339 search results for "certification"

Sad day for the American middle class

by digby

This is what the modern GOP extremists will do everywhere they get the power to do it.

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Regulating them out of existence

by digby

Kansas may be in the process of closing down the last three clinics that provide abortions in the state. And they’ve done it through cunning and devious means:

The new requirements require facilities to add extra bathrooms, drastically expand waiting and recovery areas, and even add larger janitor’s closets, as one clinic employee told me—changes that clinics will have a heck of a time pulling off by the deadline. Under the new rule, clinics must also aquire state certification to admit patients, a process that takes 90 to 120 days, the staffer explained. Which makes it impossible for clinics to comply. And clinics that don’t comply with the rules will face fines or possible closure.

The state’s latest approach—with its remodeling requirements and so forth—is often referred to as “Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers.” TRAP laws are intended to make it difficult, if not impossible, for clinics to operate, and they have become increasingly common around the country.

I guess that’s one way to do it.

I’ve heard lots of people pooh-poohing this because as long as one state continues to offer a way for women to exercise their constitutional rights that should be fine. Iit’s more onerous, but not impossible, so therefore it’s not that big of a deal. Obviously, for adult women with money, it is less convenient. Others not so much. But I would guess that illegal providers will fill the gap for them and we have a lot of experience in the past with how well that goes.

But what to make of this new approach to outlawing a legal procedure? One cannot help but admire the sheer chutzpah of people who rail against the very concept of regulation using it for their own purposes this way. But then hypocrisys isn’t something they worry too much about is it.

This just makes me feel weary. This will probably continue until there are just a few states still have clinics and then they will be able to concentrate all their fire on them.

Meanwhile, they are moving on to the next phase already.

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“Tough Love”

by digby

Rand Paul has some advice for the lazy unemployed:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul on Friday urged Americans who have been unemployed for many months to consider returning to the workforce in less desirable jobs rather than continue relying on government unemployment assistance. “In Europe, they give about a year of unemployment. We’re up to two years now in America,” Paul said on Sue Wylie’s WVLK-AM 590 radio program.”As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that’s less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again,” Paul said. “Nobody likes that, but it may be one of the tough love things that has to happen.” Paul was responding to a question from Wylie about Thursday’s Senate Republican filibuster of a $120 billion package of additional jobless benefits and state aid. Tens of thousands of Americans will have exhausted their unemployment benefits this month without that extension.Paul said he supports the filibuster. If the Senate thinks the bill is necessary, it needs to find the money to pay for it elsewhere in the federal budget rather than add to the $13 trillion national debt, he said.”It’s all a matter of making priorities,” Paul said. “Some tough decisions will have to be made.”

Yes, Rand knows that some people have to make those sacrifices for the greater good. But not him. While the lazy unemployed need some “tough love,” both doctors and unaccredited quacks like himself “deserve a comfortable living.”

U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) has made opposition to the “heavy hand” of the federal government one of the hallmarks of his political ideology. Yet, despite his anti-government rhetoric, the Kentucky opthamologist has gone on record opposing cuts to the Medicare program, saying that “physicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living.”

Last week in a show of major “tough love” the Senate couldn’t pass a modest unemployment extension (even one that cut benefits $25.00 a week!) over a Republican plus conservadem filibuster. But they did manage to do this:

The Senate belatedly voted Friday to spare doctors who treat Medicare patients from a 21 precent cut in pay.

After all, the doctors “should be allowed to make a comfortable living” while the unemployed need to make sacrifices and help get the nation out of debt by destroying their hopes and dreams for a better life. Surely we can all agree that’s perfectly fair.

So what’s a comfortable living for Rand? The estimate of how much money he makes from Medicare (which he hasn’t divulged) and Medicaid (which he has) runs somewhere between 300 and half a million dollars a year. Rand says those payments are about 50% of his income. So I think we know just what it takes for him to be “comfortable.” I’d be pretty comfortable too.

This new meme about the unemployed continues to shock me, and I’m not easily shocked by rightwing rhetoric. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one before, however. They are making a conscious decision to portray the unemployed as the cause of high unemployment so they don’t need to factor it into economic decisions. The actual point seems to be making a permanent underclass out of what were responsible members of the workforce and then demonizing them for being unemployed — thus creating a scapegoat for continued unemployment. This also gives them an excuse to “welfare queen” these people and cut services and social spending even more under the rationale that we need to teach them a lesson in tough love. After all, we “reformed welfare as we know it” so why not “reform unemployment insurance as we know it” too?

Next step: the elderly who are living high off the hog on social security instead of selling oranges on street corners as they should. (That’s another one of those good jobs that are being stolen by undocumented workers.)

