The Nation by Jeremy Scahill
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
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In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.
These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct. Susan Burke, a private attorney working in conjunction with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is suing Blackwater in five separate civil cases filed in the Washington, DC, area. They were recently consolidated before Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia for pretrial motions. Burke filed the August 3 motion in response to Blackwater's motion to dismiss the case. Blackwater asserts that Prince and the company are innocent of any wrongdoing and that they were professionally performing their duties on behalf of their employer, the US State Department.
The former employee, identified in the court documents as "John Doe #2," is a former member of Blackwater's management team, according to a source close to the case. Doe #2 alleges in a sworn declaration that, based on information provided to him by former colleagues, "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct." John Doe #2 says he worked at Blackwater for four years; his identity is concealed in the sworn declaration because he "fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this Declaration." He also alleges, "On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence."
In a separate sworn statement, the former US marine who worked for Blackwater in Iraq alleges that he has "learned from my Blackwater colleagues and former colleagues that one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information about Erik Prince and Blackwater have been killed in suspicious circumstances." Identified as "John Doe #1," he says he "joined Blackwater and deployed to Iraq to guard State Department and other American government personnel." It is not clear if Doe #1 is still working with the company as he states he is "scheduled to deploy in the immediate future to Iraq." Like Doe #2, he states that he fears "violence" against him for "submitting this Declaration." No further details on the alleged murder(s) are provided.
"Mr. Prince feared, and continues to fear, that the federal authorities will detect and prosecute his various criminal deeds," states Doe #2. "On more than one occasion, Mr. Prince and his top managers gave orders to destroy emails and other documents. Many incriminating videotapes, documents and emails have been shredded and destroyed."
The Nation cannot independently verify the identities of the two individuals, their roles at Blackwater or what motivated them to provide sworn testimony in these civil cases. Both individuals state that they have previously cooperated with federal prosecutors conducting a criminal inquiry into Blackwater.
"It's a pending investigation, so we cannot comment on any matters in front of a Grand Jury or if a Grand Jury even exists on these matters," John Roth, the spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in the District of Columbia, told The Nation. "It would be a crime if we did that." Asked specifically about whether there is a criminal investigation into Prince regarding the murder allegations and other charges, Roth said: "We would not be able to comment on what we are or are not doing in regards to any possible investigation involving an uncharged individual."
The Nation repeatedly attempted to contact spokespeople for Prince or his companies at numerous email addresses and telephone numbers. When a company representative was reached by phone and asked to comment, she said, "Unfortunately no one can help you in that area." The representative then said that she would pass along The Nation's request. As this article goes to press, no company representative has responded further to The Nation.
Doe #2 states in the declaration that he has also provided the information contained in his statement "in grand jury proceedings convened by the United States Department of Justice." Federal prosecutors convened a grand jury in the aftermath of the September 16, 2007, Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad, which left seventeen Iraqis dead. Five Blackwater employees are awaiting trial on several manslaughter charges and a sixth, Jeremy Ridgeway, has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter and is cooperating with prosecutors. It is not clear whether Doe #2 testified in front of the Nisour Square grand jury or in front of a separate grand jury.
The two declarations are each five pages long and contain a series of devastating allegations concerning Erik Prince and his network of companies, which now operate under the banner of Xe Services LLC. Among those leveled by Doe #2 is that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe":
To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.
Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."
Among the additional allegations made by Doe #1 is that "Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq." He states that he personally witnessed weapons being "pulled out" from dog food bags. Doe #2 alleges that "Prince and his employees arranged for the weapons to be polywrapped and smuggled into Iraq on Mr. Prince's private planes, which operated under the name Presidential Airlines," adding that Prince "generated substantial revenues from participating in the illegal arms trade."
Doe #2 states: "Using his various companies, [Prince] procured and distributed various weapons, including unlawful weapons such as sawed off semi-automatic machine guns with silencers, through unlawful channels of distribution." Blackwater "was not abiding by the terms of the contract with the State Department and was deceiving the State Department," according to Doe #1.
This is not the first time an allegation has surfaced that Blackwater used dog food bags to smuggle weapons into Iraq. ABC News's Brian Ross reported in November 2008 that a "federal grand jury in North Carolina is investigating allegations the controversial private security firm Blackwater illegally shipped assault weapons and silencers to Iraq, hidden in large sacks of dog food." Another former Blackwater employee has also confirmed this information to The Nation.
Both individuals allege that Prince and Blackwater deployed individuals to Iraq who, in the words of Doe #1, "were not properly vetted and cleared by the State Department." Doe #2 adds that "Prince ignored the advice and pleas from certain employees, who sought to stop the unnecessary killing of innocent Iraqis." Doe #2 further states that some Blackwater officials overseas refused to deploy "unfit men" and sent them back to the US. Among the reasons cited by Doe #2 were "the men making statements about wanting to deploy to Iraq to 'kill ragheads' or achieve 'kills' or 'body counts,'" as well as "excessive drinking" and "steroid use." However, when the men returned to the US, according to Doe #2, "Prince and his executives would send them back to be deployed in Iraq with an express instruction to the concerned employees located overseas that they needed to 'stop costing the company money.'"
Doe #2 also says Prince "repeatedly ignored the assessments done by mental health professionals, and instead terminated those mental health professionals who were not willing to endorse deployments of unfit men." He says Prince and then-company president Gary Jackson "hid from Department of State the fact that they were deploying men to Iraq over the objections of mental health professionals and security professionals in the field," saying they "knew the men being deployed were not suitable candidates for carrying lethal weaponry, but did not care because deployments meant more money."
Doe #1 states that "Blackwater knew that certain of its personnel intentionally used excessive and unjustified deadly force, and in some instances used unauthorized weapons, to kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians." He concludes, "Blackwater did nothing to stop this misconduct." Doe #1 states that he "personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force." He then cites several specific examples of Blackwater personnel firing at civilians, killing or "seriously" wounding them, and then failing to report the incidents to the State Department.
Doe #1 also alleges that "all of these incidents of excessive force were initially videotaped and voice recorded," but that "Immediately after the day concluded, we would watch the video in a session called a 'hot wash.' Immediately after the hotwashing, the video was erased to prevent anyone other than Blackwater personnel seeing what had actually occurred." Blackwater, he says, "did not provide the video to the State Department."
Doe #2 expands on the issue of unconventional weapons, alleging Prince "made available to his employees in Iraq various weapons not authorized by the United States contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal weaponry in Iraq, unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis." Specifically, he alleges that Prince "obtained illegal ammunition from an American company called LeMas. This company sold ammunition designed to explode after penetrating within the human body. Mr. Prince's employees repeatedly used this illegal ammunition in Iraq to inflict maximum damage on Iraqis."
Blackwater has gone through an intricate rebranding process in the twelve years it has been in business, changing its name and logo several times. Prince also has created more than a dozen affiliate companies, some of which are registered offshore and whose operations are shrouded in secrecy. According to Doe #2, "Prince created and operated this web of companies in order to obscure wrongdoing, fraud and other crimes."
"For example, Mr. Prince transferred funds from one company (Blackwater) to another (Greystone) whenever necessary to avoid detection of his money laundering and tax evasion schemes." He added: "Mr. Prince contributed his personal wealth to fund the operations of the Prince companies whenever he deemed such funding necessary. Likewise, Mr. Prince took funds out of the Prince companies and placed the funds in his personal accounts at will."
Briefed on the substance of these allegations by The Nation, Congressman Dennis Kucinich replied, "If these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers and murdering innocent civilians." Kucinich is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has been investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004.
"Blackwater is a law unto itself, both internationally and domestically. The question is why they operated with impunity. In addition to Blackwater, we should be questioning their patrons in the previous administration who funded and employed this organization. Blackwater wouldn't exist without federal patronage; these allegations should be thoroughly investigated," Kucinich said.
A hearing before Judge Ellis in the civil cases against Blackwater is scheduled for August 7.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Keith Olbermann COMMENTS on Health care
HART KIRCH comment on KO's comment:
"I think is a little to shrill and angry and somewhat disrespectful but his points are valid" A little more calm would be much more effective."
* * * * * * * broadcast 8-3/09 MSNBC * * * * * * *
OLBERMANN: Tonight's special comment on the politicians of both parties holding up health care reform and the health sector companies to whom they have sold their souls. This's next, but first time for COUNTDOWN's number two story, tonight's worst persons in the world, brought to you tonight by Fixed News, celebrating six days without having fired Glenn Beck, even after he called the president of the United States a racist, and even after they basically claimed he didn't really work for them.
The bronze to Brian Stelter of the "New York Times." Front page story
front page story Saturday about a, quote, deal in which, as the headline read, voices from above silence a cable TV feud. Problem, Mr. Stelter asks me at least twice last week if there was such a deal, and I told him, on and off the record, there was not. And told I rather obviously would have to be a party to such a deal. And I told him that not only wasn't I, but I had not even been asked to be by my bosses.
And he printed it anyway. And I had even written to him that this was merely a misinterpretation of an announcement I made here on June One, that because Bill Reilly at Fox News had abetted the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, he had become too serious to joke about, and I would thus stop doing so, an announcement that would obtain unless and until, of course, I felt like changing the rule again later since this is not the US Constitution here. It's a half baked television news cast and I make all the rules.
So-tonight's runner-up, Bill-O the clown. After the arrest of Professor Gates, the Frank Burns of news went back to his excursion two years ago to meet some black people. "Remember when I went up to Sylvia's and had dinner with Al Sharpton and said on my radio show, you know, Sylvia's is just like any other restaurant in America. It's a nice place with nice people. I got served great. Then the left wing turned it into I was denigrating, saying oh, he didn't think Sylvia's was going to be nice."
Yes. That's not what you said. Bill-O on September 19th, 2007: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was-it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks. Primarily black patronship. It was the same. That's really what this society is all about now. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, MFer, I want more iced tea. You know, I mean everybody was-it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all white suburb, in the sense that people were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."
Bill thought there might be a human sacrifice between the salad and the entree. Racist clown. Imagine dinner shade Bill-O, I'm happily surprised you haven't stabbed me with the steak knife, dear.
But our winner, Rupert Murdoch. How would you like to be Roger Ailes right now, or Bill Reilly, or anybody else who thinks they decide what goes on, even for a minute, on Fox News Channel? Rupert Murdoch, according to the "New York Times" piece, has muzzled Bill-O, kept him from speaking his mind because, as the Times put it, what Bill-O said, quote, could create real consequences for Fox's parent corporation."
How dare you muzzle Reilly, Mr. Murdoch? How dare you, sir? This is the essence of corporate interference in the marketplace of ideas, and it is shameful. Abast, ye mate; solidarity, Brother Bill. Free yourself from your corporate shackles. Solidarity! Rupert Murdoch, who could never get away with that here, today's worst person-aargh-in the world!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on health care reform in this country, and, in particular, the "public insurance option."
In March of 1911, after a wave of minor factory fires in New York
City, the City's Fire Commissioner issued emergency rules about fire
prevention, protection, escape, sprinklers. The City's Manufacturers
Association, in turn, called an emergency meeting to attack the Fire
Commissioner and his 'interference with commerce.'
The new rules were delayed. Just days later, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The door to the fire escape had been bolted shut to keep the employees from leaving prematurely. One hundred and fifty of those employees died, many by jumping from the seventh floor windows to avoid the flames.
Fire fighters setting up their ladders literally had to dodge the falling, often burning, bodies of women.
This was the spirit of the American corporation then. It is the spirit of the American corporation now. It is what the corporation will do, when it is left alone, for a week.
You know the drill. We all know the drill.
You get something done at a doctor's, at a dentist's, at an emergency room, and the bills are in your hands before the pain medication wears off. And if you're one of the lucky ones, and you have insurance, you submit the endless paperwork, and no matter whether it's insurance through your company, or your union, or your non-profit, or on your own dime, you then get your turn at the roulette wheel.
How much of it is the insurance company going to pay this time? How much of it is the insurance company-about which you have next to no choice, and against which you have virtually no appeal-how much is this giant corporation going to give you back? What small percentage of what they told you they were going to pay you will they actually pay you?
You know the answer. And, you know the answer if you don't have insurance. But do you know why that's the answer?
Because the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO's, another part. Nursing homes, they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by campaign donations from the health sector.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President's weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats' plan was for "government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats."
That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar, whose bald face happens to be covered by your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats.
Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than is letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts.
But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you're well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the health sector, Senator Thune? Five thousand dollars? Ten?
We know what you are, Sir, we're arguing about the price.
What about your other quote? "We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians."
Wow, Senator, this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Senator Thune, if you really think "bureaucrats and politicians" need to get out of the way of "patients and their doctors," then you support a woman patient's right to get an abortion. And you supported Michael Schiavo's right to take his wife off life support. And you oppose "bureaucrats and politicians" getting in the way. And we'll just mark you down on the pro-choice list.
That's a rare misstep for you Senator Thune. No twelve-thousand dollar payoff for that statement!
I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? About the money?
Senator Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions - and all these numbers tonight are from "The Center For Responsive Politics"-campaign contributions amounting to one 1,206,176 dollars. So much for Senator Thune.
How about Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite? Good evening Ma'am. You are the Florida representative who claimed on the Floor that Democrats had "released a health care bill which essentially said to America's seniors: drop dead."
