36 Hours in Venice
By ONDINE COHANE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 27, 2010
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/travel/31venice-hours.html?hpw
WITH its picture-perfect canals and waterside palazzi, Venice is a romantic idyll. No wonder 18 million tourists pile onto the floating city each year. But what is surprising is that the embattled residents still manage to carve out a hometown for themselves — a pastiche of in-the-know restaurants, underground bars, quiet piazzas and calmer, outlying islands. And that’s not counting all the cultural offerings that Venetians take full advantage of. The cool art scene now goes beyond the Biennale. And instead of sinking, architectural icons have re-emerged as new landmarks.
A Weekend in Venice
Friday
4 p.m.
1) MODERN INSTALLATION
Venice’s artsy side is on display at the new Punta della Dogana (Dorsoduro 2; 39-041-523-1680; palazzograssi.it), the city’s former customs house that was transformed into a museum to hold part of the sizable art collection of the luxury goods magnate François Pinault. Completed last year, it was designed by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who left the bones of the stunning landmark intact but created light and airy galleries for the heavyweight contemporary work. The view from the sidewalk is just as impressive, looking back onto the Grand Canal and across to Giudecca — keep an eye out for Charles Ray’s sculpture “Boy With Frog,” his first outdoor installation.
8 p.m.
2) LAGOON TO TABLE
Dismayed by the city’s reputation for high prices and mediocre food, a consortium of restaurants formed Ristoranti della Buona Accoglienza (veneziaristoranti.it), or the Restaurants of Good Welcome, with a pledge to offer transparent pricing, full disclosure of ingredients and a commitment to culinary traditions. Among the outstanding members is Alle Testiere (Castello 5801; 39-041-522-7220; www.osterialletestiere.it), a nine-table establishment owned by a group of young Venetians that serves seasonal and local seafood like gnocchi with calamaretti and fresh grilled sea bass. Pair with a regional wine like Orto, a grassy white made in Sant’ Erasmo, an island in the Venetian Lagoon. Entrees run from 25 euros, or $34 at $1.36 to the euro, pastas from 19 ($26). Be sure to make a reservation.
10 p.m.
3) BAR SCENE
New hotel bars have woken up the city’s once-sleepy night life. Among the current hot spots is the PG, a restaurant and bar at the recently opened Palazzina Grassi (San Marco 3247; 39-041-528-4644; palazzinagrassi.it), a 16th-century palazzo that was transformed by Philippe Starck into a design hotel. Johnny Depp held court there when filming “The Tourist,” and a pop-up of Amy Sacco’s Bungalow 8 relocated to the lobby during the Venice Film Festival this year.
Saturday
10 a.m.
4) MODERN NOOK
Carlo Scarpa, the architectural godfather of Venetian modernists, is back in vogue. See why at the Fondazione Scientifica Querini Stampalia (Santa Maria Formosa Castello 5252; 39-041-271-1411; querinistampalia.it; 10 euros), where he transformed the garden and ground floor into a modernist haven in the early 1960s. Upstairs a quiet library is a great spot to read a newspaper with locals on the weekends or to see the painting “Presentation of Jesus in the Temple” by Giovanni Bellini, one of the city’s underappreciated masterpieces.
11:30 a.m.
5) SET IN STONE
In another example of the city’s new artistic drive, the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art (Santa Croce 2076; 39-041-524-0695; museiciviciveneziani.it), housed in a white marble palazzo from the 17th century, is showcasing 40 works in steel, glass and stone by Tony Cragg, a sculptor from Liverpool. The contrast between the 21st-century work and the Baroque interiors is striking, and a recently restored second-floor gallery showcases Mr. Cragg’s pieces alongside those of Rodin. Afterward take a walk on the winding streets behind the museum, a residential enclave away from the tourist fray.
1 p.m.
6) NOTHING FISHY
Seafood doesn’t get much fresher than at Pronto Pesce (Pescheria Rialto, San Polo 319; 39-041-822-0298; prontopesce.it), a tiny street-front bar that sits next to the city’s fish market. Specials change daily, but seafood couscous, tangy anchovies under olive oil and marinated mackerel make regular appearances, along with more substantial primi like gnocchi with squid ink. Glasses of house white or bottles like Brigaldara’s Garda Garganega round out a delightful meal. Grab a stool and watch the market close up shop for the day. Appetizers from 1.50 euros, pastas from 15.
4 p.m.
7) HANDSOME ATELIERS
Forget kitschy masks and imitation Murano glass. The streets radiating off bustling Campo Santo Stefano as far as the Grand Canal are lined with one-of-a-kind galleries and small boutiques. Galleria Marina Barovier (San Marco 3202; 39-041-523-6748; barovier.it; by appointment) carries hard-to-find vintage glass pieces and items by contemporary artists that end up in museum collections. Chiarastella Cattana (San Marco 3357; 39-041-522-4369) makes tablecloths, cushion covers and duvets from luscious fabrics of her own design. Nearby, Cristina Linassi (San Marco 3537; 39-041-523-0578; cristinalinassi.it) has silk lingerie and gossamer nighties that look straight out of Sophia Loren’s closet circa 1950.
7 p.m.
8) CICCHETTI CIRCUIT
The debate over the city’s best cicchetti, or old-style tapas, is as fiery for Venetians as is politics or religion. The good news is you don’t have to choose just one. A tour might start at the bar of Trattoria da Fiori (San Marco 3461; 39-041-523-5310), where artists and residents nibble on polpette di carne (meatballs) and sip glasses of tocai. At the sleeker Naranzaria (San Polo 130; 39-041-724-1035; naranzaria.it), try the light spinach pie with a glass of wine (many of the wines offered come from the owner Count Brandolini’s own vineyards). Nearby, Cantina do Mori (San Polo 429; 39-041-522-5401) is an atmospheric old-school spot that attracts a well-heeled crowd. And Al Merca (San Polo 213; 39-346-834-0660) is the preferred choice for a Venetian spritz — prosecco, Aperol or Campari, sparkling water and a slice of lemon or orange. Cicchetti rarely exceed 2 euros a piece.
10 p.m.
9) PARTY AL FRESCO
After dinner, the large Campo Santa Margherita becomes the city’s meeting point where students grab a spritz or beer at Il Caffè (Campo Santa Margherita 2963; 39-041-528-7998), and an older, fashionable crowd meets at Osteria alla Bifora (Dorsoduro 2930; 39-041-523-6119). On warm nights the piazza becomes one big multigenerational party.
Sunday
10 a.m.
10) ITALIAN DOUGH
Join residents at Pasticceria Tonolo (Dorsoduro 3764, Calle San Pantalon; 39-041-523-7209) for the cream-filled fresh doughnuts known as krapfen. You may have to jostle Italian-style for the beloved pastry (1 euro) that sells out by noon, but it’s worth the wait.
1 p.m.
11) ISLAND IDYLL
If you’re planning a spring trip, do as the Venetians do and head to the outlying islands that dot the lagoon. Among the gems is Mazzorbo and its six-room inn and restaurant, Venissa (Fondamente di Santa Caterina, 3; 39-041-527-2281; venissa.it), which is open from March to November. Opened this year by Bisol, an Italian prosecco company, the resort has given new life to a walled vineyard dating from the 1800s. Paola Budel, the chef, who used to run the restaurant at Milan’s Principe di Savoia, serves fish from the lagoon and upper Adriatic, vegetables from the restaurant’s own orchard or adjacent islands; and wines from the nearby regions of Friuli, Veneto and Trentino. Recent dishes included figs from a nearby tree and snapper caught in the lagoon that morning. Lunch, about 70 euros. Afterward wander the main pathway along the waterfront, where a bridge connects to the more-visited island of Burano, with its vibrant pastel-colored buildings. The two islands capture what Venetians know well: you can escape the crowds in the blink of an eye if you are willing to cross the water.
IF YOU GO
Delta and Alitalia are among the airlines that fly to Venice from New York, from $663 in November. You can make your way around town by foot or vaporetto.
Opened in 2007 near the Rialto Bridge, Ca’ Sagredo (4198 Campo Santa Sofia; 39-041-241-3111; casagredohotel.com) is housed in a restored 15th-century palazzo, with 42 luxurious rooms starting at 300 euros, $408 at $1.36 to the euro.
The Novecento (San Marco 2683; 39-041-241-3765; novecento.biz) in San Marco has nine small rooms but also a fine staff, a charming garden and an excellent breakfast that’s included in the price; from 160 euros.
Outside the main island’s fray, the new Venissa (Fondamente di Santa Caterina, 3; 39-041-527-2281; venissa.it) on Mazzorbo has six nicely furnished rooms and makes a great base for exploring the lagoon. It closes Nov. 7 for the season but will continue taking reservations for spring. Rooms from 110 euros.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
America’s degraded public debate
America’s degraded public debate
By Jurek Martin
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: October 27 2010 01:22 | Last updated: October 27 2010 01:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16424890-e15c-11df-90b7-00144feabdc0.html
Contrary to majority opinion in the US media, National Public Radio was perfectly within its rights – and was right – to fire Juan Williams for last week’s comments that Muslims made him nervous on airplanes, delivered on the Fox TV network. It is less a question of what he said than where he said it.
I would go further. NPR should have fired him years ago, on the grounds that running off at the mouth in the putrid kitchen that is talk media is inconsistent with the higher standards of objectivity practised at the station.
NPR should also tell Mara Liasson, another staffer who appears regularly on Fox (as a liberal punching bag for the conservative heavies) that she has a choice to make; stick with her employers, or change partners for the (fleeting) fame and fortune that Rupert Murdoch is accustomed to dangling. (Williams was rewarded with a $2m contract on Fox.)
This reveals me as arguably liberal but, much more, as anachronistically old school. In the US writing journalists seem to spend more time in the TV studio spouting off than they do sticking to their reporting last for their employer. This has contributed to the declining quality of newspaper shoe leather political reportage most evident this year.
A good reporter lets his readers in on the story, but not on the thought process. In late 1975, Johnny Apple disappeared from the pages of the New York Times for several weeks, resurfacing with an exquisitely detailed story that the presidential candidate registering at 2 per cent in the national polls (Jimmy Carter) was showing real strength on the ground.
These days, sadly, only the polls would matter, along with what the reporter thinks, but does not necessarily know. There are exceptions to this (Joe Klein’s recent 6,000 mile odyssey for Time Magazine, for example) but not many. It is mostly in-and-out once-over-lightly quote-a-poll stuff, for which the parlous state of newspaper finances is as much to blame as any reportorial deficiencies.
The Williams incident also served to remind how degraded political debate has become. In conservative demonology – exemplified by, but not confined to, Fox – NPR stands as a redoubt of the “far left,” a bastion of political correctness and guilty of closet racism, all accusations now laid at its door by the once progressive Mr Williams.
In reality, it is the closest America comes to the BBC, wielding its liberal tendencies with a small stick. It is also a bit smug and boring and, fair enough, politically correct.
It had long been made clear to Mr Williams that public radio was uncomfortable with his appearances on Fox. It had required him to remove his NPR affiliation whenever he mouthed off on the Murdoch network. But, as a star in the star-struck world of media-land, he felt free to say with impunity whatever he felt like saying (last year equating Michelle Obama with the old black radical Stokely Carmichael, for example).
It is predictable that NPR should be more criticised than supported for what it did. Nor should it surprise that the usual rightwing political suspects – such as Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina – should revive the Newt Gingrich ploy of the mid-’90s and demand that non-commercial media lose its federal funding, in NPR’s case about 2 per cent of its total budget.
Yet the debate has centred on three issues; whether he was out of line in saying he was nervous about Muslims on planes, which plays into the Fox mantra that all terrorists are Muslims; why his other qualifying remarks on the fateful Bill O’Reilly programme were not taken into consideration; and whether NPR was justified in summary dismissal by telephone, rather than after a face-to-face hearing.
I have sympathy for none of them. The first two are all about parsing, when everybody knows that talk television is all about being outrageous and outspoken and not about being contained and logical, which will not get you invited back. And, to quote Rhett Butler, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn how Williams was shown the exit.
Corporations have rights, including that of hiring and firing. I suspect that, in taking this hard line, I am perpetuating America’s destructive and false ideological wars. So be it. You would not get me on Fox for love, or money (probably).
onohana@aol.com
By Jurek Martin
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: October 27 2010 01:22 | Last updated: October 27 2010 01:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16424890-e15c-11df-90b7-00144feabdc0.html
Contrary to majority opinion in the US media, National Public Radio was perfectly within its rights – and was right – to fire Juan Williams for last week’s comments that Muslims made him nervous on airplanes, delivered on the Fox TV network. It is less a question of what he said than where he said it.
I would go further. NPR should have fired him years ago, on the grounds that running off at the mouth in the putrid kitchen that is talk media is inconsistent with the higher standards of objectivity practised at the station.
NPR should also tell Mara Liasson, another staffer who appears regularly on Fox (as a liberal punching bag for the conservative heavies) that she has a choice to make; stick with her employers, or change partners for the (fleeting) fame and fortune that Rupert Murdoch is accustomed to dangling. (Williams was rewarded with a $2m contract on Fox.)
This reveals me as arguably liberal but, much more, as anachronistically old school. In the US writing journalists seem to spend more time in the TV studio spouting off than they do sticking to their reporting last for their employer. This has contributed to the declining quality of newspaper shoe leather political reportage most evident this year.
A good reporter lets his readers in on the story, but not on the thought process. In late 1975, Johnny Apple disappeared from the pages of the New York Times for several weeks, resurfacing with an exquisitely detailed story that the presidential candidate registering at 2 per cent in the national polls (Jimmy Carter) was showing real strength on the ground.
These days, sadly, only the polls would matter, along with what the reporter thinks, but does not necessarily know. There are exceptions to this (Joe Klein’s recent 6,000 mile odyssey for Time Magazine, for example) but not many. It is mostly in-and-out once-over-lightly quote-a-poll stuff, for which the parlous state of newspaper finances is as much to blame as any reportorial deficiencies.
The Williams incident also served to remind how degraded political debate has become. In conservative demonology – exemplified by, but not confined to, Fox – NPR stands as a redoubt of the “far left,” a bastion of political correctness and guilty of closet racism, all accusations now laid at its door by the once progressive Mr Williams.
In reality, it is the closest America comes to the BBC, wielding its liberal tendencies with a small stick. It is also a bit smug and boring and, fair enough, politically correct.
It had long been made clear to Mr Williams that public radio was uncomfortable with his appearances on Fox. It had required him to remove his NPR affiliation whenever he mouthed off on the Murdoch network. But, as a star in the star-struck world of media-land, he felt free to say with impunity whatever he felt like saying (last year equating Michelle Obama with the old black radical Stokely Carmichael, for example).
It is predictable that NPR should be more criticised than supported for what it did. Nor should it surprise that the usual rightwing political suspects – such as Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina – should revive the Newt Gingrich ploy of the mid-’90s and demand that non-commercial media lose its federal funding, in NPR’s case about 2 per cent of its total budget.
Yet the debate has centred on three issues; whether he was out of line in saying he was nervous about Muslims on planes, which plays into the Fox mantra that all terrorists are Muslims; why his other qualifying remarks on the fateful Bill O’Reilly programme were not taken into consideration; and whether NPR was justified in summary dismissal by telephone, rather than after a face-to-face hearing.
I have sympathy for none of them. The first two are all about parsing, when everybody knows that talk television is all about being outrageous and outspoken and not about being contained and logical, which will not get you invited back. And, to quote Rhett Butler, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn how Williams was shown the exit.
Corporations have rights, including that of hiring and firing. I suspect that, in taking this hard line, I am perpetuating America’s destructive and false ideological wars. So be it. You would not get me on Fox for love, or money (probably).
onohana@aol.com
Can’t Keep a Bad Idea Down By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Can’t Keep a Bad Idea Down
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/opinion/27friedman.html?th&emc=th
I confess, I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates, mostly Republicans, leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess. Am I hearing right?
Let’s have more tax cuts, unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while we’re still fighting two wars — because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small. Let’s immediately cut government spending, instead of phasing cuts in gradually, while we’re still mired in a recession — because that worked so well in the Great Depression. Let’s roll back financial regulation — because we’ve learned from experience that Wall Street can police itself and average Americans will never have to bail it out.
Let’s have no limits on corporate campaign spending so oil and coal companies can more easily and anonymously strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to limit pollution in the air our kids breathe. Let’s discriminate against gays and lesbians who want to join the military and fight for their country. Let’s restrict immigration, because, after all, we don’t live in a world where America’s most important competitive advantage is its ability to attract the world’s best brains. Let’s repeal our limited health care reform rather than see what works and then fix it. Let’s oppose the free-trade system that made us rich.
Let’s kowtow even more to public service unions so they’ll make even more money than private sector workers, so they’ll give even more money to Democrats who will give them even more generous pensions, so not only California and New York will go bankrupt but every other state too. Let’s pay for more tax cuts by uncovering waste I can’t identify, fraud I haven’t found and abuse that I’ll get back to you on later.
All that’s missing is any realistic diagnosis of where we are as a country and what we need to get back to sustainable growth. Actually, such a diagnosis has been done. A nonpartisan group of America’s most distinguished engineers, scientists, educators and industrialists unveiled just such a study in the midst of this campaign.
Here is the story: In 2005 our National Academies responded to a call from a bipartisan group of senators to recommend 10 actions the federal government could take to enhance science and technology so America could successfully compete in the 21st century. Their response was published in a study, spearheaded by the industrialist Norman Augustine, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.”
Charles M. Vest, the former M.I.T. president, worked on the study and noted in a speech recently that “Gathering Storm,” together with work by the Council on Competitiveness, led to the America Competes Act of 2007, which increased funding for the basic science research that underlies our industrial economy. Other recommendations, like improving K-12 science education, were not substantively addressed.
