30 cardiac stents inserted in patients in one day, followed by a pig roast paid for byAbbott Labs, the manufacturer. All paid for by Medicare. It is the patients and the public that are getting roasted. The problem is widespread says Steven Nissen, director of Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic/Case Western.
Dr. Mark Midei Faces Suits Over Cardiac Stents - NYTimes.com
Monday, December 6, 2010
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Yglesias » The Discontent Baseline
Matt Yglesias emphasizes the importance of being objective about what has an has not been accomplished by Obama. Compare to Carter - a lot, to Clinton - he looks good, to Johnson - well that's a special case: epochal progresss on domestic issues, hit the rocks in Vietnam. - gwc
Saturday, December 4, 2010
End game - Extending the Bush Tax Cuts and the power of NO
The game changes now: Congress must act to avert the wreck of an Obama promise: no tax increases for the "middle class" on the rocks of the Party of No's "no tax increases for anyone". Obama needs to learn (but probably won't) that he too can say NO. He has the veto power.
If Congress does nothing taxes go up. If Congress does something he does not like he can say NO. Raising taxes on the those under $200K/$250 for families is a bluff he can call. He can suspend penalties and interest, direct the IRS to permit payroll deductions at the current rates for those up to 200/250,000, veto any meausre Congress proposes until it meets his terms. If he can figure out what they are.And Obama must now contend with a minority of Democrats who can filibuster to block any tax measure that does not tax the rich! Or Deficit reduction hawks this is your chance! Raise taxes, cut spending!
from the Times:
Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, said he would benefit personally from a tax cut on income above $1 million. “I had a good business career, and I would be entitled to a tax cut for those over the million-dollar mark” he said. “But I don’t want it. I don’t need it. What I am looking at today, I think, is a great American travesty.”
Mr. Obama’s preferred plan fell 7 votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster and advance to a simple majority vote. The vote was 53 to 36, on a bill adopted by the House on Thursday to end the cuts on income above $250,000 a year for couples and $200,000 for individuals.
Republicans voted unanimously against the House-passed bill, and they were joined by four Democrats — Senators Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia,Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jim Webb of Virginia — as well as by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.
HERE is the Times account
What makes Democrats vote against such a measure?
First: Obama's lack of skill at knife fighting and trash talk.
As William Butler Yeats wrote "the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity". I feel like I am watching Barack Obama morph into Jimmy Carter who was held hostage by Ayatollah Khomeini's devotees who took the U.S. Embassy and held it until Ronald Reagan walked into the White House. Obama's finds himself held hostage by Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and the trolls who inhabit Fox News.
As to how the end game pans out, check out master number cruncher Nate Silver in the Times HERE on the Democrats' tax cut dilemma. Silver observes:
First: Obama's lack of skill at knife fighting and trash talk.
As William Butler Yeats wrote "the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity". I feel like I am watching Barack Obama morph into Jimmy Carter who was held hostage by Ayatollah Khomeini's devotees who took the U.S. Embassy and held it until Ronald Reagan walked into the White House. Obama's finds himself held hostage by Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and the trolls who inhabit Fox News.
As to how the end game pans out, check out master number cruncher Nate Silver in the Times HERE on the Democrats' tax cut dilemma. Silver observes:
But the Democrats’ leverage, ultimately, stems from their willingness to allow everyone’s taxes to increase, if necessary, since that is what happens if no deal is reached. If President Obama were to begin noting, for instance, that raising everyone’s taxes would have about three times the deficit-reduction power than raising just some of them, this could make his threat more credible. But it would also make his position less popular, since it would change the debate from being one about taxes on the rich to being one about the proper level of taxation over all.
Played for a Sucker - New York Times
This is a very compelling 2007 piece by Krugman lambasting Obama for being suckered on Social Security.
I don't know if Obama has gotten his bearings on this issue (unlikely because he really seems lost in space now), but the basic issue remains: Social Security and Medicare are the institutions the country owes to the Democrats. they are in fact the basis of Democratic staying power. Defense of them is the key to Democratic survival.
Krugman uses the phrase "serious person". Being "serious" leads you to be anti-labor, basically, to see Social Security and Medicare as something that costs you - a serious person - and delivers less benefit than you think your "investment", would yield if in your own hands.