Paul Krugman wrote this morning about Alan Greenspan’s bizarre statement yesterday that it’s unfortunate interest rates and inflation haven’t spiked because it makes it harder to cut the deficit when all the predicted consequences of doing so don’t materialize. Krugman writes:

You know, some people might take the fact that what’s actually happening is exactly what people like me were saying would happen — namely, that deficits in the face of a liquidity trap don’t drive up interest rates and don’t cause inflation — lends credence to the Keynesian view. But no: Greenspan KNOWS that deficits do these terrible things, and finds it “regrettable” that they aren’t actually happening. The triumph of prejudices over the evidence is a wondrous thing to behold. Unfortunately, millions of workers will pay the price for that triumph.

Yes, they will. And it appears they are also going to be blamed for causing the problem. That “stubborn” unemployment would go away if these people would just go out and accept jobs they don’t like. Like picking strawberries. Or prostitution.

It’s clear that stubborn unemployment is impeding the Grand Bargain to “cut the deficit” which actually means cutting social spending of all kinds. (After all, even a high school economics student can figure out that reducing unemployment is key to reducing the deficit, so I think we can fairly assume at this point that the deficit is beside the point.) So they are attempting to change the perception that unemployment is something that happens to people and turn it into something they do to themselves, thus making it something that shouldn’t require social insurance. It’s a very daring thing to do because it goes right to the heart of the middle class. But from the looks of things, they are in the process of consciously turning the middle class into an underclass on all kinds of levels, so perhaps that’s not an accident.

This war on the unemployed and the New Austerity is very, very creepy and I’m extremely concerned that it’s going to take on a life of its own. Not only will it destroy the economy further — it’s the opposite of what needs to be done — it’s going to finally destroy what’s left of our frayed social contract. This is the environment in which very unpredictable things begin to happen.

Update:

Principles

by digby

What is the lesson here?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday set aside a lower court’s ruling that had ordered the release of photographs showing American soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The high court’s action, which had been expected, occurred after the U.S. Congress recently approved a provision to exempt the photographs from disclosure, a measure that President Barack Obama signed into law.

The justices sent the case back to a U.S. appeals court in New York for further consideration in light of the new law and the recent certification by Defense Secretary Robert Gates that release of the photographs would endanger American soldiers.

After initially agreeing to release the photographs, Obama reversed himself in May, siding with his U.S. military advisers and said disclosure could unleash a violent backlash against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The lesson is that if you don’t like a court decision, change the law and have someone “certify” that the older law will endanger troops. Good to know.

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Kerning

by digby

I get lots of interesting emails, but one of the most interesting recurring ones is a list that sends articles from this web-site:

WND and Corsi are now partnering on a new weekly online global financial strategies newsletter called RED ALERT. It is designed to help you survive – and maybe even prosper – in the turbulent times in which we live.

Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is not for everyone.

It is designed for people of wealth and those who want to be people of wealth. It is for Americans who still believe in the American Dream and freedom-loving people around the world who would like to be part of the American Dream. It is for people who understand government’s power must be limited or freedom ceases to exist. It is for those who understand national sovereignty is under attack as never before.

Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is about empowering you to fight back – to turn challenges into opportunities, to turn economic downturns into personal wealth upturns, to find out what’s ahead so you’re not left behind.

* If you have assets of $1 million or more to protect, including your home, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

* If you earn $85,000 a year or more, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

* If you want to leave a legacy of freedom and opportunity to your children and grandchildren, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT is for you.

Unlike some other exorbitantly priced financial newsletters, Jerome Corsi’s RED ALERT represents a real bargain. Priced at $99 a year or $9.95 a month for credit card users, you won’t have to spend a fortune to find out if this newsletter can help you build one.

And what do you get for your money? You get the insights and behind-the-scenes reports and deep analysis of one of America’s top political thinkers, journalists, commentators and financial gurus.

Sounds awesome. All those millionaires must be lining up for the kind of financial insights only Jerome Corsi can provide. Insights like this:

More cracks have appeared in the official story of Barack Obama’s
family life, with the revelation in school documentation from the
University of Washington that Ann Dunham most likely left her
husband, Barack Sr., within weeks of the baby’s birth.

The official story as presented in his autobiography, “Dreams from My
Father,” and in various accounts in newspapers and websites
supporting Obama conflicts with the results of a careful analysis of
the documentary evidence available.

For example, the official story claims Dunham relocated to Seattle
late in 1962, but documentary evidence establishes she left Hawaii
when she moved to Seattle in August or September 1961, only a few
weeks after the birth of Barack Obama Jr.

