Deaths by U.S. torture

The suppressed fact: deaths by U.S. torture
The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the U.S. resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in U.S. custody -- at least. While some of those detass were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that's one reason we've always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others -- because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people. Those arguing against investigations and prosecutions -- that we Look to the Future, not the Past -- are thus literally advocating that numerous people get away with murder.

The record could not be clearer regarding the fact that we caused numerous detainee deaths, many of which have gone completely uninvestigated, let alone unpunished. Instead, the media and political class have misleadingly caused the debate to consist of the myth that these tactics were limited and confined. As Gen. Barry McCaffrey recently put it:

We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.

Journalist and Human Rights Watch research John Sifton similarly documented that "approximately 100 detainees, including CIA-held detainees, have died during U.S. interrogations, and some are known to have been tortured to death."

CBS Sites Junk Science Climate Data in Report

CBS Sites Junk Science Climate Data in Report
There are plenty of instances in the traditional media of honest mistakes or just plain sloppy journalism when it comes to science reporting. Then there are times when the only explanation is naked complicity in spreading disinformation. CBS has clearly crossed the line into the latter, by reporting the EPA suppressed information questioning the validity of anthropogenic global warming, to a degree that should leave any premium news organization embarrassed. We’re not going to award CBS traffic for this travesty (It’s linked with some additional info here) but some background on the report that was supposedly repressed can be found here:

It turns out that the report, written by Alan Carlin and John Davidson of the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics, is drawn heavily from the contrarian blogosphere, especially Ken Gregory of the Calgary-based "astroturf" group Friends of Science. And in one case, a lengthy "analysis" of a recent peer-reviewed paper has been lifted, without attribution, straight out of World Climate Report, the climate "news" blog run by uber-contrarian Pat Michaels.

Just for starters, the contrarian report that CBS accuses the EPA of 'suppressing' revives the old zombie lie that a warming sun is to blame for global warming, except when it's not, then the earth is actually cooling. There’s no need to point out that the sun, the most studied object in the universe after earth itself, shows no signs of doing anything of the sort, nor is there any point in presenting data showing unequivocally that the earth is not cooling unless one conveniently cherry picks an interval right after the hottest year on record. Because -- now follow along Republican boys and girls -- the sun can’t be the cause of global warming on a cooling earth. The rest of the so-called suppressed report is just as bad if not worse. Excluding nonsense heavily plagiarized from energy industry front groups is not an example of suppression. It’s an example of rightful rejection.

For some up to date info on climate change see Global Climate Change Impacts in the U.S.

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.
Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases. (p. 13)



2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.
Climate-related changes are already observed in the United States and its coastal waters. These include increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows. These changes are projected to grow. (p. 27)



3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.
Climate changes are already affecting water, energy, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, and health. These impacts are different from region to region and will grow under projected climate change. (p. 41-106, 107-152)

Former Kansas City KKK leader indicted in 2004 mail bomb

Former Kansas City KKK leader indicted in 2004 mail bomb
KANSAS CITY, MO — Never shy about bantering with reporters, former Kansas City area Ku Klux Klan leader Dennis Mahon always seemed to be on the public relations side of the white supremacy movement — a virulent talker, but not a violent doer.

That changed Friday when federal prosecutors in Arizona announced that Mahon, 58, and his twin brother, Daniel, had been indicted in the 2004 mail bombing of a Scottsdale city office that promoted racial and cultural diversity.

“There are few criminal acts as cowardly as a parcel bomb,” said Christopher White of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Phoenix.

The Mahons’ arrests Thursday in Illinois coincided with unrelated charges being announced against Robert Joos, a Powell, Mo., man whom Dennis Mahon allegedly called the morning the bomb arrived in Scottsdale.

Authorities charged Joos, 56, with being a felon in possession of firearms.

According to court records, Mahon allegedly sent an undercover federal informant to Joos, who taught him how to make napalm.

Also Thursday, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched the Warsaw, Ind., home of Tom Metzger, director of the White Aryan Resistance and an associate of the Mahons.

In a Warsaw newspaper interview Friday, Metzger, said the search was related to the charges against the Mahons. He said that agents took a computer and address books.

Robert M. Fagan, an attorney representing Dennis Mahon, said that the bombing accusations still must be proven.

“He’s a veteran and a contributing member of society,” Fagan said.

Attorney Dennis Ryan, who represents Daniel Mahon, said his client believed he was innocent.

“He’s denied any knowledge or participation in this,” Ryan said. “He believes this is more about his views and his persona. He’s at a loss of how he could have gotten to this point.”

An attorney for Joos could not be reached for comment.

Dennis Mahon is a former Northmoor resident and imperial dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1989, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Northmoor Board of Aldermen, vowing to keep the community “white.”

He also was involved in a skirmish over a public access channel of a Kansas City cable TV company. After a long battle, which included a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the Klan, his group produced one TV program that aired in 1990.

According to court records, the Mahons long have been suspects in the Feb. 26, 2004, Scottsdale bombing. Prosecutors accused Dennis Mahon of using his brother’s phone to call the Scottsdale office on Sept, 26, 2003, and leave a voice message stating that “the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There’s a few white people who are standing up.”

Authorities began investigating Joos in 2005, after they noticed that a string of calls was made from Dennis Mahon’s phone on the morning of the bombing, the first to Joos’s cell phone, according to court records.

The Mahons grew up as Illinois farmboys, said Leonard Zeskind, a Kansas City expert on hate groups. In the 1970s, they joined David Duke’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, he said.

They stayed with that group until 1988, when Dennis Mahon created his Missouri White Knights in Kansas City.

When he moved to Tulsa, Okla., he tried to make a living selling Klan paraphernalia at gun shows, Zeskind said. He later set up camp in Arizona among a group of skinheads.

Ann Coulter Spaced Out And Confused On Hannity & Colmes

Ann Coulter Spaced Out And Confused On Hannity & Colmes
Ann Coulter seemed high on something last night as she fumbled her way through an interview that was supposed to make her look like a free speech heroine martyred by liberal college students. Sure, she threw in some of her customary invective, including an incomprehensible accusation about students' "sexual fantasies." But the segment contained vague and perfunctory responses, along with a few embarrassingly long pauses. You know something has to be wrong with her if Sean Hannity has to keep pressing her to talk about what's wrong with liberals. But that's exactly what happened. UPDATE: Video link is not working. Please email us if you have one.

