Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell part two

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was on TV this mourning.  It seems that Mr. Obama said some unkind things about the Right Honorable Senator, to wit, he misrepresented the facts.   Recall that in fact Mr McConnell lied about the $50 billion bank provided liquidation fund implying that it was taxpayer money, it's not, it's bank money, and that it was for bailouts, it's not, it's to liquidate, as in put out of business, failing banks.  In any case, Mr McConnell this mourning stuck with his position apparently believing that if a big lie is told often enough people will believe it.  Way to go Mitch! 

What's really curious about this is that Mr McConnell wants this to be about the liquidation fund.  Noticeably absent from his public concerns is regulation of derivatives.  You remember derivatives don't you, they are the rather arcane financial instruments most recently tied to Goldman Sachs, those are the folks now facing an SEC initiated civil suit for fraud involving subprime mortgage instruments and derivatives, that are a key element of the last few years financial crisis and recession.  Now, Mr McConnell and his banking friends don't want these instruments regulated saying that lots of bad things will happen if they are.

So, OK, lets try some common sense.  Derivatives are not currently regulated.  The financial markets with unregulated derivatives collapsed and to save large banks, including Goldman Sachs, the US taxpayers had to provide several trillion dollars of liquidity there being no bank funded money to help.  So Mitch wants you and I to believe that the way to make sure this doesn't happen again is to a) NOT require banks to fund the down side of their mistakes, and b) continue to allow unregulated derivatives.  Is anyone out there that stupid?

Some health networks drop elite hospitals - Is anyone surprised?

Boston Globe: Health insurers are starting to sell policies that largely bar consumers from receiving medical care at popular but expensive hospitals such as Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s — a once radical idea that is gaining traction as a way to control soaring health care costs.

Governor Deval Patrick and Senate President Therese Murray have included such restricted provider networks in their recent legislative proposals to control rising insurance rates. And the state this month began offering limited-network plans to 300,000 state employees, retirees, and their families, promising 20 percent discounts on premiums if they are willing to give up access to some of the Boston area’s most renowned hospitals.

Dolores Mitchell, executive director of the agency that oversees health insurance for state employees, said she wants “to send a message to the more expensive [provider] organizations that, ‘Hey, we’re not going to just sit still and do nothing’ ’’ as medical costs climb year after year.

But even as state officials promote the idea, there are obstacles to its wide adoption. Some of the state’s largest insurers have contracts with powerful teaching hospitals and doctors’ groups that could make it difficult to exclude them. And Massachusetts consumers and employers have long cherished choosing from a broad range of providers.

OK, lets do a little common sense examination of this bit of news.

First, Massachusetts has mandatory health insurance now.  In time it will be a national requirement.  That said, health insurance cost are growing MUCH FASTER than other cost.  So it's really expensive to buy insurance.  Solution, cut out the expensive providers.  That makes a fair bit of sense at least insofar as sending a message to providers that they either control their cost or risk being taken out of the game.  While there are certainly issues with this notion, the fundamental requirement to control COST not just require that everyone has insurance, a payment issue having nothing to do with cost, might actually have some impact on medical care cost.

But reading a bit further we find that the large medical care providers, you remember those, the ones that are more expensive than community providers, have provisions in their insurance reimbursement agreements that limit insurers ability to exclude them.  In simple terms, they are big enough and powerful enough that they can require that equally big and powerful insurers pay them MORE for equivalent procedures than community providers!

Want to know one reason our medical care cost are high and results poor?  Go back and read the previous paragraph again.

As I've noted before, the issue with medical care in the United States is less one of who pays than it is one of cost.  Our care is simply to expensive for what we get.  That's just common sense.  One can only hope that provisions such as those proposed might have some effect on health card cost.

CNN: Nuke cancer concern scares town. Duh!

Ground has been broken in a Georgia town for the nation's first nuclear reactor in 30 years. The town is already home to two reactors, and its cancer rates are 51 percent higher than the national average.