So, on Sept. 23, the same group released a follow-up report: “Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5.” “The subtitle, ‘Rapidly Approaching Category 5,’ says it all,” noted Vest. “The committee’s conclusion is that ‘in spite of the efforts of both those in government and the private sector, the outlook for America to compete for quality jobs has further deteriorated over the past five years.’ ”
But I thought: “We’re number 1!”
“Here is a little dose of reality about where we actually rank today,” says Vest: sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness, but 40th in rate of change over the last decade; 11th among industrialized nations in the fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school; 16th in college completion rate; 22nd in broadband Internet access; 24th in life expectancy at birth; 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering; 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education; and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
“This is not a pretty picture, and it cannot be wished away,” said Vest. The study recommended a series of steps — some that President Obama has already initiated, some that still need Congress’s support — designed to increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education, to reinforce long-term basic research, and to create the right tax and policy incentives so we can develop, recruit and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in the world. The goal is to make America the premier place to innovate and invest in innovation to create high-paying jobs.
You’ll have to Google it, though. The report hasn’t received 1/100th of the attention given to Juan Williams’s remarks on Muslims.
A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/opinion/27friedman.html?th&emc=th
I confess, I find it dispiriting to read the polls and see candidates, mostly Republicans, leading in various midterm races while promoting many of the very same ideas that got us into this mess. Am I hearing right?
Let’s have more tax cuts, unlinked to any specific spending cuts and while we’re still fighting two wars — because that worked so well during the Bush years to make our economy strong and our deficit small. Let’s immediately cut government spending, instead of phasing cuts in gradually, while we’re still mired in a recession — because that worked so well in the Great Depression. Let’s roll back financial regulation — because we’ve learned from experience that Wall Street can police itself and average Americans will never have to bail it out.
Let’s have no limits on corporate campaign spending so oil and coal companies can more easily and anonymously strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to limit pollution in the air our kids breathe. Let’s discriminate against gays and lesbians who want to join the military and fight for their country. Let’s restrict immigration, because, after all, we don’t live in a world where America’s most important competitive advantage is its ability to attract the world’s best brains. Let’s repeal our limited health care reform rather than see what works and then fix it. Let’s oppose the free-trade system that made us rich.
Let’s kowtow even more to public service unions so they’ll make even more money than private sector workers, so they’ll give even more money to Democrats who will give them even more generous pensions, so not only California and New York will go bankrupt but every other state too. Let’s pay for more tax cuts by uncovering waste I can’t identify, fraud I haven’t found and abuse that I’ll get back to you on later.
All that’s missing is any realistic diagnosis of where we are as a country and what we need to get back to sustainable growth. Actually, such a diagnosis has been done. A nonpartisan group of America’s most distinguished engineers, scientists, educators and industrialists unveiled just such a study in the midst of this campaign.
Here is the story: In 2005 our National Academies responded to a call from a bipartisan group of senators to recommend 10 actions the federal government could take to enhance science and technology so America could successfully compete in the 21st century. Their response was published in a study, spearheaded by the industrialist Norman Augustine, titled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.”
Charles M. Vest, the former M.I.T. president, worked on the study and noted in a speech recently that “Gathering Storm,” together with work by the Council on Competitiveness, led to the America Competes Act of 2007, which increased funding for the basic science research that underlies our industrial economy. Other recommendations, like improving K-12 science education, were not substantively addressed.
So, on Sept. 23, the same group released a follow-up report: “Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5.” “The subtitle, ‘Rapidly Approaching Category 5,’ says it all,” noted Vest. “The committee’s conclusion is that ‘in spite of the efforts of both those in government and the private sector, the outlook for America to compete for quality jobs has further deteriorated over the past five years.’ ”
But I thought: “We’re number 1!”
“Here is a little dose of reality about where we actually rank today,” says Vest: sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness, but 40th in rate of change over the last decade; 11th among industrialized nations in the fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds who have graduated from high school; 16th in college completion rate; 22nd in broadband Internet access; 24th in life expectancy at birth; 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving degrees in science or engineering; 48th in quality of K-12 math and science education; and 29th in the number of mobile phones per 100 people.
“This is not a pretty picture, and it cannot be wished away,” said Vest. The study recommended a series of steps — some that President Obama has already initiated, some that still need Congress’s support — designed to increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education, to reinforce long-term basic research, and to create the right tax and policy incentives so we can develop, recruit and retain the best and brightest students, scientists and engineers in the world. The goal is to make America the premier place to innovate and invest in innovation to create high-paying jobs.
You’ll have to Google it, though. The report hasn’t received 1/100th of the attention given to Juan Williams’s remarks on Muslims.
A dysfunctional political system is one that knows the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally, let alone act on them, and one that devotes vastly more attention to cable TV preachers than to recommendations by its best scientists and engineers.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Falling Into the Chasm By PAUL KRUGMAN
Falling Into the Chasm
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25krugman.html?ref=opinion
This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm — but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.
If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — was more conservative than his election platform.
A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.
But the truth is that if the economic situation were better — if unemployment had fallen substantially over the past year — we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would, instead, be talking about modest Democratic losses, no more than is usual in midterm elections.
The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.
When Mr. Obama took office, he inherited an economy in dire straits — more dire, it seems, than he or his top economic advisers realized. They knew that America was in the midst of a severe financial crisis. But they don’t seem to have taken on board the lesson of history, which is that major financial crises are normally followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment.
If you look back now at the economic forecast originally used to justify the Obama economic plan, what’s striking is that forecast’s optimism about the economy’s ability to heal itself. Even without their plan, Obama economists predicted, the unemployment rate would peak at 9 percent, then fall rapidly. Fiscal stimulus was needed only to mitigate the worst — as an “insurance package against catastrophic failure,” as Lawrence Summers, later the administration’s top economist, reportedly said in a memo to the president-elect.
But economies that have experienced a severe financial crisis generally don’t heal quickly. From the Panic of 1893, to the Swedish crisis of 1992, to Japan’s lost decade, financial crises have consistently been followed by long periods of economic distress. And that has been true even when, as in the case of Sweden, the government moved quickly and decisively to fix the banking system.
To avoid this fate, America needed a much stronger program than what it actually got — a modest rise in federal spending that was barely enough to offset cutbacks at the state and local level. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: the inadequacy of the stimulus was obvious from the beginning.
Could the administration have gotten a bigger stimulus through Congress? Even if it couldn’t, would it have been better off making the case for a bigger plan, rather than pretending that what it got was just right? We’ll never know.
What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.
The tragedy here is that if voters do turn on Democrats, they will in effect be voting to make things even worse.
The resurgent Republicans have learned nothing from the economic crisis, except that doing everything they can to undermine Mr. Obama is a winning political strategy. Tax cuts and deregulation are still the alpha and omega of their economic vision.
And if they take one or both houses of Congress, complete policy paralysis — which will mean, among other things, a cutoff of desperately needed aid to the unemployed and a freeze on further help for state and local governments — is a given. The only question is whether we’ll have political chaos as well, with Republicans’ shutting down the government at some point over the next two years. And the odds are that we will.
Is there any hope for a better outcome? Maybe, just maybe, voters will have second thoughts about handing power back to the people who got us into this mess, and a weaker-than-expected Republican showing at the polls will give Mr. Obama a second chance to turn the economy around.
But right now it looks as if the too-cautious attempt to jump across that economic chasm has fallen short — and we’re about to hit rock bottom.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 24, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/opinion/25krugman.html?ref=opinion
This is what happens when you need to leap over an economic chasm — but either can’t or won’t jump far enough, so that you only get part of the way across.
If Democrats do as badly as expected in next week’s elections, pundits will rush to interpret the results as a referendum on ideology. President Obama moved too far to the left, most will say, even though his actual program — a health care plan very similar to past Republican proposals, a fiscal stimulus that consisted mainly of tax cuts, help for the unemployed and aid to hard-pressed states — was more conservative than his election platform.
A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.
But the truth is that if the economic situation were better — if unemployment had fallen substantially over the past year — we wouldn’t be having this discussion. We would, instead, be talking about modest Democratic losses, no more than is usual in midterm elections.
The real story of this election, then, is that of an economic policy that failed to deliver. Why? Because it was greatly inadequate to the task.
When Mr. Obama took office, he inherited an economy in dire straits — more dire, it seems, than he or his top economic advisers realized. They knew that America was in the midst of a severe financial crisis. But they don’t seem to have taken on board the lesson of history, which is that major financial crises are normally followed by a protracted period of very high unemployment.
If you look back now at the economic forecast originally used to justify the Obama economic plan, what’s striking is that forecast’s optimism about the economy’s ability to heal itself. Even without their plan, Obama economists predicted, the unemployment rate would peak at 9 percent, then fall rapidly. Fiscal stimulus was needed only to mitigate the worst — as an “insurance package against catastrophic failure,” as Lawrence Summers, later the administration’s top economist, reportedly said in a memo to the president-elect.
But economies that have experienced a severe financial crisis generally don’t heal quickly. From the Panic of 1893, to the Swedish crisis of 1992, to Japan’s lost decade, financial crises have consistently been followed by long periods of economic distress. And that has been true even when, as in the case of Sweden, the government moved quickly and decisively to fix the banking system.
To avoid this fate, America needed a much stronger program than what it actually got — a modest rise in federal spending that was barely enough to offset cutbacks at the state and local level. This isn’t 20-20 hindsight: the inadequacy of the stimulus was obvious from the beginning.
Could the administration have gotten a bigger stimulus through Congress? Even if it couldn’t, would it have been better off making the case for a bigger plan, rather than pretending that what it got was just right? We’ll never know.
What we do know is that the inadequacy of the stimulus has been a political catastrophe. Yes, things are better than they would have been without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: the unemployment rate would probably be close to 12 percent right now if the administration hadn’t passed its plan. But voters respond to facts, not counterfactuals, and the perception is that the administration’s policies have failed.
The tragedy here is that if voters do turn on Democrats, they will in effect be voting to make things even worse.
The resurgent Republicans have learned nothing from the economic crisis, except that doing everything they can to undermine Mr. Obama is a winning political strategy. Tax cuts and deregulation are still the alpha and omega of their economic vision.
And if they take one or both houses of Congress, complete policy paralysis — which will mean, among other things, a cutoff of desperately needed aid to the unemployed and a freeze on further help for state and local governments — is a given. The only question is whether we’ll have political chaos as well, with Republicans’ shutting down the government at some point over the next two years. And the odds are that we will.
Is there any hope for a better outcome? Maybe, just maybe, voters will have second thoughts about handing power back to the people who got us into this mess, and a weaker-than-expected Republican showing at the polls will give Mr. Obama a second chance to turn the economy around.
But right now it looks as if the too-cautious attempt to jump across that economic chasm has fallen short — and we’re about to hit rock bottom.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Chicago Sun Times Editorial: Beef up donor disclosure laws
Chicago Sun Times Editorial: Beef up donor disclosure laws
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
October 22, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2824140,CST-EDT-edit22b.article
Self-government works only when honest debate is not derailed by anonymous special interests.
But the U.S. Supreme Court set the stage for just such pernicious influence with its Citizens vs. United ruling in January, which followed an earlier weakening of disclosure laws by the Federal Election Commission.
Corporations or other special interests -- even foreign ones -- now can secretly funnel money through nonprofit groups to defeat politicians they don't like. And it's already happening throughout government. As Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown pointed out Thursday, the Republican Governors Association doesn't say where it got the $5.4 million it gave to gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady's campaign.
When Virginia Thomas, wife of the Supreme Court justice, put herself in the news this week by calling Anita Hill, it was pointed out that her nonprofit group, Liberty Central, formed to opposed President Obama and congressional Democrats, gets funding from undisclosed donors who in theory could then argue cases in front of her husband.
This fall, Craig Holman of Public Citizen says, outside money -- not raised directly by candidates or political parties -- is up 90 percent over 2008, mostly from unidentified sources. In 2004 and 2006, big donors were 100 percent identified, but that's expected to drop to about 10 percent this year, he said.
"Someone is buying the election, and we don't know who," he said.
When Congress comes back into session after Nov. 2, strengthening disclosure laws should be a priority.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
October 22, 2010
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2824140,CST-EDT-edit22b.article
Self-government works only when honest debate is not derailed by anonymous special interests.
But the U.S. Supreme Court set the stage for just such pernicious influence with its Citizens vs. United ruling in January, which followed an earlier weakening of disclosure laws by the Federal Election Commission.
Corporations or other special interests -- even foreign ones -- now can secretly funnel money through nonprofit groups to defeat politicians they don't like. And it's already happening throughout government. As Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown pointed out Thursday, the Republican Governors Association doesn't say where it got the $5.4 million it gave to gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady's campaign.
When Virginia Thomas, wife of the Supreme Court justice, put herself in the news this week by calling Anita Hill, it was pointed out that her nonprofit group, Liberty Central, formed to opposed President Obama and congressional Democrats, gets funding from undisclosed donors who in theory could then argue cases in front of her husband.
This fall, Craig Holman of Public Citizen says, outside money -- not raised directly by candidates or political parties -- is up 90 percent over 2008, mostly from unidentified sources. In 2004 and 2006, big donors were 100 percent identified, but that's expected to drop to about 10 percent this year, he said.
"Someone is buying the election, and we don't know who," he said.
When Congress comes back into session after Nov. 2, strengthening disclosure laws should be a priority.
The annotated Bill Brady --A line-by-line look at the GOP candidate's analysis of Medicaid reform
The annotated Bill Brady --A line-by-line look at the GOP candidate's analysis of Medicaid reform
By Eric Zorn
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Friday, October 22, 2010
There's been a lot of talk in the race for governor about the staggering costs of Medicaid and what needs to be done to get those costs under control.
Since most of us aren't on Medicaid and may not follow the issue as closely as we should, here's an annotated version of GOP candidate Bill Brady's response when he was asked during Sunday's gubernatorial debate to name "one specific program" he'd cut from the state budget if elected.
Brady: Well, the Medicaid program under Gov. (Pat) Quinn allows people like Gov. Quinn to walk in and receive an eligibility card. We don't verify eligibility in the Medicaid program.
This is false. Applicants for Medicaid, the combined federal/state program that provides health care to low-income and disabled people, are screened to see if their income is low enough for them to qualify. They must present a recent pay stub or other evidence to establish eligibility. And the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services "checks federal data for income sources, such as Social Security and unemployment compensation," according to the agency.
There is, however, legitimate concern that screening is not thorough enough. Democrats have resisted Republican efforts to ask for two pay stubs.
Brady: In fact, (Quinn) doesn't even have a reaffirmation program after one year.
"Eligibility must be reviewed at least annually" except when it comes to children, said a Healthcare and Family Services spokesman. "For most covered persons, this requires that income be documented again." (for more on the eligibility & renewal issues, click here)
Brady: The lack of competence in this administration is squandering tax dollars that shouldn't be squandered.
About one in five Illinois residents — an estimated 2.6 million people — are enrolled in Medicaid. That's about double what it was 10 years ago. But the increase — fueled by expansion of eligibility, the rising cost of health care and private insurance and two recessions — is similar to increases in other states (slightly smaller last year, actually) and in line with national trends.
Illinois has budgeted $15.2 billion this fiscal year for Medicaid — $8.4 billion of which will come from the federal government. A huge expense, yes, but according to the most recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, our cost is only 4 percent higher per enrollee than the national average.
Is there fraud in the Medicaid program? No one denies it. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has estimated that 10.5 percent of Medicaid payments are improper. Three new state laws — introduced by Republican legislators and signed June 25, 2010, by Quinn — attacked that problem in part by increasing transparency in payments and authorizing outside audits.
Brady: In addition to that, the Medicaid program could be further enhanced by providing managed care. We could save over $2 (billion) to $3 billion by providing access to quality care at an earlier stage.
Illinois is behind most other states in moving Medicaid patients into HMO-style care plans. Resistance to the idea has been bipartisan and dates back more than 10 years, according to Republican state Rep. Patricia Bellock, who chairs the House committee on Medicaid and was on the 2009 joint legislative committee on Medicaid reform.
Bellock credits former state Rep. Julie Hamos (right), whom Quinn appointed in April to head Healthcare and Family Services, with working quickly to expand the managed care program under Medicaid that is now voluntary and has an enrollment of about 190,000.
Last month, Hamos announced an expansion of managed care to nearly 40,000 seniors and adults with disabilities — among the most expensive patients in the Medicaid system — that she estimates will save $200 million over five years.
That projection isn't guaranteed. A 2009 insurance industry analysis of 24 economic studies of Medicaid managed care programs nationwide (download the report .pdf) found that "savings varied widely — from half of 1 percent to 20 percent."
Brady: Gov. Quinn's program has failed to give access to the Medicaid recipients that actually deserve it. So this program needs to be reformed.
The state's "financial disarray has caused medical professionals to leave the program and has resulted in access problems for the very patients the program is designed to help," explained Brady's spokeswoman Patty Schuh on Thursday.
A Healthcare and Family Services spokesman responded that low reimbursement rates are driving health care providers from the system, and that problem will only get worse if funding is slashed for Medicaid.
Brady: (Quinn) has failed to deal with it.
No. This answer suggests Brady has failed to understand it.
---
More -- here is the Brady campaign's full response to my queries Thurdsay:
As Governor, Bill Brady will focus on preserving the Medicaid program for those it is designed to serve – our most poor and vulnerable citizens. The current program is growing at an unsustainable rate of 8% a year. The financial disarray has caused medical professionals to leave the program and has resulted in access problems for the very patients the program is designed to help.
At $10.6 billion, Medicaid is the state’s largest program and efficiencies and savings must be realized in this program.
