Thursday, March 31, 2005
Win on Medicare:
A federal district judge on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration rule that would have allowed employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they reach age 65 and become eligible for Medicare.
Ten million retirees could have had benefits cut under the rule, which was adopted last April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The judge, Anita B. Brody of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, struck down the rule and issued a permanent injunction that prohibits federal officials from enforcing it.
The rule "is contrary to Congressional intent and the plain language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act," the 1967 law that bans most forms of age discrimination in the workplace, Judge Brody wrote.
The erosion of retiree health benefits is an explosive political issue. Before issuing the rule, the commission was deluged with letters opposing it.
The rule would have created an explicit exemption to the age discrimination law, allowing employers to reduce health benefits for retirees when they became eligible for Medicare. Under the rule, Judge Brody said, employers could have given older retirees "health benefits that are inferior" to those given retirees younger than 65. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/politics/31retire.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sanchez Knew. Oh, we knew this; it’s just the regular media getting on it.
The highest-ranking US general in Iraq authorised the use of interrogation techniques that included sleep manipulation, stress positions and the use of dogs to "exploit Arab fears" of them, it emerged today.
A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army's own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners.
The memo, dated September 14 2003, also stated that the Iraq interrogation policy was modelled on the one used at Guantánamo Bay "but modified for applicability to a theater [sic] of war in which the Geneva conventions apply". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1448282,00.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Getting Out? More Washington talk about this eventuality, that the Administration knows an exit is needed. Barbara Boxer keeps up the pressure; few others are.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, back from a visit to Iraq, called on President Bush Tuesday to set a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of that country and letting the Iraqis handle their own defense.
"If we do not set a date, the signals are very mixed,'' Boxer said in San Francisco. "People will just sit back and let us defend them.''
While U.S. military leaders were both concerned about the growing danger of a lengthy stay in Iraq and confident that the newly trained Iraqi military forces can handle the country's security, Iraqi officials she talked to had their doubts about when their troops would be ready, the California Democrat said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/30/MNGN6C0J9S1.DTL
What’s Happening, Iraq: Mental Health casualties According to the study, the number of mental disorders is rapidly rising, doubling the rate of a year ago.
As many as one out of four veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals in the past 16 months were diagnosed with mental disorders, a number that has been steadily rising, according to a report in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
So far, VA hospitals can easily meet the challenge of mental health care for Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, Kang says.
But large funding cuts in VA psychiatry programs over the past several years and the limited number of doctors trained in PTSD could signal big trouble ahead, cautions Bruce Kagan, staff psychiatrist at the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050331/1a_bottomstrip31.art.htm
USA Today has been offering excellent coverage all week, documenting the slow armoring of Humvees on Monday and the continuing vulnerability of our tanks in Iraq on Wednesday. In other words, they’re on the ‘competence’ issue… and yahoo has printed each. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=6&u=/usatoday/20050330/ts_usatoday/tankstakeabeatinginiraq http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=14&u=/usatoday/20050328/ts_usatoday/armylatewithordersforarmoredhumvees
What’s Happening, India: They’re tired of looking to the U.S. for their weapons purchases. Siddharth Srivastava of Asia Times online
The reaction has been quicker than expected. Peeved at the US decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India has made it more than apparent that it is not at all happy and will play hard to get in all defense negotiations with the US.
Making no bones about New Delhi's annoyance, even as US Ambassador to India David Mulford has tried to placate matters, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Tuesday that the government had cleared the purchase of 12 used Mirage 2000 V fighter aircraft from Qatar and 11 Dornier 228 aircraft from Germany for maritime surveillance, virtually as a gesture set against the US offer to sell PC-3 Orions to India. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC31Df03.html
What’s Happening, Mid-East: Condi Turns ‘em Off. Not the headlines here, as her clippings have eclipsed the days of lies and evasions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability. Rice said in an interview with the Washington Post last week the Middle East status quo was not stable and she doubted it would be stable soon. Washington would speak out for "freedom" without offering a model or knowing what the outcome would be.
"This a very dangerous scheme. Anarchy will be out of control," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an advocate of gradual change. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/mideast_stability_dc
Democrats and the Schiavo “case” Arianna Huffington goes after the spineless Democrats, including Bill Clinton.
While real political leadership is determining the direction the country needs to go and convincing the public to follow you down that road, Democrats keep choosing the path of least resistance. Party leaders have been sticking their fingers in the air, feeling which way the political wind is blowing, and then chasing after these zephyrs of public sentiment. Which is bad enough. But making matters much, much worse, they are consistently misreading the wind -- an affliction that has led to their being blown away in three straight elections.