We are told, yet again, that nuclear power plants are safe. Well, new designs are safe anyway.  Right!  Just like the new designs of 30 years ago were safe! 

We are told, yet again, that nuclear waste can be managed.  Right!  Just like we were told that there was a plan for nuclear waste management by storage at Yucca Mountain in, wait for it, 1987.  And lets not note that Congress voted 388 to 30 not to completely defund the Yucca Mountain repository in the fiscal year 2010 budget.

OK, so lets summarize.  Safe power plants cause cancer rates that are 51% higher than the national average, and there is no place to store the waste.

Common sense suggest that the fine citizens of a Georgia town are well advised to be scared.

Reuters: Senate Dems may drop $50 billion resolution fund - What's wrong with Congress

What's wrong with Congress?  Democrats, Republicans, and the Senate for openers!

This one is a real corker.  So the House passes a bill that provides a $150 billion fund provided by financial institutions that is to be used to allow an orderly closing of financial institutions that are not viable.  You remember bankrupt financial institutions, don't you?  You know, the ones you and I bailed out last year.  So anyway the House passed what is by and large a fairly reasonable start on financial reform.  Not perfect, to be sure, but a reasonable improvement of the mess that the Congress created.

Now here comes the interesting part.  Some Republicans, to wit, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have, lets call it what it is, lied that the provision will lead to more taxpayer bailouts of financial institutions, never mind that the money comes from the financial institutions not the taxpayers as was most recently the case.  Never mind that it is only used when an institution is being liquidated, not funded to continue in business as was most recently the case.  But there you have it the Right Honorable Mr McConnell doesn't mind a distortion to the point of being an outright lie.

But wait, there's more, under the pressure of this lie, the Right Honorable Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, the main sponsor of the bill, disowned the fund in remarks on the Senate floor on Thursday, saying it was proposed by Republicans.  Now there's the real courage and leadership the country needs from our Senate leaders (they are ours you know, we elect them, we pay them, and, notwithstanding their appalling performance, we pay their retirement).

What's wrong with government?  Need you ask.  Common sense suggests Republicans, Democrats, and, at least in this case, the Senate.

News? Politics? The decline of common sense and ethical standards.

In the news today from the Washington Post:


Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, wrote that President Obama would "please" much of his base by picking the "first openly gay justice." An administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing personal matters, said Kagan is not a lesbian.


CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: "The fact that they've chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010." She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger "with a history of plagiarism" who was "applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers."

\The network deleted the posting Thursday night after Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor. The flare-up underscores how quickly the battle over a Supreme Court nominee -- or even a potential nominee -- can turn searingly personal. Most major news organizations have policies against "outing" gays or reporting on the sex lives of public officials unless they are related to their public duties.

Where to begin?  The news is suppose to be, well, news; presumptively containing significant elements of fact.  That is, unfortunately, no longer true.  This item, while particularly egregious is unfortunately typical.  Consider, CBS purports to report news; ie. a report of a recent event; intelligence; information.  Instead, what happened here is that CBS took something from a blog, apparently made no attempt to fact check, and then published it as though fact.  When initially challenged, CBS declined to withdraw the item! 

I've long taken a rather jaundice view of what passes as news today in a world of 24hr news cycles.  Much of it is little more than hyperbole wrapped around a minimum of fact.  Worse still, much of the hyperbole is cast as war like confrontation.  Why then are we surprised when civil discourse is, well, anything but civil.  Instead, we have a pervasive environment of uncivil, confrontational, discourse that makes it all but impossible to find real solutions to real problems.  

So now, thanks to CBS, there will be some number of people that without regard to any fact truth believe that a potential justice on the Supreme Court is unqualified because she is "gay."  Now, being "gay" is, at least as far as I know, a sexual orientation having nothing to do with someone's judicial qualifications or suitability for appointment to the Supreme Court.  Never mind that there is no fact to support the rather scurrilous allegation.

