Undernews For March 5, 2009

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
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Washington DC 20003
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Editor: Sam Smith

5 March 2009

WORD
It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. - F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell

FLOTSAM & JETSAM
A TECHNOCRATIC AUTOCRACY
Sam Smith - There's an awful lot we don't know about Obama. That's not surprising; that was part of his campaign strategy, sort of like going into a restaurant and buying dinner without a menu.

But some hints are taking form. One that should be of concern is what might be called a tendency towards technocratic autocracy. This is quite different from the blatantly unconstitutional destruction of the system by Bush & Company, but that doesn't mean it should be ignored. A system can wither as well as collapse.

In his relations with both Congress and officials at the state and local level, Obama presumes a superior role that reflects not only a personal view but also a somewhat indifferent attitude towards others in our federal system.

This is not to say that he doesn't have a long list of role models among his predecessors, only that in his early actions he seems disinterested in returning balance to our system and desires to empower the presidency even more. And because the media is massively indifferent to such issues, it doesn't even mention them except in passing.

Take the budget. The way the media covers the budget and the White House acts, one might assume that Congress' job is merely to nod its head in agreement with the president. We are miles from the time when James Madison called Congress' real budget powers "the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people."

As the former member of Congress Lee Hamilton has described it:

"Accustomed as we are to the President laying out the agenda for how the federal government ought to raise and spend the people's money, for most of our nation's history it was different. The framers of the Constitution were quite explicit in giving Congress, rather than the President, the authority to tax and spend. . . In fact, before 1921 the President didn't even prepare an overall budget proposal; instead, the various executive-branch agencies sent their requests for funding directly to Congress.

"All of this began to change as the power of the presidency increased during the New Deal and World War II. More recently, however, what began as a re-balancing of budgetary initiative has become a wholesale shift in power far beyond anything this nation has encountered before. If there is comprehensive debate over budgetary priorities these days, it takes place within the administration, as the various agencies and departments argue with the powerful Office of Management and Budget over their funding levels. Debate and votes within Congress, where the heart of our democracy is supposed to lie, often feel like an after-thought and, at best, affect the budget only on the margins. In a major reversal of roles, Congress has put itself in the position of influencing the budget only through 'vetoing' presidential spending proposals, which it is generally reluctant to do. The Founders would be flabbergasted by this development."

The bank bailout - and the reluctance of administration officials towards revealing what is really going on - reflects how far we have moved in this direction. Underlying the attitude is a presumption that wisdom, knowledge and righteous decisions properly reside in a few technocrats like Tim Geithner. There is no constitutional or logical basis for such a presumption, only precedent that has grown like kudzu vine over our system.

Similarly the media thought it was quaint at best that Senator Robert Byrd raised questions about Obama setting a new record in the czarization of the White House. These czars, who require no Senate confirmation, are diminishing the role of the constitutionally created cabinet positions. As Byrd rightly said, "The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials."

Wrote Byrd to Obama, "Too often, I have seen these lines of authority and responsibility become tangled and blurred, sometimes purposely, to shield information and to obscure the decision-making process."

Reported the NY Times: "Byrd, who carries a copy of the Constitution with him and often cites it in floor speeches, said the czars are not accountable to Congress or to Cabinet officials and rarely testify before congressional committees."

Besides the expanding number of czars we have more traditional bodies such as the National Security Council and presidential advisors in various fields who alter substantially the constitutional architecture of our government while making it more difficult for others to know what they're up to or for Congress to get answers. Obama has not only embraced this technocratic autocracy, he has enlarged it.

Two places you can see this happening is in health care and education. Obama - who has no medical degree or experience - is presuming to exercise extraordinary power over American medicine, beginning with his privacy-damaging medical records plan. It seems logical to the technocratic mind - neat and orderly and efficient - but, in fact, if carried out as planned, anyone on drugs, who is an alcoholic, or has mental problems can reasonably expect this information to be available to an assortment of the improperly curious, ranging from the federal government itself to local law enforcement and employers. It's not meant to happen, but neither was NSA wiretapping of our phones or the problems with computerized voting.

Those who propose reforming health care in the least intrusive manner - through single payer or expanded Medicare - can't even get a seat at the White House table even as the technocrats happily rearrange things to satisfy their view of efficiency.

The problem in education is similar, an assumption that White House appointees know more than teachers or principals, that the corporate model that so disastrously failed our economy will work in our schools, and that our students are there to become obedient drones of the American system, answering questions right on tests but not having the slightest training in imagination, cooperation, creativity or all the other things that make a system thrive. Our new education secretary even wants to cut the length of summer vacation.

Mind you, we're not talking politics here so much as personal values as applied to a system of government. The Obama administration has a high proportion of well educated people in limited fields with a somewhat limited view of life yet expansive views of their own ability that one gains from such an education. Such people are useful but need to be well balanced by others.