Likewise, the official story describes how Dunham and Obama Sr. lived
as man-and-wife in Hawaii until he left for Harvard to begin the fall
term in September 1962. But the documents establish Dunham abandoned
Obama Sr. when she left to begin school at the University of
Washington in Seattle for the fall term of 1961, which began in
September of that year.

The repositioning of the timeline revealed by the school documents
may mask a yet undisclosed secret that lies at the heart of the Obama
birth certificate controversy.

The Obama long-form original birth certificate continues to be hidden
from the public by Obama despite a multitude of requests to make the
document public.

But here are a number of critical dates documenting the birth of
Barack Obama Jr. from available public records.

•Ann Dunham was born Nov. 29, 1942, according to her original Social
Security Card. This would have made her 18 years old at the time
Barack Obama Jr. was born.

•Barack Obama Jr. was born Aug. 4, 1961; this would put his date of
conception at the earliest on or around Nov. 4, 1960, assuming there
was a full nine months of pregnancy.

•Records provided to WND by Stuart Lau, university registrar in the
Office of Admissions and Records at the University of Hawaii at
Manoa, document that Ann Dunham’s first day of instruction at the
university was Sept. 26, 1960, less than six weeks before the
earliest date Barack Obama, Jr. could have been conceived.

•Ann Dunham and Barack H. Obama, Sr.’s divorce decree states they
were married Feb. 2, 1961, in Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii. This would mean
Obama’s parents were married approximately three months after Barack
Obama, Jr. was conceived, if the baby went full-term.

•Instead of staying in Hawaii with her husband and new baby, Ann
Dunham began classes at the University of Washington in Seattle in
September 1961 for the autumn semester, less than two months after
Obama was born. WND confirmed this date with Madolyne Lawson of the
Office of Public Records at the University of Washington.

•Ann Dunham took up residence in Seattle at 516 13th Ave. E.,
according to the 1961 Seattle Polk directory. This residence was torn
down in 1985 and is now replaced by twin Capital Park residential
towers; the Seattle Polk Directory listing is for a “Mrs. Anna
Obama,” a variant of her name that most researchers have considered
to be Ann Dunham.

Ann Dunham’s residence in Seattle, 1961 (Washington State Archives,
Puget Sound Branch, King County Assessor Property Record Card
collection)

•At most, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham lived together for
approximately eight months, from Feb. 2, 1961, the date of their
marriage, until September 1961 when Ann Dunham began her studies at
the University of Washington. But there is nothing on the public
record to suggest Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr. ever lived together
again as man and wife.

•There is nothing on the public record to suggest that Ann Dunham’s
mother, Madelyn Dunham, accompanied her daughter to Seattle in
September 1961, even though she was 18 years old and responsible for
a baby who was less than two months old.

•There is no evidence on the public record that Obama Sr. ever joined
his wife in Seattle. Instead, the public evidence is that Obama Sr.
remained in Hawaii, while his wife and infant son established their
residence in Seattle.

•Obama Sr. began studies at Harvard University in September 1962,
which means Dunham did not return to live in Hawaii until after Obama
Sr. had left the islands, never to return to Hawaii again as a
resident.

•The same records show Dunham did not resume her studies at the
University of Hawaii until April 1963 for the spring semester, when
Barack Obama was approximately one year and five months old.

•Dunham and Obama Sr. were divorced Jan. 20, 1964.
The dates appear reliable, especially given the limited documentary
evidence available about Barack Obama’s birth circumstances.

Timeline of President Obama’s birth

The timeline raises several questions:

1.Were Dunham and Obama Sr. ever very much in love, even at the
beginning of their relationship, or was the marriage always one of
convenience arranged to mask an inconvenient pregnancy?

2.Did Dunham and Obama Sr. ever live together as man and wife, and if
so, what testimony is there from neighbors at the time that would
establish their residence address?

3.Was Obama Jr. born in Hawaii, or was he born in Kenya? Could he
have been born in Seattle or possibly even in British Columbia?

4.What hospital was Obama Jr. born in, and who was the attending
physician? What official records establish these facts?

5.Who are Obama Jr.’s true birthright parents?

6.Why has President Obama prevented the release to the American
public of his long-form original birth certificate listing the
hospital of his birth, the attending physician and the identity of
his parents, as recorded at the time of his birth? What information
is on the original, long-form birth certificate that President Obama
does not want the American people to see?
Many of these questions should be able to be answered if the American
public could authenticate Barack Obama’s original long-form birth
certificate listing the hospital where he was born, the date and time
of the birth, the attending physician and the names of the parents.

This leads to what is perhaps the key question: What is it the White
House is determined to hide by refusing to release the president’s
original long-form birth certificate?