Sean Hannity introduced the discussion by explaining that Coulter had just finished a speech at the University of Connecticut that came under "intense scrutiny." In a dismissive tone, he said that some students complained her speaking fee was too high (but added "even though it was half priced") and that others "feared that she would only bring quote unquote hate speech to the university. Now, this isn't the first time that Ann has faced critics at the nation's colleges and universities... So are these institutions really advocating free speech and the free and open exchange of ideas or are they increasingly turning their backs on conservatives and free thought?"

Hannity and "fair and balanced" FOX News know full well that Coulter's outrageous proclamations, often advocating violence toward those with whom she disagrees, are no run-of-the-mill conservative "thought," as she was portrayed in that introduction. No examples of the kinds of things she says (expressing remorse that Timothy McVeigh didn't blow up the New York Times, e.g.) were provided to the audience nor was there any other guest to explain why so many students didn't want her at UConn.

In short, it was a dream set-up for Coulter. But she quickly turned it into a viewing nightmare. In response to Hannity's opening question about how it went, Coulter answered in an annoyed tone, "the usual screaming banshees."

In fact, Coulter had to cut her speech short because of heckling. But when Hannity asked her if "anything happened tonight, was there any incident?" she paused for a long time, then said, with somewhat slurred words, "Weren't your, weren't your cameramen there?" Then she laughed a little at her own wit before adding, "It was the same as all college campuses." Another pause. "Screaming banshees, sexual fantasies from impotent nosepickers among the liberal males - uh, you know, the usual."

Hannity then asked if she was aware that one student had talked about throwing rocks at her as part of an effort to "stifle free speech."

"Uh... I (pause) I give five billion college speeches a year so I'm familiar with the general tenor of college leftists (giggle) and the nuanced and intelligent argument fashion they have, yes (pause). Yes, it was the same old, the usual."

As Hannity pressed her for details, she rambled about George Orwell's 1984, then finally said she didn't get through the whole speech but turned it into a Q&A. Then, in an apparent effort to make that look deliberate, she said, "I had to come do your show anyway... But I enjoy having repartee with people who are much stupider than I am."

Colmes said he thought that kind of arrogance was "not nice," then asked, "stupider than you?"

Coulter stuttered before making this nonsensical statement. "If we're going to have this conversation, you'd better start playing the question and answer."

Colmes tried to start a discussion showing that there was resistance on campus to Cindy Sheehan's appearance, just as there was with Coulter's. Coulter fell silent for an embarrasingly long time, before she said, in a derisive tone, "Yeah... (more silence) Is there a question?"

After the break, Colmes asked why she didn't get a chance to finish her speech. "What happened? Did they interfere with you? Were they shouting you down? Did they not let you speak?"

Another long silence. "Um, yes, correct, all of the above. "

"Can you tell us what happened?"

"Boom box (fumbles for words, then stutters) Boombox."

"Boombox?" You could almost hear Colmes thinking, "uh-oh."

Hannity asked if the audience reaction wasn't proof that Coulter was "getting to" the students. "Um, no, that's right.... But I was paid to give a speech, and I didn't get to give it (laugh), so, um (long pause) I think there may be a class action lawsuit against the college Democrats."

by way of Newshounds - video link to original interview at their post.

Teen Strip-Search Ruled Unconstitutional, But School Officials Are Off the Hook

SCOTUS: Teen Strip-Search Ruled Unconstitutional, But School Officials Are Off the Hook
In an 8-1 decision this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States held that 13-year old Savana Redding's constitutional rights were violated when school officials suspecting her of hiding prescription-strength Advil and Aleve forced her to expose her breasts and pelvic area to school officials by pulling her underclothes away from her body. However, seven of the nine Justice held that because this constitutional right was not sufficiently established as a clear violation of her rights at the time of the offense, the school officials were entitled to qualified immunity from damages for the search -- which, by the way, found nothing.

Here's the facts: middle-schoolers Savana Redding and Marissa Glines were already known as "an unusually rowdy group" at Safford Middle School -- at the school’s opening dance in August 2003, alcohol and cigarettes were found in the girls’ bathroom, and the girls were thought to be part of that perilous posse. One of their classmates, Jordan Romero, told school officials that "certain students were bringing drugs and weapons on campus," and that he had been sick after taking some pills that "he got from a classmate," later handing Assistant Principal Wilson a white pill that he said Marissa had given him. [Jordan also told the principal that before the dance, he had been at a party at Savana’s house where alcohol was served. The record does not reflect whether he has been invited back.]

The pill was a 400 mg Advil, prescription-strength. Marissa got called to the Wilson’s office, and inside her pockets were a blue pill, several white ones and a razor blade. Inside Savana's dayplanner, which Marissa was borrowing, were several knives, several lighters, a cigarette, and a permanent marker. The school nurse and a secretary – both women – searched Marissa's bra and underwear, finding nothing. Marissa said the blue pill came from Savana, and so into the office she was haled next.

Wilson showed Savana the four white pills – all prescription-strength Advil, and the blue pill, an Aleve (as Poison Control explained when he called), all banned under school rules without advance permission. Savana said she didn’t know anything about them, and denied distributing them to others. She agreed to let them search her backpack, where nothing was found. At that point, Justice Souter explains in the part of the ruling with which everyone but Justice Thomas agreed,

Wilson instructed Romero to take Savana to the school nurse’s office to search her clothes for pills. Romero and the nurse, Peggy Schwallier, asked Savana to remove her jacket, socks, and shoes, leaving her in stretch pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found....

The exact label for this final step in the intrusion is not important, though strip search is a fair way to speak of it. [The secretary and nurse] directed Savana to remove her clothes down to her underwear, and then "pull out" her bra and the elastic band on her underpants. Although [they] stated that they did not see anything when Savana followed their instructions, we would not define strip search and its Fourth Amendment consequences in a way that would guarantee litigation about who was looking and how much was seen.The very fact of Savana’s pulling her underwear away from her body in the presence of the two officials who were able to see her necessarily exposed her breasts and pelvic area to some degree, and both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings.

Savana’s subjective expectation of privacy against such a search is inherent in her account of it as embarrassing, frightening, and humiliating. The reasonableness of her expectation (required by the Fourth Amendment standard) is indicated by the consistent experiences of other young people similarly searched, whose adolescent vulnerability intensifies the patent intrusiveness of the exposure. See Brief for National Association of Social Workers et al. as Amici Curiae 6–14; Hyman & Perone, The Other Side of School Violence: Educator Policies and Practices that may Contribute to Student Misbehavior, 36 J. School Psychology 7, 13 (1998) (strip search can "result in serious emotional damage"). The common reaction of these adolescents simply registers the obviously different meaning of a search exposing the body from the experience of nakedness or near undress in other school circumstances. Changing for gym is getting ready for play; exposing for a search is responding to an accusation reserved for suspected wrongdoers and fairly understood as so degrading that a number of communities have decided that strip searches in schools are never reasonable and have banned them no matter what the facts maybe, see, e.g., New York City Dept. of Education, Reg. No. A–432, p. 2 (2005), online at http://docs.nycenet.edu/... ("Under no circumstances shall a strip-search of a student be conducted").

