Why, you ask, would you ever want to serve on a jury? Why indeed, I asked myself that May Day as I viewed my latest jury summons. I had now been picked for a jury pool for the third time that year. Granted all were different courts, but surely I could find some reason to avoid serving or the selection process would take someone else. It was inconvenient, I lived at the far edge of the county, some twenty miles from the county courthouse, and I had to miss work for who knows how long. My wife had served on a murder trial shortly before and images and events still troubled her occasionally. My last three experiences were settled out of court after we had been empanelled and maybe this one would be as well, I told myself in resignation.
I arrived at the special parking lot to take the downtown jury bus that Monday morning and I noticed quickly the seats were full; yes it was standing room only. At least the sun was not out in full force. Texas late spring days are often humid, and well, I would simply just make do. I stood and clung to the rail. We disembarked in front of the courthouse and I noticed that the lines were long going through metal detectors at the top of the massive stairs. I recalled not that long ago there had been a shooting in a courtroom at that same building and I was glad only the bailiffs would carry guns inside.
Down the long hall and turning left, I entered the sign in and waiting rooms, there were two large almost filled rooms with television monitors, and a judge in front with armed bailiffs on either side of a place to announce your presence. I signed in, and then I found a spot in the far back of the second room where I would wait until lunchtime and listened to different courts and lists being called. The room was thinning in late afternoon, and I had hopes at about 3PM of not being picked, but alas, I heard my name being called. Report to the 6th floor 199 Criminal Court to Judge Wilson's bench, we heard and filed down the hall into the elevator.
I handed my paperwork to the bailiff and was assigned as Juror number 14. That was now my identity, I was now Juror 14. We went out into the hall outside the courtroom while the District Attorney and the Public Defender discussed the case with the Judge. Soon, they called out our numbers, Juror One then there was a long pause. Finally they resumed with Juror 2, he acknowledged his presence, and they then went down the list to Juror 50, and asked if everyone's number had been called. A tall large gentleman at the far end of the room said they had not called out his name, and told them his name. They said you are Juror number one. We then went inside the courtroom; Juror 1 and Juror 10 were dismissed, we got instructions, and learned that this was indeed a murder case that involved drug possession, possibly robbery, and other potential complications.
After I was selected for the jury, we were assigned to the jury room and called back out to the court, where we were dismissed for the day, and instructed to return to the same courtroom the next morning, which I did. We heard opening arguments, and discovered that the deceased had come over to the defendant's apartment to sell his girlfriend a used car for $2500. The defendant had been up on speed for three days straight and got the deceased high. The defendant grabbed the money back after the transaction and refused to pay the deceased. The deceased grabbed the one pound ball of amphetamines off the table and fled. The defendant called the other members of his alleged gang to come over. They had also been high for over three days.
The deceased called the defendant and told him he would exchange the dope for the money at an office complex park at midnight that day. Three days later, the unidentified body of a man who had been shot in the back of his head curled up in a fetal position was identified from dental records as the deceased. There had been no cars in the parking lot, no keys at the scene, no identification on the body, and the pockets of this Bermuda shorts had been turned inside out.
The District Attorney passed around the unforgettable crime scene photos around to the jury five times during the trial. To me, I had visions of a mafia hit out of some old gangster movie. The Defense Attorney said the defendant admitted he was there, but said he never left his car, and he never intended it to get out of hand. It was dark in that location; the deceased had been carrying the dope in his hand, but ran when his two friends pulled guns. In the darkness the dope slide across the parking lot and was covered up in the tall grass near a guard rail and not discovered for three days as well.
The Jury was instructed that we could acquit, find for Capital Murder only if a crime in addition to murder had been committed, or find for murder, and there would be a penalty phase at the end to the trial. We went back to the jury room and debated for 5 hours. We were deadlocked two for capital murder, five for murder, and five for acquittal. Never before had I seen the same people see and hear the same facts and arrive at completely different conclusions as this. One young lady who was a social services case worker said the twenty two year old defendant reminded her of one of her socially deprived youngsters. The Marine next to me said Capital Murder, I concurred. They stole his life, his identity, his keys, and his car. Others decided to ignore the picture and said the defendant did not pull the trigger. On and on we went, I suggested we request the pictures again and view them for clues, it was eleven against me, including the FBI Agent as we agreed to not do that. Finally we were called out to the court room and instructed to go home for the night and come back to deliberations in the morning.
The next morning was a revelation and we all we in a much better frame of clarity. We decided to set aside what we disagreed with and focus on what we could agree to. We set to a list of potential verdicts and finally decided that a murder had been committed. Now we set a sentencing time from 0 to 99 years. The motion for guilty and 25 years was even agreed to by the Marine, the Social Worker, the Lexus saleswoman, and me. We had reached a verdict. It was unanimous.
The newspapers told the story after six and one half hours, the jury in the capital murder trial had delivered the verdict and found the defendant guilty of murder on what would have been the twenty eighth birthday of the deceased. He had first been reported as a John Doe after being located in an office parking lot. It did not say that the defendant had already been found guilty of felony possession of firearms and one pound of meth-amphetamine and was serving forty five years in the state prison. They also did not state that the defendant whose mother committed suicide had lived on the streets his whole life, that he claimed a religious conversion in prison, that he got up in front of the court and told the deceased parents he never meant their son harm, that they prayed with him, and he put them on his visitation list. Afterward, the Judge met with us in chambers and thanked us for the verdict.
About three months later, I received another jury summons in the mail. I found myself relieving the same events with a somewhat different scenario, this time the defendant was a man with 16 prior DWI convictions and as I looked at the sweat stained cowboy hat on his head, his plaid cowboy shirt, and his western jeans, I told the court he looked disturbing familiar. He waived his arms as if to say no I don't know you. As I walked from the courtroom hurriedly excused, I thought there was a Juror 14 somewhere in the courtroom, lost in thought, and trapped in the American Jury System.
This story is true
by Tom love
Monday, May 11, 2009
Monday, May 4, 2009
Obama announces plan to close tax loopholes
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, AP
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama proposed Monday to raise taxes on the overseas profits of U.S. companies and to go after evaders who abuse offshore tax shelters.
In announcing a series of steps aimed at overhauling the U.S. tax code, Obama complained that existing law makes it possible to "pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York. "
The proposal will be a hard sell in Congress. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, offered a tepid response.
"Further study is needed to assess the impact of this plan on U.S. businesses," said Baucus, a Democrat. "I want to make certain that our tax policies are fair and support the global competitiveness of U.S. businesses."
The president said he wants to prevent U.S. companies from deferring tax payments by keeping profits in foreign countries rather than recording them at home and called for more transparency in bank accounts that Americans hold in notorious tax havens like the Cayman Islands.
"If financial institutions won't cooperate with us, we will assume that they are sheltering money in tax havens and act accordingly," Obama said.