Social justice, safety net, protecting the poor, etc. are all wimp programs. Serious People think people should take cuts in Social Security.
Played for a Sucker - New York Times
Friday, December 3, 2010
Judicial Selection and Retention
Gov. Christopher Christie's refusal to nominate 68 year old veteran and moderate John Wallace continues to smolder, provoking questions about when, whether, and how the judiciary should reflect electoral swings..
Judicial Selection and Retention
New Jersey Law Journal (c) ALM Media, LLC
December 3, 2010
Regardless of one's policital leanings, a troubling result of the midterm elections was the unprecedented ouster of three well-respected Supreme Court justices in Iowa who were up for routine, unopposed retention elections.
Since 1962, when Iowa's current judicial selection and retention system was adopted, no justice had ever been voted off the bench. This time, well-funded antigay-marriage groups poured more than $1 million, most of it raised out-of-state, into a targeted campaign to remove the three justices because they had joined in a 2009 unanimous ruling that the state constitution required recognition of same-sex marriages.
The Iowa vote offers just the most recent reminder of the vital safeguard to constitutional rights provided by a strong, independent judiciary, free to interpret the law without regard to the political considerations of the moment. Our nation's founders understood that if courts are not insulated from those who disagree with particular decisions, then majorities will have the power to strip minorities of fundamental rights.
If that sounds undemocratic, that's because it is, and intentionally so. As retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has noted, "a judge who is forced to weigh what is popular rather than focusing solely on what the law demands" loses "independence and impartiality."
In New Jersey, thankfully, retention of judges does not turn on popular vote. At the same time, the Iowa experience cannot help but bring to mind Gov. Chris Christie's terribly wrongheaded and damaging refusal to reappoint former Justice John Wallace Jr., not because he questioned the justice's competence but because he disagreed with some of the Court's decisions. Removing justices as a consequence of the substance of their rulings, no matter how unpopular, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the courts and constitutes a misuse of the retention process, regardless of whether that process calls for an election or reappointment.
Either way, it's a blow to the principle of an independent judiciary.
Ironically, Iowa's merit-based judicial selection (as distinguished from retention) process has won nationwide praise. There is a commission that posts judicial openings, screens applicants and within 60 days presents three candidates to the governor, who then selects one of them. That construct curbs the influence of political parties and special interest groups and emphasizes the selection of judges based on their professional qualifications.
New Jersey's judiciary also enjoys well-deserved national acclaim, but, unlike Iowa, political influence by state senators is now commonplace. Merit-based selection by governors, without political interference, as had been New Jersey's tradition, would restore its judiciary's reputation to that which it enjoyed in the decades following the 1947 Constitutional Convention.
his editorial was published in the December 3, 2010 issue of the New Jersey Law Journal. Copyright 2010. ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.
Since 1962, when Iowa's current judicial selection and retention system was adopted, no justice had ever been voted off the bench. This time, well-funded antigay-marriage groups poured more than $1 million, most of it raised out-of-state, into a targeted campaign to remove the three justices because they had joined in a 2009 unanimous ruling that the state constitution required recognition of same-sex marriages.
The Iowa vote offers just the most recent reminder of the vital safeguard to constitutional rights provided by a strong, independent judiciary, free to interpret the law without regard to the political considerations of the moment. Our nation's founders understood that if courts are not insulated from those who disagree with particular decisions, then majorities will have the power to strip minorities of fundamental rights.
If that sounds undemocratic, that's because it is, and intentionally so. As retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has noted, "a judge who is forced to weigh what is popular rather than focusing solely on what the law demands" loses "independence and impartiality."
In New Jersey, thankfully, retention of judges does not turn on popular vote. At the same time, the Iowa experience cannot help but bring to mind Gov. Chris Christie's terribly wrongheaded and damaging refusal to reappoint former Justice John Wallace Jr., not because he questioned the justice's competence but because he disagreed with some of the Court's decisions. Removing justices as a consequence of the substance of their rulings, no matter how unpopular, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the courts and constitutes a misuse of the retention process, regardless of whether that process calls for an election or reappointment.
Either way, it's a blow to the principle of an independent judiciary.
