NY Times On Economy: "People Failed"

Don’t Blame the New Deal:

This year’s serial bailouts are proof of a colossal regulatory failure. But it is not “the system” that failed, as President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others who are complicit in the calamity would like Americans to believe. People failed.

For decades now, antiregulation disciples of the Reagan Revolution have eliminated vital laws, blocked the enactment of much-needed new regulations, or simply refused to exercise their legal authority.

Because he refuses take any responsibility for any error, Bush must to blame the "system." If he didn't he'd have to confront the reality that this disaster was set in motion by "Saint" Reagan (R), President Bush, Bush cabinet financial wizards, the GOP's tragically misguided, patently dishonest "trickle down"/laissez-faire bullshit economic philosophy & the Republican Party as a whole.

-AF

Fun Facts To Know And Tell

The Sunlight Foundation sheds light on how Wall Street has been spending what is now essentially our money to buy their best possible bail out deal:

If you haven’t been under a rock lately, you know that the Bush Administration is proposing a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. What you might not know is that there have been 258 parties this year alone for members of the House Financial Services Committee-the very folks who are making crucial decisions about this legislation-a number of them hosted by lobbyists for the finance, insurance, and real estate industries.

For example, last week, on September 16, lobbyists were invited to a “financial services” luncheon for Rep. Dean Heller at the Capitol Hill Club. The cost for entry was $500 for individuals, $1,000 for PACs. Heller has collected $190,252 from the financial sector for his congressional elections out of a total of $1,242,583, or 15.3 percent.

Then there was the invitation from the Real Estate Roundtable PAC on September 14 for folks to join Rep. Gregory Meeks to watch the New Orleans Saints play the Washington Redskins play at FedEx Field. The cost: $1,000. Meeks has taken $1,015,432 from the financial sector over his congressional career, 27.8 percent of his fundraising total-$3,657,984.
(All emphasis mine).

Heller is a Republican and Meeks is a Dem.

This is craziness.

-AF
(HT: Harper's Ken Silverstein)

These People Have An Unlimited Capacity To Make Me Sick

There's no shortage of current and upcoming exposés of President George W. Bush and his accomplices. I don't have the stomach to read them all. However, it looks like political writer & former talk show host Paul Alexander's new book is required reading. It's called Machiavelli's Shadow: The Rise and Fall of Karl Rove.

Salon has this excerpt: "How Karl Rove Played Politics While People Drowned."

Shorter version at First Draft.

-AF

(HT: Crooks and Liars)

VA Sec. James Peake Is A Huge Asshole

He's dumber than dirt too. Via Think Progress:

Over the weekend, Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake visited Alaska with Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK). While there, they met with Vietnam veteran John Guinn, who questioned the Secretary about the growing problem of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) amongst veterans. Instead of addressing Guinn’s concerns, Peake dismissed them:

VA secretary Peake suggested some of the concern about post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury has been overblown.

Many of the brain injuries are serious but some of them are akin to what anyone who played football in their youth might have suffered, Peake told Guinn.

Guinn wasn’t entirely satisfied with the answers. He said it’s a real issue for returning soldiers as well as their families, and he doesn’t think job training is enough.

On Saturday, Peake also said that many vets with PTSD may just need “a little counseling” and shouldn’t “need the PTSD label their whole lives.”

Despite his 40+ year military career, retired US Army Surgeon General Peake has proven he not only knows nothing about veterans but he also knows jack all about medicine. Where do I start ripping?

Vets with PTSD do not “need the PTSD label their whole lives.” PTSD is not a label anyone would ever want for any reason. With proper intensive treatment, not "a little counseling as Secretary Peake suggests," many vets will lead relatively normal productive lives.

I used to play contact sports. I was also a serious downhill ski racer. I’ve been in a few car accidents. I've whacked my head a few too many times (which explains a lot). I’ve had one diagnosed TBI or traumatic brain injury. I’ve also had PTSD.

Traumatic brain injury is a medical term describing what occurs when your head is struck by something, stops and your brain keeps going striking the inside of your skull. This could be caused by a bomb's concussion blast or a simple slip & fall. PTSD is a psychological term describing a specific response to a severe emotional trauma. While both can happen concurrently, they are completely different medical problems that require specific, intensive and separate treatment.

As long as we have clowns like Peake in charge of their wellbeing, veterans will continue to get short shrift.

-AF

Locking The Barn Door After The Goat Is Gone

al-Maliki's government kicks out 1300 Iraqi soldiers & cops for desertion. Like we needed another indication that all of that money going to arming, equipping and training Iraq's security forces is poorly spent.

Though its never come done hard on deserters before, Iraq's largely Shiite government claims many of these mostly Shiite cops & troops will be tried by primarily Shiite military courts. That's if more mostly Shiite cops & troops can or will catch 'em.