Many provisions of the complicated and much-maligned tax code in fact are worded in ways that allow people to legally cut corners. And the code is filled, likewise, with language that in many circumstances authorizes legal tax end-arounds, if not pure avoidance.
During much of his long campaign for the White House, Obama campaigned for an overhaul and simplication of the code. At the White House event Monday, he said his new proposals would generate an average of about $21 billion a year in new taxes. That would amount to only about 2 percent of next year's projected deficit of $1.2 trillion, however.
Under his plan, companies would not be able to write off domestic expenses for generating profits abroad. The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries.
Obama said the government also is hiring nearly 800 new IRS agents to enforce the U.S. tax code.
Congress is expected to resist significant portions of Obama's plan.
The administration is not seeking to repeal all overseas tax benefits. Obama called his proposal "a downpayment on the larger tax reform we need to make our tax system simpler and fairer and more efficient for individuals and corporations."
"Nobody likes paying taxes, particularly in times of economic stress," he said. "But most Americans meet their responsibilities because they understand that it's an obligation of citizenship, necessary to pay the costs of our common defense and our mutual well-being."
The current tax code, Obama said, makes it too easy for "a small number of individuals and companies to abuse overseas tax havens to avoid paying any taxes at all."
Obama said he was willing to make permanent a research tax credit that was to expire at the end of the year and is popular with businesses. Officials estimate that making the tax credits permanent would cost taxpayers $74.5 billion over the next decade.
But administration aides said 75 percent of those tax credits cover the cost of workers' wages.
Under existing laws, companies with operations overseas pay U.S. taxes only if they bring the profits back to the United States. If they keep the profits offshore, they can defer paying taxes indefinitely. Obama's plan, which would take effect in 2011, would change that.
Obama officials also said they would close a Clinton-era provision that would cost $87 billion over the next decade by letting U.S. companies "check the box" and treat international subsidiaries as mere branch offices. Officials said it was meant as a paperwork shortcut that is now a widely used and perfectly legal way to avoid paying billions in taxes on international operations.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner joined Obama for the announcement. He said the proposals would end "indefensible tax breaks and loopholes which allow some companies and some well-off citizens to evade the rules that the rest of America lives by."
Geithner called them "common-sense changes designed to restore balance to our tax code."
The White House said that in 2004, multinational corporations enjoyed an effective tax rate of 2.3 percent in the United States because of such allowances. Aides said that was the most recent year available for analysis.
They said the situation was indefensible.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_taxes
On the Net: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama proposed Monday to raise taxes on the overseas profits of U.S. companies and to go after evaders who abuse offshore tax shelters.
In announcing a series of steps aimed at overhauling the U.S. tax code, Obama complained that existing law makes it possible to "pay lower taxes if you create a job in Bangalore, India, than if you create one in Buffalo, New York. "
The proposal will be a hard sell in Congress. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, offered a tepid response.
"Further study is needed to assess the impact of this plan on U.S. businesses," said Baucus, a Democrat. "I want to make certain that our tax policies are fair and support the global competitiveness of U.S. businesses."
The president said he wants to prevent U.S. companies from deferring tax payments by keeping profits in foreign countries rather than recording them at home and called for more transparency in bank accounts that Americans hold in notorious tax havens like the Cayman Islands.
"If financial institutions won't cooperate with us, we will assume that they are sheltering money in tax havens and act accordingly," Obama said.
Many provisions of the complicated and much-maligned tax code in fact are worded in ways that allow people to legally cut corners. And the code is filled, likewise, with language that in many circumstances authorizes legal tax end-arounds, if not pure avoidance.
During much of his long campaign for the White House, Obama campaigned for an overhaul and simplication of the code. At the White House event Monday, he said his new proposals would generate an average of about $21 billion a year in new taxes. That would amount to only about 2 percent of next year's projected deficit of $1.2 trillion, however.
Under his plan, companies would not be able to write off domestic expenses for generating profits abroad. The goal is to reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to base all or part of their operations in other countries.
Obama said the government also is hiring nearly 800 new IRS agents to enforce the U.S. tax code.
Congress is expected to resist significant portions of Obama's plan.
The administration is not seeking to repeal all overseas tax benefits. Obama called his proposal "a downpayment on the larger tax reform we need to make our tax system simpler and fairer and more efficient for individuals and corporations."
"Nobody likes paying taxes, particularly in times of economic stress," he said. "But most Americans meet their responsibilities because they understand that it's an obligation of citizenship, necessary to pay the costs of our common defense and our mutual well-being."
The current tax code, Obama said, makes it too easy for "a small number of individuals and companies to abuse overseas tax havens to avoid paying any taxes at all."
Obama said he was willing to make permanent a research tax credit that was to expire at the end of the year and is popular with businesses. Officials estimate that making the tax credits permanent would cost taxpayers $74.5 billion over the next decade.
But administration aides said 75 percent of those tax credits cover the cost of workers' wages.
Under existing laws, companies with operations overseas pay U.S. taxes only if they bring the profits back to the United States. If they keep the profits offshore, they can defer paying taxes indefinitely. Obama's plan, which would take effect in 2011, would change that.
Obama officials also said they would close a Clinton-era provision that would cost $87 billion over the next decade by letting U.S. companies "check the box" and treat international subsidiaries as mere branch offices. Officials said it was meant as a paperwork shortcut that is now a widely used and perfectly legal way to avoid paying billions in taxes on international operations.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner joined Obama for the announcement. He said the proposals would end "indefensible tax breaks and loopholes which allow some companies and some well-off citizens to evade the rules that the rest of America lives by."
Geithner called them "common-sense changes designed to restore balance to our tax code."
The White House said that in 2004, multinational corporations enjoyed an effective tax rate of 2.3 percent in the United States because of such allowances. Aides said that was the most recent year available for analysis.
They said the situation was indefensible.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090504/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_taxes
On the Net: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
100 Days Of Opposition
Tomorrow marks the first 100 days of the Obama administration. Tomorrow's Progress Report item will highlight the past 100 days of progress. But today, we're focusing on how the conservatives have chosen to spend their first 100 days.
In the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, the country has been confronted by a myriad of challenges. President Obama has faced an inherited economic recession -- including widespread foreclosures, a banking system plagued by toxic assets, and mounting unemployment -- as well as two wars, international terrorism, global climate change, millions of Americans still without health care, piracy and now, the threat of a flu pandemic. But instead of engaging in a substantive policy debate with the President, conservatives have spent the past three months immersed in a radical transformation, lurching further to the right. Indeed, the brand of conservatism now in ascendancy embraces apocalyptic rhetoric, cheers on reflexive attacks on Obama, and fuels a steady drumbeat of conspiracy theories. With control of neither the White House nor Congress, conservatives have looked to hate radio talkers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for leadership. The new Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, has also championed the fringe voices of the right wing while threatening to punish members of his party who make any attempts at bipartisanship. The single greatest achievement of the conservative movement thus far has been the staging of anti-Obama, anti-tax "tea party" protests, which were attended by over 100,000 people country-wide and quickly embraced by GOP leaders as the future of the party. The tea party protests, along with the near universal party-line votes opposing Obama's agenda items show how conservatives acting on Limbaugh's pre-Inauguration Day proclamation that he hopes Obama fails.
