Paul Krugman: The Health Care Racket

Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally - or so say two New York hospitals, which have filed a racketeering lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group and several of its affiliates.

I don't know how the case will turn out. But whatever happens in court, the lawsuit illustrates perfectly the dysfunctional nature of our health insurance system, a system in which resources that could have been used to pay for medical care are instead wasted in a zero-sum struggle over who ends up with the bill.

Housing sales drop in 40 states

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
2 hours, 46 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The slump in housing deepened in the final three months of last year with sales falling in 40 states and median home prices dropping in nearly half the metropolitan areas surveyed.

Formerly red-hot areas were among the hardest hit as the five-year housing boom cooled considerably in 2006.

Bush Fails to Reassure

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, February 15, 2007; 4:32 PM

President Bush did nothing at yesterday's news conference to reassure those who think his administration may once again be using faulty intelligence to build a case for war.

Bush spoke in the wake of conflicting, mostly anonymous administration claims of Iranian involvement in arming Iraqis with sophisticated bombs. He did back off from the claim that Teheran was directly responsible.

Jane Hamsher: ...And the Defense Rests

Tim Russert must have been heaving huge sighs of relief at Judge Walton's decision to spare him another round with Ted Wells; having his political hackery publicy exposed like that was obviously making Monseigneur Tim uncomfortable. None of Wells' other motions got very far today -- Walton also seemed inclined to view most of what he was trying to do with regard to testimony from Libby's CIA briefers as not particularly relevant to the case.

Tomorrow, Fitzgerald and Libby's lawyers will be arguing over the instructions to the jury and on Tuesday, we'll hear closing arguments. There should be some interesting theatrics from both sides.

More to Come?

The Defense Department Inspector General's report may only spell the beginning of inquiries into the intelligence activities of Douglas Feith's office.

By Laura Rozen
Web Exclusive: 02.12.07

This writer has reported extensively on a 2001 meeting in Rome between two then-members of the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, Iranian intelligence operatives, and the Italian intelligence service. Reading the DoD IG (Defense Department Inspector General) report on its investigation into the activities of Feith's office, and watching Friday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the report, were, therefore, somewhat surreal experiences. What was surreal was their narrow focus on the question of the Pentagon policy shop's alternative intelligence analysis alleging Iraq-al-Qaeda links, when few dispute that the array of activities engaged in by Feith's shop was broader than that and hardly limited to alternative intelligence analysis.

Lobbyist, fed lawyer share vacation home

Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the Bushevik's top environmental prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company's top lobbyist.--BUZZFLASH

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Feb 14, 2:43 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Nine months before agreeing to let ConocoPhillips delay a half-billion-dollar pollution cleanup, the government's top environmental prosecutor bought a $1 million vacation home with the company's top lobbyist.

Also in on the Kiawah Island, S.C., house deal was former Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles, the highest-ranking Bush administration official targeted for criminal prosecution in the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

Radioactive, unprotected: A `dirty bomb' nightmare

Soviet-era nuclear material is a target for smugglers willing to sell to anyone

By Alex Rodriguez
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published February 15, 2007

YEREVAN, Armenia -- Jobless for two years, Gagik Tovmasyan believed escape from poverty lay in a cardboard box on his kitchen floor.

Inside the box, a blue, lead-lined vessel held the right type and amount of radioactive cesium to make a "dirty bomb." The material was given to him by an unemployed Armenian Catholic priest who promised a cut if Tovmasyan could find a buyer.

PM Carpenter: He's nuts -- absolutely, certifiably, unmistakably nuts

I hesitate to write this morning about you know who addressing you know what yesterday, since everyone with a word processor and a conscience has already done just that. But sometimes an overloaded bandwagon is the only way to travel.

Like you, I'm sure, I was dumbfounded at Mr. Bush's saber rattling redux yesterday morning, before what looked like an equally dumbfounded press corps. It was like watching a slo-mo of a football play gone horribly wrong -- with each videotaped replay you cringe; you know what's going to happen and you're powerless to stop it. Except the consequences of this replay, of course, are worse to the power of ten.

Wind vs. Coal: False Choices in the Battle to Resolve Our Energy Crisis

By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted February 15, 2007.

If you want to know what we can do to resolve our energy crisis, look no further than West Virginia. Understanding a recent battle over wind development in coal country could help us all.

When you cross the border into West Virginia along I-64 the welcome sign that used to say, "West Virginia: Wild and Wonderful," now says, "West Virginia: Open for Business."