The Schiavo case is a perfect example. Before the cards had even been dealt, Senate Democrats decided that the Republicans already held all the aces. So instead of calling Dr. Frist's bluff, they folded, sat out the hand, and headed into the kitchen to see what kind of sandwiches Felix was whipping up. Not a single Democratic senator formally objected to the pro forma voice vote that sent the Schiavo bill to the House, where, with a few notable exceptions -- especially Rep. Barney Frank and rising star Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida -- Democrats were nearly as compliant.
In an interesting twist, it turns out that Bill Clinton had a behind-the-scenes role in the party's decision to adopt a hands-off policy on the Schiavo debate. According to CBS News, the former triangulator-in-chief helped sway Schiavo bill backer Tom Harkin, "egging him on" to roll over and play dead -- an odious echo of his efforts to get John Kerry to come out in favor of all 11 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. This kind of strategic calculation may have been all right in the mid-'90s, but not today, when the party is in desperate need of bold, decisive leadership.
…But the Democrats, having gone MIA, were unable to ride the tidal wave of public sentiment. Yet again. For years now, they have failed to grasp that when it comes to their core issues -- including providing affordable healthcare, protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, gun control and basic abortion rights -- they are on the same side of the fence as the majority of Americans.
Instead of allowing themselves to be cowed by the fear of looking like they're coming down on the immoral side of the moral values debate, Democrats should snap out of it and demand that the president interrupt his next vacation and that Bill Frist hold another midnight session of Congress to address the moral disgrace of 45 million people with no health insurance and 36 million people living in poverty -- and, in doing so, reclaim the moral high ground. http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2005/03/29/schiavo/print.html
[Bill] Clinton and the Democratic Party: Bill Bradley
There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas. Campaigns don't start thinking about a Democratic brand until halfway through the election year, by which time winning the daily news cycle takes precedence over building a consistent message. The closest that Democrats get to a brand is a catchy slogan.
Democrats choose this approach, I believe, because we are still hypnotized by Jack Kennedy, and the promise of a charismatic leader who can change America by the strength and style of his personality. The trouble is that every four years the party splits and rallies around several different individuals at once. Opponents in the primaries then exaggerate their differences and leave the public confused about what Democrats believe.
In such a system tactics trump strategy. Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. In the worst case, they embrace "Republican lite" platforms - never realizing that in doing so they're allowing the Republicans to define the terms of the debate.
A party based on charisma has no long-term impact. Think of our last charismatic leader, Bill Clinton. He was president for eight years. He was the first Democrat to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt. He was smart, skilled and possessed great energy. But what happened? At the end of his tenure in the most powerful office in the world, there were fewer Democratic governors, fewer Democratic senators, members of Congress and state legislators and a national party that was deep in debt. The president did well. The party did not. Charisma didn't translate into structure. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30bradley.html?ei=5090&en=ca0476c9b26363e7&ex=1269838800&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
So, why is Bush’s popularity down? Of course we shouldn’t be so surprised. A significant, telling percentage voted for him as the “wartime president”, needed to stay in charge of the so-called “war on terror.” The Repubs have ceased pushing this line- again, the threat has always been exaggerated- so as our fear abates, we focus on their policy positions and Bush as… I’ll refrain.
In fact, it's possible that the perception of success and the spread of democracy in Iraq works against Bush in the way his father, the first President Bush, failed to turn his own success in the first Gulf War into victory come reelection time.
"Once he's no longer seen as a struggling wartime commander, the public focuses on more perhaps mundane matters, such as the price of gas," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council.
Bush also doesn't seem to be getting much of a bump from the successes of his new secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Gallup Poll numbers (taken March 18-20) show a 61 percent approval rating. It is also questionable whether the most popular person connected to the administration - first lady Laura Bush - could offer any reverse coattails for her husband. On Tuesday, Mrs. Bush left on a surprise visit to Afghanistan to focus on educational initiatives for Afghan women and also meet with President Hamid Karzai and have dinner with US forces at Bagram Air Base. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p01s03-uspo.html?s=itm
Social Security: Bush Fiat? A test via Executive Order? Undoubtedly a trial balloon; let’s watch, if not contribute to the response
This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.
But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.
Indeed, the Constitution has long provided the president with a certain amount of unilateral power to make policy. And from George Washington to George W. Bush, that power has frequently been used when presidents have felt stymied by Congress or the courts. Among some of the notable presidential directives (a broader category of unilateral presidential power that includes executive orders, proclamations, pardons, national security directives and more) are: the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Japanese Internment Camps. http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/ace.up.sleeve/index.html
-R
A federal district judge on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration rule that would have allowed employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they reach age 65 and become eligible for Medicare.