Managed Care: Illinois is way behind the national trend in our use of managed care in the Medicaid program. The state has done little to move to risk-based managed care. Quinn’s own Taxpayer Action Board report cited the ability of managed care to be “a substantial cost saver” in Medicaid. Quinn has recently begun a pilot managed care program. At this point in our financial crisis, Illinois needs more than pilot programs. Expert studies in recent years – including the Lewin Report – have indicated savings of at least $1 billion. An audit remains necessary in Illinois to determine the best way to proceed and determine if the state is properly using its Primary Care Case Management model or how it should be changed, determine the extended ineligible individuals are enrolled in Medicaid and determine the extent to which the state is paying is paying for services that aren’t covered or paying in excess for other care
Presumptive Eligibility: This is the practice of presuming that a Medicaid applicant is eligible for services at the point of contact (ex., emergency room, doctor’s office, clinic) and up until the time the application is reviewed by the Department.
Billing staff will ask if you have insurance. If you say no, they will ask if you are on Medicaid. If you say no, they can then give you an application to apply for Medicaid and treat you at that time. Medicaid will then pay for those services and any others you receive until the time the State determines that you are not eligible for Medicaid.
If a person receives Medicaid services during the time period they are “presumed eligible”, and are later found to be ineligible after their application is reviewed, the state still pays for the cost of services obtained during the period presumptive eligibility.
Passive Redetermination: This is the practice of re-upping Medicaid eligibility for an enrollee for another year without hearing from the enrollee themselves or without verifying that they are still eligible for the program. Once a person is on Medicaid, they are supposed to have their eligibility status re-determined at least once a year in order to make sure that their economic status is such that they are still eligible.
A recent Auditor General’s report (.pdf link) found that the Department of Healthcare and Family Services will extend eligibility if the individual did not respond to inquiries from the Department about whether their economic status has changed. Rather than actively determining eligibility, the Blagojevich Quinn Administrations have gone to passive redetermination.
One Pay Stub Income Determination – To further exacerbate the problem, Medicaid’s process for determining income verification is lax. Currently, a Medicaid applicant must only present one pay stub when they apply for Medicaid. That policy was put into place by the Blagojevich/Quinn Administration. The pay stub is then extrapolated over a year to determine the applicant’s annual income for purposes of determining Medicaid eligibility. This process is ripe for abuse. Applicants with varying pay checks need only bring in one of their smaller paychecks and they can get enrolled in Medicaid for one year. Stricter income verification standards must be applied.
Healthcare and Family Services responds:
HFS through its Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts investigations into allegations of client-based fraud or abuse. OIG’s responsibility is to provide professional investigative services and support to the HFS and the Illinois Departments of Human Services (DHS) in an effort to prevent, identify, investigate and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in all programs administered by these Departments. OIG attempts to promptly investigate any person or entity suspected of fraud, waste or abuse and vigorously pursue criminal prosecution (if warranted) and recovery of overpayments. In order to effectively meet its mission, OIG performs several types of investigations in addition to existing programs designed to prevent fraudulent activities.
Specifically, Client Eligibility Investigations look at allegations of clients that misrepresent certain eligibility factors such as employment, family composition, assets and residence. Client Medical Card Misuse Investigations look at clients that are using a medical card improperly or when a medical card is being used without the client’s knowledge. Lastly, OIG operates the Recipient Restriction Program when eligible clients still misuse the Medical Assistance Program. Clients who develop a history of medical services which indicate abuse are reviewed by OIG staff and Medical Doctors, who serve as consultants to OIG, and restricted to a primary care physician, pharmacy or clinic for 12 to 24 months.
Investigations that demonstrate that a client’s conduct is criminal in nature are presented to law enforcement (State’s Attorneys, Attorney’s General Office, or the U. S. Attorney) for criminal prosecution. If a case is accepted for prosecution, OIG works with law enforcement to gather evidence that will result in a conviction, if appropriate. With any criminal disposition, restitution is sought to recover all monies due back to the state.
My analysis:
The statement from Brady's campaign all but concedes Brady was wrong or lying when he said anyone who walks in can get a Medicaid card and that Quinn hasn't done anything on the issue (elsewhere Brady has seemed ignorant of the fact that we have been expanding managed care under Medicaid). The statement also mischaracterizes the Auditor General's report and, according to HFS, gets wrong the issue of renewal and fraudulent service.
By Eric Zorn
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Friday, October 22, 2010
There's been a lot of talk in the race for governor about the staggering costs of Medicaid and what needs to be done to get those costs under control.
Since most of us aren't on Medicaid and may not follow the issue as closely as we should, here's an annotated version of GOP candidate Bill Brady's response when he was asked during Sunday's gubernatorial debate to name "one specific program" he'd cut from the state budget if elected.
Brady: Well, the Medicaid program under Gov. (Pat) Quinn allows people like Gov. Quinn to walk in and receive an eligibility card. We don't verify eligibility in the Medicaid program.
This is false. Applicants for Medicaid, the combined federal/state program that provides health care to low-income and disabled people, are screened to see if their income is low enough for them to qualify. They must present a recent pay stub or other evidence to establish eligibility. And the state Department of Healthcare and Family Services "checks federal data for income sources, such as Social Security and unemployment compensation," according to the agency.
There is, however, legitimate concern that screening is not thorough enough. Democrats have resisted Republican efforts to ask for two pay stubs.
Brady: In fact, (Quinn) doesn't even have a reaffirmation program after one year.
"Eligibility must be reviewed at least annually" except when it comes to children, said a Healthcare and Family Services spokesman. "For most covered persons, this requires that income be documented again." (for more on the eligibility & renewal issues, click here)
Brady: The lack of competence in this administration is squandering tax dollars that shouldn't be squandered.
About one in five Illinois residents — an estimated 2.6 million people — are enrolled in Medicaid. That's about double what it was 10 years ago. But the increase — fueled by expansion of eligibility, the rising cost of health care and private insurance and two recessions — is similar to increases in other states (slightly smaller last year, actually) and in line with national trends.
Illinois has budgeted $15.2 billion this fiscal year for Medicaid — $8.4 billion of which will come from the federal government. A huge expense, yes, but according to the most recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation's Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, our cost is only 4 percent higher per enrollee than the national average.
Is there fraud in the Medicaid program? No one denies it. The U.S. Government Accountability Office has estimated that 10.5 percent of Medicaid payments are improper. Three new state laws — introduced by Republican legislators and signed June 25, 2010, by Quinn — attacked that problem in part by increasing transparency in payments and authorizing outside audits.
Brady: In addition to that, the Medicaid program could be further enhanced by providing managed care. We could save over $2 (billion) to $3 billion by providing access to quality care at an earlier stage.
Illinois is behind most other states in moving Medicaid patients into HMO-style care plans. Resistance to the idea has been bipartisan and dates back more than 10 years, according to Republican state Rep. Patricia Bellock, who chairs the House committee on Medicaid and was on the 2009 joint legislative committee on Medicaid reform.
Bellock credits former state Rep. Julie Hamos (right), whom Quinn appointed in April to head Healthcare and Family Services, with working quickly to expand the managed care program under Medicaid that is now voluntary and has an enrollment of about 190,000.
Last month, Hamos announced an expansion of managed care to nearly 40,000 seniors and adults with disabilities — among the most expensive patients in the Medicaid system — that she estimates will save $200 million over five years.
That projection isn't guaranteed. A 2009 insurance industry analysis of 24 economic studies of Medicaid managed care programs nationwide (download the report .pdf) found that "savings varied widely — from half of 1 percent to 20 percent."
Brady: Gov. Quinn's program has failed to give access to the Medicaid recipients that actually deserve it. So this program needs to be reformed.
The state's "financial disarray has caused medical professionals to leave the program and has resulted in access problems for the very patients the program is designed to help," explained Brady's spokeswoman Patty Schuh on Thursday.
A Healthcare and Family Services spokesman responded that low reimbursement rates are driving health care providers from the system, and that problem will only get worse if funding is slashed for Medicaid.
Brady: (Quinn) has failed to deal with it.
No. This answer suggests Brady has failed to understand it.
---
More -- here is the Brady campaign's full response to my queries Thurdsay:
As Governor, Bill Brady will focus on preserving the Medicaid program for those it is designed to serve – our most poor and vulnerable citizens. The current program is growing at an unsustainable rate of 8% a year. The financial disarray has caused medical professionals to leave the program and has resulted in access problems for the very patients the program is designed to help.
At $10.6 billion, Medicaid is the state’s largest program and efficiencies and savings must be realized in this program.
Managed Care: Illinois is way behind the national trend in our use of managed care in the Medicaid program. The state has done little to move to risk-based managed care. Quinn’s own Taxpayer Action Board report cited the ability of managed care to be “a substantial cost saver” in Medicaid. Quinn has recently begun a pilot managed care program. At this point in our financial crisis, Illinois needs more than pilot programs. Expert studies in recent years – including the Lewin Report – have indicated savings of at least $1 billion. An audit remains necessary in Illinois to determine the best way to proceed and determine if the state is properly using its Primary Care Case Management model or how it should be changed, determine the extended ineligible individuals are enrolled in Medicaid and determine the extent to which the state is paying is paying for services that aren’t covered or paying in excess for other care
Presumptive Eligibility: This is the practice of presuming that a Medicaid applicant is eligible for services at the point of contact (ex., emergency room, doctor’s office, clinic) and up until the time the application is reviewed by the Department.
Billing staff will ask if you have insurance. If you say no, they will ask if you are on Medicaid. If you say no, they can then give you an application to apply for Medicaid and treat you at that time. Medicaid will then pay for those services and any others you receive until the time the State determines that you are not eligible for Medicaid.
If a person receives Medicaid services during the time period they are “presumed eligible”, and are later found to be ineligible after their application is reviewed, the state still pays for the cost of services obtained during the period presumptive eligibility.
Passive Redetermination: This is the practice of re-upping Medicaid eligibility for an enrollee for another year without hearing from the enrollee themselves or without verifying that they are still eligible for the program. Once a person is on Medicaid, they are supposed to have their eligibility status re-determined at least once a year in order to make sure that their economic status is such that they are still eligible.
A recent Auditor General’s report (.pdf link) found that the Department of Healthcare and Family Services will extend eligibility if the individual did not respond to inquiries from the Department about whether their economic status has changed. Rather than actively determining eligibility, the Blagojevich Quinn Administrations have gone to passive redetermination.
One Pay Stub Income Determination – To further exacerbate the problem, Medicaid’s process for determining income verification is lax. Currently, a Medicaid applicant must only present one pay stub when they apply for Medicaid. That policy was put into place by the Blagojevich/Quinn Administration. The pay stub is then extrapolated over a year to determine the applicant’s annual income for purposes of determining Medicaid eligibility. This process is ripe for abuse. Applicants with varying pay checks need only bring in one of their smaller paychecks and they can get enrolled in Medicaid for one year. Stricter income verification standards must be applied.
Healthcare and Family Services responds:
HFS through its Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts investigations into allegations of client-based fraud or abuse. OIG’s responsibility is to provide professional investigative services and support to the HFS and the Illinois Departments of Human Services (DHS) in an effort to prevent, identify, investigate and eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in all programs administered by these Departments. OIG attempts to promptly investigate any person or entity suspected of fraud, waste or abuse and vigorously pursue criminal prosecution (if warranted) and recovery of overpayments. In order to effectively meet its mission, OIG performs several types of investigations in addition to existing programs designed to prevent fraudulent activities.
Specifically, Client Eligibility Investigations look at allegations of clients that misrepresent certain eligibility factors such as employment, family composition, assets and residence. Client Medical Card Misuse Investigations look at clients that are using a medical card improperly or when a medical card is being used without the client’s knowledge. Lastly, OIG operates the Recipient Restriction Program when eligible clients still misuse the Medical Assistance Program. Clients who develop a history of medical services which indicate abuse are reviewed by OIG staff and Medical Doctors, who serve as consultants to OIG, and restricted to a primary care physician, pharmacy or clinic for 12 to 24 months.
Investigations that demonstrate that a client’s conduct is criminal in nature are presented to law enforcement (State’s Attorneys, Attorney’s General Office, or the U. S. Attorney) for criminal prosecution. If a case is accepted for prosecution, OIG works with law enforcement to gather evidence that will result in a conviction, if appropriate. With any criminal disposition, restitution is sought to recover all monies due back to the state.
My analysis:
The statement from Brady's campaign all but concedes Brady was wrong or lying when he said anyone who walks in can get a Medicaid card and that Quinn hasn't done anything on the issue (elsewhere Brady has seemed ignorant of the fact that we have been expanding managed care under Medicaid). The statement also mischaracterizes the Auditor General's report and, according to HFS, gets wrong the issue of renewal and fraudulent service.
Lillian McEwen breaks her 19-year silence about Justice Clarence Thomas
Lillian McEwen breaks her 19-year silence about Justice Clarence Thomas
By Michael A. Fletcher
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 22, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102106645.html?hpid=topnews
For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent -- a part of history, yet absent from it.
When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill's allegations.
Lillian McEwen was that woman.
At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a "professional relationship" with Thomas.
Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work -- and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn't.
Over the years, reporters and biographers approached her eager to know more about Thomas from women who knew him well. But McEwen remained mum. She said she saw "nothing good" coming out of talking to reporters about Thomas, whom she said she still occasionally met. She did not want to do anything to harm her career, she added. Plus, she realized, "I don't look good in this."
Today, McEwen is 65 and retired from a successful career as a prosecutor, law professor and administrative law judge for federal agencies. She has been twice married and twice divorced, and has a 32-year-old daughter. She lives in a comfortable townhouse in Southwest Washington.
And she is silent no more.
She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice's wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill's office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology -- a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.
"I have nothing to be afraid of," she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.
To McEwen, Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.
"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen said matter-of-factly. "It was a hobby of his."
McEwen's connection to Thomas was strictly personal. She had even disclosed that relationship to Biden, who had been her boss years earlier.
In her Senate testimony, Hill, who worked with Thomas at two federal agencies, said that Thomas would make sexual comments to her at work, including references to scenes in hard-core pornographic films.
"If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it," Thomas responded to the committee.
McEwen scoffs softly when asked about Thomas's indignation, which has barely cooled in the 19 years since the hearings. In his vivid 2007 memoir, the justice calls Hill a tool of liberal activists outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African American should believe.
McEwen's memoir describes her own "dysfunctional" family in the District and, ultimately, a long legal career. She charts how she developed an "inner self" to escape the chaos of her childhood. Her story also includes explicit details of her relationship with Thomas, which she said included a freewheeling sex life.
Given that history, she said Hill's long-ago description of Thomas's behavior resonated with her.
"He was obsessed with porn," she said of Thomas, who is now 63. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting."
McEwen added that she had no problem with Thomas's interests, although she found pornography to be "boring."
According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.
Presented with some of McEwen's assertions, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Thomas was unavailable for comment.
However bizarre they may seem, McEwen's recollections resemble accounts shared by other women that swirled around the Thomas confirmation.
Angela Wright, who in 1984 worked as public affairs director at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which polices sexual harassment claims -- during Thomas's long tenure as chairman, shared similar accounts with Senate investigators.
Once, when walking into an EEOC seminar with Thomas, he asked her, "What size are your breasts?" according to the transcript of her Senate interview.
Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter, who told investigators that Wright had become increasingly uneasy around Thomas because of his comments about her appearance.
But Wright also had problems that made committee Democrats nervous. She had been fired by Thomas, and previously by a member of Congress. She also had quit a third job in government, accusing her boss of incompetence and racism.
Concerned about Wright's credibility, Biden lifted a subpoena for her to testify at the hearing. Instead, transcripts of the interviews with Wright and her corroborator were simply entered into the record, drawing only modest press attention.
Another woman, Sukari Hardnett, who worked as a special assistant to Thomas in 1985 and 1986, wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female" by Thomas.
For his part, a parade of women who worked with Thomas defended him before the Judiciary Committee, calling it impossible that he would engage in the type of inappropriate behavior described by his accusers.
McEwen recalls writing Thomas a short note before the confirmation hearings, curious about what she should say if she were quizzed about their relationship. She said Thomas preferred that she would take "the same attitude of his first wife," who never talked publicly about their relationship.
In 2007, the Howard University Law School graduate retired and grew reflective on her life. Her career had included stints as an administrative law judge for both the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also had turns as a law professor and a private attorney -- all after her work as a federal prosecutor and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer.
She spends her days in her Southwest townhouse. She frequently meets up with friends for movies, golf and other outings. Regularly, she stops by the National Museum of the American Indian for lunch.
In her short leather jacket, ankle-high boots and leather cap, she looks younger than her age. And when she talks about Thomas, her tone is devoid of rancor. She sees him mainly as someone who occupied a chapter of her life.
Still, McEwen, a Democrat, acknowledges growing increasingly irritated with Thomas's conservative jurisprudence and his penchant for casting himself as a victim in the Hill controversy.
Thomas himself has obliquely referred to the McEwen both in his 2007 memoir and during his confirmation hearing.
In an exchange with Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who was then a Republican, he said there appeared to be tension between Hill and him "as a result of the complexion of the woman I dated and the woman I chose as my chief of staff." Both are light-skinned.
McEwen met Thomas in 1979, when both were among a tiny handful of young, black Capitol Hill staffers. A group of them would hold monthly meetings at neighborhood watering holes, and soon enough McEwen and Thomas had struck up a close friendship.
At the time, Thomas was married to his first wife and working for then-Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.). McEwen, meanwhile, had recently separated from her first husband.
Over time, she said, Thomas would come by her place for drinks. She said the relationship grew intimate after Thomas left his wife in 1981. She said they broke off their relationship in about 1986.
Through the years, McEwen said, she has remained reasonably friendly with Thomas. On two or three occasions, she said, she brought friends to his Supreme Court chambers where they sat for long conversations.
But now, she says, "I know Clarence would not be happy with me."
"I have no hostility toward him," McEwen said. "It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time. That's the problem that he has."
More from the Washington Post
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By Michael A. Fletcher
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 22, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102106645.html?hpid=topnews
For nearly two decades, Lillian McEwen has been silent -- a part of history, yet absent from it.
When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment during his explosive 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Thomas vehemently denied the allegations and his handlers cited his steady relationship with another woman in an effort to deflect Hill's allegations.