Now those are strong, terrorizing, words. That's exactly what your
Insurance and Medical Overlords wanted to hear. But are you truly worth
every dollar of the 369,000,255 of them you have received over the years
from the Health Sector? I'd read the rest of the operative part of your
speech myself, but your rendition actually cannot be matched
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. GINNY BROWN-WAITE ®, FLORIDA: Listen up, America, seniors have special needs. This bill ignores the-ignores the needs of Florida's health care system. We should be fixing what is broke, not disseminate-disseminating-decimating, the care of our senior population.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: You can always tell, can't you, Congresswoman, when the hostage is reading her own ransom note, and when she is reading one written for her? So much for Congresswoman Brown-Waite.
There are so many other Republicans, bought and sold-like that unfortunate Congresswoman there-by the Health Sector.
Minority Leader McConnell of the Senate?
You're worth 3.1 million to the Health Sector? A million and a half just for last year's election? And I'm supposed to think you aren't a sellout, a liar, a paid spokesman, a shill, a carnival barker? So much for Sen. McConnell.
Congressman Joe Barton of Oklahoma; $2,660,000, Congressman? That's ten times what Senator Robert Byrd has accepted from the Health Sector. Congressman! What a guy! So much for Congressman Barton.
Senator McCain, 1.6?
To serve the Hospitals, and serve the Drug Companies, and serve the nursing homes? And not to serve the retirement communities of Arizona? Or the cancer survivors? Or the veterans? So much for Senator McCain.
I could go on all night and never exaggerate in the slightest.
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a 1,400,000 dollars a day, just to destroy the "public option" - the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spin-offs to kill your kids.
And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans.
But that's the real point tonight. Not all of it is going through Republicans. Because the evil truth is, the Insurance industry, along with Hospitals, HMO's, Pharma, nursing homes -- it owns Democrats, too.
Not the whole party.
Candidate Barack Obama got more than 18 million from the Health Sector just last year. And you can bet somebody in the Health Trust, somebody responsible for buying influence, got fired over what Obama's done.
No, the Democrats are not wholly owned. Hundreds of Democrats have taken campaign money from the Health Sector without handing over their souls as receipts. But conveniently, the ones who are owned have made themselves easy to spot in a crowd.
They've called themselves "Blue Dogs," and they are out there, hand-in-hand with the Republicans, who they are happy to condemn day and night on everything else, throatily singing "Kumbaya" with the men and women who were bought and sold to defend this con game of an American health care system against the slightest encroachment.
Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas, leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You're the guy demanding a guarantee that reform will not add to the deficit. I'm guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq.
You're a Democrat, you say, Congressman? You saw what Sandy Barham said?
Sandy Barham is 62 years old. She's got a bad heart. She's hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can't afford insurance.
Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.
And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham's restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Cafe, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas.
Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham's congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross's and Blue Shield's, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.
The top donor so far to Congressman Ross's bid for re-election next year? The Blue Dog PAC, ten thousand bucks. Second? Something called Invacare, 7,300. Oh, they make wheelchairs and rollers and slings. They're big in slings.
Tied for third? The American Dental Association, another grand, 5,000, as a matter of fact.
Your top donors by industry, Congressman Ross? Health professionals:
29,250. Then Pharma and health products: 12,250. And so far in your career, Congressman Ross, your total haul from the health sector is 921,000. That's 90th in the combined list of donations for the House and the Senate, sir, 90th out of 537.
You should be proud, Congressman!
Except for the fact, that before you started living off the public dime, you owned a pharmacy. And your grandmother was a nurse. And it turns out you're not Sandy Barham's congressman, after all. You're Blue Cross's. So much for Congressman Ross.
Congressman Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Congressman? Undecided on the public option? At 1,173,000 in donations from the health sector, I'm surprised. You should have already said no and loudly. The only thing you should be undecided about is whether or not you're really a Democrat. So much for Congressman Gordon.
Senator Max Baucus of Montana. Good evening, Senator.
So you're supposed to be negotiating all this out with the Republicans and the hesitant Democrats, to gain bi-partisanship with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the health sector? Bipartisanship that will get you, what? A total of no votes?
And your price has been, let's see, 414,000 dollars in donations from Hospitals; 667,000 in donations from the insurance companies, just over a million from Big Pharma, 1,300,000 from other health professional, and 237,000 from nursing homes.
When you think of getting 237,000 dollars in campaign contributions from nursing homes, Senator Baucus, do you ever think about whether they subtract that amount of money evenly from all the patients suffering and dying in the lousy ones, or just from a few of the lousy ones?
So much for Senator Baucus.
Sadly, this list could go on almost all night, too.
I could ask Blue Dog Congressman Democrat John Tanner of Tennessee if, since he's gotten 215 Grand from hospitals over the years-if I and the appropriate number of my friends were willing to make it 216 Grand, if we could buy his vote, or would there still have to be an auction?
We could bring up Senator Hagan, and Congressman Pomeroy, who at 628,000 appears to represent the insurance industry and not North Dakota. I could bring up Senator Carper and Senator Blanche Lincoln.
Senator Lincoln, by the way, considering how you're obstructing health care reform, how do you feel every time you actually see Senator Kennedy?
I could bring up all the other Democrats doing their masters' bidding in the House or the Senate, all the others who will get an extra thousand from somebody if they just postpone the vote another year, another month, another week, because right now, without the competition of a government-funded insurance company, in one hour, the health care industries can make so much money that they would kill you for that extra hour of profit.
I could call them all out by name. But I think you get the point. We don't need to call the Democrats holding this up Blue Dogs. That one word "Dogs" is perfectly sufficient.
But let me speak to them collectively, anyway. I warn you all. You were not elected to create a Democratic majority. You were elected to restore this country.
You were not elected to serve the corporations and the trusts who the government has enabled for these last eight years.
You were elected to serve the people. And if you fail to pass or support this legislation, the full wrath of the progressive and the moderate movements in this country will come down on your heads.
Explain yourselves not to me, but to them. They elected you. And in the blink of an eye, they will replace you.
If you will behave as if you are Republicans-as if you are the prostitutes of our system-you will be judged as such. And you will lose not merely our respect. You will lose your jobs!
Every poll, every analysis, every vote, every region of this country supports health care reform, and the essential great leveling agent of a government-funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering private insurance corporations.
Cross us all at your peril. Because, Congressman Ross, you are not the Representative from Blue Cross.
And Mr. Baucus, you are not the Senator from Schering-Plough Global Health Care, even if they have already given you 76 Grand towards your re-election.
And Ms. Lincoln, you are not the Senator from DaVita Dialysis.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, President Lincoln did not promise that this nation shall have a new death of freedom, and that government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, shall not perish from this Earth.
"I think is a little to shrill and angry and somewhat disrespectful but his points are valid" A little more calm would be much more effective."
* * * * * * * broadcast 8-3/09 MSNBC * * * * * * *
OLBERMANN: Tonight's special comment on the politicians of both parties holding up health care reform and the health sector companies to whom they have sold their souls. This's next, but first time for COUNTDOWN's number two story, tonight's worst persons in the world, brought to you tonight by Fixed News, celebrating six days without having fired Glenn Beck, even after he called the president of the United States a racist, and even after they basically claimed he didn't really work for them.
The bronze to Brian Stelter of the "New York Times." Front page story
front page story Saturday about a, quote, deal in which, as the headline read, voices from above silence a cable TV feud. Problem, Mr. Stelter asks me at least twice last week if there was such a deal, and I told him, on and off the record, there was not. And told I rather obviously would have to be a party to such a deal. And I told him that not only wasn't I, but I had not even been asked to be by my bosses.
And he printed it anyway. And I had even written to him that this was merely a misinterpretation of an announcement I made here on June One, that because Bill Reilly at Fox News had abetted the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, he had become too serious to joke about, and I would thus stop doing so, an announcement that would obtain unless and until, of course, I felt like changing the rule again later since this is not the US Constitution here. It's a half baked television news cast and I make all the rules.
So-tonight's runner-up, Bill-O the clown. After the arrest of Professor Gates, the Frank Burns of news went back to his excursion two years ago to meet some black people. "Remember when I went up to Sylvia's and had dinner with Al Sharpton and said on my radio show, you know, Sylvia's is just like any other restaurant in America. It's a nice place with nice people. I got served great. Then the left wing turned it into I was denigrating, saying oh, he didn't think Sylvia's was going to be nice."
Yes. That's not what you said. Bill-O on September 19th, 2007: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was-it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks. Primarily black patronship. It was the same. That's really what this society is all about now. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, MFer, I want more iced tea. You know, I mean everybody was-it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all white suburb, in the sense that people were sitting there and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."
Bill thought there might be a human sacrifice between the salad and the entree. Racist clown. Imagine dinner shade Bill-O, I'm happily surprised you haven't stabbed me with the steak knife, dear.
But our winner, Rupert Murdoch. How would you like to be Roger Ailes right now, or Bill Reilly, or anybody else who thinks they decide what goes on, even for a minute, on Fox News Channel? Rupert Murdoch, according to the "New York Times" piece, has muzzled Bill-O, kept him from speaking his mind because, as the Times put it, what Bill-O said, quote, could create real consequences for Fox's parent corporation."
How dare you muzzle Reilly, Mr. Murdoch? How dare you, sir? This is the essence of corporate interference in the marketplace of ideas, and it is shameful. Abast, ye mate; solidarity, Brother Bill. Free yourself from your corporate shackles. Solidarity! Rupert Murdoch, who could never get away with that here, today's worst person-aargh-in the world!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
OLBERMANN: Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on health care reform in this country, and, in particular, the "public insurance option."
In March of 1911, after a wave of minor factory fires in New York
City, the City's Fire Commissioner issued emergency rules about fire
prevention, protection, escape, sprinklers. The City's Manufacturers
Association, in turn, called an emergency meeting to attack the Fire
Commissioner and his 'interference with commerce.'
The new rules were delayed. Just days later, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The door to the fire escape had been bolted shut to keep the employees from leaving prematurely. One hundred and fifty of those employees died, many by jumping from the seventh floor windows to avoid the flames.
Fire fighters setting up their ladders literally had to dodge the falling, often burning, bodies of women.
This was the spirit of the American corporation then. It is the spirit of the American corporation now. It is what the corporation will do, when it is left alone, for a week.
You know the drill. We all know the drill.
You get something done at a doctor's, at a dentist's, at an emergency room, and the bills are in your hands before the pain medication wears off. And if you're one of the lucky ones, and you have insurance, you submit the endless paperwork, and no matter whether it's insurance through your company, or your union, or your non-profit, or on your own dime, you then get your turn at the roulette wheel.
How much of it is the insurance company going to pay this time? How much of it is the insurance company-about which you have next to no choice, and against which you have virtually no appeal-how much is this giant corporation going to give you back? What small percentage of what they told you they were going to pay you will they actually pay you?
You know the answer. And, you know the answer if you don't have insurance. But do you know why that's the answer?
Because the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO's, another part. Nursing homes, they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by campaign donations from the health sector.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President's weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats' plan was for "government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats."
That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar, whose bald face happens to be covered by your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats.
Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than is letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts.
But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you're well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the health sector, Senator Thune? Five thousand dollars? Ten?
We know what you are, Sir, we're arguing about the price.
What about your other quote? "We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians."
Wow, Senator, this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Senator Thune, if you really think "bureaucrats and politicians" need to get out of the way of "patients and their doctors," then you support a woman patient's right to get an abortion. And you supported Michael Schiavo's right to take his wife off life support. And you oppose "bureaucrats and politicians" getting in the way. And we'll just mark you down on the pro-choice list.
That's a rare misstep for you Senator Thune. No twelve-thousand dollar payoff for that statement!
I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? About the money?
Senator Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions - and all these numbers tonight are from "The Center For Responsive Politics"-campaign contributions amounting to one 1,206,176 dollars. So much for Senator Thune.
How about Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite? Good evening Ma'am. You are the Florida representative who claimed on the Floor that Democrats had "released a health care bill which essentially said to America's seniors: drop dead."
Now those are strong, terrorizing, words. That's exactly what your
Insurance and Medical Overlords wanted to hear. But are you truly worth
every dollar of the 369,000,255 of them you have received over the years
from the Health Sector? I'd read the rest of the operative part of your
speech myself, but your rendition actually cannot be matched
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. GINNY BROWN-WAITE ®, FLORIDA: Listen up, America, seniors have special needs. This bill ignores the-ignores the needs of Florida's health care system. We should be fixing what is broke, not disseminate-disseminating-decimating, the care of our senior population.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMANN: You can always tell, can't you, Congresswoman, when the hostage is reading her own ransom note, and when she is reading one written for her? So much for Congresswoman Brown-Waite.
There are so many other Republicans, bought and sold-like that unfortunate Congresswoman there-by the Health Sector.
Minority Leader McConnell of the Senate?
You're worth 3.1 million to the Health Sector? A million and a half just for last year's election? And I'm supposed to think you aren't a sellout, a liar, a paid spokesman, a shill, a carnival barker? So much for Sen. McConnell.
Congressman Joe Barton of Oklahoma; $2,660,000, Congressman? That's ten times what Senator Robert Byrd has accepted from the Health Sector. Congressman! What a guy! So much for Congressman Barton.
