Buck Naked Politics

Time 2020-12-11 15:05:11

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Republican Nancy Argenziano knows her way around Tallahassee. She knows which rugs to look under and which closets to open. Of course she does: she served in Florida s Senate and House. More recently, she served on Florida s Public Service Commission: one of only two commissioners who consistently fought to protect us consumers against the state utitlity companies ever-growing appetite for lower standards and higher rates.Nancy knows where the dirt is, and she knows details. Sunday, the Ocala Star Banner published an op-ed by Nancy that s worth reading. Early on, she states: Policy has been selling for a high price in Tallahassee. Just follow the money, then follow the legislation all the way to becoming the law. Make no mistake, we are being sold out and heading toward a society ruled by a corporate oligarchy. The interests affected include nursing home residents and workers, corrections officers, teachers, children, state employees, water protection laws, the developmentally disabled, law enforcement officers, the environment, and so much more. All under attack. Yes, this comes from a long-time Republican (a successful one at that). Nancy points out data that might interest Florida s state employees (whose retiremenet and job security seem to be in jeopardy): Florida is tied for last in the ratio of state employees to residents (118 per 10,000, where the national average is 216 per 10,000) and last in the ratio of cost of state employee workforce per resident ($38 per resident vs. a national average of $69), according to the 2008-09 State Personnel System Annual Workforce Report. I would characterize this as reflecting a state workforce which is, nationally, first in efficiency. Yet what does the Scott/Senate President Mike Haridopolis/Florida House Speaker Dean Cannon plunderbund do? Penalize that efficiency, stab state workers in the back, further savage a workforce that hasn t had a raise in five years, to effectively decrease their income by reneging on the bargain and requiring pension contributions, pensions which average in the lowest national tier. Plunderbund? Yeah, Nancy has long been known for straight shooting. In 2001, she responded to the distasteful actions of an industry lobbyist by sending that lobbyist a 25-pound box of manure. Some newspapers criticized her, but she also received an outpouring of support. For example, then-Attorney General Bob Butterworth wrote her a note asking, Why only 25 pounds? Only in Florida, right? At any rate, if you want an insider s view of what s been going on, check out Nancy s op-ed. Thursday, as you know, Wisconsin unions members threatened to remove their money from M I bank, whose execs gave heavy campagin donations to Wisconsin s anti-middle-class governor, Scott Walker (who signed a bill Friday that reduces public employees right to collectively bargain for decent benefits and wages).M I s response to the boycott threat begins: M I has not taken, and will not take, a position either for or against the budget repair bill. As M I has publicly stated before: M I has not contributed to any candidate and did not contribute to Governor Walker or Mayor Barrett in the last gubernatorial election.... I must interject. Corporations are legal fictions: they can t do anything, anymore than cars can drive themselves. It s the people who run coporations that do things (or don t) in a corporation s name, like puppeteers. M I s response continues: M I employees contributed to both Wisconsin gubernatorial candidates in the last election. From M I s puppeteers, the anti-middle-class governor got 183 donations ($85,000); his opponent, Tom Barrett, got 68 donations ($16,000) [data from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign]. Given the dollar amounts (if I correctly pasted them into Excel), one could say that the M I puppeteers who donated to the gubernatorial campaigns were 5-to-1 in favor of the anti-middle-class governor. In November of 2008, M I received $1.7 billion in loans from us taxpayers through ex-President Bush s bank bail-out program (TARP). Back then, M I s puppeteers were eager to receive hefty quantities of tax dollars. Now, they just don t care whether Wisconsin s teachers and garbage collectors get a share--and in exchange for real work, no less.Incidentally, M I s puppeteers have failed to pay us back. At the same time, they managed to pay themselves--in part, using money they borrowed from us. It gets worse. Tags: bank bail out, executive pay, labor unioins, m&i bank, protests, tarp, wisconsin by D. Cupples | These days, fighting for the interests of folks who lack corporate-jet access seems about as fruitful as a jellyfish protesting the ocean that washed it ashore.Yes, my mind is on Wisconsin, where the anti-middle-class governor and his Republican cohorts in the legislature have declared war on people who depend on regular paychecks.Yesterday, it all seemed hopeless when Wisconsin officials passed the bill that stripped public employee unions of collective-bargaining rights.But then something