It is a sign of the times.

Assassinations, Terrorist Strikes and Ethnic Cleansing: Bush's Shadow War in Iraq

By Chris Floyd, TruthOut.org. Posted February 15, 2007.

The constant sectarian violence in Iraq is not purely of domestic origin -- much of it is directed by covert U.S. and British military: Here is Bush's other war in Iraq.

Imagine a city torn by sectarian strife. Competing death squads roam the streets; terrorists stage horrific attacks. Local authority is distrusted and weak; local populations protect the extremists in their midst, out of loyalty or fear. A bristling military occupation exacerbates tensions at every turn, while offering prime targets for bombs and snipers. And behind the scenes, in a shadow world of double-cross and double-bluff, covert units of the occupying power run agents on both sides of the civil war, countenancing -- and sometimes directing -- assassinations, terrorist strikes, torture sessions, and ethnic cleansing.

Bush Channels Bill

The new North Korea deal is surprisingly Clintonian.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007, at 5:58 PM ET

President George W. Bush finally got a nuclear deal with North Korea because he finally started negotiating like Bill Clinton.

A constant mantra for the past dozen years—chanted by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on several occasions—is that the Agreed Framework, which the Clinton administration signed with North Korea in 1994, was a naive and disastrous failure.

Glenn Greenwald: Extremist Bush supporter calls for murder of scientists

(you may have to view an ad to see this post--Dictynna)

Whenever you think that Bush followers cannot get any more depraved in what they advocate, they always prove you wrong. This is what University of Tennessee Law Professor and right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds said today about claims by the administration that Iran is supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents (claims which, needless to say, he blindly believes):

This has been obvious for a long time anyway, and I don't understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs' expat business interests out of business, etc.

Child study finds big divisions

The first report on the well-being of children in 21 western states shows marked divisions in education, health and sexual behaviour and drug-taking.

The Netherlands topped the well-being table compiled by the UN children's agency Unicef, with Scandinavian nations also performing well.

However the United Kingdom and United States fare much worse, taking the bottom two places in the table.

Ted Rall: How America Marginalizes Millions

NEW YORK--In the Soviet Union, political dissidents vanished with chilling efficiency. While the gulags starved and worked "enemies of the state" to death, bureaucrats purged their names from government records, newspaper archives, and school transcripts. Their personal possessions were sold or destroyed. It was as if these "unpersons" had never existed.

In the United States, the government doesn't "disappear" individuals it doesn't like (unless they're of Middle Eastern descent). That job falls to the media. The other difference is that the targets aren't individuals, but entire categories of people: African-Americans, Muslims, Asians, and those with political views to the left and right of the two major parties. The lords of print and broadcast media marginalize these groups to the extent that they have no place in the national conversation. They're born, they have children and they die--but they may as well not exist.

Reconstructing Ronald Reagan

By Russell Baker

Of the seventeen presidents the United States has survived since Theodore Roosevelt declined his third term, none is so mystifying as Ronald Reagan. A New Deal Democrat until the age of fifty, he became the most revered Republican of his generation; a child of the working class, he inspired business to heightened resistance to labor. Admired for his belligerence toward the Soviet Union—"the evil empire"—he became the great peacemaker of his generation. Tirelessly denouncing big government, he made government bigger; a champion of fiscal conservatism, he inherited a deficit of $80 billion and in eight years increased it to $200 billion.

Over the Hedge

Signs of the coming hedge-fund apocalypse.

By Daniel Gross
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2007, at 7:16 AM ET

Because I'm writing a book about booms and busts in American history, I've spent a lot of time thinking about how real and rational economic trends cross over into bubble territory. For the Internet, residential real estate (now officially popped), and alternative energy, there were always telltale signs of bubbleness.

Those same signs suggest that our next bubble is already here, and it's … hedge funds.

Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'

On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California

He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."

In a 10-page addendum to his new book ""Words that Work -- It's Not What You Say Its What People Hear," Luntz, formerly a top political pollster for the Republican Party, may have written so critically of the party's recent efforts that he has become persona non grata. Luntz used to be one of the party's go-to-guys for political guidance and strategy, a counselor to such GOP stalwarts as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former New York City Major Rudy Giuliani and Trent Lott.

Is the Deadly Crash of Our Civilization Inevitable?

By Terrence McNally, AlterNet. Posted February 13, 2007.