Moreover, while President Obama and his supporters have made many
photographs available from his childhood, important gaps remain:

•No photographs have yet surfaced showing Ann Dunham pregnant in 1961.

•No photographs have yet surfaced with Barack Obama Sr. and Ann
Dunham with Barack Obama Jr. as an infant in the hospital where he
was born.

•No photographs have yet surfaced of Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr.
with Barack Obama Jr. after the newly born infant was taken home from
the hospital.

When and why did Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham separate?

In his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama Jr. tells
the story that his mother and father first separated when Barack
Obama Sr. left Hawaii to attend Harvard.

On page 10, Obama presents this version of the story, writing: “He
[Barack Obama Sr.] won another scholarship – this time to pursue his
Ph.D. at Harvard – but not the money to take his new family with him.
A separation occurred, and he returned to Africa to fulfill his
promise to the continent. The mother and child stayed behind, but the
bond of love survived the distances …” (ellipsis in original)

The Seattle Times, reporting on the Obama family history in April
2008 when Obama was emerging as a frontrunner for the Democratic
Party presidential nomination, disclosed that the family separated
when Ann Dunham left Hawaii to enter the University of Washington in
Seattle. But the paper incorrectly pushed Ann Dunham’s relocation to
Seattle to 1962.

In the published article, Seattle Times staff reporter Jonathan
Martin wrote: “By 1962, Dunham had returned to Seattle as a single
mother, enrolling in the UW for spring quarter and living in an
apartment on Capital Hill.”

This version allows a few more months for the young mother to care
for her infant son while living yet with her husband in Hawaii.

On Oct. 21, 2008, the Seattle Weekly published yet a different
version of the story: “But [Ann Dunham] returned to live in Seattle
around 1962, after Barack was born in August 1961, leaving her
husband, Kenya-born Barack Sr., and his newborn namesake in Hawaii.”

The assumption in the Seattle Weekly story is that Ann Dunham left
the baby with her parents, Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Dunham,
who ultimately raised the future president.

Nicole Brodeur, a Seattle Times staff columnist, interviewed Ann
Dunham’s high school “best friend” Maxine Box in February 2008.

According to this version, Box last saw Ann Dunham in 1961, “when
[Ann Dunham] visited Seattle on her way from Honolulu to
Massachusetts, where her then-husband was attending Harvard.”

Box also told the Seattle Times that Ann Dunham showed no interest in
baby-sitting when they were in college, suggesting she was surprised
when Dunham ended up pregnant only a year after graduating from
Mercer Island High School.

“[Dunham] felt she didn’t need to date or marry or have children,”
Box recalled for the Seattle Times interview published in March 2007.

Then, commenting on the birth of Barack Obama Jr., Box said, “I just
couldn’t imagine [Ann Dunham’s] life changing so quickly.”.

Unfortunately for Box, Barack Obama Sr. still was in Hawaii; he did
not leave for Harvard until the following year.

In an unusual video now removed from the Internet, Ann Dunham’s high
school friend Susan Blake also claimed Dunham visited Seattle in
August 1961 with her infant son. Blake said she changed the baby’s
diapers. The video is still noted and transcribed as footnote No. 21
in Ann Dunham’s Wikipedia entry.

What Ann Dunham was doing in Seattle immediately after her baby was
born is unclear, unless she was there to find an apartment so she
could start school in September 1961 at the University of Washington.

Others have speculated that perhaps Barack Obama Jr. was born in
Seattle, or possibly in Canada, allowing Dunham to be in Seattle
immediately after the future president’s birth without having to fly
from Hawaii to the mainland sometime between Aug. 4, 1961, when the
baby was born, and September 1961 when the fall term began at the
University of Washington.

Barack Obama Jr.’s babysitter in Seattle

Mary Toutonghi, according to an interview published in the Seattle
Chat Club blog, claimed to have baby-sat for the future president at
Dunham’s Seattle apartment in January and February 1962. The Toutongi
interview provides no information about Dunham arriving in Seattle to
begin classes in September 1961.

When asked why Dunham left her husband in Hawaii to come to Seattle
with her infant son, Toutongi explained Dunham told her that she and
the baby would be going to Kenya when she finished her education, as
she had promised her parents when she was married.

Toutongi also added Dunham’s explanation that her husband had an
obligation to his tribe to take another wife that was a full-blooded
Kenyan. Toutongi further commented, “I don’t think I could have been
that brave.”

In an interview with WND, Toutongi said she baby-sat for infant Obama
“for two or there months, when he was seven months old,” adding “it
was in the spring.”

Given Obama’s birth on Aug. 4, 1961, this would put the dates
Toutongi baby-sat infant Obama in February and March 1962.