happened: a branch of M I bank in Madison closed early after Joe Conway, a local Firefighters Union president, advised protesters to move their money out of that bank. (Apparently, M I execs had contributed heavily to the anti-middle-class governor’s campaign, and M I refused to publicly oppose state officials’ anti-middle-class stance.)Dane 101 has a video clip of the protestors chanting Move your Money. I doubt it ll stop with M I bank (at least, I hope it doesn t stop there). The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel states: “The unions, which include the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and teachers unions in Madison and Green Bay, said they would also target other businesses whose employees donated to Walker [the anti-middle-class governor].”That’s the answer: the power of the purse. It was money from anti-middle-class business folks that put anti-middle-class officials in office. And where did those business folks get their money (I mean, aside from fat government subsidies, loans, or contracts)?Some of it came from middle-class folks, who spent part of their paychecks patronizing those businesses. And if middle-class folks start boycotting, those businesses will feel it.Even without a boycott, businesses will suffer if anti-middle-class officials continue sucking dollars out of workers’ pockets. (If workers lack money, they can t support as many businesses, right?)It’s a shame that so many folks are blind to the bigger picture. But then, blindness to reality is why our nation keeps Foxnewsing itself into crisis after crisis.Addition: the Daily Chronicle states: ...labor leaders say the events in Wisconsin have helped galvanize support for unions across the country, and they hope to use the momentum to help fight off the attacks and grow their membership. Said the president of the AFL-CIO: I guess I ought to say thank you particularly to Scott Walker [the anti-middle-class governor]. We should have invited him here today to receive the Mobilizer of the Year award from us! Backlash can be satisfying. If you want to help the folks in Wisconsin, you can donate at http://www.wisaflcio.org/ Tags: collective bargaining, democrats, economy, governor, labor unions, legislature, politics, republicans, scott walker, tea party, wisconsin About an hour ago, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (Orlando, Fl) conceded to his opponent, Daniel Webster. Alan was the one Dem I thought we d actually get to keep. Before Congress, Alan spent years fighting government-contractor fraud, which has cost (and still costs) us taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars each year. [See Vanity Fair article.]Ironically, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel indicated that Webster’s appeal stemmed from his sticking to “the issues worrying the Republican base: federal spending and borrowing.” It’s ironic that the lower-earning members of the Republican base are now chanting about federal spending/borrowing. They weren’t chanting about it when George W. Bush was in office, wildly borrowing and spending and funneling money to folks who already had truckloads of it (e.g., defense contractors and bankers). I wonder if most lower-earning members of the GOP knew, in 2008, what the national debt was—compared to what it had been when Mr. Bush took the White House. Incidentally, it about $5.7 trillion when Mr. Bush took office and about $10.6 trillion when he left. Ergo, under Mr. Bush’s watch, the national debt almost doubled. [See the U.S. debt page.]Even more ironic is that the lower-earning members of all political parties are among those whose interests Alan Grayson fought to protect.I just don t know what to say about that. Tags: alan grayson, American politics, democrats, election 2010, election results, republicans by D. Cupples | I like Kendrick Meek for U.S. Senate (Florida). Check out the ABC-televised debate involving him and his two opponents, and you ll see that Kendrick is anything but meek.Friday, Congressman Meek spoke at the Eighth Judicial Circuit Bar Association luncheon in Gainesville. Having been a blogger (and a political candidate), I’m not wowed by political speeches. Not at all. [Note: the EJCBA is a non-political and non-partisan group. The people in the photo with Congressman Meek are members of the EJCBA who posed with him after lunch: they are not necessarily supporters or opponents. I speak only for myself.]What interested me about Kendrick Meek was what he said while facing our politically diverse group: some North Florida lawyers are progressive, but some certainly are not. First, I like that Kendrick Meek has a record of protecting social security from privatization. Imagine what would’ve happened to millions of Americans whose nest eggs had been in the stock market if social security had been privatized before our financial system started melting down. Our nation has been generous enough with Wall Streeters—at the expense of us taxpayers and ordinary shareholders. (Remember the great bailouts of 2008?) Second, I like that Kendrick Meek supports real health care reform, instead