Humiliating, sure, but unconstitutionally unreasonable? Yes, that too:

Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion. Wilson knew beforehand that the pills were prescription-strength ibuprofen and over-the-counter naproxen, common pain relievers equivalent to two Advil, or one Aleve. He must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, and while just about anything can be taken in quantities that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills.

Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana was hiding common painkillers in her underwear. Petitioners suggest, as a truth universally acknowledged, that "students ... hid[e] contraband in or under their clothing," and cite a smattering of cases of students with contraband in their underwear. But when the categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search down to the body of an adolescent requires some justification in suspected facts, general background possibilities fall short; a reasonable search that extensive calls for suspicion that it will pay off. But nondangerous school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in intimate places, and there is no evidence in the record of any general practice among Safford Middle School students of hiding that sort of thing in underwear; neither Jordan nor Marissa suggested to Wilson that Savana was doing that, and the preceding search of Marissa that Wilson ordered yielded nothing. Wilson never even determined when Marissa had received the pills from Savana; if it had been a few days before, that would weigh heavily against any reasonable conclusion that Savana presently had the pills on her person, much less in her underwear.

In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.

A right-wing writer on how to be a real man

A right-wing writer on how to be a real man by Glenn Greenwald
Andrew Klavan is a right-wing writer who, according to his Wikipedia page, specializes in "tough-guy" novels; writes for "Pajamas Media"; and believes George Bush is similar to Dark Knight's Batman because both "understand that there is no moral equivalence" between our society and the Evil Ones and that the Evil Ones "must be hounded to the gates of Hell." When Klavan demands that the Terrorists "be hounded to the gates of Hell," he means that he wants other men and women to do the hounding, as Klavan, born in 1954, has never served in the military.

Today, this super-tough guy has a column at Pajamas Media explaining -- in the context of a new film he saw that joyously depicts men as men and ladies as ladies -- what distinguishes real men like him from fake males who have had their manhood taken by women:

A lot of critics get all huffy about this depiction of the sexes - read the silly little fellow who wrote the review in the New York Times by way of example. The standard line seems to be to blame it all on childish filmmakers pandering to adolescent audiences. But you know what? I suspect a lot of it is simple realism. More and more often I meet young guys just like this: overgrown kids who are their grim wives’ poodles. They sheepishly talk about getting a “pink pass,” or a “kitchen pass,” before they can leave the house. They can’t do this or that because their wives don’t like it. They “share” household and child-rearing tasks equally - which isn’t really equal at all because they don’t care about a clean house or a well-reared child anywhere near as much as their wives do. In short, each one seems set to spend his life taking orders from a perpetually dissatisfied Mrs. who sounds to me - forgive me but just speaking in all honesty - like a bloody shrike. Who can blame these poor shnooks if they go out and get drunk or laid or just plain divorced?

I’m the old-fashioned King of the Castle type: my wife knew it when she married me, she knows it now, and she knows where the door is if she gets sick of it. And you can curse me or consign me to Feminist Hell or whatever you want to do. But when you’re done, answer me this: why would a man get married under any other circumstances? I’m serious. What’s in it for him? I mean, marriage is a large sacrifice for a man. He gives up his right to sleep with a variety of partners, which is as basic an urge in men as having children is in women. He takes on responsibilities which will probably curtail both his work and his social life. If he doesn’t also acquire authority, gravitas, respect and, yes, mastery over his own home, what does he get? Companionship? Hey, stay single, dude, you’ll have a lot more money, and then you can buy companionship.

All right, I know, I’m a mean old man. But I’ve also been blissfully married for 30 years to a woman who wakes up singing. I think some of these young guys have been sold a bill of goods, I really do. I think they’ve been told what they’re supposed to be like and have sacrificed what they are like. Maybe their marriages are more “fair” than mine but just looking at them, I think they’re miserable. And I suspect, deep down, their wives are probably miserable too.

If you ask me, they’d be better off staying in Vegas.

I wonder what he thinks of the women who go and fight the wars for which he's a vocal (shrieking) tough-guy cheerleader but won't fight himself? Ultimately, the only cure for this level of insecurity over one's masculinity is to become a cheerleader for wars, torture, "getting tough" with our current Enemy (today: Iran), and politicians who prance around in fighter pilot costumes on the decks of aircraft carriers. The vicarious sensations of pulsating strength must be so soothing to someone like this, so desperate to prove their manhood. As Digby wrote in what I consider to be a seminal post on this topic, this has been true forever, was as pronounced during the Vietnam War as it is now: it's impossible to overstate the role this sad Rush-Limbaugh/Dick-Cheney mentality plays in the craving of people like this, from a safe distance, for wars and destruction fought in their names, by others. They get to revere a President who's just like Batman, and it makes them real "old-fashioned King of the Castle types."

A Top Ten list for Letterman's conservative critics

A Top Ten list for Letterman's conservative critics

He doesn't host his own syndicated talk radio show. That isn't his chair behind the desk of a cable-news program. You won't find his byline on the op-ed pages, discussing the ins and outs of President Obama's latest policy proposal.

He's a gap-toothed, late night comedian, and he's in justifiably hot water with conservatives for making some pretty vile jokes.

Earlier this month on CBS' Late Show, host David Letterman took aim at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's recent trip to New York City, offering up some off-color and patently sexist quips. During his opening monologue, Letterman said, "One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the 7th inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez." Then, later in the same broadcast, while presenting No. 2 on his famed Top Ten list, this time of "Highlights of Sarah Palin's Trip to New York," Letterman said the former Republican vice presidential nominee had "bought makeup at Bloomingdale's to update her 'slutty flight attendant' look."

Letterman did the right thing in apologizing twice for his tasteless attempts at humor, finally noting that the intention of his jokes was meaningless when considering the way any rational-thinking person would perceive his jokes. Ultimately, though, it is Letterman's future conduct that will determine the sincerity of his contrition.

Still, the right's fury rages on.

It is hard, however, to take conservatives seriously when one considers that each and every day, real players in the rudderless conservative movement -- powerful talk-radio hosts, cable-news hosts, pundits, columnists, and bloggers -- throw aside the reasonable boundaries of a civil political discourse by using wickedly divisive, cruelly insensitive, intentionally misleading, and downright hateful rhetoric. And the response from their followers? Hardly a peep.