Senator McCain, 1.6?
To serve the Hospitals, and serve the Drug Companies, and serve the nursing homes? And not to serve the retirement communities of Arizona? Or the cancer survivors? Or the veterans? So much for Senator McCain.
I could go on all night and never exaggerate in the slightest.
PBS pointed out that the health and insurance industries are spending more than a 1,400,000 dollars a day, just to destroy the "public option" - the truly non-profit, wieldy, round-up and not round-down, government, from helping you pay your medical bills with about a billionth of the recklessness with which it is still paying Halliburton and its spin-offs to kill your kids.
And much of this money is going to, and through, Republicans.
But that's the real point tonight. Not all of it is going through Republicans. Because the evil truth is, the Insurance industry, along with Hospitals, HMO's, Pharma, nursing homes -- it owns Democrats, too.
Not the whole party.
Candidate Barack Obama got more than 18 million from the Health Sector just last year. And you can bet somebody in the Health Trust, somebody responsible for buying influence, got fired over what Obama's done.
No, the Democrats are not wholly owned. Hundreds of Democrats have taken campaign money from the Health Sector without handing over their souls as receipts. But conveniently, the ones who are owned have made themselves easy to spot in a crowd.
They've called themselves "Blue Dogs," and they are out there, hand-in-hand with the Republicans, who they are happy to condemn day and night on everything else, throatily singing "Kumbaya" with the men and women who were bought and sold to defend this con game of an American health care system against the slightest encroachment.
Congressman Mike Ross of Arkansas, leader of the Blue Dogs in the House. You're the guy demanding a guarantee that reform will not add to the deficit. I'm guessing you forgot to demand that about, say, Iraq.
You're a Democrat, you say, Congressman? You saw what Sandy Barham said?
Sandy Barham is 62 years old. She's got a bad heart. She's hoping her valves will hold together for three more years until Medicaid kicks in, because she can't afford insurance.
Not just for herself, mind you. For her employees. She needs the public option. So do those six people who work at that restaurant of hers, Congressman Ross.
And why should you give a crap? Because Sandy Barham's restaurant is the Broadway Railroad Cafe, and it is at 123 West First Street North in Prescott, Arkansas.
Prescott, Arkansas, Congressman Ross. Your home town. You are Sandy Barham's congressman. Hers, Sir. Not Blue Cross's and Blue Shield's, even if they do insure 75 percent of the state and they own you.
The top donor so far to Congressman Ross's bid for re-election next year? The Blue Dog PAC, ten thousand bucks. Second? Something called Invacare, 7,300. Oh, they make wheelchairs and rollers and slings. They're big in slings.
Tied for third? The American Dental Association, another grand, 5,000, as a matter of fact.
Your top donors by industry, Congressman Ross? Health professionals:
29,250. Then Pharma and health products: 12,250. And so far in your career, Congressman Ross, your total haul from the health sector is 921,000. That's 90th in the combined list of donations for the House and the Senate, sir, 90th out of 537.
You should be proud, Congressman!
Except for the fact, that before you started living off the public dime, you owned a pharmacy. And your grandmother was a nurse. And it turns out you're not Sandy Barham's congressman, after all. You're Blue Cross's. So much for Congressman Ross.
Congressman Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Congressman? Undecided on the public option? At 1,173,000 in donations from the health sector, I'm surprised. You should have already said no and loudly. The only thing you should be undecided about is whether or not you're really a Democrat. So much for Congressman Gordon.
Senator Max Baucus of Montana. Good evening, Senator.
So you're supposed to be negotiating all this out with the Republicans and the hesitant Democrats, to gain bi-partisanship with a wholly-owned subsidiary of the health sector? Bipartisanship that will get you, what? A total of no votes?
And your price has been, let's see, 414,000 dollars in donations from Hospitals; 667,000 in donations from the insurance companies, just over a million from Big Pharma, 1,300,000 from other health professional, and 237,000 from nursing homes.
When you think of getting 237,000 dollars in campaign contributions from nursing homes, Senator Baucus, do you ever think about whether they subtract that amount of money evenly from all the patients suffering and dying in the lousy ones, or just from a few of the lousy ones?
So much for Senator Baucus.
Sadly, this list could go on almost all night, too.
I could ask Blue Dog Congressman Democrat John Tanner of Tennessee if, since he's gotten 215 Grand from hospitals over the years-if I and the appropriate number of my friends were willing to make it 216 Grand, if we could buy his vote, or would there still have to be an auction?
We could bring up Senator Hagan, and Congressman Pomeroy, who at 628,000 appears to represent the insurance industry and not North Dakota. I could bring up Senator Carper and Senator Blanche Lincoln.
Senator Lincoln, by the way, considering how you're obstructing health care reform, how do you feel every time you actually see Senator Kennedy?
I could bring up all the other Democrats doing their masters' bidding in the House or the Senate, all the others who will get an extra thousand from somebody if they just postpone the vote another year, another month, another week, because right now, without the competition of a government-funded insurance company, in one hour, the health care industries can make so much money that they would kill you for that extra hour of profit.
I could call them all out by name. But I think you get the point. We don't need to call the Democrats holding this up Blue Dogs. That one word "Dogs" is perfectly sufficient.
But let me speak to them collectively, anyway. I warn you all. You were not elected to create a Democratic majority. You were elected to restore this country.
You were not elected to serve the corporations and the trusts who the government has enabled for these last eight years.
You were elected to serve the people. And if you fail to pass or support this legislation, the full wrath of the progressive and the moderate movements in this country will come down on your heads.
Explain yourselves not to me, but to them. They elected you. And in the blink of an eye, they will replace you.
If you will behave as if you are Republicans-as if you are the prostitutes of our system-you will be judged as such. And you will lose not merely our respect. You will lose your jobs!
Every poll, every analysis, every vote, every region of this country supports health care reform, and the essential great leveling agent of a government-funded alternative to the unchecked duopoly of profiteering private insurance corporations.
Cross us all at your peril. Because, Congressman Ross, you are not the Representative from Blue Cross.
And Mr. Baucus, you are not the Senator from Schering-Plough Global Health Care, even if they have already given you 76 Grand towards your re-election.
And Ms. Lincoln, you are not the Senator from DaVita Dialysis.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, President Lincoln did not promise that this nation shall have a new death of freedom, and that government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, shall not perish from this Earth.
Senator Bernie Sanders TALKS SENCE HEALTH CARE
Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
INTERVIEW on COUNTDOWN w Keth Olbermann -
OLBERMANN: the phony protests and the sycophants applauding the phony protest, do the the tactics surprise you at all?
SANDERS: No, not at all. The fact of the matter is that these people talk about freedom and what they are doing is trying to disrupt meetings, which is the absolute opposite of what freedom of discussion is about. And the reason for that is they are afraid to debate the real issues, the fact that we have a disintegrating health care system, that we have tens of millions uninsured, underinsured, 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time. We got a million Americans this year going bankrupt because of medically-related bills.
And these people are screaming and yelling so we can't have a real discussion of the real issues.
OLBERMANN: Presuming you have to win both on the issues and the screaming and yelling, how do you win on the screaming and yelling when that is spun as the rage of average Americans in most of the media?
SANDERS: Well, you know, it gets back to the media doing what they did in Iraq, which is distorting reality. You remember, during the debate in Iraq, Keith, we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Iraq was working with al Qaeda. Well, it turned out not to be true.
And what these guys are doing, what they are saying is grossly untrue. They are talking about a government takeover of health care. Untrue. They are talking-if you can believe this in 2009 -- about the president of the United States wanting to kill off older people.
So the answer is: if you want to have a real debate on the real issues, let's do it. Let's ask for example why countries around the world are providing better quality of care than we are at ½ the cost. Let's ask why we are the only nation in the industrialized world that does not have a national health care program guaranteeing all of their people. Those are the kinds of questions that we've got to be debating.
OLBERMANN: A question about Senator Enzi of Wyoming. Last week, he said he wanted a guarantee that anything that came out of the finance committee ends up in the final legislation that's passed. And today, he's rejected the September 15th deadline for his committee to reach agreement on the bill.
Is this-are we seeing the outlines of the latest Republican plan, just never let the legislation out of committee?
SANDERS: Look, let's be clear. There are virtually no Republicans in the Senate who are serious about health care reform. That's the simple reality. And what they keep doing is stalling and stalling and stalling, and trying to confuse people.
Now, the truth of the matter is, the Democrats have not been particularly effective in also saying and stating the case as to why we need real health care reform. Bottom line is: the system is disintegrating. Bottom line is: we spent twice as much as any other country. Our outcomes are worse. Bottom line is: the vast majority of people want a public option among other reforms.
OLBERMANN: Another bottom line, though, is delaying this-just delaying this victory, is that victory enough for the health industries? I mean, how many million a day do they collectively profit that would go out the window if there was this public option that would tamp down insurance prices?
SANDERS: That's absolutely right. According to the papers just today, the health care industry has spent $130 million in the last quarter. And that is the reason why our private insurance companies are reaping huge profits, why the drug companies charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Of course, they don't want health care reform. Of course, they'll do everything to try to stop us.
OLBERMANN: Last question, Senator, a prediction. Is this legislation eventually going to require passage by reconciliation?
SANDERS: Reconciliation is one of the tools that we have. My hope is that every Democrat will vote against the Republican filibuster, will pick up maybe one Republican, will do something serious and real for the American people.
OLBERMANN: Amen. Senator Bernie Sanders, the great independent of Vermont-once again, great thanks for your time tonight, sir.
SANDERS: It's good to be with you.
OLBERMANN: For more on how Democrats can handle the so-called grassroots protestors, let's turn to Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.
Chris, good evening.
CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Does it really take that much to hijack a town hall meeting? And how do Democratic lawmakers or other Democratic speakers combat that?
KOFINIS: Unfortunately, it doesn't take a lot to disrupt these meetings and I think that's the whole point. Listen, the Republicans and these grassroots groups are clearly being backed by Republican groups and operatives. They have a very simple strategy, which is to delay, is to disrupt, is to disturb. It's basically that you take over these town halls and make them a media spectacle and create this facade of what is opposition.
The reality is: the overwhelming majority of Americans want health care reform. There may be clear disagreements or discussions about what kind of health care reform we need, but the notion that we don't need health care reform is laughable.
Now, in terms of what Democrats, I think, need to do, listen, it's a difficult thing. When you have a town hall, 150 people, 10 or 20 can disrupt that. Listen, my perspective is, a good strategy: shame-shame them.
And the way I think you can shame them, and I would suggest to every Democratic member of Congress that has one of these town halls, bring one of your constituents who have suffered through this health care crisis that can tell you a personal story, that can start that town hall telling them, telling those people in that audience what the consequences are when an insurance company cuts their coverage and their child couldn't get the treatment they needed. And let those protestors get up and fight that. I think that is a very powerful approach.
OLBERMANN: Would it to be of any use to sort of foster a backlash against the phony backlash to say, "Look, where exactly are you from? Have you ever been in this district before? Did you come here on a bus from another state?" Is that of any use in those situations, confront them?
KOFINIS: Well, I mean, I think-I think it helps but the problem is, you know, it's one of the things that I think the media is going to have to expose. I mean, what is clearly happening here is the Republicans know that the country has moved in a different direction. That it clearly wants to tackle these issues like health care reform.
So, they're trying to slow it down. You see that both in the legislative tactics they're using in Congress and now you're saying that now in these grassroots tactics. They did the same thing I think in a weird way that's very reminiscent to what happened back with the 2000 election, and now, you're seeing the very same thing, have small groups disrupt it.
I think, exposing them is a good thing, but it's not enough. I think you have to tackle it head on, basically disprove their lies and their falsehoods, because the reality is, when you explain to the American people the enormous benefits of this health care reform, it's going to control costs, that it's going to expand coverage, that we basically are going to tackle a problem that we cannot ignore anymore, people will support it-but you can't let a small group dominate the agenda or dominate that town hall in that case.
OLBERMANN: All right. If you take the August recess as kind of a collective town hall and media perceptions of town halls, you've got those, you've got TV/radio ads, you got stunts we probably can't even imagine, you got Rush Limbaugh who might as well be funded by the Republican Party reading whatever it is they hand him. Could this slip into a groove that cripples health care reform?
KOFINIS: Well, it's possible but, you know, I'm going to be optimistic about it. I think what you're seeing from the Democrats in terms of the strategy that's coming out of Congress, as well as the strategy out of the White House is a very aggressive strategy on multiple levels, both in the grassroots, the media, in terms of using, you know, OFA, which is the grassroots arm of the Obama campaign, as well as other progressive groups.
But let's make no mistake about it. This really is a battle for health care reform and in terms of the next four, six, eight weeks, it is the groups that are going to fight the hardest that I think are going to have an incredible influence in terms of who wins the agenda both at the media level as well as the legislative agenda.
So, this is a real challenge, I think, to progressive groups, Democrats, to go out there and fight for the health care reform we all know this country needs.
OLBERMANN: The Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis-as always, Chris, great thanks for your time tonight.
KOFINIS: Thanks, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Behind all of this, of course, is the money. And the great struggle in this American experiment: the people versus the corporation. As I suggested in my question to Senator Sanders, if the health care giants can afford to spend a reported $1,400,000 per day to thwart the public insurance option, how much are they making per day? And to whom is that money going?