Ironically, Iowa's merit-based judicial selection (as distinguished from retention) process has won nationwide praise. There is a commission that posts judicial openings, screens applicants and within 60 days presents three candidates to the governor, who then selects one of them. That construct curbs the influence of political parties and special interest groups and emphasizes the selection of judges based on their professional qualifications.
New Jersey's judiciary also enjoys well-deserved national acclaim, but, unlike Iowa, political influence by state senators is now commonplace. Merit-based selection by governors, without political interference, as had been New Jersey's tradition, would restore its judiciary's reputation to that which it enjoyed in the decades following the 1947 Constitutional Convention.
his editorial was published in the December 3, 2010 issue of the New Jersey Law Journal. Copyright 2010. ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited.
NJ Law Journal Editorial Bd: NJ Senatorial Recall Vote Unconstitutional
No Call for Recall
New Jersey Law Journal (c) ALM Media Properties, LLC
December 3, 2010
by the Editorial Board
It is a sign of our unsettled times that matters long settled have been questioned. Post-Civil-War amendments like the 14th, guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized here, are challenged by critics of immigration policy. The governor of Texas cites the 16th Amendment and the income tax as the beginning of the federal government's unwarranted rise. The 17th Amendment is attacked by activists who find the six-year term for U.S. senators intolerable.The Committee to Recall Robert Menendez from the Office of U.S. Senator tried to shorten his term, relying on a 1993 popular referendum that added Art. 1, para. 2 to the New Jersey Constitution. It authorizes recall of both state and federal elected officials and requires that "a recall election be held upon the petition of at least 25 [percent] of the voters in the electoral district of the official sought to be recalled."
Sen. Menendez challenged the recall law, leading to the state Supreme Court's Nov. 18 ruling, in Committee to Recall Menendez v. Wells, __ N.J. __, that the 17th Amendment does not permit a state to recall a federal office holder. Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, writing for a 4-2 majority, said that "when the law giving rise to an election 'is defective on its face,' there is 'good reason' to review the law's validity before voting." The Court found the hardships of defense of one's office in the face of an impermissible challenge to be of great enough weight to justify granting review of Menendez's facial constitutional challenge.
No one has ever cast a vote to recall a U.S. senator, so there was no direct precedent. The Appellate Division saw possible constitutional ambiguity — citing Justice Clarence Thomas's dissent in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton , 514 U.S. 779 (1995) — that "silence in the federal Constitution may" permit recall. Since it could not "safely predict what the U.S. Supreme Court would do if presented with the question," the panel deferred. The New Jersey Supreme Court has now met the question head-on.
After careful review of the legislative history the majority found the answer clear:
"The historical record leads to but one conclusion: the Framers rejected a recall provision and denied the states the power to recall U.S. Senators. That finding is consistent with the views of nine Supreme Court Justices who made those same observations, in dicta, in U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton ... even as they divided 5-4 over the primary issue in that case."
"Renewed debates around the time of the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment offer yet more support for that view. In addition, contemporary legal scholars have uniformly reached the same conclusion about recall, despite their differing policy views on the subject."
Finding that a court "ought not compel the doing of a vain thing and the useless spending of public money," the majority ended the recall process. It properly recognized that the federal and state constitutions express different judgments about how much direct democracy is warranted.
The analogy to the federal bar on state term limits for members of Congress is a close one. In Thornton, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state congressional term-limits measure is unconstitutional when it has the likely effect of handicapping a class of candidates and has the sole purpose of indirectly creating qualifications beyond those in the federal constitution.
We think the majority was correct in recognizing the Madisonian republican view of the constitution as an obstacle to implementation of popular factional passions. We therefore find overwrought the joint dissent of Justices Roberto Rivera-Soto and Helen Hoens, which declares, in a paean to "popular sovereignty," that the majority wrongly sees the U.S. Senate as "an elitist institution the members of which should not have to be troubled by what the people they represent believe, save for the necessity of having to return and convince the people to vote them back into office every six years."