Ten million retirees could have had benefits cut under the rule, which was adopted last April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The judge, Anita B. Brody of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, struck down the rule and issued a permanent injunction that prohibits federal officials from enforcing it.
The rule "is contrary to Congressional intent and the plain language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act," the 1967 law that bans most forms of age discrimination in the workplace, Judge Brody wrote.
The erosion of retiree health benefits is an explosive political issue. Before issuing the rule, the commission was deluged with letters opposing it.
The rule would have created an explicit exemption to the age discrimination law, allowing employers to reduce health benefits for retirees when they became eligible for Medicare. Under the rule, Judge Brody said, employers could have given older retirees "health benefits that are inferior" to those given retirees younger than 65. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/politics/31retire.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sanchez Knew. Oh, we knew this; it’s just the regular media getting on it.
The highest-ranking US general in Iraq authorised the use of interrogation techniques that included sleep manipulation, stress positions and the use of dogs to "exploit Arab fears" of them, it emerged today.
A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army's own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners.
The memo, dated September 14 2003, also stated that the Iraq interrogation policy was modelled on the one used at Guantánamo Bay "but modified for applicability to a theater [sic] of war in which the Geneva conventions apply". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1448282,00.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Getting Out? More Washington talk about this eventuality, that the Administration knows an exit is needed. Barbara Boxer keeps up the pressure; few others are.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, back from a visit to Iraq, called on President Bush Tuesday to set a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of that country and letting the Iraqis handle their own defense.
"If we do not set a date, the signals are very mixed,'' Boxer said in San Francisco. "People will just sit back and let us defend them.''
While U.S. military leaders were both concerned about the growing danger of a lengthy stay in Iraq and confident that the newly trained Iraqi military forces can handle the country's security, Iraqi officials she talked to had their doubts about when their troops would be ready, the California Democrat said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/30/MNGN6C0J9S1.DTL
What’s Happening, Iraq: Mental Health casualties According to the study, the number of mental disorders is rapidly rising, doubling the rate of a year ago.
As many as one out of four veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals in the past 16 months were diagnosed with mental disorders, a number that has been steadily rising, according to a report in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
So far, VA hospitals can easily meet the challenge of mental health care for Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, Kang says.
But large funding cuts in VA psychiatry programs over the past several years and the limited number of doctors trained in PTSD could signal big trouble ahead, cautions Bruce Kagan, staff psychiatrist at the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050331/1a_bottomstrip31.art.htm
USA Today has been offering excellent coverage all week, documenting the slow armoring of Humvees on Monday and the continuing vulnerability of our tanks in Iraq on Wednesday. In other words, they’re on the ‘competence’ issue… and yahoo has printed each. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=6&u=/usatoday/20050330/ts_usatoday/tankstakeabeatinginiraq http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=14&u=/usatoday/20050328/ts_usatoday/armylatewithordersforarmoredhumvees
What’s Happening, India: They’re tired of looking to the U.S. for their weapons purchases. Siddharth Srivastava of Asia Times online
The reaction has been quicker than expected. Peeved at the US decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India has made it more than apparent that it is not at all happy and will play hard to get in all defense negotiations with the US.
Making no bones about New Delhi's annoyance, even as US Ambassador to India David Mulford has tried to placate matters, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Tuesday that the government had cleared the purchase of 12 used Mirage 2000 V fighter aircraft from Qatar and 11 Dornier 228 aircraft from Germany for maritime surveillance, virtually as a gesture set against the US offer to sell PC-3 Orions to India. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC31Df03.html
What’s Happening, Mid-East: Condi Turns ‘em Off. Not the headlines here, as her clippings have eclipsed the days of lies and evasions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability. Rice said in an interview with the Washington Post last week the Middle East status quo was not stable and she doubted it would be stable soon. Washington would speak out for "freedom" without offering a model or knowing what the outcome would be.
"This a very dangerous scheme. Anarchy will be out of control," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an advocate of gradual change. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/mideast_stability_dc
Democrats and the Schiavo “case” Arianna Huffington goes after the spineless Democrats, including Bill Clinton.
While real political leadership is determining the direction the country needs to go and convincing the public to follow you down that road, Democrats keep choosing the path of least resistance. Party leaders have been sticking their fingers in the air, feeling which way the political wind is blowing, and then chasing after these zephyrs of public sentiment. Which is bad enough. But making matters much, much worse, they are consistently misreading the wind -- an affliction that has led to their being blown away in three straight elections.
