Your Health Insurer Will Screw You

The Huffington Post
September 7, 2009
Peter J. Ognibene


Got health insurance? Think you're sitting pretty? Think again.

Health insurance companies fatten their bottom line not by helping people but by screwing them.

For-profit companies make money three ways:
First, they use medical underwriting, which is industry shorthand for finding ways to reject those applicants most likely to need care. Not only people with serious illness are denied insurance; so are individuals who may be 20 pounds overweight as well as those with acne or an old athletic injury.

Second, health insurers routinely weasel out of, or delay for months -- even years -- making payments for valid medical and hospital claims.

Third, they look for plausible reasons to reverse payments they have already made on your behalf. These reversals can occur one or more years after you thought your bill had been paid. And when a physician or hospital has to refund a payment, guess who gets the bill. You.
And it doesn't stop there. Investigative units routinely look at individuals who have been seriously ill to see if there's anything in their medical or prescription history they can use as a pretext to terminate their insurance. The industry term is "rescission."

Many large organizations -- municipal agencies, major corporations and labor unions -- have the negotiating power to eliminate exclusions of so-called pre-existing conditions from their employees' health insurance policies.

Small companies often do not. Worse still, individuals who lack the negotiating leverage that organizations exercise on behalf of their members wind up paying the highest rates for coverage and then are left to hope they won't get trapped by one of their policy's many exclusions or loopholes. When such individuals have the audacity to incur a major illness, you can bet the companies will look for ways to screw them -- with delays, payment reversals or outright rescission of their insurance.

Many who work for health insurers quickly learn that the surest way to get ahead is to screw as many policyholders as they can.

Recent documents obtained by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce indicated, for example, that Blue Cross of California awarded a perfect evaluation score to an employee whose efforts to rescind the insurance of thousands of policyholders saved the company nearly $10 million that would otherwise have paid their doctor and hospital bills.

This is no isolated case. If you get cancer or need expensive surgery, your insurance company is likely to investigate every medical claim ever filed on your behalf, the prescriptions you have taken at various points in your life and any lifestyle elements that might give them a pretext to reverse a payment or rescind your insurance.

In recent testimony before the same House committee, Karen Pollitz, Research Professor at Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, pointed out:

Representatives of the insurance industry have testified that rescission is rare and occurs in less than one percent of policies. Even if this estimate is accurate, it is not necessarily comforting. One percent of the population accounts for one-quarter of all medical bills. The sickest individuals may be small in number, but they are the most vulnerable and most in need of coverage.

Most individuals who have a job get health insurance through their employer. Yet, employer-based health insurance makes no sense in the modern world. It is an artifact of World War II when companies were desperate to attract and hire workers but were bound by federal wage and price controls from writing higher paychecks. So, companies competed for workers in other ways, including health insurance.

Two years ago, the Congressional Research Service issued a report, "U.S. Health Care Spending: Comparison with Other OECD Countries," which found:

The United States spends more money on health care than any other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD consists of 30 democracies, most of which are considered the most economically advanced countries in the world. According to OECD data, the United States spent $6,102 per capita on health care in 2004 -- more than double the OECD average and 19.9% more than Luxembourg, the second-highest spending country. In 2004, 15.3% of the U.S. economy was devoted to health care, compared with 8.9% in the average OECD country and 11.6% in second-placed Switzerland. In assessing what drives the difference between U.S. health care spending and the rest of the world, some leading health economists responded this way: "It's the prices, stupid." Put more formally, a report from the OECD declared that "there is no doubt that U.S. prices for medical care commodities and services are significantly higher than in other countries and serve as a key determinant of higher overall spending."

Though Americans are paying ever higher premiums, they are not getting better health care for their dollar. Current projections suggest that the average annual cost for employer-sponsored health insurance for a family of four will rise from $13,000 to nearly $25,000 by 2018.

Appearing recently on Morning Joe, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D, NY), a leading advocate in the House for publicly financed health care, made these observations:

I have heard people say, repeatedly, 'well, if the public option is too muscular, the insurance companies won't be able to compete.' Well, if they can't compete, then they're not gonna get customers. They're not gonna get patients coming to them. Isn't that what we want? To give people that choice?


The problem that we have here is we're trying to jerry-rig this system so that insurance companies still continue to make healthy profits. Why? [They] don't do a single checkup; they don't do a single exam; they don't perform an operation.

Medicare has a four-percent overhead rate. The insurance companies take about $230 billion out of the system every year in profits and overhead. The real question is: why we have a private plan?

These costs drive up the insurance premiums of everyone with private health insurance. With universal health care, these costs will disappear. Even the insurance industry knows that.
In recent testimony before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the rescission of individual health insurance policies, Don Hamm, the president of Assurant Health, admitted: "If a system can be created where coverage is available to everyone and all Americans are required to participate - the process we are addressing today -- rescission -- becomes unnecessary because risk is shared among all."

What Obama will say in his address

What Obama will say in his address
By: Mike Allen and Carrie Budoff Brown
September 5, 2009 12:36 PM EST

President Barack Obama plans to reach out to Republicans and reassure — rather than confront — his liberal supporters when he addresses an extraordinary joint session of Congress at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday.

But he will warn lawmakers against seeking a perfect plan and then winding up doing nothing, as happened to the last Democratic president back in 1994.

The high-stake speech makes sense because Obama is such a gifted orator. But it is also risky because if poll numbers on health-care reform don’t improve after he speaks, it will be clear that the problem isn’t in the packaging, but in the proposal itself.

The contents of the speech were still being debated over the weekend. But here is what POLTIICO gleaned from conversations with top aides:

1) Obama will lay out a specific “President’s Plan,” even if he doesn’t call it that. He will make clear what’s on the table, and what he thinks warrants further debate, such as how to pay for the overhaul.

2) He will not confront or scold the left. “This is a case for bold action, not a stick in the eye to our supporters,” said an official involved in speech preparation. “That’s not how President Obama thinks. The politics of triangulation don’t live in this White House.”

3) He will make an overture to Republicans. “He will lay out his vision for health reform – taking the best ideas from both parties, make the case for why as a nation we must act now, and dispel the myths and confusion that are affecting public opinion,” the aide said.

4) He will make it clear that it’s better to get something done than nothing done. White House aides are reminding fellow Democrats that the party lost Congress in 1994 by failing to do any health reforms at all after Congress balked at the original plan by President Bill Clinton. “The lesson of 1994 is not that tackling health reform is politically perilous. It’s that failing to act could be devastating,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House deputy communications director.

5) Obama will try to reassure the left about his commitment to a public option, or government insurance plan. Aides said they are rethinking what he will say about this. He wants to thread the needle of voicing support for a public option, without promising to kill health reform to get it. But liberal congressional leaders were unyielding in their support for it on a conference call he held from Camp David yesterday, and he's going to meet with them at the White House early next week.

The White House line has been: “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. There are lots of different ways to get there.” But now he’s going to step on the gas a little harder. One top official gave this formulation: “He has consistently said that he thinks the public option is an important way to make sure that there is both cost and competition control. He’s also said consistently that if someone can show him a better way or another way to get there, he’d be happy to look at it. But he’s never committed to going with another way. He’s always said he’d be happy to look at any proposal that gets to these goals, but that he thinks this is probably the best better way to do it.”

The speech was very much in flux over the weekend, because key decisions are being hashed out. Even the length is not yet set.