Sadly, it is going to our politicians and in carload lots. Your assumption about the Republicans is correct, but there are also Democrats who have sold their soul, and I will call them out by name tonight in a "Special Comment" on health care.
INTERVIEW on COUNTDOWN w Keth Olbermann -
OLBERMANN: the phony protests and the sycophants applauding the phony protest, do the the tactics surprise you at all?
SANDERS: No, not at all. The fact of the matter is that these people talk about freedom and what they are doing is trying to disrupt meetings, which is the absolute opposite of what freedom of discussion is about. And the reason for that is they are afraid to debate the real issues, the fact that we have a disintegrating health care system, that we have tens of millions uninsured, underinsured, 18,000 Americans die every year because they don't get to a doctor on time. We got a million Americans this year going bankrupt because of medically-related bills.
And these people are screaming and yelling so we can't have a real discussion of the real issues.
OLBERMANN: Presuming you have to win both on the issues and the screaming and yelling, how do you win on the screaming and yelling when that is spun as the rage of average Americans in most of the media?
SANDERS: Well, you know, it gets back to the media doing what they did in Iraq, which is distorting reality. You remember, during the debate in Iraq, Keith, we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Iraq was working with al Qaeda. Well, it turned out not to be true.
And what these guys are doing, what they are saying is grossly untrue. They are talking about a government takeover of health care. Untrue. They are talking-if you can believe this in 2009 -- about the president of the United States wanting to kill off older people.
So the answer is: if you want to have a real debate on the real issues, let's do it. Let's ask for example why countries around the world are providing better quality of care than we are at ½ the cost. Let's ask why we are the only nation in the industrialized world that does not have a national health care program guaranteeing all of their people. Those are the kinds of questions that we've got to be debating.
OLBERMANN: A question about Senator Enzi of Wyoming. Last week, he said he wanted a guarantee that anything that came out of the finance committee ends up in the final legislation that's passed. And today, he's rejected the September 15th deadline for his committee to reach agreement on the bill.
Is this-are we seeing the outlines of the latest Republican plan, just never let the legislation out of committee?
SANDERS: Look, let's be clear. There are virtually no Republicans in the Senate who are serious about health care reform. That's the simple reality. And what they keep doing is stalling and stalling and stalling, and trying to confuse people.
Now, the truth of the matter is, the Democrats have not been particularly effective in also saying and stating the case as to why we need real health care reform. Bottom line is: the system is disintegrating. Bottom line is: we spent twice as much as any other country. Our outcomes are worse. Bottom line is: the vast majority of people want a public option among other reforms.
OLBERMANN: Another bottom line, though, is delaying this-just delaying this victory, is that victory enough for the health industries? I mean, how many million a day do they collectively profit that would go out the window if there was this public option that would tamp down insurance prices?
SANDERS: That's absolutely right. According to the papers just today, the health care industry has spent $130 million in the last quarter. And that is the reason why our private insurance companies are reaping huge profits, why the drug companies charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Of course, they don't want health care reform. Of course, they'll do everything to try to stop us.
OLBERMANN: Last question, Senator, a prediction. Is this legislation eventually going to require passage by reconciliation?
SANDERS: Reconciliation is one of the tools that we have. My hope is that every Democrat will vote against the Republican filibuster, will pick up maybe one Republican, will do something serious and real for the American people.
OLBERMANN: Amen. Senator Bernie Sanders, the great independent of Vermont-once again, great thanks for your time tonight, sir.
SANDERS: It's good to be with you.
OLBERMANN: For more on how Democrats can handle the so-called grassroots protestors, let's turn to Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis.
Chris, good evening.
CHRIS KOFINIS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Good evening, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Does it really take that much to hijack a town hall meeting? And how do Democratic lawmakers or other Democratic speakers combat that?
KOFINIS: Unfortunately, it doesn't take a lot to disrupt these meetings and I think that's the whole point. Listen, the Republicans and these grassroots groups are clearly being backed by Republican groups and operatives. They have a very simple strategy, which is to delay, is to disrupt, is to disturb. It's basically that you take over these town halls and make them a media spectacle and create this facade of what is opposition.
The reality is: the overwhelming majority of Americans want health care reform. There may be clear disagreements or discussions about what kind of health care reform we need, but the notion that we don't need health care reform is laughable.
Now, in terms of what Democrats, I think, need to do, listen, it's a difficult thing. When you have a town hall, 150 people, 10 or 20 can disrupt that. Listen, my perspective is, a good strategy: shame-shame them.
And the way I think you can shame them, and I would suggest to every Democratic member of Congress that has one of these town halls, bring one of your constituents who have suffered through this health care crisis that can tell you a personal story, that can start that town hall telling them, telling those people in that audience what the consequences are when an insurance company cuts their coverage and their child couldn't get the treatment they needed. And let those protestors get up and fight that. I think that is a very powerful approach.
OLBERMANN: Would it to be of any use to sort of foster a backlash against the phony backlash to say, "Look, where exactly are you from? Have you ever been in this district before? Did you come here on a bus from another state?" Is that of any use in those situations, confront them?
KOFINIS: Well, I mean, I think-I think it helps but the problem is, you know, it's one of the things that I think the media is going to have to expose. I mean, what is clearly happening here is the Republicans know that the country has moved in a different direction. That it clearly wants to tackle these issues like health care reform.
So, they're trying to slow it down. You see that both in the legislative tactics they're using in Congress and now you're saying that now in these grassroots tactics. They did the same thing I think in a weird way that's very reminiscent to what happened back with the 2000 election, and now, you're seeing the very same thing, have small groups disrupt it.
I think, exposing them is a good thing, but it's not enough. I think you have to tackle it head on, basically disprove their lies and their falsehoods, because the reality is, when you explain to the American people the enormous benefits of this health care reform, it's going to control costs, that it's going to expand coverage, that we basically are going to tackle a problem that we cannot ignore anymore, people will support it-but you can't let a small group dominate the agenda or dominate that town hall in that case.
OLBERMANN: All right. If you take the August recess as kind of a collective town hall and media perceptions of town halls, you've got those, you've got TV/radio ads, you got stunts we probably can't even imagine, you got Rush Limbaugh who might as well be funded by the Republican Party reading whatever it is they hand him. Could this slip into a groove that cripples health care reform?
KOFINIS: Well, it's possible but, you know, I'm going to be optimistic about it. I think what you're seeing from the Democrats in terms of the strategy that's coming out of Congress, as well as the strategy out of the White House is a very aggressive strategy on multiple levels, both in the grassroots, the media, in terms of using, you know, OFA, which is the grassroots arm of the Obama campaign, as well as other progressive groups.
But let's make no mistake about it. This really is a battle for health care reform and in terms of the next four, six, eight weeks, it is the groups that are going to fight the hardest that I think are going to have an incredible influence in terms of who wins the agenda both at the media level as well as the legislative agenda.
So, this is a real challenge, I think, to progressive groups, Democrats, to go out there and fight for the health care reform we all know this country needs.
OLBERMANN: The Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis-as always, Chris, great thanks for your time tonight.
KOFINIS: Thanks, Keith.
OLBERMANN: Behind all of this, of course, is the money. And the great struggle in this American experiment: the people versus the corporation. As I suggested in my question to Senator Sanders, if the health care giants can afford to spend a reported $1,400,000 per day to thwart the public insurance option, how much are they making per day? And to whom is that money going?
Sadly, it is going to our politicians and in carload lots. Your assumption about the Republicans is correct, but there are also Democrats who have sold their soul, and I will call them out by name tonight in a "Special Comment" on health care.
Olbermann's Non-Denial and His Good Move
On his show last night, Keith Olbermann essentially issued a non-denial denial about the GE-MSNBC-Fox story, saying that he himself was "party to no deal" - exactly what he said in the original New York Times article. There's no reason to doubt Olbermann - however, as journalism prof Dan Kennedy suggests (h/t Glenn Greenwald & Jay Rosen), Olbermann's own personal lack of involvement in a "deal" is far less important than the simple fact that GE started trying to give blatant news-content orders to MSNBC's newsroom - orders that may have been followed in places well beyond Olbermann's control.
Certainly, the fact that Olbermann resisted those orders is good news - but again, as I said in my original post, this story wasn't an indictment of Olbermann - it was an indictment of the entire corporate-news structure of the networks in question.
Indeed, in Olbermann's non-denial denial last night, he didn't refute the quotes from General Electric management, he didn't refute that MSNBC execs told its producers that they "wanted the channel's other programs [to] restrain from criticizing Fox directly," and he didn't refute this report from TV Newser saying that the parent companies for Fox and MSNBC have been in negotiations for months.
Where Olbermann really shined yesterday is in his DailyKos blog post. After MSNBC management said they'd be happy to still have on corporate PR spokesman Richard Wolffe as a "political analyst" - a blatant insult to journalism ethics - Olbermann put his foot down:
As to Richard Wolffe I can offer far less insight. I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and his reporting on Richard's other jobs. I must confess I was caught flat-footed. I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things (see above) but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.
I am confident his commentary to this point has not been compromised - he has been an insightful analyst and a great friend to this show - but until we can clarify what else he is doing, he will not be appearing with us. I apologize for not being able to prevent this unhappy set of circumstances from developing.
As I said originally, beyond the benefit of MSNBC providing a much-needed counterweight to Fox News, it's clear there are definitely individuals at MSNBC like Olbermann and Rachel Maddow who have a healthy respect for journalism ethics. And it's good to see them using the leverage they have to try to make sure those ethics are publicly respected. Though they cannot pretend that the media's corporate parents have no influence in news decisions, they can - as Olbermann has in the Wolffe matter - do their part to root avoid the worst transgressions.
So in sum, on the non-denial denial, I'm not that impressed. But on the journalism ethics score, I'd say good on ya, Keith. Oh, and especially good on ya for your health care Special Comment last night.
Certainly, the fact that Olbermann resisted those orders is good news - but again, as I said in my original post, this story wasn't an indictment of Olbermann - it was an indictment of the entire corporate-news structure of the networks in question.
Indeed, in Olbermann's non-denial denial last night, he didn't refute the quotes from General Electric management, he didn't refute that MSNBC execs told its producers that they "wanted the channel's other programs [to] restrain from criticizing Fox directly," and he didn't refute this report from TV Newser saying that the parent companies for Fox and MSNBC have been in negotiations for months.
Where Olbermann really shined yesterday is in his DailyKos blog post. After MSNBC management said they'd be happy to still have on corporate PR spokesman Richard Wolffe as a "political analyst" - a blatant insult to journalism ethics - Olbermann put his foot down:
As to Richard Wolffe I can offer far less insight. I honor Mr. Greenwald's insight into the coverage of GE/NewsCorp talks, and his reporting on Richard's other jobs. I must confess I was caught flat-footed. I do not know what the truth is; my executive producer and I have spent the last two months dealing with other things (see above) but what appears to be the truth here is certainly not what Richard told us about his non-news job.
I am confident his commentary to this point has not been compromised - he has been an insightful analyst and a great friend to this show - but until we can clarify what else he is doing, he will not be appearing with us. I apologize for not being able to prevent this unhappy set of circumstances from developing.
As I said originally, beyond the benefit of MSNBC providing a much-needed counterweight to Fox News, it's clear there are definitely individuals at MSNBC like Olbermann and Rachel Maddow who have a healthy respect for journalism ethics. And it's good to see them using the leverage they have to try to make sure those ethics are publicly respected. Though they cannot pretend that the media's corporate parents have no influence in news decisions, they can - as Olbermann has in the Wolffe matter - do their part to root avoid the worst transgressions.
So in sum, on the non-denial denial, I'm not that impressed. But on the journalism ethics score, I'd say good on ya, Keith. Oh, and especially good on ya for your health care Special Comment last night.
Monday, August 03, 2009
E-mails show Ensign’s staff knew of affair By Lisa Mascaro
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. John Ensign’s top staff at the National Republican Senatorial Committee knew about the senator’s affair during the height of the 2008 election season last summer before the party’s devastating losses that bolstered Democratic control of the Senate, according to e-mails obtained by a Las Vegas Sun columnist.
The Sun’s Jon Ralston is also reporting this afternoon that the woman’s husband sought help from former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, further questioning if Santorum tipped off Ensign that the husband was going public with the affair.
Ralston reports that Mike and Lindsey Slanker, the husband-and-wife team that helped run the national committee when Ensign was its chairman last year, struggled as they dealt with fallout from the senator’s affair.
Ensign admitted an affair with Cynthia Hampton, his former campaign treasurer, whose husband, Doug Hampton, had been one of the senator’s top aides at the time.
Ensign later helped Doug Hampton get a job with November Inc., the Nevada-based political consulting firm run by the Slankers.
Mike Slanker worked as the committee’s political director for the 2008 election cycle, and his wife was the committee’s financial director.
In one e-mail exchange dated July 10, 2008 between Mike Slanker and Doug Hampton obtained by Ralston shows that Slanker would have been aware of the affair. The men are discussing the strain the situation has caused the friendship between their families and work environment.
Another e-mail that day from Lindsey Slanker to Cynthia Hampton further discusses the difficulty the situation has had on their friendship.