The Schiavo case is a perfect example. Before the cards had even been dealt, Senate Democrats decided that the Republicans already held all the aces. So instead of calling Dr. Frist's bluff, they folded, sat out the hand, and headed into the kitchen to see what kind of sandwiches Felix was whipping up. Not a single Democratic senator formally objected to the pro forma voice vote that sent the Schiavo bill to the House, where, with a few notable exceptions -- especially Rep. Barney Frank and rising star Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida -- Democrats were nearly as compliant.
In an interesting twist, it turns out that Bill Clinton had a behind-the-scenes role in the party's decision to adopt a hands-off policy on the Schiavo debate. According to CBS News, the former triangulator-in-chief helped sway Schiavo bill backer Tom Harkin, "egging him on" to roll over and play dead -- an odious echo of his efforts to get John Kerry to come out in favor of all 11 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. This kind of strategic calculation may have been all right in the mid-'90s, but not today, when the party is in desperate need of bold, decisive leadership.
…But the Democrats, having gone MIA, were unable to ride the tidal wave of public sentiment. Yet again. For years now, they have failed to grasp that when it comes to their core issues -- including providing affordable healthcare, protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, gun control and basic abortion rights -- they are on the same side of the fence as the majority of Americans.
Instead of allowing themselves to be cowed by the fear of looking like they're coming down on the immoral side of the moral values debate, Democrats should snap out of it and demand that the president interrupt his next vacation and that Bill Frist hold another midnight session of Congress to address the moral disgrace of 45 million people with no health insurance and 36 million people living in poverty -- and, in doing so, reclaim the moral high ground. http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2005/03/29/schiavo/print.html
[Bill] Clinton and the Democratic Party: Bill Bradley
There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas. Campaigns don't start thinking about a Democratic brand until halfway through the election year, by which time winning the daily news cycle takes precedence over building a consistent message. The closest that Democrats get to a brand is a catchy slogan.
Democrats choose this approach, I believe, because we are still hypnotized by Jack Kennedy, and the promise of a charismatic leader who can change America by the strength and style of his personality. The trouble is that every four years the party splits and rallies around several different individuals at once. Opponents in the primaries then exaggerate their differences and leave the public confused about what Democrats believe.
In such a system tactics trump strategy. Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. In the worst case, they embrace "Republican lite" platforms - never realizing that in doing so they're allowing the Republicans to define the terms of the debate.
A party based on charisma has no long-term impact. Think of our last charismatic leader, Bill Clinton. He was president for eight years. He was the first Democrat to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt. He was smart, skilled and possessed great energy. But what happened? At the end of his tenure in the most powerful office in the world, there were fewer Democratic governors, fewer Democratic senators, members of Congress and state legislators and a national party that was deep in debt. The president did well. The party did not. Charisma didn't translate into structure. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30bradley.html?ei=5090&en=ca0476c9b26363e7&ex=1269838800&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
So, why is Bush’s popularity down? Of course we shouldn’t be so surprised. A significant, telling percentage voted for him as the “wartime president”, needed to stay in charge of the so-called “war on terror.” The Repubs have ceased pushing this line- again, the threat has always been exaggerated- so as our fear abates, we focus on their policy positions and Bush as… I’ll refrain.
In fact, it's possible that the perception of success and the spread of democracy in Iraq works against Bush in the way his father, the first President Bush, failed to turn his own success in the first Gulf War into victory come reelection time.
"Once he's no longer seen as a struggling wartime commander, the public focuses on more perhaps mundane matters, such as the price of gas," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council.
Bush also doesn't seem to be getting much of a bump from the successes of his new secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Gallup Poll numbers (taken March 18-20) show a 61 percent approval rating. It is also questionable whether the most popular person connected to the administration - first lady Laura Bush - could offer any reverse coattails for her husband. On Tuesday, Mrs. Bush left on a surprise visit to Afghanistan to focus on educational initiatives for Afghan women and also meet with President Hamid Karzai and have dinner with US forces at Bagram Air Base. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p01s03-uspo.html?s=itm
Social Security: Bush Fiat? A test via Executive Order? Undoubtedly a trial balloon; let’s watch, if not contribute to the response
This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.
But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.
Indeed, the Constitution has long provided the president with a certain amount of unilateral power to make policy. And from George Washington to George W. Bush, that power has frequently been used when presidents have felt stymied by Congress or the courts. Among some of the notable presidential directives (a broader category of unilateral presidential power that includes executive orders, proclamations, pardons, national security directives and more) are: the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Japanese Internment Camps. http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/ace.up.sleeve/index.html
-R