Lillian McEwen was that woman.
At the time, she was on good terms with Thomas. The former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel had dated him for years, even attending a March 1985 White House state dinner as his guest. She had worked on the Hill and was wary of entering the political cauldron of the hearings. She was never asked to testify, as then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who headed the committee, limited witnesses to women who had a "professional relationship" with Thomas.
Now, she says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work -- and that she could have added her voice to the others, but didn't.
Over the years, reporters and biographers approached her eager to know more about Thomas from women who knew him well. But McEwen remained mum. She said she saw "nothing good" coming out of talking to reporters about Thomas, whom she said she still occasionally met. She did not want to do anything to harm her career, she added. Plus, she realized, "I don't look good in this."
Today, McEwen is 65 and retired from a successful career as a prosecutor, law professor and administrative law judge for federal agencies. She has been twice married and twice divorced, and has a 32-year-old daughter. She lives in a comfortable townhouse in Southwest Washington.
And she is silent no more.
She has written a memoir, which she is now shopping to publishers. News broke that the justice's wife, Virginia Thomas, left a voice mail on Hill's office phone at Brandeis University, seeking an apology -- a request that Hill declined in a statement. After that, McEwen changed her mind and decided to talk about her relationship with Thomas.
"I have nothing to be afraid of," she said, adding that she hopes the attention stokes interest in her manuscript.
To McEwen, Hill's allegations that Thomas had pressed her for dates and made lurid sexual references rang familiar.
"He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners," McEwen said matter-of-factly. "It was a hobby of his."
McEwen's connection to Thomas was strictly personal. She had even disclosed that relationship to Biden, who had been her boss years earlier.
In her Senate testimony, Hill, who worked with Thomas at two federal agencies, said that Thomas would make sexual comments to her at work, including references to scenes in hard-core pornographic films.
"If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it," Thomas responded to the committee.
McEwen scoffs softly when asked about Thomas's indignation, which has barely cooled in the 19 years since the hearings. In his vivid 2007 memoir, the justice calls Hill a tool of liberal activists outraged because he did not fit their idea of what an African American should believe.
McEwen's memoir describes her own "dysfunctional" family in the District and, ultimately, a long legal career. She charts how she developed an "inner self" to escape the chaos of her childhood. Her story also includes explicit details of her relationship with Thomas, which she said included a freewheeling sex life.
Given that history, she said Hill's long-ago description of Thomas's behavior resonated with her.
"He was obsessed with porn," she said of Thomas, who is now 63. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting."
McEwen added that she had no problem with Thomas's interests, although she found pornography to be "boring."
According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.
Presented with some of McEwen's assertions, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said Thomas was unavailable for comment.
However bizarre they may seem, McEwen's recollections resemble accounts shared by other women that swirled around the Thomas confirmation.
Angela Wright, who in 1984 worked as public affairs director at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- which polices sexual harassment claims -- during Thomas's long tenure as chairman, shared similar accounts with Senate investigators.
Once, when walking into an EEOC seminar with Thomas, he asked her, "What size are your breasts?" according to the transcript of her Senate interview.
Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter, who told investigators that Wright had become increasingly uneasy around Thomas because of his comments about her appearance.
But Wright also had problems that made committee Democrats nervous. She had been fired by Thomas, and previously by a member of Congress. She also had quit a third job in government, accusing her boss of incompetence and racism.
Concerned about Wright's credibility, Biden lifted a subpoena for her to testify at the hearing. Instead, transcripts of the interviews with Wright and her corroborator were simply entered into the record, drawing only modest press attention.
Another woman, Sukari Hardnett, who worked as a special assistant to Thomas in 1985 and 1986, wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that "If you were young, black, female and reasonably attractive, you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female" by Thomas.
For his part, a parade of women who worked with Thomas defended him before the Judiciary Committee, calling it impossible that he would engage in the type of inappropriate behavior described by his accusers.
McEwen recalls writing Thomas a short note before the confirmation hearings, curious about what she should say if she were quizzed about their relationship. She said Thomas preferred that she would take "the same attitude of his first wife," who never talked publicly about their relationship.
In 2007, the Howard University Law School graduate retired and grew reflective on her life. Her career had included stints as an administrative law judge for both the Social Security Administration and the Securities and Exchange Commission. She also had turns as a law professor and a private attorney -- all after her work as a federal prosecutor and Senate Judiciary Committee lawyer.
She spends her days in her Southwest townhouse. She frequently meets up with friends for movies, golf and other outings. Regularly, she stops by the National Museum of the American Indian for lunch.
In her short leather jacket, ankle-high boots and leather cap, she looks younger than her age. And when she talks about Thomas, her tone is devoid of rancor. She sees him mainly as someone who occupied a chapter of her life.
Still, McEwen, a Democrat, acknowledges growing increasingly irritated with Thomas's conservative jurisprudence and his penchant for casting himself as a victim in the Hill controversy.
Thomas himself has obliquely referred to the McEwen both in his 2007 memoir and during his confirmation hearing.
In an exchange with Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who was then a Republican, he said there appeared to be tension between Hill and him "as a result of the complexion of the woman I dated and the woman I chose as my chief of staff." Both are light-skinned.
McEwen met Thomas in 1979, when both were among a tiny handful of young, black Capitol Hill staffers. A group of them would hold monthly meetings at neighborhood watering holes, and soon enough McEwen and Thomas had struck up a close friendship.
At the time, Thomas was married to his first wife and working for then-Sen. John Danforth (R-Mo.). McEwen, meanwhile, had recently separated from her first husband.
Over time, she said, Thomas would come by her place for drinks. She said the relationship grew intimate after Thomas left his wife in 1981. She said they broke off their relationship in about 1986.
Through the years, McEwen said, she has remained reasonably friendly with Thomas. On two or three occasions, she said, she brought friends to his Supreme Court chambers where they sat for long conversations.
But now, she says, "I know Clarence would not be happy with me."
"I have no hostility toward him," McEwen said. "It is just that he has manufactured a different reality over time. That's the problem that he has."
More from the Washington Post
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Tea Party runs risk of losing steam
Tea Party runs risk of losing steam
By Edward Luce
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: October 21 2010 18:15 | Last updated: October 21 2010 18:15
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/157b3cd8-dd32-11df-9236-00144feabdc0.html
George Washington is often quoted as having told Thomas Jefferson that the point of the US Senate was to make tea drinkable.
Jefferson noted that he poured his tea into his saucer because it was too hot and “my throat is not made of brass”.
Washington is said to have seized on the remark to make a constitutional point, noting that “we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it”.
Such may be the fate of the Tea Party movement on November 3 – the morning after the US midterm elections. Assuming Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives, still an odds-on event, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, will want to know why an equivalent shift did not happen in the upper chamber.
The first thing he might be tempted to do is to wander into the offices of Jim DeMint, the firebrand conservative from South Carolina, who is the leader-in-waiting of the Tea Party caucus. Far from being triumphant, Mr DeMint might have some explaining to do. Mr McConnell – who, like most of the rest of the 41-strong Republican Senate caucus, has little regard for the South Carolina senator – might even enjoy his moment of revenge.
Yet it would be bittersweet. In order to win the Senate, Republicans need to take 10 of the 37 seats up for grabs, of which only 12 are competitive. One of the easiest would have been Delaware. But Mr DeMint and his allies helped put it beyond reach last month by backing the candidacy of Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party darling, over Mike Castle, a seasoned Republican who, polls say, would have waltzed to victory.
Just to make sure of the outcome, Ms O’Donnell provoked gasps of disbelief at a debate with her Democratic counterpart this week when she denied that the US constitution provided for separation of church and state. Considering that her candidacy is framed around fidelity to that parched document, her latest gaffe put the cherry on a very well-baked cake.
The loss of Delaware might well be the least surprising outcome. According to opinion polls, races are tightening in several other states where Tea Party figures have grabbed the Republican nomination but which ordinarily ought to have offered easy victories.
Take Kentucky, Mr McConnell’s home state, where Rand Paul, a libertarian, wrested the nomination from the Senate Republican leader’s anointed favourite – with the assistance of Mr DeMint; or Alaska, where Mr DeMint took the unusual step of helping to unseat an incumbent colleague, Lisa Murkowski, in favour of Joe Miller, a hard-core Tea partier.
In Kentucky, some polls now show Jack Conway, the Democratic candidate, ahead of Mr Rand, or within a few points. In a frivolous but apparently effective diversion, Mr Conway appears to have persuaded Kentuckians that Mr Rand’s youthful disdain for Christianity and, surely tongue-in-cheek, worship of the Aqua Buddha reflects ungodly traits in his character.
In Alaska, Ms Murkowski, who lost the Republican nomination, is now running neck-and-neck with Mr Miller as a “write-in candidate” in a three-way race – her name may shave a few points off since voters would have to spell it accurately.
Likewise, in spite of personifying a Washington insider, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, may well retain his seat in Nevada against Sharron Angle, another highly eccentric Tea Party figure. Until her nomination, Mr Reid’s defeat was all but assured. Indeed, of the celebrated Tea Party Senate candidates around the country, only Marco Rubio in Florida looks like a certain bet at this point.
All of which causes anguish among establishment Republicans. The electoral winds are blowing the Republicans’ way. But by picking some abysmal candidates, the party may have run itself aground in the Senate. In politics, ideology matters. But so, too, does character – particularly in statewide or national races.
Should Mr DeMint’s Tea Party protégés be responsible for a failure to capture the Senate, mainstream Republicans may well have found an argument to check their continued rise: they tend to lose to Democrats. Far from being a revolution, it would, in hindsight, look more like an internal Republican wave that had crested before the election – or as a cup of hot tea that spilt prematurely into the saucer.
By Edward Luce
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010
Published: October 21 2010 18:15 | Last updated: October 21 2010 18:15
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/157b3cd8-dd32-11df-9236-00144feabdc0.html
George Washington is often quoted as having told Thomas Jefferson that the point of the US Senate was to make tea drinkable.
Jefferson noted that he poured his tea into his saucer because it was too hot and “my throat is not made of brass”.
Washington is said to have seized on the remark to make a constitutional point, noting that “we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it”.
Such may be the fate of the Tea Party movement on November 3 – the morning after the US midterm elections. Assuming Republicans gain control of the House of Representatives, still an odds-on event, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, will want to know why an equivalent shift did not happen in the upper chamber.
The first thing he might be tempted to do is to wander into the offices of Jim DeMint, the firebrand conservative from South Carolina, who is the leader-in-waiting of the Tea Party caucus. Far from being triumphant, Mr DeMint might have some explaining to do. Mr McConnell – who, like most of the rest of the 41-strong Republican Senate caucus, has little regard for the South Carolina senator – might even enjoy his moment of revenge.
Yet it would be bittersweet. In order to win the Senate, Republicans need to take 10 of the 37 seats up for grabs, of which only 12 are competitive. One of the easiest would have been Delaware. But Mr DeMint and his allies helped put it beyond reach last month by backing the candidacy of Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party darling, over Mike Castle, a seasoned Republican who, polls say, would have waltzed to victory.
Just to make sure of the outcome, Ms O’Donnell provoked gasps of disbelief at a debate with her Democratic counterpart this week when she denied that the US constitution provided for separation of church and state. Considering that her candidacy is framed around fidelity to that parched document, her latest gaffe put the cherry on a very well-baked cake.
The loss of Delaware might well be the least surprising outcome. According to opinion polls, races are tightening in several other states where Tea Party figures have grabbed the Republican nomination but which ordinarily ought to have offered easy victories.
Take Kentucky, Mr McConnell’s home state, where Rand Paul, a libertarian, wrested the nomination from the Senate Republican leader’s anointed favourite – with the assistance of Mr DeMint; or Alaska, where Mr DeMint took the unusual step of helping to unseat an incumbent colleague, Lisa Murkowski, in favour of Joe Miller, a hard-core Tea partier.
In Kentucky, some polls now show Jack Conway, the Democratic candidate, ahead of Mr Rand, or within a few points. In a frivolous but apparently effective diversion, Mr Conway appears to have persuaded Kentuckians that Mr Rand’s youthful disdain for Christianity and, surely tongue-in-cheek, worship of the Aqua Buddha reflects ungodly traits in his character.
In Alaska, Ms Murkowski, who lost the Republican nomination, is now running neck-and-neck with Mr Miller as a “write-in candidate” in a three-way race – her name may shave a few points off since voters would have to spell it accurately.
Likewise, in spite of personifying a Washington insider, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, may well retain his seat in Nevada against Sharron Angle, another highly eccentric Tea Party figure. Until her nomination, Mr Reid’s defeat was all but assured. Indeed, of the celebrated Tea Party Senate candidates around the country, only Marco Rubio in Florida looks like a certain bet at this point.
All of which causes anguish among establishment Republicans. The electoral winds are blowing the Republicans’ way. But by picking some abysmal candidates, the party may have run itself aground in the Senate. In politics, ideology matters. But so, too, does character – particularly in statewide or national races.
Should Mr DeMint’s Tea Party protégés be responsible for a failure to capture the Senate, mainstream Republicans may well have found an argument to check their continued rise: they tend to lose to Democrats. Far from being a revolution, it would, in hindsight, look more like an internal Republican wave that had crested before the election – or as a cup of hot tea that spilt prematurely into the saucer.
Average College Debt Rose to $24,000 in 2009
Average College Debt Rose to $24,000 in 2009
By TAMAR LEWIN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/education/22debt.html?_r=1&hpw
College seniors who graduated in 2009 had an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6 percent from 2008, according to an annual report from the Project on Student Debt.
The increase is similar to those of the past four years, the report said, despite the recession, probably because members of the class of 2009 took out most of their debt before the economic downturn began.
“This consistent growth in debt over the last few years really adds up,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, the research and advocacy group that operates the debt project. “It’s important to remember that the experts all agree that if you’re going to borrow, you should take out federal loans first, because federal student loans come with far more repayment options and borrower protections than other types of loans.”
In troubled economic times, Ms. Asher said, the income-based repayment and unemployment deferment available on federal loans are especially important.
Using a different data set, Sandy Baum, an economics professor who has analyzed debt for the College Board, found similar average debt loads, and also stressed the benefits of federal loans over private ones.
Many of the high-debt states are in the Northeast, while the low-debt states are clustered largely in the West.
Paying back student loans is likely to be especially difficult for recent graduates, the report said, because the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 20 to 24 was 8.7 percent in 2009 — the highest annual rate on record and a substantial rise from 5.8 percent in 2008.
“The unemployment rate is higher than ever for everyone, including people who didn’t go to college, and obviously that’s a huge concern,” Dr. Baum said.
The student debt project’s averages are based on voluntary reports from about 1,000 public and private nonprofit four-year colleges. For-profit colleges were not included, because very few report their student debt data, but surveys by the Department of Education indicated that generally, their graduates borrowed more than those who attended public or private nonprofit colleges. The unemployment figures are based on unpublished data from the federal government’s Current Population Survey.
By TAMAR LEWIN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/education/22debt.html?_r=1&hpw
College seniors who graduated in 2009 had an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6 percent from 2008, according to an annual report from the Project on Student Debt.
The increase is similar to those of the past four years, the report said, despite the recession, probably because members of the class of 2009 took out most of their debt before the economic downturn began.
“This consistent growth in debt over the last few years really adds up,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, the research and advocacy group that operates the debt project. “It’s important to remember that the experts all agree that if you’re going to borrow, you should take out federal loans first, because federal student loans come with far more repayment options and borrower protections than other types of loans.”
In troubled economic times, Ms. Asher said, the income-based repayment and unemployment deferment available on federal loans are especially important.
Using a different data set, Sandy Baum, an economics professor who has analyzed debt for the College Board, found similar average debt loads, and also stressed the benefits of federal loans over private ones.
Many of the high-debt states are in the Northeast, while the low-debt states are clustered largely in the West.
Paying back student loans is likely to be especially difficult for recent graduates, the report said, because the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 20 to 24 was 8.7 percent in 2009 — the highest annual rate on record and a substantial rise from 5.8 percent in 2008.
“The unemployment rate is higher than ever for everyone, including people who didn’t go to college, and obviously that’s a huge concern,” Dr. Baum said.
The student debt project’s averages are based on voluntary reports from about 1,000 public and private nonprofit four-year colleges. For-profit colleges were not included, because very few report their student debt data, but surveys by the Department of Education indicated that generally, their graduates borrowed more than those who attended public or private nonprofit colleges. The unemployment figures are based on unpublished data from the federal government’s Current Population Survey.
Calling John Roberts
Calling John Roberts
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Copyright by The New York Times
October 21, 2010, 9:44 PM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/calling-john-roberts/
As 1997 wound down, Bill Clinton was in the White House, the Republicans controlled the Senate, and the Clinton administration’s judicial nominees were going nowhere. Nearly one in 10 federal judgeships was vacant, a total of 82 vacancies, 26 of which had gone unfilled for more than 18 months. In Democratic hands back in 1994, the Senate had confirmed 101 nominees. In 1997, under the Republicans, the number dropped to 36.
On New Year’s Eve, a major public figure stepped into this gridlock. He was a well-known Republican, and although he had set aside overt partisanship, his conservative credentials remained impeccable. He had given no one a reason to think he was favorably disposed toward the incumbent administration or its judicial nominees. Yet there he was, availing himself of a year-end platform to criticize the Senate and to warn that “vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely without eroding the quality of justice.”
His name was William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States, using his annual year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary to declare that with “too few judges and too much work,” the judicial system was imperiled by the Senate’s inaction. “The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee,” he said, “but after the necessary time for inquiry, it should vote him up or vote him down to give the president another chance at filling the vacancy.”
On a traditionally slow news day, Chief Justice Rehnquist’s critique of the Senate got Page 1 attention. More than a few Times readers drinking their late-morning coffee probably did a double take at the headline: “Senate Imperils Judicial System, Rehnquist Says.” In a modest way, it was a Nixon-in-China moment.