“My daughter was 18 months old and she just had her 50th birthday
this year,” Toutongi recalled. “So, that would make the time around
February and March 1962.”

“Ann Dunham and the baby moved in while we were there,” she
remembered. “We managed the house and they had the rooms on the first
floor to the right, immediately above the garage. Each of the rooms
on that floor comprised a one-bedroom apartment. I can’t remember
when she moved in, but the baby was seven months old.”

“It was kind of weird, but she never told me why she abandoned her
husband,” she commented. “I don’t know if the courses she wanted were
here. I couldn’t figure out why she was here in Seattle while her
husband was in Hawaii.”

Did Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham ever live as man and wife?

WND has previously reported the birth notices for Barack Obama Jr.
that were published in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin
in 1961 do not provide solid proof of a birth in Hawaii because of
uncertainties over the policies and procedures used by the newspapers
at that time.

WND hired a private investigator in Hawaii to seek out neighbors who
lived in 1961 adjacent to 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, the address
listed in the newspaper published birth notices.

According to an affidavit filed with WND by the private investigator,
Beatrice Arakaki was a neighbor who has lived at her current
residence of 6075 Kalanianaole Highway from before 1961 to the
present.

Arakaki did not recall the Obama family living in the neighborhood,
and she was unaware of any young couple living at 6085 Kalanianaole
Highway that met the Obama family description.

If Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham lived at this address when Barack
Obama Jr. was born, the original long-form birth certificate should
confirm this address as the residence of the baby at birth.

The Hawaii short-form Certification of Live Birth lists no residence
address information.

Obama’s birth certificate is not the only document at issue. WND has
reported that among the documentation not yet available for Obama
includes his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental
College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis,
Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly
articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records,
files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar
Association records, any baptism records and his adoption records.

Case closed. Not only isn’t Barack Obama a citizen of the United States of America, he isn’t a citizen of planet earth. In fact, he doesn’t actually exist.

And to think that for only a hundred bucks a year you too can be privy to this kind of “deep analysis.” A bargain at any price.

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Fergawdsake

by digby

This is almost making me feel sad:

WorldNetDaily and the right-wing fringe are very excited about their scoop that Orly Taitz has “released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth” for President Obama. According to WND, “Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because ‘he’s afraid for his life.’ ” So in order to believe Taitz and WND, one would have to assume that this document was requested 45 years ago, preserved that entire time, withheld through the entire election and transition period, and yet somehow ended up in the hands of someone sympathetic to Orly Taitz.

Click here for the punchline.

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Putz

by dday

After all that sturm und drang, all the speeches about values, all the high-minded talk of massive debts and staying true to conservative principles, Mark Sanford chickened out.

Gov. Mark Sanford will comply with a midnight Friday stimulus deadline and become the last governor in the nation to seek millions of dollars in federal economic-recovery funds for his state, aides said late Thursday.

Sanford will continue contesting $700 million in education and law enforcement money for South Carolina, but his 11th-hour move to meet the deadline buys time for schools fearing mass teacher layoffs and draconian cuts.

Sanford’s month-long fight over stimulus money placed South Carolina in the national spotlight and put him at loggerheads with President Barack Obama.

“Tomorrow the governor is going to send the (Section) 1607 certification for everything except the stabilization funds,” Sanford’s spokesman, Joel Sawyer, said Thursday evening. “The governor will apply for that (additional) money if the General Assembly is willing to compromise and pay down some debt with it.”

They are all a bunch of frauds. Republicans won’t call him on it – they’ll consider him a big hero – but now every time Sanford tries to contest this or that provision of funds, lawmakers in his state can point to this decision. And laugh.

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Cutting Corners

by digby

Here’s an email I received yesterday from regular reader Sleon about E coli conservatism and its consequences:

I wanted to thank you for your piece on the issue of the FDA, medical device companies, the corruption surrounding them and the laws they got enacted to prevent victims of defective products from suing them. I am one of those people. I had a defective lead (the wire that that connects my defibrillator to the heart itself) installed and when it failed, the device shocked me repeatedly. The device manufacturers euphemistically refer to those shocks as “inappropriate” and the sensation “uncomfortable but fleeting”, but I and many other patients I have spoken with call them excruciating and terrifying. It had only been installed a few weeks before and so I had to undergo surgery again to have it replaced. It turns out the failed product was a new one, supposedly improved, that had recently been sanctioned by the FDA. After the second surgery, the electrophysiologist who performed the operation followed up with the manufacturer and was told by someone there that they had already been “looking into” reports of other failures. The stress on my body from the second surgery soon caused my heart to go into an abnormal rhythm, which triggered additional shocks (10 in five minutes because the device itself couldn’t actually correct that particular kind of arrhythmia) and the whole incident was nearly fatal.