Rank hypocrisy is nothing new for right-wingers -- or politics in general, for that matter -- but in a selfless attempt to help them avoid the "hypocrite" label this time around, I humbly present a Top Ten list of "Right-Wingers From Whom Conservatives Should Be Demanding Apologies."

10) Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, for falsely claiming a hate-crimes bill that adds gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans to the list of protected groups would also protect those who commit incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality, and a host of other perversions.

9) Fox News' Sean Hannity, for hosting "Internet journalist" Andy Martin, who once called a judge a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race."

8) Syndicated radio host Neal Boortz, for describing welfare recipients as "human parasitic garbage lining up to get their applications to loot."

7) Fox News conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Glenn Beck, for describing Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court as, "Hey, Hispanic chick lady! You're empathetic. ... You're in!"

6) MSNBC's resident cranky uncle, Pat Buchanan, for saying prior to Sotomayor's selection that he wanted Obama to pick a Supreme Court justice "who has real stature, impresses people" but thinking instead that Obama would pick "a minority, a woman and/or a Hispanic."

5) Syndicated radio host Jim Quinn, for repeatedly calling NOW the "National Organization of Whores."

4) Cincinnati-based radio host Bill Cunningham, for alleging that "Obama wants to gas the Jews."

3) Michael Savage (née Weiner), the third-highest-rated radio host in America, for saying "Obama hates" and "is raping America."

2) Fox News' irrepressible mega-star Bill O'Reilly, for repeatedly quacking that the legalization of gay marriage could lead to folks marrying ducks.

And No. 1, the conservative movement's de facto leader, Rush Limbaugh, for saying of Obama, "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

In all honesty, the list could have included dozens of other media conservatives, with comments and actions numbering in the hundreds.

At the end of the day, expecting consistency from a movement motivated primarily by divisiveness and fearmongering is perhaps a bit much to ask. It's sad that the righteous complaints over Letterman's ill-conceived jokes are undermined by the right's inability to hold their own ilk accountable.

Insurance Companies Profit Twice from Smokers

Insurance Companies Profit Twice from Smokers
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that life and health insurance companies in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain invest heavily in tobacco companies. Tobacco use is a major cause of fatal lung diseases and cancer, and is known to elevate the risk for heart attack and stroke. The study found that the American insurance company Prudential Financial, Inc. has $264.3 million invested in U.S. cigarette makers, including Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. The Canadian company Sun Life Financial, Inc., which sells life, health and disability insurance, owns over $1 billion worth of stock in tobacco interests, including $890 million in Philip Morris. Prudential Plc, which sells health and disability coverage, has $1.38 billion invested in two tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco. Wesley Boyd, the study's lead author and a faculty member of Harvard Medical School, says that while it may seem self-defeating for companies to sell insurance while also owning tobacco stocks, insurers have found ways to profit from both. "Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit -- and smokers lose -- twice over." Study co-author David Himmelstien explains, "It's the combined taxidermist-and-veterinarian approach: either way, you get your dog back." Boyd adds that the main objective for insurance companies is not to safeguard customers' well-being, but to generate profits. The authors also point to this study as a reason why health insurance coverage should not be left in the hands of private insurers.

Gerald Walpin Scandal is as Phoney as Whitewater

Gerald Walpin Scandal is as Phoney as Whitewater

To Barack Obama's most excitable adversaries, the firing of the Americorps inspector general that the president ordered last week is an incipient scandal, as loud and thrilling as Whitewater once was. Their fond memories of that ancient controversy (and its many sequels) were revived by the sudden dismissal of Gerald Walpin, a Bush administration appointee who has depicted himself as the victim of a political conspiracy. Insinuations and smears abound already -- including an attempt by the usual suspects to drag the first lady into the mud, Hillary-style, on the basis of anonymous allegations.

The latest accusations of White House impropriety are indeed reminiscent of the Clinton wars. But before conservatives spin themselves into a grand mal frenzy, they ought to understand that the strongest parallels between "Walpingate" and Whitewater are the palpable flimsiness of the charges and the questionable motives of the chief accuser. Unless there is much more to this story than what responsible journalists have found so far, the buzzing chatter on the right will soon subside into a disappointed murmur.

According to the wingnut version, Walpin is a heroic investigator who was ousted simply because he exposed misspending of hundreds of thousands of federal dollars by an Obama ally, namely former NBA star Kevin Johnson, who ran a nonprofit organization in Sacramento that received Americorps funding before he was elected mayor of the California state capital last fall. Walpin had to be removed on June 11, after he refused the president's request that he resign, because the White House was trying to cover up Johnson's wrongdoing and permit his city to receive federal stimulus money.

That simple and sinister scenario, like so many of the media descriptions of Whitewater, omits crucial facts.

It is true that Walpin found evidence of misuse and waste of Americorps funds by St. Hope Academy, a nonprofit community group started by Johnson after he retired from the NBA. It is true that Johnson and St. Hope have acknowledged that they must refund roughly half of the money that the group received from Washington. But it is also true that Walpin, a Republican activist attorney and trustee of the Federalist Society before Bush appointed him as inspector general, went well beyond his official mandate last year by publicizing supposed "criminal" wrongdoing by Johnson in the days before the Sacramento mayoral election.

And it is true as well that Lawrence Brown, the United States attorney in Northern California who received Walpin's findings, decided not to bring any criminal charges against Johnson and instead reached a settlement with him and St. Hope.

That settlement, filed last April, is a public document that reflects no great honor on Johnson, to put it mildly. But it also voided any possibility of a "coverup" by Obama or anyone in his administration. The case against Johnson had concluded months before the president acted to dismiss Walpin -- and in fact only drew attention to the case by doing so, as he must have known would happen.

Just as salient as the accusations against Johnson, however, are those brought by Brown against Walpin. A Republican named as the acting U.S. attorney by Bush, Brown filed a sharply worded complaint against Walpin with the oversight office for the federal inspectors general that charged him with ethical violations in an overzealous assault on Johnson and St. Hope. The U.S. attorney said that Walpin had "overstepped his authority by electing to provide my office with selective information and withholding other potentially significant information at the expense of determining the truth" -- in other words, Walpin had failed to provide substantive exculpatory facts to the U.S. attorney, while trying to push the government into opening a criminal probe of Johnson. During the election season in Sacramento, Brown noted that Walpin had sought publicity for his findings against Johnson in the local media before discussing them with the U.S. Attorney's Office, "hindering our investigation and handling of this matter."