of the watered down garbage that protects the very insurance companies, hospitals, and drug companies that have made a sport of overcharging us consumers and even (some of them) robbing us taxpayers through government contracts. Tags: corrupt, corruption, economy, florida, health care, kendrick meek, senate race, social security, U.S. politics by D. Cupples | The fraudulent billing of us taxpayers for health care costs is so widespread that one might call it a sport. Below are merely a few of the cases that the Justice Department mentioned just over the last week. They re small-timers, but it all adds up. And it all adds to our nation s staggering, aggregate health care expenditures. The El Centro Regional Medical Center (Imperial County, California) agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle allegations that it defrauded Medicare. The Justice Department states: The government alleges that the 165-bed acute care hospital fraudulently inflated its charges to Medicare patients to obtain larger reimbursements from the federal health care program. The settlement covers claims submitted by the hospital for short inpatient admissions, usually of one day or less, when the services should have been billed on an outpatient “observation” basis or as emergency room visits. Note that private contractors often try to settle False Claims Act cases because if a contractor is found guilty the contractor could be barred from getting future contracts. Two New Orleans area doctors-- Dahlia Kirpatrick and Emmanuel Komandu pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health-care fraud. The Justice Department states: Tags: contractor fraud, false claims act, health care fraud, justice department, medicare, medicare fraud, privatization by D. Cupples | I ve been on a break from feverishly following the (generally gut wrenching) goings on in our nation s capital. Occasionally, I ve peeked out of my cave to see if there s solid cause for hope -- as opposed to those empty words that were filling the air like motes of dust a couple years ago.Today, I peeked out because a friend had sent me a link to a Firedoglake blog post by Jane Hamsher. You can check it out here. The upshot: the Obama Administration and many Congressional Democrats have gone and alienated donors that they now seem to need as the November elections loom ahead. It amounts to bad strategy, as Jane points out: Sucking up to our Wall Street overlords while dog whistling to your base is not as easy as the GOP makes it look. Two concepts seem to be at the root of Beltway Dems dismal situation:1) Lack of purpose2) Betrayal. by Chris | Recently, residents of Gainesville and St. Augustine were victims of investment fraud. While neither of these incidents was of the scale and complexity of the Madoff case, with a little homework and some healthy skepticism, they may have been avoided.How do you protect yourself from investment fraud? by D. Cupples | Via Memeorandum, the New York Times tells us: The Tea Party movement scored another victory on Tuesday, helping to propel a dissident Republican, Christine O’Donnell, to an upset win over Representative Michael N. Castle in the race for the United States Senate nomination in Delaware.Mr. Castle, a moderate Republican who served two terms as governor and had been reliably winning elections for the last four decades, became the latest establishment Republican casualty of the primary election season. Republican leaders said the victory by Ms. O’Donnell complicated the party’s chances of winning control of the Senate.Who am I to criticize another state s voters? I m from Gainesville, Florida--home of the (thankfully) abandoned Koran-burning plot that got as much national media attention as our Fighting Gator football team gets when it wins a championship game.According to Chris Cilliza, Ms. O Donnell s victory gives Delaware Democrats a better shot at taking that senate seat during the general election. I guess we ll see. Tags: christine o'donnell, delaware, florida, gainesville, koran, michael castle, senate, tea party, teabaggers by D. Cupples | We pay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) billions each year. In exchange, the FDA is supposed to protect us consumer-taxpayers from unsafe food, drugs, cosmetics, etc. I didn t dream that up: the duty is stated on the FDA s Website. Despite that clearly articulated duty, the FDA s performance has been spotty for years--some would say due to over-friendliness with drug companies. Maybe I m putting it too nicely. I ll try again. For some years, the FDA seems to have promoted drug companies interests over our interests. Still too watered down? Okay. Last try: evidence suggests that some of FDA s decision-makers have been downright corrupt. This month s Time Magazine has an article entitled, After Avandia: Does the FDA Have a Drug Problem? In May 2007, we at Buck Naked Politics did a blog post entitled The FDA s Latest Pharma-Friendly Sins. It addressed the FDA s highly questionable actions regarding the drugs Avandia, Vioxx, Ketek, and Viagra. The FDA approved Ketek for public sale despite allegedly knowing