Let me know how that works out, OK?

-AF

$600 Million For Reconstruction? What Reconstruction? Oh, That Reconstruction.

On Tuesday, US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told Sen. Carl Levin that we're “no longer involved in the physical reconstruction business." What's funny is that as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Levin had just received a tiny little request:

The same day we’re asked to shift $600 million to reconstruction.” He (Levin) added that “today the president says we’re almost down to zero” in terms of reconstruction spending.

Gates told Levin that there must be some confusion and that perhaps the money was intended to pay Iraqi police or other military forces, but that it was most likely not for reconstruction.

About 15 minutes later, Gates was passed a note by an aide. He stopped the proceedings to offer an apology to Levin, concluding that the $600 million was in fact intended for reconstruction. “[T]here are actually things that go on that I don’t know about,” said Gates by way of explanation. “I will take a very close look at it. ... I think this is an area where there is broad agreement the Iraqis should be spending their own money.”
(Politico's "The Crypt")

This is yet another indicator of just how fucked up and unbelievably expensive Bush's Iraq Adventure has become that Gates (and Crocker too) has no idea that his DOD requested $600 million for a reconstruction program he thought no longer existed.
-AF


HT: TPM Muckraker

Lawyers, Guns and Money

That would be a perfect title for The Efraim Diveroli Story...




The exemplary Lindsay Beyerstein has some fine reporting on this saga at Majikthise:

Records from the Florida Secretary of State show that Efraim's father, Michael Diveroli, is the manager and registered agent of Worldwide Tactical, LLC, located at 925 41 St. (Ste. 106), Miami Beach, Florida. Diveroli was also the registered agent and president of the now-defunct Advantage Police Supply, LLC, principal office 925 41st St. (Ste. 306).

Efraim Diveroli's company, AEY, gave the same address to the Miami Dade County procurement office.

AEY also provided that address, down to the 306 suite number, when it was awarded a multi-million dollar contract with the Army in 2007.

Michael Diveroli's Worldwide Tactical, LLC has been awarded over a million dollars in federal contracts since 2000, records show. Worldwide Tactical also got an emergency two-year contract in 2006 to supply cots to the State of Louisiana. Worldwide Tactical recently renewed a contract to provide cold weather search and rescue gear for Lincoln/Lancaster County, Nebraska.

What I find remarkable about this story is that this neophyte kid was able to secure $1 million+ in government contracts seemingly without the now customary pattern of contributions to the Republican Party or right wing causes. I checked both Newsmeat and OpenSecrets (for some reason Opensecrets' website is down this AM). I found nothing for the Diveroli Family or Uncle Bar-Kochba Botach. The only player in this saga with any clear record of political contributions is Efraim Diveroli's lawyer, Hy Shapiro. Over the past 15 years Shapiro has contributed $3250. All of it went to Democrats.

In my prior post I alluded to the many consumer complaints against Botach Tactical ("WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!") That's the LA co. owned by Diveroli's Uncle Bar-Kochba Botach. Here's a sampling: At ResellerRatings.com Botach Tactical's lifetime rating is 2.04 out of 10. Sample entries on Complaints.com here and here. Pissedoffconsumer has more. There are also entries at RipoffReport and Epinions. Finally, there's this story about how Botach brazenly off a supplier's (!) product design.

-AF
+Update: Makithise has more dope on the Diverolis and Botach Tactical plus the news that young Efraim has fled the country rather than face the music here as well as testify before Congress.

Bush's Abstinence-Only Crusade=Big Money For Religious Right

In Bush's Abstinence-Only Crusade=1/4 Of Teenage Girls Get STDs, I connected Bush's abstinence-only crusade to the high rate of STDs among America's teenage girls. Today I delve into the real motivation behind yet another harmful Bush policy.

What makes the abstinence-only mob's objection to sex ed truly sickening is that it is not all about "morality." As per usual, it's mostly about M-O-N-E-Y. (Natch).

Abstinence-only programs have become big business. Big Republican campaign contributor business. Under the leadership of a Republican Congress and as escalated by George Bush, abstinence-only has swelled to a $1 billion boondoggle.

Ten months ago The Nation exposed this industry for what it is in The Abstinence Gluttons:

Over the past six years George W. Bush's faith-based Administration and a conservative Republican Congress transformed the small-time abstinence-only business into a billion-dollar industry. These dangerously ineffective sexual health enterprises flourish not because they spread "family values" but because of generous helpings of the same pork-heavy gumbo Bush & Co. brought to war-blighted Iraq and Katrina-hammered New Orleans--a mix of back-scratching cronyism, hefty partisan campaign donations, high-dollar lobbyists, a revolving door for political appointees and a lack of concern for results.