That's the sort of thing our founders understood and we seem to have forgotten. When Obama scolded mayors and governors about filing proper reports on funding from the stimulus, his attitude was that of a CEO and not as the president of a federal system. If, in fact, the stimulus had been prepared in a wiser and more democratic spirit, many more funds would have been passed to the state and local level without federal prescription and proscription.

So the morning line on the Obama crowd is this: because of what they think they know, they feel entitled to use their position of power to make others accept what they think is best. This is not so much a reflection of ambition as it is of admiration of their own presumed skills and knowledge. It will be our task to teach them to respect the constitution, the importance of the devolution of power, the value of common sense as well as learned knowledge, the true distribution of wisdom, the proper limits of government and the fact that we elected them to help us, not to tell us what to do.
OBAMA BACKS DOWN ON BARRING SINGLE PAYER BACKERS AT HEALTH SUMMIT
The White House has reversed itself and extended invitations for two single payer supporters to attend Thursday's Healthcare Summit. Congressman John Conyers, author of HR 676 single payer legislation in the House, and Dr. Oliver Fine, who currently heads Physicians for a National Health Program, received invitations on Wednesday. The White House was inundated with phone calls, faxes and emails urging that the invitations be extended.
HOW NORTH DAKOTA'S BANKING SYSTEM COULD HELP US GET OUT OF THIS MESS
Ellen Brown, Global Research - California [has] avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction - North Dakota. . .

What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation. The state legislature established the Bank of North Dakota in 1919. Fleetham writes that the bank was set up to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, and the state guarantees its deposits. Three elected officials oversee the bank: the governor, the attorney general, and the commissioner of agriculture. The bank's stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. The bank operates as a bankers' bank, partnering with private banks to loan money to farmers, real estate developers, schools and small businesses. It loans money to students (over 184,000 outstanding loans), and it purchases municipal bonds from public institutions.

Still, you may ask, how does that solve the solvency problem? Isn't the state still limited to spending only the money it has? The answer is no. Certified, card-carrying bankers are allowed to do something nobody else can do: they can create "credit" with accounting entries on their books.

Under the "fractional reserve" lending system, banks are allowed to extend credit (create money as loans) in a sum equal to many times their deposit base. Congressman Jerry Voorhis, writing in 1973, explained it like this:

"For every $1 or $1.50 which people - or the government - deposit in a bank, the banking system can create out of thin air and by the stroke of a pen some $10 of checkbook money or demand deposits. It can lend all that $10 into circulation at interest just so long as it has the $1 or a little more in reserve to back it up."

That banks actually create money with accounting entries was confirmed in a revealing booklet published by the Chicago Federal Reserve titled Modern Money Mechanics. . . On page 49 of the 1992 edition, it states:

"With a uniform 10 percent reserve requirement, a $1 increase in reserves would support $10 of additional transaction accounts [loans created as deposits in borrowers' accounts]."

The 10 percent reserve requirement is now largely obsolete, in part because banks have figured out how to get around it with such devices as "overnight sweeps." What chiefly limits bank lending today is the 8 percent capital requirement imposed by the Bank for International Settlements, the head of the private global central banking system in Basel, Switzerland.

With an 8 percent capital requirement, a state with its own bank could fan its revenues into 12.5 times their face value in loans. And since the state would actually own the bank, it would not have to worry about shareholders or profits. It could lend to creditworthy borrowers at very low interest, perhaps limited only to a service charge covering its costs; and it could lend to itself or to its municipal governments at as low as zero percent interest. If these loans were rolled over indefinitely, the effect would be the same as creating new, debt-free money.

Dangerously inflationary? Not if the money were used to create new goods and services. Price inflation results only when "demand" (money) exceeds "supply" (goods and services). When they increase together, prices remain stable.

Today we are in a dangerous deflationary spiral, as lending has dried up and asset values have plummeted. The monopoly on the creation of money and credit by a private banking fraternity has resulted in a malfunctioning credit system and monetary collapse. Credit markets have been frozen by the wildly speculative derivatives gambles of a few big Wall Street banks, bets that not only destroyed those banks' balance sheets but are infecting the whole private banking system with toxic debris. To get out of this deflationary debt trap requires an injection of new, debt-free money into the economy, something that can best be done through a system of public banks dedicated to serving the public interest, administering credit as a public utility. . .

Credit is merely a legal agreement, a "monetization" of future proceeds, a promise to pay later from the fruits of the advance. Banks have created credit on their books for hundreds of years, and this system would have worked quite well had it not been for the enormous tribute siphoned off to private coffers in the form of interest. A public banking system could overcome that problem by returning the interest to the public purse. This is the sort of banking system that was pioneered in the colony of Pennsylvania, where it worked brilliantly well.

Among other advantages to a state of owning its own bank are the substantial sums it could save in interest. As Fleetham notes of his own ailing state of Michigan:

"According to recent financial reports (available online), the State of Michigan, the City of Detroit, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, the Wayne County Airport, the Detroit Public Schools, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University pay over $800 million a year in interest on long term debt. If you add interest paid by Michigan cities, school districts, and public utilities, the cost to our taxpayers easily tops a billion a year. What does Wall Street do with our billion plus dollars? They decorate their offices like kings."