EMBRACING RADICALIZATION: While the mainstream of America is more and more progressive in its policy solutions, the Republican party appears intent on tapping into a darker undercurrent of right-wing rage that has proliferated since Obama's election. Public servants for the "loyal opposition" started using the rhetoric of armed opposition to Obama, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) call for people to be "armed and dangerous" over Democratic energy proposals. But as the conservative lobbyist-orchestrated "tea parties" gained momentum, GOP lawmakers issued more brazen calls for violence. Appearing before throngs of anti-Obama protesters, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) called for "revolution," as he declared that the attendees were the patriots who would, quoting Thomas Jefferson, refresh the tree of liberty with the "blood of tyrants." During the tea party fervor, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) called for assassinating Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) over taxes. Speaking to reporters after a tea party, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) suggested that his state may have to secede from the Union, a call then defended by former Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX). A Department of Homeland Security report on growing threats of right-wing domestic terrorism has become a rallying cry for conservatives, as members like Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) remarked to an audience, "Welcome, right-wing activists, is that what we are? Extremists, yeah, well I'm gonna get me a button." Going forward, House Republican leaders are now routinely stating that Obama's green economy proposals equate to a "declaration of war" on the country.
REFLEXIVE ATTACKS: Although conservatives and Republicans have made a point to tell the press they are focused on simply "putting forward positive alternatives," they have spent most of the first 100 days incessantly searching for ways to smear the president. Whether they are complaining about Obama's suit jacket policy, jabbing him about his use of a teleprompter, or ridiculing his wife for serving soup to the poor, conservatives have found no alleged fault too trivial. Exhibiting a certain form of creativity, they scoured Obama's trips abroad for evidence that he somehow hates America. To conservatives, Obama's brief bow to the Saudi King was proof that he is a "hillbillie," and the fact he shook hands with the Venezuelan President an example of his "shallowness." Obama's personalized gifts to the Queen of England were a sign of his apparent narcissism, according to conservatives, and when Obama spoke to the Turkish people on America's religious tolerance, he was -- in the eyes of Fox News pundits -- betraying the "Judeo-Christian ethic." The compulsive assaults on Obama have not only generated a cottage industry of newly-manufactured insults, but they have policy implications as well. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) thought he could score political points by mocking spending on volcano monitoring programs, but a federally-funded monitoring system detected an eruption in Alaska a month later. As Republicans reflexively decried almost all spending programs in the Recovery Act as useless "pork," Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) employed the same political rationale to cut pandemic flu preparedness funds from the bill -- just months before the current swine flu pandemic threat.
NOT GROUNDED IN REALITY: In their quest to discredit Obama, conservatives have increasingly left the facts far behind. Playing upon myths forged during the presidential campaign, Republicans like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and a chorus of talk radio hosts have spread the lie that Obama will "take away your gun." However, in the age of Obama, conspiracy theories have not been bound to only fringe members of Congress and right-wing radio. A bill aimed a preventing the creation of a "global currency" to replace the dollar -- a non-existent threat hyped by the right-wing echo chamber -- gained at least 30 GOP co-sponsors. The pattern has persisted on every major agenda item Obama has put forward. Republicans have falsely claimed that an MIT study showed that a cap on carbon pollution is a $3,100 light-switch tax. When the author explained the study actually found a $65 cost in 2015, conservatives declared the cost was then $3900. GOP talking points opposing Obama's Recovery Act were laden with accusations similarly made of whole cloth. For instance, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) joined other Republican lawmakers in decrying a made-up high-speed train supposedly designed to run "straight from Disney[land] ... to the doorstep of the Moonlight Bunnyranch in Nevada." And during the first public debates over health reform, the conservative establishment converged to support a "report" by Hudson Fellow Betsy McCaughey that erroneously suggested that investments in comparativeness effectiveness investments would create a "new bureaucracy" to "monitor doctors."
EQUAL RIGHTS -- TODAY IS EQUAL PAY DAY: Today marks Equal Pay Day, the day that "symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year." Significant strides in achieving pay equity have been made this year, however, with President Obama's signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But women in the U.S. still make just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, although a new GAO report finds that the pay gap between men and women in the federal workforce is shrinking.. The average woman loses $434,000 over the course of her career; counterintuitively, the more education the woman has, the more money she is poised to lose. The Center for American Progress's Jessica Arons, Heather Boushey, and Lauren Smith write that "the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act ensures that workers can seek restitution for unequal pay, but the Paycheck Fairness Act, which still needs Senate approval, would take a number of proactive steps to close and eventually end the pay gap altogether." The Paycheck Fairness Act "would deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act," which have hindered the effectiveness of the law since it passed 46 years ago. Given the context of the current economic recession, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) told The Progress Report yesterday that wage discrimination "is now a heavier burden on women and the economic security of families." Pay equity "is not a woman's issue. This is a family issue," DeLauro said.
LABOR -- SWINE FLU HIGHLIGHTS HIGH PERCENTAGE OF WORKERS WITHOUT PAID SICK LEAVE: In light of the spread of swine flu -- which has now been confirmed to infect at least 50 people in the United States -- the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued guidelines for staying healthy and preventing the spread of the disease. "If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them," their guidelines state. While staying home from work when ill makes sense, a large number Americans simply may not be able to afford to do so. Currently, nearly 50 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days. For low-income workers, the number jumps to 76 percent and climbs to 86 percent for food service workers. These workers have to decide between the health of themselves and their colleagues, and the wages that they lose by staying home. While ill employees going to work contributes to the spread of diseases like swine flu, there is also a negative economic impact. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, "when sick workers are on the job, it costs our national economy $180 billion annually in lost productivity. For employers, this costs an average of $255 per employee per year and exceeds the cost of absenteeism and medical and disability benefits." Of the top 20 economies in the world, the U.S. is currently the only one with no national standard for paid sick days. In an effort to address the problem, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) plan to introduce the Healthy Families Act in Congress next month which would "guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days a year to recover from an illness or care for a sick family member."