But that is in fact what the Madisonians designed — and what the 17th Amendment left intact — save for direct election. That insularity earned the U.S. Senate its reputation as the world's greatest deliberative body. It is often a frustrating body, but we cannot agree with the dissenters that the majority's ruling is one that "silenc(es) voices of protest," nor that it is a "sad and dark day in the history of the Court," nor that the majority has worked an "unconstitutional disenfranchisement of New Jersey's citizens."
Such hyperbole does not enlighten. No one in any state has ever cast a vote to recall a U.S. Senator. The security of a senator's ability to deliberate and to represent the entire nation has been constitutionally assured by the six-year term. Contrary to the dissenters, we do not believe such security of office is "illogical and offensive." It is instead an element of the genius of the republican form of government that the constitution guarantees to the citizens of every state.
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| ACRU sponsors recallnow.org which says the "constitution has protected our freedom and liberty for two centuries by providing us with a representative government, a Congress—one accountable to its citizens. Until now." |
New York Attorney Malpractice Blog: Workers' Compensation Liens and Legal Malpractice
"The law and its rules changes as a matter of geography. Across the river, rules are completely different. As an example, in NY a workers' compensation carrier may recovery its payments to plaintiff after plaintiff successfullly sues a third-party. As an aside, there are any number of legal malpractice cases in which the attorney failed to obtain the consent of the WC carrier to a 3d party settlement and cost the client dearly. However, in NY the carrier may not recover from a Legal Malpractice recovery due to the negligent handling of a 3d party action. The same is not true in NJ, as we see in: Cambridge Integrated Servs. Group, Inc. v Faber"
New York Attorney Malpractice Blog: Workers' Compensation Liens and Legal Malpractice
Krugman: Freezing Out Hope - NYTimes.com
I don't want to give up on Barack Obama. I know that we lost this election - and that the voters are to blame for it. So please somebody tell me why Krugman's harsh judgment is wrong!
Freezing Out Hope - NYTimes.com
I am not the only one asking this question, of course. This post on TPM is the rare case where the comments are actually interesting and worth reading. - gwc
White House's Melody Barnes To Progressives: Don't Jump Off The Bridge! | TPMDCWednesday, December 1, 2010
Thomas Friedman: Does 21st Century Progress Require Democracy?
Which is the better model for social development - "democratic India" or one-party Chinese rule? I am skeptical of the sort of thinking that Thomas Friedman here embraces: a sort of economic determinism - growth requires democracy. What about India? I don't see the kind of manual labor in China that is common in India.Thomas Friedman, NY Times, October 2010 :
"The Norwegian committee just awarded its 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist. The message to Beijing, I’d argue, was simple: Liberty is a value in and of itself, because without it human beings can never develop their full potential. And, therefore, liberty is also an essential ingredient for any society that wants to thrive in the 21st century. Otherwise, it can’t develop its full potential.
China has thrived since Deng Xiaoping by offering its people economic freedom without political freedom. And surely one of the most intriguing political science questions in the world today is: Can China continue to prosper, while censoring the Internet, controlling its news media and insisting on a monopoly of political power by the Chinese Communist Party?I don’t think so."
Liu Xiaobo on freedom of expression
The Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be presented to Liu Xiaobo on Friday, December 10, 2010. Liu is in prison. He will not be present. Below is a statement by him, courtesy of Pen Center. HERE is an opinion piece by Guo Ping published in China Daily criticizing the award as a cold war style attempt to undermine China and "Westernize" the country. If you cannot see the whole text, click on the banner Liu Xiaobo discusses... on the video to go directly to the YouTube site.
Hardball: Senate Republicans will filibuster everything they don't like
Why do they have unit loyalty and we do not? But let's be clear how fraudulent this is. We can't vote on Don't Ask, Don't Tell until we solve the tax problem? We can't extend unemployment insurance benefits until we address the capital gains tax? Yes, we Can!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Family Research Council: a hate group? Can junk social science save it from opprobrium?
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| Family Research Council President Tony Perkins - a regular on TV news shows |
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| SPLC founder Morris Dees |
One of FRC's claims is that the designation is a fundraising and publicity ploy by SPC. Perhaps so. We are accustomed to the idea that "hate groups" specialize in crude group libels "the Protocols of Zion show that the Jews... ", or see implausible conspiracies (the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission..."), or call for extreme measures (drive the Arabs from Eretz Israel...")