Here the parallels with the early history of Whitewater seem nearly perfect. Brown's levelheaded handling of Walpin's exaggerated charges against Johnson are much like the dismissal of the original Whitewater complaints by Charles Banks, the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., and an honest Republican who refused to gin up a phony indictment of the Clintons before the 1992 election (and lost his job as a result). And Walpin's excessive zeal and lust for publicity bear a startling resemblance to the antics of L. Jean Lewis, the Resolution Trust Corp. official who concocted a series of implausible theories implicating the Clintons in the looting of an Arkansas savings and loan.

But Walpin, now in his late 70s, is a more intriguing figure than Lewis ever was. A hard-line conservative with a résumé that dates back to the early '60s, he was a curious choice for a position that requires dispassionate judgment and nonpartisan fairness. Although he developed a reputation as a highly capable litigator at a major New York City law firm, he has devoted much of his life to the causes of the extreme right, in particular as a trustee of the Federalist Society and as a director of the Center for Individual Rights, a right-wing law foundation devoted to overturning affirmative-action programs.

Supreme Court’s conservative majority tossed aside compelling due process claims

Unparalleled and Denied
In an appalling 5-to-4 ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority tossed aside compelling due process claims, the demands of justice and a considered decision by a lower federal appeals court to deny the right of prisoners to obtain post-conviction DNA testing that might prove their innocence.

The inmate at the center of the case, William G. Osborne, is in prison in Alaska after a 1994 rape conviction based in part on a DNA test of semen from a condom recovered at the scene.

The state used an old method, known as DQ-alpha testing, that could not identify, with great specificity, the person to whom the DNA belonged. The high court sided with Alaska in its refusal to grant Mr. Osborne access to the physical evidence, the semen. His intent was to obtain a more advanced DNA test that was not available at the time of his trial and that prosecutors agreed could almost definitively prove his guilt or innocence.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted the “unparalleled ability” to prove guilt or innocence using DNA evidence. But he treated that breakthrough more as an irritant than an opportunity.

The availability of conclusive DNA testing, he wrote, “cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt.”

The chief justice further worried that establishing a “freestanding and far-reaching constitutional right of access” to DNA evidence would short-circuit efforts underway by federal and state governments to develop rules to control access to such evidence. Yet Alaska is one of four states that does not have laws giving prisoners access to DNA evidence that could establish their innocence — a dismal reality underscoring the need for Supreme Court intervention.

Of course, there is a value to finality of verdicts and not allowing prisoners to endlessly challenge their convictions. But the chief justice and his concurring colleagues have their priorities all wrong.

Much as the four dissenters — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter — saw, Alaska was wrong to block testing when DNA technology is available that may prove someone is unjustly being kept behind bars. Overturning Alaska’s denial of due process should have been an easy call.

As Justice Stevens noted in his dissent, “There is no reason to deny access to the evidence and there are many reasons to provide it.”

Media reports on polling reinforce public's view of deficit, rather than informing it

Media reports on polling reinforce public's view of deficit, rather than informing it
SUMMARY: Media reports on polls indicating public concern over the federal budget deficit did not report the view among prominent economists that the government's response to recession should be spending and not deficit reduction.



Recent reports by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CBS, and NBC on their polls indicating public concern over the federal budget deficit did not report the view among prominent economists that the government's response to recession should be spending and not deficit reduction. Indeed, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, among others, attributes the reversal of the economic recovery under way during the New Deal to pressure on President Franklin D. Roosevelt to balance the budget. Rather than note that many economists dispute the notion that the government's top priority now should be reducing the deficit, these media outlets reported only the public's fear and concern on the subject. And given their failure even to mention that prominent economists do not share the public's view on economic priorities, it follows that they made no mention of the media's role in creating this public perception as well as their role now in reinforcing it through their flawed reporting.

In a February 15 op-ed, economist Mark Zandi dismissed concerns about the increased deficit spending needed to finance the stimulus package, arguing instead that the package was "too small":

There are concerns that the stimulus plan's $789 billion price tag is too large. To pay for it we will have to borrow the money, adding significantly to the government's debt load. But without a stimulus, the depression would undermine tax revenue and fuel more government spending, producing even larger deficits and debt burdens.

It is fortunate that we are still the global economy's triple-A credit; even though this calamity began in the United States, global investors still prefer the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds. We will thus be able to borrow the money at record-low interest rates.

Indeed, my most significant criticism of the current stimulus plan is that it is too small.

Our struggling economy will produce nearly $1 trillion less than it is capable of this year and will underperform again by at least as much in 2010. The $789 billion in spending and tax cuts to be distributed over those two years is not going to fill this expected hole in the economy. I would thus not be surprised if policymakers are forced to consider a second stimulus plan soon.

Nonetheless, when combined with other aggressive policy steps, including efforts to shore up the financial system and stem foreclosures, this fiscal-stimulus plan will go a long way toward relieving the current economic crisis.

Media Matters for America has written extensively about the media's advancement of conservative views on the economy and attacks on progressives through their flawed coverage of the recession and efforts to address it. The reporting of the poll questions offers further examples:

* On June 18, the Journal reported that Obama "faces new concerns among the American public about the budget deficit and government intervention in the economy" and that "[a] solid majority -- 58% -- said that the president and Congress should focus on keeping the budget deficit down, even if takes longer for the economy to recover." The Journal added that the "results come after weeks of Republican hammering of Mr. Obama for spending too much" -- an argument, according to the Journal, that appears "to be resonating with some voters" -- and that "[t]he president and his advisers appear to be aware of the peril they face over the deficit." Yet the Journal did not report that prominent economists view the recession and job loss as a far more immediate problem than the deficit and stress that spending -- not deficit reduction -- in the short run is what is necessary to turn the economy around.

* The previous night, Chuck Todd discussed the NBC/Journal poll results on NBC's Nightly News and said: "[T]he honeymoon's coming to an end for President Obama, but it's not personal, it's professional, as now the public appears to be judging the president on some of his actions. And right now, there's a growing concern about the budget deficit." He later added, "A substantial majority, 58 percent, say the government should focus more on controlling the budget deficit than on boosting the economy." While commenting on what the poll might signify for Obama, at no point did Todd note that many economists disagree with the view by a majority of respondents that the deficit should be a higher priority than "boosting the economy.

Home Loan Scamming Is Still Going Strong -- and Now You're Paying for It

Home Loan Scamming Is Still Going Strong -- and Now You're Paying for It
Everything the real estate industry tells you is a hustle. No industry is more geared toward pumping up the positive and burying anything remotely negative, leaving you -- and truth -- out in the cold.