ENERGY -- COAL CEO: 'CLEAN COAL' IS THE FUTURE, BUT 'WE HAVE NOT INVESTED ANY DOLLARS IN THE TECHNOLOGY, PER SE': On Sunday, CBS's 60 Minutes ran a segment about the coal industry, interviewing Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Duke is one of the largest electricity companies in the country, and it owns dozens of coal plants nationwide. Last month, the company announced plans for a new 800-megawatt coal-fired plant in North Carolina as it plans to continue building coal plants. CBS's Scott Pelley asked Rogers how he feels about global warming, given that his coal plants continue to billow approximately 112 million tons of greenhouse gases. "We need to go to work on it now," Rogers said. "It is critical that we start to act in this country." Rogers's solution? "We have to find a way to clean [coal] and use it," he insisted. Yet Rogers's actual plans to fight global warming are essentially non-existent. "How much has Duke Energy invested in carbon sequestration technology," asked Pelley. "We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per se," responded Rogers. "Our goal line is to substantially to reduce our carbon footprint, to decarbonize our business by 2050." "Clean coal," of course, is a myth. Moreover, the pace of Rogers's plans for "decarbonizing" his plants is pathetically slow. "2050 is too late, we would have guaranteed disasters," NASA scientist Jim Hansen told Pelley. "We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal in the next 20 years." Indeed, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pauchauri.
"Countries around the world began tightening their border and immigration controls Tuesday as the number of confirmed cases of swine flu continued to rise." As many as 152 people, all in Mexico, are believed to have died due to the flu while the number of confirmed cases in the United States stands at 50.
Rep. David Obey (D-WI), who included $420 million in pandemic flu funding in the House's stimulus bill that was later removed by "moderate" senators, intends to "again request additional funds in the upcoming supplemental." "We are not prepared today," Obey said.
The Obama administration is moving to tighten a last-minute rule promulgated by President Bush that allowed coal companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining operations close to streams. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will ask a federal court to re-institute a 1983 Reagan-era rule prohibiting dumping within 100 feet of a stream.
In 2007, former CIA officer John Kiriakou launched a media blitz defending waterboarding, telling ABC News that Abu Zubaydah cooperated after being waterboarded for "probably 30, 35 seconds." Recently released memos reveal, however, that Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 separate times. "[L]ost in much of the coverage was the fact that Mr. Kiriakou had no firsthand knowledge of the waterboarding," the New York Times notes today.
"Twenty-eight groups representing millions of hunters and sportsmen" are demanding that Rush Limbaugh end his work with the Humane Society because they fear the organization has a "secret agenda to end all hunting in America." Limbaugh recently recorded two PSAs for the organization.
Congressional Democrats "sealed an agreement" last night on a budget plan that sets the stage for President Obama to "overhaul the health care system but allows his signature tax cut for most workers to expire after next year." Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) "forced cuts of $10 billion from Obama's $50 billion boost for non-defense programs funded by Congress each year."
In an indication that Barack Obama's presidency is "altering the public perception of race relations in the United States," a new New York Times/CBS poll found that "[t]wo-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good, and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July." "Despite that, half of blacks still say whites have a better chance of getting ahead in American society."
Gay and lesbian couples celebrated the legalization of marriage equality yesterday in Iowa. At least "360 couples applied for marriage licenses statewide on the first day that the high court's decision took effect," though "same-sex marriage opponents had urged county recorders not to issue marriage licenses."
And finally: Utah County Republicans have defeated a measure titled, "Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal." Delegate Don Larsen claimed that left-wing foundations were "pumping money into the Democratic Party to push for looser immigration laws and anti-family legislation" because "Democrats get most of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and people in dysfunctional families." "Satan's ultimate goal is to destroy the family," Larsen said, "and these people are playing a leading part in it." Larsen's fellow Republicans argued that the GOP shouldn't be pushing out Latinos and the resolution "would do the party more harm than good."
A new New York Times/CBS News poll released today finds that 42 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, a 9 point jump from March.
PENNSYLVANIA: Residents "are finding that their drinking water now contains methane, the largest component of natural gas."
FLORIDA: Gov. Charlie Crist (R) and state Senate leaders "put the brakes on a bill to open the door to near-shore oil drilling off Florida's coast."
MISSOURI: Debate over stimulus money causes House Democrats to stage a walk-out at the Capitol.
THINK PROGRESS: Former senator Rick Santorum: Reconciliation "has never been done before" -- except for when I used it.
WONK ROOM: Why expedite Vice President Cheney's request for memos?
YGLESIAS: The Henderson County GOP is offering implausible spin on behalf of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
CALCULATED RISK: The homeownership rate is now back down to 2000 levels.
"Let's have a big debate about whether the Bush administration acted properly or not, and whether the Clinton administration acted properly or not...I think it's a healthy debate."
-- Bill Kristol, 4/27/09, supporting an inquiry into the use of torture on Fox News
VERSUS
"The idea that we're going back and even raising the possibility of criminal prosecution is so appalling that it renders me almost speechless."
-- Kristol, 4/21/09
The Progress Report"
thinkprogress.org
In the first 100 days of the Obama presidency, the country has been confronted by a myriad of challenges. President Obama has faced an inherited economic recession -- including widespread foreclosures, a banking system plagued by toxic assets, and mounting unemployment -- as well as two wars, international terrorism, global climate change, millions of Americans still without health care, piracy and now, the threat of a flu pandemic. But instead of engaging in a substantive policy debate with the President, conservatives have spent the past three months immersed in a radical transformation, lurching further to the right. Indeed, the brand of conservatism now in ascendancy embraces apocalyptic rhetoric, cheers on reflexive attacks on Obama, and fuels a steady drumbeat of conspiracy theories. With control of neither the White House nor Congress, conservatives have looked to hate radio talkers like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh for leadership. The new Republican Party chairman, Michael Steele, has also championed the fringe voices of the right wing while threatening to punish members of his party who make any attempts at bipartisanship. The single greatest achievement of the conservative movement thus far has been the staging of anti-Obama, anti-tax "tea party" protests, which were attended by over 100,000 people country-wide and quickly embraced by GOP leaders as the future of the party. The tea party protests, along with the near universal party-line votes opposing Obama's agenda items show how conservatives acting on Limbaugh's pre-Inauguration Day proclamation that he hopes Obama fails.
EMBRACING RADICALIZATION: While the mainstream of America is more and more progressive in its policy solutions, the Republican party appears intent on tapping into a darker undercurrent of right-wing rage that has proliferated since Obama's election. Public servants for the "loyal opposition" started using the rhetoric of armed opposition to Obama, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) call for people to be "armed and dangerous" over Democratic energy proposals. But as the conservative lobbyist-orchestrated "tea parties" gained momentum, GOP lawmakers issued more brazen calls for violence. Appearing before throngs of anti-Obama protesters, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) called for "revolution," as he declared that the attendees were the patriots who would, quoting Thomas Jefferson, refresh the tree of liberty with the "blood of tyrants." During the tea party fervor, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) called for assassinating Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) over taxes. Speaking to reporters after a tea party, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) suggested that his state may have to secede from the Union, a call then defended by former Majority Leader Tom Delay (R-TX). A Department of Homeland Security report on growing threats of right-wing domestic terrorism has become a rallying cry for conservatives, as members like Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) remarked to an audience, "Welcome, right-wing activists, is that what we are? Extremists, yeah, well I'm gonna get me a button." Going forward, House Republican leaders are now routinely stating that Obama's green economy proposals equate to a "declaration of war" on the country.