“He has not made any final decisions about the ultimate form of his package,” said a top official guiding speech preparation. “Anyone that tells you that he has is misinformed or extrapolating from conversations. He’s going to talk to a lot of people between now and next Wednesday. The president is in the process of deciding what his ultimate proposal will look like."

Also undecided: whether to follow up with nitty-gritty legislative language. “He has not made decisions about how he’s going to move this thing forward,” said a top West Wing aide.

Obama’s speechwriters were on the West Coast over the weekend for the wedding of Ben Rhodes, the deputy director of speechwriting. So the West Wing is coordinating the speech over a three-hour time difference.

On Tuesday or Wednesday, the leaders of the four liberal House caucuses will meet Obama at the White House. The meeting pledge came a day after progressives urged him in a letter to stand firmly behind the public insurance option.

Obama spoke by phone Friday with the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

“Caucus leaders expressed absolute commitment to the idea of a robust public option, and said they expect it to be part of any health care reform legislation,” the groups said in a statement. “The president listened, asked many questions, and suggested that the dialogue should continue.”

© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC

RNC’s “Bill of Rights” is full of Holes-FactCheck.Org

RNC’s “Bill of Rights”
Republicans' rundown is a mix of false, true and misleading claims.
August 26, 2009

Summary
The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little.
• The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats "threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans." That’s certainly possible. Ratcheting down payments to the private insurance plans in Medicare Advantage would likely cause them to reduce benefits or even withdraw from the market. That might force an unknown number of beneficiaries to find new plans or go back to the traditional system, which still covers 78 percent of the Medicare population.
• Another new wrinkle in the RNC’s "Bill of Rights" is a claim that Democrats have proposed raising TRICARE insurance costs for retired military and their families. This one is false. It was actually the Bush administration that most recently proposed changes in TRICARE, which the hospital industry said would cost hospitals $458 million in its first year.
The RNC "Bill of Rights" document also recycles claims that Democrats are proposing $500 million in Medicare cuts without mentioning that much of that is offset by proposed Medicare increases. It falsely says that a comparative effectiveness research panel set up earlier this year could limit care based on a patient’s age, when in fact the law expressly prohibits the council from issuing such mandates. And the RNC implies, wrongly, that seniors who meet with their doctors to discuss end-of-life care could have their treatment cut off involuntarily. In fact, these discussions would be voluntary and any directives limiting treatment would have to come from the patient.
Analysis
At this particular point in the health care debate, we’re finding that there’s not much new under the sun when it comes to false claims being made about the overhaul proposals. But just in case pretty new packaging threatens to rope unwary citizens into believing some of these misrepresentations, we stand at the ready, and it is in that spirit that we tackle the Republican National Committee’s new "Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors." RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others in his party have been touting the document all week; Steele penned an op-ed that ran in The Washington Post, and did interviews on National Public Radio, ABC’s Good Morning America, and Fox News Channel, among other outlets. Here’s what he said in the Post:
Steele, Washington Post, Aug. 24: The Democrats’ plan will hurt American families, small businesses and health-care providers by raising care costs, increasing the deficit, and not allowing patients to keep a doctor or insurance plan of their choice. Furthermore, under the Democrats’ plan, senior citizens will pay a steeper price and will have their treatment options reduced or rationed.
Republicans want reform that should, first, do no harm, especially to our seniors. That is why Republicans support a Seniors’ Health Care Bill of Rights, which we are introducing today, to ensure that our greatest generation will receive access to quality health care.
We’ll take the particulars of the "Health Care Bill of Rights" in the order they are presented.
Raiding Medicare?
RNC: PROTECT MEDICARE AND NOT CUT IT IN THE NAME OF HEALTH CARE REFORM: President Obama and Congressional Democrats are promoting a government-run health care experiment that will cut over $500 billion from Medicare to be used to pay for their plan. Medicare should not be raided to pay for another entitlement.
FactCheck.org: As we noted in our article More ‘Senior Scare,’ the bill that’s currently pending in the House would indeed "cut" $500 billion or so from Medicare, but it would also increase expenditures in some areas. The net amount that would be taken from the program would be about $219 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s a 10-year figure, by the way. And any implication that seniors’ Medicare benefits would be cut is false. Rather, the bill calls for holding down payments to hospitals and other providers, other than physicians.
As we’ve noted before, Republicans are accusing Democrats of pretty much the same thing that Obama wrongly accused John McCain of doing last year, when the GOP nominee proposed to pay for part of his own health care measure with "savings" in Medicare. We called it a false scare tactic when Obama’s TV ads said benefit levels would be reduced. The RNC document doesn’t go quite that far, but fails to make clear that what Democrats are proposing isn’t a cut in benefits.
Government Boards and Rationing by Age?
RNC: PROHIBIT GOVERNMENT FROM GETTING BETWEEN SENIORS AND THEIR DOCTORS: The Democrats’ government-run health care experiment will give patients less power to control their own medical decisions, and create government boards that would decide what treatments would or wouldn’t be funded. Republicans believe in patient-centered reforms that put the priorities of seniors before government.
PROHIBIT EFFORTS TO RATION HEALTH CARE BASED ON AGE: The Democrats’ government-run health care experiment would set up a "comparative effectiveness research commission" where health care treatment decisions could be limited based on a patient’s age. Republicans believe that health care decisions are best left up to seniors and their doctors.
FactCheck.org: Both of these claims have their root in fundamental miscastings of the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, a body created by the economic stimulus bill signed into law in February. The council isn’t an "effort to ration health care based on age," nor would it get "between seniors and their doctors." As we’ve explained repeatedly, the council was created to monitor government research on the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of various treatments, and to help get the findings out to practitioners. But the stimulus legislation even specifies that no dictates would come from this body regarding coverage of or reimbursement for any treatments: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the Council to mandate coverage, reimbursement, or other policies for any public or private payer. … None of the reports submitted under this section or recommendations made by the Council shall be construed as mandates or clinical guidelines for payment, coverage, or treatment." And just in case that wasn’t clear enough, the House Energy and Commerce Committee adopted an amendment to the House health care bill expressly prohibiting the comparative effectiveness research from being used to "deny or ration" care.
According to the RNC, the first claim also refers to something called the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, which the administration wants to create and imbue with the power to make an annual package of changes in what Medicare pays doctors. The President could only block them by rejectiing the entire package, and Congress could only do so by means of a congressional resolution. The idea is to take politics out of these decisions, which could indeed ease the way for unpopular cost-cutting measures and possibly for reductions in some future benefit levels. But IMAC is not a part of the pending bills.
Operative Word: Optional
RNC: PREVENT GOVERNMENT FROM INTERFERING WITH END-OF-LIFE CARE DISCUSSIONS: The Democrats’ government-run health care experiment would have seniors meet with a doctor to discuss end-of-life care that could mean limiting treatment. Republicans believe that government should not interfere with end-of-life care discussions between a patient and a doctor.
FactCheck.org: This is a somewhat milder version of the claim that was going around in a chain email that the Democrats wanted to require seniors to undergo counseling every five years on how to end their lives sooner. Former New York Lieutenant Gov. Betsy McCaughey furthered the myth, and in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s interpretation it took the form of so-called "death panels" that would decide whether elderly Americans are "worthy of care." We dealt with that in our piece False Euthanasia Claims as well as in Palin vs. Obama: Death Panels. It’s simply not true. What the bill would do is allow seniors to have counseling sessions on end-of-life care issues with their doctors, which Medicare would pay for once every five years. The sessions would be voluntary, and the discussions would only involve "limiting treatment" if that’s the sort of directive that a senior wanted to give, say, in a living will.
Medicare’s Private Plans
RNC: ENSURE SENIORS CAN KEEP THEIR CURRENT COVERAGE: As Democrats continue to propose steep cuts to Medicare in order to pay for their government-run health care experiment, these cuts threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage plans. Republicans believe that seniors should not be targeted by a government-run health care bill and forced out of their current Medicare coverage.
FactCheck.org: The vast majority of Medicare recipients would see little change in their interactions with the health care system under the bills currently pending. But it’s probable that some unknown number of the 22 percent of seniors, or more than 10 million individuals, who participate in Medicare Advantage programs would indeed need to pay more out of pocket, change plans, or face reduced benefits – though never less than participants in traditional Medicare receive.
A little background: Medicare recipients since the 1970’s have been able to choose to receive their benefits through private health plans, rather than through the traditional, government-run, fee-for-service form of Medicare. Medicare Advantage is the most recent incarnation of this alternative. Republicans have generally favored these private options more than Democrats, and in 2003 the GOP Congress and president increased the amount Medicare paid to the plans to handle Medicare beneficiaries.
At this point, government payments to Medicare Advantage plans are 114 percent higher per enrollee, on average, than the cost of traditional fee-for-service in a given geographical area, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. What do the plans do with the additional money? Often they use at least some of it to reduce premiums or cost-sharing for recipients. In some cases, though not all, seniors have been able to save money by signing up for a Medicare Advantage program.
But according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Committee, which is an an independent congressional agency, the additional spending for Medicare Advantage programs – which adds up to billions each year – is hastening the depletion of the Medicare trust fund. It has also meant higher premiums for all Medicare beneficiaries, according to the Government Accountability Office, another nonpartisan arm of Congress. As GAO put it, "beneficiaries covered under Medicare FFS
are subsidizing the additional benefits and lower costs that MA beneficiaries receive."
Long recognized as a possible source of savings – and mentioned as such by Obama during the presidential campaign – payments to Medicare Advantage programs under the House bill would be reduced over several years until they are equal to the costs of traditional Medicare. (Medicare payments are calculated by county). The measure would reduce the growth of future Medicare spending by $156 billion over 10 years. The result, based on prior experience with tinkering with the payment formulas, could be that some plans decide to withdraw from the Advantage program, said Brian Biles of George Washington University’s Department of Health Policy in a telephone interview, leaving them to choose from surviving Medicare Advantage plans or return to the traditional Medicare fee for service program that currently covers the other 78 percent of beneficiaries.
Riling the Vets, Too
RNC: PROTECT VETERANS BY PRESERVING TRICARE AND OTHER BENEFIT PROGRAMS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES: Democrats recently proposed raising veterans’ costs for the Tricare For Life program that many veterans rely on for treatment. Republicans oppose increasing the burden on our veterans and believe America should honor our promises to them.
FactCheck.org: The RNC tells us this refers to a budget proposal floated last spring by the Obama administration that would have allowed the Department of Veterans Affairs to bill vets’ private insurance companies for the cost of treating combat-related injuries. But as we noted earlier this year, the idea was quickly dropped and never made it into the president’s budget, due in part to protests from veterans. But more to the point, it had nothing to do with TRICARE, which is the Department of Defense health program covering active duty and retired military members and their families, or TRICARE for Life, which is for military retirees or family members who are 65 or over or otherwise eligible for Medicare.
In attempting to back up this claim, the RNC also cites a series of budget-cutting options issued by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last January. The ideas included raising out-of-pocket costs and other fees for veterans in TRICARE. But that was just one of 115 ideas for cutting costs or otherwise changing federal health care programs, and CBO made clear that "the report makes no recommendations." The TRICARE isea does not appear in the pending health care overhaul bills.
And in fact, one of the news articles the RNC cites in support of this claim mentions that it was the Bush administration that most recently proposed TRICARE cuts, which were protested by many hospitals. The news item speculated that "Obama also might follow the lead of his predecessor" and seek higher TRICARE fees, but so far Obama has not done so.
–by Viveca Novak
Sources
U.S. House. "H.R. 3200."
Obama, Barack and Joe Biden. “Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s Plan to Lower Health Care Costs and Ensure Affordable, Accessible Health Care Coverage for All.” barackobama.com. Accessed 28 Aug 2009.
Philpott, Tom. “Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan.” Military.com. 19 March 2009, accessed 28 Aug 2009.
Rucker, Philip. “Obama’s Turnabout on Vets Highlights Budgeting Nuances.” The Washington Post. 21 March 2009.
Morgan, Paulette. “Medicare Advantage.” Congressional Research Service. 3 March 2009.
Steele, Michael. “Protecting Our Seniors.” The Washington Post. 24 Aug 2009.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. “Medicare Advantage.” April 2009.
Biles, Brian, Jonah Pozen and Stuart Guterman. “The Continuing Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage Plans Jump to $11.4 Billion in 2009.” The Commonwealth Fund Issue Brief. May 2009.
U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Medicare Advantage: Higher spending relative to Medicare fee-for-service may not ensure lower out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries.” Statement of James Cosgrove. 28 Feb 2008.
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. “Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy.” March 2009.
Posted by Viveca Novak on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Filed under Articles • Tagged with health care, medicare, Republican National Committee, RNC