An interview with author Thomas Homer-Dixon about the social, political, economic and technological crises we face and how long we can sustain the lifestyle that brought them about.

Humankind is doing more things, faster, across a greater space than ever before, producing changes of a size and speed never seen before.

Thomas Homer-Dixon compares our current situation to driving too fast along a country road in a dense fog. Some ignore the fog and keep their foot pressed on the accelerator, but most of us feel like fairly helpless passengers on this wild ride.

Absence of health insurance coverage costs $1.47B in Maryland

Expenditures for the uninsured in Maryland totaled $1.47 billion in FY2002, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The sum equates to $2,371 per individual without health insurance -- paid for by state and federal funds, private insurance companies, physicians, charities and the uninsured themselves. The study is published in the February 2007 edition of the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

Glenn Greenwald: Michael Gordon, the administration's best friend at the Times

In the lead-up to the Iraq War, Michael Gordon of The New York Times wrote one of the most discredited, journalistically irresponsible, and damaging articles of the last decade -- a September 8, 2002, front-page article, co-authored with Judy Miller, which, in the first sentence, "reported" that "Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today." The article continued: "In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes."

Ambivalent about who to vote for? You're more likely to be persuaded by a disreputable source

In the first study to propose a model for how information is processed by people with differing levels of ambivalence, researchers from Columbia University and Austral University in Argentina find that ambivalent people are more likely to be persuaded by disreputable sources. Those who are strong in their opinions are more likely to evaluate the reliability of the message's source before deciding whether to accept it.

Asia Times on the Middle East

The state of the (dis)union
By Pepe Escobar (01/25/07)

"Security is a shared destiny. If we are secure, you might be secure, and if we are safe, you might be safe. And if we are struck and killed, you will definitely - with Allah's permission - be struck and killed."- Ayman al-Zawahiri, in the new al-Qaeda video The Correct Equation.

---

US President George W Bush's State of the Union address - apart from the amalgam of al-Qaeda and Iran in the same sentence - was a non-event in terms of a new strategy for the Middle East.

Bush said, "We could expect an epic battle between Shi'ite extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country [Iraq] - and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict."

The 'axis of fear' is born
By Pepe Escobar (02/02/07)

The Bush administration, in a sense, is getting what it wants in the wider Middle East. To battle a fictitious Shi'ite crescent (a construct by Jordan's King Abdullah), it has emboldened even more a reactionary Sunni crescent (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates), thus exacerbating to a paroxysm the "strategy" it has already applied in Iraq: sectarianism as the golden parameter of imperial divide and rule. Historically, Sunnis and Shi'ites have co-existed amid social tensions. But never have these tensions been so cynically exploited - by Washington - as in post-invasion Iraq and the wider Middle East.

A massacre and a new civil war
By Pepe Escobar (02/03/07)

The massacre that occurred in Najaf, Iraq, last Sunday by now has been wildly deconstructed over the Arab press. What emerges has virtually nothing to do with the official Baghdad and Washington spin of Iraqi troops killing 250-odd heavily armed apocalyptic cultists dubbed "Soldiers of Heaven". They were said to be about to attack not only Shi'ite pilgrims but also the "Big Four" ayatollahs of Iraq - Ali al-Sistani, Bashir Najafi, Muhammad shaq Fayyad and Muhammad Said al-Hakim - who all sit in holy Najaf.

Slouching toward D-day
By Pepe Escobar (02/09/07)

The war clock is ticking for the United States, both in Iraq and with Iran. The US-maneuvered United Nations deadline for Iran to stop its uranium-enrichment program is now less than two weeks away. On February 21, the UN's nuclear watchdog will report on whether Iran has heeded the Security Council's demand to stop enriching uranium - to date it has not.

Discovering What Democracy Means

Bill Moyers

February 12, 2007

Bill Moyers is chairman of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy andan independent journalist with his own production company. On February 7, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation presented Judith and Bill Moyers the first Frank E. Taplin, Jr. Public Intellectual Award for “extraordinary contributions to public cultural, civic and intellectual life.” This is an excerpt of his remarks.

We are often asked whether our kind of journalism matters. People are curious about why we give so much time to novelists, playwrights, artists, historians, philosophers, composers, scholars, teachers—all of whom we consider public thinkers. The answer is simple: They are worth listening to.

Paul Krugman: Scary Movie 2

Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake, even if all the allegations now being made about Iranian actions in Iraq are true.