But what about a group that says that it bases its views not on characteristics of birth, but rather on an "empirical question, subject to being verified"? That evidence, it asserts, shows that homosexuality is a choice, not a trait and that the "natural family" serves its members and society better than any other form. Should they be lumped with the neo-Nazis and the Aryan Nation? Or is that just the hyperbole from which we need wean our public dialog?
Curiosity led me to FRC's " The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality" - an FRC fact sheet:
Homosexual activists would have us believe that the same is true of their homosexuality. They want us to believe that their homosexual “orientation” is something they are born with, cannot choose whether to accept or reject, and cannot change; and that it does no harm (to themselves or to society), while being protected by the principles of the Constitution.
However, these are empirical questions, subject to being verified or refuted based on the evidence. And the evidence produced by research has simply not been kind to this theoretical underpinning of the homosexual movement. It has become more and more clear that none of the “five-I” criteria apply to the choice to engage in homosexual conduct.1
The homosexual movement is built, not on facts or research, but on mythology. Unfortunately, these myths have come to be widely accepted in society—particularly in schools, universities and the media. It is our hope that by understanding what these key myths are—and then reading a brief summary of the evidence against them—the reader will be empowered to challenge these myths when he or she encounters them.But then I read this Thanksgiving 2010 offering from FRC president Tony Perkins about the present "lame duck" session of Congress?
Lame Ducks Talk Turkey
If it means working through Christmas Eve dinner, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is ready. When it comes to overturning "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that's how committed he is to playing Santa to a microscopic number of homosexuals who want to pink-ify the military. And he's not alone. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) would gladly forgo the figgy pudding to ram the Defense bill through Congress "if it takes that." But while they're off trying to stuff HRC's stocking, Democrats risk playing Scrooge for the rest of America, who needs Congress to focus on the December 31st tax hikes--or risk waking up to a $2,300 invoice from the IRS on January 1.
Whose priorities will win out? The nation won't know until after Thanksgiving when the real Capitol showdown begins.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Justice Stevens : on Ground Zero Mosque "fear of the unknown - is the source of most invidious prejudice"
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| The Double Crane Memorial |
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| Like many Japanese and Japanese Americans, Justice Stevens loves the game of baseball |
The entire speech is HERE. An excerpt follows:
I suspect that many New Yorkers who lost friends or relatives as a result of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 may have reacted to the news that Muslims are planning to erect a mosque or a religious center in the neighborhood much as I reacted to the sight of the Japanese tourists on the Arizona. Perhaps some of them may have thought: "This is no place for a mosque; Muslims killed innocent Americans herei they should build their places of worship in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else, but not here."
But then, after a period of reflection, some of those New Yorkers may have had second thoughts, just as I did at the Arizona. The Japanese tourists were not responsible for what some of their countrymen did decades ago; the Mus-lims planning to build the mosque are not responsible for what an entirely different group of Muslims did on 9/11. Indeed, terrorists like those who killed over 3 / 000 Americans -including Catholics 1 Jews 1 Protestants atheists and some of the 600 1 000 Muslims who live in New York -have also killed many more Muslims who disagree with their radical views in other parts of the world. Many of the Muslims who pray in New York mosques may well have come to America to escape the intolerance of radicals like those who dominate the Taliban. Descendants of pilgrims who came to America in the 17th century to escape religious persecutions -as well as those who thereafter joined the American political experiment that those people of faith helped launch -should understand why American Muslims should enjoy the freedom to build their places of worship wherever permitted by local zoning laws.
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| Names of Japanese American veterans killed in WWII |
Richard Lugar: Charting His Own Course Against Prevailing Winds - NYTimes.com
I am a social democrat but I believe that my ideas are part of the yin-yang of life. The Chinese concept recognizes that there are existential contradictions. Light is meaningless and useless without dark. Without dark light would blind you. You need edges to see. It is the same with politics: someone has to emphasize the collective and someone else the indvidual. Which does not mean the answer is in the middle. But it does mean that the essentiality of both sides to existence must be recognized. Richard Lugar represents the individual side of the debate.
His bucking the trend against the Tea Party impulse is discussed informatively in this piece from today's NY Times.
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