The crash has not made real estate agents any more honest, but at least the gap between the industry's crazed optimism and stark reality has grown so obvious that even the real estate industry can't hide it anymore.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Victorville, Calif., an exurb of Los Angeles situated in the high desert where housing bubbled up higher than just about anywhere at the peak of the subprime-lending craze and is still in free fall today.

These days, there are a lot of lies and broken dreams buried in the gravelly sand on which Victorville was built. During the last real estate boom, this barren wasteland was the mecca of low-income homeownership, proof that the American Dream was within reach of all.

Tract-home developers stripped away the rocks and tumbleweeds and Joshua trees, replacing them with mazes of curvy streets and cul de sacs with soothing names like Cottontail Drive, Steeplechase Road and Ladybird Lane, lining them with the cheapest McMansions in California. Things exploded out of control this past decade, with the population doubling to 100,000 in just eight years.

But that whole way of life is over now. Unemployment in Victorville is way above the national average, and violent crime has shot up. Homes prices have plunged to 1989 levels and many stand empty. Banks don't even bother to putting them on the market.

Yet, last week, the press started hyping up the supposed real estate sales-driven economic turnaround that was about to sweep the country. "Honk if You Think It's Over," read a June 7 New York Times headline. "The panic in the Manhattan real estate market of the winter of 2009 lifted in the last few weeks, brokers say, as more and more buyers and sellers have found the courage and the comfort level to sign on the dotted line."

The Washington Post went even further: "Economists, senior government officials and ordinary consumers are all showing greater confidence in the outlook for the economy. ... There are unquestionable signs of economic progress." ABC News went with a rhetorical structure: "Has the Recession Finally Ended? Strong Home Sales Are Just One Indicator That the Economy May Be on the Mend."

From where I sit, this reads like pure fiction. It runs contrary to virtually every economic piece of data available: rising unemployment, growing credit card debt, a massive shadow inventory of foreclosed homes and a wave of defaulting ARM and commercial loans that's just around the corner.

But there is something else, too. And it is as deadly to our vampiric debtor economy as a stake through the heart: the FHA loan. By guaranteeing certain mortgages, the Federal Housing Administration has been helping middle- and low-income Americans purchase their first homes ever since the 1930s.

But this modest leg-up program has been been hijacked and transformed into the new subprime-loan market operated by lenders who are as corrupt, predatory and shortsighted as the original, and maybe even more so. Because this time taxpayers have been put on the hook for the risk well in advance. Real-estate insiders have been sounding the alarm about this new shadow subprime mortgage market -- which is now almost $600 billion strong -- for months now. But instead of listening, Congress has been trying to expand the FHA loan program.

Not surprisingly, it seems that risk-free loans are the only way they banks can be persuaded to start lending again. But I wanted to find out firsthand how much of an impact these loans were having on the housing market. So last weekend, I shaved, put on a clean shirt and headed out for a day of shopping in Victorville.

Around here, it is much easier to shop for a brand new home than to find someone who will show you one of the many foreclosed ones. You don't need to make an appointment with a real estate agent, hunt down open houses on a Sunday afternoon or attend auctions. All you have to do is take a drive any day of the week during normal business hours and look out for the huge signs plastered around town. They are not easy to miss.

It took me five minutes to spot a new development on the very edge of Victorville's sprawl. The sign was dark green and advertised a development called "Braeburn at West Creek," with luxurious and spacious homes offered for around $200,000. The development had a quiet, upper-class suburb feel to it: new cars, landscaped lawns, no traffic and wide streets. Passing a group of kids playing basketball in the middle of one of the streets, I pulled up in front of the Braeburn sales office, built into the garage of a model two-story McMansion painted a trendy brown.

It was 3 p.m. on Saturday, prime house-hunting time. With all this buying activity the industry was reporting, I half-expected to run into other bargain shoppers like myself. But I was the only customer in the real estate office.

"Hello! Have you come to see the houses?" a chipper female voice yelped from a distant corner of the office. "Give me a second, I'll be right out." I couldn't get a visual on her. It was huge, this garage -- er, office -- big enough to hold three cars, easily the size of a decent apartment. Schematic drawings hung on the walls showing all the wonderful house configurations you could order.

That was when the voice appeared in human form: a blond middle-aged woman emerged from a corner office with a bundle of keys. Braeburn had three floor plans to choose from, she quickly started explaining. But I could only look at two of them. The third was still under construction. But if I wanted to, I could drive around and look at it: "It is quite far along in the building process."

The homes were all quite similar: all three had two floors, four to five bedrooms and range of 2,454 to 2,765 square feet. All of them had what's called a "great room," something you see in new home developments that combines the kitchen, living and dining rooms into one great open space.

"We have sold 105 homes so far, and I have about 30 homes left," the agent said, whipping out a photocopy list of Braeburn's homes, complete with lot numbers. "Right now we are headed into this cul de sac. This is our last cul de sac." The rest of the homes would be built on mere streets. She circled homes numbered 85 through 98 surrounding a dead end street called Window Rock Court.

"This is a nice neighborhood. I have a few foreclosures in here, but if you drive the neighborhood and ask the people, they'll tell you how they like it here. And how they are real comfortable. I got some correctional officers here, LAPD, teachers from the school."

Jesus, I thought. What a neighborhood. Prison guards, cops and their school-teacher wives. All die-hard small-government Republicans, no doubt. And all in government employ. The last gainfully employed people in this country, and they're always talking shit about their employer, Big Government.

"But go look at the houses for yourself first. We can talk about it when you go back."

The model homes were fully furnished, and looked like they came out of a Martha Stewart magazine with a theme of "the antique and modern in harmony." I had to hand it to them, it worked. It felt like home, as long as you didn't look out of the master bedroom window. The mini-highway and a barren desert wasteland dotted with high-voltage power lines squashed that comfort feeling.

These houses were clearly a step up from the entry-level McMansion I lived in just a few blocks away. But were they worth the extra $100,000 that you could be saving if you tried to get one of few foreclosed properties that are on the market? The sales lady assured me they were, and besides I'd never get a house for that price in Victorville.

"I have a lot of people coming in here that have been bidding on foreclosures until they are sick of it. They bid and they bid and they bid, and 20 other people are bidding, too. You throw a number out, and you never get anywhere. So they say 'I want my tax credit. I want my new home. I'm gonna pick my own carpet. I know it's under 10-year structural warranty and two-year cosmetic warranty.' "

Are the news reports about the increase in home sales true, I asked. She nodded. "I've been here for three years. Last year was really slow going, but this year has been really good. I've had four sales last month, three sales the month before that. First-time home buyers, that's what I'm getting. People are like ‘prices are down, the rates are low ... time for me to get a house.' So why not? People are not afraid of getting into homeownership. So that's a good sign, right?"