REFLEXIVE ATTACKS: Although conservatives and Republicans have made a point to tell the press they are focused on simply "putting forward positive alternatives," they have spent most of the first 100 days incessantly searching for ways to smear the president. Whether they are complaining about Obama's suit jacket policy, jabbing him about his use of a teleprompter, or ridiculing his wife for serving soup to the poor, conservatives have found no alleged fault too trivial. Exhibiting a certain form of creativity, they scoured Obama's trips abroad for evidence that he somehow hates America. To conservatives, Obama's brief bow to the Saudi King was proof that he is a "hillbillie," and the fact he shook hands with the Venezuelan President an example of his "shallowness." Obama's personalized gifts to the Queen of England were a sign of his apparent narcissism, according to conservatives, and when Obama spoke to the Turkish people on America's religious tolerance, he was -- in the eyes of Fox News pundits -- betraying the "Judeo-Christian ethic." The compulsive assaults on Obama have not only generated a cottage industry of newly-manufactured insults, but they have policy implications as well. Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) thought he could score political points by mocking spending on volcano monitoring programs, but a federally-funded monitoring system detected an eruption in Alaska a month later. As Republicans reflexively decried almost all spending programs in the Recovery Act as useless "pork," Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) employed the same political rationale to cut pandemic flu preparedness funds from the bill -- just months before the current swine flu pandemic threat.
NOT GROUNDED IN REALITY: In their quest to discredit Obama, conservatives have increasingly left the facts far behind. Playing upon myths forged during the presidential campaign, Republicans like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and a chorus of talk radio hosts have spread the lie that Obama will "take away your gun." However, in the age of Obama, conspiracy theories have not been bound to only fringe members of Congress and right-wing radio. A bill aimed a preventing the creation of a "global currency" to replace the dollar -- a non-existent threat hyped by the right-wing echo chamber -- gained at least 30 GOP co-sponsors. The pattern has persisted on every major agenda item Obama has put forward. Republicans have falsely claimed that an MIT study showed that a cap on carbon pollution is a $3,100 light-switch tax. When the author explained the study actually found a $65 cost in 2015, conservatives declared the cost was then $3900. GOP talking points opposing Obama's Recovery Act were laden with accusations similarly made of whole cloth. For instance, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) joined other Republican lawmakers in decrying a made-up high-speed train supposedly designed to run "straight from Disney[land] ... to the doorstep of the Moonlight Bunnyranch in Nevada." And during the first public debates over health reform, the conservative establishment converged to support a "report" by Hudson Fellow Betsy McCaughey that erroneously suggested that investments in comparativeness effectiveness investments would create a "new bureaucracy" to "monitor doctors."
EQUAL RIGHTS -- TODAY IS EQUAL PAY DAY: Today marks Equal Pay Day, the day that "symbolizes how far into the year a woman must work, on average, to earn as much as a man earned the previous year." Significant strides in achieving pay equity have been made this year, however, with President Obama's signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. But women in the U.S. still make just 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, although a new GAO report finds that the pay gap between men and women in the federal workforce is shrinking.. The average woman loses $434,000 over the course of her career; counterintuitively, the more education the woman has, the more money she is poised to lose. The Center for American Progress's Jessica Arons, Heather Boushey, and Lauren Smith write that "the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act ensures that workers can seek restitution for unequal pay, but the Paycheck Fairness Act, which still needs Senate approval, would take a number of proactive steps to close and eventually end the pay gap altogether." The Paycheck Fairness Act "would deter wage discrimination by closing loopholes in the Equal Pay Act," which have hindered the effectiveness of the law since it passed 46 years ago. Given the context of the current economic recession, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) told The Progress Report yesterday that wage discrimination "is now a heavier burden on women and the economic security of families." Pay equity "is not a woman's issue. This is a family issue," DeLauro said.
LABOR -- SWINE FLU HIGHLIGHTS HIGH PERCENTAGE OF WORKERS WITHOUT PAID SICK LEAVE: In light of the spread of swine flu -- which has now been confirmed to infect at least 50 people in the United States -- the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued guidelines for staying healthy and preventing the spread of the disease. "If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them," their guidelines state. While staying home from work when ill makes sense, a large number Americans simply may not be able to afford to do so. Currently, nearly 50 percent of private-sector workers have no paid sick days. For low-income workers, the number jumps to 76 percent and climbs to 86 percent for food service workers. These workers have to decide between the health of themselves and their colleagues, and the wages that they lose by staying home. While ill employees going to work contributes to the spread of diseases like swine flu, there is also a negative economic impact. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families, "when sick workers are on the job, it costs our national economy $180 billion annually in lost productivity. For employers, this costs an average of $255 per employee per year and exceeds the cost of absenteeism and medical and disability benefits." Of the top 20 economies in the world, the U.S. is currently the only one with no national standard for paid sick days. In an effort to address the problem, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) plan to introduce the Healthy Families Act in Congress next month which would "guarantee workers up to seven paid sick days a year to recover from an illness or care for a sick family member."
ENERGY -- COAL CEO: 'CLEAN COAL' IS THE FUTURE, BUT 'WE HAVE NOT INVESTED ANY DOLLARS IN THE TECHNOLOGY, PER SE': On Sunday, CBS's 60 Minutes ran a segment about the coal industry, interviewing Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Duke is one of the largest electricity companies in the country, and it owns dozens of coal plants nationwide. Last month, the company announced plans for a new 800-megawatt coal-fired plant in North Carolina as it plans to continue building coal plants. CBS's Scott Pelley asked Rogers how he feels about global warming, given that his coal plants continue to billow approximately 112 million tons of greenhouse gases. "We need to go to work on it now," Rogers said. "It is critical that we start to act in this country." Rogers's solution? "We have to find a way to clean [coal] and use it," he insisted. Yet Rogers's actual plans to fight global warming are essentially non-existent. "How much has Duke Energy invested in carbon sequestration technology," asked Pelley. "We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per se," responded Rogers. "Our goal line is to substantially to reduce our carbon footprint, to decarbonize our business by 2050." "Clean coal," of course, is a myth. Moreover, the pace of Rogers's plans for "decarbonizing" his plants is pathetically slow. "2050 is too late, we would have guaranteed disasters," NASA scientist Jim Hansen told Pelley. "We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal in the next 20 years." Indeed, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late," said IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pauchauri.
"Countries around the world began tightening their border and immigration controls Tuesday as the number of confirmed cases of swine flu continued to rise." As many as 152 people, all in Mexico, are believed to have died due to the flu while the number of confirmed cases in the United States stands at 50.
