the same time, some folks need them in emergencies.
Another person wrote: "I'd just like the point out that if you don't want the government telling you what to do, don't ask them to foot the bill." That's another problem with all of this too which is a bigger issue to discuss than in a blog post.
But, this monstrosity is so, so wrong.
The Democrats have voted to approve a "health care reform" bill that is nearly 2,000 pages that no one has read, doesn't cover abortion funding (meaning only those who can afford an abortion will be able to get one), doesn't regulate costs in any real form, and forces people to buy insurance whether they want to or not.
This isn't "health care reform" ... this is corporate welfare and guaranteed profits for insurance companies with the Congress forcing us to pay it all ... In other words, Congress is doing what they always do - screwing us and lining the pockets of their friends, under the guise of helping others.

47 years ago today ...

Richard Nixon held a press conference in which he railed against the press, since he wasn't given fair coverage in a gubernatorial race against Pat Brown in 1962. Nixon stated the classic line, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Six years later, he won the presidency. Via Political Wire:

Menino pulls away

Menino is pulling away from Flaherty, by 13,500 votes with 92 percent counted. Wow. An unprecedented fifth term.

Election 2009: Tight race in Boston

The Menino-Flaherty battle is going down to the wire. With 24 percent counted, less than 200 votes separates the two. Wow.
In Manch, Republican Ted Gatsas wins easily ... so does the tax cap.
In Concord, incumbent at-large city councilor Dan St. Hilaire has easily won reelection, with more than 2,400 votes.
One-year school board candidate Bill Glahn, a former board member, was also elected over Tom Croteau, by a few hundred votes.
Republican Lynne Blackenbeker won a slim victory over former state Rep. and Republican turned Democrat Jim MacKay, by about 20 votes, in Wards 4, 8, 9, and 10, in the race to replace Tara Reardon.
The results for second at-large councilor is leaning Michael DelloIacono's way over Jim Baer by less than 100 votes, according to sources.
There are no results being reported for the Ward 7 race.
In Virginia, the Republican trounced the Democrat.
In New Jersey, Corzine is going down to defeat even though there was a conservative independent who was expected to siphon votes from the Republican.
The gay marriage repeal is leading in Maine.

Al Gore: Looking good

Former Vice President Al Gore has a new book coming out. I stumbled across this clip from CBS via Political Wire:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Since I'm always commenting on how female pols look, let me look beyond the book promotion and get right to the heart of the matter: I have to admit that Gore looks pretty good for an old guy. He's lost weight (remember when he was in that chubby phase?). Look at all his gray hair! I think I still have more grays than he does but it is nice to see him letting the hair go natural. And check out those leather boots. You're a rock star, dude! I wonder what the carbon footprint on creating those was.
I'm not going to comment on the book or the information in the book. I do wonder, however, how much CO2 emissions were released in creating this book. Why couldn't he just give it away, via PDF, and save all those trees? How about the energy for all the lights on this Webcast? Conservation for thee but not for me. Sigh.

Great Frontline show ...

called "The Warning," about how officials in the Clinton Administration refused to allow derivatives to be regulated and how two of the three people who stop this are now working in the Obama Administration. What a hero Brooksley Born is. And now, the Democrats are refusing to regulate derivatives again, even though they are the main cause of the financial collapse. For whatever reason, the embed code isn't working.