Soon it will be time for the office of the current chief justice to start preparing the 2010 year-end report. I am eager to see whether Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will take a page from his mentor and criticize his fellow Republicans — who are functionally even if not formally in charge of the United States Senate — for their role in creating the current judicial vacancy crisis.
The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-making arm of the federal courts, which the chief justice heads, has identified 49 of the current 105 vacancies as “judicial emergencies.” This is a nonpolitical designation, based on a formula that takes into account the judicial workload on a particular court and the length of time the position has gone unfilled. The number of “emergencies” has doubled since the start of the Obama administration.
Part of the responsibility for that statistic falls on the president, who has been slower with judicial nominations than either of his two predecessors — neither of whom, of course, had two Supreme Court vacancies to contend with during his first two years in office. (There were no Supreme Court vacancies during President George W. Bush’s entire first term.) The 47 nominations now pending represent fewer than half the existing vacancies. Only last month did the president make a nomination to fill one of two empty seats on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguably the second most important federal court in the country. The Sept. 29 nomination of Caitlin J. Halligan, former solicitor general of New York State, came, amazingly enough, on the fifth anniversary of the vacancy that was created when the seat’s former occupant, John Roberts, received his promotion.
Part of the responsibility also no doubt falls on the Senate’s Democratic leadership, which has not made judicial confirmations a top priority. But given the Republicans’ ever-present threat of filibusters and their use of mysterious “holds” on nominees, it’s hard to blame the Democrats. After all, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats have had an affirmative legislative agenda to attend to.
So there’s no doubt that the Senate Republicans deserve the lion’s share of the blame for refusing to permit even uncontroversial judicial nominees to get a floor vote. The Senate ended its pre-election session last month leaving 23 nominees hanging, including 16 who had had hearings and received unanimous favorable votes in the Judiciary Committee. In other words, sheer obstructionism, rather than legitimate disputes over judicial philosophy, is the source of the problem, and here is where Chief Justice Roberts comes in — or can, if he cares to.
Unlike the president’s State of the Union message, which is required by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the annual report on the state of the judiciary is a modern tradition. It was begun just 40 years ago by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and carried on with enthusiasm by Chief Justice Rehnquist, who often used it for significant pronouncements on judicial policy.
Chief Justice Roberts has had a rather problematic relationship to the tradition during his five years in office. The focus of his first report, on Dec. 31, 2005, was judicial pay. Noting that federal judges’ earning power had eroded by 24 percent since 1969, he said that Congress’s failure to raise judicial salaries presented a “direct threat to judicial independence.” While in my view he was completely right on the merits of the issue, some members of Congress resented what they viewed as hyperbole from the new chief justice, and the public responded with a shrug. The much-deserved pay raise has yet to happen.
Then last year, Chief Justice Roberts went minimalist, so much so that it left many people scratching their heads. Here was his report, in full, minus the statistical appendix:
Chief Justice Warren Burger began the tradition of a yearly report on the federal judiciary in 1970, in remarks he presented to the American Bar Association. He instituted that practice to discuss the problems that federal courts face in administering justice. In the past few years, I have adhered to the tradition that Chief Justice Burger initiated and have provided my perspective on the most critical needs of the judiciary. Many of those needs remain to be addressed. This year, however, when the political branches are faced with so many difficult issues, and when so many of our fellow citizens have been touched by hardship, the public might welcome a year-end report limited to what is essential: The courts are operating soundly, and the nation’s dedicated federal judges are conscientiously discharging their duties. I am privileged and honored to be in a position to thank the judges and court staff throughout the land for their devoted service to the cause of justice.
Best wishes in the New Year.
Tony Mauro, a longtime observer of the court, responded on The Blog of Legal Times, “Imagine if the president, instead of giving a full State of the Union address, sent a note to Congress telling the legislative branch that life is good, all is O.K., and let’s catch up next year.”
I’m willing to assume that last year’s baffling report was the result of judicial modesty rather than an idea deficit. In any event, I look forward to waking up on New Year’s Day to this headline or its reasonable equivalent: “Senate Imperils Judicial System, Roberts Says.”
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Copyright by The New York Times
October 21, 2010, 9:44 PM
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/calling-john-roberts/
As 1997 wound down, Bill Clinton was in the White House, the Republicans controlled the Senate, and the Clinton administration’s judicial nominees were going nowhere. Nearly one in 10 federal judgeships was vacant, a total of 82 vacancies, 26 of which had gone unfilled for more than 18 months. In Democratic hands back in 1994, the Senate had confirmed 101 nominees. In 1997, under the Republicans, the number dropped to 36.
On New Year’s Eve, a major public figure stepped into this gridlock. He was a well-known Republican, and although he had set aside overt partisanship, his conservative credentials remained impeccable. He had given no one a reason to think he was favorably disposed toward the incumbent administration or its judicial nominees. Yet there he was, availing himself of a year-end platform to criticize the Senate and to warn that “vacancies cannot remain at such high levels indefinitely without eroding the quality of justice.”
His name was William H. Rehnquist, chief justice of the United States, using his annual year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary to declare that with “too few judges and too much work,” the judicial system was imperiled by the Senate’s inaction. “The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee,” he said, “but after the necessary time for inquiry, it should vote him up or vote him down to give the president another chance at filling the vacancy.”
On a traditionally slow news day, Chief Justice Rehnquist’s critique of the Senate got Page 1 attention. More than a few Times readers drinking their late-morning coffee probably did a double take at the headline: “Senate Imperils Judicial System, Rehnquist Says.” In a modest way, it was a Nixon-in-China moment.
Soon it will be time for the office of the current chief justice to start preparing the 2010 year-end report. I am eager to see whether Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will take a page from his mentor and criticize his fellow Republicans — who are functionally even if not formally in charge of the United States Senate — for their role in creating the current judicial vacancy crisis.
The Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy-making arm of the federal courts, which the chief justice heads, has identified 49 of the current 105 vacancies as “judicial emergencies.” This is a nonpolitical designation, based on a formula that takes into account the judicial workload on a particular court and the length of time the position has gone unfilled. The number of “emergencies” has doubled since the start of the Obama administration.
Part of the responsibility for that statistic falls on the president, who has been slower with judicial nominations than either of his two predecessors — neither of whom, of course, had two Supreme Court vacancies to contend with during his first two years in office. (There were no Supreme Court vacancies during President George W. Bush’s entire first term.) The 47 nominations now pending represent fewer than half the existing vacancies. Only last month did the president make a nomination to fill one of two empty seats on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, arguably the second most important federal court in the country. The Sept. 29 nomination of Caitlin J. Halligan, former solicitor general of New York State, came, amazingly enough, on the fifth anniversary of the vacancy that was created when the seat’s former occupant, John Roberts, received his promotion.
Part of the responsibility also no doubt falls on the Senate’s Democratic leadership, which has not made judicial confirmations a top priority. But given the Republicans’ ever-present threat of filibusters and their use of mysterious “holds” on nominees, it’s hard to blame the Democrats. After all, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats have had an affirmative legislative agenda to attend to.
So there’s no doubt that the Senate Republicans deserve the lion’s share of the blame for refusing to permit even uncontroversial judicial nominees to get a floor vote. The Senate ended its pre-election session last month leaving 23 nominees hanging, including 16 who had had hearings and received unanimous favorable votes in the Judiciary Committee. In other words, sheer obstructionism, rather than legitimate disputes over judicial philosophy, is the source of the problem, and here is where Chief Justice Roberts comes in — or can, if he cares to.
Unlike the president’s State of the Union message, which is required by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the annual report on the state of the judiciary is a modern tradition. It was begun just 40 years ago by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and carried on with enthusiasm by Chief Justice Rehnquist, who often used it for significant pronouncements on judicial policy.
Chief Justice Roberts has had a rather problematic relationship to the tradition during his five years in office. The focus of his first report, on Dec. 31, 2005, was judicial pay. Noting that federal judges’ earning power had eroded by 24 percent since 1969, he said that Congress’s failure to raise judicial salaries presented a “direct threat to judicial independence.” While in my view he was completely right on the merits of the issue, some members of Congress resented what they viewed as hyperbole from the new chief justice, and the public responded with a shrug. The much-deserved pay raise has yet to happen.
Then last year, Chief Justice Roberts went minimalist, so much so that it left many people scratching their heads. Here was his report, in full, minus the statistical appendix:
Chief Justice Warren Burger began the tradition of a yearly report on the federal judiciary in 1970, in remarks he presented to the American Bar Association. He instituted that practice to discuss the problems that federal courts face in administering justice. In the past few years, I have adhered to the tradition that Chief Justice Burger initiated and have provided my perspective on the most critical needs of the judiciary. Many of those needs remain to be addressed. This year, however, when the political branches are faced with so many difficult issues, and when so many of our fellow citizens have been touched by hardship, the public might welcome a year-end report limited to what is essential: The courts are operating soundly, and the nation’s dedicated federal judges are conscientiously discharging their duties. I am privileged and honored to be in a position to thank the judges and court staff throughout the land for their devoted service to the cause of justice.
Best wishes in the New Year.
Tony Mauro, a longtime observer of the court, responded on The Blog of Legal Times, “Imagine if the president, instead of giving a full State of the Union address, sent a note to Congress telling the legislative branch that life is good, all is O.K., and let’s catch up next year.”
I’m willing to assume that last year’s baffling report was the result of judicial modesty rather than an idea deficit. In any event, I look forward to waking up on New Year’s Day to this headline or its reasonable equivalent: “Senate Imperils Judicial System, Roberts Says.”
British Fashion Victims By PAUL KRUGMAN
British Fashion Victims
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?th&emc=th
In the spring of 2010, fiscal austerity became fashionable. I use the term advisedly: the sudden consensus among Very Serious People that everyone must balance budgets now now now wasn’t based on any kind of careful analysis. It was more like a fad, something everyone professed to believe because that was what the in-crowd was saying.
And it’s a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality.
No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong.
Britain, like America, is suffering from the aftermath of a housing and debt bubble. Its problems are compounded by London’s role as an international financial center: Britain came to rely too much on profits from wheeling and dealing to drive its economy — and on financial-industry tax payments to pay for government programs.
Over-reliance on the financial industry largely explains why Britain, which came into the crisis with relatively low public debt, has seen its budget deficit soar to 11 percent of G.D.P. — slightly worse than the U.S. deficit. And there’s no question that Britain will eventually need to balance its books with spending cuts and tax increases.
The operative word here should, however, be “eventually.” Fiscal austerity will depress the economy further unless it can be offset by a fall in interest rates. Right now, interest rates in Britain, as in America, are already very low, with little room to fall further. The sensible thing, then, is to devise a plan for putting the nation’s fiscal house in order, while waiting until a solid economic recovery is under way before wielding the ax.
But trendy fashion, almost by definition, isn’t sensible — and the British government seems determined to ignore the lessons of history.
Both the new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis.
The British government’s plan is bold, say the pundits — and so it is. But it boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction. It would cut government employment by 490,000 workers — the equivalent of almost three million layoffs in the United States — at a time when the private sector is in no position to provide alternative employment. It would slash spending at a time when private demand isn’t at all ready to take up the slack.
Why is the British government doing this? The real reason has a lot to do with ideology: the Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to downsize the welfare state. But the official rationale is that there is no alternative.
Indeed, there has been a noticeable change in the rhetoric of the government of Prime Minister David Cameron over the past few weeks — a shift from hope to fear. In his speech announcing the budget plan, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, seemed to have given up on the confidence fairy — that is, on claims that the plan would have positive effects on employment and growth.
Instead, it was all about the apocalypse looming if Britain failed to go down this route. Never mind that British debt as a percentage of national income is actually below its historical average; never mind that British interest rates stayed low even as the nation’s budget deficit soared, reflecting the belief of investors that the country can and will get its finances under control. Britain, declared Mr. Osborne, was on the “brink of bankruptcy.”
What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22krugman.html?th&emc=th
In the spring of 2010, fiscal austerity became fashionable. I use the term advisedly: the sudden consensus among Very Serious People that everyone must balance budgets now now now wasn’t based on any kind of careful analysis. It was more like a fad, something everyone professed to believe because that was what the in-crowd was saying.
And it’s a fad that has been fading lately, as evidence has accumulated that the lessons of the past remain relevant, that trying to balance budgets in the face of high unemployment and falling inflation is still a really bad idea. Most notably, the confidence fairy has been exposed as a myth. There have been widespread claims that deficit-cutting actually reduces unemployment because it reassures consumers and businesses; but multiple studies of historical record, including one by the International Monetary Fund, have shown that this claim has no basis in reality.
No widespread fad ever passes, however, without leaving some fashion victims in its wake. In this case, the victims are the people of Britain, who have the misfortune to be ruled by a government that took office at the height of the austerity fad and won’t admit that it was wrong.
Britain, like America, is suffering from the aftermath of a housing and debt bubble. Its problems are compounded by London’s role as an international financial center: Britain came to rely too much on profits from wheeling and dealing to drive its economy — and on financial-industry tax payments to pay for government programs.
Over-reliance on the financial industry largely explains why Britain, which came into the crisis with relatively low public debt, has seen its budget deficit soar to 11 percent of G.D.P. — slightly worse than the U.S. deficit. And there’s no question that Britain will eventually need to balance its books with spending cuts and tax increases.
The operative word here should, however, be “eventually.” Fiscal austerity will depress the economy further unless it can be offset by a fall in interest rates. Right now, interest rates in Britain, as in America, are already very low, with little room to fall further. The sensible thing, then, is to devise a plan for putting the nation’s fiscal house in order, while waiting until a solid economic recovery is under way before wielding the ax.
But trendy fashion, almost by definition, isn’t sensible — and the British government seems determined to ignore the lessons of history.
Both the new British budget announced on Wednesday and the rhetoric that accompanied the announcement might have come straight from the desk of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury secretary who told President Herbert Hoover to fight the Depression by liquidating the farmers, liquidating the workers, and driving down wages. Or if you prefer more British precedents, it echoes the Snowden budget of 1931, which tried to restore confidence but ended up deepening the economic crisis.
The British government’s plan is bold, say the pundits — and so it is. But it boldly goes in exactly the wrong direction. It would cut government employment by 490,000 workers — the equivalent of almost three million layoffs in the United States — at a time when the private sector is in no position to provide alternative employment. It would slash spending at a time when private demand isn’t at all ready to take up the slack.
Why is the British government doing this? The real reason has a lot to do with ideology: the Tories are using the deficit as an excuse to downsize the welfare state. But the official rationale is that there is no alternative.
Indeed, there has been a noticeable change in the rhetoric of the government of Prime Minister David Cameron over the past few weeks — a shift from hope to fear. In his speech announcing the budget plan, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, seemed to have given up on the confidence fairy — that is, on claims that the plan would have positive effects on employment and growth.
Instead, it was all about the apocalypse looming if Britain failed to go down this route. Never mind that British debt as a percentage of national income is actually below its historical average; never mind that British interest rates stayed low even as the nation’s budget deficit soared, reflecting the belief of investors that the country can and will get its finances under control. Britain, declared Mr. Osborne, was on the “brink of bankruptcy.”
What happens now? Maybe Britain will get lucky, and something will come along to rescue the economy. But the best guess is that Britain in 2011 will look like Britain in 1931, or the United States in 1937, or Japan in 1997. That is, premature fiscal austerity will lead to a renewed economic slump. As always, those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
New York Times Editorial: Demonize, Then Demoralize
New York Times Editorial: Demonize, Then Demoralize
Copyright by THe New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22fri3.html?th&emc=th
This year’s crop of negative political ads is fresh and repellent and headed for the landfill on Nov. 3. At least they aim to motivate voters, however basely.
Now here comes a twist: a new Republican ad so cynical that one media company, Univision, refused to air it. It’s from one of those 527 groups allowed to pursue “issue advocacy.” The group, Latinos for Reform, aims its message at Hispanic voters fed up with inaction on immigration reform, which has been stalled for years.
It doesn’t tell them whom to vote for or against. It tells them not to vote. “Clearly, the Democratic leadership betrayed us,” it says. “Aren’t you tired of politicians playing games with your future? Don’t vote this November. This is the only way to send them a clear message.”
Wait. Don’t vote? Clear message? Who is “us”?
Latinos for Reform is not a grass-roots Latino immigration-reform group. It is the operation of a conservative Republican, Robert DePosada, a former director of Hispanic affairs for the Republican National Committee. While many Latinos are bitterly and rightly disappointed in President Obama’s failure to win immigration reform, the ad’s prescription — “Democratic leaders must pay for their broken promises and betrayals” — has it upside-down and backward.
Every time Congress has come close to passing bipartisan immigration reform, lock-step Republicans have destroyed any hope of passage. Democratic cowardice and ineptitude haven’t helped, but when a bill has come close to a vote, Republican-led filibusters killed it.
The Republicans’ contempt for Hispanic voters, of which this voter suppression is Exhibit A, is mirrored in the way their party exploits immigration rather than fixes it. Many immigrants and citizens yearn for reform. But if most of the Republicans running this fall have their way, we’ll never get it. Good reason to get out and vote.
Copyright by THe New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/opinion/22fri3.html?th&emc=th
This year’s crop of negative political ads is fresh and repellent and headed for the landfill on Nov. 3. At least they aim to motivate voters, however basely.
Now here comes a twist: a new Republican ad so cynical that one media company, Univision, refused to air it. It’s from one of those 527 groups allowed to pursue “issue advocacy.” The group, Latinos for Reform, aims its message at Hispanic voters fed up with inaction on immigration reform, which has been stalled for years.
It doesn’t tell them whom to vote for or against. It tells them not to vote. “Clearly, the Democratic leadership betrayed us,” it says. “Aren’t you tired of politicians playing games with your future? Don’t vote this November. This is the only way to send them a clear message.”
Wait. Don’t vote? Clear message? Who is “us”?