Mike Slanker had previously told the Associated Press he was unaware of the affair.
The e-mails are posted here.
Ensign’s Republican colleagues in the Senate essentially gave him a pass after losing eight seats during the 2008 election and putting Democrats within sight of a filibuster-proof majority, chalking it up to a difficult year for the Republican Party.
Ensign went on to be elected by his peers to party leadership last fall, but stepped down from the No. 4 position earlier this year after announcing his affair.
With Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch from Republican to Democrat, the Democrats have a 60-seat filibuster proof majority.
Ralston also reports that Doug Hampton’s e-mail to Santorum is dated June 15, the day before Ensign abruptly left Washington to return to Las Vegas to announce the affair.
Ensign’s office has said the senator decided to go public because the husband was taking the affair to the media.
Santorum has declined to address the situation when asked recently by Politico.
Sun Archives
■Behind the closed doors on C Street (7-19-2009)
■Ethics group amends Ensign complaint over $96,000 payment (7-17-2009)
■Ensign’s $96,000 question: Severance pay or gift to Hamptons? (7-16-2009)
■In D.C., some worry Ensign saga is not over (7-15-2009)
■Ensign gives first Senate speech since acknowledging affair (7-15-2009)
■Ensign to stay in Senate, seek reelection (7-14-2009)
■Silence, not calls for Ensign to quit (7-12-2009)
■If shockers done, Ensign could stay in office, many say (7-11-2009)
■GOP support for Ensign dwindles as new details of affair emerge (7-10-2009)
■Ensign's parents gave Hampton family $96,000 (7-9-2009)
■Hampton portrays Ensign as relentless (7-9-2009)
■Ensign’s pal lacked usual qualifications for top job (7-5-2009)
■Handling the public display of contrition (6-27-2009)
■Off the cuff, Ensign guarded but genial (6-26-2009)
■Fox News had Hampton’s letter earlier than it said (6-24-2009)
■For Ensign, a new lot in Congress (6-24-2009)
■Ensign apologizes during lunch with GOP senators (6-23-2009)
■Back in Washington, Ensign received warmly (6-23-2009)
■Ensign back in D.C.; group plans ethics complaint (6-22-2009)
■In state GOP, Ensign finds few defenders (6-21-09)
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. John Ensign’s top staff at the National Republican Senatorial Committee knew about the senator’s affair during the height of the 2008 election season last summer before the party’s devastating losses that bolstered Democratic control of the Senate, according to e-mails obtained by a Las Vegas Sun columnist.
The Sun’s Jon Ralston is also reporting this afternoon that the woman’s husband sought help from former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, further questioning if Santorum tipped off Ensign that the husband was going public with the affair.
Ralston reports that Mike and Lindsey Slanker, the husband-and-wife team that helped run the national committee when Ensign was its chairman last year, struggled as they dealt with fallout from the senator’s affair.
Ensign admitted an affair with Cynthia Hampton, his former campaign treasurer, whose husband, Doug Hampton, had been one of the senator’s top aides at the time.
Ensign later helped Doug Hampton get a job with November Inc., the Nevada-based political consulting firm run by the Slankers.
Mike Slanker worked as the committee’s political director for the 2008 election cycle, and his wife was the committee’s financial director.
In one e-mail exchange dated July 10, 2008 between Mike Slanker and Doug Hampton obtained by Ralston shows that Slanker would have been aware of the affair. The men are discussing the strain the situation has caused the friendship between their families and work environment.
Another e-mail that day from Lindsey Slanker to Cynthia Hampton further discusses the difficulty the situation has had on their friendship.
Mike Slanker had previously told the Associated Press he was unaware of the affair.
The e-mails are posted here.
Ensign’s Republican colleagues in the Senate essentially gave him a pass after losing eight seats during the 2008 election and putting Democrats within sight of a filibuster-proof majority, chalking it up to a difficult year for the Republican Party.
Ensign went on to be elected by his peers to party leadership last fall, but stepped down from the No. 4 position earlier this year after announcing his affair.
With Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s switch from Republican to Democrat, the Democrats have a 60-seat filibuster proof majority.
Ralston also reports that Doug Hampton’s e-mail to Santorum is dated June 15, the day before Ensign abruptly left Washington to return to Las Vegas to announce the affair.
Ensign’s office has said the senator decided to go public because the husband was taking the affair to the media.
Santorum has declined to address the situation when asked recently by Politico.
Sun Archives
■Behind the closed doors on C Street (7-19-2009)
■Ethics group amends Ensign complaint over $96,000 payment (7-17-2009)
■Ensign’s $96,000 question: Severance pay or gift to Hamptons? (7-16-2009)
■In D.C., some worry Ensign saga is not over (7-15-2009)
■Ensign gives first Senate speech since acknowledging affair (7-15-2009)
■Ensign to stay in Senate, seek reelection (7-14-2009)
■Silence, not calls for Ensign to quit (7-12-2009)
■If shockers done, Ensign could stay in office, many say (7-11-2009)
■GOP support for Ensign dwindles as new details of affair emerge (7-10-2009)
■Ensign's parents gave Hampton family $96,000 (7-9-2009)
■Hampton portrays Ensign as relentless (7-9-2009)
■Ensign’s pal lacked usual qualifications for top job (7-5-2009)
■Handling the public display of contrition (6-27-2009)
■Off the cuff, Ensign guarded but genial (6-26-2009)
■Fox News had Hampton’s letter earlier than it said (6-24-2009)
■For Ensign, a new lot in Congress (6-24-2009)
■Ensign apologizes during lunch with GOP senators (6-23-2009)
■Back in Washington, Ensign received warmly (6-23-2009)
■Ensign back in D.C.; group plans ethics complaint (6-22-2009)
■In state GOP, Ensign finds few defenders (6-21-09)
Confidential, With an Asterisk
NY Times by: DOUG GLANVILLE
I can understand why there are so many calls for the heads of the 104 players on the so-called “list” that marks them as guilty for testing positive in the 2003 survey drug test. It seems that publishing this list once and for all would make us all feel better. We could put this chapter behind us, convince ourselves that everyone not on the list is clean as a whistle, and rest assured the game would never return to such disgrace.
But it would be a Pyrrhic victory, at best.
The 2003 drug test was a “survey” test. It was devised to establish the extent of the drug culture in baseball. Instead of just running with innuendo, rumor and guesswork, the Players Association decided that they needed to actually find out for sure.
So this test was put in place to get a true number. It also allowed players a safe place to be truthful (or sloppy). And it is safe to assume that the assurance that the results wouldn’t leave the premises persuaded some to not mask their samples to hide a potential positive result. Here was a chance to actually be forthright, and give the league a truer sense of the extent of a problem that needed to be addressed. Ironically, the players who may have found ways to beat the test seem to be better off today. Those players are quietly in the “clean” column and those who were either sloppy enough or open enough to provide a real sample, which helped move this testing policy forward, are about to get a Scarlet Letter.
The tests were contingent on some semblance of confidentiality. No player in the game would have ever agreed to a collectively bargained drug policy if they had been told beforehand that the results would end up in the public domain. Sure, if the government found a way to bypass that, then we would have had to comply, but instead we got this chronic leaking of confidential and anonymous information after five years, with only selective players being “outed.” Kind of shady. Well, if this is for such a good cause, then why the negative approach? Why pick and chose who gets the center square stockade? How about we start leaking the names of the other 1000 players that didn’t test positive? That would be nice change of pace, but whoever is leaking this information isn’t playing nice, at all.
I enjoyed the chapter in the book “Freakonomics” about how the true hazard of a situation often falls short of the outrage. We can be fuming about something, but it may not be the most pernicious problem. Of course I have no love for the drug culture in baseball — it was pervasive and, by raising the performance level in the league, probably contributed to shortening of my career — but systems have and will continue to be put in place to curb what will be an ongoing problem. No list of 104 guys being splashed up on your home page will change that.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of outrage being spewed, and I understand. Something dear has been lost. The culture of a game that had the rare ability to bridge generations of fans and players has been broken. Before the steroid era, a home run was a home run and we could look at and admire and compare the achievements of Mantle, Aaron, Kaline, Ruth, Schmidt, and Mays and feel like we were speaking the same language. The steroid era wipes that out: the magic created on the field starts to seem artificial, patronizing us, appeasing us, making us doubt whether we are truly seeing what we are seeing.
But we need to pay close attention to our outrage because the precedent set by allowing confidential and anonymous collectively bargained tests to be completely breached is a bigger problem. It creates the impression that agreements between employers and employees on policies and procedures can be thrown out at any time, just because someone felt they had the right to know. In such a world, what would prevent your employer from taking your drug test result at C.V.S., at I.B.M. or maybe the hospital you work for and slap it up on the Internet tomorrow?
Granted, somewhere in the morass is a federal investigation, which often changes the rules of these kinds of things. But while investigating the players wrapped up in the BALCO affair, all players got cast in its shadow. This led to the samples not being destroyed as planned since the union could not destroy what could have been evidence in an ongoing investigation. The union was just following the law.
(So if the test was anonymous, you might ask, why is there some key out there to match up the names with the numbers? Answer. There had to be some way to trace back in the event someone lost a sample, or it got tainted, or there could have been a false positive giving the players some right to re-test. )
I don’t know who or which organization is leaking these names. But, I find this act more outrageous than that of the players who tested positive. At least these players helped the game take a step towards putting a better policy in place. It may not have been out of nobility, but at least it was real. I do find it curious that whenever a player is arrogant and bold enough to declare his “cleanliness” he quickly gets nailed by their 2003 positive test. To me, it appears more like a targeted impeachment process. I am not crying for those players’ choices, but what is happening to them is telling.
Certainly, I can understand the frustration of the investigators. When all is said and done, these players are simply “users,” low men on the totem pole of a drug scheme. The players lying at hearings and in the media are creating a distraction and getting in the way of the investigators’ ability to do their job. They are also inhibiting their need to focus on the more significant issues, like the suppliers and the source of these drugs. We’re talking amounts that are changing local economies, not the meager thousands of dollars these guys spent in a year on their “fix.”
I think the release of this list of 104 would be a travesty. The promise of confidentiality was in place to allow players to be more willing to provide a true test. We can’t go back and change the rules after the fact and then claim we are now noble and honorable. I want drugs out of the game, too, but there is more effective, long-term way to go about it that doesn’t compromise principals that make the rule of law in our country so unique.
I can understand why there are so many calls for the heads of the 104 players on the so-called “list” that marks them as guilty for testing positive in the 2003 survey drug test. It seems that publishing this list once and for all would make us all feel better. We could put this chapter behind us, convince ourselves that everyone not on the list is clean as a whistle, and rest assured the game would never return to such disgrace.
But it would be a Pyrrhic victory, at best.
The 2003 drug test was a “survey” test. It was devised to establish the extent of the drug culture in baseball. Instead of just running with innuendo, rumor and guesswork, the Players Association decided that they needed to actually find out for sure.
So this test was put in place to get a true number. It also allowed players a safe place to be truthful (or sloppy). And it is safe to assume that the assurance that the results wouldn’t leave the premises persuaded some to not mask their samples to hide a potential positive result. Here was a chance to actually be forthright, and give the league a truer sense of the extent of a problem that needed to be addressed. Ironically, the players who may have found ways to beat the test seem to be better off today. Those players are quietly in the “clean” column and those who were either sloppy enough or open enough to provide a real sample, which helped move this testing policy forward, are about to get a Scarlet Letter.
The tests were contingent on some semblance of confidentiality. No player in the game would have ever agreed to a collectively bargained drug policy if they had been told beforehand that the results would end up in the public domain. Sure, if the government found a way to bypass that, then we would have had to comply, but instead we got this chronic leaking of confidential and anonymous information after five years, with only selective players being “outed.” Kind of shady. Well, if this is for such a good cause, then why the negative approach? Why pick and chose who gets the center square stockade? How about we start leaking the names of the other 1000 players that didn’t test positive? That would be nice change of pace, but whoever is leaking this information isn’t playing nice, at all.
I enjoyed the chapter in the book “Freakonomics” about how the true hazard of a situation often falls short of the outrage. We can be fuming about something, but it may not be the most pernicious problem. Of course I have no love for the drug culture in baseball — it was pervasive and, by raising the performance level in the league, probably contributed to shortening of my career — but systems have and will continue to be put in place to curb what will be an ongoing problem. No list of 104 guys being splashed up on your home page will change that.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of outrage being spewed, and I understand. Something dear has been lost. The culture of a game that had the rare ability to bridge generations of fans and players has been broken. Before the steroid era, a home run was a home run and we could look at and admire and compare the achievements of Mantle, Aaron, Kaline, Ruth, Schmidt, and Mays and feel like we were speaking the same language. The steroid era wipes that out: the magic created on the field starts to seem artificial, patronizing us, appeasing us, making us doubt whether we are truly seeing what we are seeing.
But we need to pay close attention to our outrage because the precedent set by allowing confidential and anonymous collectively bargained tests to be completely breached is a bigger problem. It creates the impression that agreements between employers and employees on policies and procedures can be thrown out at any time, just because someone felt they had the right to know. In such a world, what would prevent your employer from taking your drug test result at C.V.S., at I.B.M. or maybe the hospital you work for and slap it up on the Internet tomorrow?