Common sense suggest that we all be much more suspicious of  what is passed off as news, particularly by CBS.  It further suggest that a reasonable first assumption is that blogs are NOT evenly remotely reasonable sources of fact.  After all, one of the fundamental truths of the Internet is that anything can write anything independent of the truth.

Pedophilia and the Catholic Church

I've generally avoided blogging about this topic, if for no other reason than I firmly believe that any ethical system that encourages us to be better than we are deserves a measure of respect.  But, this business with the catholic church defies understanding.  The church, in my opinion, is acting in the most reprehensible manner imaginable.  Rather than clearly admit being wrong in hiding criminal acts by the clergy, the church continues to obfuscate.

Consider a recent quote from the current pope who said that Jesus “leads us toward the courage not to be intimidated by the gossip of dominant opinion.”  Lovely, just lovely.  Consider the facts.  Catholic priest in a number of countries have engaged in pedophilia.  In case you didn't know, that's a serious crime.  The Catholic church, including the current pope, systematically covered up these crimes.  In case you didn't know, that makes the Catholic church an accessory after the fact.  That is also a crime.  None of this is gossip.  It's well established fact.  It is not the Catholic faithful that need courage, rather it is the Church's hierarchy, most particularly including the Pope, that needs the courage to clearly acknowledge it's role an an accessory to systematic pedophilia.

In his remarks Benedict also prayed for “the young and those charged with protecting them.”  Now, that's certainly laudable and appropriate.  But where is the call to prayer for those charged with providing moral leadership?  Where's the call to prayer for those charged with managing the church?  Where's the call to confession and admission of sin, never mind crimes?  Absent this, the Church's hierarchy continues to set itself above it's own moral code and above the law.  It is clearly NOT above the law.  That the clergy considers itself above its own teachings isn't just wrong, it's immoral, it's a sin.

There is simply no excuse for this conduct.  Moreover, the conduct is immensely destructive of the church.  History teaches us that once before there was a time like this when the clergy set itself above it's own teachings.  The results was the protestant reformation.  One would think it would be a lesson.  Apparently not.

Campaign finance and the Supreme Court - appalling

By a 5 4 majority the Supreme Court has undone the key provisions of the Mccain Feingold election and finance laws.  I hardly know where to start on this most appalling decision.

First, I would note that in a rare move the Supreme Court created this case by requiring the issue of money as speech and corporations as people to be argued.  While the court can take this kind of action it is rare and, I believe, but generally extremely ill advised as it allows the court to create law when the American public does not see a cause of action.

I believe that this travesty of the decision dramatically subverts the will of Congress and all of the American people.  Further, the decision is an affront to all common sense.

I would note, as representative Frank noted, that corporations are not people.  They are creations of state and Federal law.  As such they do not have the rights of people.

I would also note, that money is not speech.  While it is certainly true that money can be used to promote a particular political perspective it is not, in and of itself, speech.

The issue, I believe, is should an entity that cannot vote in an election be allowed to influence that election.  It is in the nature of democratic elections in a representative system that elected representatives should to the degree that it is practicable represent the views of the majority of the electorate as expressed in the election.  By allowing entities that cannot vote in the election to pour money into influencing that election the basic principle of representative democracy is abridged.

I believe, that the Supreme Court is a stunningly wrong in this decision.  They have said to large wealthy non voting entities that in our country political office, particularly the national political office, can be bought!  Given that the vast majority of Americans regard Congress as corrupt and ineffective this decision does not bode well for us as a society.

For my part I would suggest the following common sense rules for campaign funding.  First, only those who can vote in an election can contribute to candidates standing in the collection.  Second, media outlets, both print, radio, and television, be required to provide access to candidates on an equal footing.  In a case of radio and television, it should be noted, that the airways are public and licensed by government so the requirement does not in and of itself violate a property right.  While print media is a more difficult proposition, I believe that a reasonable fairness doctrine can be applied.

Common sense would argue that these provisions would dramatically reduce the cost of elections, insure that those standing for election are much less compromised by campaign fund raising, and extremist and special interest groups cannot inappropriately influence elections with money.