Latinos for Reform is not a grass-roots Latino immigration-reform group. It is the operation of a conservative Republican, Robert DePosada, a former director of Hispanic affairs for the Republican National Committee. While many Latinos are bitterly and rightly disappointed in President Obama’s failure to win immigration reform, the ad’s prescription — “Democratic leaders must pay for their broken promises and betrayals” — has it upside-down and backward.
Every time Congress has come close to passing bipartisan immigration reform, lock-step Republicans have destroyed any hope of passage. Democratic cowardice and ineptitude haven’t helped, but when a bill has come close to a vote, Republican-led filibusters killed it.
The Republicans’ contempt for Hispanic voters, of which this voter suppression is Exhibit A, is mirrored in the way their party exploits immigration rather than fixes it. Many immigrants and citizens yearn for reform. But if most of the Republicans running this fall have their way, we’ll never get it. Good reason to get out and vote.
Credit Cards Soon to Get a Makeover
Credit Cards Soon to Get a Makeover
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/22cards.html?th&emc=th
The simple credit card is about to get a makeover.
Next month, Citibank will begin testing a card that has two buttons and tiny lights that allow users to choose at the register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit, at most any merchant they please.
Other card issuers are testing more newfangled cards, including some that can double as credit and debit cards, and cards with fraud protections baked right into the plastic. One, for instance, shows a portion of the account number only after the cardholder enters a PIN.
The microscopic engine powering the plastic will help breathe new life into a 1950s-era technology — the black magnetic stripe found on the back of the 1.8 billion credit and debit cards circulating in the United States. Much of the world has already moved to using more advanced cards, like the ones in Europe that require a PIN and use a chip instead of a magnetic strip.
Even with the innovations, no one knows how long plastic cards will reign. They may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that will transform consumers’ cellphones into virtual wallets, and a large number of companies, including Visa, MasterCard and Apple, are developing these. But several card analysts say it will probably take a while before any one technology standard becomes available across all phones and merchants.
In the meantime, banks are hedging their bets. Citi’s cards — known as 2G, for second generation — are no thicker and just as flexible as conventional plastic, but they contain a battery with a four-year life, an embedded chip and, of course, the buttons, which took nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop.
“It’s a big deal,” said Megan Bramlette, director of research for the Auriemma Consulting Group, a payments industry consultant in New York. “If once a month a consumer can fill up their gas tank for free, and they don’t have to do anything except push a button before they swipe their card, that’s cool. And that is something that I think will resonate with consumers.”
Dynamics Inc., the company that developed the minicomputers-in-a-card, said that it had more cards in the works and that its bank partners would introduce its electronic cards on their own schedules.
Citi’s cards will be tested by a select group of cardholders beginning in November, though some Citi employees have been testing the cards since May. The pilot program will expand as Citi incorporates user feedback. The bank plans to make the cards available on a broader scale in mid to late 2011.
The 2G card will be offered on two of Citi’s existing rewards cards, including the Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard, whose holders earn 1 percent cash back on all purchases and 2 percent on categories that change seasonally, as well as the Citi PremierPass Elite, whose holders generally earn one point for every dollar spent and mile flown.
To pay with points, users press the request-rewards button before swiping the card; the button marked regular credit allows a straight credit transaction.
Pressing the buttons changes the data imprinted on the magnetic stripe, so it still works like conventional plastic and can be swiped through existing card terminals nationwide. At least for now, cardholders need to know how many points they have, and if they don’t have enough, the transaction will be processed using credit.
“We’ve developed a proprietary technology that will allow Citi to do the conversion when the transaction comes through,” said Terry O’Neil, executive vice president of Citi Cards. “All they need to do is push that request-rewards button and we take care of everything else for them. They leave the store with the merchandise they selected.”
The cards are going to be most valuable to bigger spenders. The average cardholder spends about $6,300 a year, according to The Nilson Report, and, on a typical rewards card, users may earn one point for each dollar spent. At one penny a point, that translates into about $63 in annual rewards. Still, that is enough for a free cup or two of coffee each month.
Citi may yet change its rewards equation or decide that redeeming points at certain locations will yield better returns. “What we want is to get feedback directly from the customers, which will influence how we will roll the cards out,” Mr. O’Neil said. “We want to dig a little deeper on what the right redemption model is.”
American Express recently made its Membership Rewards points redeemable at Amazon.com, though they are not worth much: one point is equal to seven-tenths of penny that can be spent at the online retailer.
“Creating greater flexibility on how you redeem rewards points has been percolating in the industry for two or three years now,” said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. “The novelty of being first to market is a plus for Citi. But I anticipate that other issuers will have the technology as well.”
The technology that makes the new Citi card possible was created by Jeffrey D. Mullen, the 32-year-old chief executive of Dynamics, an electrical engineer and former patent lawyer who started the company in 2007 while he was working on his master’s degree in business at Carnegie Mellon. Months after he graduated, he secured $5.7 million in venture capital financing from Adams Capital Management. (Citi initially declined to issue him one of the electronic cards he had created, because he had used his entire credit line to start the company. He ultimately received one.)
“We are just scratching the surface with what these cards can do with these initial products,” said Mr. Mullen, whose innovation won business plan competitions, as well as $1 million in free advertising at a recent technology conference. “We are trying to be the innovation arm of an industry that has never had one. With this card, which is the baby-step card, you need to acclimate the consumer.”
Another Dynamics card would allow cardholders to have multiple accounts on one card, like a corporate and personal card. The company introduced another card this week, which he said would reduce fraud associated with “skimming,” when thieves steal your account number using a small scanner, but not your physical card.
All the cards, which are being produced by laptop and cellphone manufacturers, were tested by robots to make sure they would hold up for thousands of swipes. They can also withstand the washing machine. Clearly, they cost more to develop than conventional plastic; Mr. Mullen declined to provide specifics. Citi said it had not yet determined whether customers would be required to pay for the cards once officially introduced.
“The U.S. is the last bastion of the magnetic-stripe technology and shows no near-term desire to switch to chip technology,” said Mr. Robertson of The Nilson Report. “So what Dynamics is doing is extending the life of the mag stripe by adding a number of features that you find on chip cards.”
By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/your-money/credit-and-debit-cards/22cards.html?th&emc=th
The simple credit card is about to get a makeover.
Next month, Citibank will begin testing a card that has two buttons and tiny lights that allow users to choose at the register whether they want to pay with rewards points or credit, at most any merchant they please.
Other card issuers are testing more newfangled cards, including some that can double as credit and debit cards, and cards with fraud protections baked right into the plastic. One, for instance, shows a portion of the account number only after the cardholder enters a PIN.
The microscopic engine powering the plastic will help breathe new life into a 1950s-era technology — the black magnetic stripe found on the back of the 1.8 billion credit and debit cards circulating in the United States. Much of the world has already moved to using more advanced cards, like the ones in Europe that require a PIN and use a chip instead of a magnetic strip.
Even with the innovations, no one knows how long plastic cards will reign. They may eventually be rendered obsolete by technologies that will transform consumers’ cellphones into virtual wallets, and a large number of companies, including Visa, MasterCard and Apple, are developing these. But several card analysts say it will probably take a while before any one technology standard becomes available across all phones and merchants.
In the meantime, banks are hedging their bets. Citi’s cards — known as 2G, for second generation — are no thicker and just as flexible as conventional plastic, but they contain a battery with a four-year life, an embedded chip and, of course, the buttons, which took nearly a year and hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop.
“It’s a big deal,” said Megan Bramlette, director of research for the Auriemma Consulting Group, a payments industry consultant in New York. “If once a month a consumer can fill up their gas tank for free, and they don’t have to do anything except push a button before they swipe their card, that’s cool. And that is something that I think will resonate with consumers.”
Dynamics Inc., the company that developed the minicomputers-in-a-card, said that it had more cards in the works and that its bank partners would introduce its electronic cards on their own schedules.
Citi’s cards will be tested by a select group of cardholders beginning in November, though some Citi employees have been testing the cards since May. The pilot program will expand as Citi incorporates user feedback. The bank plans to make the cards available on a broader scale in mid to late 2011.
The 2G card will be offered on two of Citi’s existing rewards cards, including the Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard, whose holders earn 1 percent cash back on all purchases and 2 percent on categories that change seasonally, as well as the Citi PremierPass Elite, whose holders generally earn one point for every dollar spent and mile flown.
To pay with points, users press the request-rewards button before swiping the card; the button marked regular credit allows a straight credit transaction.
Pressing the buttons changes the data imprinted on the magnetic stripe, so it still works like conventional plastic and can be swiped through existing card terminals nationwide. At least for now, cardholders need to know how many points they have, and if they don’t have enough, the transaction will be processed using credit.
“We’ve developed a proprietary technology that will allow Citi to do the conversion when the transaction comes through,” said Terry O’Neil, executive vice president of Citi Cards. “All they need to do is push that request-rewards button and we take care of everything else for them. They leave the store with the merchandise they selected.”
The cards are going to be most valuable to bigger spenders. The average cardholder spends about $6,300 a year, according to The Nilson Report, and, on a typical rewards card, users may earn one point for each dollar spent. At one penny a point, that translates into about $63 in annual rewards. Still, that is enough for a free cup or two of coffee each month.
Citi may yet change its rewards equation or decide that redeeming points at certain locations will yield better returns. “What we want is to get feedback directly from the customers, which will influence how we will roll the cards out,” Mr. O’Neil said. “We want to dig a little deeper on what the right redemption model is.”
American Express recently made its Membership Rewards points redeemable at Amazon.com, though they are not worth much: one point is equal to seven-tenths of penny that can be spent at the online retailer.
“Creating greater flexibility on how you redeem rewards points has been percolating in the industry for two or three years now,” said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, an industry newsletter. “The novelty of being first to market is a plus for Citi. But I anticipate that other issuers will have the technology as well.”
The technology that makes the new Citi card possible was created by Jeffrey D. Mullen, the 32-year-old chief executive of Dynamics, an electrical engineer and former patent lawyer who started the company in 2007 while he was working on his master’s degree in business at Carnegie Mellon. Months after he graduated, he secured $5.7 million in venture capital financing from Adams Capital Management. (Citi initially declined to issue him one of the electronic cards he had created, because he had used his entire credit line to start the company. He ultimately received one.)
“We are just scratching the surface with what these cards can do with these initial products,” said Mr. Mullen, whose innovation won business plan competitions, as well as $1 million in free advertising at a recent technology conference. “We are trying to be the innovation arm of an industry that has never had one. With this card, which is the baby-step card, you need to acclimate the consumer.”
Another Dynamics card would allow cardholders to have multiple accounts on one card, like a corporate and personal card. The company introduced another card this week, which he said would reduce fraud associated with “skimming,” when thieves steal your account number using a small scanner, but not your physical card.
All the cards, which are being produced by laptop and cellphone manufacturers, were tested by robots to make sure they would hold up for thousands of swipes. They can also withstand the washing machine. Clearly, they cost more to develop than conventional plastic; Mr. Mullen declined to provide specifics. Citi said it had not yet determined whether customers would be required to pay for the cards once officially introduced.
“The U.S. is the last bastion of the magnetic-stripe technology and shows no near-term desire to switch to chip technology,” said Mr. Robertson of The Nilson Report. “So what Dynamics is doing is extending the life of the mag stripe by adding a number of features that you find on chip cards.”
Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level
Big Gifts to G.O.P. Groups Push Donor to New Level
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL LUO
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/us/politics/22perry.html?th&emc=th
WASHINGTON — When Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, emerged six years ago as a prime financer of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads against Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, the political strategist Karl Rove was there to vouch for Mr. Perry.
Bob Perry, a longtime donor to Republican causes, has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group the strategist Karl Rove helped start.
“I’ve known him for 25 years,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News. Back when Republicans were not so popular in Texas, Mr. Perry was one of the few wealthy Texans “willing to write checks to Republican candidates,” Mr. Rove added.
Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend’s largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group’s biggest donor.
Mr. Perry, 77, has long been a major donor to Republican candidates, with significant contributions to George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and his presidential races, as well as to Republican groups and causes. But his donations to American Crossroads, which has become a major force this election season in pushing Republican candidates, along with $4 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, put Mr. Perry in another stratosphere as a conservative version of George Soros, the patron of liberal causes.
Mr. Perry, who lives in a 13,000-square-foot home in Houston, was not giving interviews on Thursday. “We’ll let the donations speak for themselves,” a spokesman said.
Even Republicans consider him something of a mystery. While many major donors use their contributions to gain access to powerful politicians, Mr. Perry is a perennial no-show at fund-raising galas.
“He never comes to anything,” said Fred Malek, a longtime Republican operative who helps lead fund-raising at the Republican Governors Association. “I’ve never met him or seen him at any of our events that feature our governors, so he certainly is not seeking access,” he said. “I would love to meet him to thank him for everything he’s done.”
Because donations to some politically active groups are anonymous, it is impossible to know exactly how much Mr. Perry has given over the years, but an associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity placed the figure at “well over $20 million.”
Perry Homes, the high-end custom home company he founded 43 years ago, was the third-biggest homebuilder in the Houston area in 2009, according to The Houston Chronicle. The company’s home closings dropped 33 percent last year as the housing market took deep hits, The Chronicle reported, but the downturn does not appear to have affected donations from his personal fortune, which has been estimated at over $600 million.
Mr. Perry and his wife, Doylene, have given nearly $400,000 to candidates and party committees in the 2010 election cycle, with nearly $300,000 going to the Republican campaign committees in the House and Senate, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
In addition his donation this year, Mr. Perry gave $2 million to the governors’ association last year. He contributed $50,000 in September to the First Amendment Alliance, an independent group that has spent at least $800,000 attacking Democratic candidates for Senate in Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky and Nevada, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Including his most recent contributions to American Crossroads, he has given more than $13 million to outside groups able to accept donations of unlimited size in this election cycle.
Mr. Perry is atop a group of megadonors who have contributed $1 million or more this year to Republican groups like American Crossroads and the Republican Governors Association. Others include Robert B. Rowling, a Texas billionaire; Wayne Hughes, the chairman and founder of Public Storage; Harold Simmons, another Swift Boat financier; Jerry Perenchio, a former chairman of Univision; Trevor Rees-Jones, a Dallas oil-and-gas billionaire; Paul Singer, a Manhattan hedge fund manager; and Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate.
Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign finance and has researched Mr. Perry’s donations, said in an interview that Mr. Perry’s financial clout had made him not only the single biggest donor in Texas in the last decade, but an increasing national presence as well.
“It’s not just Swift Boat, it’s not just Karl Rove,” Mr. Wheat said. “There are a range of federal and state races. He’s a partisan who believes in investing in Republican control at the state and federal level, and people around the country are starting to get to know Bob Perry.”
Mr. Perry’s financial involvement in the Swift Boat campaign against Mr. Kerry particularly rankled Democrats, who saw the effort as an unfair smear, and they have tried to use the issue repeatedly to taint Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry, as he often does, ignored the attacks and continued making donations. In a rare interview in 2002, Mr. Perry said, “I have been fortunate to gain more financial strength in recent years, and I made a decision to be more involved in campaigns that I think are important.”
Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry worked together in the 1986 Texas governor’s race for William Clements, with Mr. Perry as campaign treasurer and Mr. Rove as a political consultant.
They shared a desire to secure tort reform to limit the liability of corporations in civil litigation. Mr. Rove used the issue in Texas in the late 1980s as a way of galvanizing conservatives, particularly in the business community, and Mr. Perry gave more than $2 million to promote the issue.
Mr. Perry’s company was drawn into a long controversy over the liability issue when a couple claimed a Perry Homes house was defective.
The buyers won an $800,000 arbitration award in 2008. But the state’s Supreme Court overturned the award, leading groups like Texans for Public Justice to charge that Mr. Perry’s many donations to the court’s Republican justices had tainted the ruling. The buyers took the case back to court for trial, and in March a jury ordered Perry Homes to pay $58 million in damages.
Eric Lichtblau reported from Washington, and Michael Luo from New York.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and MICHAEL LUO
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/us/politics/22perry.html?th&emc=th
WASHINGTON — When Bob Perry, a wealthy home builder from Texas, emerged six years ago as a prime financer of the Swift Boat Veterans attack ads against Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, the political strategist Karl Rove was there to vouch for Mr. Perry.
Bob Perry, a longtime donor to Republican causes, has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group the strategist Karl Rove helped start.
“I’ve known him for 25 years,” Mr. Rove said on Fox News. Back when Republicans were not so popular in Texas, Mr. Perry was one of the few wealthy Texans “willing to write checks to Republican candidates,” Mr. Rove added.
Now Mr. Rove and his party are benefiting from his old friend’s largess once again, as new federal disclosure reports this week showed that Mr. Perry has given $7 million since September to American Crossroads, the conservative group Mr. Rove helped start. Mr. Perry was the group’s biggest donor.
Mr. Perry, 77, has long been a major donor to Republican candidates, with significant contributions to George W. Bush’s campaigns for Texas governor and his presidential races, as well as to Republican groups and causes. But his donations to American Crossroads, which has become a major force this election season in pushing Republican candidates, along with $4 million to the Republican Governors Association this year, put Mr. Perry in another stratosphere as a conservative version of George Soros, the patron of liberal causes.
Mr. Perry, who lives in a 13,000-square-foot home in Houston, was not giving interviews on Thursday. “We’ll let the donations speak for themselves,” a spokesman said.
Even Republicans consider him something of a mystery. While many major donors use their contributions to gain access to powerful politicians, Mr. Perry is a perennial no-show at fund-raising galas.
“He never comes to anything,” said Fred Malek, a longtime Republican operative who helps lead fund-raising at the Republican Governors Association. “I’ve never met him or seen him at any of our events that feature our governors, so he certainly is not seeking access,” he said. “I would love to meet him to thank him for everything he’s done.”