Proton, Electric Sedan May Be Here Next Year

From the AP:  Electric Cars

KUALA LUMPUR, March 30, 2009:

 Detroit Electric Holdings Ltd and PROTON Holdings Berhad today announced a strategic partnership to mass produce Pure Electric Vehicles.  Detroit Electric will integrate its patented electric drive systems into the vehicles.

 

Under the agreement, Detroit Electric will license two Proton vehicle platforms and contract the company to assemble the electric vehicles that will be marketed under Detroit Electric’s brand.

 

This agreement will provide Detroit Electric with its first manufacturing base.  The announcement came at a signing ceremony officiated by Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

 

“Today’s agreement with Proton will put Detroit Electric on the fast track to bring a full line of innovative, practical and affordable pure electric vehicles to the global market,” said Albert Lam, Detroit Electric’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.  “We chose Proton due to its state-of-the-art production facility, commitment to research and development, cost efficiency, and stable, high-quality workforce.”

 

By 2012, Detroit Electric plans to sell more than 270,000 Pure Electric Vehicles in Europe, UK, China and the United States.  The vehicles will be priced between USD 23,000 and USD 26,000 for the city range model and between USD 28,000 and USD 33,000 for the extended range model.  Styling changes will distinguish Detroit Electric’s vehicles from Proton’s existing line-up.

 

The vehicles will be based on Detroit Electric’s unique, patented electric drive system that greatly reduces the electric motor’s size and weight.  The underlying Magnetic Flux Motor Technology and well-proven Lithium Polymer Battery Technology allow pure electric vehicles to achieve a single-charge range of 180km (111 miles) for the city range model and 325km (200 miles) for the extended range model.  

 

Detroit Electric is in the final stage of setting up two subsidiaries: Detroit Electric Energy, which will produce the battery technology, and Detroit Electric Advanced Propulsion Lab, which will manufacture the motor and controller.

 

The Detroit Electric Advanced Propulsion Lab and Manufacturing Plant is targeted to be in Malaysia close to the vehicle assembly facilities of Proton.  By 2012, the two production plants will produce more than 400,000 electric drive systems, creating thousands of jobs and supporting Detroit Electric’s  internal demands as well as third-party OEM’s needs.