Of course, I nodded. Great for the economy. Great for Victorville. But the longer we talked, the more obvious it was FHA loans were at the core of a real estate scam of frightening proportions that was reinflating the real estate bubble with taxpayers' money, all in the name of economic recovery.

NBC's Guthrie falsely suggests AMA represents "the nation's doctors"

NBC's Guthrie falsely suggests AMA represents "the nation's doctors"
Savannah Guthrie falsely suggested that the American Medical Association represents all of "the nation's doctors." In fact, the AMA represents about 29 percent of licensed U.S. doctors, according to the AMA's own figures.



During the June 15 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, NBC News White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie falsely suggested that the American Medical Association (AMA) represents all of "the nation's doctors." In fact, the AMA -- which reportedly stated to Congress that it opposed "a public health insurance option" before backtracking from that position -- represents about 29 percent of licensed U.S. doctors, according to the AMA's own figures. Moreover, other doctors' groups, including the National Physicians Alliance and Physicians for a National Health Program, support some form of additional public insurance, as The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has noted.

....As Klein noted in a June 11 washingtonpost.com blog entry, the National Physicians Alliance supports "a public plan," and Physicians for a National Health Program is in favor of a "single-payer" system of health care

CNN's Townsend -- a former Bush adviser -- attacks DHS report for claims made by Bush admin

CNN's Townsend -- a former Bush adviser -- attacks DHS report for claims made by Bush
admin

SUMMARY: CNN's Fran Townsend attacked an Obama administration report alerting law enforcement that "rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans"; Wolf Blitzer did not point out that the Bush administration, which Townsend worked for, had issued a report in 2008 drawing a similar conclusion.


During the June 10 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN national security contributor Fran Townsend, former President Bush's adviser on homeland security and counterterrorism, attacked an Obama administration report alerting law enforcement that "rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans," claiming that there was "no real intelligence to support" the claim. However, host Wolf Blitzer did not point out that the Bush administration, which Townsend worked for, had issued a report in 2008 drawing a similar conclusion.

As Media Matters for America has noted, in the July 2008 report, titled "White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11," the FBI's Counterterrorism Division found with "[h]igh confidence" that "[m]ilitary experience is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement as the result of recruitment campaigns by extremist groups and self-recruitment by veterans sympathetic to white supremacist causes." The report further stated: "A review of FBI white supremacist extremist cases from October 2001 to May 2008 identified 203 individuals with confirmed or claimed military service active in the extremist movement at some time during the reporting period." It also stated: "According to FBI information, an estimated 19 veterans (approximately 9 percent of the 203) have verified or unverified service in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

From the June 10 edition of CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: We spend so much time worrying and focusing in on Al Qaeda, Middle East terrorists -- and for good reason, after what happened on 9-11 -- but a lot of folks forget what happened at the Oklahoma City federal office building only a few years earlier.

These were homegrown terrorists. This is a real serious problem. Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, addressed it directly only a few weeks ago, when she -- she suggested, let's not forget homegrown terrorists.

TOWNSEND: That's right. I mean, she was criticized, Wolf, because she actually brought particular focus to veterans returning from the war overseas. And there was rightful debate about how bona fide her concern about that group of returning veterans was. There was no real intelligence to support there being a threat from that community.

But domestic terrorism, as you call it, homegrown terrorism, is a huge priority for the Federal Bureau of Investigations. They make arrests every year, as I mentioned, particularly environmental radical groups that turn violent or destroy property.

This is, of course, much worse. And I -- I think it's important that this begin, as Janet Langhart Cohen suggested, a public debate. We need to label as evil the speech that inspires this sort of hate.

Conservatives link Obama's purported "class warfare," "positioning America against the Jewish state" to Holocaust Museum shooting

Conservatives link Obama's purported "class warfare," "positioning America against the Jewish state" to Holocaust Museum shooting

SUMMARY: Several media conservatives have criticized President Obama for creating an "environment" and "climate" that helped foster the recent shooting at the Holocaust Museum.


In their reactions to the June 10 shooting at the Holocaust Museum, several conservatives in the media have criticized President Obama for creating an "environment" and "climate" that helped foster the shooting. For instance, financial analyst and radio host Jim Lacamp said on Fox News that "we have an administration that's really done a lot of class warfare, a lot of class-baiting. And so, it sets the stage for social unrest"; syndicated radio host Tammy Bruce repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration's "increasing anti-Israel rhetoric and the pandering to the Jew-hating world Arab world ... encourages all the beasts among us"; and Newsmax.com posted a column claiming that "[i]t is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state."

During the June 10 edition of Fox News' Your World, Lacamp said that the Obama administration has engaged in "class warfare" and in "a lot of class-baiting," which he said he's "very concerned about moving forward":

West Va. Supreme Court Affirms Toxic Coal Silo as Wonderful Playground

West Va. Supreme Court Affirms Toxic Coal Silo as Wonderful Playground
While coal may now be the official rock of West Virginia, it might soon become the official school vegetable, too. Call it organic clean coal.

On the heels of being reprimanded by the US Supreme Court this week for allowing one of its Massey coal company-bankrolled justices to refuse to recuse himself on Massey coal-related court matters, the West Virginia Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to allow the construction of another controversial coal silo within yards of the Marsh Fork Elementary School in Sundial, West Virginia. The WV Supreme Court (this time without the recused justice) made their ruling on a very narrow technicality.

As always, Ken Ward has the full story at the Coal Tattoo blog.

According to Vernon Haltom of the Coal River Mountain Watch: "The West Virginia Supreme Court has once again proven that coal company profits outweigh law, science, justice, and basic human decency. The court has given Massey Energy the go-ahead to put more tons of fine coal dust in the air that children breathe every school day during their crucial development years. Placing a second coal silo within 300 feet of the school is a clear violation of the intent of the law, which is to protect the public. Now, more than ever, Governor Joe Manchin and the Raleigh County School Board must do everything in their extensive power and influence to get these kids a safe new school in their own community."

The Marsh Fork Elementary School might be the poster child for everything that is wrong about our failed mining policies: Only a few football fields downslope of a 2.8 billion gallon coal sludge impoundment, the school and its children are also subjected to the toxic coal dust within a football field of their playground.