Because donations to some politically active groups are anonymous, it is impossible to know exactly how much Mr. Perry has given over the years, but an associate who spoke on the condition of anonymity placed the figure at “well over $20 million.”
Perry Homes, the high-end custom home company he founded 43 years ago, was the third-biggest homebuilder in the Houston area in 2009, according to The Houston Chronicle. The company’s home closings dropped 33 percent last year as the housing market took deep hits, The Chronicle reported, but the downturn does not appear to have affected donations from his personal fortune, which has been estimated at over $600 million.
Mr. Perry and his wife, Doylene, have given nearly $400,000 to candidates and party committees in the 2010 election cycle, with nearly $300,000 going to the Republican campaign committees in the House and Senate, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
In addition his donation this year, Mr. Perry gave $2 million to the governors’ association last year. He contributed $50,000 in September to the First Amendment Alliance, an independent group that has spent at least $800,000 attacking Democratic candidates for Senate in Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky and Nevada, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Including his most recent contributions to American Crossroads, he has given more than $13 million to outside groups able to accept donations of unlimited size in this election cycle.
Mr. Perry is atop a group of megadonors who have contributed $1 million or more this year to Republican groups like American Crossroads and the Republican Governors Association. Others include Robert B. Rowling, a Texas billionaire; Wayne Hughes, the chairman and founder of Public Storage; Harold Simmons, another Swift Boat financier; Jerry Perenchio, a former chairman of Univision; Trevor Rees-Jones, a Dallas oil-and-gas billionaire; Paul Singer, a Manhattan hedge fund manager; and Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate.
Andrew Wheat, research director for Texans for Public Justice, a nonprofit group that tracks campaign finance and has researched Mr. Perry’s donations, said in an interview that Mr. Perry’s financial clout had made him not only the single biggest donor in Texas in the last decade, but an increasing national presence as well.
“It’s not just Swift Boat, it’s not just Karl Rove,” Mr. Wheat said. “There are a range of federal and state races. He’s a partisan who believes in investing in Republican control at the state and federal level, and people around the country are starting to get to know Bob Perry.”
Mr. Perry’s financial involvement in the Swift Boat campaign against Mr. Kerry particularly rankled Democrats, who saw the effort as an unfair smear, and they have tried to use the issue repeatedly to taint Mr. Perry.
Mr. Perry, as he often does, ignored the attacks and continued making donations. In a rare interview in 2002, Mr. Perry said, “I have been fortunate to gain more financial strength in recent years, and I made a decision to be more involved in campaigns that I think are important.”
Mr. Rove and Mr. Perry worked together in the 1986 Texas governor’s race for William Clements, with Mr. Perry as campaign treasurer and Mr. Rove as a political consultant.
They shared a desire to secure tort reform to limit the liability of corporations in civil litigation. Mr. Rove used the issue in Texas in the late 1980s as a way of galvanizing conservatives, particularly in the business community, and Mr. Perry gave more than $2 million to promote the issue.
Mr. Perry’s company was drawn into a long controversy over the liability issue when a couple claimed a Perry Homes house was defective.
The buyers won an $800,000 arbitration award in 2008. But the state’s Supreme Court overturned the award, leading groups like Texans for Public Justice to charge that Mr. Perry’s many donations to the court’s Republican justices had tainted the ruling. The buyers took the case back to court for trial, and in March a jury ordered Perry Homes to pay $58 million in damages.
Eric Lichtblau reported from Washington, and Michael Luo from New York.
Moon Crater Contains Usable Water, NASA Says
Moon Crater Contains Usable Water, NASA Says
By KENNETH CHANG
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/science/space/22moon.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The Moon, at least at the bottom of a deep, dark cold crater near its south pole, seems to be wetter than the Sahara, scientists reported Thursday.
In lunar terms, that is an oasis, surprisingly wet for a place that had long been thought by many planetary scientists to be utterly dry.
If astronauts were to visit this crater, they might be able to use eight wheelbarrows of soil to melt 10 to 13 gallons of water. The water, if purified, could be used for drinking, or broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel — to get home or travel to Mars.
“That is a very valuable resource,” said Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator of NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite — or Lcross, for short — which made the observations as it, by design, slammed into the Moon a year ago. “This is wetter than some places on Earth.”
The Sahara sands are 2 to 5 percent water, and the water is tightly bound to the minerals. In the lunar crater, which lies in perpetual darkness, the water is in the form of almost pure ice grains mixed in with the rest of the soil, and is easy to extract. The ice is about 5.6 percent of the mixture, and possibly as high as 8.5 percent of it, Dr. Colaprete said.
“That is a large number, larger than I think anyone was anticipating,” Dr. Colaprete said.
The $79 million Lcross mission piggybacked on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in June last year and has been mapping out the lunar surface for a future return by astronauts. Lcross steered the empty second stage of the rocket, which otherwise would have just burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, onto a collision course with the Moon.
Last October, as it neared impact, the Lcross spacecraft released the empty second stage and slowed down slightly so that it could watch the stage’s 5,600-mile-per-hour crash into a 60-mile-wide, 2-mile-deep crater named Cabeus. A few minutes later, Lcross, quickly transmitting its gathered data to Earth, met a similar demise.
For people who watched the live Webcast video transmitted by Lcross, the event was a disappointment, with no visible plume from the impacts. But as they analyzed the data, scientists found everything they were looking for, and more. Last November, the team reported that the impact had kicked up at least 26 gallons of water, confirming suspicions of ice in the craters.
The new results increase the water estimate to about 40 gallons, and by estimating by amount of dirt excavated by the impact, calculated the concentration of water for the first time.
A series of articles reporting the Lcross results appear in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
Also surprising was the cornucopia of other elements and molecules that Lcross scooped out of the Cabeus crater, near the Moon’s south pole. Lying in perpetual darkness, the bottom of Cabeus, at minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit, is among the coldest places in the solar system and acts as a “cold trap,” collecting a history of impacts and debris over perhaps a couple of billion years.
“This is quite a reservoir of our cosmic climate,” said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and lead author of one of the Science papers. “It reflects things that hit the Moon.”
By analyzing the spectrum of infrared light reflected off the debris plume, Dr. Schultz and his colleagues identified elements like sodium and silver.
Instruments on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, also watching the impact, identified other compounds, like calcium, magnesium and mercury.
With the multitude of minerals, scientists can examine the relative abundances and start speculating about what sorts of objects have been hitting the Moon. Some material looks very similar to what is found in comets. Other minerals look like what is produced by chemical reactions that occur on very cold surfaces.
“What’s really exciting to me is that Cabeus could be a comet impact site,” Dr. Colaprete said.
Lcross and the lunar orbiter are part of NASA’s Constellation program, started five years ago by the Bush administration to send astronauts back to the Moon. Arguing that it is too expensive and that the United States has already been there, President Obama has pushed for its cancellation. A compromise on the space agency’s future, passed by Congress and signed into law by Mr. Obama last week, sets aside Moon ambitions for now, at least for the return of human explorers.
Dr. Schultz hopes that study of the Moon will continue.
“I think the poles have just opened up a flurry of new questions,” he said. “I think it is a destiny that we will go there as humans. I hope it’s not just for commercialization.”
By KENNETH CHANG
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/science/space/22moon.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The Moon, at least at the bottom of a deep, dark cold crater near its south pole, seems to be wetter than the Sahara, scientists reported Thursday.
In lunar terms, that is an oasis, surprisingly wet for a place that had long been thought by many planetary scientists to be utterly dry.
If astronauts were to visit this crater, they might be able to use eight wheelbarrows of soil to melt 10 to 13 gallons of water. The water, if purified, could be used for drinking, or broken apart into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel — to get home or travel to Mars.
“That is a very valuable resource,” said Anthony Colaprete, principal investigator of NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite — or Lcross, for short — which made the observations as it, by design, slammed into the Moon a year ago. “This is wetter than some places on Earth.”
The Sahara sands are 2 to 5 percent water, and the water is tightly bound to the minerals. In the lunar crater, which lies in perpetual darkness, the water is in the form of almost pure ice grains mixed in with the rest of the soil, and is easy to extract. The ice is about 5.6 percent of the mixture, and possibly as high as 8.5 percent of it, Dr. Colaprete said.
“That is a large number, larger than I think anyone was anticipating,” Dr. Colaprete said.
The $79 million Lcross mission piggybacked on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched in June last year and has been mapping out the lunar surface for a future return by astronauts. Lcross steered the empty second stage of the rocket, which otherwise would have just burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere, onto a collision course with the Moon.
Last October, as it neared impact, the Lcross spacecraft released the empty second stage and slowed down slightly so that it could watch the stage’s 5,600-mile-per-hour crash into a 60-mile-wide, 2-mile-deep crater named Cabeus. A few minutes later, Lcross, quickly transmitting its gathered data to Earth, met a similar demise.
For people who watched the live Webcast video transmitted by Lcross, the event was a disappointment, with no visible plume from the impacts. But as they analyzed the data, scientists found everything they were looking for, and more. Last November, the team reported that the impact had kicked up at least 26 gallons of water, confirming suspicions of ice in the craters.
The new results increase the water estimate to about 40 gallons, and by estimating by amount of dirt excavated by the impact, calculated the concentration of water for the first time.
A series of articles reporting the Lcross results appear in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
Also surprising was the cornucopia of other elements and molecules that Lcross scooped out of the Cabeus crater, near the Moon’s south pole. Lying in perpetual darkness, the bottom of Cabeus, at minus 370 degrees Fahrenheit, is among the coldest places in the solar system and acts as a “cold trap,” collecting a history of impacts and debris over perhaps a couple of billion years.
“This is quite a reservoir of our cosmic climate,” said Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and lead author of one of the Science papers. “It reflects things that hit the Moon.”
By analyzing the spectrum of infrared light reflected off the debris plume, Dr. Schultz and his colleagues identified elements like sodium and silver.
Instruments on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, also watching the impact, identified other compounds, like calcium, magnesium and mercury.
With the multitude of minerals, scientists can examine the relative abundances and start speculating about what sorts of objects have been hitting the Moon. Some material looks very similar to what is found in comets. Other minerals look like what is produced by chemical reactions that occur on very cold surfaces.
“What’s really exciting to me is that Cabeus could be a comet impact site,” Dr. Colaprete said.
Lcross and the lunar orbiter are part of NASA’s Constellation program, started five years ago by the Bush administration to send astronauts back to the Moon. Arguing that it is too expensive and that the United States has already been there, President Obama has pushed for its cancellation. A compromise on the space agency’s future, passed by Congress and signed into law by Mr. Obama last week, sets aside Moon ambitions for now, at least for the return of human explorers.
Dr. Schultz hopes that study of the Moon will continue.
“I think the poles have just opened up a flurry of new questions,” he said. “I think it is a destiny that we will go there as humans. I hope it’s not just for commercialization.”
From David Mixner's Blog
From David Mixner's Blog
Six Ways How Not To Come Out
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 20 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/six-ways-how-not-to-come-out-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Comingout
As more and more young people are coming out to their family and friends, I thought it would be important to remind them of what not to do in coming out. The process of coming out is an important one and the right time and place is crucial. So here are my five ways of how NOT to come out and please have some fun and add your suggestions in the comment section!
1. Do not come out over Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yom Kipper, Passover or Rosh Hashanah. You will from then on always be accused of destroying "Auntie Bee's" last living holiday!
2. Do not come out to anyone driving a car. You want to live in order to be an openly LGBT person and a car hitting a tree does not help matters.
3. Do not come out at your sisters or brothers wedding. They will never forgive you, you new in-law will hate you and the music is horrible. Besides coming out should be your special day - why share it?
4. Do not come out to your Dad while he is watching a football game. First he won't hear you and if he does he won't forgive you for destroying football for him forever.
5. Do not come out with your new partner by your side. You new spouse will flee as soon as he sees your family's reaction. You want him to love you not be afraid of what you might become as you get older!
6. Do not come out when you Dad or Mom is at target practice. Ask Dick Cheney's friend what happens with an out of control gun!
Fear Of Tea Baggers Might Be Generating Enthusiasm Among Democrats
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 20 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/fear-of-tea-baggers-might-be-generating-enthusiasm-among-democrats.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
For months we have reported over and over again about the "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans. Polls have repeatedly shown that Republicans were much more excited about going to vote than Democrats. As a result, Democrats have been trailing in many contested districts or even running even in traditional Democratic districts. Over the last couple of days, with some new polls, that enthusiasm gap appears to be narrowing and so are the polls.
Why the sudden desire to vote from disheartened Democrats (especially Progressives)? The answer is a simple one - the Tea Baggers have scared us to death.
Certainly a motivating factor to vote in any race is to push one's ideas but equally important at times is the 'fear factor'. In 1964 that very factor led to a huge Democratic landslide against Senator Barry Goldwater. The more the public hears the ranting and ravings of Tea Bag candidates the more frightening they become to the American people. Now that these Republican fringe candidates are close to victory they suddenly have seemed to lost control of their mouths. And their minds.
Over the last week especially from Carl Paladino in New York to Ken Buck in Colorado to Rand Paul in Kentucky we have seen tough attacks on the LGBT community. In an article this week we examined how some want to do away with public schools, one belongs to a cycle gang and others believe that bike sharing in a United Nations socialist plot. These candidates are not on the fringe - they are coming across as total wing nuts.
In fact, the flood of outrageous comments is starting to hit Americans and they realize that while their anger might be justified or their disappointments based on real facts, these Republicans could irreparably damage the America we have known and loved for years. The result is Democrats have rediscovered "fear motivation' and are saying again they intend to vote. In large numbers. They appear not going to the polls out of loyalty to the President or the Party but out of real concern for the country.
I say whatever gets them there is a good thing.
Yet One More Gay Suicide As The Epidemic Continues Among Our Young
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 22 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/yet-one-more-gay-suicide-as-the-epidemic-continues-among-our-young.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Jackson-corey-facebook Yesterday over lunch and dinner in The Glass House Tavern, I watched from my window perch to see how many people in the streets were wearing purple to express outrage at the epidemic of suicides by young people who are members or perceived to be LGBT citizens. Facebook was purple. The people in the streets surprisingly took up the message in large numbers. Many shows on television yesterday were purple. As a statement, the day was a huge success.
Unfortunately, the day was capped with the announcement of yet one more of our young killing himself. Corey Jackson, (just 19) of Oakland College in Michigan went into the woods and hung himself from a tree. He was not bullied however the young gay Oakland College student could not muster up the will to live in such a hostile world. Every day he had to hear the hate coming from candidates about being gay, our allies compromising our freedom and in the process separating us from the rest of society and of vicious hate crimes that left LGBT citizens bloodied or dead.
There isn't one of us who hasn't experienced his depression and there isn't one of us who doesn't wish that we could have somehow reached him. Slogans, special days, videos and other efforts certainly have saved lives but in the end more is needed. The end of oppression of LGBT people is what is needed. The end of our allies going to courts to slow down our freedom is what is needed. The end to hateful rhetoric that leads to endless violence against LGBT people is what is needed.
Every time a person uses angry language, allows students to chant 'faggot', ducks on the LGBT fight for civil rights or asks us to be patient, they increase the odds of another young person committing suicide. Maggie Gallagher of NOM can wash her hands at the sink all she wants but the blood of these young people have permanently stained them. There is no cleansing agent around that get those hands clean.
Our 'friends' who consul patience, chose process over freedom and empower our enemies by their inaction or silence need to understand the ramifications of their actions.
We can only honor Corey Jackson by fighting for full equality, freedom and justice. Anything less means he will have died in vain. The least we can do is honor him with this tribute and be uncompromising in our fight for freedom and full equality.
Alexi Giannoulias Shows How To Be For Full LGBT Equality
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 21 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/alexi-giannoulias-show-how-it-is-done-on-full-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Right up there with being a champion for LGBT full equality is Illinois Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who is running for the United States Senate. In a recent debate with his Republican opponent Mark Kirk (who has had many rumors that he might be gay), Alexi shows how to be unconditional and unhesitating in support for our freedom. We must do everything in our power to support this outstanding candidate. The race is neck and neck so just look at this video and click here to support Alexi.
Six Ways How Not To Come Out
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 20 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/six-ways-how-not-to-come-out-.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Comingout
As more and more young people are coming out to their family and friends, I thought it would be important to remind them of what not to do in coming out. The process of coming out is an important one and the right time and place is crucial. So here are my five ways of how NOT to come out and please have some fun and add your suggestions in the comment section!
1. Do not come out over Thanksgiving, Christmas, Yom Kipper, Passover or Rosh Hashanah. You will from then on always be accused of destroying "Auntie Bee's" last living holiday!
2. Do not come out to anyone driving a car. You want to live in order to be an openly LGBT person and a car hitting a tree does not help matters.
3. Do not come out at your sisters or brothers wedding. They will never forgive you, you new in-law will hate you and the music is horrible. Besides coming out should be your special day - why share it?
4. Do not come out to your Dad while he is watching a football game. First he won't hear you and if he does he won't forgive you for destroying football for him forever.
5. Do not come out with your new partner by your side. You new spouse will flee as soon as he sees your family's reaction. You want him to love you not be afraid of what you might become as you get older!
6. Do not come out when you Dad or Mom is at target practice. Ask Dick Cheney's friend what happens with an out of control gun!
Fear Of Tea Baggers Might Be Generating Enthusiasm Among Democrats
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 20 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/fear-of-tea-baggers-might-be-generating-enthusiasm-among-democrats.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
For months we have reported over and over again about the "enthusiasm gap" between Democrats and Republicans. Polls have repeatedly shown that Republicans were much more excited about going to vote than Democrats. As a result, Democrats have been trailing in many contested districts or even running even in traditional Democratic districts. Over the last couple of days, with some new polls, that enthusiasm gap appears to be narrowing and so are the polls.
Why the sudden desire to vote from disheartened Democrats (especially Progressives)? The answer is a simple one - the Tea Baggers have scared us to death.