Thoughts on the first (and only?) Mass. special election Senate debate

I was able to listen to most of the Democratic U.S. Special Election Senate debate via WBZ 1030 tonight and then, later, switched to NECN online, which I realized it was webstreaming [I would later try to pick up WBZ-TV's webstream but it wasn't working for me at work, for whatever reason].
First, all the candidates seemed pretty similar as far as views go.
Rep. Mike Capuano danced a bit on the driver's licenses for illegal aliens and Alan Khazei was the only one to express support for single-payer health care. Otherwise, they are always exactly alike.
Capuano seemed angry, often raising his voice, and not in the good way - showing populist sentiments - but in a bad way, seemingly talking down to people.
If I had a $1 for every time Steve Pagliuca said, "I agree with Mike ..." I could be a co-owner of the Celtics with him. He didn't do anything to hurt his cause but he didn't do anything to help it either.
Khazei was articulate and had a grasp of many of the issues. Some will say he needs to not dominate the debates by talking too much but I don't know.
Martha Coakley seemed relatively solid but stammered on a few issues. She was also the only candidate to acknowledge, during the Afghanistan discussion, that a Mass. soldier had died in the country today. That was a nice touch. While discussing public policy, you know, there are real human beings getting blown away [interestingly, or not so, all four were against more troops being sent to Afghanistan the same night that their future colleague in the Senate, John Kerry, was actually arguing for more troops]. It seems like it is Coakley's to lose.
One of the things that was annoying is the shortness of the debate, about an hour, which limited the question times on the major public policy issues of the day to a few seconds. This was just unacceptable. In addition, the moderator, Peter Meade, the former program director at WBZ radio, constantly interrupted the candidates when they should have been at least allowed a few seconds warning to wrap it up.
The big losers were the voters because the rumor is that this will be the only televised debate. There should be more of them maybe even, as Khazei challenged, one a week until Election Day.
After the debate, Jim Braude had a roundtable of guests discussing the results of the debate. Included in the mix was Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral for Khazei, a spokesman for Pagliuca, Republican Ralph Martin II backing Coakley (a Dem), and Marjorie Clapprood backing, of all people, Capuano, the same person she faced off with in the bloody 8th primary of 1998. Maybe she is hoping for another special election for the 8th so she can jump into that one again from her home in Sharon (which is still outside the district).
It was actually shocking to hear Clapprood spout off that the gender of the Senate candidate didn't matter. This from a woman who has used this as a crutch to gain (or attempt to gain) higher office, again and again. She has guilted people into voting for a woman when that woman didn't even live in the district and had no business being in the Congressional race in the first place. But I'm a woman, she roared back in 1998, there are no women from Massachusetts in the Congress. Blah, blah blah as she helped to derail the campaign of Sue Tracy, a competent, smart woman who actually lived in the district.
So, those are some thoughts.

Other reaction: Here is some of the other reactions from a few political reporters.
Jon Keller on WBZ-TV said Khazei came across best, with Coakley doing what she needed to do. He was slightly critical of both Capuano and Pagliuca. Keller was also on Dan Rea's show for a few minutes and was Tweeting with people and reading their comments in a Webcast.
Over on 7, Hiller said Coakley was the big winner and Capuano was the big loser.
David Bernstein of the Boston Phoenix has a long post up here: ["Senate Debate, First Impressions"]. "Clear winner in the debate: Scott Brown," he wrote in the opening lines.

Change presidents, but some things never change

A good word out to Political Reporter Mark Matthews of ABC 7 in San Francisco for asking Leon Panetta some tough questions after his appearance at the Commonwealth Club, basically admitting that the CIA was continuing to assassination people overseas:



And, it was nice that Matthews went to talk to another expert too, to get a bit more balance after Panetta's sleight of hand gobblygook. You can read some more commentary here by David Swanson: ["Leon Panetta Questioned on Drone Use, Calls Secret Service on Questioner"].

Note that even though Panetta is a Democrat, installed by President Barack Obama, the supposed "change" agent, he is continuing the Bush-Cheney policy in this regard. He continues to parrot the "war on Al-Qaida" nonsense. I don't recall the Congress issuing a declaration of war against Al-Qaida. Do you? As I have stated before, it has been more than eight years and the supposed mastermind of the 9-11 attacks, Usama bin Ladin, is still at large. So, when is the United States government going to stop murdering innocent people, like the Moroccan waiter, and start trying to find the mastermind of 9-11? Or, was that never the purpose of this so-called "war" in the first place?