Interestingly, the projected state budget deficit for 2009 is also $1 billion. If Michigan did not have to pay over a billion dollars in interest to Wall Street, the budget could be balanced and the state could be restored to solvency. A state-owned bank could not only provide interest-free credit for the state but could actually generate revenues for it. Fleetham notes that in 2007, the Bank of North Dakota earned a net profit of $51 million on a loan volume of $2 billion. He comments:

"Last year, Michigan citizens paid over $5 billion dollars in personal income tax. With a state bank like North Dakota's we could reduce this burden, fund new businesses, and restore our crumbling water and sewer systems. And we don't have to feel sorry about Wall Street losing our business. They didn't 'earn' the money they lent us. They created it in computers and charged us interest to boot. Let's follow North Dakota's lead and get free from Wall Street's web."

As Gandhi said, "When the people lead, the leaders will follow." We the people can beat the Wall Street bankers at their own game, by moving our legislators to set up publicly-owned banks that create credit using the same banking principles that are accepted as standard and usual in the trade by bankers themselves.
KARL MARX IS BACK
Mark Steel, Independent, UK - Sales of Marx's Capital are at an all-time high. . . Most papers have had articles about him in their business sections, commending his analysis of booms and slumps, and he was on the front page of The Times. Soon a Times editorial will begin: "As the global downturn gathers pace, perhaps one economic remedy to be considered by our esteemed guardians is a violent workers' revolution as envisaged by Mister Karl Marx. . . "

A passage from Marx about the insatiable greed of bankers was quoted on Radio 2 one morning by Terry Wogan. For all I know he's doing it every day now, muttering: "Now here's a jolly old lesson from the old boy Karl - about those rascals of the bourgeoisie, it seems they've been robbing us blind all along and no mistake, so let's overthrow the nitwits for a bit of mischief. In the meantime this is 'Surrey with the Fringe on Top'.". . .

But Marx might be surprised at the way he usually appears in these articles, as if he was mostly an analyst. . . As a professional analyst, Marx would have been a disaster. For example, one year after Capital was due, his publishers asked him when it would arrive and he wrote back: "You'll be pleased to know I have begun the actual writing."
UNDERPERFORMING DC SCHOOL SUPER PLAYS FAST AND LOOSE WITH TEACHERS' FUTURES
Bill Turque Washington Post - D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has said a financial consultant's report shows that her plan to pay teachers as much as $135,000 a year in salaries and bonuses can be sustained with District dollars after a promised five-year, $100 million contribution by private foundations is spent. . . Appearing recently on WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show," Rhee said an outside consultant, whom she did not identify, had vetted her compensation proposal. . .

Rhee's spokeswoman declined a request for a copy of the report, saying that documents related to the District's talks with the teachers union on a new collective bargaining agreement are confidential.

Rhee said that $200 million in private commitments -- about $100 million for salaries and $100 million for teacher professional development and other improvements to District schools -- remain intact despite the shrinking economy.

She has declined to name prospective donors publicly, saying that their funding is contingent upon securing a labor agreement that allows the District to reward individual teachers with merit pay, and to identify and expeditiously remove underperforming instructors.

The Washington Post reported on Aug. 3 that people who attended private meetings with Rhee said she named several foundations prepared to underwrite the plan: Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Michael and Susan Dell and Robertson. The organizations have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in efforts to improve K-12 education nationwide.

The Gates Foundation said it has had no discussions with Rhee about teacher pay and said so again last week. Dell, which did not respond to a request for comment last summer, said recently that they were briefed on the proposal last year but took no action. Robertson and Broad have declined to comment.

Another major philanthropic group has been mentioned recently as a possible donor by two sources, one familiar with the contract talks and another with knowledge of the private foundation world: the Walton Family Foundation of Bentonville, Ark. The organization contributed more than $100 million to education initiatives in 2007, much of it to charter schools and groups promoting school choice.

A Walton spokesman declined to comment. But in a November interview with Education Week, James C. Blew, Walton's director of K-12 education reform, said the foundation was looking for opportunities to work directly with school districts.

Union officials, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of contract talks, said they were concerned that the prospective donors' identities are being so closely held. They're also concerned that the prospect of heavy foundation financing may be driving the inclusion of certain elements in Rhee's proposals, such as merit pay and the dimunition of teacher tenure. . .

A collective bargaining agreement based on private funding would pose questions for the D.C. Council, which faces an $800 million revenue shortfall next year and an uncertain long-term budget outlook. The District's chief financial officer, Natwar M. Gandhi, has told council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D-At Large) that the council would be obligated to assume the foundation commitments if private donors were unable to follow through.
WHO SAID TMZ WAS JUST A BUNCH OF GOSSIP?
TMZ - Northern Trust -- the bank TMZ exposed this week for throwing a series of lavish parties and concerts in L.A. -- is giving back the $1.6 billion in federal bailout money!