Even so it was still more than six months before the company issued a recall, though doctors like mine (who is one of the leading experts in these surgeries in all of new England) had refused to continue implanting them much earlier. I sought legal counsel afterwards and my attorney recommended joining a class-action suit that was in the works, rather than trying to go at them on my own. I took that advice even though at the time I was less interested in suing them for making a defective product than I was for their knowing it was defective, but still allowing it to be placed inside my body. These products are extremely expensive to develop and the company’s brass must have decided it was more profitable to continue to sell as many as possible before they were forced to recall them, in part because they had recently successfully lobbied for a new law they thought would protect them from lawsuits.

And as of today, that’s exactly what happened. The judge hearing the case threw it out citing the new law that said since the FDA had approved the device the manufacturer was protected from suits. Since then however, there have been numerous press reports that scientists and other whistleblowers within the agency are beginning to expose the corruption at the heart of the Bush FDA’s symbiotic relationship with the manufacturers – and in addition to outright graft and administrative incompetence, the certification process had been reduced to the manufacturer telling the FDA the product was safe and the FDA then certifying it was so. That, coupled with the fact that Congress has begun to consider clarifying the law in question to remove the protection loophole court decisions have provided the manufacturers, leads me to hope our rights will eventually be restored in this case. It is, of course, only the cost of punitive sanctions that will protect the public from the greed of under-regulated corporations like this.

Many people who received this and other defective parts and devices have been killed by them. I’m one of the lucky ones. All I had to do was suffer the torture of the “inappropriate” shocks; go through unnecessary additional surgeries; become so sick afterwards I nearly died; lose 20 pounds in 10 days as a result; miss a lot of work – it was months before I was back to my full, regular schedule; and suffer from repeated nightmares to this day of the device failing and shocking me again and again.

This is all part of what happens when the deregulation fetishists have their way. Add in that the political appointees entrusted with the agencies created to protect us from the unscrupulous have in fact worked to weaken and destroy the oversight we ought to have learned time and time again is necessary. The result is a world where the powerful control the legal process to the point where they can make profit trump public safety and morality. While we face many other pressing problems, I would hope we can find time to urge our representatives to support legislation that will restore sanity to the process and the necessary resources to protect us to the agencies charged with doing so.

Sincerely,
sleon

I’m convinced that one of the mistakes we’ve made over the years is not telling enough stories of real people who were affected by the conservative movement’s deregulation fervor. When they can keep it all abstract and clean it sounds great. It’s not so impressive when you see the human results of their “ideology.”

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(Card) Check Please

by digby

I have long been amused (and somewhat confused) by certain bizarre conservative rallying cries. At political rallies you’ll hear people chanting “USA” and cheering for low taxes, as would be expected. But then they wildly explode when the politician says the words … tort reform? It’s like some magical incantation that is only understood by those who are members of the tribe. The literal term can’t possibly be meaningful to most people unless they think this has something to do with baked goods. Yet they scream and shout in a near frenzy at the mere mention of the phrase. It’s clearly Pavlovian talk radio conditioning.

This past election I noticed a new catch phrase. The minute a conservative breathes the word “card check,” his or her supporters completely lose their minds. When he ratchets it up saying “lose your right to a secret ballot” they come completely unhinged with even more energy than they unleash when someone says “we’re going to beat the terrorists.” It’s just weird.

Obviously the right, through the Chamber of Commerce and other business entities are working hard to prime the public to be hostile to unions being able to organize by simply having people sign up instead of requiring on-site elections in front of the boss, which is the purpose of the Employee Free Choice Act or “card check.” Here’s a set of talking points, easily obtained through Mr Google from the Associated Builders and Contractors. It features all the usual nonsense (the most hilariously hypocritical being the notion that they believe one should have the same freedom on the job that one has in civic life. Hah!) But even though it makes no sense, it gives people a way to talk about something that’s rather difficult to explain.

But where does the passion come from? How do you get people to really feel that it’s important to stop unions from getting people to do a simple opt-in? “Pollster” Frank Luntz speaking to the Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas last week, makes it clear:

“I’m afraid for employees if it passes,” Luntz said. “The level of intimidation and coercion would be unprecedented. Workers are about to lose their most important right (a secret vote). I’m very angry with the business community for not saying more about it.”

It’s the victimization, stupid,as this post from the National Right To Work web site vividly illustrates:

I had a friend in California who grew up in Michigan. His father was a UAW local official. He remembered vividly being in a coffee shop with his family one day. The guy in the next booth made some remark to a companion that was uncomplimentary to the union–and my friend’s father instinctively swung his coffee mug around and shattered it on this guy’s jaw.