Certainly a motivating factor to vote in any race is to push one's ideas but equally important at times is the 'fear factor'. In 1964 that very factor led to a huge Democratic landslide against Senator Barry Goldwater. The more the public hears the ranting and ravings of Tea Bag candidates the more frightening they become to the American people. Now that these Republican fringe candidates are close to victory they suddenly have seemed to lost control of their mouths. And their minds.
Over the last week especially from Carl Paladino in New York to Ken Buck in Colorado to Rand Paul in Kentucky we have seen tough attacks on the LGBT community. In an article this week we examined how some want to do away with public schools, one belongs to a cycle gang and others believe that bike sharing in a United Nations socialist plot. These candidates are not on the fringe - they are coming across as total wing nuts.
In fact, the flood of outrageous comments is starting to hit Americans and they realize that while their anger might be justified or their disappointments based on real facts, these Republicans could irreparably damage the America we have known and loved for years. The result is Democrats have rediscovered "fear motivation' and are saying again they intend to vote. In large numbers. They appear not going to the polls out of loyalty to the President or the Party but out of real concern for the country.
I say whatever gets them there is a good thing.
Yet One More Gay Suicide As The Epidemic Continues Among Our Young
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 22 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/yet-one-more-gay-suicide-as-the-epidemic-continues-among-our-young.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Jackson-corey-facebook Yesterday over lunch and dinner in The Glass House Tavern, I watched from my window perch to see how many people in the streets were wearing purple to express outrage at the epidemic of suicides by young people who are members or perceived to be LGBT citizens. Facebook was purple. The people in the streets surprisingly took up the message in large numbers. Many shows on television yesterday were purple. As a statement, the day was a huge success.
Unfortunately, the day was capped with the announcement of yet one more of our young killing himself. Corey Jackson, (just 19) of Oakland College in Michigan went into the woods and hung himself from a tree. He was not bullied however the young gay Oakland College student could not muster up the will to live in such a hostile world. Every day he had to hear the hate coming from candidates about being gay, our allies compromising our freedom and in the process separating us from the rest of society and of vicious hate crimes that left LGBT citizens bloodied or dead.
There isn't one of us who hasn't experienced his depression and there isn't one of us who doesn't wish that we could have somehow reached him. Slogans, special days, videos and other efforts certainly have saved lives but in the end more is needed. The end of oppression of LGBT people is what is needed. The end of our allies going to courts to slow down our freedom is what is needed. The end to hateful rhetoric that leads to endless violence against LGBT people is what is needed.
Every time a person uses angry language, allows students to chant 'faggot', ducks on the LGBT fight for civil rights or asks us to be patient, they increase the odds of another young person committing suicide. Maggie Gallagher of NOM can wash her hands at the sink all she wants but the blood of these young people have permanently stained them. There is no cleansing agent around that get those hands clean.
Our 'friends' who consul patience, chose process over freedom and empower our enemies by their inaction or silence need to understand the ramifications of their actions.
We can only honor Corey Jackson by fighting for full equality, freedom and justice. Anything less means he will have died in vain. The least we can do is honor him with this tribute and be uncompromising in our fight for freedom and full equality.
Alexi Giannoulias Shows How To Be For Full LGBT Equality
By David Mixner
Copyright by By David Mixner
Oct 21 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/10/alexi-giannoulias-show-how-it-is-done-on-full-equality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Right up there with being a champion for LGBT full equality is Illinois Democrat Alexi Giannoulias who is running for the United States Senate. In a recent debate with his Republican opponent Mark Kirk (who has had many rumors that he might be gay), Alexi shows how to be unconditional and unhesitating in support for our freedom. We must do everything in our power to support this outstanding candidate. The race is neck and neck so just look at this video and click here to support Alexi.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Top Companies Aid Chamber of Commerce in Policy Fights
Top Companies Aid Chamber of Commerce in Policy Fights
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/us/politics/22chamber.html?_r=1&emc=na
This article is by Eric Lipton, Mike McIntire and Don Van Natta Jr.
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed new rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has helped wage a national campaign to limit the ability of trial lawyers to sue businesses.
These large donations — none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group which keeps its donors secret — offer a glimpse of the chamber’s money-raising efforts, which it has ramped up recently in an orchestrated campaign to become one of the most well-financed critics of the Obama administration and an influential player in this fall’s Congressional elections.
They suggest that the recent allegations from President Obama and others that foreign money has ended up in the chamber’s coffers miss a larger point: The chamber has had little trouble finding American companies eager to enlist it, anonymously, to fight their political battles and pay handsomely for its help.
And these contributions, some of which can be pieced together through tax filings of corporate foundations and other public records, also show how the chamber has increasingly relied on a relatively small collection of big corporate donors to finance much of its Washington agenda.
The chamber makes no apologies for its policy of not identifying its donors. It has vigorously opposed legislation in Congress that would require groups like it to identify their biggest contributors when they spend money on campaign ads.
Proponents of that measure pointed to reports that health insurance providers funneled at least $10 million to the chamber last year, all of it anonymously, to oppose President Obama’s health care legislation.
“The major supporters of us in health care last year were confronted with protests at their corporate headquarters, protests and harassment at the C.E.O.’s homes,” said R. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist at the chamber, whose office looks out on the White House. “You are wondering why companies want some protection. It is pretty clear.”
The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
“When you become a mouthpiece for a specific agenda item for one business or group of businesses, you better be damn careful you are not being manipulated,” said James C. Tyree, a former chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce who has personally backed Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama. “And they are getting close to that, if not over that edge.”
But others praise its leading role against Democrat-backed initiatives, like health care reform, financial regulation and climate change, which they argue will hurt American businesses. The Obama administration’s “antibusiness rhetoric” has infuriated executives, making them open to the chamber’s efforts, said John Motley, a former lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, a chamber rival.
“They’ve raised it to a science, and an art form,” he said of the chamber’s pitches to corporate leaders that large contributions will help “change the game” in Washington.
As a nonprofit organization, the chamber need not disclose its donors in its public tax filings, and because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.
The annual tax returns that the chamber releases include a list of all donations over $5,000, including 21 in 2008 that each exceed $1 million, one of them for $15 million. However, the chamber, as it is allowed by law, omits the donors’ names.
But intriguing hints can be found in obscure places, such as the corporate governance reports that some big companies have taken to posting on their Web sites, which show their donations to trade associations. Also, the tax filings of corporate foundations must publicly list their donations to other foundations — including one run by the chamber.
These records show that while the chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $149 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
Dow Chemical, for example, sent its $1.7 million to the chamber in the past year to cover not only its annual membership dues, but also to support lobbying and legal campaigns. Those included one against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.
A Dow spokesman would not discuss the company’s reasons for the large donation, other than to say it supports the chamber’s work.
Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. A spokesman for Prudential, which opposed certain proposed restrictions on the use of financial instruments known as derivatives, said the donation was not earmarked for a specific issue.
But he acknowledged that most of the money was used by the chamber to lobby Congress.
“I am not suggesting it is a coincidence,” said the spokesman, Bob DeFillippo.
More recently, News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber’s political efforts this fall; Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was in best interests of his company and the country “that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”
Business interests also give to the chamber’s foundation, which has worked to shield businesses from lawsuits, along with promoting free trade. Its tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon, which has American subsidiaries and whose former chief executive, Donald J. Shepard, served for a time as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board.
Another large foundation donor is a charity run by Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of insurance giant A.I.G. The charity has made loans and grants totaling $18 million since 2003. U.S. Chamber Watch, a union-backed group, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service last month asserting that the chamber foundation violated tax laws by funneling the money into a chamber “tort reform” campaign favored by A.I.G. and Mr. Greenberg. The chamber denied any wrongdoing.
The I.R.S. complaint raises the question of how the chamber picks its campaigns, and whether it accepts donations that are intended to be spent on specific issues or political races.
The chamber says it consults with members on lobbying targets, but that it does not make those decisions based on the size of a donation or accept money earmarked to support a specific political candidate.
Endorsement decisions, chamber officials said, are based on candidates’ votes on a series of business-related bills, and through consultations with the chamber’s regional directors, state affiliates and members.
To avoid conflicts of interest, individual businesses do not play a role in deciding on which races to spend the chamber’s political advertising dollars. The choices instead are made by the chamber’s political staff, based on where it sees the greatest chance of getting pro-business candidates elected, chamber executives said.
“They are not anywhere near a room when we are making a decision like that,” Mr. Josten said, of the companies that finance these ads.
The chamber’s extraordinary money push began long before this election season. An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.
In January, chamber president Thomas J. Donohue, a former trucking lobbyist, announced that his group intended “to carry out the largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly 100-year history.”
The words were carefully chosen, as the chamber asserts in filings with the Federal Election Commission that it is simply running issue ads during this election season. But a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have aired nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.
And the pace of spending has been relentless. In just a single week earlier this month, the chamber spent $10 million on Senate races in nine states and two dozen House races, a fraction of the $50 to $75 million it said it intends to spend overall this season. In the 2008 election cycle, it spent $33.5 million.
To support the effort, the chamber has adopted an all-hands-on-deck approach to fund-raising. Mr. Josten said he makes many of the fund-raising calls to corporations nationwide, as does Mr. Donohue. (Both men are well compensated for their work: Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and chauffeur, while Mr. Josten was paid $1.1 million, tax records show.)
But those aggressive pitches have turned off some business executives.
“There was an arrogance to it like they were the 800-pound gorilla and I was either with them with this big number or I just did not matter,” said Mr. Tyree, of Chicago.
Another corporate executive, who asked not to be named, said the chamber risks alienating its members.
“Unless you spend $250,000 to $500,000 a year, that is what they want for you to be one of their pooh-bahs, otherwise, they don’t pay any attention to you at all,” the executive said, asking that the company not be identified.
Chamber officials acknowledge the tough fund-raising, but they say it has been necessary in support of their goal of remaking Congress on Election Day to make it friendlier to business.
“It’s been a long and ugly campaign season, filled with partisan attacks and political squabbling,” William C. Miller Jr., the chamber’s national political director, said in a message sent to chamber members this week. “We are all tired — no doubt about it. But we are so close to bringing about historic change on Capitol Hill.”
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 21, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/us/politics/22chamber.html?_r=1&emc=na
This article is by Eric Lipton, Mike McIntire and Don Van Natta Jr.
Prudential Financial sent in a $2 million donation last year as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a national advertising campaign to weaken the historic rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations.
Dow Chemical delivered $1.7 million to the chamber last year as the group took a leading role in aggressively fighting proposed new rules that would impose tighter security requirements on chemical facilities.
And Goldman Sachs, Chevron Texaco, and Aegon, a multinational insurance company based in the Netherlands, donated more than $8 million in recent years to a chamber foundation that has helped wage a national campaign to limit the ability of trial lawyers to sue businesses.
These large donations — none of which were publicly disclosed by the chamber, a tax-exempt group which keeps its donors secret — offer a glimpse of the chamber’s money-raising efforts, which it has ramped up recently in an orchestrated campaign to become one of the most well-financed critics of the Obama administration and an influential player in this fall’s Congressional elections.
They suggest that the recent allegations from President Obama and others that foreign money has ended up in the chamber’s coffers miss a larger point: The chamber has had little trouble finding American companies eager to enlist it, anonymously, to fight their political battles and pay handsomely for its help.
And these contributions, some of which can be pieced together through tax filings of corporate foundations and other public records, also show how the chamber has increasingly relied on a relatively small collection of big corporate donors to finance much of its Washington agenda.
The chamber makes no apologies for its policy of not identifying its donors. It has vigorously opposed legislation in Congress that would require groups like it to identify their biggest contributors when they spend money on campaign ads.
Proponents of that measure pointed to reports that health insurance providers funneled at least $10 million to the chamber last year, all of it anonymously, to oppose President Obama’s health care legislation.
“The major supporters of us in health care last year were confronted with protests at their corporate headquarters, protests and harassment at the C.E.O.’s homes,” said R. Bruce Josten, the chief lobbyist at the chamber, whose office looks out on the White House. “You are wondering why companies want some protection. It is pretty clear.”
The chamber’s increasingly aggressive role — including record spending in the midterm elections that supports Republicans more than 90 percent of the time — has made it a target of critics, including a few local chamber affiliates who fear it has become too partisan and hard-nosed in its fund-raising.
“When you become a mouthpiece for a specific agenda item for one business or group of businesses, you better be damn careful you are not being manipulated,” said James C. Tyree, a former chairman of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce who has personally backed Republicans and Democrats, including President Obama. “And they are getting close to that, if not over that edge.”
But others praise its leading role against Democrat-backed initiatives, like health care reform, financial regulation and climate change, which they argue will hurt American businesses. The Obama administration’s “antibusiness rhetoric” has infuriated executives, making them open to the chamber’s efforts, said John Motley, a former lobbyist for the National Federation of Independent Business, a chamber rival.
“They’ve raised it to a science, and an art form,” he said of the chamber’s pitches to corporate leaders that large contributions will help “change the game” in Washington.
As a nonprofit organization, the chamber need not disclose its donors in its public tax filings, and because it says no donations are earmarked for specific ads aimed at a candidate, it does not invoke federal elections rules requiring disclosure.
The annual tax returns that the chamber releases include a list of all donations over $5,000, including 21 in 2008 that each exceed $1 million, one of them for $15 million. However, the chamber, as it is allowed by law, omits the donors’ names.
But intriguing hints can be found in obscure places, such as the corporate governance reports that some big companies have taken to posting on their Web sites, which show their donations to trade associations. Also, the tax filings of corporate foundations must publicly list their donations to other foundations — including one run by the chamber.
These records show that while the chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $149 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
Dow Chemical, for example, sent its $1.7 million to the chamber in the past year to cover not only its annual membership dues, but also to support lobbying and legal campaigns. Those included one against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.
A Dow spokesman would not discuss the company’s reasons for the large donation, other than to say it supports the chamber’s work.
Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. A spokesman for Prudential, which opposed certain proposed restrictions on the use of financial instruments known as derivatives, said the donation was not earmarked for a specific issue.
But he acknowledged that most of the money was used by the chamber to lobby Congress.
“I am not suggesting it is a coincidence,” said the spokesman, Bob DeFillippo.
More recently, News Corporation gave $1 million to support the chamber’s political efforts this fall; Chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was in best interests of his company and the country “that there be a fair amount of change in Washington.”
Business interests also give to the chamber’s foundation, which has worked to shield businesses from lawsuits, along with promoting free trade. Its tax filings show that seven donors gave the foundation at least $17 million between 2004 and 2008, about two-thirds of the total raised.
These donors include Goldman Sachs, Edward Jones, Alpha Technologies, Chevron Texaco and Aegon, which has American subsidiaries and whose former chief executive, Donald J. Shepard, served for a time as chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s board.
Another large foundation donor is a charity run by Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of insurance giant A.I.G. The charity has made loans and grants totaling $18 million since 2003. U.S. Chamber Watch, a union-backed group, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service last month asserting that the chamber foundation violated tax laws by funneling the money into a chamber “tort reform” campaign favored by A.I.G. and Mr. Greenberg. The chamber denied any wrongdoing.
The I.R.S. complaint raises the question of how the chamber picks its campaigns, and whether it accepts donations that are intended to be spent on specific issues or political races.
The chamber says it consults with members on lobbying targets, but that it does not make those decisions based on the size of a donation or accept money earmarked to support a specific political candidate.
Endorsement decisions, chamber officials said, are based on candidates’ votes on a series of business-related bills, and through consultations with the chamber’s regional directors, state affiliates and members.
To avoid conflicts of interest, individual businesses do not play a role in deciding on which races to spend the chamber’s political advertising dollars. The choices instead are made by the chamber’s political staff, based on where it sees the greatest chance of getting pro-business candidates elected, chamber executives said.
“They are not anywhere near a room when we are making a decision like that,” Mr. Josten said, of the companies that finance these ads.
The chamber’s extraordinary money push began long before this election season. An organization that in 2003 had an overall budget of about $130 million, it is spending $200 million this year, and the chamber and its affiliates allocated $144 million last year just for lobbying, making it the biggest lobbyist in the United States.
In January, chamber president Thomas J. Donohue, a former trucking lobbyist, announced that his group intended “to carry out the largest, most aggressive voter education and issue advocacy effort in our nearly 100-year history.”
The words were carefully chosen, as the chamber asserts in filings with the Federal Election Commission that it is simply running issue ads during this election season. But a review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have aired nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.
And the pace of spending has been relentless. In just a single week earlier this month, the chamber spent $10 million on Senate races in nine states and two dozen House races, a fraction of the $50 to $75 million it said it intends to spend overall this season. In the 2008 election cycle, it spent $33.5 million.
To support the effort, the chamber has adopted an all-hands-on-deck approach to fund-raising. Mr. Josten said he makes many of the fund-raising calls to corporations nationwide, as does Mr. Donohue. (Both men are well compensated for their work: Mr. Donohue was paid $3.7 million in 2008, and has access to a corporate jet and chauffeur, while Mr. Josten was paid $1.1 million, tax records show.)
But those aggressive pitches have turned off some business executives.
“There was an arrogance to it like they were the 800-pound gorilla and I was either with them with this big number or I just did not matter,” said Mr. Tyree, of Chicago.
Another corporate executive, who asked not to be named, said the chamber risks alienating its members.
“Unless you spend $250,000 to $500,000 a year, that is what they want for you to be one of their pooh-bahs, otherwise, they don’t pay any attention to you at all,” the executive said, asking that the company not be identified.
Chamber officials acknowledge the tough fund-raising, but they say it has been necessary in support of their goal of remaking Congress on Election Day to make it friendlier to business.
“It’s been a long and ugly campaign season, filled with partisan attacks and political squabbling,” William C. Miller Jr., the chamber’s national political director, said in a message sent to chamber members this week. “We are all tired — no doubt about it. But we are so close to bringing about historic change on Capitol Hill.”
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