We had our cameras out as the bank hosted fancy dinners for hundreds of clients and employees. We had video of the Sheryl Crow concert it threw after closing down the House of Blues. And then there were concerts by Chicago, as well as Earth, Wind & Fire . . . and the Tiffany gift bags for the ladies.

The story triggered a furor in D.C. . . Congressman Barney Frank demanded that Northern Trust repay the money it blew.

Now, under pressure, Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell sent a letter to members of the House Financial Services Committee, saying his bank will repay the government funds "as quickly as prudently possible."
ANOTHER CZAR, ANOTHER CONFLICT OF INTEREST
NY Times - In picking Nancy-Ann DeParle to champion an overhaul of the nation's health system, President Obama selected someone with deep roots in the Washington bureaucracy, an intimate familiarity with health policy and respect on both sides of the political aisle - not to mention degrees from Harvard Law School and Oxford University.

Nancy-Ann DeParle has years of experience in previous positions dealing with health care companies and agencies.

But in putting Ms. DeParle in charge of an issue that has bedeviled presidents for decades, Mr. Obama also chose to overlook Ms. DeParle's business ties to companies that have a direct stake in the health care debate. . .

Since leaving the Clinton administration, Ms. DeParle has been managing director of a private equity firm, CCMP Capital, and a board member of companies like Boston Scientific, Cerner and Medco Health Solutions. White House officials said Ms. DeParle was severing ties with those companies and would recuse herself from participating in any matter that was "directly or substantially" related to former clients or employers. . .
SCIENTISTS TELL CONGRESS HEAT WAVES MIGHT MAKE LIFE UNBEARABLE IN SOME CITIES
Suzanne Goldenberg, Guardian, UK - The world's pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heat waves that could make life impossible even in northern cities.

In an update on the latest science on climate change, the US Congress was told that melting snow pack could lead to severe drought from California to Oklahoma. In the mid west, diminishing rains and shrinking rivers were lowering water levels in the Great Lakes, even to the extent where it could affect shipping.

"With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle," said Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science. He went on to warn of scorching temperatures in an array of cities. Sacramento in California, for example, could face heat waves for up to 100 days a year.
MASSACHUSETTS HEALTHCARE PLAN FAILING
Suzanne L. King, Boston Globe - Massachusetts has been lauded for its healthcare reform, but the program is a failure. Created solely to achieve universal insurance coverage, the plan does not even begin to address the other essential components of a successful healthcare system.

What would such a system provide? The prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, has defined five criteria for healthcare reform. Coverage should be: universal, not tied to a job, affordable for individuals and families, affordable for society, and it should provide access to high-quality care for everyone.

The state's plan flunks on all counts.

First, it has not achieved universal healthcare, although the reform has been a boon to the private insurance industry. The state has more than 200,000 without coverage, and the count can only go up with rising unemployment.

Second, the reform does not address the problem of insurance being connected to jobs. For individuals, this means their insurance is not continuous if they change or lose jobs. For employers, especially small businesses, health insurance is an expense they can ill afford.

Third, the program is not affordable for many individuals and families. For middle-income people not qualifying for state-subsidized health insurance, costs are too high for even skimpy coverage. For an individual earning $31,213, the cheapest plan can cost $9,872 in premiums and out-of-pocket payments. Low-income residents, previously eligible for free care, have insurance policies requiring unaffordable copayments for office visits and medications.

Fourth, the costs of the reform for the state have been formidable. Spending for the Commonwealth Care subsidized program has doubled, from $630 million in 2007 to an estimated $1.3 billion for 2009, which is not sustainable.

Fifth, reform does not assure access to care. High-deductible plans that have additional out-of-pocket expenses can result in many people not using their insurance when they are sick. . .

Access to care is also affected by the uneven distribution of healthcare dollars between primary and specialty care, and between community hospitals and tertiary care hospitals. Partners HealthCare, which includes two major tertiary care hospitals in Boston, was able to negotiate a secret agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts to be paid 30 percent more for their services than other providers in the state, contributing to an increase in healthcare costs for Massachusetts, which are already the highest per person in the world. Agreements that tilt spending toward tertiary care threaten the viability of community hospitals and health centers that provide a safety net for the uninsured and underinsured.

There is, though, one US model of healthcare that meets the Institute of Medicine criteria: Medicare. Insuring everyone over 65, Medicare achieves universal coverage and access to care, is not tied to a job, and is affordable for individuals and the country. Medicare simplifies the administration of healthcare dollars, thereby saving money. We need to improve Medicare, and expand this program to include everyone.

A bill before Congress, the United States National Health Insurance Act, would provide more comprehensive coverage for all. The bill includes doctor, hospital, long-term, mental health, dental, and vision care, prescription drugs, and medical supplies, with no premiums, copayments, or deductibles.
BILL GATES WANTS BIG BROTHER IN THE CLASSROOM
Kelly Flynn, Flint Journal - How do you make a teacher great? Bill Gates posed that question at the prestigious Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference last month. And though it's unlikely there were many public school teachers in the audience, with tickets at $6,000 a pop, they could have set Gates straight on a few things.