The Supreme Court Why Women Matter

The Supreme Court Why Women Matter
While the media wallowed in the mush-brained nattering over a few out-of-context statements said to reveal Judge Sonia Sotomayor as "racist," something interesting was happening over at the place where she aspires to work.

We saw a quick glimpse of why her gender is every bit as important to the Supreme Court as her heritage. Given the stubborn issues still facing women today, perhaps even more so.

In a case brought by four women against AT&T, the Court ruled that decades-old pregnancy leaves taken under old pension rules do not have to be counted in calculating pension payouts.

It was a small case, with limited immediate impact. Business won and women lost - by a vote of seven to two.

One of those dissenting was the lone woman on the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Justice Ginsburg, who says her tireless support of workplace equality was shaped by her own professional struggles, wrote: "Certain attitudes about pregnancy and childbirth throughout human history have sustained pervasive, often law-sanctioned, restrictions on a woman's place among paid workers and active citizens."

The question is: does that kind of gender identification have a place in the land's highest court? Simple answer: yes.

Even though the Court refutes it, and Judge Sotomayor was attacked for saying it, the Court does make policy. Just ask all the retirement-age women who will see each pension check for the rest of their lives reduced by the length of their long-ago pregnancy leave.

Whether they are made, affirmed or changed, national policy must reflect the fact that the community the Court directs and protects is 50.7 percent women. Those women still feel the pull of centuries of lesser-citizenship, where the first meaningful equal-pay legislation is just months old, and where one seated Justice is there largely because of a viscous smear campaign against a woman who questioned his moral fitness to serve.

We are not talking about symbolic diversity. We are not talking about role models and success stories. We are talking about bringing a kind of life perspective to the court that will not find its way there on its own.

Women like Justice Ginsberg and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who have fought their own battles against workplace inequality come out of those battles with a unique appreciation for the pain.

The same is true for gender's judicial flashpoint. If men got pregnant, reproductive choice would be in the Bill of Rights - if not a sacrament. Yet, we were are a vote or two shy of limiting or denying that choice. Women will see that threat as no man possibly can.

Perspectives impact rulings.

A recent study of federal appeals court judges by academics at Northwestern University and Washington University found that female judges are 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of women bringing sex discrimination suits. And when female and male judges hear a case together, the male judges are 15 percent more likely to rule for the plaintiff then when the judges are all men.

The Court recently heard arguments in a suit brought by a 19-year old woman who, as a 13-year old honor student, was strip-searched by school nurses who were looking for prescription-strength Ibuprofen (none was found). The male justices treated it as trivial - even amusing. Justice Stephen Breyer said: "In my experience, when I was eight or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, OK?"

Reports of Justice Ginsberg's obvious exasperation during the arguments were followed by a USA Today interview, where she said of her fellow Justices: "They have never been a 13 year-old girl. It's a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn't think my colleagues, some of them, quite understood."

Understanding other lives is not the forte of homogeneous groups.

In the same 2001 speech where she praised the decision making ability of a "wise Latina," a remark that so inflamed the right, Judge Sotomayor also said something that has gone largely unreported. "I accept the thesis," she said, "of... Professor Steven Carter of Yale Law School...that in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought."

As the court grapples with issues that can change the lives of tens of millions of women, those female experiences and thoughts must have a place in the debate. And the only path to securing that place is through more women on the Court.

Republican killer claims that more anti-abortion violence is ‘planned around the country.’

Tiller’s accused killer claims that more anti-abortion violence is ‘planned around the country.’

This past weekend, abortion providers from across the country gathered in Wichita, Kan. to attend the funeral the of Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered last month. On the same weekend, the man accused of murdering Tiller told the AP that “similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal”:

Scott Roeder mugshotScott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he’s being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.

“I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal,” Roeder said. When asked by the AP what he meant and if he was referring to another shooting, he refused to elaborate further.

It wasn’t clear whether Roeder knew of any impending violence or whether he was simply seeking publicity for his cause. Law enforcement authorities including the Justice Department said they didn’t know whether the threat was credible.

The Justice Department told the AP that Roeder’s “threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics.” Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder dispatched U.S. Marshalls to protect “appropriate people and facilities around the nation” in the wake of Tiller’s murder.
UpdateRoeder also complained about the “deplorable conditions” in his jail cell, complaining that it was freezing. “I started having a bad cough. I thought I was going to have pneumonia,” he said.

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths

Debunking Canadian Health Care Myths by Rhonda Hackett
As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.

Often I'll avoid answering, regardless of the questioner's nationality. To choose one or the other system usually translates into a heated discussion of each one's merits, pitfalls, and an intense recitation of commonly cited statistical comparisons of the two systems.

Because if the only way we compared the two systems was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.

Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America's health care problems. Frankly, both sides often get things wrong when trotting out Canada to further their respective arguments.

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.

Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.

While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks - unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.

There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.

Myth: Canadians are paying out of pocket to come to the U.S. for medical care.

Most patients who come from Canada to the U.S. for health care are those whose costs are covered by the Canadian governments. If a Canadian goes outside of the country to get services that are deemed medically necessary, not experimental, and are not available at home for whatever reason (e.g., shortage or absence of high tech medical equipment; a longer wait for service than is medically prudent; or lack of physician expertise), the provincial government where you live fully funds your care. Those patients who do come to the U.S. for care and pay out of pocket are those who perceive their care to be more urgent than it likely is.

Myth: Canada is a socialized health care system in which the government runs hospitals and where doctors work for the government.

Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government.

Myth: There aren't enough doctors in Canada.

From a purely statistical standpoint, there are enough physicians in Canada to meet the health care needs of its people. But most doctors practice in large urban areas, leaving rural areas with bona fide shortages. This situation is no different than that being experienced in the U.S. Simply training and employing more doctors is not likely to have any significant impact on this specific problem. Whatever issues there are with having an adequate number of doctors in any one geographical area, they have nothing to do with the single-payer system.

And these are just some of the myths about the Canadian health care system. While emulating the Canadian system will likely not fix U.S. health care, it probably isn't the big bad "socialist" bogeyman it has been made out to be.

It is not a perfect system, but it has its merits. For people like my 55-year-old Aunt Betty, who has been waiting for 14 months for knee-replacement surgery due to a long history of arthritis, it is the superior system. Her $35,000-plus surgery is finally scheduled for next month. She has been in pain, and her quality of life has been compromised. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Aunt Betty - who lives on a fixed income and could never afford private health insurance, much less the cost of the surgery and requisite follow-up care - will soon sport a new, high-tech knee. Waiting 14 months for the procedure is easy when the alternative is living in pain for the rest of your life.