Nov. 2009 Top 30 Chart

Nov. 2009 Top 30 Chart
Reporting: WAAF, WBRS, WCUW, WFNX, WHRB, WMBR, WMFO, WRBB, WUML, WTCC, WZBC, WZLX

1. Passion Pit – Manners
2. Drug Rug – Paint the Fence Invisible
3. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
4. Mission of Burma – The Sound The Speed The Light
5. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
6. Mean Creek – The Sky (Or The Underground)
7. Hallelujah the Hills – Colonial Drones
8. Sidewalk Driver – For all the Boys and Girls
9. Cassavettes – Shake Down the Sun
10. The David Wax Museum – Carpenter Bird
11. The Lights Out – Color Machine
12. Magic Magic – Magic Magic
13. The Beatings – Late Season Kids
14. Doomriders – Darkness Comes Alive
15. The Points North – I Saw Across the Sound
16. Choo Choo La Rouge – I’ll Be Out All Night
17. Dead Cats Dead Rats – Dead Cats Dead Rats
18. Doom Buggies – Doom Music for Dining
19. The Everyday Visuals – The Everyday Visuals
20. The New Collisions – The New Collisions
21. The Peppermint Patties – This Ain't No Shitstorm
22. Tony the Bookie – The Tony the Bookie Orchestra
23. Wheat – White Ink, Black Ink
24. Apple Betty – Streakin’ Cross the Sky
25. The Bynars – Back From Outer Space
26. Dead Friends – “On the Run”
27. The New Alibis - Hard Promises
28. Joe Pernice – It Feels So Good When I Stop
29. The Acro-brats – “Hey Medusa”
30. The Steamy Bohemians – Technicolor Radio

This looks good

["The Fourth Kind"].

Hooksett Banner to publish weekly

There is some seemingly good news on the local media front: The Hooksett Banner, one of the Neighborhood News newspapers serving the suburban Manchester region, will return to publishing as a weekly, according to a notice on the front page of the Oct. 15 edition.
The Banner and the Goffstown News moved to bi-weekly publication in April, a few months after the company, which is owned by the Union Leader parent corporation, merged the News and the Bow Times into one publication. The newspaper noted that due to a drop in advertising, the paper would be making the change.
Back in April, the Banner was 20 pages; last week, it was 24 pages on Oct. 15. So, one could assume that revenue has picked up again, enough to go back to a weekly publication. Newspapers tend to favor a 50-50 ad to content ratio split in its print editions not including circulars or inserts in between the main books. An increase in size from 20 to 24 pages, for example, could possibly mean that the edition had two more pages in advertising for that edition, assuming that Neighborhood News uses the 50-50 ratio split.
At the time I wrote that bedroom communities with no retail base are very difficult markets for newspapers, especially free ones with no subscription base. Subscriptions usually cover the bulk of the expense, since there is limited advertising locally. Even though advertisers outside of a community want to pitch their products to affluent readers, that isn't enough these days to sustain the physical product. If there is nothing to pay for the physical newspaper, it can't be sustained, unfortunately. At the same time, I wondered if the Monitor increased its Bow news, would it gain more subscriptions? It doesn't seem to have done that. The Times operation, which had always been mailed to homes for free in Bow, didn't seem to think that a paid edition mailed to homes would work either.
No one yet on whether the News will go back to being a weekly or not but this is clearly positive news in an otherwise dark time for newspapers.

Also, in the Sunday Concord Monitor, there was an interesting overview of the state of newspapers in Claremont: ["Newspaper War"]. The story featured the Monitor's sister newspaper, the Valley News, prominently, including a picture of Mark Travis and did offer a disclaimer in the story. One could presume it is pretty good times for a small city when its daily newspaper files for bankruptcy, other entities come in to cover the news, and then, the bankrupt newspaper is revived after another company buys it, meaning there are even more news and marketing options for readers.

CBO Report On Medical Malpractice Flawed

Guest Perspective by Ralph Nader
Stuart Hagen must either be greatly overworked or possessed of an overwhelmingly monetized mind.

As the author of a Congressional Budget Office’s reply to the request by Senator Orrin G. Hatch (Rep. Utah) for an “updated analysis” of medical malpractice reform, Hagan neglected to mention a salient tragedy. About 100,000 Americans die every year from medical and hospital negligence or worse in hospitals alone.

That loss of life is greater than the annual combined fatalities from motor vehicle crashes, AIDS, and fires. This report on medical and hospital negligence came from physicians at the Harvard School of Public Health. Such preventable fatalities are associated with even larger numbers of preventable sicknesses and injuries. Tens of billions of dollars a year are the economic costs to victims, their next of kin and the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), led by Douglas W. Elmendorf, is one of two Congressional offices left with any credible reputation—the other being the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The October 9, 2009 five page CBO report belies that reputation (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10641/10-09-Tort_Reform.pdf).