 

Proton, which currently produces a total of 270,000 vehicles of various models in Malaysia, edged out a host of international brands when its popular Persona was named Malaysia’s Best Model of the Year in the 2008 Frost & Sullivan ASEAN Automotive Awards.  The company is also Malaysia’s largest investor in research and development, spending USD 1.2 billion (RM4.6 billion) between 1993 and 2003.

 

“We are proud to be able to integrate our electric drive systems upon one of the best cars out of Asia.  Our customers around the world will enjoy the level of quality and comfort offered by Proton, an award-winning manufacturer,” said Lam. 

 

Detroit Electric will be responsible for the homologation of the vehicles and for vehicle certification in the U.S. and European markets, where models are targeted to be sold in the first quarter of 2010 EU, UK, China and closely followed the US.  Detroit Electric will assume all warranty and liabilities for the Electric Vehicles, while Proton will warranty the vehicle’s build and standard components.

 

“Our vehicles will be reliable, meet all quality and safety requirements, and quite simply outperform internal combustion engine vehicles of the same class.  They will be affordable as we look at the competitive market and come without the polluting carbon emissions,” said Lam.

 

Today’s agreement also initiates the test and validation program in which Proton will evaluate Detroit Electric’s electric drive system with the intent to license the rights to distribute, market and sell vehicles under the Proton brand in Asia.

 

Detroit Electric is looking to repeat similar contract production partnerships with manufacturers in Europe and the United States.  This will allow the company to extend its range of models very quickly to meet demand in the different automotive segments in these markets.

 

“When you are trying to redefine the automotive industry, you need to bring many partners along,” said Lam.  “Our contract manufacturing business model will breathe new life into current manufacturers, leveraging existing unutilized global resources and accelerating the technological advancement of pure electric vehicles.”

 

On the current global downturn in automotive markets, Lam expressed confidence that Pure Electric Vehicles will attract a diverse base of consumers despite the tightening credit market, lowered consumer confidence, unstable oil prices and stricter fuel economy regulations.

 

“Our target audience are those who purchase practical and affordable vehicles. This makes our products fit the pockets of a very wide audience – from professionals and executives, to mothers, students and small business owners.”

 

-End-

 

About Detroit Electric: 

Detroit Electric Holdings Ltd is one of the leaders of the electric car revolution. We manufacture efficient and environmentally friendly, high performance, long range Pure Electric Vehicles and drive-systems to the global marketplace. Detroit Electric's product plans range from high performance sports cars to stylish sedans capable of driving over 320 km / 200 miles in a single charge.

 

Detroit Electric Holdings Ltd invented and patented the Magnetic Flux Motor Technology for the motor drive train. The company also owns the intellectual property for the Motor Controller Program.  Since its launch, Detroit Electric has been dedicated to developing new technologies and establishing strategic partnerships that leverage existing manufacturing capacities in the marketplace.

 

About Proton:

PROTON, established in 1983, is Malaysia's largest manufacturer of automobiles. With operations in key market centers from UK and Western Europe to the Middle East, and across South-East Asia and Australasia, PROTON produces cars to suit a range of consumer demands and preferences. The offerings include versatile and reliable four-door family vehicles, two-door hatchbacks for the young-at-heart, luxurious and stylish executive sedans, as well as the world-renowned sports cars from Lotus.

 

PROTON’s inception as a key driver of national development has seen the brand accelerate its learning curve through technology transfer with strategic partnerships and technical collaborations. PROTON cars are now steadily on track to achieving the mission for the future, gearing up to achieve the promise of a marque which build cars with passion and soul; cars which are a delight to drive and a pleasure to own.

http://detroit-electric.co.uk/display_article.php?id=33

Congress takes up foreclosure relief plans

MSNBC.com

Congress takes up foreclosure relief plans

After a year of debate, effective government solutions remain elusive

By John W. Schoen

Senior producer

updated 10:40 a.m. CT, Wed., Jan. 14, 2009

With the battered housing industry at the heart of the economy’s slide, Congress and the Obama administration have identified foreclosure relief as a top priority. But the problem has been stubbornly resistant to quick fixes.

After a year of failed efforts, Congress and the new administration are considering more aggressive measures, including a possible change to bankruptcy law. Homeowner relief could come as part of a new economic stimulus plan, a revised financial system bailout program or as a standalone measure.

So far, progress remains painfully slow. More than 3 million homes have been lost to foreclosure since the housing bubble burst. Roughly one in 10 homeowners with mortgages are either in foreclosure or more than 30 days late in payments — the highest delinquency rate on record.

Without more aggressive measures, another 8 million to 10 million foreclosures are forecast over the next four years, according to Credit Suisse. That amounts to roughly one in six households with a mortgage.

“It is simply mind-boggling to me that (Congress and the White House) have moved so slowly to address this issue,” said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which has been lobbying for foreclosure relief.

Congress and the incoming administration are taking a multipronged approach to foreclosure relief.

"Accelerating foreclosures is obviously, in my view, the huge driving problem right now,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor appointed by Congress to chair a panel overseeing the financial bailout. "Until we think in a more comprehensive way, we can't create solutions that will really make a difference," she told Congress last month.

Many of solutions tried so far have been stymied by the legal morass created by the modern mortgage.

In past recessions, it was not uncommon for lenders to work out more affordable terms with borrowers who had fallen on hard times. Bankers often prefer to cut their losses by lowering monthly payments and stretching them out over a longer term rather than bearing the cost of foreclosure. But the complex system of financing the recent housing boom — which was based heavily on the pooling of mortgages that were then sold to thousands of investors — has hopelessly complicated a once fairly simple renegotiation between lender and homeowner.

Multiple classes of investors, each with different claims on the same mortgage, often have conflicting interests. Some will do better with a loan foreclosure while others would profit by keeping the loan performing. Some contracts setting up these pool pay loan “servicers” — the companies that manage mortgage payments to investors — more generous payments for loans in foreclosure and offer little financial incentive to undertake the more costly process of modifying terms.

“You have got to have the investor or their representatives come to the table motivated to do something,” said Taylor. “And that’s currently what we don’t have.”

To break the logjam, Congress is considering various proposals, including both "carrots" and "sticks."

One of the "carrots" is included in a proposed revision to the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

Now, as Congress prepares to authorize the second $350 billion in spending for the program, Democratic leaders are pressing for changes that would expand beyond the banking industry, which has been the primary beneficiary of the program. A House Committee heard testimony Tuesday on revisions that would commit between $40 billion and $100 billion of TARP funds to various foreclosure relief measures.

One proposal would expand an FDIC program aimed at standardizing the loan modification process and paying mortgage servicers a fee for every loan they modify. To cap monthly payments at no more than 31 percent of a borrower’s income, loan servicers could extend the loan to 40 years or defer some interest until the borrower sells or refinances their home. The measure would also provide mortgage servicers some protection against investor lawsuits claiming a loan modification lowered their returns.

The TARP revision also could include changes to the Hope for Homeowners program, which provided $300 billion in guarantees to help lenders refinance troubled borrowers into FHA mortgages. Lenders balked because the program was too costly; changes in the law are expected to make the plan more attractive.

Congress also is considering various proposals as part of a planned $800 billion economic stimulus program, including tax cuts promoted by the home building industry for home buyers. That could include tax credits for all homebuyers, not just first-timers, of $7,500 or more. Mortgage interest would be deductible even for taxpayers who don't itemize; tax incentives may also be given to owners who rent out vacant properties.