Rep. David Obey (D-WI), who included $420 million in pandemic flu funding in the House's stimulus bill that was later removed by "moderate" senators, intends to "again request additional funds in the upcoming supplemental." "We are not prepared today," Obey said.
The Obama administration is moving to tighten a last-minute rule promulgated by President Bush that allowed coal companies to dump waste from mountaintop mining operations close to streams. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will ask a federal court to re-institute a 1983 Reagan-era rule prohibiting dumping within 100 feet of a stream.
In 2007, former CIA officer John Kiriakou launched a media blitz defending waterboarding, telling ABC News that Abu Zubaydah cooperated after being waterboarded for "probably 30, 35 seconds." Recently released memos reveal, however, that Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 separate times. "[L]ost in much of the coverage was the fact that Mr. Kiriakou had no firsthand knowledge of the waterboarding," the New York Times notes today.
"Twenty-eight groups representing millions of hunters and sportsmen" are demanding that Rush Limbaugh end his work with the Humane Society because they fear the organization has a "secret agenda to end all hunting in America." Limbaugh recently recorded two PSAs for the organization.
Congressional Democrats "sealed an agreement" last night on a budget plan that sets the stage for President Obama to "overhaul the health care system but allows his signature tax cut for most workers to expire after next year." Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) "forced cuts of $10 billion from Obama's $50 billion boost for non-defense programs funded by Congress each year."
In an indication that Barack Obama's presidency is "altering the public perception of race relations in the United States," a new New York Times/CBS poll found that "[t]wo-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good, and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July." "Despite that, half of blacks still say whites have a better chance of getting ahead in American society."
Gay and lesbian couples celebrated the legalization of marriage equality yesterday in Iowa. At least "360 couples applied for marriage licenses statewide on the first day that the high court's decision took effect," though "same-sex marriage opponents had urged county recorders not to issue marriage licenses."
And finally: Utah County Republicans have defeated a measure titled, "Resolution opposing the Hate America anti-Christian Open Borders cabal." Delegate Don Larsen claimed that left-wing foundations were "pumping money into the Democratic Party to push for looser immigration laws and anti-family legislation" because "Democrats get most of the votes cast by illegal immigrants and people in dysfunctional families." "Satan's ultimate goal is to destroy the family," Larsen said, "and these people are playing a leading part in it." Larsen's fellow Republicans argued that the GOP shouldn't be pushing out Latinos and the resolution "would do the party more harm than good."
A new New York Times/CBS News poll released today finds that 42 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, a 9 point jump from March.
PENNSYLVANIA: Residents "are finding that their drinking water now contains methane, the largest component of natural gas."
FLORIDA: Gov. Charlie Crist (R) and state Senate leaders "put the brakes on a bill to open the door to near-shore oil drilling off Florida's coast."
MISSOURI: Debate over stimulus money causes House Democrats to stage a walk-out at the Capitol.
THINK PROGRESS: Former senator Rick Santorum: Reconciliation "has never been done before" -- except for when I used it.
WONK ROOM: Why expedite Vice President Cheney's request for memos?
YGLESIAS: The Henderson County GOP is offering implausible spin on behalf of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC).
CALCULATED RISK: The homeownership rate is now back down to 2000 levels.
"Let's have a big debate about whether the Bush administration acted properly or not, and whether the Clinton administration acted properly or not...I think it's a healthy debate."
-- Bill Kristol, 4/27/09, supporting an inquiry into the use of torture on Fox News
VERSUS
"The idea that we're going back and even raising the possibility of criminal prosecution is so appalling that it renders me almost speechless."
-- Kristol, 4/21/09
The Progress Report"
thinkprogress.org
Specter says he's switching from GOP to Dems
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent
6 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that also will push Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.
"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected later in the day or Wednesday.
President Barack Obama called Specter almost immediately after he was informed of the decision to say the Democratic Party was "thrilled to have you," according to a White House official. Spurned Republicans said his defection was motivated by ambition, not principle.
Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said secret talks that preceded his decision reached into the White House, involving both Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime colleague in the Senate. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell as well as Democratic leaders in Congress also were involved, added the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
With Specter, Democrats would have 59 Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken is ahead in a marathon recount in Minnesota, and if he ultimately wins his race against Republican Norm Coleman, he would become the party's 60th vote. That is the number needed to overcome a filibuster.
Specter faced an extraordinarily difficult re-election challenge in his home state in 2010, having first to confront a challenge from his right in the Republican primary before pivoting to a general election campaign against a Democrat in a state that has trended increasingly Democratic in recent elections. Former Rep. Pat Toomey, whom Specter defeated in a close primary race in 2004, is expected to run again.
Specter has publicly acknowledged in recent months that in order to win a sixth term, he would need the support of thousands of Pennsylvania Republicans who sided with Obama in last fall's presidential election.
"I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," he said in the statement.
Asked by a reporter what he had to say to his constituents, Specter replied with a smile, "I don't have to say anything to them. They said it to me."
Specter has long been an independent Republican, and he proved it most recently when he became one of only three members of the GOP in Congress to vote for Obama's economic stimulus legislation. Then, he proved it once more, pivoting not long afterwards to say he did not support legislation making it easier to form unions, a bill that is organized labor's top priority in the current Congress.
In Pennsylvania, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Rob Gleason, said that Specter should offer a refund to Republicans who have helped fatten his war chest, which totaled $5.8 million at the end of 2008. "He should give them the option," Gleason said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement: "Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not. Let's be honest: Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don't do it first."
Specter has long been one of the most durable politicians of either party in Pennsylvania. In recent years, he has battled Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system, but maintains a busy schedule that includes daily games of squash.
As one of the most senior Republicans in the Senate, Specter held powerful positions on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees. It was not clear how Democrats would calculate his seniority in assigning committee perches.
As recently as late winter, he was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.
"Because I am a Republican," he said at the time.
"I welcome Sen. Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.
A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no announcement has yet been made, said at 10:25 a.m. EDT Tuesday President Barack Obama was handed a note while in the Oval Office during his daily economic briefing. The note said: "Specter is announcing he is changing parties." At 10:32, Obama reached Specter by phone and told him "you have my full support" and that the Democratic Party is "thrilled to have you."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_go_co/us_specter_switch/print
Associated Press Writers Julie Davis, Laurie Kellman and Liz Sidoti contributed to this story from Washington. Peter Jackson contributed from Harrisburg, Pa.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.
6 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, a move intended to boost his chances of winning re-election next year that also will push Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.
"I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans," Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected later in the day or Wednesday.
President Barack Obama called Specter almost immediately after he was informed of the decision to say the Democratic Party was "thrilled to have you," according to a White House official. Spurned Republicans said his defection was motivated by ambition, not principle.