Gates says great teachers are being made at KIPP charter schools (Knowledge Is Power Program).

"When you actually go and sit in one of these classrooms, at first it's very bizarre. . . The teacher was running around, and the energy level was high," he said. "And the teacher was constantly scanning to see which kids weren't paying attention, which kids were bored, and calling kids rapidly, putting things up on the board."

But all teachers do that, to one degree or another. It's certainly not the aberration that Gates implies.

According to Gates, in a "normal" school, teachers are not told how good they are because teachers' contracts limit the number of times the principal can come into the classroom--sometimes to once per year, and they must provide advance notice.

"So imagine," he said, "running a factory where you've got these workers, some of them just making crap and the management is told, 'Hey, you can only come down here once a year, but you need to let us know, because we might actually fool you, and try and do a good job in that one brief moment.'"

Aside from the disturbing comparison of teachers to "workers making crap" and the insinuation that they only work well when watched, the blanket statement about teacher contracts is misleading at best, inaccurate at worst.

At my school principals dropped into our classrooms whenever they chose and stayed as long as they liked.

But Gates has a solution.

Because digital video is cheap, Gates suggests putting cameras in classrooms to record regularly in all public schools. Every few weeks teachers could review the clips and work together to improve their teaching.
BUSH'S LAWYERS GAVE GREEN LIGHT TO ILLEGAL SPYNG ON CITIZENS AND SUSPENSION OF A FREE PRESS
Newsweek - In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.

Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken.

But the memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel-along with others made public for the first time -illustrates with new details the extraordinary post-9/11 powers asserted by Bush administration lawyers. Those assertions ultimately led to such controversial policies as allowing the waterboarding of terror suspects and permitting warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens-steps that remain the subject of ongoing investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. The memo was co-written by John Yoo, at the time a deputy attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. Yoo, now a professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has emerged as one of the central figures in those ongoing investigations.

In perhaps the most surprising assertion, the Oct. 23, 2001, memo suggested the president could even suspend press freedoms if he concluded it was necessary to wage the war on terror. "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo wrote in the memo entitled "Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activity Within the United States."
WHY OBAMA'S MEDICAL RECORDS PLAN THREATENS PATIENTS PRIVACY
Wired - An academic says he found thousands of sensitive medical records leaked over peer-to-peer networks from computers at hospitals, clinics and elsewhere. . .

M. Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at Dartmouth College, says he used simple search terms on several file sharing networks and uncovered files listing patient names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, insurance carrier names and insurance diagnosis codes that revealed which patients were being treated for specific diseases. He conducted some of the searches last month and presented his findings at a conference last week.

Among about 160 files that Johnson claims contained sensitive data were two spreadsheets containing information on 20,000 patients, which identified four patients being treated for HIV-AIDS, 326 patients being treated for cancer, 201 being treated for mental illnesses and thousands afflicted with various other diseases. The spreadsheets came from a collection agency that a hospital employed to track down delinquent payments.

In addition to these records, Johnson found patient psychiatric evaluations from mental health centers in several states; patient billing information from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center; and a spreadsheet from an AIDS clinic that listed the address, Social Security number and date of birth of 232 clinic visitors. A 1,718-page document (see document above) from a medical testing laboratory included the Social Security numbers, date of birth, insurance information and treatment codes for approximately 9,000 patients. . .

The study was partially funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security and comes on the heels of the $780 billion economic stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law last month, which allocates $19 billion to help build a nationwide health-information network that would convert all patient medical records to a digital format by 2014. .
MAX BAUCUS ASKS TOP BUDGET OFFICIAL TO MESS WITH HEALTH CARE FIGURES
Dr Steve B, Daily Kos - According to Congress Daily, Baucus, other lawmakers, and "some special interest groups have not been particularly pleased with what they view as CBO's conservative scoring of some supposed cost-cutting efforts that are needed to help offset the enormous price tag" of overhauling the health care system under the Baucus plan. Baucus said if healthcare reform is to pass, the CBO needs to "get ever more creative to find … pathways to get the savings that we have to have."

Baucus told the head of CBO at last Wednesday's hearing that the Congressional Budget Office will play a significant role in efforts to overhaul the U.S. health care system because the agency's cost assessments will "make or break this enterprise," CQ Health Beat. Experienced observers assert that this is Baucus' way of pressuring the agency to come up with figures to justify the kind of healthcare reform Baucus wants. Similar pressure in the extreme was placed upon the CBO in the early 1990s when the Clinton health plan was being debated.