The most controversial foreclosure relief proposal — and the biggest "stick" being considered — involves changing the bankruptcy law to allow courts to modify terms of first mortgages on primary residences. (Those are the only form of debt currently excluded from the bankruptcy process.)

First proposed over a year ago, the latest proposal would require borrowers to contact their mortgage lender 10 days before filing for bankruptcy to give the two sides time to work out a modification. If the lender doesn’t make an offer, a judge could then adjust the loan balance to fair market value, cut the interest rate and extend the loan as part of a court-ordered five-year payment plan. There’s no guarantee, however, that a foreclosure could be prevented if the mortgage balance greatly exceeds the homeowner's ability to pay it down.

This so-called "cram-down” provision is strenuously opposed by the lending industry, which argues that the new risk that a loan will later be modified by a judge will increase the cost of borrowing.  Some financial analysts caution the move could also make mortgages harder to finance.

“Investors outside the U.S. will now view the U.S. mortgage market as riskier and therefore they may be willing to commit less capital to it,” said Jaret Seiberg, an analyst with the Stanford Group.

But that view is disputed by some economists. Adam Levitin, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, say his research comparing mortgages on single-family homes, which are excluded from bankruptcy court revisions, and multifamily homes, which aren’t, showed the difference in interest costs amounted to a fraction of a percentage point.

“There was a statistically significant impact, but it was small,” he said. “I would expect to see that impact borne by the highest-risk borrowers, and that’s very good policy. It would inject a little prudence into the mortgage lending process.”

Though it was defeated twice in the last Congress, the measure got a major boost last week when Citigroup agreed to support the proposal, with some modifications. (One key change would restrict the provision to existing mortgages, preserving the bankruptcy exemption for new first mortgages.) The National Association of Home Builders, also a staunch opponent last year, has signaled it would consider supporting some form of the provision.

Congress also is looking at additional measures aimed at reducing mortgage rates to spur home buying, including providing an explicit government guarantee and raising limits on conforming loans issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. But those measures offer little relief to the roughly one in six homeowners whose home’s value has fallen below their mortgage balance.

Is The Case Against Blogojevich A Strong Case?

IS THE CASE AGAINST ROD BLAGOJEVICH A STRONG CASE?

 

 

            On December 9^th, 2008, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald filed a criminal complaint and held a press conference and announced the arrest of the Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, in pertinent part, because Blagojevich was alleged to have offered to sell Barack Obama’s vacated senate seat in return for personal favors and/or for cash.  This was despite the fact the 78 page complaint makes no suggestion that the governor had received nothing of value and has not made the appointment of the Senate seat.  (http://www.chicagotribune.com/media/acrobat/2008-12/43789434.pdf)

 

            The reaction to this press conference has been swift and persuasive.  Morning, noon and night round the clock television and newspaper coverage are in effect.  To say that the You Tube Video of the Fitzgerald news conference has gone viral is an understatement.  Steven Thomma in the McClatchy papers that a new Ipsos/McClatchy online poll has found:

 

• 95% of adults in Illinois that that Blagojevich should step down;
• 92% of adults in that state think he should be impeached and removed from office;
• The Illinois House of Representatives voted unanimously this week to create a committee to impeach him;
• 44% feel the state should have a special election
• 35% said the power to appoint a successor should be transferred to Lt. Governor Pat Quinn
• He is the 4^th Governor from Illinois to be charged with a felony since 1960

 

But trial attorneys are now beginning to suggest that the portion of the case involving the sale of the open Senate seat may not be the slam dunk that the media thinks it is.  As the conversation goes, that portion of the Blagojevich case maybe sexy, but also may be very defensible.  In other words, there is a possibility that at least on those allegations, he could be acquitted.  He hired a tough cookie, Edward Gensen, who represented R. Kelley, and former governor of Illinois George Ryan.  He said, “He’s not guilty, so we’re going to court.  We’re not agreeing to impeachment.  If you read the transcripts closely, you’ll find nobody did anything.  People are just talking, and that’s not against the law…Bad language doesn’t make you a criminal.” He has called the case a ‘fairy tale’ and the process (impeachment proceedings) ‘a witch hunt.’ (See Countdown Video, Blagojevich lawyer calls case a witch hunt, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QScevDxyXuY). 

 

Bulldog Gensen is not the only lawyer who has expressed reservations in the Government’s case.  The difference between criminal activity and the normal course of political deal making is apparently a very thin line.  Does just talking about selling a political office for personal favors, like a bribe, constitute in and of itself a crime?  Does the argument that contributions to one’s campaign fund (a derivative public benefit?) in return for support in an election (another so called public benefit) sound very much like the play for pay scandal (private benefit derived from a public office) that Blago is charged with? The former is a commonly accepted practice, but the latter could be construed as attempted bribery, a crime that does not have great sex appeal in the minds of Chicago juries.  (See Scott Turow Video, Rachel Maddow Video Making the Case, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnwYRnEEKHc).  Turow, an experienced prosecutor and writer said, “Juries regard it (attempted bribery) as a crime that takes place in the head, bad thoughts, not actual conduct.”  In other word, the thinking of a crime only falls within a grey area in politics and although prosecutable, these thoughts do not necessarily lead to a conviction.

 

Other attorneys have expressed reservations as well.  Robert S. Bennett, one of Washington’s best-known white-collar criminal defense lawyers said, ““This town is full of people who call themselves ambassadors, and all they did was pay $200,000 or $300,000 to the Republican or Democratic Party… “You have to wonder, How much of this guy’s problem was his language, rather than what he really did?”  The NY Time last week said, “In the case of Mr. Blagojevich, it would be legal for the governor to accept a campaign contribution from someone he appointed to the Senate seat. What would create legal problems for him is if he was tape-recorded specifically offering a seat in exchange for the contribution. What would make the case even easier to prosecute is if he was recorded offering the seat in exchange for a personal favor, like cash, a job or a job for a family member.”  In this case, the disclosed wiretaps so far seem to show a Blagojevich that was willing to discuss trading a Senate seat for personal favors to his aids, but not with anyone else.  So the question remains, is talk enough to convict him on the pay to play for the Senate seat count?

 

“It’s a very difficult case for a number of reasons; not the least is the nebulous nature of the charges and the inherently difficult issues when you’re talking about a person executing his First Amendment right to promote a particular politician,” said Michael D. Monico, a former federal prosecutor who is now a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago.

 

“Merely thinking about something is not a crime,” said Mr. Monico, a lawyer for Christopher Kelly, a former Blagojevich fund-raiser who was indicted last year on tax charges “Just talking about something is not a crime. You need another action for someone to commit a crime.”

 

In an article written by Mike Robinson for the AP, Chicago Defense attorney John Beal said, “"The weakness in the government's case seems to be that Blagojevich schemed to do things but didn't actually do them."

 

Robinson’s piece goes on to say, “Chicago defense attorney Ron Safer, a former federal prosecutor, said that the kind of overt act needed to win a conspiracy case should be something specific.

 

"Politicians often rub each other's back -- I'll vote for your bill if you vote for mine is as old as our union -- so that's unremarkable," he said. He said that if the case goes to trial prosecutors will focus hard on any specific attempts by the governor to trade the Senate seat or other favors for cash or jobs.

 

New York attorney Martin R. Pollner noted that prosecutors must show "overt acts" to prove a conspiracy and such acts had to be more than talks with advisers.

 

To me this is an important point on this count of what appears to be a public official conspiring to bribe another public official in return for personal favors. 