But it wouldn’t be the first catastrophic mistake this administration has made, and there are indications that, at the very least, a powerful faction in the administration is spoiling for a fight.

Before we get to the apparent war-mongering, let’s talk about the basics. Are there people in Iran providing aid to factions in Iraq, factions that sometimes kill Americans as well as other Iraqis? Yes, probably. But you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents — and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths.

For Neocons, an Attack on Iran Has Been a Six-Year Project

By Larisa Alexandrovna, Raw Story. Posted February 12, 2007.

The escalation of war rhetoric against Iran from the Bush White House and the neocons is just the latest installment of a long-term plan for another preemptive war.

The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack that country. While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror.

Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA's own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq's insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Renewables Can Turn the Tide on Global Warming

By Kelpie Wilson, TruthOut.org. Posted February 12, 2007.

There is no "silver bullet" solution to our energy crisis. But a new study shows that the right combination of renewables may be our best bet.

The American Solar Energy Association (ASES), with the backing of several U.S. representatives and a senator, released its new nuts and bolts approach to reducing carbon emissions with a combination of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

The report comes at an opportune time: the release of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest climate change report is expected to finally clear up any lingering uncertainty about the role fossil fuel burning and other human activities have in changing the Earth's climate. As the deniers and obstructionists lose all credibility, the debate now turns to solutions.

Digby: Ready To Go

Barack Obama officially threw his hat into the ring today and a welcome addition he is. This is going to be a very interesting and exciting primary race. I agree with Simon Rosenberg at NDN who says that it is already historic:

Many words will be used to describe the Democrat’s field this year but the one I believe is most accurate is “modern.” Democrats just look like a 21st century Party, with leaders who look like and speak to the people of the America of today and tomorrow. The Republicans on the other hand are struggling with reinventing their politics around these new realities. Yes, over the objections of many, they now have a Hispanic immigrant as the Chair of their party. But that same week Senator Martinez was chosen, the Senate Republicans made Trent Lott, a Senator with a history of institutional bigotry and racism, their number two. Their Presidential field is all white male, the only minorities in their Congressional Party are four Cuban-Americans from Florida and many leaders in their Party continue to fight comprehensive immigration reform in horrible and racist terms.

Digby: Your Daily Donohue

DONAHUE: That's right. As a Catholic, I believe that everyone has the capacity to come to Jesus, to come to know Jesus, and to be saved. It's not the function of some sort of genetic code. You know, this same guy came up with this idea of the "gay gene", all right? I remember when that conversation was going on, gays were all of the sudden worrying if people would start aborting kids if they found out the DNA suggested that the kid might be gay. God forbid we run out of little gay kids. So all of the sudden, they became pro-life.

Are the Democrats Too Dumb to Breathe?

The NYT says they are. A budget article reports that in bargaining over the budget, "the issues most often mentioned that might entice Democrats to the bargaining table with the administration would be a package to finance future Social Security benefits, possibly combined with a curb on some benefits."

If this is true, and we start from the premise that Democrats actually support Social Security, then it implies that the Democrats have no idea whatsoever what they are talking about.

'Air Pelosi': Payback for 5-Day Week?

One of the lesser-known aspects of the "Air Pelosi" controversy is the degree to which the fuss is payback for the House speaker's decision to hold legislators to a five-day workweek instead of the three- or four-day schedule adopted by the Republicans in the past.

'NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims

By Greg Mitchell

Published: February 10, 2007 10:30 PM ET Friday updated Saturday
NEW YORK Saturday’s New York Times features an article, posted at the top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the “deadliest weapon aimed at American troops” in Iraq. The author notes, “Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile.”

What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies.”

Frank Rich: Stop Him Before He Gets More Experience

As the official Barack Obama rollout reaches its planned climax on “60 Minutes” tonight, we’ll learn if he has the star power to upstage Anna Nicole Smith. But at least one rap against him can promptly be laid to rest: his lack of experience. If time in the United States Senate is what counts for presidential seasoning, maybe his two years’ worth is already too much. Better he get out now, before there’s another embarrassing nonvote on a nonbinding measure about what will soon be a four-year-old war.

History is going to look back and laugh at last week’s farce, with the Virginia Republican John Warner voting to kill a debate on his own anti-surge resolution and the West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd seizing the occasion for an hourlong soliloquy on coal mining. As the Senate pleasured itself with parliamentary one-upmanship, the rate of American casualties in Iraq reached a new high.