Granted, somewhere in the morass is a federal investigation, which often changes the rules of these kinds of things. But while investigating the players wrapped up in the BALCO affair, all players got cast in its shadow. This led to the samples not being destroyed as planned since the union could not destroy what could have been evidence in an ongoing investigation. The union was just following the law.
(So if the test was anonymous, you might ask, why is there some key out there to match up the names with the numbers? Answer. There had to be some way to trace back in the event someone lost a sample, or it got tainted, or there could have been a false positive giving the players some right to re-test. )
I don’t know who or which organization is leaking these names. But, I find this act more outrageous than that of the players who tested positive. At least these players helped the game take a step towards putting a better policy in place. It may not have been out of nobility, but at least it was real. I do find it curious that whenever a player is arrogant and bold enough to declare his “cleanliness” he quickly gets nailed by their 2003 positive test. To me, it appears more like a targeted impeachment process. I am not crying for those players’ choices, but what is happening to them is telling.
Certainly, I can understand the frustration of the investigators. When all is said and done, these players are simply “users,” low men on the totem pole of a drug scheme. The players lying at hearings and in the media are creating a distraction and getting in the way of the investigators’ ability to do their job. They are also inhibiting their need to focus on the more significant issues, like the suppliers and the source of these drugs. We’re talking amounts that are changing local economies, not the meager thousands of dollars these guys spent in a year on their “fix.”
I think the release of this list of 104 would be a travesty. The promise of confidentiality was in place to allow players to be more willing to provide a true test. We can’t go back and change the rules after the fact and then claim we are now noble and honorable. I want drugs out of the game, too, but there is more effective, long-term way to go about it that doesn’t compromise principals that make the rule of law in our country so unique.
THE INFLUENCE GAME: Biotech drug lobbying war
ALAN FRAM Associated Press Writer
With the nation's $46 billion biological drug market at stake, the war between makers of the pricey biotech medicines and their would-be generic competitors has involved millions of dollars in lobbying, thousands in campaign contributions and uncounted visits to members of Congress. And one noteworthy letter.
The note from the private National Health Council, sent to House leaders drafting health overhaul legislation, said the plea was on behalf of "the more than 133 million Americans living with chronic diseases and disabilities and their family caregivers." It urged lawmakers to protect the makers of high-technology biological medicines against early competition from lower-cost generic copycats.
The letter did not mention that nearly $1.2 million of the council's $2.3 million budget in 2007 came from the pharmaceutical industry's chief trade group and 16 companies that sell or are developing the brand-name biotech drugs.
The July 20 letter is an example of a favored lobbying tactic — special interests quietly financing private groups that may take their side as respected, seemingly independent allies without obvious financial interests in the outcome. It also underscores how both sides are using every weapon at their disposal as they battle over an issue that will affect millions of Americans but has been overshadowed by Congress' larger struggle over reshaping the nation's health care system.
Biotech drugs, made from living cells that treat diseases from cancer to psoriasis, can cost a patient tens of thousands of dollars per year. Amgen Inc. and the other companies that make them want their products protected from generic products for at least 12 years, and have won early congressional votes on the issue, due in part to a lopsided edge in lobbying resources. Their generic rivals want to cut that waiting period to five years.
In its letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and other leading legislators, the council argued for at least 10 years of exclusivity, saying the longer protection would encourage biotech companies to keep developing products. The generic drug industry sees that as supporting the biotech companies, but council vice president Marc Boutin says its position is a balance of the views of the 50 patient advocacy groups, like the March of Dimes, that comprise the heart of his organization.
"The sponsors have no control or input" into council projects, Boutin said.
Manufacturers say they need the longer protection to earn a profit on biotech drugs, which can take over $1 billion and a decade to bring to market. Generic companies say waiting that long would discourage them from developing competing products and would keep drug prices high — just when President Barack Obama is trying to lower medical costs as part of his reshaping of health care.
The White House has proposed seven years of protected marketing for brand-name drug makers.
The health council's letter lists its board members, which include the drug makers Amgen and Pfizer Inc., along with patient groups and other companies and medical industry organizations. The council's Web site lists many of the contributions it receives from these groups, another rarity.
"Is all their work bad? No," Steven Findlay, health analyst for Consumers Union, which backs the shorter five-year period, said of the council and other patients' groups that accept medical companies' financing. "But when it comes to health care reform and biogenerics, are they going to oppose the industry on that? No."
Billy Tauzin, president of the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which gave the health council $290,000 in 2007, called them "a great organization" with unchallenged credibility.
"We'll stand by them whether or not they agree with us, any day," said Tauzin, who is also on the council's board.
The lobbying battle has so far been one-sided. The Senate health committee voted 16-7 for a 12-year protection period last month, while Waxman's House energy panel voted 47-11 for 12 years of protection last Friday on an amendment by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who has numerous biotech firms in or near her Silicon Valley district.
That dominance is partly due to a huge disparity in money, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and the Senate Office of Public Records.
Representing biotech companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organization has spent $3.7 million lobbying so far this year. Their ally, Tauzin's association of drug makers, has spent $13.1 million — the second most of any group that lobbies in Washington.
The main group opposing them, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, has spent $1.1 million lobbying this year. Another group, a coalition of generic drug companies, insurers and large employers, has spent another $180,000, though most of its members — like AARP and the General Motors Corp. — are more focused on the overall bill and are devoting few resources to the generic fight.
Individual biotech companies like Amgen are also easily outspending their generic rivals such as Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.
The one-sidedness extends to campaign contributions, too. The biotech organization contributed $192,000 to federal candidates in the two-year 2008 election cycle, the pharmaceutical association $155,000. The generic association: $51,000.
All that money has let the biotech industry launch a lobbying blitz, with targets including lawmakers from biotech-heavy states like California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina.
The biotech organization has brought its CEOs to Washington, and has run print and radio ads in the states of pivotal lawmakers. The pharmaceutical association has helped organize lobbying by universities that conduct biotech research and venture capitalists who invest in such firms, and paid for a Duke University study that concluded biotech firms need 12 to 16 years of protection from generic competitors to break even.
With Democrats controlling Congress, doctor and former national Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean has spoken out for the biotechs — though initially he did not reveal he worked for a law firm advising the biotechnology organization. Former Rep. Ron Klink, D-Pa., and Charles Brain, a former top House Democratic health aide, are lobbying on the biotech side.
"They don't do one thing, they do everything," said a frustrated Katie Huffard, a GOP lobbyist leading the generic coalition. "They are a very formidable, powerful presence."
Other big pharmaceutical contributors to the health council included Pfizer, $184,000; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, $141,000; and Eli Lilly and Co., $131,000.
With the nation's $46 billion biological drug market at stake, the war between makers of the pricey biotech medicines and their would-be generic competitors has involved millions of dollars in lobbying, thousands in campaign contributions and uncounted visits to members of Congress. And one noteworthy letter.
The note from the private National Health Council, sent to House leaders drafting health overhaul legislation, said the plea was on behalf of "the more than 133 million Americans living with chronic diseases and disabilities and their family caregivers." It urged lawmakers to protect the makers of high-technology biological medicines against early competition from lower-cost generic copycats.
The letter did not mention that nearly $1.2 million of the council's $2.3 million budget in 2007 came from the pharmaceutical industry's chief trade group and 16 companies that sell or are developing the brand-name biotech drugs.
The July 20 letter is an example of a favored lobbying tactic — special interests quietly financing private groups that may take their side as respected, seemingly independent allies without obvious financial interests in the outcome. It also underscores how both sides are using every weapon at their disposal as they battle over an issue that will affect millions of Americans but has been overshadowed by Congress' larger struggle over reshaping the nation's health care system.
Biotech drugs, made from living cells that treat diseases from cancer to psoriasis, can cost a patient tens of thousands of dollars per year. Amgen Inc. and the other companies that make them want their products protected from generic products for at least 12 years, and have won early congressional votes on the issue, due in part to a lopsided edge in lobbying resources. Their generic rivals want to cut that waiting period to five years.
In its letter to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and other leading legislators, the council argued for at least 10 years of exclusivity, saying the longer protection would encourage biotech companies to keep developing products. The generic drug industry sees that as supporting the biotech companies, but council vice president Marc Boutin says its position is a balance of the views of the 50 patient advocacy groups, like the March of Dimes, that comprise the heart of his organization.
"The sponsors have no control or input" into council projects, Boutin said.
Manufacturers say they need the longer protection to earn a profit on biotech drugs, which can take over $1 billion and a decade to bring to market. Generic companies say waiting that long would discourage them from developing competing products and would keep drug prices high — just when President Barack Obama is trying to lower medical costs as part of his reshaping of health care.
The White House has proposed seven years of protected marketing for brand-name drug makers.
The health council's letter lists its board members, which include the drug makers Amgen and Pfizer Inc., along with patient groups and other companies and medical industry organizations. The council's Web site lists many of the contributions it receives from these groups, another rarity.
"Is all their work bad? No," Steven Findlay, health analyst for Consumers Union, which backs the shorter five-year period, said of the council and other patients' groups that accept medical companies' financing. "But when it comes to health care reform and biogenerics, are they going to oppose the industry on that? No."
Billy Tauzin, president of the industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which gave the health council $290,000 in 2007, called them "a great organization" with unchallenged credibility.
"We'll stand by them whether or not they agree with us, any day," said Tauzin, who is also on the council's board.
The lobbying battle has so far been one-sided. The Senate health committee voted 16-7 for a 12-year protection period last month, while Waxman's House energy panel voted 47-11 for 12 years of protection last Friday on an amendment by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who has numerous biotech firms in or near her Silicon Valley district.
That dominance is partly due to a huge disparity in money, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics and the Senate Office of Public Records.
Representing biotech companies, the Biotechnology Industry Organization has spent $3.7 million lobbying so far this year. Their ally, Tauzin's association of drug makers, has spent $13.1 million — the second most of any group that lobbies in Washington.
The main group opposing them, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, has spent $1.1 million lobbying this year. Another group, a coalition of generic drug companies, insurers and large employers, has spent another $180,000, though most of its members — like AARP and the General Motors Corp. — are more focused on the overall bill and are devoting few resources to the generic fight.
Individual biotech companies like Amgen are also easily outspending their generic rivals such as Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.
The one-sidedness extends to campaign contributions, too. The biotech organization contributed $192,000 to federal candidates in the two-year 2008 election cycle, the pharmaceutical association $155,000. The generic association: $51,000.
All that money has let the biotech industry launch a lobbying blitz, with targets including lawmakers from biotech-heavy states like California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and North Carolina.
The biotech organization has brought its CEOs to Washington, and has run print and radio ads in the states of pivotal lawmakers. The pharmaceutical association has helped organize lobbying by universities that conduct biotech research and venture capitalists who invest in such firms, and paid for a Duke University study that concluded biotech firms need 12 to 16 years of protection from generic competitors to break even.
With Democrats controlling Congress, doctor and former national Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean has spoken out for the biotechs — though initially he did not reveal he worked for a law firm advising the biotechnology organization. Former Rep. Ron Klink, D-Pa., and Charles Brain, a former top House Democratic health aide, are lobbying on the biotech side.
"They don't do one thing, they do everything," said a frustrated Katie Huffard, a GOP lobbyist leading the generic coalition. "They are a very formidable, powerful presence."
Other big pharmaceutical contributors to the health council included Pfizer, $184,000; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, $141,000; and Eli Lilly and Co., $131,000.
18 clever time-savers for super busy people
Story Highlights
Send out birthday cards once a month
Turn over the role of meal planner and cook to your family
Quick breakfast: Put all fruit, milk, silken tofu, or yogurt in the blender pitcher
Stow a small paper shredder near the mail to destroy credit-card offers
By Amanda Hinnant; additional reporting by Laine Siklos and Winnie Yu
(REAL SIMPLE) -- Ingenious ideas from (and for) busy women everywhere.
Designate a space for "in use" cups
Create a special spot on the kitchen counter where everyone can put half-filled coffee mugs that need to be reheated, water glasses to be used again later, or sippy cups that can be refilled.
At the end of the day, put everything that's still out into the dishwasher. It cuts down on kitchen clutter, and it also avoids shouts across the house of "Are you done with that coffee yet?"
Presort the family laundry
Clean laundry is only half the battle it still needs to be sorted and put away.
Save those steps by keeping washer-and-dryer-safe mesh bags (27-by-36-inch mesh bag, $8, stacksandstacks.com) in each kid's room one for lights, one for darks.
Throw the bags directly into the washing machine and dryer, then hand them back to the kids. If they're old enough, they can do their own folding.RealSimple.com: Get organized using everyday items
Minimize trips to the garbage can
While preparing a meal, keep a big bowl on the counter. Put all your chopping, cutting, and peeling discards into it, then make one trip to the garbage instead of 10.
Make a quick breakfast
Put all your fruit, milk, silken tofu, or yogurt in the blender pitcher and store the pitcher in the refrigerator overnight. (You can even prechop a banana. It will brown, but that will not affect the flavor of the shake.
In the morning, set it on the blender and press the button. RealSimple.com: 30 tips for easy outdoor entertaining
Put the kids to work
Tired of hearing "What's for dinner?" and "That again?"
Turn over the role of meal planner and cook to your family.