that clinical-study results were fraudulent. Despite studies linking Vioxx to heart attacks, the FDA waited two years before requiring a stronger warning label. Then there s the wildly popular Viagra, which was linked to a strange form of blindness: the FDA waited a whole year to require a stronger warning label.Then there was our blog post in November 2008, which cited a Washington Post article stating that the FDA had learned about traces of melamine and cyanuric acid ( toxic chemicals) in baby food, yet the FDA inexplicably delayed informing the baby-feeding public about it.I m glad that after three-plus years, major media is again spotlighting the FDA s questionable reliability. The health and safety of us consumer-taxpayers is, after all, in the FDA s hands. Tags: avandia, baby food, corrupt, corruption, drug companies, drugs, fda, foods, ketek, money, viagra, vioxx Deb Cupples | New Yorkers are celebrating (except certain religious leaders) because their governor finnnally signed into law a bill that provides for no-fault divorce. The State Assembly had passed the bill more than a month ago, and Governor David Paterson took his time signing it.According to the New York Law Journal, the new law will take effect in October. Apparently, a divorce in New York was even more torturous than in the other 49 states because couples had a choice between 1) filing for an uncontested divorce, which took a year; or 2) having to prove that one spouse was at fault (e.g., adultery, cruelty, abandonment, or imprisonment).Reportedly, Catholic leaders are not happy. It s not their business anyway: they aren t married and, therefore, will not be subject to divorce laws. Said leaders might benefit from refraining from intruding into people s personal lives and instead tending to their own housekeeping issues (e.g., the sex scandals -- which, according to CNN, have gone global).Coming from a Catholic family, I mean no disrespect to people of that faith generally. by Deb Cupples | Paying close attention to the news can be downright dispiriting. For me, time to recharge was a must, so I took some weeks off from blogging.Easing back into it, my first stop today was Memeorandum, a site reflecting topics folks find important enough to blog about. At 5:40 pm (EST) the top story (and numerous stories below it) was about the Cordoba House Project (a Muslim community center that people wanted to build near Ground Zero in New York). If the placement and number of stories on Memorandum s front page indicate what has attracted people s focus, then it s safe to say that the Cordoba House is utmost on tonnns of people s minds. This reminds me of a quote from Charlie Wilson s War. The character Gust Avrakotos (exquisitely played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) says this: “As long as the press sees sex and drugs behind the lefthand, you can park a battle carrier behind the right hand and no one s gonna … notice.I edited outthe gerund form of the F-word, but the point still remains: some political operatives and media execs are hell-bent on distracting us ordinary folks from serious issues that affect our daily lives and our nation s future. Several come to mind:- Children who aren t well fed, cared for, and educated.- People who can t face a health problem without bankruptcy. - Adults who still need decent-paying jobs, despite stimulus packages.- Corporate players who still routinely rob us taxpayers.- All the people who will suffer due to BP s oil problem. - The government players who repeatedly failed to protect us citizen-taxpayers from the fallout of bad corporate decision-making.Is the Cordoba House yet another issue of mass distraction? (It s not my phrase, but I forgot who generated it). If airtime and column inches are being given to this so-called issue, then you can bet that some people are putting serious money into it. And this makes me wonder: just how many battle carriers are hiding behind the right hand? Tags: cordoba house, democrats, distraction, ground zero, issues, media, muslims, politics, politics, republicans posted by Bill: Philadelphia blogger Will Bunch adds context to Shirley Sherrod's civil rights work. How much more amazing that she struggles for understanding and reconciliation after her father was murdered in a racially-tinged dispute... and no authority even opened a case to redress it.Steve Clemons also suggests Sherrod "kick the tires" of Tom Vilsak's new job offer.(Kavanagh cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond.) by Bill Kavanagh: As opposed to cutting back on aid to the unemployed or going soft on stimulating the economy, there are ways to begin changing the skew of who pays for the programs the country needs. From the looks of it, even some of the most ardent supporters of trickle-down economics are beginning to see this particular light.Apparently, even Alan Greenspan has had a change of heart about the wisdom of exempting the wealthiest Americans from paying their share. In a Bloomberg News interview with Judy Woodruff, the former deregulator-in-chief said the following about what to do about the Bush Administration's 2001 tax cut: WOODRUFF: On those tax cuts, they are due to expire at the end of this year. Should they be extended? What should Congress do? GREENSPAN: I should say they should follow the law and let them lapse. WOODRUFF: Meaning what happens? GREENSPAN: Taxes go up. The problem is, unless we start to come to grips with this long-term outlook, we are going to have major problems. I think we misunderstand the momentum of this deficit going forward.