One of the chief cooks is a media-shy 63-year-old Catholic multimillionaire, welfare privatizer and Republican donor named Raymond Ruddy. With close ties to the White House, federal health officials and Republican power brokers that date back to W.'s days as Texas governor, Ruddy has leveraged his generous wallet and insider muscle to push an ultraconservative social agenda, enrich a preferred network of abstinence-only and antiabortion groups, boost profits for his company and line the pockets of his cronies--all with taxpayer dollars.

Following the money swirling around Ruddy offers an eye-opening glimpse into the squalor at the heart of the abstinence-only project. One top Bush adviser left to take a job at Ruddy's charity, Gerard Health Foundation, and a senior officer at Ruddy's for-profit company, Maximus, left to take a top-level position at the Department of Health and Human Services. Leaders of Christian-right organizations that are Gerard grantees have gained advisory HHS positions--and their organizations have in turn received AIDS and abstinence grants to the tune of at least $25 million. Maximus itself has raked in more than $100 million in federal contracts during the Bush era...

"I can't think of another federal program where so much money was spent without any oversight and to such little effect," said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a national organization that promotes comprehensive sexual health policies. "It wasn't that policy-makers didn't know that abstinence-only didn't work. In 2000 the Institute of Medicine issued a scathing report on these programs. But they went full steam ahead despite the warning. It's beyond naïve. It's immoral."

If you haven't already (and even if you have), please read the rest for a stunning tale spanning America, Africa and soon China. The featured cast of unsavory characters includes wingnut heroes James Dobson, Ruddy lobbyist and former RNC Chair Haley Barbour, former HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary/Medicaid fraud/all-around quack Eric Keroack and more.

It details how the the Bush Administration knowingly spends hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on harmful programs to further enrich fat cat Republican donors and their uber-conservative causes i.e. The Federalist Society, Americans for Tax Reform (we knew Grover would get a cut), Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council as well as the anti-Kerry Your Catholic Voice, sleazy 527 Common Sense Ohio and old school anti-choice Life, Liberty and Family. A generous tithe of these funds are plowed back into the Republican Party in campaign contributions and Conservative GOTV resources. Also well documented is the revolving door between these various conservative groups and the Bush Administration especially, and most dangerously, the Department of Health and Human Services.

Because of Bush's aggressive, immoral and unconscionable abstinence-only policy, a decade of teenagers are spectacularly misinformed. Earlier this week the Chicago Tribune's troubling story, Teens have sex but don't have the facts, vividly illustrates the pitfalls of this stick-your-head-in-the-sand mentality:

In a co-ed forum, the teens pondered contraception. One well-meaning young man stood and said aluminum foil could be used in lieu of a condom. Other teens offered up myths such as the efficacy of plastic baggies, having sex while standing and bathing right after sex.

Aluminum foil?!?! WTF? In this age, where using a condom could literally be the difference between life and death, we're all too squeamish and puritanical to tell kids considering sex how to best protect themselves. The message sent to today's youth: Sex is dirty, dangerous and bad. No wonder they are so confused. If these they should make it through adolescence without contracting an STD, our kids have a lifetime of psychoanalysis to look forward to. It will probably take at least that long to pay for and undo the harm caused by abstinence-only "education."

-AF

In the finale: Bush's Abstinence-Only Crusade Exported=Death.
(We're lucky our kids aren't African).

Bush's Abstinence-Only Crusade=1/4 Of Teenage Girls Get STDs

Last week the CDC released the results of its first-ever study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases in teenage girls. The results were deeply disturbing. One in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease. For all African-American teenage girls that number is double. The most common disease was the human papillomavirus. A virus linked to cervical cancer. The very same virus evangelicals and other "conservative" types don't want to vaccinate their daughters against for fear they'll go all mad promiscuous.

These uptight sexist bastards want our daughters and sons to know as little about sex and nothing about how to prevent STDs or unplanned pregnancy. From Bush on down, they preach abstinence as the only option. This unrealistic approach puts teenagers unnecessarily at risk. Plus there's absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that it works! Actually, the new CDC study provides additional strong anecdotal evidence that Bush's abstinence-only crusade is an abject failure.

We knew this already. Last November, a study* (PDF summary) by the non-partisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy concluded:

At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners (among teenagers).

These dangerous crackpots are not content to vehemently deny their children basic information to protect themselves. They cannot abide by any program that does. Without any supporting evidence, abstinence-only advocates claim such informative programs do more harm than good. Nothing could be further from the truth. Last November ABC News reported:

The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having "positive outcomes" including teenagers "delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use."

"Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect," said the report.