There’s a long and ugly, bloody, deadly history of corporations and labor unions fighting it out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There’s plenty of evil that was done by both sides. But this is not the situation today–not even close. Labor violence today is almost entirely by labor unions. I can easily believe that the reason that the AFL-CIO wants to “streamline” the process is that they are intimidating workers into signing authorization cards–and don’t dare risk a secret ballot.

(He doesn’t cite any specific examples of recent union violence, but then he may think “The Sopranos” was an HBO documentary series. ) This is obviously another example of the right’s post modernist inversion — these on site elections are often exercises in intimidation by management to keep the union from organizing.

Thomas Frank has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning that lays out the real framework of this debate:

During the campaign, you will recall, the debate over card check was supposed to be about principle, about democracy, about the sacredness of the secret ballot. However, as I pointed out a few months ago, union-certification elections often don’t meet the most basic democratic requirements. Supervisors routinely hold captive-audience meetings with workers in preparation for elections; management commonly threatens to close up shop if the union wins; antiunion employees are frequently rewarded and pro-union employees are sometimes fired.

So it may not surprise you to learn that democracy isn’t really the main concern of card-check’s opponents. It’s unions themselves. Changing the rules will make it easier to organize them.

[…]

Card check is about power. Management has it, workers don’t, and business doesn’t want that to change. Consider the remarks made by Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott at an analyst meeting on Oct. 28, when he was asked about the possible coming of card check: “We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”

That last, as Perlstein points out here, puts the lie to the absurdity that these businesses are fighting for their employees’ constitutional right to a secret ballot.

And it’s true that there is a lot of violent rhetoric around this subject — but it isn’t coming from the unions. Frank continues:

“This is the demise of a civilization,” moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. “This is how a civilization disappears. I’m sitting here as an elder statesman, and I’m watching this happen, and I don’t believe it.”

Mr. Marcus sketched out the doomsday scenario for his listeners, with unions going after what he called the “low hanging fruit” and proceeding to organize workers in industry after industry. He had taken it upon himself to notify the nation’s CEOs of the danger, but they were not yet grabbing their guns. “This is as important as anything that’s ever happened to these companies. And they’re not reacting, and they’re not fighting. The old time fighters are gone.”

But in the class war, as in the real deal, there are always ways of motivating the yellow. “If a retailer has not gotten involved with this, if he has not spent money on this election, if he has not sent money to Norm Coleman and these other guys,” Mr. Marcus said, apparently referring to Republican senators facing tough re-election fights, then those retailers “should be shot; should be thrown out of their goddamn jobs.”

Mr. Marcus may snarl, but he doesn’t bark. His is the voice of a business class rediscovering its ancestral zeal for combat. Liberals should take heed. If they thought the “Harry and Louise” campaign that sank Hillary Clinton’s health-care reform was dirty, they should know they ain’t seen nothing yet.

It looks that way. The economic crisis, particularly the Big 3 meltdown, is offering the right what they see as a new opportunity to break unions and destroy any advances workers might have expected under a progressive government. They may be temporarily in disarray politically, but the right never forgets their primary mission — protecting the wealthy. And they are very good at advancing that agenda whether in the majority or the minority. Under the Shock Doctrine, they have a perfect opportunity to end the union movement in America and they’ll certainly do their best to take advantage of the moment.

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Heckuva Job Coxie and The Parasites

by digby

One of the most galling things about this economic crisis is that it isn’t the first time we’ve seen financial wizards put together some byzantine products and transactions that were designed to obscure rather than reveal what was really going on. Hell, it isn’t even the first time in this administration.

You’ll recall that Enron and Worldcom were only a few years ago. And everyone was assured that the system was going to be “cleaned up.” But we should have had a clue when Bush nominated Chris Cox to be the head regulator.

Consumer Watchdog put out the warning at the time, but naturally, it made no difference. After all, Cox was a member in good standing of the Village and they all knew him:

It’s not like nobody warned them.

Here’s the result:

Cox’s failures are too numerous to count. However, I’ll give it a try. Below are what I think are his top 5 failings.

1.

Failure to enforce disclosure laws and regulations.

Disclosure rules and regulations protect investors by requiring companies to disclose everything that is needed for informed investment decisions. And, CEOs and CFOs are required to sign certifications that such disclosure is materially accurate, complete, and that their companies have adequate internal controls to ensure such accuracy and completeness.

Enforcement of disclosure rules and regulations has been a joke. CEOs lie to shareholders with impunity and without fear of SEC enforcement. It is impossible to conclude that SEC filings for Freddie, Fannie, AIG, Lehman, or Bear Stearns complied with SEC rules and regulations.