Specter, 79 and in his fifth term, is one of a handful of Republican moderates remaining in Congress in a party now dominated by conservatives. Several officials said secret talks that preceded his decision reached into the White House, involving both Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, a longtime colleague in the Senate. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell as well as Democratic leaders in Congress also were involved, added the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details.
With Specter, Democrats would have 59 Senate seats. Democrat Al Franken is ahead in a marathon recount in Minnesota, and if he ultimately wins his race against Republican Norm Coleman, he would become the party's 60th vote. That is the number needed to overcome a filibuster.
Specter faced an extraordinarily difficult re-election challenge in his home state in 2010, having first to confront a challenge from his right in the Republican primary before pivoting to a general election campaign against a Democrat in a state that has trended increasingly Democratic in recent elections. Former Rep. Pat Toomey, whom Specter defeated in a close primary race in 2004, is expected to run again.
Specter has publicly acknowledged in recent months that in order to win a sixth term, he would need the support of thousands of Pennsylvania Republicans who sided with Obama in last fall's presidential election.
"I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate," he said in the statement.
Asked by a reporter what he had to say to his constituents, Specter replied with a smile, "I don't have to say anything to them. They said it to me."
Specter has long been an independent Republican, and he proved it most recently when he became one of only three members of the GOP in Congress to vote for Obama's economic stimulus legislation. Then, he proved it once more, pivoting not long afterwards to say he did not support legislation making it easier to form unions, a bill that is organized labor's top priority in the current Congress.
In Pennsylvania, the chairman of the state Republican Party, Rob Gleason, said that Specter should offer a refund to Republicans who have helped fatten his war chest, which totaled $5.8 million at the end of 2008. "He should give them the option," Gleason said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement: "Some in the Republican Party are happy about this. I am not. Let's be honest: Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don't do it first."
Specter has long been one of the most durable politicians of either party in Pennsylvania. In recent years, he has battled Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system, but maintains a busy schedule that includes daily games of squash.
As one of the most senior Republicans in the Senate, Specter held powerful positions on the Judiciary and Appropriations committees. It was not clear how Democrats would calculate his seniority in assigning committee perches.
As recently as late winter, he was asked by a reporter why he had not taken Democrats up on past offers to switch parties.
"Because I am a Republican," he said at the time.
"I welcome Sen. Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in a statement.
A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because no announcement has yet been made, said at 10:25 a.m. EDT Tuesday President Barack Obama was handed a note while in the Oval Office during his daily economic briefing. The note said: "Specter is announcing he is changing parties." At 10:32, Obama reached Specter by phone and told him "you have my full support" and that the Democratic Party is "thrilled to have you."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090428/ap_on_go_co/us_specter_switch/print
Associated Press Writers Julie Davis, Laurie Kellman and Liz Sidoti contributed to this story from Washington. Peter Jackson contributed from Harrisburg, Pa.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press.
Friday, April 24, 2009
ACLU: Pentagon to release images of prisoner abuse
WASHINGTON – The Defense Department will release a "substantial number" of photos depicting abuse of prisoners by U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American Civil Liberties Union said late Thursday.
The photos will be made available by May 28, the ACLU said, citing a letter dated Thursday from the Justice Department to a federal judge in New York. The photos' release is in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2004 and will include images from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan at locations other than Abu Ghraib, the ACLU said.
"These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib," Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a statement. "Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse."
The Justice Department letter, signed by Acting U.S Attorney Lev L. Dassin, follows a September 2008 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit requiring disclosure of the photos and the court's subsequent refusal in March 2009 to rehear the case, the ACLU said.
Since the ACLU's FOIA request in 2003, the Bush administration had refused to disclose these images, the ACLU said. The administration claimed that disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations toward detainees under the Geneva Conventions, the ACLU said.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court in September 2008 rejected the Bush administration's position, saying there was significant public interest in disclosure of the photographs, the ACLU said. The Bush administration's appeal to the full appeals court was denied on March 11 of this year.
The letter from Justice said the Pentagon was preparing to release 21 photos at issue in the appeal, plus 23 others "previously identified as responsive." The letter added that the Pentagon also was "processing for release a substantial number of other images contained in Army CID reports that have been closed during the pendency of this case."
The ACLU and the Defense Department reached an agreement for "all the responsive images" to be released by May 28, the letter said.
"The disclosure of these photographs serves as a further reminder that abuse of prisoners in U.S.-administered detention centers was systemic," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project. "Some of the abuse occurred because senior civilian and military officials created a culture of impunity in which abuse was tolerated, and some of the abuse was expressly authorized. It's imperative that senior officials who condoned or authorized abuse now be held accountable for their actions."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_pentagon_abuse_photos/print
The photos will be made available by May 28, the ACLU said, citing a letter dated Thursday from the Justice Department to a federal judge in New York. The photos' release is in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU in 2004 and will include images from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan at locations other than Abu Ghraib, the ACLU said.
"These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib," Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU, said in a statement. "Their disclosure is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse."
The Justice Department letter, signed by Acting U.S Attorney Lev L. Dassin, follows a September 2008 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit requiring disclosure of the photos and the court's subsequent refusal in March 2009 to rehear the case, the ACLU said.
Since the ACLU's FOIA request in 2003, the Bush administration had refused to disclose these images, the ACLU said. The administration claimed that disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations toward detainees under the Geneva Conventions, the ACLU said.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court in September 2008 rejected the Bush administration's position, saying there was significant public interest in disclosure of the photographs, the ACLU said. The Bush administration's appeal to the full appeals court was denied on March 11 of this year.
The letter from Justice said the Pentagon was preparing to release 21 photos at issue in the appeal, plus 23 others "previously identified as responsive." The letter added that the Pentagon also was "processing for release a substantial number of other images contained in Army CID reports that have been closed during the pendency of this case."
The ACLU and the Defense Department reached an agreement for "all the responsive images" to be released by May 28, the letter said.
"The disclosure of these photographs serves as a further reminder that abuse of prisoners in U.S.-administered detention centers was systemic," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project. "Some of the abuse occurred because senior civilian and military officials created a culture of impunity in which abuse was tolerated, and some of the abuse was expressly authorized. It's imperative that senior officials who condoned or authorized abuse now be held accountable for their actions."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090424/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_pentagon_abuse_photos/print
Monday, April 20, 2009
AP IMPACT: Tons of released drugs taint US water
By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers
Mon Apr 20, 4:45 am ET
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
___
Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals — the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide — account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried — 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate — which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish — to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
___
Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations — albeit aimed at other chemicals — help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater — but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s — before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed — that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
___
After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
___
Associated Press Writer Don Mitchell in Denver contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/pharmawater_factories/print
The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate (at) ap.org
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
Mon Apr 20, 4:45 am ET
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
___
Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals — the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide — account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried — 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate — which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish — to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
___
Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations — albeit aimed at other chemicals — help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater — but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s — before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed — that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
___
After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
___
Associated Press Writer Don Mitchell in Denver contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/pharmawater_factories/print
The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate (at) ap.org
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Market Mystique
By PAUL KRUGMAN
On Monday March 27, Lawrence Summers, the head of the National Economic Council, responded to criticisms of the Obama administration’s plan to subsidize private purchases of toxic assets. “I don’t know of any economist,” he declared, “who doesn’t believe that better functioning capital markets in which assets can be traded are a good idea.”