Yes, the but the key word in "abstinence-only" is "only." More ABC News:

The study, conducted by Douglas Kirby, a senior research scientist at ETR Associates, also sought to debunk what the report called "myths propagated by abstinence-only advocates" including: that comprehensive sex education promotes promiscuity, hastens the initiative of sex or increases its frequency, and sends a confusing message to adolescents.

None of these was found to be accurate, Kirby wrote.

Instead, he wrote, such programs improved teens' knowledge about the risks and consequences of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and gave them greater "confidence in their ability to say 'no' to unwanted sex."

Even a 2007 study contracted by Bush's own HHS Department reached the same conclusions. Furthermore, it found under abstinence-only programs, teenagers are “less likely to report that condoms are usually effective at preventing STDs and more likely to report that condoms are never effective at preventing STDs.” Heckuva job Bushie!

He can't help himself. Not unlike the Iraq War, Bush has long committed himself to obliviously ride this train to its destination, a ruined bridge. Salon's 2004 Bush's Sex Fantasy tells how George Bush "lobbied for and promoted abstinence-only" early in his tenure as Texas Governor. The article also notes how "the teen pregnancy rate in Texas remains one of the highest in the country, despite the abstinence-only policies Bush pushed as governor."

You would think all of this would be enough to bring the abstinence-only gravy train to a grinding halt. Au contraire. The CDC report on STDs amongst teenage girls was met with a kind of rejoicing amongst hard-core evangelicals. Breaking Christian News had this breathless bulletin:

President Bush's 2009 budget proposal includes an important increase in funding for Community Based Abstinence Education (CBAE).

In light of a disturbing report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention which came out this week—and revealed that 1 in 4 teenage girls have a sexually transmitted infection (STI)—the President's urging for abstinence education is timely and obviously needed.

Linda Klepacki, sexual health analyst for Focus on the Family Action, stated, "With 3 million teen girls infected with STIs, safer sex in adolescents does not exist. For the current and future health of teens, we must teach them how to have strong relationships not based on sex."

Again the willful misperception and implication that there is no such thing as "safer sex""
and that any form of sex ed other than abstinence will lead teenagers to have weak relationships that are based only on sex.

Next up, we learn that George Bush's abstinence-only crusade has less to do with the sex than it does the money.

-AF

*This particular study was conducted by ETR Associates, a non-profit non-partisan organization "dedicated to developing and disseminating evidenced-based programs and best practices." ETR Associates markets teen-targeted pamphlets, posters, DVDs and other materials emphasizing health education and sexuality to both sides of this debate. Their publications cover everything from abstinence and safe sex to substance abuse and violence.

How's That Terrorwatch List Working Out?

Not so well.







McClatchy has the bottom line:

The government's terror watchlist includes inaccurate and outdated information, increasing the risk that innocent people will be misidentified as terrorists while terrorists are overlooked, a government audit reported Monday.

Whodda thunk that giving control over this important task to a new unproven FBI department (created by Bush in 2003), The Terrorist Screening Center, would be prove so troublesome? Yes, the FBI's struggles to join the modern computer age have been legion (the $170 million-ish plus six years wasted on SAIC's* VCF software program, its well-documented inability to quickly share & disseminate info before & after 9/11, etc.) Surely they can run Filemaker Pro, right?

I'm being facetious. It's far more complicated. But if there's a special department dedicated to maintaining this list, why are we still having problems five years on? McClatchy offers this clue:

The Terrorist Screening Center oversees the watchlist, while the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI recommend or "nominate" names for it.

Oh boy. We have "nominations" supplied by another new unproven department (also created by Bush in 2003), the NCTC, along with the FBI whose problems managing data I already touched on. To make matters worse, the NCTC falls under the purview of DNI Mike McConnell. Four other separate departments do too including The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, the National Intelligence Council, the DNI Special Security Center and the ungodly named Center for Security Evaluation (CSE)/National Intelligence Emergency Management Activity (NIEMA). The ODNI's organizational chart is so unwieldy that they tout themselves as an Information Sharing Environment -- a positively Orwellian moniker if there ever was one.

Chalk it up as another concept urgently needed to protect the American people completely cocked up by President Bush. Another fiasco to remember the next time Republicans claim theirs is the "security party."

-AF

++Tuesday update: The LA Times sez

"the FBI provided the government-wide terrorism watch list with incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information about suspects for almost three years.

As a result, many innocent people stayed on the terrorism watch list long after they were cleared of any wrongdoing, and real threats to national security were sometimes left off the list or not added in a timely manner..."

It boggles the mind.

*SAIC was allowed to walk away with $170 million even tho' they never provided anything close to a working product. Unsurprisingly, SAIC founder John Robert Beyster is a big time Republican contributor. His company employs an army of lobbyists.