(h/t to Think Progress)(Kavanagh cross-posts at Bill's Big Diamond .) Why should you care about appointments to Florida s Public Service Commission (PSC)? Because who gets appointed will directly affect your wallet for years to come (if you live in Florida, that is).The PSC is charged with protectingconsumers from unreasonable prices and bad service from the utility companies that we depend on.As I ve blogged about repeatedly over the past two years, most members of the PSC have been suspiciously cozy with the utility industry--an industry whose interests are sort of at odds with the interests of us consumers. The two welcome exceptions are consumer-friendly Commissioners Nancy Argenziano and Nathan Skop, whom Gov. Charlie Crist appointed in 2007. Not only have Argenziano and Skop actively sought to protect consumers interests, but they also made a point of spotlighting ethically questionable things that have been going on at the PSC over the past few years. (Examples are linked at the end of this post.) Unfortunately, Argenziano s and Skop s terms are almost up. Both commissioners are seeking reappointment by Gov. Crist. All sorts of people who pay attention to the PSC support the re-appointment of Argenziano and Skop--precisely because they ve proven to be pro-consumer and anti-corruption. Here s part of the Miami Herald s endorsement: Continue reading "Protect Your Wallet: Support the Re-Appointment of Skop & Argenziano to the PSC" Tags: charlie crist, consumer protection, consumers, corruption, florida politics, florida public service commission, florida utilities, nancy argenziano, nathan skop, psc by Deb Cupples | It make no sense. In my North Florida town, gasoline prices were in the $2.90s in April; now, gas is in the $2.70s. What happened?Back in 2007, gas prices were near or above $4 a gallon nationwide. The public-relations people paid by oil companies habitually blamed it on supply and demand (i.e., lower supply or higher demand automatically caused higher prices).Fast forward to 2010: on or about April 20, a BP oil well exploded and started spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Thousands of barrels of oil have been flowing into the Gulf each day, but the estimates vary.According to McClatchy (May 19), BP s oil spill was causing a loss of about 95,000 barrels or 4 million gallons of crude oil each day. According to the New York Times (June 10), the flow of oil into the Gulf was 25,000 to 30,000 barrels (1+ million gallons) per day. According to the New York Times (June 15), the flow of oil was as much as 60,000 barrels (or 2.5 million gallons) per day. According to Reuters, an internal BP company document states that the worst case scenario (depending on whether a piece of equipment malfunctions) is that up to 100,000 barrels (or 4.5 million gallons) of oil may flow into the Gulf.As late as June 18, BP s own estimate was that the flow of oil into the Gulf was under 5,000 barrels per day.Whichever estimate is more accurate, the fact remains that our nation s oil supply will decrease because of BP s massive oil spill. Thus, according to notions of supply and demand, oil and gas prices should be going up (even if only due to market speculators anticipation of the decreasing supply). Yet, gas prices in my area have been going down.What gives? Again, Oil company executives have habitually attributed climbing gas prices to supply and demand, implying that price hikes are caused by some natural force beyond their control -- the way physicists might attribute a falling satellite to gravity.Recent declines in gas prices make one wonder whether oil companies have always been forthright about what causes gas prices to increase. Perhaps supply and demand played a significant part in some gas price fluctuations. Perhaps a stronger factor was oil executives fundamental desire to funnel more consumer dollars into their own pockets.How can we know what to believe? by Bill Kavanagh: The Republican focus on the federal deficit as a primary issue in this year's Congressional election cycle makes little sense in the context of our real economic problems. Economist Brad DeLong uses a good metaphor in a response to Henry Blodget's questions about long-term federal debt: Think of it this way: our natural gas pipes are corroding, and there is a good chance that tomorrow ten years from now we will have a gas leak and if we do not fix it the house will explode. And Henry Blodget is using that danger to argue that we shouldn't turn on the heat tonight even though it is snowing outside...Here's the false warning that's being promulgated: "There's a crisis coming in federal spending and if we don't start dealing with