BREVITAS

MAKE YOUR DAY

We don't know where this video came from - the alleged date seems wrong - but it's not to be missed. Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino - playing piano at the same time. Not to mention Ron Woods of the Rolling Stones, Carl Perkins (Blue Suede Shoes) and others playing backup plus cameo appearance by Rod Sewart and all, apparently under the direction of Paul Schaeffer.

CRASH TALK

Washington Post - House Democrats have reached an agreement to narrow the impact of legislation allowing bankruptcy judges to modify troubled mortgages. Under the current version of the legislation, a bankruptcy judge could cut the principal balance of a homeowner's mortgage, lower the interest rate and extend the terms. But after moderate Democrats raised objections last week, delaying a vote, Democratic leaders agreed to insert some restrictions, according to a letter circulated by some moderate Democrats in support of the legislation yesterday.

The compromise version, for example, requires that a homeowner share with the lender any profit from the eventual sale of the home if a bankruptcy judge lowers the principal balance. It also gives preference to lowering a homeowner's interest rate over cutting the principal balance.

The compromise also limits homeowners' ability to ask a bankruptcy judge for help if they have already received or been offered a loan modification that lowered their payments to 31 percent of their income.

The financial services industry, which has lobbied against the bill, fought for all those provisions.

Zogby - The nation's current economic conditions have caused many Americans to rethink their spending habits, with 70% saying they have cut back on entertainment, recreation and eating out at restaurants in the past year, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows. . . Younger adults are most likely to say they have cut back - 76% of those age 18-29 are spending less on entertainment, compared to 55% of those age 65 and older who say the same. Entertainment spending has suffered the most, but 40% said they have also limited or canceled their normal vacation plans due to the cost and another 40% have put off the purchase of a major item such as automobile, home entertainment electronics, or a computer.

Contrary to the coverage given by mainstream media, a Gallup poll finds that 64% of Americans are will to give aid to homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure

Geraint Jones, Daily Express, UK - Top secret contingency plans have been drawn up to counter the threat posed by a "summer of discontent" in Britain. . . MI5 and Special Branch are targeting activists they fear could inflame anger over job losses and payouts to failed bankers. . . What worries emergency planners most is that the middle classes, now struggling to cope with unemployment and repossessions, may take to the streets with the disenfranchised. The source said "this potent cocktail is reminiscent of the poll tax riots which fatally wounded Margaret Thatcher's government in 1990."

Reuters - U.S. companies, consumers and communities may grow so addicted to government financial help that cutting them off could trigger another recession soon after the current one ends. Between the U.S. Federal Reserve's trillions of dollars in lending programs, the $787 billion stimulus package and $700 billion -- and counting -- in bank bailout funds, no one can accuse officials of soft-pedaling their crisis response. But there is increasing concern that when the flow of public money subsides -- beginning next year when much of that stimulus package is spent -- the economy still won't be strong enough to stand on its own.

WBZ, Boston - These days many sellers are so anxious to attract qualified buyers they'll try just about anything. That, coupled with buyers wanting to make the right decision, has led to a new trend called "sleepover showings.". . . Real estate experts say more owners and developers are willing to give these "sleepover showings" a try. .

ACTIVISM

NEWS RELEASE TIPS

JUST POLITICS

Wired - Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election. But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report is not about why the system lost votes. . . but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System, include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system. Auditing logs are required under the federal voting system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong. . . The Diebold system in Humboldt County, which uses version 1.18.19 of GEMS, has a button labeled "clear," that "permits deletion of certain audit logs that contain - or should contain - records that would be essential to reconstruct operator actions during the vote tallying process," according to the California report.

Arizona Central - In a state that gave America its 2008 Republican presidential candidate and regularly elects conservative policy makers, a snapshot survey of 950 Arizona teenagers indicates that they are leaning decidedly left. Among the results of a survey released today: 75 percent support giving illegal immigrants a chance to become citizens, 72 percent believe global warming is long-term and human-caused, and 65 percent say women have a right to choose abortion. Greater legal restrictions on gun ownership get a nod from 56 percent. Although nearly half report that religion plays an important role in their lives, half also agree religious faith isn't necessary to live a moral life and nearly 60 percent say religion should not play a large role in public policy.

Josh Goodman, Governing - Soon, there will be four Democrats in Kansas holding statewide elected offices, but none of those people will have been elected to the office in which they serve. Assuming Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services, Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson will become governor. He'll appoint a new lieutenant governor. Sebelius appointed the state attorney general, Steve Six, to office after his predecessor resigned in a sex scandal. The governor also appointed State Treasurer Dennis McKinney to office after the old treasurer, a Republican, was elected to Congress.

On January 18th, the Greens in the German state of Hesse received 13.7 percent of the vote, the highest percentage ever for Greens in any German state parliamentary election (other than city-states). In the process they almost doubled their number of representatives, winning 17 seats in the 118-member Hessian parliament, up from 9 seats a year before. As usual, the Greens were also the only party to elect a majority of female Members of Parliament with nine out of 17. . . Led by charismatic party co-chair Tarek Al-Wazir, the Hessian Greens' platform emphasized education, climate change and green energy, gender equity, confronting poverty and increasing democracy and transparency in state government.