Leave aside for a moment the question of whether a market in which buyers have to be bribed to participate can really be described as “better functioning.” Even so, Mr. Summers needs to get out more. Quite a few economists have reconsidered their favorable opinion of capital markets and asset trading in the light of the current crisis.
But it has become increasingly clear over the past few days that top officials in the Obama administration are still in the grip of the market mystique. They still believe in the magic of the financial marketplace and in the prowess of the wizards who perform that magic.
The market mystique didn’t always rule financial policy. America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system, which made finance a staid, even boring business. Banks attracted depositors by providing convenient branch locations and maybe a free toaster or two; they used the money thus attracted to make loans, and that was that.
And the financial system wasn’t just boring. It was also, by today’s standards, small. Even during the “go-go years,” the bull market of the 1960s, finance and insurance together accounted for less than 4 percent of G.D.P. The relative unimportance of finance was reflected in the list of stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which until 1982 contained not a single financial company.
It all sounds primitive by today’s standards. Yet that boring, primitive financial system serviced an economy that doubled living standards over the course of a generation.
After 1980, of course, a very different financial system emerged. In the deregulation-minded Reagan era, old-fashioned banking was increasingly replaced by wheeling and dealing on a grand scale. The new system was much bigger than the old regime: On the eve of the current crisis, finance and insurance accounted for 8 percent of G.D.P., more than twice their share in the 1960s. By early last year, the Dow contained five financial companies — giants like A.I.G., Citigroup and Bank of America.
And finance became anything but boring. It attracted many of our sharpest minds and made a select few immensely rich.
Underlying the glamorous new world of finance was the process of securitization. Loans no longer stayed with the lender. Instead, they were sold on to others, who sliced, diced and puréed individual debts to synthesize new assets. Subprime mortgages, credit card debts, car loans — all went into the financial system’s juicer. Out the other end, supposedly, came sweet-tasting AAA investments. And financial wizards were lavishly rewarded for overseeing the process.
But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all, the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption.
Sooner or later, things were bound to go wrong, and eventually they did. Bear Stearns failed; Lehman failed; but most of all, securitization failed.
Which brings us back to the Obama administration’s approach to the financial crisis.
Much discussion of the toxic-asset plan has focused on the details and the arithmetic, and rightly so. Beyond that, however, what’s striking is the vision expressed both in the content of the financial plan and in statements by administration officials. In essence, the administration seems to believe that once investors calm down, securitization — and the business of finance — can resume where it left off a year or two ago.
To be fair, officials are calling for more regulation. Indeed, on Thursday Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, laid out plans for enhanced regulation that would have been considered radical not long ago.
But the underlying vision remains that of a financial system more or less the same as it was two years ago, albeit somewhat tamed by new rules.
As you can guess, I don’t share that vision. I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html?pagewanted=print
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
On Monday March 27, Lawrence Summers, the head of the National Economic Council, responded to criticisms of the Obama administration’s plan to subsidize private purchases of toxic assets. “I don’t know of any economist,” he declared, “who doesn’t believe that better functioning capital markets in which assets can be traded are a good idea.”
Leave aside for a moment the question of whether a market in which buyers have to be bribed to participate can really be described as “better functioning.” Even so, Mr. Summers needs to get out more. Quite a few economists have reconsidered their favorable opinion of capital markets and asset trading in the light of the current crisis.
But it has become increasingly clear over the past few days that top officials in the Obama administration are still in the grip of the market mystique. They still believe in the magic of the financial marketplace and in the prowess of the wizards who perform that magic.
The market mystique didn’t always rule financial policy. America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system, which made finance a staid, even boring business. Banks attracted depositors by providing convenient branch locations and maybe a free toaster or two; they used the money thus attracted to make loans, and that was that.
And the financial system wasn’t just boring. It was also, by today’s standards, small. Even during the “go-go years,” the bull market of the 1960s, finance and insurance together accounted for less than 4 percent of G.D.P. The relative unimportance of finance was reflected in the list of stocks making up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which until 1982 contained not a single financial company.
It all sounds primitive by today’s standards. Yet that boring, primitive financial system serviced an economy that doubled living standards over the course of a generation.
After 1980, of course, a very different financial system emerged. In the deregulation-minded Reagan era, old-fashioned banking was increasingly replaced by wheeling and dealing on a grand scale. The new system was much bigger than the old regime: On the eve of the current crisis, finance and insurance accounted for 8 percent of G.D.P., more than twice their share in the 1960s. By early last year, the Dow contained five financial companies — giants like A.I.G., Citigroup and Bank of America.
And finance became anything but boring. It attracted many of our sharpest minds and made a select few immensely rich.
Underlying the glamorous new world of finance was the process of securitization. Loans no longer stayed with the lender. Instead, they were sold on to others, who sliced, diced and puréed individual debts to synthesize new assets. Subprime mortgages, credit card debts, car loans — all went into the financial system’s juicer. Out the other end, supposedly, came sweet-tasting AAA investments. And financial wizards were lavishly rewarded for overseeing the process.
But the wizards were frauds, whether they knew it or not, and their magic turned out to be no more than a collection of cheap stage tricks. Above all, the key promise of securitization — that it would make the financial system more robust by spreading risk more widely — turned out to be a lie. Banks used securitization to increase their risk, not reduce it, and in the process they made the economy more, not less, vulnerable to financial disruption.
Sooner or later, things were bound to go wrong, and eventually they did. Bear Stearns failed; Lehman failed; but most of all, securitization failed.
Which brings us back to the Obama administration’s approach to the financial crisis.
Much discussion of the toxic-asset plan has focused on the details and the arithmetic, and rightly so. Beyond that, however, what’s striking is the vision expressed both in the content of the financial plan and in statements by administration officials. In essence, the administration seems to believe that once investors calm down, securitization — and the business of finance — can resume where it left off a year or two ago.
To be fair, officials are calling for more regulation. Indeed, on Thursday Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary, laid out plans for enhanced regulation that would have been considered radical not long ago.
But the underlying vision remains that of a financial system more or less the same as it was two years ago, albeit somewhat tamed by new rules.
As you can guess, I don’t share that vision. I don’t think this is just a financial panic; I believe that it represents the failure of a whole model of banking, of an overgrown financial sector that did more harm than good. I don’t think the Obama administration can bring securitization back to life, and I don’t believe it should try.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html?pagewanted=print
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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