 

      The essential elements for a federal conspiracy are spelled out in §371 of the federal criminal code, and may be illustrative here.  They are: (1) an agreement (2) between two or more persons (3) to act together in committing an offense, and (4) an overt act in furtherance of that agreement.

 

The term "overt act" means some type of outward, objective action performed by one of the parties to or one of the members of the agreement or conspiracy which evidences that agreement.  The notes included with the form federal jury instruction state, an overt act is “any step that indicates that the execution of the conspiracy has begun. This can be an innocuous act and need not be illegal unto itself. For example, if two persons agree to rob a bank, then purchase a ski mask, the act of buying the mask may constitute the overt act required to charge the two with conspiracy.

 

The overt act must follow the agreement and must be executed with an intent to carry out the purpose of the conspiracy. For example, if one of the potential bank robbers buys a ski mask after the agreement is made, the purchase may not constitute the overt act if the ski mask will not be worn to carry out the ROBBERY. An overt act need not be committed by each and every conspirator; an overt act by one conspirator solidifies the offense for all coconspirators. Thus, a conspirator who does not participate in the overt act can be charged with conspiracy.”

 

In other words, the defense attorneys are right, just talking about doing something without taking any further steps to do an illegal thing may not constitute a crime.  Does Fitzgerald have a smoking gun on those tapes, or have we already heard and read his best shot?  His investigation is ongoing, so we shall see what develops.  It is of some importance that Blagojevich has been under federal investigation for years.  The NY Times reports that he has had ongoing battles with Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago; he irked Michael Madigan, the powerful Democratic state speaker, over the budget; and he infuriated just about every legislator by staying put in Chicago (rather than moving his family to the Governor’s Mansion in Springfield). His penchant for promoting his headline-grabbing proposals — like those for universal preschool and cheaper drugs from Canada — on television, rather than in the quieter halls of Springfield, also won him no friends.

 

“Rod reveled in fighting with members of the General Assembly,” said Representative Tom Cross, the state Republican leader. “He came out of the box fighting: He was the populist, and we were the big, bad General Assembly. He didn’t seem interested in policy, the budget was in disarray, and he was never there.”

 

His approval ratings that had sunk to 13 percent as details of the federal investigation into his administration had seeped out over the past three years.  At Christmastime in 2004, a nasty spat cropped up between Mr. Blagojevich and his political benefactor and father-in-law, Richard Mell, a ward chief on the northwest side of Chicago, whose political connections helped to put Blago in office, the fallout stretching well beyond the family, offering some of the clearest public hints of Mr. Blagojevich’s coming troubles. In response, Blagojevich shut down a landfill operated by a relative of Mr. Mell, saying it was taking types of waste it was not licensed to accept. Mr. Mell accused Mr. Blagojevich of shutting the facility as a personal vendetta against him, and then accused his top fund-raiser of trading appointments to state commissions and boards for campaign donations, just the image Mr. Blagojevich had been trying to avoid.  This lead to extensive investigations of Blago’s political activities and legal fees to the firm of Winston and Strawn in amounts alleged to have been paid in excess of $1 million dollars with an additional $750,000.00 still due and owing.  Other politicians avoided public appearances with him and Blago seemed to spend all of his time answering questions about political corruption allegations even before this criminal complaint was filed.

 

Lisa Madigan, the daughter of his enemy Mike Madigan, and Attorney General of the State of Illinois, filed a case with the Supreme Court of Illinois requesting that Blago be dismissed on the basis of incapacity.  She also happens to be considered by many to be his chief rival for the Governor’s seat.  That case was dismissed this week by the Illinois Supreme Court.

 

Governor Blagojevich campaigned on the basis of political ethics and reform.  He is sinking on a leaky boat of corruption and allegations of pay to play politics.  The real question is this:  Is he just a talker and a politically disliked man, who in this instance has taken no steps toward the completion of an illegal plan or is has he been caught on tape, red handed?

 

New Political Blog From The Entertainment Critic: New Shoes For Geroge W. Bush

New Shoes for George Bush

A Political Blog

By James Myers

The Entertainment Critic

 

 

 

            With only 37 days left in his Presidency, must of us just wish George W., would just go away.  Apparently, this includes not only Americans who have tolerated his incompetence for the last 8 years, but also some Iraqis as well.  President Bush is currently on a secret world wind tour that includes Iraq. An unusual incident happened today at the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan today. As Americans we have treated his attempts at revisionist history as laughable.  His approval rating hitting an all time low of 30%, ‘W” has dedicated the final portion of his administration as an attempt to avoid being labeled as the worst President in American history.  While Bush was hailing his presidency and the progress in Iraq, one of the journalists at the new conference let him know that his occupation in Iraq was less than welcome.

 

            A protester identified as Muntader al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, owned by Iraq and based in Cairo, shouted at Bush in Arabic, “"This is your farewell kiss, you dog! This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."  At the same time, he was throwing his size 10 shoes at Bush, whistling one past his left ear and the second just over his head.  Iraq has not welcomed the continuing occupation of 150,000 U.S. troops, where over 4200 Americans have died, coupled with an economic loss of $576 billion dollars in the 5 years and 9 months of the war.  These figures do not include the numbers of the wounded, injured and mentally compromised Americans.  The true figure of the intangibly injured may not be known for years to come.

 

            What this incident does call attention to is the loss suffered by the Iraqi people as well.  Approximately 99,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the war according to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/.  Most recently on Saturday, December 13, 2008, 13 more Iraqi civilians died.  Small wonder that the reporter was insulted by Mr. Bush’s attempts to sanitize his utter failure and criminal negligence while making statements like, "The war is not over, but it is decisively on it's way to being won."  NBC news reports that al-Zeidi has lost family in the war and has himself been kidnapped.

            Polls have shown that most Americans believe the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq in 2003.  Most Americans believe that Bush misled the American people to believe Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, when in fact his administration knew no such weapons exists prior to the invasion, the weapons were never found after the invasion, and Bush’s credibility was forever lost as far as America was concerned.  Apparently, he hasn’t faired any better with Iraqis.  Making a statement, “There is still more work to be done,” triggered the incident as the shoes came flying, one after the other at Bush from a distance of 20 feet.   (See Video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRyQpMpcujk).  He said in a recent interview with ABC News that the biggest regret of his presidency was the false intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

            Jennifer Loven of the AP explained it this way, “In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.” Recently, A detailed official history of the U.S. effort to reconstruct Iraq after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003 blamed its failings on "blinkered and disjointed" prewar planning, a deadly insurgency and wasteful and ill-managed contracting.  (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28224454/, “Iraq rebuilding woes due to poor planning”)

           

“The study, "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience,” was produced by a special U.S. auditing group that has dug deeply into the multibillion-dollar reconstruction effort since 2004. It is a detailed summation of the findings from many previous audits and reviews by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, led by Stuart Bowen.

Among its central conclusions is that Washington was unprepared and ill-equipped to reconstruct Iraq in the aftermath of an invasion that led to an insurgency, a collapse of government and an economy that "switched off." The document also suggests that this arose from an ill-fitting U.S. national security structure, which it said could produce an equally ineffective reconstruction effort in future conflicts.”

Bush responded with his typical aplomb.  “So what if a guy throw his shoe at me?”  After an election where the Republicans suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Barack Obama, the candidate who promised to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq in a little over a year, this type of arrogance and ignorance is what we have come to expect from ‘W.’  No wonder your disapproval rating is over 65% Mr. President.  January 20^th can not come soon enough.