Performance activist Reverend Billy Talen launched his New York City Green Party mayoral campaign at a Union Square press conference. The candidate known for his work with the Church of Life After Shopping called for an "affordable and livable" New York that relies on its neighborhoods and independent businesses for sustainable and equitable prosperity.

AFGHANISTAN

McClatchy - A new alliance of Pakistani extremist groups - united after rival warlords vowed to renew the fight against international troops - threatens to escalate the insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan just as thousands more U.S. soldiers are to be deployed to the region. NATO nations, which lead the international coalition in Afghanistan, are concerned that the new militant partnership in Pakistan's Waziristan region, which lies on the Afghan border, will significantly increase cross-border influx of fighters and suicide bombers. The move could preempt President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan strategy, even before it's launched.

Montreal Gazette - Coalition troops serving in Afghanistan will never rid the country of insurgents and won't win the war simply by maintaining a presence in the area, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said . . "We're not going to win this war just by staying . . . we are not ever going to defeat the insurgency," Harper said in the interview, which was recorded last week during the prime minister's visit to New York. "My reading of Afghanistan's history is that they've probably had an insurgency forever, of some kind."

Christian Science Monitor - Frustration and fear is sparking opposition to plans that would nearly double the size of US forces there. . . "At least half the country is deeply suspicious of the new troops," says Kabul-based political analyst Waheed Muzjda. . . Much of the Afghan opposition comes from provinces dominated by the Pashtun ethnic group, which include areas that have seen the most fighting and where the new troops will be deployed. A group of 50 mostly Pashtun members of parliament recently formed a working group aimed at blocking the arrival of new troops and pushing for a bilateral military agreement between Kabul and Washington, which currently does not exist.

Anti-War - As the Obama Administration escalates the fight with a growing number of troops, patience in Europe for the never-ending conflict seems to be waning. Polls have shown growing public opposition to the war, and as governments try to placate a disgruntled electorate over the sagging world economy, the conflict may increasingly become something officials decide they can't politically afford.

FREEDOM & JUSTICE

Pew Center - Explosive growth in the number of people on probation or parole has propelled the population of the American corrections system to more than 7.3 million, or 1 in every 31 U.S. adults. The vast majority of these offenders live in the community, yet new data in the report finds that nearly 90 percent of state corrections dollars are spent on prisons. In the past two decades, state general fund spending on corrections increased by more than 300 percent, outpacing other essential government services from education, to transportation and public assistance. . . Research shows that strong community supervision programs for lower-risk, non-violent offenders not only cost significantly less than incarceration but, when appropriately resourced and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30 percent. Diverting these offenders to community supervision programs also frees up prison beds needed to house violent offenders, and can offer budget makers additional resources for other pressing public priorities.

NY Times Do surveillance cameras deter criminals? A recently published statistical study out of New York University says they do not deter it much, if at all, based on five years of evidence from Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan.

MID EAST

Interpress Service - A movement to boycott Israeli goods, culture and academic institutions is gaining momentum as Geneva prepares to host the UN's Anti-Racism Conference, Durban 2, next month amidst swirling controversy. International criticism of Israel's three-week bloody offensive into Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands more wounded, most of them civilian, has breathed fresh life into a Boycott, Divest, Sanctions campaign. . . Another Israeli activist, Matan Cohen, has been central in the first U.S. college implementing a divestment campaign against Israel. Hampshire College in Massachusetts called for divestment from over 200 companies that the college says is responsible for violating its socially responsible investment policies in Israel. The companies which provide the Israeli military with equipment and services in the occupied West Bank and Gaza include Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola and Terex.

Guardian, UK - In an unintended consequence of Israel's offensive in Gaza last month, sales of Palestinian olive oil in Britain are soaring, importers have said. . . "We have run out of one-litre bottles and we expect sales to double to 400 tons this year compared to 2008," said Barry Murdoch, the sales director of Equal Exchange.

INDICATORS

Chinese Bureau of Statistics - The total number of cars for civilian use stood at 24 million, up by 24.5 percent, of which private-owned cars numbered 19 million, up by 28.0 percent.

Boston Globe - Since the beginning of the decade, the employment rate, or percentage of people working, has declined broadly for Americans under 30, with teens hardest hit. . . The percentage of working US teens plunged to 33 percent, or 1 in 3, in 2008, from 45 percent in 2000, or nearly 1 in 2. Meanwhile, the percentage of working adults over 55 rose to 38 percent nationally from 32 percent. . . Industries that traditionally offered work to teens, such as retail, food service, and entertainment, are increasingly filling jobs with older workers, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies. The number of 55- to 64-year-olds working in these industries has increased nationally by nearly 500,000, or 25 percent, since 2000. Teen employment in these industries declined by nearly 560,000, or 12 percent, during the same period.