The customary right-wing reform literature on corporate regulation and tort-law rights dwells on inflated costs and blithely ignores benefits in terms of saving life, limb and property and compensating the aggrieved. This propaganda binge, spasmodically reproduced by the likes of the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review editorialists, started with Murray Weidenbaum, economic advisor to Ronald Reagan. In his first report after leaving office about twenty-five years ago, he arbitrarily declared that federal regulation cost business $150 billion a year—since bloated in subsequent published effusions to over $800 billion. When I asked Mr. Weidenbaum what about the benefits of health and safety from safer cars, food, water, drugs and other products, he replied that was not his research burden. He was focusing on costs.

Mr. Hagen’s dispatch to Senator Hatch suffers from the same flawed analysis.

In the corporatized world of the Congress, “medical malpractice reform” means limiting the rights of wrongfully injured people to their full day in court. It does not mean reducing the prevalence of medical negligence, incompetence or greed, with all its lethal effects.

If reform meant reducing deaths, illness and sickness from bad doctors and bad medicine, powerful commercial interests would have to behave and upgrade their services ranging from prevention to treatment.

For example, medical malpractice insurance companies would have to experience-rate their physicians and surcharge the small percentage of recidivist, negligent or incompetent doctors. Drug companies would have to be subjected to stronger safety standards and recall obligations and stop their payola to physicians to get them to prescribe unnecessary medications or improper medications in our overdrugged society.

Also, state medical examining agencies would expand their staff and have their authority strengthened to remove the licenses of the small percentage of physicians who should not be practicing medicine at all. As Business Week editorialized years ago, the medical malpractice crisis is malpractice.

Hospitals, as some already are doing, would be cracking down on hospital induced infections with improved monitoring and simple sanitation like handwashing. The Centers for Disease Control estimates 260 to 270 deaths a day, 99,000 per year, due to hospital-induced infections.

Obviously these are not the kinds of human protections and cost-reductions on the minds of the Hatch Republicans and some lobby-indentured Democrats like Senator Max Baucus (Dem. Montana). But the CBO should not be reflecting this political slant. Like the Office of Technology Assessment, which Congress abolished in 1995, the CBO’s job is to convey the truth as best they see it regardless of the angle desired by Senators or Representatives.

The Center for Justice & Democracy (CJD) has just issued a fair critique of the CBO letter to Senator Hatch (http://www.centerjd.org/archives/issues-facts/CJDCBOCritiqueF.pdf). CJD points out the savings, both human and economic, that come with the deterrent effects of the tort law system. Among the studies cited is the Institute of Medicine finding that “[T]he litigation system seems to protect many patients from being injured in the first place. And since prevention before the fact is generally preferable to compensation after the fact, the apparent injury prevention effect must be an important factor in the debate about the future of the malpractice litigation system.”

Further, in the May 11, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the CJD argued that “anesthesiologists were motivated by litigation to improve patient safety.” As a result, “the risk of death from anesthesia” was reduced from “1 in 5000 to about 1 in 250,000.”

Less than one in ten malpractice cases results in a legal claim for compensation. What physicians and hospitals pay in malpractice premiums annually is less than the cost of dog and cat food—under $10 billion.

Mr. Hagen and associates provided estimates of five “typical proposals, starting with a cap of $250,000 on pain and suffering for the most serious injuries. Such proposals have been the subject of various state rejections or enactments without significantly affecting the prices charged for malpractice insurance premiums. Even if they did, the human cruelty and pervasions of the insurance function itself should negate their adoption.

The CBO letter did not include the costs to Medicaid when victims do not receive an adequate award or settlement in court, to cite several omissions noted in the CJD analysis. CBO’s treatment of “defensive medicine” is thin, neglecting to point out that incentives for additional billing are factors; while invasive, non-indicated procedures for fear of fancied liability are themselves acts of malpractice.

Messrs Elmendorf and Hagen: even the best companies have bad days. It is time for a CBO recall!