Ask each person to choose a night that suits his or her schedule (some family members may need to make a few meals each week), fill in a dinner menu, and add the needed ingredients to the grocery list.
Make the rules simple: a different menu every night, and only one pasta dish per week.
Everyone's food issues (allergies, picky taste buds) must be addressed. Every menu must be healthy and include vegetables. Include a dish-duty sign-up, too.
Prepare sandwiches for dinner
When in doubt, whip up a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for dinner to save time.
Make it with natural peanut butter, real fruit jam, and whole-grain bread. That way it's "real" food, unlike many of the additive-laden prepackaged meals so widely available now.
Keep an everything datebook
Buy a weekly calendar. Jot down all the traditional things: school events, birthdays, appointments.
But use it to keep track of nontraditional things, too.
Write down bills that come through the mail and mark their due dates six days ahead.
Plan weekly dinner menus and write them on the calendar. Use it to also record the kids' long-term assignments.
That helps prevent those evenings of racing around to do everything at the last second. RealSimple.com: Systems for managing your mail
Never miss another birthday
Send out birthday cards once a month. Receiving one early is better than not receiving one at all.
Have a shredder ready
Stow a small paper shredder near the mail to destroy credit-card offers and "checks."
Try a double-duty dustbin
Empty your bathroom garbage can and use it as a bucket when you wash your bathroom and hardwood floors.
Rinse it in the tub, then fill it with white vinegar and water. Both the floors and the garbage can are clean when you're done.
Start a recipe chain letter
Planning menus and getting the ingredients together for a quick meal after work can be time-consuming.
That's where the recipe-exchange "chain letter" comes in. Have friends send you their favorite easy-to-make recipes, then you forward them on.
In addition, keep a few cookbooks at the office and download recipes from the Internet to a folder on the computer.
Photocopy or print out the ingredients list while at work and then buy groceries during lunch or on the way home.
Squeeze now, use later
If you have leftover lemons and limes from a cocktail party, squeeze them and freeze the juice in an ice-cube tray.
Once they're frozen, store the cubes in zippered plastic bags and use them for recipes that call for fresh lemon or lime juice. (One cube equals about one tablespoon of juice.)
Keep an ongoing shopping list
Whoever unwraps the last bar of soap from the four-pack or scrapes the last spoonful of mayo out of the jar should be responsible for writing it down on the shopping list.
Time-stamp your photos
When you get your photographs developed, label the envelopes before leaving the store.
On the top of the envelope, jot down the date, subjects, or activity. It's easier than trying to remember the details later.
Or take it one step further and throw out right there in the store any flattering, uninteresting, or unclear photographs.
Get ready for morning the night before
Set out everything you can -- dry breakfast ingredients, clothes, backpacks and bags, and lunches -- before going to bed.
It means fewer things to think about when you wake up and you're getting ready to leave the house.
Create a beauty station
Hang a mirror by the door, along with a basket filled with last-minute primping tools.
You won't have to run all over the house looking for brushes, barrettes, sunscreen, hand lotion, or various makeup essentials: It's all in the basket.
Start a day-by-day shelf system
To get out the door more quickly each day, dedicate baskets or shelves to specific days of the week.
When you remove things from your bag at night, place each item on the appropriate shelf or in the correct basket.
Designate a certain spot for everyday items like your wallet, transit card, and cell phone.
Organize your hand-me-downs
Keep a "future bin" in the kids' closets for hand-me-downs you get from others and anything that's too big for them right now.
Purge their closets once a season. Put removed items in one of three places: a younger sibling's "future bin", the charity bin, or the trash.
Many charities, such as Goodwill, call quarterly to let you know they will have a truck in the area, so you don't have to load your car and make an extra trip.
When they call, leave the bin out front for pickup, and they'll hang the receipt (for tax purposes) on your doorknob.
This is also a good time to get rid of any toys that the kids have outgrown.
Send out birthday cards once a month
Turn over the role of meal planner and cook to your family
Quick breakfast: Put all fruit, milk, silken tofu, or yogurt in the blender pitcher
Stow a small paper shredder near the mail to destroy credit-card offers
By Amanda Hinnant; additional reporting by Laine Siklos and Winnie Yu
(REAL SIMPLE) -- Ingenious ideas from (and for) busy women everywhere.
Designate a space for "in use" cups
Create a special spot on the kitchen counter where everyone can put half-filled coffee mugs that need to be reheated, water glasses to be used again later, or sippy cups that can be refilled.
At the end of the day, put everything that's still out into the dishwasher. It cuts down on kitchen clutter, and it also avoids shouts across the house of "Are you done with that coffee yet?"
Presort the family laundry
Clean laundry is only half the battle it still needs to be sorted and put away.
Save those steps by keeping washer-and-dryer-safe mesh bags (27-by-36-inch mesh bag, $8, stacksandstacks.com) in each kid's room one for lights, one for darks.
Throw the bags directly into the washing machine and dryer, then hand them back to the kids. If they're old enough, they can do their own folding.RealSimple.com: Get organized using everyday items
Minimize trips to the garbage can
While preparing a meal, keep a big bowl on the counter. Put all your chopping, cutting, and peeling discards into it, then make one trip to the garbage instead of 10.
Make a quick breakfast
Put all your fruit, milk, silken tofu, or yogurt in the blender pitcher and store the pitcher in the refrigerator overnight. (You can even prechop a banana. It will brown, but that will not affect the flavor of the shake.
In the morning, set it on the blender and press the button. RealSimple.com: 30 tips for easy outdoor entertaining
Put the kids to work
Tired of hearing "What's for dinner?" and "That again?"
Turn over the role of meal planner and cook to your family.
Ask each person to choose a night that suits his or her schedule (some family members may need to make a few meals each week), fill in a dinner menu, and add the needed ingredients to the grocery list.
Make the rules simple: a different menu every night, and only one pasta dish per week.
Everyone's food issues (allergies, picky taste buds) must be addressed. Every menu must be healthy and include vegetables. Include a dish-duty sign-up, too.
Prepare sandwiches for dinner
When in doubt, whip up a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for dinner to save time.
Make it with natural peanut butter, real fruit jam, and whole-grain bread. That way it's "real" food, unlike many of the additive-laden prepackaged meals so widely available now.
Keep an everything datebook
Buy a weekly calendar. Jot down all the traditional things: school events, birthdays, appointments.
But use it to keep track of nontraditional things, too.
Write down bills that come through the mail and mark their due dates six days ahead.
Plan weekly dinner menus and write them on the calendar. Use it to also record the kids' long-term assignments.
That helps prevent those evenings of racing around to do everything at the last second. RealSimple.com: Systems for managing your mail
Never miss another birthday
Send out birthday cards once a month. Receiving one early is better than not receiving one at all.
Have a shredder ready
Stow a small paper shredder near the mail to destroy credit-card offers and "checks."
Try a double-duty dustbin
Empty your bathroom garbage can and use it as a bucket when you wash your bathroom and hardwood floors.
Rinse it in the tub, then fill it with white vinegar and water. Both the floors and the garbage can are clean when you're done.
Start a recipe chain letter
Planning menus and getting the ingredients together for a quick meal after work can be time-consuming.
That's where the recipe-exchange "chain letter" comes in. Have friends send you their favorite easy-to-make recipes, then you forward them on.
In addition, keep a few cookbooks at the office and download recipes from the Internet to a folder on the computer.
Photocopy or print out the ingredients list while at work and then buy groceries during lunch or on the way home.
Squeeze now, use later
If you have leftover lemons and limes from a cocktail party, squeeze them and freeze the juice in an ice-cube tray.
Once they're frozen, store the cubes in zippered plastic bags and use them for recipes that call for fresh lemon or lime juice. (One cube equals about one tablespoon of juice.)
Keep an ongoing shopping list
Whoever unwraps the last bar of soap from the four-pack or scrapes the last spoonful of mayo out of the jar should be responsible for writing it down on the shopping list.
Time-stamp your photos
When you get your photographs developed, label the envelopes before leaving the store.
On the top of the envelope, jot down the date, subjects, or activity. It's easier than trying to remember the details later.
Or take it one step further and throw out right there in the store any flattering, uninteresting, or unclear photographs.
Get ready for morning the night before
Set out everything you can -- dry breakfast ingredients, clothes, backpacks and bags, and lunches -- before going to bed.
It means fewer things to think about when you wake up and you're getting ready to leave the house.
Create a beauty station
Hang a mirror by the door, along with a basket filled with last-minute primping tools.
You won't have to run all over the house looking for brushes, barrettes, sunscreen, hand lotion, or various makeup essentials: It's all in the basket.
Start a day-by-day shelf system
To get out the door more quickly each day, dedicate baskets or shelves to specific days of the week.
When you remove things from your bag at night, place each item on the appropriate shelf or in the correct basket.
Designate a certain spot for everyday items like your wallet, transit card, and cell phone.
Organize your hand-me-downs
Keep a "future bin" in the kids' closets for hand-me-downs you get from others and anything that's too big for them right now.
Purge their closets once a season. Put removed items in one of three places: a younger sibling's "future bin", the charity bin, or the trash.
Many charities, such as Goodwill, call quarterly to let you know they will have a truck in the area, so you don't have to load your car and make an extra trip.
When they call, leave the bin out front for pickup, and they'll hang the receipt (for tax purposes) on your doorknob.
This is also a good time to get rid of any toys that the kids have outgrown.
The GOP's Extremist Dilemma E.J. Dionne Jr.
WasingtonPost Monday, August 3, 2009
Things are looking up for the Republicans, relatively speaking. President Obama's poll numbers have dipped, GOP recruitment for the 2010 elections is going better than expected, and the health-care battle has been rough on the Democrats.
On top of that, the surveys show Republicans now leading in this year's two major governor's races, in Virginia and New Jersey.
There's just one problem: The country still doesn't like Republicans.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week captured the public's mixed verdict. The headlines focused on growing doubts about Obama's health-care plan and the drop in his approval rating, from 60 percent in February to 53 percent now.
But the same poll found that while Democrats as a party had a net positive rating of five points (42 percent positive to 37 percent negative), the GOP faced a 13-point deficit. Only 28 percent rated the Republicans positively; 41 percent rated them negatively.
Perhaps this has something to do with how few positive things Republicans have to say. As a result, the party is being defined by extremist voices who have faced little push-back from its leaders.
The extremists include the "birthers" who, against all evidence, insist that Obama was not born in the United States and thus is ineligible to be president. These guys are so out there that party leaders and conservative commentators have started to disown them.
Race-baiting is no longer off-limits on some of the right-wing talk shows. Fox News's Glenn Beck, for example, declared that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Ethnicity has been an underlying issue in the debate around Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned whether she would be fair by repeatedly referring to her comment -- from which she backed away -- about the relative wisdom of a "wise Latina."
Rush Limbaugh was far less subtle when her comment first surfaced. "How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration?" he asked. "By hating white people -- or even saying you do, or that they're not good or put 'em down, whatever."
Some in the party are also entering never-never land in their attacks on the Democrats' health-care proposals. Last week, for example, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) claimed that the Republican approach to health care would be more pro-life because it "will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."
Foxx's ludicrous notion -- taking off in the right-wing blogosphere -- is that Section 1233 of the House health bill is an invitation to euthanasia.
It's nothing of the sort. It simply provides Medicare funding so seniors with life-threatening diseases can consult their doctors on advanced care and get "an explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title."
The harshness of the rhetorical salvos is feeding worries among some Republicans that the GOP is increasingly perceived as a right-wing, Southern regional party.
Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio brought those concerns to the surface in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch in which he spoke of the role played by Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," said Voinovich, who is retiring next year. "It's the southerners." He added: "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners.' "
Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana shot back, calling Voinovich "a moderate, really wishy-washy" in an interview with the Washington Times. But Vitter offered indirect support for Voinovich's claim when he said: "I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values. There are a lot of us from the South who hold those value[s], which I think the party is supposed to be about."
In the short term, these tussles and rumblings may not matter much. The country is focused on judging what the Democrats are doing with the power they hold. The path that politics will take depends largely on the outcome of the health-care battle and the direction of the economy.
But to take advantage of the opportunities that might come their way, Republicans will have to make themselves an acceptable alternative. They have not done this yet. Facing down extremism and breaking out of the party's regional enclave would be good places to start.
ejdionne@washpost.com
Things are looking up for the Republicans, relatively speaking. President Obama's poll numbers have dipped, GOP recruitment for the 2010 elections is going better than expected, and the health-care battle has been rough on the Democrats.
On top of that, the surveys show Republicans now leading in this year's two major governor's races, in Virginia and New Jersey.
There's just one problem: The country still doesn't like Republicans.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week captured the public's mixed verdict. The headlines focused on growing doubts about Obama's health-care plan and the drop in his approval rating, from 60 percent in February to 53 percent now.
But the same poll found that while Democrats as a party had a net positive rating of five points (42 percent positive to 37 percent negative), the GOP faced a 13-point deficit. Only 28 percent rated the Republicans positively; 41 percent rated them negatively.
Perhaps this has something to do with how few positive things Republicans have to say. As a result, the party is being defined by extremist voices who have faced little push-back from its leaders.
The extremists include the "birthers" who, against all evidence, insist that Obama was not born in the United States and thus is ineligible to be president. These guys are so out there that party leaders and conservative commentators have started to disown them.