However, instead of enforcement by the SEC, there is silence. While not all management actions are criminal, why hasn’t the SEC used its civil enforcement authority, i.e., assessing fines and penalties? How about protecting future investors by banning failed executives and boards of directors from serving in executive management at other public companies?
2.

Failure to enforce accounting standards.

When Cox states that the SEC doesn’t have regulatory authority over capital adequacy of financial services companies, he isn’t telling the truth. The SEC has regulatory authority over the financial statements of ALL publicly traded companies in the U.S. which of course includes the financials. If Cox had required greater reserves and transparency of financial services companies it would have happened.

Every quarter all publically traded companies file reports with the SEC that are provided to shareholders and the SEC has review and comment authority. If the SEC deems financial disclosure inadequate, incomplete or opaque it has the authority to force the company to amend its filings. It also has authority to establish accounting standards for publically traded companies which means it can have different requirements than GAAP.

So when the AIG filed its last quarterly report and decided that it didn’t need to have loan loss reserves against defaulting mortgages and securities, the SEC had the ability to require additional loan loss reserves. When Freddie and Fannie decided to pretend that defaulted mortgage were good assets because it changed its accounting standards, the SEC could have just said “no”. When Lehman manufactured $2.4 billion of pre-tax income by pretending that it wasn’t going to repay its debts (one of the dumber aspects of mark to market accounting), the SEC should have protected investors with disclosure.
3.

Failure to supervise the rating agencies.

Cox wants everyone to believe that despite being the rating agency’s only regulator, the SEC has no oversight or enforcement authority and cannot influence their performance. Once again, the SEC’s statements are false. Cox assumes that no one will take the time to read the Credit Rating Agency Reform Act of 2006 which states that the SEC has the right to suspend or revoke the license of any of rating agency for a wide range of reasons. Rating agency regulation and reform is Cox’s responsibility.
4.

Failure to investigate and prevent market manipulation, i.e., naked short selling.

Free markets are supposed to be honest markets. The naked short selling issue isn’t new and the SEC’s knee jerk emergency response is an embarrassment. The ban on short selling of 799 stocks is very similar to Putin’s actions this week to manipulate the Russian stock market. I haven’t a clue whether or not the uptick rule works, but I know that enforcing rules on naked short selling shouldn’t have required destructive and ill thought out emergency orders. In the middle of the 1800’s the legendary financial scoundrel, Daniel Drew, understood naked short selling was bad (as he lost his fortune covering a short squeeze) when he said, “He who sells what isn’t his’n, Must buy it back or go to prison.” Too bad Cox never took economic history in school (or googled economic trivia).
5.

Failure to protect small investors.

It is no coincidence that according to the FT, stock ownership by individual investors is at an all-time low. The average individual investor knows that his chances in the market aren’t good. And the SEC doesn’t seem to care if the average guy is disenfranchised from the economic future of America. In addition to the above failures, Cox forgot that it was his job to make sure that brokers shouldn’t engage in deceptive sales practices (like in the sale of auction rate securities and the sale of Freddie and Fannie common and preferred stock to small investors because they were “guaranteed” by the government). Cox refuses to support private litigation by individual investors who were ripped off in the stock and bond market. If the SEC doesn’t protect the little guy, who will?

Well, I don’t think Cox believed it was his job to protect the little guy. He believed it was his job to ensure that the Big Money Boyz could swallow a fire hose of money for as long as possible. (That’s what conservatives call “free markets.”)

McCain thinks that firing Cox will solve the problem. But Cox is just a natural symptom of the illness of modern conservatism’s Randian philosophy, which, at its core, really does hold that the Big Money Boyz should be allowed unfettered freedom to make money without restrictions or rules. And when they gamble on the wrong thing, they believe that it is the right thing for the rubes to bail them out. Their basic philosophy holds that the taxpayers are parasites who benefit when the John Galts of the world make money so they should shoulder the burden when they fail. Indeed, they believe the serfs should be grateful for what they got out of it (which, by the way, wasn’t much lately since the BMB decided some time back that they didn’t have anything to lose by taking more and more of the pie for themselves.) Cox was just being a good servant.

Recall Alan Greenspan writing to the ditor of the NY Times in response to a negative review of Atlas Shrugged:

“To the Editor:

Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Mr. Hicks suspiciously wonders “about a person who sustains such a mood through the writing of 1,168 pages and some fourteen years of work.” This reader wonders about a person who finds unrelenting justice personally disturbing.

Alan Greenspan, NY”

It is from philosophies like this that revolutions are made.

H/T to ej

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