New Citizen Funded Elections Task Force Convenes Tuesday

From the inbox:
A new task force charged with developing policy to create a system of publicly financed elections in New Hampshire will meet for the first time at 3 pm on Tuesday, October 20th in Room 103 of the State House in Concord. The bi-partisan group was mandated by the passage of HB513 last session and its members include both current legislators and citizen advocates appointed by the President of the Senate, Speaker of the House and the Governor.

Citizen Funded Elections Task Force members include: Senator Martha Fuller Clark (prime sponsor of HB513) and Senator Sharon Carson; Representatives Jim Splaine, Bob Perry, and Kathleen Hoelzel; former Representative and Coalition for Open Democracy (COD) Board Member Gordon Allen; PACE: Public Action for Clean Elections Board Member Abi Abrash-Walton; former Executive Councilor Peter Spaulding; former Senator Jim Rubens; and Rob Werner of Americans for Campaign Reform. One final member is yet to be appointed by Governor Lynch.

“Members of this new task force bring considerable expertise to the table,” said Representative Bob Perry, task force member. “There are also successful working models from other states, like Maine, Arizona and Connecticut, as well as a federal bill (the Fair Elections Now Act, or FENA), from which ideas can be drawn in drafting a bill for New Hampshire. We’ll need to identify sufficient and appropriate funding for a new system in order to get it underway.”

Efforts to pass public funding of elections in NH date back to 2002, when a bill to create the infrastructure for a system of public financing for state senate, executive council and gubernatorial races passed the Senate and narrowly failed in the House. According to COD, support within the legislature for such reform has expanded significantly since that time.

“It’s time we move forward on this fundamental reform,” said Sam Mekrut, Chair of Coalition for Open Democracy, a NH grassroots organization whose primary focus is engaging people in advocating for public funding of elections. “A large majority of NH voters support public funding because they see how, under our current system, wealthy special interests have a greater voice on issues like health care and the environment than voters do.” Coalition for Open Democracy believes that public financing ought to be enacted both at the national and state level to ensure that the voices of voters are not drowned out by large corporations and wealthy special interests. “By enhancing confidence in the democratic process, we ensure greater participation by voters and prospective candidates, bringing more ideas and energy to address complex problems.”

“Public funding of elections helps free candidates and elected officials from endless fundraising, allowing them to focus on policy-making and constituent concerns,” said long-time public financing advocate and COD member Doris “Granny D” Haddock. “You have to be a patriot to consider running for office in NH. It pays only $100 a year and then people say they have to spend at least ¼ of their time fundraising.”

The Citizen Funded Elections Task Force will make an initial report to the legislature in November 2009 and a final report in 2010, in time for legislation to be filed for the 2011 session. The Task Force is scheduled to meet again at 3 PM on October 27th; the regular meeting schedule is yet to be determined. Meetings are open to the public and interested activists are encouraged to join Granny D and other COD members in attending.

Shut your TV off on Nov. 5 ...

This video is critically important ...

I don't get to listen to Democracy Now much and, frankly, I don't care for some of Amy Goodman's obsessions. But this segment, featuring former bank regulator William Black, author of, "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One," is very good, and a warning to all of us who are suffering during this difficult economic time:



If you can't watch videos, the rushed transcript is here: ["William Black segment"].

Check out these two bits from the transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: William Black, the New York Times recently reported that Citigroup has hired Richard Hohlt, who was a top lobbyist for the savings and loan industry in the 1980s.

WILLIAM BLACK: Yes. He is the most notorious lobbyist out of the savings and loan crisis. Even within a notorious group, the US League of Savings Institutions, which back then was the political scientist types, often said it was the third most powerful lobbying group in America. That group had, in essence, a black ops subgroup, and Richard Hohlt led it and is responsible for causing immense damage in the savings and loan crisis.

Beyond that, of course, he then comes back in the slime campaign on—when Wilson went public with some of his protests against the lying about the intelligence that got us into the war, the invasion of Iraq, Richard Hohlt reappears. And now he’s back being hired by—in essence, by taxpayer money to help loot the taxpayers again. My phrase for it in the New York Times was that it was “singularly obscene.”