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - More than 8 million renter households paid more than half of their income for rent and basic utilities in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available. Under federal standards, housing costs are considered unaffordable if they exceed 30 percent of household income. Nearly all of these households had low incomes (i.e., at or below 80 percent of their state's median income). Two out of three of them had extremely low incomes (i.e., below 30 percent of the state median income, a level that is roughly equivalent to the federal poverty line). The number of low-income renter households that paid more than half of their income for housing increased by 2 million, or 32 percent, between 2000 and 2007.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

NY Post - The state is trying to shut down a New York City doctor's ambitious plan to treat uninsured patients for around $1,000 a year. Dr. John Muney offers his patients everything from mammograms to mole removal at his AMG Medical Group clinics, which operate in all five boroughs. "I'm trying to help uninsured people here," he said. His patients agree to pay $79 a month for a year in return for unlimited office visits with a $10 co-pay. But his plan landed him in the crosshairs of the state Insurance Department, which ordered him to drop his fixed-rate plan - which it claims is equivalent to an insurance policy. Muney insists it is not insurance because it doesn't cover anything that he can't do in his offices, like complicated surgery. He points out his offices do not operate 24/7 so they can't function like emergency rooms.

Op Ed News - Despite the findings by Health Canada that artificial sweeteners are safe, parents in B.C. have decided to play it safe and say no. The B.C. Ministry of Education has recently pulled all artificial sweeteners from being sold in B.C. primary and middle schools after consultations with parents of school children. . . The guidelines allow for artificial sweeteners in small amounts and as a condiment in secondary schools, but not in elementary or middle schools

Telegraph, UK - How many times have you heard of the benefits of the Mediterranean diet? . . . The truth of the matter is that 42 per cent of Italian men and 27 per cent of Italian women are overweight: 10 per cent and 9 per cent respectively are obese. . . A survey of Europe last year by the International Association for the Study of Obesity showed Britain at the top of the chub charts, but closely followed by Mediterranean countries. . . The sad truth is that not even the Italians are following the Med diet, having traded in their olive oil and salads for burgers.

ARTS & CULTURE

THE TICKETMASTER-LIVE NATION MERGER

WILL THIS CRISIS PRODUCE A 'GATSBY'?

RECOVERED HISTORY

RICHARD NIXON TAKES ON ARCHIE BUNKER & HOMOSEXUALS

OBAMA METER

For the first time since he took office, Obama has hit 30% on our Obama Meter.

BUDGET

Washington Times - House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer became the second leading congressional Democrat in a week to push back against Mr. Obama's drive to curb member-directed earmarks on spending bills. Saying he was open to the president's "suggestions" about how to reform the spending process, the Maryland Democrat told reporters, "I don't think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do. I hope you all got that down." His remark echoed a warning from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, that the earmarks process is a congressional prerogative. Regarding the deduction for charitable donations, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat and chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said he "would never want to adversely affect anything that is charitable or good."

ON CAMPUS

Reuters - A university in Liverpool has launched a Master of Arts degree in The Beatles, the city's most famous sons, and called the qualification the first of its kind. Liverpool Hope University says on its website that the course entitled "The Beatles, Popular Music and Society" consists of four 12-week taught modules and a dissertation. "There have been over 8,000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address," said Mike Brocken, senior lecturer in popular music at Hope.

ECO CLIPS

Portland Press Herald, ME - Commercial fishing might be causing genetic changes in fish that swim in the ocean, making them smaller and less fertile. . . However, the study also found that fish can grow larger again if the big ones are allowed to get away. . . Efforts to bring back the fish still include rules - such as minimum sizes and large-mesh nets - that encourage fishermen to catch and kill the largest fish and spare the smaller ones. That is sending the wrong message to the fish, genetically speaking. . . Shrinking fish sizes also mean a population reproduces at a slower rate, something that makes it more vulnerable to natural pressures such as predation and less able to recover from overfishing. . . Larger fish are generally much more fertile than smaller ones.

BELIEFS

Andrew Santella, Slate - One in seven adults changes churches each year, and another one in six attends a handful of churches on a rotating basis, according to the Barna Group, a marketing research firm that serves churches. Church shopping isn't a matter of merely changing congregations: A survey by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life last year indicated that 44 percent of American adults have left their first religious affiliation for another.

DRUG BUSTS

Telegraph - Making up counterfeit anti-impotence pills can be as much as 2,000 times more profitable than dealing in hard drugs, according to one expert. With millions of potential buyers available on the internet, the trade is also less risky for gangsters. But there were warnings that the fake blue pills, often made from a cocktail of prescription medicines, can be highly dangerous for users. Last months a report in Singapore highlighted that four men died and three were left in comas in just five months after taking counterfeit impotence drugs.

FURTHERMORE . . .
WARRANT ISSUED FOR CHANDRA LEVY SUSPECT
CONGRESS MOVES TO CRACK DOWN ON OFFSHORE TAX HAVENS

MAJOR SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY: WHERE BELLY BUTTON FLUFF COMES FROM
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