Race-baiting is no longer off-limits on some of the right-wing talk shows. Fox News's Glenn Beck, for example, declared that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Ethnicity has been an underlying issue in the debate around Judge Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned whether she would be fair by repeatedly referring to her comment -- from which she backed away -- about the relative wisdom of a "wise Latina."
Rush Limbaugh was far less subtle when her comment first surfaced. "How do you get promoted in a Barack Obama administration?" he asked. "By hating white people -- or even saying you do, or that they're not good or put 'em down, whatever."
Some in the party are also entering never-never land in their attacks on the Democrats' health-care proposals. Last week, for example, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) claimed that the Republican approach to health care would be more pro-life because it "will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."
Foxx's ludicrous notion -- taking off in the right-wing blogosphere -- is that Section 1233 of the House health bill is an invitation to euthanasia.
It's nothing of the sort. It simply provides Medicare funding so seniors with life-threatening diseases can consult their doctors on advanced care and get "an explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title."
The harshness of the rhetorical salvos is feeding worries among some Republicans that the GOP is increasingly perceived as a right-wing, Southern regional party.
Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio brought those concerns to the surface in an interview with the Columbus Dispatch in which he spoke of the role played by Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," said Voinovich, who is retiring next year. "It's the southerners." He added: "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners.' "
Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana shot back, calling Voinovich "a moderate, really wishy-washy" in an interview with the Washington Times. But Vitter offered indirect support for Voinovich's claim when he said: "I'm on the side of conservatives getting back to core conservative values. There are a lot of us from the South who hold those value[s], which I think the party is supposed to be about."
In the short term, these tussles and rumblings may not matter much. The country is focused on judging what the Democrats are doing with the power they hold. The path that politics will take depends largely on the outcome of the health-care battle and the direction of the economy.
But to take advantage of the opportunities that might come their way, Republicans will have to make themselves an acceptable alternative. They have not done this yet. Facing down extremism and breaking out of the party's regional enclave would be good places to start.
ejdionne@washpost.com
10 Years Ago, an Omen No One Saw (except one ME!)
NY Times DAVID CARR
Ten years ago Sunday, on an island off an island off the coast of America, something impossibly glamorous took place. Partygoers took boats from Manhattan to the home of the Statue of Liberty to plop pashalike on pillows and blankets and munch on lamb chops while Macy Gray sang, their faces illuminated with multicolored Chinese lanterns and fireworks curated and narrated by George Plimpton.
“That was a silver-flanged fleur-de-lis,” said the voice, highly recognizable but disembodied by darkness.
This was the Talk magazine launch party on Aug. 2, 1999 — simply called The Party at the time — and it seemed as if a new era of media fabulousness had been christened. The Hearst Corporation and Miramax, owned by Disney, decided to finance a new general interest magazine led by Tina Brown, fresh off her triumphs at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, that would lead the national conversation.
It was all kicked off with the kind of lavish party that would seem unthinkable in the current context.
Sponsored liquor flowed, women teetered about on heels in deep grass, and the A-list guest list — Mr. Kissinger, please meet Miss um Ms. uh meet Madonna — was a testament to the power of the synergized word. Content was king and Ms. Brown was its queen.
“Now you’re not exactly the tired masses, the huddled masses, but then again, I’m an immigrant who toiled here on the Concorde,” she said to the crowd after being introduced by Queen Latifah. “But I just want to say, here’s to Lady Liberty tonight.”
Too bad nobody saw the sharks circling in the harbor. Rather than the culmination of a century of press power, the Talk party was the end of an era, a literal fin de siècle. Flush with cash from the go-go ’90s and engorged by spending from the dot-com era, mainstream media companies seemed poised on the brink of something extraordinary. But that brink ended up being a cliff.
“It seems like that happened in the 18th century,” said Ms. Brown by phone last Friday.
Magazines are on pace to book little more than half of the advertising pages that the industry did 10 years ago, and dozens of longtime titles have disappeared. The last big magazine introduction — Portfolio at Condé Nast Publications — flamed out this spring after two years at a cost of more than $80 million. Now even Condé Nast Publications, the world headquarters of printed luxury, has brought in the bean counters from McKinsey with an eye toward further cuts. There may never be another large magazine launch ever, and certainly not one that was accompanied by the fanfare of Talk.
I’m still ashamed to admit that I wasn’t one of the lucky 1,000 people invited to the party — old prerogatives die hard — so I was trapped on shore, covering it secondhand with a nose pressed up against the glass. But it is worth thinking about how this future, or lack of one, arrived so unforeseen.
Ten years ago, journalists, long the salarymen of the publishing economy, began gorging on big contracts and options from digital start-ups like shrimp at a free buffet. With coveted writers commanding $5 for every typed word into magazines that were stuffed to the brim with advertising, there was a fizziness, some would say recklessness, in the air. The industry was drunk on its own prerogatives, working a party that seemed as if it would never end.
Peter Kaplan, the former editor of The New York Observer, attended the party and oversaw coverage of the event.
“Tina, for all the excellence of her antenna, was scratching the air, and like many of us, was unable to pull in the new signal,” he said. “She failed to see that it was probably already over and that there was something slightly hollow about that event.”
Most of us who covered media did not fully understand the implications of the new technology that could publish and distribute information at zero marginal cost. The Web was viewed as a niche, as a way to supplement and enhance the printed product, certainly not a threat that would make many of those publications obsolete.
“Most of the talk at the Talk party was about the party itself,” said Kurt Andersen, a novelist, radio host and founder of Spy magazine. “It was weird and interesting because you were sort of wandering around in the dark out there and bumping into people. There was a meta quality to the thing, a self-consciousness, that in retrospect was probably telling.”
At least Ms. Brown did not compose a rap ode to the new magazine. That fell to Mr. Big, Ron Galotti, the former Condé Nast publisher who managed to get a flock of advertisers to buy the hype and commit to the first four issues of a magazine they had never seen. After Talk closed, Mr. Big quit Manhattan media and moved to a farm in Vermont. Maybe he knew something we didn’t. (He did not return a call.)
“It was the end of something extraordinary, but none of us knew it at the time,” Ms. Brown says now. “What followed was a very turbulent odyssey, not just for me, but for all of us. There has been a volcanic realignment that none of us foresaw.”
After Talk closed early in 2002, Ms. Brown hosted a television show on CNBC and wrote a book about Princess Diana. Demonstrating a nimbleness that has characterized her entire career, she is now running The Daily Beast, a scrappy but promising digital media site owned by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp.
She pays her writers, increasingly an exception these days, but there are no huge contracts or boat rides to sylvan lawns full of impossibly famous people. The Daily Beast has 1.5 million unique visitors a month, according to Quantcast, and has kicked up some notice, but its opening party of a hundred or so took place at the very much land-locked Pop Burger on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. There was no Sarah Jessica Parker, no Robert De Niro and no Hugh Grant in attendance. There were a lot of bloggers instead.
Modern media success is enabled by brutal cost control and using hard, fast numbers to convince advertisers they will get a return for their spending. Once stalwart magazines like BusinessWeek are up for grabs and entire formerly lucrative categories have been wiped out. The magazine canard of associative glamour, of selling aspiration by the bucket-load with page after page of pricy merchandise, is all but dead but for a few exceptions.
Ms. Brown once wrote the book “Life as a Party” and on that night, it was.
“I was aware it was a historic night,” Ms. Brown said. “We were on a boat and I was with Natasha Richardson. We were talking and laughing, looking at the lights of the twin towers. And then a big wave came over the side of the boat and soaked us both. Now Natasha is gone, the towers are gone. It’s very, very sad, but I am very excited by this new world we are heading into.”
E-mail: carr@nytimes.com http://twitter.com/carr2n
Ten years ago Sunday, on an island off an island off the coast of America, something impossibly glamorous took place. Partygoers took boats from Manhattan to the home of the Statue of Liberty to plop pashalike on pillows and blankets and munch on lamb chops while Macy Gray sang, their faces illuminated with multicolored Chinese lanterns and fireworks curated and narrated by George Plimpton.
“That was a silver-flanged fleur-de-lis,” said the voice, highly recognizable but disembodied by darkness.
This was the Talk magazine launch party on Aug. 2, 1999 — simply called The Party at the time — and it seemed as if a new era of media fabulousness had been christened. The Hearst Corporation and Miramax, owned by Disney, decided to finance a new general interest magazine led by Tina Brown, fresh off her triumphs at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, that would lead the national conversation.
It was all kicked off with the kind of lavish party that would seem unthinkable in the current context.
Sponsored liquor flowed, women teetered about on heels in deep grass, and the A-list guest list — Mr. Kissinger, please meet Miss um Ms. uh meet Madonna — was a testament to the power of the synergized word. Content was king and Ms. Brown was its queen.
“Now you’re not exactly the tired masses, the huddled masses, but then again, I’m an immigrant who toiled here on the Concorde,” she said to the crowd after being introduced by Queen Latifah. “But I just want to say, here’s to Lady Liberty tonight.”
Too bad nobody saw the sharks circling in the harbor. Rather than the culmination of a century of press power, the Talk party was the end of an era, a literal fin de siècle. Flush with cash from the go-go ’90s and engorged by spending from the dot-com era, mainstream media companies seemed poised on the brink of something extraordinary. But that brink ended up being a cliff.
“It seems like that happened in the 18th century,” said Ms. Brown by phone last Friday.
Magazines are on pace to book little more than half of the advertising pages that the industry did 10 years ago, and dozens of longtime titles have disappeared. The last big magazine introduction — Portfolio at Condé Nast Publications — flamed out this spring after two years at a cost of more than $80 million. Now even Condé Nast Publications, the world headquarters of printed luxury, has brought in the bean counters from McKinsey with an eye toward further cuts. There may never be another large magazine launch ever, and certainly not one that was accompanied by the fanfare of Talk.
I’m still ashamed to admit that I wasn’t one of the lucky 1,000 people invited to the party — old prerogatives die hard — so I was trapped on shore, covering it secondhand with a nose pressed up against the glass. But it is worth thinking about how this future, or lack of one, arrived so unforeseen.
Ten years ago, journalists, long the salarymen of the publishing economy, began gorging on big contracts and options from digital start-ups like shrimp at a free buffet. With coveted writers commanding $5 for every typed word into magazines that were stuffed to the brim with advertising, there was a fizziness, some would say recklessness, in the air. The industry was drunk on its own prerogatives, working a party that seemed as if it would never end.
Peter Kaplan, the former editor of The New York Observer, attended the party and oversaw coverage of the event.
“Tina, for all the excellence of her antenna, was scratching the air, and like many of us, was unable to pull in the new signal,” he said. “She failed to see that it was probably already over and that there was something slightly hollow about that event.”
Most of us who covered media did not fully understand the implications of the new technology that could publish and distribute information at zero marginal cost. The Web was viewed as a niche, as a way to supplement and enhance the printed product, certainly not a threat that would make many of those publications obsolete.
“Most of the talk at the Talk party was about the party itself,” said Kurt Andersen, a novelist, radio host and founder of Spy magazine. “It was weird and interesting because you were sort of wandering around in the dark out there and bumping into people. There was a meta quality to the thing, a self-consciousness, that in retrospect was probably telling.”
At least Ms. Brown did not compose a rap ode to the new magazine. That fell to Mr. Big, Ron Galotti, the former Condé Nast publisher who managed to get a flock of advertisers to buy the hype and commit to the first four issues of a magazine they had never seen. After Talk closed, Mr. Big quit Manhattan media and moved to a farm in Vermont. Maybe he knew something we didn’t. (He did not return a call.)
“It was the end of something extraordinary, but none of us knew it at the time,” Ms. Brown says now. “What followed was a very turbulent odyssey, not just for me, but for all of us. There has been a volcanic realignment that none of us foresaw.”
After Talk closed early in 2002, Ms. Brown hosted a television show on CNBC and wrote a book about Princess Diana. Demonstrating a nimbleness that has characterized her entire career, she is now running The Daily Beast, a scrappy but promising digital media site owned by Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp.
She pays her writers, increasingly an exception these days, but there are no huge contracts or boat rides to sylvan lawns full of impossibly famous people. The Daily Beast has 1.5 million unique visitors a month, according to Quantcast, and has kicked up some notice, but its opening party of a hundred or so took place at the very much land-locked Pop Burger on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan. There was no Sarah Jessica Parker, no Robert De Niro and no Hugh Grant in attendance. There were a lot of bloggers instead.
Modern media success is enabled by brutal cost control and using hard, fast numbers to convince advertisers they will get a return for their spending. Once stalwart magazines like BusinessWeek are up for grabs and entire formerly lucrative categories have been wiped out. The magazine canard of associative glamour, of selling aspiration by the bucket-load with page after page of pricy merchandise, is all but dead but for a few exceptions.
Ms. Brown once wrote the book “Life as a Party” and on that night, it was.
“I was aware it was a historic night,” Ms. Brown said. “We were on a boat and I was with Natasha Richardson. We were talking and laughing, looking at the lights of the twin towers. And then a big wave came over the side of the boat and soaked us both. Now Natasha is gone, the towers are gone. It’s very, very sad, but I am very excited by this new world we are heading into.”
E-mail: carr@nytimes.com http://twitter.com/carr2n
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