the pain now by cutting programs and spending by the government to alleviate unemployment, we'll be overwhelmed later by the mountain of debt we're accumulating."Here's why it's a false warning: The long-term debt service on government spending to stimulate the economy pales in comparison to another problem. That looming issue is the long-term (and societally draining) economic damage done to the country if we let a decade be lost to high unemployment and lost productive labor, thereby creating additional drains on both the public and private sectors.In the current employment crisis environment, job one should be getting the country back to work— in order to create the conditions in which we dig ourselves out of this critical situation limiting the economy's stability and resilience.It's myopic to look at debt due to federal domestic spending only, rather than the total situation the US economy is currently facing. Yet this single-minded approach seems to be crowding out discussion about solving the growing long-term unemployment crisis and its drain on the housing market, the demand for goods and services, and on the country's sense of hope that the future is something to invest in, rather than horde against.I hope we can keep talking sense about dealing with the real problems in front of us, rather than being distracted by fears that a stronger America won't ever make sacrifices or hard choices to deal with paying our bills. Right now, the sacrifices being made are focused incredibly unevenly on those least equipped to cope with the losses: namely the poor and those becoming poorer daily.Dean Baker responds to those voices crying out about an American "debt crisis" in the following way: We can point to a debt crisis in Greece, and arguably Portugal and Spain, but it is not clear what that has to do with the argument for stimulus in the United States. There were debt crises in Latin America in the 80s, no one ever raised these in the context of the Reagan era budget deficits.There needs to be more coverage of reasonable plans to revisit the unemployment issue during this election year, not less of it.(Kavanagh cross posts at Bill's Big Diamond Blog.) posted by Bill: As if we had to ask, here's how bad it is (according to Annie Lowrie's piece in the Washington Independent): The joblessness crisis — in the average duration of unemployment, if not the absolute unemployment rate — is unprecedented in the postwar United States. Of the 15 million unemployed in America, over 7 million have been out of work for more than six months, nearly 5 million for a year and over 1 million for two years — the worst statistics since the government started keeping count in 1948. posted by Bill: Linda Greenhouse hopes that retired SC Justice David Souter will continue to share his thoughts in public as a guide to his thinking on the bench. His recent Harvard commencement address included the following statement on why the court does more than parse the Constitution for a "fair reading:" The reasons that constitutional judging is not a mere combination of fair reading and simple facts extend way beyond the recognition that constitutions have to have a lot of general language in order to be useful over long stretches of time. Another reason is that the Constitution contains values that may well exist in tension with each other, not in harmony. Yet another reason is that the facts that determine whether a constitutional provision applies may be very different from facts like a person’s age or the amount of the grocery bill; constitutional facts may require judges to understand the meaning that the facts may bear before the judges can figure out what to make of them.Florida Governor Charlie Crist has announced that he is leaving the Republican party and running for U.S. Senate as an independent. A New York Times blog-post title says it all: Crist to GOP: Drop Dead. Many Republicans, including Ex-Gov. Bush, don t seem too happy about it. This should be interesting. One thing that many of us Floridians agree on is that Gov. Crist was nowhere near as atrociously Republican as his predecessor Jeb Bush. The St. Pete Times suspects that Gov. Crist will be tapping an unusually wide pool of potential donors thatincludes Democrats and liberal special interest groups like triallawyers and the teachers union. One thing that might help Gov. Crist with the teachers is his vetoing a GOP bill a couple weeks ago that had Florida s teachers and parents up in arms: Crist s verdict [on the controversial bill]: We must start over. This bill has deeply and negatively affected the morale of our teachers, our parents and our students. They are not confident in our system because they do not believe their voices were heard. Another thing that might help Gov. Crist with angry teachers and parents would be if he did more to roll back ex-Gov. Bush s education policies. Tags: charlie crist, education, florida, gop, governor, independent, jeb bush, republicans If your blog doesn't promote spam or illegal stuff, blog roll us, email us , and we'll blog roll you.

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