 

NYTIMES: IT'S BIDEN

August 24, 2008
Obama Chooses Biden as Running Mate
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running-mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, people told of the decision said.

Mr. Obama’s selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr. Obama: To go with a running-mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his resume, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Mr. Obama’s message of change.

Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Mr. Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.

The selection was disclosed as Mr. Obama moves into a critical part of his campaign, preparing for the party’s four-day convention in Denver starting on Monday. Mr. Obama’s aides viewed the introduction of his vice presidential choice– including an afternoon rally Saturday at the old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the same place where Mr. Obama announced his candidacy on a freezing winter morning almost two years ago, and a tour of swing states – as the beginning of a week-long stretch in which Mr. Obama hopes to dominate the stage and position himself for the fall campaign.

Word of Mr. Obama’s decision leaked out hours before his campaign was scheduled to inform supporters via text and e-mail messages, and hours after informing two other top contenders for the vice presidential nomination – Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia – that they had not been chosen.

As the selection process moved to an end, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who Mr. Obama had defeated in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention -- to the degree that Mr. Obama had ever seriously considered her.

Mr. Biden is Roman Catholic, giving him appeal to that important voting bloc, though he favors abortion rights. He was born in a working class family in Scranton, Pa., a swing state where he remains well-known. Mr. Biden is up for re-election to the Senate this year and he would presumably run simultaneously for both seats.

Mr. Biden is known for being both talkative and prone to making the kind of statements that get him in trouble. In 2007, when he was competing for Mr. Obama for the presidential nomination, he declared that Mr. Obama was “not yet ready” for the presidency, a line certain to show up in Republican attack ads.

Although Mr. Biden is not exactly a household name, he is probably the best known of all the Democrats who were in contention for the spot, given his political and personal history (not to mention his regular appearances on the Sunday morning television news shows.) He first ran for the Senate from Delaware when he was just 29 years old.

Mr. Biden has run twice for the presidency himself, once in 1988 and again in 2008, dropping out early in both cases. He was also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during two of the most contentious Supreme Court nomination battles of the past 50 years: the confirmation proceedings for Robert H. Bork, who was defeated, and Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed after an explosive hearing in which Anita Hill accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden led the opposition to both nominations, though he came under criticism from some feminists for not immediately disclosing what were at first Ms. Hill’s closed-door accusations against Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Obama’s choice of Mr. Biden suggested some of the weaknesses the Obama campaign is trying to address at a time when at a time when national polls suggest that his race with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is tightening. Chief among Mr. Biden’s strengths is his familiarity with foreign policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.

He is also something of a fixture in Washington, and would bring to the campaign – and the White House – a familiarity with the way the city and Congress works that Mr. Obama can not match after his relatively short stint in Washington.

At 65 years old, he adds a few years and gray hair to a ticket that otherwise might seem a bit young (Mr. Obama is 47). He is, as Mr. Obama’s advisers were quick to argue, someone who appears by every measure prepared to take over as president, setting a standard that appears intended to at least somewhat hamstring Mr. McCain should he be tempted to go for a more adventurous choice for No. 2. He has a long history of making statements that get him in trouble. He was forced to apologize to Mr. Obama almost the moment he entered the race for president after he was quoted as describing Mr. Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” a remark that drew criticism for being racially insensitive. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden said that ”you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Mr. Biden quit the presidential race this year after a barely making a mark; he came in fifth place in Iowa. He was forced to quit the 1988 presidential race in the face of accusations that he had plagiarized part of a speech from a Neil Kinnock, the British Labor Party leader. Shortly afterward, he was found to have suffered two aneurysms.

He is also, at least arguably, a Washington insider, having worked there for so long, though he still commutes home to Wilmington every night by train.

The choice by Mr. Obama in some ways mirrors the choice by Mr. Bush of Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000; at 65, it appears unlikely that Mr. Biden would be in a position to run for president, should Mr. Obama win and serve two terms. Shorn of any remaining ambition to run for president on his own, he could find himself in a less complex political relationship with Mr. Obama than most vice president have with their presidents.

Mr. Biden was born in Scranton, , grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Del., and went to Syracuse Law School. He also was, as a young man, in the center of a gripping family drama: barely a month after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and their three children were in a car accident with a drunken driver resulted in the death of his wife and daughter. His two sons survived and Mr. Biden remarried five years later.

Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.

Obama's vote on FISA and campaign contributions

I wrote this blog today in response to some comments that I read about people who are upset with the FISA vote and will not give money to the Obama campaign, but will vote for him in November:

Like all of you I wish the Democratic Congress would behave as if they were Democrats. I am not a fan of arming the populous nor am I a fan of permitting unreasonable government intrusion into my personal communications under the false guise of protecting me for my own good from terrorists. What I know is this, plain and simple: I am unhappy with the way things are now. I do not like an American that tortures it's political prisoners, wastes it's natural resources, pollutes our air and runs a government based on scaring us opposed to representing our genuine interests. I'm tired of hearing men that shape our politics and our economics call us 'whiners' and tell us that our problems with the economy are all in our heads. These men represented by Bush and McCain want to preserve their way of life; which seems to include the eradication of the middle class at our expense. This trickle down economics, "the rich get rich and the poor get children" doesn't work and for the last 8 years has failed. And failed miserably. We are involved in wars that most Americans don't want, we have a mortgage crisis that effects us all, we have an energy crisis that threatens the planet, we have an economic crisis that threatens our existence. They line their pockets at our expense and they just do not care about the average person. There is really only one question that you have to ask yourself: Are you better off now than you were 8 years ago? Are you happy with the way things are? Is the future that McCain-Bush offers one that you want for your children, your grandchildren, your loved ones? Do they speak to you in way that gives you any positive hope for our collective futures or do you get a business as usual feeling.

Barack Obama has presented us with a unique opportunity to change that vision of the future. He has presented us with a vision of hope. A couple of debatable missteps do not change that.
He deserves our support. Understand exactly where we are at in this moment in history: This is a fight, we are backed into a corner; we are fighting a bully; there is not way out; we must fight our way out of this corner. We cannot just rely on others this time and hope it comes out ok. We have to be involved. We have to contribute. It will take all of our effort to win this fight. It is not a fight we have chosen; it is a desperate fight. A fight we cannot afford to lose. Our champion has chosen to run our fight on public funding. Part of the reason he has been hit on all sides is they are afraid of him; afraid of you; and afraid of me. If we don't contribute to his campaign, give generously, give our time and effort, get involved in this fight, then we will deserve what we get. Envision a Democratic Congress with a Democratic President and all they could accomplish for the people of our country. Then envision 8 more years of same old fill your pockets/self-interest politics we have now. Image expanding our war into Iran. Image being homeless. Image gas at $20/gal. Image an ever increasing class of poor people. Image the continued disrespect from other foreign countries. Image any war that last 100 years. Is there any part of what is going on now that can foreseeable occur in the future that you want to be a part of? It's time for a change. Fight back now while we still have a 1st Amendment. Give your money, your time, your support to our candidate of hope. He's not God. He's not Jesus. He's imperfect. But he is offering us a sincere and reasonable opportunity to change. A true 'pursuit of happiness.' Let's not lose this opportunity. Please contribute to Sen Obama's campaign. Please give your time. Please talk and write about your feelings. Persuade others to examine their views. Engage in dialog. The Audacity of Hope is a powerful thing. If we don't contribute now, we leave him open to the 528s; the Republican attack machine; the Swift Boaters. Give generously now. Fight back. Knock that bully on his ass. Ask yourself: Are you better off today then you were 8 years ago? Obama '08