And this:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And William Black, what is your sense of the prospects now for stronger financial regulation, given the fact that—my understanding is now that the financial and securities firms have invested about $200 million in lobbying—in their lobbying efforts in Congress, and the halls of Congress are filled with the lobbyists now who are trying to influence the members of Congress on the new regulation of the financial system?

WILLIAM BLACK: Well, the earliest effort is—should be a real wake-up call, because it’s horrible. Barney Frank has proposed legislation on financial derivatives that essentially exempts what are called over-the-counter derivatives from most regulation, and it is over-the-counter derivatives that have been a major cause of this crisis. So that’s utterly insane. There’s no conceivable justification for it. And he stacked the hearing. There were nine witnesses; eight of them were from the industry and, of course, testified that they were vital to the world. The ninth witness was the only person who was in the least bit skeptical, and he was promptly gaveled down, unlike the others, by the chair. So it’s not only a farce; they’re willing to have us see that it’s a farce. They are so little afraid of public opinion and outrage that they’re not even taking steps to cover up the cover-up.

So folks, here are the Democrats, again, as corrupt as can be, as bad as Clinton (or possibly worse), as bad as the Republicans, giving away the friggin' store, and Obama is out in San Fran, rallying the troops against the "evil" Republicans and still has work to do. Oh yeah, as Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, says, a financial coup.

Barney Frank and the Planet of the Banks

Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
What planet is Congressman Barney Frank on, anyway? It is the planet of the banks and other financial firms that keep his campaign coffers humming, as their chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

On his extraterrestrial perch, camouflaged by his witty and irreverent observations, he sees the agony of gouged, debt-ridden consumers and homeowners, but his actions do not measure up.

As of this writing before the final set of hearings, Mr. Frank has dropped key provisions from a proposal to establish an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).

The banks did not want a consumer right of action against companies violating standards for their mortgages, credit and debit cards, or payday and installment loans. Barney said sure!

The banks want a weak oversight panel consisting of their toady regulators, who failed repeatedly and miserably in the past decade to stave off the collapse of Wall Street and its economically lethal consequences for workers and consumers. Barney said sure!

The banks want their buddies in Congress to drop the standard of reasonableness by which the new consumer protection agency can go after wildly gouging fees and deceptive practices, such as the check overdraft racket that rakes in $40 billion for the banks. Barney said, sure, sure!

The American Bankers Association is crowing like a thousand roosters. The five biggest banks--now even bigger after the collapse, their taxpayer bailout and their acquisitions--are crowing the loudest.

And why not? They speculated with retirement and other savings of the American people. Trillions of dollars were drained from the accounts and looted from these innocents.

Yet, the banks have every expectation that the Glass-Stegall Act--repealed by Clinton, Citigroup and the Congress in 1999--will not be reinstated to separate retail banking from investment banking and block the conflicts of interest that ravage investors.

The Banks will still have their protective Federal Reserve which, though empowered by a 1994 law to crack down on predatory lending, did nothing to stop the subprime mortgage rackets that submarined the housing economy.

Smelling a concessionary Barney Frank, other businesses want exemptions from the new consumer agency’s authority, including auto dealers, realtors, merchants, retailers and assorted other players in the fine print game of financial services.

Massively possessed by the sneering arrogance of the corporate state, these big banks are still granting huge bonuses to their management and top bosses, while the taxpayers of America are subsidizing them and bailing them out. Their chosen Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner conceded that the U.S. government is now insuring, not just the deposits of big banks, but their capital as well.

Most stunning to Americans, right or left, who follow these big money boys is that they are developing more speculative derivative packages, loaded with luscious fees, such as securitized bets on life insurance policies. Does this remind you of the kind of financial wheeling and dealing that sank Wall Street and the economy last year?

Naturally, consumer groups like the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (http://www.fairlending.com) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (USPIRG) (http://www.uspirg.org) who have provided excellent testimony in recent months about what the exploited consumers and savers need at long last, are disappointed. But they, and the Consumer Federation of America (http://www.consumerfed.org) are facing an overwhelming resource mismatch with the financial businesses. These businesses are deploying armies of lobbyists on Capitol Hill and hosting hundreds of campaign cash parties.