I'm Proud to be a liberal too

If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties ... if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.” – Senator John F.Kennedy 9/14/1960 New York Liberal Party Nomination Acceptance Speech

Huff Post: Surge is not Working

Surge Amnesia: The Media's Newest Afflictionstumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust Posted July 7, 2008 04:25 PM (EST)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John McCain, aided and abetted by his loving protectors in the media, is running a victory lap on Iraq. To hear them tell it, the surge has "worked" -- indeed, it has been a huge success -- and this, like a last second Hail Mary pass, has vindicated the entire disastrous Iraq misadventure.
Buoyed by a reduction in violence in Iraq, war supporters are crawling out from the shadows and beating their chests.
"I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein," Condi Rice told Judy Woodruff last week. This echoed the comments of her boss, who crowed at a GOP awards dinner at the end of June: "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision at the time, and it is the right decision today." Bush even felt emboldened to dust off blast from the past and claim: "Democracy is taking root where a tyrant once ruled."
And the media -- and even a number of Democrats -- are swallowing this triumphalist nonsense whole, and washing it down with a pitcher of revisionist Kool-Aid. The result: a collective case of political amnesia. Everyone seems more than happy to forget what the president's own stated goal for the surge was: to create "the breathing space [the Iraqi government] needs to make progress in other critical areas."
But here we are, 18 months later, and McCain and the GOP are being allowed to change the goal. And, surprise, surprise, the retroactive goal they've chosen is remarkably similar to the current situation in Iraq: violence is down while the "progress in other critical areas" is sorely lagging.
So, even though Bush originally claimed that "a successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations," the surge is now being judged exclusively on the success of "military operations." And since that's what the surge is all about, the surge is working. And since the surge is working, maybe we need to rethink this whole idea of ending the war, right?
Using Bush-McCain logic, since the surge has succeeded in reducing violence, there is no need for us to leave. Indeed, we can stay forever.
But here's the thing: while McCain and the Republicans may have been able to win the PR war among the American media, there is still that nagging problem of the lack of reconciliation among the warring factions in Iraq.
Last month's GAO report offered chapter and verse on all the ways the Iraqis have failed to reach the benchmarks that were the actual goals of the surge (see HuffPoster Mitchell Bard's comprehensive breakdown of the report).
And a ceremony held in Baghdad this weekend spoke volumes about the actual state of affairs in Iraq. The event, organized by an expert in conflict resolution, was held to announce the signing of a non-binding agreement reached by representatives from a wide range of Iraq's sectarian and ethnic factions, and hammered out during a series of secret meetings in Helsinki over the last year.
Although Iraq's Minister of Reconciliation said the agreement "has the potential to bring Iraqi political parties together in common cause in a way no endeavor has," coverage of the event leaves a distinctly different impression.
According to the New York Times, there were complaints that representatives of the Maliki government "seemed more intent on declaring the talks a success than in continuing to discuss significant disagreements." "When we came here," said a secular Sunni politician quoted in the Times," Maliki refused to talk about anything, just to have a meeting and a celebration."
"They can hug each other, and kiss each other, but they still don't agree," Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group told the Boston Globe.
"You still have a dominant Shiite power structure that doesn't want to cede any power," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service. "Then you have Sunnis who are committed to overturn their humiliations. The fundamental dynamics have not changed."
The Globe suggested the most important aspect of the agreement was the fact that it was "announced at the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, marking the first time that participants in the effort have felt safe enough to gather inside their own country," then pointed out that the level of security required to attend the ceremony -- "including walls around segregated neighborhoods and eight checkpoints to enter the Green Zone" -- serves as "a grim reminder of how far Iraq has to go."
No surprise then that, according to the Times, experts think real reconciliation in Iraq could take decades.
And this is the good news out of Iraq.
As we continue on the long, hard slog until Election Day, John McCain and his supporters are going to claim again and again that the surge has worked. And it looks like the media are going to let that patently false assertion go unchecked. Which is pretty much how the war got started in the first place. So it is up to Obama, the Democrats, and all of us, to insist on holding the advocates of the surge to its original goal.
And while we are at it, we should also hold them to the original justification for the war itself.
Despite the revisionist re-writes, we didn't go to war because we were committed to demonstrating that America could unleash violence in Iraq and then, five years later, curb it through the use of reinforcements. We went to war because we were told Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat to our national security and, secondarily, as a means of fomenting democracy throughout the Middle East.
Of course, the "imminent threat" turned out to be non-existent, and our presence in Iraq has strengthened the hand of every bad actor in the region: al Qaeda is safe and adding recruits, Hamas has come to power in Palestine, Hezbollah has reasserted itself in Lebanon, and Iran has become the strongest player in Iraq. Meanwhile, the reduction in casualties in Iraq is starting to be offset by increased casualties in Afghanistan -- once again showing the fatal ignorance of stealing from Peter to stop-loss Paul and keep him in Iraq.
So, tell me again: how is the surge working?

3 facts that could change this election

3 Facts That Could Change This Election Category: News and Politics
Much thanks to this person for presenting these facts for us.._____________________3 Facts That Could Change This Election (If We Share Them With Enough People)Here are 3 Stunning facts that could not only change the outcome of this election, but with regard to the first two points, they could change the results of every election for years to come *if* we make enough people aware of them.I want to keep this as simple and short as possible, so that the people who need to read this actually do. And again, I encourage you to share this information with as many people as you can, either by recommending and commenting on this thread, by emailing these points out and or by posting a link to this thread on the appropriate websites.1)-Over 70% of our National Debt was created by just 3 Republican presidents. Go ahead, get out your calculator and add up debt by president/party. Apparently the party that claims fiscally responsibility thinks it's ok to borrow massive amounts of money from foreign countries like China. Consider that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars in interest payments on this debt each year. That means more and more of your hard earned money is going to make interest only payments on what is basically a Giant National Credit Card. Not to mention the fact our debt/deficits are largely behind the weakness of our dollar, which in turns makes gas more expensive and creates other serious problems.If you want to learn more about the National Debt, check out these links:http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock /http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...http://zfacts.com/p/447.html (A running clock with the cost of the war)http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/business...2)-According to new research from Larry Bartels out of Princeton, real middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president compared to when a Republican is president. "...Even more remarkable, the real incomes of working-poor families...grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House. Only the incomes of affluent families were relatively impervious to partisan politics, growing robustly under Democrats and Republicans alike...": http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27wwln-ideal...Here is a short summary of this research: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008...And here is a good, short audio interview with Larry Bartels: http://youngturks.wmod.llnwd.net/a591/o1/4-25-08Bartels...3)-90% of Americans would pay less taxes under Obama's proposed tax plan compared to McCain's.This is according to the non-partisan Tax Policy Institute as reported by CNN: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates...People making under $112,000 a year in individual (not household) income would pay less taxes under Obama's plan.By contrast, John McCain's tax cuts mostly benefit the top 10% of Americans. Under McCain's plan, people making over 2.9 million dollars in individual annual income would get almost a million dollar tax break.Conclusion: Countless millions of Americans vote Republican because they believe they'll pay less taxes and that they'll have their money spent more responsibly. As you can see, those beliefs are directly contradicted by the facts. Of course we can choose to ignore the facts and instead focus on which candidate is wearing a flag pin (you ever notice that Hillary and McCain don't wear them? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi5nbZvS9cg ) but I think we're a smarter country than that.