In an excellent article in the New York Times, regular columnist Joe Nocera, asks the question--“Have the Banks No Shame?” He starts his reply by quoting Simon Johnson, a former economist with the International Monetary Fund: “They can’t pay what they owe!” he began angrily. Then he paused, collected his thoughts and started over: “Tim Geithner saved them on terms extremely favorable to the banks…What gets me is that the banks have continued to oppose consumer protection. How can they be opposed to consumer protection as defined by a man who is the most favorable Treasury secretary they have had in a generation…It is unconscionable.”

Well said, but not enough. As long as the top banking bosses get their huge bonuses and their mismanaged, corrupted banks get their taxpayer bailouts, because they are too big to fail, they will continue pushing their devastating greed with impunity.

The issue is not only shame. The issue is guilt and for that, prosecution, conviction and incarceration are the remedies. That is the only prospect that sobers up the corporate crooks.

Adequate prosecution budgets, tougher corporate criminal laws and a government going for law and order—none of these are in any legislative proposals or in the hearts and minds of our Washington representatives.

So, sovereign citizens everywhere, if you don’t organize to have the say, you’ll continue to pay, pay and pay. Time to make apathy boring!

Sometimes, I'm brilliant ...

Yeah, I have moments of brilliance sometimes. Like this little line I wrote on facebook early this morning in reaction to Samantha Clemens posting a note about the Nobel Peace Prize Committee explaining its ridiculous prize to President Barack Obama:
Hmm, well, I guess if continuing the fraudulent war in Iraq, continuing the bogus war in Afghanistan where the mission should be apprehending Usama bin Ladin and bringing him to justice but isn't, continuing to spend $700 billion on a bloated, wasteful, and corrupt military budget, continuing to give away billions in weapons to countries and governments all around the world so they can kill their own people are all considered "promoting peace," then President Barack Obama surely deserves the prize.

Newseum

I'll have pictures and a bit about my trip to the Newseum on Sunday. Stay tuned. One thing I was shocked about D.C.? The friggin' 10 percent sales tax! Yikes!!

Update: Maybe I should have written "food tax" is 10 percent ... I paid a 50 cent tax on a $4.99 smoothie at Smoothie King on 7th Street. It says "sale tax" on the receipt and I was pretty shocked by it when the bill came.

Update 2: Just looked at my Newseum receipt and saw a $1.20 tax on $19.95 which is, indeed, 6 percent.

Blogging break

I'm going to take a few days off from blogging. Talk amongst yourselves.

Another round of short takes ...

First, this is the most laughable thing I have ever seen, which had me rolling off my kitchen table seat after turning on my computer and spitting out my coffee this morning: ["President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize"]. I have lost whatever remaining small amount of faith I had in these awards. Barack Obama has done nothing at all to advance the cause of peace. Nothing. The same way he has done nothing to fix the economy. He has continued the fraudulent wars after saying he wouldn't. He has about as much business winning this award as Dick Cheney does. This is simply disgraceful.

Update: Jamie O'Keefe just Tweeted this column which pretty much says it all: ["What has Barack Obama done for peace?"].

I forgot to post this earlier in the week - Kelly Ayotte with more strong poll numbers here in New Hampshire: ["Poll Shows Ayotte With Lead Over Hodes"].

For those of us who love print journalism, take a look at this Village Voice story about the newspaper war going on in NYC: ["How New York City's Seven Newspapers Are (Nearly) Surviving"]. And, BTW, I often see that some of the snarky start-up newspapers in the city are hiring so who knows?

I'm also late posting these two reports about press accuracy and what readers feel about journalism: ["Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low"] and ["SHU NATIONAL POLL: TRUST AND SATISFACTION WITH THE NATIONAL NEWS MEDIA"].

I have been thinking about the issue of climate change lately too, mostly eyeing the so-called free trade system and how creating domestic manufacturing in each country for its own use would be a key way of lowering carbon emissions. But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that lowering birth rates is a wise first step to addressing the issue: ["'Contraception cheapest way to combat climate change'"]. From there, yeah, domestic micro-economies in each country or regions of countries; desalination plants, built like yesterday, to pump unsalted sea water out of the rising oceans and into aquafers [bringing water to areas that have never had water before]; etc. I'll write a bit more about this in the future, especially the silly natural gas campaign about dropping 3 percent of energy usage a year.